Denial

Did the Atari or Apple have cell color attributes? Or was it a first on the VIC 1001?
I probably should know about the Atari, because I got a 65XE a couple of years ago, but it didn't spark my interest at all.
Besides Commodore, the only other 8 bit I'm interested in are the Acorns.

With just a quick look up, it seems it maybe was the Apple II.

Apple II didn't have cell colors.
It hardly had colors at all - the color was based on a pixel pattern.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_graphics

Well, this is a little tough to prove.

The TI-99/4 (NOT /4A) was released sometime in 1979. But I can't seem to find exactly when.
According to Wikipedia, the Atari 400/800 was released in November 1979.

All three of those computers support color cells. However, my gut tells me the TI may have slightly beat out the Atari on the release date. Unless it was released in December. Which seems like an odd time but not impossible I guess.

So my vote is the TI-99/4.

cbmeeks wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 9:36 am Well, this is a little tough to prove.

The TI-99/4 (NOT /4A) was released sometime in 1979. But I can't seem to find exactly when.
According to Wikipedia, the Atari 400/800 was released in November 1979.

All three of those computers support color cells. However, my gut tells me the TI may have slightly beat out the Atari on the release date. Unless it was released in December. Which seems like an odd time but not impossible I guess.

So my vote is the TI-99/4.

OK, thanks. We mostly got british computers in Spain, that's why I thought the VIC1001 may have been the first. Other popular models from 1980 were Sinclair ZX80 and Acorn Atom and those were B&W, so I was guessing if Sinclair had copied that system for the Spectrum.

I think cell attributes are underrated as they provide color and save a lot of memory. Amstrad has way better graphics than Spectrum, but even today they can't get them to move smoothly (which the Spectrum does).

I knew previous computers Tandy was B&W, and Apple relied on NTSC arctifacts, but didn' think about Atari, let alone others. Sorry if this wasn't too VIC 20 related, but I was pretty much convinced.

I was wondering about this a little while back too, and I ended up concluding that it was the Atari 8-bit computers, but I didn't think of the TI-99.

cbmeeks wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 9:36 am Well, this is a little tough to prove.

The TI-99/4 (NOT /4A) was released sometime in 1979. But I can't seem to find exactly when.
According to Wikipedia, the Atari 400/800 was released in November 1979.

All three of those computers support color cells. However, my gut tells me the TI may have slightly beat out the Atari on the release date. Unless it was released in December. Which seems like an odd time but not impossible I guess.

I was thinking that releasing just before xmas would be ideal? It'd be really interesting to know for sure which one was first. I guess the demand for a solution made both come up with the same idea at pretty much the same time?

I think cell attributes are underrated as they provide color and save a lot of memory. Amstrad has way better graphics than Spectrum, but even today they can't get them to move smoothly (which the Spectrum does).

I think it's a fantastic idea too. On the Atari 8-bits you always have the same five colors (in the most used / most popular graphics mode for games), so Commodore really took that idea one step further as you can have one color in a cell with eight colors to choose from, that makes the games so much more colorful on the vic-20 and the c64 than the competition at the time. (I don't know about the colors on the TI-99 yet though, going to read up about it asap).