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Yeah, it's totally myopic The C64 wasn't even a good 8-bit machine for a start And even if it was, it is so removed from today's computers to be useless. Real

Yeah, it's totally myopic The C64 wasn't even a good 8-bit machine for a start And even if it was, it is so removed from today's computers to be useless. Really I'd say a 386 is not obsolete from that point of view (of the discussion). Or even the Amiga as others mentioned. But the C64 is.

egypturnash 4y ago
I am curious which 8-bit machines you thought were good, if the c64 wasn’t.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  MSX 2 and 2+ for example
  - boffinAudio 4y ago
    Amstrad CPC6128 and Enterprise 128 were arguably much better machines than the C64, architecture-wise. The idea that the C64 was the 'best 8-bit machine of the market' is very US-centric - there were certainly far better 8-bit machines on sale at the time, its just that their market wasn't the USA. (Disclaimer: Oric-1/Atmos user here. A much better machine than the C654 - it taught me to program.)
    - vintermann 4y ago
      I don't think anyone argues that specific c64 hardware designs, like how the video chip steals CPU time, were all that brilliant. The 6510 chip has some strengths and weaknesses compared to the Z80-based micros. Most micros beat the c64 on filled polygon 3d graphics for instance. But the c64 had the best sound by far of the 8 bit micros, even those very late models that you mention.
    - timbit42 4y ago
      The MSX, MSX 2, Amstrad CPC and Enterprise all had better hardware and ROM software but they came out later than the C64 (fall 1982), which by then already had lots of games and dominated the market sales-wise. As today, we buy computers and choose operating systems based on the software we want to run. Which would you buy? The system with the most software and the most software currently being made, or a system with somewhat better hardware but little software available? When the C64 came out, it had the best graphics and sound, but not the best ROM software. I wouldn't even say it had an operating system. It was really just a small, simple KERNAL with some system calls. It didn't have a very good BASIC either, and couldn't auto boot. It was essentially a video game console with a keyboard and a slow floppy drive so parents would think it was a computer. It didn't even have a proper backward compatible upgrade path. The C128 and C65 aren't backward compatible with it, they have a C64 mode. I had a VIC-20 and then a C64 in the 80's but looking back now, I'd rather have had an Atari 800/XL/XE. The graphics and sound were almost as good but it had a real OS, custom DOSes, and lots of interesting programming languages available for it. But I, as many others in software and IT today who got started with Commodore computers, couldn't afford the Atari or Apple systems so I am grateful Jack Tramiel made computers for the masses, not the classes.
    - timbit42 4y ago
      The Amstrad CPC 464, 664, and 6128 didn't have hardware scrolling or sprites, but the 464 Plus and 6128 Plus did, making them more comparable to the Commodore 64 and 128.
kragen 4y ago
The C64 was pretty much the best of all the 8-bit machines of that epoch, except maybe for super high-end MP/M boxes. It shipped with the full complement of RAM such machines could handle without banking, its CPU was a lot faster than that of the CP/M machines and TRS-80s, it included a sophisticated audio synthesizer, and it had the kinds of color and hardware-accelerated scrollable tiles and sprites that made it possible to do decent 2-D games. Its text resolution wasn't anything special but at least it had lowercase, and it had enough RAM to bitmap the whole screen, even if you couldn't put arbitrary colors everywhere. The NES (a few years later) had better graphics, and the Apple //e had better text, but the C64 was pretty much the overall champ. There are 8-bit machines today like the Arduino that can run circles around the C64 in some ways, because they're made with dramatically better fabrication technology so they can run much faster; is that what you mean about it not being a good 8-bit machine? I've synthesized audio on an Arduino that you couldn't have done on the C64. Obsolete, though, it certainly is.
- flomo 4y ago
  C64 was very similar to the earlier Atari 800, just much cheaper in terms of price and construction, and (reportedly) sold below cost to drive the minor players out of the business. Nobody cross-shopped a CP/M or IBM PC with a Commodore. Note the article is from the trailing edge, and the other 8-bit systems pretty much almost dead at that point, and the C64 was just barely still selling for another year or so on cheap fumes. (Never was even aware of C128, so no comment on that.)
  - kragen 4y ago
    The IBM PC was 16-bit, though, like the TI 99/4A and SNES, despite its 8-bit data bus. The C64 was introduced in 01982, and people kept selling CP/M systems and TRS-80s for several years after that. I agree CP/M was pretty dead by 01988. Commodore seems to have really believed obsolescence wasn't real. WDC launched the 65CE02 in 01988, and Commodore tried to build the Commodore 65 on it in 01991. A decision I've never understood from that period: IBM introduced the PS/2 Model 30, with an 8-MHz 8086, in 01987. The 8086 was from 01976, but at least it had a 16-bit data bus, and at 8 MHz it was over a MIPS (though only 0.4 Dhrystone MIPS if we believe http://www.netlib.org/performance/html/dhrystone.data.col1.html http://www.netlib.org/performance/html/dhrystone.data.col1.h..., that's still 8 times the Cromemco Z2 with its Z80, and 20 times the C64, though at this point we're well outside the area where Dhrystone is a good measure). They did replace it with the "PS/2 Model 30 286" the next year, but unfortunately not before my school district got suckered into buying some of the crippled beasts. I agree that the C64 was pretty similar to the Atari 800, but it had much better sound, it had 256 multicolor sprites instead of 8 two-color sprites, and the 800 shipped with 8K and couldn't hold more than 48K. So there was a pretty big difference in what you could do on an Atari and what you could do on a C64.
Beldin 4y ago
This is from 1988, where the incredible upgrade cycle was about to start. Standards for consumer HW went in 4-6 years from 8086s to 486s, from Hercules/CGA to SVGA, from 5 1/4" 360 kb floppies to 400mb harddisks. I think the comment just about predates this incredible upgrade cycle. I mean, that comment predates the "Andy & Bill law" [1]: what Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away. There was no need to upgrade stuff back then. In that context, not a very weird comment - especially for someone whose job it is to sell these machines. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law

egypturnash 4y ago

I am curious which 8-bit machines you thought were good, if the c64 wasn’t.

raverbashing 4y ago
MSX 2 and 2+ for example
- boffinAudio 4y ago
  Amstrad CPC6128 and Enterprise 128 were arguably much better machines than the C64, architecture-wise. The idea that the C64 was the 'best 8-bit machine of the market' is very US-centric - there were certainly far better 8-bit machines on sale at the time, its just that their market wasn't the USA. (Disclaimer: Oric-1/Atmos user here. A much better machine than the C654 - it taught me to program.)
  - vintermann 4y ago
    I don't think anyone argues that specific c64 hardware designs, like how the video chip steals CPU time, were all that brilliant. The 6510 chip has some strengths and weaknesses compared to the Z80-based micros. Most micros beat the c64 on filled polygon 3d graphics for instance. But the c64 had the best sound by far of the 8 bit micros, even those very late models that you mention.
  - timbit42 4y ago
    The MSX, MSX 2, Amstrad CPC and Enterprise all had better hardware and ROM software but they came out later than the C64 (fall 1982), which by then already had lots of games and dominated the market sales-wise. As today, we buy computers and choose operating systems based on the software we want to run. Which would you buy? The system with the most software and the most software currently being made, or a system with somewhat better hardware but little software available? When the C64 came out, it had the best graphics and sound, but not the best ROM software. I wouldn't even say it had an operating system. It was really just a small, simple KERNAL with some system calls. It didn't have a very good BASIC either, and couldn't auto boot. It was essentially a video game console with a keyboard and a slow floppy drive so parents would think it was a computer. It didn't even have a proper backward compatible upgrade path. The C128 and C65 aren't backward compatible with it, they have a C64 mode. I had a VIC-20 and then a C64 in the 80's but looking back now, I'd rather have had an Atari 800/XL/XE. The graphics and sound were almost as good but it had a real OS, custom DOSes, and lots of interesting programming languages available for it. But I, as many others in software and IT today who got started with Commodore computers, couldn't afford the Atari or Apple systems so I am grateful Jack Tramiel made computers for the masses, not the classes.
  - timbit42 4y ago
    The Amstrad CPC 464, 664, and 6128 didn't have hardware scrolling or sprites, but the 464 Plus and 6128 Plus did, making them more comparable to the Commodore 64 and 128.

kragen 4y ago

The C64 was pretty much the best of all the 8-bit machines of that epoch, except maybe for super high-end MP/M boxes. It shipped with the full complement of RAM such machines could handle without banking, its CPU was a lot faster than that of the CP/M machines and TRS-80s, it included a sophisticated audio synthesizer, and it had the kinds of color and hardware-accelerated scrollable tiles and sprites that made it possible to do decent 2-D games. Its text resolution wasn't anything special but at least it had lowercase, and it had enough RAM to bitmap the whole screen, even if you couldn't put arbitrary colors everywhere. The NES (a few years later) had better graphics, and the Apple //e had better text, but the C64 was pretty much the overall champ. There are 8-bit machines today like the Arduino that can run circles around the C64 in some ways, because they're made with dramatically better fabrication technology so they can run much faster; is that what you mean about it not being a good 8-bit machine? I've synthesized audio on an Arduino that you couldn't have done on the C64. Obsolete, though, it certainly is.

flomo 4y ago
C64 was very similar to the earlier Atari 800, just much cheaper in terms of price and construction, and (reportedly) sold below cost to drive the minor players out of the business. Nobody cross-shopped a CP/M or IBM PC with a Commodore. Note the article is from the trailing edge, and the other 8-bit systems pretty much almost dead at that point, and the C64 was just barely still selling for another year or so on cheap fumes. (Never was even aware of C128, so no comment on that.)
- kragen 4y ago
  The IBM PC was 16-bit, though, like the TI 99/4A and SNES, despite its 8-bit data bus. The C64 was introduced in 01982, and people kept selling CP/M systems and TRS-80s for several years after that. I agree CP/M was pretty dead by 01988. Commodore seems to have really believed obsolescence wasn't real. WDC launched the 65CE02 in 01988, and Commodore tried to build the Commodore 65 on it in 01991. A decision I've never understood from that period: IBM introduced the PS/2 Model 30, with an 8-MHz 8086, in 01987. The 8086 was from 01976, but at least it had a 16-bit data bus, and at 8 MHz it was over a MIPS (though only 0.4 Dhrystone MIPS if we believe http://www.netlib.org/performance/html/dhrystone.data.col1.html http://www.netlib.org/performance/html/dhrystone.data.col1.h..., that's still 8 times the Cromemco Z2 with its Z80, and 20 times the C64, though at this point we're well outside the area where Dhrystone is a good measure). They did replace it with the "PS/2 Model 30 286" the next year, but unfortunately not before my school district got suckered into buying some of the crippled beasts. I agree that the C64 was pretty similar to the Atari 800, but it had much better sound, it had 256 multicolor sprites instead of 8 two-color sprites, and the 800 shipped with 8K and couldn't hold more than 48K. So there was a pretty big difference in what you could do on an Atari and what you could do on a C64.

Beldin 4y ago

This is from 1988, where the incredible upgrade cycle was about to start. Standards for consumer HW went in 4-6 years from 8086s to 486s, from Hercules/CGA to SVGA, from 5 1/4" 360 kb floppies to 400mb harddisks. I think the comment just about predates this incredible upgrade cycle. I mean, that comment predates the "Andy & Bill law" [1]: what Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away. There was no need to upgrade stuff back then. In that context, not a very weird comment - especially for someone whose job it is to sell these machines. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law