The Rise and Fall of 6502 Gaming (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise and Fall of 6502 Gaming (2020)

#11

Post by musicale » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 12:32 AM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #10

sys_64738 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The C64 was a money spinner from Commodore all through the 80s and early 90s. It's their Apple 2 which kept Apple afloat with the grandiose Mac boat anchor which didn't actually make any money for Apple until Steve came back. The Amiga range was never really profitable for Commodore the way it should have and Jack would have released the A600 in 1985 which is exactly what was needed then.

Tramiel and his sons and a big portion of the team around him at Commodore had their chance to make rock bottom price 16-bit machines after they left Commodore. That's what the Atari ST was. I loved mine, but it was no C64 in terms of market success. While it initially outsold the Amiga (because it came out earlier and cheaper) it plateaued and then lagged behind once the A500 came out. And both platforms hardly sold…

I have heard that the Atari ST was popular for music production into the 1990s.

Re: The Rise and Fall of 6502 Gaming (2020)

#12

Post by KerrAvon » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 12:33 AM UTC

sys_64738 wrote: post #4

mastazi wrote: post #2

The last two paragraphs make it sound like the C64 was the last successful product that Commodore made before imploding, and claim that Commodore never recovered after Tramiel left in early 1984. But, as anyone who was around then knows, this is not the case, because the most successful Amiga model, the Amiga 500, came out three years later, in 1987. Saying that Commodore was finished in 1984 seems like a gross overs…

The C64 was a money spinner from Commodore all through the 80s and early 90s. It's their Apple 2 which kept Apple afloat with the grandiose Mac boat anchor which didn't actually make any money for Apple until Steve came back. The Amiga range was never really profitable for Commodore the way it should have and Jack would have released the A600 in 1985 which is exactly what was needed then.

I don't recall the exact crossover point, but the Mac starting making serious money circa 1987 and the Apple II became irrelevant in terms of bottom line not long after. Steve came back in 1997.

Re: The Rise and Fall of 6502 Gaming (2020)

#13

Post by musicale » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 12:34 AM UTC

sys_64738 wrote: post #8

reaperducer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the Atari 8-bit computers sold way less than Commodore 128s sold so there's hardly any value in mentioning them. Four million units for the Ataris in the U.S. versus 5.7 million for the C-128 worldwide. Seems pretty significant to me, especially compared with other 8-bit computers that people are always talking about on HN: - BBC Micro: 1.5 million - Sinclair ZX: 5 million - Apple ][: 4 million

Sure, let's shoehorn in lots of random computers from overseas. BBCs only sold to schools and education but not to most parents as they were too expensive. ZX Spectrums were Z80 based which isn't a 6502 processor. Apple 2 is mentioned in the article.

I think the point is that they sold fairly well compared to other successful machines of that era. They probably also outsold a number of popular game consoles as well such as Atari's 7800.

Re: The Rise and Fall of 6502 Gaming (2020)

#14

Post by cmrdporcupine » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 12:44 AM UTC

musicale wrote: post #11

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tramiel and his sons and a big portion of the team around him at Commodore had their chance to make rock bottom price 16-bit machines after they left Commodore. That's what the Atari ST was. I loved mine, but it was no C64 in terms of market success. While it initially outsold the Amiga (because it came out earlier and cheaper) it plateaued and then lagged behind once the A500 came out. And both platforms hardly sold…

I have heard that the Atari ST was popular for music production into the 1990s.

Yeah, was the combination of:

built-in MIDI ports, low price, high quality paper white monochrome monitor, mac-like GUI, tight low latency timing (single tasking OS until the early 90s -- straight from the interrupt to the subroutine do not pass go).

Cubase and Logic both had their origin there and are still around.

Myself, my mom and dad wouldn't spring for synthesizers for me, despite my mom being a music teacher. So I collect them (and Ataris) now but they just collect dust :-)

Re: The Rise and Fall of 6502 Gaming (2020)

#15

Post by cmrdporcupine » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 12:56 AM UTC

Author seems to tie things off after the C64 era, but the 6502 had a lot more to give. The penultimate video gaming on the 6502 is IMHO the Atari Lynx. 6502 + almost Amiga-esque (David Morse of Amiga fame was involved) custom graphics processor that could do 4096 colours, unlimited sprites, hardware multipliers and dividers, bunch of custom processing stuff to augment the CPU

The combination of the excellent interrupt responsiveness of the 6502 with a display chip of that caliber is pretty cool. Too bad it wasn't a market success really.

The SNES is also pretty damned amazing (yeah, 65816, but close enough)

Re: The Rise and Fall of 6502 Gaming (2020)

#16

Post by prvc » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 1:25 AM UTC

satisfice wrote: post #9

The article makes it sounds like it was difficult to update the AppleII screen so that there was no flicker. It was not difficult. We had plenty of time. I seem to recall we could flip between two different high res screens and so we drew on the hidden one and then flipped to the other one when the vertical blank interrupt occurred. Also, we rarely had to update the entire screen all at once. Both the Apple and C64 h…

Which game?

Re: The Rise and Fall of 6502 Gaming (2020)

#17

Post by tenebrisalietum » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 2:02 AM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #15

Author seems to tie things off after the C64 era, but the 6502 had a lot more to give. The penultimate video gaming on the 6502 is IMHO the Atari Lynx. 6502 + almost Amiga-esque (David Morse of Amiga fame was involved) custom graphics processor that could do 4096 colours, unlimited sprites, hardware multipliers and dividers, bunch of custom processing stuff to augment the CPU The combination of the excellent interrup…

Turbografx 16/PC-Engine has Hu6280 CPU that's an extended 6502 ISA, with some awesome instructions. Ran at 7Mhz too.

Re: The Rise and Fall of 6502 Gaming (2020)

#18

Post by tenebrisalietum » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 2:03 AM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #14

musicale wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard that the Atari ST was popular for music production into the 1990s.

Yeah, was the combination of: built-in MIDI ports, low price, high quality paper white monochrome monitor, mac-like GUI, tight low latency timing (single tasking OS until the early 90s -- straight from the interrupt to the subroutine do not pass go). Cubase and Logic both had their origin there and are still around. Myself, my mom and dad wouldn't spring for synthesizers for me, despite my mom being a music teacher.…

You also could connect SCSI devices to it, which made it a pretty mean sampler.

Re: The Rise and Fall of 6502 Gaming (2020)

#19

Post by NonNefarious » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 2:07 AM UTC

satisfice wrote: post #9

The article makes it sounds like it was difficult to update the AppleII screen so that there was no flicker. It was not difficult. We had plenty of time. I seem to recall we could flip between two different high res screens and so we drew on the hidden one and then flipped to the other one when the vertical blank interrupt occurred. Also, we rarely had to update the entire screen all at once. Both the Apple and C64 h…

Mmmm, I don't think so. The Apple had only blitting, whereas the Atari, Commodore, and TI had hardware sprites.

And I have no idea what you mean by "C64 had awkward graphics." It integrated ideas already present in the Atari computers, with some advantages and some disadvantages. Both those platforms utterly crushed the primitive graphics and "sound" available on the Apples, with their hardware sprites, fine scrolling, redefinable character sets, and multichannel sound. The Ataris also used intelligent, daisy-chainable peripherals.

Re: The Rise and Fall of 6502 Gaming (2020)

#20

Post by NonNefarious » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 2:10 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #6

sys_64738 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the Atari 8-bit computers sold way less than Commodore 128s sold so there's hardly any value in mentioning them.

All the Atari 8-bit computers sold way less than Commodore 128s sold so there's hardly any value in mentioning them. Four million units for the Ataris in the U.S. versus 5.7 million for the C-128 worldwide. Seems pretty significant to me, especially compared with other 8-bit computers that people are always talking about on HN: - BBC Micro: 1.5 million - Sinclair ZX: 5 million - Apple ][: 4 million

Not to mention that the Ataris were way earlier, and were at one point regarded as the MOST popular computer worldwide. That's why the learning platform PLATO was released on the Atari first.