Perhaps this is why the Sinclair computers were crushed by Commodore early in the UK?

[Photon]

I just replied to a video regarding the price wars - I think the Spectrum was very popular in the UK in 1982-1985, and initially there was a quite big price gap - enough for CBM to scrap the VIC-10 and the VIC-30 (that were intended to fill all price groups), and instead cut the price of the C64 in half, eventually.

Regarding the linked video:
The tape recorder for ZX Spectrum wasn't really necessary, because I think all home computer owners (and many others) had a "mic and ear jack" tape recorder which was standard for the day, even for playing music. Whereas the C64 had a proprietary cassette interface, and you had to buy the CBM tapedeck which could not be used for music. That did feel a bit old and "PET stuffy".

The Spectrum on the other hand didn't have joystick support, so you had to buy a joystick interface extra for that one, which occupied the expansion port. In autumn 1984, the price difference between a tape deck and joystick interface was only 33 GBP. But it might have been bigger initially, and also the computer cost.

The joystick and TV are the same, so they can ofc be ignored.

The C64 was ~4500 SEK and 48K Spectrum ~2500 SEK circa 1985 in Sweden IIRC. But that's not the UK.

I think competition is great. Without the ZX Spectrum, probably fewer would have been able to buy the C64, because even if you got a lot more for your money, it was out of range for many 10-15yos, and I think was the largest target audience in 1982-1985.

But there was also the MSX, which I think was much more equal to the C64 with a real keyboard, no tape or joystick port blocking the expansion port, 3+1 channel sound chip, joystick support, but unfortunately custom tapedeck. In those days, I got a Spectravideo (what MSX would become) and then an MSX. Both were better than the Spectrum in all regards, and better than the C64 for serious use, with the price with tapedeck closer to Spectrum than C64.

I think there were big deals being made on RAM, and Sinclair got a deal in early, I think, or else the Spectrum would not have been as competitive as it was.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Dunny

C64 BASIC was abysmal. That's pretty much common knowledge.

I never got that...
Yes, there were better BASICs out there.
Yes, you had to use the POKE command to play with sound/graphics...

It wasn't a great BASIC.

But that doesn't (IMHO) make it abysmal at all...

Editing was super simple.
It was easy to learn.
It was reasonably fast at the time compared to other BASICs...

I thought it was a fine BASIC.

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Sinclair BASIC was bloody good though, and C64 BASIC was abysmal. That's pretty much common knowledge.

Now it's just your ZX Spectrum bias showing, let's be honest. The Commodore 64's basic was still pretty decent, you just had to use lots of POKEs and PEEKs

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Cris1997XX

Now it's just your ZX Spectrum bias showing, let's be honest. The Commodore 64's basic was still pretty decent, you just had to use lots of POKEs and PEEKs

And POKE invoking PEEKS, like in the change character set or graphic mode -_-

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Photon

I
But there was also the MSX, which I think was much more equal to the C64 with a real keyboard, no tape or joystick port blocking the expansion port, 3+1 channel sound chip, joystick support, but unfortunately custom tapedeck. In those days, I got a Spectravideo (what MSX would become) and then an MSX. Both were better than the Spectrum in all regards, and better than the C64 for serious use, with the price with tapedeck closer to Spectrum than C64.

I think there were big deals being made on RAM, and Sinclair got a deal in early, I think, or else the Spectrum would not have been as competitive as it was.

MSX machines in the UK were expensive in comparison to the Spectrum and C64, even the CPC with green monitor was cheaper than most MSX models which were £280-£300 in 1984.

Had MSX machines been quick to reduce prices they may have got some market share in the UK, by late 1985 it was pretty much game over as the main 3 controlled the market for the next 5 years.

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

MSX machines in the UK were expensive in comparison to the Spectrum and C64, even the CPC with green monitor was cheaper than most MSX models which were £280-£300 in 1984.

Had MSX machines been quick to reduce prices they may have got some market share in the UK, by late 1985 it was pretty much game over as the main 3 controlled the market for the next 5 years.

Sad thing is, the MSX wasn't even a bad machine. MSX2 models were roughly comparable with the NES and Master System in terms of graphics (Except with crappy horizontal scrolling), with tons of audio and expansion options. It also got the support of many famous Japanese developers, a real shame it didn't last into the 90s...

[Photon]

Sinclair BASIC was kind of bound to the imprinted keywords on the keys, and it was rather limited. You would think pressing a key to get a whole word would speed up programming, but it didn't turn out that way, unless you coded daily and remembered the hunt and peck.

Instead of keywords, C64 BASIC supported abbreviations which used the PETSCII characters, which made entering BASIC listings very special on the magazines and the programmer. This worked fine if you were the creator of the program, but...

C64 BASIC is limited and backwards. All the other BASICs had commands to draw stuff on the screen at this time. This is very powerful, slow as it is. The BBC was also backwards in this regard and had a generic PLOT command.

A good test for a BASIC is to draw an ellipse.

If writing the code for it looks not cryptic and is short, then some work has gone into it; there will be some internal calculation routines that would otherwise be up to many lines of calculation you would do yourself.

Now, MSX had this and could read joysticks without PEEKS or special code. Microsoft has their name branded on many 8-bit BASICs. It's important to understand that Microsoft as always (in an effort to monopolize a licensed product from open source, as today) left many dialects in various stages of ruin as they saw fit.

With MSX, they sought to force their branded BASIC to be licensed with every computer (as with Windows and every PC today).

BASIC was open source, and they just took it and released it as a product, with minor adaptations to each computer. Today, they hope to monopolize open source as well, and also seek to limit all free development for Windows. There is a great comparison to make between Microsoft and a virus. It parasites, paralyses, and eliminates all industry, ideas, and commercial competitive endeavors, while contributing nothing.

Therefore I prefer competitive dialects, and especially Acorn/BBC BASIC and later versions which are logical and optimized, as opposed to the assimilation of routines made by others. C64 BASIC is a freaky one, but Microsoft really showed that they can't code with their version that was shipped with some Amigas. Maybe it was on purpose; to buy time while taking 10 years to write a crashy GUI OS.

So they made the C64 BASIC crap because of a future deal with MSX computer makers.

It's really sad to be logical and see all these simple, oafish plans work out. Remember, you only have to be an asshole reared by a lawyer, and the world will be yours. You won't need to know a thing, except how to be an asshole in the most effective and maximized way possible.

What you should not want, it seems, is to make the best software product possible. For as long as there is room for evil corporations to force their will, your talent and work will result in a world of hurt, and your efforts buried and forgotten.

The answer is equally logical, if you do not accept this. If resistance is futile, there is only resistance.

I will be coding a programming language for the Amiga.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Photon

A good test for a BASIC is to draw an ellipse.

To be honest, I can't think of many BASIC programs I used or wrote that drew an ellipse. ;-)

[Photon]

Originally Posted by desiv

To be honest, I can't think of many BASIC programs I used or wrote that drew an ellipse. ;-)

Well, someone else wrote the code and Microsoft ported it and sold it, you can hear Bill Gates, who couldn't code it, laughing "what a sucker!!". This sucker would be someone like Jack Elton Bresenham, who developed 9 patents and taught at University. What a score for a dropout who still doesn't have a degree in anything except being a very lucky asshole.

Obviously if you could steal the code like him, you wouldn't pay for that function. Enter the birth of the middleman (you know him from all the corporations). They want to be in the middle and do as little as possible to compete, and as much as possible to kill all competition.

A tiny bit of code to warn everyone from any software that is not from your 'Store pays huge dividends. No matter if they could deliver any of the software, they don't care at all about your needs. It's instead to create a vaporware phantasm need for the middleman. Classic. Next, remove the ability from your OS to run any software (which is its only function and reason for existing), and forbid it and call it side-loading. Now, you really need the know-nothing middleman!

Except giving in will turn you even more into their slave. There is only resistance.

Microsoft got in your 8-bit ROMs, and spread like a virus. Let's burn some new ones.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by desiv

I never got that...
Yes, there were better BASICs out there.
Yes, you had to use the POKE command to play with sound/graphics...

It wasn't a great BASIC.

Sinclair BASIC wasn't great either, but it did have one thing going for it - it wasn't written by Microsoft.

For me the Spectrum was a logical step up from the ZX81. It addressed all the ZX81's failings, including a much faster cassette tape interface that was the most reliable of any home computer I have used.

I bought my 16k ZX Spectrum second-hand for NZ$200, then upgraded it to 96k using 64k DRAMs, made an interface with joystick and printer ports, and later got a DISCiPLE disk drive interface with 3.5" drive. This was my main computer system until 1985 when I bought an Amstrad CPC664.

In more recent times I bought a Spectrum +3 off eBay. The +3 was my first 'retro' purchase (these were never sold in New Zealand which is why I didn't have one 'back in the day'). I had hoped to rekindle my love for the speccy, but this didn't happen because I hated the 'improved' editing system and the disk drive doesn't work in 48k mode (that was one reason. The other is that when you have an Amiga every other home computer pales in comparison).

In New Zealand the Spectrum was much cheaper than the C64. The excellent tape interface worked with any cassette recorder (which everyone had back then) and was almost as fast as a C64 floppy disk drive. It didn't have the hardware scrolling, sprites and awesome sound of the C64, but it had sharper graphics and many great playable games. Ironically the speccy's less sophisticated hardware encouraged programmers to create more interesting titles.

[NorthWay]

Originally Posted by Photon

The C64 was ~4500 SEK [...] circa 1985 in Sweden IIRC.

Are you sure about that? The C= 64 dropped to 3000 NOK in 1984 which was when it exploded in the Norwegian market. I think near half my class had one at that time.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Photon

Well, someone else wrote the code and Microsoft ported it and sold it, you can hear Bill Gates, who couldn't code it, laughing "what a sucker!!". This sucker would be someone like Jack Elton Bresenham, who developed 9 patents and taught at University. What a score for a dropout who still doesn't have a degree in anything except being a very lucky asshole.

Obviously if you could steal the code like him, you wouldn't pay for that function. Enter the birth of the middleman (you know him from all the corporations). They want to be in the middle and do as little as possible to compete, and as much as possible to kill all competition.

A tiny bit of code to warn everyone from any software that is not from your 'Store pays huge dividends. No matter if they could deliver any of the software, they don't care at all about your needs. It's instead to create a vaporware phantasm need for the middleman. Classic. Next, remove the ability from your OS to run any software (which is its only function and reason for existing), and forbid it and call it side-loading. Now, you really need the know-nothing middleman!

Except giving in will turn you even more into their slave. There is only resistance.

Wow, that's quite a rant.

The truth is, computer manufacturers made Microsoft what it is today. This started in the early days when they couldn't be bothered writing their own OS and licensed Microsoft's BASIC instead. They created the monster.

I give full credit to Allen and Gates for creating the first BASIC for home computers. That wasn't just luck, it was hard work. They didn't steal any code, but many stole from them.

Fifty Years of BASIC

when a New Mexico model rocket company called MITS launched the Altair 8800, the $497 build-it-yourself microcomputer... was huge news among the small number of people who could be called computer nerds at the time—people like Paul Allen, who was working as a programmer for Honeywell in Boston...

“Monte Davidoff, who helped me and Bill write BASIC for the Altair, once said programming was like writing a novel,” Allen says. “That’s how we approached BASIC. We started with a plot of sorts to know the general approach we were taking. We broke the big ideas into sections, or chapters, and then we’d edit and re-edit and keep editing until we had preserved the big picture and fixed all the bugs. It was the hardest but most enjoyable work I’ve ever done"...

Allen and Gates’ BASIC partnership became a company, known at first as Micro-Soft. They licensed the language to MITS, which sold it for a hefty $500, marked down to $75 if you bought it bundled with Altair hardware. Or you could get it for free by pirating it—something that so many early microcomputer owners did that Gates wrote a legendary open letter bemoaning the rampant theft of Micro-Soft’s intellectual property.

I also give full credit to Sinclair, Amstrad, Acorn, Ti and others who created their own BASIC rather than be lazy middlemen who handed the keys of monopoly over to Microsoft.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by NorthWay

Are you sure about that? The C= 64 dropped to 3000 NOK in 1984 which was when it exploded in the Norwegian market. I think near half my class had one at that time.

How much was that roughly in USD at that time? The C64 price from 1986 in Germany that I posted would be around 230 USD.

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

The Spectrum had so much more software available in the UK than the C64 at this point too, and had its advantages for some types of games and software. If the real-world price gap was so small, why were Spectrums still selling comparably to C64s in 1984?

In 1984 people who were buying computers in the UK would look at what the costs are and how they'd be used. Plenty of early Speccy owners connected them to black and white mono TVs. The Spectrum was a huge hit because it was affordable and good enough to be useable. Sinclair's problem was always Clive Sinclair. He funded both the QL and C5 with money from other products, but didn't do any market research (at least for the C5) before manufacturing and almost bankrupted an otherwise profitable company. It didn't matter how well the Spectrum was selling, Clive Sinclair would've found a way to torpedo it.

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

The updated Spectrums definitely kept the machine viable, first the Plus with a proper keyboard in time for Christmas 1984 (£129.99 in early 1985), then the 128K models (£179.99 on launch in early 1986) with extra memory and improved sound, and later inbuilt tape (or disk) drivesa and joystick ports, whereas the C64 was unchanged for its whole decade.

I get what you're saying, but the C64's big upgrade was the C128. I get that it can be seen as a completely different computer (or several computers tbh), but it was aimed at a completely different market. The +128k and +2/+3 models that followed were significant upgrades to the Spectrum at the right time to become cost reduced but still viable later. I sincerely doubt the Spectrum would've made it to 1992 in beloved 48k rubber key beeper form. Both the C64 and Speccy were lovely systems though in their own ways.

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

With its bright primary colours and jolly sound the C64 had a good second life here as a cheap beginners' computer, something isometric monochrome games were never going to do.

The C64 always felt more pastel-coloured than primary to me, whereas the Spectrum palette was much more straight RGB-based. There was an old saying probably long forgotten amongst spec-chums, "The grass is always browner on the other side" (Spectrums have no brown, but the speccy green is *very* green). But you're right - the C64 did have a good second life as a beginner's computer - the Ocean bundles no doubt helped (as they shifted Amiga 500s too).

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Cris1997XX

Now it's just your ZX Spectrum bias showing, let's be honest. The Commodore 64's basic was still pretty decent, you just had to use lots of POKEs and PEEKs

I know, right? I've been into the C64 scene for a while now since I grew up

But yes I have a somewhat Sinclair bias; so much so I ported and enhanced the BASIC for PCs. I really do love it that much.

[ImmortalA1000]

Well as Commodore's own game carts were only £15 in the UK, half the price of VCS/Coleco/Mattel games carts, you could argue the C2N tape deck was an optional extra too, I didn't go that far.

The price for the TV is based on the TV I got for Xmas 1983 which did indeed cost £100 and was push button channel selectors so not bottom end rotary dial etc. I'd use that actual model but there has never been an image of my Triumph TV (rebadged Grundig TV from Germany I think and so actually a very good CRT tube). I have been very generous for the TV price, the second largest chunk of the budget.

These tape decks were not that common, I never knew anybody who had one of these 'laying about the house' they were more likely to have a boom box. Either way if you were buying 'little Johnny' a computer you needed a TV for his room, a tape deck for his Spectrum and an interface for the joystick so he could play games when he, ahem, finished doing his homework on his home computer. Ditto unless you are giving little Johnny a music centre/old hi-fi to put in his room that argument doesn't count. This is the minimum spec to set your kid(s) up in the fantastical new world of home computing in their room not the absolute minimum way to get into the market just to play video games at home (which would be a Colecovision for £60 less than a £160 Speccy/£200 C64 here in 1984 plugged into the family TV in the lounge of course). VCS and Intellivision can not do remotely C64 quality games but sure they were an option too and Vanguard and Phoenix although expensive at £30 each were easily better than anything a Speccy could do in 1984. Pheenix is not bad for a Speccy or C16 but it's not the 50/60fps experience of VCS Phoenix, which also looks/sounds better so it was still an option.

The prices for computer hardware are all from the 1st August onward 1984 Argos catalogue, a high street discount retailer with many many stores all over the UK. The prices felt wrong to me but they are from the same catalogue that was scanned. Ditto the tape deck is £5 more than the cheapest going but looking at those brands you know they are not going to be loading bugger all a couple of years later, my C2N from my 1983 VIC-20 starter pack was still reliably loading cover tapes off magazines in 1989 or 1990 (what year was the Bubble Bobble C64 demo covertape?) so even that is being generous. You get what you pay for, like it or lump it the C2N is actually a well designed bit of kit that just worked. You would probably need a Sony or Panasonic tape deck to rival that and they were actually £40ish so I have been more than generous. Another thing to remember is these tape games are all recorded in mono, stereo tape heads reading mono computer data are hit and miss, not a good reliable prospect even when new.

I had assumed the 48k Speccy, which was £175 in 1982, was reduced to the price of the £125 16kb Speccy when that was discontinued, possibly in 1983, but either way you could get all the computers cheaper if you shopped around, especially via small adds for mail order companies inside CVG magazine but that's not the point of the video, the video is trying to answer why sales of the C64 overtook the Spectrum by 1984, which is a known fact not some wikipedia myth.

It's no fanboy video, actually it's a video effect I dreamt up looking for a project, all the prices are factual from period correct identical catalogues, adverts, real world experience of purchasing a TV around this time etc etc. It is also a fact sales of the VIC-20 and C64 were ahead of the ZX81 and Spectrum in 1984. I checked 3 months of magazines after that news item was run in an issue of said magazine and there was no rebuttal by Sinclair and the fact was never withdrawn from print in later issues. That's really why the video exists, too many "patreon tits' on YT start with 'ZX Spectrum massively outsold the C64 in the UK throughout most of the 80s" which is wrong. I think 1985 was slump in sales of micros in the UK but not software. You can also look up charts and see sometimes C64 only games were outselling multiformat releases at the top of the chart early on too. It's nothing like the "patreon tits' and "wikipedia wallies" tell you but hey if you like those useless YT channels feel free to ignore my videos/posts on here lol I made the video because I had already done the effect and worked out all the technical problems in 2 isolated videos for another idea I had. The CPC vs C64 has been done and so has the Coleco vs C64 issue.

This magazine is also how I found out once and for all exactly when the PAL C64 went on sale in the UK (a very limited quantity was shipped from Commodore UK to dealers on 19th Nov 1982 stated in a news item in the same Popular Computing Weekly).

The C64 was so popular it pretty much consumed as much manufacturing capacity as Commodore could generate, the production lines were run from the start of 82 before the Summer launch, the VIC-20 was always a stop gap and there was no point causing a demand/supply issue for prospective C64 purchasers to manufacture the VIC-20 once the VIC-20 had served its purpose. The C64 was a juggernaut of a product and Commodore gave it maximum priority for production for good reason, it would not stop selling under the helm of Jack Tramiel's genius management. By the time the Coleco was finally put to be the C64 had outsold it like PS1 vs 3DO levels of sales/market interest despite being £100-150 more for the computer alone in the EU for half that time

Can I be bothered to trawl through 50 issues of 1983-1984 Popular Computing Weekly scans again to recover the exact lost scanned news page that is now in digital heaven along with the rest of the contents of my other PC all this stuff was on to get the exact date this happened?.....I'll let you decide on that one

[Dunny]

Well yeah but that's just your opinion, my dude. I think the comments in this thread show that your version of history isn't what was lived by the rest of us

[Megalomaniac]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Either way if you were buying 'little Johnny' a computer you needed a TV for his room, a tape deck for his Spectrum and an interface for the joystick so he could play games when he, ahem, finished doing his homework on his home computer. Ditto unless you are giving little Johnny a music centre/old hi-fi to put in his room that argument doesn't count. This is the minimum spec to set your kid(s) up in the fantastical new world of home computing in their room

It is also a fact sales of the VIC-20 and C64 were ahead of the ZX81 and Spectrum in 1984.

But is it a fact that sales of the C64 were ahead of the Spectrum in 1984? The Vic-20 stayed viable later than the ZX81, so maybe the Vic-20 sold (say) 30,000 more but the Spectrum sold 25,000 more? Do we know whether the later launches of the different Spectrum models changed things later? The C128 certainly did next to nothing as a home system.

It's worth reiterating that a joystick and joystick interface (needed to use joysticks on Spectrums until the +2 in 1987) were a luxury extra for the Spectrum, and as mentioned not everybody had them, because Spectrum games were designed around being playable by keyboard, often redefinable. At the least, you could certainly get little Johnny a Spectrum for his birthday, then the joystick for Christmas. Also, you needed an even-more-expensive disk drive for the C64 to be able to play everything (and improve loading speed). Cheap tape units, especially mono ones, could be more reliable for loading software than expensive software, and it seems like some C2Ns were a lot better than others. And, if you'd had a non-Commodore computer before getting a Spectrum, you probably already had a suitable tape deck.

[Megalomaniac]

Originally Posted by stevelord

In 1984 people who were buying computers in the UK would look at what the costs are and how they'd be used. Plenty of early Speccy owners connected them to black and white mono TVs. The Spectrum was a huge hit because it was affordable and good enough to be useable. Sinclair's problem was always Clive Sinclair. He funded both the QL and C5 with money from other products, but didn't do any market research (at least for the C5) before manufacturing and almost bankrupted an otherwise profitable company. It didn't matter how well the Spectrum was selling, Clive Sinclair would've found a way to torpedo it.

I get what you're saying, but the C64's big upgrade was the C128. I get that it can be seen as a completely different computer (or several computers tbh), but it was aimed at a completely different market. The +128k and +2/+3 models that followed were significant upgrades to the Spectrum at the right time to become cost reduced but still viable later. I sincerely doubt the Spectrum would've made it to 1992 in beloved 48k rubber key beeper form. Both the C64 and Speccy were lovely systems though in their own ways.

The C64 always felt more pastel-coloured than primary to me, whereas the Spectrum palette was much more straight RGB-based. There was an old saying probably long forgotten amongst spec-chums, "The grass is always browner on the other side" (Spectrums have no brown, but the speccy green is *very* green). But you're right - the C64 did have a good second life as a beginner's computer - the Ocean bundles no doubt helped (as they shifted Amiga 500s too).

Clive's later ideas were great (the big flops were an electric car and a handheld TV, though both very different to what we buy now), but the technology generally wasn't there to do them to a marketable quality at a mass-market price. He didn't have the business sense of Alan Sugar, that's for sure, he was a very British eccentric, maybe a bit stubborn.

C64 games did use a lot of brown, certainly more than any of the other 7 colours it had that the Spectrum didn't, but its not as off-putting as the Spectrum's magenta, especially for a monochrome play area. I hated it so much when you completed a level and your 'reward' was a level in that ghastly eye-searing colour....

The C128 didn't sell well enough to be seen as a successor to the C64, indeed the C64 remained in production long after the 128. Aside from the remodelling and cost-cutting of the C64C, the basic hardware remained unchanged for a decade (which did at least mean no compatibility problems later, a 1992 C64 game will always work on a 1982 C64 (of the same region, at least) and vice-versa). I'd agree that the Spectrum did need those upgrades over time, many later games were 128k only and almost all at least had music for 128k users - an upgrade to the graphics hardware with the 1986 128k model might have given it an extra year as well, even if it might have added £50 to the initial cost.

[NorthWay]

Originally Posted by TCD

How much was that roughly in USD at that time? The C64 price from 1986 in Germany that I posted would be around 230 USD.

That is a long time ago, but I think the dollar was somewhere between 6 and 8 NOK. Norwegian TAX was 20% at that time IIRC. You could typically add a 0 to the US price for something with general distribution.
I think the original price was 6000 NOK which was then knocked down to 3000 after C= US halved their prices, around the start(?) of 1984(?), and then the floodgates opened... (and I remember this pretty well because it was right around the time in 8th grade with the coming-of-age religious rituals when all my classmates had their pockets full of money and could go buy that stereo or computer or moped they wanted). Some of it might have started at Christmas already (I had some pretty well off neighbours that got their early in 1983 - it had some weirdo key colours which I think might have come from VIC-20 parts.).