@NutsAboutAmiga

>If commodore where going to make Amiga5000 it probeable end up whit standard PC graphic cards,

To my understanding it would have been like AAA + dedicated RISC chip doing 3D acceleration (Hombre setup).
But it would have had PCI slot.

> AGA killed Amiga

Lack of RTG was bigger reason. And lack of fast RAM on A1200+CD32 even bigger.
And AGA was not that bad at the time of release.
Around 1994, when compared to 24bit GFX cards (~800x600), I found that 1440x780 HAM8 looked better.
And with GFX apps like brilliance the color blending was not harmfull.

(if CBM had invested in AMiga instead burning money on PC business, they would have survived)

@thread
ARM vs the rest...
Linky to A7 etc. chips vs Atom etc.
Some gap still exist between ARM and desktop CPUs.
Same for GPUs.
And GPU tests...


(we do not have modern PPC based HW builds to benchmark with, I think ...
would HTML5 tests with x1000 + Linux be interesting??? )HTML5 bench

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_________________
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// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@KimmoK

+1

I do not think that "AGA" killed Amiga, the problem was that there were no real innovations since A1000 (and A500). At the beginning of 90s Harddrives and VGA was standard on PCs already whereas most Amigians still used A500 with a slow CPU, 1 MB RAM and second disc drive. That meant that developers had the problem that games run from disc, need special adapted graphic and the software had to be optimized for the slow hardware. As a result it meant to invest a lot of addtional time (=money) to support a shrinking market (whereas the PC market was much bigger and rising). Additionally I can remember there was the widespread view that software companies are too rich already so it is ok to copy the software instead of buying. So I think the combination of the lack of innovation, aging hardware and too few people buying software destroyed the platform.

That brings me to today, we need both modern hardware and easy options to support amiga. I think there expecially of games, we need ports of game engines (that are today mostly used by indy developers). Another problem is modern (and fast) hardware and more than 1 GB RAM. If I read from MorphOS team members that G4 and 1 GB RAM is enough than I shake my head. Performance is still a critical point today, the more resources are there the bigger is the chance to attract developers.

@OldFart

I bow before you, old fart
I feel someone has to dig in to the facts here, not just sit in separate corners yelling out the name of their favorite platform.

However, I'm not ENTIRELY unbiased, but I do try to accept new input now and then. Not without investigation, though. And so far I just do not see ARM on desktop. A 1.8GHz 16 core dual-threaded XEON competing with a 1.4GHz 24x4 core ARM Cortex-A57 isn't a whole lot useful for AmigaOS on the desktop without some major rewrites

And THAT is where the computing world is headed, so those rewrites makes sense anyway. Bringing me back to my closing argument again

@myself

Seems there's some conflicting information on that pipeline of A57. Some say 3/8/15+, others say 3/3/15+. For some reason, anandtech seems to disagree with Arm themselves. Arm says 3/8/15+. Still trying to work out what the plus means. As more is normally not better.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

Quote:

I bow before you, old fart

You don't need to bow for me, my dear fellow. No one needs to bow for me. In a perfect world no one needs to bow for any one.

It was no more then giving credit where credit was due. And you simply deserve it for your tireless efforts to enlighten even the most dimwitted souls around here

'nough said.

OldFart

_________________
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@KimmoK

Quote:

Lack of RTG was bigger reason.

RTG basically is the same as PC graphic chips, all the Zorro graphic cards comes whit PC graphic chips.

The general problem whit Commodore was it was taking too long time.

Amiga500+, Amiga600 where only slight upgrades to Amiga500, going from OCS chipset of Amiga500 dates from the first Amiga1000, back in 1985, ECS came out in 1992, then came AGA the same year for Amiga1200 later that year, that's 8 years in the making the development cycles where to long, when do you think AAA chipset might have been ready? Another 8 years, if so then it might have been ready in year 2000 for the market, by then AAA would have been outdated technology, AGA was outdated in 1993, one year after it came out.

In other words if there was any possibly for Commodore Amiga to adapt quickly then they should have gone whit PC graphic card.

This is what Picasso IV graphics and the cards was, they had to put the PC graphic chip on a zorro card. The only difference was that the cost was higher.

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@KimmoK

I also like to point out if there was no need for better graphics then AGA, then way did they make Picasso II back in 1993?

Yes I have to admit AGA was not the only thing that killed Amiga, the lack of system memory in A1200 was huge problem, for game companies that wanted to port PC games to Amiga, the quality of the PC games went up and so did memory requirements.

PC games started to require cdrom, and hard-drive, it was not really an option to put PC games on floppy disks. (And it was not a standard on low end Amigas like Amiga600/Amiga1200).

PC’s where easy to upgrade, while Amiga the memory was soldered on the motherboard, so the only upgrade possibility was to buy an expensive accelerator card.

In many ways Amiga was nice whit its preemptive multitasking operating system, but all that was irrelevant because of the low end Amiga hardware, the hardware was crippled and high end Amiga hardware, Amiga3000, Amiga4000, was too expensive.

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@OlafS25

In many ways nothing has changed in Amiga world, hardware is too expensive and development goes too slow.

Last time I looked there was not many ARM based desktop computers, if there ever was going to be an ARM based Amiga It be just as rare as PowerPC based Computers, and so Do I Expect the price tag.

And as for x86, something like Petunia would have been much harder to make, and much less compatible with classic software (program and games).

I think we should be happy whit we have, and support the software development, maybe the development cycles speed up, and if more people buy the hardware then price tag can come down.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

I also like to point out if there was no need for better graphics then AGA, then way did they make Picasso II back in 1993?

Because there where still many "pros" useing Amigas with just ECS/OCS ?

Or maybe because the Picasso2 was only better in some areas than AGA (HighRes/HiColor) but completly useless for all the lowlevel animations and tricks that could be done with AGA ?

Quote:

Its a real shame that they did not include any PCI slots in Amiga4000 / 3000 computers back in the day,

Lets see, PCI was DRAFTED in 1991 but only hit the market with Intel's new high-end CPU "Pentium" in 1993 (yeah 486 boards with PCI exist but they where rare, expensice and all released 1993 or later).
The Amiga3000 was developed in 1989/90, sure way C= could have added PCI !!
The Amiga4000 was a cutdown version of the A3000+ and developed 1991/2, they should have added PCIe for good measure !!!!!!

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_________________
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@Kronos

Anyway EISA is 32bit bus, the Zorro cards are just 16bit.
Zorro cards where only able to transferee around 13.5 MB/s per sec, while EISA bus can transfare 20 MB/s.

EISA bus came around 1988.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Industry_Standard_Architecture

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IBM looking to sell their CPU division

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/07/ibm_chip_division_story/


This could be the end for POWER.

_________________

@WolfToTheMoon

Quote:

WolfToTheMoon wrote: IBM looking to sell their CPU division http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/07/ibm_chip_division_story/ This could be the end for POWER.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/ibm-reportedly-considering-sale-of-chip-manufacturing-operations/

Quote:

IBM is considering a sale of its chip manufacturing operations, the Wall Street Journal reported last night. The company would not stop designing its own chips, however. Just as AMD outsources manufacturing of the chips it designs, IBM "is looking for a buyer for its manufacturing operations, but plans to retain its chip-design capability," according to the Journal's source.

I didn't login at WSJ to read, and they are a Fox News affiliate anyway, so who knows what reality is involved...

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@NutsAboutAmiga

EISA was pretty much stillborn in normal PCs as most boards had proprietary LocalBus followed by Vesa-localbus and finally PCI. Heck I wouldn't be suprised if there were more PCs with MicoChannel than EISA.

In escence EISA was to ISA what Zorro3 was to Zorro2, only by different means (EISA added more contacts, Zorro3 used the existing ones differently).

Now offcourse anybody with a basic clue about the Amiga knows very well that Zorro3 is 32Bit and that it's rather buggy implementation is the main reason why it never lived up to it's full spec.

Things that did help killing the Amiga in terms of slots:
- adding those braindead ISA slots, made Zorro cards more expensive (had to be fulllength or add cabling if you wanted an external connector) and send all the wrong message ("sure the Amiga is just a toy but you can add Bridgeboard to make it a real computer")
- putting a 68000 in the A2000 and making Zorro2 little more than it's buffered bus. Should have been a 68020 with full 32/32Bit slots
- useing the Zorro2 slots to implement Zorro3, should have skipped the ISA slots on the A3000/4000 and put much simpler Zorro3 only slots there.

_________________
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- blame Canada

@Kronos

Quote:

EISA was pretty much stillborn in normal PCs as most boards had proprietary LocalBus followed by Vesa-localbus and finally PCI. Heck I wouldn't be suprised if there were more PCs with MicoChannel than EISA.

Not to mention the pain called EISA configuration utility which you needed to setup cards. Only EISA cards I have encountered were on one family of Compaq x86 servers (Dual pentium! Insane power ) and early Digital Alphas.

@WolfToTheMoon

Quote:

WolfToTheMoon wrote: IBM looking to sell their CPU division http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/07/ibm_chip_division_story/ This could be the end for POWER.

Bad news! Could be a reaction to the division not securing contracts for the PS4 and XBONE CPU? IBM are already out of the PC business and now they're giving up on microchips?! Doesn't seem right

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@BigD

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f563bea0-8fa5-11e3-9cb0-00144feab7de.html
http://www.zdnet.com/after-x86-servers-is-ibm-gearing-up-to-sell-its-chips-business-too-7000026082/
http://www.dw.de/ibm-weighs-sale-of-semiconductor-business/a-17415852
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1320918
http://www.benzinga.com/news/14/02/4291686/ibm-looking-to-sell-chip-manufacturing-business
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-07/ibm-said-to-focus-on-chip-joint-venture-amid-dim-sale-prospects.html

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@no HDD as standard in early 90's

That did make SW development harder.
Most likely, if all A600 machines would have been "HD" versions, it might have changed something.
Same for A1200. CD32 would have been 2x better with 1-2M of FAST RAM, etc...
But they stupidly sold systems like A4000 with 1MB chip only!!!! (A4000 1MB chip, no HDD, no fast RAM cost 15000FIM(~2500eur) around 1994!)

(Selling Amiga machines was insanely more profitable than PC business, but Medhi was a 100% idiot...)

(for example, when I sold one A4000, it gave almost 10x bigger margin than a sold x86 PC)


@NutsAboutAmiga
AAA was in prototype/testing in y1993/1994.

The reason of not releasing advanced Amiga things was the Medhi Ali's love towards IBM PC.
example: A4000 did not have SCSI+DMA just because IBM PC did not have it. etc, etc.... (remeber, A3000 had those already .... and A3000+ was going to have AGA and "SIMD" )

"I also like to point out if there was no need for better graphics then AGA, then way did they make Picasso II back in 1993?"

Picasso2 is a Zorro2 card.
So it's for Amigas that did not have AGA.

@IBM selling chip manufacturing

Good news, if it enables them to focus more in the R&D of PowerArchitecture chips.

(btw. to my understanding PS3, xbox360, Wii and WiiU CPUs have not been manufactured by IBM. It seems POWER server chips go now the same route)

some post related links:
(Proof of Amiga5000 motherboard (AAA))
(A3000+ was pretty much ready to release, just not released, cut down instead...)
(another a3000+, this time without case)

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_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@KimmoK

So todays strategy selling overprized and uncompetitive hardware is a real continuation of the past

@KimmoK

Quote:

Most likely, if all A600 machines would have been "HD" versions, it might have changed something.

1992 was too late.

Quote:

But they stupidly sold systems like A4000 with 1MB chip only!!!!

That was not official Commodore configuration. However, there are SIMM sockets on the A4000 motherboard for "cheap" RAM modules.

Quote:

AAA was in prototype/testing in y1993/1994.

Even then, it would be too little, too late. Much cheaper SVGA chips would offer better performance.

Quote:

So it's for Amigas that did not have AGA.

Or for users who need 800x600 70 Hz 256 colours display.

Quote:

Good news, if it enables them to focus more in the R&D of PowerArchitecture chips.

I fear that is too optimistic point of view.

@cdimauro

Quote:

I don't know of any "NG" Amiga. The Amiga brand was used by some Commodore machines, and unfortunately by some recent Commodore USA ones.

AmigaOne is "Amiga" brand. At least that was original goal of Amiga.Inc back in 2000.

Quote:

They are putting money in a something which is NOT an Amiga, both legally (no right for the brand) and technically (no ad hoc o.s. running on a custom-made hardware).

Clearly not an Amiga in your point of view. But it has Amiga name (AmigaOne is Amiga brand) and runs Amiga OS. As you see, both legally and technically it is all what left of original Amiga.

Quote:

Really? I was supposed that the Amiga machines were A BIT different from a classic PC. Just a bit, eh!

Classic Amiga hardware architecture proved to be dead-end. To follow successful hardware design seems to me like logical step.

@pavlor

I disagree there... only naming is left, hardware is different and from old AmigaOS a few remainders (how they always say). "Amiga" was special because of its unique concepts. At a certain point these concepts were not competitive anymore but still unique. I do not see that in the PPCs of A-eon or Acube. Using PPC does not justify the price. For me FPGA based systems would be similar to "Amiga" again. They would be technical different to the PCs and really offering new ideas. A normal motherboard with PPC does not create the same interest to me (and propably many others).