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01 апреля 2001 |
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Is C64 Better Than Speccy?
by Factorб
That's THE question. Just about every Speccy man says:"It isn't!
What crap! C64 suxx!" Yes, C64 was made in the same year like
Speccy, in 1982 by Commodore Business Machines. Its "father"
- like Speccy's Sir Clive is Sam Tramiel (who left CBM then for
Atari). CBM had to make a concurrent product to Sinclair's
Spectrum. It was a successful turn, a C64 was very popular as
much as Speccy was. Quite every game which exists on Speccy,
exists on C64.
Now, in 2000, it's a PC era. Everybody has next to their 8-bit
computer some Pentium. Shit, but PC helps a lot with Internet,
data storage, gfx converting, etc. There is the scene. Every
computer has its own subscene. Speccy, C64, ... Amiga, PC.
Basically, C64 has a much bigger scene than Speccy. It's a
fact. It's the most widespread 8-bit computer in Western
Europe. The C64 scene exists also in the U.S. and Australia.
What about Speccy? Poor scene in England, Middle Europe and
quite big in Russia. Not outside of Europe. Do you know any non
-European demo group? Me neither.
Why? The C64 is better? Hmm, let's compare some technical data:
C64 Speccy
----------------------------------------------------------------
Processor 6510 @ 0.9MHz ;-) Z80A @ 3.SMHz (wow!)
RAM 64K 128K (wow!)
Graphics 320x200 1бcolors, 256x192 8colors+bright,attibutes
attributes no gfx hardware :-/
160x200 1бcolors,
multicolor
gfx hardware for
sprites, smooth
scroll, etc.
(gfx chip @ 17MHz)
Sound SID (Зchn, 8oct, AY (Зchn, 8oct, one type of
instrument synth) tone)
(it rulez!)
C64 Speccy
----------------------------------------------------------------
Speed slow without using faster than C64 without using
gfx hw gfx wh ;-)
Disk original Commodore various - much faster than C64
vvverrry sllowww :/
IDEбЧ, max.8GB HDD IDE, better specifications
So, the Spectrum wins just about in every category. C64 is
better in gfx, but when you don't count a special gfx chip for
hardware sprites, scrolling and so on, the faster machine is
Speccy. As an example, look at the game R-Type on both
computers. What a cool game on Speccy! All the levels from the
original arcade machine, super playability, everything is
moving. But the movement is ensured by attributes, because of an
attribute colour collision fault. On C64 it's crap. It's smooth,
fast, with music, but there is a lack of levels, it's in 160x200
(classic C64 "gaming" video mode). Some sprites don't move, some
monsters are so crappy.. You must laugh when you know the Speccy
version :-) In this way Spectrum won. Another game: Turrican II.
On Spectrum an attribute gfx, everything looks rather comic. No
in-game music, the playability is low. On C64 it's a really good
game. Very nice sprites in 160x200 mode, everything is fast,
smooth and colourful. Ok, the game comparison is about fifty
-fifty (There are good and bad games and conversions on both
computers).
Now, some applications. Fore example, Art Studio, which is on
both computers. On Speccy (the original) it's nearly the best
gfx editor. Cool, fast, nice user interface, easy to use. On the
C64 there are two versions. One is identical to the Speccy
version. It's in 320x200 and uses attribute gfx. The second (Art
Studio II) is in 160x200, you can draw multicolour pics. The
main thing you notice is that both C64 versions are sllooww as
hell. It's caused by the main processor's timing. 0.9MHz is
really -not much- :-0 So the Spectrum wins.
Demos. On Spectrum, often used is a monochrome dithered gfx,
some effects are really in real time. For example Extreme's
REFRESH. Nice demo with lots of dithered realtime 3D objects
which are "in" nowadays. The AY sounds nicely playing a weird
techno tune. C64 demos are also superb. Colourful effects,
vectors, attribute plasmas... But many effects are precalculated
(because of that "speedy" processor). The SID sounds really cool
and it's one of the better things of the C64. Take a look at
Byterapers' demo Unsound Minds. Many effects were firstly done
on C64 and then used in demos on Speccy, e.g. attribute plasmas
were on C64 somewhere in 1992. We can say, the Speccyers "copy"
old C64 effects. It isn't 100% true, of course :-) So, let's say
C64 won in demos.
Storage. A special category I need here. The Speccy hasn't got
it's own disk system as the C64 has. There are +Ds, Opus
Discoverys, MBO2s, D40/80s, Betadisks, but none of them are
standards (except Betadisk, but it's Russian :-) don't count on
it now) A different system - different options. What can you do
with one, you can't do the same thing with another disk system.
So there is a big mess on the Spectrum's side. The C64 has from
the beginning had its own disk system - The 1541 disk drive.
It's 5,25" single sided !damn! slow system with crappy
filesystem. Loading of fucking 5OKB takes about 2 minutes (!)
using system DOS. The demos use their own turbo loading routines
to break this handycap. You can use a turbo routine installed in
a ROM cartridge, so there's not a problem. It can do something
while loading, play music, use gfx chips. It's quite good. It's
the one and only system, everyone owns it, so some special
loading problems or other is unknown here.
There are also harddisks. On Speccy an IDE interface by PVL and
Tritolsoft, which is very powerful in connection with an MBO2+.
It's still in development, but it rocks! Tritol has connected a
CD-ROM and a CDRW drive (!) to it successfully. On 64 - I know
about one interface called IDEбЧ. As I read about it, it's not
so fast, has limited FAT, limited size (8GB) of drive. So I
think Speccy wins again!
Sound. AY vs SID. The C64's SID (Sound Interface Device) is a
really lovely thing and there are over 12,000 tunes for it. AY
is a really good sound chip, but it doesn't reach the quality of
SID. There are lot of tunes available for it, but SID wins.
Scene. On Speccy there is a big lack of demogroups. Yes, there
are lots of them in ex-ussr, but in Europe? Let's count: Raww
Arse, Hooy-Prg, KЗL (they do nothing), ESA (dead at this time),
... insert the rest I forgot here. On the C64, there are lots of
groups, really lots. Scandinavia, Denmark, Germany, The
Netherlands, France, Poland... They are active and they do
demos, diskmags, musicdisks and so on. In this case, C64 wins
and Speccy plays the role of an outsider. Please, don't slap me
if I forgot the diskmags written in russian language. I don't
count them because they are unreadable by most of people outside
of ex-ussr states. So C64 wins in this case.
So, the result of our "non-official-quite-lame-comparison" is:
C64 is as good as Spectrum :-) In some cases Speccy is better,
in others, C64 is better.
So, let's keep 8-bits alive (...'til they are, because the scene
is the main thing which keeps them above the water surface).
Don't say "my type of computer is better than yours", don't
start the forgotten "cold war" between 8-bit users ;-)
c ya
Factorб
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