Atari 8bit vs. C64

[+Sauron]

No, I'm not wanting to start a total flame war here. I'm just wondering what everyone's thoughts on which system had the more powerful hardware, the Atari 8bits or the C64? Several of the other message boards I frequent have had just such a topic come up, and I'd like to hear what everyone here thinks. For the record, I think the C64 has a better sound chip than the A8 but lacks in the graphics department.

[Thelen]

The only thing that's missing are the sprites i think. Ok, we have 4 one color player/missiles. In my opinion it would have been a good idea to upgrade the atari 8 bit line in 1984 with some extra hardware, with some sort of sprite chip. Maybe a nice homebrew hardware project ?

 

Thelen

[svenski]

I agree with Thelen, what let the 8-bit down was sprites.

 

As far as sound,at the time I saw 8-bit and C64 versions of several titles and the 8-bit versions always sounded better, that is just my opinion.

[Sikor]

C64 maybe have better osciloscope line at SID than Atari in Pokey, but for me Atari music is better. Also, now, in Poland, sceners have STEREO on two Pokeys (it's great upgreat!!! - 8 8-bit channels or 4 15-bit channels), also 320+KB of RAM, somebody 65816 processor and Atari Covox Card (supe noise!!!). I never seen Commodore with upgreat like this... HD - SCSII, IDE - no problem (internal/external), 3,5" internalDisk Drive? Search Karin Maxi schematics!!! I love this computer...

[Jetboot Jack]

I'm biased, but then what's new

 

The poor old C64 doesn't hold a candle to the 8bit in my opinion.

 

Sure the C64 has GREAT sprites, but then the Atari has so many sprites it can display, maybe only 5 monochrome horizontally, but with simple DLI's so many vertically its obscene

 

SID is cool -- but with software like RMT we are seeing the unlocking of POKEY's true potential -- the POKEY version of the DELTA music is so close to the C64 version its not funny, and then we all know for effects POKEY is much nicer.

 

Add in powerful DL and DLI programming, the awesome palette and varied display modes and the ATARI is simply capable of more colorful and vivid screen displays -- when the game is designed around the system, not a quick port.

 

Take a look at Koronis Rift compared to the C64 version, no comparison visually, the 8bit smokes the C64 -- and this is a visually truly complex game.

 

Having said that few standard late 80's games (horizontal shooters for instance) were as well developed on the 8bit as the C64 -- hence no games as awesome as ARMALYTE or SANXION on the Atari. But I bet something even better could be achieved albeit NOT the same

 

sTeVE - 8bit fanboy!

[emkay]

Raster Music Tracker shows the way of the real POKEY

Now it is possible to update the POKEY data faster. It is now possible to create special Sounds....etc.

 

PMg can be split horizontal an vertical. In the Demo Bitter Reality PMG ist fully used for a vertical scroller, and it is mirrored. So it has 8 players in one display-line. The players are "wobbling", so the Positions of all 8 players are set in each scan line.

 

To create powerfull programs on the XL/XE the programmers have to rethink.

Look at Numen. This Demo kicks Ass of some 16bit computers as well.

[TMR]

C64 maybe have better osciloscope line at SID than Atari in Pokey, but for me Atari music is better. Also, now, in Poland, sceners have STEREO on two Pokeys (it's great upgreat!!! - 8 8-bit channels or 4 15-bit channels), also 320+KB of RAM, somebody 65816 processor and Atari Covox Card (supe noise!!!). I never seen Commodore with upgreat like this... HD - SCSII, IDE - no problem (internal/external), 3,5" internalDisk Drive? Search Karin Maxi schematics!!! I love this computer...

 

Apart from the Covox (which i know nothing about) everything else has been done with the C64. The Creative Micro Designs kit (3.5" floppy drives, hard drives, SuperCPU 65816 accellerator and a few other bits and pieces) are still available to buy from Click Here Software (makers of the Wheels upgrade for GEOS) at http://www.cmdrkey.com/ and other products like the Flash 8, TIB 3.5" drive, Commodore's own 1581 3.5" DS/DD drive, RAM expansions and so forth appear on eBay pretty regularly.

 

What is a Covox, anyway...?

[TMR]

Sure the C64 has GREAT sprites, but then the Atari has so many sprites it can display, maybe only 5 monochrome horizontally, but with simple DLI's so many vertically its obscene

 

If we're talking for demo use, the record on the C64 stands at 144 (by Crossbow of Crest). For games, stuff like Armalyte, IO or Enforcer are shunting around about 24 to 32 hardware and 32 software sprites at 50FPS.

 

SID is cool -- but with software like RMT we are seeing the unlocking of POKEY's true potential -- the POKEY version of the DELTA music is so close to the C64 version its not funny, and then we all know for effects POKEY is much nicer.

 

When RMT can play the ingame music from Delta, i might be on the road to being impressed (although a conversion of something like the ingame theme to Knucklebusters'd be more impressive). Until then a reasonable approximation of what is sound-wise a fairly simple tune doesn't go very far. =-)

 

Add in powerful DL and DLI programming, the awesome palette and varied display modes and the ATARI is simply capable of more colorful and vivid screen displays -- when the game is designed around the system, not a quick port.

 

Take a look at Koronis Rift compared to the C64 version, no comparison visually, the 8bit smokes the C64 -- and this is a visually truly complex game.

 

And your "quick port" comment doesn't apply in the other direction? When Steve Judd took the C64 version of Rescue On Fractalus apart to enhance it for the SuperCPU he found it wasn't particularly well coded...

 

Having said that few standard late 80's games (horizontal shooters for instance) were as well developed on the 8bit as the C64 -- hence no games as awesome as ARMALYTE or SANXION on the Atari. But I bet something even better could be achieved albeit NOT the same

 

Apart from one quirk, Sanxion is a pretty simple game to do on the C64, certainly not what i'd class as "awesome" in the same way Armalyte or Enforcer are. A simple full screen scroll with 8 sprites scrolling SEU takes close to bugger all work on the C64 but the few examples on the Atari are always far weaker by comparison, your own Menace demo is probably the most impressive thing i've seen and Zybex didn't really hold a candle to the Breadbin original.

[Sikor]

Apart from the Covox (which i know nothing about) everything else has been done with the C64.  The Creative Micro Designs kit (3.5" floppy drives, hard drives, SuperCPU 65816 accellerator and a few other bits and pieces) are still available to buy from Click Here Software (makers of the Wheels upgrade for GEOS) at http://www.cmdrkey.com/ and other products like the Flash 8, TIB 3.5" drive, Commodore's own 1581 3.5" DS/DD drive, RAM expansions and so forth appear on eBay pretty regularly.

 

What is a Covox, anyway...?

Nice page, but all in this is outer upgrated. I write about things into computer hardware addition. One more - RAM-Link is not RAM upgreat, it is virtually RAM-Disk for C64.

Covox is inside card for music exchange for little atari. If you want knows more, please, ask PINOKIO (his mail: atari8@interia.pl). Is very nice thing, but I have not one.

[andylama]

IMPNHEO (in my probably not humble enough opinion):

 

The Atari/C64 comparison is very analogous to the PC/Mac comparison: pretty divisive and just as unimportant.

 

Seems to me the C64 had an edge when it came to sheer hardware specs (since it hit the scene later), but the A8b had a certain cachet about it, and I mean more than just the name...

 

I know a lot of people who wax nostalgic/wistful/rhapsodic about their old Ataris, but I know very few who actually proclaim that they ever "loved" their C64. They may have loved some of the games, but I haven't met too many people who cared about "the box". Atari people "love the box" for what it is.

 

a sort of case-in-point: nobody wears t-shirts with the "C=64 chickenhead" logo on it, whereas we all see Atari t-shirts fairly often.

 

Coming back to the PC/Mac analogy: Mac may be a better computer, but it was never as "huge" as PC. I always looked upon the C64 the same way.

 

Remember: the computer industry was never driven by technical merit...it is driven by marketing and a certain amount of being at the right place at the right time.

 

I know, I know: who gives a damn?

[MegaManFan]

a sort of case-in-point: nobody wears t-shirts with the "C=64 chickenhead" logo on it, whereas we all see Atari t-shirts fairly often.

 

If I knew someone that made and sold C=64 shirts, I'd happily buy (and wear) one. Atari's nostalgia has been better exploited than Commodore's, but I love "the box" I have very much.

[Atari-Jess]

i hate my commodores, I laugh at them everytime I see them.

 

oh how I wish I could trade them for ataris....

[emkay]

@TMR

 

You're right. The C64 is better in some cases. The technique of the C64 chips is about 3 years newer then from the 8-bit ATARIS. Three years were more then the time, AMIGA arrived after C64. AMIGA... a Computer that puttet "all" 8-Bits to Stone Age. But the C64 was only 'better in some cases', but lacks in other cases too.

Today we are comparing two 8-Bit Computers that are "slightly" different?!

 

If ATARI was half as clever, they putted an updated ANTIC and POKEY-Chip in this machine (XL/XE). But they didn't.(Only the GTIA-Modes were added)

But if they would have done that, the C64 would have never seen any light...

The ATARI had the faster CPU and the Storage-System was multiple-times faster by standard. Even the Soundchip has the ability to mix 4 digi-voices by hardware. SID is only capable to play digi-sounds because of a loudness change Bug....

[Jetboot Jack]

TMR -- where can I get that demo please, I'd like to see the C64 maxed out, sounds cool, Horizontal and Vertical multiplexing???

 

I wasn't saying that ports either way were good, but that most Atari software, once the C64 became popular, was pretty poor ports, and only the Lucas games stand out as being an exception for us Atari users.

 

And also that the complex screen architecture and wide color palette in say KR exemplify a good Atari Display -- one I would have paid often to see if other games had made better use of the system...

 

Believe me the day Sanxion shipped everyone thought it was AWESOME

 

RMT -- at least shows there is lots of untapped potential in POKEY, I really do acknowledge SID's power, but I can at least see POKEY's applications are getting there

 

I for one would like to see more Atari 8bit development, try and redress the balance in teh software catalog, and would be involved more, if making games for a living allowed me a spare second of two

 

I still look to the likes of Last Guardian and Henry's house to see classic Euro games done well on the XE!

 

sTeVE

[emkay]

@Jetboot Jack

 

Maybe History is all wrong

It was often sayed, the C64 was better in Sound and the XL/XE was better in graphics.

Belonging to the Sound:

The "Rob Hubbard" Music gave the today so called "Demoscene" the color everyone wants to use in his song. Even the ST-YM sound is a derivate of this SID-sound.

POKEY has the ability, by the usage of it's simple generators, to "replay true sounding" sounds, since SID has allways his SID-sound-color.

By helping Raster in his development I created some sounds including a snare drum, that sound like a digitized Drum by only a usage of 2-5% of CPU-power. To make it short: POKEYs potential is truely not unleashed.

[Lord-Chaos]

I think ATARI made the mistake not to upgrade the XL/XE computers more than they did.

 

They could have added the Maria Chip found in the 7800 as extra graphics chip and then you would not have sprite-problems.

 

So the ATARI´s Hardware is 3 years older than the C64´s.

 

But there were several much weaker computers with no sprites at all - the Spectrum for example , or even the Amstrad CPC which was released in 1984.

And some of the very popular MSX systems did not have impressive hardware ,too.

And the Apple II also had weaker graphics than both C64 and ATARI.

 

And the player/missiles aren´t so bad - they can be used as "overlays" for software sprites to add color , at least 2 new colors can be created with player 1 and 2 to make 7-color software sprites.

 

The problem of POKEY music is that the ATARI did not have sound geniuses like Rob Hubbard or Martin Galway and many games only used the "standard BASIC sound" or had no music at all - but in fact the POKEY isn´t worse than the SID , it´s just a different Soundchip that is better for some sound effects - and there are effects that can be better done with the SID.

 

And both Chips are better than the Spectrum Beeper , or the Amstrad/Spectrum 128 AY-Soundchip or the Apple II Soundchip or the ATARI ST Soundchip.

 

Another problem of the ATARI was that many companies only made 48K games and did not support the 800 XL.So some games had to fit into 48K and features like music were missing.

 

If you look at the C64 - there were awesome games , like Armalyte or Hawkeye or other Thalamus games.But the C64 also had poor 1:1 Spectrum conversions (Karnov for example) that did not use the sprites/scrolling etc.

 

I think it depends more on the programmers than on the hardware.

 

The best example is the ATARI 2600 - although the Coleco and the Intellivision had better (newer) hardware , the ATARI had the best games and some technically very impressive games , for example Solaris , that would have been not possible this way on the Coleco or Inty.

 

Thimo

[emkay]

I think ATARI made the mistake not to upgrade the XL/XE computers more than they did.

 

They could have added the Maria Chip found in the 7800 as extra graphics chip and then you would not have sprite-problems.

 

 

If Jay Miner never left ATARI, maybe 1984 was a computer available from ATARI with a 65816, and a Chipset of AGNUS, Daphne and PORTIA.

This would have been the successor to the XL....

But History went something else... 68000, Agnus, Denise, PAULA.

[Jetboot Jack]

Lord Chaos -- I agree

 

sTeVE

[TMR]

TMR -- where can I get that demo please, I'd like to see the C64 maxed out, sounds cool, Horizontal and Vertical multiplexing???

 

Horizontal multiplexing is impossible on the C64, each sprite steals a couple of cycles for every rasterline it's active and there's no way to force those cycles to happen more than once a line per sprite (at least not on a stock machine, that may not apply to a SuperCPU equipped machine since it can throw CPU horsepower at the VIC-II to help out).

 

In theory, it's only possible to display 120 sprites because you can't stop a sprite prematurely to move it to a new position (once VIC-II starts to display a sprite it won't finish until 21 rasterlines later, although you can move them horizontally once a rasterline) but Crossbow claims to have found a $d017 bug that gets around that and the sprites are reduced to 17 pixels high. Even if he hasn't and he's cheating his arse off (it wouldn't be unusual for Crossbow to fake something like that =-) it's possible to pause the effect (which is in all four borders) and count the sprites...

 

There's a download link to Krestage here; http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=2968

 

Watch it with ReSID enabled, some of the sounds in the music are the kind i've been talking about, very complex and the sort of sounds i've never heard a POKEY manage.

 

I wasn't saying that ports either way were good, but that most Atari software, once the C64 became popular, was pretty poor ports, and only the Lucas games stand out as being an exception for us Atari users.

 

i understood that, i was merely pointing out that LucasFilm/Arts put far more effort into the Atari than the C64 so making a comparison is a little unfair.

 

Believe me the day Sanxion shipped everyone thought it was AWESOME

 

Hmm, depends who you talked to at the time; i liked it, but wasn't that excited and horizontal scrolling blasters are my favourite genre. =-)

 

RMT -- at least shows there is lots of untapped potential in POKEY, I really do acknowledge SID's power, but I can at least see POKEY's applications are getting there

 

There's a fair bit of untapped potential in the SID, certainly very few drivers support every feature going and a lot of people have mentioned Hubbard, but he only started things rolling and people like GRG of SHAPE and Dane or Jeff of Crest have done stuff that Hubbard didn't manage.

[TMR]

Nice page, but all in this is outer upgrated. I write about things into computer hardware addition. One more - RAM-Link is not RAM upgreat, it is virtually RAM-Disk for C64.

 

But there are RAM expansions available, the largest i've ever heard of was 16Mb (WinVICE's REU emulation supports up to that size) and the SuperCPU also carries RAM sockets capable of taking multi-megabyte SIMMs. As for the kit being external, there isn't much room inside the latter C64 case but it can be done in theory and expansions and even tower re-mounts of C128Ds have happened in the past; Vanessa/DAC is presently rebuilding the biggest machine i've heard of into a HP server case! i believe she used a C128DCR as a base and on the last version had about 16Mb of RAM, 12Mb of RAMdisk, a couple of gigs of hard disk, a 40Mb SyQuest interchangeable, 20MHz 65816 CPU, SwiftLink fast serial for a 14K4 modem and a custom built interface for a QuickCam.

 

Covox is inside card for music exchange for little atari. If you want knows more, please, ask PINOKIO (his mail: atari8@interia.pl). Is very nice thing, but I have not one.

 

That's the problem with non-standard features like that, not everybody does have them. It's like the Numen demo, very nice if you have the RAM but otherwise... As a coder i could support DAC's DigiMax (4 channel, 8bit up to 250kHz depending on the machine's CPU) or MASPlayer (pretty much an MP3 decoder on a board) but i prefer to work on a stock machine.

[TMR]

I know a lot of people who wax nostalgic/wistful/rhapsodic about their old Ataris, but I know very few who actually proclaim that they ever "loved" their C64.  They may have loved some of the games, but I haven't met too many people who cared about "the box".  Atari people "love the box" for what it is.

 

You haven't met the right people, i love my battered old Breadbin and even more battered C128D and i know i'm not the only one. Press Play On Tape wrote a song about it (and the video is painfully funny =-)

 

"Let me tell you once more/You're the one I adore/You're my C64".

 

PPOT are a Commodore 64 revival band (their description) at www.pressplayontape.com and there are MP3s to download of them playing live.

 

a sort of case-in-point: nobody wears t-shirts with the "C=64 chickenhead" logo on it, whereas we all see Atari t-shirts fairly often.

 

Six/DLoC has the logo tattooed on his arm, he's not the only one...

 

There isn't an equivalent of Back In Time Live for the Atari, if you've come across remix.kwed.org and the rest of the C64 remixing scene you'll know that BITLive takes over a nightclub and plays beefed up SID music and people dance to it.

 

The Atari t-shirts are only in vogue right now because a couple of subcultures have adopted them and it's interesting to note that quite a few of them probably don't even know what the logo is for - the television reporter who went to the first BITLive with one on was lucky that C64 users don't go in for physical violence... =-)

[TMR]

I know a lot of people who wax nostalgic/wistful/rhapsodic about their old Ataris, but I know very few who actually proclaim that they ever "loved" their C64.  They may have loved some of the games, but I haven't met too many people who cared about "the box".  Atari people "love the box" for what it is.

 

You haven't met the right people, i love my battered old Breadbin and even more battered C128D and i know i'm not the only one. Press Play On Tape wrote a song about it (and the video is painfully funny =-)

 

"Let me tell you once more/You're the one I adore/You're my C64".

 

PPOT are a Commodore 64 revival band (their description) at www.pressplayontape.com and there are MP3s to download of them playing live.

 

a sort of case-in-point: nobody wears t-shirts with the "C=64 chickenhead" logo on it, whereas we all see Atari t-shirts fairly often.

 

Six/DLoC has the logo tattooed on his arm, he's not the only one...

 

There isn't an equivalent of Back In Time Live for the Atari, if you've come across remix.kwed.org and the rest of the C64 remixing scene you'll know that BITLive takes over a nightclub and plays beefed up SID music and people dance to it.

 

The Atari t-shirts are only in vogue right now because a couple of subcultures have adopted them and it's interesting to note that quite a few of them probably don't even know what the logo is for - the television reporter who went to the first BITLive with one on certainly didn't and was lucky that C64 users don't go in for physical violence... =-)

[bcostin]

Speaking as a late-comer to the Atari 8-bit scene, there's no denying that hardware was amazing for its time. Incremental improvements, repackaging, and a good software library let them sell basically the same hardware for nearly 10 years. That's pretty impressive by any standard.

 

The C64 was an excellent machine, as well. One big advantage at the time, easy to forget now, was price. Atari couldn't really compete aggressively on price until the cost-reduced XL line of machines came out. And I personally think Atari begain to confuse the market by offering similar machines without clearly explaining the differences between them or the potential advantages of upgrading.

 

It's really hard to compare the C64 and 8-bit line head-to-head; a lot of the specs are close enough to argue about forever but different enough to defy direct comparison. And both systems have been pushed into doing things their original designers probably would never have tried, so tossing out straight spec and feature lists doesn't really accomplish much.

 

It's a little like arguing whether the 1955 Chervolet was better than the 1955 Studebaker. "Better" doesn't really mean much without more context. Better for whom, at what, and under what circumstances?

 

The C64 and its logical sucessor the C128 have a special place for me because I used them every day for years. The Atari systems are less familiar to me, but I'm now finding out now how much fun they are. I'll take some of both, please.

[Heaven/TQA]

a C64/Atari discussion without Heaven... impossible....

 

some true words said... so i would not add much to them except:

 

- you CAN compare different hardware otherwise how would you compare TV-sets, mobiles, gfx cards, cars, etc... together from different manufactures... the result is counting

 

- at that time there was (???) no program like 1st party, 2nd party and 3rd party developer... the only what i can remember is that lucasfilm signed an exlcusive deal with atari dev. the 3 games we all know...

on these boards we read as well EA dicided in a matter of taste that they will not support Atari machines anymore... though they grew up with them (Archon, mule, 7 cities, hard hat mack (aaarg.... very bad game imho technicly)

 

- uk support lacked for the atari machines imho... all big players around 1984 (Ocean f.e.) did not supported the machine like it deserved... i never understood why the speccy was so successful but maybe because it was a island developed machine and cheaper... and we all know that the uk people are different compared to the rest of europe...

even when i played around with armstrad cpc machines now with emulators... i realised that the games were not so good as everybody told me... (f.e. trantor... very colorful but very blocky...)

 

- choosing a platform to develope for was at that time maybe still no commercial decision from programmers point of view it was a passion... so if they decided (like me) to be on atari hardware they probalbly never went off to other machines... to achieve best results you need deep insight knowledge of the hardware (i guess today much easier as all dev tools are on PC, emulators for rapid development, all docs/specs).

nowadays coders are able to code on several plattforms as they are comparable (xbox, ps2, gc)

 

history is repeating... a less powerfull (from specs) console PS2 is dominating the market... still...while GC is suffering from games... and does just get ports... (same like xbox...) looks similar to me... (that's why i have no PS2 at home just at work... but instead a gc... i love "outlaw" consoles...)

 

another heaven theorie:

 

game concepts in the 80s where mainly shoot 'em ups + sports games (sensible soccer)... and where all based on fast moving sprites... so that's why C64 was the target machine for the programmers... not to mention commecial success even with piracy...

 

 

hve/tqa

[TMR]

- uk support lacked for the atari machines imho... all big players around 1984 (Ocean f.e.) did not supported the machine like it deserved... i never understood why the speccy was so successful but maybe because it was a island developed machine and cheaper... and we all know that the uk people are different compared to the rest of europe...

 

It's not so much that the Spectrum was a local piece of kit, it's more that it was cheaper than the competition; low production costs meant that it compared very favourably to all of the other players on the price front and once there was a user base people had to support it if they wanted the punters' money. The C64 took off because it impressed people and had a reasonable price tag whilst the Atari didn't have the head start over here, the home computer boom didn't really kick start until a couple of years after the 8bit series launched and the prices were much higher because the machines were imported.

 

What should have turned that around was a stock dumping exercise around, i think, Christmas 1984 when Dixons (a huge high-street retailer) dropped a shedload of 800XLs onto the market for £80 with a tape deck. But the software support just wasn't there to get the ball rolling and a lot of the units were returned faulty (i had to take mine back because it wouldn't reset correctly and the guy at Dixons said they'd had loads returned).

 

game concepts in the 80s where mainly shoot 'em ups + sports games (sensible soccer)... and where all based on fast moving sprites... so that's why C64 was the target machine for the programmers...  not to mention commecial success even with piracy...

 

The C64 was a target machine because it sold vast numbers, since a large amount of 1980's software development was in the U.K. the companies focused on the machines that would make them the most money, since that's what companies do. Piracy was part of those sales, the idea that piracy kills a machine is something the software houses would like people to believe but it's not true; machines were and probably still are sold on the grounds that the user knows they can get a quick and dirty collection of pirated games to tide them over until they can afford a few originals.