The Speccy Topic?

[ukmarkh]

Why the Spectrum was good:

R-Type
3D Death Chase
Turbo Espirit
Jetpac
Myth
Bubble Bobble
Commando
Zynaps
Rex
Ant attack
Rebel Star 2

[nurgle]

Instead of listing software titles (honestly, I don't know enough about speccy games), here is my positive comment about the Spectrum:


What I find really amazing about the Spectrum is that a useable home computer could be THAT low-tech and THAT cheap. It's reduced to the absolute minimum and cramped into a very small case, yet it can do all the cool and useful things you can expect from a home computer system of it's time. It really amazes me what the engineers of the Spectrum have accomplished in this respect.


Of course the Spectrum is technically inferior to the CPC, but I think this comparison is really unfair. Obviously the design goals were very different.


One area where the Spectrum engineers have failed miserably later on is mass storage. The Microdrive is probably the only mass storage system used on home computers that is more esoteric than 3" floppies. Other peripherals were awfull as well (aluminium paper printer, cartridge interface with only 16kb, incompatible Joystick interface, ...).

[robcfg]

The Microdrive is probably the only mass storage system used on home computers that is more esoteric than 3" floppies.

Have you seen Mitsumi's 2.8" Quickdisks?


They usually came without protecting sleeve and the information wasn't stored in sectors and tracks, but rather sequentially in a spiral. Now you can call that esoteric! 





By the way, there was a Quickdisk unit for several 8-bit computers, like the ZX Spectrum, MSX, Dragon, C64... called the Triton Quickdisk. Was it available for the CPC?

[Devilmarkus]

How much capacity did a microdisk have?
Any infos?

[robcfg]

The ones used by Nintendo in its Famicom Disk System were 64kb per face if I remember correctly.


Computer formats could hold from 128kb to 256kb.

[Gryzor]

The Famicom disk system used 3.5" disks...

[ukmarkh]

The Famicom disk system used 3.5" disks...

I can confirm this as I've got one.

[robcfg]

You may be talking of an addon, to the SNES (or maybe NES, I don't really know) that allowed to "backup" games in 3.5" disks.


But that's not what I am talking about.


The Famicom Disk System was an official disk drive for the Famicom (we're always out of luck outside Japan), with a modified Mitsumi 2.8" Quickdisk drive. It interfaced the Famicom via a special cartridge that had also more ram and an extra sound channel.


Many famous Nintendo sagas began on this system like Castlevania, Metroid and Zelda.


Check this link and this other one for more info.


And I confirm this as I bought one in Japan    (Pun intended, but don't take it too seriously).

[Ritchardo]

Why the Spectrum was good:

R-Type
3D Death Chase
Turbo Espirit
Jetpac
Myth
Bubble Bobble
Commando
Zynaps
Rex
Ant attack
Rebel Star 2

This!  +

Skool Daze
Back to Skool
Where Time Stood Still
Atic Atac
Robin of the Wood
Roller Coaster
Underwurlde
Lunar Jetman

[MacDeath]

Why the Spectrum was good:

R-Type
3D Death Chase
Turbo   Espirit
Jetpac
Myth
Bubble Bobble
Commando
Zynaps
Rex
Ant   attack
Rebel Star 2

Why the Speccy was Bad ?
Most of those games on CPC...

More seriously, I wouldn't say the Speccy that inferior to CPC and vice versa...

Speccy128 added some CPC features, sort of :
128K as on 6128...and a real sound : AY...

The actual real difference was the video management.

Speccy had no such thing IMO.

Colours character attributes ? sounds like a text mode with a bit of colours more than a real graphical mode.

On the other hand, the Amstrad had no real text mode (except perhaps the Mode2... sort of) but only real graphical modes.

Yet games developpers often Failed to take this into account, so Sprectumizers claimed stuff like woaw, you can't put more colors and it's even slowlier when dealing with speccyports.

On the other hand could the speccy actually run/emulate a real CPC game/programm ?

mmmmh...

And sprectumissers fail to see that Speccy is actually not a colour computer...
1 bit code means 2 colours only, the Character Attribute is a fake colour system...

But yeah, "playability is all" concerning games... or "CPU free-power is all" concerning Applications...

Perhaps, then why GUI and true colours imposed themselves in modern era ?

Also a smooth and fast game can actually be wasted totally by monochrome graphics (you can't see anything) or colour clashes (it's even worse).


Video Game.
Video...
Mostly visual...

[MacDeath]

Actually speccy won because Clive was a Nerdz/geek while Alan was a businessman...

That"s all.

Also Clive's wife is such a hotty...(what a bitch)

Speccy was even inferior in up-your-eyes stuff... (graphicall) but hence the rest was better (Better AY, better CPU ressource...was else would a nerdz need ? unless you are a bit of a graphist

visual aspect is mostly merchandizable/good to sell, but of course the Speccy specs/standard was from 1980-81...while Amstrad came almost too late.

Yet, the Speccy 128 was actually put to Amstrad Standards...And bought by Amstrad actually...
more memory (While CPC was still 464...shame !), AY sounds, and some sort of massmemory stuff..
Yet the datashit was far inferior to 3" disk which wasn't a bad disk drive actually (and finally put on speccys...or even Orics), just 2 sided...and 360K only instead of the even more modern 740K ...

But to be honest, inot everyone could get a 740K disk drive in 1985... Tape was so more common...

My PC in 1991 was a EGA with 1.2 MegB 5"1/4 AND a 1.4 MegB 3.1/5 (both) disks... but it was in 1990's and I managed to get it from a company (my father's...)...Not bought on our family income...(lucky I was actually).

Yet we have to remember that from 30 years ago, Computer standards went exponantial...


Me ?
Amstrad 464 i,n 1984...then 6128 (CPC, not plus) in 1986...then PC EGA 286 at 12MHz in 1990-91... Then 486...(50Herz ? don't remember the config) in the time of Dune2/Syndicate...1994-95 ? then...Penthium 233MHz... (1998?) Then Half Gigaherz (1998-XP...in 2001) .. Then now...(1Ghz... then Duo core...still XP)...

I also remember my father had an Apple 2 as working computer... (Hercule monochrome) because I played Space invader on it... and my Uncle had a Mac... B&W yet sweet sampled sounds... and a pair of sweet games actually...