Best 8-bit computer ?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Solo Kazuki

Palette is like this with lumafix+chromafix.

To be fair, if a hardware modification is needed to get that palette, then it wasn't really the machine's standard output. RF won't help of course, and neither will composite, but that's what we had. Additionally, machines with this method of generating colour (most Commodore and Atari 8-bits) were designed for the NTSC colour system, and PAL machines typically had poorer colours as a result. So, regardless of the reasons behind it, the vast majority of users back in the day had a very muddy and washed out palette.

This palette from Wikipedia is much closer to my experience with the C64:

[Solo Kazuki]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

To be fair, if a hardware modification is needed to get that palette, then it wasn't really the machine's standard output

Yes, it is. You can have same colours without modification when You connect via S-Video and set contrast with saturation on TV to some value. Lumafix+Chromafix mainly remove some poor quality output artifacts, eg stripes or net effect, colour effect is rather minor. People tend to forget that TVs had in majority only one settings to all channels and inputs. While poor contrast and saturation was good to normal TV transmissions often with some noises, it was poor for minor quality C64 output. Now i can have different setting to SCART (named "Game") and different for TV channels (which nowadays are more sharp and better quality). E.g. I have pal who always liked "colourful vision" even for movies, and C64 connected via S-Video had similar colours on his TV.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

That is the 'old' Pepto PAL palette, which has been superseded by his newer, more accurate effort (found here: https://www.colodore.com/). Note that the newer colours in the 'Colodore palette' are less washed out and that they've obtained by measuring several different VIC-II chips. The creator points out these are more accurate than the original measurements.




The Colodore palette is also way closer than the older Pepto palette to how my unmodified C64 looks on my Philips CM8833 with brightness/contrast/saturation at default levels, though it's still a little bit undersaturated by comparison.

Anyway, I never had that washed out experience to begin with because like almost all people I knew who had a C64 (or MSX/Spectrum/whatever), I simply tuned the brightness/contrast/saturation dials on my TV to my liking. For the C64, this meant increasing some sliders a bit to increase saturation. For some friends owning other systems, it meant tuning them down a tad. To me then, the colour argument (both ways) doesn't make much sense because that's what us kids did - change the settings of our TV/monitor to our liking and then there was no problem.

[Daedalus]

If you have to change the contrast and saturation on your TV to get those colours, then again you're not seeing the standard output of the machine. "Colourful vision" like your friend's preference won't be the palette intended by those movie makers either by the same token.

Try a C64 emulator on a calibrated monitor - you'll get a similar palette to the one I posted.

Edit:

Originally Posted by roondar

That is the 'old' Pepto PAL palette, which has been superseded by his newer, more accurate effort (found here: https://www.colodore.com/). Note that the newer colours in the 'Colodore palette' are less washed out and that they've obtained by measuring several different VIC-II chips. The creator points out these are more accurate than the original measurements.

It's still a far cry from the super saturated palette posted previously, and still has the dull character I and many associate with the (PAL) C64.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

If you have to change the contrast and saturation on your TV to get those colours, then again you're not seeing the standard output of the machine. "Colourful vision" like your friend's preference won't be the palette intended by those movie makers either by the same token.

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), nor into the idea that departing from default settings on your TV/monitor is somehow bad (in fact, most TV's/monitors have terrible default settings even to this day and should be adjusted!).

Now these days, with TV's and monitors that actually are vaguely accurate at displaying the colours as recorded, sure, your argument gets a bit more strength and so arguments about say the relative saturation of the two major GPU manufacturers actually have a point. But back then every monitor/TV had it's own 'colour character' and no one really knew about all this 'intended look' stuff.

What I'm trying to point out here is that while emulators are extremely useful and modern screens are very nice, neither of them are an accurate depiction of how people actually used their retro machines back in the day - especially when it comes to how the display ended up looking.

Try a C64 emulator on a calibrated monitor - you'll get a similar palette to the one I posted.

Nobody had a calibrated monitor in the 1980's, that's kind of my point

Edit:

It's still a far cry from the super saturated palette posted previously, and still has the dull character I and many associate with the (PAL) C64.

Certainly, but it's clearly not as washed out as the one you posted either.

Look, this is getting off-topic and I dislike arguing over personal taste. With that in mind: to each their own, I say

I never really had an issue with the C64's colours (on the contrary, I found systems like the Amstrad and Spectrum to have far too much vividness to their colours for my liking), but ultimately that's just personal taste. If you don't like the C64 colours, fair enough.

[dreadnought]

I knew we're going to end up with this old palette chestnut. Commie fans will never yield even an inch, because their machine has to be the best at everything

But the fact of life is that C64 palette was the weakest of the lot - or maybe not even the palette itself, but the devs insistence on over-using the same combo of muddy brown+sickly green in so many titles over and over. That's especially visible in earllier games, but still persists to this day, you can look at Briley Witch for example.
[ Show youtube player ]

For example, MSX had similar palette, and yet its devs were much more adventurous.

If you want to see some real hardware examples, check the C64 section of my CRT project: these are from C64C + Lumafix + a late Sony Trinitron

[roondar]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I knew we're going to end up with this old chestnut. Commie fans will never yield even an inch, because their machine was the best at everything

Yeah, nothing says 'never yielding' like ending the post with "if you don't like the colours, fair enough"

[Daedalus]

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), nor into the idea that departing from default settings on your TV/monitor is somehow bad (in fact, most TV's/monitors have terrible default settings even to this day and should be adjusted!).

Yeah, that's fair enough, and not really what I was trying to say. But the standard output will be reasonably well understood with fairly standardised monitors and TVs being used. And as I said, some of the intent was lost in translation to PAL too, so we got a poorer end result here in Europe.

Having to adjust your TV when you switch from watching TV to using your computer, then adjusting back, would not have been the intention either. I know that would have very much annoyed me (not to mention my parents!) Yes, modern displays should be adjusted (and ideally calibrated), but they're still vaguely in the same area.

Now these days, with TV's and monitors that actually are vaguely accurate at displaying the colours as recorded, sure, your argument gets a bit more strength and so arguments about say the relative saturation of the two major GPU manufacturers actually have a point. But back then every monitor/TV had it's own 'colour character' and no one really knew about all this 'intended look' stuff.

True, but there was still a rough idea of "normal" - you didn't find many people watching TVs with colour so saturated that skin tones looked unnaturally red or glowing, just like you didn't find them looking pale and washed out. They were almost always adjusted to look roughly natural, and that's where you would expect TVs to be if you were creating a device to display on them.

What I'm trying to point out here is that while emulators are extremely useful and modern screens are very nice, neither of them are an accurate depiction of how people actually used their retro machines back in the day - especially when it comes to how the display ended up looking.

Yep, although the creators of emulators of machines with colour like this have to pick arbitrary translations from HSV to RGB, so if you have to pick a point, it makes sense for it to be as close to the average as you could get, not way up at one end of the scale just because some people preferred that.

Nobody had a calibrated monitor in the 1980's, that's kind of my point

Indeed, but at least skin on my TV looked like skin in real life. Not a precise calibration by any means, but as close as most people got to a calibration in the '80s.

Look, this is getting off-topic and I dislike arguing over personal taste. With that in mind: to each their own, I say

Fair enough

I never really had an issue with the C64's colours (on the contrary, I found systems like the Amstrad and Spectrum to have far too much vividness to their colours for my liking), but ultimately that's just personal taste. If you don't like the C64 colours, fair enough.

Indeed, personal taste is a big part of it, but is also a little separate. If you don't like the standard output, then fine, adjust it to your liking. But that's then not the standard output, it's the standard output adjusted to your preference.

Personally, I was a little jealous of the bright primary and secondary colours of the Speccy, and back in the day wondered by the C64 and A8 couldn't do them, but that capability tended to go hand-in-hand with harshness and a lack of subtlety, so I ended up being happy with the trade-off for slightly more natural sky and ground colours and shades of colours in the end.

[Solo Kazuki]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I knew we're going to end up with this old palette chestnut. Commie fans will never yield even an inch, because their machine has to be the best at everything

Never said that, I'm just telling that someone could wrongly get C64 palette because some settings, occurrences and stereotypic opinions.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Having to adjust your TV when you switch from watching TV to using your computer, then adjusting back, would not have been the intention either. I know that would have very much annoyed me (not to mention my parents!)

Ah, I sometimes do forget that not everyone had a TV (or monitor) just for use with their C64 (and later Amiga)

I never used my TV for watching TV (my parents only allowed me a TV in my room on the understanding I would not watch TV on it and thus no cable was provided nor antenna attached - it was strictly for computer use), so I never had that problem. More so because I wasn't allowed to get the C64 within 10 ft of the living room TV either

But yeah, if you do want to use your TV for both watching TV and computer use then yeah, I can see how changing settings all the time would annoying and you might just settle for one 'middle of the road' setup.

[Solo Kazuki]

I'd say it again: I'm just switching my TV Monitor to "game" setting, nothing more.
It's not my fault that it looks like this.

[fxgogo]

I grew up with the C64 and Spectrum 48K, so those do have a particular nostalgia for me. However, I am loving to learn about the machines I did not use. So the Atari's, BBC's and Amstrad's of the world. oh also the Apple's, MSX's....too many, too many...

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by roondar

Yeah, nothing says 'never yielding' like ending the post with "if you don't like the colours, fair enough"

Ah, but you know it's completely different from acknowledging that it might be the machine's weak spot.

And it has nothing to do with changing settings (which are not going to automagically change the colours), monitor types, "realism" and countless other rationalizations. For example, as a Spectrum fan I could say that the lack of proper scrolling was actually beneficial because it made some devs to experiment with other things (hence the birth of isometric games), but that won't stop me from admitting it really was a hardware shortcoming.

Anyway, the easiest test is to take somebody who unlike us is unbiased towards this subject and show them the parrots from that 8-bit gfx Wikipedia page. See which one they would prefer for their gaming machine




I'll leave it at that because there's indeed no point in arguing about this for more than a couple of posts.

[grond]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

For example, as a Spectrum fan I could say that the lack of proper scrolling was actually beneficial because it made some devs to experiment with other things (hence the birth of isometric games), but that won't stop me from admitting it really was a hardware shortcoming.

Well, the lack of scrolling can't be attributed to taste. The hardware can either do it or it can't.

Anyway, the easiest test is to take somebody who unlike us is unbiased towards this subject and show them the parrots from that 8-bit gfx Wikipedia page. See which one they would prefer for their gaming machine

This test doesn't really have much significance because nobody used 8bit machines to display colour photographs and wanted them to look as natural as possible. And even if: how would the other computers have fared if the photograph hadn't been a colourful parrot?

But yes, the C=64 palette wasn't very good and C=64 graphics are certainly very recognisable. It didn't bother me at all, though. What counted was that there were plenty of fun games. Of course, I wonder today how many of those games could actually be any fun to my 12-14yo self.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Ah, but you know it's completely different from acknowledging that it might be the machine's weak spot.

My post was meant to be about two things:

1) people using a particular C64 palette which is not a very good match to the real system (it is in fact even less vivid than the system really outputs) and then using that to underscore their point. Your C64 example pictures in the .ZIP file on archive.org you linked to shows the exact same thing I'm saying - they're clearly more vivid than the palette used by emulators. It is in fact one of my 'pet-peeves' of C64 emulation, it generally doesn't really look like what I used to see on my screen back in the day, nor even today (my CM8833 is not set up to favour the C64, it's set up for Amiga use and it's colours when using the C64 still look nicer than emulators).

2) as far as I remember it, no one really cared about any of this back in the day and/or just set up their monitors/TV's to suit whatever they were watching/using. Hence my comment about changing settings.

It really never was about the C64 being 'best' at anything. I thought my other post in this thread had already made clear I don't think you can get an honest answer about that.

[indigolemon]

A thread like this is going to be utterly subjective, because no matter how hard we try, everyone will be allowing a little bit of nostalgia to creep in to their answers.

So with that in mind, I'm going to be really controversial and say the Commodore Plus/4 - purely because it was my first Computer that was mine. Plus 121 colours onscreen at once or something

[roondar]

Originally Posted by indigolemon

A thread like this is going to be utterly subjective, because no matter how hard we try, everyone will be allowing a little bit of nostalgia to creep in to their answers.

So with that in mind, I'm going to be really controversial and say the Commodore Plus/4 - purely because it was my first Computer that was mine. Plus 121 colours onscreen at once or something

I've always been a bit of closet Plus/4 fan. Back in the day, magazines used to print listings and the Plus/4 ones were so much nicer (better basic than the C64 for sure - though that was perhaps not a challenge ) and it had all those colours... (seven shades of black, oooh yeah!)

Only later did I understand it also missed out some stuff compared to my C64.

[grond]

Yeah, I would try to persuade the C=64 kids (and myself) that the better basic of the 264 series and the 121 colours actually meant anything (and let's not forget the other two killer features, the built-in hex editor and the reset button). Without sprites and a proper sound chip, the 264s weren't a good machine for gaming. No basic could compensate for that.

[indigolemon]

Originally Posted by grond

Yeah, I would try to persuade the C=64 kids (and myself) that the better basic of the 264 series and the 121 colours actually meant anything (and let's not forget the other two killer features, the built-in hex editor and the reset button). Without sprites and a proper sound chip, the 264s weren't a good machine for gaming. No basic could compensate for that.

Between that, and the 'lowest common denominator' target meaning most games were aimed at the 16k the C16 provided, it did get a little short changed.

More recent games have proved it was a fairly capable platform, even despite the shortcomings:
[ Show youtube player ]

[clebin]

The Spectrum is my first love and will always get my vote. It's the least powerful but succeeds against all the odds - a machine of great personality, the plucky little underdog that drove the birth of the British game industry in my favourite era, from 1982 to 86.

I've tried to get excited about the C64, but I'm not keen on the graphics, the machine itself is ugly and so despite being a power-house, I just can't fall in love with it. Except for the SID chip of course, which is just... wow. I've become quite fond of the Atari 8-bits, although they have much the same palette problem as the C64, just with a gazillion shades of off-beige to choose from.

The CPC is a wonderful machine with a wide, vibrant palette that really deserved better than the lazy Spectrum ports it often got. If it had received the care and attention it deserved, I think it would've outshone everything else.