Commodore 64 vs ZX Spectrum - The Great British Computer War - Kim Justice
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- #retrogaming #c64 #zxspectrum #documentary
Today's video is a lil' special...we're looking at the biggest British computer war of the 1980's! In one corner, the all-conquering Commodore 64, and in the other the ZX Spectrum, the hometown hero defending this green and pleasant land. We'll be looking at the culture, the differences between Sir Clive and Jack Tramiel, the differences between the two machines, how everything panned out over the decade...oh, and obviously an absolute ton of games. Enjoy!
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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.
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!!!
@@wargameboy72 I'm not from either camp, I do have both, I picked both manuals from my collection, C64 and ZX Dutch user manual, and seriously, it is a TOTAL WIN for the ZX manual. It is pure excitement of computer joy. The C64 one is B&W and makes a balloon sprite YAY! The ZX Spectrum book is full colour and has over 25 colour screens with various graphics and shows how to program those. It has flow-charts of both sample programs and the inner hardware structure. It even has a picture of the PCB telling everything. It has a very extensive BASIC reference with 80 commands, only 58 on the C64, glossary with computer vocabulaire. Don't let the pagecount fool you, there is much more information on the 80 pages of the ZX one than on the 174 in the C64 one. Only downside is that I need glasses for the ZX manual.
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!
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 :)
You had the C64 vs Speccy arguments in the 80s too. I remember them well.
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.
Loving the comments! It's basically the playground all over again but with the benefit of 30 extra years of tech understanding! 😃👍
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!
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.
+Lee K I had both and hated the specturm.. gave it to my nephew. Loads more original titles on the C64
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
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
I´m from Brazil. The brazillian ZX Spectrum clone sold extreme well here...
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!
Shur Murray
During 1980s, how easy was buy a 8bits clone computer in Moscow?
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
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.
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.
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.
+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.
+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.
+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.
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.
+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.
The Spectrum and C64 are not dead, THEY LIVE!
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 :)
Great explanation. From Spain. ZX Spectrum forever in my heart
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.
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.
I can only imagine how many hours it takes to produce this quality content! Bravo.
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.
"Oh I wish my parents bought me a Spectrum instead" said no Commodore 64 owner ever.
:P
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.
I am from the UK, and I never had that problem.
Dont engage with the poverty stricken, speccy peasant.
Makes me feel sorry for the UK to have to play ugly looking conversions of popular games...
@@SuperHoraceWimp Lol you cheeky bugger.
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.
Rest in Peace my beloved c64. I will never ever forget you.
Ahh, I love that music from Last Ninja 2 at the beginning. Takes me back!
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.
Z80 need more clock cycles to do the same than a 6510. If you are programmer you know that.
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...
and theres at least 100 titles that use 3d vector graphics not just scrolling n sprites use your imagination speccy wins hands down
@@samcoupe4608KB 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.
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
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.
You read the comments here and then wonder, why people think toxic communities and childish fanboyism is a new thing?
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.
I agree with you. The dust has settled and honestly, different computer enthusiasts expressed themselves differently. That unites us.
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.
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.
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.
Lower middle class, perhaps. The kids from affluent families often had BBC Bs.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Far more games for C64 all in all, just keeping things factually correct, thanks.
ZX Spectrum was huge in South Africa. I bet you know the program "The Key"
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.
Only Speccy folks think there was war between machines.... C64 owners knew there was no competition at all... :)
compared to current "wars" this one was clear cut imo. There's absolutely no competition.
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.
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.
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...
1. C64, 2. Amstrad CPC 3. Spectrum owners whos parents couldn't afford either of the other...sorry but its true.
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.
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.
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.
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.
if i had one, i would definitely use one of those SD or USB or CF adapters, yeah
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.
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 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!
Portugal was also a very strong market for the ZX Spectrum.
Russia too
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.
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 vid as always and extra marks for the background music. Especially for Crass and the Ska music! Nice one.
in italy the c64 wa sso great and popular that we had a hundreds of magazines with various italian homebews games weekly
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!!
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 !
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.
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.
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.
@@pecker2-9 lemme guess, voting brexit 33 years later....
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.
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.
I remember at school the arguments over the speccy vs the C16/64. I'm biased as i LOVE the speccy.
Got a feeling you don't like Sir Alan, "you're fired," Sugar!
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.
The 64 was a better machine technically for arcade games, but its strengths tended to drive a lot of the games to feel a bit samey (sprite-based, scrolling, lots of platform games and shooters). Because the Speccie had so little custom hardware, with the CPU having to do everything, game creators were somewhat less constrained and ended up creating a wider variety of games, a lot of them really interesting. I was a 64 owner but many of the best games of the 8-bit area were created for the Spectrum, certainly as the primary platform.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And those books were VERY VAGUE. 20 or more peeks and pokes to get one single sprite isn't good a BASIC programming language
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.
Spectrum lost in west, but - in the east , in the Warsaw pact countries, in the USSR and its allies, spectrum was exactly what commodore64 became for west people. In Russia people even didn't heard about commodore, and spectrum clones was seriously made in almost every major city at military factories, at factories that made electronics for tanks, rockets, anti air and fighter jets same time.
👍👍
I had ZX Spectrum, which was great for its time....
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@avenginglettuce ...says the color blind...
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...
8:48
10 PRINT "Fuck Thatcher"
20> Go TO 10
10 PRINT "Fuck Starmer."
20 GOTO 10
As a kid, you wanted s computer that played games. This is why Spectrum did so well. My friends had a commodore and it always failed to load a game, every single time. It became a big lump that did nothing. The Spectrum has great games, not as many colours, but the games were good and the games actually loaded. That’s why the Spectrum ‘won’.
Rooflesoft Games no, they just never loaded at any friends house. They were best known for failing to load any game.
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 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.
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.
Not the games that had vector graphics. And don;'t get me started on the C64 port of Chase HQ
Best thing for c64 foot through it.
Do you have EMR nowdays to cope with the trauma?
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.
Exile is tragically underated
Yup, but the original BBC Micro version was the best
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.
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!
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.
Britain was wonderful in the 80's :)
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
It was SHIT!
BBC was wonderful. They did amazing things for computers. They had a close bond with British Telecom, Dutch Telecom, NOS and Philips, and amazing things happened like the Beeb, Viewdata, BASICODE and great educational programs. Actually Europe was leading tech in certain domains. Now we only have the micro:bit as nice colab between BBC and NXP with some spin-off like Kitronik and Pololu.
Great video as usual Kim, brought back lots of memories, cheers mate!
Superb video. Very informative and well made. Keep up the good work. ^^
Superb video? only if you are a blind Spectrum fanboy hoping to get some lies to make you happy about your inferior machine lol
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.
Thing is, Uridium did come out on the speccy eventually.
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.
Spacecookie But the scrolling was not fast! Speccy could not cope with Paradroid!!!!
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 :)
Last Ninja 3 not 2 in the video :D
Yeah I spotted that too.
Spot on Kim! Great trip down memory lane - Thank you 👍
💗 C64 forever
Speccy for life!
Amiga master race
I had a spectrum 16k second hand and got jetpac and in blew me away. i got the memory upgraded( for about the price of 6 gig now lol) to 48k and played the ultimate games and matchday and it was so good. such a personal experience. Then i managed to persuade the parents to get a me a C64 and got paradroid. defender of the crown etc and again it was amazing. i got an amiga and whilst it was fun it did not rekindle that amazement. i got that again, for games, from PS1. Some games have blown me away like COD., last of Us, Red dead redemption, gta. But there is something about these old systems that make me play an emulator at least a couple of times a week. As for who won the war or who was best... its like picking your favourite child. Pointless and someone would get hurt for no reason or benefit
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).
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.
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.
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.
Where the Spectrum scored was that it was cheap enough to get into the hands of people with IDEAS. The C64 had in some respects superior hardware (the SID chip was so good high end synthesisers emulated it) and dedicated sprites made some game coding tasks a lot easier, but you had to memorise a huge brace of POKE values to make use of them. The Spectrum gave you access to its features in BASIC from the start, and thus learning what did what at machine code level could be mapped back onto that knowledge base.
As a testament to the ingenuity of Spectrum programmers, no less a game than Elite was successfully ported over. That must have taken a formidable level of skill.
You were obviously born way too late to realise the C64 won the war. It was much more than an "affordable machine" and an exceptionally advanced piece of hardware for its time
William Teggart -- but it wasn't affordable to people in the UK, that's the point. Purchasing the system is one thing, in which the spectrum was cheaper, the other consideration is buying software and when all of your friends owned spectrums and could give/swap you games and mags, the Spectrum became way more affordable than the C64.
I bought the 48K Spectrum xmas 1983 and a couple of years later the C64. Both had different characters but overall I enjoyed the Spectrum more. I also owned the Amiga 500 in the early 90's, but never had that same sense of fun as the Speccy or C64. I then bought the SNES for my son in the mid 90's which blew them ALL away!! Today everyone of those machines bar the Spectrum was given away or sold at some point, and that little 48K machine still resides in my loft in it's original packaging awaiting the day when I can sell it and retire (LOL).
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.
Arcade perfect GAMEPLAY is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than graphics
And the C64 sucked when it came to handling VECTOR graphics
Speccy had more charm and art in my opinion. I am obviously biased as this was my first ever machine. Well it wasn't mine but you get the point :)
Speccy was amazing.
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
Having the Commodore 64 back in 1985 was like having the arcade in your bedroom. Great times....Speccy didn't really catch up to the C-64 until the 128K model was released.
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.
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.
The Spectrum had way better graphical detail than the blocky brown C64.
Props from Canada! You're documentaries are amazing, better than anything on TV.
I loved the Commodore 64. It was a fairly good computer and had some of the best music on it
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....
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.
+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.
+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?
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
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 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.
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.
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.
Watched, again, thank you for re-uploading it, and #ScrewTheBBC
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. I will never forget getting my spectrum 128k and c64. I still have my c64.🙂
ZX games were better early on. Once C64 programmers got used to it the C64 was much better from around 84 onwards.
I agree, although the Speccy was always far better when it came to vector graphics
Tell that to the horrible C64 ports of Chase HQ and Cisco heat.
Gameplay is always 56959549594r9494495495 percent more important than graphics and sound, especially when it came to arcade conversions
I received a C64 for Christmas back in 1989 when I was 12 & it came with 10 games.
The Spectrum range were cute and pretty capable little machines but it's unfair to compare them to the C64, because they can never compete with it.
+Maria Engström Yeah the Spectrum was the poors kids computer who lived in that crappy street on the edge of town. The one who you were friends with, but avoided going to their house after school because it smelled of stale bread and piss. He always wore the same clothes for school as he did on the weekends, because ... they were his only clothes. And his tramp mother never washed them anyways. Speccy was affordable and you could find some semi decent games to play on it. But compared to the more expensive CPC and C64, it was shit.
Not a fair comparison. Anyone considering BOTH systems would only chose the C64, unless they didn't have enough money. In which case they would HAVE to pick the Spectrum. Or if they were smart they would save up and buy a CPC.
What you mean is that some kids had wealthier parents. A perspicacious observation.
And yet the Spectrum did compete because across half of Europe it outsold the C64 and became beloved.
TheVanillatech --- what a fucking snob you are.
TheVanillatech Were you such an idiot back in those days, or have you spent a lifetime honing it to perfection?
A lot of love for the Spectrum in Italy. It might have been not as succesful as the Commodore, but newsstands were flooded with magazines with Spectrum cassettes, and cassettes A-side: Commodore, B-side: Spectrum.
Commodore 64 required tricks for scrolling too... It wasn't built-in to the HW.
Also the C64 was built from the ground up to be modifiable, both HW and SW wise... C64's came with giant BASIC manuals, and even recommended you learn ASM if you liked BASIC. They also made it extremely easy to order ASM and 'Machine Code' assembler cartridges from them.
Overall good video, but cool the jets on the fanboyism.
Rooflesoft Games I know this is an old post, but you are correct. C64 absolutely does have hardware based scrolling, horizontal and vertical. One of its best features for the time, IMO.
The C64 was a lot, but not modifiable. If you go through all the listings on classified sites, almost NEVER a mod shows up. Always as tandem with the horrifying 1541 drive, sometimes with a Power Cartridge to give the 1541 some pepper in its arse. That's all. Never extra memory, never an expansion unit, never a modem, not even printers. The ZX was better, with lots of add-ons, but the real champs in this respect are the Apple II and our local Philips P2000 did a great job too. I have one with 80-character mod, 2MB of RAM (hello C64 that does not even have 64kB of RAM), IO/modules, RS485, shugart floppy boards, modems, RAM-disks, high-res graphics boards (256x256 pixel 16 colour), internal 3,5 inch drives and the list goes on. The biggest mod I encountered on a C64 is a jailbar-minimizer or a anti-fry-zener for timebomb power supplies. It sucks these faults exist to begin with and needed repair.
Great video, many thanks!
This is better then most documentaries on bbc. #fubbc
Patrick White --- well... Better than most documentaries on ITV at least. BBC does decent docs.
lets put this perspective over cost. i got a speccy in 1982 when we sold our house and moved to something smaller as we couldn't afford it. we got the speccy along with our first colour television. we also had a telephone (in the hall, naturally) which a couple of our neighbours used to use (dropping money into a little wooden piggy bank type thing) as they couldn't afford a phone line. and i knew plenty of people way worse off than we were. C64 was a pipedream. However it did teach me how to code, even using the manual to learn machine code, translating opcodes to numbers and typing them in data statements before buying an assembler... to quote Hey Hey 16K... 'it made a generation - who could code'