On Oct 31, 3:24 am, "Mr. Maddog" <MrMaddog...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Oct 30, 1:03 am, "winston19842...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"
>
> <winston19842...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > Umm - the bit about TI-94?
> > Sure you mean the TI-99/4A...
> > It was out in 1979 as the TI-99/4, the 4A came out in '81, so was a
> > contem****ary of the Vic-20.
>
> Yeah you're right, it was the TI-99/4A. Just forgot what it was
> called and did a sloppy look up so my bad. :)
>
> > Commodore suckered TI in on doing
> > themselves in by setting up a price-war against a lesser machine that
> > was produced more cheaply...
>
> Yep that's so true. I'm surprised that the home computer market
> didn't crash like the video game one in '83-'84. The 8-bit ones were
> used as game machines for a while till the NES came out (except in
> Europe).
The TI was expensive, closed access, and from what I read kinda slow
for being a 16 bit computer.
The Commodore VIC was inexpensive, the VIC sold because for the price
of s stock 16k Atari 400 without BASIC or a anything else you could
get the VIC, a tape deck and some books (which was the comparison I
made back then and what I did) I got a computer storage, BASIC, a
real keyboard, and many years of fun and limited memory programming
experience.
The 64 blew the atari out of the water with the sound and graphics,
sure the Atari had four voices, which were OK and the graphics had
more colors but you could not use to many of them in one place all at
once
As an example here's Donkey Kong for the 64
http://www.c64gg.com/Images/D/Donkey_Kong_Nin.ss.gif
And Donkey Kong for the Atari:
http://www.backntime.net/Atari%20Computers/8bit/Emulators/800Win_DK.jpg
What gave Atari some advantage was the exclusive licensing of games
such as Missile Command, Star Raiders, or Asteroids, having something
no one else has (and making sure they don't) is a good tactic (MS
plays it very well).
One thing I really liked about the 800 was the four joy****ts, but that
alone didn't justify the cost.
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