Speccy vs CPC - battle of the Ages

[FatAgnus]

I don't like the 464, it's an ugly CPC.
The CPC6128 is the love of my life.

It's because you're better than me! 

[sigh]

Wow... 128k+mouse as "default" configuration in early 1985... that's called Macintosh.
RAM was the most costly component in that years, and proper mouse environment based on Z80 and 3" disks...yup!
CPC6128 was too much expensive for a lot of us, so making 128k as a default "entry" level, could kill Amstrad.
And 1985 was "the year" of CPC464 in a lot of countries (i.e. Spain). CPC6128 was the "I'm better than you" option here that year!

Well, the Commodore 128 did come out in Jan 1985...

So is Speccy more similar to the CPC than the MSX2 is to the CPC? I'm wondering, because I think there may have been a few Speccy ports to the MSX, but not sure if there were any CPC ports to the MSX2 (due to it having more available colours and similar modes like the CPC I think?)

[FatAgnus]

Yes, and Spectrum 128... but how many units they sold that year? Has it mouse?
I was only a little bit surprised when MacDeath asked for 128k+MOUSE as default config for a home-computer in 1985... and to take advantage and troll a little bit against Atari ST.

[MacDeath]

Thomson's TO8 came with Mouse and 256k RAM... 
around 1986 I think...
So the same could have been great feature with the PLUS range...
Imagine an Amstrad 6256Plus with a Mouse to plug dirctly into the analog port and an extra GUI OS cartridge...

Anyway, the 16bit computers used the mouse... because it was available directly with the computer, not optionnal.
A proper Mouse on CPC/PLUS could have impose the thing...

Imagine : Pirates!, Heroquest... using mouse.

And many more Musicians or Graphists could have spawned from the CPC scene due to the trivial use of the mouse...
And we would have had real point and click games...

[FatAgnus]

Thomson's TO8 came with Mouse and 256k RAM... 
around 1986 I think...
So the same could have been great feature with the PLUS range...
Imagine an Amstrad 6256Plus with a Mouse to plug dirctly into the analog port and an extra GUI OS cartridge...

Anyway, the 16bit computers used the mouse... because it was available directly with the computer, not optionnal.
A proper Mouse on CPC/PLUS could have impose the thing...

Imagine : Pirates!, Heroquest... using mouse.

And many more Musicians or Graphists could have spawned from the CPC scene due to the trivial use of the mouse...
And we would have had real point and click games...

I agree, the step to Amiga was very hard to me, I really loved my CPC, and waited and waited hopping reactions from Amstrad side... such features could do it very hard to leave Amstrad.
We are saying more or less the same thing, they did things very nice until they did things very bad!
(excuse my english, I learnt it while trying to build a copper list)
Regards.

[arnoldemu]

Thomson's TO8 came with Mouse and 256k RAM... 
around 1986 I think...
So the same could have been great feature with the PLUS range...

So how much was the Thomson and how much was the PLUS at this time?
Also, how much was the CPC6128?

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

I agree, the step to Amiga was very hard to me, I really loved my CPC

Yeah. Hard step. Then three weeks later you had to dust the poor old CPC down - and that was because you'd got an Amiga RGB -> CPC Monitor cable!


We can dream all we want about how the CPC could have been better, or how it could have been enhanced sooner, but it wasn't. Sad. Amiga fans have the same, but offset by six years. But it's great to talk about!


So, yeah, the 464 was great. Great keyboard, great price. CPC664 is a treasure - lovely blues on that keyboard. 6128 was where it was at ultimately. My poor parents bought me one from a catalogue - and then months later Amstrad came out with the CPC + desk + printer + tv tuner + the world pack for even less money. But ... without it where would I be?


The CPC was a cost-down - off the shelf components when cheap, and the ULA to bind them all. Luckily the geeks at Amstrad got the graphics better than they could have been.


But 1986 onwards was the great stagnancy. Damn Spectrum acquisition. The plus was too late - but a good design. What we needed in 1987 was all CPCs to become 128KB (this was when it became viable*). Amstrad should have moved to a single motherboard for the 464 and 6128. 128KB for all. I don't know if this would have been an opportunity to enhance anything technically - faster CPUs weren't easy to fit in, the CRTC .. well, hard scrolling would have been nice.


As for the Plus... CPC Plus Sprites relied on a large internal memory (well, 2KB), to avoid the bandwidth issue. I think they should have stuck another DRAM bus on the Plus ASIC and had a 16KB Sprite Bank (128 sprites) and the 16 sprites could just have selected from this bank. I don't know how the Plus hardware raster colour switching worked - was it like the Amiga copper in any way?


Anyway, enough wibbling and merging of 1987 dream-specs and 1991 Plus specs.


* And to think I bought a 2GB DDR3 ECC DIMM this week for £18. That's 10x the size of my first hard drive, which cost £200...

[FatAgnus]

@Briggsy:
a) Yes, it was hard for me.
b) Did you read the thread?
c) Regards.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

A proper Mouse on CPC/PLUS could have impose the thing...

I remember my Genius mouse fondly. I did many a thing with that, especially in Advanced OCP Art Studio. I got a tenner from Amstrad Action, although they liked my Savage inspired graphics more than the others I did that I thought were far more ... arty. Who knows, I can barely draw a box these days.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

@Briggsy:
a) Yes, it was hard for me.
b) Did you read the thread?
c) Regards.

Hey, I foudn it hard too! I had a great CPC set up (IMO, at the time), and I would spend all my time on it, messing with various software, playing games, a bit of assembler, doing games, playing with sprites alive! ordering maxam 2 instead of maxam 1, ... for a long time my primary assembler was one printed in CWTA that dredged RAM for BASIC comments that were your assembler mnemonics!

[MacDeath]

Warning : Heavy video content !!!

So how much was the Thomson and how much was the PLUS at this time?
Also, how much was the CPC6128?
                           

have a look there...

http://cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php/topic,2141.15.html

but here is the real comparison :

Boring and the shittiest keyboard ever produced (even poor speccy48 had better one...)

Biblical figures 

Boring old TV-News Host Léon Zitrone...

(Extra guest : the Orange TGV...)

Funky Crocodiles :

Also a latter one...

Also : notice the Overscan Fullscreen ... a fully supported feature on amstrad CPCs... unless with speccy ports.


Back to topic ...

(colour clashes featured...)

Finally amstrad's computer were sold in Italia...

erf....

BTW we all know who won...

[Gryzor]

Hahaha! Le Thomson avait la Baah-seek! Hillarious

[einoeL]

The french Amstrad-Crocodiles are so charming! 
Really funny and cute.

[MacDeath]

http://www.gamestage.net/english/test.html

Fun... and completely retarded...
"oh yeah speccy is far better concerning graphics..."
Because of the pixel size and number of colour per screen...

WTF ?
So blocky Mode0 pixels is a handicap and colour clashes a sweet feature that greatly improuve the game 
Monocolour graphics are superior because it has fine and square pixels hence more details ?

WTF am I reading right now...
Nedless to say, shittons of speccyports there...




Thomson :
One of the obvious problem with Thomson Range was that MO and TO weren't actually compatible...
Yeah, this is pure suckness...

While we may see MO6 and TO8D like CPC464 and CPC6128 (Tape and half memory for the firsts)

Just imagine the CPC464 weren't compatible with the 6128...

Actually it is not a great uncompatibility... possible to get some Assembly routines to pass through this... but still...

BTW with a proper Soundchip the MO6 was quite a good competitor to ZX Spectrum +2.
Perhaps not even...

The french Amstrad-Crocodiles are so charming! 
Really funny and cute.

To be fair, if British, German and Spanish marketing campaign did feature those Crocodiles, I guess the CPC could have sold +1 million unit...
No kidding...

Also if Spain, Germany and other country had someone like Marion Vannier (Amstrad France's boss)...
There would easily be 5 millions CPC around here in Europe...

There's a story in Marion Vannier's interview telling how the Amstrad's Spain Manager got himself a luxurious fancy expensive car with the company's cash...
When Sugar saw this, he took back the car from this spanish scum (he must have been italian... ) and gave it to Marion Vannier... because she hada far better results (and was less of a scroodge).

[FatAgnus]

... ...


Nahhh, only jocking!
Jose Luis Domizguez was... Jose Luis Dominguez. Yes, we all know the "BMW" chronicles...
But one thing must be said: he pushed up Amstrad not so bad, Spain was a Speccy monopoly, and with him, Speccy-Amstrad frighted bravely for years.
But, of course, the real heroes were the Spanish coders making it best for Amstrad, we are very proud of them.
...are you french, MacDeath? 


But plz, no "country wars" here, we are only a bunch of "frikis"-"freaks", and we all love CPC, and we all speak bad English (including UK ones  )
"Be water my friend"

[MacDeath]

But plz, no "country wars" here,

Well well, Italian are well know to be unknown in 8bit scene so I can tell things on them...
"Spanish scum" wasn't aiming at spanish but at this one especially...

And yes, Amstrad Spain  worked quite well actually...


Me ? French ?
But I speak english like a spanish cow...


And to be fair... the last "country war" here ended with an awesome score in Godwin Points... Never...ever...again...

I'm a Snail's predator who smell Frog and Garlic and I speak english like a spanish cow.

Greekzors are  sertakis stuffed wineleafs with a lot of bodyhair even inside their CPCs.

Britons are rosbeefs who only eat boiled water and whose eyes can't even see colour clashes.. and lazy speccyporters and speak English like cows.

Spaniards...like a choriso brained bunch of siestas addicts who speak english like french cows..

Germans...Have no food, only beer... they have Hardware in place of a heart...(and a centronic plug instead of an...) but they actually speak english very well.

Aussies... get frequent flood on the internet and speak english like Kangaroos.. And they eat nothing, they are just Sea Crocodile's prey...

And so on...
That's why I love Europa.

Please I wasn't meant to be mean and serious about this.

(i smell a banhammer incoming...)

[FatAgnus]

Yes, you are right. Like a cow.
Amstrad hardware was great. (...I don't want Gryzor-Devil moving this thread to "off-topic"...)

EDIT: BEER IS FOOD!
EDIT AGAIN: shhhhhhhh... be quiet boys... I saw Gryzor looking around... and he was holding the hammer... "there is nothing to see here"...

[MacDeath]

Anyway...
I was thinking about setting the infamous list of the evil speccyports that "killed" the CPC...Most of them have to be not Speccy original games of course (Jet Set willy per exemple is ok...) but more like Arcade ports of death...

Some of them are also to be put into an "honorable" category as they managed to be quite decent games actually...(R-Type comes into mind)let's try...

=Computer originals Hits (most of them ended up being decent) :
H.A.T.E
Highway encounter
Lotus turbo Esprit challenge
Wec Le Man (not really sure this counts as a speccy port...)
(those 4 were good indeed...)
Fighting Warrior
Vendetta
Hard Drivin' (wasn't it Arcade ?)

I wouldn't count the numerous CodeMaster or Hewson games... Many of them were cheap budget Speccy games to start with, and where quite well ported... or not ?
So yeah, this category is not that important after all...
Also pre-1987 games are not to be considered that important too... this was the early CPC era.

=Well known franchises :
Scooby Doo (scooby Poo IMO...)
Thundercats.
Venom Strike Back (not that bad...)
Sabrina (bouzboyzboyz, boingboingboing...)
Samantha fox strip poker.
Airwolf 2

=Movie Franchises :
Indianna Jones 3 action game.
Back to the future 2 (half parts were straight speccyporked)

Perhaps even more ? those 2 categories were quite important because of the commercial impact of the Franchise in itself...

=Arcade hits :
R-Type 
PacMania
Salamander
Dragon Breed
Scramble spirit
Black Tiger
Strider
Bionic Commando
SuperWonderboy
Double Dragon3
Super Hang-On
Enduro Racer
Toobin
Xybots
Pit fighter
Cabal
Street Fighter ?

Special Category of Death :
Shadow of the beast
Myth, history in the making (grrrrr).
Gauntlet 3
SWIV 

( Flying Shark doesn't really count because it is good and graphics were fully redone into Mode1. 

The Blue games of Death :
Blues Brother (captain Obvious...)
The untouchablesHeroquest
Hudson Hawk

=Are there More ?
The Arcade hit category is te most important factor in the Failnes of speccyports...
Because those were Arcade Games = best format available at the time, and hits : ported on every machines...And great games too...

They are the most commonly used games to compare between computers/systems...
And most of them were really great games...turned into mandatory shitty speccy ports, so all the retro-computer community argue that the CPC is an inferior Speccyclone...


So from this...

The infamous killer list of the shamefull  30 speccy porks of death :

Shadow of the beast
Myth, history in the making (grrrrr).
Gauntlet 3
SWIV 
R-Type 
PacMania
Salamander
Dragon Breed
Scramble spirit
Black Tiger
Strider
Bionic Commando
SuperWonderboy
Double Dragon3
Super Hang-On
Enduro Racer
Toobin
Xybots
Pit fighter
Cabal
Street Fighter
Scooby Doo
Thundercats.
Venom Strike Back
Sabrina
Samantha fox strip poker.
Airwolf 2
ndianna Jones 3 action game.
Back to the future 2
Vendetta


Any suggestion are welcomed.

[sigh]

...better graphics?
 

http://www.gamestage.net/english/test-renegade1.html


Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but seriously..

[ssg]

Terrible speccy ports to cpc:

- R-Type (to call this decent you have to stay oblivious to C64 version)
- Big Trouble In Little China (one of the worst scrolls)
- Last Ninja 2 (I hated monochrome Last Ninja. Check again the C64 version)
- All isometric "ultimate play the game" games (Knight Lore, Alien8 etc). Monochrome sucked.
- Saboteur II - If I remember correctly, this one even implemented the color clash, such an exact port
- Enduro Racer - turn based racing?

Basically almost any port which kept the "chracter/attribute based" screen management sucked. Some managed to remain playable (Wec Le mans?)

[MacDeath]

...better graphics?

Yeah, sort of like telling Hercules is better than EGA 320x200x16 beause it has better resolution (truely...)
Look carefully concerning Renegade especially...
CPC version even have the worst "Graphics" notation...


WTFAMIreading ?

http://www.gamestage.net/english/test.html
I see no Gryzor... No Barbarian or Antiriad ?
Commando ? Barbarian 2 ?
Navy moves ?
Silkworm ?
Arkanoids ?

a good proportion of those games there are Speccyports or even "C64 ports" (Dan Dare ?) but a few exceptions...



Big Trouble In Little China
Last Ninja2 
Saboteur II (& I)

nice I forgot those...First because a famous movie franchise (loved the movie) and the others because... OK "computer" games but hey... such a great computer hit that it is like Shadow of the beast port in deception...

Kharnov
then... (Arcade)

also...

Enduro Racer - turn based racing?

All isometric "ultimate play the game" games (Knight Lore, Alien8 etc). Monochrome sucked.

All Mode1 isometric sucked in comparison to head over Heels.

Also it is to notice that Speccy cannot properly into colour Isometric...
Because attributes clashes cannot become diagonals...

Every "Mode1 isometrics" should have looked (and sounded) like Head Over Heels.

Or at least like Heroquest...

Wec le Mans :
I don't really know if this can be considered a Speccy port...
It was more probably a mode1 games with some Cross dev features...

Just like Deflektor...

In some cases, having some common stuff with speccy could be logical and Graphic on CPC got a more than proper treatment...

The difference ?

Lotus turbo esprit chalenge : shamefull speccy pork (not that "porked" actually)
Wec le Man : Amstrad hit.

The good hit is the Monocolour stuff in Lotus...
When you had "1bpp" graphics in Pastel Cyan and small window screen...
You knew you got scfrewed somewhere...

[steve]

To be fair, if British, German and Spanish marketing campaign did feature those Crocodiles, I guess the CPC could have sold +1 million unit...
No kidding...

From Wikipedia

"During its lifetime, the CPC series sold approximately three million units"

[MacDeath]

I meant 1 more million... Europewise.

[Phi2x]

.

[MacDeath]

Well, children would have loved those even english ones...I guess...



how can't you love this ?

Perhaps Aussie have a different opinion on crocodiles due to the giant Sea specimen that lurk everywhere there...