Re: The Apple ][ was cool!

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Jason writes ...
> 
 ....

> 
> Rubywand:
 ....
> > Jeff Thomas writes ...
> > > For pure gaming, the Commodore 64 rates at the top
> 
> > Really, this is pure myth. For most hop and bop arcade style games,
> > yes.
>
> The *majority* of what is played on 8bit computers, then...

     Possibly on C64's. It was a computer many parents bought for their
children because it was much less expensive than an Apple II.

 ....

> 
> > A major C64 weakness is that its best hires color mode gives only
> > 160 x 200 resolution. This explains why C64 adventure game displays,
> > while usually more colorful, look so blocky next to Apple II displays.
> 
> The C64 has two modes, but the average gamer *prefers* colour so the
> 160x200 had to be used to keep the players happy.

     The Apple II has a very similar double-hires color mode (140x192
16-colors) which looks very nice in games like King's Quest, 'Eagle's Nest,
etc.. 


> The 320x200 mode is
> perfectly serviceable and can produce decent pictures but can only use
> two colours per 8x8 cell with all 16 available on screen.

     Good point. There are plenty of C64 adventures which look very nice and
do not look blocky.


> I believe this is still better than the Apple II at a similar
> resolution...?

     320x200 dots is better than 280x192 dots. However, Apple II hires can
display all of its basic six colors (and other dithered colors) inside an 8x8
bit block. Six is better than two; but, there are limitations on A2 hires
color/dot placement which reduce the advantage.


> 
> > Another C64 weakness is its slow, cumbersome DOS. Next to Apple II's
> > DOS 3.3, it's an absolute dinosaur.
> 
> The C64's DOS is a hang-over from the old days of the PET I think and
> yes, it's cumbersome.  Just out of interest, when was DOS 3.3 released
> or is it standard with all machines?

     DOS 3.3 was released in 1980. Higher-speed versions were becoming
standard in 1981.


> 
> > Playing adventures which require frequent disk accesses was a
> > nightmare on the C64. Eventually, various DOS accelerators were
> > developed; but, these can be a major pain to install and they do not
> > work correctly with all software (most of which was copy protected).
> 
> Most of the later copy protections had their own reasonable turbo
> loaders, it just took a little while to get it right.  This is fairly
> understandable, it takes a little while to get down to the lowest level
> and understand the disk system.

     Okay. Still, I was reviewing games for RUN in the later 1980's and ran
into many products which were slow as mud doing disk accesses.



> The Apple II had a head start, remember?

     Not sure you want to bring that up. The Apple II series was running a
user-friendly high-speed DOS for two years before the C64 was marketed. You'd
think someone at Commodore would have bought an Apple II, read the volumes of
documentation on DOS 3.3, and figured out how to come up with a decent DOS.

     

> 
> > The C64 has inputs which could be used to connect analog joysticks;
> > but, these are reserved for graphics tablets (like Koala).  Instead,
> > you are stuck with using non-analog switcher sticks. As a result, the
> > C64 user does not have nearly the control responsiveness and realism
> > available to Apple II users playing many flight and combat
> > simulations.
> 
> There were analogue sticks available (as well as paddles and a couple of
> mice) but the majority of games just don't *suit* those control systems.
> Most of the flight sim players I knew had analogue controllers for their
> Breadbins.  Everybody else would be using a digital stick because they
> were playing games that would be rendered uncontrollable with analogue.

     If nearly all C64 game software which uses joysticks is designed to use
switcher type sticks, then, naturally, there will be no advantage in trying
to connect analog sticks.

     The point is that a platform which requires analog sticks-- e.g. Apple
II-- will have software which utilitzes the extra capabilities of these
sticks to deliver better, more realistic game controls.



> 
> > The C64 keyboard has a mushy toy-keyboard feel. If you are playing a
> > game which requires lots of typing, you definitely want to be using an
> > Apple II.
> 
> That's *very* much personal taste and, as someone who has spent some
> fifteen years hammering text into a Breadbin (and a C128D) I can say
> that I have always found the keyboard to be solid and responsive.  I
> pretty much learnt to touch type at about 70WPM on my first C64.
>

     Which shows people are remarkably adaptive. On an Apple II you would
have reached 90WPM. (Of course, you probably would have had to replace the
keyboard after a couple years. Early Apple II KB's were not very rugged.)

     There isn't that much personal taste involved in defining 'good feel'.
Mainly, you're looking for good tactile feedback. The rubbery C64 KB does not
provide good tactile feedback. This leads to fatigue. The fact that the case
is so high, yet light and prone to moving around during use, is another
fatigue factor.

     A KB like that makes game playing less fun. Although joysticks and
keyboards are not hi-tech components and do not contribute much to system
cost, they dramatically impact user comfort and enjoyment of a system. 



> > There are other possible comparisons. Basically, though, I've stuck to
> > comparing game playing on the typical Apple II vs. game playing on the
> > typical C64 given available software.
> 
> With the 8bits, people tended to make their decisions about which
> machine they wanted from the games they saw on a friends machine or in a
> shop.  Certainly, if the only factor was price the C64 should have
> *totally* bombed in the UK against the Spectrum, but held it's own
> reasonably well.  Similarly, the Amiga should have been toasted by the
> Atari ST, the latter was the cheaper of the two.  But people saw what
> they *wanted* and purchased accordingly.
> 
> The sheer volume of Breadbins shifted proves that, okay so *some* of
> them may be based purely on the price (and that argument only really
> applies to the States, in the UK and Europe the C64 was one of the more
> expensive players) but what *percentage* of the overall sales were
> biased just by that factor?  Not a big one [oo-er] I suspect. =-)
 ....

     Besides price, a very important selling point is the perception that the
machine either has or will attract a large base of users and be guaranteed
years of support from software makers, hardware developers, and magazine
publishers. Spectrum never got anywhere in the USA and everyone knew it never
would. That, alone, killed it vis-a-vis C64.

     At the start of competition with A2, C64 could show off relatively few
pieces of software vs. thousands of Apple II commercial and user-generated
wares. C64 could show pretty, colorful graphics; but, in double-hires, so
could A2.

     Meanwhile, Apple II had a huge worldwide user base, numerous
high-quality publications, and a piles of hardware add-ons, including
accelerators and sound/music/speech boards. By 1983, A2 was the standard
computer in many classrooms, and could show off all sorts of productivity,
programming, educational, etc. software, too.

     And, if you place the computers side by side, there's no mystery at all
about which is more attractive or about which looks like a substantial
product and which looks like a toy.

     Given a choice at roughly equal price a shopper would have to be nuts to
pick C64. Evidently, though, price was an even greater factor in Europe than
in the US. If C64 was one of the more expensive choices, then Apple II must
have been totally beyond consideration for most shoppers in the UK.

     Sure, eventually, a new computer shopper would have friends or children
with friends who played games on C64's; and, he/she might be impressed by the
nice graphics in a game. There would be some C64 publications and a better
selection of products, too. 

     Even so, there's really not much question that, for the three or four
years the competition lasted (i.e. before arrival of the IIgs),  the primary
factor favoring the C64 would be price. The C64 would be viewed as "the best
computer for the money", not "the best computer".



Rubywand