We continue the series on opportunities to improve the Amiga chipset, talking about all the innovations that the parent company brought or was working on.

English: https://www.appuntidigitali.it/23117/missed-opportunities-to-improve-the-amiga-chipset-5-commodores-innovations/

Continuiamo la serie sulle occasioni per migliorare il chipset dell'Amiga, parlando di tutte le innovazioni che ha portato o a cui stava lavorando la casa madre.

Italian: https://www.appuntidigitali.it/22883/le-occasioni-mancate-per-migliorare-il-chipset-dellamiga-5-le-innovazioni-di-commodore/

@cdimauro

Gould seemingly no longer cared about the Amiga after the CDTV failed. It was all about power and money by then maybe it always was!

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

@cdimauro

You're looking at this problem via the retail side while attempting to be the armchair technical lead.

The problem starts before retail.

Read "Commodore - The Final Years" book and write a commentary on it.

"Commodore - The Final Years" will give you extra details about the specfic person who messed up.

Amiga Hombre reached the simulation stage with working hardware accelerated texture-mapped 3D design.

Unlike Sega Saturn or NVIDIA NV1, Amiga Hombre supports four and three-sided polygons.

Allan Havemose designed the hardware instruction set version.

Quote:

Commodore - The Final Years, In the past, Commodore’s system engineers had driven chip development. By November 5, 1993, the software developers in the AmigaOS group were finally given a voice. Havemose, now the head of the Commodore Software Group (replacing the recently departed Ned McCook), along with nine other engineers including veteran Eric Cotton, created a document called, “Future Product Options: A Software Perspective�. In it, the group pushed for retargetable graphics in AmigaOS 4.0, which would allow the computer to use a variety of graphics cards, much like Windows was capable of using graphics cards from different hardware manufacturers. The software group also proposed creating a new operating system specifically for the game console, projected for a 1995 release, which they dubbed the CD3D—the successor to the CD32. They called this gaming-centric operating system “RISC/3D OS 1.0�. Havemose also pushed for Commodore to make the AmigaOS compatible with OpenGL, a new industry standard graphics library released by SGI (home to many ex-Commodore employees at the time). (skip) Havemose created an impressive simulation of the texture-mapping algorithm, which wrapped an angelfish picture around a rotating cylinder. “He had done a couple of simulations,� says Hepler. “I remember a texture mapping demo where he had taken a photograph and wrapped it around a cylinder. That was all done in software. We wanted to be able to support doing things like that in hardware.� Most 3D graphics are done using millions of triangles to create 3D objects. Havemose used trapezoids—four sided polygons. “There were hardware accelerators to deal with texture mapping and trapezoidal shading,� says Hepler. “What you want to do is break all the images down into very small trapezoids and then you shade them properly and that makes things look like they're threedimensional.� According to Hepler, the unusual trapezoid-focused chip would have been more robust than triangle-based 3D chips. “A triangle is just a trapezoid where the two points at the top are the same point,� says Hepler. “That's sort of how we viewed things. If those two angular sidelines happened to meet at the top then you end up with a triangle. If you want a triangle, you can make a triangle.� Hepler would take the basic algorithms created by Allan Havemose and convert those algorithms into his Hombre hardware instruction set. “We look at the algorithms that are being performed and figure out what algorithms are needed,� says Hepler. “Then he would make sure those algorithms worked by writing software that implemented those. Then we would make sure that those algorithms could be implemented in hardware as well. Many times you do things very differently in hardware than you would do in software but the result is the same.�

It's effectively SGI's N64 with a CD drive. SGI personnel who were involved with engineering N64 founded ArtX which is later purchased by ATI.

Other ex-SGI engineers founded 3DFX or led 3DO's MX project which was later purchased by Microsoft.

Unlike NVIDIA, Commodore couldn't escape the $116 million debt incurred by a human bus error.

The road map is SGI for the masses.

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_________________
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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

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @cdimauro Gould seemingly no longer cared about the Amiga after the CDTV failed. It was all about power and money by then maybe it always was!

Management's responsibilities do not absolve engineers' responsibilities.


@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @cdimauro You're looking at this problem via the retail side

No, I've looked at the technical side (as usual), but in the given context (timeline).
Quote:

while attempting to be the armchair technical lead.

And here is again the engineers' cheerleader.

I've reported purely facts AND declarations and technical documentation of your heroes.

If they haven't done their homework, then it's their problem, not mine which I've highlighted it.
Quote:

The problem starts before retail. Read "Commodore - The Final Years" book and write a commentary on it. "Commodore - The Final Years" will give you extra details about the specfic person who messed up. Amiga Hombre reached the simulation stage with working hardware accelerated texture-mapped 3D design. Unlike Sega Saturn or NVIDIA NV1, Amiga Hombre supports four and three-sided polygons. Allan Havemose designed the hardware instruction set version. [...] It's effectively SGI's N64 with a CD drive. SGI personnel who were involved with engineering N64 founded ArtX which is later purchased by ATI. Other ex-SGI engineers founded 3DFX or led 3DO's MX project which was later purchased by Microsoft. Unlike NVIDIA, Commodore couldn't escape the $116 million debt incurred by a human bus error. The road map is SGI for the masses.

You don't read articles, right? Hombre is NOT an Amiga.

Hence, what you've reported is irrelevant -> PADDING.