Atari v Commodore

[emkay]

Ie: The a8 graphics h/w remained unchanged over it's whole life ( baring GTIA/CTIA ) - even the c64 had a major upgrade going to the c128 ( and the c65 looked really cool )

It seemed that no work on Antic/GTIA occured after the initial design... the 1200XL could have had enhanced graphics / 80 colums - or even better colour cell selection ( copying the idea from the Vic20 or TI99 ) to match the way the plus4 worked... ( and better PM )

 

Partially, it was Jay Miner's fault to leave Atari. Actually, Atari wanted to make a "Amiga" with downward compatibility. Doing so, the line could have stand until today.

But Miner wanted to create the machine with the 68000 instead, they couldn't come to a conclusion and Miner left Atari.

 

The Amiga died by a similar fact. Owning an Amiga 2000 with Harddisk etc. 2 years later, Commodore kicked the old users right in the ass, by having no compatibility either downward and upward. Just some workarounds were done. You needed Hardware workarounds with Kick-switches or else. No software update or else was given.

So I decided to change to a PC after 1994 where you always had a cross compatibility for over 6 years...

Edited December 9, 2008 by emkay

[potatohead]

emkay... aehm... Atariski mentioned that Joust is doing 8 sprites per line and it does not...

 

Okay, you tell me how many sprites does it show on a scanline when you are playing two players with the dragon flying around in expert mode? Or do I have a hacked version that has 8 sprites per scanline.

4 at any given 1/60th of a second.

 

It achieves the effect of showing 8+ sprites/scanline although not as good as 8+ sprites/scanline at 60Hz.

 

Yeah, some of them do flicker (@30Hz) but there are 8 sprite birds on a line during game play (whether 60Hz or 30Hz).

 

This is just wrong - there are only 4 birds on a line at a time - that's why you see flickering. ( Next you'll be claiming 16 sprites per line @15Hz )

 

I hope you know that some movies and cartoons were done at 24 fps. Don't speculate or extrapolate about what I'll be claiming. If you really think 30Hz was unuseable, you would be against all the interlace modes talk flying around in Atari and C64 land. And in this case, the probability of 8 sprites appearing on one scanline is very small so it does not effect the gameplay much. And in my sprite comparisons with C64, I did NOT compare the 30Hz sprites with C64's 60Hz sprites (compare apples w/oranges). I guess you'll be calling the 160*200*30 Atari interlace mode, just two 80*200*16 screens although they appear to be 160*200. You can also show replicate sprites horizontally at 60Hz, but you wanted to change their shape and color as well so that's why I mentioned the VBlanking method.

 

On newer displays, geared for DVD playback, Alias reported seeing no 30Hz flicker on another thread. Those video scalers and such might just combine the frames! If so, sweet!!

 

And as long as the contrast is not too great 30Hz is no big deal.

 

If there was enough CPU time, sprite multiplexing could be done on a scanline basis, for some of each sprite showing each frame and a whole lot of people wouldn't notice. (as long as motion was not too great! There is always something...

[frogstar_robot]

This could be a whole new topic.... What would Atari had produced if they werent mismanaged...

 

Ie: The a8 graphics h/w remained unchanged over it's whole life ( baring GTIA/CTIA ) - even the c64 had a major upgrade going

to the c128 ( and the c65 looked really cool )

 

It was largely for nought. The huge installed base of the C-64 sucked most of the oxygen out of c128 native titles. Take a few features out and have at least ten times the audience for a title. The c128 was also a last generation 8-bit and had to compete with 16 bit machines from clone makers, Apple, Atari, and Commodore.

 

Atari suffered the same problem from day one by largely differentiating machines by how much memory they had with 64K being the maximum for long time. The maximum audience for an Atari title could always be had with carts that required no more than 8K.

 

It seemed that no work on Antic/GTIA occured after the initial design... the 1200XL could have had enhanced graphics / 80 colums - or even better colour cell selection ( copying the idea from the Vic20 or TI99 ) to match the way the plus4 worked... ( and better PM )

 

The only thing I think Atari could have done that really would have made a difference would have been to take a leaf from Apple's book and have a machine that could accept 3rd party expansion cards. They started to go about it half-heartedly with PBI/ECI but didn't really have follow-through on it. Incidentally, this is largely the reason Apple's 8-bits hung in there so long with such primitive tech. That and Apple chased the education market pretty much from day one.

 

3rd parties would have evolved the platform waaay faster than Atari could. Sure Atari could have spiffed up the chipset but I suspect it would have just been the C-128 situation all over again. The smartest move would have been to get a 64KB inexpensive machine on the market quicker than they did and made that the minimum developer's case with the machine that accepted expansion cards as the next step up and a plug-in option to add that to the cheap model. Why hot-rod the chipset when you can't get the majority of games to quit targeting the 400?

 

Incidentally, there are recent threads on a 7MHz 65816 upgrade and an enhancement to Antic/GTIA called the VideoBoard. It would currently take a bit of work to combine those two upgrades but the combination is a good take on what an "Atari IIGS" would have been like.

Edited December 9, 2008 by frogstar_robot

[potatohead]

Expansion was my primary reason for wanting an 800XL back in the day. The bus on the back was sweet! Lots could have been done. At the time, I was looking right at Apple and CoCo machines, with their many useful expansions.

 

IMHO, not focusing on this was a big mistake.

 

Thought for sure a chassis was going to be created where things could be mounted to make better use of the machine.

 

 

In the end, looking back at 8 bitters, the Apple ][ really got extended over and over. Maybe it was primitive tech, but it was applied very, very well. A fully outfitted Apple ][ was a serious workstation compare to either Atari or C64. Multiple disks, CP/M cards, 6809 card (F-YES!!), Sound, etc... The things were damn sweet, if expensive.

 

BTW: C64 and it's color cells did get a desktop that actually did something. Always thought that was cool. As much as I like the Atari look and colors, not having a clear 320 color mode is a plus for the C64. I think if we are to say, not being able to do something is a metric, then this has to be a pro for the 64. And CPU / 3D, high color depth, and Antic modes and such have to be a plus for Atari.

 

Star Raiders on the 400 was the primary reason so many were sold. When that combo first hit our little town, NOBODY questioned what computer to get for quite some time. It's still great fun, and a game that should get some porting / polish love these days.

 

Re: Amiga. I see it as a Jay Miner thing too. I like his work, and I don't care that it has one company name on it. Had I been able, I would have jumped on the commodore bandwagon back then, without looking back! Funny though, where I lived, Atari was pretty big. Lots of ST machines ended up in peoples homes, and not so many Amigas

[Crazyace]

The C128 was quite late... I was interested in what could have gone in at the 1200XL stage... At that point the new machine might have extended the life of the 8 bits more competitively.

[emkay]

Re: Amiga. I see it as a Jay Miner thing too. I like his work, and I don't care that it has one company name on it. Had I been able, I would have jumped on the commodore bandwagon back then, without looking back! Funny though, where I lived, Atari was pretty big. Lots of ST machines ended up in peoples homes, and not so many Amigas

 

When I bought the Amiga, i wasn't knowing about Jay Miner or else. But back in time it was really impressive to see a common Demo run on the Workbench while writing a Mail at the same time.

Ok, but back now to the main thread

[atarian63]

Expansion was my primary reason for wanting an 800XL back in the day. The bus on the back was sweet! Lots could have been done. At the time, I was looking right at Apple and CoCo machines, with their many useful expansions.

 

IMHO, not focusing on this was a big mistake.

 

Thought for sure a chassis was going to be created where things could be mounted to make better use of the machine.

 

 

In the end, looking back at 8 bitters, the Apple ][ really got extended over and over. Maybe it was primitive tech, but it was applied very, very well. A fully outfitted Apple ][ was a serious workstation compare to either Atari or C64. Multiple disks, CP/M cards, 6809 card (F-YES!!), Sound, etc... The things were damn sweet, if expensive.

 

BTW: C64 and it's color cells did get a desktop that actually did something. Always thought that was cool. As much as I like the Atari look and colors, not having a clear 320 color mode is a plus for the C64. I think if we are to say, not being able to do something is a metric, then this has to be a pro for the 64. And CPU / 3D, high color depth, and Antic modes and such have to be a plus for Atari.

 

Star Raiders on the 400 was the primary reason so many were sold. When that combo first hit our little town, NOBODY questioned what computer to get for quite some time. It's still great fun, and a game that should get some porting / polish love these days.

 

Re: Amiga. I see it as a Jay Miner thing too. I like his work, and I don't care that it has one company name on it. Had I been able, I would have jumped on the commodore bandwagon back then, without looking back! Funny though, where I lived, Atari was pretty big. Lots of ST machines ended up in peoples homes, and not so many Amigas

Yes, that GEOS desktop was really cool! Something we atari guys would loved to have had commercially. The PC version later on was really good and I think GAteway even shipped it with some models back in the day. I have to say I used it for a year or so and other than multi tacking it was sooo much better than Windoze..

[atarian63]

This could be a whole new topic.... What would Atari had produced if they werent mismanaged...

 

Ie: The a8 graphics h/w remained unchanged over it's whole life ( baring GTIA/CTIA ) - even the c64 had a major upgrade going

to the c128 ( and the c65 looked really cool )

 

It was largely for nought. The huge installed base of the C-64 sucked most of the oxygen out of c128 native titles. Take a few features out and have at least ten times the audience for a title. The c128 was also a last generation 8-bit and had to compete with 16 bit machines from clone makers, Apple, Atari, and Commodore.

 

Atari suffered the same problem from day one by largely differentiating machines by how much memory they had with 64K being the maximum for long time. The maximum audience for an Atari title could always be had with carts that required no more than 8K.

 

It seemed that no work on Antic/GTIA occured after the initial design... the 1200XL could have had enhanced graphics / 80 colums - or even better colour cell selection ( copying the idea from the Vic20 or TI99 ) to match the way the plus4 worked... ( and better PM )

 

The only thing I think Atari could have done that really would have made a difference would have been to take a leaf from Apple's book and have a machine that could accept 3rd party expansion cards. They started to go about it half-heartedly with PBI/ECI but didn't really have follow-through on it. Incidentally, this is largely the reason Apple's 8-bits hung in there so long with such primitive tech. That and Apple chased the education market pretty much from day one.

 

3rd parties would have evolved the platform waaay faster than Atari could. Sure Atari could have spiffed up the chipset but I suspect it would have just been the C-128 situation all over again. The smartest move would have been to get a 64KB inexpensive machine on the market quicker than they did and made that the minimum developer's case with the machine that accepted expansion cards as the next step up and a plug-in option to add that to the cheap model. Why hot-rod the chipset when you can't get the majority of games to quit targeting the 400?

 

Incidentally, there are recent threads on a 7MHz 65816 upgrade and an enhancement to Antic/GTIA called the VideoBoard. It would currently take a bit of work to combine those two upgrades but the combination is a good take on what an "Atari IIGS" would have been like.

Your take on the C128 is what we saw as well, Hobbyists and people doing work wanted it for 80 column and the 128D was a nice machine, but the C64 stuff being so big did kill it, wasn't too long before 16bit hit and then it was over. Mybe if atari had complete and sold the expansion but back in 83 things would have been different, so much was lost when Warner Comm dumped the company, so many great ideas and they had the funding to get them out. Very sad. Sorry so off topic.

[FastRobPlus]

Smaller and lighter equals less materials used in construction and less channel operation cost. It's cost reduction 101 and the reason that cheap, thin plastic and barely-meets-the-FCC regulation RF shielding is the norm. It's not what customers want beyond the fact that it makes the unit cheaper and more affordable.

 

I guess you adore early communist pc clones. they are fuckin big and fuckin heavy using lots of materials. customers dont want anything but computers being 10kg heavy. yeah..

 

 

I'd collect 'em if I could. If for no other reason than to find out how it gained a political party affiliation.

 

And for the record, before you and the other fanboys whine yet again about my bad language, I must point out that I am once again only quoting you swearing, not swearing myself. It think you've been getting confused by this subtlety.

[FastRobPlus]

The 800xl was light years better in construction than C64, at least they used actual steel sheilding, the c64 used tinfoil cardboard, it was laughable

 

I think the steel shielding is laughable when a tinfoil cardboard is enough. why would anyone want kgs of steel in a machine ?!

This is a stupid point to still be arguing: My computer's shielding is better made than your computer's shielding. I know, let's compare the rubber feet!

 

This is pretty much the way these threads end up going.

Generally, they start with the assumption that the C64 is better when they chime into these threads. After narrowing “better” down to “better silicon” we get a few dozen pages and weeks of back and forth where – and this shouldn’t be too surprising on an Atari board – the argument is a stalemate. To their amazement, the C64 guys can’t win!

At this point, still desperately needing the C64 to be better than the Atari, they start to bring up other arguments:

“At least we can agree that the C64 was better looking!”

“At least we can agree that the C64 was better built!”

“At least we can agree that Commodore was a better-managed company!”

“At least we can all agree the Amiga was better, and a spiritual ancestor of the Commodore 64!”And so on….

 

In each instance, I honestly believe the C64 guys are surprised when they get fierce resistance. For each of the arguments above, they actually think (and this is on an Atari forum no less) that we will grudgingly agree to their stupid fallacies. I see a lot of face-saving later in this particular thread. After each argument is eviscerated point-by-point the C64 fans come back and say “Hm.. okay, lets agree to disagree on that point." but then they follow it up by raising some new asinine argument.

 

I have to admit, I’ve never seen one of these get down to RF shielding… Normally you have to invoke Godwin’s law and lock the thread before this. But I think it this goes on long enough we eventually will get to the “At least we can all agree the rubber feet on our systems are better.”

Edited December 9, 2008 by FastRobPlus

[atarian63]

The 800xl was light years better in construction than C64, at least they used actual steel sheilding, the c64 used tinfoil cardboard, it was laughable

 

I think the steel shielding is laughable when a tinfoil cardboard is enough. why would anyone want kgs of steel in a machine ?!

This is a stupid point to still be arguing: My computer's shielding is better made than your computer's shielding. I know, let's compare the rubber feet!

 

This is pretty much the way these threads end up going.

Generally, they start with the assumption that the C64 is better when they chime into these threads. After narrowing “better” down to “better silicon” we get a few dozen pages and weeks of back and forth where – and this shouldn’t be too surprising on an Atari board – the argument is a stalemate. To their amazement, the C64 guys can’t win!

At this point, still desperately needing the C64 to be better than the Atari, they start to bring up other arguments:

“At least we can agree that the C64 was better looking!”

“At least we can agree that the C64 was better built!”

“At least we can agree that Commodore was a better-managed company!”

“At least we can all agree the Amiga was better, and a spiritual ancestor of the Commodore 64!”And so on….

 

In each instance, I honestly believe the C64 guys are surprised when they get fierce resistance. For each of the arguments above, they actually think (and this is on an Atari forum no less) that we will grudgingly agree to their stupid fallacies. I see a lot of face-saving later in this particular thread. After each argument is eviscerated point-by-point the C64 fans come back and say “Hm.. okay, lets agree to disagree on that point." but then they follow it up by raising some new asinine argument.

 

I have to admit, I’ve never seen one of these get down to RF shielding… Normally you have to invoke Godwin’s law and lock the thread before this. But I think it this goes on long enough we eventually will get to the “At least we can all agree the rubber feet on our systems are better.”

All I know is that I am grateful that the people here on this forum continue to produce and support Atari items, it's really a great thing and very appreciated!

[Bryan]

If, during the course of this thread, anyone becomes convinced that their Atari stuff is junk and wishes to discreetly dispose of it, please PM me.

[Oswald]

could you please tell me where in the world have i said that? and why does a 256 color machine need interlace to get more colors ?!

 

If someone ask me in the future what a "Oxymoron" ist, I will quote this last sentences to him.

 

 

Only one hint: The Atari does not need interlace to get more colours. The interlace is often used to have a higher colour density. But Space harrier is not using interlace anywhere. It uses "flicker" which is nothing but a palette interleaving. The game itself would look impressive enough even without it.

 

looks like I know better how an a8 game work than you, so please stop with how little I know about the atari let me explain: space harrier uses 2 bitmaps to get more than 4 colors on the screen. its more than register changing. now c64 can use just ONE bitmap and still display mroe then 4 colors, that would double the speed, and the c64 port would be just as fast or faster.

 

But Space harrier is not using interlace anywhere. It uses "flicker" which is nothing but a palette interleaving.

 

[Oswald]

No, most c64s were the old brown ugly ones. Cheaply made.

 

yeah, indeed. cheaply made. one of the keys of c64's succes. xl/xe line was basically a cost reducing design so that they can keep up with the c64's price. they were cheaply made. y'know

[Oswald]

Pac-Man on the 2600 isn't an example of anything but poor programming. Pac-Man on the Channel F is impressive for what that system can do, but Nukey's Pesco-to-PacMan hacks are much better for comparison.

 

the 2600 will never make pac man better than fairchild chanel f. poor programming or not. I dont think sprites can be much better plexed than that.. there's the horizontal limit anyway, and there's nothing else to do that job the HW offers...

[Oswald]

Now I find ST vs. Amiga comparisons amusing, because at that point Atari and Commodore had effectively traded design teams. The ST is more closely related to the C64, and the Amiga is the direct descendant of the A8.

 

what I find amusing is how a8 fans are constantly trying to claim a piece of amiga's fame. but the amiga was C='s. without C= there would have been no amiga, just ripped off chips in an atari pc. so stop stealing, and stick to c64 vs a8.

When the people primarily responsible for one machine build another machine and say outright that it was an expansion on the concepts used in the previous machine, then I think linking the Amiga to the A8 historically is legitimate.

 

You say there'd be no Amiga without Commodore but the Amiga existed before Commodore got involved, and Atari was actively trying to purchase the design. Commodore made a better deal in the end but the Amiga would have come to market either way.

 

amiga CORP existed BUT the amiga computer did NOT existed before commodore. finalization (if not 99% of that) of the motherboard, chip layout, most of the OS was done inside commodore. atari only wanted the chips. Jack Tramiel style you know. the amiga people they'd not hire. they'd put the chips in something they designed, not the original amiga team...

[Oswald]

The 800xl was light years better in construction than C64, at least they used actual steel sheilding, the c64 used tinfoil cardboard, it was laughable

 

I think the steel shielding is laughable when a tinfoil cardboard is enough. why would anyone want kgs of steel in a machine ?!

This is a stupid point to still be arguing: My computer's shielding is better made than your computer's shielding. I know, let's compare the rubber feet!

 

I agree. add case design, keyboard quality, etc.

[FastRobPlus]

No, most c64s were the old brown ugly ones. Cheaply made.

 

yeah, indeed. cheaply made. one of the keys of c64's succes. xl/xe line was basically a cost reducing design so that they can keep up with the c64's price. they were cheaply made. y'know

 

Exactly! The C64 was cheaply made and very competent. The exact right combination for the time. Now let's hear no more talk of how the C64 looked as good as any Atari 8-bit.

[Oswald]

only demo version of Space Harrier needs 128K RAM, current cart version needs 64K RAM. (Cart is 1MB though!)

 

 

wow. and a8 people are comparing THAT to a c64 game which is 22 yrs old, and has all levels and everything in 64k....

[FastRobPlus]

only demo version of Space Harrier needs 128K RAM, current cart version needs 64K RAM. (Cart is 1MB though!)

 

 

wow. and a8 people are comparing THAT to a c64 game which is 22 yrs old, and has all levels and everything in 64k....

 

Yep! Finally an 8-bit computer getting the real Space Harrier! Makes me sad C64 game development has ground to a halt and won't benefit...

[Oswald]

we should leave speculations of Space Harrier XE to Sheddy, the coder... I assume that the RAM is used for preshifting all gfx and to have unrolled "set shape" routines... and of course the move tables for the level data....

 

hey Sheddy, very very good job on this game ! is there a link where there's some in depth info's on how it all works? I would love to know everything

[Bryan]

The 800xl was light years better in construction than C64, at least they used actual steel sheilding, the c64 used tinfoil cardboard, it was laughable

 

I think the steel shielding is laughable when a tinfoil cardboard is enough. why would anyone want kgs of steel in a machine ?!

This is a stupid point to still be arguing: My computer's shielding is better made than your computer's shielding. I know, let's compare the rubber feet!

 

I agree. add case design, keyboard quality, etc.

Yeah, but at least case design and keyboard were external things that affected the user to some degree. Complaining about shielding is like lamenting the brand of resistors used.

[Bryan]

we should leave speculations of Space Harrier XE to Sheddy, the coder... I assume that the RAM is used for preshifting all gfx and to have unrolled "set shape" routines... and of course the move tables for the level data....

 

hey Sheddy, very very good job on this game ! is there a link where there's some in depth info's on how it all works? I would love to know everything

Have you been to his site?

 

http://www.sheddyshack.co.uk/

[Oswald]

c64 is fine machine with much more games...

 

but can you do that on c64?

-

emulate other machine? in this case zx spectrum...

or... bbc micro? appleII? (example:

)

on atari (thanks Antic) it is rather easy.

 

c64 had speccy emu in the early 80s. there's even a full port of speccy's basic interpreter. for the record: c64 could emulate speccy's screen better as it can do 8 of the speccy colors pretty accurately, and the bitmap is almost the same.

 

the knight lore game is a PORT not an emulation. check wikipedia to see whats the difference.

[Oswald]

Ie: The a8 graphics h/w remained unchanged over it's whole life ( baring GTIA/CTIA ) - even the c64 had a major upgrade going to the c128 ( and the c65 looked really cool )

 

uhh the c128 is horrible when I compare to what it should been. the gfx doesnt changed they just added a 2nd video chip which could do 80 column, charmode, and ugly colors hires bitmap.