Best 8-bit computer ?

[gimbal]

Pffff. C64 VS MSX.

I can't make that choice.

[Zak]

I liked the Sinclair ZX Spectrum + for it's design and games. I also had a MSX2 from Philips but I wasn't impressed by it's quality, it was dead in no time. And many games on it were just ZX Spectrum ports that were no way better than the original. Although the MSX2 is quite a capable machine in it's configuration, much better than the C64, I would still not get a new one these days with the experiences I made.

[dreadnought]

I don't think Beeb was so bad, specs wise. It could hold its own and had a huge game library. It was pretty fast too, hence Elite.

When it come to just hardware Enterprise was probably the top dog in the early Eighties, but since it was delayed and had little support later on, it ultimately flopped. It'd be interesting to see what could've happened if it was released in 1983.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I don't think Beeb was so bad, specs wise. It could hold its own and had a huge game library. It was pretty fast too, hence Elite.

Elite on the BBC Micro was an eye-opener for me when I first saw it a few years ago. See, I played the C64 version, which errr taught me patience
(still an epic game though, no matter how low the FPS got at some points!)

[kremiso]

i have discovered BBC computers extremely late;
here in Italy they were sadly almost inexistent at the time

but just in time to play Mr. EE!

[PortuguesePilot]

I'm incredibly biased by personal history towards the Spectrum. It has a massive library of games with a robust number of absolute classics and even many games that seem to transcend the computer's own abilities (which are meagre, we have to agree). Even today the Speccy is the 8-bit computer I play the most. But its graphics and sound are primitive compared to its main rivals with archaic things like only 8 colours (plus shading) and a monotone internal speaker for the 48K (I had a 128K, though, and that came with a very acceptable AY-3-8912 3-channel dedicated sound chip).

But, as I've already hinted above, the Speccy is probably the weakest of the whole bunch (if we exclude stuff like the Sinclair Z80 or the Z81, etc.). Never owned a C64 but I have to concede to it's hardware, because it did little wonders at the time, especially on the scrolling department and the SID chip is also top-notch. I only got to play its games already on the emulation age and was pleasantly surprised. I always knew it was better than the Spectrum but I never thought it would be THIS good. Graphically, however, the graphics were exactly what they appeared to be on the mags back in the day: usually blocky with an iffy colour palette, especially on PAL territories like were I was (and still am) based.

The Amstrad CPC never had a strong penetration here (although it did reasonably well on neighbouring Spain and France) and a mate of mine had one but I never actually saw on live at the time, but on the magazines the graphics seemed lovely, with lots of bright and shiny primary colours and less pixelated than those of the of the C64 and - needless to say - look farm far better than those of the Spectrum and even rivalled the expensive 16-bit PC's with their EGA cards. I bought an Amstrad CPC 6128 a few years ago and it was the first time I used a CPC personally. I had a Gotek fitted into it and have since tried numerous games on it and though it looks and sounds pretty good for an 8-bit system, the lack of hardware scrolling abilities (something you can't see on still pics on magazines) hinders most games compared to the fluidity of the C64 games and even the Spectrum seems to scroll games faster than the CPC. The vast majority of the system's quite considerable library of games is substandard and lame. Still, the CPC has some great games in its library and when pushed to its limits it seemed to even surpass the C64 (the Pinball Dreams remake is an example of this, as are several of its more recent games). Unfortunately most of these gems came very late into the system's life cycle and the computer never got to be explored by the programmers as much as it could have.

I was born in the Netherlands and lived there up until I was 6 years old. There, at the time I was leaving to live in Portugal, a small little computer was taking over the "kids" market the same way the Spectrum did in Portugal: it was the Philips MSX, mainly the VG-8010 but later the much better built VG-8020. I never got a chance to own one but I did saw a few of them on display playing various games on shops and large departments stores. Both Philips machines were also offered in Portugal but their penetration in the market - starkly dominated by the first-comer ZX Spectrum - was virtually null. A few years back I bought a VG-8020 and an SD Mapper/MegaRAM cartridge and was delighted with its quite extensive library of quirky japanese games, very well thought out and very well put together, with lots of charm and playability (especially those made by Konami) but the limitations of the graphics reminded me of the Spectrum. The colour palette was much better than that of the Spectrum but they lacked considerably compared to the C64 and the CPC. The scrolling was good, sound was OK and the playability of the games was usually quite good, but it fell short graphically. I still got a kick from it and became a fan of the MSX in the process. More recently I got a Philips VG-8235, and MSX2 model, and it's night and day compared to the VG-8020. It also has good built quality (though maybe not as robust as the sturdy VG-8020) but the difference in graphics is astounding! The MSX2 is capable of graphics that can rival those of mid-tier 16-bit machines (like the Amiga itself) and the quality of games remains as high as those of the original MSX, with an extensive library of games that contained a very substantial amount of unmitigated gems. The MSX2 is, for me, a very serious contender to the best 8-bit computer ever. The MSX2+ is even better with much improved scrolling abilities and the MSX Turbo R is an hybrid machine with a 16-bit processor, so not really a contender here (plus had a very limited games library).

The Apple II was simply too expensive for what it offered so I'm only going to mention it in passing. It never really dawned much interest in me. It seemed lacking compared to the likes of the C64 and even the CPC and cost about 10 times more than a Spectrum. In a country like mine, it just wasn't wise to get one. For the price, might as well just buy a 16-bit PC (which was what my father did).

The Atari 800 is another example of a computer that I had virtually zero contact with. I never owned one and when I started to buy magazines and to really get into computers, the Spectrum and C64 were already fully dominant and I never really cared for the Atari 800. In the very rare instances that Atari 8-bit game pics showed up in the magazines, they looked blocky and brownish, seeming similar to those of the C64 yet worse. Maybe because of that - but surely also because of its brand - I associated the 8-bit Atari computers with its console relative, the by then quite primitive 2600 (even though I knew they were closer to the 5200 and even the 7800, both of those consoles were also virtually unheard of here in Portugal). I only got to experience these games in the emulation age and while there are a few gems there and the POKEY chip was rather neat, the games do look like a poor-man's C64 with blocky brownish graphics. Still neat, though, and definitely not as bad or forgettable as I thought it would be. It also has a few gems on its library of games.

The BBC computers were never sold in Portugal and I never had any interest in them. The same can be said for the Thomson machines or the non-Speccy soviet/eastern block computers. Another computer that I knew next to nothing about was the aforementioned SAM Coupe, a system that I only got to know in the emulation age, and although it has some seriously good looking gems (Prince of Persia springs to mind) it was too little of it (a very minute games library) and it could have had potential to be the best 8-bit computers but, alas, it wasn't. It came way too late, in a time when 16-bit systems - like the Atari ST and our very own Amiga 500 - were already becoming very affordable.

For me, then, the best 8-bit machine - overall - has to be the MSX2. The C64 was a seminal machine with great hardware scroll and great music/sound abilities, the Spectrum was incredibly cheap and allowed for basically everyone to own a computer, their graphics and sounds were sub-par but the games were creative and fun. The CPC was good in terms of graphics and sounds were fair, but it was underwhelming as a gaming experience, mainly because the games weren't very good and the scrolling was usually horrid. The MSX2 had good, colourful graphics - with a good resolution and not as blocky as those of the C64 or Atari 800 - the music abilities were excellent, the scrolling was much better than that of the MSX1 (but maybe not as good as that of the C64) and - when all is said and done - it was the overall best experience in 8-bit computer gaming.

And yes, the word "computer" is important in that last sentence, because if we consider consoles into the bag, both the NES and the Master System had great graphics and sounds - although both fell short of the MSX2 - but if we get the little wonderful thing called "Turbografx" (PC Engine in its native Japan) into the mix, then everything else gets obliterated, even the MSX2+. The Turbografx is the best 8-bit gaming hardware EVER, a small little wonder that gave even 16-bit systems a run for its money. Granted, the GPU was a powerful double chipped 16-bit magnificent endeavour - but at its heart the Turbografx still was an 8-bit system. We can call it an hybrid, then, but what an absolutely lovely hybrid it is. I own one too, and it really is a thing of wonder. The only small little pity about it, is that few games were ever released on PAL and so we're forced to play the slowed-down versions of NTSC games on it...

TL, DR: IMO, the best pure 8-bit gaming system on a computer form would be the MSX2+.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by roondar

Elite on the BBC Micro was an eye-opener for me when I first saw it a few years ago. See, I played the C64 version, which errr taught me patience
(still an epic game though, no matter how low the FPS got at some points!)

Yeah, it was a bit limited in terms of palette (going with the digital RGB scheme intended for a monitor instead of the chroma/luma approach of the C64 & Atari 8-bits), but architecturally the Beeb really is excellent. It ran the CPU at twice the speed of the C64, and ran the RAM at twice the speed of most other 8-bits to get the most out of the CPU, whereas other 8-bits with faster CPUs like the Atari 8-bits still used the cheaper, slower RAM and had bottlenecks with RAM access as a result, squandering some of the advantage of the faster CPU. It was a bit like adding fast RAM to an A1200 to boost the '020 performance in that regard.

Originally Posted by kremiso

i have discovered BBC computers extremely late;
here in Italy they were sadly almost inexistent at the time

They were mostly used as educational machines in schools in the UK and Ireland - I didn't know anyone at the time who had one at home, but many kids had access to them at school.

[dreadnought]

Spectrum's gfx is not actually that bad as many people imagine. It depends heavily on a game type (apart from, obviously, coder's skills). There are some examples of all-format ports where I'd pick it as the top one, because of the mix of high-res and a reasonably nice & vivid colour palette (even if there were only few of them). In flip-screen action games and adventure/strategy/rpg ones it was often enough.

The infamous colour clash could be a bit of a bummer, but tbh it's a bit overblown these days - back then none of us cared about it - plus it's quite amazing how the devs often managed to work around it (see Dan Dare for example) by using some visual/coding tricks.

[Phantasm]

Sinclair QL anyone

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

I'm incredibly biased by personal history towards the Spectrum.

WALL OF TEXT

Jeepers, nice blog post Ah but you're an export Dutchy, welcome to the family.

[phx]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Sinclair QL anyone

Not sure whether the 68008 qualifies as an 8-bit CPU.

The best 8-bit CPU for me is the 6809. But unfortunately it was always implemented with mediocre hardware (gaming-wise).

[alexh]

Technically wasn't the "best" 8-bit home computer the 1985 Elan Enterprise? Or perhaps the 1988 MSX2+? Perhaps even the 1990 Amstrad CPC+? They each had sophisticated ASIC chips for sound and video making them much better than other 8-bit computers while not quite being as good as 16-bit ones?

[Phantasm]

I don't think there is a single "best".


Depends what you want out of a computer.


BBC was good for learning to program or hardware projects.


Spectrum was cheap.


C64 had nice hardware features and a great sound chip.


others have good and bad points too but I would not say there was any outright winner. Later machines had much less support and lifespan so they are not so great in terms of the software library.

[NorthWay]

Troublesome question as there are plenty of 8-bits released after the day of the 16-bits first appearance.

I'd propose the C=65, but it would probably be disqualified :-)
Failing that, I suspect the Coco-3 is a strong contender, followed by the CPC+ and the MSX2(+) range. The Thomson range (the later ones) are a bit of a dark horse in this race.
Of the older range I think I would nominate the Enterprise.

CPU: 6809
Sound: SID. Some fine effects from POKEY, and the post-AY Yamaha chips are good allrounds too.
Graphics: I think the VIC-II is well balanced (with some clear flaws), the A8 is smart (though limited), the TMS family is lacking for my taste, and the Motorola using ones too.

[UberFreak]

Commodore 128 covers all bases for me.

[Thomas Richter]

I personally liked the Atari 8bits the most. Note that the design predates the C64 by several years, and it was quite forward-looking given that the Amiga has pretty much the same design. The playfield graphics and colors of the Atari are much more flexible than that of the C64, but the sprites (aka player-missles) are lacking. The Atari sound chip is the better effects generator, but the SID in the C64 is the better musical instrument. Clearly, the software library of the C64 is huge.

[twilitezoner]

The Amiga's little brother the Atari 800.

[TEG]

C128! The advantages of the C64 (best sound and graphics capabilities of the 8 bits area) + nice look + great basic + assembler editor + sprites editor + number pad + 128K RAM + 80 columns mode/ANSI support (connection to BBS via DesTerm128) + GEOS 128.

The C64 and so C128 programmes library was huge! No competition available. Lovely machine.

[Gryfon]

Originally Posted by DanScott

Atari 800 XL

Mic drop!

And my personal favourite is the Atari 800XL too. 4 channel POKEY goodness.

[Solo Kazuki]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

I had C64, and enjoyed it very much during my youth, but I never liked it's color palette.

Are You sure palette, not bad output and contrast? I have C64 connected to LCD monitor wit TV capabilities and colours are juicy and with great contrast via S-Video connection. Yellow is yellow like sunflower petals, green is green like fresh leaves, also other colors are like they should be. After years it seems problem with Commodore palette was not palette itself but bad output quality often via RF (to be exact I have this special PCB instead RF modulator) not S-Video.

Palette is like this with lumafix+chromafix.