@agami

Commodore's in-house 16-bit Z8001 equipped C900 is trash i.e. it had no "killer business apps".

I don't recall Coherent OS abstracting the CPU difference like LLVM or JavaVM.

Z8000 is not backward compatible with Z80.

Coherent + Z8000 needs re-compiled apps for this platform, hence a similar problem faced by non-X86 Windows NT. C900 doesn't have Steve Jobs to solve the "chicken vs egg" attracting business software on the platform.

"The 16/32-bit 8 MHz Motorola 68000 came to market later the same year and turns in a time of 0.49 seconds on the same Sieve test, over twice as fast as the Z8000"

C900 doesn't have Sun-3's ECC memory feature, hence it's not a "real" workstation.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@cdimauro

Quote:

ALL desktop Amigas were a FAILURE!

Without the desktop Amigas, where would software come from?

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @cdimauro Quote: @cdimauro And what about 1985-1990? What such great engineers did in FIVE years, BEFORE that the "IBM guys" arrived (and only for 2 / 2.5 years)? Reminder, IBM didn't execute low-cost VGA chipsets like SVGA cloners. IBM is not the threat, it's SVGA cloners. My Xmas Q4 1992 386DX-33 based gaming PC's graphics card is not an IBM's genuine VGA i.e. it was Tseng Labs ET4000AX SVGA clone that was released in 1989. From experience, IBM's VGA on PS/2 Model 55SX is slow while Tseng Labs ET4000AX's Mode 13h and Mode X are very fast. A1200's C= AGA has no problems beating PS/2 Model 55SX's IBM VGA. For SVGA cloners, IBM provides use case leadership for 256 colors and 640x480p resolution baseline targets. SVGA cloners have extra years to optimize their cost reduction and improve upon the VGA standard while 8514 is largely optional since Windows's RTG standard is the big elephant in the room. IBM VGA's Mode X/Mode 13h with AMD's K7 Athlon XP 1800Mhz is still very slow. No amount of CPU power can deliver IBM VGA's 320x200p 256 colors at Quake demo1 60 fps i.e. it's 8.6 fps. On the A1200 with PiStorm-RPi CM4 (ARM Cortex 72 @ 1.8 Ghz)-Emu68, Clickboom's Quake demo1 is about 60 fps. This shows C= AGA needs a compute power increase. From experience having an IBM PS/1 Model 55SX in my home, I'm not impressed with IBM's VGA. I rather have an A1200's AGA instead. My IBM PS/1 Model 55SX was sold to fund a 386DX-33/ET4000 PC clone. -------------- During 1987-1988, the 68020 CPU has $77 BOM cost with Commodore's discounts. This is beyond a game console/A500/A1200 price range CPU. Amiga's chipset is designed around the CPU with 16-bit or 32-bit bus differences. The Amiga doesn't have the PC's partitioned graphics architecture. Lower cost 68EC020 didn't exist until early 1991. A1000 Plus would quickly respond to Motorola's price vs performance change. A major problem is Motorola since they didn't duplicate 68000's success.

Totally irrelevant: I've asked what the engineers did on 1985-1990 to evolve the Amiga.
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro Again, SIX months delay means that a production could have been possible only on Q2 1992. The actual statement is "more than six months delay" before restarting AA's R&D.

In other parts it's just "six months".
Quote:

The A1200 project was started on Feb 1992. A1200's Budgie and AA Gayle was completed in March 1992. A1200 was released on 21 October 1992. Without the "six months" delay, May 1992 would be A1200's release date, hence the A300/A600 debacle could been avoided. Without the "seven months" delay, April 1992 would be A1200's release date, hence the A300/A600 debacle could been avoided. A1200 has the extra two chips i.e. Budgie and AA Gayle that started from Feb to March 1992, hence at least two months for A1200. Moving Mehdi Ali's A1200 directive from 1992 into March-April 1991 would have cut another two months, but AA-Gayle requires R&D from A300/A600's Gayle. PCMCIA and IDE-equipped Gayle would consume its R&D time.

Where they needed or not? That's the most important question.

IMO yes at least for the IDE adapter, because it have allowed to add an hard drive to the A1200, which on 1992 was a nice thing to have.

If not, then you would end up to use the trapdoor for EVERYTHING:
- add more memory;
- add an accelerator;
- add an hard drive controller.
Quote:

--------------------- "AA Task Force" was started in October 1991 and it's nearly useless according to Dave Haynie Quote: From Commodore - The Final Years, AA Task Force (skip) The A3000 Plus was now demoted to becoming a test vehicle for the AA chipset, but not necessarily a production system. “By the second revision of the board I was ordered to not make it into a product,� says Dave Haynie. (skip) Commodore sold the 50 existing Amiga 3000 Plus machines they had built as development systems for programmers. (skip) Sydnes habit of disparaging and shutting down existing projects rankled the West Chester engineers. “His first mission was to destroy the appearance that the former administration, Henri Rubin and Jeff Porter, were as organized and far along as they were,� claims Haynie. Eggebrecht, Sydnes, and Jeff Frank eventually restarted AA development in October. They created a group, called the AA Task Force, led by AA project leader Bob Raible to deal with the problematic chipset. Thirteen engineers including Ted Lenthe, George Robbins, and Dave Haynie attended the weekly meetings, starting October 3, 1991. Dave Haynie felt the meetings were mostly pointless, or worse, slowed down development of AA. “Basically, in order to slow down the advance of the AA chipset, the new management formed the AA Task Force, which met something like once a week to report on the chips and basically just say stuff still worked,� says Haynie. “There had been a couple of chipset bugs I found, but I was able to fix them externally.� "AA Task Force" is largely a time-wasting talk fest. ----

So, the hero didn't like meetings. Where there were discussions about the development status of the new hardware.

Basically he wanted to work without people controlling what he was doing and how the project was going.

That's not how it works on companies, especially on big ones. When I was a developer at Intel and BMW, I had regular meeting, even daily, with managers & stakeholders. Now that I'm a manager, I do the same, but at the opposite side. That's how it works... and it works.
Quote:

Quote: From Commodore - The Final Years, A500 Plus Holiday 1991 Due to the AA Task Force, Commodore did not release the A1000 Plus in time for the 1991 holiday season. The engineers felt this computer, more than any other, could help Commodore’s fortunes. “Changing the casework probably set it back nine months. It missed Christmas because of the case,� says Joe Augenbraun. “And once it missed Christmas, the company started rolling downhill. At a $1000 price point, that would have been a high-volume product. That would have done really well for the company. Blame the A1000 Plus case delay on Jeff Frank. A1000 Plus's design needs to fit into a Commodore's PC case.

The upcoming next desktop failure...
Quote:

From 1991 to early 1992, Commodore sold 50 A3000Plus units to developers i.e. AA was already in limited production run during 1991.

Which doesn't mean that AA was production-ready.
Quote:

Quote: From Commodore - The Final Years, Amiga 3200 Started (A3200/3400) (skip) On April 30, during a weekly product conference call with Mehdi Ali in New York, a new Amiga named the A3200 began under project leader Greg Berlin. Sydnes also told Berlin that the A2200 he was working on with Joe Augenbraun, the unwanted ECS version of the A1000 Plus nicknamed the A1000jr, would be delayed or cancelled. Ali wisely decided it was better to give the Europeans what they wanted rather than trying to force a product on them. Ali also began taking control away from Sydnes and overriding his decisions. (skip) He gave project leader Greg Berlin less than five months to produce the machine, which he wanted to ship in September 1992. Naturally, it would be a rush job. Berlin and the others were now faced with no vacations for the entire summer. If Berlin met the schedule, this would be a record development time for a system from start to finish. Unfortunately, none of the ideas from the Acutiator could be implemented in Berlin’s new system. Ali wanted the system out quickly, and the three custom chips required by Acutiator were months away. As Lew Eggebrecht recalled, “We had a chipset that was fully functional, very cost effective and 32-bit... so we started converting our entire product line." AGA was "fully functional" about five months before Sep 1992 i.e. April-May 1992. Remove "six months" wasted, that's Nov 1991. For "more than six months" waste, remove seven months wasted, that's Oct 1991.

This doesn't work: you're assuming that the machines could have been developed in parallel with the chipset, which wasn't the case. In fact, people like your hero were working on both the chips and the motherboards.
Quote:

Remove A1200's extra two months due to AA Gayle and Budgie, that's Aug 1991.

See above for this.
Quote:

A1000 Plus with AA could have squeezed near the end of Q4 1991.

Another failure, but anyway: not possible on this date.
Quote:

Add the two extra months for A1200 and release in H1 1992, and the A300/A600 debacle wouldn't exist. A600 would be AA varaint i.e. AA600 aka A1200.

The A300/600 was the base for the A1200...
Quote:

Commodore would have extra time to ramp up AGA's production without the ECS A300/A600 debacle. Customers who spent their money on the ECS A600 would be the AA600 variant. The production money for ECS A600 would be spent on the AA600 variant.

Those are different machines. A cost-reduced Amiga 500 was needed. A successor with AA was needed AFTER that.
Quote:

"A1000 Plus" with AA would be competing against gaming PC's core $1000 USD market. My Dad wouldn't spend on ECS A3000, and it would be A1000 Plus with AA.

Desktop = Failure.
Quote:

A500's happy days continue into AA600 successor without the large P&L loss.

See above: it was needed before the AA machines.
Quote:

Quote: No, I'm simply talking about hardware DEVELOPMENT, which started some years BEFORE their production. So, exactly like the new software. Which, to be more clear, means that when the AGA arrived by end of 1992, you cannot think about adding a 3D hardware acceleration because two years after the new consoles arrived: its hardware & specs where already defined and being worked on a couple of years before that, when there's no pressure on having 3D support. There was pressure to add 3D compute power. This is why AAA was canceled and switched to 3D bias Hombre.

It's already late in time, as you can see.
Quote:

I purchased my 386DX-33/ET4000 gaming PC in Xmas Q4 1992 due to incoming texture-mapped 3D game previews in the PC gaming press.

The AA chipset was already well advanced, even according to what YOU have reported. So, it wasn't possible to have anything added at the time.
Quote:

Quote: 3D support could have been done for the NEXT project. For 1993-1994, 386DX-33, Am386DX-40, 486SX-25 and 486SX-33 gaming PCs need to be countered at the lowest cost possible. Are you arguing for the Amiga to be MIA for 2 years?

In fact, you're talking about AFTER the AA chipset...
Quote:

Sony PS1's 3D solution didn't have Z-buffer hardware acceleration which is effectively a step above software 3D renderer. PS1 is not 3DFX Voodoo class 3D acceleration. For B2B, Sony PS1 was operational in December 1993 with Ridge Racer as a demonstration to attract other 3rd party game developers. Sony is using the extra time to gain 3rd party developers during 1993 and 1994. Sony didn't follow 3DO's force Q4 1993 release with a weak game library. From Pentium 60/66's 1993 release, the gaming PC platform has until PS1's Q4 1995 release to build up Pentium's install base. PC world has a head start against PS1's Q4 1995 release. Intel has shipped 6 to 7 million Pentiums between 1993 to the end of 1994.

In fact -> AFTER the AA...
Quote:

To close the gap, extra compute power for 3D must be in place for the Amiga. The "3MB game console" group's custom 3D hardware is just a low budget method for processing 3D workload since the Pentium class CPU is expensive.

AFTER the AA...

@Kronos

Quote:

Kronos wrote: @cdimauro Quote: Amiga 1000 -> Failure Amiga 2000 -> Failure Amiga 3000 -> Failure CDTV -> Failure All "desktop" Amiga failed. Commodore was an home computers company and those were the ones which made the big money.. Correction, they sold in big numbers and made o.k. (at best) money.

It was the A500 which saved Commodore because of the A1000 failure...
Quote:

C=/Amiga needed the big box units to be a success in order to drive SW development outside of games.

ALSO, yes.
Quote:

The lack of that SW is what made the Amiga a "toy computer" in the public eye which leads back to big boxes not selling.

I agree, but those were niches.
Quote:

At some point you could buy a PC for small money that was good enough for games and could still run the "real" apps,

Not as cheap as an Amiga 500 or 1200...


@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @cdimauro Quote: ALL desktop Amigas were a FAILURE! Without the desktop Amigas, where would software come from?

From the SBC Amigas: the 500 and the 1200. I've developed my games on my 1200 (attached to a TV!).

Last edited by cdimauro on 06-Aug-2024 at 04:12 AM.

@Kronos

Quote:

Kronos wrote: @agami You forget that C= was successful in that area for quite some while. Typewriters, Calculators and PETs is what made them big.

I didn't forget that. It is exactly because of those early successes that they found themselves in that most precarious of positions: Searching for a second act.

Apple were in the same situation after their early success with the Apple II. Their attempt at a second act was initially the Lisa, and then the Macintosh. Though the Mac is a resounding success in early 21C, it was by no means a success until Macintosh II and more realistically the SKUs of the early '90s.

The problem most computer companies from the early '80s faced as they moved into the '90s is that they made their success from marketing computers. It was mostly about the hardware.
What we see becoming dominant in the '90s is The Platform.

A platform is more than any single computer SKU or generation. It has more staying power. Here is where Microsoft found their own bit of good luck in that IBM were not interested in being a platform player, until it was too late.

Microsoft's (Bill Gates') first vision statement was "a computer on every desk and in every home". This, from a company that didn't actually make computers. All they knew at the time is that it would take many moving parts, and they could be one of those parts.

What was CBM's vision/mission statement? "Computers for the masses, not the classes". Was that the official statement, or just a quote? Were they hoping for lightning to strike twice and their second act to be C64 Redux? Who were the new "masses" in the second half the '80s, and who were they in the early '90s? And what did the masses want/need?
In any case, they lost their way.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@cdimauro

Quote:

@cdimauro Totally irrelevant: I've asked what the engineers did on 1985-1990 to evolve the Amiga.

It's relevant against your pro-IBM PC management when the actual credit for fast VGA performance did NOT come from IBM.

FYI, A500 with ARM Cortex A72 @ 1.8 Ghz CPU's Quake demo1 in HAM6 mode is 25 fps which is faster than IBM VGA's 8.6 fps with Athlon XP @1.8 Ghz CPU.

IBM VGA is slow despite throwing Athlon XP 1.8 Ghz CPU power at it.

Quote:

@cdimauro In other parts it's just "six months".

It's "by six+ months." Note the plus sign with "six+".

Cite reference https://landley.net/history/mirror/commodore/haynie.html

Quote:

@cdimauro This doesn't work: you're assuming that the machines could have been developed in parallel with the chipset, which wasn't the case. In fact, people like your hero were working on both the chips and the motherboards.

Wrong. AA-Gayle is just Gary with additions e.g. IDE, PCMCIA and Budgie support.

A300/A600's Gayle includes IDE and PCMCIA mandates. AA-Gayle adds Budgie support.

AA chipset is functional with the existing Fat Gary in place of AA Gayle.

AA chipset is functional with existing Ramsey and four PPL bridge chips (or A3400/A4000's Bridgette) in place of Budgie. A600 has two PPL bridge chips.

Budgie is a cost reduction Ramsey 32-bit memory controller, A3400/A4000's Brigette (i.e. four PLL bridge chips in A3000/AA3000+) and buffered 16-bit data link with AA-Gayle's PCMCIA.

Besides PC's IDE and PCMCIA mandates, there's nothing inherently "new" with Budgie.

In terms of basic AA chipset and 32bit 68K CPU functions, A1200 is like AA3000+ e.g. the same CPU 7.1 MB/s access to 32bit Chip RAM since A3000.

Removing PC's IDE and PCMCIA mandates ends up with the original intent AA500 i.e. A500 with AA chipset.

Quote:

@cdimauro Which doesn't mean that AA was production-ready.

The "six+ months" lost is on Jeff Frank and Bill Sydnes. Mehdi Ali has to override Bill Sydnes' mistakes.

AA3000+ motherboard was later produced by the Amiga community. https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=97670
Quote:

Hese: AA3000+ is an Amiga 3000 AGA motherboard based on the Commodore AA3000 schematics with some improvements and extra features that were missing from the original AA3000 motherboard, such as the scandoubler / flicker fixer.

Modern changes include active PCI slots and extended Fast RAM support. The active PCI feature is based on 3rd party Prometheus PCI bridge by Matay.

Quote:

@cdimauro The AA chipset was already well advanced, even according to what YOU have reported. So, it wasn't possible to have anything added at the time.

When Mehdi Ali decided to override Bill Sydnes'/Jeff Franks' mistakes starting from Feb 1992 (i.e. Mehdi Ali's A1200 mandate), it was done quickly.

My A1200 rev1D1 still has Commodore's bodge wire patches.

Quote:

@cdimauro See above for this.

A1000 Plus does NOT need Budgie and AA-Galye. A1000Jr ECS version shows A3000's Ramsey, four PLL bridge chips, and Fat Gary. No Bridgette. Super Buster is for optional Zorro III slots.

AA500 does NOT need Budgie and AA-Galye.

Budgie/AA-Galye includes Jeff Frank's PCMCIA and Commodore Germany's IDE mandates.

A300 is designed to be anti-GVP (cite Commodore - The Final Years).

A300 is designed to have Commodore Germany's hard disk mandate (cite Commodore the Inside Story - The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant).


Quote:

@cdimauro Another failure, but anyway: not possible on this date.

False.


Quote:

@cdimauro The A300/600 was the base for the A1200...

A300/A600 has Bill Sydnes's and Jeff Franks's PCMCIA and IDE mandates, hence this delay is on Bill Sydnes' and Jeff Franks.

"Commodore - The Final Years" book's "A300 Becomes A600" chapter shows the scope creep for A300 project. Amiga engineers criticized Bill Sydnes's cost reduction attempt on the A300 project.

IBM is not the virtue of cost reduction.

Commodore - The Final Years books include ex-Amiga engineer's comments on A300's costly design mistakes.

Quote:

@cdimauro Those are different machines. A cost-reduced Amiga 500 was needed. A successor with AA was needed AFTER that.

Fact: A300 cost more than A500. The A300 project suffered a scope creep.

A300 evolving into A600 and replacing A500 must be avoided.

Quote:

@cdimauro Desktop = Failure.

For the Amiga product line with 256 color chipset, Commodore didn't properly address $1000 USD PC market.

In 1993, Commodore attempted to address $1000 USD market segment with the obsolete ECS $899 A3000 (68030@ 25Mhz). LOL Below 486SX-25/486SX-33's $1000, it's dominated by Am386DX-40 with SVGA based PCs.

Quote:

@cdimauro See above: it was needed before the AA machines.

Fact: A300 cost more than A500. The A300 project suffered a scope creep.

A300/A600 has Bill Sydnes' and Jeff Franks PCMCIA and IDE mandates, hence this delay is on Bill Sydnes' and Jeff Franks.

Quote:

@cdimauro It's already late in time, as you can see.

You stated "Which, to be more clear, means that when the AGA arrived by end of 1992,
FALSE. You made a statement without Commodore's internal timeline i.e. AGA ready around April.

Your "AGA arrived by end of 1992" statement is bullshit.

You stated "you cannot think about adding a 3D hardware acceleration because two years after the new consoles arrived: its hardware & specs where already defined and being worked on a couple of years before that, when there's no pressure on having 3D support."

FALSE. Have you forgotten $20 DSP3210 is designed for IEEE-754 FP32 3D processing?
There are lower-cost DSPs for purely audio processing.

Your "when there's no pressure on having 3D support." statement is WRONG.

When Lew took over Bill Sydnes, the DSP mandate was in.

For mass 1994 release, many PC game studios have been developing texture-mapped 3D/2.5D games from 1991 to 1993.

You didn't factor in market intelligence gathered from mainstream game developers from 1991 to 1993.


Quote:

@cdimauro The AA chipset was already well advanced, even according to what YOU have reported. So, it wasn't possible to have anything added at the time.

FALSE. Have you forgotten $20 DSP3210 is designed for IEEE-754 FP32 3D processing?


Quote:

In fact, you're talking about AFTER the AA chipset...

FACT:

Am386DX-40 was released in March 1991. https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/j93hw9/amd_am386dx40_cpu_released_by_amd_in_march_1991/

Quote:

From AMD, AMD Am386DX-40 CPU released by AMD in March 1991. It sold millions of units, positioning AMD as a legitimate competitor to Intel, rather than being merely a second source for x86 CPU

The situation is set for 386 CPU clone war. 1993's situation has its origins before 1992.

From https://www.intel.fr/content/dam/doc/report/history-1994-annual-report.pdf
Intel reported the following
1. In 1994's fourth quarter, Pentium unit sales accounted for 23 percent of Intel's desktop processor volume.
2. Millions of Pentiums were shipped.
3. During Q4 1993 and 1994, a typical PC purchase was a computer featuring the Intel 486 chip.
4. Net 1994 revenue reached $11.5 billion.
5. Net 1993 revenue reached $8.7 billion.
6. Growing demand and production for Intel 486 resulted in a sharp decline in sales for Intel 386 from 1992 to 1993.
7. Sales of the Intel 486 family comprised the majority of Intel's revenue during 1992, 1993, and 1994.
8. Intel reached its 6 to 7 million Pentiums shipped goal during 1994. This is only 23 percent unit volume.

From around 1992, AMD knocked out Intel's 386 sales.

The texture-mapped 3D PC game releases in 1993 and 1994 has their development from 1991 to 1993.

You're not thinking in terms of distribution channels and B2B.

Quote:

In fact -> AFTER the AA...

You're not thinking in terms of B2B.

Sony PS1 and 3DO developer relations were already active in 1992. EA backed 3DO from the start. 3DO's ARM60 @ 12.5 Mhz selection is a fast 386DX-33 approximate with low cost.

The texture-mapped 3D PC game released in 1993 and 1994 has their development from 1991 to 1993. They didn't suddenly appear like magic.

From "Commodore - The Final Years", again
Quote:

The Gail Problem Jeff Porter had laid the groundwork for the C65 marketing push, including a plan to attract a large number of launch titles. “That’s marketing 101 on how to make the C65 successful,� he says. “Get the third party software developers on your side. And how do you do that? By getting the people who work for Commodore on your side to talk to the third party developers.� Porter needed to attract some of the top C64 developers in the US over to the C65 platform. At the time there were many software houses who had made their name on the C64, including EA, Activision, Broderbund, Epyx, Origin, and Access Software. In the latter part of 1990, these companies started embracing the PC world as new video and sound cards made games more exciting. Games such as Wing Commander came out that turned the heads of video gamers.

The signs of gaming PC's 2.5D and 3D rise are already evident from 1990. Note why CD32 had 256 color Wing Commander bundle which is late.

Wing Commander's 1990 MS-DOS release made an impression on certain employees at Commodore.

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_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@cdimauro

Quote:

@cdimauro Totally irrelevant: I've asked what the engineers did on 1985-1990 to evolve the Amiga.

My comments were against your "the "IBM guys" arrived (and only for 2 / 2.5 years)?"

1. "Read my lips, no new chips" for the A3000 project despite having faster 32-bit Chip RAM.

A3000 is mostly "32-bit" except for Amiga's core graphics architecture.

ECS modes have separate four color registers and a 6-bit color palette. It should remind you of C128's high-resolution text mode separation from C64 mode.

Modifying the existing 12-bit color palette and 8-color register was deemed too complex. LOL.

Fault: Commodore management dismantled the original Amiga team. The Amiga didn't have the original Amiga team iterate on the design.


2. Commodore was caught out with excess Intel 386 stock in 1989, hence the "Intel hate" in Commodore - The Final Years book.

Commodore PC's losses have reduced Commodore's room to maneuver. A500's game pack bundle-driven sales boom helps Commodore's 1990 and 1991.

Apple didn't have this debacle.

Fault: Commodore management.


Quote:

Where they needed or not? That's the most important question. IMO yes at least for the IDE adapter, because it have allowed to add an hard drive to the A1200, which on 1992 was a nice thing to have. If not, then you would end up to use the trapdoor for EVERYTHING: - add more memory; - add an accelerator; - add an hard drive controller.\

PIO IDE is simple enough since ECS A1000Jr has PIO IDE, but not A300's Gayle chip.

PCMCIA "memory only" mode for memory cards requires additional R&D. A300's Gayle chip has undergone multiple revisions.

Mehdi Ali/Bill Sydnes/Jeff Frank's A300 project has anti-GVP designs (cite: Commodore - The Final Years).

PCMCIA support has a higher cost when compared to A500's edge connector (cite: Commodore - The Final Years). A500 didn't have A300's PLL byte swap chips and PCMCIA connector instructure.

A600 would need two additional PLL bridge chips between Fast RAM via Gayle's PCMCIA and Chip RAM. A3000 has four PLL bridge chips which are cost-reduced by Budgie, Bridgette, and Akiko.

PCMCIA's "memory only" expansion flopped in the PC laptop world i.e. laptop SIMM displaced it.

PCMCIA "memory only" expansion for A1200 would be gimped by the 16-bit bus.

Bill Sydnes/Jeff Frank fitted A300 with a pretty good quality keyboard despite removing the keypad (cite: Commodore - The Final Years).

A300's quality four-layer PCB is costly (cite: Commodore - The Final Years).

A300's surface-mounted chips were costly in 1991 (cite: Commodore - The Final Years).

A300's motherboard is too large for the low-cost target (cite: Commodore - The Final Years).

A300 has too much plastics for the low-cost target (cite: Commodore - The Final Years).

A300 has been designed like a PC laptop without an LCD screen instead of something like C64c.

CD32 has an edge connector for add-ons.

PCMCIA and IDE-equipped A300/A600 was a sales flop.

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_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@DiscreetFX

They all fill in the blanks but how C= UK would have pivoted and adapted technology for Hombre/Amiga use is a step too far for me. Los Gatos led the way. The Amiga shouldn't have been playing cach up IMHO!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Los Gatos Team was amazing! They should have never been let go and the Amiga would have continued to advance and stay ahead of the computer game!

_________________
Sent from my Quantum Computer.

@BigD

Commodore - The Final Years book has a statement like modifying the existing 12-bit color palette and 8 color registers for ECS display mode being too complex.

Quote:

From Commodore - The Final Years, The LSI group had spent the past year getting the monochrome hi-res Denise to work and did not want to invest an extensive amount of work into the chip when, in their minds, it was obvious something new was needed. The arguments they made won over Gerard Bucas, and the team accepted that a 12-bit color table and 8 color registers would be too complex to work into the current chip. However, Bob Welland compromised and presented a case for a simpler scheme to allow a 6-bit color palette (64 colors) and only 4 additional color registers. At the end of the meeting, the engineers agreed to implement his new scheme, subject to more analysis. A few days later, on September 7, Hedley Davis proposed an alternative plan. Instead of putting the color function in a chip, he proposed a 640 by 400 31 KHz scan converter card. The solution would not rely on VGA multisync monitors, but instead would output through the RGB (Red Green Blue color model) port to existing Amiga monitors. The device cost $31.50 in parts for the A2000 board and $40.50 for the A500 board.

This is September 1987.

Initially, Commodore aimed for half of VGA 640x480p's 16 colors e.g. 640x400p with 8 colors with 4096 color palette. This is reduced to 640x400p with 4 colors and 64 color palette.

Commodore LSI group deserves to lose to SVGA cloners since Commodore LSI group resisted against Amiga's substantial improvements.

------------------
Meanwhile in the PC world,

SVGA cloners had use case targets from IBM's VGA and 8514 e.g. ATI Mach 8, Tseng Labs ET4000, Paradise PVGA1A and 'etc'.

IBM's PGC (1984) has 640x460p with 256 colors from a 4096 color palette. The main designer for PGC later designed SUN's GX 3D fixed-function accelerator and co-founded NVIDIA. NVIDIA didn't appear by magic. PGC monitor can be tweaked for VGA display.

IBM's VGA (1987) has 640x480p with 16 colors and 256 colors for low resolutions (mode 13h and variants) which is cycled from MCGA (1986).

IBM's 8514 (1987) has 640x480p with 256 colors. 8514 can reach higher resolution.

MS Windows 2.x and 3.x are important factors to abstract SVGA hardware differences.

Last edited by Hammer on 09-Aug-2024 at 04:03 AM.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @cdimauro Quote: @cdimauro Totally irrelevant: I've asked what the engineers did on 1985-1990 to evolve the Amiga. It's relevant against your pro-IBM PC management

How you "deducted" that I'm pro-IBM? That's a non-sense.
Quote:

when the actual credit for fast VGA performance did NOT come from IBM.

Sure, and?
Quote:

FYI, A500 with ARM Cortex A72 @ 1.8 Ghz CPU's Quake demo1 in HAM6 mode is 25 fps which is faster than IBM VGA's 8.6 fps with Athlon XP @1.8 Ghz CPU. IBM VGA is slow despite throwing Athlon XP 1.8 Ghz CPU power at it.

Again your complete non-sense: reality WAS (I repeat: WAS) different. You can't mix completely different things!

Anyway, you've still NOT answered my question.
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro In other parts it's just "six months". It's "by six+ months." Note the plus sign with "six+". Cite reference https://landley.net/history/mirror/commodore/haynie.html

Yes, but other parts report just six. Maybe the + is very relative...
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro This doesn't work: you're assuming that the machines could have been developed in parallel with the chipset, which wasn't the case. In fact, people like your hero were working on both the chips and the motherboards. Wrong. AA-Gayle is just Gary with additions e.g. IDE, PCMCIA and Budgie support. A300/A600's Gayle includes IDE and PCMCIA mandates. AA-Gayle adds Budgie support. AA chipset is functional with the existing Fat Gary in place of AA Gayle. AA chipset is functional with existing Ramsey and four PPL bridge chips (or A3400/A4000's Bridgette) in place of Budgie. A600 has two PPL bridge chips. Budgie is a cost reduction Ramsey 32-bit memory controller, A3400/A4000's Brigette (i.e. four PLL bridge chips in A3000/AA3000+) and buffered 16-bit data link with AA-Gayle's PCMCIA. Besides PC's IDE and PCMCIA mandates, there's nothing inherently "new" with Budgie. In terms of basic AA chipset and 32bit 68K CPU functions, A1200 is like AA3000+ e.g. the same CPU 7.1 MB/s access to 32bit Chip RAM since A3000. Removing PC's IDE and PCMCIA mandates ends up with the original intent AA500 i.e. A500 with AA chipset.

Do you like this solution? No IDE interface?
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro Which doesn't mean that AA was production-ready. The "six+ months" lost is on Jeff Frank and Bill Sydnes. Mehdi Ali has to override Bill Sydnes' mistakes.

Then it was a good thing.
Quote:

AA3000+ motherboard was later produced by the Amiga community. https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=97670 Quote: Hese: AA3000+ is an Amiga 3000 AGA motherboard based on the Commodore AA3000 schematics with some improvements and extra features that were missing from the original AA3000 motherboard, such as the scandoubler / flicker fixer. Modern changes include active PCI slots and extended Fast RAM support. The active PCI feature is based on 3rd party Prometheus PCI bridge by Matay.

Irrelevant.
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro The AA chipset was already well advanced, even according to what YOU have reported. So, it wasn't possible to have anything added at the time. When Mehdi Ali decided to override Bill Sydnes'/Jeff Franks' mistakes starting from Feb 1992 (i.e. Mehdi Ali's A1200 mandate), it was done quickly. My A1200 rev1D1 still has Commodore's bodge wire patches.

Then it further proves my statement.
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro See above for this. A1000 Plus does NOT need Budgie and AA-Galye. A1000Jr ECS version shows A3000's Ramsey, four PLL bridge chips, and Fat Gary. No Bridgette. Super Buster is for optional Zorro III slots. AA500 does NOT need Budgie and AA-Galye. Budgie/AA-Galye includes Jeff Frank's PCMCIA and Commodore Germany's IDE mandates. A300 is designed to be anti-GVP (cite Commodore - The Final Years). A300 is designed to have Commodore Germany's hard disk mandate (cite Commodore the Inside Story - The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant).

Same as above: do you want an IDE interface or not?
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro Another failure, but anyway: not possible on this date. False.

See above: even YOU've stated that the project rushed.
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro The A300/600 was the base for the A1200... A300/A600 has Bill Sydnes's and Jeff Franks's PCMCIA and IDE mandates, hence this delay is on Bill Sydnes' and Jeff Franks. "Commodore - The Final Years" book's "A300 Becomes A600" chapter shows the scope creep for A300 project. Amiga engineers criticized Bill Sydnes's cost reduction attempt on the A300 project. IBM is not the virtue of cost reduction. Commodore - The Final Years books include ex-Amiga engineer's comments on A300's costly design mistakes.

Why you've to report again the SAME things?!?
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro Those are different machines. A cost-reduced Amiga 500 was needed. A successor with AA was needed AFTER that. Fact: A300 cost more than A500. The A300 project suffered a scope creep. A300 evolving into A600 and replacing A500 must be avoided.

Right. It wasn't a cost reduction.

But the A1200 was a different thing, and IMO needed at least an IDE interface. What's your opinion about that?
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro Desktop = Failure. For the Amiga product line with 256 color chipset, Commodore didn't properly address $1000 USD PC market. In 1993, Commodore attempted to address $1000 USD market segment with the obsolete ECS $899 A3000 (68030@ 25Mhz). LOL Below 486SX-25/486SX-33's $1000, it's dominated by Am386DX-40 with SVGA based PCs.

That's not the Amiga market...
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro See above: it was needed before the AA machines. Fact: A300 cost more than A500. The A300 project suffered a scope creep. A300/A600 has Bill Sydnes' and Jeff Franks PCMCIA and IDE mandates, hence this delay is on Bill Sydnes' and Jeff Franks.

PARROT MODE ON...
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro It's already late in time, as you can see. You stated "Which, to be more clear, means that when the AGA arrived by end of 1992, FALSE. You made a statement without Commodore's internal timeline i.e. AGA ready around April. Your "AGA arrived by end of 1992" statement is bullshit.

The statement was about adding 3D support!
Quote:

You stated "you cannot think about adding a 3D hardware acceleration because two years after the new consoles arrived: its hardware & specs where already defined and being worked on a couple of years before that, when there's no pressure on having 3D support." FALSE. Have you forgotten $20 DSP3210 is designed for IEEE-754 FP32 3D processing?

No. And have you forgot that for 3D an ARRAY of such DSP was mentioned?

Do you know the meaning of ARRAY?
Quote:

There are lower-cost DSPs for purely audio processing.

NOT needed, as I've already proved.
Quote:

Your "when there's no pressure on having 3D support." statement is WRONG.

It's absolutely right, because 3D was NOT under the scope AT THAT TIME. Context, do you recall? Clearly no...
Quote:

When Lew took over Bill Sydnes, the DSP mandate was in.

Lew's interview told something different: there were FUTURE plans. And the interview was in 1993.
Quote:

For mass 1994 release, many PC game studios have been developing texture-mapped 3D/2.5D games from 1991 to 1993. You didn't factor in market intelligence gathered from mainstream game developers from 1991 to 1993.

You didn't factor the reality: what kind of 3D hardware support had the PCs? Which SDK?

Plus, 1994 = Commodore bankrupt...
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro The AA chipset was already well advanced, even according to what YOU have reported. So, it wasn't possible to have anything added at the time. FALSE. Have you forgotten $20 DSP3210 is designed for IEEE-754 FP32 3D processing?

See above: ARRAY.
Quote:

Quote: In fact, you're talking about AFTER the AA chipset... FACT: Am386DX-40 was released in March 1991. https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/j93hw9/amd_am386dx40_cpu_released_by_amd_in_march_1991/

And the 68030 4 years before...
Quote:

Quote: From AMD, AMD Am386DX-40 CPU released by AMD in March 1991. It sold millions of units, positioning AMD as a legitimate competitor to Intel, rather than being merely a second source for x86 CPU The situation is set for 386 CPU clone war. 1993's situation has its origins before 1992.

And 1992's situation has its origin before 1991, and so on...
Quote:

From https://www.intel.fr/content/dam/doc/report/history-1994-annual-report.pdf Intel reported the following 1. In 1994's fourth quarter, Pentium unit sales accounted for 23 percent of Intel's desktop processor volume. 2. Millions of Pentiums were shipped. 3. During Q4 1993 and 1994, a typical PC purchase was a computer featuring the Intel 486 chip. 4. Net 1994 revenue reached $11.5 billion. 5. Net 1993 revenue reached $8.7 billion. 6. Growing demand and production for Intel 486 resulted in a sharp decline in sales for Intel 386 from 1992 to 1993. 7. Sales of the Intel 486 family comprised the majority of Intel's revenue during 1992, 1993, and 1994. 8. Intel reached its 6 to 7 million Pentiums shipped goal during 1994. This is only 23 percent unit volume. From around 1992, AMD knocked out Intel's 386 sales.

And? What was important is about which CPU was found on the vast majority of PCs.
Quote:

The texture-mapped 3D PC game releases in 1993 and 1994 has their development from 1991 to 1993. You're not thinking in terms of distribution channels and B2B.

Is it important? I would say no, since the context was 3D ACCELERATION. Which one had PCs at the time?
Quote:

Quote: In fact -> AFTER the AA... You're not thinking in terms of B2B.

See above.
Quote:

Sony PS1 and 3DO developer relations were already active in 1992. EA backed 3DO from the start. 3DO's ARM60 @ 12.5 Mhz selection is a fast 386DX-33 approximate with low cost.

Irrelevant, since it's out of context.
Quote:

The texture-mapped 3D PC game released in 1993 and 1994 has their development from 1991 to 1993. They didn't suddenly appear like magic.

Sure, but see above: which SDK they have used? Which 3D HARDWARE acceleration?
Quote:

From "Commodore - The Final Years", again Quote: The Gail Problem Jeff Porter had laid the groundwork for the C65 marketing push, including a plan to attract a large number of launch titles. “That’s marketing 101 on how to make the C65 successful,� he says. “Get the third party software developers on your side. And how do you do that? By getting the people who work for Commodore on your side to talk to the third party developers.� Porter needed to attract some of the top C64 developers in the US over to the C65 platform. At the time there were many software houses who had made their name on the C64, including EA, Activision, Broderbund, Epyx, Origin, and Access Software. In the latter part of 1990, these companies started embracing the PC world as new video and sound cards made games more exciting. Games such as Wing Commander came out that turned the heads of video gamers. The signs of gaming PC's 2.5D and 3D rise are already evident from 1990. Note why CD32 had 256 color Wing Commander bundle which is late. Wing Commander's 1990 MS-DOS release made an impression on certain employees at Commodore.

Same as above: which SDK used the PCs? Which 3D HARDWARE acceleration.
Quote:

Hammer wrote: @cdimauro Quote: @cdimauro Totally irrelevant: I've asked what the engineers did on 1985-1990 to evolve the Amiga. My comments were against your "the "IBM guys" arrived (and only for 2 / 2.5 years)?"

Mine? Where you have read it? You don't know of what you talk about!

Plus, you still do NOT give any answer to my question.
Quote:

1. "Read my lips, no new chips" for the A3000 project despite having faster 32-bit Chip RAM.

CRIPPLED Chip RAM access.
Quote:

A3000 is mostly "32-bit" except for Amiga's core graphics architecture.

No, see above: Chip RAm was crippled. Thanks to YOUR beloved engineers.
Quote:

ECS modes have separate four color registers and a 6-bit color palette. It should remind you of C128's high-resolution text mode separation from C64 mode. Modifying the existing 12-bit color palette and 8-color register was deemed too complex. LOL.

I fully agree, because that was made by YOUR beloved engineers.
Quote:

Fault: Commodore management dismantled the original Amiga team. The Amiga didn't have the original Amiga team iterate on the design.

Sure, and what remained is the team that you're laughing at.
Quote:

2. Commodore was caught out with excess Intel 386 stock in 1989, hence the "Intel hate" in Commodore - The Final Years book. Commodore PC's losses have reduced Commodore's room to maneuver. A500's game pack bundle-driven sales boom helps Commodore's 1990 and 1991. Apple didn't have this debacle. Fault: Commodore management.

Irrelevant. The context was about Commodore's engineers, that you are still desperately protecting.
Quote:

Quote: Where they needed or not? That's the most important question. IMO yes at least for the IDE adapter, because it have allowed to add an hard drive to the A1200, which on 1992 was a nice thing to have. If not, then you would end up to use the trapdoor for EVERYTHING: - add more memory; - add an accelerator; - add an hard drive controller.\ PIO IDE is simple enough since ECS A1000Jr has PIO IDE, but not A300's Gayle chip. PCMCIA "memory only" mode for memory cards requires additional R&D. A300's Gayle chip has undergone multiple revisions. Mehdi Ali/Bill Sydnes/Jeff Frank's A300 project has anti-GVP designs (cite: Commodore - The Final Years). PCMCIA support has a higher cost when compared to A500's edge connector (cite: Commodore - The Final Years). A500 didn't have A300's PLL byte swap chips and PCMCIA connector instructure. A600 would need two additional PLL bridge chips between Fast RAM via Gayle's PCMCIA and Chip RAM. A3000 has four PLL bridge chips which are cost-reduced by Budgie, Bridgette, and Akiko. PCMCIA's "memory only" expansion flopped in the PC laptop world i.e. laptop SIMM displaced it. PCMCIA "memory only" expansion for A1200 would be gimped by the 16-bit bus. Bill Sydnes/Jeff Frank fitted A300 with a pretty good quality keyboard despite removing the keypad (cite: Commodore - The Final Years). A300's quality four-layer PCB is costly (cite: Commodore - The Final Years). A300's surface-mounted chips were costly in 1991 (cite: Commodore - The Final Years). A300's motherboard is too large for the low-cost target (cite: Commodore - The Final Years). A300 has too much plastics for the low-cost target (cite: Commodore - The Final Years). A300 has been designed like a PC laptop without an LCD screen instead of something like C64c. CD32 has an edge connector for add-ons. PCMCIA and IDE-equipped A300/A600 was a sales flop.

Whatever, but it was the base of the A1200.

Do you agree or not that at least the IDE interface was a Good Thing to have? Be clear and honest one time in your life!

@cdimauro

Quote:

@cdimauro How you "deducted" that I'm pro-IBM? That's a non-sense.

To make sure ex-IBM'ers are not placed on a high pedestal.


Quote:

From Commodore the Inside Story - The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant, Henry Rubin was immediately out as vice president of engineering, and an IBM guy, Bill Sydnes, was put in place. Now, it’s fairly amazing what an idiot this Sydnes was, and given his history, this should have been obvious even to Ali. There was a computer company in New Jersey called Franklin Computer that had decided to make a clone of the Apple II, a project Sydnes had been in charge of. They made the big mistake of simply copying Apple’s ROM along with the hardware design – you can’t copyright a hardware design in the US, but everyone knew software was copyrighted. (skip) Another Sydnes project had been the ‘Peanut’ – better known as the IBM PCjr, perhaps IBM’s greatest failure up until that point. The Peanut was IBM’s effort to build a home computer,

Bill Sydnes fukced up Franklin Computer's Apple II clone.
Bill Sydnes fukced up IBM PCjr.

Quote:

From Commodore the Inside Story - The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant, The primary mission of the new Sydnes team, for the first six months or so, was to just grind engineering to a full stop. Sydnes was so insecure he basically had to sabotage or cancel just about every ongoing hardware project. The A1000+ was no more. They effectively did sabotage the next revision of the A3000+, forcing us to build a very large surface-mounted PCB without a solder mask. That machine was so full of short circuits, even after working on it for a month I could never find them all. Eventually we did a scaled-back Revision 2 board that went back to through-hole parts and eliminated most of the analogue section.

Extra month wastage on A3000+ was driven by Sydnes administration.

1 month for solder mask issue + more six months for frozen AA + 2 months for A1200 = more than 9 months wastage by Bill Sydnes/Jeff Franks.

Quote:

@cdimauro Again your complete non-sense: reality WAS (I repeat: WAS) different. You can't mix completely different things! Anyway, you've still NOT answered my question.

Hint: A high CPU power shifts the bottleneck to the graphics solution. A mainstream GPU benchmark review is done with a high-end gaming CPU.

A graphics solution with less bottleneck is the superior solution.

Quote:

@cdimauro Yes, but other parts report just six. Maybe the + is very relative...

Quote it.


Quote:

@cdimauro Do you like this solution? No IDE interface?

A300's goal is to replace C64c, not the A500.

Another A500 motherboard revision could have the IDE interface. ICD AdSpeed/IDE is relatively cheap.

I prefer a single fully functional Zorro II slot for A500 to enable economies of scale with the Zorro II market.

PCMCIA add-ons have PC laptop price premiums.

Quote:

@cdimauro Same as above: do you want an IDE interface or not?

Irreverent.

Do you want Commodore incurring $366 million dollar loss and $116 million debt?

A1200 has a higher cost structure and retail price target.

Quote:

@cdimauro See above: even YOU've stated that the project rushed.

A1200 project being rushed includes "six+ months" wastage on multiple ECS projects.


Quote:

@cdimauro But the A1200 was a different thing, and IMO needed at least an IDE interface. What's your opinion about that?

Irreverent.

Fact: A1200 has a higher cost structure (cite: Commodore - The Final Years).

Quote:

@cdimauro No. And have you forgot that for 3D an ARRAY of such DSP was mentioned? Do you know the meaning of ARRAY?

Irreverent. Compute unit array can scale up or down.

Quote:

@cdimauro Sure, but see above: which SDK they have used? Which 3D HARDWARE acceleration?

Irreverent. What's important is the texture-mapped 3D result.

Game consoles with half-baked 3D HARDWARE acceleration are just cheapo Pentium class results. Pentium is relatively expensive relative to "cheap RISC" with custom 3D extensions.

Sega Saturn's texture mapper is just sprite engine with distortion features. Two 28 Mhz Super-H2 CPUs are used in a master and slave model.

Sony PS1's GTE (58 Mhz, 66 MIPS) recycles another cutdown and customized MIPS-based CPU. MIPS3000A + GTE are two MIPS-based CPU IP blocks. PS1 GPU has the texture mapper.


Quote:

@cdimauro CRIPPLED Chip RAM access.

Hint: A clean sheet 32-bit shared memory design is already behind the "3MB 32-bit game console group" with discrete video memory i.e. PS1, 3DO, and Saturn.

From http://amiga.resource.cx/mod/access.html
Quote:

Access incorporates an improved Chip RAM interface which couples it directly to the processor, giving twice as fast memory read performance as of a standard A1200. (skip) Access incorporates the core Amiga chips only: Alice, Paula, Denise and 8520 CIAs. Other chips seen in AGA Amigas designs (Gayle, Budgie) are replaced by a fresh new chip design, offering benefits which among others allowes the increased processor access speed to Chip RAM.

Games like Turrcian 2 AGA with PC VGA's 256 color art assets recommend Fast RAM due to performance issues. https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=106735


Quote:

@cdimauro (snip)because that was made by YOUR beloved engineers

Irreverent.

Quote:

@cdimauro (snip) that you are still desperately protecting.

Irreverent.

Quote:

@cdimauro Whatever, but it was the base of the A1200. Do you agree or not that at least the IDE interface was a Good Thing to have?

Irreverent. You're dodging Mehdi Ali/Bill Sydnes/Jeff Franks administration who caused $366 million dollar loss and $116 million debt.

Fact: A1200 has a higher cost structure (cite: Commodore - The Final Years).

Quote:

@cdimauro Be clear and honest one time in your life!

Irreverent.

Again, you're dodging Mehdi Ali/Bill Sydnes/Jeff Franks administration who caused $366 million dollar loss and $116 million debt.

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_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Hammer

Frivolous and sloppy conversation...

@cdimauro

Quote:

From the SBC Amigas: the 500 and the 1200. I've developed my games on my 1200 (attached to a TV!).

Sounds ideal, software developers’ dream!

My point remains… the primary function of the "big box" Amiga was to have systems for developers. The big box systems had pretty much the same chipset as their “lower" sibling systems as they were typically the target.

Last edited by kolla on 11-Aug-2024 at 07:13 PM.

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

Remember, when the Amiga was released in 1985:

There was no OCS
There was no A1000
There was no Classic

Only Amiga.

_________________
Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@A1200

Early A1000 NTSC had ICS (initial chipset) without 64-color EHB (6-bitplanes) mode.

A1000 PAL and later A1000 NTSC have OCS with 64-color EHB mode.

Amiga Ranger increased bit planes to 7 and it was cancelled in mid-1986 and was directed to focus on monochrome high-res Denise.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @cdimauro Quote: From the SBC Amigas: the 500 and the 1200. I've developed my games on my 1200 (attached to a TV!). Sounds ideal, software developers’ dream!

Or a nightmare: it wasn't easy to use those machines for development.

However, it was hardware on my previous A2000, which had only two floppies. On the A1200 I had an hard drive, and rebooting in case of issues (many times, with the Amiga) took much less.
Quote:

My point remains… the primary function of the "big box" Amiga was to have systems for developers.

Not only for developers: they were high-end system for different markets/needs.
Quote:

The big box systems had pretty much the same chipset as their “lower" sibling systems as they were typically the target.

Sure.

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: Amiga Ranger increased bit planes to 7 and it was cancelled in mid-1986 and was directed to focus on monochrome high-res Denise.

Are you sure about this date? Because Jay Miner worked for Commodore 'til 1988.

@Hammer

My point is OCS (and what you are calling ICS - Denise without EHB), are retrospective terms. They wouldn't have been called that at the time as they wouldn't have envisaged there being a new chipset when in the "muck and bullets" of releasing a new machine.

A good post on the goings on during A1000 / Amiga - ;o) rollout here.

_________________
Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: Are you sure about this date? Because Jay Miner worked for Commodore 'til 1988.

From Henri Rubin's directive, the original Amiga team was re-tasked for monochrome high-res Denise.

Quote:

From Commodore - The Final Years, Hi-Res Chipset Handoff Jay Miner, Dave Needle, Mark Shieu, and Glenn Keller had begun designing a new higher-resolution Amiga chipset in late 1985, which was intended for the Ranger computer. Although Ranger had been cancelled in mid-1986, the chipset development continued. By January 1987, (with Dave Needle gone since mid-1986) the chip designs were nearing completion. Miner’s team produced two new chips for Denise and Agnus, while ignoring upgrades to Paula. The chipset was meant to compete with the high resolution, monochrome displays of the Atari ST, Macintosh, and Sun systems. Of these, the impressive high-resolution monochrome display of the Atari ST was foremost in the minds of the Amiga engineers. The mode was used mainly for Atari ST productivity software. Prior designs of Agnus relied on PAL and NTSC versions in two different chips, but the new version, dubbed Fatter Agnus, could handle both standards in one chip. PAL or NTSC were selected via a system configuration setting in software. (Denise had always been compatible with either PAL or NTSC.) The Fatter Agnus chip would also receive a minor enhancement allowing 1 MB of chip memory instead of the original 512 KB.

--------------------
Gary's design problem with CSG.

Quote:

From Commodore - The Final Years, CSG was able to produce Agnus, Denise, and Paula for $5.49, $5.19, and $7.91 respectively. Curiously, Gerard Bucas did not trust CSG to produce the Gary chip on time. “MOS Technology, I would say, eventually became a millstone around Commodore’s neck,� he says. “Jeff Porter and I, but especially me, decided, ‘Listen, I'm not going to do the gate array with them. I don't believe they can meet the timeline and I don't believe they can make it in volume at the right price.’� This was not politically popular at Commodore, but Bucas felt it was the correct move. “We designed it, but the manufacturing of that, we actually outsourced to someone else,� he says. “We outsourced the chip to VLSI Technology, which was a third-party chip company.�

https://amiga.resource.cx/photos/photo2.pl?id=a500&pg=1&res=hi&lang=en
A500 rev 3's Gary chip without MOS markings. Later A500's Gary chip has MOS marking.

Gary chip with Japan marking comes from Toshiba.

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_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB