Atari vs C64 // was: 8-Bit Computer Poll

[TMR]

depends on the job I guess - I've been a professional programmer for years but was never expected to know any assembler. I'm just learning it because I always wanted to know how it was done (being a code in basic (and variants of it) on the '81, Speccy, Atari 8 bit, BBC micro and ST) - everything I do commercially is a far cry from assembler - the closest I have come recently is C on PDAs, but that's rare.

Depends on the language too, more modern high level languages try to be portable so there's less knowledge of individual machines needed (note "less" and not "no" there =-) and, from what i gather, C is probably the closest thing to assembly language without actually being assembly. To be honest, i never took an interest in more recent platforms, i prefer the more makeshift coding that 8-bits need, the whole getting down amongst the bits and, more often than not, kicking the operating system out of the way right at the start of the code. =-)

[Emperor Fossil]

Oh yes of course, you did it cos the mag was already out. That's why on WoS you urged speccy fans to "DO SOMETHING!!!!!!! VOTE so that we can ditch this C64 s***"

And then when Smila pointed out that the mag is out and the speccy won, you replied: "Forgive me I'm a bit uninformed. What mag?"

That's the problem with these Speccy people, they take polls like this far too seriously! [Smiles sweetly =-]

Yeah, RIGHT ON!.... Oh wait... I see... Hey, I just stumbled upon that post at WoS.... I didn't... y'know... go storming off over there... uh... the moment I read that, um...

Hey look! A BUTTERFLY!

[TMR]

That's the problem with these Speccy people, they take polls like this far too seriously! [Smiles sweetly =-]

Yeah, RIGHT ON!.... Oh wait... I see... Hey, I just stumbled upon that post at WoS.... I didn't... y'know... go storming off over there... uh... the moment I read that, um...

i'd seen it... and the thread at Atari Age. =-) Don't remember seeing one on any of the C64 boards i visit though, but i assume there was one somewhere...

Hey look! A BUTTERFLY!

Ooh, pwitty! Umm, what was i saying...?

[OriginalJax]

To be honest, i never took an interest in more recent platforms, i prefer the more makeshift coding that 8-bits need, the whole getting down amongst the bits and, more often than not, kicking the operating system out of the way right at the start of the code. =-)

I loved those days, but they pretty-much died after the Amiga and the 16-bit consoles

As for now? Aside from Sony/Microsoft not letting you do it, you really don't want to try to control the newest round of hardware yourself - it's scary!

O-Jax

[TMR]

As for now? Aside from Sony/Microsoft not letting you do it, you really don't want to try to control the newest round of hardware yourself - it's scary!

Microsoft let you do it for a price through XBLA (we're sort of looking at the possibilities...), Sony as well i believe... but that wasn't really what i meant, when you use current machines you're working in high level languages and there's an operating system sitting between you and the hardware, the upper speed limit of your code comes down to how good the compiler is and how good the code in the operating system is at doing what you tell it... i don't find that interesting personally.

[oswald]

But no, I have the chance to use the Spec and I got very impressed in the early 82 because the high technical level than programmers reach. I think Spec have the better stuff of programmers.

which 8bitter havent got that stuff? nothing exceptional there.

I think what's being said here is it's impressive given the lack of hardware to back the machine up - nearly everything has to be done in software (as you've said the c64 has tremendous hardware to aid the coder - the speccy basically gives you a wry grin and challenges you to get on with it)

still the fact that the spec havent got advanced HW and the coders had to get around that, while on other machine the coders used the HW to its best doesnt imply the spec coders were better. coders used what they got. also the speccy got one of the most powerful cpus, so that helped quite a lot in compensating.a 6510 at 1mhz and fighting with soft sprites and full soft scroll of a bitmap and clashes would be anything but impressive given the speed... even if the coders would pull their best.

[psj3809]

That's the problem with these Speccy people, they take polls like this far too seriously! [Smiles sweetly =-]

To be fair i think we've seen a lot of brand new 1 post users turning up and voting for either the Speccy or the C64 ! I'm sure theres other threads on C64 forums (as there is on the Speccy) urging people to sign up to vote !

[oswald]

anyhow if every single ppl would be asked in the world c64 would win.

[Emperor Fossil]

That's the problem with these Speccy people, they take polls like this far too seriously! [Smiles sweetly =-]

To be fair i think we've seen a lot of brand new 1 post users turning up and voting for either the Speccy or the C64 ! I'm sure theres other threads on C64 forums (as there is on the Speccy) urging people to sign up to vote !

Sure, but the issue in question wasn't regarding people using other forums to urge people to sign up and vote; it was about that speccy fan who signed up 9 times or more in a one-man speccy-voting frenzy. I only referred to his post on WoS to point out how it contradicted the claim he made here.

Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things, I suppose. I mean, I'm not going to email him a horse head or anything.

c64 Mafia, lol!

[Bub&Bob]

anyhow if every single ppl would be asked in the world c64 would win.

That's a good point - Darran, why didn't you wait until all 6.7 billion of us had voted?

I'm sure the Somalians and the Mongolian's would have voted for the C64

[markstclair2010]

I suspect this poll was rigged.

Yesterday the C=64 was leading by ~12 votes.
Now suddenly less than twenty-four hours later, it's essentially a tie.

Somebody somewhere has cast ~12 votes under ~12 different aliases in order to boost the Spectrum.

[neuromancer]

I suspect this poll was rigged.

Yesterday the C=64 was leading by ~12 votes.
Now suddenly less than twenty-four hours later, it's essentially a tie.

Somebody somewhere has cast ~12 votes under ~12 different aliases in order to boost the Spectrum.

Depends on how you want to define 'rigged' - if you're implying that the forum admins have altered the counts, then I'd have to totally disagree with you. If you mean that people have signed up with multiple accounts to up the vote, then yes, it's apparently happened (see above) (but how many votes, and for which machines?)

[markstclair2010]

I meant what I said. It just seems suspicious that the Spectrum would suddenly "jump" by 12 or 13 votes literally overnight.

the c128 came too late and that 128k is hard to handle, and you can only turn on 2mhz on the top / bottom borders, etc its not much powerful than a c64.

I owned a C128, and to be honest, it was just a C64 with some extra screenmodes. The 80-column mode was great for writing reports, but LOUSY for playing games (it was no better than IBM's CGA mode). The end result was I spent 99.9% of my time in 64-mode, not 128-mode

.

[markstclair2010]

Finally the most important computer in the 8bit history:

Isn't the Atari 800 simply an Atari 5200 videogame console, albeit with a keyboard? The 5200 games were inferior to what the Colecovision could do.

(walks to closet to don flame-retardant clothes)

[Bub&Bob]

I suspect this poll was rigged.

Yesterday the C=64 was leading by ~12 votes.
Now suddenly less than twenty-four hours later, it's essentially a tie.

Somebody somewhere has cast ~12 votes under ~12 different aliases in order to boost the Spectrum.

But its pointless now - the poll was for the magazine which has already been published - Time to lock this wonderful thread?