Retro thread

Retro thread

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Any of you fucks ever bough an XT-CF/XT-IDE card from some dood in Europe like four years ago?

64k of memory is sure nice when all the software was 16k Atari 400 stuff.

Can't say I have.

One a few years ago, less than 4 probably. I like to build them myself more.

...

I'm pretty sure almost all US software for the A8s was for the 400/800 and stuff that needed the XL/XE was pretty much all European.

>gaming not mentioned anywhere in the thread up to this point
>the city of you

>Rainbows
Go away faggot LGBT cuck liberal

your shit is not welcome here
fuck off

Sage.

That crap was only useful for that, this is a technology board.

>this shit thread again

*decelerates your 3D performance (but gives you bilinear filtering and 16 bit (or even 24 if you're enough of a masochist) colors)*

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Could we just rangeban hipster shits? Thanks.

Go to /trash/ with your furfag gaming hardware

You can't write rangeban without rage.
And if you give people the tools to range a whole ban of IPs, they will use it.
I seem a chan get basically blocked off the internet by some smart individuals posting a "forbidden picture".

>That crap was only useful for that

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hmmm, I was the one making them. I'm not into retro PCs but it was fun reviving my dads IBM 8086. The guy who made the PCB designs basically threatened to sue me if I kept selling them so I moved onto something else. Probably sold >50 of them and started some other business with the money I made.
Wouldn't be surprised if some of them ended up on 4chin ppl.
Are they still hard to find? I remember people were supper happy they found them when I posted them on ebay and sent thanks messages and stuff.

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>Americans using cucked hardware
Yup, that's murika alrite

You can still get the PCBs, people who can't burn their own ROMs or order parts and solder a little don't deserve it anyways, for god's sake you don't even have to order a PCB with your own schematics and they still can't handle it.

That's some ugly ass solder work, glad I didn't buy from you

>europe shitting on anyone for using shit hardware
Have fun with your ZX Spectrums and C64 tape loaders.

See
I didn't even make that statement

I know, funnily enough a couple years after that I ended up working for Motorola doing microsoldering, I'm so much better now, also was probably using a cheap fucking 2 million watt iron so I'm surprised I didn't remove all the pads. Those two are boards that I reworked two or three times easily, I kept them because they looked like shit and didn't work iirc.
burning the ROMs was the most annoying thing, I ended up getting an old ass Pentium III tower for like 5 yuros just because it had ISA slots and I could burn them with that.

You didn't even get the 400/800 in Yurop when the things were relevant because they were too expensive.

At least they had tape loaders. That wasn't possible on the Ataris because the cassette interface was locked to 600 bps.

>seething so hard you have to make implications
*yawn*

Just go on any tech forum related to old hardware, there are dozens of people offering them.

Alright fine, you win.

Faggot.

>but muh BASIC is relevant!!!
Same reason why people today shit on python and java developers in threads, they are a joke.

That's ok, we'd moved on and threw you our outdated refuse like the Atari 8-bits (really, most of the late period software for them was in Eastern Europe).

But Euros liked things like overpriced Amigas while americans prefered cheap PCs

PCs weren't cheap at all, the Amiga if anything was cheaper because Commodore owned a chip fab which gave them a rather ridiculous cost advantage.

The A8s were cool, but they were late 70s technology and the ANTIC predated the concept of color RAM.

>PC cheap
>Amiga expensive
What fucked up timeline are you from?

Atari and Commodore were case studies of companies done in by complacency and executives who assumed they had to do nothing and they'd keep lighting $100 bills with cigars forever. It's actually incredibly easy to fall into this trap because CEOs in general tend to be egomaniacs. Only companies with paranoid CEOs succeed.

Ignore that cunt. The Ataris were always an also-ran machine in the UK that got phoned-in C64 game ports.

>Europe = Britain
Europe is 20+ countries which are all very different from each other.

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I don't know whatever happened in Czechoslovakia or something like that but in the UK the Atari 8-bits didn't become a thing here until the second half of the 80s. The original 400/800 were too expensive for the European market and never sold much. By the time we did get the A8s they were pretty outdated and most of their games were shit-quality C64 conversions.

It was the sprite thing really. They couldn't do sprites as well as the C64 and by the time you start to get into NES side scroller games, the Ataris just couldn't keep up anymore.

Well fuck.

Don't pretend that anyone who could afford better was actually using that crap, though. He's still not wrong, home computers were always passable at best and mediocre on average for real work.

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
-Edsger W. Dijkstra

Is the whole computer in the keyboard? Isn't that neat. I wonder if I could do that with a SBC like a odroid.

>Don't pretend that anyone who could afford better was
Still, people used what they had especially factoring in 80s hardware prices. Computer hardware today is almost absurdly cheap compared to what it was back then. You can get a PC now for a couple hundred. An Apple II was at least $2000 once you bought all the peripherals and adjusted for inflation closer to $3000 in 2018 dollars.

Yep, just like you'd drink your own piss rather than die of thirst there were plenty of people making do with using cheap but gutless gaming consoles with 40-column displays as productivity systems. Not calling them stupid for it, just pointing out that they still weren't "good" at it just because they could do it at all.

If you look at it in a 2018 context as opposed to a 1983 context, it would seem that way, but that wasn't how things played out at the time.

>If you look at it in a 2018 context as opposed to a 1983 context, it would seem that way
Eh...I guess you're probably right. It's just that...bleh.

The "1983 context" was millions of first-time buyers who never knew anything better, if they'd even seen a computer before to begin with. They might have still been capable of many tasks, but no informed person with a choice and a budget that permitted it took home computers seriously as productivity systems.

>But Euros liked things like overpriced Amigas while americans prefered cheap PCs
Found the 12 year old.

An 8-bit box with 64k was a more than adequate machine by 1982-83 standards. Actually the last year where sales of 8-bit machines exceeded sales of 16-bit machines was 1985.

rally. didn't know it was that late.

Wasn't until after 85 that 16-bit hardware got cheap enough and software started really outgrowing the limits of 8-bit machines.

Tell that to the mutts who always make dumb post like "hurr EU is one country, if it's true in one place it's true in a place 2000KM away"

I'm not really sure what market share means to this point. Cheap mass-market oriented systems are probably going to sell in greater volume than expensive productivity-oriented systems, that doesn't mean the former is a particularly decent system in comparison to the latter, it just means less people could afford it. Any computer is better than none at all.

Within the consumer bubble, a 64k 8-bit was certainly "adequate," but outside of it? Not really. Most 8-bits were dreadful for number crunching, and 64k memory is paltry. As I said, nobody who could afford better and had a choice in the matter would ever, EVER pick something like a Commodore 64 for any kind of serious work.

>As I said, nobody who could afford better and had a choice in the matter would ever, EVER pick something like a Commodore 64 for any kind of serious work

In terms of actual CPU power a C64 was not hugely different from a Kaypro or the numerous other Z80 business boxes at the time. They were all 8-bit machines with 64k, the Kaypros and whatnot having 80 column text, faster disk drives, and more rugged construction. But really you could do most of the same stuff on a home computer, perhaps with the limitation of 40 column text.

The custom sound and graphics chips in the Atari 8-bits and C64 were really what set them apart from the multitude of generic business cornflake boxes.

You do have to make a distinction between a C64 or Apple II and something like a Sinclair ZX81 which was really a toy.

The Apple II was much more suited as a productivity machine than the home computers were. It was fast, expandable, and Visicalc alone sold a ton of them.

>In terms of actual CPU power a C64 was not hugely different from a Kaypro or the numerous other Z80 business boxes at the time.
I agree completely, in that case the advantages were definitely more in the realm of peripherals and expansion rather than raw power.
>But really you could do most of the same stuff on a home computer, perhaps with the limitation of 40 column text.
I don't disagree at all with this either. They'll run the same kinds of software, my point is that just because they can do this does not make them good or even "adequate" for it in many cases, whether it's 64k of RAM choking complex documents, spreadsheets, databases and other work dealing with larger data sets, sluggish microprocessors, lack of real expandability, lack of screen real estate or just design considerations like the general ugliness of the C64 display output for the sake of looking better on a television rather than a monitor. You could use one, but if given a choice against even a generic Z80 CP/M box that would probably at least have more crisp and readable text, you're definitely not going to pick one.
>The custom sound and graphics chips in the Atari 8-bits and C64 were really what set them apart from the multitude of generic business cornflake boxes.
Which is exactly the original point that person was making; the only thing they truly excel at is video games. Everything else is secondary.

The TRS-80 Model II ws the royalty of business boxen until the IBM PCs took over. Radio Shack were surprised at the use of Model Is for office work and even running factory equipment but the thing was too limited and flaky for that, so they came out with the Model II late in 1979. These were very rugged machines built to a high manufacturing standard and many served admirably for years after they were technologically obsolete.

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>whether it's 64k of RAM choking complex documents
Do you really expect office software in 1982 to have been like Office 2016? You seem to be completely unable to grasp period hardware capabilities or what hardware cost at the time versus today.

>sluggish microprocessors

CPU clock speed only tells a partial truth, the system architecture also factors in. For instance the Apple II was clocked at only 1.02Mhz but was in practice faster than a C64 because the hardware was extremely simple and low latency. The CPU has complete control of the system bus, there are no interrupts, and the video hardware does not halt the CPU because video refresh takes place during alternating clock cycles (the 6502 only accesses RAM on even cycles).

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You seem unable to grasp the subject of this discussion. We're not talking about whether they were a good value to a consumer or saying that all first-time buyers should have gone with CP/M systems and 16-bits instead, we're merely saying that 8-bits were terrible productivity machines, and they were.

We get that they were cheap and affordable to the average person, they were.

>we're merely saying that 8-bits were terrible productivity machines, and they were
I don't think anyone claimed a ZX Spectrum was terribly useful in an office setting when it didn't even have a power switch.

An InfoWorld article from the February 1984 issue noted that CP/M had "completely failed" to penetrate the home/consumer market because the machines and software were expensive and they usually just had monochrome text and were not very good for gaming or other features that sold a home computer.

I'm definitely not just going off of clock rate, interesting point on the II architecture though.
I'm definitely more focused on popular consumer home computers, which I should clarify is what I meant by "8-bit" in the post you replied to as well.

The Apple II's disk drive was also stupidly fast because of how simplistic it is. An entire 140k disk can be copied between drives in 14 seconds.

Surprisingly the Model II does have some games for it, in particular the Scott Adams text adventures were all released on a single disk that runs from TRS-DOS. At least one Maryland user group put out a few disks with arcade games written in BASIC.

I suppose there was no harm in having little fun with the thing when you lugged it home from the office to type a financial earnings for this quarter report.

My dad worked at Radio Shack back then. He recalled that they sold all of two Model IIs. The things were hideously expensive and so was their rather meager software library. They sold more Model 16s but mostly to enterprise customers and they never sold one to a private buyer.

>In terms of actual CPU power a C64 was not hugely different from a Kaypro or the numerous other Z80 business boxes at the time.
The Z80 had more raw calculation power than the 6502.

I always thought the usual line was that 6502's architecture allowed it to perform as well at its typical 1 MHz clock as the Z80 could at 4-5 MHz.

The 6502 was faster than the Z80 in the late 70s because early Z80s were only 2Mhz or so. By 1980, faster ones were coming along and eventually up to 8Mhz. There were also the many other advantages of the Z80 such as a powerful instruction set, some 16-bit capabilities, and requiring less supporting circuitry than other microprocessors.

It's a bit more complicated than that.
for simple shit the 6502 just blows the fuck out of the Z80. 2 cycles per instruction min vs 4 cycles per instruction min.
A Z80 can't for example drive an atari VCS.
Now if you're doing things that require a lot of 16bit math such as pointer math, data decompression, fixed point physics, the "hidden 16bit power" of the Z80 start to shine quite a bit.
And if you need to copy block of data around, the Z80 copy instructions shine even more.

Clock by clock the 6502 is faster.
There are also better clocking 6502's then Z80's.

What does this have to do with ancient computer games, apart from the word "retro" causing your autism attack?

>quoted Dickheadstra
Into the trash you go.

Z80 versions of Microsoft BASIC had double precision math and lots of other goodies not in the 6502 versions because of the greater calculating power. They were better for business software and quite a lot of business and scientific BASIC programs were in use at the time.

>A Z80 can't for example drive an atari VCS

If you loook at game consoles that used a Z80, most of them were based around some member of the TMS 9918 family.

Which is a chip WAY more advanced than the atari chip.
Also there was an economic reason to use a Z80+TMS9918 combo.
Both chips can refresh DRAM, so you didn't needed to make an external DRAM refresh circuit or use the more expensive SRAM.

The Atari 2600 didn't even have a dedicated graphics chip because it was released in 1977 before such things existed (the 9918 and ANTIC two years later were the first ones).

>didn't even have a dedicated graphics chip because it was released in 1977 before such things existed
Fujitsu MB14241, 1975. Though I imagine it would have cost more than the rest of the VCS at the time.

Chasing the beam was widely used on 6502-based machines like the C64 for graphics effects. I don't think it was done on anything with a Z80 in it.

The NES also used a 6502 but the PPU's design prevented you from doing that.

As much as a lot of retro gamers have a sentimental attachment to the Atari 2600, interviews with ex-Atari employees show a quite different opinion. Many of them weren't crazy about it and also felt that it ultimately led to the company's destruction. David Crane loves the thing and gets misty-eyed reminiscing about coding for it, but his opinion is far from universally shared.

Stuff was way too limited.

>bunch of manchildren who played vidya on the thing when they were 6 years old
>versus a bunch of underpaid and poorly treated programmers who had to write said games (plus the VCS wasn't exactly easy to code for) and don't like being reminded of those days
Hrrrppf.

Technology is always a moving target and a product is usually obsolete within a few months of shipping. For example, Steve Wozniak's Disk II controller design, ingenious as it was, was soon rendered pointless by a fall in the price of MFM floppy controllers. Some people don't like to hang up on past accomplishments in that way, for example Jay Miner was famously disdainful of the Atari 2600 on the grounds that it was a past accomplishment of his and he was more concerned with the Amiga or whatever the fuck he was working on at the time.

Just a comfy mockup
Those are surely coming with me in my own house

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For some reason, US devs were determined to ride the 800 and 810 disk drive down with the Titanic.

to me the ataris always felt more like a real computer like you put the disk in the drive and the software starts up automatically instead of typing some arcane command like LOAD"*",8,1

The productivity side of the C64 tends to be overlooked but it had quite a bit of surprisingly good software.

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>yurotard implying he doesn't do this to america
>yurotard implying eu isn't becoming a single country with its own fucking army

*crack*
*sip*

IBM PC was already a thing when those 8bit and 16bit machines were up.
But it was expensive as fuck and lived off being "the computer that don't get you fired if you buy it".

Like someone else said, the last year where sales of 8-bit computers exceeded sales of 16-bit ones was 1985. It wasn't until the price of PCs dropped that 8-bit machines were really deprecated.

My brother ran his small business on Mini Office 2 in the 1990s. It was very, very good for its time, and for what it ran on.

I can't find a picture of the C64 port but this is the Apple II and PC ones. You do notice the advantage of a 16-bit machine namely how everything looks nicer, higher resolution, and not as much like a 1970s terminal display.

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Although the PCjr was intended to compete in the home computer market, IBM were surprised to learn that many of the early buyers for the things were actually offices who wanted a cheaper PC that took less space on a desk.

PCjrs were still expensive for a home computer and not as good at gaming as a C64.

goddamn i wish you /vr/fags would go back to Jow Forumsretrobattlestations