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The BEST 8 Bit Gaming Computer


8 Bit Gamming Computers  

142 members have voted

  1. 1. Pick the best...

    • Commodore 64
      80
    • ZX Spectrum
      18
    • Apple 2
      6
    • Atari 400
      35
    • Amstrad 664
      3

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Out of those computers the Spectrum pisses it!

 

In fact if you are talking about the 128k Spectrums (escpecially the +3 with its built in disk drive and ramdisk) they were by far the best of the 8-bit computers.

 

If you dismiss the colour clash they had the highest resolution of all of them, 16 colours on screen all the time, a superb Yamaha sound chip (same as the ST's!) plenty of memory and a 3.5 mhz Z80 which also made it the fastest too. I had around 2000 games for mine at one point!

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I love my C64, and play stuff on it all the time, but the 800XL sure did have some incredible arcade ports. I still get a charge out of the Pac-Man port.

 

Pac-Man is on the C64 too and it's a port of the original Atari 800 cartridge version. It's extremely similar. It doesn't have the intermissions or more accurate dot sounds like the A800 Datasoft disk version, though.

Edited by BrianC
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Out of those computers the Spectrum pisses it!

 

In fact if you are talking about the 128k Spectrums (escpecially the +3 with its built in disk drive and ramdisk) they were by far the best of the 8-bit computers.

 

If you dismiss the colour clash they had the highest resolution of all of them, 16 colours on screen all the time, a superb Yamaha sound chip (same as the ST's!) plenty of memory and a 3.5 mhz Z80 which also made it the fastest too. I had around 2000 games for mine at one point!

 

 

Well, certainly not to argue this one. I found that Street Fighter Video playing on the Speccy. It was a pretty AMAZING machine and I wish it had had better distribution in the States, I'd like to try my hand at a few games on it.

 

 

Was it not for my sheer love of Commodore, I'd almost be tempted to change my vote (not that its possible).

 

-Ray

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Why isn't the best 8-bit ever on the list? I mean, the MSX standard.

You know, isn't not like some fanboyish opinion, it's fact... Just check the specs.

 

Eduardo

 

Its not on here, because I forgot to add it. I take nothing away from that fine machine. I assure you.

 

-Ray

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If you dismiss the colour clash

Kind of like saying, "if you ignore the fact that her face scared small children, and that she was 200 pounds overweight, she was *hot*!"

 

they had the highest resolution of all of them,

Numbers please? The C-128 could do 640x400 interlaced. The C-64, 320x200 though the top and bottom borders could easily be utilized to display scores and that sort of info.

 

 

16 colours on screen all the time,

Same as the C-64.

 

a superb Yamaha sound chip (same as the ST's!)

This chip is good, but it doesn't trump the SID in all ways, particularly it's filters.

 

plenty of memory

Same as the C-128.

 

and a 3.5 mhz Z80 which also made it the fastest too. I had around 2000 games for mine at one point!

A Z80 must be clocked at about 3 mhz to beat a 1 mhz 6502 at real-world tasks. The A8's 1.79 Mhz 6502 is much faster than the poor Speccy's Z80. A C-64's ~1Mhz processor is somewhat slower when directly comparing raw processing, but when put in a game environment, the advantages of the VIC-II (hardware sprites, hardware smooth scrolling, tile-based display) more than make up for it in most situations.

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That "superb" yamaha soundchip was lame. :) It has the least amount of personality I've heard from any Console/Computer of the time, Tim Follin did some good tunes on it, he also did better versions of those tunes on the SID. The Speccy definitely had some high-res going on but unfortunately that can't save the graphics from looking like piss(I mean that literally in the case of games like Rolling Thunder in all their monochrome piss-yellow screen glory.

 

I don't hate the speccy, but most speccy owners start getting all dilusional when they talk about it and compare it to the c64. The Atari 800 and the C64 are on the same level. The Speccy and C64 are not.

Edited by rockfistus
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That "superb" yamaha soundchip was lame. :) It has the least amount of personality I've heard from any Console/Computer of the time, Tim Follin did some good tunes on it, he also did better versions of those tunes on the SID. The Speccy definitely had some high-res going on but unfortunately that can't save the graphics from looking like piss(I mean that literally in the case of games like Rolling Thunder in all their monochrome piss-yellow screen glory.

 

I don't hate the speccy, but most speccy owners start getting all dilusional when they talk about it and compare it to the c64. The Atari 800 and the C64 are on the same level. The Speccy and C64 are not.

 

What the hell do you base that statement on? It had 3 channels plus beep and could easily handle midi and digitised sound (most 128k games had speech). If was so lame Atari wouldn't have used it in the ST.

 

Alot of speccy games may have been monochrome but were far higher resolution than their counterparts. Most C64 and CPC games looked very blocky when compared.

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Alot of speccy games may have been monochrome but were far higher resolution than their counterparts. Most C64 and CPC games looked very blocky when compared.

The C64 and CPC were both entirely capable of doing ugly hires monochrome games like the Speccy, but the designers chose to go with more colours (sometimes at the expense of resolution). Most people (except for the people blinded by nostalgia because their parents couldn't afford a better computer) looking at the screenshots agree with the choices the C64/CPC designers made.

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with the Apple ][ having the biggest game software library of any 8-bit computer (EG May 1985):

I did some googling around, and couldn't find a definitive Apple II games site. Is there anything along the same lines as http://gb64.com/ for the Apple II?

 

I'm suspicious of using a magazine article from 1985 to support a claim of biggest 8-bit game library... the C-64 had another 7-8 years of solid games development after that date, and even now, hundreds of new games have been made for it this decade (even though most of them are quite crappy).

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What the hell do you base that statement on? It had 3 channels.....etc

 

I base it on what my ears tell me. What more do you want? The Yamaha 2151, now that's an ass kicking chip. The AY is plain-vanilla and boring. No need to get bent outta shape though, it's an opinion. And it ain't changing any time soon. :twisted:

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I hear what you're saying, MacbthPSW, but remember the Apple ][ also had still another 7 years of gaming from 1985 onwards, so how many titles could you add to that? Surely always ahead of C-64 by all means. Apple ][ = 16.000 titles by 1985, maybe even 20.000 titles by 1992. I had this out with Mayhem once, who's a C-64 expert. He's saying there is even nowadays new developement for C-64 and it's catching up to Apple ][, but surely, there is also Apple ][ programming still around, adding more titles also? And older (lost and found) software is still to be found for both computers.

 

GB64 claims 18.000 titles so far, look closely and you find 1000s of Boulderdash Construction Kit home made games, and 1000s home made SEUCK games, and 1000s of home made Pinball Construction Set game and so on (you get my meaning), you must at least delete all those home made Construction Kit titles as they do not count IMHO.

 

World of Spectrum claims a huge amount of software titles (above 10.000), but they count re-releases, type-in listings and Construction Kit games, so they're cheating too.

 

 

I use several sources, EG, Triumph of the Nerds video (about PC and Apple ][), 80s gaming and computer books etc. Certain I cannot be, as I am German and the Apple ][ was never a success in Europe. I only remember in the 80s all 8 bit games in the USA came out on Apple first, and then converted to XL, C-64 (if at all). CGW in the 80s was always full of Apple ][ game reviews.

 

Also, you said you don't believe in an 80s magazine article. I'd rather believe an 80s solid gaming magazine article or gaming book than an un-reliable internet source anytime.

 

A good Apple ][ www like GB64 I can't find, I wish there was one, I think the Apple ][ got forgotten by US folks, which is very sad indeed.

Edited by thomasholzer
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Alot of speccy games may have been monochrome but were far higher resolution than their counterparts. Most C64 and CPC games looked very blocky when compared.

The C64 and CPC were both entirely capable of doing ugly hires monochrome games like the Speccy, but the designers chose to go with more colours (sometimes at the expense of resolution). Most people (except for the people blinded by nostalgia because their parents couldn't afford a better computer) looking at the screenshots agree with the choices the C64/CPC designers made.

I am hardly blinded by nostalgia as I also had an 800XL which I still have along with my Speccy and also had a CPC464 for a while but still don't think they were as good.

Edited by mr.kizza
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While Apple II development remained strong in the education department through the 1980s, mainstream game development really seemed to have peaked in the mid-80s when the C-64 overtook it. For example, Ultima VI wasn't even made for the Apple II - the only 8-bit version produced was for the C64, which surely shows how the market had changed.

 

I totally agree that you can't take the numbers at gb64, WoS and so forth as a count of how many commercial releases there were, if that's what really counts. But the existence of these large databases is definite proof that many thousands (in gb64.com's case, over 10,000 titles certainly) were made for these platforms. Besides some probably unsubstantiated claims in a few magazines or videos, where is the proof that so many titles exist for the Apple II? I can't believe they just went missing.

 

I use several sources, EG, Triumph of the Nerds video (about PC and Apple ][), etc. Certain I cannot be, as I am German and the Apple ][ was never a success in Europe. I only remember in the 80s all 8 bit games in the USA came out on Apple first, and then converted to XL, C-64 (if at all). CGW in the 80s was always full of Apple ][ game reviews.

Up until around 1984-1985 most games were made on A8 or Apple II first, then a C64 port was made. By around 1985 that had mostly switched to the C64 version being the original.

 

A good Apple ][ www like GB64 I can't find, I wish there was one, I think the Apple ][ got forgotten by US folks, which is very sad indeed.

The gaming aspect of the Apple II seems to have been forgotten, though there are still many actively playing with them for hardware tinkering and so forth. But I think that's just another indicator of how game development nearly disappeared in the late 80s and on for the A2. In all the years that the minigame competition has been going on I think there has only been one or two A2 entries, compared to many dozens of C64, Spectrum and Atari 2600 entries especially.

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I am hardly blinded by nostalgia as I also had an 800XL which I still have along with my Speccy and also had a CPC464 for a while but still don't think they were as good. The speccy was so amazingly easy to program too, I had several games published back in the day and most only took a few weeks to write.

Nifty - published in magazines, or actually released by a software house? What were the names of the games? I'd like to check them out.

 

The Z80 is nice and easy to code for compared to the 6502, though that's offset by all the extra work the coder needs to do to make software sprites and so forth, so good Speccy coders get plenty of respect from me.

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I had a few on cover tapes on magazines and a few published by budget producers.

 

Halls of Zatress, Centipod, Zombie!, Advanced Lawnmover Simulator, Steve Davis Snooker (renamed by publisher CDS originally callled plain Snooker), Penalty Shootout, Forest, Big Boxing, Shooting Range and Digger Doug (which had digitised speech and music on the 128k!) were all games I wrote myself. I also helped out with the coding on many other games and did work for Durell, Star Soft, CDS and Firebird (who my uncle worked for).

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I had a few on cover tapes on magazines and a few published by budget producers.

 

Halls of Zatress, Centipod, Zombie!, Advanced Lawnmover Simulator, Steve Davis Snooker (renamed by publisher CDS originally callled plain Snooker), Penalty Shootout, Forest, Big Boxing, Shooting Range and Digger Doug (which had digitised speech and music on the 128k!) were all games I wrote myself. I also helped out with the coding on many other games and did work for Durell, Star Soft, CDS and Firebird (who my uncle worked for).

 

Oh my god, I'm argueing with the "Advanced Lawnmover Simulator" guy :D I never thought this day would come.

 

I made a Lawnmower Simulator too, I'll upload it sometime.

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You could be right MacbthPSW,

but 1989/1990 SSI catalogue still lists games released on Apple ][ first and C-64 versions later: (AD&D Gold boxes (Apple first, C-64 later), Battles of Napoleon Apple (Nov), C-64 (Dec), Demons Winter Apple ][ (now), C-64 (Dec) (few examples)

 

interesting it also shifts to Apple ][ and C-64 for same release dates (same year but later edition catalogue), examples = Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Assistant, Typhoon of Steel for both Apple ][ & C-64 (now)

 

and then with IBM versions coming first, overtaking both C-64 and Apple ][.

 

Even a late title like Broderbunds Prince of Persia came on Apple ][ first, before it hit the PC (didn't even make it to C-64 at all).

 

Any which way, I wish some USA guys would sit down and do a Apple ][ database, I think it's long overdue.

Edited by thomasholzer
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I had a few on cover tapes on magazines and a few published by budget producers.

 

Halls of Zatress, Centipod, Zombie!, Advanced Lawnmover Simulator, Steve Davis Snooker (renamed by publisher CDS originally callled plain Snooker), Penalty Shootout, Forest, Big Boxing, Shooting Range and Digger Doug (which had digitised speech and music on the 128k!) were all games I wrote myself. I also helped out with the coding on many other games and did work for Durell, Star Soft, CDS and Firebird (who my uncle worked for).

 

So who exactly are you? I've been going through the games you listed in the WOS database, and the only one I can find is Steve Davis Snooker, authorship of which is credited to Mike Lamb (a very famous Speccy games programmer who did quite a lot of licensed stuff in the late 80's for Ocean/Imagine). I can't find any of the others - is there any chance you still have copies and would be willing to upload them to WOS?

 

Incidentally, your date of birth as listed on this site would make you 7 years old when you wrote Steve Davis Snooker. Quite an achievement! ;)

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Uhh...I pick the C-64, just because Ive never played any 8-bit computer games(dont know if parsec for the T1-99/4A counts), and have only played the C-64 30-in-1 joystick, and have alot of fun with that.

 

The Commodore 64 is going to be one of my next system purchases after I buy a 7800.

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