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Re: chips

In <43dd7b9e$0$4085$9b4e6d93@newsread2.arcor-online.net> Linards 
Ticmanis  wrote:
> PZ wrote:
> 
>> The ony
>> decent thing that the c64 did have was a good sprite engine.  About
>> everything else in the machine was poorly designed and/or innefective.
> 
> Getting increasingly OT, but the sound chip was also pretty cool. 
> Scrolling was also much easier than on the Apple thanks to redefinable 
> "character" sets and hardware scroll registers. (no coincidence there 
> are so few scroller games on the Apple - its very slow to do it well).
> 
> Also it came with built-in interrupt sources, which is very helpful in 
> game programming.
> 
> Most of this is due to the fact Commodore owned MOS and could thus 
> develop their ASICs in-house. That's also why there was never a clone 
> (before emulation became feasible in the mid-90s, I mean).

That and the fact that the C64 was one of the cheapest computers around, 
especially by the late eighties. One reason why there were so many Apple 
II clones was that it was so expensive. The cloners could build and sell 
one for half the price Apple did and still make a profit.

-- 
Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand
http://roger.geek.nz/
________________________________________________________________________
  No Silicon Heaven? Preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?

              Kryten, from the Red Dwarf episode "The Last Day"