@Kronos

Yes, Win 3.11 with MS TCPIP, various alternative third party stacks like winsock or that package from DEC I cannot recall the name of. MacTCP and all that. And why not mention OS/2 while you’re at it. But there’s a difference, both Microsoft and Apple acknowledged the flaws and were actively doing something about it, Apple were dabbling with Apple/UX and various attempts to reform “classic” MacOS, eventually landing on going NEXT. And MS went the VMS route with NT. Amiga had no equivalent, there was no attempt to bring AmigaOS and AMIX together.

Last edited by kolla on 02-Nov-2023 at 07:14 AM.

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@cdimauro

Quote:

That was mostly due to the different o.s., not because of the switch from OCS to ECS. The issues due to the latter were rare.

Same difference.

Most users bought an Amiga as a super-C64 to play copied games. Any advancement was not only not needed it was unwelcomed.

C= management did try to sell the A1000 as a serious computer but it failed, to advanced OS and colorful lowres GFX at a time when that market wanted a CPM/DOS style system that could show as much clear text as possible.

They did pivot to a super-C64 (aka A500) and treated it just like that with no updated beyond cost cutting.
The A2000 came along in a similar fashion as the C128, an unsanctioned engineer side project (C= Braunschweig in this case) that was turned into a product.
By 1989/90 they did realize that the time for VIC10/C64/A500 style computer was coming to an end and started stumbling after PC/Apple but never even came within striking distance before going under.

The error being made in the 90s were based on what seemed successful in the mid/late 80s, hence any alt-history would have had to diverge before that.

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@kolla

Quote:

Amiga had no equivalent, there was no attempt to bring AmigaOS and AMIX together.

Even if that would have made technical sense, it wouldn't been feasible given that AMIX was just a license and more important C= was already circling the drain at that time.

Amiga as a viable alternative died even before C= went down and surely before the Web was of any consequence. By the time it did matter Amiga was a headless chicken still running around cos noone told it it was dead.....

_________________
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- blame Canada

@Karlos

I don’t dispute that AGA was late. Even most people who worked at C= back then wouldn’t have disputed that it should’ve been delivered on its original schedule in 1990/91.

But we all know that ECS was also little and late.
Irrespective of the subjective fact that Poland was still behind the Iron Curtain, where the elites had a green-screen XT PC and only the most corrupt were lucky enough to have an AT with CGA, that doesn’t make ECS good in 1990, when objectively compared to the average PC.

The troll formerly known as ppcamiga1 doesn’t engage in a debate. He just comes in, spews out the same emotionally-laden subjective mini-rant, and crawls back under his bridge.

I agree that even if AGA had 8-bit chunky graphics, it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference for Commodore’s overall financial situation.
They owed so much money that even if magically somehow the A1200 was also released with an 030 + 4MB Fast RAM at the same price AND with the same profit margins, it still wouldn’t have sold enough to save them from their creditors.

People like pepsiamiga0 don’t care for basic economics. They seek simple answers in complex systems.
Amiga, as it turns out, succeeded in spite of Commodore’s misguided business practices between 1985 - 1990. They would’ve needed a runway of another 5 years to right all those wrongs, and they just didn’t have the cash to make it happen. Which is a systemic issue.

Whereas the Soviet flavor of communist party rule has taught people that it’s important to find the single person responsible and to make of them an example.

I bet pa1 would love nothing more than to find the engineer responsible for the decision to not include 256 chunky mode in AGA and have them whipped in the public square, or perhaps worse.

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@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @Kronos But there’s a difference, both Microsoft and Apple acknowledged the flaws and were actively doing something about it … Amiga had no equivalent

Might have something to do with the parent company going bankrupt?

I used all 3 systems from late 1995 to connect to the dial-up internet. I used AmiTCP 4 on Amiga, and followed a guide in Amiga Review magazine to get it on-line. Without the guide it would’ve been a bit tricky as there were so many new terms and I didn’t have the internet to look them up.

But without the know-how, setting up the one internet connection on System 7 or Win95 was just as foreign for the average user. I should know, as I made some decent money charging $50 AUD to configure the internet for PC users and give them a brief intro to Altavista and Yahoo.

I learned HTML development on my expanded A1200 and even created my first web development job in 1996 thanks to the Amiga.
And while the web browsers didn’t look as pretty as Netscape, or ie, they did the same work. Plus, the other systems such as email, IRC, usenet, FTP, SSH terminal, were all pretty good on Amiga OS 3 in the second half of the ‘90s.

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@agami

Late 1995 is a few years late in this context (AmiTCP being at version 4 already is a hint - so you missed the whole AmiTCP license change brawl??)

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@Kronos

Quote:

Kronos wrote: @cdimauro Quote: That was mostly due to the different o.s., not because of the switch from OCS to ECS. The issues due to the latter were rare. Same difference. Most users bought an Amiga as a super-C64 to play copied games. Any advancement was not only not needed it was unwelcomed. C= management did try to sell the A1000 as a serious computer but it failed, to advanced OS and colorful lowres GFX at a time when that market wanted a CPM/DOS style system that could show as much clear text as possible.

Every 286 and 386-based PC was shipped integrated MMU, hence they can run the world's best-selling AT&T license Unix i.e. Microsoft's Xenix and Windows NT replaced Xenix.

Amiga OCS wasn't the only graphics chipset with a 4096 color (12-bit) palette in 1985 i.e. NEC µPD7220 for NEC's PC-98 and IBM PGA.

Released in 1981, µPD7220 has 16 color display with 1024 x 1024 and a 4096 color palette.
NEC's μPD72120 was released in 1987 as its successor to µPD7220.
Strong bitmapped graphics performance was required to display Japanese characters.

NEC's PC-98 has about 18 million install base. IBM PC clones have beaten NEC's PC-98.

In 1985, IBM released PGA and EGA which are high-low SKU product segments.

In 1987, IBM released 8514 and VGA which are high-low SKU product segments.
PC market cloned PGA, EGA, 8514, and VGA. IBM 8514 served as the basis for cost-reduced SVGA clones such as Tseng Labs ET4000, ATI Mach8 in 1989, and IBM's XGA in 1990.

IBM PGA can display 256 colors from a 4096 color palette at 640x480p resolution. PGA was quickly replaced by the 8514 standard.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_8514
8514 clones and some are best-known SVGA clones
1. ATI Technologies: the Mach8 (1990), Mach32, Graphics Vantage, and 8514/Ultra (before 1990).
2. Chips and Technologies: F82C480 B EIZO(1990) - AA40 and F82C481 Miro Magic Plus
3. Matrox: MG-108.
4. Paradise Systems: Plus-A, Renaissance Rendition II.
5. Desktop Computing: AGA 1024 (also capable of emulating TIGA standards).
6. NEC: Multisync Graphics Engine.
7. IIT AGX (1993).
8. Tseng Labs ET4000 (1989).

IBM 8514 was displaced by Microsoft's Design For Windows 2D accelerators which is PC's RTG solution.

The Amiga 1000's innovation is the lower price when compared to other 4096 color palette competition. Amiga OCS slots between IBM PGA and EGA.

Around 1990, Amiga OCS/ECS wasn't performance competitive when the SVGA cloners released their cost-reduced models.

Last edited by Hammer on 02-Nov-2023 at 12:18 PM.

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Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: @Karlos I don’t dispute that AGA was late. Even most people who worked at C= back then wouldn’t have disputed that it should’ve been delivered on its original schedule in 1990/91. But we all know that ECS was also little and late. Irrespective of the subjective fact that Poland was still behind the Iron Curtain, where the elites had a green-screen XT PC and only the most corrupt were lucky enough to have an AT with CGA, that doesn’t make ECS good in 1990, when objectively compared to the average PC. The troll formerly known as ppcamiga1 doesn’t engage in a debate. He just comes in, spews out the same emotionally-laden subjective mini-rant, and crawls back under his bridge. I agree that even if AGA had 8-bit chunky graphics, it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference for Commodore’s overall financial situation. They owed so much money that even if magically somehow the A1200 was also released with an 030 + 4MB Fast RAM at the same price AND with the same profit margins, it still wouldn’t have sold enough to save them from their creditors. People like pepsiamiga0 don’t care for basic economics. They seek simple answers in complex systems. Amiga, as it turns out, succeeded in spite of Commodore’s misguided business practices between 1985 - 1990. They would’ve needed a runway of another 5 years to right all those wrongs, and they just didn’t have the cash to make it happen. Which is a systemic issue. Whereas the Soviet flavor of communist party rule has taught people that it’s important to find the single person responsible and to make of them an example. I bet pa1 would love nothing more than to find the engineer responsible for the decision to not include 256 chunky mode in AGA and have them whipped in the public square, or perhaps worse.

Commodore's revenue peaked around 1991, Commodore canceled the Amiga 500 and introduced the inferior Amiga 600.

Amiga 600's introduction wreaked 3rd party's add-on revenue stream that was based on the Amiga 500 ecosystem. Amiga ECS was a time and resource waster driven by ex-IBM Jr leadership.

According to David Pleasance, the major problem with Commodore is the major factory move from HK to PH which gimped their production output.

Before Doom's release, the gaming PC had about 7 years to build up 256-color VGA with a full 32bit 386DX install base and 4 years to build up 256-color VGA with a full 32bit 486SX/DX install base. Doom 1 and 2 have 4 million unit sales and IDsoftware estimated a further 15 million copies. The gaming PC minority still outnumbers the entire Amiga install base.

Full 32-bit Fast RAM equipped 68020/030/040 with AGA configuration didn't have enough time to build up its installed base and AGA games can't leverage the full 32-bit Fast RAM equipped 68020/030/040 Amigas with OCS/ECS since these machines can't upgrade to AGA module.

Around 1993, David Pleasance (Commodore UK) asked permission to add 3rd party CPU-accelerated A1200 game bundles and it was rejected by Commodore International.

Last edited by Hammer on 02-Nov-2023 at 12:43 PM.

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Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @Kronos Yes, Win 3.11 with MS TCPIP, various alternative third party stacks like winsock or that package from DEC I cannot recall the name of. MacTCP and all that. And why not mention OS/2 while you’re at it. But there’s a difference, both Microsoft and Apple acknowledged the flaws and were actively doing something about it, Apple were dabbling with Apple/UX and various attempts to reform “classic” MacOS, eventually landing on going NEXT. And MS went the VMS route with NT. Amiga had no equivalent, there was no attempt to bring AmigaOS and AMIX together.

MS has the best-selling AT&T-licensed Unix known as Xenix. IBM-MS joint OS/2 and MS Windows NT were designed to replace Xenix and 16-bit MS-DOS.

Both IBM and MS wanted to remove AT&T-licensed Unix from PCs since Xenix wasn't low-cost.

Ultimately, Linux was created on MMU-equipped 386-based PCs and killed AT&T-licensed Unix from the marketplace.

Windows 11 is a Linux subsystem capable.

Unlike Intel's 286's and 386's integrated MMU baseline, Motorola was using the MMU feature as part of its product segmentation. Motorola didn't redefine MMU integrated 68030 as its baseline 68K.

_________________
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Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@ppcamiga1

Quote:

ppcamiga1 wrote: I like ECS. It was pretty good. In 1990 ECS was still better than graphics in average pc. 1992 was differ. It was Win 3.1. Wolf3D. 256 colors games. Outside amiga asylum, it is clear for rest of the world than Commodore bankrupt because AGA has not chunky pixels. No fast easy to use 256 colors mode in AGA and rest is history. Amiga retro fans should revert to good old ECS. Play games on it, use DP PT etc on it. Use on ECS everything that was made on Amiga up to spring 1993. For never games and apps use something better for graphics in parallel to ECS.

The "average PC" argument hides the fact that the Doom-capable gaming PC minority still outnumbers the Amiga install base. The PC install base is very large.

_________________
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Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @ppcamiga1 The "average PC" argument hides the fact that the Doom-capable gaming PC minority still outnumbers the Amiga install base. The PC install base is very large.

In 1990, extremely large and diverse.
To say “Average PC user” is to not convey any meaningful information.
More people used DOS/Win 3.0 systems for accounting than all Amiga computer users combined. More young people used DOS/Win 3.0 hand-me-down systems for games than all Amiga users combined.
The Average Business PC user is different to the Average Home PC user.

According to this, in 1990 the 16-bit PC systems for the home outsold 16-bit Amiga systems at nearly 4:1.
Sure, there weren’t any amazing gaming titles for the DOS PC in 1990, but the install base was growing at a higher rate.

According to pa1, most of those 2.8M PCs had graphics that were lesser than ECS, which BTW none of the estimated 750k 16-bit Amigas sold that year had.

But sure, the lack of affordable 256 chunky mode in 1992/93 is what did in the Amiga and C=.

Like with today’s graphics cards: The higher end cards like the RX 7900 XT+ and the RTX 4080+ sell with high profit margins, but in much lower quantities. The real money is in the large volume of mid-tier cards.

So too in in the early ‘90s there was a (relatively) low volume of high end PC’s sold for gaming purposes at high profit margins, but as you say, even at a couple % of the overall PC market having 486 DX+, it still outnumbers the entire Amiga install base.

People really need to stop basing their views on marketing material and data sheets. I don’t care how good ECS is if only a few thousand expensive computers have it.
Mmm yes, please tell me more about the amazing abilities of the Cray Y-MP.

The venerable Amiga 1000 was essentially a prototype that reached MMP level.
ECS should have been the revision (market correction) that formed the new baseline in 1987 with the A500 and A2000.

Last edited by agami on 02-Nov-2023 at 01:38 PM.

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@agami

My 1st PC was a 10MHz 286 that I bought at a clearance sale in 1991.
Came with 1MB, 20MB HD and Herkules GFX for 400DM. Swapped that against a base VGA card for 70DM (AFAIR).

Still cheaper than a base A500.

Sure I only got a greyscale VGA monitor but for "work" that was so much better then the A500 with 2 floppies and an 1084S.

So yeah even at that time Amiga was already loosing the spec war.

_________________
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- blame Canada

@Kronos

Quote:

You would end up with C= not even bidding for Amiga but instead pushing a Coherent running C900 going up against early DOS PCs.

Ack, I often tried to find the point where C= start failing but this was long before they bought Amiga. If they would have done everything right, they would have had a competitor to Apple's Lisa/Macintosh or the IBM-PC and If that competitor was done right, they would have not bought another system like the Amiga.

The Amiga might have been the last chance turning around the wheel, but they didn't recognize it.

@Hammer

Quote:

Windows 11 is a Linux subsystem capable.

Windows 11 is also an Amiga subsystem capable.

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@Kronos

Quote:

Kronos wrote: @cdimauro Quote: That was mostly due to the different o.s., not because of the switch from OCS to ECS. The issues due to the latter were rare. Same difference.

Absolutely not the same: the o.s. changes were most responsible for the incompatibilities.

However, and as I've already said, that was due to big number of idiot developers which haven't followed Commodore's guidelines.
Quote:

Most users bought an Amiga as a super-C64 to play copied games. Any advancement was not only not needed it was unwelcomed.

Gamers want to have better graphics and sound. That's "by Nature".

If you can have backward-compatibility AND better hardware (for new games) you have satisfied BOTH needs.
Quote:

C= management did try to sell the A1000 as a serious computer but it failed, to advanced OS and colorful lowres GFX at a time when that market wanted a CPM/DOS style system that could show as much clear text as possible. They did pivot to a super-C64 (aka A500) and treated it just like that with no updated beyond cost cutting. The A2000 came along in a similar fashion as the C128, an unsanctioned engineer side project (C= Braunschweig in this case) that was turned into a product. By 1989/90 they did realize that the time for VIC10/C64/A500 style computer was coming to an end and started stumbling after PC/Apple but never even came within striking distance before going under. The error being made in the 90s were based on what seemed successful in the mid/late 80s, hence any alt-history would have had to diverge before that.

It's clear that management failed miserably with the Amiga. That's granted. However they were not the only ones.

Engineers had their part on lacking the right vision and competencies on what features to implement according to the specific needs of the platform, especially taking into account the transistors budget ("no new chips").

Developers had also their big part for what I've said before: too many idiots not following Commodore's guidelines. Which means / meant damaging future machines.


@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: Unlike Intel's 286's and 386's integrated MMU baseline, Motorola was using the MMU feature as part of its product segmentation. Motorola didn't redefine MMU integrated 68030 as its baseline 68K.

And here is another bunch of idiots: engineers that removed instructions and/or features on future processors, killing the backward-compatibility...


@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: The venerable Amiga 1000 was essentially a prototype that reached MMP level. ECS should have been the revision (market correction) that formed the new baseline in 1987 with the A500 and A2000.

That's really too early. The next move, splitting the market to professional (2000) and consumer/gaming (500), was the right move to do at that time.

The Amiga 1000 tried to gain both and that's why it failed (didn't sell much): too little for professionals and too expensive for the average Joe/gamer.

But AFTER that new chips were definitely expected, for sure.


@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @Hammer Quote: Windows 11 is a Linux subsystem capable. Windows 11 is also an Amiga subsystem capable.

How?

@cdimauro

Quote:

Quote: kolla wrote: Windows 11 is also an Amiga subsystem capable. How?

WinUAE, for example, is a third party Windows subsystem for running AmigaOS.

“but that’s different!!” I hear you scream.

But is it really? WSL2 is a Linux kernel on Hyper-V, equivalent to qemu/kvm on Linux, bhyve on BSD, hyperkit on macOS. The differences are in how much is provided by native virtualisation and how much needs to be emulated. On this scale, WinUAE is one end and WSL is in the other, and there’s plenty between. Conceptually they’re the same though.

Last edited by kolla on 03-Nov-2023 at 07:24 AM.
Last edited by kolla on 03-Nov-2023 at 07:21 AM.

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@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: @agami Quote: agami wrote: The venerable Amiga 1000 was essentially a prototype that reached MMP level. ECS should have been the revision (market correction) that formed the new baseline in 1987 with the A500 and A2000. That's really too early. The next move, splitting the market to professional (2000) and consumer/gaming (500), was the right move to do at that time.

How is it “too” early?
I’m convinced that it was fully within the C= + Amiga teams’ capabilities and capacity to revisit the 1984 OCS design and tweak it for better market positioning.

I’m not saying they should also have released OS 2.0 in 1987. MVP/MMP improvements in a OS 1.5 would’ve been fine, to make sure things align with the agreeable pro (A2000) and consumer (A500) product bifurcation.

Quote:

The Amiga 1000 tried to gain both and that's why it failed (didn't sell much): too little for professionals and too expensive for the average Joe/gamer.

The A1000 was a glorified tech demo. Even C= didn’t know what to do with it.
Up until 1985, personal/home computers were for spreadsheets, word processing, cooking recipes, and video games.
In many ways, the A1000 was never going to succeed as a product. It could only ever succeed in telling C= where to go next.

Quote:

But AFTER that new chips were definitely expected, for sure.

When you buy a company like Amiga, both tech IP and talent, you’re not in the business of delivering things when they are “expected”. You anticipate and lead the market where it needs to go.

Or in Commodore’s case, you buy Amiga as a big F#@& You to ATARI.

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@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @cdimauro Quote: cdimaurowrote: How? WinUAE, for example, is a third party Windows subsystem for running AmigaOS. “but that’s different!!” I hear you scream.

Well, WinUAE is an APPLICATION and certainly NOT a subsystem.
Quote:

But is it really? WSL2 is a Linux kernel on Hyper-V, equivalent to qemu/kvm on Linux, bhyve on BSD, hyperkit on macOS. The differences are in how much is provided by native virtualisation and how much needs to be emulated. On this scale, WinUAE is one end and WSL is in the other, and there’s plenty between. Conceptually they’re the same though

I think that you have to take a better look at the definitions of hypervisor, virtualization software and emulation.

WinUAE is definitely the latter and NOT a virtualization software. It's an application which allows you reproduce any system, usually completely different ones from the host / native system.

A virtualization software allows you to run binaries of different o.ses on an host system, but the architecture should be the same (e.g.: x64 allows to run x64 and x86/386+ binaries. x86 allows to run 386+, 286 and 8086 binaries).

An hypervisor is a tool which helps to implement and run the virtualizations.

kolla, you're supposed to be a sysadmin and those concepts (at least the last two) should be your ABC, right?


@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: @cdimauro Quote: cdimauro wrote: @agami That's really too early. The next move, splitting the market to professional (2000) and consumer/gaming (500), was the right move to do at that time. How is it “too” early? I’m convinced that it was fully within the C= + Amiga teams’ capabilities and capacity to revisit the 1984 OCS design and tweak it for better market positioning.

As said before, the Amiga 1000 was a sort of hybrid system. It was something new for Commodore, which didn't realize how to better put this new hardware platform on the market.

That's why the Amiga 2000 and 500 were the next, natural and needed step.

Engineers like Jay Miner also worked on extending the platform with the Ranger chipset, but that required time as well and some prototype was first available on 1987/88. However a prototype isn't a finished product, ready to be sold: it required other time (AFTER the management approval) to reach that status.

That's why my "too early".
Quote:

I’m not saying they should also have released OS 2.0 in 1987. MVP/MMP improvements in a OS 1.5 would’ve been fine, to make sure things align with the agreeable pro (A2000) and consumer (A500) product bifurcation.

That's OK. We got 1.3 in the meanwhile. Not enough, but it enabled booting from different devices (than the floppy), which was a great achievement.

Of course, more was needed as well on software side.
Quote:

Quote: But AFTER that new chips were definitely expected, for sure. When you buy a company like Amiga, both tech IP and talent, you’re not in the business of delivering things when they are “expected”. You anticipate and lead the market where it needs to go. Or in Commodore’s case, you buy Amiga as a big F#@& You to ATARI.

It was a good move not because to make a prank to Atari, but because business-wise the management saw a big potential: the Amiga was a revolutionary product.

It was the right decision.

However, the management that came after Rettingen (if I recall his name correctly) had completely different ideas and made mistakes after mistakes.

Same for the engineers: the ones that came after Jay Miner and his team (I've also to mention Ron Nicholson, which had a big role on the project) made their mistakes as well and had no vision on how to evolve the platform (neither the experience, according to the book of Bagnal).

@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: @agami As said before, the Amiga 1000 was a sort of hybrid system. It was something new for Commodore, which didn't realize how to better put this new hardware platform on the market. That's why the Amiga 2000 and 500 were the next, natural and needed step.

100% agree.

Quote:

Engineers like Jay Miner also worked on extending the platform with the Ranger chipset, but that required time as well and some prototype was first available on 1987/88. However a prototype isn't a finished product, ready to be sold: it required other time (AFTER the management approval) to reach that status. That's why my "too early".

Here I have to disagree with you again.

Your assessment of “too early” is based on events which had transpired.
However, there is nothing I can see that makes it impossible for Ranger to be market ready by 1987/88. Other than C= management not putting full support behind the effort.

Ergo, Ranger or ECS by some other name, could’ve been ready in 1987/88 for the A2000/A500 after 2-3 years of market testing and validation with A1000 OCS (BetaCS).

Buying Amiga was definitely a good decision for Commodore in 1984.
I’m still not convinced it was the right decision.

Last edited by agami on 03-Nov-2023 at 10:18 AM.

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@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: @cdimauro Quote: Engineers like Jay Miner also worked on extending the platform with the Ranger chipset, but that required time as well and some prototype was first available on 1987/88. However a prototype isn't a finished product, ready to be sold: it required other time (AFTER the management approval) to reach that status. That's why my "too early". Here I have to disagree with you again. Your assessment of “too early” is based on events which had transpired. However, there is nothing I can see that makes it impossible for Ranger to be market ready by 1987/88. Other than C= management not putting full support behind the effort. Ergo, Ranger or ECS by some other name, could’ve been ready in 1987/88 for the A2000/A500 after 2-3 years of market testing and validation with A1000 OCS (BetaCS).

You're assuming too much. What we know is only that the chips were ready and tested by 1987/88, but NOT if they were production-ready. So, we don't know how long it could have take to go from "chip ready & tested" to "production-ready".

Do you have any source for supporting the latter?
Quote:

Buying Amiga was definitely a good decision for Commodore in 1984. I’m still not convinced it was the right decision.

Why?