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Commodore 64 > Atari 800

• timbit42 8y ago
  The Commodore 64 has better sound and the graphics are more flexible in putting colors in more places and more larger sprites. This is great for games and the C64 would have been just as successful as a game console, and perhaps more successful as one. The Atari 800 is better in virtually every other respect. It has an actual OS instead of a KERNAL, the SIO bus is what modern USB was based on and is better than the IEC bus as it is not crippled to tape speed like the IEC bus is and supports a tape drive and modem in addition to floppy drives and printers. It has a 256 color palette and more video modes. The 6502 CPU is faster. The DOS is easier to use with a menu instead of arcane commands. The BASIC is friendlier with sound and graphic commands, although slower. It can autoboot from tape and disk. I had a C64 as a teen but today I appreciate the Atari 800 much more. It's an amazing system and the designers went on to design the Amiga, which was effectively a 16-bit version of the Atari 800 utilizing the same 3 custom chip design. The C64 was more popular because it was less expensive and better for playing games, but it wasn't a better computer.
  • karmakaze 8y ago
    Good tech summary. I grew up on Atari 8-bit and loved the technical details that got out. The C64 owners I met tended to hack less. I pretty much learned to code disassembling ROM and AtariDOS and making custom patched versions (and of course games). I would get into the zone with the macro assembler editor like I was meditating and say "I'm in medit" if anyone interrupted me. Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Set blew my mind and I probably became a programming tool developer because of it.