Collecting for a computer

[morcar]

I am stuck once again on wanting to collect for a 8bit computer which I have narrowed down to Spectrum (The machine I had when I was a child), C64 and an Amstrad CPC.

Now I have had these 3 machines at sometimes over the last 3 to 4 years and ended up getting bored and selling them off after I spent quite a bit on them.

So one of my resolutions for the new year is to get one of the machines and stick to it. If I get bored I will have a nice plastic container to store it in for later on.

But now i have to make the choice of which machine to pick as all 3 peek my interest and I want only 1 of them.

So what I wanted to see is which one would you pick and why ?

Also if you have one available maybe we can sort something out and get the ball rolling as I have funds here.

Hope to hear from you all soon.

 

[Bastich]

Tough choice for me as I had both a ZX Spectrum and a C64. The Spectrum won the vote overall thou as I had it for longer and from an earlier age I can still remember the amazement at playing Manic Miner for the first time It may have been the simpler system but it seemed to have a wider range of games. There were some awesome C64 games mind like Delta, Paradroid and the best version of Thrust. But nothing tops the Ultimate, Magic Knight and the Willy series of games on the Spectrum, for at least me anyway

 

[Harrison]

I still have a soft spot for the Amstrad CPC as it was my first computer. Many of its games suffered a bit because they were straight Spectrum ports, so they didn't utilise our show off the Amstrad's greater power and basically looked and sounded like the spectrum games, minus the colour clash. But when games were developed specifically for it they looked really nice. Gryzor being great example.

The CPC6128 was a very nice system, and worth seeking over the 464 and 664. There was also the later Plus range released by Amstrad, which added a lot my features but I've never used them, so don't know how much better they are, if they are with buying, or if the hardware changes introduced any compatibility issues with older games.

The Amstrad scene is still quite active AFAIK and they have even created GUI based OSs from what I've seen. The demoscene has also created some very nice released too.

The Spectrum definitely had a lot of games, and I used to enjoy playing them on friends systems, but I was never interested in owning one. Again though, the scene has managed to do quite a lot with the basic hardware, far beyond anyone's expectations.

Also as I already owned an Amstrad I would personally by interested in owning a C64, but mostly to explore its musical abilities, and the origins of the demo scene. It might have had the best sound chip ever, but I always found it's colour palette a bit limited with quite muted colours, and it's screen resolutions quite low and blocky.

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[Templar]

As Harrison said, CPC6128 was a great 8bit system, but know is slow as hell. I just fired up mine a couple of months ago and tried to play some games; well they were so slow that they became unplayable really!

But I believe the best is to collect a C64, at least it has SID chip for sound and hardware sprites/scrolling, which can stand very good even know if you want to play an old-skool game.

 

[johnim]

Hi I would say the c64 as it was my first real computer not just for games but for making music and drawing I still have a few machines and over a thousand origional games on tape and some on floppy. But for todays use there is many drive emulating adapters eg sd2iec 1541 ultimate. Also you can load tape games from sound wave from a mp3 player or your phone

There is a vast collection of games for her too

My favorites are flimbos quest and a pd game called sensitive

Saturday I took 2 c64s to a friend's a c64c with a sd2iec and a breadbin with an easy flash cartridge also my laptop and a pc with emulators and had competitions on many games between 8 of us till 1am which was great fun

 

[sir_beaker]

I had and loved the CPC growing up but would probably go for the C64 truth be told. Better scrolling and sound, the hardware is more abundant so is cheaper (thinking of the CPC prices for the DDI-1 and multiface 2 of late)

 

[Paradroid90]

When I was younger and through my teenage years I had all three.

I grew up with the Speccy but it was the 64 that blew me away

The SID chip and great scrolling and hardware sprites plus when collecting for the c64 you can collect tapes or disks.

Also with tapes you get the added bonus of the loader used and what great sids will be blasting out whilst loading

Demo scene is still very active with the c64 with great demo crews like Booze Design, Fairlight and Crest still releasing stuff to this day.

If you want a different perspective on the 64 scene get a c128 great machine and three computers in one and they look fantastic.

Although I respect the Amstrad the machine to me never had any soul like the Speccy and 64 had.

 

[ratfink]

If you've had them and got bored, maybe get something else instead. Or do it for particular reason this time.

 

[Chinners]

I voted "keep your money" - but only as my suggestion is different. Why not try another machine? I've been messing with the Atari 8 bit range, and have been pleasantly surprised at what they can do, although they're hellish slow with tape loading.

But as for which machine from the list? I would suggest any them as long as it had a modern fast loading system.

Having been in the "Amstrad scene" on and off for a while, I've got a fair bit of knowledge on these, and I would recommend a CPC6128 if you can. My reasoning is:

Unfortunately the 464 needs extra hardware to get it disk-drive compatible and the 664 does attract quite a high price. The 464 Plus can, with a bit of soldering and hackery, be adapted to a full 6128 plus, but you do have to fathom out how to get the disk drive attached.

There was very little software that made full use of the 6128+, two notable ones are Fluff and Prehistoric 2. (The intro music for Prehistoric 2 shows off the +'s DMA sound playback pretty well). The plus series did break at least one game, Elite. There is a patched disk image of that kicking around though.

As for the other two, I am sure you know much more about the speccy than I do, and I am just getting my C64 sorted with a fast loading gadget, so am unable to recommend this (due to lack of knowledge)

 

[TheCorfiot]

The CPC range is a great series and very powerful, superb ASIC design with a great palette and of course the wonderful 6845 CRTC...
But it was crippled by it's use of a Z80A...the design means that the system suffers from CPU and CRTC video memory contention which produces an average system slowdown..
The Spectrum has the same issues...

The 65xx based systems such as the c64 and Acorn BBC's actually run their ram at twice the system clock speed and using the dual clock phase feature of this processor allow the CPU and CRTC or VIC to access the system ram independantly without being aware of each other, hence no contention or system slowdown.

Thats why graphics and scrolling effects are much smoother and faster...

TC

 

[mjnurney]

id go for the c64 and its probably got the biggest library of all and it will keep you amused the longest ...

demos , music and games

 

[Chinners]

The CPC range is a great series and very powerful, superb ASIC design with a great palette and of course the wonderful 6845 CRTC...
<snip>

Thats why graphics and scrolling effects are much smoother and faster...

TC

Of course, in the right hands, the CRTC could be prodded with pointy sticks to perform reasonable vertical scrolling... However, the lack of hardware sprites / scrolling on the CPC range was a bad move, which as mentioned before did lead to the CPC getting plenty of poor ports from the speccy - in fact many games reprogrammed the CRTC to use the spectrum's 256x192 resolution.

Sometime next year, I think I'll be on the lookout for another 8 bitter myself. I am tempted with the Beeb/b or Master, which is another option Morcar could look into. To add to what TC said, the Basic interpretor is pretty darn good and fast, and it is an incredibly expandable machine. I really learned my programming "skills" on these.

 

[fitzsteve]

Probably going to be a biased pole being mainly Amiga users here, but the C64 if you've already been there/done that with the Spectrum would be my vote too

Get yourself an SD2IEC and a fast loader cart and you're away

 

[protek]

Check 8-bit battles over at YouTube. That may give some perspective.

 

[Buzzfuzz]

C64 FTW :-D

 

[sneeker]

I had a beeb first time round but went for a c64 a couple of years back, mainly as I missed out first time round and seems to have some of the best games for it and still has a thriving demo scene.

 

[sir_beaker]

I have to admit I do have a real soft spot for the Acorn/BBC machines as I feel it offers something different in its game library to the other 8-bits, and its got some cracking arcade conversions like Hopper (Frogger) and Arcadians (Galaxians). Personally that's the one I'm collecting for at the moment...

I did feel the same back in the day when I had the Acorn Electron that I was missing out compared to the C64/Amstrad.

Now I regret giving away the Acorn Electron. Fortunately I now have 2, and a BBC Model B, and a BBC Master! Next I want an Atom and an Archimedes

 

[keropi]

If you've had them and got bored, maybe get something else instead. Or do it for particular reason this time.

this

 

[Harrison]

If I was going to get another retro system it would actually be an Archimedes. I used to love that system at school and college. Brilliant system, way ahead of its time and far better than the Amiga in many areas.



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[morcar]

If I was going to get another retro system it would actually be an Archimedes. I used to love that system at school and college. Brilliant system, way ahead of its time and far better than the Amiga in many areas.



Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

Your not the first person to say that as I have heard it many a time. I may have to do some research into it.

At the moment thank you for commenting and giving me something to think about. Its ended up where I have just purchased a new 24 inch monitor for my pc because at the moment I am using an old 19 inch lcd monitor that has the old 4:3 screen ratio and I needed a new one to make my video's. With any luck I will get it soon and making video's will be slightly quicker as I will be able to get it into a higher resolution when using camtasia.