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Internet News   Internet News : A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
   posted by Insanity on 11-Feb-2008 7:01:16 (3489 reads)
Mr Reimer continues to deliver the parts in his historical walkthrough of the Amiga,

This time we're dealing with the Commodore crisis of 1985-1986, and Thomas Rattigan.
Amongst other things.

If you've missed the previous 5 parts, links to them can be found at the top of part #6.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/amiga-history-part-6.ars
    

STORYID: 4217
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Zorro 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 11-Feb-2008 10:33:22
#1 ]
Super Member
Joined: 30-Apr-2003
Posts: 1081
From: Italy

6th nice reading...


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tonyyeb 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 11-Feb-2008 13:09:54
#2 ]
Member
Joined: 9-Dec-2007
Posts: 62
From: Hull, UK

Another good read. Looking forward to part 7.

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d0c 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 11-Feb-2008 14:43:05
#3 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 8-Sep-2004
Posts: 896
From: UK

Quote:
Haynie was inspired by the designs made by the Los Gatos team and determined to improve on their elegant architecture. He designed a new custom chip, called Buster, to handle the expansion bus. The bus design, which was called "Zorro" in reference to one of the original Amiga prototypes, was also ahead of its time. Unlike the ISA slots in the IBM PC, the Zorro slots had "autoconfig" built-in and would allow expansion cards to be work instantly without any manual configuration of jumpers or resolving device conflicts.


if haynie had made an improved isa slot instead of these dreadful zorro slots at the time, amiga could have taken benefit of the pc marked in a very long time, lived longer and cheaper for the customer. but no it had to be special, cost allot and not useful for anything but amiga... isa slots lived to 2003, zorro slots died in 1994... ahead of its time i doubt it.....


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Seer 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 11-Feb-2008 16:16:34
#4 ]
Team Member
Joined: 27-Jun-2003
Posts: 3725
From: The Netherlands

@d0c

With that kind or reasoning;

They should have used (S)VGA chipsets instead of ECS/AGA..
They should have used Windows NT instead of Amiga OS..

Zorro was great compared to ISA. If anything, C= should have offered to license it to others, just like they should have offered/accept licenses for the OS and hardware when it could have really make a difference. AFAIK, the interest was there (not sure if Zorro had any interest as PCI had some big supporters)..


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AmigaClyde 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 11-Feb-2008 17:07:30
#5 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 2007
From: Noranda Canada

Thanks for this great read.
Another great chapter.


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µA1-C 750GX@800 using OS4.1

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Insanity 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 11-Feb-2008 17:52:59
#6 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 7-Aug-2005
Posts: 405
From: Sweden

imho ISA should have been stomped on much earlier.


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bison 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 11-Feb-2008 18:05:56
#7 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 18-Dec-2007
Posts: 2112
From: N-Space

Very good article, but I hope part seven comes out in a reasonable amount of time. I managed to purchase and read about half of "On The Edge" between parts 5 and 6 -- I got interested and couldn't wait.


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cecilia 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 11-Feb-2008 18:10:42
#8 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 18-Oct-2004
Posts: 860
From: Amiga Land

Quote:
Warhol was a genius at self-promotion, but his "interview" showed genuine enthusiasm for the Amiga computer. He expressed frustration at not having a color printer yet and talked about how cool it would be to have a graphics tablet and stylus to replace the mouse. These products were all in development, but Warhol wanted them now.
That was how I felt when i first saw an amiga - and I saw the summagraphic tables that Rose and Doug Lovell had made a driver for - now THAT to me was the iciing on the cake.

Quote:
This program was Deluxe Paint, and it launched the careers of thousands of computer graphic artists.
Bingo!!


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That's the only God that I know exists." Terry Gilliam

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Slick 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 12-Feb-2008 4:56:22
#9 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 20-Dec-2003
Posts: 215
From: Sunshine, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

This fills in the bits that the Amazing rise and fall of Commodore does not.

Nice one! A great read.

More please sir! More!

I found the bit about Rattigan illuminating... I never knew exactly what happened there until now.

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Fransexy 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 12-Feb-2008 9:17:33
#10 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Jun-2004
Posts: 2334
From: Elche (Alicante), spain

Quote:
if haynie had made an improved isa slot instead of these dreadful zorro slots at the time, amiga could have taken benefit of the pc marked in a very long time, lived longer and cheaper for the customer. but no it had to be special, cost allot and not useful for anything but amiga... isa slots lived to 2003, zorro slots died in 1994... ahead of its time i doubt it.....


Zorro is autoconfig, ISA not.Zorro was ahead of it´s time fo sure

Last edited by Fransexy on 12-Feb-2008 at 09:18 AM.


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Jeremy_Reimer 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 13-Feb-2008 18:56:22
#11 ]
Member
Joined: 28-Mar-2004
Posts: 95
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada

Quote:
Very good article, but I hope part seven comes out in a reasonable amount of time. I managed to purchase and read about half of "On The Edge" between parts 5 and 6 -- I got interested and couldn't wait.


I've increased my writing pace and I am about halfway through Part 7 now.

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DC 
Re: A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding
Posted on 14-Feb-2008 19:15:08
#12 ]
Member
Joined: 4-Aug-2003
Posts: 73
From: Los Angeles, California USA

I love reading these articles. Really well written and researched.

But at the same time, it is painfully sad and tragic. Amiga was great and should have grown and prospered. Instead, it is fading into obscurity.

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