C64 vs Spectrum

This is really interesting of comparing between two games on each system.

I just found the good link and

Click here and scroll down, You will see which one had the best version of the game
http://www.c64vsspectrum.com/

Oh god. The last time I argued aboout C64 vs Speccy was about 20-25 years ago. No-one is ever going to accept 'their' system was not as good.

I propose a new forum rule : never discuss politics, relgion or if the C64 was better then the ZX Spectrum (it wasn't).

It blatantly was! The Spectrum was awful/offal (delete as appropriate) in comparison.

both are great machine ( I still have them both today :) )

Spec 48K was my first computer but when it broke I immediately bought a C64 because it had better graphics and sound (all important when you are a kid who likes games). Spec BASIC was better though.

Yeah, C64 BASIC was rubbish. Can't really comment on Spectrum BASIC since I never actually owned one. Amstrad CPC464/Locomotive BASIC for me!

The C64 was without doubt the better machine - very nice to program too.

I can't believe I am doing this again......

Oh misguided children, I am sure the great Clive in the sky will forgive your blasphmy, but you are WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!

The spectrum was better

*stuffs fingers in ears* la la la la la la la la

I take it he's on a plane somewhere? Because he's not actually dead.

Oh no, now you've done it! Questioning the diefication of the Clive! He's gonna roll down out of the clouds on his personal transportation device of the gods and crush the unbelivers!

Lets see if your swanky sound chips and having more than 2 colors in a 8x8 square can save you now!

I was a spectrum owner so therefore in general I prefer the speccy stuff. That said, one can't deny that the C64 had vastly superior sound capabilities, and in some cases better graphics. And of course it had all the additional hardware to make it scroll and handle graphics better.

That said, personally I preferred the higher res monochrome graphics of a speccy rather than the more blocky colourful graphics of the C64. I don't think anyone can argue better or worse (although I know they will) as it's all eye of the beholder.

What, a C5? Don't think that's capable of crushing anything, really. :)

The C64 was the superior machine by a long chalk, so no surprises that it won most of the comparisons. The Speccy was an absolute legend though for achieving what it did at that price point and in that ultra compact package. It was also released well before the C64, wasn't it?

Both were useless! I had a BBC model B (after my beloved speccy died). I suspect the best games on both were those that made most of whichever they were made for.

C64 BASIC involved about a trillion POKES just to do anything 53280, 53281 etc whereas Spec BASIC had sensible commands. C64 basic was limited to two lines of text per number and there was no RENUMBER command, stinky. When I got my C64 I used to go round my friends house to program his Spec (and another friends to program their Acorn Electron).

Of course, we haven't mentioned the best one yet, the Amstrad CPC.

Probably due to the subject being C64 Vs Spectrum? And if we're going down the route of unmentioned computers why has noone mentioned the Memotech MTX512 which I think I was the only person in the world to own?!

See 6th post ;)

Which made using assembler so easy


As long as you could remember which key combinations generated them.


You could go over two lines.


And the Spectrum had a yucky line editor and not a screen editor.


snigger.

Dudez, you're all wrong.. :P

Space Manbow and of course: SymbOS!

^___^

And people call me a geek!

BUT I did used to program 6502ASM on the C64 cause basic was soooo basic :)

only had a speccy and a plus 2 before migrating to st then amiga

knew the c64 had better gfx (as long as the artist was good at drawing that is) compared to the 2 colour colour clashing speccy
i dont know how many games were ports of other versions and not just same name different game so you cant always put one against the other and say "see 'x' is better on mine than yours"

it was a semi even play field in the early parts of the st/amiga years
most were lazy ports to the amiga or limiting the gfx and ditching pal mode in order to downgrade to ST

bot the ST and speccy lacked extra hardware oomph compared to the competition but both dished out enough games to keep people happy

I distinctly remember that you could not enter more than two lines of text per number, the cursor would get stuck at the end of the 2nd line and keep overwriting the same character or something. Why do you think it's different? Do you have different info? Perhaps it was 3 lines or something? I remember hitting the limit a lot and having to change my variable names or split the line into two which was annoying.

Indiepath: Yeah I first learned assembly on the C64. LDA, LDX, LDY and all that. Got an assembly manual. It was cool and amazing how limited it was with one accumulator and 2 registers, yet you could make great stuff. Made a basic language that compiled into assembly as one of my projects (it had spec-like commands for BORDER, PAPER, INK etc), also did some scrolling maps etc. Then I branched out into Spectrum Assembly and BBC assembly (via an emulator on the Amiga!) then the classic 68000, and later x86 assembly in DOS. That was the last time I touched it, about 10 years ago...It was interesting but I'm never going back.

I remember from playing some games at a friend's house that the Spectrum had nice smooth wireframe 3d games...

Apart from that the C64 is of course MUCH better!! C=

Ah, time for the usual.

"Simon's Basic" cartridge was great. It added new BASIC commands and added in a compiler :D. I'm not sure if it was only for the C64 though.

Sorry dude I missed that one... good to see you're flying the flag!!!
Your name and IP address have been noted, MrTaToad. I... can't... stand the... laughter...
I think I remember seeing that on an episode of the Waltons. One Christmas Jon boy got an orange and an MTX512 ; )

Ian Petchey, you just qualified for a top ten on my death-list !!

Religion is nothing compared to the (behold) C64 and (spittle hawk iack) Spectrum - war !

Speccy crawls in the shadows while the C64 is the SUN !!!!


if light were dark
and dark were light
the moon a black hole in the blaze of night
a ravens wing a bright a tin
then the C64 would be darker than sin

You could go over two lines by a few characters, especially if you abbreviate commands - but then its hard to edit. If you do exceed the limit, you just get a ?Syntax Error message


Of course it was only for the C64 - no other machine needed it.

colour aside the graphics on the speccy were much more clearer than the c64 blocky graphics :D

Taking about hires graphics or sprites V UDGS ? Either of which the lovely C64 produced quality graphics, which outshines a Spectrum or the block graphics of an Amstrad.

Oh OK, but basically you were limited at around the 2 line mark and it was a pain.

according to world of stuart c64 didnt have rebelstar or chaos, my 2 speccy fav games

I remembered when they had this 3D demo on the amstrad in a computer store
with a simple 3D model, just spheres and cubes ....

People (or just me!) used to get more easily excited over
any small improvement in computer graphics ! - lol

replace end with 'should be chucked in the bin'

the c64 was cool ... but i'm glad we don't use cassette tapes for software anymore ! - lol

Haha, this thread could run for months. I believe the limit on chars was 2 lines on a c64 as it had a 40 char display and the Vic 20 would let you bump up to 3.5 lines before it went "NO WAY!"

The beauty of the C64 was (despite what some people think was a hinderance) the direct use of poke/peek statements to do anything as it made the transition from using Basic to 6510 assembly a lot easier. Admittedly it was a crap basic on the 64 but, if you weren't used to anything else (like me upgrading from a Vic 20), was perfectly useable. There were cartridges with extended basic commands as I recall, anyway.

I can still remember wiring a pressure mat buzzer into joystick Port 2 on the C64 and writing my first assembler program that would check for movement right on the joystick (someone stood on the mat under my bedroom carpet) then it would flash the screen a multitude of colours and display "Get out of my room, you b*tch!!"

This was my way of letting my sister know I was onto her for stealing my records :-)

If I'm honest there were good points about both machines - and towards the end of its life there was some incredible stuff coming out for the spectrum considering its sound and graphic limitations. But I'll always consider my original C64 (and later amiga 500/1200) as the greatest machines in my computer history.

Sure, we've all got PC's now but who honestly regards them with the same affection they held of their old 8 bit machines? My C64 was like my little brother I played with it so much. Now the computer I'm writing this on is just a tool.

I had both and the C64 was easily the better machine (although the Spectrum had some truly great versions of games, for example Skool Daze)

Overall it's like comparing the ST to the Amiga - many games are similar on these systems but when let loose with a system-specific game the Amiga just destroyed the ST, same goes for the C64 compared to the Spectrum.

those were the days ...

Never really liked the Amiga - had it for a short time before Commodore went bust, and then happily moved over to Acorn, starting first with a A3010 and then a RiscPC.

Very nice machines - very powerful, but easy to program.

Oh no you don't!

Loved my Amiga. The Archimedes was indeed an excellent machine, but they went bust not long after Commodore, didn't they?

Few years afterwards - in 2000 (as opposed to 1994 for Commodore). Acorn never actually went bust, they just stopped producing new machines, renamed themselves Element 14 and started doing things with digital TV.

You can, of course, still get Acorn machines - unfortunately they are very expensive - even more so than Macs...

Yeah they went on to create more powerful processor cores and licence the IP to all comers. The Acorn Risc Machine (ARM) is I believe the most prolific core in existence today.

But you can still get a complete Acorn 'PC'? Where??

Acorn pretty much went bust in the mid eighties, saved from being wound up only by an Olivetti buyout.


Although ARM development began in house, ARM LTD was spun off from Acorn in late eighties/early nineties.


Also, weren't Element 14 bought out by Pace or someone?


...I was a bit of an Acorn fanboy... ;o)

I have a working MSX, C64 and Spectrum ZX at home.

The MSX had an easy to learn Basic, that is why I probably use Blitz today.
But on graphics and sound it wasn't as good as a C64.
The Spectrum I have works, but never tested it any further. My model has an internal floppy drive with rectangle floppies. No idea if it is any better than the C64 other then it's memmory.

After using the C64 I had a few Amiga's, like the Amiga 500, 1200 and CD-32 with SX-1 before I switched to MS-Dos and Windows.

Still have a working Amiga 500, 1200 and 2000.... Should start a museum :-p

True love goes out to the Amiga, especially the A1000. Never had a Spectrum but from what i've seen i think it's obvious that in most aspects the C64 was a lot better.

That was an earlier time - not when they stopped making machines.


More or less, yes.


http://www.castle-technology.co.uk/castle/front.shtml

When I'm working again, its tempting to get one...


Sounds like a Spectrum +3, and no, its not really better than a C64

For all you Speccy fans an interview with Mathew Smith
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meoz_agui18&NR=1

What?

As a kid who had both, its quite simple.

C64 had better graphics, solid sprites and better sound.
Speccy(48k) was smoother, more playable and IMO more 'fun' despite the horrid graphics.

(Never had a 128 so cant say on that)

Acorn stopped making machines (and went to TV stuff) around 2000 - they didn't go bust. They renamed themselves Element 14, after which they were brought by Pace, and then Broadcom.

Your thinking of the time when Olivetti (temporarily) took over Acorn (around 1985-98).

Again...What?

Cant really simplify it any more for you...

Never seen, or touched a 'Speccy', but c64 was my first system when I was 6-10 yrs and the basic / games for it were a lot of fun to mess around with. Probobly what actually got me focused into gaming & pcs later on.
I think you just have to be limited with something to appreciate it more; quality and others opinions set aside.

Indeed - its amazing what you could do with the amount of memory - some of the packers were very efficient.

You didn't have much choice.

Not by todays standards.

Instead of trying to out-geek each other why not just pop over to Binary Dinosaurs instead.

What?

Eh ?


But it was then - and you could always use the 1541 memory if you needed something extra.


Thats why its so amazing.

Hehe...My apologies, I was just teasing you. You must bear some of the responsibility, however, for making it so irresistibly easy. ;o)


Anyway, my initial point was that if a company is bought out, or at least controlled by a larger company, should it be considered to be the same or a new enterprise? After all, Acorn, for all intents and purposes, was dead.

I *was* a little bemused by your irrelevant initial response thought. ;o)



I'll now leave this thread to continue unmolested. :o)

I'm sorry. I don't acknowledge "impressive because it's old" arguments.

Not everyone had a 1541.

Doing something out of necessity is not amazing. It would have been amazing if it was inconceivable or unnecessary, not something you absolutely had to do, because of the awkward memory segmentation on the C64.

huh? :)

What was awkward about it ? Most people seemed to have no problem.


Thats okay - we'll let you off.


I dont see how - it wasn't insolvent, and it kept producing machines...


It only came into use with crackers & their dodgy pirating, and even more so with emulators. Turbo-loading a program from tape, was, however, a necessity... The one where you could play Space Invaders whilst the main game was loading was very clever.
I only bothered with a loading screen for games off the 1541, mainly because it was a lot easier than with a cassette.

In short - C64 rules, Spectrum drools.

Ah fond memories of stopping the tape part way into loading 'Ghostbusters' on my mate's C64 so we could keep playing invade-a-load.

In short - C64 Zuuls, Spectrum drools.

That's not the way I remember it. The failed attempt to conquer the states after pouring millions into getting FCC approval, the fiasco that was the ABC range, a warehouse full of unsold Electrons and escalating development costs (ARM, Master ETC). All this just as the bottom was falling out of the home computer market left Acorn in debt, with it's creditors petitioning for the company to be wound up. This is when the deal with Olivetti was struck.

It was all over the trade press at the time.

Damn you for making me post again. ;op

[edit]
Wasn't the Communicator born at around this time too?...More money down the drain.
[/edit]

It was developed in 1985.

Flameduck said:


Heh, were you an ST man?

C64, much more interesting imho. I felt so sad when I bought my Atari ST, to realise it had the same soundchip as the Spectrum :( Boohoo... I am not a big fan of the Spectrum, and I love the SID chip!