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Would the C65 have been a better gaming machine than the Amiga 500?

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s1

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Jan 3, 2013, 1:10:18 AM1/3/13
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I've never owned either system.

Thanks

Dombo

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Jan 3, 2013, 6:00:51 AM1/3/13
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Op 03-Jan-13 7:10, s1 schreef:
> I've never owned either system.

No, because the C65 was too little too late. The Amiga was more powerful
and already on the market for many years before the C65 would have
entered the market.

The key to a successful gaming machine is not only hardware capabilities
but more importantly the availability of good quality games that take
advantage of the hardware. At the time the C65 would have entered the
market there were already many games available for the Amiga that took
advantage of its capabilities. The C65 might have had a small advantage
for C64 owners if it were able to run the vast majority of the software
written for the C64. Unfortunately the C65 was not very compatible with
the C64; many C64 games would not run. It is doubtful that many games
would have been written specifically for C65; just like the C128 for
which only a very few games were written.

The C65 might have been successful if it replaced the C64 somewhere
between 1984-1986 at a similar price as the C64. However the success
would have been at the expense of mainly the Amiga.

Clocky

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Jan 3, 2013, 6:05:30 PM1/3/13
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s1 wrote:
> I've never owned either system.
>
> Thanks

Not a chance. The Amiga 500 was better in every way. Commodore shouldn't
have wasted development money on an 8 bit when they had an advanced 16/32
bit system that they really could have capitalised on by investing more into
it.

The C65 might be of interest now, but it was an expensive and pointless
distraction from what they should have been concentrating on - the Amiga.


s1

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Jan 3, 2013, 11:23:45 PM1/3/13
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What about the # of pixels, colors, and video modes?
Graphic and sound capabilities. Comparable?
Excluding processor.

Clocky

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Jan 4, 2013, 1:17:12 AM1/4/13
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s1 wrote:
> On Jan 3, 5:05 pm, "Clocky" <notg...@happen.com> wrote:
>> s1 wrote:
>>> I've never owned either system.
>>
>>> Thanks
>>
>> Not a chance. The Amiga 500 was better in every way. Commodore
>> shouldn't have wasted development money on an 8 bit when they had an
>> advanced 16/32 bit system that they really could have capitalised on
>> by investing more into it.
>>
>> The C65 might be of interest now, but it was an expensive and
>> pointless distraction from what they should have been concentrating
>> on - the Amiga.
>
> What about the # of pixels, colors, and video modes?

About the same, minus the speed however.

> Graphic and sound capabilities. Comparable?

Twin SIDs were good, Stereo Paula is better.

> Excluding processor.

But we can't really ignore the processor and the multitasking ability as
well as the system architecture as that is a major plus for the Amiga.

Moreso had C= pushed their Amiga barrow a lot harder instead of wasting
money on dopey side projects like the C65.


Shaun Bebbington

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Jan 4, 2013, 3:07:37 PM1/4/13
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On Thursday, 3 January 2013 06:10:18 UTC, s1 wrote:
> I've never owned either system.
>
>
>
> Thanks

No.

Regards,

Shaun.

Christian Brandt

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Jan 8, 2013, 2:54:01 AM1/8/13
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On 03.01.2013 12:00, Dombo wrote:
> No, because the C65 was too little too late. The Amiga was more
> powerful and already on the market for many years before the C65
> would have entered the market.

It wasn't "too little too late" it was "too much too different".

A stripped down C128D might have sold well for $200-$300 without taking
away too much from the amiga market. Remove the Z80, the VDC, increase
memory to 256kByte, leave the good Basic 7.0 inside, maybe add GEOS into
ROM, add an integrated 1571 drive (*1), voila, a true C64 follow-up,
cheap to produce.
Face it, 99% of all C64/C128 users never needed the Z80 and the VDC.
And the other 1% would have been a lot better of buying a C64 and in
addition a seperate Joyce computer which was a lot better in every
aspect and cheaper too. It was a total waste of resources.

(*1) not necessarily a true 1571 drive, thats one expensive bitch.
Instead one could have integrate a dump 5,25" without CPU and let the
normal computer CPU run things - cheap to produce and most likely a lot
faster too. Only sector encoding and file system should have been
compatible. Software would have been available fast because its "the new
standard" and even without publisher taking responsible the cracker
scene would have good fun porting games to run from the integrated dump
drive.

--
Christian Brandt

life is short and in most cases it ends with death
but my tombstone will carry the hiscore

Martijn van Buul

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Jan 8, 2013, 4:51:39 AM1/8/13
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* Christian Brandt:

[ idea about a 128D without any of the 128-hardware and an integrated
drive ]

> (*1) not necessarily a true 1571 drive, thats one expensive bitch.
> Instead one could have integrate a dump 5,25" without CPU and let the
> normal computer CPU run things - cheap to produce and most likely a lot
> faster too. Only sector encoding and file system should have been
> compatible.

This would have made it incompatible with everything on the market, with
only the added benefit of being slightly cheaper to produce. Go ask the
plus/4 what happens to you of you're like that.

It would've required most users to go and buy an additional disk drive
(probably a 1541 or clone), making the end result *more expensive*.

--
Martijn van Buul - pi...@dohd.org

Shaun Bebbington

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Jan 8, 2013, 5:25:18 AM1/8/13
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Someone I know added a 1581 internally into a 128D-Cr (so both drives in one unit), this would have been a cool thing, like 128D++ or something - but then the C65 had a built-in 1581, or at least the internal drive is compatible with the 1581 as I loaded some software in the C64 mode on it.

Regards,

Shaun.

Christian Brandt

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Jan 8, 2013, 7:14:21 AM1/8/13
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On 08.01.2013 10:51, Martijn van Buul wrote:
> This would have made it incompatible with everything on the market,
> with only the added benefit of being slightly cheaper to produce.
> Go ask the plus/4 what happens to you of you're like that.

Using a different low-level-implementation of floppy drives would have
been a piece of cake. Like "90% of all software wouldn't even notice and
the rest needs to change ten bytes".

I have seen how little effort it took to port even strong copy
protected games to my MMC64: Nearly none at all. And the MMC64 is a
totally non-floppy-solution, its as far from being standard as possible.

The Plus4 on the other hand: broken, stupid, not just incompatible.
Incompability is negletence. The Plus4 was above that, it was planned
being useless.

> It would've required most users to go and buy an additional disk
> drive (probably a 1541 or clone), making the end result *more
> expensive*.

If every C64 simply came with THAT drive it would have been standard
within one month. And it would have raised the cost of the base system
maybe $50 instead of the external brick drive going for $150.

Clocky

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Jan 8, 2013, 7:27:31 PM1/8/13
to
Christian Brandt wrote:
> On 03.01.2013 12:00, Dombo wrote:
>> No, because the C65 was too little too late. The Amiga was more
>> powerful and already on the market for many years before the C65
>> would have entered the market.
>
> It wasn't "too little too late" it was "too much too different".
>

Any new 8 bit by 1991 was too little too late and a waste of time and money.

> A stripped down C128D might have sold well for $200-$300 without
> taking away too much from the amiga market. Remove the Z80, the VDC,
> increase memory to 256kByte, leave the good Basic 7.0 inside, maybe
> add GEOS into ROM, add an integrated 1571 drive (*1), voila, a true
> C64 follow-up, cheap to produce.

And nobody would have cared. How many C128 users ever use anything but C64
mode? Who used BASIC 7.0 anyway? Operating systems in ROM offer no
flexibility, so a bootable OS like GEOS from a NVRAM drive might have been
useful - but that adds to the cost. 5.25" drives were on the nose by then,
so 3.5" would have been an upgrade, but would have broken C64 compatibility
and killed it's market.

> Face it, 99% of all C64/C128 users never needed the Z80 and the VDC.
> And the other 1% would have been a lot better of buying a C64 and in
> addition a seperate Joyce computer which was a lot better in every
> aspect and cheaper too. It was a total waste of resources.
>

16/32 bit was the future, not more half-baked 8 bitters. Commodore had a
brilliant 16/32bit computer that they lay to waste partly due to wasting
development on pointless systems.

> (*1) not necessarily a true 1571 drive, thats one expensive bitch.
> Instead one could have integrate a dump 5,25" without CPU and let the
> normal computer CPU run things - cheap to produce and most likely a
> lot faster too. Only sector encoding and file system should have been
> compatible. Software would have been available fast because its "the
> new standard" and even without publisher taking responsible the
> cracker scene would have good fun porting games to run from the
> integrated dump drive.

Incompatible out of the box is a hard sell at the sales counter.

I think enthusiasts forget that it's the general public that needs to find a
reason to buy these systems en masse.


s1

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Jan 9, 2013, 1:22:08 PM1/9/13
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I like the idea of a built in floppy drive, and instead of wasting
money on Basic 10, they should have used it to add another 4510. Two
independent processors on the same board would have offered unique
potential against single processor systems. They could have a built in
basic, but kept it's 'in rom' feature set...mm..basic.


s1

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Jan 9, 2013, 1:23:11 PM1/9/13
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On Jan 8, 6:27 pm, "Clocky" <notg...@happen.com> wrote:

> 16/32 bit was the future, not more half-baked 8 bitters. Commodore had a
> brilliant 16/32bit computer that they lay to waste partly due to wasting
> development on pointless systems.

you still don't get it clock. 8 bit IS the future!

Hg

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Jan 14, 2013, 3:30:18 AM1/14/13
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The C65 would have been a technical and commercial success at /some/
stage in Commodore's history* - though not at the time it was
actually planned to be put into the market.As nearly everyone is
saying it was late to the party by a considerable margin.

* Anyone know what the projected selling price of the C65 was to have
been? I would only guess a commercial success if it was sold for a
very reasonable price and crucially far cheaper than the Amiga. Did
the C65 designers meet their cost targets for the machine?


--
T
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