/vr/ - Retro Games

Very much so. Computer games in the 8/16-bit era were mostly utter rubbish cranked out for easy, quick money. Some of them weren't even properly finished or able to be completed because the programmers assumed nobody would ever get that far. About 80% of ZX Spectrum and C64 games were total trash. Plenty of Amiga stuff as well.

The AVERAGE quality of computer games have always been and will always be abysmal owing to the low development and distribution costs. This is something computer gamers all learn at some point.

>>4604118
They had even more shovelware.

>>4604123
Americans and Japanese always had a higher standard for PC games than Europe. Bigger budgets and more professional developers.

>>4604127
That's true but I can assure you in America at least the garbage games far outnumbered the good games at every point. I assume the same was the case in Japan and the worst ones just didn't come out, although after downloading large MSX collections and doing random samplings, a lot of it is just as bad as the bad games everywhere else.

>>4604145
Thing is, most of the shittier stuff in America were just shareware and freeware games. The quality standards and budgets for our commercial titles have always been much higher than was the case in Europe.

>>4604149
A lot of it was that their standards for "commercial" distribution were lower. There were people copying shareware games onto floppies and slapping labels on them in my mall, but we don't consider that commercial distribution.

There definitely was a lot of shovelware and utter crap. But you also need to understand that home computers were actually cheaper than consoles, and the games for them were even cheaper.

Kids in Europe back then could skip on daily allowance to buy a game. Meanwhile in USA where consoles were more prevalent you were supposed to pay significantly more for cartridges. That is the reason why market in Europe never crashed in the same way it did in USA. There was a crash related to UK home computer market, where marked became saturated at one point, but it wasn't that significant like US one.

>>4604208
>But you also need to understand that home computers were actually cheaper than consoles, and the games for them were even cheaper
Do I even need to tell you what an Apple II cost? Hint, it was not cheaper than a Colecovision.

>>4604208
>home computers were actually cheaper than consoles

>>4604209
>>4604216
Maybe what he meant was that home computers had a bigger upfront cost, but in the end were less expensive when you factored in the price of console game cartridges.

Not to mention that home computers appealed more to parents for their versatility, utility, and educational value, whereas consoles were strictly toys.

>>4604209
>>4604216
We are talking about the lower price end of the market, mainly focused on gaming. Those high end business machines were not optimal for playing games anyway.

>>4604225
>We are talking about the lower price end of the market, mainly focused on gaming

After 1983, there wasn't anything left in that market segment except the C64.

>>4604234
He probably bought a ZX Spectrum in like 1985 or something.

>>4604234
>cannot figure out that the entire world is not America

Old rich people with some gaming magazines aren't any better at picking games than six year olds.

>>4604258
> implying Americans could ever figure that out

Americans are the dumbest people on the fucking planet. They think the world revolves around them. They voted for Donald Trump. They eat food that makes them extremely fat.

You're seriously expecting intelligence from burgers. What a laugh.

>>4604335
>>>/pol/

>>4604335
Anymore stereotypes?
You sound like an arrogant asshole.

>u wot m8

>>4604118
the crash wasn't just related to consoles, that included computers. it took a couple of years for the industry to completely recover. after the release of the c64, there was a staggering amount of software released for it, and yes, shitloads of shovelware. it's like nobody had learned anything.

>>4604127
>Americans and Japanese always had a higher standard for PC games than Europe
that is completely made up nonsense. the americans had no standards at all, they were responsible for releasing a great deal amount of shovelware.

>>4604225
>Those high end business machines
>apple-ii

the apple ii was not a high end business machine by any stretch of the imagination, and yes, it had plenty of games. do you even know what you're talking about? I don't think you do.

>>4604458
>that is completely made up nonsense. the americans had no standards at all, they were responsible for releasing a great deal amount of shovelware
You really want to claim that Microprose and Origin were on the same level as the mountains of tape shovelware in Europe?

> Microprose
hahaha.. speaking of shovelware. i was waiting for their name to drop at some point.

Americans made shovelware, yes. If you think European games were shovelware you are misinformed. Shovelware refers to games made quickly and pushed out the door for an easy and quick profit. This was not the case for Europe as it was in the US. Were there low quality games in Europe? Yes. But they weren't shovelware, they were just written by inexperienced coders. In the US the market was highly corporatised, unlike in Europe, so the rushed games were written by competent coders who could have done better with more time. The US games were then sold at a premium while crap European games were sold for very little.

>>4604458
Yes, the Apple II was not high end or a business machine, it just had the price of one.

>>4604476
>Yes, the Apple II was not high end or a business machine

Actually it was a very credible productivity machine when equipped with 80 column text and other add-ons like a numeric keypad.

>>4604481
Maybe for a small, personal office. But the value was not high for that price.

>>4604476
the price was insane

>>4604481
>very credible
that lasted a few years until the c64 came out and MOPPED THE FLOOR with it for far less $.

> productivity machine
now you're just playing word games. any machine can be seen as that. however it was NOT a machine businesses were rushing out to by. did you forget that IBM dominated that market? ooops.

>>4604118
The computer game market didn't crash, though. It was only the console market, only in America.

>>4604487
This guy is clearly under the age of 18 and only knows about 8-bit computers from Youtube celebrities.

>>4604487
>now you're just playing word games. any machine can be seen as that. however it was NOT a machine businesses were rushing out to by. did you forget that IBM dominated that market? ooops.

PC compatibles didn't dominate until the late 80s after the Apple II was technologically obsolete and the price of PC hardware had come down to more reasonable levels.

>>4604484
>But the value was not high for that price.
Explain.

>>4604487
>that lasted a few years until the c64 came out and MOPPED THE FLOOR with it for far less
C64 was better at gaming, it was absolutely not better than the Apple II at productivity. Even then, some particular genres of games such as flight simulators were superior on the Apple II due to its bitmap graphics and analog joysticks.

The Apple II was expandable and could be adapted to any utility task you wanted. That wasn't possible on Atari and Commodore machines with their custom chipsets.

>>4604472
What games of theirs would you consider to be shovelware?

>>4604535
It was not worth the asking price, how simply can it be stated?

>>4604601
Is this like PC nerds complaining about Mac prices, 40 years earlier?

>>4604606
It may surprise you, but Apple has always been known for this. It isn't some new phenomenon that Apple can't back up their prices with their products.

>>4604601
>no actual explanation given

>>4604510
Called it.

>>4604621
>>no actual explanation given
I didn't say that.

>>4604613
Yet people still buy them and use them every, so who's laughing?

>>4604626
If you're going to make a sweeping statement that an Apple II wasn't worth the price tag, you're going to actually have to explain why you think so rather than post some non-answer like >>4604601

>>4604629
Me, I suppose. It is kind of amusing to see.
>>4604632
Why would I have to? I'd be kind of interested to hear you justify its 1977 price tag, but I don't really care. I'd rather just not engage with someone like you.

>>4604638
>I'd be kind of interested to hear you justify its 1977 price tag
Do you actually know what hardware prices were like in the 70s? Hint, they were not cheap. A lot of the Apple II's design was based around trying to get things like color graphics as cheaply as possible.

>>4604650
>Do you actually know what hardware prices were like in the 70s?
Yes, I do.
>Hint, they were not cheap
Depends on what you are referring to. Are you saying all hardware was expensive in the seventies? That is false.
>A lot of the Apple II's design was based around trying to get things like color graphics as cheaply as possible.
Yes, I know they did things cheaply. That does not justify the near $1300 price.

>>4604118
Yes. The reason for all the shovelware was that these platforms were too friendly to western developers. That's a recipe for Custer's Revenge.
The same thing is happening now on iOS/Android.
The moment you let westerners develop for your platform without any sort of gatekeeping or regulation, you platform is filled with shit.
Nintendo's didn't develop their "Seal of Quality" until they had to localize the famicom for America. They didn't fucking need it.

>>4604660
inb4 posts about weebs
Also, fuck off weeb

>>4604660
Or maybe that was due to the amount of unofficial shovelware for the Famicom. Either way, Nintendo's draconian licensing regulations did not make the systems better in any way.

>>4604650
>Do you actually know what hardware prices were like in the 70s? Hint, they were not cheap. A lot of the Apple II's design was based around trying to get things like color graphics as cheaply as possible.
It makes for a big difference when comparing the Apple II against the C64 which came out five years later when the price of electronics components had dropped considerably.

>>4604665
Nobody is comparing the Apple 2 to the C64. This is about the seventies.

>>4604665
That's true but Commodore cheated by owning their own chip fab, nobody else could compete with them on price.

I can't fault Apple for their Q/C, their hardware prior to shipping everything to China was bulletproof.

>>4604664
>draconian
Did not know it was that bad, damn

>>4604663
Not a weeb, I can recognize that western developers are pretty good post 2000. CoD is 100x better than anything japan has made, we can basically retire their little island to the ocean floor now because it's served it purpose.

>>4604681
baiting hard to compensate, I see

>>4604676
They weren't without issue.

>>4604674
It was like the freaking Mafia, I swear.

>be Commodore
>own MOS Technologies, the manufacturer of the 6502
>rival companies like Atari don't buy 6502s directly from MOS, but rather third party sources
>however, companies like NEC that made 6502 clones still paid MOS a licensing fee for the design
>this meant that even if you bought clone 6502s, the profits ultimately filtered back to Commodore anyway

>>4604683
Lets be honest dude, western devs were shit before 3D. Then they developed a technological lead and their organizations grew large, rich and bureaucratic enough to keep all the weirdos away from game development. Once the corporate filters were in place the games got a lot better.

>>4604696
dang, you should run a parody twitter

>>4604681
We're all entitled to our opinions, I guess. You do mean Call of Duty by CoD, correct?

>>4604696
>the weirdos
?

>>4604706
Weirdos are people who suck but were mislead into believing they should follow their dreams and make custer's revenge.

>>4604714
Right. Thanks for clearing that up.

>>4604714
I guarantee you nobody who was involved in Custer's Revenge was following their dreams. But you're shitposting anyway.

>>4604732
I don't know, I doubt he's shitposting.

>>4604732
If you're a programmer but reputable studios don't want you, you find a position at Mystique making porn games for the Atari 2600.

>>4604118
If you want a place for consistently good games, that's arcade games. Those games HAD to be good at all to even justify its existence since they took a space where another game could be. This high barrier to entry ensured good standards.

I can't find the interview, but one dev who made games for both the Spectrum and NES said that Nintendo had fairly stringent quality standards for NES games (you had to give them video proof that your game can be finished, for instance), while Spectrum publishers gave almost no fucks outside of "the game has to be X genre and we're going to sell it for Y dollars"..

>>4604978
Well, there were no actual authorities on Spectrum games. The publishers might have guidelines if they were making a licensed game, but beyond that developers were pretty much free to do whatever. If someone wanted to write a Spectrum game they could. All the documentation was available.

>>4604121
This. I had literally hundreds of copied floppies for my A500 of any bizarre game you could imagine. The majority was absolute trash

Any teenager could learn some BASIC and make a computer game, ofcourse there was a lot of shovelware.

>>4604118
Gaming in general took a massive dive in 1983-1984, but computers and arcades weren't hit nearly as bad as consoles.

>>4604679

Not the guy you're quoting but according to Dominic Arsenault and Steven Kent, Nintendo was responsible for quality control and units produced, a exclusivity contract with a 5 game limit per year. Some companies like Konami were able to "breach" the contract with Nintendo's approval and ship more than 5 games using fake companies.

Compared to the absolute anarchy that was when Atari was on top, it's pretty draconian alright.

>>4604696
Westerns CONSOLE devs were garbage during the 3rd and 4th generations.

>>4604481
>>4604561

>>4605246
>>4604234
>>4604458
That was true, the computer market did suffer a major collapse in 83-84 that was at least partially tied into the video game crash, but the market for business computers also suffered a great deal and many established business computer outfits like Osborne, Cromemco, and Morrow went to their demise.

The reasons for it were similar to the video game crash, the market was glutted with too much computer hardware and too many competing, incompatible architectures, plus a lot of normies who'd bought a computer in the early 80s to look trendy and didn't really understand how to use the things. By 1987, there was essentially nothing left but PC compatibles and Apple, everything else disappeared.

>>4604475
>If you think European games were shovelware you are misinformed. Shovelware refers to games made quickly and pushed out the door for an easy and quick profit. This was not the case for Europe as it was in the US

Wrong. Most of the games for home computers in the UK were total rubbish made for quick dosh. Companies had a goal of releasing games as quickly and frequently as possible. You could of course purchase American-made games but as imports they weren't cheap.

>4605387
that sounds like more of a correction/consolidation than a crash desu

>>4605387
In regards to the video game crash, a number of computer game devs did expire in the mid-80s, for example Synapse and Sirius. However, the significant thing is that these were companies whose main focus was on arcade-style games. Those companies like Origin and Sierra who focused on the more traditional computer game genres were unaffected by the crash.

By the late 80s, computer ports of arcade games were mostly all being done by European devs and simply published by a US dev, particularly if the game was on the C64 or Amiga (PC ports were mostly US-developed because Europeans could not into PC compatibles at that time).

>>4605390
No, it was more that the best coders wouldn't work with the companies that produced shovelware, due to those companies paying fuck all. That's why they hired nobodies and spun it as some kind of duty with their "bedroom coders" nonsense. The nobodies, to the surprise of nobody, cranked out shite games.

>>4605246
>but computers and arcades weren't hit nearly as bad as consoles
>arcades
Hell no, arcades went down the drain with everything else. Mid-80s releases like Jr. Pac-Man and Dig-Dug II received little attention in the US.

>>4604475
There were some shitty US devs like Box Office Software who made junk like Wheel of Fortune. Probably programmers who weren't good enough to be hired by Sierra.

Thing is, even the best European coders were rarely good at game design. They could produce cool music and graphics effects, but they couldn't design memorable levels or characters or have non-shitty controls.

>>4605415
I hate America's corporate mindset.

>>4605431
>but they couldn't design memorable levels or characters or have non-shitty controls.
You mean characters and levels you remember and controls you are used to?

>>4605435
Then you would have really hated Ocean, they were just the European Electronic Arts. Grab as many licences as they could and produce utter shovelware.

>>4604458
>Japanese always had a higher standard for PC games

70% of Japanese games are visual novels. 80% of those are PORN. 80% of PC games in Japan in general are porn. They have THE lowest standards for PC gaming and ALWAYS HAVE.

>>4605438
>Then you would have really hated Ocean
Would have?

>>4605440
There we go. It's literally nothing but Wizardry, hentai, and weeb dating sims. To be fair, Japan has never had a well-developed PC game culture because computer hardware has always been expensive there and Japanese homes are shoebox-sized and often lack the room for a computer setup.

>>4604475
Dude, go play Amstrad CPC or ZX Spectrum. Those were FAR WORSE than what was coming out elsewhere. Europe had the lowest standards for gaming. Basement level. That's why gaming didn't really get mainstream there until the PS1, because even the nonexistent quality standards of the PS1 were still higher than Europe's standards for gaming.

>>4605453
>go play Amstrad CPC or ZX Spectrum.
Read this in an American accent, it's almost as horrible as reading the rest of that post.

>>4605410
Arcade and PC declined, but consoles were literally wiped out. As in they stopped being sold altogether. It wasn't nearly as bad for arcades. Most towns still had an arcade in the mid 80s.

>>4604963
I feel like I've seen this before.

>>4605273
That does sound pretty rough.

>>4605440
I don't agree with discounting the games because they're made for porn, but you're still right anyway, so that mindset doesn't matter in this case.

>>4605435
that is a complete non-sequitur and has nothing to do with the post you're quoting

>>4605470
t. brainlet

>>4605453
By the early 90s, things were getting better as PC compatibles took over Europe and the amount of shovelware decreased.

The Apple II was as close to irrelevant in Europe as you could get, a business computer and far too expensive for home users. That and it wasn't capable of colour on a PAL display.

>>4605483
We don't give a damn about your backward ass bitch country, dude.

>>4605479
>and the amount of shovelware decreased
You mean the amout of non shovelware increased. Shovelware didn't go anywhere.

>>4605467
>I feel like I've seen this before.
I guess it's just common knowledge
>>4605280
>during the 3rd and 4th generations.
And not later?

>>4605280
3rd gen yes, we were still recovering from the video game crash.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DHnOOJO1Yg

8-bit computer games in a nutshell. Pretty grim.

>>4605493
>1988 release date
This would have been a perfectly acceptable game in 1983. But by 88, come on, that was right in the middle of the NES era.

>>4604118
There was a ton of what we would now call shovelware, but it was also mostly pirated. So we rarely paid for it, but at the same time it meant less money going back so it just fueled more shovelware.

>>4604978
Yeah, games actually had to be properly finished and beatable and not have bugs that would crash the game.

>>4604978
A lot of computer games even the programmers themselves couldn't beat, that's how low the bar was.

>>4605524
>>4605530
It's all very similar to today's independent game devs. There are a lot of amateurs just trying things and putting them out. The result is that a lot of it is prettt crap, but there's still room for interesting things to happen.

>>4605532
It's similar because it's essentially the same thing.

>>4605435
Did I just imagine Volvo, Siemens, Volkswagen, Peugot, and whatnot?

>>4605453
>That's why gaming didn't really get mainstream there until the PS1
Found the retard.

>>4605545
Not him, but people in Spain still call consoles "plays" due to the PlayStation to this day. Gaming was a thing before (arcades, MSX, Spectrum, SNES, Megadrive...) but shit really blew up when the PS1 came out. Aside from Pokémon (Nintendo portables) and some PC games later on this place has been Sony Land since.
I'm sure things are similar in other European countries.

>>4605541
How would anyone else know what you imagined? But seriously, that was an awful turn of phrase. You missed the point, too. Americans, as in the collection of individual American citizens, have a corporate mindset. Just like... Corporations. Regardless of continent. Are you stupid or did you misread the post? Maybe both.

>>4605545

He's not wrong, PS1 was the start of modern gaymen

>>4605558
Gaming became mainstream with Megadrive and SNES, all the PSX did was attracting a lot of grown ups that, up to this day, play nothing but FIFA. You can't say that most early 90s kids weren't into gaming with a straight face.

Also para ya con en España esto y en España lo otro, por favor.

>>4605571
Gaming was mainstream since the Atari 2600. The video game bubble in the early 80s was huge.

>>4605537
Exactly. Around here you really have to spell it out though, because people here like to convince themselves amateur game making is some new thing. Those of us who played a lot of PC stuff in the early days were always used to it.

I still love stuff like that, even awful games are sometimes interesting like a bad drawing.

>>4604118
They had more shovelware, where as consoles just had less games.

>>4604127
This is false. Americans didn't have any standards and most of the bigger development houses where in Europe.

>>4605571
>PSX
>grown ups
lol

>this thread
How can /vr/ anons be just actually misinformed and ignorant people?

Is this just related of this topic being about computers and on a global scale while most of the loudest /vr/ anons are just console people and Americans?

>>4605545
Not him but I would agree with the PS1 being when gaming really got mainstream. It was a console designed to appeal to the 20somethings who had already been playing games for a number of years abd had aged out of it being a kid's hobby.

There were always adults into games, especially if you went into arcades, but the PS was aimed at a new demographic that hadn't quite existed yet and then on top of that was also aiming at the young audience to keep things going.

That combined with major brand recognition and the PS really was different.

>>4605606
>a board full of underage hipsters does not know about history
gee really?

>>4605606
>Hey guys I'm not going to make any actual claims which might be refuted I'm just going to take any opportunity to rag on consolefags and Americans

>>4605595
>Americans didn't have any standards

>>4604469

>>4605664
Actually computer gaming as we know it pretty much originated in the US, all the major game genres like adventures, flight sims, CRPGs, all started on the Apple II pretty much or were microcomputer ports of mainframe games like Adventure and Star Trek.

>>4605672
>Actually computer gaming as we know it pretty much originated in the US, all the major game genres like adventures, flight sims, CRPGs, all started on the Apple II pretty much or were microcomputer ports of mainframe games like Adventure and Star Trek

>>4605681
Weebs go back to the JPC thread and jerk off to your Schoolgirl Super Panty Quest game on the X68000.

>>4605694
Listen to this goblin.

>>4605698
>goblin

>>4605702
American. Referring to being non-white now.

>>4605694
This, as a BIG fan of Japanese arcade games it would be stupid to not see they sucked at PC stuff.
To me, after the early 80's, console/arcade = Japan, and PC = west.

>>4605702
It's an /int/ meme.

>>4605698
>>4605705
Go back to /pol with that shit

>>4605664
Computer gaming as we know it pretty much originated in the US, all the major game genres like adventures, flight sims, CRPGs, all started on the Apple II or were microcomputer ports of mainframe games like Adventure and Star Trek. Entire companies like Origin, Sierra, and SSI got their start producing Apple II stuff.

>>4605694
I don't get why weebs say things like this

>>4605723
/vr/ is not a weeb safe space, buddy. But I guess you'll insist on saying this shit in every thread.

>>4605737
You're on the site where we coined the term and now trying to say it's "not safe" lols you are some special breed of retarded.

>>4605737
Whatever you say, weeb

>>4605387
>plus a lot of normies who'd bought a computer in the early 80s to look trendy and didn't really understand how to use the things
Yeah there was a premature rush to bring computers to the masses when the hardware was still too primitive and non-user friendly for people who weren't neckbeards. Bill Gates said in 1982, "We still haven't reached the point where I would give a computer to my mother."

>>4605740
>>4605750
Yeah, /vr/ is the place where weeb was coined!
Boards are quite different. This isn't 2004's 4chan anymore.
Again, plenty of people here have grown up without anime and come here to discuss old games. There isn't a better place for that anonymously.

>>4605757
Whatever you say, weeb

>>4605757
Ohh so you're one of our special friends who likes to cry all day about /v/ as well, right? Enjoy your stay :)

>>4605754
During the early 80s computer boom, there were a large number of "turnkey" computers like the Kaypro II which were just le generic CP/M boxes with green monochrome text designed to give novices a productivity tool and which had no real interesting features to appeal to neckbeards. They quickly gave way to PC compatibles.

>WAAAAAAAAAAHHHH I CAN'T HEAR YOU I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!! I'M A WEEB AND THIS PLACE IS FULL OF WEEBS, IT WILL ALWAYS BE TO ME!!! STOP DISMISSING WEEBS, AREN'T YOU ONE!?!??

>>4605771
Poor kid. They should have gotten him a C64 instead. Can't play Dig-Dug on a Kaypro.

>>4605773
Nice try weeb, but you won't fool me.

>>4605771
Ha ha, he looks like me when I was 6 years old.

Tards who come to 4chan even though they hate and can't really handle 4chan are my favorite.

>>4605810
Who and what are you talking about?

>>4605815
It's all gravy.

>>4605820
So everyone then.

>>4605387
And contrary to a lot of the memes circulated, the IBM PC didn't immediately take over the market. After all, IBM hardware was expensive. As in "take out a second mortgage on your house" expensive. The early clones like Compaq and Zenith were also very pricey. What did ultimately ensure the takeover of PCs was low cost Taiwanese brands like Acer and Leading Edge.

>>4605483
True but I do admittedly like the Apple II from a conceptual standpoint, it was a similar design philosophy to the ZX Spectrum. "Take a CPU and staple it to some RAM and TTLs to generate a video signal and see what you can do with it."

>>4605415
>There were some shitty US devs like Box Office Software who made junk like Wheel of Fortune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxuqMPD7Hvo

Here's the NES version made by Rare. It looks 100x better than the primitive computer versions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ueseD5D5yE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7zS4OI8jOs

After 83, there wasn't any market in North America for 8-bit computers except the C64 and Apple II.

>>4605831
Not what I said lol

>>4605942
I figured that's what you meant. Guess that's what I get for assuming.

>>4604118
*beep*beep*
GRRRRUPPPPP

"WELCOME TO DIG DUG CRACKED BY DRAGONPIRATEZ '84"

>>4604684
That's a Steve jobs design failure. Literally had no clue what he was doing.

>>4606479
Jobs was a dumb 20-something kid back then who had yet to learn that Apple were above the laws of thermodynamics. He did a lot of growing up in the years he was away from the company.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sudRK6-qL-A

The Apple II wasn't bad at arcade games in the early 80s, by the NES era it was getting too old to keep up with the latest stuff so most games at that point were slower dungeon crawlers and adventure games.

bump

>>4606504
Are there any major hardware incompatibilities between different Apple II models? Just wondering.

>>4604118
Why didn't the BBC Micro ever come to North America? Acorn not caring or the crash?

>>4604118
Boy, did the Vic-20, Electron, BBC micro, and ZX spectrum have a lot of clones of Space Invaders and Lunar Lander.

>>4607461
The crash mostly. Also they tried pitching it to the educational market in the US but there was no chance of breaking Apple's stranglehold on that.

>>4607457
Not really, although the method of detecting the vertical retrace differs between the II/II+, IIe, IIc, and IIgs.

>>4604118
>ywn see what it would have been like had NEC took the chance to allow the PC-98 to come to North America.

>>4607483
No but they did sell the APC-III in North America for a bit.

>>4607483
Though I'm not sure exactly what the PC-98 could have offered over a standard PC. An EGA card provided basically the same graphics capabilities.

>>4607497
They were earlier than Western computers to provide high-resolution color graphics, 640x400 in the early 80s when most stuff had 320x200 resolution.

>>4607504
In that case, it was more just because they needed it to display legible kanji than anything. Also actually EGA is 640x350 max and only if you had an expensive monitor, it doesn't quite reach the PC-98's resolution.

>>4607479
>>4606504
The video shows some sprite flicker with the graphics. It's running on a IIe and this game predates the IIe, it may be possible that on a real II+, you wouldn't get flicker but IDK.

>>4607527
Apple II graphics look awful on emulation, this is nothing like how the real thing appears.

>>4607532
I notice that emulators always seem to get the aspect ratio wrong. The graphics are supposed to be 4:3, not as wide screen as that.

>>4604549
The Apple II certainly won in terms of reliability. It's rare to find a non-working unit except sometimes bad RAM because Apple often used cheapo brands like Micron. C64s especially the breadbins have an alarmingly high failure rate. Don't get me started either on the difference in reliability between the Disk II and the 1541.

>>4607541
That's the native 1:1 resolution the Apple puts out. CRTs' pictures can be physically narrowed but if you want to do it on a modern fixed resolution display you have to figure out different integer to scale the horizontal and vertical to get them 4:3 or else you get blurry interpolated pixels

>>4607639
that's the native 1:1 thread shitting tripfags put out.

bump

It's amazing how many porn games there were. I was reading some old archived CGW magazines, they had a whole section of every magazine devoted to porn. Kinda crazy.

>>4604632
I think IBM's hardware was not worth the money especially in the early 80s when you had 4.77Mhz PCs with CGA graphics and 64-128k of memory. They didn't offer all that much more than an Apple II for 2-3x the price.

How do I into Apple II games, /vr/? What are the essentials?

>>4608416
Most games on the Apple II worth bothering with also exist as arcade games, or on the PC, or on the C64, or the Amiga.

>>4605463
>Arcade and PC declined, but consoles were literally wiped out. As in they stopped being sold altogether.
The Atari 2600 still managed to be sold all through the crash, it actually kept going to the end of the 80s.

>>4604475
So some European games where crap because of their creators, some were craving because of money, or time. And some were the best they could do, but we’re still crap. Did I read that right? Am I now seeing crappy European software in the right perspective?

>>4607565
I want to get you started on that. I’m fascinated with old home computer stuff! It’s funny, there no real written record of this stuff, just thousands of people’s perspectives. Like mine. According to my personal 80’s computer history. Apple II’s were in schools, my Father and the fathers of all my friends had IBM PC’s or compatibles. Oh, and one guy I knew had a C64 instead of a NES. That’s it!

>>4608501
I wonder what Youtube comment section this was pasted from.

Cartels & Cutthroats, an SSI business sim. This was written by Dan Bunten, who later created M.U.L.E., and it's a very similar game.

>>4608416
You don't.

>>4604484
>But the value was not high for that price

It was fairly pricey but in the late 70s, its main rivals were the PET and TRS-80 both of which offered less of a computer. Neither of them had expansion slots, sound, or color graphics.

>>4608336
>They didn't offer all that much more than an Apple II for 2-3x the price

Math coprocessor support, color 80 column text, and RGB monitors. Ditto having actual interrupts so the computer wouldn't stop every time you beeped the speaker.

>>4608823
I mean, it was a 16-bit computer and one that was designed in the early 80s after hardware prices had dropped significantly. I do still agree that IBM PCs were overpriced since in the early days, the performance advantage over the Apple II wasn't all that significant.

>>4607483
At best it would have only lasted until PC clones with VGA became affordable. NEC couldn't even compete with cheap PC clones in Japan; they wouldn't have stood a chance in the West.

bump

The Apple II design-wise is closer to a dumb terminal than a proper computer. There's just the CPU, RAM, and some TTLs to tie everything together.

Oldfag here, computers were considered to be the "adult" thing while consoles could only play shitty arcade ports.

When the C64 came out as cheap as it was it blew everyone's fucking mind.

>>4604118
>original Apple II with a mid-80s IIe monitor
A 70s TV set with tuner dials would be more period-appropriate.

>>4608451
Rethink this and write it again.

Fuck I want an apple II. Terrified of buying one and it bricking on me after a few months of use though.

>>4611094
Apple fags are pathetic.

>>4611109
I have no fondness for Apple though.

>>4611130
Then stop trying to buy their crappy computers.

>>4611132
Eh, the Apple II is nostalgic since there was one in storage at my old school I messed with some. If I were to get an old computer for shits, I see no reason to get a different one.

>>4611152
Oh, you're a goblin.

>>4611157
I don't get your meaning.

>>4611169
American.

>>4611170
Ah. Yes, I am.

>>4611176
Yes, that's what I meant.

>>4604696
>corporate filters Made Gaming Gr8 Again
>DRM, microtransactions, etc.
At least I don't need an online connection to play anything you're all whining about.

>>4611094
They're pretty solid and reliable, a C64 is far more likely to fuck itself.

>>4610901
No. It’s written correctly. Despite all the reasons or conditions under which European software was created, it always ends up being crap.

European software sucks. Literally the entire world around you is designed using America software and hardware. Your office and home are designed in AutoCad, everything around you is designed in Photoshop, your music in Protools, all on Microsoft Windows, all on Intel x86 hardware. You can go to China and use their official state operating system. Chinese? Nope, Google made it! USA! USA! USA!

>>4612406
>a C64 is far more likely to fuck itself
If it's a breadbin, C64Cs don't fail that often aside from bad PSUs.

>>4612424

>>4605595
Are you fucking serious

good thing you've had a few days to run away from this post

>>4612424
>No. It’s written correctly
To a retard. Learn better English if you want to post on English speaking boards.

>>4612406
Seems like IIs up to the early IIe have socketed chips. Might actually be possible to keep one chugging for quite a while if replacements are possible to acquire.

>>4614010
>Might actually be possible to keep one chugging for quite a while if replacements are possible to acquire

Apple IIs don't have that many component failures except sometimes RAM.

>>4614048
>seriously replying to a guy who says "chugging" in a post
Shig.

Apple II emulation is kind of ass compared to C64 emulation which is kind of silly considering it's a much simpler computer.

>>4614243
Wasn't Apple ][ too much simpler computer so it relied on physical quirks of monitors?

>>4614253
Well, it made use of NTSC artifact colors, if that's what you mean.

>>4614048
I would say this was more of a problem with the II/II+ because they used 4116 RAM which has a high operating temperature.

>>4614313
Generally yes, but even a lot of IIes and early Macs had issues because Apple used shitty Micron RAM for cost-saving reasons.

>>4608430
what about random weird shit like the IIGS port of wolf3D with the better graphics? Is that elsewhere? Likewise for that one Osamu Satou game.

>>4614243
I would think it's because there isn't much of an Apple II fan community, certainly nothing like the almost cult-like Commodore fanboys.