While this site might be mostly PC centric (and I have tons of PCs), I think many collectors collect more then one platform.

Personally I have a few Amigas (A1000, 2x A2000, A3000, A4000, A1200, A500) plus a few Commodore 8 bits (C16, C64, C64c, C128).

I also collect 68K/PPC Macs among others.

liqmat wrote:

Jo22 wrote:

C64 for SID/Adventures. Amiga for MOD files, etc.

Nice post! One of the main attractions of the Amiga 1000 for me back in 1985 was that 4 channel digital audio. A few years later when I was doing live gigs with an industrial electronic band I used an Amiga 500 on stage for drum tracks. I can't remember for the life of me the name of the drum pattern software, but it was simplistic and very straightforward to use. Atari STs had the midi ports built-in, but that was easily rectified with a dongle adapter on the Amiga.

Thanks for your understanding! I tried to be honest, but I just hope I that wasn't too offending for some! 😅
I'm sure there were also other fields of applications I have no idea of (wasn't the Amiga also beeing used for desktop publishing and even by NASA ?)

What I basically wanted to say was, that the C64 and Amiga were both a bit before my time.
Thus, I have never really felt the "vibe" that was going on, so to say. Also, I was spoiled by more recent technology (which is now ancient, too).
Akin to someone who played a NES for a long time and then discovered his father's old Atari 2600 on the loft.. Or so.

Anyway, what I find interesting is the Amiga 1000/2000. From what I've seen on Youtube (various old computer shows, computer chronicles) the Amiga 1000
must have been very futuristic in '85! Even a few years later, an A500 must have been a fun little machine to work with. So I think you were lucky to
have been around at the time. ^^ From todays point of view, you sure were among of the pioneers of computer music.

liqmat wrote:

Youtube knows all. Found that drum software I used. Dynamic Drums, but after watching the video I remembered how irritating the built-in demos were. It was a very capable little program.

https://youtu.be/1KMwHp79R2k

Thanks for sharing that link, man! That program looks really cool. 😎
Esp. the metronome on the right was unexpected. I can't keep my eyes off it! 🤣

Jo22 wrote:

What I basically wanted to say was, that the C64 and Amiga were both a bit before my time.

As were the C64 and especially the Amiga, I'd say 😀
It took a while for programmers to really unlock their secrets.
If you look at the Amiga, the early games were quite bad, sometimes even worse than the C64 version. I'd say that around 1989-1993 was the 'golden age' of Amiga games.
Before that, the games were quite rough around the edges in general, with only a few exceptions (like Defender of the Crown). And after that, Amiga was overtaken by PC in gaming, and developers stopped targeting the Amiga.

With the C64, I suppose that machine was at the center of game development in general. Early games were often made by a single person doing everything: programming, graphics, sound and game design. And it shows.
As the gaming industry matured, teams were put together, with people specializing in one specific area (a fine example of that is Rob Hubbard, specializing in sound and music), and games started to look and sound much better.

I'm not sure I agree with the NES being all that much better than the C64 though, and the C64 being only good for adventure games?
In my experience they both had more or less the same type of games, and more or less the same quality, although the C64 had some more 'mature' games as well, where NES was mainly focused on games for younger children and the entire family.

Scali wrote:

I'm not sure I agree with the NES being all that much better than the C64 though, and the C64 being only good for adventure games?
In my experience they both had more or less the same type of games, and more or less the same quality, although the C64 had some more 'mature' games as well, where NES was mainly focused on games for younger children and the entire family.

I think that's more or less true. NES graphics might have been more colorful (although limited in other ways), C64 perhaps had better music capabilities (although taste is a component there)... but in general, they were more or less the same generation of hardware with similar limitations. Plus, what you said about the Amiga is true for the C64 as well: early C64 games weren't that adept in getting the most out of the machine. It took a few years for programmers to accumulate enough expertise to make it shine.

Scali wrote:

It took a while for programmers to really unlock their secrets. If you look at the Amiga, the early games were quite bad, sometimes even worse than the C64 version.

You must understand, though, that in 1985 the fact a system could display 32 colors out of a massive 4096 palette was just mind blowing and then you add the incredible four channel digital audio and it was machine that made your heart skip. I remember reading an article in 1984 about this magic machine coming out within a year and I thought it was not real. So those early "bad" games all seemed good at the time and Cinemaware was just the rock star of games at the time.

You hit the nail on the head, though, that programmers have much better tools and knowledge today and honestly many of these retro consoles and computers are going through a second golden age because of it. I can't believe what some of the homebrews are doing with the C64, Amiga, Intellivision and even the Atari 2600 pushing them all much higher than I thought was possible in recent years.

There is even a guy coding a Pole Position arcade conversion for the Atari ST that is almost arcade perfect. If that had been released back in the mid 80s there would have been a huge sales increase for that system. Let me look for a video of that... hmmmm...

https://youtu.be/0vm2fQoxg0c

Latest WIP can be downloaded from this thread, but you need to register.

http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=3& … 26068&start=150

liqmat wrote:

You must understand, though, that in 1985 the fact a system could display 32 colors out of a massive 4096 palette was just mind blowing and then you add the incredible four channel digital audio and it was machine that made your heart skip. I remember reading an article in 1984 about this magic machine coming out within a year and I thought it was not real. So those early "bad" games all seemed good at the time and Cinemaware was just the rock star of games at the time.

Well, I mean the games were just bad. I can't really put my finger on it, but they had a sort of 'clinical' feel to them. The framerates would be bad, the music would be 'robotic', the gameplay was often lacking.
The C64 games just had nice character, and were enjoyable to play.
To give an example, Denaris is a game I really liked on C64. It's just 'perfect' on that platform: The graphics make the most of the C64's capabilities, the music is awesome, and the aircraft is easy to control, it just feels right. One of the best shoot-em-ups ever made.
Then you try the Amiga version and... nah, it's just not it. The graphics are meh, the sound is meh, and the feel isn't quite as spot-on as the C64 either.

So that was my experience when I got my Amiga... The 'new' games were great, but when I tried some of my C64 favourites on the Amiga, many of them didn't quite live up to the original.
International Karate+ is a notable exception though. It was great on the C64, and the Amiga version was exactly what it should be: an upgrade of the game in every way: better graphics, better music, and better gameplay (the turbo mode on Amiga is just insane, I love it!).

Completely understand, but back when EA was still under Trip Hawkin's wing he made sure EA embraced the Amiga even with full color ads in magazines promoting the Amiga.

http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/arc … n-ea-wasnt-evil

Many of EA's titles got an Amiga makeover and man they looked good. EA put out an Amiga EA demo disk showing off the upgraded titles (they were just stills) and it was a very exciting announcement. Where is that EA Amiga demo disk image? Hmmm...

https://www.exotica.org.uk/mirrors/ami_sector_one/eademo.htm

Scali wrote:

If you look at the Amiga, the early games were quite bad, sometimes even worse than the C64 version. I'd say that around 1989-1993 was the 'golden age' of Amiga games.
Before that, the games were quite rough around the edges in general, with only a few exceptions (like Defender of the Crown). And after that, Amiga was overtaken by PC in gaming, and developers stopped targeting the Amiga.

Amiga was also eaten from the inside out by parasites like Mehdi Ali.

gdjacobs wrote:

Scali wrote:

If you look at the Amiga, the early games were quite bad, sometimes even worse than the C64 version. I'd say that around 1989-1993 was the 'golden age' of Amiga games.
Before that, the games were quite rough around the edges in general, with only a few exceptions (like Defender of the Crown). And after that, Amiga was overtaken by PC in gaming, and developers stopped targeting the Amiga.

Amiga was also eaten from the inside out by parasites like Mehdi Ali.

Just looked him up. Thanks for the info.

http://www.commodore.ca/commodore-history/meh … d-of-commodore/

All non-Intel computer makers got hammered in the 1990s. Makers of PC clones enjoyed economies of scale other system makers couldn't compete with. Even Apple nearly went under.

Apple survived by catering to a niche market (creative professionals) which was willing to pay a premium for a product tailored to their needs and tastes. Could Commodore have done something similar?

They certainly had options. For example, Ali blew a deal with Sun to use Amigas as entry level Sun workstations.

Errius wrote:

Apple survived by catering to a niche market (creative professionals) which was willing to pay a premium for a product tailored to their needs and tastes.

Not to mention some healthy financial injections from Microsoft.

VileRancour wrote:

Scali wrote:

I'm not sure I agree with the NES being all that much better than the C64 though, and the C64 being only good for adventure games?
In my experience they both had more or less the same type of games, and more or less the same quality, although the C64 had some more 'mature' games as well, where NES was mainly focused on games for younger children and the entire family.

I think that's more or less true. NES graphics might have been more colorful (although limited in other ways), C64 perhaps had better music capabilities (although taste is a component there)... but in general, they were more or less the same generation of hardware with similar limitations. Plus, what you said about the Amiga is true for the C64 as well: early C64 games weren't that adept in getting the most out of the machine. It took a few years for programmers to accumulate enough expertise to make it shine.

Agreed, the C64 has so many great games that I think it can rival the NES as a games machine, but loading games was always a challenge with the C64 - even with a disk drive and fast loaders. The NES has it beat for ease of use and quality control on games. But then the C64 is a real PC - pros and cons.

badmojo wrote:

VileRancour wrote:

Scali wrote:

I'm not sure I agree with the NES being all that much better than the C64 though, and the C64 being only good for adventure games?
In my experience they both had more or less the same type of games, and more or less the same quality, although the C64 had some more 'mature' games as well, where NES was mainly focused on games for younger children and the entire family.

I think that's more or less true. NES graphics might have been more colorful (although limited in other ways), C64 perhaps had better music capabilities (although taste is a component there)... but in general, they were more or less the same generation of hardware with similar limitations. Plus, what you said about the Amiga is true for the C64 as well: early C64 games weren't that adept in getting the most out of the machine. It took a few years for programmers to accumulate enough expertise to make it shine.

Agreed, the C64 has so many great games that I think it can rival the NES as a games machine, but loading games was always a challenge with the C64 - even with a disk drive and fast loaders. The NES has it beat for ease of use and quality control on games. But then the C64 is a real PC - pros and cons.

C64 was only limited by the 64KB of memory and a really slow floppy drive. They did have their own version of the cartridge. C64 to load gauntlet I think took almost 10 minutes. Nintendo because their games were all cartridge memory based was near instantaneous. Load times had a lot to do with popularity. C64 had very good graphics and sound at the time and could be hooked up to the TV just like the Nintendo. But when it came to which one was easier to use and best suited for kids, Nintendo won. Disks are too fragile for kids which have uncoordinated hands gripping the floppy disk on the magnetic media or bending it. Then teaching them how to type to load the game and run it. 😀 The cartridge was so simple. Insert till snug and turn it on.

But as far as titles I think C64 had more and titles were not limited due to cartridge memory so you could in theory have more and more floppy disks to expand a game to be larger than what a cartridge could hold.

If the C640 had come out and introduced 640KB memory and hard disks maybe this would have given them a leg up against the Super Nintendo. Commodore went with the newer Amiga which was also not backward compatible with C64 games which hurt them. This mirrors the Apple II to Macintosh scenario. Although Amiga had better software company gaming support which was an advantage.

The IBM PC is the only computer that retained backward compatibility as long as possible compared to other computer platforms. The only similar for consoles is the Playstation 3 Launch model which could play Playstation 1 and 2 games thereby increasing the amount of titles possible.

If you look at DOS many older DOS games still work under pure DOS even on a Z270 Kaby Lake. Prince of Persia 1 still works with the ugly PC internal speaker. 😀

Errius wrote:

All non-Intel computer makers got hammered in the 1990s. Makers of PC clones enjoyed economies of scale other system makers couldn't compete with. Even Apple nearly went under.

Apple survived by catering to a niche market (creative professionals) which was willing to pay a premium for a product tailored to their needs and tastes. Could Commodore have done something similar?

Part of the reason was their own doing. They had superior games to the early IBM PCs with the Apple II and the IIGS. They made an Apple III that blew but I think it had more to do with Jobs wanting to go with the Classic Mac AIO box look but made it monochrome so the Apple III was pretty much discarded as the ugly child to be ignored. So imagine going for glorious gaming video and audio and a huge library to an incompatible monochrome box with a mouse and no real games or backward compatibility to play older Apple II titles. That's what hurt them in my opinion. This allowed the IBM PC and compatibles to breathe and later by the late 80s Sound Blaster and VGA arrived to conquer them all in one stroke. Apple has since never caught up to the market share of PCs since. I still wonder why they didn't go with an Apple Macintosh that was color or with superior color and audio than the IIGS and used their influence in their gaming market share to gain more support. It might had to do with cost but today Apple PCs are still priced higher than IBM PCs. Had they done so I think you would have seen either a 50/50 split between those two systems as gaming computers. But going to an AIO box stole had its limitations. You were confined to the small screen size while IBM PCs still enjoyed buying large CRT monitors. Yes Apple survived by catering to a small selective niche and more targeted to wealthier individuals that would pay.

As for Commodore Amiga. I think they were pretty much slightly ahead of the IBM PCs right about until VGA and Sound Blaster coincided. Then gaming took off on the PC as being superior so it was a matter of time before Amiga went under. Most of their best games ran on the older Amiga 500/1000 and the later models were less compatible with older games and eventually they were basically a fake PC in disguise and as far as the masses there were definitely more PC computer users than Amiga and even PC clones were much cheaper than the Amiga 2000+ that most would rather go with a PC. Perhaps if Amiga became a Software company instead they could have survived. Most of the best games seemed to be ported from the Amiga over to the PC. So this indicated most programmers started on the Amiga version first because they felt it was superior. I think the VGA and Sound Blaster combo really was what made Amiga's superior graphics and sound no longer the case. I remember being stunned seeing Marble Madness on the Amiga. In comparison the PC version which was bootable non DOS was CGA and inferior. The Amiga version was like the Arcade.

95dosbox wrote:

Part of the reason was their own doing. They had superior games to the early IBM PCs with the Apple II and the IIGS. They made an Apple III that blew but I think it had more to do with Jobs wanting to go with the Classic Mac AIO box look but made it monochrome so the Apple III was pretty much discarded as the ugly child to be ignored. So imagine going for glorious gaming video and audio and a huge library to an incompatible monochrome box with a mouse and no real games or backward compatibility to play older Apple II titles. That's what hurt them in my opinion. This allowed the IBM PC and compatibles to breathe and later by the late 80s Sound Blaster and VGA arrived to conquer them all in one stroke. Apple has since never caught up to the market share of PCs since. I still wonder why they didn't go with an Apple Macintosh that was color or with superior color and audio than the IIGS and used their influence in their gaming market share to gain more support. It might had to do with cost but today Apple PCs are still priced higher than IBM PCs. Had they done so I think you would have seen either a 50/50 split between those two systems as gaming computers. But going to an AIO box stole had its limitations. You were confined to the small screen size while IBM PCs still enjoyed buying large CRT monitors. Yes Apple survived by catering to a small selective niche and more targeted to wealthier individuals that would pay.

As for Commodore Amiga. I think they were pretty much slightly ahead of the IBM PCs right about until VGA and Sound Blaster coincided. Then gaming took off on the PC as being superior so it was a matter of time before Amiga went under. Most of their best games ran on the older Amiga 500/1000 and the later models were less compatible with older games and eventually they were basically a fake PC in disguise and as far as the masses there were definitely more PC computer users than Amiga and even PC clones were much cheaper than the Amiga 2000+ that most would rather go with a PC. Perhaps if Amiga became a Software company instead they could have survived. Most of the best games seemed to be ported from the Amiga over to the PC. So this indicated most programmers started on the Amiga version first because they felt it was superior. I think the VGA and Sound Blaster combo really was what made Amiga's superior graphics and sound no longer the case. I remember being stunned seeing Marble Madness on the Amiga. In comparison the PC version which was bootable non DOS was CGA and inferior. The Amiga version was like the Arcade.

I have no clue how Apple didn't go under with the release of the Mac Classic. What was the high-end system prior to that, the Apple IIGS? Seems like to be competitive with that you'd need something that had a 14" 12 bit color display or 16 bit, 16 bit Soundblaster Pro type sound, along with hard disk and a high capacity floppy (like a zip drive or LS120). Instead you get the Mac Classic which was a 9" B&W display, I think it only had 1 or 2 floppies and no hard drive? Not sure what the sound was like. What was the original target market for the Mac Classic? College kids writing term papers? Clueless business guys with too much money? I can't think of what creative professional would want to use that tiny ass 9" mono display.

I assume the Mac was supposed to compete with the IBM PC in the business market. That it was no good for games would actually have been a selling point.

The IIgs actually launched two full years after the first Macintosh.

gdjacobs wrote:

Scali wrote:

If you look at the Amiga, the early games were quite bad, sometimes even worse than the C64 version. I'd say that around 1989-1993 was the 'golden age' of Amiga games.
Before that, the games were quite rough around the edges in general, with only a few exceptions (like Defender of the Crown). And after that, Amiga was overtaken by PC in gaming, and developers stopped targeting the Amiga.

Amiga was also eaten from the inside out by parasites like Mehdi Ali.

I don't know if I can completely agree it was all that man's fault. Although cutting the R&D must have been a cost saving measure to keep the company afloat. If there was something they could have done was increase software support from gaming companies since it was mainly geared towards gamers. Although the most famous use of the Amiga was the CGI for Babylon 5. That would have been their best selling point if only... 😲

snorg wrote:

I have no clue how Apple didn't go under with the release of the Mac Classic. What was the high-end system prior to that, the Apple IIGS? Seems like to be competitive with that you'd need something that had a 14" 12 bit color display or 16 bit, 16 bit Soundblaster Pro type sound, along with hard disk and a high capacity floppy (like a zip drive or LS120). Instead you get the Mac Classic which was a 9" B&W display, I think it only had 1 or 2 floppies and no hard drive? Not sure what the sound was like. What was the original target market for the Mac Classic? College kids writing term papers? Clueless business guys with too much money? I can't think of what creative professional would want to use that tiny ass 9" mono display.

It was Steve Job's dumbest move. He should have given half / half R&D support for Apple II to III transition and the introduction of the Mac Classic B/W. I think had Apple III got treated properly we might have seen Apple III possibly merging with a Mac down the line into a proper MAC Color made for gaming and business. However one good thing did come of it. The introduction of the GUI stolen from Xerox and later copied over to Windows. Ironic. 😀 Then later after Jobs got let go and went to create NeXT which failed he comes back and refines the entire Mac lineup and resurrects Apple. Fewer models but more color choices and the iMac is born. I guess compared to the beige IBM PCs this was a breathe of fresh air. The Olympics commercial also helped.

Errius wrote:

I assume the Mac was supposed to compete with the IBM PC in the business market. That it was no good for games would actually have been a selling point.

It did have a few games. I remember Lode Runner and The Ancient Art of War on it. I think Test Drive almost made it. A bunch of Sierra games also like Leisure Suit Larry and Space Quest. But if you had a choice between CGA 4 color vs B/W MAC it's still a no brainer no matter how ugly the CGA version might have look it was still in color. The sound was still better than the PC at the time since it was still 1 voice channel for IBM PCs.

I remember going to those old computer shows and seeing game boxes of all different computers. Those were exciting times. Sometimes it was disappointing when they showed actual screen shots between the PC version and others. The others almost always looked better then. 😒

kode54 wrote:

The IIgs actually launched two full years after the first Macintosh.

Sad. They could have made an Apple IIIGS instead they kept going with the Mac lineup. 😵
The IIGS was a superior machine to the original II. I love the 3.5" floppy drives and it can use both types. Has its own audio output so you can record the audio and even the video. I still got it sitting under my desk by my feet unused for many years. I definitely prefer this over the Mac Classic. I even hooked the IIGS up to an HDTV and works.

Steve Jobs hated the Apple II series. He hated the fact that it was an open system. He wanted a closed system with a walled garden for the software.

95DosBox wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

Amiga was also eaten from the inside out by parasites like Mehdi Ali.

I don't know if I can completely agree it was all that man's fault. Although cutting the R&D must have been a cost saving measure to keep the company afloat. If there was something they could have done was increase software support from gaming companies since it was mainly geared towards gamers. Although the most famous use of the Amiga was the CGI for Babylon 5. That would have been their best selling point if only... 😲

Cutting R&D was one of the moves he made to extract cash from the business in the form of big payouts to himself and Irving Gould. This was to the detriment of other shareholders, employees, and customers. There was no business strategy to it beyond short term greed.

With competent leadership, Amiga would have been challenged to compete with IBM, Apple, and the other players in the market. With Ali at the helm, there really was no chance.