I’m coming back to this topic because the “2009 contract signed under coercion� seems like a very serious issue to me. When a company is in financial distress, agreements can be challenged—especially if there is evidence of intimidation, as mentioned in the post. I found a more detailed explanation about how shareholder disputes and legal conflicts can escalate into complex lawsuits on this business litigation site.

Last edited by cpaek72 on 03-Jul-2025 at 02:16 PM.

@cpaek72

The 2009 agreement doesn't have consideration i.e, an exchange of value.

_________________
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 7950X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@matthey

Quote:

Hyperion was only profitable in 3 out of 10 years which were 2021, 2019 and 2018. The 68k AmigaOS 3.1.4 was released in 2018 and AmigaOS 3.2 was released in 2021. I believe the 68k AmigaOS 100% saved Hyperion from bankruptcy even though it is still near bankruptcy. Consider the debt to equity ratios.

68K Amiga has a larger install base when compared to neo-Amiga PPCs.

PPC embedded market's economies of scale from one large vendor don't benefit other smaller system integrators. For example, TP-Link TL-WDR4900 v1's economies of scale didn't benefit other PPC e500 smaller system integrators. The pattern is repeated for "Amiga tax" Phase 5 PPC vs Apple PPC.

Mainland Europe couldn't build a competitively priced and performance game console platform.

Commodore-Amiga Inc.'s A500 business model is a near game console price/performance structure with a keyboard and mouse.

UK's Raspberry Pi (with ARM minority ownership) manages to reboot its Acorn spiritual successor without interference from Jack Tramiel's Commodore.

Last edited by Hammer on 01-Jul-2025 at 02:12 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Jul-2025 at 02:06 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 7950X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

cpaek72 Quote:

I’m coming back to this topic because the “2009 contract signed under coercion� seems like a very serious issue to me. When a company is in financial distress, agreements can be challenged - especially if there is evidence of intimidation, as mentioned in the post.

Yes, I believe coercion of a financially distressed business is serious. Amiga Inc lost their financing after Pentti Kouri's passing and Hyperion had their own financial problems but was not only bailed out but miraculously found enough financing to sue Amiga Inc into signing the 2009 settlement agreement. There is evidence of Ben Hermans threatened Amiga Inc CEO Bill McEwen.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/1kSIJR_3xeJbDfnBS2ZmcsgMZV82OXuTq/edit Quote:

Ben Hermans Sunday, February 26, 2017 10:06 AM 'billmcewen@hotmail.com' Friendly proposal before regretful court action Hi Bill, It appears you stepped down as CEO and president or whatever titles you were holding at Amiga Inc. In the process you let the Amiga US trademarks expire. I had to retain a specialized law-firm to refile the trademarks. Which cost quite a bit of money and is blatant violation of the settlement agreement between the Amiga Parties and Hyperion. They pointed me to some friendly litigators over in Seattle who are experts at tracking down former execs and officers of companies and dragging them in to court (in whatever state they are hiding). I assume you rather avoid that expense and annoyance. Your EU trademarks are still valid. If you sign them over to Hyperion, we can avoid this unpleasantness. You know representation is going to cost you whatever happens. Please confirm you agree to sign over the Amiga held EU trademarks in Europe to Hyperion within the next 3 business days or we will file a claim against both the defunct Amiga entity and yourself personally. I can't give you more time because we are up against a statute of limitation so we are not going to take chances. Fair warning Bill. You save a lot of hassle and money in return for something you walked away from. Please do reply. You know I am not the one to talk big and then not follow up on my actions. I trust you will see the extremely reasonable nature of my proposal. Otherwise the gloves come off. Your call. Best regards,

Hyperion also threatened Retro Games Limited (RGL) and their partners before THE A500 Mini release and before THE A1200 Maxi release, successfully delaying the latter.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/full-size-amiga-1200-announced-and-delayed-by-retro-games-ltd.1139862/ Quote:

FULL SIZED AMIGA RELEASE UPDATE As everyone knows, it has long been our intention to release a full-size sequel to THE A500 mini in Q1 of 2025. Despite the best efforts of our team and partners, this will sadly not be possible within that timeline. Unfortunately, the ongoing legal disputes between Hyperion Entertainment and the Amiga parties are preventing us from proceeding with manufacturing. Many of you in 'The Amiga scene' will recall that Hyperion initiated legal action against the Amiga parties in 2018, and in 2019 they even tried, unsuccessfully, to challenge the release of THE A500 Mini, despite such interference being a "Hyperion Prohibited Action" under their 2009 Settlement Agreement. Our friends at Amiga and Cloanto, who have supported us throughout the development of THEC64, THEVIC20, and THE A500 mini, have been working tirelessly to resolve the issue as swiftly as possible. However, our manufacturing and retail partners have chosen to postpone the release of our full-sized machine until the legal situation is fully resolved. We appreciate the disappointment and frustration that these delays cause, but unfortunately the situation is completely beyond our control. In the near future, we will share more details about the machine itself, including images, features and software line-up, including one brand new game that will make its debut on the machine. We will also issue a revised release date which will be as soon as is practically possible. Thank you for your continued patience and support. We do understand that you are as frustrated as we are. Whilst these legal issues do not directly involve us, they do of course have an effect on what we do. Everyone is working hard to resolve these issues as quickly as possible, and we believe that a resolution is in sight. In the light of the ongoing delays, we think it's only fair to share with you that the machine is to be called…. 'THE A1200' The team at RGL.

THE A1200 threats came after Ben and the Hyperion Reorg/Restructure. There have been other threats too. Threats and coercion seem to be Hyperion's modus operandi.

Hammer Quote:

The 2009 agreement doesn't have consideration i.e, an exchange of value.

I agree there was practically no consideration/benefit for Amiga Inc and the 2009 settlement agreement was not quid pro quo. If there was one thing of value that Amiga Inc received in the settlement agreement, it was that Hyperion would not challenge ownership of Amiga IP but that was not respected. The only other benefit that Amiga Inc received was not in the contract but the fact that the settlement agreement ended the litigation by Hyperion against a financially distressed Amiga Inc. Both of these arguments reinforce each other to paint the picture of a predatory conspiracy to steal the Amiga IP, which continues today. Hyperion has no rights to block or threaten RGL without challenging ownership of Amiga IP in violation of the settlement agreement. It was only Ben Herman's outrages big lies that made it possible.

Ben's big lie #1

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.256770/gov.uscourts.wawd.256770.7.0.pdf Quote:

58. However, the copyrightable content of Kickstart 1.3 is subsumed within the Software and Software Architecture to which the Settlement Agreement grants Hyperion an exclusive license (subject to the Existing License Agreements listed in Exhibit 1 of the Settlement Agreement). Specifically, each version of AmigaOS (which consists of two components, “Kickstart� and “Workbench�) has the same “Software Architecture� as documented in the Documentation and as defined in Definition o. of the Settlement Agreement to mean “the structure or structures of the system, which comprise software components (i.e., those assumptions other elements can make of an element, such as its provided services, performance characteristics, fault handling, shared resource usage, and so on), and the relationships between them; the term also refers to documentation of a system’s software architecture�.

Hyperion may only use AmigaOS 3.1 for AmigaOS 4 according to the 2009 settlement agreement with Amiga Inc and Cloanto has a copyright on earlier Kickstart versions. Ben argues that because they are all built on each other and are similar, they are indistinguishable from each other and Hyperion can use any of them, after they change the checkmark logo to a boing ball logo for the Kickstart and change the copyrights of the AmigaOS to Hyperion.

Ben's big lie #2

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.256770/gov.uscourts.wawd.256770.7.0.pdf Quote:

59. Furthermore, consistent with Hyperion’s license to Software expressly conferred by the Settlement Agreement, Hyperion’s license permits it “to use, develop, modify, commercialize, distribute and market the Software . . . for any current or future hardware platform.� As admitted by Cloanto, certain hardware platforms require the Kickstart 1.3 content in order to run the software.

The Software is defined specifically as AmigaOS 3.1 in the settlement agreement. Kickstart 1.3 is not needed "in order to run the" Software defined as AmigaOS 3.1. However, Ben's last use of "software" is not capitalized because Hyperion wants to run all Amiga software.

Ben's big lie #3

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.256770/gov.uscourts.wawd.256770.7.0.pdf Quote:

61. Hyperion’s exclusive license to use the marks AmigaOS, Amiga OS, AmigaOne, and Amiga One necessarily and inherently confers an implied license to use the mark AMIGA, which is the dominant portion of all of the foregoing marks. 62. Nowhere does the Settlement Agreement prohibit Hyperion from using AMIGA alone, yet the Settlement Agreement expressly reserves the right for the Amiga Parties to “use the mark ‘AMIGA’ alone or in conjunction with other words, so long as ‘OS’ or ‘One’ does not directly follow the word “’AMIGA.’� The perceived need to carve out this right for the Amiga Parties from the exclusive license granted to Hyperion evinces that a non-exclusive right in the same also remained for Hyperion under the Settlement Agreement.

Hyperion's license for "AmigaOS, Amiga OS, AmigaOne, and Amiga One" gives it the right to use "Amiga" alone too, according to Ben. Amiga Inc was using "Amiga" itself. The "Amiga" brand was the primary, and perhaps only reason, Amiga Inc acquired the Amiga IP as AmigaDE (Amiga NOwhere) did not use the 68k, the Amiga chipset or the AmigaOS. The whole idea of "AmigaOne" is that it is not "Amiga" which was acquired specifically for Amiga Inc use. The "carve out this right for the Amiga Parties" claim is just as absurd as if the "Amiga" owner carving out the use of "Amiga" for themselves is somehow unfair to the licensee. Hyperion acts like they are the owner licensing to Amiga Inc.

Hammer Quote:

68K Amiga has a larger install base when compared to neo-Amiga PPCs.

Yes. Hyperion would likely already be out of business if not for the larger 68k Amiga market and high profit margin 68k AmigaOS do to the developers not being payed. Hyperion had two choices after the Reorg/Restructure.

1. continue with Ben's big lies, threats and shenanigans as an illegitimate business
2. negotiate with Amiga Corporation, return to contract compliance and become a legitimate business porting games again with a larger 68k Amiga game market do to THE A1200 Maxi

Hyperion's partners in conspiracy and collusion have other interests which influence their actions though. The Hyperion A-EonKit syndicate could win if Cloanto/Amiga Corporation ran out of cash for lawsuits by blocking licensing/royalties from RGL and selling illegal pre AmigaOS 3.1 Amiga IP or from a really ignorant jury. It amazes me how open and blatant Hyperion is in Amiga IP violations. It is no longer in the shadows like when Ben was secretly selling pre AmigaOS 3.1 licenses to iComp and others but brazen and willful disregard for the Amiga IP owner. This was a case where an injunction against Hyperion should have been granted. Unfortunately, the judge can not see the big picture and expects a settlement with criminals.

Hammer Quote:

PPC embedded market's economies of scale from one large vendor don't benefit other smaller system integrators. For example, TP-Link TL-WDR4900 v1's economies of scale didn't benefit other PPC e500 smaller system integrators. The pattern is repeated for "Amiga tax" Phase 5 PPC vs Apple PPC.

I do not believe the PPC embedded market ever had economies of scale like the ARM Thumb market. PPC had high end embedded telecommunication and auto market niches as it had better performance than ARM Thumb which was weak compared to the 68k too as I wrote in another thread. AArch64 is perhaps the most similar to PPC but improved in almost every way including code density which is very important for embedded use. This is why PPC was quickly replaced by AArch64.

Hammer Quote:

Mainland Europe couldn't build a competitively priced and performance game console platform.

It would be difficult to support a competitive full console with just European sales. The CD32 came close but it was more of a budget console and adding a keyboard and mouse to turn it into a full computer was likely appealing for Europe. If the price could have been reduced by $100 USD/Euros while at least doubling the performance like Commodore planned with their 68k SoC, it would have been more like a microconsole and I believe would have sold well enough to survive just from European sales. It would be safer to include at least some North American and Asian sales though.

Hammer Quote:

Commodore-Amiga Inc.'s A500 business model is a near game console price/performance structure with a keyboard and mouse. UK's Raspberry Pi (with ARM minority ownership) manages to reboot its Acorn spiritual successor without interference from Jack Tramiel's Commodore.

The RPi filled the budget mass market void left by Commodore. Had Commodore survived, they likely would have become what RPi is today except better and sooner. Bring back the 68k and the hardware would have more native games than the RPi. The 68k was just as legendary as ARM in the embedded market until Motorola stopped developing it and poured profits from it into PPC. This is about as smart as the Hyperion A-EonKit syndicate surviving and developing the niche PPC AmigaNOne from the larger 68k Amiga market profits that are just scratching the surface of the mass market potential compared to competitive mass produced 68k Amiga hardware. Hyperion failed to license all the valuable Amiga IP they needed even with the likely coerced non quid pro quo settlement agreement so required big lies and openly challenging Amiga IP ownership to steal more Amiga IP just to survive. The Hyperion A-EonKit syndicate leaders claim to be big Amiga fans but they would have no credibility if they were successful in stealing enough Amiga IP to survive. RGL, the new Commodore and other businesses recognize who is the true Amiga IP owner and who are the illegitimate usurpers.

Last edited by matthey on 02-Jul-2025 at 02:10 AM.
Last edited by matthey on 02-Jul-2025 at 02:03 AM.
Last edited by matthey on 02-Jul-2025 at 01:46 AM.

@matthey

For https://docs.google.com/file/d/1kSIJR_3xeJbDfnBS2ZmcsgMZV82OXuTq/edit

Nice drama.

Commodore's new CEO, Peri Fractic / Christian Simpson's background is from Hollywood. LOL.

matthey
Quote:

I do not believe the PPC embedded market ever had economies of scale like the ARM Thumb market. PPC had high end embedded telecommunication and auto market niches as it had better performance than ARM Thumb which was weak compared to the 68k too as I wrote in another thread. AArch64 is perhaps the most similar to PPC but improved in almost every way including code density which is very important for embedded use. This is why PPC was quickly replaced by AArch64.

ARM has a national security issue when the UK government intervenes in Nvidia's bid to buy ARM. The UK government allows Japan's Softbank to take over ARM.

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/ftc-opens-in-depth-probe-into-softbanks-65bn-acquisition-of-ampere-computing-report/
Date: July 02, 2025

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened an in-depth investigation into SoftBank’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Ampere Computing


US FTC is noticing Softbank's cumulative actions.

Quote:

It would be difficult to support a competitive full console with just European sales. The CD32 came close but it was more of a budget console and adding a keyboard and mouse to turn it into a full computer was likely appealing for Europe. If the price could have been reduced by $100 USD/Euros while at least doubling the performance like Commodore planned with their 68k SoC, it would have been more like a microconsole and I believe would have sold well enough to survive just from European sales. It would be safer to include at least some North American and Asian sales though.

CD32 wasn't close when it compared itself against the equally failed Sega Mega-CD.

Sony's PlayStation 3rd party developer campaign was already active in 1993 with the Ridge Racer demo on the operational PlayStation 1. Core Design's Tomb Raider R&D started in 1994 after BC Racers for the Sega Mega CD. Core Design wanted to mix the adventuring style of PC's Ultima Underworld and the 3D characters shown off in Virtua Fighter (1993).

Commodore's A1200 SoC's 68EC020 @ 56 MHz speculation is not competitive due to weak IPC relative to PlayStation 1's LSI Coreware(USA) MIPS R3050 (R3000A with embedded MMU) @ 33.86 Mhz + MIPS-based GTE @ 33.86 Mhz + Toshiba(JP)-designed 3D texture map accelerator @ 53 Mhz. Commodore's A1200 SoC is just A1200.

Reminder, Namco System 22 arcade system runs Ridge Racer with 68020 @ 25 Mhz , 2X TMS32025 DSP @ 49.152 MHz, Evans & Sutherland TR3 3D accelerator and Namco Custom Video display chipset. PlayStation 1 has closed the gap with Namco System 22's Ridge Racer use case. MIPS R3050 + GTE @ 33.86 Mhz had close the gap with 2X TMS32025 DSP @ 49.152 MHz.

MIPS R3050 is 68LC040 class. Again, prove the 68LC040 equipped game console that rivals PS1 in 1991 to 1993 development cycle!

You're not going to win the cheap 3D power with Motorola!

Dragon Ball VZ's 68000 @ 66 Mhz was smashed by 1 IPC StrongARM / ARM9T @ 120 Mhz+! From Palm OS 5 onwards, Dragon Ball VZ was replaced by ARM-based processors from Texas Instruments and Intel. 1 IPC RISC cores are the poor man's 68LC040-class CPUs with high clock speed. Cheap MMUs are included with the mentioned RISC CPUs. There's a reason for the low-cost 486DX4 and 5x86 (486 enhanced) at high clock speeds. 68LC040 100MHz doesn't exist.

Motorola is behind on price vs performance.

Last edited by Hammer on 02-Jul-2025 at 04:00 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 02-Jul-2025 at 03:57 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 02-Jul-2025 at 03:41 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 02-Jul-2025 at 02:59 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 02-Jul-2025 at 02:39 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 02-Jul-2025 at 02:35 PM.

_________________
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 7950X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: The RPi filled the budget mass market void left by Commodore. Had Commodore survived, they likely would have become what RPi is today except better and sooner.

That's unlikely. Commodore expired in 1994. The RPi was released in 2012, 18 years later. The landscape was completely different.

The RPi's purpose was quite different too. It was designed to “promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing� by "teaching computer programming to children". It has far more in common with the Arduino - an embedded development board - than the Amiga, and has been used far more for such applications than as a general purpose computer.

The two initial licensed distributors of the RPi were Farnell and RS Components, who were the main suppliers of electronic components to industrial users and hobbyists (or at least those who could get a trade account with them) - and demand was so high that it crashed their websites. This tells you what sort of customer was interested in it. Why did they want one? Not to act as a low cost desktop computer - that was impracticable in an environment where PC compatibility was essential. But the RPI had the power to do stuff like machine vision, video playback and networking that was beyond the Arduino's capabilities - in a package that cost about the same. Suddenly all those embedded applications that were too complex and/or expensive became easy.

Had Commodore survived I doubt they would have considered moving in that direction. Instead they would make the Amiga more like a PC with a different OS, perhaps even becoming one (like the Mac did) and/or producing a gaming console like the Xbox that shared their desktop computer technology. IOW exactly what they were already doing. Making a palm-sized embedded development board for hobbyists to program in Python would be the last thing on their mind.

Last edited by bhabbott on 03-Jul-2025 at 01:41 AM.

Hammer Quote:

For https://docs.google.com/file/d/1kSIJR_3xeJbDfnBS2ZmcsgMZV82OXuTq/edit Nice drama. Commodore's new CEO, Peri Fractic / Christian Simpson's background is from Hollywood. LOL.

Maybe they can make movies to promote the Commodore/Amiga brand, educate about the history and expose the criminals that have been trying to steal Commodore/Amiga IP for over a decade. Famous criminals are more likely to be prosecuted and receive harsher punishments do to outcries. The criminals are more likely to be ostracized and their products boycotted as well. People still treat the criminals like celebrities but maybe Hollywood celebrities would overshadow them.

Hammer Quote:

CD32 wasn't close when it compared itself against the equally failed Sega Mega-CD.

There were 2.24 million Sega CD units sold and over 200 games released for it which is far from a complete failure for a backward compatible add-on. It is difficult to compare the CD32 and Sega CD but the CD32 offered much better value hardware to new customers and the cost was likely lower.

Sega CD
cpu: 68000@12.5MHz
memory: 64kiB SRAM, 64kiB VRAM
colors: 64/512 colors
sprites: up to 80 32-bit sprites
CD-ROM: single speed
royalties: ~$10/disc
cost: $370 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_CD#Development)
retail: $299 (needs base unit)

CD32
cpu: 68EC020@14MHz
memory: 2MiB DRAM
colors: 256,000/16million
sprites: up to 8 64-bit sprites + bobs
CD-ROM: double speed
royalties: $3/disc
cost: $235 (Commodore_Post_Bankruptcy.pdf)
retail: $399

Since the Sega Genesis was more popular in the US than anywhere else in the world, Sega had an advantage there. The CD32 outsold the Sega CD in parts of Europe though. Reducing the CD32 price by $100 USD with a 68k Amiga SoC as planned may have allowed wholesale prices to drop from $299 to $199 while performance likely would have at least doubled. I think stores in Europe would have had trouble keeping it in stock and it may have even started to sell in the US.

Hammer Quote:

Sony's PlayStation 3rd party developer campaign was already active in 1993 with the Ridge Racer demo on the operational PlayStation 1. Core Design's Tomb Raider R&D started in 1994 after BC Racers for the Sega Mega CD. Core Design wanted to mix the adventuring style of PC's Ultima Underworld and the 3D characters shown off in Virtua Fighter (1993).

The PS1 did not reach Europe and the US until late 1995. The CD32 would have already had 2 Christmas seasons to increase the install base. Amiga Games were cheaper and easier to port to the CD32 and lack of games were a weakness early for the PS1. The PS1 introductory $299 price would have severely hurt sales and likely forced significant price reductions but the CD32 would have had a low enough cost with the 68k Amiga SoC to reduce the price to half of the PS1. The larger software library and expansion ability into a full computer likely would have made it survivable for some time as a microconsole. The CD32 would have required at least a 3D upgrade ASAP though.

Hammer Quote:

Commodore's A1200 SoC's 68EC020 @ 56 MHz speculation is not competitive due to weak IPC relative to PlayStation 1's LSI Coreware(USA) MIPS R3050 (R3000A with embedded MMU) @ 33.86 Mhz + MIPS-based GTE @ 33.86 Mhz + Toshiba(JP)-designed 3D texture map accelerator @ 53 Mhz. Commodore's A1200 SoC is just A1200. ... MIPS R3050 is 68LC040 class. Again, prove the 68LC040 equipped game console that rivals PS1 in 1991 to 1993 development cycle! You're not going to win the cheap 3D power with Motorola!

Early MIPS CPUs had weak performance despite single cycle throughput instructions. The average IPC is nowhere close to 1.0 for the PS1 MIPS CPU. Any timing advantage when not accessing memory is lost when accessing memory which is a huge bottleneck. MIPS stands for Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages and the R2000/R3000 cores can not stall in most situations because of it. That means reading a register before the previous result in ready gives undefined behavior. This requires NOPs to fill load and branch delay slots resulting in very poor code density and more instructions to execute.

https://jsgroth.dev/blog/posts/ps1-cpu/ Quote:

Load Due to how the R3000 pipelines instruction execution, when a load instruction reads data from memory, that data is not available to the very next instruction. I think it’s easier to explain this with an example: lw r9, 0(r8) ; Load a word into R9 andi r10, r9, 0x007F ; Oh no! R9 not loaded yet The andi r10, r9, 0x007F instruction will use whatever value was previously in R9 instead of using the value that was just loaded from memory, because the value from memory has not yet been persisted to the register file. The instruction after the andi will be able to see the newly loaded R9 value. Software typically works around this by just sticking an effective no-op in between the load and the instruction that uses the data: lw r9, 0(r8) ; Load a word into R9 sll r0, r0, 0 ; No-op to deal with load delay andi r10, r9, 0x007F ; All is well Load delay was pretty much universally condemned as a terrible thing to expose to software, not just because it’s annoying to deal with but also because it exposes hardware details that could change in later hardware revisions. Later MIPS revisions realized this and completely removed the concept of load delay, at least as far as it being visible to software.

Instead of load-to-use stalls there is undefined behavior. This would result in more than double the memory traffic in most cases if not for the small 4kiB instruction cache but it performs like a 1kiB 68k instruction cache. A 68EC020@57MHz may be able to compete against a R3051@33.86MHz with that much of a clock speed advantage. It should have been possible to increase the cache sizes of the 68020/68030 class CPU in the SoC too. One thing is for sure, the 68k is much easier to program even if the 68020/68030 design was showing its age by the early 1990s. It would have been possible to reduce the caches of a 68040 class CPU for a console which then would have had a performance advantage over the R3051 although it may have used too much power until the 68040V followed by the 68060. There was too large of gap between the 68030 and 68040 do to 68040 development delays which certainly hurt the 68k. The IPC advantage switched to the 68k which MIPS could not match when the 68060 had single cycle throughput for most instructions, including instructions accessing cached memory. The 68060 had a real world average 1.2 CPI using real software including cache misses while the R4000 best case CPI reached about 1.2 CPI assuming no cache misses. Early MIPS cores were cheap and the stripped down cores could be clocked high but they were weak. Even ARM cores were better including the ISA.

Hammer Quote:

Dragon Ball VZ's 68000 @ 66 Mhz was smashed by 1 IPC StrongARM / ARM9T @ 120 Mhz+! From Palm OS 5 onwards, Dragon Ball VZ was replaced by ARM-based processors from Texas Instruments and Intel. 1 IPC RISC cores are the poor man's 68LC040-class CPUs with high clock speed. Cheap MMUs are included with the mentioned RISC CPUs. There's a reason for the low-cost 486DX4 and 5x86 (486 enhanced) at high clock speeds. 68LC040 100MHz doesn't exist. Motorola is behind on price vs performance.

It was not the performance that won the StrongARM contract but the low power. The StrongARM SA-110 uses 2.5 million transistors which is about the same as the 68060. The superscalar 68060 would smoke the scalar SA-110 at the same clock speed. The 68060 operates at 3.3V where the SA-110 operated at between 1.2V and 2.2V. DEC was one of the leading if not best CPU producers and made a high tech investment in ARM technology while the DragonBall series was developed by Motorola Hong Kong while Motorola primarily invested in PPC from 68k profits. Simple CPUs with high clock speeds are not the way to performance. ARM did not have a CPU core that could compete with the 1994 68060 in general purpose integer performance at the same clock speed until the ARM Cortex-A7 in 2011 (the 2005 ARM Cortex-A8 was more of a media/throughput processor kind of like ARM's version of the Pentium 4 and also abandoned). ARM had a huge chip process advantage after 17 years of Moore's Law and finally surpassed the 68060 performance.

Last edited by matthey on 03-Jul-2025 at 02:51 AM.

bhabbott Quote:

That's unlikely. Commodore expired in 1994. The RPi was released in 2012, 18 years later. The landscape was completely different.

The embedded market grew a lot in that time which Commodore would have been unable to ignore.

bhabbott Quote:

The RPi's purpose was quite different too. It was designed to “promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing� by "teaching computer programming to children". It has far more in common with the Arduino - an embedded development board - than the Amiga, and has been used far more for such applications than as a general purpose computer.

Half of RPi sales were for the embedded market. As for the other half, it is difficult to separate hobby and education markets sometimes. Very cheap SBCs make hobbyist experimentation economical which is educational and may result in embedded market products.

bhabbott Quote:

The two initial licensed distributors of the RPi were Farnell and RS Components, who were the main suppliers of electronic components to industrial users and hobbyists (or at least those who could get a trade account with them) - and demand was so high that it crashed their websites. This tells you what sort of customer was interested in it. Why did they want one? Not to act as a low cost desktop computer - that was impracticable in an environment where PC compatibility was essential. But the RPI had the power to do stuff like machine vision, video playback and networking that was beyond the Arduino's capabilities - in a package that cost about the same. Suddenly all those embedded applications that were too complex and/or expensive became easy. Had Commodore survived I doubt they would have considered moving in that direction. Instead they would make the Amiga more like a PC with a different OS, perhaps even becoming one (like the Mac did) and/or producing a gaming console like the Xbox that shared their desktop computer technology. IOW exactly what they were already doing. Making a palm-sized embedded development board for hobbyists to program in Python would be the last thing on their mind.

Commodore was already moving in that direction of cheaper SBCs with the Amiga CD32.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_CD32#Deployments Quote:

Deployments In 1993, 109 CD32 units were installed to run the interactive exhibits at the London Transport Museum, Covent Garden. They provided information, animations, pictures, sound, and text available in several languages, and a London Underground simulator. The systems were produced by the Odiham, Hampshire-based company Index Information, using their CD32x interface units. In 1995, an Italian company named CD Express used the CD32 as a basis for an arcade machine called CUBO CD32. Inside these machines, stock CD32s were hooked up to an external circuit board which essentially acted as a converter to route all the input and output into a standard JAMMA connector for use in an arcade cabinet. The software was provided on CD-ROM. Nine games are known to exist, all of which are original games created by CD Express. In the mid to late 1990s, some vehicle registries in Canada used CD32 systems for interactive multimedia testing for drivers license applications. In the late 1990s to early 2000s, slot machine manufacturer StarGames used a stripped down CD32 motherboard in many of its slot machines. Machines confirmed to be operating on CD32 hardware are Hawaiian Delight, Leprechaun Luck, and Mister Magic. From 1994 to 1997, Wall Street Institute used CD32 systems at its learning centers. Main features include software with voice tone recognition and interactive activities very focused on listening. Those consoles have a floppy disk drive unit attached, with a clock unit, for saving students' progress and sharing them with teachers. Data was stored in a central database and the system offered an advanced multimedia environment with statistics. It was replaced with PC systems after some years of intensive use and a very strong stock of spare consoles and pieces. In 1995, Taurus Ventures Inc in Burnaby, BC developed the VanCity Direct TV system based on the CD32 for the VanCity Credit Union. It features a custom modem, also designed by TVi.

Many of these embedded market deployments continued after Commodore declared bankruptcy which is impressive with uncertain and limited availability. Just think how much larger this market would have been if Commodore had not gone bankrupt and if the CD32 was $100 USD cheaper with the 68k Amiga SoC planned. The 68k Amiga SoC would have not only at least doubled the performance but it would have allowed for a smaller SBC and much lower power SBC do to the better integrated all CMOS design. Commodore was headed in the right direction just too slowly under bad leadership.

Last edited by matthey on 03-Jul-2025 at 03:19 AM.

@matthey

Quote:

There were 2.24 million Sega CD units sold and over 200 games released for it which is far from a complete failure for a backward compatible add-on. It is difficult to compare the CD32 and Sega CD but the CD32 offered much better value hardware to new customers and the cost was likely lower.

Sega CD has a production span from Q4 1991 to 1996, which is about a 373,333 production rates average with a total 2.24 million installed base. Sega CD's production duration was longer than CD32 and 3DO.

3DO has a production span from Q4 1993 to 1996, which is about a 666,666 production rates average with a total 2 million installed base.

Quote:

Sega CD cpu: 68000@12.5MHz memory: 64kiB SRAM, 64kiB VRAM colors: 64/512 colors sprites: up to 80 32-bit sprites CD-ROM: single speed royalties: ~$10/disc cost: $370 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_CD#Development) retail: $299 (needs base unit)

FYI, Sega CD includes a custom ASIC (with a 32-bit external bus @ 6.25 MHz, 25MB/s) that can perform similarly to the SNES's Mode 7 e.g. BC Racers i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1jolV7IyHk
Transformed graphics tiles are DMA'ed to the 256K VRAM (dual-port 16-bit) for display.

The gaming PC also had BC Racers.

Only AA Lisa can access the effective 7.1 MHz 32-bit external bus FPM DRAM improvements. 68EC020 access the "improved" Chip RAM @ effective 3.5 MHz 32-bit.
AA Alice access the "improved" Chip RAM @ effective 3.5 MHz 16-bit.
This specification is from the original A3000's 32-bit improvement from the 1988 era.
A3000's 32-bit Chip RAM bus access is identical to A1200's and A4000's.

Sega CD has a 16-bit system FPM DRAM 512KB (12.5 Mhz effective), discrete 16-bit dual port VRAM 256KB (32-bit, 6.25 MHz effective), discrete 64KB PCM audio samples RAM, 16 KB CD-RAM cache. Total 848 KB memory.

From https://segaretro.org/Sega_Mega-CD/Technical_specifications#cite_note-:File:MCD_MaintenanceManual_Export_RevA.pdf_p102-1

Your "68000" focus only hides Sega's value-added custom media co-processor ASICs.

3DO has 32-bit FPM DRAM 2MB and discrete 16-bit dual-port VRAM 1 MB.

PS1 has 32-bit FPM DRAM 2MB and discrete 16-bit dual-port VRAM or discrete 32-bit SGRAM 1 MB.


Quote:

Since the Sega Genesis was more popular in the US than anywhere else in the world, Sega had an advantage there. The CD32 outsold the Sega CD in parts of Europe though. Reducing the CD32 price by $100 USD with a 68k Amiga SoC as planned may have allowed wholesale prices to drop from $299 to $199 while performance likely would have at least doubled. I think stores in Europe would have had trouble keeping it in stock and it may have even started to sell in the US.

If AGA sales numbers are treated as worldwide
44,000 (the UK has 30,000 during its launch),
100,000 (AF50, Sep 1993),
170,000 (AF56, Feb 1994),
166,000 (CD32, Commodore US president, Jan 1994),
7,500 (Germany's A4000/030),
3,800 (Germany's A4000/040),
Total: 491,300 AGA units, mostly during 1993.

Older 16-bit consoles were overshadowed by PS1. Why are you arguing at retail release when system integration occurs BEFORE the product's retail release?

https://www.electronicproducts.com/mips-processors-to-push-performance-and-price/
From 1992, IDT MIPS R3040 @ 20 Mhz has $15 price, that's 68LC040 1 IPC class with a budget price.

PlayStation 1's LSI Logic R3050 selection is a no-brainer.

R3041 is a $15 R3000 variant with embedded MMU. Motorola continues to price the MMU-equipped 68030 not competitively i.e. follow the Intel 386DX price guide until AMD surprises them with aggressive Am386-40 prices.

68K exited from the best-selling 32-bit/64-bit game consoles.


ttps://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/04/102723262-05-01-acc.pdf
DataQuest 1991, page 119 of 981

For 1992,
68EC020-16, $16.06
68EC020-25, $19.99
68020-25, $35.13
68EC030-25, $35.94 (missing MMU, not Unix capable, used in A4000/030)
68030-25, $108.75
68040-25, $418.52
68EC040-25, $112.50 (missing MMU and FPU, Commodore management rejected glue chips for Amiga)

AM386-40, $102.50
R3000-25, $96.31

386DX-25, $103.00
80486SX-20, $157.75 (still has PMMU for Xenix 386, Windows NT, and Linux)
80486DX-25, $376.75
80486DX-33, $376.75
80486DX-50, $553.25
80486DX2-50, $502.75
All 32-bit X86 CPUs have a PMMU to establish an install base for a 32-bit OS with PMMU design.

AMD's Am386-40 surprise price attack on i386DX-25 and 68030-25 in 1991.


https://web.archive.org/web/20150208022940/http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/21/business/company-news-video-game-link-is-seen-for-nintendo.html
From 1993,

A computer industry official said MIPS, a subsidiary of Silicon Graphics,
had developed a version of its R4000 processor that operated on less than
one-half watt and could be produced for about $40 each


A no-brainer for Nintendo selecting embedded R4000 for N64's system integration phase.


Motorola's 68K would be repeating market exits from game consoles, desktops, workstations, servers, and smart handhelds.


Quote:

The PS1 did not reach Europe and the US until late 1995. The CD32 would have already had 2 Christmas seasons to increase the install base. Amiga Games were cheaper and easier to port to the CD32 and lack of games were a weakness early for the PS1. The PS1 introductory $299 price would have severely hurt sales and likely forced significant price reductions but the CD32 would have had a low enough cost with the 68k Amiga SoC to reduce the price to half of the PS1. The larger software library and expansion ability into a full computer likely would have made it survivable for some time as a microconsole. The CD32 would have required at least a 3D upgrade ASAP though.

PS1's influence before the western 1995 release occurred with 3rd party developers' road maps.

Sony's PS1 Ridge Race demo in 1993 effectively Osborn'ed the competition i.e. throttled competition.

At the same time with PS1 Ridge Race 1993 demo, PC platform was building up a critical install base numbers for Pentium 60/66 (in 1993), Pentium 75/90/100(1994), Pentium 120/133 (1995), which was ready against PS1's western 1995 release.

From [url]https://www.intel.fr/content/dam/doc/report/history-1994-annual-report.pdf[/url]
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. The 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.

By the end of 1994, Intel's Pentium PC install base crushed the entire Amiga install base of 4 to 5 million units.

PC CPU vendors ramped up high clock speeds for 486DX4, 5x86, and Pentium to meet the competition.

Amiga Hombre addressed Pentium-class PC gaming and PS1.


--------------------------------
CD32's FMV module has the following:

1. 24-bit DAC (STM's STV8438CV) for 16.7 million colors display.

2. MPEG-1 decoder from C-Cube CL450, 352 x 240 pixels @ 30hz, 352 x 288 pixels at 25 Hz, pixel interpolation and frame duplication to produce output formats of 704 x 240 pixels at 60 Hz or 704 x 288 pixels at 50 Hz.

[https://websrv.cecs.uci.edu/~papers/mpr/MPR/ARTICLES/060803.PDF

CL450 has about 398K transistors with up to 40 MHz. CL450 includes a licensed MIPS-X RISC processor with semi-custom extensions. In quantities of 100K or more per year, the price is less than $50 in 1992.
CL450's MIPS-X RISC processor still has the usual RISC instruction set.

3. LSI l64111qc (Digital Audio Decoder, 16-bit DAC),

4. 512 KB local RAM, NEC 423260 DRAM 4Mbit (512 KB) with 80 ns.

5. Lattice ispLSI 1024-60LJ CPLD.

MIPS-based CL450's $50 asking price in 1992 is within the range of embedded MIPS R3000/ R4000 variants. This is closest to Commodore's PlayStation, but Irving Gould directed the multimedia group to focus on MPEG1 VCD instead of focusing on the core business video game use case.


The initial BOM costings for the original Xbox
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/3do-mx-chipset-the-technology-nintendo-almost-used-in-an-n64-successor-for-1999.350196/#post-14521193


Brown said the goals were to make money, expand Microsoft's technology into the living room, and create the perception that Microsoft was leading the
charge in the new era of consumer appliances. The initial cost estimate was for a machine with a bill of materials (engineering talk for cost) of $303. That
machine would debut in the fall of 2000 and use a $20 microprocessor running at 350 megahertz from Advanced Micro Devices. The machine would also have
a $55 hard disk drive with two gigabytes of storage, a $27 DVD drive to play movies, a $35 graphics chip, $25 worth of memory chips, and a collection of
other standard parts like a motherboard, and power supply. Over time, these prices would decline.


$20 Intel-compatible microprocessor and a $30 graphics chip from Nvidia. The highest-priced item on the list of materials was $40 for memory chips. But the
rest of the bill of materials was complete, down to $2.14 for the cables and $4.85 for screws



Xbox's BOM cost parameters are close to mainstream wedge Amiga AGA.

Xbox's $303 BOM cost objective should be familiar to A1200's and CD32's BOM cost objective.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/og-xbox-was-planned-to-launch-with-an-amd-cpu-until-last-minute.62562/#post-2225089
Xbox's CPU increased to K7 Duron before switching to Intel Coppermine 128K. AMD 760 and so nForce/Xbox is mostly an AMD chipset that NVidia bought the rights to modify.

Each A1200 wasted $50 in revenue generated to repay the A600's production debt.

For the Xbox project, both AMD and Intel specifically targeted MIPS embedded CPU prices.
During Xbox development, both AMD and Intel continually offered higher-spec CPUs for a similar price target.

There's a reason why Motorola was out of the mainstream game consoles after the 16-bit era. Motorola is like General Motors of the semiconductor world with rot from the inside.

Microsoft has purchased (assimilated) the 3DO MX group and added them into the Xbox team, hence why the Xbox BOM price objective is very similar to Commodore's.

Amiga Homber's two ASIC chipsets' BOM cost estimate is roughly in line with Xbox's.

For $50 to $60 BOM cost target for a CPU and GPU combo, what's your solution? Hint: It wouldn't be 68LC040 since Motorola is rotting from the inside.

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Last edited by Hammer on 03-Jul-2025 at 04:58 AM.
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