@matthey

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Amiga History Chuck Peddle approached Motorola Semiconductor Division management about making a cost reduced version of their 6800 CPU but was told the 6800 was "good enough". Chuck left Motorola and his new business MOS nearly ended Motorola's Semiconductor Division with the famous 6502 CPU but one embedded automobile contract with GM saved them in 1976. Motorola knew that 16 bit versions of the Intel 8080 (8086) and Zilog Z80 (Z8000) were in development but this time they decided "we can do better" and the 1979 68000 CPU was born that was practically a generation ahead of the 16 bit competition by introducing an orthogonal 32 bit ISA with 16 32 bit general purpose registers and using 32 bit pointers for addressing of a huge flat memory model (no memory banks or segments).

68000 is heavily microcoded with a simple 16-bit ALU CPU core. 68000 executes 68K instructions in many clock cycles.

For mid mid-1980s, the main reason for ARM's existence is MOS/CSG 65xx CPU's evolution pace wasn't competitive.

The main reason for SuperFX's existence is that WDC's 65816 evolution pace wasn't competitive for 3D. Designers for SuperFX created ARC (Argonaut RISC Core).

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@matthey The 68000 microprocessor was evolutionary initially killing off minicomputers and replacing them with workstations. As the price fell, the 68000 was used in personal computers for the desktop and gaming PCs (Amiga, Apple Mac, Atari ST), later console gaming (Sega Genesis, NeoGeo, X68000) and even dominated 16/32 bit embedded markets.

68020/68030 era Unix workstation was being displaced by RISC-based workstations from MIPS, PA-RISC, and Alpha.

For SGI's 3D processing during 1986-1987, MIPS R2000 is the superior CPU over 68020 and 68030 CPUs.

Other big iron 68K Unix vendors started to look for RISC i.e. MIPS R2000(1986 release), Alpha (engineering started in 1988, released 1992), SPARC (released in 1987, Sun-4), and PA-RISC (released in 1986). There's a pattern of disappointment with 68030 since its IPC is similar to 68020. These big iron 68K Unix vendors didn't stick with Motorola's RISC-based 88000 (R&D started in 1986, released in 1988).

For PlayStation1, Sony's MIPS R-family selection was heavenly influenced by SGI over Namco System 22's 68020+TMS32025 DSP combo.

SGI has MIPS R3000 with i860 (geometry) combo, hence PS1 has MIPS R3000A and MIPS-based GTE (geometry).

During 1988 and with funding from Compaq and venture capitalists, NexGen started R&D work on Nx586, a RISC-based X86 CPU. Nx586 (RISC86) evolved into Nx686 (AMD's K6). Compaq was concerned about the RISC threat in 1988.

In 1989, Commodore investigated Motorola's RISC-based 88000 for an A500-type machine and it was expensive which caused Commodore to look for low-cost RISC cores. Commodore's cost structure for RISC-based A500-type machine is similar to Sony's PlayStation.

Around 1987, the designer for Commodore's custom MMU advocated for RISC CPU design before being hired by Apple in 1988. Bob Welland designed ARM MMU Architecture. Apple invested in Acorn Computers which developed a specific ARM6-based RISC processor for the Newton. ARM6 was also selected by ex-Amiga engineers' 3DO project.

For VCD MPEG1 with CDTV-CR (ECS) project, Commodore's multimedia group selected MIPS-X-based CL-450 SoC. The FVM module was recycled for CD32. Irving Gould thinks VCD MPEG1 is the next big thing after VHS video.

Intel's 1989 release for 486 was timely for the PC clone market.

In 1991, Intel started Pentium Pro (P6) R&D.
In July 1992, Intel demonstrated Pentium P5. AMD started K5 R&D which reused RISC 29K R&D.

Reference
http://kpolsson.com/micropro/proc1980.htm


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@matthey Motorola was so overwhelmed by 68000 sales that they had trouble keeping the CPUs in stock which could have been a contributing reason why IBM made the fateful decision to choose the vastly inferior 8088 for the IBM PC.

For the 1981 era cost reduction measures, IBM wanted an 8-bit external bus with 16 bit ALU equipped CPU, hence 8088. 68008 was late.

NEC's PC-98 selected the full 16-bit 8086.

In terms of microcomputer market share, the C64 kept up with the IBM PC until around 1985.


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@matthey While the 68000 ISA made upgraded 68k CPUs which were fully 32 bit easy, they were slow to bring out upgraded 68k CPUs which weren't a priority because the 68000 was "good enough".

In 1986, Motorola started RISC-based 88000 R&D.

68030 didn't deliver a significant IPC upgrade from 68020.

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Intel had their one huge win with IBM and focused on fast incremental improvements which kept chipping away at the mountain of advantages of the 68k. They 68k lost the workstation market to RISC hype (which ended up back at the less orthogonal CISC x86) and then the desktop market to Intel x86 but retained the less profitable embedded and console markets for many years where the stagnating CPU models were cheap and "good enough" now. Many businesses were buying embedded CPUs for consoles and the desktop because they were cheap and "good enough", including Commodore for their most mass produced Amigas. When Apple left the 68k desktop market after the 68040, there was not enough mass production to support high performance 68k CPUs anymore so embedded CPUs had to be "good enough".

Apple was one of the early supporters of Motorola's RISC-based 88000.

Motorola's PowerPC 601 had 88000's 60x bus since Apple's new support chips are designed around 88000's 60x external bus.

Apple was concerned about the weak design wins for Motorola's 88000, hence the creation of the AIM PowerPC alliance in 1991 with Apple, IBM, and Motorola.

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

@Thread

Currently it seems as if THEA500 (Mini) has less future than the A600GS and the A1200NG.

I don't know what is planed for the he A1200NG, but if it got its own A1200 style case with keyboard, it will also convince the "Wedge Case Fans".

The software seems to be better already.

I wish some people would report their experience with them, instead of this endless babble about CPUs that died without even been built into an Amiga.

Last edited by OneTimer1 on 19-Dec-2024 at 11:39 PM.

@OneTimer1

Once the AmiStore is up and running it'll peak my interest especially if you can buy stuff like Metro Siege directly off it. Until then I still see more activity on THEA500 Mini considering it's a whole community pushing a consumer product forward compared to AmigaKit pushing a seemingly never ending beta testing phase! I get it, the more people that buy an A600GS/A1200NG and hence pay for the job of reporting bugs and testing upgrades, the better it will be! The issue is the modding community has already made THE A500 Mini pretty damn good and 2 years ago!

Last edited by BigD on 20-Dec-2024 at 12:55 AM.

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

@BigD

That is what I'm waiting for. an easy way to find & buy new Amiga games & software. It's such a shame all these Amiga parties are unable to work together, they could be working to their strengths.

Retro-games supply the hardware & manufacturing, with Amiga-Kit supplying the Amistore software/OS with the community supplying new games & apps to go along side the licensed stuff from Retrogames & Amigakit/Aeon or who ever.

Hardwarewise, the A1200ng/A600gs can service the smaller more hardcore tinkerers market, while the Retro-Games hardware can service the more mainstream market who want an all in one commodore like boxed system experience.

It just seems like the obvious route, if everybody was capable of co-operating & not self sabotaging the platform.. Aaah well. a man can dream..

@OneTimer1

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I don't know what is planed for the he A1200NG, but if it got its own A1200 style case with keyboard, it will also convince the "Wedge Case Fans".

Maybe once they have the app store and new games to buy from it they could do a Kickstarter for a complete system with a case, keyboard and oprtionally a floppy drive. Kickstarters tend to do better when a substantial amount of work has already gone into the product so I think it's something Amigakit should try since there's nothing to lose if they don't reach the goal and everything to gain id they do.

As it is the customer base will be.

People with a case and keyboard leftover after a tower conversion.
People with a dead A1200.
People who want to preserve the original motherboard while continuing to use their A1200.
People who are prepared to source their own case and keyboard.