A8 Vs CPC (Amstrad/Schneider)

[NorthPole(heeHAW)]

Hey!

 

Just to put it in the mix (this is not a troll thread)

 

The CPC was cool and the best machine for it's time. This is only because it was my first ever home computer. Whilst the machine was largely limited to Spectrum ports due to similarities, a straight easy port was always the money making way out.

 

However, when playing Chase HQ on the CPC I noticed it was possibly the best ever version ever to be released on the home computer.

 

Could the A8 do this or get near this? Chase on the CPC had an amazing array of colours (even when being double pixeled)

 

This was the best arcade port ever on the CPC platform. I just wish that there were good quality ports that show off the machine in this way.

 

 

Cheers

 

Aaron

[emkay]

The CPC has some really nice advantages. Particular the real colours (4 in 320x200 , 16 in 160x200 ) and the crystal sharp display.

640x200 for hires is something the XL series clearly missed. High Data transfers..... fun machine in it's way.

 

But the Locomotive Basic was horrible (not good for learning to write Basic Programs) , scroll registers and other stuff was missed for a good homecomputer....

 

 

To your question. You know them ? :

 

 

 

 

 

 

And some "unfinishable" work on another game of that "Chase HQ" type.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKLVG6c4fiI

 

 

 

I'd bet that the A8 can do this. It's just the question, whether someone finds the time to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Thorsten Günther]

The CPC was cool and the best machine for it's time.

 

Well, I have to admit I am somewhat interested in purchasing a CPC464 or 664 - albeit only the Amstrad versions, not the dull-coloured Schneider version that was common here in Germany.

 

But OTOH I find this machine all to similar to the Atari ST (less the CPU power of the latter) while at the same time it has way too many Speccy ports for my taste (these should be run on a Speccy or compatible IMHO, not on a CPC).

 

Thorsten

[Divya16]

The CPC has some really nice advantages. Particular the real colours (4 in 320x200 , 16 in 160x200 ) and the crystal sharp display.

640x200 for hires is something the XL series clearly missed. High Data transfers..... fun machine in it's way.

 

But the Locomotive Basic was horrible (not good for learning to write Basic Programs) , scroll registers and other stuff was missed for a good homecomputer....

 

I never heard of that machine that much-- I guess it wasn't that popular in USA. From what I read, the higher resolutions cost it since you needed to get a special monitor for it instead of using a TV. And monitors were expensive back in the 1980s. One of the reasons the PCs were expensive as they also had 640*200. They also lacked sprites, large color palettes, TV connections,etc. And CPC is coming much later than PC according to the following from web:

 

CPC464 (1984)

 

The CPC464 model was introduced in 1984, featuring 64 kB RAM, and an internal cassette tape deck.

 

It was launched in September 1984 in France and sold 2 million units[3].

[edit] CPC664 (1985)

 

The CPC664 model was introduced in 1985, featuring 64 kB RAM, and an internal 3" disk drive.

 

After the release of the CPC464, consumers were constantly asking for two improvements: more memory and an internal disk drive. For Amstrad, the latter was easier to realize first. After the launch of the CPC6128 later in the same year, Amstrad decided not to keep three different models in the range and discontinued production of the CPC664.

[NightSprinter]

Agreed, Thorsten. Having played some games on an emulator I've noticed very few games take actual advantage of the features of the CPC. Even Pac-Mania could have looked far better, but was relegated to a quick port of the Speccy version.

[high voltage]

CPC came third in the UK 8-bit wars after 1st: Spectrum, 2nd: C64 (source C&VG)

and also third in Germany after

1st: C64, 2nd Atari XL (source Happy Computer)

 

bit of a cheap affair like the Amstrad/Schneider music towers which always broke, but not as bad as Sinclair Spectrum.

[Thorsten Günther]

CPC came third in the UK 8-bit wars after 1st: Spectrum, 2nd: C64 (source C&VG)

and also third in Germany after

1st: C64, 2nd Atari XL (source Happy Computer)

 

I guess that depends on the year the numbers are from. IIRC the Speccy had - prior to the introduction of the CPC - a stronger position than the Atari XL here in Germany, because the 800XL cost DM 899.- while the C=64 cost DM 699.- before (presumably) Jack Tramiel took control and lowered the 800XL price to DM 649.-, which was the beginning of a price war between the C=64 and the 800XL/XE, resulting in better sales of these computer lines, eventually leaving the Speccy far behind.

 

bit of a cheap affair like the Amstrad/Schneider music towers which always broke, but not as bad as Sinclair Spectrum.

 

The attractive point of the CPC line was that they were self-contained systems with only one power plug (the main unit was powered through a PSU built into the monitor) and were sold as ready-to-go systems, while a C=64, Atari XL and Spaeccy were sold "naked" without any mass storage device or monitor - the full price of the CPC was relatively cheap in comparison to a C=64 with 1541 or an 800XL with 1050 drive - and the CPC didn't occupy the family TV set (many European households AFAIK only had one TV set back in the middle 1980s) when in use.

 

Thorsten

[+wood_jl]

error - double post.

Edited July 21, 2010 by wood_jl

[+wood_jl]

I see there's not a whole lot of takers on this "vs." thread. Atariksi, why no jump in???

 

Obviously, to us Yanks it may as well be A8 vs. The Blarney Stone or some other phenomenon we are not familiar with. I find the discussion quite interesting, as awareness of the "Speccy" is quite a new thing to me. I think the Sam Coupe was pretty interesting as well, but if it weren't for Wikipedia I wouldn't know it existed.

[Rybags]

They sold some here... but in the scheme of things it ended up being one of those obscure rarities.

 

Although impressive with some of it's price/features, by the time it was released, 8-bit machines were yesterday's news anyhow.

[sack-c0s]

the CPC was nice - but nobbled by people just throwing speccy code at it with a few hacks to make it run.

 

Running 'as a CPC' it was capable of some pretty nice graphics, but nobody ever thought much about how to shift the required video data around at a reasonable speed when designing the hardware (even the screen update when typing in BASIC is slow) and it was held back by the cheaper machine coming with a greenscreen which led to some colour choices that looked horrible on a colour display.

 

If you were to write a graphic adventure on there and assume you were coding for a colour monitor it would probably bury the A8, but for everything else the A8 would suffer on colours but keep up a decent pace gameplay-wise and you'd probably end up with a much better game for it.

 

Not sure about the CPC+ machines though - they were a step in the right direction with hardware sprites, just way too late.

Edited July 21, 2010 by sack-c0s

[youki]

The CPC are sympathic machine. And did very well in France. They were 1st in term of sells , 2nd was the C64 i think.

 

But there is no way to compare a CPC and an Atari 800 or a C64 , in term of gaming possibility.

 

The CPC don't have sprites, hardware scrolling that is a big handicap.

 

the CPC is able to produce very nice image but "static"... if you try to make move things...the problem comes...

 

The locomotive basic was really good imho. One of the best basic i tried.

 

However , they are few really great game on that machine : chase HQ, Sorcery+ for instance. But if you look the overall library , only very few games are really better than the same on competitor computer.

 

the CPC Plus serie came lot later had an very good hardware and i think lot better than A800 or C64 , but it cames far too late and almost no game were produced using new feature. but if you lool at Burning Rubber or Robocop for CPC Plus, they are very good.

[Heaven/TQA]

i looked on some games on the CPC but imho they look not so good as I had in mind when I was a young man... scrolling is horrible or like on the ST (Ghost and Goblins). and games tend to look like Speccy...

[Divya16]

 

The attractive point of the CPC line was that they were self-contained systems with only one power plug (the main unit was powered through a PSU built into the monitor) and were sold as ready-to-go systems, while a C=64, Atari XL and Spaeccy were sold "naked" without any mass storage device or monitor - the full price of the CPC was relatively cheap in comparison to a C=64 with 1541 or an 800XL with 1050 drive - and the CPC didn't occupy the family TV set (many European households AFAIK only had one TV set back in the middle 1980s) when in use.

 

Thorsten

 

Why is that an attractive point? That makes it harder to take around with you since you have to drag the expensive monitor around whereas Atari/C64 plug into any home and can also use cartridges (no disk drive to drag around either). And price played a big role in home computers so being forced to buy a monitor and disk drive was unaffordable for many. With Atari I bought, it was pretty cheap (the 800XL) and it came with some carts if I remember correctly. And as far as occupying the TV set, there's something called a SWITCH BOX that someone invented.

[atariksi]

i looked on some games on the CPC but imho they look not so good as I had in mind when I was a young man... scrolling is horrible or like on the ST (Ghost and Goblins). and games tend to look like Speccy...

 

It's better to compare with PC w/CGA since that was around during the golden age of 8-bits (i.e. 8-bit era). Heck, PC w/CGA had text modes with redefinable font sizes so updating screens could be done quickly so you can end up with 160*100*16 or 160*200*16 with some vector quantization. Video update speeds were slow back in 1980s so any elements that help that in hardware like line replication, sprites, various text/graphics modes, DLIs w/low-color modes, etc. would take the edge in game graphics away from just straightforward CPU-powered graphics modes like in Apple IIGS, Atari ST, CPC, and even PC for the most part. Atari's ANTIC E was popular as many games used it like Donkey Kong, Pengo, Robotron, etc. as it's a good compromise for fast linear drawing, low-color, fast updates, with some DLIs/Sprites on top. Even then if you ever play Robotron when the action gets frantic, you see some slowdown in updates. I am sure that same scene on PC, CPC, and many other 8-bits would look like crap.

[Marc Oberhäuser]

And as far as occupying the TV set, there's something called a SWITCH BOX that someone invented.

 

Ah, so your switch box doubles the TV

[Divya16]

And as far as occupying the TV set, there's something called a SWITCH BOX that someone invented.

 

Ah, so your switch box doubles the TV

 

Many people already shared TVs with their kids so instead of watching soap operas they can play Pac-man (using the innovative Switch Box). And I'm sure they can afford another TV moreso than a special monitor.

[atariksi]

You need to time slice the TV set usage. Or nowadays, get a device that lets you do PIP (picture-in-picture).

[The_Laird]

When I was at school I only knew one person with a CPC and always kinda felt sorry for him as most of us had Spectrums and there was a few with C64's.

 

I always found the CPC to be quite a strange machine as once you got away from the poor Speccy ports you had games that looked amazing and usually sounded great too, I loved the sound of the YM chip which was also in the Spectrum 128's, but the big problem came when they started moving. The scrolling was nealy always terrible and in driving games they moved so slowly, see Outrun - looks fantastic until it moves.

 

Amstrad also got alot of stick for the non standard 3" disk drive which they also put in the PCW and Spectrum +3. It meant everybody had to buy their more expensive own brand disks.

 

I loved the 8-bit age as it seemed each machine had trades offs against another one, there really was no clear winner as each machine had distinct advantages.

[Heaven/TQA]

When I was at school I only knew one person with a CPC and always kinda felt sorry for him as most of us had Spectrums and there was a few with C64's.

 

I always found the CPC to be quite a strange machine as once you got away from the poor Speccy ports you had games that looked amazing and usually sounded great too, I loved the sound of the YM chip which was also in the Spectrum 128's, but the big problem came when they started moving. The scrolling was nealy always terrible and in driving games they moved so slowly, see Outrun - looks fantastic until it moves.

 

Amstrad also got alot of stick for the non standard 3" disk drive which they also put in the PCW and Spectrum +3. It meant everybody had to buy their more expensive own brand disks.

 

I loved the 8-bit age as it seemed each machine had trades offs against another one, there really was no clear winner as each machine had distinct advantages.

 

 

BTW. Did this thread started because of last issue of retro Gamer where armstrad was featured?

[NorthPole(heeHAW)]

When I was at school I only knew one person with a CPC and always kinda felt sorry for him as most of us had Spectrums and there was a few with C64's.

 

I always found the CPC to be quite a strange machine as once you got away from the poor Speccy ports you had games that looked amazing and usually sounded great too, I loved the sound of the YM chip which was also in the Spectrum 128's, but the big problem came when they started moving. The scrolling was nealy always terrible and in driving games they moved so slowly, see Outrun - looks fantastic until it moves.

 

Amstrad also got alot of stick for the non standard 3" disk drive which they also put in the PCW and Spectrum +3. It meant everybody had to buy their more expensive own brand disks.

 

I loved the 8-bit age as it seemed each machine had trades offs against another one, there really was no clear winner as each machine had distinct advantages.

 

 

BTW. Did this thread started because of last issue of retro Gamer where armstrad was featured?

 

No, I have a lot of RG issues. Quite a few of them feature the CPC.

 

I brought this up because I believe the CPC version of Chase HQ is amazing. It's also playable and not a demo version. The OutRun A8 version is just a demo that doesn't seem to be anywhere near completion. Wolf 3D also seems the same.. Try moving/going round a corner and putting a few baddies in, i'm guessing it'll need a complete re-code.

 

You can always send a link to a demo of something but that doesn't mean when you put extra sprites in the mix it and make it 'playable' it's going to look anything like the Demo.

 

Paralax scrolling on the CPC (please note this is a demo and it could never be a game)

 

 

Put an enemy in there then you're fooked

 

Aaron

[Thorsten Günther]

 

The attractive point of the CPC line was that they were self-contained systems with only one power plug (the main unit was powered through a PSU built into the monitor) and were sold as ready-to-go systems, while a C=64, Atari XL and Spaeccy were sold "naked" without any mass storage device or monitor - the full price of the CPC was relatively cheap in comparison to a C=64 with 1541 or an 800XL with 1050 drive - and the CPC didn't occupy the family TV set (many European households AFAIK only had one TV set back in the middle 1980s) when in use.

 

Why is that an attractive point? That makes it harder to take around with you since you have to drag the expensive monitor around whereas Atari/C64 plug into any home and can also use cartridges (no disk drive to drag around either).

 

Er - I can hardly remember how often I took my XL out of my parents' house in the 1980s, but I am sure it wasn't more than once or twice, and I needed the disk drive, because all the pirated games were on disk (as a pupil, the only games I could afford as originals were budget releases by Mastertronic, Firebird etc. for DM 9.99 and MAD for DM 14.99 each - those great titles from the early 1980s weren't even available in stores any more, it had all gone C=64 and - later - Sega Master System and NES there).

 

So, computers back then were stationary products much more than today (where even large tower cases get dragged around to gaming meetings/conventions) and most of them were bought by parents, not by the users (I may be an exception, as my parents always were against me getting a computer, I had to work as a paperboy and save the money to buy all my hardware myself). One would usually only carry the cassettes or disks around to exchange them at school or by mail.

 

Thorsten

Edited July 22, 2010 by Thorsten Günther

[emkay]

Paralax scrolling on the CPC (please note this is a demo and it could never be a game)

 

 

Put an enemy in there then you're fooked

 

 

Guess why there is no enemy at all

 

It's a bit over to name the demo "Parallax". Different Screenranges scroll at different speed. Let's name it "looks like parallax". Just the "Demo" sign makes the illusion of "parallax"

Adding moving objects over it .... just like enemies.... will dramatically slowdown the framerate.

 

Huge graphical parts in front of the "CPC parallax" gets into the direction of "real parallax".

 

This is also real parallax:

 

Edited July 22, 2010 by emkay

[Rybags]

It wouldn't be too much trouble putting enemies on that.

All you need is to maintain a table with the scroll offsets and adjust as the soft-sprite crosses each region.

 

Of course, that'd eat into your rendering time a fair bit, so maybe it should be "enemy".

 

That Chase HQ demo... just ugly in comparison to the Amiga version, although I guess impressive to a degree by 8-bit standards.

[sack-c0s]

I'd have thought enemies would be around the same area the player is (otherwise they wouldn't be much of a threat generally speaking), so you'd just draw them in the central area where the player is.

 

The more pressing issue is that shadow of the beast is a rubbish game that just looks nice.

Edited July 22, 2010 by sack-c0s