Jo22 wrote on 2023-09-28, 18:42:

Last but not leadt, the Tektronix graphics terminals of the 70s could handle up to 4096x3072 resolution, even beating today's display technology.

Yea, but that's a storage tube, so basically your CRT *is* the video ram. There's no framebuffer, and no need to send the framebuffer to the screen at a high refresh rate.
It's more like an advanced vector display where you 'zap' individual pixels to turn them on/off.
Good for still images, but can't be used for animation or advanced GUIs as we know them today. You wouldn't be able to drag objects for example.
Even scrolling a piece of text up or down would probably be very slow and flickery.

Scali wrote on 2023-09-28, 18:54:

Yea, but that's a storage tube, so basically your CRT *is* the video ram. There's no framebuffer, and no need to send the framebuffer to the screen at a high refresh rate.
It's more like an advanced vector display where you 'zap' individual pixels to turn them on/off.

Yes, that's correct. For printed circuit design (PCB) or radar applications, it was fine, though, I suppose. 🤷‍♂️

Scali wrote on 2023-09-28, 18:54:

Good for still images, but can't be used for animation or advanced GUIs as we know them today. You wouldn't be able to drag objects for example. 

You could, actually. The problem could be solved by having several layers, usually of different colour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M98VOoGFLL8

The Tektronix I mentioned earlier, however, required a whole clearing, yes.
It was rather suited for drawing graphs and visualizing waveforms.

What also comes to mind in the C64 vs PC discussion are the Thomson computers by our French neighbors (I owned a TO7-70 once).

The TO7-70 and especially TO9 were some sort of in-between of a home computer and a PC.

The TO7-70 also looked a bit like a Texas Instruments TI99, I think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomson_TO9%2B

Too bad these machines didn't got more popular, more advanced.
They could have had been an alternative to the C64 platform (in Europe).

Things like lightpen, mouse and internal modem were supported.
The GUI was lightpen based, with checkboxes.
Quite futuristic for 1986, I think.

There's also a port of Captain Blood, I believe, which looksaa bit more detailed than the C64 version.

Scali wrote on 2023-09-28, 18:39:

You have no idea what the graphical capabilities of an Amiga are, do you?
Yea, on paper a PC may have the same amount of colours or resolution, but that doesn't mean much. There was the blitter and the copper, and the chipset didn't actually have any 'videomodes', you could enable and disable individual bitplanes anywhere on the screen, and place them anywhere in memory, with any pitch between scanlines you liked.
The blitter and copper could be programmed to move any kind of memory around, to draw lines and even filled polygons.

The Mindset had custom grahics and sound ic's. It was built by engineers who were former employees of Atari. Do you even know what a Mindset is??

The C64 and it's related units is a single model (Or related model) of PC and it's also the best selling PC in history at around 17 million units. This gives it's fandom a special trait; Focus

They only need to think about the C64, make software for it, tweak it, invent mods, produce new products. Between the size of it's fandom due to the number of units sold and the ability for that fandom to focus, it thrives.

The 'IBM PC' on the other hand suffers from an absolute inability to focus. One person's 'Retro PC' and another's could be a decade or more apart, from an IBM 5150 to the Windows XP machine someone first played Half-Life 2 on and a million different SKUs or self built machines across all those years. It's easier to focus on software titles than hardware in this scenario. It's also harder to make home brew hardware products when the number of machines something could work in is so much smaller. The lack of focus means the fandom is smaller because everyone is spread out so thin. It's easier to get someone to go 'Oh man, SimCity 2000!' than the machine they played it on, because that game was played on thousands of variations of PC.

Even building a retro DOS PC requires you to build multiple machines to even cover different game eras to get the experience to run properly. Honestly, DOSBox is easier to deal with instead. 😜

So it's hardly shocking, the C64 scene has the luxury of focus and thus it thrives.

But any computer's scene has or could have the same degree of focus. I certainly appreciate the C64. But if I had to pick 1 computer let's say from 1980-85 it would very definitely be something else. Probably the Mindset or Atari ST, possibly even an Amiga. Something with more punch.

I think the OP wants to know why the 64. And there are new generations of "kids" who are climbing aboard who never even owned 1 growing up. They just apppreciate vintage aspect. Many are specifically into the 64s musical capabilities.

So are 16 bitters too advanced? Do they not seem vintage enough?

The C64 will always have a special place in my heart (and my house) because that's what I first had as a true computer as a kid. I do use modern accessories though like the 1541 Ultimate cartridges because its more convenient, however from time to time I will use floppies and even the tape deck for nostalgic reasons.

kant explain wrote on 2023-09-29, 00:32:

Scali wrote on 2023-09-28, 18:39:

You have no idea what the graphical capabilities of an Amiga are, do you?
Yea, on paper a PC may have the same amount of colours or resolution, but that doesn't mean much. There was the blitter and the copper, and the chipset didn't actually have any 'videomodes', you could enable and disable individual bitplanes anywhere on the screen, and place them anywhere in memory, with any pitch between scanlines you liked.
The blitter and copper could be programmed to move any kind of memory around, to draw lines and even filled polygons.

The Mindset had custom grahics and sound ic's. It was built by engineers who were former employees of Atari. Do you even know what a Mindset is??

Oh that Mindset machine. I thought it was a reference to the "PC mindset" I mentioned earlier, and we were discussing PCs and Tandy 1000s.
And no, a Mindset is neither fully PC compatible (which is why it was a flop), nor is it as good as an Amiga. Although it is closer than any regular PC, Tandy 1000 or whatever.

Someone said here Amiga?

Never owned one but watched and red plenty of reviews about Amigas and comparisons between Amigas and PCs.

As I understand, Amiga was way ahead of IBM PC, IBM PC XT and even IBM PC AT (with i286). But when came out i386, Amigas were done. So for me, not being a gamer and with zero nostalgia for the Amiga, today when I can buy easily a quite capable i486 PC, it is no more than an expensive piece of junk.

Amiga had a lot of exclusive games and software, so I wouldn't consider it junk even though I've never owned one. For me that unique experience is what interests me most when collecting. I want a collection that gives me a variety of experiences that isn't very redundant. Personally, I don't need the nostalgia factor. I can enjoy retro hardware that came before my time as well.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2023-09-29, 08:54:

Someone said here Amiga?

Never owned one but watched and red plenty of reviews about Amigas and comparisons between Amigas and PCs.

As I understand, Amiga was way ahead of IBM PC, IBM PC XT and even IBM PC AT (with i286). But when came out i386, Amigas were done. So for me, not being a gamer and with zero nostalgia for the Amiga, today when I can buy easily a quite capable i486 PC, it is no more than an expensive piece of junk.

Oh boy, that's going in a dangerous direction here.. 😥

Well, the Amiga was a special case sort of.
It was like a mixture of an arcade machine and a graphics workstation.
Game designers used it for drawing stuff in Deluxe Paint, too. DP was available for multiple platforms, also.
The Amiga also was the platform of frame grabbers (DigiView etc) and animation tools (MovieSetter etc). MOD music was done here, too. TV studios used the genlock feature to draw weather charts and generate video titles etc. Some TV programme also used it for playing those live games with a caller (say, Hugo etc).

In practice, the Atari ST was both a wordprocessing/database and MIDI machine.
Many traditional musicians used it as a controller on stage, along with Cubase software. Those used the monochrome/non-gaming setup with an SM124 or higher-end monitor.

Since Cubase was well written, it merely did depend on GEM/VDI - like a MS Windows application did on Windows/GDI.
Meaning that resolutions of 800x600 and up were possible if an ET4000 or similar graphics card was installed.
The Mega ST was looking like a little workstation, not unlike the Amiga 1000.

The "ugly" Amiga 2000 was made in Braunschweig, if I'm nit mistaken.
Electrically, the Amiga 500 and 2000 are similar (chipset). The Kick/Workbench disks usually read A500/2000.

Funnily, both IBM PC and Amiga had multiple types of memory to confuse the user.
The IBM had base memory, the UMA with free UMBs, High Memory Area (HMA), XMS and EMS..
The Amiga had Slow RAM (or pseudo fast RAM), Fast RAM, Chip RAM..

What's also notable is that the Amiga, in principle, was one of the earliest "PCs" running emulators (in the west).

It literally started after launch with the "Transformer" applicaton, a software emulation of an IBM PC. It was more of a tech demo, though.

Emulators for Mac and C64 existed, too on the Amiga (say, A64).
So former C64 users could still run their favorite applications and text-adventuress, at least.

https://theamigamuseum.com/emulation/emulating-on-the-amiga/

On PC, there was an early C64 emulator from the 80s, too, requiring Hercules graphics (say, via SVGA card in MGA emulation mode).
It used 640x400 mode and didn't work with my TTL monitors.
It also required a NEC V20 or higher processor, I think.

Quick demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVLyMxgjbfo

Funnily, things have come full cycle now. Emulation of the Amiga itself was one of the most ambitious things in the emulation scene.
Things like WinUAE are insane in terms of complexity.

Oh, and a 486 can emulate a basic Amiga, too.
Here's the bouncing ball demo running on Amiga Workbench, on an 486 laptop running DOS/Fellow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOjnZnyN6nI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLHgRlbjXIM

It's from the early 90s, but has a couple of MBs of RAM. With merely 2MB, the emulation has barely enough memory, I'm afraid.
Things like Chip RAM/Slow RAM/Fast RAM must be somehow provided, after all.

So be sure to have 4 MB or more, which is a good start for a DOS/Windows 3.1 PC, anyway.
2 MB wasn't enough for an 80286, even. 😉

And in Japan, the Sharp X68000 and FM Towns ate the Amiga and Macintosh, respectively, for breakfast. 😁

Edited.

But yea, that's a good point... A machine is more than just the raw specs on paper. The experience also depends on what software and hardware are available.
Since the C64 was massively successful, there's tons of software and hardware available.
Amiga also was reasonably successful, so a lot of stuff available.
The PCjr, the Tandy 2000 or the Mindset on the other hand, for example, they flopped quite quickly, so not a lot of software and hardware available. So not a whole lot you can do with them, unless you want to develop software or hardware yourself. Which is also part of why they flopped.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2023-09-29, 09:54:

Amiga had a lot of exclusive games and software, so I wouldn't consider it junk even though I've never owned one. For me that unique experience is what interests me most when collecting. I want a collection that gives me a variety of experiences that isn't very redundant. Personally, I don't need the nostalgia factor. I can enjoy retro hardware that came before my time as well.

I agree with most you've said, and unique experience is what interests me most in a retro collecting hobby too, but ... and here comes a big BUT.

When I go back in time I recall that feeling of suffer when was coming out a newer machine within the same line of DOS / Windows 1-2-3 machines for example. If you had a 286 machine if was quite an improvement over PC and PC XT machines, but when came out 386 and later 486, it was a pain to see how 286 struggles to do things compared to 386 and 486 machines.

So today, when I can pick any machine I want from the same line of machines, I always try to pick the hi-end ones. It doesn't mean that I do not enjoy playing with machines that are much less capable than even a Commodore 64, I do, but I try to pick the more capable ones within the same line.

For example, there is Epson HX-20. It's barely a computer, but since it was the only model of its kind without any improved machines, I enjoy it without any questions. But when I take a look at Sharp PC-1211 compared to Sharp PC-1500, or HP 95LX compared to HP 200LX, I have almost a zero interest in lower end machines in those lines.

Same about Amigas and PCs. When I take a look at the 16/32 bit scene, I will definitely choose PCs and will pick a later ones in the line. Of course there are a compatibility issues when some programs don't run on faster machines as they were supposed to. In this case I choose the fastest machine that is capable of running a particular software correctly.

As you rightly noted, Amiga had a lot of exclusive games and software, but here come a space and a price issues. If one is a hard gamer or music enthusiast that can't imagine his hobby without exclusive Amiga programs, then maybe for him it will be worth to populate a room space comparable to a whole closet section and to spend few thousand bucks. But I'm not one of them and I'll be quite happy leaving Amigas outside of my hobby interest.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-09-29, 10:03:

Oh boy, that's going in a dangerous direction here.. 😥 […]
Show full quote

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2023-09-29, 08:54:

Someone said here Amiga?

Never owned one but watched and red plenty of reviews about Amigas and comparisons between Amigas and PCs.

As I understand, Amiga was way ahead of IBM PC, IBM PC XT and even IBM PC AT (with i286). But when came out i386, Amigas were done. So for me, not being a gamer and with zero nostalgia for the Amiga, today when I can buy easily a quite capable i486 PC, it is no more than an expensive piece of junk.

Oh boy, that's going in a dangerous direction here.. 😥

Well, the Amiga was a special case sort of.
It was like a mixture of an arcade machine and a graphics workstation.
Game designers used it for drawing stuff in Deluxe Paint, too. DP was available for multiple platforms, also.
The Amiga also was the platform of frame grabbers (DigiView etc) and animation tools (MovieSetter etc). MOD music was done here, too. TV studios used the genlock feature to draw weather charts and generate video titles etc. Some TV programme also used it for playing those live games with a caller (say, Hugo etc).

In practice, the Atari ST was both a wordprocessing/database and MIDI machine.
Many traditional musicians used it as a controller on stage, along with Cubase software. Those used the monochrome/non-gaming setup with an SM124 or higher-end monitor.

Since Cubase was well written, it merely did depend on GEM/VDI - like a MS Windows application did on Windows/GDI.
Meaning that resolutions of 800x600 and up were possible if an ET4000 or similar graphics card was installed.
The Mega ST was looking like a little workstation, not unlike the Amiga 1000.

The "ugly" Amiga 2000 was made in Braunschweig, if I'm nit mistaken.
Electrically, the Amiga 500 and 2000 are similar (chipset). The Kick/Workbench disks usually read A500/2000.

Funnily, both IBM PC and Amiga had multiple types of memory to confuse the user.
The IBM had base memory, the UMA with free UMBs, High Memory Area (HMA), XMS and EMS..
The Amiga had Slow RAM (or pseudo fast RAM), Fast RAM, Chip RAM..

What's also notable is that the Amiga, in principle, was one of the earliest "PCs" running emulators (in the west).

It literally started after launch with the "Transformer" applicaton, a software emulation of an IBM PC. It was more of a tech demo, though.

Emulators for Mac and C64 existed, too on the Amiga (say, A64).
So former C64 users could still run their favorite applications and text-adventuress, at least.

https://theamigamuseum.com/emulation/emulating-on-the-amiga/

On PC, there was an early C64 emulator from the 80s, too, requiring Hercules graphics (say, via SVGA card in MGA emulation mode).
It used 640x400 mode and didn't work with my TTL monitors.
It also required a NEC V20 or higher processor, I think.

Quick demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVLyMxgjbfo

Funnily, things have come full cycle now. Emulation of the Amiga itself was one of the most ambitious things in the emulation scene.
Things like WinUAE are insane in terms of complexity.

Oh, and a 486 can emulate a basic Amiga, too.
Here's the bouncing ball demo running on Amiga Workbench, on an 486 laptop running DOS/Fellow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOjnZnyN6nI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLHgRlbjXIM

It's from the early 90s, but has a couple of MBs of RAM. With merely 2MB, the emulation has barely enough memory, I'm afraid.
Things like Chip RAM/Slow RAM/Fast RAM must be somehow provided, after all.

So be sure to have 4 MB or more, which is a good start for a DOS/Windows 3.1 PC, anyway.
2 MB wasn't enough for an 80286, even. 😉

And in Japan, the Sharp X68000 and FM Towns ate the Amiga and Macintosh, respectively, for breakfast. 😁

Edited.

I didn't say that Amigas weren't interesting or capable machines. They definitely were. But their lines were cut in the middle of their development while PCs lines continued. Same true about the Japanese machines. They were very interesting and quite capable also, much like Amigas. And like Amigas their lines were also cut in the middle of development.

Macs are a different story. Macs and PCs are like parallel universes. If I had more time, space and money I surely would go for Macs also, but in my case I decided to go for PCs and 8 bit BASIC machines (the smaller ones - laptops, handhelds, palmtops and pocket PCs) instead.

But back to the topic ...

Some time ago I was seriously considering buying a Commodore SX-64. It is a Commdore 64, it looks nice, it is portable ... but it has no cassette port and there is no convenient way to add one. What a joke! It could be such a great machine if it had one. And I'd be glad to buy one even though they are quite expensive these days ... But ...

I've never heard of anyone who'd actually WANT tape on a C64.
When I got my C64 in 1984, it was common to buy a package with both the C64 and the datasette bundled.
A disk drive was more expensive than the C64 itself, so in those days, hardly anyone had one.
A few years later, prices came down, so many C64 owners would get one, including myself. I never looked back really. Disk is so much faster and more convenient. Also, a lot of software was only available on disk, including Geos and many of the more advanced games.

Scali wrote on 2023-09-29, 12:04:

I've never heard of anyone who'd actually WANT tape on a C64. When I got my C64 in 1984, it was common to buy a package with bot […]
Show full quote

I've never heard of anyone who'd actually WANT tape on a C64.
When I got my C64 in 1984, it was common to buy a package with both the C64 and the datasette bundled.
A disk drive was more expensive than the C64 itself, so in those days, hardly anyone had one.
A few years later, prices came down, so many C64 owners would get one, including myself. I never looked back really. Disk is so much faster and more convenient. Also, a lot of software was only available on disk, including Geos and many of the more advanced games.

Of course a floppy drive is way much better than a datasette. But it is an 8 bit computer and as such I want it to have such an option. But it has not.

And by the way, a cassette port available - is almost the only reason that I'm still considering buying IBM PC 5150 machine, or at least its motherboard.

What would you do with a cassette port on a PC?
Afaik the only software ever released on cassette was some diagnostics program.
Other than that, yea you could load and save BASIC programs on tape. But other than the novelty of it being on tape, it's no different from using disk BASIC.
The IBM PCjr also has a cassette port btw.

Scali wrote on 2023-09-29, 12:23:

What would you do with a cassette port on a PC? Afaik the only software ever released on cassette was some diagnostics program. […]
Show full quote

What would you do with a cassette port on a PC?
Afaik the only software ever released on cassette was some diagnostics program.
Other than that, yea you could load and save BASIC programs on tape. But other than the novelty of it being on tape, it's no different from using disk BASIC.
The IBM PCjr also has a cassette port btw.

Yes, all you have said is true. But what a cool thing is to have IBM PC with a cassette tape option!

Regarding IBM PCjr, because of its compatibility issues and a need to have lots of hardware add-ons I quickly forgot about this weird creature.

I agree that the IBM PC and PCjr are somewhat unique, in that they seem to have a 'hidden' 8-bit home computer inside them: If you don't have a bootable floppy or HDD, it will automatically boot into BASIC. And when you add a tape drive into the mix, the experience is basically the standard late 70s/early 80s 8-bit home computer, such as a VIC-20, C64, Atari 8-bit, MSX, ZX80/81/Sinclair, TRS-80, Apple II and what-have-you.