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ZZap! 64 issue 1, top C64 programmers say A8 is best


high voltage

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I will ignore director's opinions because most of them knew fack all about technicalities of machines, it was all $$$$'s to them. Crowther is interesting he is a very good programmer (even worked on Battlefield 2 for Xbox 360!) and yet Crowther's C64 games look, sound and play better than the A8 games like LOCO, go figure.

 

I would have thought Jeff Minter's vocal opinions would have been mentioned too to be honest. AotMC for Atari is one of the best looking shootemups on any 8bit IMO.

 

You do realise Julian Rignall, the most talented of all reviewers, played A8 games a lot? I remember talking to him on the ZZAP stand (trade pass so we weren't hassled for being teenagers) and he owned a lot of cool stuff. He was also one of the first people in the UK to get the NEC PC-Engine/TurboGrafx console.

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My opinion of the 64 has changed a bit over the years. It had a simpler architecture and OS than the A8, but it's features were generally more useful for gaming. It also came out at the right time at the right price. I think the perfect 8-bit would have had features from each.

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My opinion of the 64 has changed a bit over the years. It had a simpler architecture and OS than the A8, but it's features were generally more useful for gaming. It also came out at the right time at the right price. I think the perfect 8-bit would have had features from each.

 

The C64 was clearer to understand for game-creators and musicians, with low programming skills.

Just do some poke here and there and get a full game in Basic that looks like an Arcade game of some years ago...

 

To program the A8 , much more programming - and technical achievement was needed.

Not to compare with a car... whereas ... the faster the driving, the less is the brain power ...

(Hm.... on the other hand... people always prefered the "good looking graphics" and the "Sid - music" over good gameplay...)

But, it is simply much more work , to create a good ego view game, than to create another scrolling shooter with moving hardware objects.

 

 

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Crowther was alright if you wanted a series of Super Locomotive knockoffs, otherwise no. The other thing is those folks are just talking about a snapshot of how things are at that point in time and things were still ramping up on the C64 front.

 

If you want to make a better point of A8 vs C64 you should've quoted Jeff Minter and thrown up the videos of the clearly superior Attack of the Mutant Camels on the A8 as evidence then you might've been more convincing.

 

I'm a C64 kid though so I really shouldn't be helping you out here ;)

 

I don't get how the easier to program machine is supposed to lead to worse games though - up until a point a low barrier to entry lets everyone write a game (even those who really shouldn't - just look at the iOS appstore or any repository of gamesmaker 'games'), but then once you are past that point every minute spent on trying to thrash out your sprite plotter or overcome a colour restriction is a moment lost from game design.

Edited by sack-c0s
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I don't get how the easier to program machine is supposed to lead to worse games though - up until a point a low barrier to entry lets everyone write a game (even those who really shouldn't - just look at the iOS appstore or any repository of gamesmaker 'games'), but then once you are past that point every minute spent on trying to thrash out your sprite plotter or overcome a colour restriction is a moment lost from game design.

 

Right. Time is money and a system that allows decent results from textbook usage will have the better software library. Look how long it has taken to push the A8 to the next level. Many of these precision methods would have been very difficult to use without modern programming tools. Today it's fun to use a system that still has a few tricks up its sleeve.

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"Easier to program" isn't something you can bestow on one or the other straight up.

The biggest differences are sprite handling, C64 colour Ram, scrolling methodologies other than simply moving memory, sound/music, OS interaction.

 

Sprite handling overall easier on C64. Scrolling easier on A8. Sound slightly easier on A8, music easier on C64. OS interaction easier on A8.

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I'm a C64 kid though so I really shouldn't be helping you out here ;)

 

No need for that.

It still is the point that you can do those games using standard C64 features and you're able to re-use memory content over the whole screen. Doing similar stuff with the A8 for up to 4 moving objects, things may get a par, but cpu usage gets dramatically higher when more than 8 "independend sprites" get used.

Every sprite on the C64 gets handled like the charset of the A8. As soon as the pointer gets changed, the look of the spritecontent is changed... every sprite on it's own. Thus you can animate every sprite in fluent 50Hz and re use it several times on the same screen.

I'm not a C64 guy, so why do I have to explain that?

The horizontal scrolling on the A8 is a nice part, but it doesn't anyhow equalize the "70s" technique of PMg...

Edited by emkay
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The A8's strength is in the Ego view games.

Where the C64 has to create special modes, using CPU power, reducing the available cycles on the anyways slower CPU, made Ego view games dropped down to a niche product, because the C64 leaded the market, and Ego view games were always too slow there.

Having a look at the PC 3D ego view games of the early 90s, with that low resolution, allows to have a projection of what could be done with the A8 in the 160x120 pixel resolution, and some cartridge with pre-defined graphic objects.

Space Harrier is just a conversion Job and it is a proof of what the writer in the ZZAP magazine has been vague about.

Edited by emkay
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Crowther was alright if you wanted a series of Super Locomotive knockoffs, otherwise no. The other thing is those folks are just talking about a snapshot of how things are at that point in time and things were still ramping up on the C64 front.

 

If you want to make a better point of A8 vs C64 you should've quoted Jeff Minter and thrown up the videos of the clearly superior Attack of the Mutant Camels on the A8 as evidence then you might've been more convincing.

 

I'm a C64 kid though so I really shouldn't be helping you out here ;)

 

I don't get how the easier to program machine is supposed to lead to worse games though - up until a point a low barrier to entry lets everyone write a game (even those who really shouldn't - just look at the iOS appstore or any repository of gamesmaker 'games'), but then once you are past that point every minute spent on trying to thrash out your sprite plotter or overcome a colour restriction is a moment lost from game design.

I dunno Wanted Monty Mole is the best Monty Mole game IMO.

 

The C64 version of AMC is technically shit, even AMC 2 sub game on Batalyx is only a half arsed improvement he admits.

 

Anyway the C64 is not simple to code, different and easy to access 4 colour only screens BUT good C64 games use complex SID tricks, very complex hires/multicolour mixed mode graphic screens (lots of weird restrictions), devious memory maps (never enough as ROMS etc sit inside 64kb and unlike a Commodore Plus4/MSX/Amstrad little is left) and elegant sprite multiplexing kernal. If the C64 was easy to code then all Game maker/SEUCK games wouldn't look shit.

 

Truth is they are just both complex in different ways and both need much skill. Unlike ST vs Amiga.

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the memory map on the C64 isn't that complicated - the ROMs are write-through and you can bank out the basic and kernel ROM by writing $35 to $01.

 

The rest is true though. I think the main thing is that some games the style translates better to the Atari rather than the C64, and Minter needs lots of colours and strong, ballsy early 80s arcade sound effects that resonate through the desk. Although he wrote games for both machines his games just feel like Atari games.

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Well, if Mr Crowther liked the A8 that much, why didn't he get of his big behind and learn to program on it....and perhaps gremlin might have had a few more games to throw at A8 owners/users

 

Thsi thread kind of reminds me of something i think was attributed to David Braben (of elite fame) when someone claimed that he (braben) said that he wanted an atari 8bit version of elite done

 

If that was even true then perhaps David would have programmed elite on the A8 instead of the BBC/Acorn systems (i think though his first game on the Archie was slightly better then elite...i.e Zarch (or virus if your an st/amiga user)

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The Elite story - a new version seems to surface every few years.

 

The one "in the day" was that in fact they'd done an A8 conversion and it was better than all the others and canned because Acorn didn't want the BBC shown up.

 

Realistically they probably didn't consider A8 thanks to it not exactly being successful in the UK at the time, and by the time it was competitive and more successful, the transition to 16-bit was in full swing and 8 bit development started to wane regardless.

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Yeah I remember Rignall and Minter from UK shows, Minter's stand was always cool with Floyd music.

Of course we had our own stands (8/16) and I played A8 music through a guitar amp, cool times.

 

I remember when Rignall took over C&VG, it basically turned into a PC Engine magazine, even though the PC Engine never had a UK release.

 

Myself, I own and enjoy all three main 8 bits: A8 Apple 2 C 128

Edited by high voltage
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i think the guys who had access to A8 back in those days in the UK found the machine quite good and interesting but from commercial point of view it would not make any sense for them to lay some hands on the A8 machines.

 

but I am sure that Dropzone, International Karate, Elektra Glide, Koronis Rift, Eidolon, Rescue on Fractalus, Ballblazer showed them how good the machine was... but at the end of the day it would not paid their rent. Even Speccy versions or BBC were (maybe) more successful.

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Just passing through... said i wasn't going to join in with this thread because i've not got the time, but in answer to this question some interestings turned up at FWar so....

 

Well, if Mr Crowther liked the A8 that much, why didn't he get of his big behind and learn to program on it....and perhaps gremlin might have had a few more games to throw at A8 owners/users

 

He did, but not until after the interview above; andym00 emailed him about that interview and another piece found in a later issue of Zzap! and Mr Crowther actually finished a conversion of William Wobbler for the A8 just as he was leaving Wizard Developments. He doesn't know what happened to it but there are adverts over at World Of Spectrum that list the Atari as an available platform alongside the C64 and Spectrum (and a forthcoming Amstrad port that didn't appear).

 

i did a little digging and the postal address for Wizard Developments matches Gremlin's in Sheffield so presumably they were somehow related or at the very least there'd be people swapping work floppies informally so, if anyone knows a former Gremlin employee who likes to hoard old development floppies it might be time to go visiting...!

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I remember when Rignall took over C&VG, it basically turned into a PC Engine magazine, even though the PC Engine never had a UK release.

 

Sort of right.. Was marketed and pushed in several London shops back in the day.. In fact I'm selling one of them right now ;)

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Dont you mean shekana Andy...they were the first importers of the pc engine in london (if you're referring to tottenham court road that is)

 

I think shekana also stocked the 'official' pal version of pc engine (as made by micro media with NEC's blessings apparently)

 

And according to yell.com shekana are still going but they moved to wood green (just past tottenham)

 

Me thinks that andymoo and tmr used to work for the likes of gremlin/usg/ocean etc or some other uk software house (seeming as though they are mostly c64 users)

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Dont you mean shekana Andy...they were the first importers of the pc engine in london (if you're referring to tottenham court road that is)

 

I think shekana also stocked the 'official' pal version of pc engine (as made by micro media with NEC's blessings apparently)

 

And according to yell.com shekana are still going but they moved to wood green (just past tottenham)

 

Me thinks that andymoo and tmr used to work for the likes of gremlin/usg/ocean etc or some other uk software house (seeming as though they are mostly c64 users)

 

No.. These were not imported machines.. I know Shekana well, in fact bought my first PC-E from them, imported.. The machines I refer to are official Turbografx PAL machines.. Made by NEC for the PAL release, which fizzled..

There was a test marketing campaign (beyond TCR) for this stuff, which failed.. Miserably.. ;)

 

And no, I've never had a thing to do with Gremlin, apart from trying to sell them my 8-bit sampler hardware back in the day ;)

Apart from that, yes ;)

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