"Single instance" machines

From: Andrew Davie <adavie_at_mad.scientist.com>
Date: Fri Dec 11 13:10:42 1998

> Nevertheless, though, I don't think anyone will doubt that the 64
> has it in
> spades over the Apple in sheer graphics and sound power. And the 64 did
> very well versus the Nintendo, despite the NES' expanded colour palette (I
> think 256). In terms of graphic flexibility (without raster tricks), it is
> at least as powerful as the 9918A, and with raster tricks its
> flexibility is
> on par with ANTIC. And SID was more than a match for anyone else
> when "advanced
> sound" was POKEY and the AY synths. I'm glad my parents got me my
> first 64.


Well, being a professional programmer of both the NES and the C64 for some
years, I would probably have a closer-to-the-metal view of things. The NES
was a nightmare to program, due to the small sprites and quirky hardware.
The C64 offered easy to use graphics, wonderful sprites and simple
architecture. The NES, for example, accessed all video memory through a
single hardware write/read register after setting a different address
register. Video access was not possible whilst the screen was on -
everything had to be done in the vertical blank. THAT only gave enough
time to modify about 50 characters/frame. All sprite data needed to be
reinitialised every VB period, taking a whole whack more processing time...
it was quirky, and "cheap" in terms of user friendliness. The NES only had
a single palette, from memory, giving just 13 colours. The C64 offered
interrupts on a line-by-line basis; the NES offered only a single "sprite
collision", which could not be retriggered until the next frame. It was
really really kludgy. The C64 was streets ahead as a programmers' machine;
there really is no comparison.

Being an ex-programmer of the Atari machines, too (Atari 400/800) - which
used ANTIC and display lists, I'd say that neither the C64 nor the NES
(especially!!) were anything like a match for ANTIC. Atari were streets
ahead in terms of ease of use and capability - IMHO. The area where the C64
shone was the large, reusable, sprites. The area where the NES shone was
uh... uh... well, its a crap machine. It just had a lot of software.

Just my 2c, as a victim of all the machines.

Cheers
A
Received on Fri Dec 11 1998 - 13:10:42 GMT