Atari 8bit is superior to the ST

[atariksi]

In fact, there's no way a console can keep up, if you think about it, it has to last at least 3 years; Maybe, just maybe the few first months it ocmes out it can just eek out in front of the PC hardware..

Of course I'm talking purely about horse power here, what you do with that is a completely different matter, a console can do a lot more with a lot less then a PC Although even that is changing with these latest consoles...

 

I think all the consoles are over 3 years old now. All have awesome new games coming out. All play 3-year old games too. All look awesome at 1080p on fancy TV (leaving the Wii out).

 

Only way they're inadequate is if you're a "spec guy." A spec guy would not enjoy Halo on the original Xbox because it "was only 640x480" even though it looked and played great. A spec guy will tell you the MP3 you're listening to (which happens to sound great if its done right) sucks because it's "lossy" compression. Ditto for jpeg, and ditto for any compressed video - which means pretty much all video nowdays. A spec guy would have you believe that most things that look good and sound good to you actually suck, and that you're not qualified to judge what looks and sound good....only go with specs. Seen this type of person a few times, I'm sure we all have......

 

The type of game/application also makes a difference as to what minimum resolution can do justice to it. Same with audio-- it depends on what the audio is. Some people can discern between MP3 and uncompressed linear audio. And at high compression rations, almost everyone can discern the two. And if you are editing stuff, JPG/MP3/MPEG4 are pretty poor formats to use. You take a photograph and pay more to get the extra MEGApixel resolution only to see that it uses JPG and loses something before you even import it into your machine. Sort of contradictory.

[peteym5]

Looks like this thread is going to go on and on like the Atari vs Commodore thread, people quoting each other and keep saying each other is wrong. It is originally intended to compare the 8-Bit to ST line and it ends up the ST is compared against everything else, Macs, Amigas, PCs, video game consoles, etc. I think it is ridiculous argument because the newer 16bit ST is going to have more advance technology than the older system. I attempted to make a point about the year in which the systems were introduced and compared them to other systems on the market at the time. The 400/800 probably was better than anything release around 1979, but can we say the ST was much better than anything else in 1985? Maybe the ST was slightly better than the PCs at the time, but not for long. I agree that it wasn't until the STe & TT models came out that made them more competitive with the Amiga. But as Atari was upgrading their 16/32 bit line, so was everyone else. Intel and AMD were pushing the x86t past 50mhz while the 68000 still under 20mhz. It has to be taking into account that the world was looking for a single microcomputer standard and since any company can make PC clones, you know why everyone favored the PC. Atari & Commodore had to pull out of the market because they knew there was not a way of competing with the PC market. Apple survived because they made a name for themselves in the education area.

[oky2000]

In fact, there's no way a console can keep up, if you think about it, it has to last at least 3 years; Maybe, just maybe the few first months it ocmes out it can just eek out in front of the PC hardware..

Of course I'm talking purely about horse power here, what you do with that is a completely different matter, a console can do a lot more with a lot less then a PC Although even that is changing with these latest consoles...

 

I think all the consoles are over 3 years old now. All have awesome new games coming out. All play 3-year old games too. All look awesome at 1080p on fancy TV (leaving the Wii out).

 

Only way they're inadequate is if you're a "spec guy." A spec guy would not enjoy Halo on the original Xbox because it "was only 640x480" even though it looked and played great. A spec guy will tell you the MP3 you're listening to (which happens to sound great if its done right) sucks because it's "lossy" compression. Ditto for jpeg, and ditto for any compressed video - which means pretty much all video nowdays. A spec guy would have you believe that most things that look good and sound good to you actually suck, and that you're not qualified to judge what looks and sound good....only go with specs. Seen this type of person a few times, I'm sure we all have......

 

The type of game/application also makes a difference as to what minimum resolution can do justice to it. Same with audio-- it depends on what the audio is. Some people can discern between MP3 and uncompressed linear audio. And at high compression rations, almost everyone can discern the two. And if you are editing stuff, JPG/MP3/MPEG4 are pretty poor formats to use. You take a photograph and pay more to get the extra MEGApixel resolution only to see that it uses JPG and loses something before you even import it into your machine. Sort of contradictory.

 

I would be very surprised if you could buy a £250 PC with a blu-ray drive that could run anything like Wipeout HD or Uncharted 2...ditto with £150 and a PC with dvd-rom that could play Gears of War 2 in DirectX 10 on full detail. Sure you can exclude price but then there is no point comparing anything.

 

@peteym As for the comment about the A8 @ launch being massively superior, I disagree and it was launched at the arse end of 1979 with very limited availability but in 1980 there were other machines around that were different enough to warrant not buying a hugely expensive 800.

 

It had 128 colours, and that's about it really, everything else on it is apples and oranges...the TI99/4A had better sprites than the A8 in reality I would say and within 2 years when the C64 came out the sound and graphics advantages were wiped out for good (because Atari never bothered to address the crushing limitations placed on the total number of colours you could use properly in 320x200 and 160x200 modes)

 

With the ST it is different though, the Amiga was light years ahead of everything on every possible front (max RAM, sound, colours, moving pixel horsepower, cpu, OS with pre-emptive multi tasking, disk capacities) etc etc...so it comes down to price....how long did it take for a Mac or PC costing £300 in EU to compete with an ST...never happened. The ST was cheap, the Amiga was cheaper than ALL Macs and PCs, the Atari 800...was advanced in 1980 but also massively expensive in the EU...with the price being the same as the model number!

[atariksi]

In fact, there's no way a console can keep up, if you think about it, it has to last at least 3 years; Maybe, just maybe the few first months it ocmes out it can just eek out in front of the PC hardware..

Of course I'm talking purely about horse power here, what you do with that is a completely different matter, a console can do a lot more with a lot less then a PC Although even that is changing with these latest consoles...

 

I think all the consoles are over 3 years old now. All have awesome new games coming out. All play 3-year old games too. All look awesome at 1080p on fancy TV (leaving the Wii out).

 

Only way they're inadequate is if you're a "spec guy." A spec guy would not enjoy Halo on the original Xbox because it "was only 640x480" even though it looked and played great. A spec guy will tell you the MP3 you're listening to (which happens to sound great if its done right) sucks because it's "lossy" compression. Ditto for jpeg, and ditto for any compressed video - which means pretty much all video nowdays. A spec guy would have you believe that most things that look good and sound good to you actually suck, and that you're not qualified to judge what looks and sound good....only go with specs. Seen this type of person a few times, I'm sure we all have......

 

The type of game/application also makes a difference as to what minimum resolution can do justice to it. Same with audio-- it depends on what the audio is. Some people can discern between MP3 and uncompressed linear audio. And at high compression rations, almost everyone can discern the two. And if you are editing stuff, JPG/MP3/MPEG4 are pretty poor formats to use. You take a photograph and pay more to get the extra MEGApixel resolution only to see that it uses JPG and loses something before you even import it into your machine. Sort of contradictory.

 

...

@peteym As for the comment about the A8 @ launch being massively superior, I disagree and it was launched at the arse end of 1979 with very limited availability but in 1980 there were other machines around that were different enough to warrant not buying a hugely expensive 800.

 

Sorry, you yourself claimed it was a 1970s machines now since there WAS nothing even remotely comparable to it in the market you want to move it to 1980s. However, it still slamdunked all the Commodore offerings in the early 1980s, fanboy.

 

It had 128 colours, and that's about it really, everything else on it is apples and oranges...the TI99/4A had better sprites than the A8 in reality I would say and within 2 years when the C64 came out the sound and graphics advantages were wiped out for good (because Atari never bothered to address the crushing limitations placed on the total number of colours you could use properly in 320x200 and 160x200 modes)

...

Some people never learn. It was already done and demonstrated in 1970s. You just like to change topics and keep repeating the same rubbish over and over again. C64 was inferior despite coming out later. Get your facts straight. And keep the off-topic discussion top some other topic. C64 has more limitations than A8 graphics. Read and learn something for a change.

 

1. CPU Freq 1.78979Mhz

2. Rock solid timing and more accurate (No indeterminate signals to throw off cycle-exactness)

3. Easy overscanning

4. LMS -- easy to access more video memory, mirror images, repeat scanlines, etc.

5. VScroll/HScroll on per scanline basis (8-dir scrolling windows)

6. More priorities and playfields (and GPRIOR mode 0 mostly unexplored)

7. Linear and easy to use high color depth modes (GTIA)

8. Fast keyboard reading

9. Faster joystick I/O and SIO I/O (16-bit reads/writes)

10. Display lists w/various modes (use by themselves or for speeding up screen updates)

11. WSYNC for easier to start writing cycle-exact code

12. DLIs (more optimal than raster IRQs)

13. BOOT Up to cassette files or disk files (without user intervention)

14. A lot more collision detection combinations (60-bits)

15. 4 DACs w/more accurate sampling rate (lower latency)

16. Better interlace (due to more shades to reduce flicker)

17. More colors/shades (bigger palette)

18. Horizontal re-use of hardware registers (much easier like same 114 cyles on PAL/NTSC)

19. Backward compatible with all A8 computers

 

there were some other items I can't remember currently.

 

And as far as price goes, the Apples at the time were more expensive and so were many other machines. Only Commodore offerings were cheaper as the flooded the market with their inferior products.

[atariksi]

Looks like this thread is going to go on and on like the Atari vs Commodore thread, people quoting each other and keep saying each other is wrong. It is originally intended to compare the 8-Bit to ST line and it ends up the ST is compared against everything else, Macs, Amigas, PCs, video game consoles, etc. I think it is ridiculous argument because the newer 16bit ST is going to have more advance technology than the older system. I attempted to make a point about the year in which the systems were introduced and compared them to other systems on the market at the time. The 400/800 probably was better than anything release around 1979, but can we say the ST was much better than anything else in 1985? Maybe the ST was slightly better than the PCs at the time, but not for long. I agree that it wasn't until the STe & TT models came out that made them more competitive with the Amiga. But as Atari was upgrading their 16/32 bit line, so was everyone else. Intel and AMD were pushing the x86t past 50mhz while the 68000 still under 20mhz. It has to be taking into account that the world was looking for a single microcomputer standard and since any company can make PC clones, you know why everyone favored the PC. Atari & Commodore had to pull out of the market because they knew there was not a way of competing with the PC market. Apple survived because they made a name for themselves in the education area.

 

It was about ST and A8 but people like to change topics to C64 and other machines. I wouldn't be surprised if they voted in favor of ST and skewed the polls due to their bias rather than knowing something about both machines.

 

I would say some of the advantages of ST over A8-- overall more powerful CPU, higher resolution, and more memory that applications/games targetted.

[Thorsten Günther]

@peteym As for the comment about the A8 @ launch being massively superior, I disagree and it was launched at the arse end of 1979 with very limited availability but in 1980 there were other machines around that were different enough to warrant not buying a hugely expensive 800.

 

It had 128 colours, and that's about it really, everything else on it is apples and oranges...the TI99/4A had better sprites than the A8 in reality I would say and within 2 years when the C64 came out the sound and graphics advantages were wiped out for good (because Atari never bothered to address the crushing limitations placed on the total number of colours you could use properly in 320x200 and 160x200 modes)

 

The sprites of the TI 99/4A may be wider (16 pixels as opposed to 8 on the XL), but you can only display 4 per scanline and they are still monochromatic, plus their height is limited to 16 pixels. But the TMS9918 series graphics chip has attribute clash problems (like the ZX Spectrum, it only has one foreground and one background colour within a given area, but while the Spectrum has 8x8 pixels, the TMS9918 only 8x1 pixels) and no scrolling or overscan capabilities. So while I have to concede that the C64 (which has multicolour sprites and can display more colours in 160x200, but less CPU power and a fixed palette), which also was much cheaper, was the real match winner against the A8, the TI (and its Z80A equipped relatives like Spectravideo, Memotech MTX, Colecovision, MSX1) were by far not as capable. It did not help the TI that it was such a closed architecture (and its design was a joke, basically a 16-bit CPU crippled by an 8-bit mainboard), otherwise it would perhaps had a chance, at is was available earlier that its relatives and the Spectrum with its even inferior capabilities sold very well due to its rock-bottom price.

 

With the ST it is different though, the Amiga was light years ahead of everything on every possible front (max RAM, sound, colours, moving pixel horsepower, cpu, OS with pre-emptive multi tasking, disk capacities) etc etc...so it comes down to price....how long did it take for a Mac or PC costing £300 in EU to compete with an ST...never happened. The ST was cheap, the Amiga was cheaper than ALL Macs and PCs, the Atari 800...was advanced in 1980 but also massively expensive in the EU...with the price being the same as the model number!

 

...depending on the currency. A friend of mine had one and his parents paid approx. 2000 DM for it, excluding the 810 drive and 410 tape recorder. The 800XL only became available cheaper than the C64 after Tramiel took over. The Amiga 500 - which was available in 1987 (presented in March, wide store availability presumably summer) - was the superior competition for the Atari ST - the 1000 didn't stand a chance due to its price tag. But the Amiga never got out of the home computer market except for the tiny niche of video processing, while the ST filled the role of a lower-priced Mac especially in Europe.

 

Thorsten

[kool kitty89]

You mean like MCGA? (although, there were many games that specifically supported MCGA just after it was released, albit often simple conversions of EGA graphics into MCGA compatible format -and older games which were forced to drop down to CGA mode)

 

MCGA was backward compatible with EGA/CGA. You see how quickly the PS/2 MCA was dropped because they jumped into a new standard immediately without backward compatibility with existing hardware.

Are you sure MCGA was EGA compatible?

There were standards that became abandonded by not being included in EGA (and subsequently VGA) namely the IBM PCjr video modes (cloned by Tandy), which were quite popular for a time and in some cases offered the best graphics for a game. (Thexter for instance looks far better in Tandy/PCjr 320x200x16 colors than in EGA 640x350 mode -not sure whay Sierra didn't use EGA's 320x200 mode which should have been similar -PCjr and tandy also had the best sound for thexder, similar to the MSX version -if noth superior)

[kool kitty89]

2. ALL ST games previously produced would show SIGNIFICANT improvement when run on a 16mhz 68k....thereby circumventing the entire problem Atari had...which was the STFM was base spec and ALL the games were written to THAT spec ONLY. So the issue was..was the STE a waste of time? Yes as far as number of released games and improvement in ST games compared to Amiga games (benchmark at the time)

The BLiTTER started years before the STe though, on the MEGA 2/4, right? (and had been intended to be on the MEGA 1) So, you think it would have been a better move to release the MEGA with a 16 MHz CPU standard? (or 12/12.5 MHz if 16 MHz models weren't readily available)

I persoanlly think time would have been better spent on a shifter upgrade than a blitter. (ie a 12-bit palette -at least- and 256 color mode -at least 320x200, preferably along with higer res lower color modes as well)

Along with that, both Atari and commodore were late to getting 32-bit machines out, and both skiped over the 68020 for the 68030. (for high end machines, later offering low-end models with 16 MHz 68EC020 -on 32-bit bus unlike the falcon, after upgrading the low-end models to 16 MHz 68000s)

 

 

The SNES always used 256 colour graphics, Mode 7 is just a technical piece of hardware for scaling and rotating the plane a la F-zero (which is rubbish compared to real 3D into the screen sprite scaling of Lotus II on Amiga...which the SNES couldn't even do as well as an ST version of Lotus II)

That's what makes some of the software scaling (like wolf 3d) pretty impressive.(granted the Sega CD's ASIC was much more capable, handeling mode 7-type scaling along with scaled sprites, as in BC racers or SoulStar, albeit limited to 16-color tiles)

 

And the SNES rarely operated in the 256 color modes (modes 3, 4, and 7) outside of 7 and for static splashscreens. Well, the SNES uses 256 colors in the same way the TG-16 displays 512 colors, or the Genesis 64 colors (except the genesis isn't restricted by dedicated sprite/BG palettes)... all of those are 16-color modes, most popular bing mode 1 and mode 2 (mode 2 allowing individual tile scrolling on the 2 BG layers, and mode 1 offering a 3rd BG layer, albeit using 4-color palettes)

The color difference come from the same reason the ST looks better than EGA, the master palette (otherwise the PC engine/tg-16 would almost always look more colorful, with it's 32 subpalettes to the SNES's usual 16). The SNES uses a 15-bit RGB palette, that's 64x the colors available on the ST/TG-16/Genesis, or 8x the colors available on the Amiga/STe/IIgs/Lynx/GameGear. (and 1/4 the colors of VGA's palette, and the same as Sega's 32x)

The Amiga might even have an advantage over the SNES when using halfbrite, maybe not though as mode 3 or 4 might be able to beat it often, and mode 1/2 could probably have a lot more going on in the BG. (just likt he Geneis compared to the amiga -except it would be at a definite color disadvantage even without halfbrite)

 

And 256 colour graphics are inferior to 1000s of colours of the Jaguar BUT as far as games players plugging in their machines via RF to play some games like SF2...well 256 colours was enough in the early 90s and an improvement in the Genesis's 64 colour graphics. And that was my only point...256 colours is nice and simple on a PC due to byte/pixel layout which is super fast (try getting Doom to run that well on a 25mhz 020 compared to a 386DX25 PC ) but Commodore ballsed it up...not only was AGA a complete kludge...and pretty much just 2 extra registers to the original 6 register/6 bitplane chipset (blitter is the same, as is the sound) because they used a very messy 8 bitplane method to get 256 colours on screen. And it was at least 2 years too late.....AGA in an A500 replacement was required in Jan 91 not 1993 AND with a 24mhz 020 with FAST RAM. A total mess and basically a desperate attempt to hold onto the reigns of the horse that had bolted from the stable a long long time ago.

RF on a crappy TV and you'r fine with even the genesis's limited 4x16-color/512 subpalettes and copious dithering... (but on a good tv, with good comb filter and with hardware using a good composite encoder -as the SNES did, you'd see a signficant difference, again the SNES used 16-color tiles most of the time, and always 16-color sprites) Also note "16-colors" on consoles most often equates to 15-colors plus transparent as sprites aren't going to be rectangular.

 

However, that's consoles, so quite distinct from a flat bitmapped display (well, not more modern consoles, starting with 32x/Jaguar/3DO, and in 32x's case, all software and a simple bitmap display controller fixed at 320x240 and 2x 128 kB framebuffers using either a 256 colro indext mode, or 15-bit highcolor mode with some clipping to fit into the framebuffers -as with virtua racing and Shadow Squadron). With VGA graphics, you'd definitely be able to meet the SNES's color capabilities easily, so long as you had enough CPU resourse to handel software blitting comperabe to what the SNES's PPU could churn out. (with a pentium 100 perhaps)

The ST was in more desperate need of a color upgrade as well, 16 colors on-screen is really limiting and the palette wasn't that great either, amiga had 8x the colors and with halfbrite could rougly approximate a lot of VGA stuff (well, anything the blitter could handel; with software rendering on a stock 16-bit amiga it's another story- and Wing Commander doesn't apear to have taken advantage of the blitter whatsoever)

 

So in essence the AGA chipset did more for serious software, with 1280x512 + overscan possible in 256 colours. This was great for business software and desktop video but not much use for animators (25fps per second even in 640x512x256 is not really possible) or games programmers.

for serious stuff there were 3rd party 24-bit video cards avaialble well before AGA.

 

Sound was an urgent upgrade though, it was embarrassing putting the ST games next to the SID soundtracked C64 games...but still if that was the only change companies had to make and it was 4 channel not 2 channels then Atari could have easily said to the designers "you already have the 4 channel music/FX worked out for your Amiga version...so just put those in there for us"

Or go with a cheap FM chip similar to what PCs were using -ie Yamaha's OPL2. (you could go better with 4-op FM, but it'd be likely that it could be wasted and just used to approximate the OPL2's 2-op FM) You might be able to get by using the YM2149 for sample playback. (it was used better than PWM on a PC speaker for sure, and more comperable to the original soundblaster's 8-bit DAC) If not amiga, it would at least approximate PC standards.

If they put in the same kind of FM chip as the Megadrive/Genesis that would be interesting, but really...sampled sound was probably the way to go...remember twin DACs were in CD players in the early to mid 80s....so by 1988 they would cost peanuts...especially 8bit DACs. A 4 channel DAC would have meant no effort for EU software companies who already did the sound for the Amiga anyway. 6 channels would be ideal...4 for music 2 for effects...perfect.

Besides the odd person who hates sid compositions or analog synth in general (I know someone who just hates the "warbly" filter effects and overuse of arpeggio), yeah. (and even then you could straight unfiltered pulse/saw/triangle wave stuff on the SID and sound more like an NES or POKEY)

And 2x 8-bit DACs is what the STe already had, so what's wrong with that? (you could still do more channels and mix them to the DACs, similat to the Amiga, just that you have 2 instead of 4 DACs) Were the STE's DMA sound channels hardwired to R/L like the amiga or more flexible like on the Genesis or SNES. (which could pair channels for stereo, or just use mono ad still have hard l/r/center panning)

 

 

Right move for who?

 

C128 user who wanted to spend 66% more on a computer to play games that would look and sound identical to a C64?

C128 user who wanted to run an old crusty OS like CP/M ?

C128 user who wanted bespoke 128 business software on an old 8bit CPU with 5 1/4" disks INSTEAD of an ST/Amiga?

 

Clearly the 128 was a huge mess (going by sales in total AND bespoke games and business software produced for 128 mode), so much silicon on the motherboard and only 33% of it usable at any one time depending what mode you were in...A MASSIVELY OVER ENGINEERED FAIL from a business point of view.

 

Yeah, but perhaps if the C128 had been more liek the Apple IIgs, no weird dual cpus and such... (and expanded VICII directly, even if they only expanded the color palette that would have been huge compared to the C64's fixed 16-colors) The IIgs could have been better as well had Apple really been serious about it, or even gone with it alone and not the MAC. (shoudl ahve been at least an 8 MHz 65816, maybe 4-6 MHz initially, but defintely offer 8 MHz by 1987)

 

 

VGA *is* hardware though no? VGA could easily be added to any PC. I believe the PC did as well as it did largely because it was easily expanded. Imagine if we could have popped an Amiga-killing graphics card into an ST with just a screw driver?

 

Why the EGA bashing? It wasn't all that bad. Simcity and Flight Simulator was able to use the 640x350x16 graphics mode. This mode wasn't as common as 320x200x16 as it required your graphics card to be outfitted with extra memory. Still, even the 320x200x16 version of Monkey Island didn't look too out of place next to the ST version.

VGA software still handeled all rendering (though I think the VGA chipset added some features to facilitate software blits), it was more or less a "dumb" video display controller outputting analog RGB. (as with the ST, or Apple II, IIgs, EGA, and CGA)

The advantage of the ST over EGA was the color palette, sometimes a subtle difference as shown in Monkey Island (altough that was a port, so a game specifcally designed on ST might be a bit more optimized), but the difference being 512 colors of 9-bit RGB vs 64 colors of 6-bit RGB indexed to the 16-colors on-screen. (let alone EGA's default palette -the CGA palette) CGA could also do some other things via composite video due to bugs, allowing "artifact colors" to be displayed, far exceeding CGA's limitations in RGB. (with blurry graphics though) See wiki's CGA page for examples.

 

 

It's kinda hard to compare/contrast commodore/atari to the PC's; The mentalities were completely different, and it's something that Apple has not learnt to this day... Atari and Commodore were in the business of selling machines, the actual computers themselves, so of course they tried their best to make them not tooo compatible between models, they had to be different to sell; When Mr. Gates had his stroke of genius, and let's face it, hate him as much as you want but the dude had one of the biggest business insights of the century, of making software and not hardware the main focus, helping IBM pick out the most ordinary and "standard" of machines to run "his" code (did yo know that IBM thoguht of using the 68k for a CPU? Gates was the one who pushed them to the 8088) the old companies were caught with their pants down, they couldn't shift their business model that fast. Even Apple almost went under, and I still wonder why it didn't altogether, just like the other companies, because I said, to this day they are still trying to sell machines..

So, that is to say, what happened just at that time was completely unprecedented, and nobody really knew which way it was gonna go, well, now we know, but hindsight, as they say...

Whoa Whoa Whoa ... whoa. The crappy 8088 was a good choice over the 68000??? O_O WHAT? Maybe if it hadn't been for gate's having doen his OS for x86, or if IBM didn't have as stong of ties with Intel, or if the 68008 was readily availbe in 1981. But that's why we're stuck with x86... IBM went with it and PC clones broadened the standard, with all really decent competitors screwing up or falling behind due to other problems. (commodore's mismanagement of the amiga, atari's mismanagemtn after Jack stepped down, etc) The ST and Amiga were both the standard 16-bit platforms in europe, significat enough to be serious platforms for the future (especially with apples problems in the mid 90s), but both calapsed prior to that and the PC popularized in Europe as well.

 

 

I agree about EGA bashing. My first VGA card was "ATI VGA Wonder +" (or something like that) and it had *both* EGA and VGA (did SVGA) ports on it. SVGA monitors were HUNDREDS of dollars back then - about 1990 - and I got a used IBM-brand EGA monitor for peanuts and ran this while I was saving up for SVGA monitor. I was impressed with EGA, having just come from 1040ST. The ST was *closer* to CGA in graphics; ST was superior to CGA - I'm just saying it was closer to CGA than EGA if you have to make the comparison. The 640x350x16 was pretty cool after 640x400xmonochrome.

Resolution is the only advantage... the ST's color palette is so much more capable than EGA's. 320x200x16 colors out of 512 rather than 16 out of 64 or restriced 16 CGA colors. (iirc some modes were stuck with the CGA palette, so no better than PCjr/Tandy-1000 video)

 

 

Only way they're inadequate is if you're a "spec guy." A spec guy would not enjoy Halo on the original Xbox because it "was only 640x480" even though it looked and played great. A spec guy will tell you the MP3 you're listening to (which happens to sound great if its done right) sucks because it's "lossy" compression. Ditto for jpeg, and ditto for any compressed video - which means pretty much all video nowdays. A spec guy would have you believe that most things that look good and sound good to you actually suck, and that you're not qualified to judge what looks and sound good....only go with specs. Seen this type of person a few times, I'm sure we all have......

With the audio comment there's always vinyl vs plastic.

 

However, with the "640x480" comment I take issue. There's a big difference. By the early 2000s I was used to 1024x768 for PC games, or at very least 800x600 (barring my favored old DOS games in 320x200/240 or sometimes 640x480) and even soem late DOS games offered very high resolution (like quake's 1280x1024). I could see a substancial difference on Rogue Squadron on my PC and RS on the N64 in 320x240/480 (can't remember if it was 480) or even 640x480i, same for battle for Naboo, Episode 1 racer's 320x480/640x480 thoguh also with lower polygon count and lower res textures, etc. (also noticable in the DC port of episode 1 racer which was a port of the PC version but stuck in 640x480)

Of course, with limited resourses, you'd have to drop to 640x480 anyway on a PC. (which was the lowest option for many games from the late 90s onward)

 

 

I would be very surprised if you could buy a £250 PC with a blu-ray drive that could run anything like Wipeout HD or Uncharted 2...ditto with £150 and a PC with dvd-rom that could play Gears of War 2 in DirectX 10 on full detail. Sure you can exclude price but then there is no point comparing anything.

That's not a direct comparison though since game console manufacturers sell their hardware at razor thin profits, at cost, or (since the PSX's launch) sometimes at substancial loss initially. PCs are also at a disadvantage due to standardization and mass production of these consolidated, closed architecture consoles. (compact, soldered circuit boards and integrated disc drives, with HDD being replacable standard on the PS3 though -or original Xbox -at least if modded, unlike the 360's propritary HDD)

PC hardware is all sold for significant profit, at best, you could build your own machine, shopping around for clearance and bargains. Of course, there's also a lot of added utility of a PC over a dedicated game console. It's inherantly more expensive due to separate motherboards, video chipsets, RAM modules, etc. (and th ecost of a monitor, though you could use a tv for the display, in fact my dad uses an HDTV as his only display method for his PC and the family computer has been hooked up to the SDTV at the entertainment system for the last 10+ years via s-video -it was our original methos of playing DVDs prior to getting an inexpensive DVD player several years later -and was also used occasionally for PC games)

Edited December 23, 2009 by kool kitty89

[PeteD]

 

Some people never learn. It was already done and demonstrated in 1970s. You just like to change topics and keep repeating the same rubbish over and over again. C64 was inferior despite coming out later. Get your facts straight. And keep the off-topic discussion top some other topic. C64 has more limitations than A8 graphics. Read and learn something for a change.

 

1. CPU Freq 1.78979Mhz

2. Rock solid timing and more accurate (No indeterminate signals to throw off cycle-exactness)

3. Easy overscanning

4. LMS -- easy to access more video memory, mirror images, repeat scanlines, etc.

5. VScroll/HScroll on per scanline basis (8-dir scrolling windows)

6. More priorities and playfields (and GPRIOR mode 0 mostly unexplored)

7. Linear and easy to use high color depth modes (GTIA)

8. Fast keyboard reading

9. Faster joystick I/O and SIO I/O (16-bit reads/writes)

10. Display lists w/various modes (use by themselves or for speeding up screen updates)

11. WSYNC for easier to start writing cycle-exact code

12. DLIs (more optimal than raster IRQs)

13. BOOT Up to cassette files or disk files (without user intervention)

14. A lot more collision detection combinations (60-bits)

15. 4 DACs w/more accurate sampling rate (lower latency)

16. Better interlace (due to more shades to reduce flicker)

17. More colors/shades (bigger palette)

18. Horizontal re-use of hardware registers (much easier like same 114 cyles on PAL/NTSC)

19. Backward compatible with all A8 computers

 

there were some other items I can't remember currently.

 

And as far as price goes, the Apples at the time were more expensive and so were many other machines. Only Commodore offerings were cheaper as the flooded the market with their inferior products.

 

That list does nothing to prove the C64's inferiority, just as the list in this thread doesn't prove the ST's it's just a list of features, not all of which are true that are slightly in the A8s favour. You post these lists then refuse to accept any kind of alternate list for the opposing machine because frankly you are up your own arse and doing this proves again how egotistical you are that you can claim you've proven again the A8 is superior to seemingly every machine ever built.

 

To just refute a few again.

 

WSYNC is a massive waste of CPU and can be done as easily on C64 with a few different techniques

Faster keyboard reading? WTF LDA wow that's slow on C64.

Faster joystick IO, once again in your little world the throughput of the joystick might matter, to everyone else LDA is fast enough.

DLI's more optimal than rasters, wrong. Limited by modelines for a start.

Easy overscanning, THERE IS NO OVERSCAN ON C64. Please just say "it has overscan built in" at least then that makes sense.

Boot from casette,floppy. Lazy bastard if that makes a difference.

As already proven in "that" thread just before it was locked where you were being purposfully obtuse the hardware collisions very little in the overall collision story.

 

I could go on, I could post a list of C64s superior points but you'd ignore them because once again "Mr Right" rears his ugly head.

 

 

Sorry to get into this again and it's my last word on the subject because it's a different thread (although this one is off topic already) but I'm just pointing out what certain people keep trying to get away with.

 

 

Pete

Edited December 23, 2009 by PeteD

[sack-c0s]

I think the real danger with the C128 is if the VIC-II was 'upgraded' it would probably end up changing the undocumented behaviour of the chip which a lot of people had learned to exploit, meaning people would either have to fall back to not using it (no FLI colour modes, border sprites, etc.) or just ignore it, so I suspect it wasn't going to work out either way.

 

But what would've been so wrong with a C64 that had a switchable CPU speed and 128K RAM?

[Syfo-Dyas]

kool kitty89 : My memory must be rough.

[atariksi]

You mean like MCGA? (although, there were many games that specifically supported MCGA just after it was released, albit often simple conversions of EGA graphics into MCGA compatible format -and older games which were forced to drop down to CGA mode)

 

MCGA was backward compatible with EGA/CGA. You see how quickly the PS/2 MCA was dropped because they jumped into a new standard immediately without backward compatibility with existing hardware.

Are you sure MCGA was EGA compatible?

There were standards that became abandonded by not being included in EGA (and subsequently VGA) namely the IBM PCjr video modes (cloned by Tandy), which were quite popular for a time and in some cases offered the best graphics for a game. (Thexter for instance looks far better in Tandy/PCjr 320x200x16 colors than in EGA 640x350 mode -not sure whay Sierra didn't use EGA's 320x200 mode which should have been similar -PCjr and tandy also had the best sound for thexder, similar to the MSX version -if noth superior)

 

Well, there were nonstandard video cards around that didn't follow the standard CGA->EGA->MCGA/VGA trend. We had PS/2s in my school after they got rid of all the Commodore crap and they all ran CGA/EGA stuff just fine. PS/2s came with MCGA (lower models) and later with VGA. MCGA wasn't around long by itself (without VGA).

[atariksi]

@peteym As for the comment about the A8 @ launch being massively superior, I disagree and it was launched at the arse end of 1979 with very limited availability but in 1980 there were other machines around that were different enough to warrant not buying a hugely expensive 800.

 

It had 128 colours, and that's about it really, everything else on it is apples and oranges...the TI99/4A had better sprites than the A8 in reality I would say and within 2 years when the C64 came out the sound and graphics advantages were wiped out for good (because Atari never bothered to address the crushing limitations placed on the total number of colours you could use properly in 320x200 and 160x200 modes)

 

The sprites of the TI 99/4A may be wider (16 pixels as opposed to 8 on the XL), but you can only display 4 per scanline and they are still monochromatic, plus their height is limited to 16 pixels. But the TMS9918 series graphics chip has attribute clash problems (like the ZX Spectrum, it only has one foreground and one background colour within a given area, but while the Spectrum has 8x8 pixels, the TMS9918 only 8x1 pixels) and no scrolling or overscan capabilities. So while I have to concede that the C64 (which has multicolour sprites and can display more colours in 160x200, but less CPU power and a fixed palette), which also was much cheaper, was the real match winner against the A8, the TI (and its Z80A equipped relatives like Spectravideo, Memotech MTX, Colecovision, MSX1) were by far not as capable. It did not help the TI that it was such a closed architecture (and its design was a joke, basically a 16-bit CPU crippled by an 8-bit mainboard), otherwise it would perhaps had a chance, at is was available earlier that its relatives and the Spectrum with its even inferior capabilities sold very well due to its rock-bottom price.

...

Well, I agree mostly except I don't think the C64 with just horizontally better sprites can be a real match for A8 much less a winner. I mean a computer is more than just having a million games using horizontally better sprites in ugly looking. The list I gave speaks for itself for those that have an understanding of hardware of both. A8 can display more colors in 160*200 and it has other modes as well that C64 would have to do in software in uglier form. And the only advantages of it of having color RAM and horizontally better sprites comes at the cost of making things unstable for cycle counting. Seems like some rush job of adding some hardware rather than taking a more robust engineering approach. Anyway, my experience is that you can't teach old dog new tricks for many C64 fanatics. Heck, some even told me that they prefer the 5-shades over the 16-shades of GTIA.

 

...depending on the currency. A friend of mine had one and his parents paid approx. 2000 DM for it, excluding the 810 drive and 410 tape recorder. The 800XL only became available cheaper than the C64 after Tramiel took over. The Amiga 500 - which was available in 1987 (presented in March, wide store availability presumably summer) - was the superior competition for the Atari ST - the 1000 didn't stand a chance due to its price tag. But the Amiga never got out of the home computer market except for the tiny niche of video processing, while the ST filled the role of a lower-priced Mac especially in Europe.

 

Thorsten

 

People did buy Apple computers that were more expensive and less feature rich of A8. So I don't think price played that big of a role on A8 early on when market was new for computers. Marketing can market anything even inferior machines-- just look at the piece of crap C64 that sold so many millions. How many would it sell if it was priced like the Apple.

[PeteD]

More trolling designed to cause arguments I see. For some reason someone who always refuses to back up his claims with hard evidence seems to think anyone who disagrees with him has no understanding of the hardware. LMAO This is supposed to be an A8 vs ST thread, you ignore any proof that you're wrong about your claims about ST inferiority and now start on about the C64 again. If you want to start the C64 vs argument again bring your bullshit over to FormatWar and keep the trolling off this thread. Too scared of course..

 

 

 

Pete

[andym00]

I could go on, I could post a list of C64s superior points but you'd ignore them because once again "Mr Right" rears his ugly head.

 

Sorry to get into this again and it's my last word on the subject because it's a different thread (although this one is off topic already) but I'm just pointing out what certain people keep trying to get away with.

 

He's going to keep throwing that list up (in one of it's many edited guises) just to bait people for the rest of all eternity, for he knows full well what happens when he (t)rolls that list out!! In his mind the A8 is the most powerful, versatile and unique computing device of all time.. Evah!! Let him live in his fantasy land where things such as fast joystick IO, more collision bits etc. are all so very important to him.. I really just wish he'd put as much effort into writing something useful that demonstrates all of his 'compelling arguments' to the doubters.. Something that I'm sure would be gratefully accepted by the masses as it would demonstrate once and for all his arguments for total supremacy.. But I'm not really holding my breath that he in fact knows what to do with all of these 'facts' he's imagined up from somewhere.. But here's always hope..

 

But most people reading those posts are intelligent enough to interpret the reality of his persistent hyperbole and the almost comical and deluded rantings at times .. The others that aren't, well it doesn't really make that much difference really anyway, if at all.. It's not going to change their lives in the slightest bit..

None of it really makes any difference to anyone, and at the end of the day it's that old chesnut of who really cares if some numpty disagrees with you on the internet and happens to be wrong.. You know arguing with him is utterly utterly utterly pointless, especially when it comes to 25+ year old computers..

 

Just switch off now and let it ride, enjoy christmas, enjoy writing Fist, enjoy the <insert favourite retro machine>, enjoy some beers, and enjoy the Atariksi show as a never ending stream of competitors enter the parallel universe of Atariksi and come out wondering what the fuck just happened and how reality could possibly become so distorted..

[Thorsten Günther]

More trolling designed to cause arguments I see.

 

Not sure about that - atariksi really seems to believe what he is writing, despite it being obvious cattle manure in the eyes of everyone else - so you should apply Hanlon's razor ("Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.") to his postings.

 

 

Thorsten

[atariksi]

VGA *is* hardware though no? VGA could easily be added to any PC. I believe the PC did as well as it did largely because it was easily expanded. Imagine if we could have popped an Amiga-killing graphics card into an ST with just a screw driver?

 

Why the EGA bashing? It wasn't all that bad. Simcity and Flight Simulator was able to use the 640x350x16 graphics mode. This mode wasn't as common as 320x200x16 as it required your graphics card to be outfitted with extra memory. Still, even the 320x200x16 version of Monkey Island didn't look too out of place next to the ST version.

VGA software still handeled all rendering (though I think the VGA chipset added some features to facilitate software blits), it was more or less a "dumb" video display controller outputting analog RGB. (as with the ST, or Apple II, IIgs, EGA, and CGA)

The advantage of the ST over EGA was the color palette, sometimes a subtle difference as shown in Monkey Island (altough that was a port, so a game specifcally designed on ST might be a bit more optimized), but the difference being 512 colors of 9-bit RGB vs 64 colors of 6-bit RGB indexed to the 16-colors on-screen. (let alone EGA's default palette -the CGA palette) CGA could also do some other things via composite video due to bugs, allowing "artifact colors" to be displayed, far exceeding CGA's limitations in RGB. (with blurry graphics though) See wiki's CGA page for examples.

...

While ST did have better sound and palette, you have to remember that EGA (and VGA) had hardware scroll capability and various text modes as well. ST could do a better job of games at 320*200 but applications at higher resolutions would probably win out on PC end. So getting back on topic, if a person had an A8 and wanted to upgrade the PC choice of getting the higher resolutions/faster processor speed/more memory/etc. was there. If they went for ST, it was mainly due to price.

 

Whoa Whoa Whoa ... whoa. The crappy 8088 was a good choice over the 68000??? O_O WHAT? Maybe if it hadn't been for gate's having doen his OS for x86, or if IBM didn't have as stong of ties with Intel, or if the 68008 was readily availbe in 1981. But that's why we're stuck with x86... IBM went with it and PC clones broadened the standard, with all really decent competitors screwing up or falling behind due to other problems. (commodore's mismanagement of the amiga, atari's mismanagemtn after Jack stepped down, etc) The ST and Amiga were both the standard 16-bit platforms in europe, significat enough to be serious platforms for the future (especially with apples problems in the mid 90s), but both calapsed prior to that and the PC popularized in Europe as well.

...

I think they had 80286s at time of ST so not a clear win for 68000 and also it depends on speed of 80x86. 68000 is better from programming perspective (flat memory model, 32-bit registers), but from optimization for speed, 80x86 was more optimal. Probably, 32-bit register operations not involving memory would win on 68000.

[atariksi]

Not sure about that - atariksi really seems to believe what he is writing, despite it being obvious cattle manure in the eyes of everyone else - so you should apply Hanlon's razor ("Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.") to his postings.

 

 

Thorsten

 

I KNOW what I'm writing. I don't know about the crap that you are writing. Perhaps, you had some nightmare. I have already coded stuff that shows up on my list. Address the arguments or shut your trap. Name calling isn't going to help you nor anyone else especially given your non-programmer status.

[PeteD]

More trolling designed to cause arguments I see.

 

Not sure about that - atariksi really seems to believe what he is writing, despite it being obvious cattle manure in the eyes of everyone else - so you should apply Hanlon's razor ("Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.") to his postings.

 

 

Thorsten

 

The problem is (and this is why I see it as trolling and/or other malicious reasoning, or even just ego) is that they are in fact (mostly) "facts", it's when they're applied to making one machine "superior" to another and any argument, be it truth, physical proof etc otherwise and the poster gets to suffer endless nonsense in return (or just gets ignored because it's too scary replying to people who know what they're talking about), thus causing arguments that seem to never end.

 

 

Pete

[atariksi]

 

He's going to keep throwing that list up (in one of it's many edited guises) just to bait people for the rest of all eternity, for he knows full well what happens when he (t)rolls that list out!! In his mind the A8 is the most powerful, versatile and unique computing device of all time..

Straw-man arguments. Never can properly address the issues. It's your Commodore fanatics who keep bringing it up. Not me.

 

...Something that I'm sure would be gratefully accepted by the masses as it would demonstrate once and for all his arguments for total supremacy.. But I'm not really holding my breath that he in fact knows what to do with all of these 'facts' he's imagined up from somewhere.. But here's always hope..

...

You surprised me there-- imagined??? I thought you knew something about programming, but fanboyism always takes precedence. I already posted one example for you. It cannot be done on your C64 although that was meant for ST, but of course C64 is inferior to ST. Speak facts, rather than rubbish.

 

But most people reading those posts are intelligent enough to interpret the reality of his persistent hyperbole and the almost comical and deluded rantings at times ..

...

Only one deluded are those like you who wait around for some C64 fanboy to bring the topic back so they can let out their frustrations again for a crappy system that luckily got marketed well. Your emotions and irrationality has once again overtaken you. Words are empty unless you can back them up. I backed up everything in that list in that A8 Vs. C64 thread. You're just slinging mud at it to confuse innocent people. Yes, people are intelligent enough to check everything in my list and see for themselves what a bunch of fools you are.

[PeteD]

If you're still under the illusion that anyone that argues against certain points that you make on the A8 is any kind of machine fanatic then you just prove yourself to be as idiotic as your arguments. In reality what happens when you spout utter crap, people who actually know if it's true or not tend to reply. The fact that anyone with any actual useful A8 code under their belt on this forum tends to stay out of this type of thread because they know idiots will try to claim the A8 is more than it is. The fact that any of us stupid enough to get involved in refuting the A8 propaganda happen to have coded C64 means nothing. Some of us have also coded many other machines and as we've said over and over we wouldn't be wasting our time coding for the A8 if we thought it was a terrible machine, it's simply not superior to all other machines like you try to make out. It has it's plus points, some of which you keep listing BUT a lot of them are only plus points to a small degree of usefulness, for the details of which people can go and read the other thread..

 

Also, don't try to blame the fact someone else brought up the C64 for your response, that's what one would expect from a child. HE did it first!! If it was such an inexcusable thing to do you should have ignored it and not tried to kick of the C64 Vs A8 thread again.

 

 

Pete

[+poobah]

1. CPU Freq 1.78979Mhz

2. Rock solid timing and more accurate (No indeterminate signals to throw off cycle-exactness)

3. Easy overscanning

4. LMS -- easy to access more video memory, mirror images, repeat scanlines, etc.

5. VScroll/HScroll on per scanline basis (8-dir scrolling windows)

6. More priorities and playfields (and GPRIOR mode 0 mostly unexplored)

7. Linear and easy to use high color depth modes (GTIA)

8. Fast keyboard reading

9. Faster joystick I/O and SIO I/O (16-bit reads/writes)

10. Display lists w/various modes (use by themselves or for speeding up screen updates)

11. WSYNC for easier to start writing cycle-exact code

12. DLIs (more optimal than raster IRQs)

13. BOOT Up to cassette files or disk files (without user intervention)

14. A lot more collision detection combinations (60-bits)

15. 4 DACs w/more accurate sampling rate (lower latency)

16. Better interlace (due to more shades to reduce flicker)

17. More colors/shades (bigger palette)

18. Horizontal re-use of hardware registers (much easier like same 114 cyles on PAL/NTSC)

19. Backward compatible with all A8 computers

 

That list does nothing to prove the C64's inferiority, just as the list in this thread doesn't prove the ST's it's just a list of features, not all of which are true that are slightly in the A8s favour. You post these lists then refuse to accept any kind of alternate list for the opposing machine because frankly you are up your own arse and doing this proves again how egotistical you are that you can claim you've proven again the A8 is superior to seemingly every machine ever built.

 

 

And sadly none of the systems have the most important item:

 

0. Brews a killer cup of coffee (sipping it at the moment)

 

My Keurig does that and sadly, probably has a faster processor! (no high speed joystick I/O tho)

 

Edited December 23, 2009 by poobah

[Thorsten Günther]

More trolling designed to cause arguments I see.

 

Not sure about that - atariksi really seems to believe what he is writing, despite it being obvious cattle manure in the eyes of everyone else - so you should apply Hanlon's razor ("Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.") to his postings.

 

The problem is (and this is why I see it as trolling and/or other malicious reasoning, or even just ego) is that they are in fact (mostly) "facts", it's when they're applied to making one machine "superior" to another

Well, if it is trolling what atariksi wants, the solution is simple (and I applied it a long time ago, for his quotes in the replies to his cattle manure statements are already as much fun as I can stand for a day): add atariksi to your ignored users list. If everyone does this or treats his postings as "read-and-laugh-only", he will go away.

 

 

Thorsten

[PeteD]

 

 

And sadly none of the systems have the most important item:

 

0. Brews a killer cup of coffee (sipping it at the moment)

 

My Keurig does that and sadly, probably has a faster processor! (no high speed joystick I/O tho)

 

 

 

[atariksi]

More trolling designed to cause arguments I see.

 

Not sure about that - atariksi really seems to believe what he is writing, despite it being obvious cattle manure in the eyes of everyone else - so you should apply Hanlon's razor ("Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.") to his postings.

 

The problem is (and this is why I see it as trolling and/or other malicious reasoning, or even just ego) is that they are in fact (mostly) "facts", it's when they're applied to making one machine "superior" to another

Well, if it is trolling what atariksi wants, the solution is simple (and I applied it a long time ago, for his quotes in the replies to his cattle manure statements are already as much fun as I can stand for a day): add atariksi to your ignored users list. If everyone does this or treats his postings as "read-and-laugh-only", he will go away.

 

 

Thorsten

 

Just run the code posted if you can't understand the simple points. They are obviously true for the non-pretenders. You don't even know what trolling is otherwise you would know that you are the hypocrite.