Mapping the PCs to the Console Generations: Gen 2 (& 2.5)
Gen 2 Consoles: A2600, Odyssey 2, Bally Astrocade (held back by its lack of RAM in comparison to its arcade parent)
PCs: Apple II (1977; MOS Technology 6502 CPU at 1.023 MHz) & AII+ (1979; a bit more max RAM), Commodore VIC-20 (1980; MOS Technology 6502 CPU - 8-bit), TRS-80 CoCo (1980; 6809E CPU at 0.895 / 1.79 MHz)
Apple II (1977; MOS Technology 6502 CPU at 1.023 MHz) & AII+ (1979; a bit more max RAM)
Some pros here are the high resolution, higher than any of the consoles I believe, and the tile variety. Color output is decent for the time, but games seem generally a bit choppy in motion, on the AII+ as well. Lode Runner and Choplifter are pretty smooth, and Escape relatively so for when it was released and being a pseudo 3D game. It struggles with Flight Sim 1-2.
Sound is basic up until the later AIIe (or perhaps it could be expanded already on the AII+?), though I found an exception in Gremlins which seems to play multiple channels of music in software.
Games pictured: Escape, Pirates, Ultima 2, Hi-Res Adventure 2: Wizard and the Princess, Demon's Forge, Frogger, Swashbuckler, David's Midnight Magic, Pac-Man, Transylvania, Ultima 3, Choplifter, Oregon Trail, Ghostbusters, Stellar 7, Mask of the Sun, Lode Runner, Ultima 4, Wizardry 5; AII+: Flight Sim 2, BC's Quest for Tires, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, Karateka, Sid Meier's Pirates!
Commodore VIC-20 (1980; MOS Technology 6502 CPU - 8-bit; no hardware sprites+lower resolution than CoCo and AII)
The predecessor to the legendary C64 Seems a bit unremarkable compared to the Apple II, but it does show a bunch of sprites in a row no problem in games like Tutankham and Jetpac, and Capture the Flag surprised me with fairly smooth movement in (pseudo-)3D!
The sound, while not utilized that well at the time it seems, is similar to the AY-3-8910 chip in the Spectrum, MSX and Intellivision so theoretically it's good for the time.
Games pictured: Jelly Monsters/Pac-Man, Gridrunner 2, Donkey Kong, Chariot Race, Rockman, Tutankham, Capture the Flag, Jetpac
TRS-80 CoCo/Color Computer (1980; 6809E CPU at 0.895 / 1.79 MHz)
Seems pretty standard besides the two (or more?) modes for the color palette, but I wasn't able to find that much footage or info. I was surprised by the smooth scolling in Zaxxon and Time Bandit.
For sound, it supposedly uses a 6-bit DAC? Well I've heard some unusual waveforms here and there in game compilation videos but not much in terms of music and I'm not sure any of them are samples, someone else will have to fill us in.
"it gave you three choices in regards to visuals, choice number #1 was four specific colours in low resolution, choice #2 was a different four colours in low resolution (you couldn't mix colours between choice 1 and 2 they were locked), and choice 3 was a high resolution mode with only 2 colours. However, because of the way that American TVs work if you use a specific pixel dither pattern they would distort and the TV would actually incorrectly display 4 colours (artifact colours). Unfortunately creating this dither pattern would essentially force you into grouping pixels together, meaning that this mode also ended up essentially being low resolution too when using this method!
The hardware had no support for sprites or scrolling so everything is done with the CPU, bear in mind that the whole screen is not being scrolled in the examples you give, in Time Bandit there is a status bar and the floor doesn't need to be scrolled as its just pure black, and Zaxxon is only scrolling objects placed on the floor towards you, the whole rest of the screen is stationary but seems to move as your brain fills in the blanks." - Retrosanctuary
Games pictured: Phantom Slayer, Color Baseball, Frogger, Time Bandit, Zaxxon
PCs: Apple II (1977; MOS Technology 6502 CPU at 1.023 MHz) & AII+ (1979; a bit more max RAM), Commodore VIC-20 (1980; MOS Technology 6502 CPU - 8-bit), TRS-80 CoCo (1980; 6809E CPU at 0.895 / 1.79 MHz)
Apple II (1977; MOS Technology 6502 CPU at 1.023 MHz) & AII+ (1979; a bit more max RAM)
Some pros here are the high resolution, higher than any of the consoles I believe, and the tile variety. Color output is decent for the time, but games seem generally a bit choppy in motion, on the AII+ as well. Lode Runner and Choplifter are pretty smooth, and Escape relatively so for when it was released and being a pseudo 3D game. It struggles with Flight Sim 1-2.
Sound is basic up until the later AIIe (or perhaps it could be expanded already on the AII+?), though I found an exception in Gremlins which seems to play multiple channels of music in software.
Games pictured: Escape, Pirates, Ultima 2, Hi-Res Adventure 2: Wizard and the Princess, Demon's Forge, Frogger, Swashbuckler, David's Midnight Magic, Pac-Man, Transylvania, Ultima 3, Choplifter, Oregon Trail, Ghostbusters, Stellar 7, Mask of the Sun, Lode Runner, Ultima 4, Wizardry 5; AII+: Flight Sim 2, BC's Quest for Tires, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, Karateka, Sid Meier's Pirates!
Commodore VIC-20 (1980; MOS Technology 6502 CPU - 8-bit; no hardware sprites+lower resolution than CoCo and AII)
The predecessor to the legendary C64 Seems a bit unremarkable compared to the Apple II, but it does show a bunch of sprites in a row no problem in games like Tutankham and Jetpac, and Capture the Flag surprised me with fairly smooth movement in (pseudo-)3D!
The sound, while not utilized that well at the time it seems, is similar to the AY-3-8910 chip in the Spectrum, MSX and Intellivision so theoretically it's good for the time.
Games pictured: Jelly Monsters/Pac-Man, Gridrunner 2, Donkey Kong, Chariot Race, Rockman, Tutankham, Capture the Flag, Jetpac
TRS-80 CoCo/Color Computer (1980; 6809E CPU at 0.895 / 1.79 MHz)
Seems pretty standard besides the two (or more?) modes for the color palette, but I wasn't able to find that much footage or info. I was surprised by the smooth scolling in Zaxxon and Time Bandit.
For sound, it supposedly uses a 6-bit DAC? Well I've heard some unusual waveforms here and there in game compilation videos but not much in terms of music and I'm not sure any of them are samples, someone else will have to fill us in.
"it gave you three choices in regards to visuals, choice number #1 was four specific colours in low resolution, choice #2 was a different four colours in low resolution (you couldn't mix colours between choice 1 and 2 they were locked), and choice 3 was a high resolution mode with only 2 colours. However, because of the way that American TVs work if you use a specific pixel dither pattern they would distort and the TV would actually incorrectly display 4 colours (artifact colours). Unfortunately creating this dither pattern would essentially force you into grouping pixels together, meaning that this mode also ended up essentially being low resolution too when using this method!
The hardware had no support for sprites or scrolling so everything is done with the CPU, bear in mind that the whole screen is not being scrolled in the examples you give, in Time Bandit there is a status bar and the floor doesn't need to be scrolled as its just pure black, and Zaxxon is only scrolling objects placed on the floor towards you, the whole rest of the screen is stationary but seems to move as your brain fills in the blanks." - Retrosanctuary
Games pictured: Phantom Slayer, Color Baseball, Frogger, Time Bandit, Zaxxon
Gen 2.5/The Crash Generation: Colecovision, Intellivision, SG-1000, Atari 5200
PCs: TI-99/4 & TI-99/4A (1979; TMS9900 "16-bit"* CPU, hardware scrolling on the latter), Atari 8-bit series (1979; until Atari XEGS (1987), up to 128 KB RAM in 1985), BBC Micro (1981, MOS 6502 CPU), CGA graphics era DOS PC (1981; IBM PC 5150 (Intel 8088 CPU - 8-bit external data bus), 16 KB–256 KB DRAM), IBM PC/XT - 128-640 KB RAM), NEC PC-88 (1981-1985 models, μCOM-82/μPD780 CPU), ZX Spectrum (1982, Z80A (or equivalent) CPU at 3.5 MHz), Sharp X1 (1982; Sharp Z80A CPU), Apple IIe (1983, 65C02 CPU, 64 KB or up to 1 MB of RAM), MSX1 (1983, Zilog Z80A CPU at 3.579 MHz), Tandy 1000 & PCjr (1984; Intel 8088, CGA+/TGA graphics (basically the same as EGA using the same 16 colors), higher max RAM on the Tandy), Amstrad CPC (1984, Zilog Z80A CPU at 4 MHz), Tandy CoCo 3/Color Computer 3 (1986; 6809E CPU - 8-bit w/ some 16-bit features)
TI-99/4 & TI-99/4A (1979; TMS9900 "16-bit"* CPU, hardware scrolling on the latter)
Color and detail for this one seems the same as on Colecovision if not a bit better in the latter category (see Fathom). The single screen Frogger is fast and smooth with a lot going on, but scrolling seems kind of choppy without the later hardware support (see Moon Patrol compared to Parsec).
Sound seems the same as on the later SMS (an earlier variant of the SN76489 chip) though it was rarely used fully for music, but check out Slymoids for example. With an addon you can also get speech synthesis! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fi0VWYShFY
Games pictured: Alpiner, Demon Attack, Frogger, Space Bandits, Parsec, Q*Bert, Fathom, Popeye, Tunnels of Doom, Moon Patrol, Moonsweeper, Legends 2
*Only the system ROM and 256 bytes of scratchpad RAM are available on the 16-bit bus. The rest uses an 8-bit bus so it's closer to an 8-bit system.
Atari 8-bit series (1979; until Atari XEGS (1987), up to 128 KB RAM in 1985)
The 400-800 are very similar to the A5200 but apparently more reliable. There's plenty of cool stuff here even since early on such as the relatively complex Star Raiders, as well as the FP view games Way Out and a better looking Capture the Flag than on the VIC-20, both featuring smooth gradient backgrounds as you'd sometimes see on the Atari consoles. Boulder Dash and Dropzone show off fast and smooth gameplay with pretty good detail, BC's Quest some expressive sprites and pretty smooth scrolling, Fort Apocalypse probably introduced smooth multidirectional scrolling to home systems, and Summer Games some really nice animation for the time. Rescue on Fractalus features relatively smooth 3D-like gameplay using fractals to simulate the terrain (with more advanced depth of field/fog in Koronis Rift), smart use of gradients for curved metal objects and HUD, and large alien sprites with decent detail. If there's a weakness here I'd say it's the more muted, brown/orange-tinted sprite palette - you can also see this in later homebrew ports of Space Harrier and Dr. Mario for example, which play very well but have some odd color choices. The sound is produced by the Pokey chip and it's comparable to third gen consoles when used right.
Games pictured: Star Raiders, Choplifter, Way Out, Donkey Kong, Boulder Dash, BC's Quest for Tires, Capture the Flag, Dropzone, Summer Games, Ballblazers, Montezuma's Revenge, Frogger, Hardball, International Karate, The Eidolon, Encounter, Koronis Rift, Moon Patrol, Rescue on Fractalus, Alley Cat, Alternate Reality: The City, Pitfall II, Panther, Thunderfox
BBC Micro (1981; MOS 6502 CPU)
The 3D on this one is a bit ahead of the NES (see Elite on both and the more pseudo-3D racing game Revs) and the rest is a bit better than early gen 2 overall with at least a few smooth scrolling games like Castle Quest. Strykers Run 2 is pretty smooth as well but the other scrolling games I've looked at not quite on par. Color seems to be a minor weakness - it doesn't show that many at once and the whole standard palette is very saturated (it's a 3-bit RGB palette, which is also used in the PC-88 and Sharp X1), but as seen in Impossible Mission it can show more muted shades. For sound it uses the same chip as the Colecovision and SMS, and there's a speech synthesizer addon for it as well so that's cool.
Games pictured: Snapper, Elite, Mr Ee, Overdrive, Castle Quest, Citadel, Impossible Mission, Revs, Crystal Castle, Stryker's Run 1-2, Exile
CGA graphics era DOS PC (1981; IBM PC 5150 (Intel 8088 CPU - 8-bit external data bus), 16 KB–256 KB DRAM), IBM PC/XT - 128-640 KB RAM)
Before the IBM PC started taking over as a gaming PC in the west, one of two obvious limitations is the CGA palette. Although if using composite mode like in these screenshots, it's not quite as bad, just less clear than most of the competition. This PC can handle various single & flip screen 2D games well, and certain 3D games pretty well, while scrolling games are generally kinda choppy (Ancient Art of War, not pictured has pretty smooth scrolling but choppy sprite movement). This in part led to a focus on different genres on PCs, along with the mouse and keyboard controls. Yes, I'm cheating a bit with the Indy 500 example since while it is in CGA composite, that footage is from a higher clocked 8088 CPU (haven't seen footage of it on a standard 8088 though, that would be interesting).
The other limitation is the single channel PC speaker sound, though again, using a trick called pulse-width modulation one can get sample playback out of it, and games would eventually be able to play back "full length" (2-3+ mins) recorded songs on this humble chip at decent quality in mono.
Games pictured: Microsoft Flight Simulator v1.0, Burgertime, BC's Quest for Tires, King's Quest, Pitstop II, Zaxxon, Tapper, Ancient Art of War, Bruce Lee, Solo Flight: 2nd Edition, Space Quest, Tass Times in Tonetown, Bard's Tale, Maniac Mansion, Battle Chess, Indianapolis 500
NEC PC-88 (1981-1985 models; μCOM-82/μPD780 CPU)
Probably the second-most popular 1980s PC in Japan, it featured relatively high resolution visuals and the same color output as the BBC Micro. A lot of developers felt using dithering to simulate more shades of colors was a good approach at this resolution, despite monitors not being expected to blend them together unlike the composite IBM PC screens before. It seems to me that most action games from this period have kind of poor performance, although there might be exceptions I don't know about and certain games like Thunder Force 1 and Thexter do seem to play pretty smoothly (I could be looking at footage using later PC-88 models, if so let me know). I suppose it makes sense considering hardware sprites and scrolling weren't supported.
Originally the PC-88 models used only an internal single channel "beeper" like earlier PCs (actually it seems it was worse as there was no pitch control at first), but an AY-3 chip could be added to the 1983 model, and a YM2203/OPN chip could be added to the 1985 model for FM synth+square wave-based sound, which can sound pretty nice when used right - certainly on par with the better 3rd gen systems - but was only beginning to be explored in this period. This is similar to the MD/GEN's sound setup, combining three 4-op FM channels (one of which can be split into 4 operators here as well) with an AY-3 chip. For comparison, the MD features 6 FM channels, an 8-bit DAC, an SN7 chip instead of the AY-3, and adds stereo to its FM chip. Also in 1985, V2 graphics mode was introduced with a 512 color palette (like the MD and PC Engine!), however it could still only display 8 of them.
Games pictured: Bomb Jack, Ultima 3, Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken, Thexder, Thunder Force, Zarth, Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu
ZX Spectrum (1982; Z80A (or equivalent) CPU at 3.5 MHz)
This was the second-most popular early-mid '80s PC in Europe (or at least the UK), and while the limited color output with very saturated colors (and unusual way tile colors are affected by each other when overlapped) is an acquired taste, some games look surprisingly good and it does provide various fast and smooth 2D action games as well as a few pretty well performing 3D games like Elite and Starstrike II. Well, smooth single & flip screen 2D action, as it does struggle a bit with the scrolling in many games that do, though there are later exceptions like the platforming segments in The Untouchables.
For sound, while the initial single channel Beeper is quite basic, it was used in an interesting way by some composers to play back multiple channels in software. This tends to sound rather "grainy", but for two of the best examples check out Dark Fusion and Savage. By 1985 it would include an AY-3 chip instead, with the 128 KB RAM model. Music on the European systems became pretty distinct and ambitious, with strong percussion, funky basslines and those bubbly fast arpeggios to simulate chords.
Games pictured: Manic Miner, Knight Lore, I of the Mask, Starquake, Three Weeks in Paradise, Dan Dare, Elite, Starstrike II, the Great Escape, Rex, R-Type, Fantasy World Dizzy, Myth, The Untouchables, Dan Dare III, Extreme
Sharp X1 (1982; Sharp Z80A CPU)
This is another Japanese PC series that's comparable to this later 2nd gen period of consoles. It has similar performance issues for various action games as the PC-88, like choppy scrolling, but
some games still impressed such as American Truck, Plazmaline and Wibarm. In 1986, the X1 Turbo Z anime series model was released and it provided a much larger 4096 color palette, plus the great YM2151 sound chip. This chip is considered the best FM synth sound chip of the '80s by many, featuring eight 4-op channels, stereo and some unique effects compared to the other chips. However, the CPU was not updated for this model nor the next one, so it's
hard to categorize the X1 as a PC series in this context.
Games pictured: Mappy, American Truck, Flicky, Final Zone Wolf, Gradius, Thexder, Wibarm, Euphory, Sophia X1, Herzog, Revolty 2, Ys II
Apple IIe (1983; 65C02 CPU, 64 KB or up to 1 MB of RAM)
The Apple II series continued to be popular with the Apple IIe. While the CPU used in this later model is a relatively minor upgrade, the IIe also provided twice the amount of on-screen colors and less color bleeding. It also supported RAM upgrades up to 128 KB. For sound, it can use two AY-3 chips if a Mockingboard (1983) sound card is installed, which the AII+ can also use. Some games like Ultima 4-5 and Skyfox (which is an impressive early pseudo-3D game playable on the AII+, forgot to include it) get stereo out of it with panned channels, however it was only used by about 30 games in total. The card also allowed for speech synthesis!
Games pictured: King's Quest, Ancient Art of War, California Games, Maniac Mansion, Space Quest, Barbarian/Death Sword, King's Quest III, Might & Magic II, Police Quest, King's Quest IV, Prince of Persia, King's Bounty
MSX1 (1983; Zilog Z80A CPU at 3.579 MHz)
Like the TI-99, the first MSX computer is also quite comparable to the Colecovision, with the same color output and similar sound output in the AY-3 chip. The MSX stands out with its long lived support by Konami, pushing its visuals to the limit and also upgrading its audio capabilities. It's also known for choppy scrolling, a problem that didn't go away sadly, but also a bit strange to me considering the pretty smooth Road Fighter from 1985, or the relatively smooth pseudo-3D movement in Penguin Adventure.
The audio was upgraded with Konami's own SCC sound chip, placed in the game carts themselves rather than the computer. This is a 5 channel mono chip featuring wavetable sound, meaning small samples are used which can be shaped manually into custom waveforms and allowing for more timre variety. It can be seen as a predecessor to the PC Engine sound chip.
Games pictured: Legacy of the Wizard/Dragon Slayer IV, Penguin Adventure, Zanac, Knightmare II: Maze of Galious, Bosconian, Nemesis 2, Road Fighter, King's Valley II, Guardic, Golvellius, Hydlide 3, Nemesis 3
Tandy 1000 & PCjr (1984; Intel 8088, CGA+/TGA graphics (basically the same as EGA using the same 16 colors), higher max RAM on the Tandy)
While rather similar when looking at and listening to the games, the Tandy 1000 was the much more popular of the two and supposedly did everything besides games better. Games too since it had better compatibility with IBM PCs, and I assume due to the extra RAM. TGA graphics is kind of an interesting card in that games usually look the same as EGA era games but there are some exceptions where they look different, perhaps due to the EGA card supporting higher resolutions. I couldn't find that much footage specifically for these but based on what I did find, while the colors and sound are improved over the IBM PC, it stays in this gen thanks to using the same CPU. For sound, the Tandy 1000 and PCjr use the same SN76489 chip as the SMS, TI-99/4A, BBC Micro and ColecoVision, but the first could also play 8-bit samples through a DAC during music playback, which was used in 4D Sports Boxing, Skate or Die and a few other games.
Games pictured: Bruce Lee, King's Quest, King's Quest III, Rockford: The Arcade Game (Bould Dash sequel), Thexder, Chip's Challenge, Manhunter 2, Lemmings, SimCity, Space Quest III, North & South, Super Solvers: Treasure Mountain
Amstrad CPC (1984, Zilog Z80A CPU at 4 MHz)
This was a cool one to look into for me as the visuals remind me of the SMS (Contra, Chase HQ and Renegade are easily mistaken for SMS ports at a glance). But while the colors and detail are more in line with gen 3 in various games, the games never seem to run as smoothly as on the C64 when compared directly and are often a bit slow or use less screen space (Operation Wolf is one exception here). There is at least one exception in the recent homebrew port of Sly Spy, which is smooth and plays pretty fast. Which begs the question: What was the issue back in the day? This system also uses the AY-3 chip for sound.
Games pictured: Get Dexter, Contra/Gryzor, Renegade, Operation Wolf, Savage (FP view segment), Chase HQ, Mr. Heli, Prince of Persia, Rainbow Islands, B.A.T., Chevy Chase, Extreme, Xyphoes Fantasy, Super Cauldron
Tandy CoCo 3/Color Computer 3 (1986; 6809E CPU - 8-bit w/ some 16-bit features)
I don't know much about this one when it comes to games other than that the visuals are very similar to EGA (though they pull from a larger 64 color palette), and the 6-bit DAC thing continues to intrigue me. It does seem like a good upgrade to the CoCo 2 in terms of default RAM and both it and the CPU can also be upgraded. The main standout seems to be a pretty good version of Koronis Rift, playing almost as well but having weaker sound. Thexder is pretty smooth and fast like on various other PCs of the time. Rampage looks very nice and features a 3-player mode, but it's kinda slow unless playing alone and the sound is sparse.
Games pictured: Koronis Rift, King's Quest III, Thexder, Arkanoid, Rampage
More: Fujitsu Micro 7/FM-7 (1982-1985 (FM77L4)) - Besides Plazma Line it's very similar to the early PC-88 series, Compaq Deskpro? (i8086 CPU - 16-bit external databus) - can't find much footage but seems graphics are monochrome 4 color only?
Some sources besides wikipedia and youtube:
https://ancientelectronics.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/quick-guide-to-computer-graphics/
https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2023/07/tandy-video-vs-ega-battle-of-16-colors.html
CGA 1024 colors deep dive: https://int10h.org/blog/2015/04/cga-in-1024-colors-new-mode-illustrated/
https://genesistemple.com/playing-it-the-european-way-a-discussion-on-the-european-gaming-market-in-the-80s
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/6/
PCs: TI-99/4 & TI-99/4A (1979; TMS9900 "16-bit"* CPU, hardware scrolling on the latter), Atari 8-bit series (1979; until Atari XEGS (1987), up to 128 KB RAM in 1985), BBC Micro (1981, MOS 6502 CPU), CGA graphics era DOS PC (1981; IBM PC 5150 (Intel 8088 CPU - 8-bit external data bus), 16 KB–256 KB DRAM), IBM PC/XT - 128-640 KB RAM), NEC PC-88 (1981-1985 models, μCOM-82/μPD780 CPU), ZX Spectrum (1982, Z80A (or equivalent) CPU at 3.5 MHz), Sharp X1 (1982; Sharp Z80A CPU), Apple IIe (1983, 65C02 CPU, 64 KB or up to 1 MB of RAM), MSX1 (1983, Zilog Z80A CPU at 3.579 MHz), Tandy 1000 & PCjr (1984; Intel 8088, CGA+/TGA graphics (basically the same as EGA using the same 16 colors), higher max RAM on the Tandy), Amstrad CPC (1984, Zilog Z80A CPU at 4 MHz), Tandy CoCo 3/Color Computer 3 (1986; 6809E CPU - 8-bit w/ some 16-bit features)
TI-99/4 & TI-99/4A (1979; TMS9900 "16-bit"* CPU, hardware scrolling on the latter)
Color and detail for this one seems the same as on Colecovision if not a bit better in the latter category (see Fathom). The single screen Frogger is fast and smooth with a lot going on, but scrolling seems kind of choppy without the later hardware support (see Moon Patrol compared to Parsec).
Sound seems the same as on the later SMS (an earlier variant of the SN76489 chip) though it was rarely used fully for music, but check out Slymoids for example. With an addon you can also get speech synthesis! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fi0VWYShFY
Games pictured: Alpiner, Demon Attack, Frogger, Space Bandits, Parsec, Q*Bert, Fathom, Popeye, Tunnels of Doom, Moon Patrol, Moonsweeper, Legends 2
*Only the system ROM and 256 bytes of scratchpad RAM are available on the 16-bit bus. The rest uses an 8-bit bus so it's closer to an 8-bit system.
Atari 8-bit series (1979; until Atari XEGS (1987), up to 128 KB RAM in 1985)
The 400-800 are very similar to the A5200 but apparently more reliable. There's plenty of cool stuff here even since early on such as the relatively complex Star Raiders, as well as the FP view games Way Out and a better looking Capture the Flag than on the VIC-20, both featuring smooth gradient backgrounds as you'd sometimes see on the Atari consoles. Boulder Dash and Dropzone show off fast and smooth gameplay with pretty good detail, BC's Quest some expressive sprites and pretty smooth scrolling, Fort Apocalypse probably introduced smooth multidirectional scrolling to home systems, and Summer Games some really nice animation for the time. Rescue on Fractalus features relatively smooth 3D-like gameplay using fractals to simulate the terrain (with more advanced depth of field/fog in Koronis Rift), smart use of gradients for curved metal objects and HUD, and large alien sprites with decent detail. If there's a weakness here I'd say it's the more muted, brown/orange-tinted sprite palette - you can also see this in later homebrew ports of Space Harrier and Dr. Mario for example, which play very well but have some odd color choices. The sound is produced by the Pokey chip and it's comparable to third gen consoles when used right.
Games pictured: Star Raiders, Choplifter, Way Out, Donkey Kong, Boulder Dash, BC's Quest for Tires, Capture the Flag, Dropzone, Summer Games, Ballblazers, Montezuma's Revenge, Frogger, Hardball, International Karate, The Eidolon, Encounter, Koronis Rift, Moon Patrol, Rescue on Fractalus, Alley Cat, Alternate Reality: The City, Pitfall II, Panther, Thunderfox
BBC Micro (1981; MOS 6502 CPU)
The 3D on this one is a bit ahead of the NES (see Elite on both and the more pseudo-3D racing game Revs) and the rest is a bit better than early gen 2 overall with at least a few smooth scrolling games like Castle Quest. Strykers Run 2 is pretty smooth as well but the other scrolling games I've looked at not quite on par. Color seems to be a minor weakness - it doesn't show that many at once and the whole standard palette is very saturated (it's a 3-bit RGB palette, which is also used in the PC-88 and Sharp X1), but as seen in Impossible Mission it can show more muted shades. For sound it uses the same chip as the Colecovision and SMS, and there's a speech synthesizer addon for it as well so that's cool.
Games pictured: Snapper, Elite, Mr Ee, Overdrive, Castle Quest, Citadel, Impossible Mission, Revs, Crystal Castle, Stryker's Run 1-2, Exile
CGA graphics era DOS PC (1981; IBM PC 5150 (Intel 8088 CPU - 8-bit external data bus), 16 KB–256 KB DRAM), IBM PC/XT - 128-640 KB RAM)
Before the IBM PC started taking over as a gaming PC in the west, one of two obvious limitations is the CGA palette. Although if using composite mode like in these screenshots, it's not quite as bad, just less clear than most of the competition. This PC can handle various single & flip screen 2D games well, and certain 3D games pretty well, while scrolling games are generally kinda choppy (Ancient Art of War, not pictured has pretty smooth scrolling but choppy sprite movement). This in part led to a focus on different genres on PCs, along with the mouse and keyboard controls. Yes, I'm cheating a bit with the Indy 500 example since while it is in CGA composite, that footage is from a higher clocked 8088 CPU (haven't seen footage of it on a standard 8088 though, that would be interesting).
The other limitation is the single channel PC speaker sound, though again, using a trick called pulse-width modulation one can get sample playback out of it, and games would eventually be able to play back "full length" (2-3+ mins) recorded songs on this humble chip at decent quality in mono.
Games pictured: Microsoft Flight Simulator v1.0, Burgertime, BC's Quest for Tires, King's Quest, Pitstop II, Zaxxon, Tapper, Ancient Art of War, Bruce Lee, Solo Flight: 2nd Edition, Space Quest, Tass Times in Tonetown, Bard's Tale, Maniac Mansion, Battle Chess, Indianapolis 500
NEC PC-88 (1981-1985 models; μCOM-82/μPD780 CPU)
Probably the second-most popular 1980s PC in Japan, it featured relatively high resolution visuals and the same color output as the BBC Micro. A lot of developers felt using dithering to simulate more shades of colors was a good approach at this resolution, despite monitors not being expected to blend them together unlike the composite IBM PC screens before. It seems to me that most action games from this period have kind of poor performance, although there might be exceptions I don't know about and certain games like Thunder Force 1 and Thexter do seem to play pretty smoothly (I could be looking at footage using later PC-88 models, if so let me know). I suppose it makes sense considering hardware sprites and scrolling weren't supported.
Originally the PC-88 models used only an internal single channel "beeper" like earlier PCs (actually it seems it was worse as there was no pitch control at first), but an AY-3 chip could be added to the 1983 model, and a YM2203/OPN chip could be added to the 1985 model for FM synth+square wave-based sound, which can sound pretty nice when used right - certainly on par with the better 3rd gen systems - but was only beginning to be explored in this period. This is similar to the MD/GEN's sound setup, combining three 4-op FM channels (one of which can be split into 4 operators here as well) with an AY-3 chip. For comparison, the MD features 6 FM channels, an 8-bit DAC, an SN7 chip instead of the AY-3, and adds stereo to its FM chip. Also in 1985, V2 graphics mode was introduced with a 512 color palette (like the MD and PC Engine!), however it could still only display 8 of them.
Games pictured: Bomb Jack, Ultima 3, Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken, Thexder, Thunder Force, Zarth, Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu
ZX Spectrum (1982; Z80A (or equivalent) CPU at 3.5 MHz)
This was the second-most popular early-mid '80s PC in Europe (or at least the UK), and while the limited color output with very saturated colors (and unusual way tile colors are affected by each other when overlapped) is an acquired taste, some games look surprisingly good and it does provide various fast and smooth 2D action games as well as a few pretty well performing 3D games like Elite and Starstrike II. Well, smooth single & flip screen 2D action, as it does struggle a bit with the scrolling in many games that do, though there are later exceptions like the platforming segments in The Untouchables.
For sound, while the initial single channel Beeper is quite basic, it was used in an interesting way by some composers to play back multiple channels in software. This tends to sound rather "grainy", but for two of the best examples check out Dark Fusion and Savage. By 1985 it would include an AY-3 chip instead, with the 128 KB RAM model. Music on the European systems became pretty distinct and ambitious, with strong percussion, funky basslines and those bubbly fast arpeggios to simulate chords.
Games pictured: Manic Miner, Knight Lore, I of the Mask, Starquake, Three Weeks in Paradise, Dan Dare, Elite, Starstrike II, the Great Escape, Rex, R-Type, Fantasy World Dizzy, Myth, The Untouchables, Dan Dare III, Extreme
Sharp X1 (1982; Sharp Z80A CPU)
This is another Japanese PC series that's comparable to this later 2nd gen period of consoles. It has similar performance issues for various action games as the PC-88, like choppy scrolling, but
some games still impressed such as American Truck, Plazmaline and Wibarm. In 1986, the X1 Turbo Z anime series model was released and it provided a much larger 4096 color palette, plus the great YM2151 sound chip. This chip is considered the best FM synth sound chip of the '80s by many, featuring eight 4-op channels, stereo and some unique effects compared to the other chips. However, the CPU was not updated for this model nor the next one, so it's
hard to categorize the X1 as a PC series in this context.
Games pictured: Mappy, American Truck, Flicky, Final Zone Wolf, Gradius, Thexder, Wibarm, Euphory, Sophia X1, Herzog, Revolty 2, Ys II
Apple IIe (1983; 65C02 CPU, 64 KB or up to 1 MB of RAM)
The Apple II series continued to be popular with the Apple IIe. While the CPU used in this later model is a relatively minor upgrade, the IIe also provided twice the amount of on-screen colors and less color bleeding. It also supported RAM upgrades up to 128 KB. For sound, it can use two AY-3 chips if a Mockingboard (1983) sound card is installed, which the AII+ can also use. Some games like Ultima 4-5 and Skyfox (which is an impressive early pseudo-3D game playable on the AII+, forgot to include it) get stereo out of it with panned channels, however it was only used by about 30 games in total. The card also allowed for speech synthesis!
Games pictured: King's Quest, Ancient Art of War, California Games, Maniac Mansion, Space Quest, Barbarian/Death Sword, King's Quest III, Might & Magic II, Police Quest, King's Quest IV, Prince of Persia, King's Bounty
MSX1 (1983; Zilog Z80A CPU at 3.579 MHz)
Like the TI-99, the first MSX computer is also quite comparable to the Colecovision, with the same color output and similar sound output in the AY-3 chip. The MSX stands out with its long lived support by Konami, pushing its visuals to the limit and also upgrading its audio capabilities. It's also known for choppy scrolling, a problem that didn't go away sadly, but also a bit strange to me considering the pretty smooth Road Fighter from 1985, or the relatively smooth pseudo-3D movement in Penguin Adventure.
The audio was upgraded with Konami's own SCC sound chip, placed in the game carts themselves rather than the computer. This is a 5 channel mono chip featuring wavetable sound, meaning small samples are used which can be shaped manually into custom waveforms and allowing for more timre variety. It can be seen as a predecessor to the PC Engine sound chip.
Games pictured: Legacy of the Wizard/Dragon Slayer IV, Penguin Adventure, Zanac, Knightmare II: Maze of Galious, Bosconian, Nemesis 2, Road Fighter, King's Valley II, Guardic, Golvellius, Hydlide 3, Nemesis 3
Tandy 1000 & PCjr (1984; Intel 8088, CGA+/TGA graphics (basically the same as EGA using the same 16 colors), higher max RAM on the Tandy)
While rather similar when looking at and listening to the games, the Tandy 1000 was the much more popular of the two and supposedly did everything besides games better. Games too since it had better compatibility with IBM PCs, and I assume due to the extra RAM. TGA graphics is kind of an interesting card in that games usually look the same as EGA era games but there are some exceptions where they look different, perhaps due to the EGA card supporting higher resolutions. I couldn't find that much footage specifically for these but based on what I did find, while the colors and sound are improved over the IBM PC, it stays in this gen thanks to using the same CPU. For sound, the Tandy 1000 and PCjr use the same SN76489 chip as the SMS, TI-99/4A, BBC Micro and ColecoVision, but the first could also play 8-bit samples through a DAC during music playback, which was used in 4D Sports Boxing, Skate or Die and a few other games.
Games pictured: Bruce Lee, King's Quest, King's Quest III, Rockford: The Arcade Game (Bould Dash sequel), Thexder, Chip's Challenge, Manhunter 2, Lemmings, SimCity, Space Quest III, North & South, Super Solvers: Treasure Mountain
Amstrad CPC (1984, Zilog Z80A CPU at 4 MHz)
This was a cool one to look into for me as the visuals remind me of the SMS (Contra, Chase HQ and Renegade are easily mistaken for SMS ports at a glance). But while the colors and detail are more in line with gen 3 in various games, the games never seem to run as smoothly as on the C64 when compared directly and are often a bit slow or use less screen space (Operation Wolf is one exception here). There is at least one exception in the recent homebrew port of Sly Spy, which is smooth and plays pretty fast. Which begs the question: What was the issue back in the day? This system also uses the AY-3 chip for sound.
Games pictured: Get Dexter, Contra/Gryzor, Renegade, Operation Wolf, Savage (FP view segment), Chase HQ, Mr. Heli, Prince of Persia, Rainbow Islands, B.A.T., Chevy Chase, Extreme, Xyphoes Fantasy, Super Cauldron
Tandy CoCo 3/Color Computer 3 (1986; 6809E CPU - 8-bit w/ some 16-bit features)
I don't know much about this one when it comes to games other than that the visuals are very similar to EGA (though they pull from a larger 64 color palette), and the 6-bit DAC thing continues to intrigue me. It does seem like a good upgrade to the CoCo 2 in terms of default RAM and both it and the CPU can also be upgraded. The main standout seems to be a pretty good version of Koronis Rift, playing almost as well but having weaker sound. Thexder is pretty smooth and fast like on various other PCs of the time. Rampage looks very nice and features a 3-player mode, but it's kinda slow unless playing alone and the sound is sparse.
Games pictured: Koronis Rift, King's Quest III, Thexder, Arkanoid, Rampage
More: Fujitsu Micro 7/FM-7 (1982-1985 (FM77L4)) - Besides Plazma Line it's very similar to the early PC-88 series, Compaq Deskpro? (i8086 CPU - 16-bit external databus) - can't find much footage but seems graphics are monochrome 4 color only?
Some sources besides wikipedia and youtube:
https://ancientelectronics.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/quick-guide-to-computer-graphics/
https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2023/07/tandy-video-vs-ega-battle-of-16-colors.html
CGA 1024 colors deep dive: https://int10h.org/blog/2015/04/cga-in-1024-colors-new-mode-illustrated/
https://genesistemple.com/playing-it-the-european-way-a-discussion-on-the-european-gaming-market-in-the-80s
https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/6/