• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

what was your favorite computer of the 80s? and why?

Best computer of the 80s?

  • Mac 1

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Mac 2

    Votes: 1 0.8%
  • ZX Spectrum

    Votes: 16 12.6%
  • Amiga

    Votes: 36 28.3%
  • Atari ST

    Votes: 4 3.1%
  • Sharp X6800

    Votes: 4 3.1%
  • Amstrad CPC

    Votes: 7 5.5%
  • Commodore 64

    Votes: 46 36.2%
  • MSX

    Votes: 6 4.7%
  • Tandy

    Votes: 7 5.5%

  • Total voters
    127

Isa

Member
C64 for me, and currently wishing I could get into the PC88 and 98, as well as the Sharp. I have so many great memories playing games, but also exploring the system itself, booting the floppy's, games and such of cassette tapes which I still find to be some kind of magic. Plus that super loud printer my Dad had for it. It had everything too, old arcade ports that were fun during parties to try and beat the high scores of each other, plus those amazing slideshow sim games. AH64 Apache was a real favorite of ours, as well as some Tom Clancy Submarine game my Dad absolutely loved. Man those were the days. Granted I still love where gaming went later of course, so glad we finally ended up getting a Windows 95 PC later on, Sim City and the Janes sim series along with anything Mechwarrior/Battletech was always a mainstay in our house.
 
  • Strength
Reactions: Fuz

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
I actually want to buy an Amiga off of Ebay, but they're all shockingly expensive.. a500 ranges between 200-700. I saw an A1000 going for 60k
 

Aenima

Member
The Spectrum 128k

The 1st gaming machine i had at home was a Commodore 64, but was my brother's, the Spectrum 128k was my 1st gaming machine and I have great memories, cuz my childhood friend also had a Spectrum 48k, so we was always on eachother houses trying new games.

Back in the day the gaming stores straigh up sold pirated games, so we was always buying new games cuz they was very cheap.

Some years later the Commodore Amiga 600 became one of my favorite gaming machines, but my best memories are still with the Spectrum.

1200px-Spectrum_128-2_%28retouched%29.jpg
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
The Spectrum 128k

The 1st gaming machine i had at home was a Commodore 64, but was my brother's, the Spectrum 128k was my 1st gaming machine and I have great memories, cuz my childhood friend also had a Spectrum 48k, so we was always on eachother houses trying new games.

Back in the day the gaming stores straigh up sold pirated games, so we was always buying new games cuz they was very cheap.

Some years later the Commodore Amiga 600 became one of my favorite gaming machines, but my best memories are still with the Spectrum.

1200px-Spectrum_128-2_%28retouched%29.jpg
I love Sinclair and his ideas. He seemed like an interesting dude.
 

Comfortgel

Member
We were an Atari house, and the 520ST was my first grown-up computer. My friend had an Amiga at the time and I always felt like it was more fragile somehow. Can't say I wasn't jealous of the games he got to play though.
 

Holammer

Member
don't know about that, but the Amiga port of Bonk's adventure definitely smashes the PC Engine version. considering that the PC engine version was the original version and would be the system that got the sequels.... it's very ironic to me


image.png


Imagine how good Rondo of Blood would look if it got an Amiga version. (it'd probably be a very severe downgrade in audio quality, though)
Factor 5 did the port, no wonder it's so good. Amiga had a bunch of well made arcade ports like Rodland, Toki and Liquid Kids. New Zealand Story!
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
I had a Commodore 16 and a Commodore 64 during the 80's. Taught myself Basic from books and magazines. Toward the end of the 80's I got into PC clones. The first PC clone I bought was a Packard Bell desktop in preparation for college. I first got into BBS systems with the Commodore 64 and moving to a PC clone really ramped that up. Man those were such good times. I didn't really even care about gaming on my computers. Building and connecting is where it was at.
 

John Wick

Member
The Amiga. Loved the demo scene. Some amazing games with awesome soundtracks. Blood Money, Turrican, Stardust, Alien Breed, Rainbow Islands and Xenon 2 Megablast. It's my mobile ringtone of choice. The 80's were fantastic. So many more like Shadow of the Beast etc.

 

kurisu_1974

is on perm warning for being a low level troll
Amiga games did look indeed great, and I loved the strategy and point and click games, but I hated action and arcade games on it. These European made games didn't play very well and were often horribly designed if you were used to Japanese stuff. Nice tunes however.

Imagine if the Sharp X68000 had a Western release though.
 

calistan

Member
I love Sinclair and his ideas. He seemed like an interesting dude.
Sir Clive had sold up to barrow boy Alan Sugar by the time of the Spectrum +2. That one was the Amstrad Spectrum, and most of the lovely old Sinclair design language had been wiped out. Grey plastic case? The 'proper' Spectrum 128 was much more striking.

o2qkgYg.jpg
 

Dr. Suchong

Member
My lovely parents bought me a Commodore 64 which kickstarted my obsession with computer/videogames.
An obsession that has both impaired and improved my life.
So, yeah. Definitely the C64 👍
 

calistan

Member
The Amiga. Loved the demo scene. Some amazing games with awesome soundtracks. Blood Money, Turrican, Stardust, Alien Breed, Rainbow Islands and Xenon 2 Megablast. It's my mobile ringtone of choice. The 80's were fantastic. So many more like Shadow of the Beast etc.


The music was great on Amiga but the actual Xenon 2 game was just another jerky 16-colour ST port. I hated that so much, 90% of games during my Amiga years (88-91) seemed to be developed with the ST as the lead platform.

This video shows the music difference on Amiga. The way it cuts out during gameplay when it runs out of sound channels is terrible though.
 

Reficul

Member
The C64 is my personal favorite because it was the computer I spent the most time on in the 80's.
A lot of great games. Some of my favorites:
- IK+
- Delta
- The Last Ninja Trilogy
- Giana Sisters
- Impossible Mission
- Winter/Summer/California Games
- Guild of Thieves
- Jinxter
- Elite
....

Another reason is Rob Hubbard and his SID wizardry.
 

StereoVsn

Member
I didn't have a computer in the 80s unfortunately. First one I got was a 386 based system with EGA graphics I think. Although might have been VGA, it's been a while.

I do like the Sharp X6800, it's just so different from the other systems and was a gaming monster at the time. But that ¥¥¥ cost for it is crazy. Was crazy then and is still crazy now, lol.
 

Thebonehead

Gold Member
Was a tricky choice with me as C64 / Amiga were closest to my heart.

But below gallery is just a sample of some of the machines I have at the moment

Includes: 6 C64; Amiga 500; Amiga 1000; C128, Commodore Plus 4, 3 Atari 400s; 5 800Xl's; C16; 2 xBBC Master B's ; Numerous 1541, 1080 disk drives; 1981 Williams Defender Arcade machine

 

Mobilemofo

Member
I love the amstrad CPC 464 Green screen, cassette loading motherfucker because of Chucky egg and a game called The Wild bunch. Fuck, that game had me hooked.
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
I only had C64. Good memories playing some games on in though to be honest, if I were to go back and play some of those games today, I'd probably shut them off after 5 minutes. What I remember the most about it was playing around with BASIC, as well as SID music. I still listen to that stuff to this day, lol.
 
Top Bottom