For a system that supposedly sold 30 million units there seems to be a lot less going on than one might think there ought to be?
No. Check any of the sites I listed above. You could also compare the number of posts at comp.sys.cbm to comp.sys.sinclair if you want (though since most of the real business is done at forums such as this it may not be a fair reflection).
Now, let's turn the question around: what kinds of things does the C64 scene have that the Speccy scene doesn't?
The C64 does have that great "Games That Weren't" site, where they look for unpublished or unfinished C64 games. I wish the Speccy had a site like that (or a section on WOS for the same purpose).
And the C64 is a great machine, no doubt about it (though you'll find a fair bit of joking about the C64 and it's users on here, often by me ;)), but it does seem to me that the Speccy is more prevailant on the 'net. Granted I could be wrong, especially since I rarely visit the C64 sites (I usually only bother with the machines I've owned, but I do emulate others, such as the C64, SNES and arcade machines), but it does seem that way to me. And look how many Spectrum emulators there are vs. C64 ones.
Also, I know several people who emulate the Spectrum (though not frequently, I'm the only true retro-fan amongst my circle of friends), but only one (maybe two, I'm not sure) who use a C64 emulator. Also, when talking to people I've (fairly) newly met (I do agency work from workplace to workplace) I do meet people around my age who will spend five minutes remanissing about the Spectrum (Jetset Willy, Lords of Midnight, Crash magazine, etc), but it's very rare to find someone so fond of their C64 memories. Although this may be down to location; perhaps in C64 terrortories (the USA instead of England, where I live and work) since the C64 was more prevailant, perhaps the ratio is much higher there.
And are there any C64 sites actively seeking permission from the games' publishers, the way WOS does? I'm not saying that there aren't, but I haven't seen any, whereas WOS is well known for doing so for the Spectrum.
The C64 does have that great "Games That Weren't" site, where they look for unpublished or unfinished C64 games. I wish the Speccy had a site like that (or a section on WOS for the same purpose).
Incidentally, this just goes to show that the best emulation sites on the 'net are for the Spectrum, whilst the only good C64 sites are landfill sites.
Incidentally, this just goes to show that the best emulation sites on the 'net are for the Spectrum, whilst the only good C64 sites are landfill sites.
Well here's another link for you http://gtw64.retro-net.de/
I'm not saying it's better or worse than the above ZX site, but it's certainly an equivalent.
Technically though, the number of views would be the key factor, but I'm buggered if I'm trauling thorough all those vids to compare them.
But if the Speccy vids had more views the Speccy would be the most active even if there was only half the amount of videos to watch.
I disagree Sir Bridge-enthusiast......Its the people that took the time to MAKE the videos that show a greater dedication than those merely watching them...
So....based on this extensive Youtube research model, the c64 is over twice as popular as the speccy.
EDIT: Taking into account Scotties research...CASE CLOSED!!
I don't think you'll find anybody else calling it the "C128k", but I think the point remains the same. I don't see what the problem is accepting that the C64 was and is the more popular machine globally. It's not as if Thatcher, Russell Brand and Lost aren't evidence enough that things that are quite popular can also be very sh1te.
That said the ZX colour RAM is dire.:grin:
Meh, nothing constructive, plus it misses the point: There's more happening in the Speccy retroscene (both in depth and variety) than in the C64 retroscene. That's true whether you look at the activity during the last year or the last ten years.
That's a pretty compelling argument in favour of the Speccy being the most loved machine *now*.
I don't think you'll find anybody else calling it the "C128k", but I think the point remains the same. I don't see what the problem is accepting that the C64 was and is the more popular machine globally. It's not as if Thatcher, Russell Brand and Lost aren't evidence enough that things that are quite popular can also be very sh1te.
That said the ZX colour RAM is dire.:grin:
Well what is they say.... the grass is always greener on the other side... unless the other side is a Commodore then its brown.. :lol:
Personally, I take a balanced view on this. There are pro's and cons on both machines, all in all it about evans out.
I find the ZX produces sharper graphics, with a greater pixel density and more defined spot on colour. Because of this I find emulations of a ZX Spectrum more pleasing than pixelated Commodore emulations. On CRT tellys of the 80's this was acesptable. Though my Commodore 64 looks real sh*t on my parents 42" wide screen, whilst my Spectrum produces passable results.
Furthermore it has a much better programming interface that made it easier and quicker to learn the basics of programming effectively.
The c64 has more colours, but they are all a bit washed out. The C64 does have the Sid and the Capability to put more than 2 colurs in a 10px by 10px screen area and funky loading strategies.
You can laugh at out 48k but like commodore we all moved up to 128K in the mid 80's. Anyway its not all about memory the BBC Micro proved that.
Yay, we made it, another topic degraded into a "my machine was better than yours" argument.
Popcorn anyone?
Meh, I'm filtering out all the "content" that isn't about Speccy/C64 retroscene differences. Surely there must be more differences? Would be great to share ideas.
You come back when you find the Spectrum colour RAM...
Found it. Straight from the wikipedia's mouth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_clash
"The ZX Spectrum used 6144 bytes for pixel information, with one byte representing a row of eight pixels, and 768 bytes used for the colour attributes, thus giving a total of 6912 bytes for the entire graphics display"
Are you suggesting the colour data is stored in a Tesco bag under the bed or in RAM like most other computers? Since you seem to be new to this whole computer/internet thing, here's another bit of remedial reading for you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palette_%28computing%29
Not the same thing as colour RAM. OK? Got it?
Found it. Straight from the wikipedia's mouth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_clash
"The ZX Spectrum used 6144 bytes for pixel information, with one byte representing a row of eight pixels, and 768 bytes used for the colour attributes, thus giving a total of 6912 bytes for the entire graphics display"
Are you suggesting the colour data is stored in a Tesco bag under the bed or in RAM like most other computers? Since you seem to be new to this whole computer/internet thing, here's another bit of remedial reading for you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palette_%28computing%29
Not the same thing as colour RAM. OK? Got it?
Comments
It wasn't meant to be a rebuttal of your point.
The C64 does have that great "Games That Weren't" site, where they look for unpublished or unfinished C64 games. I wish the Speccy had a site like that (or a section on WOS for the same purpose).
And the C64 is a great machine, no doubt about it (though you'll find a fair bit of joking about the C64 and it's users on here, often by me ;)), but it does seem to me that the Speccy is more prevailant on the 'net. Granted I could be wrong, especially since I rarely visit the C64 sites (I usually only bother with the machines I've owned, but I do emulate others, such as the C64, SNES and arcade machines), but it does seem that way to me. And look how many Spectrum emulators there are vs. C64 ones.
Also, I know several people who emulate the Spectrum (though not frequently, I'm the only true retro-fan amongst my circle of friends), but only one (maybe two, I'm not sure) who use a C64 emulator. Also, when talking to people I've (fairly) newly met (I do agency work from workplace to workplace) I do meet people around my age who will spend five minutes remanissing about the Spectrum (Jetset Willy, Lords of Midnight, Crash magazine, etc), but it's very rare to find someone so fond of their C64 memories. Although this may be down to location; perhaps in C64 terrortories (the USA instead of England, where I live and work) since the C64 was more prevailant, perhaps the ratio is much higher there.
And are there any C64 sites actively seeking permission from the games' publishers, the way WOS does? I'm not saying that there aren't, but I haven't seen any, whereas WOS is well known for doing so for the Spectrum.
Yes
Yes - the DivIDE's been around for years.
And a 100 Mbit/sec ethernet card, too.
See, the Speccy just keeps on giving and giving!
Thanks for the link, BTW.
Incidentally, this just goes to show that the best emulation sites on the 'net are for the Spectrum, whilst the only good C64 sites are landfill sites.
Well here's another link for you http://gtw64.retro-net.de/
I'm not saying it's better or worse than the above ZX site, but it's certainly an equivalent.
?zx spectrum? video results 1 - 20 of about 1,760
?commodore 64? video results 1 - 20 of about 3,990
hmmm.
With Paulisbest on the side of the Speccy the Commode can never win :lol:
Wouldnt the higher number of videos suggest the c64 is indeed more 'active' with the man in the street?
But if the Speccy vids had more views the Speccy would be the most active even if there was only half the amount of videos to watch.
I was looking at all these search terms in Google and seeing how many pages each one returned.
This is not a definateve study but maybe Commodore does have us licked on web presence.
I disagree Sir Bridge-enthusiast......Its the people that took the time to MAKE the videos that show a greater dedication than those merely watching them...
So....based on this extensive Youtube research model, the c64 is over twice as popular as the speccy.
EDIT: Taking into account Scotties research...CASE CLOSED!!
I have modifed all the search terms
It still seems that Commie's are still comming out on top.
From this we can safely asume that the Spectrum was better than the commodore 64. So its not all bad :p
PS: check out the competing thread on Lemon 64: http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27045
That said the ZX colour RAM is dire.:grin:
Meh, nothing constructive, plus it misses the point: There's more happening in the Speccy retroscene (both in depth and variety) than in the C64 retroscene. That's true whether you look at the activity during the last year or the last ten years.
That's a pretty compelling argument in favour of the Speccy being the most loved machine *now*.
You prefer 16 shades of shit brown to the Spectrum vibrant colours?
Well what is they say.... the grass is always greener on the other side... unless the other side is a Commodore then its brown.. :lol:
Personally, I take a balanced view on this. There are pro's and cons on both machines, all in all it about evans out.
I find the ZX produces sharper graphics, with a greater pixel density and more defined spot on colour. Because of this I find emulations of a ZX Spectrum more pleasing than pixelated Commodore emulations. On CRT tellys of the 80's this was acesptable. Though my Commodore 64 looks real sh*t on my parents 42" wide screen, whilst my Spectrum produces passable results.
Furthermore it has a much better programming interface that made it easier and quicker to learn the basics of programming effectively.
The c64 has more colours, but they are all a bit washed out. The C64 does have the Sid and the Capability to put more than 2 colurs in a 10px by 10px screen area and funky loading strategies.
You can laugh at out 48k but like commodore we all moved up to 128K in the mid 80's. Anyway its not all about memory the BBC Micro proved that.
Come back to us when you learn what colour RAM is.
Children, children... settle down now....
Ram is black with white-ish writing on top and silver or gold legs comming out the side.
Exhibit A.
Popcorn anyone?
Nah I'll take a footlong Hotdog with fried onions, and a 6 quid bag of pick n' mix though :D
Meh, I'm filtering out all the "content" that isn't about Speccy/C64 retroscene differences. Surely there must be more differences? Would be great to share ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_clash
"The ZX Spectrum used 6144 bytes for pixel information, with one byte representing a row of eight pixels, and 768 bytes used for the colour attributes, thus giving a total of 6912 bytes for the entire graphics display"
Are you suggesting the colour data is stored in a Tesco bag under the bed or in RAM like most other computers? Since you seem to be new to this whole computer/internet thing, here's another bit of remedial reading for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palette_%28computing%29
Not the same thing as colour RAM. OK? Got it?
was a why the C64 colour pallete was better than the Spectrums and a why the C64 'colour RAM' was supposedly so wonderful..
RAM or ROM?