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@AllGamingStarred

2 жыл бұрын

how bad was the situation in the 80's?

The C64 manual and the C64 programmer's reference guide was where I learned how to code. The manual was a basic level BASIC course and the programmer's reference guide was the advanced course.

@wargameboy72

5 ай бұрын

Thank God somebody said it!!!! The Vic20 and C64 had the best manual ever make... That's a fact!!!! I like Kim's videos, but she has no clue what she's talking about, when it comes to the C64!!!

I loved my C64 but the Spectrum was a great games machine too. 3D Starstrike and Knightlore were utterly mindblowing at the time.

I personally had a C64 and my mates had Spectrums. Never really arguments between us about them, They would come round mine to play the 64 and I would play their speccys :)

@cthutu

7 жыл бұрын

You had the C64 vs Speccy arguments in the 80s too. I remember them well.

@mattx5499

2 жыл бұрын

Well that war was even more stupid than Amiga vs Atari. At least Amiga and Atari were somehow similar machines, the both were using MC680x0 processors, both were similar in design using the same floppy medium, both had GUI operating systems. Speccy and C64 were very different architectures, different graphics and color palettes, sound, keyboard usage, etc. Even the tape data loading worked a lot different where Speccy could use any sound source to load data through audio jack and C64 had dedicated magnetophone with it's own I/O port. The only real similarity was that both machines were loved by the devs and the community resulting with tons of software for both. It's like comparing apples and oranges.

I grew up in Durban, South Africa. Got my ZX Spectrum 48K in 1983, bought at Game Discount Stores for ZAR300+ . I remember working through all the BASIC code samples in that manual. It was a huge influence in my life and opened up the world to me as an IT professional! I'm glad to see that that English ZX Spectrum Spirit lives on today with the Rasberry Pi and its ecosystem!

Loving the comments! It's basically the playground all over again but with the benefit of 30 extra years of tech understanding! 😃👍

I had both, got the Commodore a bit after the Speccy, and honestly I preferred the Spectrum, for the reasons you said - the games simply had more ingenuity and you felt on a subconscious level the pure passion of the devs who made the games. As you say again, the style and personality made it uniquely brilliant. Great video once again Kim.

@blazer666del

8 жыл бұрын

+Lee K I had both and hated the specturm.. gave it to my nephew. Loads more original titles on the C64

In USSR it was "handmade" Speccys all around. They were so popular because of price and simplicity of DIY. We had a lot of clones which were compatible with Speccy. The only competition with Spectrums were Atatri's , and by "Atari" every person from Eastern Europe mean Atari 65/130 XL/XE series, we never knew "Atari" as 2600. We loved Atari for flashy and beauty and Speccy for more in-depth gaming

@chueri

8 жыл бұрын

I´m from Brazil. The brazillian ZX Spectrum clone sold extreme well here...

@shurmurray

7 жыл бұрын

True. Beside DIY, a lot of small companies was making ZX clones in a post-USSR region. I remember one company was making and selling 128kb version of ZX with an AY sound module and 3.5" floppy up to 97!

@chueri

7 жыл бұрын

Shur Murray During 1980s, how easy was buy a 8bits clone computer in Moscow?

@vladalexeev8529

7 жыл бұрын

Eduardo Chueri it was super easy. But I think it's popularity grown in about 1987 - when it almost died in UK . First it was DIY clones. 48k Speccy costed 1300 rubles at average wage of 180-200 rubles/month. But Atari 65 xe/xl costed around 4000 rubles and was equal to a good soviet car. Factory clones like Dubna, Delta-c came in around 1989-1990

@shurmurray

7 жыл бұрын

Eduardo Chueri Can't tell exactly (never lived in Moscow). The home computers come to USSR later than in the world. All the good things become available here only with the shut down of the "iron curtain" - it's all happened after the mid of 80s. The wide spread of ZX and other home computers (MSX and clones, 8bit consoles like NES and so on) happened at the end of 80 and in early 90 - well 10 years behind USA and Europe. And almost no one here heard of C64, Amiga, Apple... Shortly after the era of ZX/MSX all jumped directly to IBM's.

you have to love the 8bit era such were the very clear differences between each machine. Whichever one it was you were generally quite proud unless envy crept in. I love them all

The C64 was "virtually inaccessible" when it came to coding? And "there was a sense you were not supposed to mess with it"? This is complete nonsense. The C64 came with a book telling you how to program in basic.

@MichaelBusse1

8 жыл бұрын

+rooneye Exactly. The first thing I did when I did when I got my C64 back in '86 was starting with the BASIC tutorial in the manual. Manually calculating sprite design, and having them move across the screen had me sitting with my arms above my head. And all that was nicely described in the manual.

@AudieHolland

8 жыл бұрын

+rooneye The Commodore 64's manual could have been more userfriendly. But even I managed to create some moving sprites but then I completely lost interest because I knew I didn't have the knack for programming complex stuff. I got as far as creating a mini text-adventure with some dodgy ascii graphics. But the games, oh man... One of The Greatest Games Ever must be Sid Meier's "Pirates!" It featured a basic sailing vessel simulator, mini wargame when you tried to defeat the Spanish militia and cavalry and swashbuckling fencing. It was also a decent privateering simulator. You could play it as "Ironman" by simply saving it only to continue later from that point, *not* reloading a saved game if your expedition failed miserably. [EDIT] Forgot to mention: LABYRINTH.

@Zvona555

8 жыл бұрын

+rooneye Yes, ti was virtually inaccessible (without quotes). I programmed both systems in both assembly and basic (and for C=128D too). C=64 basic was hmmmm... very basic :) ... and almost useless without using of assembly language. Documenting such a crippled basic wasn't making any sense anyway :) Spectrum was equipped with a pretty advanced basic for the time and well documented. Working in assembly was much easier for Spectrum thanks to great Z80 CPU compared to "almost risc" 6510 chip. Z80 has an instruction for everything, even for some 16 bit operations, with much more neater and shorter assembly programs. Moreover, Z80 has separate I/O bus compared to messy memory-overlapped I/O access in 6510. The greatest advantage od C=64 was additional hardware for graphics, sprites and sound. It's like 80s version of DirectX - you load some registers, set some bit and you have moving object on the screen without much programming. Unfortunately, there were no commands for that in basic, so you could use that advanced hardware by POKE a,d command only (which means "put value d to memory location a). In fact, that was easier to accomplish in assembly. C=64 sound is even more advanced with it's great SID chip. Spectrum haven't any sound hardware at all. To make a sound, you had to move the speaker membare up and down in an assembly loop executed by main CPU.

@steve24822

8 жыл бұрын

Huh? The commodore 64 was great for programming games. It had built in sprites with auto collision detection and expansion. It made it really easy to make arcade games. The only problem, which applied to all computers of the time, is to get speed you had to write in assembly.

@steve24822

8 жыл бұрын

+Nevets The big breakthrough came when you bought the programmers guide. This clearly showed you how to do everything with graphics sound ports machine language etc etc. I agree with you, complete nonsense. Having said that, the spectrum did have a much better version of basic which enabled quick and dirty games.

I had both; My C64 just sat there gathering dust. Every man and his dog had a Speccy. The games were miles better and more popular on the Speccy; take all the games from 'Ultimate Play the Game (the Rockstar of their day) for example. The Stamper brothers only coded on the Speccy, the games that were released on the C64 like Outlaws and The Staff of Karnath were dreadful. Sure the C64 was more powerful, however much like the Ps4 pro v Xbox1X, the Ps4 has far better games and is more popular.

I loved my Spectrum. I had been nagging my mum for a ZX81 for months because my friend had one. Imagine my joy when I peeled back the Xmas wrapping paper one day, saw the Sinclair Research logo on the box thinking I'd got a ZX81 and was overjoyed... Then peeled back the wrapping even further and saw it was a 48k Spectrum. It was the best Xmas ever! Loved the rubber keys. Loved the games. Even loved the thermal printer!

Great explanation. From Spain. ZX Spectrum forever in my heart

Ahh, I love that music from Last Ninja 2 at the beginning. Takes me back!

I learned to program on a ZX Spectrum. It was a gift from our English friends. 25 years later, I'm still programming, so Clive got his way :)

I'm 45 years old and 100% can relate to those playground arguments. I had them. Many times. I had a Spectrum 48k plus, my mates had a C64, another had an Amstrad, another couple had an Electron... one even had a Commodore Plus 4... my cousins had Spectrums... you can imagine. You know what though, far from really arguing over it, we just went round to each other's houses and played games, whatever the system. Great times. This video really nails it. Well done Kim. Top notch stuff!!

Really appreciate all the hard work you put into these, Kim! Being Canadian, I didn't have exposure to the ZX Spectrum, so this video was really illuminating.

I can only imagine how many hours it takes to produce this quality content! Bravo.

You read the comments here and then wonder, why people think toxic communities and childish fanboyism is a new thing?

@grantd165

3 жыл бұрын

4 years ago but very underated comment. I never have and never will understand the toxicity that follows this stuff around. You like your thing, I like my thing and that's just fine.

@ProBloggerWorld

3 жыл бұрын

I agree with you. The dust has settled and honestly, different computer enthusiasts expressed themselves differently. That unites us.

Kim, I'm addicted to your videos, they are fantastic! So much work must go into them. Please do a video on the Sam Coupe / Super Spectrum. Such an underated computer !

The Spectrum was pretty big in New Zealand as well. Had one there and loved it. Loved the fact that BASIC was present the moment you switched it on, no need to load a programming language. Can't remember if the C64 did that, but a lot of other competing computers couldn't. When I went to Australia, it was definitely a C64 market, but no one there that I knew could programme, unlike all the ZX kids back in NZ. I read somewhere on the BBC that Dundee in Scotland has an unusually high number of programmers because the parents that worked at the ZX Spectrum factory used to pass around "faulty" Spectrums to their kids and friends kids and loads of them grew up to start up software companies.

The Spectrum and C64 are not dead, THEY LIVE!

The ZX Spectrum was never intended to be a gaming machine, its whole HW setup was made for text-based programs. So it is unfair to speak about a war between such completely different systems, the Spectrum just lost before it even began - when it comes to games. I like the Spectrum for its use of Z80 CPU which is by far better than the cheap MOS6502 (6510) which was used in the C64 and which is IMHO quite a pain to program in Assembler. So the ZX Spectrum was/is definitely a nicer machine to learn programming and the C64 is - no doubt - a very good computer for games, with an outstanding sound chip.

@Elbas_Tardo

3 жыл бұрын

Z80 need more clock cycles to do the same than a 6510. If you are programmer you know that.

@maciejmusic

2 жыл бұрын

And price ? Not everyone was as rich as you back then to buy. Spectrum was also a good computer on a budget. Mayby without hardware scrolling and sprites - but natural colour and exelent prize. Version 128K, +2, +3 witch AY he had music on a par than C64. It had less but more natural and vivid colors.The graphic resolution was at the start better than in the C64...

@samcoupe4608

2 жыл бұрын

and theres at least 100 titles that use 3d vector graphics not just scrolling n sprites use your imagination speccy wins hands down

@maciejmusic

2 жыл бұрын

@@samcoupe4608 And twice as many programs on the spectrum - 20.000 titles...The C64 turned out to be an arcade console, but many titles are not necessarily missing on the C64 apart from arcade.

@samcoupe4608

2 жыл бұрын

im afraid i just dont agree the sheer volume and variety and quality of software on the zx spectrum even towards the end of her life the software houses were banging out titles for the 128k that were 16bit like starglider & 2

Great vid as always and extra marks for the background music. Especially for Crass and the Ska music! Nice one.

All of my mates were a mix of C64 and Speccy owners. They never argued about it. Even had C16 and Acorn owning friends. They just loved playing each others machines. The same happened when they all upgraded to ST's and Amigas. No arguing - just appreciation of both.

Regarding sales figures, bear in mind that in Russia and eastern Europe there were lots of cheap Spectrum clones made which resulted in the system being incredibly popular in that region. But they wouldn't show up in any official sales figures for obvious reasons.

It wasn't a war of technology, it was a war of value. The Spectrum cost half as much as a C64, games were cheaper and more people owned a Speccy. This meant more people to copy games from! Everyone knew how good the C64 was (at least for arcade-style games), but try convincing working class parents that they need to spend twice as much money for a 'similar' machine. No contest. The Speccy was a working class hero! Commodore 64 was a great computer, but only for the middle class.

@ybergik

7 жыл бұрын

We were quite poor back then and there was no chance of me just being given one. I worked a paperroute twice a week as soon as I had turned 12 (the legal minimum) for a year to save up enough and was finally able to buy myself a C64 shortly after turning 13. So really, anyone could afford a C64 if they weren't allergic to doing a little manual labour.

@KaitainCPS

7 жыл бұрын

Lower middle class, perhaps. The kids from affluent families often had BBC Bs.

@mapesdhs597

6 жыл бұрын

Funny thing is, even then there were limits. Friend of mine had a C64 (he lived with his grandfather who was a successful private surgeon), he didn't want for games, but he never had the 1541 floppy drive, and ironically he did like many of the games I had for my Electron, whereas I was often blown away by what his C64 could do (best 8bit version of Elite IMO). Here's the thing, parents may have bought this vs. that because of some absorbed class perception issue, presumption on the part of a sales person in a store perhaps as to what they'd want, or a correct guess about what they could afford, but did this make much difference to the child using the machine? Not really, both would very rarely ever end up obtaining peripheral addons, games were initially not cheap (thank grud for Mastertronic! Even if some of it was total dross), and one never had enough pocket money to cover everything (I remember wishing I could buy some of the magazines).

@lordevyl8317

6 жыл бұрын

I actually do believe some games were actually better on the Spectrum. For example, pretty much any game that involved vector graphics for one (save for maybe Elite). The C64 was great when it came to handling sprites, but it was meh when it came to handling vector graphics. which was why the Speccy versions of Star Wars and Battlezone were far better. Now we didn't have Speccy's here in Canada, I'm only going by what I've seen from using emulators of both C64 and the Speccy, even though I did own two C64s as a kid. The C64 wasn't really the middle class computer here (that would probably have been one of the Tandy/Texas Instruments computers from Radio Shack) Games here for the C64 ranged anywhere from 5 dollars up to 30 dollars (Canadian dollar), Now by today's standards of pricing that's cheap, but back in 1987 that was a lot of $, but they were still cheap compared to Tandy/IBM games.

@Liofa73

6 жыл бұрын

It was also a case of what was cool at the time, everyone I knew had a spectrum, if you had a C64 you were an outsider and being an outsider as a kid is never a good thing. Also, I never really thought about the cost of the machines, the C64 seemed like the poor man's spectrum because every had a speccy and as you say, you could easily get games as everyone would make you a mix tape of their collection, so in the end owning a spectrum you were fair wealthier.

Great video as usual Kim, brought back lots of memories, cheers mate!

Brilliant documentary mate, very well researched and put together.

As an american, I'm always happy to see coverage on the C64 vs ZX Spectrum since I don't know anyone personally that had either of them when I was younger.

Rest in Peace my beloved c64. I will never ever forget you.

Props from Canada! You're documentaries are amazing, better than anything on TV.

Thanks for a great video! I didn't know the ZX Spectrum was that popular in the UK. When Timex tried to sell it here in the USA I remember a well known computer magazine giving it a very negative review. And when I saw one in a store, the tiny size and membrane keyboard looked so primitive not just to the C-64 but other American computers of that era. Still the ZX has a unique charm and I wouldn't mind having one for my PC collection.

It’s one thing to be incredibly knowledgable about a subject, but it’s entirely another to present it so clearly and in way that garners the interest of the watcher. Brilliant.

"Oh I wish my parents bought me a Spectrum instead" said no Commodore 64 owner ever. :P

@Liofa73

6 жыл бұрын

inphanta --- it was the other way around in the UK, when all of your mates owned a spectrum and everyone was passing tapes around. The one lonely guy sitting in his bedroom with a C64 and no one to share with wished he had a spectrum after all.

@inphanta

6 жыл бұрын

I am from the UK, and I never had that problem.

@SuperHoraceWimp

6 жыл бұрын

Dont engage with the poverty stricken, speccy peasant.

@bryanerickson2905

5 жыл бұрын

Makes me feel sorry for the UK to have to play ugly looking conversions of popular games...

@jasonpleavin3761

5 жыл бұрын

@@SuperHoraceWimp Lol you cheeky bugger.

When I saw this, I thought 'Oh God, another ZX Spectrum review....", but you made this really interesting, talking about the personalities involved and your own analysis of the era. I found this to be well written and engaging. Well done. :)

In the States, I had my C64 that I cherished for years. Your videos got me to start playing Speccy games in my 40's and I'm really impressed so far, it has so much character!

The ZX Spectrum was also big in the Balkans. Mostly because it was cheap and there were lots of games for it, 99% of them pirated, of course.

@bryanerickson2905

5 жыл бұрын

Far more games for C64 all in all, just keeping things factually correct, thanks.

@Psycandy

4 жыл бұрын

ZX Spectrum was huge in South Africa. I bet you know the program "The Key"

I have played and loved both of them First the Spectrum and then the C64 the games Spectrum came up with with such limited tech and memory is nothing short of ingenious and then C64 polished that even more with its power and amazing sound chip for the time,you have to take your hats off for those accomplishments

Great video, many thanks!

Great video. As you say this particular battle was unique to the UK. In Australia, the C64 assumed the role the Spectrum would have played as the entry level gateway computer, facing off against the expensive Apple, Atari and IBM machines. They were really machines with different markets, at least initially. Kudos to Sir Clive for getting computers into the hands of people thanks to a reasonable price. Commodore marketed the C64 as a "premium product" in the UK because it could, and for years it made much more out of its European than its North American operations. The VIC 20 was probably more of a direct competitor to the Spectrum. As for the rest of the world (including Australia) it was the C64 all the way, and eventually the C64 became as cheap as a Spectrum.

In Eastern Bloc had Spectrum strong fortress. Sinlair licenced it to local manufacturers and they manufacture it and countless clones of it. My first computer was clone of Spectrum in 1986, and they were used in schools as well! But funny thing is that Spectrum clones were competing with MSX and Atari 8-bit machines like 600 and 800XL in Eastern Bloc, not with Commodore 64.

@kaitlyn__L

7 жыл бұрын

MSX! i really wanna get one of those >.> but i don't really have enough space for a bunch of old computers, so i don't let myself get any, lest i find myself with too many before i know it.

@jakublulek3261

7 жыл бұрын

I understand perfectly. I gave my girlfriend my old Amiga 1200 just because I ran out of space, I am developer for Playstation platform, so I have piles of games for PS2, PS3, PS4, PSP and Vita, plus my collection of Sega Saturn games, plus some Mega Drive and PC Engine for a good measure. MSX gaming is pretty interesting and I am too tempted to give it a shot, it's incredibly hard to find floppy disks, let alone disks which works after 30 years, in former Eastern Bloc were never released any games officially for MSX, so I must go online to buy any. Or just modify my machine to read SD cards.

@kaitlyn__L

7 жыл бұрын

if i had one, i would definitely use one of those SD or USB or CF adapters, yeah

@jakublulek3261

7 жыл бұрын

I had my Amiga modified same way because kickstart disks were unreliable and older Amiga OS can't boot directly from HDD. It would be interesting if somebody release something like that emulation machine for ZX Spectrum, but for MSX.

@fr_schmidlin

7 жыл бұрын

Tip: It's pretty easy to use SD cards as mass storage devices on an MSX. They're even produced by different manufacturers nowadays, like: www.msxcartridgeshop.com www.8bits4ever.com www.reprofactory.com And be welcome to join the MSX community on www.msx.org and ask for questions! :)

in italy the c64 wa sso great and popular that we had a hundreds of magazines with various italian homebews games weekly

In retrospect I can now see that the sprite hardware on the C64 and NES was actually a constraint. 90% of the games are either side-scrolling platformers or side-scrolling shooters. The Spectrum is where isometric, sprite-scaling and 3d games took off. As a developer, it must have been difficult justifying game designs that ignored the sprite hardware on those platforms. The C64 still has many great games but I still can't deal with the double-width pixels and ugly palette, although modern games have tricks to get around those shortcomings. I've also heard that the palette was better on the NTSC version.

During this time period, I was a loyal fan of the Atari 600xl in 1984, then ST in 1988, followed by Amiga 500 shortly after. I was so desperate for anything that was an actual computer in the early 80s that I wanted a Timex Sinclair 1000, but dad bought me an Atari 600xl with data set...great video Kim. I was always angered by C64 owners, including my Computer's 9 teacher who even owned one. Today, I own pretty much everything, including an SX 64, but retro vintage computers from Europe...I do not even know if NTSC versions of software of vintage machines like the Speccy were ever provided here in Canada...cheers.

Superb video. Very informative and well made. Keep up the good work. ^^

@shaolin95

6 жыл бұрын

Superb video? only if you are a blind Spectrum fanboy hoping to get some lies to make you happy about your inferior machine lol

I liked your clip very much, but you have to give the C=64 more benefit. It came also with a huge manual that did target programming. Not only that, it offered you to expand that BASIC through assembly code, which I learned as a young teenager to do during my first week of contact with that machine. So, while the ZX was never in the competition here in Germany, the VC20 and C64 were the backbone of a whole generation of software developers like me, that have dedicated their lives to this. And even if people didn't program well, they entered the world of computing and to application programming and solving problems with computers, like engineers. What the British really did for computing world wide, is how I see it, the Raspberry Pi. That thing really is a benefit for a whole generation and that thing really brings computing to the masses like no other computer did before. As computers, the ZX never stood a chance against the C=64. And that was not because of the games. I wonder if you ever had a working assembler on that ZX? We had an assembly program just from the very beginning, like we had Lisp, Comal, several BASIC dialects, databases, text-processing, terminal programs, 3D vector-graphics, sound synthesis and many more. Here some of the things I did back then, most sadly is lost over time. You'll find a very nice little terminal program and a things like that. Hacked some mainframes with that stuff back in the days, mostly VAXes I guess, some Unix based things and a couple of PDPs: github.com/silizium/c64_asm What did the ZX do? But it had the right spirit, I give you that.

Spot on Kim! Great trip down memory lane - Thank you 👍

Good work again. I hit the like button. I'm now a big fan of your work.

8:48 10 PRINT "Fuck Thatcher" 20> Go TO 10

Portugal was also a very strong market for the ZX Spectrum.

@scottbreon9448

5 жыл бұрын

Russia too

Great Vid :O) enjoyed it a lot . I was (but for a brief time but was my first job ! ) a Commodore C64 games programmer (Pennsoft) and also a computer collector (started in 1984 !) My first computer was a VIC-20 (wanted a ZX81 as it was cheap and looked cool) back in December 1981 and by then I already was programming a lot in BASIC on the our 60s tech (sign in terminal) at school (Fairfax school Sutton Coldfield .. yay !). Those were the days anyway by the end of 1984 I had a VIC-20, Atari 400, Commodore 64, ZX81 and perhaps (need to check by notes) a BBC Micro B computers and as the years passed - ZX Spectrum, Memotech 512, QL, Toshiba MSX, Dragon 32, Oric Atmos .... well lots and each machine was fun fun fun to use and programme ( also Spectravideo 318, Commodore 16, Commodore +4/a) .. and perhaps more ?). Every computer was different and fun and lovable ! ... And I miss them but my favorite one was .... Commodore 64 mainly because I had more games and hardware and I programmed on it a lot. Long live the 8 bit Micro computer ! ... OOpps Amiga 500 I had in the early 90s is 16bit ! ..... Ok that as well....

Great video! I enjoyed it immensely and learned a lot. I must however push back on "wholly incompatible" as being Commodore's business practice. On the contrary, one of the biggest hamstrings for the C64 was peripheral compatibility going back to the PET. That's actually the reason it's floppy drives contain an onboard 6502 processor and are as large as the C64. It's also the reason the tape drive loads so slowly. Granted you can't run games from PET or VIC, but frankly the C64 games are so much better...

Oh, memories! One of my best friends had a Speccy, just like me, the other two had C64. We had such loud arguments in the tram that people usually backed away from us, leaving us loads of space to sit down and continue arguing. :) Basically, it boiled down to: - C64 goodies: much better sound (SID), better graphics (sprites), better keyboard - Speccy goodies: better basic, much better CPU (especially if you were into programming!), cheaper, doesn't look like a bread box. :) The bottom line: both were GORGEOUS machines, which inspired loads of young people to dive into programming. They sparked the entire gaming industry. The dawn of the PC was where the ugly and boring took over, unfortunately. Thank you both Clive and Jack!

Let me tell you now. In the early eighties, everybody young person I knew in the UK, either owned a 48k Spectrum or wanted one. Trading Spectrum cassettes at school, was a standard practice.

@Liofa73

6 жыл бұрын

carbiify -- yup, and that's why the spectrum was a success. We didn't care about the more colourful (washed out) graphics of the C64, we loved the speccy.

@pecker2-9

4 жыл бұрын

Yep, spectrum 48k in the living room, mom's best plates in a G-plan sideboard unit & dad's orange allegro on the drive.......cos he was on strike.

@Blackadder75

4 жыл бұрын

@@pecker2-9 lemme guess, voting brexit 33 years later....

I remember at school the arguments over the speccy vs the C16/64. I'm biased as i LOVE the speccy.

As a commodore user the big disappointment was the colour pallet. Lots of grey, brown, and generally washed out colours. No red, orange or proper blue and yellow. The speccy always looked really nice with it’s single colour games like cyan or yellow on a black background.

I had ZX Spectrum, which was great for its time....

In the US the C-64s came boxed with a book that showed how to program the BASIC language that was integral to its design. Maybe in the UK they did not, hence your suggestion that the C64 was not seen as a programming tool. But over here is was seen NOT as a gaming machine specifically. I was seen as a programming tool that, as a benefit, could play games just like the most popular game system of the day, the Nintendo Game System. Back then people over here were fascinated by how good the graphics could get. The multicolor sprites (I believe missing in the Spectrum) was a major advantage for people desiring power in programming. The largest battle over here was fighting the blinded herd mentality that if a machine did not say "IBM" on it, then it was worthless. When side by side, the Spectrum was a far inferior machine in sound, graphics, programming power with options (such as the ease of scrolling the screen and multicolor sprites). But again, this was if you were using it for making games. The Spectrum seems closer to the failed TI-99 (which I also owned). I think the likely reason that the Spectrum survived at all is b/c the UK, rightly so, was proud of its own creation. As you noted, the UK is about the only place it sold well. And what eventually made Commodore go under was the MAJOR lack of intelligence in their marketing department. They thought since the Commodore 64 had sold so well over here by mostly word of mouth (also a testament to its amazing abilities as compared to other systems over here), that the AMIGA would do the same. Its too bad since modern platforms still do not have some of the Amiga's abilities in the area of actual multitasking, and the ability to pack a lot of power into a very small amount of code and memory. The sheer number of third party hardware made for the 64 also speaks to its incredible ability to be interfaced with outside systems. It was made to integrate with other things. i remember one of my students interfaced his with a Radio Shack robotic arm. The architecture was a programmers delight.

@ybergik

7 жыл бұрын

Completely wrong. The C64 was way more popular, and had a bigger market share, in Europe than in the US. Europe was a cash-cow for Commodore who never have to work hard for their profits in that market at all. The UK was in fact the only place where the Spectrum had a sizeable following. It was (and still is) extremely rare to come across a Spectrum or Amstrad in Norway/Denmark. Took me a very long time to find myself a local Amstrad CPC 464 for my retro collection.

@JohnDoe-qx3zs

7 жыл бұрын

Having studied all 3 machines in at least some detail, I would not compare the Spectrum to the Ti-99/4A. The Ti-99 was firmly targeted at the C=64 with its mechanical keyboard and 32 hardware sprites, but suffered from a mostly botched hardware design where the 16 bit TMS9900 CPU wasted a lot of time using a backwards hack to read bytes from the video adapters RAM because there was almost no regular RAM. The Spectrum was targeted as a lean mean low cost programming machine with its rubber keyboard and optimized BASIC system. It had no dedicated game or entertainment hardware parts, no hardware scrolling, no music chip, and an easy expansion bus inherited from its predecessors.

@cthutu

7 жыл бұрын

That's not the whole story though. Nowadays the ZX Spectrum is the most emulated device ever and I think that's because of 2 reasons: it's charm and hardware simplicity, and the fact it encouraged learning of programming more. You're more likely to find a programmer capable of creating an emulator who had a speccy than a C64.

@lordevyl8317

6 жыл бұрын

And those books were VERY VAGUE. 20 or more peeks and pokes to get one single sprite isn't good a BASIC programming language

@lordevyl8317

6 жыл бұрын

Filly85 It's SIMONS' basic, not Simon's basic. The guy's last name was SIMONS, so the apostrophe comes AFTER the s, not before. And I'm talking about the OUT OF THE BOX BASIC. You shouldn't have to buy extensions.

Great video, Kim :)

We bought a ZX Spectrum in 1983. Other kids at school had the C64, and there were definitely two 'camps'. Each not understanding why you would want the other computer. For me, the C64 was never really an option. ZX all the way :)

I had them all, zx spectrum, commodore 64 and an amstrad cpc 464. In saying that, the games on the commodore 64 were vastly superior in my opinion. So many hours of great memories. That was until my dad put his foot through my commodore 64 because I played it so much I neglected everything else. Man that broke my heart!! :) All three systems had such great charm, unfair to compare them all.

@scottbreon9448

5 жыл бұрын

Not the games that had vector graphics. And don;'t get me started on the C64 port of Chase HQ

@anthonyleedickinson3491

5 жыл бұрын

Best thing for c64 foot through it.

Christ you're trying hard here, i'm a proud brit and also, as such , a natural underdog supporter, but there is NO comparison, there was nothing at the time that came CLOSE to the C64, it was truly amazing. The amiga was the same, best there was until the pc took over, but at least in that case there was argument that the ST came CLOSE, not the spectrum.

@paulanderson79

6 жыл бұрын

I was, and still am, a Sinclair fan. But there's no dispute that the C64 was technically superior and had far better gaming qualities.

@avenginglettuce

6 жыл бұрын

It was half the price and still offered the best version of many classic titles. The C64 colour pallet was hardly anything to crow about either, haha.

@CaptainDangeax

5 жыл бұрын

@@avenginglettuce ...says the color blind...

It is interesting how Sir Clive wanted his machines to be for business but not games, so he makes the Spectrum with no cart or Joystick Ports, yet the 'Business Machine' QL had a Cart and Joystick Ports, then when they made the Spectrum+ and 128, once again still no cart or Joystick ports.

I grew up with DOS PC's, since early 80's. Never had an 8-bit. The only 8-bit I ever knew of was the C64 and I wanted one for gaming. Now that I'm an adult that's into repairing old tech I buy all kinds of 8 bit micros.

Britain was wonderful in the 80's :)

@scottbreon9448

5 жыл бұрын

Jean D I agree that Britain sucked (mainly because of Thatcher) but to say the music sucked is pretty ignorant. Iron Maiden and Queen were awesome

@Nautilus1972

5 жыл бұрын

It was SHIT!

Great video, interesting to look back and see how washed out and dull the C64's colours were compared to the Speccy. Speccy FTW btw :)

I had a Specy 128k +2 and i loved it. Target Renegade, Ghosts n'Goblins, Predator, Robocop, Manic Miner, Bubble Bobble....ahh, the memmories. Good times 🙂

My first machine was the Commodore 16 in 1985 which at the time cost £49.99 (£150 in todays money). It was great (I still have the same C16 to this day and the box and original tapes! It still works too!). Eventually, I swapped it with a kid on my street for a ZX Spectrum. Whilst I loved my C16, the Spectrum just felt better. The graphics were inferior and the colour pallet was shit but the Spectrum games just felt better for some reason. I had friends with C64 and whilst the sound chip was amazing I still prefered my good old Speccy. I ended up with a Spectrum +2 before finally moving onto the Sega master system but those old computers were magical. You could buy a game for £1.99 and have loads of them. I found that the Mastertronic and Codemasters games were better than the full price £6.95 - £12.95 games of the same era. On the odd occasion I bought a game with my pocket money at a premium price I felt like I was ripped off because they were ususally nothing special. The best Christmas present I ever got was a tape to tape stereo so I could copy my mates tapes and stop paying for games. You could fit loads of games on a C90 but you had to write the tape counter numbers on the card inlay so you knew where there games were on the tape hahaha It was the 80's version of bittorrent. Happy days.

💗 C64 forever

@realgroovy24

8 жыл бұрын

Speccy for life!

@scottbreon9448

5 жыл бұрын

Amiga master race

Only Speccy folks think there was war between machines.... C64 owners knew there was no competition at all... :)

@Moonfreeze

7 жыл бұрын

compared to current "wars" this one was clear cut imo. There's absolutely no competition.

@shaolin95

7 жыл бұрын

RoMage yep the C64 is a legend and the speccy doesn't even register in the radar. Only nostalgia and fanboyism can even try to compare the spectrum to the c64 lol.

@shaolin95

7 жыл бұрын

RoMage yep the C64 is a legend and the speccy doesn't even register in the radar. Only nostalgia and fanboyism can even try to compare the spectrum to the c64 lol.

@Liofa73

7 жыл бұрын

There was no point anyone getting a C64 in my school, everyone had a Spectrum... Meaning borrowing magazines and swapping/copying games was easy. From that point of view the Spectrum won the war. Like the video mentioned, it probably depended on your class, rich kids could maybe afford the C64, nobody in my social circle wanted one. Even our middle school had a BBC and a spectrum. Sure the C64 was more like a console when it came to graphics although I found the games to look to be washed out and generic, with quite a few not using colour contrast properly. It was the Amiga where I was properly drawn over to commodore, at that point I had a friend who worshipped his Atari ST... But that's a different war altogether...

@doberman2yk

7 жыл бұрын

1. C64, 2. Amstrad CPC 3. Spectrum owners whos parents couldn't afford either of the other...sorry but its true.

I have both the Commodore C16/Plus4/C128, ZX Spectrum 48K/ ZX Spectrum Plus2 grey case/ZX Spectrum 128K +2B/ ZX Spectrum+3b, over the time In my opinion the C64 was the far better for the sound, but the ZX Spectrum was far better for coding. Having said that the C16/Plus4 had better basic at Basic 3.5, and yes the C128 was far better with Basic at 7.0. But both machines had there good and not so good. It all depends what you are interested in at the end of the day. And for me both was good at different things. So I am going 10/10 for both. But the one thing I can not stand is that Adults these days (well some that is) seem to think that it is a personal war and at times come down to name calling and insults from one to another this is where it gets out of hand. for those who do this its time to GROW UP. Its all good and proper to have a normal adult chat about things with out getting all high and mighty and to the point of great insults being hurled at each other. Both should be respected for there own capabilities. They are both good and great. Long live both the C64 and ZX Spectrum.. And to finish it of my computer is better than your computer so there.

@grahamowens5439

7 жыл бұрын

You had a +2 and the commodore had better sound... Okay then. Guess you never had any games that took advantage of the later sound chip, easily outperformed other sound of the time. The graphics on the specify were still shit though.

@lordevyl8317

6 жыл бұрын

Yes, even though I'm a commodore loyalist (not a fanboy, there's a difference) out of the box the Speccy was far better for coding, especially in BASIC. With the C64 in order to get decent basic, you needed a third party BASIC interpreter such as Simon's Graham Owens Depends on what you mean by "graphics" Yes, while the C64 was far better when it came to handling sprites, no argument there, The Speccy was FAR SUPERIOR when it came to VECTOR graphics. Both Star Wars and Battlezone just to name two were FAR SUPERIOR on the Spectrum.

Very informative video.... Thanks :-)

Having owned a C64 and much later a Speccy I fully agree with Kim that the Speccy just had more charm. Thinking back I think my very fave games were mostly wireframe shooters like 3D starstrike and Elite which were even faster on a Speccy. Many of the 64's games were chunky as hell. Yes, those sprites slipped around like oil on water but even Uridium and Morpheus look all slippery and charmless now. I have been interested in art all my life and work as a graohic designer now and whenever I see a dithered speccy artwork or those sharp little burgers and telephones in Manic Miner it puts a smile on my face. I was also a huge 64 music fan, and nothing can touch Wizzball or Parallax's music, but looking back 30 years on I even like the chirrupy little Speccy even more. Can I take a moment to publicy apologise to all Speccy owners I punched in the playground - you were right all along!

Last Ninja 3 not 2 in the video :D

@owenfitzgerald3219

7 жыл бұрын

Yeah I spotted that too.

In Sweden they were pretty evenly matched for the first years. I had both but I liked the Spectrums graphics better. It had something special to it that none of its competitors could duplicate.

I really love this channel!

Exile is tragically underated

@scottbreon9448

5 жыл бұрын

Yup, but the original BBC Micro version was the best

Got a feeling you don't like Sir Alan, "you're fired," Sugar!

@krashd

6 жыл бұрын

He bought Sinclair computers and wrapped them up so they would stop competing with his Amstrad computers. Yeah, speccy fans have no love for A.M.Sugar TRADing.

I don't think many would argue that the C64 had better graphics and sound. HOWEVER, I'm glad I grew up in the UK and owned a Spectrum. I mean just look at the Speecy aesthetic with its quirky rubber keyboard. What's not to love. I play and enjoy both these days but my heart will always belong to Spectrum. Just look at the new fantastic games still being written for the Speccy. That alone tells a story.

I have chosen Sinclair Spectrum because of its strong Basic and also the beauty of Z80 assembly language, C64 was for gamers, Spectrum was for programmers. That was in 1984. By 1986 I got my first Sinclair QL, I have enjoyed its wonderful Super Basic, c, and Pascal. Old nice days.

Watched, again, thank you for re-uploading it, and #ScrewTheBBC

Speccy was amazing.

@scottbreon9448

5 жыл бұрын

Media Mike GAMEPLAY is alwaya 569595959595959 percent more important than graphics. I'm a C64 guy, but even I admit that the Speccy had far more arcade perfect conversions of arcade games in terms of gameplay, and gameplay IS the most important factor in arcade conversions

Alot of our computer war was bbc micro , Amstrad Cpc , speccy and 1 person had a Commodore. But I was lucky to experience a c64 and c16+4 as my grandmother owned those with a nes, lol. And we always raided the local Dixon's, comets, army and navy stores to do goto or return programs with rude messages for the manager to deal with....

Pretty good video! Worth the watch. There is a hidden funny part....Ill leave it at that!

I owned both (48k Speccy from 1984-1986 and C64 from 1986 to 1990) Guess the question to ask is if I were to be transported back to those times and could only choose one computer, which one would it be? As I was more a gamer then it would have to be the C64 by a country mile.

@bryanerickson2905

5 жыл бұрын

Yep, the ugly graphics and shitty sound of the Spectrum really were a turn off, every time when I went to hang out with my C64 friends it was like a whole new world.

@stewsretroreviews

5 жыл бұрын

The Spectrum had way better graphical detail than the blocky brown C64.

Thing is, Uridium did come out on the speccy eventually.

@nosferadu

8 жыл бұрын

I was just about the post the same thing. I never owned a C64 but played quite a bit of Uridium on my HC91 speccy clone.

@JohnSmith-sy6zm

6 жыл бұрын

Spacecookie But the scrolling was not fast! Speccy could not cope with Paradroid!!!!

I was a C64 kid way back in the day... most of the people I knew also had C64s. I don't think I knew anybody that had a Speccy :/ These days though I have a few friends that loved and still love the Spectrum and from what I've seen of it, its a decent bit of kit even now. Looks really fun. I'm looking at picking up a Spectrum at some point to set up next to my C64 so I can show my kids what games were like when I was a lad... bizarrely they find retro consoles and old computers really interesting... though they're not fond of long load times :)

You should be directing full-length documentaries and writing articles for books and magazines! Excellent work!

Spectrum 128 plus 2 FTW . I notice these comparisons always skim over the 128 Speccy which in terms of arcade conversions was walking all over the C64 just compare any software made from 1986 onwards when coders knew both machines inside-out. Anything made for the Speccy 48/128 with Joffa Smiths name on it really screws over the C64 IMO ..don't get me wrong I liked the C64 but as I said before from 1986 onwards the Spectrum was the machine to have simply for the quality of games available.

@SirHilaryManfat

8 жыл бұрын

+miles Jackson It's funny, I see it the other way around. The Speccy ruled in the early days, mainly down to amazing Ultimate titles such as Jet Pac. Then the C64 just dominated towards the mid to late 80's. The Spectrum had some amazing arcade conversions, such as Renegade and Chase HQ which completely killed the C64 equivalents, but I disagree that anything really "screwed over the C64". If you want to compare software from 1986 onwards, just look at IK+, Last Ninja series, Armalyte, Maniac Mansion, Turrican 1&2, Defender of the Crown, Creatures 2... All amazing games that were simply either not possible on the Spectrum or far superior to the Speccy equivalent. There are many others on the C64 like that. I'm not in any way knocking the Speccy because it's an amazing machine, but I personally think you're wrong with your conclusion... And now I feel like I'm back in the playground in the 80's haha.

@AudieHolland

8 жыл бұрын

+miles Jackson Still in denial? LOL. My favourite games had nothing to do with side-scrolling or arcade conversions. I loved playing Pirates! Gunship, Silent Service, Project Stealth Fighter, Defender of the Crown, Labyrinth... Your precious Spectrum meant NOTHING outside of the UK. As far as home computers were concerned, the rest of Europe regarded the UK as a totally different planet. The C=64 had more and better colours, fantastic sound and some other things so who would put up with the horrible Spectrum's "colours" and its sound that was only amazing when compared to a PC bleeper?

@avenginglettuce

6 жыл бұрын

Hahahahahahahahaha, I see the hate still burns inside you. Well the current Speccy scene absolutely kills the C64 equivalent, so much so we're getting a full blown follow up machine with a host of high profile coders supporting the machine, so who gives a shit if the Speccy isn't as well known outside the UK, Speccy fans have actually carried on the machines legacy and kept it alive. Check out the Spec versions of Castlevania, Doom & Mortal Kombat and theres all sorts of cool looking software in the pipeline for the Spectrum Next. God I'm enjoying this, it's like the playgrounds of old. :D :D

@jasonpleavin3761

5 жыл бұрын

So true Miles. I had a, +3 with a multiface. It was a joy to use. I even programed a snazzy multi colour disk loading routine 😁. Pity Sinclair didn't fix the colour clash. Robocop, the Renegade games. Chase HQ and so on.. I only stopped playing it in the early nineties when I got my Amiga. All the best.

I loved the Commodore 64. It was a fairly good computer and had some of the best music on it

Looking through these comments it seems like most Speccy owners are commenting what a great time they had with the machine, whilst most C64 owners are either leaving snobby comments about how the Spectrum was a poor kids computer or how obviously superior the C64 was in terms of technology. The spectrum was cheaper, but as owners we were a lot a lot wealthier as a community because we had plenty of people to share and swap games and mags with. The one thing I'll always remember about the C64 is after owning a spectrum the colours on C64 games looked muted and washed out and miserable. Of course there was no bleeding on the C64, but that wasn't something I was worried about on the speccy.

@another3997

6 жыл бұрын

Rooflesoft Games I'm seeing from your comments that you have some kind of inferiority complex and need to justify your choices to everybody and try and ridicule everybody else's choice. If you're old enough to have been around when these were current, you really should be a little more mature by now.

very great video bro!

Wait, so the Spectrum is good because of it's limitations, and the C64 isn't as great because, also, of limitations, of which there's fewer? This is a very difficult position to follow. Commodore was a bit of a dumpster fire, but the C64 grabbed and clung on by being more than a little bit magic. I'd also never heard Sinclair called likable.

@scottbreon9448

5 жыл бұрын

Arcade perfect GAMEPLAY is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than graphics And the C64 sucked when it came to handling VECTOR graphics

Fanboys going "HURDUR C64 WAZ BETUR DOOH". Well, it cost twice us much, so obviously. And yet it had laughable CPU speed (1 MHz vs 3.5 MHz in Spectrum).

@CaptainDangeax

5 жыл бұрын

Peterkray : hahah lol, you should get some information about CPUs before posting, if you don't want to be laughed about. 6510 at 1 MHz actually runs faster than a Z80 at 3,5 MHz, because the Z80 divides its clock frequency by 4.

@MrLtia1234

5 жыл бұрын

CaptainDangeax Actually, a 1 MHz 6502 is roughly twice as fast as a 1mhz z80. So no, it doesn’t. However, the c64 has hardware sprites and scrolling- so anything with small sprites and scrolling is likely going to get much better performance, but for anything that requires cpu horse power is going to perform better of the Spectrum. In those terms, the Speccy shouldn’t be as a fast as it is for arcade games, but that 8k screen turned out to be an accidental work of genius. It’s never going to get as good sprite performance as the c64, though. Sometimes those overlaid high and low res sprites could look mindblowing for a £400/$695 released in 1982. So was the c64s CPU speed laughable? Depends what you’re trying to do. The C64 version of Nightshade is shocking. But someone has recently (finally!) converted Knight Lore (from the z80 code apparently) and it runs exactly like the Spectrum version. Let’s not mention Hard Drivin, Castlemaster or Carrier Command, though, eh? Last Ninja 2 on the Spectrum? Quite a miserable affair going back to it., although having it in monochrome is quite stylish. The c64 version is fantastic- doesn’t matter if you have to wait for it to draw the screen, the sound and look of it was epically cool and still is. Also, I agree that the c64 fanboyism in these comments is a little bizarre (and interestingly isn’t going both ways!) Having owned both machines in the 80s may be the reason I’m not taking part, though. As Kim said, it’s purely a preference. They are sufficiently different - an elegant genius design, made efficiently as possible, performing ludicrously further than it was ever intended, or the luxury games computer with a mind blowingly cool sound chip. Oh, and you can get 50fps on a Spectrum. Check out an ESI demo.

@scottbreon9448

5 жыл бұрын

Well, here in North America Spectrums were not a thing. He did have the Timex Sinclair computers, but they had a lot of compatibility issues with UK speccy games. Plus they were poorly marketed on top of it. The big two at the time here were the C64 and Atari 800 I would say going by what I understand The spectrum was basically the layman's computer The c64, was for more the upper middle class and the super rich had BBCs Here the main warm was between Commodore and Atari, and maybe the Texas Instruments computers along with the Radio Shack computers. I don't know anyone who personally owned an Apple II back in the day except one.

Ohhh now ill have to watch it 10 more times, thanks Kim

Enjoyed that, thanks !

This is better then most documentaries on bbc. #fubbc

@Liofa73

6 жыл бұрын

Patrick White --- well... Better than most documentaries on ITV at least. BBC does decent docs.

SID chip and floppy drive made it easy to decide. The C64 came with a complete manual and diagrams of ports, chips, I/O etc. Perfect for programmers. In the DK the C64 was introduced at 4995 DKK, and the price rapidly fell to 2995 DKK in 1984. Later it would sell for around 1500 DKK, and finally toward 1990 the C64c price was dumped to 800 DKK by some supermarket chains. I don't remember ever seeing Spectrums in high street shops. The first zx80 and zx81 were sold by mail order and many units were faulty giving the brand a bad name. Btw, in Spain the MSX platform was very popular.

The documentary you do are really great being a c64 fan myself