Sinclair Spectrum v Commodore 64
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Not having had a C-64 I can't compare. Friends had them though and I enjoyed the games on them. That seems to all they did with them.
I had the Spectrum for many years with two different disk drive interfaces. First the Zebra Systems (or Portuguese Disk Drive) then the Larken System and a 14.4 kbit/s modem they were tossing away at work.
It got a lot of use for work related projects at the time.
I remember the magazines too, though we got very few of them here in Canada. -
Maybe you were not in a large enough area? I was buying them in Toronto …
My first disk drive was from AERCO, but I got a Larken cartridge to use with my hardware because it had more features.
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Perhaps we were neighbours…
You're quite right.
THough I found only two places (Yonge & Bloor and Youge & St. Clair) that carried them... and not regularly.
There was another periodical from the UK (generic computer articles) that also contained program listings but not always for the 2068. I vaguely remember trying to convert one of them. -
I was actually in Windsor in that era, but I got to Toronto about once a month or two. I'd always stop at "The World's Biggest Bookstore" to browse the periodicals - I didn't pick up ZX Computing every time (only when it was interesting), but it was usually there.
Ironically enough, my job at the time was programming C-64s at one of the "Separate Schools" :whistle: - a biology teacher had a lab of networked computers that I wrote software for. We did stuff with those old machines (this would have been mid-80s) that had the PC-oriented people at the school board scratching their heads.
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@jon:
You could even buy magazines, Sinclair Programs, that only included lines of code.
Same here for the c64, sometimes they only showed big blocks of hex code.
Advantage of the c64 (beneath the really indestructible buckling springs keyboard): You could program the c64 as multiprocessor machine if you had the floppy drives attached. They had 16kB RAM and a similar processor like the c64 itself, so in the end you could run with up to 3 processors at the same time. A friend of me used it for calculating fractals at "high speed"
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It really depended on the game.
I used to compare them in the computer shop while I was buying my ZX Spectrum games.
I also had the later Amstrad Spectrum+2 128k with the tape-deck, so used to compare with the Amstrad that also used the same AY music chip.Spectrum programmers knew the machine was very limited with colourful sprites, so used to not worry about making it colourful, and concentrate on finer more detailed graphics.
Space Harrier is a good example, as I played the original arcade machine a lot.
The CBM64 version was more colourful but looked a blocky mess, and it was hard to tell things apart at high speed.
The Speccy coders opted for finer detailing and less colour. This made for a much more playable game.The humble Z80a CPU also had one thing in it's favour. When it came to vector games like Star Wars, Elite, Starion, and Stuntcar racer it was much more capable than the Commodore, which was more at home doing sprite-based platformers, or scrolling shooters.
When the first Comic-Relief charity event happened in the UK, I arranged a 24 hour gameathon. We had many computers there, I rewired a PC monitor for my Spectrum, we had BBC Masters with ROM boards and an EPROM burner, and I even setup a few VGA PCs with current games, but the Amigas were by far the most popular (no surprise).
However, all through the 24 hours, I noticed the C=64 owners were all constantly checking the powerpack and regularly had to switch off to let it cool down.I played a lot of Elite, and other vector based games so the Spectrum was more useful than a C=64 to me.
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@jon:
The debate about Spectrum v C64, was in some ways about what mattered more, hardware or software. The C64 was clearly better for games, but I think the Spectrum was better for programming, even through it had a rubber keyboard, weird graphics handling and more limited sound. The fact that you could program most everything from Basic changed the picture and there was a very lively programming scene. You could even buy magazines, Sinclair Programs, that only included lines of code. A great way to get started with programming, although a frustrating one as well…
I have got myself a few of the Timex Sinclairs. I enjoy these old computers. I have the Timex Sinclair 1000 and the Timex Sinclair 2068 in addition to the Timex Sinclair 1500, which is a ZX81 in the shape of a Spectrum, but with 16 kb of memory instead of 1.
Although my very first computer was a TI99/4a it was replaced soon by a ZX Spectrum and then by a QL.
C64 was a game consolle with a keyboard, ZX spectrum was a little revolution and (as usual) the better solution sold less.
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By the way… may it be that I as a german never grasped that sinclair/BBC/Armstrad/whatsoever fascination for those machines that some of those occupational inhabitants of my hometown (west berlin) had - i only reflected them via the magazines I was able to buy because of them (CVG "Computer and Video Games" as an example)
But in my town and/or country the question would be more like "atari vs. commodore" :cheers: I can just remember one friend with an Amstrad CPC (Well and a few that had a spectrum/sinclair just out of curiosity and maybe for a few games that where spectrum only in addition to their main machine), but know of a few apple and CP/M users besides the majority of the flamewaring members of the cbm or atari community (majority of users and (IMHO) in fact we both envied one another for certain features) in 8bit times and later on it was only Amiga vs. Atari ST.... and from then... only PC and AMD vs. Intel ;P -
I never really understood the speccy's popularity – there's a reason around here it was called "Uncle Clive's Gynecology kit", or simply the Sinclair Speculum.
The oddball mismatch of colour mapping to raster graphics was actually shared by both platforms, but you'd really not know it on the C64 since you could reprogram it on the fly per scanline increasing the colours on screen and it had hardware sprites. You mix in the speccy's pathetic rubber keyboard and it's hardly a surprise that it never gained any traction here in the colonies... particularly since the C64 was cheaper, had a real keyboard, and a far bigger software library.
Really though it's hard for me to relate to them as when they came out ('82 for both), I already had a Coco, VIC-20 and a TS-1000 -- and access to a twin floppy 64k TRS-80 model 3. The VIC was strictly a gaming machine, the Coco was mine and what I learned programming on, the timex sat in the back of a sock drawer, and my fathers Model 3 was where I learned to do "real" stuff.
By the time I'd have been looking at a more up to date substitute two years later, PC clones were a reality... with the clones laughably being faster than IBM's offerings.
I now have a C64, (and a minus-60 I was GIVEN with the purchase of my Tandy 1000SX), and a Apple IIe platinum) and was thinking on adding a speccy to the collection, but here in the states they're far and few between and it's not like I have a lot of displays that take PAL input were I to look at UK listings for one.
I almost got a Sinclair QL a few years ago but passed on it. I've been kicking myself ever since.
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In the states, the T/S 2068 was a Spectrum clone with a few extras - that's what I had.
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The various Timex were not Sinclair clones, the were officially licensed machines, slightly modified/upgraded machines starting from the original Sinclair design.
There were a lot of real clones though…
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I never really understood the speccy's popularity – there's a reason around here it was called "Uncle Clive's Gynecology kit", or simply the Sinclair Speculum.
It's just like iPhones V.S. good European made Smartphones.
Europeans make better products but Americans are way more skilled in driving the flocks
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There were some things you could do on the Spectrum and not the Commodore. Despite the Commodore's better hardware, none of that stuff was actually accessible from the built-in BASIC. (Not counting PEEKs and POKEs.) The Spectrum could do pixel graphics out of the box, though colors were in 8x8 blocks (that is to say, all pixels in the same block has the same 2 colors to choose from.) There was no such thing as a LINE command in CBM BASIC and in fact the hardware was in character mode by default (so even if you did POKE something into the screen buffer you could never get individual pixels). Sure, cartridges could access pixel graphics, sprites and sound - or something in machine code you typed in from a magazine could - but as far as
BASIC was concerned those features didn't exist. That's really what made the Spectrum a better machine, as the hardware on the C-64 was better. -
If you try to get a Spectrum for your collection, I recommend trying to find a 128k version as they came with a monitor socket.
You will have to solder your own DIN plug to an old VGA monitor
(note for Americans; the word solder has an "L" in it which you do pronounce. It is not pronounced "sodder".) -
The Commodore 64 was the best out of the two computers but the Spectrum did have a nice programming side. Look at some of the new demos for the Commodore 64 and see how far they've come along. I owned both the C64 and the Amiga 500/1200 AGA but I have to admit that Acorn made the best computer when they bought out the Archimedes especially the A3010 with RISC OS which was far better than the competition. Check out how amazing Starfighter 3000 was on the Archimedes back in the day. RISC OS can still be used today on a Raspberry Pi and it looks great. I think it's such a shame the Archimedes gets ignored by Commodore, Atari and Sinclair fans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyCe8vQxMUA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqacGx4_1hU -
People don't bring the Archimedes to the comparison because it is a different class of computer.
Same as comparing a Cray super computer to a laptop.You would have to compare it to an early Amiga or x86 IBM clone, in which case it still stood its ground as a useful PC
:whistle: I can't help myself MoonDawg, you can take me out of the class, but you can't take the teacher out of me :dry:
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The Archimedes would have to be compared to the QL, Amiga or the similar Atari ST - it's a different era from the C-64, Spectrum. Atari 400/800 or the old Apple IIc or TRS CoCo. The C-64 won in the "home computer" era, just as the IBM PC won the next era - whether or not either should have. (I suppose you could add the TI 99/4 as a competitor in the "home computer" era, though unfortunately it was somewhat late.)
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Yes I'm well aware of the power of an Archimedes and yes it should be compared with an Amiga and an ST but please don't imagine a QL coming anywhere in the running. I'm just sad that this beast of a machine from Acorn never got any credit. Look at Starfighter and how silky it was for the time, I only found out about recently and I was disappointed I never knew about it before. We had an Archimedes at school and I always remember how silky Zarch was compared to all the versions of Virus including the Amiga. The days were very fun when we had Spectrum and C64s and a lot of that has been lost. Have all of you watch the film Micromen which highlights the battle between Acorn and Sinclair? I've added it below along with Zarch
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In one sense, Acorn won. Updated versions of its CPU, the Acorn RISC Machine or ARM, are used in mobile electronics everywhere. Unfortunately I don't think we ever saw an Archimedes (or even a BBC Micro) "on this side of the pond".
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In one sense, Acorn won. Updated versions of its CPU, the Acorn RISC Machine or ARM, are used in mobile electronics everywhere. Unfortunately I don't think we ever saw an Archimedes (or even a BBC Micro) "on this side of the pond".
Yes the RISC technology lives on to this very day from the cell phone to the raspberry pi. I believe Russia will be utilizing some ARM technology in its new in-house processors. I hope Russia can make a secure processor so we can get away from GCHQ and NSA spy chips from hell. The Micromen film was fun to watch and brought back fond memories. In my opinion the BBC Micro was trash but the Archimedes was a beast.
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