System Rivalries

pitcalco · Post by **pitcalco** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 12:10 pm

Say, does anyone remember from his or her youth ( that is those who were teenagers or younger in the 80's) any rivalries at school depending on what computer you had?

Today, we can talk about all sorts of 8-bit systems and delight in them all, but back in school I was one of the few to have an Atari 800XL and that fact made me a laughing stock among all the C64 owners. I myself liked Commodore as well, but I always had to end up defending myself against charges that the C64 was "better" and that I personally sucked for having an Atari.

What was worse was the Commodore vs. Apple II rivalry going on in school which even broke down into fisticuffs in the lunch hall.

Virtually noone had an IBM at home back then. I knew only one boy who did and we all put that down to his father "owning a business".

During my life I have had Ataris, Commodores, Apples, PCs, and Texas Instruments, so I guess I would either have to be neutral or just punch absolutely everyone in the nose.

Does anyone else recognise this from the past?

Post by **Jeff-20** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 3:51 pm

I got a VIC 20 at the very end of its life cycle. The prices were dropping, and the VIC was the only computer in our price range. So, others looked down on me for having a dated "toy". The Atari XL series was the home computer of choice at the time.

MacbthPSW · Post by **MacbthPSW** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 3:59 pm

This is still going on even today

And I don't mean the XBox360 vs. PS3 vs. Wii arguments, though that's happening too.

C-64 vs. Spectrum threads frequently occur on comp.sys.cbm, and in fact gave birth to the Minigame Competition that has produced quite a few good games for many systems. And there have been a number of C-64 vs. Atari 8-bit threads on both lemon64.com and atariage.com

I participate when I'm in the mood, especially if it's staying fairly technical rather than personal

Nowadays I own many different computers from many different companies, but I still have favourites.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Sat Sep 08, 2007 5:45 am

These computer wars were one of the great part of the early 1980s!

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Sat Sep 08, 2007 9:27 am

Yes, I was young and arrogant once. I thought my A500 was the best computer EVER. In fact, I participated in many "Amiga vs." forums on local BBS's with a lot of ambition and no real knowledge of the other systems I was putting down.

Ian Colquhoun · Post by **Ian Colquhoun** » Sat Sep 08, 2007 7:01 pm

Wasn't there newsgroups comp.sys.*.advocacy specifically for putting other systems down?

Victragic · Post by **Victragic** » Sat Sep 08, 2007 8:58 pm

I just wanted to recruit others to getting the same system so we could swap games etc.... no dice though, I think I had the only Plus/4 in town.

Where did Commodore fit in in the US? There were always reports that Commodore did better abroad than in the USA.. certainly here, almost everyone who had a computer had a C64..

RobertBe · Post by **RobertBe** » Sun Sep 09, 2007 1:14 am

> Did you ever, even as a child, look down at people with a different
> computer system than your own?

Actually when I was a child, there was no one who had a personal computer system (and neither did I).

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

pitcalco · Post by **pitcalco** » Sun Sep 09, 2007 1:49 am

[quote="RobertBe"]> Did you ever, even as a child, look down at people with a different
> computer system than your own?

Actually when I was a child, there was no one who had a personal computer system (and neither did I). :-

Showing your age there, aren't you Robert Be?

pitcalco · Post by **pitcalco** » Sun Sep 09, 2007 1:58 am

When it comes to technical comparisons, I gladly got into discussions of the different systems. I prefered my Atari to the C64 or VIC for its graphics and the ease in programming them thanks to a much more verbose BASIC dialect.

However, I did recognise some things I would have liked to have been different in the Atari 800XL. I did not like that there was no synthesiser chip like the SID chip in Commodore. As for the BASIC, I did not like that it was necessary to DIM all variables before using them, even ones with only one element. I would have liked to have had DOS built into the disk drive as well.

These were clever arguments. But I never quite got the whole "you suck" thing about having a different computer and the moral condemnations of anyone with a different system. After all, it was our parents who bought the things in the first place.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Sun Sep 09, 2007 6:00 am

Victragic wrote:I just wanted to recruit others to getting the same system so we could swap games etc.... no dice though, I think I had the only Plus/4 in town.

Where did Commodore fit in in the US? There were always reports that Commodore did better abroad than in the USA.. certainly here, almost everyone who had a computer had a C64..

I don't know about the US. But here in Canada, Commodore ruled as computer of choice among elementary & secondary school students. A lot of this because Commodore was really tight with schools for providing computers for their education labs.

I do remember bashing someone who owned a C128 after I got an Amiga 500. Also I did post to comp.sys.amiga.advocacy a few times.

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Sun Sep 09, 2007 7:33 am

ral-clan wrote:
I do remember bashing someone who owned a C128 after I got an Amiga 500. Also I did post to comp.sys.amiga.advocacy a few times.

I preferred bashing Atari ST's and PC's myself. In actual fact, I was always jealous at how much better the 520ST and 1040ST looked than my A500, as far as case styling went.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sun Sep 09, 2007 10:13 am

I haven't really heard much about the new Commodore C=XX. I guess they were banking on people like us to buy it. I only found out about the CommodoreGaming website here on the forum.

RobertBe · Post by **RobertBe** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 12:30 am

pitcalco wrote: Showing your age there, aren't you Robert Be?

Yeah... and proud of it!

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

RobertBe · Post by **RobertBe** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 12:35 am

Jeff-20 wrote:I haven't really heard much about the new Commodore C=XX.

Well, I posted news about it on the Homestead, commodor, acug0447, and auscbm mailing lists. Also posted it to http://cbm.videocam.net.au . Also posted it at the newsgroups, comp.sys.cbm, alt.c64, rec.games.video.classic, comp.sys.amiga.misc, and alt.folklore.computers

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

Denial

System Rivalries

Did you ever, even as a child, look down at people with a different computer system than your own?

System Rivalries