Atari 800 vs C64

[Shannon]

Is it me or has the argument over which is better : Atari or the C64 been going on forever?

 

The Commodore was a nice machine and since Commodore bought their own CMOS company, it was able to make it cheaper which helped.  

 

I never owned a Commodore but I had a few friends who did. It had some good games but since I had an Atari 800XL (later 130XE) I did not dwell on playing with the Commodore as much as I did playing with my Atari 800XL.

 

Aint that true... The same can be said for ST vs Amiga, Mac vs Pc, Unix vs Windows, etc.

 

Anyone ever notice that Atari pretty much started going downhill when the tramiels took over? I know you all are probably saying, yeah, well duh! But I'm wondering if leaving commodore and going to Atari sorta "inadverdently" extended the life of the C64. In other words there is a good chance if they stayed with Commodore that the C64 would not have lasted as long as it did.

 

As for the Amiga I believe it had hardware as well as software (blits?) sprites. It was an awesome machine. Too bad I had given up programming by the time it came out.

[Nukey Shay]

@TMR

Don't forget the excellent ability to save "turbo" files I've freeze-saved most of my games in Action Replay just to be able to load them in 5 seconds or so (opposed to about 5 times longer with a Fastload cartridge, and MINUTES without any cartridge).

 

...and for the equivilant of Save States, of course

[TMR]

Yeah but those are more "advanced techniquest", but if I remember the C64 basic had more COMMANDS to create/control sprites and music then Atari Basic did.  So manipulating sprites and sound on the atari was harder for a newcomer.

 

Actually, it's the other way around because in order to talk to the VIC-II or SID from BASIC for any job you have to poke straight to the registers; there are no plot, draw, line, sprite movement or sound commands in Commodore BASIC 2. Atari BASIC is far better for a beginner, but personally i've always felt that makes the transition to machine code more difficult because you have to re-learn things.

[Shannon]

Yeah but those are more "advanced techniquest", but if I remember the C64 basic had more COMMANDS to create/control sprites and music then Atari Basic did.  So manipulating sprites and sound on the atari was harder for a newcomer.

 

Actually, it's the other way around because in order to talk to the VIC-II or SID from BASIC for any job you have to poke straight to the registers; there are no plot, draw, line, sprite movement or sound commands in Commodore BASIC 2. Atari BASIC is far better for a beginner, but personally i've always felt that makes the transition to machine code more difficult because you have to re-learn things.

 

My memory must really be wacked..

 

I don't remember the C64 basic being that hard, it always seemed simpler, even with the pokes. Aside from the sound, and plot/plot to commands of Atari basic. I remember sprite control being difficult to understand (compared to the 64). Plus sound seemed harder to control in atari basic, wherease on the C64 you could set things like decay, without having to use a For loop.

 

But then memory can be tricky. :wink:

[jon-paul]

My feeling is there is little between them

 

The C=64 had an edge in sound, the Atari in graphics.

 

There is also an impression that the C=64 was created when a commodore exec took an Atari 800 to his design team and said ' i want one of these, only cheeper to make'. Just soo many design quirks are the same/simmilar.

 

The longevity angle proberbly has more to do with the inertia of units sold. The C=64 is officialy the biggest selling 8-bit with some 20 million units sold world wide. I cant say how many Atari's were sold, but i would be pleasently supprised if it was half that number. Quite simply, more machines out there = more likely to have a return on your investment= more likely for a mechine to be supported = more people prepared to buy your machine. Its pretty much this sort of maths that Kept the much less able spectrum going so long in the UK.

[TMR]

I don't remember the C64 basic being that hard' date=' it always seemed simpler, even with the pokes. Aside from the sound, and plot/plot to commands of Atari basic. I remember sprite control being difficult to understand (compared to the 64).

 

Well, that's more to do with the way players are arranged in memory, i must admit they threw me when i first got my 800XL all those years ago...

 

Plus sound seemed harder to control in atari basic' date=' wherease on the C64 you could set things like decay, without having to use a For loop.[/quote']

 

That's a half-and-half thing, the built in ADSR is lovely but at the same time having to send about five POKEs in the right order just to get a sound out of one channel is damned fiddly. And every now and then one of the channels would jam and if you didn't know how to reset it...

[TMR]

There is also an impression that the C=64 was created when a commodore exec took an Atari 800 to his design team and said ' i want one of these, only cheeper to make'. Just soo many design quirks are the same/simmilar.

 

MOS tech were already working on the chipset for arcade use, Commodore merely said "slap it on a board, lets make a home computer" and then tried to market it as a business machine...

 

The longevity angle proberbly has more to do with the inertia of units sold. The C=64 is officialy the biggest selling 8-bit with some 20 million units sold world wide.

 

30 million according to the Guiness Book Of Records 2001 edition onwards and they even got the specs right in the latest one. =-)

[jon-paul]

The longevity angle proberbly has more to do with the inertia of units sold. The C=64 is officialy the biggest selling 8-bit with some 20 million units sold world wide.

 

30 million according to the Guiness Book Of Records 2001 edition onwards and they even got the specs right in the latest one. =-)

 

Thats a lot of 'breadbins'

[TMR]

30 million according to the Guiness Book Of Records 2001 edition onwards and they even got the specs right in the latest one. =-)

 

Thats a lot of 'breadbins'

 

Yeah, i'm not even sure if they include the C128 sales in with that because the covering text in the 2003 edition makes quite a bit about how the hardware barely changed from the first issue to the last. Personally, i think that may have helped the C64's lifespan too, the fact that if you got a game with "for Commodore 64" on the box it ran on any C64 as long as the right device (tape or disk) was there.

[Goochman]

From Basic is was a bear to use the Player/Missile graphics - You could easily build one and put it on screen and move it up and down - but left and right required an Assembly routine (which was common) but still a pain.

 

Atari Basic was easy to get into and do graphics/sound. C64 basic was not.

 

The whole layout of the 800 was cool in that one could work with the different graphics modes to easily slap together some basic stuff. I spent many hours playing in Basic.

[Sharky]

I found programming on Atari 8bits quite nice. The sound of your keystokes clicks and no irrating blink cursor (like C64), and hundreds of colours to choose from in Basic.

I wouldnt say it was harder than C64. They both had their differences.

 

The only thing I disliked was the Atari gave you error codes if there was an error so you need your reference book handy at all times.

And another thing about it was that you couldnt name your file when saving to Tape.

 

But for C64 I didnt like the dull blank light Blue screen when saving or loading from/to tape.

[Shannon]

Funny how people have different impressions of the machines. I never actually programmed the C64, which probably explains my lack of understanding on how easy/difficult it was.

 

But what I do remember is the basic book that came with the C64 at least told you how to get things like player/missile graphics and sound going.

 

For the atari I had to learn thru reading articles in the highly available computer magazines out at the time (or buying a compute book or something). I tinkered with programming from day one.

 

Probably cause all I had was a basic cartridge and missile command. So if I wanted to play games I had to type them in. Then I would study the code and go from there.

 

Maybe the C64 just seemed easy because by the time I actually "looked" at the c64 basic programming book. I was already familiar with such concepts as player/missiles, collision detection, character graphics, dli's, scrolling, etc.

 

As far as techonology goes. I don't think any machine was inherently more powerful then any other machine. In other words ALL machines had a certain power/price ratio that inhibited the design. If you gained in one area you lost in another.

 

For example the 64 could display up to 16 colors at once (without tricks), but you were stuck with the same 16 colors. The atari on the other hand had 64 colors (sure they say 128, but the other 64 were all the same from what I remember) but you could only "pick" 4.

 

On both machines to get more you had to do all the cute little tricks with interrupts and changing colors on the fly. Of course that's what (in my mind) made the machines so cool. All those little tricks you could do to get more out of them.

 

Kinda takes all the fun outta modern day consoles.

[Nukey Shay]

Umm...players and missiles on the 64? j/k

 

Actually, the Atari promised 256 colors but really only offered 128 on CTIA-equipped machines (since bit 1 is ignored). With GTIA, you could use 8 independant colors, or sixteen shades of a selected color, or sixteen colors of the same shade...and have the expanded pallette of 256. All these modes are available from Basic (without tricks).

[Nukey Shay]

From Basic is was a bear to use the Player/Missile graphics - You could easily build one and put it on screen and move it up and down - but left and right required an Assembly routine (which was common) but still a pain.

Really, it was easier to move across the screen. I learned from reading Compute! that fast vertical movement is possible from Basic by setting up the player/missile area in a string variable That way, vertical movement was as easy as A$=B$

[Nukey Shay]

The only thing I disliked was the Atari gave you error codes if there was an error so you need your reference book handy at all times.

That was kind of annoying, but necessary since Atari Basic was crammed into 8k of Rom space (a feat in itself)...making full error messages out of the question. The small size worked to it's advantage though, since it could edge out the C64 in benchmark tests Another plus was that the program lines would be parsed as you entered them...virtually eliminating syntax error debugging.

 

And the C64 has a Poke location to kill the cursor blink

[TMR]

That was kind of annoying, but necessary since Atari Basic was crammed into 8k of Rom space (a feat in itself)...making full error messages out of the question.  The small size worked to it's advantage though, since it could edge out the C64 in benchmark tests

 

BASIC 2.0 shadows the RAM at $a000-$bfff - it's 8K long.

[TMR]

Maybe the C64 just seemed easy because by the time I actually "looked" at the c64 basic programming book.  I was already familiar with such concepts as player/missiles, collision detection, character graphics, dli's, scrolling, etc.

 

Very likely, the C64 manual is a very poor piece of work unless controlling a single sprite from BASIC is your idea of fun. =-)

 

i read through the manuals i got with the 800XL and C64 within a year of each other, of the two the Atari one omits some things that would have been useful but manages to generally be far better written than Commodore's effort and the C64 Programmers Reference Guide is essential to do anything of note.

 

Of course that's what (in my mind) made the machines so cool.  All those little tricks you could do to get more out of them.

 

Too bloody true...

[Sharky]

Funny how people have different impressions of the machines.  I never actually programmed the C64, which probably explains my lack of understanding on how easy/difficult it was.

 

When you finally get down to first few basic programs and get fimaliar with the basics of Basic ( I started with a VIC20, then found it easier to move on to the Atari 8bits)

 

But most of Basic programming life was with the C64, because the Atari 800 wasnt my computer, it was my Dads.

 

I wasa never an advanced basic programmer but was good enough to make my own questionaires (INPUT A$), etc.

 

and I loved the black screen in C64 (10 POKE53280,0:POKE53281,0)

I still remember all those pokes and waiting for a keypress was EASY! I couldnt never work out to do in the Atari 800

 

10 PRINT"PRESS ANY KEY"

15 GET A$:if A$="" THEN GOTO 30

20 GOTO 15

30 PRINT"";

 

After the C64, I had a Amiga and dislike its Workbench Amigabasic so my last programming language was AMOS Basic (another basic language software for Amiga)

 

But it all became to easy and everything possible!

So I gave up and ended my Era of 9 years of Basic Programming.

 

[Nukey Shay]

I got started on graphics with the Apples at school Needless to say, everything else was easier. Damn shape tables...I curse you!

 

When I first started making programs, they were much like yours. Little stories where the user enters a number of verbs, nouns, and things...and it dumps them into the story. Good time-killer, even if you have company

[Sharky]

When I first started making programs, they were much like yours.  Little stories where the user enters a number of verbs, nouns, and things...and it dumps them into the story.  Good time-killer, even if you have company

 

Yes thats was my type of programming! And make real funny stories like "Favorite colour?", "Whats your Brothers Name?", "Favourite Food?", etc, etc then make a werid story at the end of it all !

 

Classic! I wish I had kept em!

 

Did the Apple II have a built in basic? Im not sure because I used to have to use them at school and I wasnt allow to program on them.

 

On the VIC20 I ran out of memory im my first program!

[Nukey Shay]

I wish that I would have kept a lot of stuff. Typing them in was almost as fun as running them, so I didn't start saving things until after I owned a disk drive (or maybe it was just that cassettes were such a pain to use).

 

The oldest AppleII's I remember had Integer Basic installed on them, and the II+'s had AppleSoft Basic. But I'll bet that the first ones that rolled out only offered the monitor mode. (?) I didn't start using them until 1979, so they were already infiltrating the schools heavily.

 

The Vic20 really ticked me off when I got the 16k expansion module (since all my little 3.5k programs that I was looking forward to expanding all had to be edited to change the screen locations). Remember the selling point "Ohh...it's got 32k of ROM!" Was that supposed to be good?? I dunno.

[Goochman]

Well for a black background on the 800:

 

setcolor 2,0,0

 

For sound

 

sound 1,10,10,10

 

Not to shabby

 

I forgot about the $ stuf or whatever but this should work:

 

10 PRINT"Press Any Key"

20 INPUT A$

30 IF A$="" THEN GOTO 50

40 GOTO 10

50 PRINT A$

 

If you wanted really big text you could change graphics modes:

 

5 GR. 2

10 PRINT"Press Any Key"

20 INPUT A$

30 IF A$="" THEN GOTO 50

40 GOTO 10

50 PRINT #6:A$

 

The input would be at the bottom and the output would be in the 800's big blocky text mode up top.

 

Theres prob a few bugs in there but thats the gist

[Sharky]

Well for a black background on the 800:

 

setcolor 2,0,0

 

For sound

 

sound 1,10,10,10

 

Not to shabby

 

I forgot about the $ stuf or whatever but this should work:

 

10 PRINT"Press Any Key"

20 INPUT A$

30 IF A$="" THEN GOTO 50

40 GOTO 10

50 PRINT A$

 

If you wanted really big text you could change graphics modes:

 

5 GR. 2

10 PRINT"Press Any Key"

20 INPUT A$

30 IF A$="" THEN GOTO 50

40 GOTO 10

50 PRINT #6:A$

 

The input would be at the bottom and the output would be in the 800's big blocky text mode up top.

 

Theres prob a few bugs in there but thats the gist

 

Wow! Some of those commands definately click back my memory.

Sound was a piece a cake to produce on the Atari!

(Its a nitemare trying it on the C64, Its would be lines of POKES and DATA statements for a simple sound!)

 

And Line 5 you did was GRAPHICS 2 right? I use to use those too, just to make some of my text big and stand-out.

The GRAPHICS command has 2 or 3 modes I think. What were they all again?

 

Its me wanna do some Atari 800 Basic programs again becuase ive got an Atari 800 emulator now!

 

[Sharky]

Another question. This is how i remember to delay a screen like 5 seconds so you had time to read something. (For C64)

 

10 PRINT"WAIT 5 SECONDS..."

20 FOR I=1 TO 8000:NEXT I

30 PRINT"THANK-YOU"

 

How was this done on the Atari 800? because I used to have to use the SOUND command just to delay the screen for a few seconds.

 

[Goochman]

Same syntax - For loop was my friend

 

Most of my Basic games seem to crash Atari800win

 

Here is a picture of a racing game I did write though