Atari vs. Commodore
Vidar "Hawk" Olavesen
about the C64 and the Atari 8-bits. I wondered if anybody uses both today ?
I do, but still think the edge is on the Atari, except for the SID chip
perhaps. Although I like the music of the newer polish games and demos on
the Atari a lot.
Take care
Peter Young
I'm a C64 owner, but I used to get annoyed when Julian Rignall (a
reviewer from Zzap!64 magazine) raved about the 800XL and how it was
better than the 64. Also, I recall Archer Maclean saying that Dropzone
(one of the all-time greats) was about 50% faster on the 800XL than on
the 64 due to the limitations of the 64.
When I bought a computer back in 1984, though, I had to choose between
an 800XL and a 64 (when both were fairly new in the shops), and I'm very
glad that I chose a 64. Virtually nobody bought 800XL's in the UK.
Peter
Vidar "Hawk" Olavesen
Well, Dropzone is better on the Atari. The colours for one and the
explosion is amazing. Also Rescue on Fractalus is faster and more playable.
M.U.L.E. was pretty close on both, but the Atari version of the space ship
dropping you off and the pirate ship were better. But I do remember many UK
games especially that were really crap on the Atari and good on the C64. I
do think the Atari has a little more speed to boost. I coded some demos on
the Atari and still haven't seen any on the C64 which uses the machine. My
friend is totally awestruck by the C64 sound, but the colours on the Atari
is a big plus.
Brix
> I do think the Atari has a little more speed to boost. I coded some demos on
> the Atari and still haven't seen any on the C64 which uses the machine. My
> friend is totally awestruck by the C64 sound, but the colours on the Atari
> is a big plus.
Hm, I'm a C64 coder, and I think if you take a look at Turrican and at
some Demos like Spasmolytic/Censor or the latest CREST and Oxyron Demos,
you'll see a lot of machine usage.
What do you mean my "using the machine" ?
Some Wild VIC effects, like Sprite multiplexing, Blittering and border-
opening are definately use of machine in my eyes.
-Brix-
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Vidar "Hawk" Olavesen
demos on
> > the Atari and still haven't seen any on the C64 which uses the machine.
My
> > friend is totally awestruck by the C64 sound, but the colours on the
Atari
> > is a big plus.
>
> Hm, I'm a C64 coder, and I think if you take a look at Turrican and at
> some Demos like Spasmolytic/Censor or the latest CREST and Oxyron Demos,
> you'll see a lot of machine usage.
> What do you mean my "using the machine" ?
>
> Some Wild VIC effects, like Sprite multiplexing, Blittering and border-
> opening are definately use of machine in my eyes.
>
> -Brix-
>
I haven't seen a demo using the borders, with lots of other stuff going on,
but I did see some using the effects good. I like to see it all in one
demo. That's what I mean. If they do indeed play music, use borders, multi
sprite effects and lots of colours (not interlaced and flickering like
hell) and some scroll texts waving around in sinus curves, that's what I
like to see. I do like the C64 more now than I did then, but I still keep
the edge on the Atari.
Alex
.. heh, cool. what happened to Rignall by the way? didnt h have a web
site??
i remember loads of reviewers... Andy Dyer, Ollie Alderton, Steve Jarret,
etc etc wot happened to those guys, are they still reviewing games???
l8rs.
Stephen C. Johnson
14 at the time). Seems kinda silly now, but the one thing C64 and Atari owners
could agree on is how much the Apple II stank ;) Considering all three used
the same family (model?) of CPU, its amazing how different they all were.
The thing that really bothered me about the C64 was that pig-slow disk drive!
Loading Seven Cities of Gold --- AAARGGH! I thought for sure there was a
cassette drive hidden in there. The SID chip is very nice, and the sprite
handling was better than Player/Missile graphics, IMHO.
Atari had one feature that rocked, and that was the 4 joystick ports... MULE
anyone? JT was crazy to get rid of them. And POKEY wasn't the best, but it
had a real ARCADE pedigree, so we Atarians felt a little uppity about that :)
I love both machines now, and love talking about them. Still not crazy about
those Apple IIs, though..... ;)
Cheers,
Steve
Stephen C. Johnson
14 at the time). Seems kinda silly now, but the one thing C64 and Atari owners
could agree on is how much the Apple II stank ;) Considering all three used
the same family (model?) of CPU, its amazing how different they all were.
The thing that really bothered me about the C64 was that pig-slow disk drive!
Loading Seven Cities of Gold --- AAARGGH! I thought for sure there was a
cassette drive hidden in there. The SID chip is very nice, and the sprite
handling was better than Player/Missile graphics, IMHO.
Atari had one feature that rocked, and that was the 4 joystick ports... MULE
anyone? Atari was crazy to get rid of them in the XLs. And POKEY wasn't the
Marc Walters
: I remember a long time ago (in a galaxy pretty close) we had arguments
: about the C64 and the Atari 8-bits. I wondered if anybody uses both today ?
: I do, but still think the edge is on the Atari, except for the SID chip
: perhaps. Although I like the music of the newer polish games and demos on
: the Atari a lot.
Also, the Atari "sprites" were smaller, harder to use, and had less
colour options available -
they were 1st generation sprite technology perhaps?
C= were 2nd gen, and MSX-2 was 3rd gen?
Even though the Atari was less popular in the UK than the 64, it did
have an excellent magazine from Page 6 called "Atari User" which
published till at least 1991 before going hard-sale only.
And of course "Mercenary" and "Encounter" appeared on it before the
C64 versions. Ditto "Dropzone" and a pile of English Software
releases (Octapolis, Jet Boot jack).
Jeff Minter did a neat version of "Attack of the Mutant Camels", with
the skyline of graded colours versus the C64's black - but due to
sprite limitations the mutant camels were smaller.
The machine's parent company supported it better than Commodore did
for the 64 (face it, every other computer was better supported!).
But the pricing? Atari outpriced themselves from the market, at least
in the UK and here in Australia.
And the disk drive was a dog.
But the graphics chip was excellent (apart from the sprites)
So, the C64 and Atari, design-wise are roughly equal, the deciding
factor being that Commodore marketed the C64 slightly less badly
than Atari, aided by a better distribution system in Europe and
Australia.
mwalters
mwal...@bombadil.apana.org.au
Thorsten Guenther
>Hmmm... I remember the arguments we got in over which was better (OK, so I was
>14 at the time). Seems kinda silly now, but the one thing C64 and Atari owners
>could agree on is how much the Apple II stank ;) Considering all three used
>the same family (model?) of CPU, its amazing how different they all were.
The Ataris' processor speed was 1.79 MHz, and the 6502C was "C"o-opera-
ting with the ANTIC graphics processor (that was able to halt the CPU).
Additionally, the Atari had many video modes requiring 4K or less, the
C=64 apparently lacked such modes. I have only been told by (former)
C=64 users that "Rescue on Fractalus"' speed sucked - and I guess the
above clarifies why.
>The thing that really bothered me about the C64 was that pig-slow disk drive!
>Loading Seven Cities of Gold --- AAARGGH! I thought for sure there was a
>cassette drive hidden in there. The SID chip is very nice, and the sprite
>handling was better than Player/Missile graphics, IMHO.
Yup, bot OTOH the POKEY had also some nice features. Apparently it was
harder to program than the SID, but e.g. Rob Hubbard's "Warhawk" sound
track sounds better on POKEY than on SID.
The sprites _were_ far better than the Player/Missile concept. I guess
that's why Atari programmers invented their own animated objects so
often or even multiplied the Players in Display List Interrupts.
>Atari had one feature that rocked, and that was the 4 joystick ports... MULE
>anyone? JT was crazy to get rid of them.
That wasn't Tramiel's fault. The 800XL was invented and sold during the
Warner ownership, and it lacked port 3 and 4.
Thorsten
--
MagerValp
Vidar> I haven't seen a demo using the borders, with lots of other
Vidar> stuff going on, but I did see some using the effects good. I
Vidar> like to see it all in one demo. That's what I mean. If they do
Vidar> indeed play music, use borders, multi sprite effects and lots
Vidar> of colours (not interlaced and flickering like hell) and some
Vidar> scroll texts waving around in sinus curves, that's what I like
Vidar> to see. I do like the C64 more now than I did then, but I still
Vidar> keep the edge on the Atari.
Try http://jez.c64.org/demos.htm. For the ultimate in border effects
check out Comajob [Crest/Oxyron] on page 2.
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Jason Compton
: The machine's parent company supported it better than Commodore did
: for the 64 (face it, every other computer was better supported!).
I don't know what that's supposed to mean. Commodore had pretty good
support, particularly with programmer's resources. Atari was notorious
for withholding technical documentation.
--
Jason Compton jcom...@xnet.com
www.xnet.com/~jcompton
Curt Vendel
Thats totally incorrect. From day one, Atari released the entire
source code to the OS for the 400/800, they were instrumental in the
release of DE RE Atari which is the bible to Atari computers, they released
External Release Specifications to all outside vendors for development of
hardware software. Atari was very open about development of product for
its line of computers and also supported third party startup programmers
through the APX group which was Atari Program Exchange, if a piece of
software was above average, Atari would assist in packaging and marketing
through the APX program.
Curt
Jason Compton
: Jason,
: Thats totally incorrect. From day one, Atari released the entire
: source code to the OS for the 400/800, they were instrumental in the
: release of DE RE Atari which is the bible to Atari computers, they released
: External Release Specifications to all outside vendors for development of
: hardware software. Atari was very open about development of product for
: its line of computers and also supported third party startup programmers
: through the APX group which was Atari Program Exchange, if a piece of
: software was above average, Atari would assist in packaging and marketing
: through the APX program.
Wasn't De Re Atari released well AFTER the computer? Why, in _Hackers_,
does the story of Atari development specifically say that Apple held out
on information from developers like John Harris?
Sorry, but I don't buy it.
Richard Cortese
miss information that was in Hackers including the Atari trade secrets
spin from Hackers.
There are several other glaring errors in hackers, Levy is more
interested in sales and or telling a good story. It was necessary for
him to create a few myths of his own to insure sales.
I *wish* I could remember all the details, but I think Levy was also an
author for Rolling Stone or some similar magazine where style & creation
of icons was more important then substance. He has also come out with at
least one other 'sensationalist' book dealing with mass murderers or the
Mafia, can't recall which.
I really liked Hackers myself, it was a good read & very entertaining
even if it wasn't accurate. Levy is a very good story teller, just that
Hackers shouldn't be considered history so much as a novel.
Jason Compton
: Actually John Harris reads the group when he has time. He corrected some
: miss information that was in Hackers including the Atari trade secrets
: spin from Hackers.
Yeah, I know he hangs around the newsgroups.
: There are several other glaring errors in hackers, Levy is more
: interested in sales and or telling a good story. It was necessary for
: him to create a few myths of his own to insure sales.
Well and good, but isn't it still the case that De Re Atari post-dates the
release of the machine significantly? The Commodore Programmer's
Reference Guide doesn't, that much I know for absolute certain.
White Flame (aka David Holz)
Thorsten Guenther wrote in message ...
>The Ataris' processor speed was 1.79 MHz, and the 6502C was "C"o-opera-
>ting with the ANTIC graphics processor (that was able to halt the CPU).
>Additionally, the Atari had many video modes requiring 4K or less, the
>C=64 apparently lacked such modes. I have only been told by (former)
>C=64 users that "Rescue on Fractalus"' speed sucked - and I guess the
>above clarifies why.
Actually, the C64 has 2 families of screen modes: character-based and
bitmap. Character-based use a byte for each of the 40x25 cells, plus a
nybble in I/O space for the color of each cells. That means you're using
1000 bytes for the screen, and 1000 nybbles for color (which can be banked
out of address space, leaving only 1000 bytes of system RAM being used). In
these character modes, you can define 256 8x8 characters, or use multicolor
4x8 (wide pixel), or extended color mode, where you can define both the
foreground and background of each char, etc. It's actually pretty easy to
do parallax scrolling with an 8x8 pattern just by manipulating the font
definition. All of the bitmap screens use 8000 bytes (1 bit per pixel on
screen), and those are usually kinda slow, because they bytes aren't
arranged linearly. Using multiplexed sprites (24x21 pixels each) or
rectangular arrays of characters, you can achieve an easier-to-address, yet
smaller in size, "bitmap" area.
White Flame (aka David Holz)
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/1767
Jason
> The thing that really bothered me about the C64 was that pig-slow disk
> drive! Loading Seven Cities of Gold --- AAARGGH!
I have an Atari 800XL. With a tape drive. Need I go on...? =-)
(Half a piggin' *hour* for Elektraglide... Okay, so the game was nearly
worth it but... =-)
> I love both machines now, and love talking about them. Still not
> crazy about those Apple IIs, though..... ;)
I've never had a play with an Apple II, but from the info I've seen they
don't really seem to be all that much... I was fond of the Atari and if
we'd had the same support for it here as the C64 had/has I *might* have
got a drive and kept with it.
I never found any decent tools though, it was hard enough getting games
'round here...
--
Jason =-)
_______________________________________________________________________
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Jason
> The Ataris' processor speed was 1.79 MHz, and the 6502C was
> halt the CPU). Additionally, the Atari had many video modes requiring
Nope, our stock, power up mode is 2K, as are most of the modes used by
games. Our bitmap mode is either 9K for mono or 10K for multicolour.
One mode we *lack* is an equivalent to the one on the Atari that extends
the screen horizontally. We *can* take the sideborders out using a bug
in the VIC-II but it's heavy on the processor time and a git to make.
> ...I have only been told by (former) C=64 users that "Rescue on
> Fractalus"' speed sucked - and I guess the above clarifies why.
Not really, our CPU only pulls 0.98Mhz (PAL) and the refresh rate
difference is noticeable but not *as* bad as some would have you
believe. Considering the fact that it's only just over half the
processor power, Fractalus, Koronis and Mercenary all pull what I'd
consider a reasonable speed in comparison. Elektraglide on the C64
stood no chance, though... =-)
> ...bot OTOH the POKEY had also some nice features. Apparently it was
> harder to program than the SID...
If my memory of the 800XL is right, the SID is the more complex chip to
work with, every sound has ADSR, filtering, waveform and assorted
modulation effects. These are, however, shaky memories of the Atari.
> ...but e.g. Rob Hubbard's "Warhawk" sound track sounds better on POKEY
> than on SID.
Because Warhawk is, by sound standards rather than tune, a primitive
track even if the CPC AY version managed to murder the thing... =-)
Most of the tunes that came later, like Tim Follin's "Ghouls 'n' Ghosts"
(with the rain noises and what *sound* like sampled screams) and JCH's
"Orcus" (which uses ring modulation to make what sounds quite like a
vocoded voice speaking along to the soundtrack) would be a *lot* more
difficult.
One thing I don't know about the Atari is if it can handle samples and
FM at the same time?
> The sprites _were_ far better than the Player/Missile concept. I guess
> that's why Atari programmers invented their own animated objects so
> often or even multiplied the Players in Display List Interrupts.
Same as we can do with sprites, of course. Record stands at 144 by
Crossbow/Crest.
Curt Vendel
> Wasn't De Re Atari released well AFTER the computer? Why, in _Hackers_,
> does the story of Atari development specifically say that Apple held out
> on information from developers like John Harris?
>
> Sorry, but I don't buy it.
DeRe Atari came out after the Atari 400/800 were released, again though the Atari
OS Source Code listing was immediately released, Atari also released the SIO bus
specifications for development of SIO based devices. As for Hackers, that book
is riddled with inaccuracies and I'm not sure if you typo'd when you wrote Apple,
but if you talking about John Harris your talking about the Tramiel-Atari era
from July 1984-1996 and that was well after the earlier Atari 400/800, XL line
and the Warner-Atari era was more open to supporting programmers and hardware
developers. The Tramiel-era had abyssmal support for its developers.
I have made a life's side-work out of Atari History and know this information a
little bit better then most, especially since I have a large archive of most of
Atari's original internal paperwork and also keep in touch with over 50 former
Atari employees.
Curt Vendel
The Atari Historical Society
http://www.atari-history.com
Daniel Morrow
right on the c128) in my opinion, I don't even bother with the scpu at all when
playing this game (I own Rescue on Fractulous and the spcu and they are fast).
Richard Cortese
<snip>
> Well and good, but isn't it still the case that De Re Atari post-dates the
> release of the machine significantly? The Commodore Programmer's
Eastern Front fame so it was worth it.
I would have to check my "Atari Technical Reference for the 400/800
Computers", but I thought is was copyrighted around 1979.
IMO: Given how things are done now, that is advance specifications are
done & circulated before a product sees the light of day, there may have
been a bit of a delay at Atari to give their programmers a slight lead,
but it is hard to say for sure.
I live in the area & know more then a few people that worked at Atari.
The amount of confusion & just plain goofyness that went on there is
incredible. Figure any company that bases the names of projects on the
names of women with big hooters is going to be more then a little
offbeat.
W/O naming names since he follows this newsgroup too, someone once told
me about a guy at Atari that insisted he be paid in $50 bills. I can't
remember if he insisted Atari give him the money or if he just got $50s
from the bank when he cashed his check. Punch line is he had the thought
there could be counterfit money circulating & he knew the $50 was so
hard to counterfit that most crooks just do 20s & 100s so....
I don't think he was out of place at Atari: People zoo.
Had some really amazingly talented people too. One time I let all the
magic smoke out of my homebrew computer. I really gave up, chips,
traces, everything gone up in smoke. I had made a 44 pin daughter board
for some A/D & a little I/O. Plugged it in backwards to give you some
idea of how much I hurt that puppy. Found a tech at Atari to look at it
for me, I think he found about 6 fried chips, wire wrapped all the
missing traces, replace fried chips with ones he had laying around <this
was back when 4 bit X 256 Intel chips were $5 a pop>, & ended up
charging me $10 or so.
Dragoner
>DeRe Atari came out after the Atari 400/800 were released, again though the
>Atari
>OS Source Code listing was immediately released, Atari also released the SIO
>bus
>specifications for development of SIO based devices.
>
years after the introduction of the 400 computer. While, the OS Source Code may
have been released, the critical P/M sprite info was only released in De Re
Atari, to the best of my knowledge. I think the omission of P/M knowledge and
programming info is critical for Atari developers and should have been released
from Day One.
I read this info also from one of the notable de velopers of the time, Bob
Crawford (sp?) and he too lamented the lack of info coming out of Atari.
-Todd Elliott
Jason Compton
: Rescue on Fractulous for the c64 runs perfect (except the version that doesn't run
: right on the c128) in my opinion, I don't even bother with the scpu at all when
: playing this game (I own Rescue on Fractulous and the spcu and they are fast).
Steve Judd's SuperCPU-fixed version of Rescue on Fractalus is absolutely
awesome.
Darren Spiteri
> So, the C64 and Atari, design-wise are roughly equal, the deciding
> factor being that Commodore marketed the C64 slightly less badly
> than Atari, aided by a better distribution system in Europe and
> Australia.
Yeah, I hardly ever saw Ataris for sale around Canberra, but there were c64s
everywhere you looked. One thing I noticed was there were many flavours of the
8bit Atari, but only ever one c64.
Not so long ago I was at the local rubbish tip and found a whole pile of Atari
computers and peripherals in great condition. I would have liked to have taken
them all but I already had a mountain of C= stuff. There's too many orphans in
this world for one person to take under their wing. :)
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Aaron
another VERY LENGTHY but informative one:
The Atari 8-bit line, selling in 1979, is a full 3 years older than
the C-64, which, I believe, began selling in 1982. Heck, The Atari is
even older than the miserable Commodore Vic-20! Considering the age
difference (which, for the computer field, should be measured in dog
years) the Commodore should have had alot more advantages (hardware
wise) over the Atari than it did. Consider this: In just a little
over 3 short years (same difference in timeframe as between the Atari
and C64) the Amiga, which which had a quantum fold increase in
capabilities over previous computers, began to sell.
When the Atari came out it (in 1979) it was hands down the cadillac of
computers that suffered from one major hardware problem: standard RAM
limited to a paultry 8-16K. Many Atari programs, therefore, had to be
coded for this pitiful amount of memory. Because of a drastic
reduction of RAM prices by 1982 Commodore was able to include a full
64K as STANDARD! Because of Commodore's cheap price and full
complement of RAM, the Atari quickly lost favor and most programmers
(and companies) began coding exclusively for the C-64. In addition,
the C-64 became exceedingly popular in Europe which was (and is) the
breeding ground of by far the best game and demo programmers OF THE
WORLD ( Just compare the difference in quality between American Amiga
programs and European Amiga programs and you'll understand. The
difference is ASTOUNDING.)
Now here's a list of specific issues between the C64 and Atari 8-bits:
--------------------------
SOFTWARE
After about a year of the C-64's existence, it became the defacto
standard for 8-bits and, therefore, most other competing systems
either quickly died or lingered in the sidelines. Atari's suffered the
latter problem. On top of this, a few years later (mid 80's) the C-64
gained a second life (comparable to the second coming of CHRIST) and
made MAJOR in-roads in the European market, creating a massive flood
of truly great software that has only recently been equalled by the PC
compatibles.
WINNER: C-64
--------------------------
RELIABILITY
From day one, C-64's were notoriously failure prone machines. For the
first six months of production, the failure rate of C-64's out of the
box was about 50%!!!!!!! Many, many, many, many computer magazines of
the time had written about this "little" problem. Even if one got a
"good" C-64 is no guarantee that it'll stay working a year afterward.
Being a garage sale nut I can attest to many sob stories from former
C-64 users that were selling off their equipment. One even had his
joystick ports taped up claiming that they're sensitive to static
electricity.
Atari 8-bits, on the other hand, were quite reliable. This
reliability, however, did get slightly reduced when Jack Tramiel
(former owner of Commodore) took over Atari and manufactured the
updated Atari 8-bit XE machines and especially the (then new) 16 bit
ST machines (with failure rates as high as 50 %!!! Hhhhmmmm. Rumor has
it that many ST failures were traced to trucks hitting speed bumps in
front of the Atari factory, thus causing some socketted chips to
become un-socketted.)
I've got about 30 Atari 8-bits and an equal number of C-64's. Of
those, one Atari and about 8 C-64's are doorstops.
WINNER: ATARI
--------------------------
DISK DRIVES
I have a large collection of old computer magazines and found
Commodore advertising for the C-64's 1541 disk drive. Following truth
in advertising (a first for the computer industry) Commodore claimed
the disk drives were FASTER THAN A TYPIST!!!! All I can say is ...not
by much!!!!
Both the C-64 and Atari 8-bits use a slow serial connection for the
transfer of data between the computer and disk drive (Apparently, FCC
approval is faster for serial standards than parallel standards).
Apples used a parallel standard that was much, much faster (I swear,
some Apple games could load up a title graphic display *before* I
turned on the machine. Now that's fast!). Unfortunately, in order to
cut costs of including a hardware UART chip, Commodore implemented the
serial transfer in SOFTWARE #%$%#^##$^%!!! (I must say, Commodore was
ahead of their time...A full 15 years later, modem companies are
beginning to sell cheap "software" and "win" modems for the PC which
only reduces the effective speed of a Pentium 200MMX by a measly
50%!!!) Commodore transfers occured at a rate of "no greater" than
2400 bits per second and usually significantly less. Atari's serial
SIO port allowed for a transfer of 19,200 bits per second but usually
ran about half that speed (9,600bps). On average, the Atari disk
loading was about 4 times faster!
Also, the Atari's serial SIO standard was very flexible. (So flexible,
in fact, that I like to call it a serial version of SCSI.) SIO allowed
EASILY for up to 8 disk drives to be connected at once (four Atari
manufactured drives) as well as printers, modems, and whatever else a
manufacturer could come up with. Commodore allowed for up to two disk
drives. Unfortunately, in order to add a second disk drive you
literally had to cut a trace on the second drive's circuit board to
access it as drive number 2.
Atari's DOS was also amazing. All DOS options could be accessed via a
menu screen (Dos Utility Package or DUP?). What could be simpler? The
following line is all that's necessary to load up the menu:
DOS
Or the alternative method is to simply take out the BASIC cartridge
before you turned on the computer and automatically load DOS from disk
Commodore's file management was absolutely primitive in comparison and
relied on typing arcane device numbers (that had to be memorized).
Here's an example of displaying a file list from drive number one:
(note: I apologize if I make a mistake)
LOAD "$",8,1
LIST
Please bear in mind that Atari's DOS is in no way perfect. I could
easily think of a half dozen major problems (which were corrected by
other manufacturer's DOS replacements such as SPARTADOS, ADOS, etc).
The upshot is that, because of Commodore's horrendous DOS, alot of
people who bought C-64's ended up throwing them in a closet, never
seeing the light of day again.
WINNER: ATARI
--------------------------
MANUALS:
The C-64 came packaged with an incredible plastic bound programming
manual that had everything. (Basic keywords, memory map, programming
tips and examples, hardware explanation and even chip pinouts and even
theory of operation!)
Atari's manuals were your standard bit of fluff that was thinner than
the included catalog of products (some earlier Atari's also came with
a reasonable BASIC programming manual but contained only passing info
on Atari's graphics and sound hardware).
WINNER: C-64 BY A LANDSLIDE
-----------------------------
BASIC:
This one's tough. Unlike the Atari, the C-64 contained a standard
version of Microsoft Basic which made it extremely easy to port simple
BASIC programs from other computer platforms. However, ATARI's basic
excelled in the support of it's graphics/sound hardware. The C-64
Basic HAD ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT FOR IT'S HARDWARE! A programmer for
the C-64 litterally had to resort to POKE's and PEEK's and Machine
code to achieve what the Atari could do with a few simple lines of
BASIC code or buy a separate BASIC extender utility such as SIMON'S
BASIC.
WINNER: NONE
--------------------------
SOUND:
This one's tougher than it seems. Here's a rundoun of the
capabilities:
C-64: (SID chip) three 16-bit voices with full control of ADSR
(Attack Decay Sustain Release) which allowed a good programmer to
simulate various musical instruments. Unfortunately, the volume of all
three voices had to be set at the same level. Weird!
Atari: (POKEY) four 8-bit voices that could individually output both
pure and unpure (raspy) sounds. Unlike the C-64, each Atari voice
could be set at a different volume. Each pair of voices also could be
combined for a true 16 bit voice (for a maximum of two 16 bit voices
or one 16 bit and two 8 bit voices). Voices could also be combined
(cutoff?) for very strange echoing sounds that were wonderfully taken
advantage of in DEFENDER. NOTE: Atari's POKEY chip had also been used
in many arcade machines at the time and, therefore, many arcade ports
contained faithful sound reproduction.
WINNER: NONE
--------------------------
GRAPHICS (COLOR)
The C-64 has a total of 16 colors (which includes black, white, and a
couple of grey shades). The Atari has a total of 128 colors (256 in
one weird blocky mode). Please note that the maximum colors for each
platform DOES NOT mean they are all easy to display on the screen at
once. The number of actual displayable colors is closer to just 4
within any specific area of the screen (some reasons for this will be
mentioned again, later on). The upshot is that C-64 games all seem to
have the same boring color set wheras the Atari's color display
appeared lively in comparison.
WINNER: ATARI
--------------------------
GRAPHICS (SPRITES)
Sprites are "hardware based" objects on the screen that are extremely
limited in size and can be independently moved around without having
to redraw the background screen (thus saving the processor from
performing a multitude of unnecessary calculations that could instead
be used for other more important things). PC compatibles do not
usually contain this ability and something as simple as the Win95
mouse pointer has to be repainted one pixel at a time when either the
pointer moves or the screen gets updated. this is why the Win95 mouse
pointer blinks so damn much (HATE IT! HATE IT! HATE IT ALMOST AS MUCH
AS EWOKS!). In comparison, the Amiga's mouse cursor is a sprite and is
always rock steady no matter what is happening in the background.
Atari's sprite system is very primitive in comparison to the C-64. It
essentially supports 4 sprites (actually called Player Missile
Graphics) 8 pixels wide and 255 pixels tall. Each sprite can have only
one color which is independently set from the Atari's 128 color
palette. Sprites can be easily moved right and left but, in order to
move up or down, each individual line has to be shifted upward or
downward via the CPU. There are also 4 mini sprites (called missiles)
that are only two pixels wide and 255 pixels tall. They can be
combined for a fifth 8 pixel wide sprite. The Atari hardware can tell
the program when one sprite "collides" with another or with a specific
background color. Collision sensing, when not supported in hardware,
can be extremely CPU intensive. I've noticed that none of the "faster"
IBM PC Atari emulators support this capability and, therefore, makes a
subset of Atari games unplayable on the PC.
Commodore's sprite system is much more sophisticated. I believe the
C-64 has 8 separate sprites, each one being 24 pixels wide by 24
pixels tall, each having 3 colors.( Note: some sprite colors are
shared by all sprites). Also, C-64 horizontal sprite resolution is
double of the Atari sprite resolution (ie. one pixel of an Atari
sprite is equal in size to two pixels of a C-64 sprite. C-64 sprites
can easily be moved both horizontally and VERTICALLY. I don't believe
hardware collision detection is supported. (someone please tell me if
I'm in error)
WINNER: C-64
--------------------------
GRAPHICS (SCROLLING)
Both computers support the ability to scroll the display both
vertically and horizontally via hardware support (ie. without forcing
the CPU to move every dot on the screen to simulate scrolling). Apple
computers don't have this ability. Ever noticed the "tearing" that
occurs with games written on Apple comuters? This occurs because the
CPU can't repaint the entire screen before the monitor displays a new
frame (which must occur 60 times per second in North America and 50
times a second in most of Europe). Starting with the VGA standard,
IBM's also have this ability, but is not always taken advantage of
because third party video cards don't always implement it properly.
Ah, the joys of "standardization."
Unfortunately, the C-64's hardware scrolling is limited and, when
implemented, necessitates the use of a smaller display screen (with
larger, much more noticeable black boards). Also, after moving the
screen 8 pixels either horizontally or vertically, the screen
ulimately must be repainted one pixel at a time.
One minor C-64 advantage: The C-64 can scroll at double the resolution
of the Atari (ie. every two pixel C-64 scroll is equivalent to a one
pixel Atari scroll).
WINNER: ATARI
--------------------------
GRAPHICS (TEXT)
Both the C-64 and Atari can only display 40 colums of text (Atari,
with overscan, can support up to 48 columns). Atari's text is
"monochromatic." It can only support "1 and a half" colors. Atari's
text can only be a lighter or darker shade of the background color
(ie. a dark blue background and light blue text). Commodore's text
display allows for the ability to INDEPENDENTLY set the color of EACH
character on the screen.
WINNER: C-64
--------------------------
GRAPHICS (MODES and MEMORY USAGE)
Because the Atari was created when RAM prices were outrageous, there
are many display modes/resolutions geared toward minimizing RAM usage.
Most of these modes are very blocky and quickly became useless when
the addition of more RAM became the norm. Sometimes, though, reduced
RAM usage can be an advantage when screen updating speed becomes more
important than resolution. LUCASFILM'S RESCUE ON FRACTALUS (BENEATH
JAGGI LINES) is one of those games that take advantage of this Atari
quirk and plays much better than the C-64 version.
Atari's graphics subsystem also allowed for something that has no
parallel on the C-64: DISPLAY LISTS.
A display list is a simple and ingenius way of telling the Atari how
to display a vertically stacked series of graphics lines on the
screen. Remember, the Atari has over a dozen different display modes,
some being bitmapped (all points -or pixels- are freely addressable)
and others being text based (where a single byte in RAM ultimately
represents an entire character "cell" on the screen). With the
DISPLAY LIST, any combination of these modes can be on the screen AT
ONE TIME. These individual lines can also be set for a combination of
vertical and/or horizontal fine scrolling as well as something called
a DLI (Display List Interrupt) that allows the hardware to force the
CPU (6502) to do something special at a specific point of the display
screen. WHY? Lots of things such as: changing the base color set for
such things as that weird rainbow color rotation effect that only the
Atari could do, sprite multiplexing (displaying more than the maximum
of 4-5 sprites), and sound hardware modification. It was INCREDIBLE!
Also, the RAM locations devoted for the Atari's display isn't fixed. I
remember writing a small 10 line BASIC program that could literally
scroll through the entire 64K of memory. WOW! Using a combination of
the above capabilities, PARALLAX SCROLLING (seen in MOONPATROL)
becomes fast and easy.
In comparison to the Atari, the C-64's number of display modes
appear grossly inadequate. There's just three major modes: text
(40x25), medium res (160x200), and high res (320x200). Believe it or
not, like the Atari, most games for the C-64 are written in 40x25 TEXT
MODE with a redefinable character set. WHY? Because it's faster (and
more memory efficient) to manipulate 1Kilobytes of data than it is to
manipulate 8 Kilobytes of medium and high res graphics. The one saving
grace of the C-64 is something that (believe it or not) the Atari
doesn't have: a special half kilobyte of COLOR RAM which allows small
8x8 areas of the screen to have a limited (but important) amount of
separate color control. The C-64, through RASTER INTERRUPTS, also
allows for the 6502 processor to be interrupted at a certain point of
the screen. Unfortunately, the C-64's RASTER INTERRUPT method isn't as
flexible and takes a great deal more effort to accomplish more than
one interrupt on the screen. Also, because the C-64 doesn't have a
DISPLAY LIST (which allows the Atari to easily display multiple
graphics modes on the screen) the C-64's only method of mixing display
modes on the screen is through the use of RASTER INTERRUPTS.
Also, I mentioned above that most games use text mode with a redefined
character set. The C-64's character set redefining is better. It
allows for the display of a fulll 256 separately defined blocks. The
Atari only allows for half (128). This problems can be circumvented on
the Atari by changing the character set pointer in midscreen during a
DISPLAY LIST INTERRUPT.
WINNER: ATARI (with the pie-in-the-sky wish that it had C-64 style
color RAM)
--------------------------
CPU SPEED
Both the Atari and C-64 use the 6502 processor (C-64's version is a
slightly customized version but not any faster than the generic
version). the C-64's 6502 is clocked at 1.02 Megahertz. The Atari's
6502 is clocked at 1.79 megahertz.
Judging from the above specs, Atari's are about 60% faster than the
C-64. However, there's a very major caveat. Unlike the C-64, Atari's
display hardware steels cycles from the 6502 processor, thus degrading
the apparent speed of the Atari. The amount of "cycle stealing" is
dependent on resolution and number of colors the Atari must display.
Believe it or not, the worst offender is 40 column text and multicolor
(what most games use) modes, which reduces the Atari's effective speed
to 1.2 Megahertz. Sprite implementation also also has an impact (don't
know the exact amount but don't believe it's significant).
The upshot is that, under normal circumstances, the Atari's are closer
to 20% faster than the C-64
WINNER: ATARI
--------------------------
JOYSTICKS/KEYBOARD
The keyboard "feel" is subjective. Both computer platforms have their
strengths and weaknesses. Also, there were many more styles of Ataris
(and keyboards) than the C-64. Atari 1200 keyboards were the best,
Atari 800's were good, Atari 800XL's were so-so, and the Atari 400's
membrane keyboard was just plain horrendous (but not quite as bad as
IBM PC JR's chicklet keyboard). C-64 keboards had a good "feel" but
seemed a bit "smaller" than a standard size keyboard.
Why am I even talking about joysticks? After all, C64's and Atari's
use the same ones. The problem lies in the number of joystick ports.
The older Atari's had 4 and later models had 2. C64's had only 2 with
one additional problem. For some reason, keboard access on the C-64
interfered with reading the first joystick one, which effectively made
a computer with ONE JOYSTICK PORT.
Now remember I said the original Ataris had 4 ports? and the later
models had 2? Why the change? Apparently, ATARI felt the number of
games that used ports 3 and 4 were few (MULE being the exception) and
they wished to reduce costs of production. So far not a major problem.
The real stupidity lies in Atari's re-use of the hardware "port", that
was originally used for reading the second pair of joysticks, for
bankswitching additional RAM memory that underlied the ROM based
operating system. The problem is that many programs, as part of their
initializing routiner, would reset all the hardware registers by
writing zeros into the entire register space. Unfortunately, doing
this to the new bank switching port causes the operating system to be
switched out. Without the operating system the computer immediately
CRASHES! STUPID ATARI!!!!!! Luckily, programs could easily be modified
to prevent this crash. I've even done it myself with BERZERK and a few
others. Still, it was a major headace for many Atari users who
upgraded to the new Ataris
WINNER: ATARI
>I remember a long time ago (in a galaxy pretty close) we had arguments
>about the C64 and the Atari 8-bits. I wondered if anybody uses both today ?
>I do, but still think the edge is on the Atari, except for the SID chip
>perhaps. Although I like the music of the newer polish games and demos on
>the Atari a lot.
>
>Take care
Aaron
Nate / DAC
> From day one, C-64's were notoriously failure prone machines. For the
> first six months of production, the failure rate of C-64's out of the
> box was about 50%!!!!!!! Many, many, many, many computer magazines of
The primary failure in a C64 is the crappy power supply they were
originally chipped with, no argument there.
Some had failures of other components as well, most noteably the PLA.
That said, I've never had a machine completely fail on me in the last 15
years, though I've managed to kill a few by hacking and playing witht he
hardware.
> 2400 bits per second and usually significantly less. Atari's serial
> SIO port allowed for a transfer of 19,200 bits per second but usually
> ran about half that speed (9,600bps). On average, the Atari disk
> loading was about 4 times faster!
The standard loading speed on a C64 is anywhere from 2400 BPS to over 25,000
(25 thousand) BPS.
The latter is accomplished by replacing the Kernal with an updated one,
which can be found at many sources.
Alternatively, you can load a fat-load routine, which is usually only a few
K in length anyways.
Most software used fast-load routines that average 10000 BPS or so.
There are still speeder chips and cartridges available today, such as
JiffyDOS and The Action Replay cartridge.
> manufacturer could come up with. Commodore allowed for up to two disk
> drives. Unfortunately, in order to add a second disk drive you
> literally had to cut a trace on the second drive's circuit board to
> access it as drive number 2.
The Commodore serial bus allows for up to 22 devices. The drives that
Commodore made allowed for up to 4.
Older 1541's had two jumpers inside the drive which could be cut to change
the device number. The default is device #8.
Alternatively, you can "softwire" a drive to temporarily alter it's device
number.
Anything made after the 1541-II drive, has switches in the back that can be
flipped with a ball-point pen, to alter the device number.
CMD FD and HD drives can be set to any of 8 possible numbers by hardware (FD
only) or the full 22-device range in sofware (HD and FD, HD retains it's
device number permanently even after shutdown).
> Commodore's file management was absolutely primitive in comparison and
> relied on typing arcane device numbers (that had to be memorized).
> Here's an example of displaying a file list from drive number one:
> (note: I apologize if I make a mistake)
>
> LOAD "$",8,1
> LIST
You made two mistakes here.
1) You don't use a ,1 when loading a directory, else it'll overwrite screen
memory.
2) Any idiot already knows to get a DOS extension program to take care of
this problem. Commodore even supplied one on thier 1541 Test/DEMO disk
called "DOS 5.1".
You load it, SYS 52224 and the wedge is active. It stays out of the way of
BASIC programs, and most smaller ML extensions are compatible as well.
With it and any other DOS extension (JiffyDOS and virtually all utility
cartridges), a simple command like...
@$
...displays the disk directory immediately, without having to load it first.
> Please bear in mind that Atari's DOS is in no way perfect. I could
> easily think of a half dozen major problems (which were corrected by
> other manufacturer's DOS replacements such as SPARTADOS, ADOS, etc).
> The upshot is that, because of Commodore's horrendous DOS, alot of
> people who bought C-64's ended up throwing them in a closet, never
> seeing the light of day again.
All of the C64's DOS, Kernal, and disk speed shortcomings are taken care of
as well shortly after it's release.
Commodore even saw fit to release an updated DOS in thier Commodore 128
series, which contained a much better DOS structure as well as faster serial
speeds.
> excelled in the support of it's graphics/sound hardware. The C-64
> Basic HAD ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT FOR IT'S HARDWARE! A programmer for
> the C-64 litterally had to resort to POKE's and PEEK's and Machine
> code to achieve what the Atari could do with a few simple lines of
> BASIC code or buy a separate BASIC extender utility such as SIMON'S
> BASIC.
Or download one off your favorite BBS.
BASIC extension programs have been around for years. The first one I got
toplay with was SuperBASIC, which was a type-in program in Compute's First
Book of the Commodore 64.
Sure you had to buy the book, but most anyone who needed the program could
find someone who had it back then.
> C-64: (SID chip) three 16-bit voices with full control of ADSR
Three 8-bit voices.
The 16-bit facility is the frequency register. The actual output is 8-bits,
while internally the waveform is 24 bits.
> once. The number of actual displayable colors is closer to just 4
> within any specific area of the screen (some reasons for this will be
The C64's limit was destroyed with the advent of FLI, IFLI, UIFLI and other
extended graphics modes.
Any dusty old C64 can display these modes right outof the box. It was a
matter of using the hardware more fully.
> Commodore's sprite system is much more sophisticated. I believe the
> C-64 has 8 separate sprites, each one being 24 pixels wide by 24
24 by 21.
> pixels tall, each having 3 colors.( Note: some sprite colors are
> shared by all sprites). Also, C-64 horizontal sprite resolution is
You can mix and match 3-color and single-color sprites as you please.
#-color sprites have a resolution of 12x21 (where each pixel is composed of
two hires pixels, to get the extended color info).
> can easily be moved both horizontally and VERTICALLY. I don't believe
> hardware collision detection is supported. (someone please tell me if
> I'm in error)
Hardware collision is fully supported for both Sprite-to-sprite and
sprite-to-background-data collisions.
The VIC chip will detect either type of collision and set bits appropriately
in it's collision registers. Those bits remain set until they are read.
> Unfortunately, the C-64's hardware scrolling is limited and, when
> implemented, necessitates the use of a smaller display screen (with
> larger, much more noticeable black boards). Also, after moving the
> screen 8 pixels either horizontally or vertically, the screen
> ulimately must be repainted one pixel at a time.
Unless you use FLD or VSP, tricks which cause the VIC chip to move the
screen for you an unlimited distance either vertically or horizontally.
Again any dusty old C64 can do this right out of the box.
> Atari's graphics subsystem also allowed for something that has no
> parallel on the C-64: DISPLAY LISTS.
<snip descripotion of display lists>
Most of the techniques and display methods you describe here have been done
to death on the C64. Displaying a text screen along with hires and multi
color bitmaps, and other modes in between....
I've seen it all. In fact, I've even used one or two such display types in
old programs.
Any dusty old C64 has this capability right out of the box. This includes
manipulating the sound and other chips as well. Most demos use these
effects.
The C128 even had a couple of split-screen modes built into it's operating
system.
> In comparison to the Atari, the C-64's number of display modes
> appear grossly inadequate. There's just three major modes: text
> (40x25), medium res (160x200), and high res (320x200). Believe it or
You forget other modes such as FLI, IFLI, and UIFLI.
> the screen. Unfortunately, the C-64's RASTER INTERRUPT method isn't as
> flexible and takes a great deal more effort to accomplish more than
The rester interrupt method used on the C64 is quite flexible.
It takes two lines (5 bytes) of code to move the raster interrupt position
around on screen:
LDA $D019 ; Clear interrupt source
LDA #somerasterline ; Set new interrupt.
STA $D012
The hardware will take care of resetting the interrupt to occur at the new
position.
Display lists, unless handled entirely by the video hardware, are nothing
unique to the Atari. If the program has toprocess the display list to keep
it active, then ithas no real advantage.
> graphics modes on the screen) the C-64's only method of mixing display
> modes on the screen is through the use of RASTER INTERRUPTS.
Or one can use the tried and true method of waiting for the desired
rasterline (by polling $D012) before triggering the desired effect or
display mode.
Most demos use this method, as it requires less overhead than a raster IRQ.
> Atari only allows for half (128). This problems can be circumvented on
> the Atari by changing the character set pointer in midscreen during a
> DISPLAY LIST INTERRUPT.
As can the C64.
> Judging from the above specs, Atari's are about 60% faster than the
> C-64. However, there's a very major caveat. Unlike the C-64, Atari's
> display hardware steels cycles from the 6502 processor, thus degrading
As does the video chip in the C64. Disable it (by turning off the display
via a register in the VIC) and you get about a 10% increase in speed.
> one additional problem. For some reason, keboard access on the C-64
> interfered with reading the first joystick one, which effectively made
> a computer with ONE JOYSTICK PORT.
Nope, it's just a bug in the C64's stock keyboard read routine.
Any smart programmer knows how to separate keyboard accesses (point shorts
in the keyboard matrix) from joystick movements (entire rows or columns
being grounded).
Compute was one magazine that published a type-in driver program for this
very thing.
> initializing routiner, would reset all the hardware registers by
> writing zeros into the entire register space. Unfortunately, doing
> this to the new bank switching port causes the operating system to be
> switched out. Without the operating system the computer immediately
> CRASHES! STUPID ATARI!!!!!! Luckily, programs could easily be modified
> to prevent this crash. I've even done it myself with BERZERK and a few
> others. Still, it was a major headace for many Atari users who
> upgraded to the new Ataris
>
> WINNER: ATARI
Seems to me that in many of the places where you say the Atari is the
winner, the result is really the opposite or a draw.
You need to double check your facts before you compare two machines. I
don't know anything about the Atari, so I'll take your word for it that what
you state is correct.
--
___________________________________________________________________
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ronald A. Laski, Jr.
I am a die hard Atari fan (i've used a C64 a few times, but for overall
speed, usefulness, and for playing games, Atari, for me, always wins
hands down) Now, if i can get past my own personal bias :) I only wanted
to say: If the Vic20 and the C64 came out 3 years AFTER the Atari, and
best argument is simply that the C64 was (only!) COMPARABLE to the Atari,
sounds to me like the Atari had a much more sound design to it. In other
words, if Atari had been around for 3 years, you'd think the
'competition' would come out w/ the 'Next Gen' machine...
On a side note, I did come real close to picking up an INFO (or Info 64)
mag once, I was interested in buying an ST, and this particular issue
compared the ST to the Amiga. Since the magazine was Commodore-centric,
they pointed out that if you wanted to get all the capabilities with an
ST that you get 'out of the box' with an Amiga, you'd have to buy all
this other stuff. And what I noticed was, (and i'm hoping someone
remembers this article), if you took away the $500 synthesizer from the
ST side, then, for less than the price of an Amiga, you could get an ST
with all of these other goodies! :)
Just my two cents! :)
--
Ron
rla...@midwest.net
are...@my-dejanews.com
aar...@localnet.com wrote:
> manufacturer could come up with. Commodore allowed for up to two disk
> drives. Unfortunately, in order to add a second disk drive you
> literally had to cut a trace on the second drive's circuit board to
> access it as drive number 2.
You can connect up to four floppies, device numbers 8-11 (unless older
1540's and 1541's could only do 8 or 9). There are two traces on the 1541's
PCB that can be cut to address up to four drives.
> Atari's manuals were your standard bit of fluff that was thinner than
> the included catalog of products (some earlier Atari's also came with
> a reasonable BASIC programming manual but contained only passing info
> on Atari's graphics and sound hardware).
Amen to that... After about six months of owning a VIC-20, my parents, at
the suggestion of my elementary school math teacher, bought me an Atari 800XL
and a disk drive. The Atari setup lasted three days because I got frustrated
with it very quickly (I was only 9 years old at the time and knew only a
little bit about BASIC and a tiny bit of ML). The 800XL went back to the
store, and I was happy to go back to my VIC-20 even though it had much less
memory and lower- res graphics. Then my parents gave me a 64 about six months
later which probably made more sense for them financially anyway - I could
keep the 1541 drive and the horrendous 1525 printer that I had been using
with the VIC.
> sprite is equal in size to two pixels of a C-64 sprite. C-64 sprites
> can easily be moved both horizontally and VERTICALLY. I don't believe
> hardware collision detection is supported. (someone please tell me if
> I'm in error)
Hardware collision detection is supported, but there are some caveats about
it with multicolor sprites (certain bit patterns are interpreted as
"background" by the collision hardware and don't count in the collision).
Also, there is just one register that tells you if a sprite has collided with
another - it doesn't tell you WHICH sprites in particular are overlapping.
For example, the register could report that sprites 0, 1, 6, and 7 are
colliding. But is 0 colliding with 1 and 6 colliding with 7? Or is 0
colliding with 6 and 7 colliding with 1? Or ... (you get the idea).
> one additional problem. For some reason, keboard access on the C-64
> interfered with reading the first joystick one, which effectively made
> a computer with ONE JOYSTICK PORT.
I respectfully disagree. My father and I used to play "One-On-One" (Dr. J &
Larry Bird) with both joysticks plugged in and no problems at all. Agreed,
however, a programmer had to more careful about reading the joystick port on
the 64 than on an Atari. I think both computers are about equal despite my
early bad experience with Atari. I continued to read about the Atari 8-bit
and ST stuff after the 800XL went back to the store and found it very
interesting even though I no longer had one to play with. If my parents had
given me the 800XL when I was, say 11 or 12 (by that time I was proficient
with Commodore, Apple, and Radio Shaft), I probably would have kept it :-)
Greg
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
R. Ebus
With much interest I've been lurking this group, and it's only until now
that I actually contribute something...
Reading about the classic arguments between the Atari & C64 lovers...
Man does this bring back some memories...
ER... But you all will get this a lot, I guess... Every new poster
starting to ramble on the good old days, so I'll just skip that and get
my own 2pence worth into this discussion.
It's just the fact that whether the C64 or Atari was better (or worse..
whatever).. The C64 users actually improved the machine by abusing those
errors... Stuff like FLI and more than 8 sprites and loadsa other stuff
were only possible because of an original design flaw of the machine.
No need to tell, that I've enjoyed those bugs (and sometimes still
do!)...
Cya'll,
Remi
Tachyon / MEGA - Industries
"War doesn't decide who's right. War decides who's left."
Aaron
>originally chipped with, no argument there.
My original Atari 800XL power supply died after about a year of
purchasing the system new.
>
>Some had failures of other components as well, most noteably the PLA.
>
What's the PLA? Does it stand for Programmed Logic Array. Was it the
chip responsible for joystick/keyboard/serial access? I'm too lazy to
go into the next room to check out my C64 books.
>The standard loading speed on a C64 is anywhere from 2400 BPS to over 25,000
>(25 thousand) BPS.
I find the maximum output of 25,000 bits per second to be highly
unlikely. This would mean a reasonably large C-64 program could
theoretically be loaded in about 15 seconds...a speed comperable to
the Apple II disk drive mechanism. Regardless, whatever speed increase
was accomplished via additions that came out years after the C64's
introduction (I think just a few short months before the C-128's
introduction).
>The Commodore serial bus allows for up to 22 devices. The drives that
>Commodore made allowed for up to 4.
Wasn't aware of that.
>
>Older 1541's had two jumpers inside the drive which could be cut to change
>the device number. The default is device #8.
...and the second would be device 9. Correct?
>Anything made after the 1541-II drive, has switches in the back that can be
>flipped with a ball-point pen, to alter the device number.
>
I was aware of that...which is why I specified "older drives."
>CMD FD and HD drives can be set to any of 8 possible numbers by hardware (FD
>only) or the full 22-device range in sofware (HD and FD, HD retains it's
>device number permanently even after shutdown).
How does the HD retain the device number if it's accomplished only in
software?
FD stands for Floppy Drive? HD stands for Hard Drive? What does CMD
stand for?
>
>> Commodore's file management was absolutely primitive in comparison and
>> relied on typing arcane device numbers (that had to be memorized).
>> Here's an example of displaying a file list from drive number one:
>> (note: I apologize if I make a mistake)
>>
>> LOAD "$",8,1
>> LIST
>
>You made two mistakes here.
>
>1) You don't use a ,1 when loading a directory, else it'll overwrite screen
>memory.
I had a hunch I made a mistake. It's been awhile since I used a Commie
>
>2) Any idiot already knows to get a DOS extension program to take care of
>this problem. Commodore even supplied one on thier 1541 Test/DEMO disk
>called "DOS 5.1".
>
>You load it, SYS 52224 and the wedge is active. It stays out of the way of
>BASIC programs, and most smaller ML extensions are compatible as well.
>
>With it and any other DOS extension (JiffyDOS and virtually all utility
>cartridges), a simple command like...
>
>@$
>
>...displays the disk directory immediately, without having to load it first.
I think, with the above info, you've confirmed what I said. Commodore
DOS was absolutely arcane.
>> Please bear in mind that Atari's DOS is in no way perfect. I could
>> easily think of a half dozen major problems (which were corrected by
>> other manufacturer's DOS replacements such as SPARTADOS, ADOS, etc).
>> The upshot is that, because of Commodore's horrendous DOS, alot of
>> people who bought C-64's ended up throwing them in a closet, never
>> seeing the light of day again.
>
>All of the C64's DOS, Kernal, and disk speed shortcomings are taken care of
>as well shortly after it's release.
Not by Commodore. They did eventually come out with the 1571 drive
which, when combined with the C-128, gave a noticeable improvement in
speed over the older model. Unfortunately, the 1571 connected to a
C-64 did nothing. Regardless, even the 1571/C-128 combo was still
awfully slow compared to even Atari's not-so-fast drives.
I had forgotten to add that one trade-off for the reduced speed was
about 50% increase in storage space over Atari formatted disks. Also,
Atari filenames were limited to a pitiful 8 characters with an
extension of another 3. No computer company would have ever been
stupid enough to repeat that mistake!!! (Wink, wink! Nudge, nudge :-)
)
>
>> C-64: (SID chip) three 16-bit voices with full control of ADSR
>
>Three 8-bit voices.
>
>The 16-bit facility is the frequency register. The actual output is 8-bits,
>while internally the waveform is 24 bits.
How can the output be only 8-bits if the frequency facility was
16-bit? It doesn't make sense.
>
>> once. The number of actual displayable colors is closer to just 4
>> within any specific area of the screen (some reasons for this will be
>
>The C64's limit was destroyed with the advent of FLI, IFLI, UIFLI and other
>extended graphics modes.
FLI, IFLI, UIFLI?????? What do these mean?
>> Commodore's sprite system is much more sophisticated. I believe the
>> C-64 has 8 separate sprites, each one being 24 pixels wide by 24
>
>24 by 21.
I was certain about 24 (exactly 3 bytes) across but wasn't exactly
sure of the vertical amount.
>
>> pixels tall, each having 3 colors.( Note: some sprite colors are
>> shared by all sprites). Also, C-64 horizontal sprite resolution is
>
>You can mix and match 3-color and single-color sprites as you please.
>#-color sprites have a resolution of 12x21 (where each pixel is composed of
>two hires pixels, to get the extended color info).
Oops. made a small mistake.
>> can easily be moved both horizontally and VERTICALLY. I don't believe
>> hardware collision detection is supported. (someone please tell me if
>> I'm in error)
>
>Hardware collision is fully supported for both Sprite-to-sprite and
>sprite-to-background-data collisions.
Yeah, I thought I was a shaky ground there.
>The VIC chip will detect either type of collision and set bits appropriately
>in it's collision registers. Those bits remain set until they are read.
>
>> Unfortunately, the C-64's hardware scrolling is limited and, when
>> implemented, necessitates the use of a smaller display screen (with
>> larger, much more noticeable black boards). Also, after moving the
>> screen 8 pixels either horizontally or vertically, the screen
>> ulimately must be repainted one pixel at a time.
>
>Unless you use FLD or VSP, tricks which cause the VIC chip to move the
>screen for you an unlimited distance either vertically or horizontally.
>
What is FLD and VSP? I'd really like to know about this trickery. I
don't remember this being listed in my books! If I remember correctly,
the VIC's internal addressing scheme was 14 bit and could only access
a 16K bank of the C-64's memory at any moment (a separate hardware
register allowed one to change which 16K bank was accessed). Am I
wrong?
>> Atari's graphics subsystem also allowed for something that has no
>> parallel on the C-64: DISPLAY LISTS.
>
><snip descripotion of display lists>
>
>Most of the techniques and display methods you describe here have been done
>to death on the C64. Displaying a text screen along with hires and multi
>color bitmaps, and other modes in between....
>
>I've seen it all. In fact, I've even used one or two such display types in
>old programs.
>
>Any dusty old C64 has this capability right out of the box. This includes
>manipulating the sound and other chips as well. Most demos use these
>effects.
Yes, I'm aware of the the C-64's ability to "simulate" Atari's display
lists via software. I believe I mentioned it in the article. However,
It's much more processor intensive than Atari's method. Also, because
of the C-64's limited display modes, it isn't as important.
>
>The C128 even had a couple of split-screen modes built into it's operating
>system.
Yeah. I completely overlooked the C-128's new and improved BASIC. It
was by far the best version of BASIC ever pre-packaged with an 8-bit
computer. I tried not to discuss the specifics of the C-128/C-128D
because the number of them sold was dwarfed by the various C-64 level
incarnations.
>
>> In comparison to the Atari, the C-64's number of display modes
>> appear grossly inadequate. There's just three major modes: text
>> (40x25), medium res (160x200), and high res (320x200). Believe it or
>
>You forget other modes such as FLI, IFLI, and UIFLI.
I'VE NEVER HEARD OF FLI, IFLI, AND UIFLI!!!!! Please, please, please
tell me more (or direct me to a URL that contains the information). I
love to be surprised about the capabilities of old computers.
>> the screen. Unfortunately, the C-64's RASTER INTERRUPT method isn't as
>> flexible and takes a great deal more effort to accomplish more than
>
>The rester interrupt method used on the C64 is quite flexible.
>
>It takes two lines (5 bytes) of code to move the raster interrupt position
>around on screen:
>
>LDA $D019 ; Clear interrupt source
>LDA #somerasterline ; Set new interrupt.
>STA $D012
That's 10 wasted machine cycles that the Atari doesn't doesn't need to
throw away. This might not seem like much until one calculates 10 by
the frame rate of 60 hertz for a grand total of 600 wasted machine
cycles per second. If, for some odd reason, one wanted to cause a
raster interrupt on all 200 lines we'd be wasting 120,000 machine
cycles more than the Atari's method. That's a healthy chunk of the
C-64's (roughly) 1,020,000 total cycles per second.
>The hardware will take care of resetting the interrupt to occur at the new
>position.
>
>Display lists, unless handled entirely by the video hardware, are nothing
>unique to the Atari. If the program has toprocess the display list to keep
>it active, then ithas no real advantage.
The whole idea of a Display List is to be hardware based. The overhead
in maintaining Atari's display list is minimal to nonexistent (except
for that irritating ANTIC bug of crossing a 4K boarder via an
unnecessary Load Memory Scan (LMS). Heck I've even set up multiple
display lists to point to each other in order to create full screen
animation without ANY PROCESSOR INTERVENTION!! WOW!! I just got a full
body shiver just thinking about that one.
>
>> graphics modes on the screen) the C-64's only method of mixing display
>> modes on the screen is through the use of RASTER INTERRUPTS.
>
>Or one can use the tried and true method of waiting for the desired
>rasterline (by polling $D012) before triggering the desired effect or
>display mode.
Pulease....that would waste more processor cycles than setting up a
raster interrupt. Unless you're into politics, POLLING IS NOT AN
OPTION!!
>Most demos use this method, as it requires less overhead than a raster IRQ.
>
>> Atari only allows for half (128). This problems can be circumvented on
>> the Atari by changing the character set pointer in midscreen during a
>> DISPLAY LIST INTERRUPT.
>
>As can the C64.
Because (I believe) of the 16K limitation of the VIC II chip,
character set pointer changes are a bit limited.
>> Judging from the above specs, Atari's are about 60% faster than the
>> C-64. However, there's a very major caveat. Unlike the C-64, Atari's
>> display hardware steels cycles from the 6502 processor, thus degrading
>
>As does the video chip in the C64. Disable it (by turning off the display
>via a register in the VIC) and you get about a 10% increase in speed.
Yes, I was being a bit simplistic in my explanation. The VIC chip does
steal cycles but, compared to the Atari, the amount of cycle
"stealing" between the various display modes is pretty much the same.
Question: Does the processor run at an apparent 1.02 Megahertz before
or after the VIC II chip is turned off? Also, I believe some
telecommunications programs would turn off the VIC II chip when trying
to transfer serial data at the highest possible rate.
>> one additional problem. For some reason, keboard access on the C-64
>> interfered with reading the first joystick one, which effectively made
>> a computer with ONE JOYSTICK PORT.
>
>Nope, it's just a bug in the C64's stock keyboard read routine.
>
>Any smart programmer knows how to separate keyboard accesses (point shorts
>in the keyboard matrix) from joystick movements (entire rows or columns
>being grounded).
I've always found C-64 keyboard/Joystick access to be very confusing.
It always seemed a bit odd and a waste of processor time (compared to
Atari's and even Apple II's method of reading a single register for
the key press and a separate register for joystick reading.)
>> initializing routiner, would reset all the hardware registers by
>> writing zeros into the entire register space. Unfortunately, doing
>> this to the new bank switching port causes the operating system to be
>> switched out. Without the operating system the computer immediately
>> CRASHES! STUPID ATARI!!!!!! Luckily, programs could easily be modified
>> to prevent this crash. I've even done it myself with BERZERK and a few
>> others. Still, it was a major headace for many Atari users who
>> upgraded to the new Ataris
>>
>> WINNER: ATARI
>
>Seems to me that in many of the places where you say the Atari is the
>winner, the result is really the opposite or a draw.
Yeah, I know. It's not always easy to separate one's emotional
connection with a computer versus one's intellectual understanding.
However, I still stand by the end results. While typing the original
article I began to remember serious flaws with the Atari ST design
which seemed to be a carry over from the C-64 (after all, Shirav
Shivgi happened to design both computers). Although programmers were
able to eak out quite a bit of performance out of the Atari ST, I've
always felt that it was a has-been from day one (in comparison to the
much more sophisticated Amiga).
>
>You need to double check your facts before you compare two machines. I
>don't know anything about the Atari, so I'll take your word for it that what
>you state is correct.
>
I don't think I did that badly. I believe I have a good basic (albeit
somewhat flawed) understanding of both machines. Admittedly, my
knowledge of the Atari is somewhat greater because I've actually
programmed the thing with both BASIC and MACHINE CODE. I've done very
little of either on the C-64 (although I've spent many hours over the
years pooring through various C-64 programming documentation).
On the level of learning to program graphics hardware, I feel the
Atari is by far the better choice. For understanding how to program
sound, the Commodore 64's SID chip is far-and-away superior (even
though I considered both machine's sound hardware to be a draw). Also,
Atari's operating system is a thing of beauty whereas the C-64's
kernel has a generational, quilt-like feeling similar to, although not
quite as bad as, that of the Apple II computer.
Despite my apparent biases, you must agree that it's interesting how 3
computers (Atari, C64, Apple II) share the same "brain" and yet are
all so very different. It's a tribute to what the human mind is
capable of.
Aaron
and saviour. Nowadays, when my virus (WIN95) gets infected by a bug,
the hard drive mysteriously gets fumigated and the computer implodes
faster than the U.S.S. Thresher!
Aaron
>the suggestion of my elementary school math teacher, bought me an Atari 800XL
>and a disk drive. The Atari setup lasted three days because I got frustrated
>with it very quickly (I was only 9 years old at the time and knew only a
>little bit about BASIC and a tiny bit of ML). The 800XL went back to the
>store, and I was happy to go back to my VIC-20 even though it had much less
>memory and lower- res graphics. Then my parents gave me a 64 about six months
>later which probably made more sense for them financially anyway - I could
>keep the 1541 drive and the horrendous 1525 printer that I had been using
>with the VIC.
Was the 1525 printer the dot matrix thing with the printout that
looked like a child's rendition of computer printing and a ribbon that
had to be replace every couple of months?
>> sprite is equal in size to two pixels of a C-64 sprite. C-64 sprites
>> can easily be moved both horizontally and VERTICALLY. I don't believe
>> hardware collision detection is supported. (someone please tell me if
>> I'm in error)
>
> Hardware collision detection is supported, but there are some caveats about
>it with multicolor sprites (certain bit patterns are interpreted as
>"background" by the collision hardware and don't count in the collision).
>Also, there is just one register that tells you if a sprite has collided with
>another - it doesn't tell you WHICH sprites in particular are overlapping.
>For example, the register could report that sprites 0, 1, 6, and 7 are
>colliding. But is 0 colliding with 1 and 6 colliding with 7? Or is 0
>colliding with 6 and 7 colliding with 1? Or ... (you get the idea).
That does sound nasty.
>> one additional problem. For some reason, keboard access on the C-64
>> interfered with reading the first joystick one, which effectively made
>> a computer with ONE JOYSTICK PORT.
>
> I respectfully disagree. My father and I used to play "One-On-One" (Dr. J &
>Larry Bird) with both joysticks plugged in and no problems at all. Agreed,
>however, a programmer had to more careful about reading the joystick port on
>the 64 than on an Atari. I think both computers are about equal despite my
>early bad experience with Atari. I continued to read about the Atari 8-bit
>and ST stuff after the 800XL went back to the store and found it very
>interesting even though I no longer had one to play with. If my parents had
>given me the 800XL when I was, say 11 or 12 (by that time I was proficient
>with Commodore, Apple, and Radio Shaft), I probably would have kept it :-)
>
>Greg
>
A close friend (he lived just 3 houses from me) liked purchasing
Commodore equipment (first the Vic 20 then the 64) and, based on what
I saw at his house, I almost purchased one in late 1984. Why did I go
for an Atari 800XL instead? When I walked into Child World with cash
in hand I found out the Atari was just marked down to $89.95; a full
$25 less than the C64. Of course, I had to wait six months before I
got a disk drive, which was almost double the price of the CPU!!!!!
Cameron Kaiser
days of the Speccy flame war? Please, folks.
--
Cameron Kaiser * cdkaiser.cris@com * powered by eight bits * operating on faith
-- supporting the Commodore 64/128: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/cwi/ --
head moderator comp.binaries.cbm * cbm special forces unit $ea31 (tincsf)
personal page http://calvin.ptloma.edu/~spectre/ * "when in doubt, take a pawn"
Etienne von Wettingfeld
wrote:
>Didn't we tire of the 'my computer can beat up your computer' back in the
>days of the Speccy flame war? Please, folks.
Rather that then 'my Linux is better then your Windows'. I kinda miss
the days when there were 2001 different computers. Now it's all PC
with an ocasional Apple thrown in.
Etienne!
-- Homepage --> http://www.doomdark.demon.nl/
-- MOO --> NowMOO | http://www.dds.nl/~nowmoo/
-- IRC --> irc.NL.net | Chaos_One | #AmigaNL
-- ICQ --> UIN 2559832 (Authorize)
Kenneth Rempfer
which may outdate the 400/800 release in 1979, but predate all of
the xl/xe machines and predates the c64 machine. The whole scene
before 1983 was different on many levels. I credit the c64 with
opening up the 8-bit pc market by driving prices down. There were
some premium games avail for 8bit atari before 83, but with the c64
came lower prices and was followed by a software boom for both
platforms. Lets face it, more users (due to lower machine prices)
attracted more programmers.
One last note: The copyright in my copy of VisiCalc for Atari 800
is 1981.
>Well and good, but isn't it still the case that De Re Atari post-dates the
>release of the machine significantly? The Commodore Programmer's
Steve Judd
You're opening up a can of worms here :)
In article <01be4326$0a91d420$5b364382@vidar>,
Vidar \"Hawk\" Olavesen <ola...@online.no> wrote:
>> > I do think the Atari has a little more speed to boost. I coded some
>demos on
>> > the Atari and still haven't seen any on the C64 which uses the machine.
>My
>> > friend is totally awestruck by the C64 sound, but the colours on the
>Atari
>> > is a big plus.
re: colors. Remember that while the Atari has a large palette, the screen
colors are fetched from registers. Compare with the 64, which has
a smaller palette, but fetches colors from RAM. Thus while the
Atari has more colors, the 64 is in general more colorful.
>like to see. I do like the C64 more now than I did then, but I still keep
>the edge on the Atari.
I do think it's worth mentioning that there are programs other than
demos, and these programs are really what sell a computer -- to wit,
games and application software. I would claim that color RAM, sprites,
custom characters, and good sound are very valuable to the former,
and that simple things such as hardware timers are very valuable
to the latter.
Toss in a full 64K of RAM and decent hardware expansion ports and
you've got a winner; stick a decent price tag on it, and suddenly
it's pretty easy to see why the 64 was so dominant. While I like
the Atari, I of course give more than an edge to the 64.
-Steve
Jason
> I find the maximum output of 25,000 bits per second to be highly
> unlikely. This would mean a reasonably large C-64 program could
> theoretically be loaded in about 15 seconds...a speed comperable to
> the Apple II disk drive mechanism.
202 blocks loaded in six seconds, including the drive's getting the head
ready, under an Action Replay 6 or the external strip a hacker did of
it's fastloader. The AR claims 25X stock speed and JiffyDOS and
DolphinDOS are both faster.
> Regardless, whatever speed increase was accomplished via additions
> that came out years after the C64's introduction (I think just a few
> short months before the C-128's introduction).
Software fastloads were around in 1983 that could manage about 10X to
15X standard speed. The bad memories most people have of long loads are
due to programmer negligence in not using a speeder.
Nate:
> Older 1541's had two jumpers inside the drive which could be cut to
> change the device number. The default is device #8.
Aaron:
> ...and the second would be device 9. Correct?
Yup, and the third and fourth were 10 and 11. Tape was 1 and the
printer normally 4.
> FD stands for Floppy Drive? HD stands for Hard Drive? What does CMD
> stand for?
Yes, yes and because someone stole their seats. Err, no CMD is Creative
Micro Designs, who still sell C= equipment and software. They
manufacture C64 hard drives and 3.5" floppy drives, as well as doing a
load of other products.
> I think, with the above info, you've confirmed what I said. Commodore
> DOS was absolutely arcane.
Depends on your idea of arcane, if you don't know what "dir" means
you're not going anywhere fast and if you don't know, for example, that
the Amstrad CPC uses "cat" instead... I'm used to hitting F3 for a
directory, or typing LOAD"$",8 if I haven't got an Action Replay (a
*rare* occurrence).
Aaron:
> Please bear in mind that Atari's DOS is in no way perfect. I could
> easily think of a half dozen major problems (which were corrected by
> other manufacturer's DOS replacements such as SPARTADOS, ADOS, etc).
^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nate:
> All of the C64's DOS, Kernal, and disk speed shortcomings are taken
> care of as well shortly after it's release.
Aaron:
> Not by Commodore.
Best read what you said above, Aaron.
Nate:
> The C64's limit was destroyed with the advent of FLI, IFLI, UIFLI and
> other extended graphics modes.
Aaron:
> FLI, IFLI, UIFLI?????? What do these mean?
All three are generated using bugs in the vertical smooth-scroll
register $D011 and increase the colour resolution and, apart from FLI,
the screen resolution above the standard hardware specs. None are
documented features of the chip.
Nate:
> Unless you use FLD or VSP, tricks which cause the VIC chip to move the
> screen for you an unlimited distance either vertically or
> horizontally.
Aaron:
> What is FLD and VSP?
Flexible Line Distancing and Variable Screen Positioning. The former
can push an entire 10,000 byte bitmap downwards by 1 to 200 pixels, the
latter can move the screen horizontally by up to 320 pixels. Both are
more bugs with $D011 and undocumented.
Nate made a slight slip with his description, the trick to move an
unlimited distance horizontally is a variant of VSP called LineCrunching
(sometimes called a "wanker" routine by the European coders, for reasons
I've not managed to get out of 'em yet... =-) but is again a $D011 bug
and again undocumented.
> I'd really like to know about this trickery. I don't remember this
> being listed in my books!
They won't be, along with upper and lower borders, sideborders, Half
FLI, AHires and a load of other stuff. The C64 coders invented all
these modes using what Commodore supplied and making do what it
shouldn't. And, as someone who has done most of the above, they're a
bugger to do an' all, and that's half the fun of it. =-)
> If I remember correctly, the VIC's internal addressing scheme was 14
> bit and could only access a 16K bank of the C-64's memory at any
> moment (a separate hardware register allowed one to change which 16K
> bank was accessed). Am I wrong?
No, that's right. But you could change that bank on every rasterline.
With FLIP (a variant on FLI) it's possible to split where the C64 is
getting it's character and screen data from on every rasterline from
almost anywhere in the memory.
> Yes, I'm aware of the the C-64's ability to "simulate" Atari's display
> lists via software. I believe I mentioned it in the article. However,
> It's much more processor intensive than Atari's method. Also, because
> of the C-64's limited display modes, it isn't as important.
Nope, we all live in raster interrupts, believe me. The extended modes
Nate listed all rely on them, as do the border tricks and a load of
other stuff. 'Sides which, how else do you get away with loading at the
same time as running an effect...? =-)
Nate:
> It takes two lines (5 bytes) of code to move the raster interrupt
> position around on screen:
> LDA $D019 ; Clear interrupt source
> LDA #somerasterline ; Set new interrupt.
> STA $D012
Aaron:
> If, for some odd reason, one wanted to cause a raster interrupt on all
> 200 lines we'd be wasting 120,000 machine cycles more than the Atari's
> method. That's a healthy chunk of the C-64's (roughly) 1,020,000 total
> cycles per second.
You don't do it that way, you just wait for the raster to kick in at the
top and lock the interrupt into a loop until you're done. Take the
ESCOS routines for example.
ESCOS is the 1001 Crew's Expanded Screen COnstruction System, it uses 56
horizontally and vertically expanded sprites to fill the entire screen,
including all four borders. Sideborders on the C64 is a *very*
processor intensive job (and a git to time as well) and every rasterline
that you want open has to perform some trickery to use a bug in $D016
(horizontal smooth-scroll and, surprise surprise, not documented) and
ESCOS runs for just under 300 lines.
Of course, at 300 lines, it's a PAL routine, BTW... =-)
Nate:
> Or one can use the tried and true method of waiting for the desired
> rasterline (by polling $D012) before triggering the desired effect or
> display mode.
Aaron:
> Pulease....that would waste more processor cycles than setting up a
> raster interrupt. Unless you're into politics, POLLING IS NOT AN
> OPTION!!
It can and *has* been done and it's more efficient than you seem to
think. I actually tend towards doing the equivilent on a raster,
trigger the first position and wait for various others down the frame.
Means my runtime code is normally a JMP back to itself...
> Because (I believe) of the 16K limitation of the VIC II chip,
> character set pointer changes are a bit limited.
There is room for seven character sets in bank 1 and bank 3 (allowing
for a screen in there too, of course) and you would only need five to
fill an entire screen with different character definitions. Not a
problem.
> Yes, I was being a bit simplistic in my explanation. The VIC chip does
> steal cycles but, compared to the Atari, the amount of cycle
> "stealing" between the various display modes is pretty much the same.
The extended modes that Nate has mentioned produce much higher VIC-II
overheads, FLI and it's variants force the VIC-II to produce more "bad"
lines, so instead of one in every eight rasterlines stealing some CPU
time, they all do it.
Steve Judd
In article <MPG.110f7b4d6...@news.midwest.net>,
Ronald A. Laski, Jr. <rla...@midwest.net> wrote:
>I am a die hard Atari fan (i've used a C64 a few times, but for overall
A few times?
>speed, usefulness, and for playing games, Atari, for me, always wins
>hands down) Now, if i can get past my own personal bias :) I only wanted
>to say: If the Vic20 and the C64 came out 3 years AFTER the Atari, and
>best argument is simply that the C64 was (only!) COMPARABLE to the Atari,
I believe you are perhaps missing the bigger picture here: it is the
Atari people that are saying that the 64 is comparable to the Atari.
This quite a step up from the "Atari, designed by deities and known
only to a chosen few, was overwhelmingly superior to the 64 which only
sold well due to cheapness and C= 'dirty tricks'" argument of a year ago.
In fact, it seems to me that if _Atari_ people think it is comparable,
then it must indeed be quite markedly superior!
-Steve :)
Steve Judd
Jason <t...@cosine.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Stephen C. Johnson:
>
>> I love both machines now, and love talking about them. Still not
>> crazy about those Apple IIs, though..... ;)
>
>I've never had a play with an Apple II, but from the info I've seen they
>don't really seem to be all that much... I was fond of the Atari and if
Well, spec sheets can be quite deceptive. The Apple II had something
which neither the Atari nor 64 had: slots. Not only could you add
all kind of graphics and sound cards, I recall things like 286 boards
and IBM emulators, when I was in high school! Add in a decent BASIC,
a built-in monitor, and a whole lot of software, and it's an OK
machine.
It also had one other thing Atari and 64 never had: support!
The downside of this is that Apple 8-bit people got so dependent
on Apple that they have forgotten how to "fend for themselves"
(at least, this is my impression) -- now that Apple is no longer
supporting them, the 8-bit people seem in trouble.
-S
Steve Judd
Curt Vendel <cve...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Jason,
>
> Thats totally incorrect. From day one, Atari released the entire
>source code to the OS for the 400/800, they were instrumental in the
Hmmmm, seems to me that an argument of a year ago was that the Atari
had such a great OS that you never had to modify it or know how it
worked.
Besides, disassembling code is pretty easy. When did Atari release
detailed hardware descriptions, though? That is, the graphics hardware
specs, how to access the graphics -- descriptions of each bit of
every hardware register byte? Did Atari _ever_ release this info?
-Steve
Steve Judd
In article <JATIC...@cabal.shnet.org>,
Thorsten Guenther <guen...@cabal.shnet.org> wrote:
>
>The Ataris' processor speed was 1.79 MHz, and the 6502C was "C"o-opera-
>ting with the ANTIC graphics processor (that was able to halt the CPU).
To be fair, it is worth pointing out just how often ANTIC halts the
CPU. A PAL 64 loses 1000 cycles every frame, giving 18656 free cycles
per frame. By contrast, a plain jane gr0 screen loses 11288 cycles
per frame, giving 24180 free cycles/frame -- a speed difference of
about 1.29 times. Thus while the Atari is noticably faster, it's not
1.8x faster. (Hires graphics do better than 1.29x, too).
Obviously, if a program can take advantage of hardware features
(e.g. sprites) it will gain a significant speed boost.
>Additionally, the Atari had many video modes requiring 4K or less, the
Honestly now, how many (non-demo) progams ever use those modes?
The 64 needs 1k for a character graphics screen, and that's it.
(Color RAM is separate from system RAM, and may be switched out, hence
I see no reason to include it).
>C=64 apparently lacked such modes. I have only been told by (former)
>C=64 users that "Rescue on Fractalus"' speed sucked - and I guess the
>above clarifies why.
Rescue is indeed somewhat lousy on the 64, but that is a tribute to
the programmers, not the machine. All things being equal the
Atari would undoubtably be faster, but there is some rather lame
coding in the 64 version.
Put it this way: I bet my 64 3D programs are faster than a lot of
Atari 3D programs. But that doesn't mean the 64 is faster.
>Yup, bot OTOH the POKEY had also some nice features. Apparently it was
>harder to program than the SID, but e.g. Rob Hubbard's "Warhawk" sound
>track sounds better on POKEY than on SID.
SID is really rather sophisticated -- each voice can have four waveforms,
an ASDR envelope, filters, different pulse widths, and so on.
>The sprites _were_ far better than the Player/Missile concept. I guess
Indeed.
-Steve
Nate / DAC
> What's the PLA? Does it stand for Programmed Logic Array. Was it the
> chip responsible for joystick/keyboard/serial access? I'm too lazy to
The PLA is responsible for I/O device address decoding primarily. In other
words, it's what gives the CPU access to the SID, VIC, CIA's, and whatever
is attached to the expansion port.
It also controls things like ROM mapping on the expansion port.
If that chip goes, the computer will be paralysed. It's functionally
equivalent to a person being rendered quadrapalegic (sp?) - he can think and
see and hear, but he can't move, and in some cases, he can't even talk :(
> >The standard loading speed on a C64 is anywhere from 2400 BPS to over 25,000
> >(25 thousand) BPS.
>
> I find the maximum output of 25,000 bits per second to be highly
> unlikely. This would mean a reasonably large C-64 program could
> theoretically be loaded in about 15 seconds...a speed comperable to
The best fastloaders (which are entirely software based) can load a 50KB
program in about 9-10 seconds.
This equates to around 5 KB/sec, which is about 40,000 bits/sec - far faster
than the average speed :-)
> the Apple II disk drive mechanism. Regardless, whatever speed increase
> was accomplished via additions that came out years after the C64's
> introduction (I think just a few short months before the C-128's
> introduction).
Only because theprogrammers took that long to come up with fast routines.
As I said, any dusty old C64 built in early 1982 can do these kinds of
speeds, using a plain old 1541 drive and absolutely no hardware hacking (you
either plug in a cartridge or load your fastloader from disk).
In comparison, the C64's tape has been sped up to around 10x it's original
300 bps speed - about that of a stock 1541. The average game under such a
fastloader would take 3-4 minutes to load, versus 30+ minutes when loading
without a fastloader.
> ...and the second would be device 9. Correct?
Correct, hence LOAD"filename",9
Following that were 10 and 11, and so on up to device #30. I recommend
avoiding device #30, since the CMD HD uses that device # temporarily when it
is in Install or Configuration mode.
> I was aware of that...which is why I specified "older drives."
My fault - I didn't notice the "older drives" qualifier.
> How does the HD retain the device number if it's accomplished only in
> software?
It stores it on the HD mechanism along with the rest of it's DOS.
The CMD HD's DOS can be permanently upgraded by simply running a program,
and the device number is saved into that area as well as other things such
as the default partition to open on powerup.
> FD stands for Floppy Drive? HD stands for Hard Drive? What does CMD
> stand for?
CMD = Creative Micro Designs
The FD, for what it's worth, is a 1.6MB high-density 3.5" floppy drive -
takes standard HD 3.5" disks and formats them for use on a C64. It can also
read, write, and format 720KB or 1.44MB PC disks using software lik Big Blue
Reader or Little Red Reader.
> I think, with the above info, you've confirmed what I said. Commodore
> DOS was absolutely arcane.
Oh yeah, the actual DOS is pretty wierd if you're not familiar with it, but
after you learn it, it is quite straightforward.
OPEN 1,8,15 <--- open a channel to the disk drive command interpreter
PRINT #1,"some command"
CLOSE 1
Or with a standard DOS extantion, simply type @some command without the
OPEN/PRINT/CLOSE fluff.
It's not so much that the DOS itself is arcane, but rather the way in which
you access it.
Command N means "new disk". S means Scratch (delete). C means copy (a
file), V means validate (rebuild Block Availability Map).
The digit "0" and a colon usually follow the command letter, mostly out of
force of habit from using the older dual-drive systems. It also avoids
potential bugs that exist in the old 1541 DOS.
Following the colon will be one or more filenames (for scratching/deleting),
or a disk name and two-character ID code (for New disk (format)).
> Not by Commodore. They did eventually come out with the 1571 drive
> which, when combined with the C-128, gave a noticeable improvement in
> speed over the older model. Unfortunately, the 1571 connected to a
As I said, Commodore themselves released the DOS extension, DOS 5.1, with
the 1541 drive.
It came on the Test/Demo disk that was shipped with every new drive
Commodore made, even the 1571 and 1581's.
The fac that they Didn't just burn it into a ROM does puzzle me, though.
> C-64 did nothing. Regardless, even the 1571/C-128 combo was still
> awfully slow compared to even Atari's not-so-fast drives.
Well the 1571 does nothing for the C128 itself anyways - The C128's fast
serial works with 1571, 1581, and CMD devices
When combined and used properly, the C128 is capable of fairly fast speeds.
Desterm 2.00, for example, can be booted from a 1571 disk in about 20
seconds - that program is pretty large, and has many moduls that it has to
load.
The trick is knowing how to save the file to the disk properly - By using
correct sector interleaving, you can increase the speed. This isn't a
hardware hack, and programs saved with modified interleaves are perfectly
fine under standard C64 DOS.
> extension of another 3. No computer company would have ever been
> stupid enough to repeat that mistake!!! (Wink, wink! Nudge, nudge :-)
hehe
> How can the output be only 8-bits if the frequency facility was
> 16-bit? It doesn't make sense.
I use the term "resolution" and "sample rate" in the same way with analog as
I do with a digital waveform such as a *.WAV file.
Resolution refers to the height of the waveform, and in particular the
number of steps from 0 (or minimum voltage) to maximum.
Sample Rate refers to the number of times per second that the output is
calculated and updated. In he case of the SID chip, thatis 1 Mhz - a bit
over 1 million updates per second.
I suspect the "Pokey" chip has a similar effective sample rate.
And now that I think about it, I made an error - the full 24-bit resolution
of each voice makes it to the output of the SID.
The 8-bit resolution was just an oversight - I was thinking of the Waveform
and Envelope output registers for voice 3 - those allow a program to read
the upper 8-bits of these twqwo functions on voice 3. Normally this is used
for FM effects (like vibrato or ring modulation) and random numbers (by
using the noise waveform).
In addition, each voice may be used to generate up to a 4 KHz sample rate
8-bit digital waveform. You can combine two voices to extend the sample
rate to about 64 Khz. I don't know offhand what three voices can do when
ganged together.
Higher samaple rates on single voices are possible but the SID will lose
resolution - effectively 1 bit for every 2x increase in rate (so 8 Khz
yields about 7-bits, 16 Khz would be about 6-bits, and so on).
Combining voices together properly can alleviate much of this problem.
> FLI, IFLI, UIFLI?????? What do these mean?
FLI means FLexible Line Interpretation. In a nutshell, it provides a
160x200 screen with 16 colors. Color Data is interpreted in three ways.
One is the background color, which is usually common to the entire screen.
The second is standard color memory, which forms a 40x25 matrix of color
cells, each specifying one color. Third is the 40x200 matrix of color
cells, each cell of which may specify two more colors.
IFLI is the Interlaced version of the above. Put simply, two standard FLI
screens, interlaced, with alternating fields offset by 1 pixel in the
horizontal. The effect is 320x200 with 136 colors (of which about 55 are
flicker-free). In some applications, the 40x25 color cell map as specified
above can also be interlaced, while in others, both fields get thier 40x25
color map data from the same area of memory.
UIFLI is basically IFLI with two full-screen layers of X-expanded sprites.
That is, each 160x200 field has a 160x200 layer of sprite data along with
it, data which I believe can have 1 color per 48x2 area (really 24x2 but the
hardware has doubled the widths of the sprites). There are two such 160x200
fields (and thus two 160x200 sprite layers) which are interlaced in the same
way as the standard IFLI mode.
On accellerated machines, it is also possible to change the background color
on every raster line, and change the sprite colors as well, giving the
sprite maps a 48x1 color resoultion, and the background a 320x1 resolution.
There are other formats as well, such as MCMLace, Drazlace, HiFLI, and so
on, which are variations on the above modes, using various types of standard
displays. Some are interlaced, others are not.
> I was certain about 24 (exactly 3 bytes) across but wasn't exactly
> sure of the vertical amount.
The 24x21 matrix yields 63 bytes, and the actual sprite mapping calls for
64-byte wide segments. The 64th byte is useful for storing the sprite's
color and a few flags such as X expand and Y expand, and perhaps whether or
not the sprite should be considered when checking for sprite-to-
background-data and sprite-to-sprite collisions.
> >Unless you use FLD or VSP, tricks which cause the VIC chip to move the
> >screen for you an unlimited distance either vertically or horizontally.
> >
> What is FLD and VSP? I'd really like to know about this trickery. I
These are more new tricks invented by programmers.
FLD means Flexible Line Displacement, and allows one to use the VIC to
scroll an entire bitmapped display (even FLI/IFLI modes can be done) using
only a minimal amount of processor overhead.
VSP is Variable Screen Positioning, and can move up and down (a raster at a
time), or sideways (by a whole byte). Combined with the standard scrolling
registers, one can scroll an entire display using very little processor
time.
Smart coders (of which I am not :-) can do all kinds of calculations and
such during FLD and VSP time, as they tend to tie up theprocessor in a wait
loop. No prob, just do some calculations, and time them out properly with a
few NOP commands or whatevr if needed, so that the FLD or VSP effect is
still being done.
> a 16K bank of the C-64's memory at any moment (a separate hardware
> register allowed one to change which 16K bank was accessed). Am I
> wrong?
You are correct, the VIC has access to only 16 KB at any one time. Modes
like IFLI and UIFLI change the 16KB bank register between fields, giving the
illusion of 32K of address space.
> Yes, I'm aware of the the C-64's ability to "simulate" Atari's display
> lists via software. I believe I mentioned it in the article. However,
> It's much more processor intensive than Atari's method. Also, because
> of the C-64's limited display modes, it isn't as important.
Perhaps so, however intelligent programs know how to split the screen (even
once per raster line if desired) and still accomplish a full regimen of
functions at the same time.
It may be a little more involved to program, but that's strictly a matter of
convenience. IF the programmer can accomplish with software what another
machine uses hardware for, without losing a significant portion of the CPU
in doing so, then the point becomes moot anyways.
> Yeah. I completely overlooked the C-128's new and improved BASIC. It
> was by far the best version of BASIC ever pre-packaged with an 8-bit
Agreed. However you are right - this is a C64 vs. Atari discussion, and as
such C128 functions have no real bearing anyways.
> computer. I tried not to discuss the specifics of the C-128/C-128D
> because the number of them sold was dwarfed by the various C-64 level
> incarnations.
I never understood ewhy either - overall the C128 is a much more capable
machine. It was probably just the cost of the machine, and the fact that it
had a full C64 compatibility mode (minus one or two hardware-unfriendly
programs, like with the Atari's later machines). That full C64 mode meant
coding games/tools strictly for the C128 would have yielded less revenue.
Commodore's crap marketing didn't help the C128 either.
> I'VE NEVER HEARD OF FLI, IFLI, AND UIFLI!!!!! Please, please, please
> tell me more (or direct me to a URL that contains the information). I
> love to be surprised about the capabilities of old computers.
Hehe, described above.
ftp.funet.fi and ftp.scs-trc.net are two good places to find software that
works in these modes. Look for the various editor packages. I recommend
the UIFLI editor produced by Crest (a well-known demo group). It comes with
the absolute best ever C64 graphic image, called "Multimediot", drawn by the
one and only DeeKay.
The display quality and total amount of color resolution shown should knock
you right off your chair. It just doesn't get any better than this without
an accellerator.
The editor (and most of the various other ones out there) is/are available
in both PAL and NTSC versions.
> >LDA $D019 ; Clear interrupt source
> >LDA #somerasterline ; Set new interrupt.
> >STA $D012
>
> That's 10 wasted machine cycles that the Atari doesn't doesn't need to
True.
> The whole idea of a Display List is to be hardware based. The overhead
> in maintaining Atari's display list is minimal to nonexistent (except
I see.
> Pulease....that would waste more processor cycles than setting up a
> raster interrupt. Unless you're into politics, POLLING IS NOT AN
> OPTION!!
Well, as I said the average VIC programmer does various kinds of
calculations during that wait time. Good programmers can fill the entire
63-cycle line with code, leaving just enough time to update various
registers for the next line.
> Because (I believe) of the 16K limitation of the VIC II chip,
> character set pointer changes are a bit limited.
Yes, they are. Good programmers know how to change VIC banks mid-screen, to
increase the VIC's memory range.
With the right combination of register changes, one can give the illusion of
a full 64KB access range (Normall the graphics modes I mention give the
illusion of 32K of addressing).
> Question: Does the processor run at an apparent 1.02 Megahertz before
> or after the VIC II chip is turned off? Also, I believe some
Before. And actually, 1.02 Mhz is the hardware clock itself. As such,
turning the screen off gives the entoire 1.02 Mhz clock to the CPU.
With it turned on, the VIC chip steals 43*25 cycles per frame, which amounts
to around 10% of the CPU's time, by placing the 6502 in a "wait state".
> telecommunications programs would turn off the VIC II chip when trying
> to transfer serial data at the highest possible rate.
So do, yes. But with proper code and a decent UART chip (which come on
cartridge, as with the SwiftLink and Turbo232), one can blast data to
theport at a full 57600 BPS, with the screen turned on.
> I've always found C-64 keyboard/Joystick access to be very confusing.
> It always seemed a bit odd and a waste of processor time (compared to
> Atari's and even Apple II's method of reading a single register for
> the key press and a separate register for joystick reading.)
It saved money back then, by using the same register for two different
functions and relying on the software to be able toproperly decode keyboard
and joystick accesses.
> Yeah, I know. It's not always easy to separate one's emotional
> connection with a computer versus one's intellectual understanding.
Indeed. It really pays off (in terms of what a person thinks of you) when
you know first hand what a machine is really capable of.
> I don't think I did that badly. I believe I have a good basic (albeit
> somewhat flawed) understanding of both machines. Admittedly, my
Indeed, you were close, but at the same time you left wuite a bit out :-)
> Atari's operating system is a thing of beauty whereas the C-64's
> kernel has a generational, quilt-like feeling similar to, although not
> quite as bad as, that of the Apple II computer.
Actually, the C64's operating system was derivied from many of the older
PET computers. Personally, I think the C64's firmware (and maybe the disk
access system) should have been completely and totally rewritten. It would
have been far better to drop the idea of VIC-20 compatibility (which is why,
for example, the C64 continued to use the old Serial bus, once they switched
to using it in the VIC-20).
Commodore should have designed better peripjherals that used parallel
instead of serial access, and firmware that didn't give a shit about older
hardware :-)
Someone would have eventually made an adaptor to connect otherwise
incompatible hardware, to serve the market for those who didn7t want to
throw away thier old peripherals (hence, we have things like IEEE interfaces
to connect old PET drives to the C64)
> Despite my apparent biases, you must agree that it's interesting how 3
> computers (Atari, C64, Apple II) share the same "brain" and yet are all
> so very different. It's a tribute to what the human mind is capable of.
Indeed. In many cases, it comes down to what the hardware is capable of
when wrapped around the same 6502 core - Apple had expandability, Atari had
the faster clock speed, the C64 had the superior video/audio hardware.
Each has it's uses and eash was aimed at a different audience.
--
Anthony Baker
Atari? Because it's graphics SUCK and it was somewhat hard to program.
The Apple II by itself was pretty weak as far as graphics. However,
everything else in that damn machine was pretty powerful when they
started coming out w/ the 256K models.
Laters,
Pugsy
>Even though the Atari was less popular in the UK than the 64, it did
>have an excellent magazine from Page 6 called "Atari User" which
>published till at least 1991 before going hard-sale only.
>And of course "Mercenary" and "Encounter" appeared on it before the
>C64 versions.
Erm! Granted Encounter appeared on the Atari a while before the c64
version as Paul Woakes was originally an 8 Bit Atari programmer, but
Mercenary ' Escape from Targ' was in development for what seemed a
very long time and the potential market of a sole Atari version was
far too small to pay for the development costs. When Mercenary was
finally unleashed it was virtually a simultaneous release on both
platforms as I recall. Paul Woakes was a bloody genius, it was the
fastest wireframe graphic game on either computer - but the speed was
thanks to maths rather than the dedicated graphics chips of either
computer hence the code was NOT really platform dependant as with
most other games of the era. In fact the only descernable difference
was the different messages you received if you shot a commodore or an
atari billboard. Unfortunately, Novagen was effectively a one
programmer outfit and it was the fact that this programmer was a
perfectionist that Novagen finally went to the wall :-((((
Martin (email: mar...@pugh.prestel.co.uk / ICQ 12051192)
Visit my C64 games index page at:
http://arnold.c64.org/index
And my MAME cheat page at:-
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/pugh/ (soon moving to 'cheat.retrogames.com')
Andrew Williams
> >The C64's limit was destroyed with the advent of FLI, IFLI, UIFLI and other
> >extended graphics modes.
>
> FLI, IFLI, UIFLI?????? What do these mean?
>
Some of these graphics (gfx) modes, including FLI, are explained here:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/6463/gfxmodes.htm
Have a look around while you're there - there are some examples on other
pages of this site that show some of the results of these gfx modes. In
particular, have a look at the page relating to the Krestology demo by
Crest.
( http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/6463/gfxmodes.htm )
> What is FLD and VSP? I'd really like to know about this trickery. I
> don't remember this being listed in my books!
FLD is Flexible Line Distance, and VSP is...something I'll let someone
else answer (Vertical Scroll...?). If you are interested, though, get
hold of the CCS64 emulator and look at the game "Mayhem in Monsterland"
(1993). It uses VSP and because of that can't be run on just any
emulator.
Also, FD = floppy drive, HD = hard drive, and CMD is not a drive, but a
company (Creative Micro Designs) that is still making C64 products
including a super-CPU add on, hard drives, etc.
Regards,
Andrew.
Aaron
very primitive in comparison to the Ataris and Commodores. But it
should be understood that the beginnings of the Apple line predates
even the Atari by at least 2 years. Also, unlike Atari and, to a
somewhat lesser extent, Commodore, Apple actually UPGRADED the line
over the years. (anyone remembe the wonderful Apple IIGS, with its
all-new graphics and sound hardware and graphical "Mac like" OS or the
AppleIIC Plus with a 4 Mhz 6502 in an Apple IIc style "portable" case
and without the necessity for a "brick" power supply?)
No matter how much I look down on the Apples over my beloved Ataris, I
must say that the Apple was THE HACKER'S PARADISE (in terms of both
hardware and software). Apple computers had the absolute best 3rd
party programming & hardware fiddling books. In fact, my favorite
programming manual was called ASSEMBLY LINE for the Apple.
Has anyone ever studied the Apple II series memory map? It's
absolutely Byzantine, with sections of DOS code spread over a
multitude of RAM "segments"? Or, maybe, the nonlinear RAM layout of
grapics memory that required a lookup table just to support it? (not
to mention the 8th bit of every screen byte being used for a second
color palette and not an extra pixel). Oh, and then there's the color
burst signal that allowed one to see color but made text absolutely
unreadable? And then there's the SLOT problem where certain cards had
to be placed in certain slots before most software would recognize it
(a problem that, luckily, the IBM doesn't have)?
are...@my-dejanews.com
aar...@localnet.com wrote:
> Was the 1525 printer the dot matrix thing with the printout that
> looked like a child's rendition of computer printing and a ribbon that
> had to be replace every couple of months?
:-D Yes, that was the printer. I did a couple of reports in elementary school
that thing, and one of my teachers asked me if I had forgotten to set the
thing to lower case because the g's and q's did not descend below the line
properly. It was also the noisiest dot matrix printer I have ever heard.
> A close friend (he lived just 3 houses from me) liked purchasing
> Commodore equipment (first the Vic 20 then the 64) and, based on what
> I saw at his house, I almost purchased one in late 1984. Why did I go
> for an Atari 800XL instead? When I walked into Child World with cash
> in hand I found out the Atari was just marked down to $89.95; a full
> $25 less than the C64. Of course, I had to wait six months before I
> got a disk drive, which was almost double the price of the CPU!!!!!
That might have been another reason why my parents gave me an 800XL at first -
it was at least a year later before they got me the 64 after the 800XL went
back to the store, so they were probably waiting for the prices to come down.
:-) Yep, I remember when disk drives were that expensive! I have the premier
issue of Computer!'s Gazette, and 1541 disk drives were selling in there for
about $350 compared to $150-$200 for a VIC-20. Even a datasette would have set
you back $60-$80 then.
Greg
Alan Reed
ridiculously expensive. In fact, that's the sole reason I started on the
Commodore rather than the computer I first learned on (the old black Apple
II+). Turned out to a be a good decision in many ways, but it was really
just due to price.
And Apple's BASIC was good, better than Commodore's anyway. No poking
necessary. Where Apple fell down and Commodore excelled was onscreen
editing. Apple's graphics did suck, but what was worse (a thousand-fold)
was the so-called 'sound' the Apple produced. Total joke.
Anthony Baker wrote in message <36A6B750...@arn.net>...
>That's all find and dandy but, you know why Apple was cheaper than
>Atari? Because it's graphics SUCK and it was somewhat hard to program.
>The Apple II by itself was pretty weak as far as graphics. However,
>everything else in that damn machine was pretty powerful when they
>started coming out w/ the 256K models.
>
>Laters,
>
>antb...@arn.net
>
>Steve Judd wrote:
>>
Cameron Kaiser
>over the years. (anyone remembe the wonderful Apple IIGS, with its
>all-new graphics and sound hardware and graphical "Mac like" OS or the
>AppleIIC Plus with a 4 Mhz 6502 in an Apple IIc style "portable" case
>and without the necessity for a "brick" power supply?)
Remember? I have a ROM 0 Woz signature edition IIgs myself.
Aaron
>
>>over the years. (anyone remembe the wonderful Apple IIGS, with its
>>all-new graphics and sound hardware and graphical "Mac like" OS or the
>>AppleIIC Plus with a 4 Mhz 6502 in an Apple IIc style "portable" case
>>and without the necessity for a "brick" power supply?)
>
>Remember? I have a ROM 0 Woz signature edition IIgs myself.
A couple months ago, I picked up a Woz signature edition Apple IIGS
for the astounding price of $20 at my local thrift store. It was in
absolutely gorgeous condition. Up to that point I never knew there was
such a "signature edition."
Aaron
>ridiculously expensive. In fact, that's the sole reason I started on the
>Commodore rather than the computer I first learned on (the old black Apple
>II+).
I've never seen a black Apple. I thought they were always beige,
manila, or yellow?
> And Apple's BASIC was good, better than Commodore's anyway. No poking
>necessary.
Well, it certainly wasn't as necessary to rely on using POKE's and
PEEK's on the Apple as it was on the C64. However, here's a small list
of a few that I can immediately remember:
1) Shape tables (Apple's fascinating way of simulating vector graphics
which was never duplicated on any other machine)
2) Sound ("pop goes the speaker" :-)
3) nifty non black screen clearing (actually, this was a CALL and not
a POKE)
4) Screen switching (for flicker free animation)
> Where Apple fell down and Commodore excelled was onscreen
And don't forget that, until the advent of the Apple IIe in 1982, all
Apple computers only had UPPER CASE TEXT. CAN YOU IMAGINE BEING FORCED
TO READ TEXT LIKE THIS ON THE NET? WE'D ALL GO DEAF IN NO TIME! WOW! I
FEEL LIKE GARRET MORRIS ON SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE TRANSLATING THE NEWS TO
THE HARD OF HEARING. "OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT....!"
>editing. Apple's graphics did suck, but what was worse (a thousand-fold)
>was the so-called 'sound' the Apple produced. Total joke.
Apple sound? Yeah! Thank god IBM didn't duplicate that error! (NUDGE
NUDGE :-)
Still, it was an indescrebable feeling when the Apple speaker did emit
sound. It caused the whole computer to vibrate. Kinda reminds me of
Nintendo's rumble pack.
Jason Compton
: I've never seen a black Apple. I thought they were always beige,
: manila, or yellow?
Some Apple II+es were black sheet metal.
:> Where Apple fell down and Commodore excelled was onscreen
: And don't forget that, until the advent of the Apple IIe in 1982, all
: Apple computers only had UPPER CASE TEXT. CAN YOU IMAGINE BEING FORCED
: TO READ TEXT LIKE THIS ON THE NET? WE'D ALL GO DEAF IN NO TIME! WOW! I
: FEEL LIKE GARRET MORRIS ON SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE TRANSLATING THE NEWS TO
: THE HARD OF HEARING. "OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT....!"
IT WAS SORT OF AMAZING, THOUGH, HOW IF YOU ONLY HAD UPPER CASE YOU SORT OF
GOT USED TO IT.
--
Jason Compton jcom...@xnet.com
www.xnet.com/~jcompton
Aaron
>That might have been another reason why my parents gave me an 800XL at first -
>it was at least a year later before they got me the 64 after the 800XL went
>back to the store, so they were probably waiting for the prices to come down.
>:-) Yep, I remember when disk drives were that expensive! I have the premier
>issue of Computer!'s Gazette, and 1541 disk drives were selling in there for
>about $350 compared to $150-$200 for a VIC-20. Even a datasette would have set
>you back $60-$80 then.
I could have gotten a program recorder (Atari's version of Commodore
dataset) but opted to use the money toward the ultimated purchase of a
disk drive. I never regretted the decision.
As a brief asside, did you know that Atari's program recorder could
play audio through the television? There were some wonderful foreign
language program/audio tapes that were only possible on the ATARI.
Aaron
>: And don't forget that, until the advent of the Apple IIe in 1982, all
>: Apple computers only had UPPER CASE TEXT. CAN YOU IMAGINE BEING FORCED
>: TO READ TEXT LIKE THIS ON THE NET? WE'D ALL GO DEAF IN NO TIME! WOW! I
>: FEEL LIKE GARRET MORRIS ON SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE TRANSLATING THE NEWS TO
>: THE HARD OF HEARING. "OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT....!"
>
>IT WAS SORT OF AMAZING, THOUGH, HOW IF YOU ONLY HAD UPPER CASE YOU SORT OF
>GOT USED TO IT.
LET'S SEE! WE'VE GOT RETR-GAMING. NOW THERE'S RETRO-TYPING. OH, I'M
GOING TO HAVE TO START THE OFFICIAL RETRO-TYPING WEBSITE.
Erika E. Gray
C64 did not need slots all you did was plug it in and go no need to
remove the top, no cables to screw in and no extra speakers to plug in.
Great picture and great sound on any tv with no extra cards.
Yes Commodore never had support but did you really need it? I
didn't. I know I can still go to my closet pull it out and plug it in
and I am playing Spy Hunter in minutes.
Now I am not saying Apples are bad. If they were they would not have
made the MIMIC or ApSoft-64. But when it came down to it the reason
that most of us ran the 64 was for the games.
Daniel Morrow
you about the slots. Besides - as I already stated in theis newsgroup before
having even just one slot that is external can be superior to several internal
slots. Just check out the spartan - one megahuge cartridge that in no way
would fit in an Apple-II. Also check out the ex2+1 from CMD (www.cmdweb.com)
which gives you more external slots. Also - one advantage of brick power
supplies is servicability - just replace with another if it breaks down or
even upgrade to a more powerfull also-external power supply.
Jason
> And don't forget that, until the advent of the Apple IIe in 1982, all
> Apple computers only had UPPER CASE TEXT.
Doesn't the VIC 20 predate that...?!
Jason
> In comparison, the C64's tape has been sped up to around 10x it's
> original 300 bps speed - about that of a stock 1541. The average game
> under such a fastloader would take 3-4 minutes to load, versus 30+
> minutes when loading without a fastloader.
Heh, that's not to say they didn't always take some time. Commodore
themselves used Novaload and later Cyberload but would switch the speeds
down to "guarantee loading". Typical...
Of course, on the speed front we can't forget the old Martech screamer,
it pulled the *entire* Crazy Comets from tape into the C64 in under a
minute and a half...
> FLD means Flexible Line Displacement...
Distance. Invented by White of The Judges. The original Think Twice
demo (and the other four in the series, TT3 and TT5 are seriously worth
checking out if you have PAL or CCS64/VICE) are on the Legacy page at...
http://www.cosine.demon.co.uk/legacy/
Daniel Morrow
back from an audio cassette in a commodore datasette drive, indeed it can even be
digitized and edited/saved/loaded as any other digitized data can.
Aaron
Walters) wrote:
>Jason Compton (jcom...@xnet.com) wrote:
>: In comp.sys.cbm Marc Walters <mwal...@news.hunter.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
>: : The machine's parent company supported it better than Commodore did
>: : for the 64 (face it, every other computer was better supported!).
Commodore's customer support always sucked. Luckily, their computers
became so popular that a huge multitude of 3rd party companies picked
up the ball and extended the C64's life for well over 5 years longer
than normal. Also, Commodore at the very least take a few brief stabs
at upgrading the machine (the C-128 being the most recognizable piece
of equipment).
Atari, on the other hand, kept coming out with different models which
were essentially the same, albeit cheaper to produce.
One notable Atari screw-up (IMHO) was the introduction of the XEP-80
which hooked up to the Atari's two joystick ports and supplied 80
column monochrome text. For far greater functionality, this device
should have been connected to the Atari's DMA port but, oops, the
Atari 65XE was manufactured without one in order to cut costs.
>: I don't know what that's supposed to mean. Commodore had pretty good
>: support, particularly with programmer's resources. Atari was notorious
>: for withholding technical documentation.
>
>Sorry, I'll expand that to something intelligible :)
>Atari made a strong commitment to the 8-bit line by improving and
>expanding the range (XL, peripherals) in the mid-'80s after Tramiel
>took over. Even the amount of "noise" Atari made about their support
>was greater than Commodore's.
>What did Commodore do? The C128, scrapping it 3 years later.
Not many computer companies sell the same computer model for 3 whole
years. Didn't the C-128's production end happened to correspond with
the rollout of the new cost reduced AMIGA 500?
>The 1750 REU? Stopped production after 6 months due to DRAM shortage.
>1581? Only released it in USA and never advertised it. Here in Australia
>Commodore was repeatedly begged by the local press to introduce the
>REU and 1581, but never did.
>A new model 64? Nope, the 65 never made the Alpha stage.
And don't forget the shit computers they did come out with, such as
the Plus/4, and C16.
>Analogue mouse? Berkely Softworks had to request the 1531.
>Advertising? It was good in this country (John Singleton Advertising
>had their account!) but elsewhere?
>
>Of course as the saying goes- the grass is always greener on the
>other side of the fence.
>
>Marc
Aaron
I prefer having internal slots over the external-only variety. Time
and again, companies with non-internal slots advertized external
"boxes" for extending their computer's expandability but rarely
followed through with an actual, widely available product. Such
external boxes did occasionally appear (mainly via third party
companies) but were few in number and awfully expensive. None ever
became defacto standards that a multitude of vendors supported and,
therefore, very few end-users had 'em.
What was the C-64's Spartan?
"Brick" power supplies versus the internal variety both have an equal
amount of advantages/disadvantages. I have no preference unless the
device is advertised as "portable" and circulate pictures of of the
computer in someones hand in order to prove it (but neglecting to show
the necessary, usually huge, external power supply---such as Apple's
advertizing for the IIC). Another problem with external power supplies
is a complete lack of standardization. Even power supplies that look
alike may not work (ie. Amiga 500 and C-128 power supplies).
Aaron
wrote:
>Aaron:
>> And don't forget that, until the advent of the Apple IIe in 1982, all
>> Apple computers only had UPPER CASE TEXT.
>
>Doesn't the VIC 20 predate that...?!
The VIC 20 began selling either late 1980 or mid 1981. I don't know
if it had lower case ability. Regardless, it was designed to be dirt
cheap and compete with keyboardless game machines of the time. (anyone
remember William Shatner's television advertising for the Vic-20? And
don't forget that MASH's Alan Alda hocked the Atari computer line. Oh,
and then there was George Plimpton for the Intellivision. And don't
forget the rest of the MASH cast and a Charlie Chaplin lookalike for
the IBM PCjr).
Aaron
...And, unlike Apple computers, the C-64 was CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP!
That's something I (and my wallet) can respect.
Aaron
<vide...@cdsnet.net> wrote:
>That depends on what you mean by "only possible on the ATARI.". Sound can be played
>back from an audio cassette in a commodore datasette drive, indeed it can even be
>digitized and edited/saved/loaded as any other digitized data can.
The Atari was the only one capable of freely mixing Analog and digital
data on the same cassette tape via program control. (ie. in the case
of a foreign language program, a segment of computer code containing a
foreign language test would load up and then the newly running code
would proceed to play the next section of tape that contained analog
voices..through the TV or monitor speakers.)
Jon Melbo
<ken...@hsicommunity.com> wrote:
>Actually, the copyright on the inside cover of De Re Atari is 1982,
>which may outdate the 400/800 release in 1979, but predate all of
>the xl/xe machines and predates the c64 machine.
That really is irrelevant. What is relevant, is how much technical
info Atari made available and how soon after the release of the
hardware. Two or three years is an atrocity if in fact that is how
long it took. I say six months should be the most you should have to
wait.
D. Peschel
Daniel Morrow <vide...@cdsnet.net> wrote:
>That depends on what you mean by "only possible on the ATARI.". Sound can be played
>back from an audio cassette in a commodore datasette drive, indeed it can even be
>digitized and edited/saved/loaded as any other digitized data can.
>Aaron wrote:
>> As a brief asside, did you know that Atari's program recorder could
>> play audio through the television? There were some wonderful foreign
>> language program/audio tapes that were only possible on the ATARI.
What Aaron is talking about is analog recorded sound, exactly as you would
get if you used your stereo system to make a cassette. (Well, not exactly,
since it can only take one track of an Atari cassette. The other track is
used for computer data, of course.)
I can't tell if the Commodore can handle that or if you're talking about
digital sound -- computer data which just happens to represent sound, stored
on the tape like any other computer data.
-- Derek
Marc Walters
: In comp.sys.cbm Marc Walters <mwal...@news.hunter.apana.org.au> wrote:
: : The machine's parent company supported it better than Commodore did
: : for the 64 (face it, every other computer was better supported!).
: I don't know what that's supposed to mean. Commodore had pretty good
: support, particularly with programmer's resources. Atari was notorious
: for withholding technical documentation.
Sorry, I'll expand that to something intelligible :)
Atari made a strong commitment to the 8-bit line by improving and
expanding the range (XL, peripherals) in the mid-'80s after Tramiel
took over. Even the amount of "noise" Atari made about their support
was greater than Commodore's.
What did Commodore do? The C128, scrapping it 3 years later.
The 1750 REU? Stopped production after 6 months due to DRAM shortage.
1581? Only released it in USA and never advertised it. Here in Australia
Commodore was repeatedly begged by the local press to introduce the
REU and 1581, but never did.
A new model 64? Nope, the 65 never made the Alpha stage.
Marc Walters
: Well and good, but isn't it still the case that De Re Atari post-dates the
: release of the machine significantly? The Commodore Programmer's
: Reference Guide doesn't, that much I know for absolute certain.
For a laugh, hunt down a copy of the Official Commodore Plus4
Programmers Reference Guide. That's the sort of wacky support
Commodore liked to give. :)
The first edition of the C64 PRG has some simple but significant
errors, especially in the Kernal routine descriptions.
Marc
Kelly Fergason
yeah, they made about 50000. they're not rare, despite
what some people will tell you.
Jason Compton
: Atari made a strong commitment to the 8-bit line by improving and
: expanding the range (XL, peripherals) in the mid-'80s after Tramiel
: took over. Even the amount of "noise" Atari made about their support
: was greater than Commodore's.
: What did Commodore do? The C128, scrapping it 3 years later.
Commodore sold 4.5 million C128s. How did the 130XE do? Hell, did all of
the XE machines COMBINED sell 4.5 million?
: The 1750 REU? Stopped production after 6 months due to DRAM shortage.
Hardly Commodore's fault. And the 1750 Clones shipped for a long time
after that.
: 1581? Only released it in USA and never advertised it. Here in Australia
: Commodore was repeatedly begged by the local press to introduce the
: REU and 1581, but never did.
The '81 was a pretty specialized item when it came right down to it. The
Commodore press talked it up and it was pretty well available over here.
: A new model 64? Nope, the 65 never made the Alpha stage.
As the proud owner of a 65, I have to say that while it's neat, it's
probably for the best that it wasn't completed anyway. (All of
Commodore's divisions recommended against it because they didn't think
they could sell it, and they were probably right: I don't think the world
wanted a Super-64 in 1990-1991.)
Aaron
wrote:
>
>yeah, they made about 50000. they're not rare, despite
>what some people will tell you.
>
A 50,000 production run is quite low for a computer. Also, this
doesn't mean that 50,000 still survive. I would estimate that half of
those 50,000 no longer survive the rigors of time. Of the 25,000 left,
many probably have developed problems or are in degraded condition
(ie. not MINT CONDITION). And few of those (perhaps 5,000?) still have
the original packaging or manuals (an all-important requirement for
serious collectability.) Many Star-Wars toys from the 70's aren't rare
and yet they command astounding prices in the collector market.
(Wait'll Hollywood makes a Sci-Fi trilogy based on the Apple computer
and you'll really see the price of old Apple equipment zoom! GRIN.)
Ronald A. Laski, Jr.
> Hola Ronald,
Hola back atcha! :)
>
> In article <MPG.110f7b4d6...@news.midwest.net>,
> Ronald A. Laski, Jr. <rla...@midwest.net> wrote:
> >I am a die hard Atari fan (i've used a C64 a few times, but for overall
>
> A few times?
Yea, a few times, more than none, a brief amount of experience. (in fact,
a confession that i'm not a c64 'pro' which i wasn't trying to imply...
just that i've had more than 'none' :)
>
> >speed, usefulness, and for playing games, Atari, for me, always wins
> >hands down) Now, if i can get past my own personal bias :) I only wanted
> >to say: If the Vic20 and the C64 came out 3 years AFTER the Atari, and
> >best argument is simply that the C64 was (only!) COMPARABLE to the Atari,
>
> I believe you are perhaps missing the bigger picture here: it is the
> Atari people that are saying that the 64 is comparable to the Atari.
Nooo.. i didn't say that... I (as an Atari person) am only 'hearing'
arguments that aren't convincing me that the c64 is 'better' than the
atari (which, if i've gleaned my info correctly, was 3 years older than
the c64) For instance, Compute mag printed a c64 type-in to give the c64
'atari-style' graphics modes and syntax ('modes' as best the programmers
could give a 64 *which i'm not saying is either good or bad*)
in fact, i don't believe articles like that were written to convince
ANYONE of one machines superiority over another, just simply that: If we
do this, then our system will have similar capabilities to another
system. I can only think of ONE program EVER written to give an Atari 8
bit a c64-type of similarity (w/ the deliberate attempt to give it the
c64 similarity) <- (i haven't explained that remark, so it seems
repetitive, but there is an 'as opposed' point of view and i don't want
to go there just yet) :) Anyway, that program was designed to give the
pokey chip sid-type waveform sound capability. Excepting THAT, i read a
lot of posts here that (basically) say: "Well, the C64 can do that too!
(if we program it specially for that)" I don't see Atari people saying
(w/ the above exception about the sound) "Well, if we program our
machines like this, they'll be more like a C64!" Also, earlier when i
stated my opinion about the 2 machines, i never said the c64 was a bad
machine, i like my atari better. i feel that 'out of the box' the atari
is a better machine. I wasn't thinking about 'what can we hack on to the
box to make it neater!' Also, as a final point, selling the most
computers doesn't mean that a company has the best hardware...
> This quite a step up from the "Atari, designed by deities and known
> only to a chosen few, was overwhelmingly superior to the 64 which only
> sold well due to cheapness and C= 'dirty tricks'" argument of a year ago.
>
> In fact, it seems to me that if _Atari_ people think it is comparable,
> then it must indeed be quite markedly superior!
>
I don't... I think the c64 is a sub-Atari machine, better than an Apple
(which i actually like, i now own a II+, and i've heard a music demo
*speaker pops!* that actually carried on 3-voice harmonies, which i find
impressive given the capabilities of the machine)
Here's a question, Did anyone ever program a (for a lack of a better
term) multiplex sound channel song for either computer? (you know, 8
voices on the atari instead of 4, w/o the Gumby or other stereo upgrades?
or 6 voices on the c64? can it even be done or not?)
> -Steve :)
>
^^^^^^^^^^^ I'm thinking i should have probably 'cut' that.. but i
didn't! :)
One more point (will i ever shut up? :) I really feel that here in the
USA (back then) Atari actually DID give pretty good customer support
(maybe even EXCELLENT - for the time) but, once they started down the
path toward the DARK SIDE, support was the first to go! (well, maybe
that's a tie with advertising/marketing! :)
--
Ron
rla...@midwest.net
are...@my-dejanews.com
aar...@localnet.com wrote:
> As a brief asside, did you know that Atari's program recorder could
> play audio through the television? There were some wonderful foreign
> language program/audio tapes that were only possible on the ATARI.
Yep, I heard that.. I read it in the "Reader's Feedback" column in
Compute! magazine; somebody wrote about hearing beeping sounds through his
speaker when loading or saving to cassette on his 400 or 800 (I forget which).
Greg
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Aaron
>term) multiplex sound channel song for either computer? (you know, 8
>voices on the atari instead of 4, w/o the Gumby or other stereo upgrades?
>or 6 voices on the c64? can it even be done or not?)
I'm not aware of any software for the Atari that "multiplexed" the
POKEY sound chip, although I assume it would be possible.
Unfortunately, it would probably significantly degrade the Atari's
processor performance for other tasks (such as animation). As a brief
aside, while reading info on MAME, I noticed that alot of older arcade
games also used one, OR MORE, Atari POKEY sound chips.
Some software (OCTAMED?) for the Amiga did achieve software controlled
sound multiplexing but, as stated above, the processor performance
degraded significantly (30%?).
Considering the lack of true hardware support for sound on the Apple
II line, some programs were able to achieve some amazing sound effects
while, at the same time, producing sprite style animation in software
(ie. MsPacman). Unfortunately, the processor had to be seriously tied
to poping that damn speaker cone in REAL-TIME!!! The effective
processor degradation was anywhere from 10% to over 90%!!!!!!!!!!
Cameron Kaiser
>Some software (OCTAMED?) for the Amiga did achieve software controlled
>sound multiplexing but, as stated above, the processor performance
>degraded significantly (30%?).
I do have OctaMED on my A1200. I don't know too much about the package, but
AFAIK it does do some Paula tricks, yes.
Cameron Kaiser
>What was the C-64's Spartan?
The Spartan Mimic was a device that pulled simultaneously into all the
exterior ports of the 64. It connected to main RAM through the expansion bus
and essentially used the 64 for keyboard and RAM only. Inside the Mimic was
the CMOS Apple ][ 6502 variant, the system ROMs, and glue logic. It allowed
all the regular Apple peripherals and emulation was essentially 100% because
it was really just an Apple in a box with no keyboard or memory.
It was very expensive, and not many units were made. I don't know if one
exists these days.
Cameron Kaiser
>I can't tell if the Commodore can handle that or if you're talking about
>digital sound -- computer data which just happens to represent sound, stored
>on the tape like any other computer data.
No, the Commodore tapes are digital only. There is no analogue track. (Good
to see you off the classiccmp list. :-)
Cameron Kaiser
> Yep, I heard that.. I read it in the "Reader's Feedback" column in
>Compute! magazine; somebody wrote about hearing beeping sounds through his
>speaker when loading or saving to cassette on his 400 or 800 (I forget which).
I think you mean disk drive. A friend of the family has a 65XE and his Atari
plays intermittent beeps through the speaker when disk access is in progress.
Aaron
>In article <36a70c24...@news.localnet.com>,
> aar...@localnet.com wrote:
>> As a brief asside, did you know that Atari's program recorder could
>> play audio through the television? There were some wonderful foreign
>> language program/audio tapes that were only possible on the ATARI.
>
> Yep, I heard that.. I read it in the "Reader's Feedback" column in
>Compute! magazine; somebody wrote about hearing beeping sounds through his
>speaker when loading or saving to cassette on his 400 or 800 (I forget which).
>
>Greg
Those continuous beeps through the monitor's (or TV's) speaker also
occured with disk drive access. A program could reduce this sound to a
muffle but not completely get rid of it. Although this may sound
annoying, strangly enough many Atari afficionados (including me) grew
to love this Atari quirk in the same way alot of people love Cindy
Crawford's facial mole. Too bad IBM based Atari emulators couldn't
incorporate these sounds. There's nothing like owning the original
equipment!!!!!
Richard Cortese
> Nooo.. i didn't say that... I (as an Atari person) am only 'hearing'
> arguments that aren't convincing me that the c64 is 'better' than the
> atari (which, if i've gleaned my info correctly, was 3 years older
Does kind of give the impression that if as part of your comparision you
said, "The Atari 800 weighed more then the C64" someone would comment
how they used to fill their C64 with lead fishing weights to the point
where it was 10 times heavier then an Atari.
Kenneth Rempfer
the program. I also have the Atari Talk & Teach cartridge which
was used with cassette tapes - it would narate lessons while
providing info onscreen & asking questions. The catalog showed
there was 17 courses offered, ranging from elementary thru
college level.
For thoses people concerned about when this was available,
they came out with the inital release of the 400/800 in 1979.
D. Peschel <dpes...@u.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:788mj8$fg6$1...@nntp1.u.washington.edu...
>In article <36A7AE78...@cdsnet.net>,
>Daniel Morrow <vide...@cdsnet.net> wrote:
>
>>That depends on what you mean by "only possible on the ATARI.". Sound can
be played
>>back from an audio cassette in a commodore datasette drive, indeed it can
even be
>>digitized and edited/saved/loaded as any other digitized data can.
>
>>Aaron wrote:
>
>>> As a brief asside, did you know that Atari's program recorder could
>>> play audio through the television? There were some wonderful foreign
>>> language program/audio tapes that were only possible on the ATARI.
>
>What Aaron is talking about is analog recorded sound, exactly as you would
>get if you used your stereo system to make a cassette. (Well, not exactly,
>since it can only take one track of an Atari cassette. The other track is
>used for computer data, of course.)
>
>I can't tell if the Commodore can handle that or if you're talking about
>digital sound -- computer data which just happens to represent sound,
stored
>on the tape like any other computer data.
>
>-- Derek
Nate / DAC
> Here's a question, Did anyone ever program a (for a lack of a better
> term) multiplex sound channel song for either computer? (you know, 8
> voices on the atari instead of 4, w/o the Gumby or other stereo upgrades?
> or 6 voices on the c64? can it even be done or not?)
This is routine today. most C64 music has atleast 6 voices, some have even
more.
I heard a song recently, from our 1998 4K-compo, that sounded like it had a
good 8 or more voices in it.
Of course one can also add hardware such as the SID Symphony cartridge,
which gives 6 actual voices.
A good music programmer could pull off a cool 12-15 voices out of a 6-voice
machine.
--
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Curt Vendel
Whew!!! That was quite a message you wrote, very well written, I liked the
fair comparisons. Just for a little bit of added information. The reason why
the C-64 and Vic-20 came to market 3 years after the Atari 400/800 was that
Commodore did not have anything like that in 1979, and in fact I've spoken with
the 3 people who designed the Vic-20 and C-64 and they admitted to the fact that
Jack had them look at the Atari's and copy its features and package it into a
low cost system. Also the Vic and C-64 never had a peripheral bus, simply a
cassette port and an IEEE bus connector that was made to transfer data in and
out of the machine, so transfer rates were painfully slow. Commodore has a
huge advantage over the Atari's with upgradability, the Atari chipset is very
closely tied together, so to upgrade or speed up one chip effects all the
others, so upgrading the CPU, video and such has never been very successful in
the past, so Atari's strengths: its custom chips are also its downfall. The
SIO bus although very costly to design peripherals was a concept way ahead of
its time, in fact look at todays new hot communication standard, Universal
Serial Bus, where everything is daisy chained to a single interface, in fact the
designer of the SIO bus for the Atari 800 is also one of the patent holders of
the USB design working at Microsoft today.
Curt Vendel
The Atari Historical Society
http://www.atari-history.com
Curt Vendel
A close friend (he lived just 3 houses from me) liked purchasing
Commodore equipment (first the Vic 20 then the 64) and, based on what
I saw at his house, I almost purchased one in late 1984. Why did I go
for an Atari 800XL instead? When I walked into Child World with cash
in hand I found out the Atari was just marked down to $89.95; a full
$25 less than the C64. Of course, I had to wait six months before I
got a disk drive, which was almost double the price of the CPU!!!!!
Unfortunately the SIO bus although advanced for its time was expensive to develop
peripherals for and that was its downfall, items which should have cost 1/4th the
price had to have an intelligent communications control and then its own
controller so items were very very expensive. The XL series with its Parallel
bus could have solved many of the problems with PBI based devices, but the devices
meant to be released never got a chance when the Tramiels took over Atari and
cancelled all of the products.
Curt
Curt Vendel
features and refreshing everyones memory about these systems faired in the market,
hardly the same talk of yesteryears.
Curt
Cameron Kaiser wrote:
> Didn't we tire of the 'my computer can beat up your computer' back in the
> days of the Speccy flame war? Please, folks.
Curt Vendel
the introduction of these low cost pc's that caused everyone to suddenly change
course and go into a cost cutting frenzy and instead of enhancing the systems
in the right fashion, the machines were stripped of features and the companies
(especially Atari) spent more time doing research into how to remove an extra
resistor here, capacitor there instead of focusing on enhancing its chipsets
with better graphics and sound and such, TI dropped out, other companies
dropped out before comming out with products, then price got so low, the video
game industry began to be questioned, why bother buying a video game for $199
when I can own a computer for $199??? So in a sense many companies were badly
hurt from these low cost machines, it was great for Commodore though :)
Curt
Kenneth Rempfer wrote:
> Actually, the copyright on the inside cover of De Re Atari is 1982,
> which may outdate the 400/800 release in 1979, but predate all of
> the xl/xe machines and predates the c64 machine. The whole scene
> before 1983 was different on many levels. I credit the c64 with
> opening up the 8-bit pc market by driving prices down. There were
> some premium games avail for 8bit atari before 83, but with the c64
> came lower prices and was followed by a software boom for both
> platforms. Lets face it, more users (due to lower machine prices)
> attracted more programmers.
>
> One last note: The copyright in my copy of VisiCalc for Atari 800
> is 1981.
Jason
> I can only think of ONE program EVER written to give an Atari 8
> bit a c64-type of similarity (w/ the deliberate attempt to give it the
> c64 similarity) <- (i haven't explained that remark, so it seems
> repetitive, but there is an 'as opposed' point of view and i don't
> want to go there just yet) :)
The opposed point of view being "they don't do it 'cos they can't",
right? =-)
> Anyway, that program was designed to give the pokey chip sid-type
> waveform sound capability. Excepting THAT, i read a lot of posts here
> that (basically) say: "Well, the C64 can do that too! (if we program
> it specially for that)" I don't see Atari people saying (w/ the above
> exception about the sound) "Well, if we program our machines like
> this, they'll be more like a C64!"
We're not trying to make the C64 act like an Atari but we're being told
here that "the Atari was better because..." and in a fair few cases the
"because" is something we've already *done*. Unless, of course, the
Atari magically does all the things Aaron listed at power up without any
code being loaded it has to be programmed specifically for those jobs as
*well* doesn't it?
"Out of the box", the Atari has the faster processor and more colours,
the C64 has better sprites and sound but it's not just a matter of
*having* these things and just living with the limits the hardware sets.
I don't know about the Atari people, but the C64 folk are constantly
trying to get more out of the machine, not due to an inferiority complex
of some kind but because it can be done.
When the Blackmail people sat down and wrote the first FLI routine they
*weren't* thinking "we could pretend we have an Atari here!", they were
trying to make the C64 better. The result was a routine that isn't
documented in any Commodore literature and can increase the colour
resolution of the screen.
> Here's a question, Did anyone ever program a (for a lack of a better
> term) multiplex sound channel song for either computer? (you know, 8
> voices on the atari instead of 4, w/o the Gumby or other stereo
> upgrades? or 6 voices on the c64? can it even be done or not?)
On the C64, the most done with note plexing was seven voices by Apex (it
was on the music selector demo of the disk version of the game
Retrograde) and Martin Galway managed to get what sounds likes three
channels from one on the Wizball bonus run tune.
The Cosine player, EMS v7.03, can wedge a percussion channel in
"between" the standard three to give a fourth channel without plexing.
Add a polyphonic sample player and six shouldn't be hard...
> One more point (will i ever shut up? :) I really feel that here in the
> USA (back then) Atari actually DID give pretty good customer
> support...
They sucked like Noo-Noo over here...
--
Jon Melbo
>Well, spec sheets can be quite deceptive. The Apple II had something
>which neither the Atari nor 64 had: slots. Not only could you add
>all kind of graphics and sound cards, I recall things like 286 boards
>and IBM emulators, when I was in high school! Add in a decent BASIC,
>a built-in monitor, and a whole lot of software, and it's an OK
>machine.
That's a very good point. While lacking in sound and graphics, the
Apple II did have slots, fast parallel disk drives, 80 column support
and well supported expanded memory early on. Atari is still my
favorite but the Apple had us all there (til the PC came out).
>It also had one other thing Atari and 64 never had: support!
That I disagree with. Both Atari and CBM supported their equipment
also.
Jon Melbo
>IT WAS SORT OF AMAZING, THOUGH, HOW IF YOU ONLY HAD UPPER CASE YOU SORT OF
>GOT USED TO IT.
THAT'S VERY TRUE. NOW I JUST WISH I COULD FORCE ALL OF YOU TO READS
THIS IN A LARGER FONT TO SIMULATE THE 'JOYS' OF 40 COLUMN TEXT. LET'S
FACE IT FOLKS, 40 COLUMNS BLOWS.
Jon Melbo
>>Apple was cheaper than Atari? My recollection is that the Apples were
>>ridiculously expensive. In fact, that's the sole reason I started on the
>>Commodore rather than the computer I first learned on (the old black Apple
>>II+).
Well, I remember using some of the Bell & Howell (I think that's
right) Apple II/II+ series machines which were a very dark charcoal
(some would say black) color. I guess the were produced under the
permission of Aplle? My school district had them along with genuine
Apples. Who knows more about the Bell & Howell machines?
Jon Melbo
<cdka...@delete.these.four.words.concentric.net> wrote:
>No, the Commodore tapes are digital only. There is no analogue track. (Good
>to see you off the classiccmp list. :-)
Actually, to be technical the Atari doesn't have any digital track.
It has a track for ANALOG modulated tones and a track for analog
sounds or voice. I do not know if CBM used digital or analog
modulated tones. I suspect tones. The mainframe computers I've run
have large tape drives which indeed are fully digital not unlike tape
back up units for PCs.
Just picking a nit.
Jon Melbo
>Those continuous beeps through the monitor's (or TV's) speaker also
>occured with disk drive access. A program could reduce this sound to a
>muffle but not completely get rid of it. Although this may sound
>annoying, strangly enough many Atari afficionados (including me) grew
Actually those sounds were made to be audible to the operator ON
PURPOSE and by DESIGN! Think about it, it actually serves a valid
function. You might look under such subjects as Human Engineering or
Positive Feedback.
Jason
> That I disagree with. Both Atari and CBM supported their equipment
> also.
I think this varies from place to place. Atari in the UK, for example,
were lousy and I gave up on them (and this was true of a lot of software
companies too, trying to get a 6502 assembler was something I never
managed...). Commodore UK were okay, but took an age to do things but
because the C64 was prolific there were other avenues open if you needed
help. Apple never really pushed their 8bit machines over here.
It must be said that Atari UK improved like nobody's business when Jack
Attack took over, they actually started talking to people! Commodore
were their old, bloody-minded self nearly to the end, just *slightly*
faster... =-)
Curt Vendel
Early 82' the spec for the "Sweet-16" project which was to become the 1200XL
called for the basically the Gumby mod and for a monitor port with stereo output
as well and a new enhanced SIO port using all 15 of the DB-15 connector
(replacing the 13 Molex SIO connector) it also had a new wake on command line so
that the computer could automatically turn on periherals when it booted up, also
it was supposed to have the Parallel Bus Interface which if released in 82' would
have given Atari the early lead time for parallel disk drives, the expansion
chasis, with expansion cards, all around it would have been a much better system
then the 1200XLs and the 600/800XL's would have been released, instead more
high-end systems may have followed, but foolishly Atari sold a closed box and
here came the C-64 and Vic-20 with all the features give or take that the Atari's
had but with a much lower price tag, the timing for Atari couldn't have been any
worse. Add to the fact that Commodore was a computer company and only that,
they had more of an advantage over Atari's Home Computer Division with experience
and resources, so it wasn't hard for them to literally take over the home market
and sell those low cost pc's like hot-cakes. Although I'll tell you this, Atari
wins hands down for looks, those C-64's and Vic-20's were butt ugly. Although
the tables were turned when Jack left Commodore, the new C-128's, C-64-II's, and
Amiga's looked great, while we Atari users got stuck with some really dull-ugly
XE and ST systems, even the Mega ST although better looking was still very ugly.
Curt
Jason wrote:
Curt Vendel
instructions read to you in voice and background music while portions of a
program loaded, the educational series tapes and the foreign language tapes were
wonderful examples of this technology that Atari really should have pushed in
commercials more then just the one Atari 400 commercial.
Curt
Cameron Kaiser
>Well, I remember using some of the Bell & Howell (I think that's
>right) Apple II/II+ series machines which were a very dark charcoal
>(some would say black) color. I guess the were produced under the
>permission of Aplle?
Oh, no, they weren't. Apple didn't like the B&H clones *at all*, and
neither did they like the Franklin Ace (a superior Apple clone) or the Laser
128. They were much cheaper and undercut Apple by a significant margin, and
for that Apple hauled them into court and gave them the legal equivalent of
a flogging with a buzzsaw blade over "look and feel" and the usual legal
hogwash.
Cameron Kaiser
>>No, the Commodore tapes are digital only. There is no analogue track. (Good
>>to see you off the classiccmp list. :-)
>Actually, to be technical the Atari doesn't have any digital track.
>It has a track for ANALOG modulated tones and a track for analog
>sounds or voice. I do not know if CBM used digital or analog
>modulated tones. I suspect tones. The mainframe computers I've run
>have large tape drives which indeed are fully digital not unlike tape
>back up units for PCs.
They were digital pulses, no frequency or amplitude modulation involved
in signal encoding. Hence, if *any* tone came through, even if the amplitude
sucked, the Datasette would still send a 1 down the line to the 64. Not only
that, but programs were saved twice to tape (and the copies compared), and
were checksum-ridden. Commodore tape was slow as all that's holy, but it was
also ridiculously reliable. You never saw a load error. Ever.
Jason Compton
: jme...@pressenter.com (Jon Melbo) writes:
:>Well, I remember using some of the Bell & Howell (I think that's
:>right) Apple II/II+ series machines which were a very dark charcoal
:>(some would say black) color. I guess the were produced under the
:>permission of Aplle?
: Oh, no, they weren't. Apple didn't like the B&H clones *at all*, and
: neither did they like the Franklin Ace (a superior Apple clone) or the Laser
: 128. They were much cheaper and undercut Apple by a significant margin, and
: for that Apple hauled them into court and gave them the legal equivalent of
: a flogging with a buzzsaw blade over "look and feel" and the usual legal
: hogwash.
Wait a sec. The Bell and Howell models I saw had Apple logos on them but
said "Manufactured by Bell and Howell." We know that Apple didn't like
the Franklin and Laser clones, but I'm not so sure about the Bell and
Howell ones being "illegit."
Based on what I saw, it looked to me like they were manufactured BY Bell
and Howell FOR Apple.
--
Jason Compton jcom...@xnet.com
www.xnet.com/~jcompton