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Sorry, but no. Commodore’s failure is almost entirely related to terrible business decisions, but machine wise, the C64 was more powerful by virtue of flexibili

Sorry, but no. Commodore’s failure is almost entirely related to terrible business decisions, but machine wise, the C64 was more powerful by virtue of flexibility. (The built in basic is irrelevant and could be easily upgraded to SuperBasic if you wanted that) Ask yourself why 4 decades later, there is still a huge demo scene around the C64 and Amiga, but not the Apple II? The C64 could do things on stock hardware that would have blown your mind in the early 80s as having come from the future: look at the 11 minute mark at the Onslaught Demo https://youtu.be/FTtKHLZTbtA https://youtu.be/FTtKHLZTbtA find me an Apple II demo on stock original hardware that comes even close. (Full screen video and digital audio streaming from floppy at 15fps) my school had Apple IIs, they did not inspire me to learn to program, my C64 did, and I learned 6502 Assembly, not basic, because the graphics I saw in demos and games were jaw dropping and inspiring unlike anything a kid saw on an Apple II. And less 1 year after the Mac128, Commodore launches what was the iPhone of 1985, vertically integrated custom chips and software, for half the price that did all this: https://youtu.be/q7rKj0DU8Xs https://youtu.be/q7rKj0DU8Xs The Mac128 was priced way outside a home users budget, had an almost unusable Tiny amount of memory, non expandable, terrible graphics and sound. It was not a home brew system, or for kids, Or for engineers. For those reasons Commodore computers were way more popular with hackers and with kids, excellent games, and when you chose to explore, excellent hardware to learn to code on. Apple’s success was mostly due to marketing, and don’t forget, Apple failed and almost went bankrupt too. BTW, the total number of Apple IIs sold were less than six million, including 1.25 million IIgs as opposed to Five million Amigas and 12 million C64s. In Europe especially, the C64 dominated.

mschaef 8y ago
> machine wise, the C64 was more powerful by virtue of flexibility. What do you mean? Are you referring to the demo scene being able to push the internal hardware as far as they've been able to? > The Mac128 was priced way outside a home users budget, had an almost unusable Tiny amount of memory Probably better to consider a comparison with the Apple model I was alluding to in my earlier post. The Apple //c was much cheaper than a Mac, had 80 column text, 128K RAM, and could run Appleworks. It didn't do games nearly as well as a C64, but you'd have been hard pressed to find as good a machine from Commodore for small office tasks. (Maybe the C128... it was cheaper and had a numeric keypad, but I don't think the software was as strong there as it was for Apple.) > Apple failed and almost went bankrupt too. That 'almost' is rather important, don't you think?
- cromwellian 8y ago
  > What do you mean? Are you referring to the demo scene being able to push the internal hardware as far as they've been able to? Yes, the C64 VIC and SID were just flexible enough, to enable them to do a large number of graphical and sound effects which they were never intended to do, like arbitrary X/Y positioning of the screen, line-crunching/stretching and sprite-crunching/stretching. Because the hardware was so exploitable in this way, it encouraged a never ending competition of creativity and innovation in its use that hasn't even subsided until this day. I mean, just in 2018, 44Khz digital audio was demonstrated on the C64: https://brokenbytes.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-48khz-digital-music-player-for.html https://brokenbytes.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-48khz-digital-mus... Now, search for Apple II's demo scene, and it never materialized except on the IIgs for obvious reasons, and even there, it's paultry. >Probably better to consider a comparison with the Apple model I was alluding to in my earlier post. The Apple //c was much cheaper than a Mac, had 80 column text, 128K RAM, and could run Appleworks. It didn't do games nearly as well as a C64, but you'd have been hard pressed to find as good a machine from Commodore for small office tasks. (Maybe the C128... it was cheaper and had a numeric keypad, but I don't think the software was as strong there as it was for Apple.) Most offices used PCs. Home users didn't have much need for much office tasks, but those that did, had plenty of apps available for the C64. I used to write all of my school reports using GeoWrite on the C64, no problem. If you really needed 80 columns for the C64, there were hacks to get it, including software only ones, and plugin cartridges, and as you mentioned, the C128, which had 100% backwards compatibility with the C64, plus the hi-res VDC. It was notoriously hard to program for, but here's a slick demo for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8bEgX6n-QM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8bEgX6n-QM Here's GeoWrite 128 in hi-res 80-column mode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSNosi2C9Ic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSNosi2C9Ic When you say cheaper, you neglect to say HOW MUCH cheaper. The Apple IIc was $1300.The C64 was priced at $600, and the C128 was actually priced at $300. It sold 5.7 million machines (C128), more than all Apple models combined. The Amiga 1000 sold for $1300 at launch, compared to the Mac which sold for $2500. The Commodore computers sold for less than half the price, had much better graphical and sound capabilities (in the Amiga's case, it's severely understating the difference, the Mac didn't catch up for years and at a huge cost differential because Commodore, like the new post iPhone Apple, developed highly efficient, integrated, chipsets). Apple got squeezed in the home market by Commodore, Atari, and Sinclair, and squeezed in the business market by IBM, their lifeline was finding a niche in education. The hagiography of fans rewrites Apple's history, because they were first and because of the reality distortion field, but really, their computers were pretty shitty. The original Mac128K was inferior to the Apple IIgs in many ways, and it was hellishly expensive. Seriously, go grab a Mac 128k, and grab an Amiga 1000, and tell me which computer you're more productive on. You could use an original Amiga 1000 today and still have a pleasant experience, whereas the original Mac is agonizing to use. On the business side, up until 1984, Commodore made more money than Apple. Apple revenues took off with the introduction of the Mac, but this follows the usual Apple script of charging a ton of money for a less capable computer. Up until Windows 95, when the trend was reversed.

mschaef 8y ago

> machine wise, the C64 was more powerful by virtue of flexibility. What do you mean? Are you referring to the demo scene being able to push the internal hardware as far as they've been able to? > The Mac128 was priced way outside a home users budget, had an almost unusable Tiny amount of memory Probably better to consider a comparison with the Apple model I was alluding to in my earlier post. The Apple //c was much cheaper than a Mac, had 80 column text, 128K RAM, and could run Appleworks. It didn't do games nearly as well as a C64, but you'd have been hard pressed to find as good a machine from Commodore for small office tasks. (Maybe the C128... it was cheaper and had a numeric keypad, but I don't think the software was as strong there as it was for Apple.) > Apple failed and almost went bankrupt too. That 'almost' is rather important, don't you think?

cromwellian 8y ago
> What do you mean? Are you referring to the demo scene being able to push the internal hardware as far as they've been able to? Yes, the C64 VIC and SID were just flexible enough, to enable them to do a large number of graphical and sound effects which they were never intended to do, like arbitrary X/Y positioning of the screen, line-crunching/stretching and sprite-crunching/stretching. Because the hardware was so exploitable in this way, it encouraged a never ending competition of creativity and innovation in its use that hasn't even subsided until this day. I mean, just in 2018, 44Khz digital audio was demonstrated on the C64: https://brokenbytes.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-48khz-digital-music-player-for.html https://brokenbytes.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-48khz-digital-mus... Now, search for Apple II's demo scene, and it never materialized except on the IIgs for obvious reasons, and even there, it's paultry. >Probably better to consider a comparison with the Apple model I was alluding to in my earlier post. The Apple //c was much cheaper than a Mac, had 80 column text, 128K RAM, and could run Appleworks. It didn't do games nearly as well as a C64, but you'd have been hard pressed to find as good a machine from Commodore for small office tasks. (Maybe the C128... it was cheaper and had a numeric keypad, but I don't think the software was as strong there as it was for Apple.) Most offices used PCs. Home users didn't have much need for much office tasks, but those that did, had plenty of apps available for the C64. I used to write all of my school reports using GeoWrite on the C64, no problem. If you really needed 80 columns for the C64, there were hacks to get it, including software only ones, and plugin cartridges, and as you mentioned, the C128, which had 100% backwards compatibility with the C64, plus the hi-res VDC. It was notoriously hard to program for, but here's a slick demo for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8bEgX6n-QM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8bEgX6n-QM Here's GeoWrite 128 in hi-res 80-column mode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSNosi2C9Ic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSNosi2C9Ic When you say cheaper, you neglect to say HOW MUCH cheaper. The Apple IIc was $1300.The C64 was priced at $600, and the C128 was actually priced at $300. It sold 5.7 million machines (C128), more than all Apple models combined. The Amiga 1000 sold for $1300 at launch, compared to the Mac which sold for $2500. The Commodore computers sold for less than half the price, had much better graphical and sound capabilities (in the Amiga's case, it's severely understating the difference, the Mac didn't catch up for years and at a huge cost differential because Commodore, like the new post iPhone Apple, developed highly efficient, integrated, chipsets). Apple got squeezed in the home market by Commodore, Atari, and Sinclair, and squeezed in the business market by IBM, their lifeline was finding a niche in education. The hagiography of fans rewrites Apple's history, because they were first and because of the reality distortion field, but really, their computers were pretty shitty. The original Mac128K was inferior to the Apple IIgs in many ways, and it was hellishly expensive. Seriously, go grab a Mac 128k, and grab an Amiga 1000, and tell me which computer you're more productive on. You could use an original Amiga 1000 today and still have a pleasant experience, whereas the original Mac is agonizing to use. On the business side, up until 1984, Commodore made more money than Apple. Apple revenues took off with the introduction of the Mac, but this follows the usual Apple script of charging a ton of money for a less capable computer. Up until Windows 95, when the trend was reversed.