who, of you here have a foot in both the a8 and c64 camps

[javiero]

I own a couple of c64 and a couple of drives. I'm still an Atari head.

[atariksi]

Up until now, as I had previously described, I've had only one (either A8 or C64) set up at a time. Just now, I cleared a shelf space for the C64 and it's now permanently set up with it's own monitor. So, the A8 is on one side of the room, the C64 on the opposite side! I'd say that's firmly in both camps! FWIW, I still do have a preference for the C64 just because I grew up with it, but I do acknowlege that to me, as a gamer/user, the A8 does seem to be the better machine in most ways. I like the SID music a little better, but otherwise, the A8 seems the superior machine.

 

 

I have a couple of Amigas and Atari hooked up via a switch and boot from Gateway PC to whatever machine I want. I could add C64 to the chain but would require rewriting its OS to make it boot up.

[Thorsten Günther]

Like me said on first post....I only want to know who uses/programs or has used/programmed both the A8 and c64

 

me is'nt interested in any atari vs cbm discussion...that has already been done to death

 

Yeah it's so boring, the argument will NEVER be resolved, as technically they're as good as each other, both with their own strengths and weaknesses.

 

Self-contradictory. If you already have concluded that they're as good as each other, then issue is resolved. If they're not as good as each other, then the reality is that one is better than the other.

 

I don't see any evidence that they are technically as good as each other. That would be pretty hard to prove-- take two systems that have different hardware and show that they both equal out. And facts indicate that this is not so. I take it you are just compromising things (because you have a foot in both camps). Using freedom of speech, I can state Atari ST vs. Amiga will NEVER be resolved; "they're as good as each other technically."

 

And here is where you are wrong: the Atari ST is the Amstrad CPC of the 16-bit era: a computer constructed from stock chips at a very reasonable price, targeted at the home user and SOHO market alike, while the Amiga was vastly superior technically (the only 16-bit Atari that was superior to the Amigas was the Falcon030, and it was way too expensive compared to the A1200).

 

This can not be said about the C64 vs. A8: both are built aound very capable custom chips, and both have strong and weak points. While the C64 only has a 16-colour palette, it can use these colours in higher resolution and apparently "everywhere" on the screen, plus it has a much better sprite engine (cf. Creatures 2). But it lacks CPU speed and the ability to sacrifice resolution for game speed (cf. Rescue on Fractalus). The SID is also considered better than the POKEY by the majority of sound experts.

 

Thorsten

[Bryan]

What Thorsten said.

[Artlover]

Can we please just lock this thread now.

 

It's obviously most people participating are unable/unwilling to follow the OP's wishes of what this thread is for, and we all know how it's going to end up.

 

[atariksi]

Like me said on first post....I only want to know who uses/programs or has used/programmed both the A8 and c64

 

me is'nt interested in any atari vs cbm discussion...that has already been done to death

 

Yeah it's so boring, the argument will NEVER be resolved, as technically they're as good as each other, both with their own strengths and weaknesses.

 

Self-contradictory. If you already have concluded that they're as good as each other, then issue is resolved. If they're not as good as each other, then the reality is that one is better than the other.

 

I don't see any evidence that they are technically as good as each other. That would be pretty hard to prove-- take two systems that have different hardware and show that they both equal out. And facts indicate that this is not so. I take it you are just compromising things (because you have a foot in both camps). Using freedom of speech, I can state Atari ST vs. Amiga will NEVER be resolved; "they're as good as each other technically."

 

And here is where you are wrong: the Atari ST is the Amstrad CPC of the 16-bit era: a computer constructed from stock chips at a very reasonable price, targeted at the home user and SOHO market alike, while the Amiga was vastly superior technically (the only 16-bit Atari that was superior to the Amigas was the Falcon030, and it was way too expensive compared to the A1200).

 

This can not be said about the C64 vs. A8: both are built aound very capable custom chips, and both have strong and weak points. While the C64 only has a 16-colour palette, it can use these colours in higher resolution and apparently "everywhere" on the screen, plus it has a much better sprite engine (cf. Creatures 2). But it lacks CPU speed and the ability to sacrifice resolution for game speed (cf. Rescue on Fractalus). The SID is also considered better than the POKEY by the majority of sound experts.

 

Thorsten

 

I guess you are pointing to the 2nd paragraph and declaring it "wrong" because the first part is straight forward.

 

What chips it has isn't the argument-- some off the shelf chips can be better than custom chips. You can't make things vague arguments that because you find some features superior in one and other features superior in another they equal each other. Atari ST does have some features superior to Amiga-- 640*400 hires nonflicker mode, MIDI ports (built-in), etc. However, I don't state that they equal each other out. You didn't even address post #47 in this thread what to speak of the other thread referred to. It can't use the 16 colors everywhere in 320*200 unless you have a different meaning of everywhere. It does NOT have a much better sprite engine. Both of these issues were brought up in that thread and answered. It's Atari that can put up higher bit depth in any mode with the ceiling being 8-bits whereas C64 is done for with 4 bits regardless of how many tricks it uses. And even if you have one mode that's better, that still makes Atari's graphics options much better. Atari has 60 bits of collision detection with sprites/playfields and more sprite coverage vertically and don't say "much" better. Don't feel like repeating everything from the other thread again. SID is considered better than POKEY by sound experts who don't know low level programming on both systems and neither do you by agreeing with them. You only have one 4-bit DAC to work with and other registers used to simulate better volume are coarse and top out at a few milliseconds. POKEY has 4 DACs and you can do an INC to get better higher quality DAC results. POKEY also does the timer IRQs on the Atari which are much more accurate what the C64 can do. So some musician preferring SID makes the POKEY chip inferior. Never heard that logic. More to do with software as I don't think most musicians are that familiar with both chips.

 

Software-wise they don't equal out:

regardless of what you do to your C64, it won't get more than 16 colors.

regardless of what you do to your C64, it can't run at 1.79 Mhz even minus the refresh cycles

regardless of what you do to your C64, it can't improve it's DACs

regardless of what you do to your C64, it won't improve it's timers

regardless of what you do to your C64, it won't boot from disk

etc.

etc.

Okay, you can find a couple of things the other way but that does not mean they equal out (similar to Atari ST vs. Amiga argument).

 

 

What Thorsten said.

 

He's wrong and biased in his analysis. Although better than just making a vague statement that they are equal.

[carmel_andrews]

I hate to say this (as albert has already closed 2 of my posts in recent weeks) but i think this thread needs closing

 

Obviously only some people understood what i was after in my original post, I would have perfered it that those that wanted to turn it into an atari vs cbm thread should have used the appropriate thread also in this forum

 

As for me, I did own and still own various A8's (from the 800 upwards, unfortunately no XEGS) unfortunately i don't know if any of the A8 i still own actually work (in the spare room) i also did own a couple of c64's (one i sold back to my older brother for his 130xe) the other one, an australian c64 bought in a second hand shop was DOA (I did own a8's and a c64 at the same time though)

Edited February 23, 2009 by carmel_andrews

[Lord Thag]

No need to start another shouting match, folks, we all know how ya feel

 

I have both systems. I've got a nice pile of c64 stuff, and a rather huge pile of Atari stuff, including a pair of 1200xls, an 800xl, and a 130XE.

 

I like both systems fine. Never saw the need to hate one or the other. I prefer the Atari, as I had one back in the day, and I think it's easier to use for general computing. Both computers are game machines par excellence!

 

Game wise, the C64 had better music and more releases, but the Atari had some amazing stuff too (AR-The City anyone?) Both are awesome game machines. Both have some of the best games of the era. You could spend a lifetime exploring the libraries of both.

 

Why does everyone fight over these two computers, anyway? Together, these two silicon wonders constitute the two biggest heavyweight retro-gaming platforms of the entire era.

 

They BOTH kick ass.

Edited February 23, 2009 by Lord Thag

[pseudografx]

I was a member of Unreal group between 1995 and 1997 and contributed to many of its releases, mostly design-, music- and graphics-wise. Check them out at http://noname.c64.org/csdb/group/?id=124

[Fröhn]

And even if you have one mode that's better, that still makes Atari's graphics options much better.

I don't think that 160x200 @ 4 colors is better than 160x200 @ 16 colors

 

Atari has 60 bits of collision detection with sprites/playfields and more sprite coverage vertically and don't say "much" better.

Gfx based collision detection is only used in the bad games.

 

You only have one 4-bit DAC to work with and other registers used to simulate better volume are coarse and top out at a few milliseconds. POKEY has 4 DACs and you can do an INC to get better higher quality DAC results.

???

 

SID has three channels, each can be used as an 8 bit DAC. A single 8 bit DAC is already four times more accurate than four 4 bit DACs.

 

POKEY also does the timer IRQs on the Atari which are much more accurate what the C64 can do.

Both are equally accurate: 1 timer tick = 1 CPU clock cycle.

 

regardless of what you do to your C64, it can't improve it's DACs

8 bit is good enough for an 8 bit machine

 

regardless of what you do to your C64, it won't improve it's timers

Also good enough: four 16 bit timers which can be joined to two 32 bit timers. And ofcourse independent of the sound...

[Bryan]

He's wrong and biased in his analysis. Although better than just making a vague statement that they are equal.

 

It's a good thing the voice of truth is here to set us straight!

 

The Amiga is the result of years of development by some of the most gifted engineers the world has seen. The ST was brought to market as quickly and cheaply as possible. Its best feature is that it was an inexpensive 68000 machine. I chose it because it had an Atari logo on it (1040->Mega STE->Falcon030). In hindsight, I chose incorrectly.

 

BTW, what is your fascination with system timers? I rarely do anything that cannot be synced to the screen. AFAIK, both systems have timers and they both work.

Edited February 23, 2009 by Bryan

[atariksi]

And even if you have one mode that's better, that still makes Atari's graphics options much better.

I don't think that 160x200 @ 4 colors is better than 160x200 @ 16 colors

...

Compare apples with apples. There's no standard 160*200*16 mode on the C64; you can come close to it by tricks which you didn't consider on the Atari side. And even without tricks, you can use 4X wide sprite overlays in multicolor mode to go beyond 4 colors. On C64, it's the same 40*25*16 color map that gets projected to the 160*200 so it's a restricted 160*200*16. You could set up a DLI to flip/change colors/gprior/sprite overlays, and start with a GTIA 80*200*16 or 160*200*4 and get higher color depth on Atari.

 

>>Atari has 60 bits of collision detection with sprites/playfields and more sprite coverage vertically and don't say "much" better.

>Gfx based collision detection is only used in the bad games.

 

Subjective and irrelevant as to which hardware is superior. One of things I did not mention (in this thread) that Atari also has better priority control of sprites/playfields.

 

>>You only have one 4-bit DAC to work with and other registers used to simulate better volume are coarse and top out at a few milliseconds. POKEY has 4 DACs and you can do an INC to get better higher quality DAC results.

 

>???

 

>SID has three channels, each can be used as an 8 bit DAC. A single 8 bit DAC is already four times more accurate than four 4 bit DACs.

 

It has one volume based DAC (4-bits). All other registers you set envelopes with ms resolution and even doing 8Khz audio requires less than ms resolution. Perhaps, you want to explain the accuracy of your so-called "8-bit DAC".

 

>>POKEY also does the timer IRQs on the Atari which are much more accurate what the C64 can do.

 

>Both are equally accurate: 1 timer tick = 1 CPU clock cycle.

 

I already argued this with you in the other thread. 558ns accuracy > 1 microsecond and it's locked in into the video beam as well at integer ratio.

 

>>regardless of what you do to your C64, it can't improve it's DACs

 

>8 bit is good enough for an 8 bit machine

 

Don't see any 8-bit DACs in C64. Which undocumented register? 54296 is only 4-bits and write-only so no INC tricks work like they can on Atari.

 

>>regardless of what you do to your C64, it won't improve it's timers

 

>Also good enough: four 16 bit timers which can be joined to two 32 bit timers. And ofcourse independent of the sound...

 

Increasing number of bits of timer counter is VERY simple to do in software, but increase its accuracy is undoable in software. Just set off an IRQ at end of timer count and increment a variable in zero page (like Atari already does at locations 18,19,20) and you have a timer counter as many bits as you need within your lifetime.

[atariksi]

He's wrong and biased in his analysis. Although better than just making a vague statement that they are equal.

 

It's a good thing the voice of truth is here to set us straight!

...

 

You can prove it for yourself.

 

He was being biased by shoving POKEY features under the rug just by claiming musicians prefer SID. Musicians preferring SID would mostly indicate their preference for existing software involving playing notes. Digital audio is another game altogether.

 

>The Amiga is the result of years of development by some of the most gifted engineers the world has seen. The ST was brought to market as quickly and cheaply as possible. Its best feature is that it was an inexpensive 68000 machine. I chose it because it had an Atari logo on it (1040->Mega STE->Falcon030). In hindsight, I chose incorrectly.

 

But if you can find a few things on ST that are better than on Amiga, everything equals out (that's their argument). So, 640*400 hires, MIDI ports, 8Mhz>7.16Mhz should be enough to equal things out.

 

>BTW, what is your fascination with system timers? I rarely do anything that cannot be synced to the screen. AFAIK, both systems have timers and they both work.

 

I collect timers as a hobby.

[Fröhn]

Subjective and irrelevant as to which hardware is superior. One of things I did not mention (in this thread) that Atari also has better priority control of sprites/playfields.

Which doesn't result in any visible advantage.

 

It has one volume based DAC (4-bits). All other registers you set envelopes with ms resolution and even doing 8Khz audio requires less than ms resolution. Perhaps, you want to explain the accuracy of your so-called "8-bit DAC".

 

four channels 8 bit samples + two channels SID at the same time

 

Don't see any 8-bit DACs in C64. Which undocumented register? 54296 is only 4-bits and write-only so no INC tricks work like they can on Atari.

Every oscillator has it's own 8 bit DAC.

 

Increasing number of bits of timer counter is VERY simple to do in software, but increase its accuracy is undoable in software. Just set off an IRQ at end of timer count and increment a variable in zero page (like Atari already does at locations 18,19,20) and you have a timer counter as many bits as you need within your lifetime.

Yes and waste a sound channel or two... On C64 you can have four 16 bit timer IRQs and still have all sound channels available.

[frogstar_robot]

what the C64 can do. So some musician preferring SID makes the POKEY chip inferior. Never heard that logic. More to do with software as I don't think most musicians are that familiar with both chips.

 

Musicians would need less software help to do anything with the SID. The SID is modeled after the analog synths of that era and musicians are easily able to mentally model what they want a SID to do. If a SID is recased as a musical instrument, then designing a set of musician friendly controls for it is fairly straightforward and while some some software would need to be written to really make it sing it needn't be terribly elaborate.

 

POKEY on the other hand was designed for sound effects from the get go and is a fairly obvious extension of TIA sound capabilities. Yes, one can do music that sounds really good on it but it takes a bit more in the software department. A POKEY recased as a musical instrument would need a good engine written for it and the knobs provided to the musician would mostly have to manipulate that engine rather than registers directly in the chip. Since it would take so much software, there would be more room for interpretation as well. It could be done though. Even the lowly TIA has software to turn it into a delightfully rude beat box: http://qotile.net/synth.html

 

A funny thing I notice with some C-64 games is when I fire my blaster or whatever that it tends to sound more musical kinda like I'm firing a toy piano at my enemies unless the developer took a bit of care with his sound effects.

[Mirage]

I agree with this from the OP:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...t&p=1688806

[atariksi]

Subjective and irrelevant as to which hardware is superior. One of things I did not mention (in this thread) that Atari also has better priority control of sprites/playfields.

Which doesn't result in any visible advantage.

 

It has one volume based DAC (4-bits). All other registers you set envelopes with ms resolution and even doing 8Khz audio requires less than ms resolution. Perhaps, you want to explain the accuracy of your so-called "8-bit DAC".

 

four channels 8 bit samples + two channels SID at the same time

 

Don't see any 8-bit DACs in C64. Which undocumented register? 54296 is only 4-bits and write-only so no INC tricks work like they can on Atari.

Every oscillator has it's own 8 bit DAC.

 

Increasing number of bits of timer counter is VERY simple to do in software, but increase its accuracy is undoable in software. Just set off an IRQ at end of timer count and increment a variable in zero page (like Atari already does at locations 18,19,20) and you have a timer counter as many bits as you need within your lifetime.

Yes and waste a sound channel or two... On C64 you can have four 16 bit timer IRQs and still have all sound channels available.

 

You can increment a zero page location without wasting a sound channel-- Atari does it with VBI to locations 18,19,20. You can do it with IRQ and DLI as well. POKEY also has analog filters (unlimited bits), but to play digitized music you need control over all the bits at a certain minimum frequency.

 

60 bit of collision registers are visibly greater than 8 bits whether you look at schematic (where CrazyAce?) or see the difference of objects going through trees or colliding into them or over clouds or behind clouds, etc.

[atariksi]

And even if you have one mode that's better, that still makes Atari's graphics options much better.

I don't think that 160x200 @ 4 colors is better than 160x200 @ 16 colors

...

Compare apples with apples. There's no standard 160*200*16 mode on the C64; you can come close to it by tricks which you didn't consider on the Atari side. And even without tricks, you can use 4X wide sprite overlays in multicolor mode to go beyond 4 colors. On C64, it's the same 40*25*16 color map that gets projected to the 160*200 so it's a restricted 160*200*16. You could set up a DLI to flip/change colors/gprior/sprite overlays, and start with a GTIA 80*200*16 or 160*200*4 and get higher color depth on Atari.

...

See with this ANTIC mode K at 160*200*16 @60Hz, you can still interlace it and get 320*200*30 @30Hz if I can find out how to shift the pixels half a color clock and as you know interlacing luminances close together hardly flickers.

[Bryan]

POKEY also has analog filters (unlimited bits), but to play digitized music you need control over all the bits at a certain minimum frequency.

 

Pokey has analog filters? Really?

 

I don't like having to defend the 64 in here but I'm not going to pretend the A8 does things it doesn't. The analog filters in SID actually affect the frequency response of each channel (programmable RC filter). Pokey has something Atari calls a filter, but it is a digital circuit that affects the spectrum of generated noise. It's also handy for generating some complex wave patterns, but it's not an analog filter.

[Heaven/TQA]

I was a member of Unreal group between 1995 and 1997 and contributed to many of its releases, mostly design-, music- and graphics-wise. Check them out at http://noname.c64.org/csdb/group/?id=124

 

PG!?!?!! JESUS...you evil biatch...

[atariksi]

POKEY also has analog filters (unlimited bits), but to play digitized music you need control over all the bits at a certain minimum frequency.

 

Pokey has analog filters? Really?

 

I don't like having to defend the 64 in here but I'm not going to pretend the A8 does things it doesn't. The analog filters in SID actually affect the frequency response of each channel (programmable RC filter). Pokey has something Atari calls a filter, but it is a digital circuit that affects the spectrum of generated noise. It's also handy for generating some complex wave patterns, but it's not an analog filter.

 

There are analog effects (filtering) taking place of the audio as is evident if you monitor the output using a sound digitizer or oscilloscope. However, that wasn't the point there-- I was just stating that you don't have control over the 8-bits or more of resolution of audio that is being outputted from both SID and POKEY. You have to make approximations by timing things to get in-between values of the 4-bit volume controls.

[atariksi]

Subjective and irrelevant as to which hardware is superior. One of things I did not mention (in this thread) that Atari also has better priority control of sprites/playfields.

Which doesn't result in any visible advantage.

 

It has one volume based DAC (4-bits). All other registers you set envelopes with ms resolution and even doing 8Khz audio requires less than ms resolution. Perhaps, you want to explain the accuracy of your so-called "8-bit DAC".

 

four channels 8 bit samples + two channels SID at the same time

...

 

Didn't hear anything requiring 4 independent channels nor what sampling rate it's using. DAC accuracy would come into play depending on what audio you play and at what sampling rate.

[Rybags]

I also fail to see 8-bit resolution. The Amiga does 8-bit, and often at low sampling frequency and I don't recall anything sounding that LQ.

 

I think they're having a laugh... maybe just using something like interpolation. I've tried a technique on the A8 which simulates increased bit-depth. You can do a kind of PWM technique where e.g. if a sample needs a value of 34 (for 6-bit), you play sample value 9 for a brief specific period, then play value 8 for the remainder of the sampling period.

 

It improves the quality of the sound playback, but not quite to the quality as if you actually had that increased bitdepth available.

[roland p]

The filtering @1:49 sounds amazing

[Crazyace]

Easiest way is to look at a scope - if you play a sawtooth sample and the precision shows 256 steps , then it's 8 bits..

( That's how we tested the Replay tables on the ST )

 

- I guess that C64 demo is mixing 4 samples into a single 8 bit channel ( which is pretty good ) - thus leaving the other 2 for normal SID voices