ZX Spectrum or Commodore Amiga?

[Technician Ted]

Which one did you own/like best?

[Dastardly]

I owned a C64 then an Amiga500. I had a spectrum briefly but thought it was crap so exchanged it for the 64.

[Zeewolf]

What the Spectrum CRAP!!

It was an absolute Classic!!!

Games like Chaos!! Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner, Pssst!! Sabre Wulf, Head Over Heels, Jet Pac!!

Pure Classics, though the C64 was just as good!!

Speccy, C64 & the Amiga were the only things I lived for as a youngster!! I hated the invention of consoles!!

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by Zeewolf
Speccy, C64 & the Amiga were the only things I lived for as a youngster!! I hated the invention of consoles!!
Not to forget the Amstrad CPC´s :D Anyway, I never owned a Speccy, just saw it at a friends home and found out, that MY BELOVED Amstrad was far superior :D

[Dastardly]

HeHe :cheese
Sorry for bashing your beloved Speccy, maybe I just never had it long enough. The main reason I took it back was only about 1 in 5 games would actually load!! on the machine I had anyway.

[Zeewolf]

Barbarian was the main reason I ended up by a C64, what was better than chopping off the opponents head!! whoops that sounds a bit sick!! LMAO

Ive still got my C64 in the loft boxed up, I may have to get it out soon & relive the memories of the C64, nah!!

The Amiga will always come 1st in MOH?

Amiga, Speccy & then the C64!! in that order, ive never really liked anything else since these 3!!

Long live Sinclair & Commodore!!

[Chuckles]

Originally posted by Zeewolf
Speccy, C64 & the Amiga were the only things I lived for as a youngster!! I hated the invention of consoles!!

Damn! Now I REALLY feel ancient. Just for the sake of accuracy, "consoles" in one form or another predate the arrival of any type of home computer by a considerable margin. If you go all the way back to the time when the "Pong" craze first led to the development of video games for the home that often had nothing more than one or two variations on Pong, then "consoles" have been with us for a loooong time now.

[Zeewolf]

LMAO i should have said I h8 modern consoles such as Sega, Sony, Nintendo, etc!!

I loved Pong, Space invaders was amazing, my dad owned an arcade so I grew up around them!! Phoenix was my all time fave arcade machine!

[CPC464]

I had a Spectrum, Amiga and an Amstrad CPC464 to me the Amiga was alot more enjoyable than the spectrum but for some reason my little Amstrad CPC464 was my "HOLY GRAIL" of computers I still have it I still play it, (although waiting for those damn tapes to load is a pain) however to me it was and always will be THE BEST

[Djay]

this isn't a great comparsion....

the spectrum was 8-bit and the Amiga 16-bit

i like saying what betters a Psone or Ps2....

but a in fairer comparsion...

i prefer c64 over spectrum
i prefer Amiga over atari
i prefer chips over cabbage:laughing

[jmmijo]

I never owned one of these either :( so as a side note, was the ZX better before or after they were purchased by Timex?

Could they indeed take a licking and keep on ticking?

I do remember the color comps as well at a local store that sold electronics, kinda like Circuit City does now a days. I think I remember the orignal small little unit with the membrane keyboard the most ;)

[Drake1009]

I never had a Spectrum so all I know about Spectrum would be the Spectrum emulator I had for my C64 and the program examples I made in it.

It seemed like a good system to work with. My father found one along with some sort of very small disk looking thingies. Unfortunately the spectrum didn't work as apparently one of the chips had burned out (probably why it had been binned), he did a good bit to find a replacement though.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Well, of course, if it weren't for emulation, us yanks would never know about some of these systems. The first stable emulations I used on my Amiga were Spectrum and the Apple II (which I guess you Europeans probably didn't see much of either). Seems as if the line was draw region-wise in the 8-bit computer days. While the Speccy has some nice games, the Amstrad games look 100% better. Very often, they even look better than the C64 games (but it depends on the game). The C64, however, was a phenomenon on both shores (heck, probably everywhere!)

[Drake1009]

I thought there was something strange about the amstrad graphics. It looked a bit more colorful but somehow sometimes the colors looked out of place. The sound on the Amstrad wasn't too great compared to my C64 either.

[Akira]

Sorry, I don't know what a Commadore is... :D

I started with a C128. I never knew of Spectrums until a few years ago. I think they are mostly POOP, BUT they have strong points and nice things. That's why I bought a Spectrum +3 :)

I jumped from the C128 to the Amiga. I always laughed at the poor Beamers' expense. First my C128 could crush their XTs anyday, and then my Amiga just pissed over their heads from high above.

Every person I know that started hs steps on computing with an IBM compatioble, I call a 'sad kid'... They never knew the joy and fun of home computers...

[Twistin'Ghost]

LOL! How true, Akira. And the really sad part is that they don't even know this. Completely oblivious. But it's not unfixable.

Like with music, there was some great stuff that was popular before I was alive. Take Buddy Holly, for example. Yet I almost feel like I lived through it because I made myself do my homework. And thus, when I was teaching guitar to one of my young students, I sat him down to watch "The Buddy Holly Story" and now this little kid's hero is Buddy Holly. He has tons of CD's and collectibles of Holly, plus he educates his school pals on the subject.

We just can't let our cultural heritage be wisked away into oblivion. I don't live in the past, nor do I condone it. But that doesn't mean I will accept rubbish just because it's new or modern. Good is good, shit is shit.

[Shatterhand]

I used to hate a LOT the Speccy, because I had an MSX, a much superior 8-bits machine, but with the same CPU (the Z80) , and some lazy european (mainly spanish) softcos just made direct ports of ZX spectrum games to msx, without making use of the superior MSX video capabilities (Think about Atari ST games on amiga, just worse... MUCH worse).

But to be quite honest, I think the speccy has some pretty good games, although most of them are avalaible in other 8-bits machines (C64 and CPC Amstrad) with better gfx... (That's other thing that annoys me.. the C64 and the CPC versions of those games always had better gfx, matching their machines, and the MSX versions always had ZX Spectrum gfx... )

[nokia3310e]

Well, I've had a few Sinclair computer in the past, still got a ZX81 and ZX Spectrum +2 now (with 2 carrier bags full of speccy games). I did enjoy the Spectrum and playing classics like Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner, Monty Mole series, any game by Ulimate (Gunfright, Sabre Wulf, Alien 8) etc. I never really played much on an Amiga, apart from the CD32. I had Oscar & Diggers, Labyrinth of Time, James Pond 2 etc. and enjoyed them games (wish I hadn't sold my CD32 now :(). The only C64 game I remember playing was Pakacuda (or something like that).

[Fissuras]

C'mon guys... Why all this babble about the Spec or the C64???
Everybody knows that... there can be only one!!!!!!!!
And the one is... the first, the only, the unique, the mighty ZX80/81 !!!!!!!!!

2K ram (or 16K), and an ultra-high-b&w resolution: 64x28 or something like that, pure no-sound engine... wow!!!!!!

No other system had games as Mazogs, Midway, Catacombs, Night Raid, only to name a few...

And there was nothing that could match "Black Crystal". 7 tapes, a whole 100kb of adventuring in such a small machine... At that time, there was no other game like that...

It is a shame that the games I remember playing in my Zx81 are not available anywhere, there are only a few on the Net... mostly at Funet...

Black Crystal was fantastic... and is no longer available... There is a Spectrum version but... doesn't feel the same... it has colours, blargh.

I say, those of you who started computer gaming in an era that games were colourfull, and even had some kind of noise coming from the speakers, you don't know the true nature of pure, pure, 100% gaming pleasure...

C'mon on, if a game has no colour, no sound, and no graphics... what else could it have? LOTS OF FUN WITHIN!!!

[nokia3310e]

The first computer game I ever played was 1k Breakout by JKGreye Software on the ZX81. :)

[zombie_dk]

i remember 'Dead or Alive' on the ZX Spectrum.
it was a great game.

[Akira]

Originally posted by Shatterhand
I used to hate a LOT the Speccy

But it seems you made your peace with it, look at your avatar! Manic Miner! Icon supremo of the Speccy! :D

I'll be honest. I have a Timex Sinclair 1000 (like a ZX81, but with 2KB instead of 1KB), and I dont really like it. I booted it up for testing purposes and put it with the rest of the computers. I think that if you had one back then, it might have some nostalgic value, but to me, it's just a neat little computer.

[Fissuras]

Sure, I have to agree that with only 2Kb there were no good games available... the fun began at 16Kb...

From time to time I DO run Mazogs and Krazy Kong on a ZX81 emulator. Just to remember how they were... I wish I could run them on my TK85 (brazilian ZX81) but my keyboard isn't working anymore.

I am not saying that games on ZX81 (with 16Kb) were better than the games that were made to other computers... they were not... but there were a few that stood ahead of the rest...
There were some pretty good games... as I said, without graphics, resolution, colour or sound, one had to focus on pure gameplay... and good tight z80 asm code programming also...
And of course, a high speed tape loading routine... 300bps sucks

Anyway, being there, at that time, playing an enjoying these little blocky soundless b&w games... was some experience...
I believe having played these games made me apreciate even more the games that came after that... TSR 80 games... TRS80 colour... C64, the Allmight MSX, Atari ST, Amiga and *cough* even PC games...

[Djay]

could a mod please change the heading of this thread to the proper spelling of commodore

ZX Spectrum or Commadore Amiga?

its almost an insult :D

[Twistin'Ghost]

Fixed. I guess that makes this thread v1.1, yes?

Actually, I wanted to do that anyhow, but I felt that urge in me was a bit anal. All I needed was someone to give me the neccesary nudge. :D

[Djay]

give me the neccesary nudge.

oh errr:D

[Akira]

I didn't change it because it looked funny. I always hated people writing it like that... Commadore... haha

[Shatterhand]

Originally posted by Akira


But it seems you made your peace with it, look at your avatar! Manic Miner! Icon supremo of the Speccy! :D



Yeah, Manic Miner rules :) My big problem with the Spectrum at that time is that the biggest "let me down" on MSX were those ports, Double Dragon, Pacmania, Toobin, and many other cool arcade games were crap on MSX mainly because they were direct ports from Spectrum

But I also have to admit , some of the greatest games on MSX were spectrum ports too, like Astro Marine Corps...
I also wished MSX had a port for Spectrum's R-Type, as even that version is better than the only average MSX2 version. (And that's quite funny, because AFAIK, the MSX version is the only home version made by Irem)

[Akira]

And the MSX2 has a lot of power, I cant believe they made such a poopy version. Seems like Irem was not used to develop for the MSX :P

[Traquer]

my brother had a ZX Spectrum, i was allowed to play it when i was 5 :D the first game i ever played was pssst, i was addicted to the speccy forever! (until it broke). then i got addicted to Treasure Island Dizzy. the speccy broke and then i got an Amiga 600 when i was 8. and my brother being so great got me a crack of treasure island dizzy!

anyway - i love them both!

[thinlega]

man! I am going to be looked upon as an outcast after this but.......I think my acorn electron was VASTLY better than my mates speccy......The games were great!!! especially form superior software and were some of the best at the time!!!!!....just a shame it got lumberd with that school computer tag :(

[whiteb]

Originally posted by Technician Ted
Which one did you own/like best?

Owned both, and they both are good in their own way.

They both have a sentimental value in my heart.

[whiteb]

Originally posted by Dastardly
I owned a C64 then an Amiga500. I had a spectrum briefly but thought it was crap so exchanged it for the 64.

I owned a C64 once, but I threw it in the bin when the door slammed into it too hard one day.

Yes I used it as a foot rest.

[whiteb]

Originally posted by Dastardly
HeHe :cheese
Sorry for bashing your beloved Speccy, maybe I just never had it long enough. The main reason I took it back was only about 1 in 5 games would actually load!! on the machine I had anyway.

The speccy was tempermental about the type of tape player used, also the loading scheme used played a part.

BUT then again, sometimes two of the same make/brand of recorder didnt yeild the same results.

I still have my speccy safely guarding its own shelf in the cupboard (it works, I just want it to stay that way.) it gets a run once in a while.

[whiteb]

Originally posted by jmmijo
I never owned one of these either :( so as a side note, was the ZX better before or after they were purchased by Timex?

Could they indeed take a licking and keep on ticking?

I do remember the color comps as well at a local store that sold electronics, kinda like Circuit City does now a days. I think I remember the orignal small little unit with the membrane keyboard the most ;)

ZX was never owned by timex, it went from clive sinclair to Alan sugar (Sinclair to Amstrad)

[Djay]

@whiteb

why post four times, when only one post was needed?

[RCK]

it is called flooding and "I wanna be in the top 50 (c)Marz"...

[Djay]

it is called flooding and "I wanna be in the top 50 (c)Marz"...

flooders, flamers........ they are LAMERS!

[RCK]

bah bah, don't destroy it :)
on his 57 post, half were interesting :cool

[Enverex]

I had a C64 then a A500+ then a A600 then a A1200

My mate had a Spectrum and it was utter shite, the C64 ruled.

[Miggy2TheMax]

Originally posted by Akira
Sorry, I don't know what a Commadore is... :D

I started with a C128. I never knew of Spectrums until a few years ago. I think they are mostly POOP, BUT they have strong points and nice things. That's why I bought a Spectrum +3 :)

I jumped from the C128 to the Amiga. I always laughed at the poor Beamers' expense. First my C128 could crush their XTs anyday, and then my Amiga just pissed over their heads from high above.

Every person I know that started hs steps on computing with an IBM compatioble, I call a 'sad kid'... They never knew the joy and fun of home computers...

Yeah, those kids missed out big time. Think about how badly were they lying to themselves when they still argued that their XT blew away an amiga.. what a joke, those poor bastards. There probably playing ShXtBox games as we speak :D

[Fissuras]

Originally posted by NightShade737
I had a C64 then a A500+ then a A600 then a A1200

My mate had a Spectrum and it was utter shite, the C64 ruled.

Nothing beats the real... ZX81

[blackcornflake]

Oi! What's all this C64-lovin' and Speccy-bashin'?

I think Commodore must have built a loyalty chip into their machines. Amiga devotion is one thing, but C64? I never owned one, nor wanted one - I had a Speccy. The blocky-as-hell C64 gfx never looked as good as Speccy stuff to me. And the thing itself was just plain ugly.

But then, I'm on the other side of that ancient divide...

The C64/Spectrum tribal rift went on throughout the 80s, and will probably go on forever! And Speccy RULES!!! Cough.

Oh yeah, almost forgot - Originally posted by thinlega
man! I am going to be looked upon as an outcast after this but.......I think my acorn electron was VASTLY better than my mates speccy......The games were great!!!

Bwahahaha!!! :D

[Akira]

Blocky but colorful! that's what I liked... and show me arcade games of the quality of the C64 on the speccy...

If none of this made it for you, the SOUND sells you. It's the best sound chip devised by humanity :D

The least said about the Acorn, the better :)

8 BIT WARS FOREVER!

[Fissuras]

The secret of a happy life is hidden in the smallest and simplest things... Sound? who needs sound? I can shout if I am in desperate need of any sound. Colour? Who does need it?
It just makes it hard to choose tie and shirts, socks and shoes, and so on. Black and white is beautiful, and simple, so it is good.
Blocky gfx? Yeah! give me big b&w square boxes on my screen, so I don't get confused with too many dots... And it is much easier to be seen by older people with not so good eyes.

So there we are.. ZX81 is the BEST. Computers only got worse everyday...

There is no war to be made, the truth is here, in front of your eyes, and the truth is black and white, blocky as hell, and soundless.


:laughing :laughing :laughing

[blackcornflake]

Pure poetry, fissuras. :)

You may well be right. Many wise words have you written in advocacy of the mighty ZX81.

But the experience of the ZX81 was a bit before my time, so I will never know. :D

[Fissuras]

Yeah, the ZX81 was great... at least for those who never had any other computer before...

But to tell the truth, there were quite a few good action/arcade games. It's strengh were the SLOW paced games :laugh.

[Shatterhand]

Well, I never had a Speccy or a C64, but I tried both, and I think the C64 has the best games by far...

But they both are rubbish when they get close to the MSX... this is THE BEST 8-bits machine EVER in history

Wanna more than 19000 colors? Got it (Ok, you can't move nothing when using this screen mode :) , most games used the 16 colors on screen mode :) , but they are choosen from the 19000 and something pallete of it)

Wanna Excellent games both from Europe and Japan? Got it.
Wanna good music and sound effects? Got it
Wanna great music? Got it with FM cartridge
Wanna excellent music? Got it with the Moonsound cartridge :)
Wanna surf the web? Got it with a modem and Fudebrowser
Wanna an unix OS based? Got it with Uzix

Msx is THE 8-Bits machine, and you all guys should shut up :)

[Fissuras]

The MSX was a better machine... at least compared to Spectrum and C64. Why - you may ask - and I answer: because there was a ZX81 emulator written for it!!!!!!!

[mr_0rga5m]

The 1 real good game on the speccy i liked was 'Rollercoaster' from elite. :)

I used to love playing this on my mates spec whilst he had goes on my *superior* C64. :D

Seeing as how i love all things fair-groundie i thought this game was brilliant ..

The rollercoasters in the game are excellent fun to ride whilst trying to grab the collectables.

How they fitted all those different types of rides into the space of the speccy was an achievement i'd say.

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by fissuras
The MSX was a better machine... at least compared to Spectrum and C64. Why - you may ask - and I answer: because there was a ZX81 emulator written for it!!!!!!!
Well, there was also a ZX81 Emulator for C64 ;) But anyway, the MSX was way ahead anyway :D:D:D

[Fissuras]

Originally posted by mr_0rga5m

How they fitted all those different types of rides into the space of the speccy was an achievement i'd say.

Sure! Nowadays it seems a game cannot fit in less than 1.5 Gb of one's hard disk, and cannot work properly with less than 512Mb of RAM.

But with so many space to spare, there is no room for fun, gameplay, ingenuity.

But this has already been told