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From: keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari
Subject: Re: Atari 800XL superior to c64?
Message-ID: <363@cadovax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-Jan-85 16:18:50 EST
Article-I.D.: cadovax.363
Posted: Mon Jan 21 16:18:50 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 24-Jan-85 19:35:13 EST
References: <212@eneevax.UUCP> <340@cadovax.UUCP>, <260@terak.UUCP>
Organization: Contel Cado, Torrance, CA
Lines: 42


I neglected to mention, the Atari has a '4-color' character mode.  In
this mode, 40x24 character cells of 4x8 4-color characters are presented.
With the proper construction of 'mosaic' characters, multi-screen backgrounds
can be constructed which take up no more than 960 bytes each.  Scrolling
can be performed as usual in this mode, and with the use of display list
and/or vertical interrupts,  character sets can be switched to facilitate
a more extended 'mosaic' set to work with, or to facilitate character
set based animation.  

The game 'Spelunker' is one of my more favorite examples of character
set animation and is mixed with scrolling and player-missile graphics.
The game background is peppered with little animations,  Power packs
undulate,  little puffs of smoke pop up in various places,  extra-life
prizes rotate, sections of the terrain bounce up and down, vertical 'lifts'
scroll up and down.  With this type of animation, the use of these little
movements are not any more costly if you have a screenful of them than if
you only have one thing going on.  I get the impression that a high
percentage of the better Atari games use this mode.  The list includes
games such as Ali Baba and Return of Heracles,  Miner 2049er,  Shamus I & II,
Zeppelin, Necromancer, Montezuma's Revenge, Seven Cities of Gold, Murder
on the Zinderneuf, Gateway to Apshai, Lode Runner, Pharoah's Curse.
I'm guessing on these, by the way, I don't know what they're actually
using, but they LOOK like they are probably using the 4-color character
mode, in addition to other effects.

Can the Commodore perform 'like' functions?  I would expect it can, as 
I think some of the above-mentioned games are available for it.  Is the
resolution the same?

On the subject of sound, what capabilities does the Commodore
have for generating different wave-shapes?  The Atari is limited
to 1 pure tone, and 7 noise tones.  No sawtooth, squarewave, or
programmable wave shapes.  Some filtering, but rudimentary I think (
haven't fully explored this).  However, I am continually amazed by what
some people have been able to do with what little there is.


Keith Doyle
{ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd
"You'll PAY to know what you REALLY think!"