Apple II and Atari 400/800, ports and originals.

[Keatah]

Just recently I played Star Blazer from Br0derbund on the Apple II. And it's cool. Naturally. Was one of my favorite games back in the day!

 

And I checked it out side-by-side on the Atari 400/800.

 

..got me a-thinking (dangerous, I know) about how similar or even exact the ports are except for the color palette and the sounds.

 

Surprisingly, the Apple II version is much more colorful. Why couldn't the Atari version be that way? And of course the sounds are better on the Atari. So I was thinking that in context of some games, and "on the surface" for all intents and purposes, the Atari is like an enhanced Apple II with custom sound built right in!

 

The port of Star Blazer / Sky Blazer doesn't seem to make use of any extra ANTIC/GTIA features. Why not? It's like they never turned on the power switch going to the graphics chips.

 

And where was the game first written? Aside from copyright dates and catalogs and stuff, is there a way to tell what platform a game first appeared on?

 

[shoestring]

As I understand it Br0derbund released their 8bit titles on the Apple first before porting to other platforms.

 

My observation was that their titles always played and felt better on the Apple. Karateka played too slow on the Commodore, perhaps they didn't take full advantage of the VIC IIs features like the smooth scrolling.

Edited September 23, 2016 by shoestring

[Keatah]

It seems that software released on the Apple II never really took advantage of graphics capabilities when ported to other systems. Sound was a different matter - most ports improved there with POKEY and SID.

 

And then on the flipside of things, stuff first written on other platforms didn't always make it to the Apple II.

 

Seems programmers were lazy both ways. In the first scenario they didn't develop enhanced graphics because it was too time consuming and they already had a hit on the shelves.

 

In the second circumstance, nobody wanted to re-write something FOR the Apple II. Lack of custom helper chips meant big slowdowns. So they said the hell with it.

[shoestring]

I think sound quality was still below par considering what the above mentioned sound chips could do.

 

Other software houses were taking full advantage of the SID and POKEYs capabilities so I was generally disappointed when I finally got the chance to play some Br0derbund titles on my C=64.

 

The Apple always played, felt and sounded better. But my opinion may be somewhat biased as I originally played those games at school on a //e system.

[MarkO]

The Apple ][s Graphic Screen Layout, limited Colors and No Sprites definitely made it harder to program for, but you could also figure that people that bought an Apple ][ had a larger "disposable income" than those that bought the C64, so the chance of making a sale should be "larger"..

 

Also, Douglas E. Smith and Jordan Mechner had access to Apples, so Lode Runner and Karataka and Prince of Persia were Apple games first...

 

Too bad Apple didn't get a simple Sound chip as a Standard earlier than the ][gs.. The Color Computer has a 6/7 Bit DAC that make quite a difference on the presentable sound..

 

MarkO

[BassGuitari]

I like Sky Blazer on the Atari 800 at least as much as Star Blazer on the Apple, but I can't do Choplifter with just one fire button--that one is much more playable on the Apple. Thankfully there's the Atari 5200 version, which seems more or less identical to the otherwise great Atari 800 version, except that it has two fire buttons.

Lode Runner is a wash to me. Karateka's not really my bag on either platform (and especially not the Atari 7800).

I tend to prefer earlier stuff like Adventureland on the Apple (though in that case, the TRS-80 version was actually the "original," wasn't it?), since those kinds of games seem more appropriate to the late '70s home computer scene that the Apple itself helped spread. They're still good on the Atari (in some ways better), but didn't come out on it until years later, and kind of feel like old hat on that system.

Beneath Apple Manor would be a neat comparison, but I've never played either version(s).