So I'm looking at this and thinking the C64's graphics look really blocky, but the thing is to remember is back when we were first playing these games they weren't on sharp LCD displays but were played on CRTs using RF connections that added a lot of blur and smear. That had the effect of adding a degree of natural anti-aliasing which made the games look better. Often too they were played on portable TVs with much smaller screen sizes than today too so you couldn't see the pixels as much. Earlier speccys had images with dot-crawl too which added an extra layer of blur. I have a refurbed rubber key speccy with dot-crawl and I love it, the effect is really nostalgic as that's what I remember them being like.
The C64 was the superior computer with it's VIC and SID chips plus a proper keyboard and more memory, but then again it also cost 3-4 time as much as the ZX Spectrum.
@@CitroenGS That is not quite true. The ZX Spectrum 48k, only comes with 48k of RAM installed. The C64 comes with 64k of RAM installed and you can easily access all 64k by using the bank switching feature in the 6510 processor, allowing you to switch areas of the memory between ROM, RAM and registers for the VIC and SID chips. Cheers, Jake
@@CitroenGS Spectrum was 16,48,128k RAM, unless you mean C64 BASIC's 38k free for programs (there is an extra 5k you can use for variables or graphic data though beyond the end of BASIC free RAM pointer)
Yeah...and yet many ZX games beat their C64 versions graphically and occasionally even sonically: Exolon is far superior on ZX - so is Zynaps, Commando is graphically better on ZX, Robin of the wood too is graphically more intersting (finervgraphics + awesome animation), ZX version of Robin even has a digital voice samle - very natural and clear whereas C64 version doesn't. MYTH looks like a turd on C64 and it's an eye-candy on ZX 😊
Given that the ZX Spectrum was basically born out of an ongoing project to make home computers as cheap as possible it stacked up surprisingly well against a computer which at the time cost nearly 4 times more
C64 was 399 maximum 1982 price, down to 299 by Summer/Autumn 1983 but the 48k Speccy was 175 quid and the Spectrum+ (still no sound chip) was the same a year later. Why do people keep mentioning 3-4 times as a price difference lol
@@madcommodore My guess is they’re comparing the price of 16k Spectrum (£125) to the launch price of the C64 - which I think launched in the UK a year after the US in 1983 at £399. It’s also worth pointing out that the reason it had to drop its price was because it was suffering in sales compared to the much cheaper Spectrum. Similar thing that motivated Acorn to respond with the Electron as a cheap BBC alternative. The Spectrum ended up making all the 8 bits cheaper.
@@iantellam9970 The C64 didn't even hit the UK shelves until the last week of November 1982, it was 499-549 as only about 20,000 units were delivered but Xmas 1983 onwards was when the real battle began between 299-349 CPC464, the 299 C64 and 48k Speccy first then 128 or Plus2 as only options later :) I think the 48k was reduced to 125 same as the 16k was before it was discontinued and the Spectrum+ was 175 etc. The C64 + VIC20 were outselling the Speccy+ZX81 by early 1984 I think it was, possibly mid 1984 (it's in Home Computing W or Pop comp weekly magazine news item) so that 'C64 hardly sold any in UK' business is a myth. I was as surprised as anybody but it's there in a real magazine not some waffly wikipedia 'factoid'. Sinclair never retaliated with 'revised' figures that year so we can assume the news item was correct as everybody inflated 'sold units' via shipped/finished units anyway.
Seems a strange comparison... The Spectrum with its obnoxiously day-glow palette vs the C64 who's palette is notoriously drab & overwhelmingly brown. What cannot be argued is that the Speccy's graphics are so distinctive that you can identify the system with a single-frame screenshot from ANY game. (and those games - despite the much lower price and system specs - were often just as much fun to play!)
I still have both computers; of these games I only played two games Commando and Robin of the Wood, the former only played on the c64 and the latter on the Timex TC2048(ZX Speccy clone) and I remember loving playing Robin of the Wood and painstakingly mapping it but I never had this game on the C64, nice to see it here side by side.
I owned Spectrum back in the 80s (but my cousin owned the C64 so I had, let say, a "limited exposure" to the machine :) ). So it's an interesting project for me to check these games and see how they played on both machines. Thanks for watching!
If that's the case, it really wasn't intentional. I only check the titles that are available for both systems and do the selection more based on what titles were popular back then. Anyway, as I mentioned elsewhere, it's not really a "battle" between the systems, more a research on how the same titles looked on different systems. Thanks for watching.
nice, this is were to start seeing the c64 looking mature, the speccy looks like it's been coloured by a child, whos who's got a tube of paint and splatted on. It wont be long before the Speccy catches up however.
The dots you see in Nodes of Yesod are most likely the artefact of trying to set the screen colour in the middle of the screen. It looks like the game always changes the screen background colour mid-frame, in overground levels from black to light grey, and in underground levels from black to black, and C64 emits a light grey background semipixel if you change the background while it's being drawn. The emulator emulates that effect correctly. You don't see it in overground levels, as the rocks cover it (the glitchy pixel belongs to the background), and also it would blend with the grey ground anyway. The same glitch can also occur in the borders, for example in the SID player built into 1541 Ultimate II+.
Sad you missed 128k versions of some Spectrum games, which sounded much better than their 48k versions and could be understood as true competitors to their C64 versions. Namely Robin of the Wood, Nodes of Yesod, Commando (unofficial music addon).
I generally use 48k versions as I see the 48k to be the most used Spectrum back then (similar to the C64 vs. 128k version). I do think that music doesn't make the game what the game is, it can only add atmosphere to the gameplay (if you know what I'm trying to say). The general idea here is to compare the gameplay and how the game looked on Speecy and the Commodore. I do see what you mean though and fair point... Thanks for watching!
Most of these games the most notable isnt even the difference between graphics, which are typical and fine for each system but mostly its how much atmosphere is added by the music most games on the C64 have
As good as the SID was, any in game sound effects paused the music as it only had 3 channels. This totally ruined it for me. I reckon that's why many people just listened to some of the amazing C64 game music on the title screen and did not bother playing the games!
Like you could argue which system had better graphics (I sort of like crispness of Spectrum), but there is no argument which one sounds better. Those fart noises of Spectrum's Commando vs classic sid tune of Commodore!
Absolutely no contest in music/sfx department. C64 wins by a long shot. But I also like the gfx of ZX more than on C64 - especially colors. So each of the machines got something going for it.
@@retrononame I think I like color on C64 better. Yes, it's very muted, but ZX is often too bright and looks garish. But I like how crisp sprites are - you can see tiny details on them. I think both systems have their strenghts and weaknesses and you can't say one is clearly worse than other.
You could get the same kind of "crispness" on the C64, but people preferred taking advantage of multicolour mode. The Spectrum's big advantage was that it ran twice as fast.
They both share their most important "quality": super crappy analog video output with noise, chroma bleed and jailbars. This is emulator material, but if you would have filmed the real deal on a CRT TV, it would have looked junk, in both cases. Fun thing is World of Spectrum has its emulator content on the website WITH jailbars and contrast edges. Glad there were computers back then that DID have proper video out, like the CPC 464, Beeb, MSX, P2000T, those still look top notch today, and were suitable to write code on for hours.
It's just ridiculous how much better C64 games look, not to mention the sound. And the scroll, jeez (Cauldron). I must say though that Nodes of Yesod looks better on ZX and I like the looks of Robin of the Woods very much. Still no sound though.
I do not agree on the looks. C64 games simply look dated, no matter how you look at it. Spectrum games have some timeless quality to the artwork thanks to the highly original way the colour palette worked.
C64: best audio and soundtrack best color variety best game variety and lenght best shoot em up, sports and action games ZX SPECTRUM: best graphic definition best color palette best 3D games best action adventures (and most of the games in this video are action adventures) WINNER: C64 in most arcade conversions while they are incomparable ontheir exclusives because they are two completely different flavours
Now, the whole "best graphic definition" thing isn't right at all. The C64's hires modes were 320 horizontally Vs the Spectrum's 256, but it was rarely used because the additional colour resolution of the multicolour modes was a good trade off. You _could_ make C64 games like that, but it was generally reserved for (lazy) Spectrum conversions like the Dizzy games were.
@@talideon Here in the USA, the ZX Spectrum was basically unknown, so pure HIRES mode didn't have any "Spectrum port" stigma. So, in 1985 we have Hardball, which massively raised the bar in baseball game graphics, and sports games in general (I think it was the first sports game to feature camera views similar to watching a game on TV). We also have Law of the West. These take advantage of both the higher resolution and superior color palette of the C64. I'm not sure exactly when the C64 port of Ultima IV was released ... I think early 1986 rather than 1985. Its use of HIRES mode isn't as fancy as Hardball or Law of the West, but I still consider it one of the most beautiful C64 games. It really takes advantage of the nice C64 color palette.
i think this is not hardware comparison but on only show how games look different on different machines (there is lot of channels who comparing ports on every platform) there i only c64 and spectrum - we all knows that they are totally different machines.
Exactly. You can't really compare the hardware as C64 had hardware sprite support and great sound chip (that was later introduced to Spectrum 128k as well) and Spectrum got a bit faster CPU for example. The point in these videos is exactly what you wrote - to see same games on different machines. But on the machines that were popular pretty much at the same time period (so in the 80s). I have plans to include a few other machines as well (like CPC) in the future...
The 64 should have been better, it cost more than double what a Spectrum did? That said, the Spectrum definitely punched above its weight, in terms of raw computing power, the Spectrum had the edge due to its clock speed, 3.5Mhz versus the 64's (from memory) 1.05Mhz. The Spectrum also had more usable memory availabke to most users. Despite its faults and limitations the Spectrum got more people into computing than the 64 did, not just in the UK but worldwide when you consider the various clones made.
Well, THAT being said: Do not forget that the C64 was still cheaper than almost all other competitors at the time AND therefore underwent some cost reduction during development pushed by management. "the Spectrum got more people into computing" Bold statement towards a rig that was sold off somewhere between 17 and 25 million times globally.
@@arnolda.lampel6087 Not really a bold statement, when you consider the millions of Russian/Soviet/East European clones, there's still a vibrant Spectrum coding scene in Eastern Europe, in South America too. Also, it has been said by others that coding, basic programming is more accessible on the Spectrum than the C64, so I stand by that.
You can't compare clock frequency directly between the 6510 and the Z80. The 6510 is much more efficient requiring fewer CPU cycles per instruction, you can see it in the performance if e.g. you run the same BASIC program on both computers the C64 is actually faster. The C64 also got bank switching where you can switch between ROM and RAM and registers for the VIC and SID chips, it's very easy to access nearly all 64 kB of memory. Cheers, Jake
@@TheStuffMade Spectrum BASIC is not that fast, I'll give you that but the Spectrum is more powerful in certain ways, for instance it's better at vector graphics than the 64. Isn't it true that for BASIC programming, the 64 only has about 39k available to the user? I don't deny that in some ways the 64 is better, but then, at least at first, it cost around double what a Spectrum did, it should have been.
@@robm8809 I would argue that Stunt Car Racer proves the opposite, but sure there are many terrible 3D ports like Hard Drivin' that's pretty much unplayable on all home computers. If you write in assembly language you can easily access all 64kB of memory, but of course if you're writing in BASIC you'll have to be more careful because it'll probably crash if you swap the kernal ROM or BASIC ROM with RAM, but you can do it with a bit of trickery. Sure I don't disagree with you, I think the C64 was as much as 3-4 times the cost of a ZX Spectrum. Don't get me wrong I love both systems and I think both played a huge role in introducing a whole generation of people to computers and programming. Cheers, Jake
The colour clash is its charm. The 64 has lost every charm and looks muddy, coarse and washed out today, even worse on a real CRT. Also the case of the ZX is much prettier, where there is no reason to have an actual C64 on show.
So I'm looking at this and thinking the C64's graphics look really blocky, but the thing is to remember is back when we were first playing these games they weren't on sharp LCD displays but were played on CRTs using RF connections that added a lot of blur and smear. That had the effect of adding a degree of natural anti-aliasing which made the games look better. Often too they were played on portable TVs with much smaller screen sizes than today too so you couldn't see the pixels as much. Earlier speccys had images with dot-crawl too which added an extra layer of blur. I have a refurbed rubber key speccy with dot-crawl and I love it, the effect is really nostalgic as that's what I remember them being like.
The C64 was the superior computer with it's VIC and SID chips plus a proper keyboard and more memory, but then again it also cost 3-4 time as much as the ZX Spectrum.
You had to buy the Spectrum 128/+2/+3 to get sound and that cost about the same as a C64 bundle back then in the mid 80s.
The Spectrum and the C64 had the same memory: 64 kb. The spectrum only advertised the free ram.
@@CitroenGS That is not quite true. The ZX Spectrum 48k, only comes with 48k of RAM installed. The C64 comes with 64k of RAM installed and you can easily access all 64k by using the bank switching feature in the 6510 processor, allowing you to switch areas of the memory between ROM, RAM and registers for the VIC and SID chips.
Cheers,
Jake
@@CitroenGS Spectrum was 16,48,128k RAM, unless you mean C64 BASIC's 38k free for programs (there is an extra 5k you can use for variables or graphic data though beyond the end of BASIC free RAM pointer)
Yeah...and yet many ZX games beat their C64 versions graphically and occasionally even sonically: Exolon is far superior on ZX - so is Zynaps, Commando is graphically better on ZX, Robin of the wood too is graphically more intersting (finervgraphics + awesome animation), ZX version of Robin even has a digital voice samle - very natural and clear whereas C64 version doesn't.
MYTH looks like a turd on C64 and it's an eye-candy on ZX 😊
Given that the ZX Spectrum was basically born out of an ongoing project to make home computers as cheap as possible it stacked up surprisingly well against a computer which at the time cost nearly 4 times more
C64 was 399 maximum 1982 price, down to 299 by Summer/Autumn 1983 but the 48k Speccy was 175 quid and the Spectrum+ (still no sound chip) was the same a year later. Why do people keep mentioning 3-4 times as a price difference lol
Yeah well I got a discount at Smiths cos I knew the manager lol
@@kev7345 And there were loads of mail order places doing the C64 for 20-25% off too.
@@madcommodore My guess is they’re comparing the price of 16k Spectrum (£125) to the launch price of the C64 - which I think launched in the UK a year after the US in 1983 at £399.
It’s also worth pointing out that the reason it had to drop its price was because it was suffering in sales compared to the much cheaper Spectrum. Similar thing that motivated Acorn to respond with the Electron as a cheap BBC alternative. The Spectrum ended up making all the 8 bits cheaper.
@@iantellam9970 The C64 didn't even hit the UK shelves until the last week of November 1982, it was 499-549 as only about 20,000 units were delivered but Xmas 1983 onwards was when the real battle began between 299-349 CPC464, the 299 C64 and 48k Speccy first then 128 or Plus2 as only options later :) I think the 48k was reduced to 125 same as the 16k was before it was discontinued and the Spectrum+ was 175 etc. The C64 + VIC20 were outselling the Speccy+ZX81 by early 1984 I think it was, possibly mid 1984 (it's in Home Computing W or Pop comp weekly magazine news item) so that 'C64 hardly sold any in UK' business is a myth. I was as surprised as anybody but it's there in a real magazine not some waffly wikipedia 'factoid'. Sinclair never retaliated with 'revised' figures that year so we can assume the news item was correct as everybody inflated 'sold units' via shipped/finished units anyway.
Seems a strange comparison...
The Spectrum with its obnoxiously day-glow palette vs the C64 who's palette is notoriously drab & overwhelmingly brown.
What cannot be argued is that the Speccy's graphics are so distinctive that you can identify the system with a single-frame screenshot from ANY game. (and those games - despite the much lower price and system specs - were often just as much fun to play!)
I’m starting to learn more about the ZX. This was a fun watch.
Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
I still have both computers; of these games I only played two games Commando and Robin of the Wood, the former only played on the c64 and the latter on the Timex TC2048(ZX Speccy clone) and I remember loving playing Robin of the Wood and painstakingly mapping it but I never had this game on the C64, nice to see it here side by side.
I owned Spectrum back in the 80s (but my cousin owned the C64 so I had, let say, a "limited exposure" to the machine :) ).
So it's an interesting project for me to check these games and see how they played on both machines.
Thanks for watching!
it took me more than 30 years to complete Robin of the wood (ZX version)
A bunch of games that were Spectrum first and ported to the C64
If that's the case, it really wasn't intentional. I only check the titles that are available for both systems and do the selection more based on what titles were popular back then.
Anyway, as I mentioned elsewhere, it's not really a "battle" between the systems, more a research on how the same titles looked on different systems.
Thanks for watching.
That applies to dynamite Dan, Herbert's Dummy Run and Monty on the Run but not the others
I always liked the speccys vibrant colours 😃.
Nice one mate👍🏻
For all the flickering, bad scrolling and colour clash, there's an undeniable charm to the Speccy games. :-)
@@Jimbaloidatron Hey mate, I totally agree with you there 😊
Thanks! 👍
nice, this is were to start seeing the c64 looking mature, the speccy looks like it's been coloured by a child, whos who's got a tube of paint and splatted on. It wont be long before the Speccy catches up however.
The dots you see in Nodes of Yesod are most likely the artefact of trying to set the screen colour in the middle of the screen. It looks like the game always changes the screen background colour mid-frame, in overground levels from black to light grey, and in underground levels from black to black, and C64 emits a light grey background semipixel if you change the background while it's being drawn. The emulator emulates that effect correctly. You don't see it in overground levels, as the rocks cover it (the glitchy pixel belongs to the background), and also it would blend with the grey ground anyway. The same glitch can also occur in the borders, for example in the SID player built into 1541 Ultimate II+.
Spectrum version is silent while c64 has epic music!
The C64 looks much better i think. Cant wait play all the games on the Mega 65
Sad you missed 128k versions of some Spectrum games, which sounded much better than their 48k versions and could be understood as true competitors to their C64 versions. Namely Robin of the Wood, Nodes of Yesod, Commando (unofficial music addon).
I generally use 48k versions as I see the 48k to be the most used Spectrum back then (similar to the C64 vs. 128k version). I do think that music doesn't make the game what the game is, it can only add atmosphere to the gameplay (if you know what I'm trying to say). The general idea here is to compare the gameplay and how the game looked on Speecy and the Commodore.
I do see what you mean though and fair point...
Thanks for watching!
Most of these games the most notable isnt even the difference between graphics, which are typical and fine for each system but mostly its how much atmosphere is added by the music most games on the C64 have
As good as the SID was, any in game sound effects paused the music as it only had 3 channels. This totally ruined it for me. I reckon that's why many people just listened to some of the amazing C64 game music on the title screen and did not bother playing the games!
Like you could argue which system had better graphics (I sort of like crispness of Spectrum), but there is no argument which one sounds better. Those fart noises of Spectrum's Commando vs classic sid tune of Commodore!
Absolutely no contest in music/sfx department. C64 wins by a long shot. But I also like the gfx of ZX more than on C64 - especially colors. So each of the machines got something going for it.
@@retrononame I think I like color on C64 better. Yes, it's very muted, but ZX is often too bright and looks garish. But I like how crisp sprites are - you can see tiny details on them. I think both systems have their strenghts and weaknesses and you can't say one is clearly worse than other.
Agreed. As for colors. I always say it's just a personal preference.
No contest, the spec was abysmal
You could get the same kind of "crispness" on the C64, but people preferred taking advantage of multicolour mode. The Spectrum's big advantage was that it ran twice as fast.
They both share their most important "quality": super crappy analog video output with noise, chroma bleed and jailbars. This is emulator material, but if you would have filmed the real deal on a CRT TV, it would have looked junk, in both cases. Fun thing is World of Spectrum has its emulator content on the website WITH jailbars and contrast edges. Glad there were computers back then that DID have proper video out, like the CPC 464, Beeb, MSX, P2000T, those still look top notch today, and were suitable to write code on for hours.
It's just ridiculous how much better C64 games look, not to mention the sound. And the scroll, jeez (Cauldron). I must say though that Nodes of Yesod looks better on ZX and I like the looks of Robin of the Woods very much. Still no sound though.
I do not agree on the looks. C64 games simply look dated, no matter how you look at it. Spectrum games have some timeless quality to the artwork thanks to the highly original way the colour palette worked.
На спектруме графика конечно уступает, музыки порой нет, но в бывшем СССР Спектрум был топовый комп.
C64:
best audio and soundtrack
best color variety
best game variety and lenght
best shoot em up, sports and action games
ZX SPECTRUM:
best graphic definition
best color palette
best 3D games
best action adventures (and most of the games in this video are action adventures)
WINNER: C64 in most arcade conversions while they are incomparable ontheir exclusives because they are two completely different flavours
Now, the whole "best graphic definition" thing isn't right at all. The C64's hires modes were 320 horizontally Vs the Spectrum's 256, but it was rarely used because the additional colour resolution of the multicolour modes was a good trade off. You _could_ make C64 games like that, but it was generally reserved for (lazy) Spectrum conversions like the Dizzy games were.
@@talideon Here in the USA, the ZX Spectrum was basically unknown, so pure HIRES mode didn't have any "Spectrum port" stigma.
So, in 1985 we have Hardball, which massively raised the bar in baseball game graphics, and sports games in general (I think it was the first sports game to feature camera views similar to watching a game on TV). We also have Law of the West. These take advantage of both the higher resolution and superior color palette of the C64.
I'm not sure exactly when the C64 port of Ultima IV was released ... I think early 1986 rather than 1985. Its use of HIRES mode isn't as fancy as Hardball or Law of the West, but I still consider it one of the most beautiful C64 games. It really takes advantage of the nice C64 color palette.
i think this is not hardware comparison but on only show how games look different on different machines (there is lot of channels who comparing ports on every platform) there i only c64 and spectrum - we all knows that they are totally different machines.
Exactly. You can't really compare the hardware as C64 had hardware sprite support and great sound chip (that was later introduced to Spectrum 128k as well) and Spectrum got a bit faster CPU for example.
The point in these videos is exactly what you wrote - to see same games on different machines. But on the machines that were popular pretty much at the same time period (so in the 80s). I have plans to include a few other machines as well (like CPC) in the future...
Generally bigger gaps emerging
you must compare zx128 that have aprox the same hardware features that c64, three channels music with ay chip and white noise.
I have said that C64 had the better sound but this is only through your video, never owned either of the computers.
👍👍
The C64 blows the ZX out of the water, as usual.
I think I would never have become interested in computing if I had a Spectrum. It's laughably bad compared to the C64.
An entire generation of British programmers would beg to differ.
The 64 should have been better, it cost more than double what a Spectrum did? That said, the Spectrum definitely punched above its weight, in terms of raw computing power, the Spectrum had the edge due to its clock speed, 3.5Mhz versus the 64's (from memory) 1.05Mhz. The Spectrum also had more usable memory availabke to most users. Despite its faults and limitations the Spectrum got more people into computing than the 64 did, not just in the UK but worldwide when you consider the various clones made.
Well, THAT being said:
Do not forget that the C64 was still cheaper than almost all other competitors at the time AND therefore underwent some cost reduction during development pushed by management.
"the Spectrum got more people into computing"
Bold statement towards a rig that was sold off somewhere between 17 and 25 million times globally.
@@arnolda.lampel6087 Not really a bold statement, when you consider the millions of Russian/Soviet/East European clones, there's still a vibrant Spectrum coding scene in Eastern Europe, in South America too. Also, it has been said by others that coding, basic programming is more accessible on the Spectrum than the C64, so I stand by that.
You can't compare clock frequency directly between the 6510 and the Z80. The 6510 is much more efficient requiring fewer CPU cycles per instruction, you can see it in the performance if e.g. you run the same BASIC program on both computers the C64 is actually faster. The C64 also got bank switching where you can switch between ROM and RAM and registers for the VIC and SID chips, it's very easy to access nearly all 64 kB of memory.
Cheers,
Jake
@@TheStuffMade Spectrum BASIC is not that fast, I'll give you that but the Spectrum is more powerful in certain ways, for instance it's better at vector graphics than the 64. Isn't it true that for BASIC programming, the 64 only has about 39k available to the user? I don't deny that in some ways the 64 is better, but then, at least at first, it cost around double what a Spectrum did, it should have been.
@@robm8809 I would argue that Stunt Car Racer proves the opposite, but sure there are many terrible 3D ports like Hard Drivin' that's pretty much unplayable on all home computers. If you write in assembly language you can easily access all 64kB of memory, but of course if you're writing in BASIC you'll have to be more careful because it'll probably crash if you swap the kernal ROM or BASIC ROM with RAM, but you can do it with a bit of trickery.
Sure I don't disagree with you, I think the C64 was as much as 3-4 times the cost of a ZX Spectrum. Don't get me wrong I love both systems and I think both played a huge role in introducing a whole generation of people to computers and programming.
Cheers,
Jake
C64 kills with zx
And the winner is.....
C64
The C64 games look like a stale vegetable salad with thickly chopped pieces.
The c64 batters the speccy in every way.. Terrible spectrum colour clash.. C64 rules.. 40 years later
The colour clash is its charm. The 64 has lost every charm and looks muddy, coarse and washed out today, even worse on a real CRT. Also the case of the ZX is much prettier, where there is no reason to have an actual C64 on show.