The Rise and Fall of Commodore 340
Andrew Leigh writes "On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of Commodore by Brian Bagnall is fodder for anyone interested in the buried history of the personal computer. Whether you owned a Commodore computer or want to hear a new angle on the early stages of computer development, you'll find this book easy to pick up and almost impossible to put down. Bagnall has gone to a massive amount of effort in telling this tale, researching and interviewing the real personalities involved. It takes readers on an important and often emotional ride that will many times leave you shaking your head at how painfully it all went wrong." Read the rest of Andrew's review
| On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore | |
| author | Brian Bagnall |
| pages | 557 |
| publisher | Variant Press |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | Andrew Leigh |
| ISBN | 0973864907 |
| summary | Tells the story of Commodore through first-hand accounts by former Commodore engineers and managers |
Before Commodore entered the home computer market, they were primarily a calculator manufacturer. The story begins in the mid 70's with the development of Chuck Peddle's famous 6502 chip, through to the release of the first personal computer, the Commodore PET. It then reveals how the VIC-20 became the first home computer to break the elusive one million barrier. Then comes the Commodore 64, and how the company made it the best selling computer of all time. The Commodore 128 is given plenty of coverage, along with the failed Commodore 16 and Plus/4 computers (which are probably better off forgotten). At this point, Commodore seems like it is losing its way, and the story cuts to the struggling company responsible for the original Amiga computer. You'll learn about the various Amiga models that followed, including the successful Amiga 500 and the pre-DVD CDTV and CD32 units. The hirings, firings, disagreements, discontent, resignations and celebrations that occurred during the company's run are given more than their fair share of coverage. It doesn't always show Commodore in the best light, which is what readers should demand from any history.
It's a sad truth, and the book describes this in an often bitter fashion, that the early history of computers seems to focus on Apple, IBM and Microsoft while Commodore's massive contributions to the industry are routinely ignored. The common misconception that Apple started the home computing industry is simply wrong. Commodore was the first to show a personal computer, the first to deliver low-cost computers to the masses, the first to sell a million computers, and the first to arrive with a true multimedia computer. Fortunately this book sets a lot of the record straight.
On The Edge delves deeply into the business strategies behind the company. Students of any business discipline will be well advised to heed the lessons about how not to run a company. One of the book's main characters and the founder of Commodore, Jack Tramiel, was an incredibly ruthless business man. Whether you love him or hate him, he was ultimately behind the incredible success of the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 computers. The book outlines how he managed to be the first to sell his home computers to the mass market through department stores, driving prices down and annihilating most of the competition. It also amusingly tells how he would regularly lose his temper and have what employees referred to as "Jack Attacks" when things went wrong. Many people referred to him as the scariest man alive and he probably was. Jack Tramiel unfortunately does not publicly talk about the Commodore days, so Bagnall was not able to personally interview him, however family members and those close to him give their personal accounts of events.
The book also explains how Irving Gould, the money-man and venture capitalist behind Commodore, constantly interfered when things were seemingly running smoothly. It is widely recognized that Irving Gould and Medhi Ali (the CEO he instated at the time) ultimately caused the sad demise of Commodore through 1993-94, yet the details of how it happened have always been sketchy until now. Thomas Rattigan, former CEO of Commodore, was interviewed by Bagnall and gives his personal thoughts and experiences during his time with the company. He also talks about his untimely dismissal by Gould. The later sections of the book describe how numerous marketing mishaps and poor business sense led to a dwindling stock price and an eventual filing for liquidation. Bagnall accurately describes the heartbreaking end to a great company that deserved much more success and recognition.
This book certainly does not shy away from getting its metaphorical hands dirty with the technical details and manufacturing processes involved in building the Commodore computers. If anything, more detail would be welcome here, as the personalities interviewed obviously drove their designs by an enormous amount of passion. Bagnall has interviewed all the original key players involved on the technical side, including the humble and personable Chuck Peddle. You'll read how he built the MOS 6502 microprocessor, with the talented layout artist Bill Mensch. The chip was used by not only Commodore but rivals Apple, Atari, and Nintendo. Many other notable and significant technical pioneers have also been interviewed and give their experiences and opinions.
You'll learn why your 1541 floppy disk drive was so unbearably slow. You'll learn how millions of dollars worth of Amigas were scrapped because of a cheeky message placed in the ROM by a disgruntled employee. You'll learn how exhausted coders had to take naps at their desks while code compiled on a mainframe. You'll also learn why those tedious "peek" and "poke" functions weren't built in as BASIC commands for easier usage on your C64.
Interestingly, Steve Wozinak, one of the co-founders of Apple Computers, claims in his new book (titled "iWoz") that he invented the personal computer and provided Chuck Peddle with the idea for the first Commodore PET. When you read On The Edge, you'll find that it tells a different story. Chuck Peddle receives a great deal of coverage, and after reading about his efforts you will feel this is deservedly so. His efforts have gone largely unsung and On The Edge may well be the first step towards him earning the title of being the father of the personal computer.
Commodore Business Machines was a company that produced superior computers for the mass market. Their legacy deserves to be told and more importantly heard. Computing history didn't just involve the big players that still exist today. Commodore, Atari, Radio Shack, and others all shaped the future. On The Edge is an experience that will change the way you view computing history and maybe even entice you to dust off that old Commodore computer that's been sitting in the cupboard. Bagnall tells it like it is and also leaves you thinking "what if?" many times. The great stories are filled with characters that anyone who works in the IT industry will recognize in their own workplace. It truly demonstrates the fragility and ad-hoc nature of not only Commodore itself, but the entire industry back then. It really makes you cringe in disbelief at how some stupid and insignificant decisions shaped the future as we know it now. No one could have known how important these decisions were back then.
At a hefty 557 pages, On The Edge is good value. Bagnall's informative and relaxed writing makes it a breeze to travel through decades at a blistering pace. It sheds some much needed light on a period of history clouded by revisionism.
You can purchase On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The Rise of the Amiga has been postponed.. (Score:2)
Re:The Rise of the Amiga has been postponed.. (Score:4, Funny)
Signed,
Vic20
Remember the calculators? (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a Commodore calculator, the kind you plugged into the wall. It had a single-line orange flourescent display that had an annoying hum (the more digits that were lit the louder it was). It did though have a single register memory key, which was somewhat novel. Otherwise it was limited mostly to just +, -,
I first played on PETs. I still remember the joy of discovering all the different variants of it that people had. Some had green screens, others amber, and I think I remember seeing one that had purple pixels. But the membrane-style keyboard was the most futuristic looking (and hardest to use).
Then I did all my "serious" programming on the C64 and wore out many 1541 disk drives. In fact my c64 still works, but unfortunately not the drive. Once you learned all those magic PEEK and POKE numbers you could play God, or so it seemed.
Then it was on to the Amiga 1000 and 2000. I had three floppy drives on the thing (thank goodness for the included schematics) before I could finally afford a newfangled hard drive. Eventually I upgraded it all the way to a Toaster Flyer system before the company folded up and I had to move on. Which was horrible, until Linux came along.
I remember seeing a C64 in the Smithsonian a few years back. That sure made me feel old.
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If it weren't for the chattering 1541, I'd still have my C64. Mine was the "portable" SX-64 [wikipedia.org] with the 5" screen. Weighed at least 100 lbs (45 kg).
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[ducks]
Re:Remember the calculators? (Score:4, Insightful)
This book though is the real deal. It's easy to learn the history of Apple, we all know about Steve and Steve, and any halfway avid nerd knows about the legend of Breakout, the Steve's selling blue boxes to raise money, Atari & HP turning down the Apple, etc.
Commodore's story has been way less well told, and that's why this book is so great. The C64 was really the first PC that was in reach for the average consumer, yet if you just look at the popular press, it's as if it never existed.
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I had to copy it on to 22 floppies before I could install it.
Happy times
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Amiga (Score:2)
We will always miss you.
Why not buy from the author? (Score:3, Insightful)
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I had a Vic20, and later a C-64, and I am personally thrilled to be typing this on a Mac.
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DG
(old time comp.sys.amiga guys will get the joke)
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Interestingly, Linux would not exist without the PC. Linus Torvalds wrote it to learn about the 386 processor so he would never have written it (he first learned to code on an early commodore/vic model so I suspect he would not have needed to learn more about that CPU). Also, without the PC and it's stardardized hardware Linux would h
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Nowadays, thanks to user-ce
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Wait! Wait! I know this one! (Score:2)
Fall: Jack Tramiel
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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AGA GFX chips were made under contract by HP (the Commodore ex-Mostek fab couldn't handle better than 2 micron). This required forecasting so they'd reserve fab time for us.
Some of us pushed hard for dropping all the non-AGA models and selling the A1200, A2400 (aka A4000), and A3000+ for Christmas.
In summer of '93, when told that (because he'd been unwilling to commit to production of enough AGA chipsets earlier) that Commodore could only make somet
Ahhh, those were the days... (Score:2)
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Modern version not that different:
"AMD 64 + external USB drive + 384 kbps modem = endless fun surfing into Slashdot.org until all hours of the night.
This is my retro side talking... (Score:2)
I've been encouraging Jens Schoenfeld [jschoenfeld.com] to make a USB Catweasel controller [jschoenfeld.com] for those of us without PCI slots. I suppose it's probably easier to put PCI slots on a laptop [mobl.com], though.
Perhaps I'm just in it for the absurdity factor.
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At least it has more colours than the Commodore had.
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Yeah, I miss those Commodore 64 days, too. I once sat up until 5am trying to block-send an entire disk to a buddy of mine at 300 baud. The very last block failed. Freakin' DRM was alive back then, too.
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All that hardware - computers, monitors, lots and lots of probably-broken floppy drives - is in the closet of our computer room.
Hidden ROM message? (Score:5, Interesting)
You'll learn how millions of dollars worth of Amigas were scrapped because of a cheeky message placed in the ROM by a disgruntled employee.
Some Googling brought me back to Slashdot, and a previous story involving the Amiga [slashdot.org]:
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It was in AmigaOS 1.2, if I remember correctly, and was generated by triggering one of every input event there was. Hold down all Ctrl-Alt-Amiga keys, press F10, and eject a disk at the same time! (or something, I remember because it was hard to do and either involved a second person or ejecting the disk with your nose!)
The message was in one line, though! (not two as the guy in the article said)
I've seen it myself ba
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"Amiga - A Great Computer"
When you ejected the disk, the message read:
"Until Commodore Fucked it up."
The A500 thru 3000 had the same message, but the second line, visible after pressing eject, was changed to
"Still A great Computer"
The really cool thing is that this message still works in UAE -- the Universal Amiga Emulator -- Just depends on what ROMs you choose to run.
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It's a good read (Score:3, Interesting)
The failure of the Amiga comes down to one thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
If Commodore owned KFC they would have marketed it as "a greasy warm dead bird in a cardboard bucket".
At the time take a look at the Amiga vs the IBM PC AT and the Mac as far a cost vs features.
The Amiga was so far ahead it makes your head hurt.
That is the proof that marketing is the most important thing in computers. If having the best product wins then the PC would have died the death that DOS deserved back then.
B/W Composite on the 500??!! (Score:2)
Then the color adaptor came out, and it's like 6 friggin inches long (oh, and the monitor pass thru was also on the end of this), making your machine stick out even further from the wall. What in the hell were they thinking?!
I do not blame the engineers -
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I don't know what system the grand parent post was talking about, but it certainly wasn't any Amiga system. Every Amiga from the 1000 onwards had a RCA composite out (which could do color just fine, in the same way that NTSC can be broadcast over the air and be displayed by both color and black and white sets) and an RGB port.
The RGB port did require a special cable (this was pre-VGA, remember), but if you bought a monitor from Commodore the cable always came with.
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The 23pin RGB port carries all the right signals to happily drive a VGA monitor, but at ~15KHz, 50/60Hz.
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Re:The failure of the Amiga comes down to one thin (Score:3, Informative)
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My list..
8 years pass..
Oddly, I still have the TRS-80 Model 1 and its Monitor in custom-built cases in the garage. All the others are long since gone, though.
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Atari 2600 with a basic cartage.
Commodore 64.
Amiga 1000
Amiga 2000HD
Pentium something with Windows 95.
Now
IBM thinkpad, a PII server, an AMD X2, MacPlus, Ti 99/4a and Amiga 3000T:)
I really want an Atar Falcon, Atari 800, Commodore 128, Commodore 64, and a Colorcomputer. My wife's mother has an Apple IIC that I will bring home at Christmas.
Someday I may add an Amiga 4000 or Amiga 1200 to the list as well.
I would love a NeXT cube but those are exp
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TRS-80 MC10
C=128 (Apples suck, dude!)
Apple Macintosh SE (well, it's not a ][e)
Amiga 500
Mac Colour Classic
Quadra 630
Unremembered Windows laptop #1 (Win95)
Performa 6400
Acer (I think) Windows laptop #2 (Win98)
PowerBook G4
Graphite iMac
HP something or another that everyone in the company received free (it was big news then)
Power Mac G4 Quicksilver -- still have, about to sell
Homemade something or another #1 -- still have, for sale if I get home
Tivo from Sony -- I telnet'd in, so that counts, right?
PowerB
Re:The failure of the Amiga comes down to one thin (Score:3, Insightful)
Where was the marketing for the IBM PC, then?
I hazily remember a TV commercial touting the PCjr, and the "How ya gonna do it? / Gonna PS/2 it!" jingle is still a brainworm fifteen years later -- but both of those models were failures.
IBM PC's didn't sell well because of good marketing; they sold well despite a lack of marketing, because
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That only counted for the home user. The Amiga was actually very successful in the home market. I would guess that a lot more people had Amigas at home than Macs or and maybe PCs.
PCs sucked for games.
It was in the bussness/corprate and education world that Commodore got killed.
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That's still their logo.
Re:The failure of the Amiga comes down to one thin (Score:2)
You really can't market the Amiga 500, with a picture on the box of a kid in open mouth glee playing games, along with the Amiga 2000, with business/multimedia production, at the same time successfully. But it was when Commodore got di
Marketing, Amiga in Television Broadcasting (Score:3, Interesting)
You really can't market the Amiga 500, with a picture on the box of a kid in open mouth glee playing games, along with the Amiga 2000, with business/multimedia production, at the same time successfully.
Was that the issue, though? I don't think so; it makes perfect sense to view one has a compatible "home" version of your office computer.
I worked in television broadcasting, and as late as the mid 1990s, it was Amiga 2000 in the office and Amiga 500 at home. That was me, that was co-workers, etc. A few w
More than one factor (Score:2)
Re:The failure of the Amiga comes down to one thin (Score:3, Interesting)
If Commodore owned KFC they would have marketed it as "a greasy warm dead bird in a cardboard bucket".
At the time take a look at the Amiga vs the IBM PC AT and the Mac as far a cost vs features. The Amiga was so far ahead it makes your head hurt. That is the proof that marketing is the most important thing in computers. If having the best product wins then the PC would have died the death that DOS deserved back then.
There's a great irony here, too. Consider VIC-20's amazing marketing, all the way down to
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Bar: Yeah, I'll also need a side of mashed potatos, slaw and 4 biscuits please.
And an oversized wax-lined cardboard conic section of water, carbon dioxide, artificial flavor, and high-fructose corn syrup, please.
To go.
Of the Amiga (Score:4, Interesting)
*sniff* I miss Amigas.
Multiple Amiga owner AND Stock Holder (Score:2)
http://bellsouthpwp.net/h/e/heymanj/Amiga/Amiga.ht ml [bellsouthpwp.net]
I thought so much of it, that I bought enough shares to paper a good sized room - and lost it all :-(
I bought the book to understand what kind of cluster f**k management was. I would make the book required reading for any graduate level business management (MBA type) co
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Commodore also destroyed the Environment (Score:5, Informative)
Commodore's former chip fab facility is on the EPA's superfund site for extreme damage to the environment.
http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/super/sites/PAD093730
I hope Medi Ali and Gould burn in hell for what they did. They ruined a perfectly good computer/OS AND dumped toxic waste!
Big deal.... (Score:4, Informative)
Virtually every manufacturing plant operating prior to 1980 or so is on the Superfund list. Dumping (or "storing") toxic waste was just part of doing business until then. Practically every company making anything at or before that time has at least one Superfund-listed plant somewhere. IBM has at least three. HP has four or so. Sun and Unisys each have one. Intel has two.
These days, companies have wised up. They've learned that China has no such legislation.
A good value? (Score:5, Funny)
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I find swiping in-room hotel coffee packets to be far more satisfying.
Great story of executive excess (Score:4, Interesting)
Overall good book, but has a few issues (Score:5, Informative)
I personally don't remember any large number of Amigas scrapped for the "they f***ed it up" message; in fact I'd seriously doubt that. And there were easter eggs in every version of the OS, usually far more extensive than that one.
Also, there were no "mainframes" at Commodore; the biggest iron was a Vax 11/780(if I remember right). And none of the software builds were done on that; all the Amiga SW was built on Sun-2's (early on) or on Amigas directly. By 1989ish, only a few libraries were still built on Suns - I think Workbench.lib was the last holdout, or close to. For AmigaOS 2.0, I ported AmigaDOS and all the remaining BCPL filesystems and commands to C and assembler built on Amigas. The "darkest before the dawn" story is likewise close, but not quite correct. (It is legendary, though.) However, while we weren't waiting for compiles, there were interludes in the 2.0-2.04 days when we did sleep in some offices and storage rooms on cots, and had a freezer full of frozen meals, plus lots of delivered pizza, italian, etc.
Admittedly, the employees were upset enough about the (mis)management by Mehdi Ali (much more so than Irving Gould) that at the "Deathbed Vigil" party when bankruptcy was declared, we burnt Mehdi Ali in effigy in my backyard.
The old offices are now QVC Studio Park; you can tour them. A few people at QVC know about this; when selling the C64-in-a-joystik a year or two ago, the host mentioned that the building used to house Commodore. It is truely absolutely huge....
Note: I haven't read the book yet, though others in the group discussing it had, and one was a major interviewee.
RANDALL! (Score:2)
Good to see some of the old stalwarts are still kicking around.
Heh, I found my copy of Deathbed Vigil just the other day.
BTW, I tried running BLAZEMONGER! in emulation a couple of weeks back, and it set fire to my computer and knocked up my cat.
DG
Thanks (Score:2)
I learned how to program on a Commodore 64 I got in November of 1982. I then learned how to do even driven programing on an Amiga 1000 I got in 1985. I love to program the Amiga. It was a good ten years ahead of the PCs of the day.
The Amiga taught me so much that I use everyday on PCs.
Hey There! (Score:2)
I don't have a copy of the book; thanks for pointing out the rough spots.
Schwab
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Remember the C64 Programmer's Reference Guide? It included a memory map of the
Re:Overall good book, but has a few issues (Score:4, Informative)
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I still have mine (Score:2, Interesting)
Commmodore's Legacy is LINUX (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/05.08.97/
He says the simplicity of the design of the Vic-20 enabled him to learn in a way that today is much more difficult. Read the last paragraph below.
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IN 1981, LINUS WAS A toothy, pale-skinned kid with a blond cowlick living in a suburb of Helsinki, where the weather is cold year-round, save for a few 70-degree weeks in the summer. That year, 11-year-old Linus inherited a Commodore Vic-20 from his grandfather, a professor of statistics at the local university.
As the cathode ray tube's blue light cast a glow on his face, he sat in his bedroom, books lining the wall from floor to ceiling. Ivanhoe, Treasure Island, Robin Hood and all the Tarzan books. On a shelf: a plastic model of the Wasa, a Swedish ship that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. The Wasa, painted in meticulous detail and outfitted with working sails and rigging, took months to finish.
When the first computer arrived, the other projects fell by the wayside. Long past his bedtime, small fingers tapped the dark brown keys of the Vic-20 keyboard. His first achievement on the Vic-20 was the simplest computer program possible: a two-line "GOTO" program in Basic. Once he tried to impress his little sister, Sara, by programming the Commodore to repeat "Sara is the best."
Next he tapped out his first full-fledged video game written in machine code, in which a submarine sails through a moving underwater tunnel, remaining stationary as the operator controls its vertical movement. The craft's captain must stay alive by dodging the "large nasty fish" in the tunnel. As the game progresses, the tunnel constricts. This amused Linus for hours in his bedroom. He stored the program on an audiocassette and took it to school to play with friends.
In hindsight, Linus believes starting on a very simple computer gave him an advantage that today's whiz kids don't have. "Modern PCs are much more complex," he explains. "No kid sitting in front of a Pentium could ever understand all its parts thoroughly."
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TI99/4A (Score:2)
I still have my TI99/4A. It doesn't work though. Heavy as heck....
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Notice that almost all the software came from TI?
TI made it a very closed system. To sell a program that was written in assembly you had to go through TI or require people to have an Assembly cartage!
That and they crippled the speed of the system.
The lack of software "Games" really killed it more than anything else.
A good example of the joys of DRM.
People never learn...
Fond memories of my VIC-20 / 64 (Score:2)
Atari 130XE!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Bruce Lee for Windows (Score:2)
Ah, the glory days ... and the new C64 t-shirt. (Score:3, Informative)
I will definitely be getting this book. What wonderful nostalgia! "poke 53280,0" anyone?
One of the T-Shirts at ThinkGeek is of the exact setup that I mentioned above with the phrase "I Adore My 64". My shirt finally came in on Monday after being back-orderd for about a week.
I Adore My 64 [thinkgeek.com] (My apologies if someone already posted this, but I didn't see it.)
AMIGA FOREVER (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't claim I'm posting this from my 1000 or 2000 since I'm at work, but they both still run. In 1987 I was, to my knowledge, the only person on campus with a full-color, stereo, multithreading PC, at a fraction of the cost of the monochrome Macs and the VAX mainframe. When someone else got one, we cabled them together and played full-color, networked jet fighter games and people's heads exploded watching them.
6502 was neither the first or the best micro chip. (Score:2)
All the pages of gushing over the 6502 is pointless.
The Intel 8080 was first home computer system microprocessor chip. The Motorola 6800 was next. And after that came the MOS Technology 6502, which was a variation of the 6800. Then Zilog introduced the Z80, which was the basis for a whole lotta CP/M systems.
All were very good micro chips and had a lot of systems based on their use. I wouldn't say that the 6502 was the best of the bunch.
Re:6502 was neither the first or the best micro ch (Score:2)
Having first learned 8080 assembly, I ended up fairly despising the 6502 for its dearth of, well, everything -- registers, speed, 16-bit operations, stack space...
The 68000 was a very nice architecture by comparison, and the ARM was even nicer than that. I rather liked them both.
As fate would have it, I have my hands in an HCS08-based part at the moment (6800 derivative),
Just like the X86. (Score:2)
I so wished that Commodore had used the Z-80 in the C-64. It was so much better then the 6502.
Of course very few chips could match the 6502 for speed. It was much faster at a given clock speed than just about anything.
Disgruntled Commodore Employees (Score:2)
"This kludge made necessary by the engineers at Commodore, makers of the finest semi-functional devices in the world"
For the curious. I believe the comment in the Amiga's ROM was from a hardware engineer
Agree, Commodore's importance is underrated (Score:5, Insightful)
To put it very simply, even though I was a programmer of PDP-12's, -8's, and -11's, and very familiar with Apple ]['s because I was working in a research institution that was in the process of adopting them, my first home computer was a VIC-20. For the simple reason that... I could afford one. The base price was $300. I bought a bunch of add-ons and my total cost was about $600.
At the time, an Apple ][ cost something like $2000 if I recall correctly.
The only thing in the same price neighborhood as the VIC-20 was the Atari 400 with a full QUERTY keyboard--of membrane keys. Ugh. Practically unusable. The VIC-20 had what the time was a very nice keyboard with a very comfortable, responsive "feel" to it.
Commodore's VIC-20 and Commodore 64 were the Model T of the personal computer era. Aficionados scoffed at them as cheap junk, but they were real computers that ordinary families could afford.
Hey, at a time when standalone modems cost $500, the VIC-20 had a crude but usable modem for about $60. If I recall correctly instead of frequency-shift keying between two frequencies, it just used one of the frequencies and turned it on and off. Like the Apple color video output, it was a nonstandard signal which standards-compliant modems could nevertheless tolerate. I did some work from home with it, and it was my gateway into CompuServe.
C64 (Score:2)
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I've still got one... sold the other for $15k in 1999.
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Its SID sound chip was certainly well-regarded, and its Sprite capabilities were nifty.
Unfortunately it had a terribley barebones BASIC.
So it wasn't a revolution for home machines, but an evolution.
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I started with the 800XL but eventually longed for and got a C=64 for pretty much that reason.
I'm not sure if the C=64 *was* better, BUT...
* you saw it pushed more... I don't think the Ataris could have done "Skate or Die", say...
* on some EA games (back wheen they used that clever ECA logo and even more clever copy protection) ported between the two, IMO the 8bit games feel a little slower and more plodding.
Apple II seems to have been
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The Atari had a faster floppy drive.
The Atari 400/800 had FOUR joystick ports.
The Atari 400/800 had StarRaiders!
Eventually had a larger software library and maybe better software library.
I had a C64 and always saw programs for the Atari I wanted. I am sure that Atari users felt the same way about the C-64 if they where honest about it.
I think graphics wise they where very close.
Of course you do have to throw in the 128 which may have been the best 8-Bit computer ever
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That barebones, pathetic BASIC made every C64 guy an ASM person moving to C later. Look at background of very advanced coders of this time, you will figure it too.
I admit an ASM book on the C=64 I tried kicked my ass back then.
I know a lot of the 2600 homebrewers of today cut their teeth on the old Atari 8bit ASM.
And it seems like a lot of people who got really smart about computers at low levels had Apple, which seems to have been very friendly in that direction.
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WTF?
Based on that line of reasoning, Henry Ford didn't contribute much to the auto industry either because he just made cars that the average person could afford, even though they were slow and rickety.
I don't know about you, but I grew up in
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The Commodore 64 had better sound than the any computer of that time.
The Amiga first mass market computer
1. with multi-tasking.
2. with stereo sound.
3. that supported sampled sound.
4. hardware accelerated video you could argue that the Atari 400/800 was first thanks to it's missile player graphics but Jay Miner was involved in the both.
5. The ability to sync the computers video with an external vi
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The funny thing is that we had just one television in the house. I had no screen (too expensive) so I ended up with an TV adaptor. I had to argue with my mother to get a full hour each day on my computer.
Sometimes they were all behind me in the sofa waiting to see the news. I was sitting in front of the television busy writing some dumb programs like drawing a polygon or something.
I had the shock of my life the first time that I saw the Amiga Workbench and the lit
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Re:Wait! --- No, but... (Score:2)
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For true pedants, the C64 had a MOS 6510, not a 6502. Same ABI, i think it jsut had interconnects for all the extra chips (video, SID audio chip)
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For normal usage you might actually be able to get away with using a 6502 (lifted from a 1541 disk drive for instance) if you didn't need the tape player and hotwired the bank switching in the default position, though assorted games etc. and other software that used the RAM would fail
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I discovered that the accounting program modules all had the same copy protection validation code on the same block of the 5-1/4" disks. You could fit all the accounting modules from the 5-1/4" disks onto one 3-1/2", duplicate the copy protection check block, and run all the programs from the one menu there while just swapping data disks on the 5-1/4" drive. Pretty professional for the time.
And my first crack!
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