General religious wars (was Re: Editor religious wars)

There is always the annual C64 versus Spectrum wars on Usenet, a/k/a the Commode versus Speculum wars, and the general discussion level is about that intellectual. OTOH, every so often there is true grist for the mill over processor types. The Speccies point out correctly that the Z80 in theirs was clocked higher, and had more registers and instructions, but the Commies respond with the criticism that the Z80 takes more clock cycles for typical tasks. The consensus opinion is that the Speccy has more meat in its CPU, but is hobbled by poor video and a merely adequate sound chip (the AY is fine, but no SID), while the C64, while having a lower speed clock and requiring zero page for register dependent operations, has a much better graphics "co-processor" which hardware-assists things like sprites, and a much better sound chip. Naturally we all know what the market chose. I think the best example of the Z80 not at full potential was the C128. I know Bil wanted to do more with it later on, but a lot of neat stuff could have been realized with some relatively modest improvements. I still like the C128 best anyway. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- MOVIE IDEA: The Never-Ending E-mail Signature ------------------------------