Best 8-bit computer ?

[AmiBoy]

I really liked the CPC6128 was a wonderful machine.

[grond]

Originally Posted by clebin

with a gazillion shades of off-beige to choose from

Thinking about the many things that were beige in the late 70s and early 80s (including computer cases), I wonder whether that was actually considered a plus in the computers of the period.

[Rissol]

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48

[Macca]

I had a few 8 bit machines but the one most used was the C64 by far. I loved the Spectrum but the C64 was far superior. The sound, music and graphics were just so much better whilst the games largely cost the same.

Coupled with Zzap 64 / Commodore Format you'd have a few 'free' games every month.



M.

[masteries]

MSX2, its the best balanced; due to its good sprites capabilities (up to 32 sprites at once, 8 per horizontal line).
And its vertical and horizontal scroll (horizontal scroll needs some tricks, but it can be done very smoothly).


While SAM coupé is the best if you take into account only memory size and CPU performance.

[Axxy]

For me, it started with the Spectrum 48k and ended with the +3. Rubbish sound, colour clash et all, but gaming started here for me, not just in the arcades. Everyone I knew had a speccy. The only time I saw the C64, was when someone chucked a cassette (might have been Sherlock??) in, we waited for half an hour, only for it to crash, whatever.... Speccy would do it as well.

[Titler]

Originally Posted by grond

Certainly not. I only got a C=16 because I couldn't afford a C=64. The C=16 was a big let-down. If I ever meet the person responsible for the C=16 port of Yie-Ar Kung Fu, I'll punch him in the face. I think I saved my pocket money for five months to buy the game. And it probably took as long to believe what a rip-off it was.

Yup; although maybe the C16 taught us all humility and honesty! It was our first family computer too (although we'd played with the Dragon 32 at our grandparents) and whilst there were some good games and conversions (Thrust comes to mind) all honest C16 users knew it was a poor machine. Especially because it's fellow budget machine, the Plus 4 urinated all over it.

I'll always remember it fondly, so many formative evenings as a child with the C16 and I still dig the emulator out now and then, but at the same time I also remember experiencing just how behind we were compared to what our friends had; going to a C64 owners home for instance and not just being blown away by the theme music to Bubble Bobble, but realising there wasn't even a version for C16 at all, despite getting teased by adverts there might one day be.

[aeberbach]

If you wanted arcade games Atari was the clear winner. Best Defender, best Pac-Man, and Star Raiders of course, plus many more. I had a 400 - horrible membrane keyboard!

The computer I really wanted was an Apple IIe but their pricing was just ridiculous in the 80s. No way was Dad going to see that $2000+ was a good deal for a computer, nobody understood how important they would become.

[Retro1234]

Great times really. Everyone had different machines and different game collections.

[gimbal]

Very true. Hence I can't make a choice between MSX and C64, they were both damned good in their own rights with completely unique (and huge) game libraries.

If I look at it from a retro gaming perspective I am more drawn to the MSX since those games were truly unique; C64 games tend to have Amiga versions which I will prefer. With notable exceptions of course. So in hindsight I might call the MSX the winner. But at the time, they were both spectacular.

[phx]

Originally Posted by Axxy

Everyone I knew had a speccy.

It's interesting that the dominant home computing system during the 80s and 90s was always also based on the country you're living it. In Germany the Speccy was nearly non-existent.

In Britain the Spectrum was strong, in Germany, Benelux and Scandinavia the C64, in Spain and France the CPC, not sure about Italy...

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by roondar

I don't really buy into the idea that 1980's computers had an intended palette (in the sense that the creators had a strong vision regarding how the colours ought to look on screen)

And you shouldn't, because the palettes were more a result of hardware limitations than 'intentions'.

Most systems were very constrained by having to make the hardware simple and affordable. Digital RGB (BBC micro etc.) only gives you 8 fully saturated colors. Adding a brightness bit gives you the same colors, but darker (ZX Spectrum etc.). The Amstrad CPC got 3 levels per 'gun' (R/G/B) by using tri-stated digital outputs to produce 27 colours, but without any freedom to choose what those colors would be.

If the colors are generated by phase shifting the color subcarrier for composite output then even angles give you a rather odd palette (Mattel Aquarius, Timex-Sinclair, Tandy Color Computer etc.). Phase angle and/or amplitude can be tweaked to give a more pleasing palette (C64, MSX etc.) but makes the encoding circuitry more complex.

The Amiga was the first home computer with enough colors that you could have virtually anything you wanted without limitation.

[Retro1234]

One of my fondest memories of the era was going round to a school friends house and they had a different computer and a game I had never played before.

A lot of opinions have been based on games but these computers also had serious uses and differences in BASIC etc.

I always found the ZX version of BASIC quite unique and there hasn't been much mention of the +2 and +3 great computers with distinctive looks.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

One of my fondest memories of the era was going round to a school friends house and they had a different computer and a game I had never played before.

A lot of opinions have been based on games but these computers also had serious uses and differences in BASIC etc.

I always found the ZX version of BASIC quite unique and there hasn't been much mention of the +2 and +3 great computers with distinctive looks.

+3 was just a spectrum in amstrad cps 464 case wasn't it ? after Amstrad bought them out ?

[dreadnought]

+2 isn't really that great looking, ditto CPC 464. Built-in tape decks are anything but sexy (yes, yes, IMHO

The 6128-look on the other hand is one of my favourites from that era.

[manossg]

Although I am an Amstrad guy, it pains me to say that, despite the muddy graphics, C64 was king back in the day, because of the overall software library, smoothness and polish of the games and Amstrad was the poor, third cousin.

But I am happy to say that after 2005 or so, the Amstrad takes the first place for me.

I am also amazed by the MSX2 and the capabilities of the Atari 8-bits, systems I have only recently come to know and appreciate.

[clebin]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

+3 was just a spectrum in amstrad cps 464 case wasn't it ? after Amstrad bought them out ?

You're right about the Amstrad buy-out, but you're probably thinking of the +2, which is the one with the tape recorder. Same all-in-one concept as the 464 but the +2 is considerably smaller in the flesh. The CPC goes on for miiiiles!

[Nishicorn]

No such thing as a 'best 8-bit computer'.

Now, hear me out.

What I mean is, there is a case to be made for various platforms, and we all know in our heart of hearts that, for example, Commodore 64 deserved its top place as the most popular machine, but when we think of the BEST, we have to know how 'best' is defined.

Is most popular the best? Is the one with most games the best? The one with best games? Best demos? Technically most capable in this or that area - which areas, and why those areas?

As you can see, it's not easy to objectively pick 'the best', because a computer can be not only valued, but evaluated in so many ways, levels, and for so many different reasons, plus you can do it from many different starting points, viewpoints, standpoints, and who knows what other points, it boggles the mind.

In my opinion, there IS no 'best', because many 8-bit systems can be said to be the best in some area, and none of them is 'fully best in all areas'.

These systems and their capabilities (if that IS what we're even going for) somewhat overlap, too, which confuses the thing more. With some games it might be a matter of opinion; is Atari 8-bit version of Boulder Dash or Dropzone better than some other version? To some people, it is. To others, there's not enough difference to be able to come to any solid conclusion. Maybe to somen, there are better versions.

This kind of things quickly devolve into 'matter of opinion' that's colored by nostalgy and heated passion that might distort things a bit, so I don't think there will ever be 100% concensus as to what 'absolute best' is, people can love even an inferior machine more than a superior one, so they would choose the inferior one, whether justly or unjustly.

I mean, MSX had the best Gradius games and other good qualities, Spectravideo SVI-728 is the most beautiful computer to my eyes, Atari 800 has a massive amount of colors and offers the best versions of many games, playing Rescue on Fractalus on it is a BLAST, and I can never get enough. VIC-20 has the quirkiest noise wave I have ever heard, creating an amazing personality. Amstrad CPC is the quirkiest-looking system with neat color palette, Spectrum has incredible loading pictures and for such a simple machine, it offers amazing games and software. BBC Micro has the best version of Chuckie Egg (I never knew just how good this game is until I played the BBC Micro version)..

You can go on forever when you take it like this; each system has -something- unique and amazing to offer, so putting these computers to compete against each other is akin to owning lots of beautiful, unique birds and putting them in a cage to fight against each other. It's more fun to appreciate them than to make them fight in my opinion.

We can even add the 8-bit consoles, like the japanese Famicom, that actually offers unique and interesting features that are missing in the western NES, like Konami's extra sound chip in some of their games (other companies did this kind of enhancement, too!), a microphone in the controller that you can use, for example, in the Zelda games, and really cool style.

Then there's of course the PC Engine, that I could write books about and still not have said all I want to say about this miraculous little machine that truly fascinates me. Its sound chip is weird, because it's both better and worse than the C64's SID, for example. On one hand, it has 'customizable waveforms', so you can get all kinds of weird sounds out of it relatively easily - but then, sweeping is very cumbersome and difficult to do, and that is so easy on the SID side. You can easily use good quality samples and it has six (6) channels, but on the other hand, you have to sacrifice a whole channel for the samples, and can't use that channel simultaneously for the synth stuff.

Of course it might be one of the only systems ever that are 8-bit that have a CD-ROM addon that has a big amount of games made for it.

The best 8-bit? I think it's not a fair question, let each system thrive and be admired and respected for it is, and adored and admired in the process. Nothing beats SVI-728's beauty, but nothing also beats the SID, just like nothing beats Atari 8-bits' color amount and Rescue on Fractalus.

My verdict is: any system that you can have fun with is the best system in its own way. They are all the best.

[kremiso]

Originally Posted by phx

It's interesting that the dominant home computing system during the 80s and 90s was always also based on the country you're living it. In Germany the Speccy was nearly non-existent.

In Britain the Spectrum was strong, in Germany, Benelux and Scandinavia the C64, in Spain and France the CPC, not sure about Italy...

+1
The place where each of us was born has certainly conditioned our hw choices, back in the day.
Italy ? 80% c64, 10% Spectrum, 10% all the rest (more or less, if not 90% 5% 5%)

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The Amiga was the first home computer with enough colors that you could have virtually anything you wanted without limitation.

Not quite. The Atari already had a palette of 256 (or 128, in regular modes) colors. 15 hue angles, one without hue, and 8 (or 16) brightness levels, so it was plenty. The problem was that graphic modes were restricted to four (or sometimes five) colors per line, plus some special modes - but there was no "color RAM" as in the C64.


Using DLI tricks (something that became the Copper in the Amiga) you could get more colorful screens.