@KimmoK

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KimmoK wrote: >That stupid annoying PC pointer that jumped around the screen because it didn't have real sprites Only Amigans seem to value such features (smooth system behaviour). (I still almost puke when mouse pointer jitters ... on any OS ... too bad it happens now with all modern or half modern OS that I use ) (similarly, I find that my Android, Windows and Linux system often fail to keep up with the speed I type on keyboard ((perhaps I need another 8Ghz?)). I think that kind of things almost never happened on classic HW. If that kind of phenomenom happens on AOS like system, you know it's "high time" to save + reboot.)

Try AROS.

@Massi

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Massi wrote: @cdimauro Quote: Only with MacOS X (2001!) it become rock solid, because the new o.s. (which was totally new) was based on MACH microkernel + FreeBSD kernel. A Unix kernel, you call it "totally new" ...

I was talking about MacOS, not in general. Macs got a totally new o.s. with MacOS X.
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Amiga was new and innovative when it came out, that was a real innovation in computing from a tech point of view.

Absolutely. I think that Amigas brought many things which now we normally see on modern devices.

Nevertheless, it was bad designed, and it's the reason why after 30 years its issues are essentially the same.
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What is the sense to make comparisons with big firms like Apple which has thousands of engineers as opposed to our niche world?

How many engineers had Commodore before going bankrupt? How many had Apple and Microsoft at that time?
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We all should more focus on thread.

So we can close it, because it doesn't make sense...

@clebin

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clebin wrote: @cdimauro Quote: MacOS was very similar to the Amiga o.s., and very fragile indeed (system "bombs" were common, like our Guru Meditations). It also lacked multitasking for a lot of time (I don't remember when it was introduced cooperative multitasking, but it was very late). I don't know if the o.s. publicly exposed its internal structures, like the Amiga o.s. did. Only with MacOS X (2001!) it become rock solid, because the new o.s. (which was totally new) was based on MACH microkernel + FreeBSD kernel. Exactly. I remember the classic MacOS being described as a house of cards waiting to fall. As well as the frequent system bombs, often when a Mac application crashed it would freeze the mouse pointer or refuse to give up focus. The preemptive multitasking in AmigaOS was often useful when something went wrong because at least you could switch application and save your stuff.

That was a very good point for the Amiga o.s.. MacOS was really a shame...
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Even then plenty of die-hards complained when OS X came out. "My OS 9 system is rock-solid. You're obviously running a dodgy extension" and "Being able to manually allocate memory to an application gives me more control". Where are those people now I wonder? Chris

They are perfectly aligned with Apple, of course. I remember also just before Apple switched from PowerPCs to Intel processors: A LOT of Mac fans which yelled to the blasphemy. But after Jobs announced it officially, I heard the singing of cherubs floating around...

P.S. I agree also with your other comments.

@megol

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megol wrote: @cdimauro MacOS didn't expose as much as Amiga OS but there were still a lot of exposed things. VGA is a superset of EGA so scrolling etc. were implemented the same way, the reason one had to use unchained modes were because of the limited memory addressable in the "standard" 256 color mode. At least that's how I remember it - that one could do chained 256 color modes with scrolling if one reduced the visible pixels.

Exactly. With only 64K, a 320x200x8bit screen left only 1536 bytes/pixels for the scrolling. Not very useful (unless for some horizontal scrolling).

One solution would have been to reduce the the resolution of the screen, since the VGA (and EGA also) chip offered a lot of flexibility regarding the screen signals programming.

However with the unchained mode the 256KB allowed to hold up to 4 320x200x8bit screens in the memory, so easily using double or triple buffers techniques, like we did with the Amiga.

@cdimauro

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So we can close it, because it doesn't make sense...

It seems you like wasting your time.

@Hillbillylitre

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cdimauro wrote: Quote: That stupid annoying PC pointer that jumped around the screen because it didn't have real sprites. The hardware cursor was introduced with accelerated graphic cards on PCs. But it was only one. However Amiga had few sprites, very limited, and scrolling at least one was "stolen" by the display logic (no bandwidth for fetching its data). And using AGA + 64-bit display fetch + scrolling stole almost all sprites, leaving just one of 4 colors available, if I remember correctly.

EGA had graphics like a C64/128 withour sprites[/quote]
You reported the specs, so you know that it's far distant from them.
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on small green monocrome PC screens

Never heard of color monitors?
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instead of large colorful TV screens...

Some PC cards allowed to output the signal to TVs. But it was uncommon, and a monitor offered much better quality.
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I can not remember i saw smooth scrolling on a PC until way into the ninties or probably after year 2000.

That's your problem, because starting from EGA it was possible to have a perfectly fluid scrolling. It was also possible to generate an interrupt for the vertical blanking period, but unfortunately many graphic cards vendors didn't implemented it correctly (so, not 100% compatible with IBM cards), and this feature wasn't supported by games.
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The PC didn't get intresting for gaming untill Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and System Shock came out using chunky pixel graphics.

That was the 3D era, but PCs had capabilities to do also very good 2D games. The problem is that coders had to know how the hardware worked, and it came very late.
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According to Wiki it says EGA supports: 640×350 w/16 colors (from a 6 bit palette of 64 colors), pixel aspect ratio of 1:1.37. 640×350 w/2 colors, pixel aspect ratio of 1:1.37. 640×200 w/16 colors, pixel aspect ratio of 1:2.4. 320×200 w/16 colors, pixel aspect ratio of 1:1.2.

With 128KB of graphic memory, which allowed up to 4 screens being hold.
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With OCS/ECS the Amiga could do much better than that with it's 32 colors/5 bitplanes from a palette of 4096 excluding HAM6 mode, and you could use the copper to put in many more colors not restricted by the planar colors.

Absolutely. But the EGA was very limited. If you take a look at the VGA, the situation is much better. VGA hadn't something like the Copper, which was a big advantage of the Amiga chipset, but the Copper was often used to dynamically changed the color palette to simulate more colors, and VGA already had 256...

Anyway, I think that such kind of discussions can be routed to the other thread (PC vs Amiga).

@pavlor

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pavlor wrote: AmigaOS developement was at halt in 1993-1998

Thats not actually true other than for the commercial OS itself. Internet became common on Amiga back then and the Amiga development from third parties and private persons in form of software, patches and still continuing accelerators and add-on cards to get the most out of the system.

I think those years where just as interesting and creative on the Amiga or even more as before Commodores end.

_________________
Using: One Commodore C64 - One Commodore Amiga 500 - One Commodore Amiga 1200 with BVision and Blizzard 68060 with PPC coprocessor running Amiga DOS - One Hellbillylitre Amigatwox86x64x6000x running Windows7

@pavlor

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pavlor wrote: @cdimauro Quote: Anyway, Microsoft introduced the memory protection starting from Windows 3 (it required a 286; with 3.1 it supported 386 also): well before Commodore bankrupt. However, another years were needed for basic features like preemtive multitasking or decent desktop.

Sure, but that was for the 3.x line. NT introduced a lot of cool stuff.
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Quote: And Windows NT, which introduced full virtualization (and a rock-solid system), pre-empted multitasking, ACL, and an advanced filesystem (NTFS), was introduced in 1993. Again: is it good example or not? Both branches Win3.x/9x and NT joined much later (Windows 2000/XP), until then NT was used outside home, school or small business markets. Commodore had its Unix derivate for workstation market (not much successful of course).

It happened because NT didn't allowed direct hardware access, so many applications or games didn't worked.
The 9x Windows line continued the 3.x line because of that reasons.
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AmigaOS developement was at halt in 1993-1998 (except some minor improvements like Installer or FFS). Resumed developement after 1998 continued at much slower pace. You may fairly compare AmigaOS 3.1 to Windows 3.x, MacOS 7.5, MultiTOS or RiscOS 3.5.

Can be, but you cannot exclude NT, because it was developed at the same time, and offered a lot of stuff.

Since Commodore introduce its Unix, I don't see any reason to remove NT from the list of o.ses available at that time.
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Why not choose for comparison OSs in similar situation as AmigaOS? Look at MiNT or RiscOS and then judge speed of AmigaOS developement.

Better look at everything just before the Commodore bankrupt. It's part of the history.

@cdimauro

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NT introduced a lot of cool stuff.

Except decent desktop.

Minimum system requirements on x86 systems include a 25 MHz 80386 processor, at least 12 megabytes of memory, 75 megabytes of hard drive space, and a VGA graphics card (Wikipedia)

Wow! What were minimal requirements of OS3.1? 68000 and 512 kB RAM...

These OSs clearly target different markets.

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Since Commodore introduce its Unix, I don't see any reason to remove NT from the list of o.ses available at that time.

Then compare NT with Unix, not consumer OSs...

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Better look at everything just before the Commodore bankrupt. It's part of the history.

It is now more than 20 years after Commodore bancruptcy - long history! OSs like MiNT and RiscOS never suspended developement. These were in 1993 in the very same position as AmigaOS (and mostly are also now) - directly comparing developement of these OSs makes much more sense than bringing Mac OS X or NT based Windows in our discussion.

@pavlor

At least RiscOS has hardware and a roadmap:
https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/show/RISC%20OS%20Roadmap

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@kolla

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At least RiscOS has hardware and a roadmap:

More importantly, they also have 2 competiting development teams developing their own versions of the OS, so they're not that different from Amiga

(of course one difference is, afaik both branches are based on the same original sources)

@kolla

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At least RiscOS has hardware and a roadmap:

Much to do...

@pavlor

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pavlor wrote: @cdimauro Quote: NT introduced a lot of cool stuff. Except decent desktop. Minimum system requirements on x86 systems include a 25 MHz 80386 processor, at least 12 megabytes of memory, 75 megabytes of hard drive space, and a VGA graphics card (Wikipedia) Wow! What were minimal requirements of OS3.1? 68000 and 512 kB RAM... These OSs clearly target different markets.

I don't think so. You have to see on what market it acted. Take a look at magazines of April 1994 (Commodore's bankrupt), and you'll see what was the bare minimum configuration.

BTW, the 68000 was a 32 bit processor, and the 80386 was the first Intel's 32-bit processor. Also with 512KB of RAM you did a few things, and with an RTG graphic card the memory requirement increases a lot.
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Quote: Since Commodore introduce its Unix, I don't see any reason to remove NT from the list of o.ses available at that time. Then compare NT with Unix, not consumer OSs...

Also. But not only.

Then we can take a look at Solaris, IRIX, etc., and I don't know how well compared Commodore's Unix.
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Quote: Better look at everything just before the Commodore bankrupt. It's part of the history. It is now more than 20 years after Commodore bancruptcy - long history! OSs like MiNT and RiscOS never suspended developement. These were in 1993 in the very same position as AmigaOS (and mostly are also now) - directly comparing developement of these OSs makes much more sense than bringing Mac OS X or NT based Windows in our discussion.

We have to take a look at what kind of o.ses. were developed, which were able to run con consumer hardware of the time, and see how the Amiga o.s. compared to them in terms of features.

Here is a little list: OS/2 3.0, Windows NT 3.1, BeOS 1.0, NeXTSTEP 3.2. But if you have more, you add them.

@cdimauro

Don' t forget about the Atari Falcon030, competitor of the Amiga 1200, which had very interesting specs ...

http://www.atarimusic.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=263:the-falcon030-vs-the-amiga1200&catid=60:atari-hardware&Itemid=214

_________________
SAM440EP-FLEX @ 733 Mhz, AmigaOS 4.1 Update 1

@cdimauro

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I don't think so. You have to see on what market it acted. Take a look at magazines of April 1994 (Commodore's bankrupt), and you'll see what was the bare minimum configuration.

12 MB RAM - that certainly is not common desktop configuration in 1993...

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Then we can take a look at Solaris, IRIX, etc., and I don't know how well compared Commodore's Unix.

That would be fair comparison.

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Windows NT 3.1

12 MB RAM...

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NeXTSTEP 3.2

Same as NT...

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BeOS 1.0

Released in 1995 (!) for exotic dual CPU PowerPC hardware...

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OS/2 3.0

At least something comparable (released in 1994, but still much better than your other "examples").

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consumer hardware of the time

It seems our definitions of "consumer hardware of the time" differ.

@Massi

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Don' t forget about the Atari Falcon030, competitor of the Amiga 1200, which had very interesting specs ...

68030, 16 bit sound, IDE+SCSI, DSP... and 16 bit BUS.

Interesting, but hard to rate computer. Announced for 1992, but not available until May 1993. Too expensive, too bad software support. However, definitely machine I would like to own.

@cdimauro

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Quote: two amigas handling synchronous output to form large two display playfield (8 player multiplay) Example, please, because you're reporting fantasies.

I guess he's referring to playing Super Skidmarks with 2 serial linked Amigas (yes, the info on that page is wrong, max. players is 8, but 4 is the "per-computer" maximum)

Of course you can also see it in action

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Quote: -up to four players with four joysticks on one computer + two players on keyboard The Amiga had only 2 joystick ports, and the keyboard had problems at handling simultaneous key presses.

Yes, the "standard" configuration is 2 ports. Of course nothing prevents users from adding more. the most common way to do this was to use parallel port adapter.

Also, in anticipation of "Well, do any games support it anyway?" - here's a list.

Not that many games really, but most games back then weren't aimed at 2+ players anyway (or if they were, they might also be turn-based).

Still, I'd say it's a worthy investment, if you have that many players often, as there are many nice multiplayer games there (Skidmarks, Hired Guns, Dynablaster, Gauntlet 2, Knockout 2, Bratwurst, Smash TV (I assume this enables dual stick controls for 2 players?), Xtreme Racing...)

Also note (from Vesalia page, f.ex.) that this is in no way "Amiga-specific", the exact same adaptor can be used in f.ex. X86 systems aswell (as long as they have parallel port, of course), but I'd assume it being WAY less supported than on Amiga.

@Massi

And cost twice as much... It was cheaper to buy an Amiga1200 with a GVP030/50MHz with 16 or 32MB RAM instead of Atari Falcon030/16Mhz with 14MB RAM.

_________________
Using: One Commodore C64 - One Commodore Amiga 500 - One Commodore Amiga 1200 with BVision and Blizzard 68060 with PPC coprocessor running Amiga DOS - One Hellbillylitre Amigatwox86x64x6000x running Windows7

@cdimauro

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BTW, the 68000 was a 32 bit processor

Well, the external bus is still 16 bit.

I always wondered why Sega went Blast Processing route with their advertising, while they could have said that the "Megadrive is 32bit" (instead of 16bit, it was clearly advertised as).

While some might argue that it's not technically true, at least it isn't as big lie as "Blast Processing" was (which, afaik, wasn't used on any released game, ever)

@Hillbillylitre

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And cost twice as much... It was cheaper to buy an Amiga1200 with a GVP030/50MHz with 16 or 32MB RAM instead of Atari Falcon030/16Mhz with 14MB RAM.

I don´t think anybody installed 16 or 32 MB RAM in GVP030/50MHz in 1993...

Well, yes Falcon was more expensive (basic price for 1 MB model was 30 % higher than for A1200, but from available configurations - 1/4/14 MB - only 4 MB was sane in 1993 and so even more costly).