@WolfToTheMoon

Quote:

WolfToTheMoon wrote: @cdimauro Quote: You were only talking about the CPU. Anyway, who should have upgraded the C64 chipset? The same which created the 128? The Plus/4? Why not the C128 team?

Which have made NO changes to the VIC-II and SID, and reused the VDC chip from the Commodore 900.

So, which kind of changes you could have expected from them?
Quote:

Graphics and sound of the C128 were not competitive with the chipset of the A1000, but they were not 5 times worse -

5 times? I think even more than 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYq-1qZ2aQU
Quote:

and C128 was 5 times less expensive(and only had half the RAM of the A1000).

But you had much, much more with the 1000.
Quote:

A 16/32 bit C64 compatible home computer would have sold extremely well in 1985 and later... there were already millions of C64s out there and a lot of software. It was a good base to build upon.

That's why the C128 sold 5 millions of units.

However, people almost always used them in C64 mode.

The backward compatibility was a good thing, for sure, but even bad because it blocked the development of native C128 software.

And you don't know what could have happened with a C64-compatible system, but new chips and new CPUs.
Quote:

On the other hand, while the A1000 was amazing for it's capabilities at the time, it had no software - simple as that. It took another 3-4 years for the Amiga platform to take off. In those 3-4 years, you can sell a lot of C64 16/32 bit compatible computers - I mean, even the C128 sold a few million units, only outsold by the C64 and A500.

It took not even a year for the Amiga to have a good game library: https://www.mobygames.com/platform/amiga/year:1986/

Nothing like that happened with the C128.

That's because the Amiga 1000 was a game changer, with its amazing hardware.

WolfToTheMoon Quote:

Why not the C128 team? Graphics and sound of the C128 were not competitive with the chipset of the A1000, but they were not 5 times worse - and C128 was 5 times less expensive(and only had half the RAM of the A1000). A 16/32 bit C64 compatible home computer would have sold extremely well in 1985 and later... there were already millions of C64s out there and a lot of software. It was a good base to build upon. On the other hand, while the A1000 was amazing for it's capabilities at the time, it had no software - simple as that. It took another 3-4 years for the Amiga platform to take off. In those 3-4 years, you can sell a lot of C64 16/32 bit compatible computers - I mean, even the C128 sold a few million units, only outsold by the C64 and A500.

Sigh. The 6502 family ISA, CBM chipsets and lack of OS very much limited compatibility.

1977 Pet
1980 VIC-20
1982 CBM-II
1982 C64
1984 Commodore 16/116
1984 Plus/4
1985 C128

These CBM 6502 family computers had poor compatibility between them. Simply changing the CPU clock speed decreased compatibility as timing loops were common. CBM was horrible at maintaining compatibility as they introduced computer replacements instead of incrementally upgrading existing hardware, which it appears was the plan for the Amiga too. Apple with the Apple II did a better job of incremental upgrades of 6502 family hardware while maintaining compatibility but this was challenging with so little abstraction from the hardware. The 68k Amiga used a thin AmigaOS with dynamic libraries and devices, OS APIs and preemptive multitasking that has some memory overhead by 8-bit CPU standards but this is small even by today's embedded RTOS standards. The 16-bit 68000 is using 32-bit pointers which reduces performance compared to an 8/16-bit CPU with 16-bit pointers when accessing 64kiB of memory but the large flat address space gives a performance boost when more than 64kiB is accessed while allowing future full 32-bit 68k CPUs to retain compatibility with performance beyond 16-bit CPUs and access up to 4GiB of memory and registers.

The price of the 68000 was a bargain by the time the Amiga was released in 1985. The 68000 was several hundred dollars when introduced in 1979 but Jay Miner correctly predicted that economies of scale would bring the price down. The 68000 sold "for about $15" in 1984 which Motorola expected to repeat for the 32-bit 68020 that the following article is about.

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/29/business/motorola-s-powerful-new-chip.html Quote:

Initially, the chip will be quite expensive. Motorola said the first models will sell for $487 each, close to the price of the 68000 when it was first brought out in 1979. But as with all semiconductor products, the price of the 68000 plummetted as volume production began, and it now sells for about $15. ''We have every reason to believe the experience with the 68020 will be the same,'' said Murray A. Goldman, corporate vice president and general manager of Motorola's microprocessor division, in a recent interview. In 1985, he said, the company would likely ship only 100,000 units of the new chip.

CBM could have added a 6502 family CPU to the Amiga chipset and maybe even stereo SID support into the Amiga chipset which could have improved C64 compatibility and could be used for marketing the Amiga to C64 customers. It could have been a marketing win but it may have been a mostly short term advantage as a 68020 Amiga can come close to emulating a C64. Adding C64 hardware would have likely added a small cost at that time when reducing the Amiga cost was also a priority. A similar problem happened with the Amiga 2000 and 808x PC compatibility. Rather than all the bridgeboard support and expense in the Amiga 2000 to support the 8088 PC increasing the Amiga 2000 cost and price, the Amiga 2000 could have been introduced with a 68020 instead and the 8088 and 6502 emulated. CBM failed at not just enhancing the Amiga but providing high quality and optimized C64 and IBM PC emulators for the Amiga too.

Fun link showing just how much CBM failed to upgrade C64 owners to the Amiga.

Most Popular Computer Operating Systems 1985 - 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjc-qrjzRcU

There are several AmigaOS comments considering the AmigaOS only reached 7th most popular OS with ~6% market share. C64 kernel starts in 2nd with nearly 18% market share but it is a long downward drop from there.

Last edited by matthey on 31-Aug-2024 at 11:49 PM.

@WolfToTheMoon

Quote:

WolfToTheMoon wrote: @agami Quote:  I don't think that backward compatibility with an 8-bit system was a killer feature in the second half of the '80s. I think this is where you're wrong. People who bought these cheap home computers would find it very helpful if their existing software run on their new computer. It would have been an competitive advantage against most other 16/32 bit home computers which had no software at launch.

Without a doubt there would be many in 1987/88 who would have appreciated that the Spectrum Loki was backward compatible with their existing library, but doing that by using the same CPU as the Spectrum 48 does not an Amiga-killer make.

The Loki was intended to square off with the A500. Yes, when the A1000 was released, it did not have the software library richness found in systems that have been around for the the previous 5 years. That is always a challenge when a completely new approach is developed.

I sold my C64 with tape drive + 1541 floppy drive + bunch of joysticks + disk and tapes of software to buy a "vanilla" A500 in 1988 when I went to uni. Would I have appreciated backward compatibility with the C64 software? Sure. But only for so long because most of that software I had were games, and A500 games were orders of magnitude better than any C64 game. Plus, on the productivity front the A500 was a lot more capable.

While ensuring backward compatibility, an architecture which pairs and old 8-bit CPU with a DSP to essentially make a "Plus" product doesn't end up having as much software developed to take advantage of the "Plus" elements. Two essential reasons: 1) why waste time on software for the more limited Loki user base, when 48 software works on the entire user base, 2) "Plus" architectures are generally compromises, the bottleneck generally being the oldest (backward) component which in the case of the Loki was the Z80.

What possible software gains could have Spectrum/Amstrad have delivered by being limited to 8-bit processing and accompanying memory limits? If the Loki did eventually come out, they would've been taught a lesson which Commodore would eventually be taught with ECS and AGA. Some backward compatibility is good. Full backward compatibility often means staying in the past for much longer than commercially tolerable.

You might say that these were the early days of personal computers and no one had yet had the chance to learn such lessons. I say these are standard system dynamics concepts which had been taught at universities since well before personal computers became a thing. Every tech company that failed has had access to people with system dynamics knowledge, but very few have ever bothered to employ any. An ugly fact remains that this industry even today is still driven in large parts by egos. People who take their one success and start believing their own myth. The last thing they want is someone coming in and telling them just how irrelevant they are to the whole equation.

Last edited by agami on 02-Sep-2024 at 02:32 AM.
Last edited by agami on 01-Sep-2024 at 05:29 AM.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: CBM could have added a 6502 family CPU to the Amiga chipset and maybe even stereo SID support into the Amiga chipset which could have improved C64 compatibility and could be used for marketing the Amiga to C64 customers.

In no way: without the VIC-II, it would have been meaningless.

Basically it would have required an entire C64 packed inside the Amiga 1000, which is absolutely pointless IMO.

Amiga is a completely different platform, and it's better that we've got it as it was, without such horrible kludges only to get a software library at the very beginning (which wasn't required: I've shown how much was already available, and with good quality, in one year).
Quote:

It could have been a marketing win but it may have been a mostly short term advantage as a 68020 Amiga can come close to emulating a C64. Adding C64 hardware would have likely added a small cost at that time when reducing the Amiga cost was also a priority. A similar problem happened with the Amiga 2000 and 808x PC compatibility. Rather than all the bridgeboard support and expense in the Amiga 2000 to support the 8088 PC increasing the Amiga 2000 cost and price, the Amiga 2000 could have been introduced with a 68020 instead and the 8088 and 6502 emulated. CBM failed at not just enhancing the Amiga but providing high quality and optimized C64 and IBM PC emulators for the Amiga too.

Well, my 2000 already costed A LOT for the time: I can't imagine how much it would have costed with a 68020 (full: no EC version was available at the time).

@matthey

Against https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/29/business/motorola-s-powerful-new-chip.html

Quote:

Initially, the chip will be quite expensive. Motorola said the first models will sell for $487 each, close to the price of the 68000 when it was first brought out in 1979. But as with all semiconductor products, the price of the 68000 plummetted as volume production began, and it now sells for about $15. 'We have every reason to believe the experience with the 68020 will be the same,'' said Murray A. Goldman, corporate vice president and general manager of Motorola's microprocessor division, in a recent interview. In 1985, he said, the company would likely ship only 100,000 units of the new chip.

The low-cost 68EC020-16 and 68EC020-25 were offered in early 1991.

From Commodore - The Final Years
Quote:

System Plans for 1988 (skip) The engineers also wanted 1 megabyte of expensive VRAM in the system. Porter dubbed the new computer the Super A500. The total cost of goods came in at $399, meaning it would sell to dealers for $799 and retail to consumers for a whopping $1000. This was a far cry from the $500 goal the team originally had with the B52. Why was it so expensive? Commodore would have to spend $77 for the 68020 chip plus $100 for VRAM on top of the basic $230 cost of the original A500 (minus redundant costs for memory and processor).

The lessons for "Agnus" chip's dual DRAM and VRAM access are on 3DO's MADAM and Amiga Hombre's Nathaniel.

A balanced cost "Agnus" chip would have FP DRAM and VRAM access capability.

A1000 Plus initially has 68000-14 with AA i.e. Lisa would be the only 32-bit chip in the system.

For 1988, 68020's $77 cost didn't reach near A500's 68000 price range. Commodore has to wait until early 1991's 68EC020-16 and 68EC020-25 offerings.

68EC020 and 68EC030 wouldn't be promoting Motorola's Unix insurance into mass desktop deployment. For Linux or Xenix, IA-32/i386 comes with MMU as standard with economies of scale.

Last edited by Hammer on 01-Sep-2024 at 04:01 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Sep-2024 at 04:00 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Sep-2024 at 03:59 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Sep-2024 at 08:59 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

@WolfToTheMoon

Quote:

Why not the C128 team? Graphics and sound of the C128 were not competitive with the chipset of the A1000, but they were not 5 times worse - and C128 was 5 times less expensive(and only had half the RAM of the A1000). A 16/32 bit C64 compatible home computer would have sold extremely well in 1985 and later... there were already millions of C64s out there and a lot of software. It was a good base to build upon. On the other hand, while the A1000 was amazing for it's capabilities at the time, it had no software - simple as that. It took another 3-4 years for the Amiga platform to take off. In those 3-4 years, you can sell a lot of C64 16/32 bit compatible computers - I mean, even the C128 sold a few million units, only outsold by the C64 and A500.

Atari 520ST was released in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July for $799 USD.

A1000 wasn't designed like the Atari 520ST's form factor. It would need Commodore's cost reduction specialty for A500's 1987 release.

Commodore's cost reduction Gary chip was outsourced to VLSI Technology Inc.

From Commodore - The Final Years,
Quote:

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.� It was up to Bucas to negotiate with suppliers and make sure Commodore received the best prices. A few years ago, the 68000 sold for $15 in quantity. Now Bucas negotiated it down to $5 per unit. “I was personally responsible for every component that was more than fifty cents,� he says. “Jeff Porter’s nickname for me was ‘the Dutch trader’. It was fun. At Commodore, we had a cost structure which was second to none in the sense that we got the best pricing from everybody. (skip) A2000-CR US Launch In August 1987, following on the heels of the Amiga 500, the A2000 revision B was ready for launch in the US and a relaunch in Europe. Haynie had successfully knocked $65 off the cost of the motherboard alone, which could translate to a savings of $200 at retail. He named his motherboard The Boss, in homage to fellow New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen, whose music fueled his late night engineering. Unfortunately “The Boss� was never made public because the two-layer motherboard was so packed that there was not enough free real estate to stencil the name. This time, the Gary chip would be manufactured by CSG rather than Toshiba, further adding to the savings.

Last edited by Hammer on 01-Sep-2024 at 03:53 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Sep-2024 at 03:52 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 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@bhabbott

Quote:

hat's not true. IBM killed CP/M when they got Microsoft to write PC DOS for them. Business users flocked to the PC because it was IBM, and they used PC/MS DOS because it was the PC's 'standard' OS.

Wrong. Z80 CP/M's road map is a dead end due to Z8000 being not backward compatible with Z80.

CP/M does NOT abstract the CPU ISA differences. "CP/M" is meaningless without factoring in the CPU and graphics system differences.

For the PC clones, the IBM PC standard has a tighter platform standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M
Quote:

By September 1981, Digital Research had sold more than 260,000 CP/M licenses; (skip) CP/M-86 was expected to be the standard operating system of the new IBM PCs, but DRI and IBM were unable to negotiate development and licensing terms. IBM turned to Microsoft instead, and Microsoft delivered PC DOS based on 86-DOS. Although CP/M-86 became an option for the IBM PC after DRI threatened legal action, it never overtook Microsoft's system. Most customers were repelled by the significantly greater price IBM charged for CP/M-86 over PC DOS (US$240 and US$40, respectively).

IBM PC smashed 260,000 CP/M licenses.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRxrv8JjiT4
Spreadsheet Wars: How Excel Beat VisiCalc & Lotus 1-2-3

At release, Lotus 1-2-3 was designed for PC's larger memory when compared VisiCalc. MS Excel has a GUI head start when compared to Lotus 123.

Commodore has a tier SKU model i.e. higher resolution monochrome "business" PET (219,000 units) and lower resolution with color VIC-20. VIC-20 reached 1 million units and it didn't deliver economies of scale for Commodore's MOS 65xx-based business platforms. This business vs home micro split mentality was reused for the following platform families
1. Atari ST vs Mega ST (with blitter).
2. A500 vs A2000 with A2320 Amber.

Amiga OCS's A2024 high-res monitor's 5000 units run wouldn't change the platform.

Following the PET, Commodore CBM-II has split CPU ISA i.e. near dead end MOS 6509, dead end Z80 and i8088 coprocessor (not PC compatible). Optional 8088-based coprocessor board allows the CBM-II series to run CP/M-86 1.1 and MS-DOS 1.25; however, the CBM-II series was not IBM PC compatible and very little, if any, software taking advantage of this capability ever appeared. 8-bit ALU CSG/MOS 65xx CPU is dated during IBM PC's 16-bit ALU 8088.

CSG/MOS 65xx lost the clock speed race.

Semi-custom "MS-DOS 1.25" alone doesn't complete the PC platform.

On PC, 3rd party WordStar and WordPerfect defeated IBM's Display Write.

Commodore CBM-II didn't have a PC's partitioned graphics architecture, hence it's a dead-end graphics platform.

Last edited by Hammer on 01-Sep-2024 at 04:08 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Sep-2024 at 04:07 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Sep-2024 at 03:52 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Sep-2024 at 03:44 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Sep-2024 at 09:20 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

agami Quote:

Without a doubt there would be many in 1987/88 who would have appreciated that the Spectrum Loki was backward compatible with their existing library, but doing that by using the same CPU as the Spectrum 48 does not an Amiga-killer make. The Loki was intended to square off with the A500. Yes, when the A1000 was released, it did not have the software library richness found in systems that have been around for the the previous 5 years. That is always a challenge when a completely new approach is developed. I sold my C64 with tape drive + 1541 floppy drive + bunch of joysticks + disk and tapes of software to buy a "vanilla" A500 in 1988 when I went to uni. Would I have appreciated backward compatibility with the C64 software? Sure. But only for so long because most of that software I had were games, and A500 games were orders of magnitude better than any C64 game. Plus, on the productivity front the A500 was a lot more capable. While ensuring backward compatibility, an architecture which pairs and old 8-bit CPU with a DSP to essentially make a "Plus" product doesn't end up having as much software developed to take advantage of the "Plus" elements. Two essential reasons: 1) why waste time on software for the more limited Loki user base, when 48 software works on the entire user base, 2) "Plus" architectures are generally compromises, the bottleneck generally being the oldest (backward) component which in the case of the Loki was the Z80. What possible software gains could have Spectrum/Amstrad have delivered by being limited to 8-bit processing and accompanying memory limits? If the Loki did eventually come out, they would've been taught a lesson which Commodore would eventually be taught with ECS and AGA. Some backward compatibility is good. Full backward compatibility often means staying in the past for much longer than commercially tolerable.

Part of the Loki team created the 1989 Sam Coupe with many of the Loki ideas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAM_Coupé

It sounds to me like the Z80B was a bottleneck alright.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAM_Coupé#Processor_and_logic Quote:

The machine is based around a Z80B CPU clocked at 6 MHz and a 10,000-gate ASIC. The ASIC performs a similar role in the computer to the ULA in the ZX Spectrum. The Z80B CPU accesses selected parts of the large memory space in its 64 KB address space by slicing it into 16 KB banks and using I/O registers to select the memory pages mapped into each 16 KB bank.

The Z80 may have a better ISA than the 6502 and 8080 but these ISAs are old and had limitations. Large memory with 64kiB address space banks/segments is bad enough but 16kiB banks are ridiculous by 1989 and for the Sam which came with 256kiB of memory and supported up to 4.5MiB. A Z80B@6MHz is lower performance than a 68000@7.x MHz as well. The price and compatibility advantage of the Z80B were not enough to be an Amiga killer or even to be successful. Wiki shows only 12,000 units were sold.

agami Quote:

You might say that these were the early days of personal computers and no one had yet had the chance to learn such lessons. I say these are standard system dynamics concepts which had been taught at universities since well before personal computers became a thing. Every tech company that failed has had access to people with system dynamics knowledge, but very few have ever bothered to employ any. An ugly fact remains that this industry even today is still driven in large parts by egos. People who take one success and start believing their own myth. The last thing they want is someone coming in an telling them just how irrelevant hey are to the whole equation.

Yea, it's surprising how much the tech industry is not driven by technology. The technology is usually not as important as other factors. The best technology often is not the most successful which was certainly true of the 1985 Amiga. The IBM PC was inferior in every tangible way, CPU, chipset, OS and price yet eventually became the Amiga killer. Egos like Jack Tramiel and Irving Gould played a major part in the demise of CBM/Amiga but Trevor Dickinson and Ben Hermans rival them and the Amiga is just as dead in the water with them in control.

cdimauro Quote:

In no way: without the VIC-II, it would have been meaningless. Basically it would have required an entire C64 packed inside the Amiga 1000, which is absolutely pointless IMO. Amiga is a completely different platform, and it's better that we've got it as it was, without such horrible kludges only to get a software library at the very beginning (which wasn't required: I've shown how much was already available, and with good quality, in one year).

Of the 6510 CPU, VIC-II and SID, the 6510 CPU is likely the easiest to emulate for the 68k. However, at ~3500 transistors it is tiny and may have been useful for I/O. The SID chip was difficult to emulate and offered some synthesis features the Paula is missing. One of the SID replacements uses a Lattice iCE40UP5K FPGA with 5280 4-input LUTs with each LUT closer to a logic gate (2-6 CMOS transistors so maybe 20k transistors at most?). The VIC-II was likely also difficult to emulate and likely had no use for the Amiga other than C64 emulation which is the problem. The C64 and Amiga both use dual CIA chips but the Amiga versions have simplified TOD circuitry.

The best solution would likely be a C64 Zorro II card with a 6510 CPU, VIC-II, SID and I/O ports out the back. Zorro II boards have to reach across the ISA and PC bridgeboard slots adding expense though (PCB expense is based on area and Zorro II boards with connectors out the back must extend the full depth of an Amiga 2000). C64 owners were 2nd rate citizens to CBM plans to make the Amiga into a business computer with gimp IBM PC inside. The Amiga was not limited by C64 compatibility but by 8088 PC compatibility.

cdimauro Quote:

Well, my 2000 already costed A LOT for the time: I can't imagine how much it would have costed with a 68020 (full: no EC version was available at the time).

The ISA and bridgeboard slots added a lot of connectors, board size and larger case to the Amiga 2000. I wouldn't be surprised if the "PC hardware support" added 5-10% to the cost and 15-30% to the price of the Amiga 2000. Adding a full 68020@14MHz in 1987 may have been double this but it is useful to everyone, the 68020 can likely emulate an 8088 PC at full speed, the price could be partially offset by not adding the PC hardware support and the price of the 68020 could be expected to continue dropping faster than PCB and connector prices. The Amiga high end did not have much value which was part of the problem. There was no high end Amiga chipset, the 1979 68000 was far from high end in 1987 while the 68020 was released in 1984 and Zorro II was limited by the 24-bit address space. There was also no motherboard support for fast memory or a HD controller. All the Amiga 2000 gave was Zorro II slots for expensive expansion from long Zorro II cards to reach across ISA and bridgeboard slots for a poorly equipped "business" PC. The Amiga 2000 was a workhorse but it was an underwhelming high end Amiga. I have 5 of them sitting around my house and I don't even have the one I originally bought. Most of them have extra hardware but they are very limited compared to Amiga 3000s and 4000s. Even my 3000s and 4000s are getting old and starting to fail. It would be nice if there was affordable new 68k Amiga hardware available to replace failing hardware but 2000s would not be good enough even if they could be made cheap enough today.

Last edited by matthey on 01-Sep-2024 at 07:17 PM.

@matthey

Quote:

Yea, it's surprising how much the tech industry is not driven by technology. The technology is usually not as important as other factors. The best technology often is not the most successful which was certainly true of the 1985 Amiga. he IBM PC was inferior in every tangible way, CPU, chipset, OS and price yet eventually became the Amiga killer.

False. The PC has partitioned graphics architecture.

For PC/AT, IBM's PGC points to VGA's and SVGA's future i.e. stable 640x480p with 256 colors use case. IBM PGC is register-compatible with CGA.

Use case factors such as "256 colors", stable 640x480p, and double horizontal refresh rate are clear goals for PC while the Amiga's core graphics R&D roadmap is chaotic.

IBM's text-based MDA has a stable 720 × 350 pixels resolution with "killer apps" for business. Microsoft recycles GUI experience from the Mac and uses it against text-based business software establishment.

A1000 wasn't ready for business in 1985 due to weaker relationships with 3rd party business software vendors and the resolution offered is a game console in nature.

Sony PlayStation is focused on its main market.

Apple Mac and IBM PC are focused on their main market.

Amiga's WordPerfect 4.x and 5.x ports are from text based MS-DOS versions which offers very little advantages (weaker #metoo) when compared to Microsoft's Mac/Windows 2.x GUI-based Word.

Henri Rubin is blamed for Amiga's 1986-1988 lost years. Amiga ECS should have been released in 1987. Commodore LSI group is blamed for ECS Denise's degradation.

In 1990s, Commodore refuses AmigaOS 2.x and ECS Denise upgrades for existing A500/A2000 i.e. must buy new ECS Amigas.

_________________
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

Oh no, another Hammer attack!

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @matthey Quote: Yea, it's surprising how much the tech industry is not driven by technology. The technology is usually not as important as other factors. The best technology often is not the most successful which was certainly true of the 1985 Amiga. he IBM PC was inferior in every tangible way, CPU, chipset, OS and price yet eventually became the Amiga killer. False. The PC has partitioned graphics architecture.

You mean it had the video hardware on a plug-in card. But the next design, the PCjr, had graphics hardware integrated into the VGA chip on the motherboard, and shared memory just like the Amiga. Fast forward to today and what do almost all PC motherboards have?

Quote:

For PC/AT, IBM's PGC points to VGA's and SVGA's future i.e. stable 640x480p with 256 colors use case. IBM PGC is register-compatible with CGA.

The graphics card that cost more than a whole PC and was controlled via commands sent to its onboard 8088 CPU? I wouldn't say that was 'pointing' anywhere. The Amiga got VGA scan rates in 1988 without any changes to the standard graphics chipset, and it had higher performance.

Quote:

Use case factors such as "256 colors", stable 640x480p, and double horizontal refresh rate are clear goals for PC

Indeed they were. Which makes it odd that they didn't provide these things from the beginning. Why did it take IBM 6 years to introduce VGA? That's almost as long as it took Commodore to introduce AGA!

Quote:

while the Amiga's core graphics R&D roadmap is chaotic.

Chaotic how? They had a similar goal to IBM, and only took a little longer to get there. Yes they had to scale their plans back to match the reality of their chip manufacturing capabilities, but they were always working towards the same goal (keep OCS compatibility while adding high scan rates and 256 colors etc. just like VGA).

Only in Commodore's case there wasn't such a pressing need because the OCS chipset was already pretty good. And the Amiga had an important 'use case' that PCs didn't, broadcast standard TV compatibility. Oh, you mean 'stable 640x480p with 256 colors' for business applications. Yes, that's what the PC was all about. It took many years before it met the 'use case' most people were interested in - entertainment.

Quote:

IBM's text-based MDA has a stable 720 × 350 pixels resolution with "killer apps" for business. Microsoft recycles GUI experience from the Mac and uses it against text-based business software establishment.

Boring!

Quote:

A1000 wasn't ready for business in 1985 due to weaker relationships with 3rd party business software vendors and the resolution offered is a game console in nature.

The A1000 wasn't primarily designed for traditional business use. Being a new platform with a totally different OS it would obviously take a while to build up the software base, just like the Mac took a while. But trying to compete head-to-head with the PC was bound to fail (as many others found out). No problem, the Amiga had something else - excellent graphics and sound for games and animation - to exploit another niche.

That's not to say it didn't get business apps though. I used Pro Calc for spreadsheets, Professional Page to create manuals, box artwork and CD inlays (all professionally offset printed), GPFax for sending and receiving faxes, Final Writer for word processing, and Easy Ledgers for point-of-sale and accounts (which was much more sophisticated than the typical Quick BASIC programs most businesses here were using!).

You would be right that there were 'weaker relationships' with most PC software vendors, for the obvious reason that the Amiga wasn't a PC. But graphics hardware had nothing to do with it. AutoCAD started out being used on CGA in 640x200 with 2 colors. Looked dire, and wasn't great to use either. Yet it quickly became the industry standard, while better CAD programs on the Amiga went nowhere. Why? Because IBM, that's why - even with crappy CGA.

Quote:

Sony PlayStation is focused on its main market.

Sony PlayStation had a chaotic development history. The executives didn't want it, and why would they? Sony wasn't in that business. They did make CD drives though, and had contracted to make one for Nintendo. But the deal fell through and the engineers didn't want that effort going to waste. that's how Sony 'fell into' the games console market.

Quote:

Apple Mac and IBM PC are focused on their main market.

Apple's focus changed over time. They tried to turn the Apple II into a business computer and failed. The Mac almost failed (had to kick Jobs out to get it done right) then they tried to enter the mass market with cheap Macs and failed. Finally Jobs came back and turned Apple into a phone company.

IBM thought they would make it big in the home computer market with the PCjr. After that failed they tried to control the business market with PS/2 and Micro Channel. Then that failed and they moved to marketing clones. Finally they exited the PC market altogether. Some focus!

Quote:

Amiga's WordPerfect 4.x and 5.x ports are from text based MS-DOS versions which offers very little advantages (weaker #metoo) when compared to Microsoft's Mac/Windows 2.x GUI-based Word.

At the time (1987) Word Perfect was the most popular PC word processor. Then they tried to make a Windows version and failed. 'Professional' PC users swore that DOS was better, and at that time they were right (Windows 2.0 was released in December 1987). Amiga Word Perfect wasn't a great success on the Amiga because most of us didn't buy an Amiga to do word processing! Furthermore we already had others (Scribble!, Pro Write etc.) that did the job.


Quote:

Henri Rubin is blamed for Amiga's 1986-1988 lost years. Amiga ECS should have been released in 1987. Commodore LSI group is blamed for ECS Denise's degradation.

ECS shouldn't have been released at all, without the things it really needed and/or the OS improved to make proper use of it.

Quote:

In 1990s, Commodore refuses AmigaOS 2.x and ECS Denise upgrades for existing A500/A2000 i.e. must buy new ECS Amigas.

That's weird, I had no trouble getting chips from Commodore. ISTR Commodore marketing 2.x ROMs as upgrades, though I imagine after 3.0 came out they would probably want people to buy that instead. The A2000 was discontinued in 1991, making it difficult to buy a new ECS one after that. As to why anyone would want a Denise upgrade...

Last edited by bhabbott on 02-Sep-2024 at 06:17 AM.

@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: @Lou Quote: Lou wrote: @cdimauro [quote] cdimauro wrote: @Lou [quote] Just as easily as a time machine will resurrect the Amiga platform. Oh wait, apparently the 65XXX like still lives in the Mega65 with legal licenses from Cloanto...I guess time did tell indeed. I reveal you a secret: the Amiga platform is still alive, and Cloanto is heavily contributing to it as well...

Oh yes, I'm sure that A600GS will sell like hotcakes to a dozen people.

Quote:

At least I can do something...

You're good at displaying 8-bit derangement syndrome...

Quote:

I reveal you another secret: it doesn't suck only because YOU, which are mr. nobody, said it.

Oh my - I am so insulted at your opinion of me...how ever will I go one?
Here's a secret: your so obviously bitter about it because it's true.
 
Quote:

Actually on pure calculations the 68000 simply destroys your beloved 65xx.

Oooo math! So special. Especially waiting 152 cycles for DIV. So fancy! I mean who knew that a general purpose cpu was made just to do fancy maths...

Quote:

ROFL. Here the discussion was about the STACK RELOCATION ON C128. I've asked you one the most simple example, Fibonacci, implemented using it, and what you do: talk of completely different things. Genious!

You really are dumb enough to think I'm going to do anything you ask me - aren't you?


Quote:

Not needed: even a 7Mhz 68000 completely crashes the 65xx CRAProcessors when running any Amiga software, OS included.

Why would a 65XX run Amiga software, strawman?

Quote:

Quote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WDC_65C02 Launch 1983. Which I haven't talk about, right?

Wrong. 65C02 easily outperforms a 68000 in 1983. You keep talking about 1 Mhz 6502s...

Quote:

Quote: 65816 was developed in 1984 as merely a 16bit enhanced 65C02...and for Apple at that. LAUNCHED: 1985. So, NOT available on 1984. Do you understand it?

1985, when Amiga launched.

Quote:

Quote: As for where to buy? WDC sells 65XXX products to this day. But for a more compete system with a 45Mhz cpu, here you go: https://mega65.org/ Irrelevant.

Thanks for making up the rules as we go along.

Quote:

Only because YOU said? I believe you, I believe you.

The feeling is mutal.

Quote:

And I trust you, only because YOU said it. Sure. Quote: As you should. [quote] [quote]Commodore launched 7.14Mhz Amigas into 1990 until the unaffordable A3000 launch. Your ignorance is embarrassing: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amiga_2000&safemode=1#amiga2500

What a joke. An A2000 with an accelerator card included and rebadged as an A2500. How much was it again? What's funny is sales went up for this when the A3000 launched because it was barely an upgrade...and again unaffordable to the average person.

Quote:

Well, it's not the first time and you show to don't know even fundamental things of what you talk about...

Sure like that rebadged A2000 was proof I am wrong, LMFAO!

Quote:

Quote: The C128 was actually supposed to have 256k. The pads are there for the memory. It's a simple mod to turn a C128 into a C256. It's even supported in the 'bios'... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Areq8K_ia9Y What's not clear to you that I had a C128 and I know it very well, included its expansions (VDC too, of course)?

What is clear is that you completely forget facts about it. Like how they came with 64k VDC ram in newer revisions and yes even newer flat C128 came with 64k, only the early ones didn't. In other words, once the C128DCR was released even flat C128's had 64k of VDC ram from the factory.

Quote:

Quote: I suspect you did this because you couldn't win the cpu argument. Actually it was proven several times how 65xx sucked compared to a simple 68000. Whereas you never provided evidence of the opposite...

Denying reality doesn't help your case. You pick and choose your evidence.
I already showed a video of a 68000 losing to a 65C02 despite the fact that it unrealistically favored the 68000. A 650C02 incremented memory faster than the 68000 incremented a register. 68000 is a joke! It's a reality-slap you continue to deny.
Keep ignoring this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k_jP73Ly7A

Quote:

Not needed: the 68040 followed the next year and crashed all ARMs.

LOL! How much was an '040? Why wasn't it in the A3000? Oh it was already grossly over-priced, that's right!

Quote:

Quote: You keep providing a lot of people with laughs. Me especially. I noticed eveyone else jumped off the cpu debate but apparently you're not smart enough so here we go: Actually OTHER people jumped in, and you were not able to contrast the results.

Yes they keep talking about all these extra instructions the 68000 has without looking into the cycle counts. Wow - so much proof! I mean we should destroy all RISC processors for their incompetence! CISC rules!
Oh wait - that's not actual reality is it?

Again keep ignoring this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k_jP73Ly7A
An unrealistic example that still favors the 68000 and the 68000 loses. Make it more realistic by incrementing an array of memory locations and the 68000 would get crushed. 

Quote:

Quote: Again, as per your 16k comment before/below, you're not smart enough to know many C128's have 64k of VDC ram... See above: already answered.

So you have an early C128 so it must be true, LOL!

Quote:

Quote: despite the fact that I linked you a cheap expansion showing how the RAM was directly wired to the gpu Sure, you have WIRE an external expansion to the VDC. Easy task, yes.

More display of your ignorance. As I said, most already came with 64k. How is this different from replacing an AGNUS or BUSTER for better versions? Oh the irony...

Quote:

Quote: when you didn't think the VDC has DMA with it's own memory? You easily forget how dumb you are... Care to PROVE it? Since I NEVER talked about it, dear liar.

Again, sheer incompetency or stupidity...not sure which at this point.

Quote:

Repeating the same CRAP all the times doesn't make it true. Actually the only numbers are coming from Byte Sieve, where we've seen how "good" was the 6502.

This is how stupid you are. You show an example of the 1 thing a 68000 does better than a 65XX and ignore everything else that makes it suck. Newsflash - math is not the primary function of a cpu.


Quote:

Quote: Sure. And how much memory has the VDC? 16kB in TOTAL. Stupid is as stupid keeps showing...

Quote:

Numbers MATTER, dear LIAR.

You keep holding on to those 16KB like your life depends on it. It's kinda cute actually. You deserve a lollipop for your dedication.


Quote:

Quote: Let me do a basic math. 8kB are wasted by this character table. 16 - 8 = 8kB (great math operation!) are left. Now let's assume that we've a 320x200 screen, which takes 8000 bytes. So, we've 8kB = 8192 - 8000 = 192 bytes left. Basically the only thing that you can do is drawing characters from this table to the screen. And only that! Dumb...see below and above... Quote: [quote] Stupid is as stupid keeps showing us. 2nd revision C128's (including all C128DCR versions) came with 64K of VDC ram. It was also a common upgrade for the early ones....which is why I linked you that ram expander adapter some days ago. You are not smart. You literally can't put 2 and 2 together. Again, NOT for ALL C128. The normal C128 which was widespread had only 16kB for the VDC. Dot.

C128DCR came out in 1986. From then on all C128's had 64k from the factory...yes even the FLAT ones. Give it up already. This was a common upgrade even in the 80's for the older ones. You replace 2 ram chips. Again, how many people upgraded AGNUS?

Quote:

Hopeless, I've written this: the "slow" 68000 was doing a big part there You have not even basic understand of what people write. P.S. Not time to fix the layout. I'll not waste other time on that.

What I saw from Fighting Spirit was about 2-3 frames of animation per move. It 'looks' fast but animating 2 frames per character isn't much.

Meanwhile if you compare the SNES, TG-16 and Genesis versioned of Super Street Fighter, animations had 4-6 frames, thought the 68000 Genesis version was outputting only 3-4.
Visually, the Sega Genesis version is the weakest. The only knock on the TG-16 versin is it's lack of paralax background which is a common limitation of it's gpu..so even spending extra cycles to animate some aspects of the background, it was still superior overall to the Genesis version.
Some reviews:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emUYspkL27w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opm_pLVTrM8

You can see here in this faithful Amiga 500 version that since it includes all the animation frames it just looks SLOW. Also, I haven't studied in dept but I don't see ANY paralax! At least the TG-16 still had a parallax-effect floor. Epic fail!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekg-Mr9OQb0

So now we have apples to apples to apples to apples.

Last edited by Lou on 02-Sep-2024 at 04:47 PM.
Last edited by Lou on 02-Sep-2024 at 04:45 PM.
Last edited by Lou on 02-Sep-2024 at 04:40 PM.

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: Yea, it's surprising how much the tech industry is not driven by technology. The technology is usually not as important as other factors. The best technology often is not the most successful which was certainly true of the 1985 Amiga.

Sad, but true...
Quote:

The IBM PC was inferior in every tangible way, CPU, chipset, OS and price yet eventually became the Amiga killer.

Come on, you know that it's not true: the Amiga was largely better, but it had its defects and PCs had some advantages.
Quote:

cdimauro Quote: In no way: without the VIC-II, it would have been meaningless. Basically it would have required an entire C64 packed inside the Amiga 1000, which is absolutely pointless IMO. Amiga is a completely different platform, and it's better that we've got it as it was, without such horrible kludges only to get a software library at the very beginning (which wasn't required: I've shown how much was already available, and with good quality, in one year). Of the 6510 CPU, VIC-II and SID, the 6510 CPU is likely the easiest to emulate for the 68k.

Exactly: that's the only component which was certainly replaceable by an emulator.
Quote:

However, at ~3500 transistors it is tiny and may have been useful for I/O.

For the keyboard, but then... you cannot use the keyboard.
Quote:

The SID chip was difficult to emulate and offered some synthesis features the Paula is missing. One of the SID replacements uses a Lattice iCE40UP5K FPGA with 5280 4-input LUTs with each LUT closer to a logic gate (2-6 CMOS transistors so maybe 20k transistors at most?). The VIC-II was likely also difficult to emulate and likely had no use for the Amiga other than C64 emulation which is the problem. The C64 and Amiga both use dual CIA chips but the Amiga versions have simplified TOD circuitry.

Yup. All of them need to be integrated.
Quote:

The best solution would likely be a C64 Zorro II card with a 6510 CPU, VIC-II, SID and I/O ports out the back. Zorro II boards have to reach across the ISA and PC bridgeboard slots adding expense though (PCB expense is based on area and Zorro II boards with connectors out the back must extend the full depth of an Amiga 2000).

Zorro II = only for the Amiga 2000, which is late (1987).
Quote:

C64 owners were 2nd rate citizens to CBM plans to make the Amiga into a business computer with gimp IBM PC inside. The Amiga was not limited by C64 compatibility but by 8088 PC compatibility.

Was the same for the Macs? I don't think so, and they are still here, changed the hardware platform so many times.
Quote:

cdimauro Quote: Well, my 2000 already costed A LOT for the time: I can't imagine how much it would have costed with a 68020 (full: no EC version was available at the time). The ISA and bridgeboard slots added a lot of connectors, board size and larger case to the Amiga 2000. I wouldn't be surprised if the "PC hardware support" added 5-10% to the cost and 15-30% to the price of the Amiga 2000. Adding a full 68020@14MHz in 1987 may have been double this but it is useful to everyone,

To someone: the richest ones that could have afforded it. Certainly not me, for example.
Quote:

the 68020 can likely emulate an 8088 PC at full speed, the price could be partially offset by not adding the PC hardware support and the price of the 68020 could be expected to continue dropping faster than PCB and connector prices. The Amiga high end did not have much value which was part of the problem. There was no high end Amiga chipset, the 1979 68000 was far from high end in 1987 while the 68020 was released in 1984 and Zorro II was limited by the 24-bit address space. There was also no motherboard support for fast memory or a HD controller. All the Amiga 2000 gave was Zorro II slots for expensive expansion from long Zorro II cards to reach across ISA and bridgeboard slots for a poorly equipped "business" PC. The Amiga 2000 was a workhorse but it was an underwhelming high end Amiga.

And only for professionals. I had one, but I've used it like an A500: it would have been much better for me to go for it, instead of pushing my father spending so much money. I made a big mistake here.
Quote:

I have 5 of them sitting around my house and I don't even have the one I originally bought. Most of them have extra hardware but they are very limited compared to Amiga 3000s and 4000s.

Don't tell it to Thomas Richter...
Quote:

Even my 3000s and 4000s are getting old and starting to fail. It would be nice if there was affordable new 68k Amiga hardware available to replace failing hardware but 2000s would not be good enough even if they could be made cheap enough today.

Unfortunately the schemas are missing for most of the chips, so there couldn't be a replacement for them, rather just reimplementations (with all their limits).

@Lou

Quote:

Lou wrote: cdimauro wrote: Quote: even a 7Mhz 68000 completely crashes the 65xx CRAProcessors when running any Amiga software, OS included. Why would a 65XX run Amiga software, strawman?

Why are you comparing 6502 to 68000 then? Don't you see how worthless that is in a thread about an Amiga game, in the forum Classic Amiga Hardware?

Quote:

1985, when Amiga launched.

To be launched in 1985 the Amiga had be designed earlier, before the 65816 was released. Even worse, the 65C816 was initially buggy and couldn't reach its design clock speed. The first batch only ran properly at less than 1 MHz.

But even if the 65C816 was available in time, it still would not have been a good choice for the Amiga. It wasn't long before Amiga fans were seeking more processing power for ray-traced graphics and other applications. The first turbo card for the A1000 with 14.3 MHz 68020, 68881 FPU and 32 bit FastRAM was announced in 1986, setting the stage for further upgrades. By 1992 a 35 MHz 68040 accelerator card was available for any Amiga with a socketed 68000. The 68060 arrived soon after, with over 50 times the integer performance and 600 times the floating point performance of a 7MHz 68000. These developments would not have been possible with the 65C816, which was the end of the line for 6502.

Quote:

Thanks for making up the rules as we go along.

The rules of this forum prohibit derailing threads with off-topic discussions, or posting "derogatory, abusive, threatening, sarcastic, rude, or otherwise mean-spirited messages directed at members/users". So far we have tolerated it because somewhat off-topic discussions can be interesting, and (I at least) hoped it would become more civil.

Quote:

You show an example of the 1 thing a 68000 does better than a 65XX and ignore everything else that makes it suck. Newsflash - math is not the primary function of a cpu.

Actually it is.

Central processing unit
Quote:

A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the most important processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, logic, controlling, and input/output (I/O) operations. This role contrasts with that of external components, such as main memory and I/O circuitry, and specialized coprocessors such as graphics processing units (GPUs)... Principal components of a CPU include the arithmetic–logic unit (ALU) that performs arithmetic and logic operations, processor registers that supply operands to the ALU and store the results of ALU operations, and a control unit that orchestrates the fetching (from memory), decoding and execution (of instructions) by directing the coordinated operations of the ALU, registers, and other components.

Whether it be integer, floating point or boolean math, the CPU is constantly working with numbers - adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, comparing and making decisions based on mathematical quantities. Most programming languages do the same, even when working with data that you don't think of as numbers, such as characters and bitmap graphics.

But please do tell us about all the non-math operations the 6502 does that make it so much better than the 68000.

@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: @matthey Quote: matthey wrote: The Amiga 2000 was a workhorse but it was an underwhelming high end Amiga. And only for professionals. I had one, but I've used it like an A500: it would have been much better for me to go for it, instead of pushing my father spending so much money. I made a big mistake here.

I, OTOH, wish I had bought an A2000 instead of an A1000 and then the 'high-end' A3000. I could have added a hard drive to the A2000 more easily, had space for an internal CD-ROM drive, and saved money by buying an accelerator card for it instead of paying over NZ$7,000 for the A3000. If I had an A2000 I would have created a 'bridgeboard' for it to use ISA bus cards, like I did for a friend who had an A2000.

I do a have an A2000 keyboard, and a spare A500 motherboard with 8372A Agnus. Thinking of making my own 'A2000' from these parts, since the original machines are now rare and expensive.

@Lou

Quote:

Lou wrote: @cdimauro Quote: cdimauro wrote: @Lou I reveal you a secret: the Amiga platform is still alive, and Cloanto is heavily contributing to it as well... Oh yes, I'm sure that A600GS will sell like hotcakes to a dozen people.

You don't need to continue to show how much ignorant you are: the A600GS sports AROS, and NOT an Amiga OS version.

Instead, Cloanto was involved on the A500 Mini, which is using an officially licensed Amiga OS ROM, and this model sold more than 100k units.
Quote:

Quote: At least I can do something... You're good at displaying 8-bit derangement syndrome...

Sure? Where? Care to quote me and PROVE it, dear liar?
Quote:

Quote: I reveal you another secret: it doesn't suck only because YOU, which are mr. nobody, said it. Oh my - I am so insulted at your opinion of me...how ever will I go one? Here's a secret: your so obviously bitter about it because it's true.

Oh, yes. You can continue living on your parallel world.
Quote:

Quote: Actually on pure calculations the 68000 simply destroys your beloved 65xx. Oooo math! So special. Especially waiting 152 cycles for DIV. So fancy! I mean who knew that a general purpose cpu was made just to do fancy maths...

Well, the 68000 can do calculations AND much more, of course.

However, at least it gave the possibility to have such expensive DIV instruction. Care to show me how you craProcessors could do the same thing?

I'm preparing more popcorns...
Quote:

Quote: ROFL. Here the discussion was about the STACK RELOCATION ON C128. I've asked you one the most simple example, Fibonacci, implemented using it, and what you do: talk of completely different things. Genious! You really are dumb enough to think I'm going to do anything you ask me - aren't you?

I know that you aren't able to implement even one of the simplest algorithms like Fibonacci.

You stated that you were coding for the C128, but it's clearly evident that it was pure lie, since you are able to do nothing.
Quote:

Quote: Not needed: even a 7Mhz 68000 completely crashes the 65xx CRAProcessors when running any Amiga software, OS included. Why would a 65XX run Amiga software, strawman?

Oh, you continue to completely miss the context here.

Mother nature was a very bad step mother with you.
Quote:

Quote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WDC_65C02 Launch 1983. Which I haven't talk about, right?

Wrong. 65C02 easily outperforms a 68000 in 1983.[/quote]
Care to show it?
Quote:

You keep talking about 1 Mhz 6502s...

No, I was talking clock-for-clock: the 68000 has shown to be 3.5 times faster than an equivalently clocked 6502.

The 65C02 can do nothing to surpass it, neither your beloved 65CE02: they are simply crappy slow.
Quote:

Quote: [quote] 65816 was developed in 1984 as merely a 16bit enhanced 65C02...and for Apple at that. LAUNCHED: 1985. So, NOT available on 1984. Do you understand it?

1985, when Amiga launched.[/quote]
Oh, yes: and where was the time machine to give it to the Amiga engineers?
Quote:

Quote: [quote]As for where to buy? WDC sells 65XXX products to this day. But for a more compete system with a 45Mhz cpu, here you go: https://mega65.org/ Irrelevant.

Thanks for making up the rules as we go along.[/quote]
Well, it was already told you, and not only from me, that 68xxx reached even more than 500Mhz. That's why a 45Mhz CPU is and remains completely irrelevant in this context (IF you know it, of course).
Quote:

Quote: Commodore launched 7.14Mhz Amigas into 1990 until the unaffordable A3000 launch. Your ignorance is embarrassing: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amiga_2000&safemode=1#amiga2500

What a joke. An A2000 with an accelerator card included and rebadged as an A2500. How much was it again? What's funny is sales went up for this when the A3000 launched because it was barely an upgrade...and again unaffordable to the average person.[/quote]
And... who cares? The A2500 was an OFFICIAL Amiga sold by Commodore, and that's THE most important point on this discussion.
Quote:

Quote: Well, it's not the first time and you show to don't know even fundamental things of what you talk about... Sure like that rebadged A2000 was proof I am wrong, LMFAO!

Well, if you don't even understand this basic concept, it's not my problem anymore.

As I've already said, Nature was an evil stepmother with you.
Quote:

Quote: [quote]The C128 was actually supposed to have 256k. The pads are there for the memory. It's a simple mod to turn a C128 into a C256. It's even supported in the 'bios'... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Areq8K_ia9Y What's not clear to you that I had a C128 and I know it very well, included its expansions (VDC too, of course)?

What is clear is that you completely forget facts about it.[/quote]
Care to prove it?
Quote:

Like how they came with 64k VDC ram in newer revisions and yes even newer flat C128 came with 64k, only the early ones didn't. In other words, once the C128DCR was released even flat C128's had 64k of VDC ram from the factory.

Do you have numbers? How many C128/16kB were sold and how many C128/64kB?
Quote:

Quote: Actually it was proven several times how 65xx sucked compared to a simple 68000. Whereas you never provided evidence of the opposite... Denying reality doesn't help your case. You pick and choose your evidence. I already showed a video of a 68000 losing to a 65C02 despite the fact that it unrealistically favored the 68000. A 650C02 incremented memory faster than the 68000 incremented a register. 68000 is a joke! It's a reality-slap you continue to deny. Keep ignoring this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k_jP73Ly7A

I haven't ignored it, since I've already seen it., and I've already stated that only a complete idiot can write a benchmark which is just execution ONE (totally useless) instruction.

Which "algorithm" the guy has implemented? Nothing. It's a pure crap good only for the idiots that be take it into account.

On the exact contrary, I've provided a benchmark which was used by many professionals and which was available in assembly for several platforms, which has shown some real-world scenario, and where your crapProcessor was slow as a dog, clock-for-clock.
Quote:

Quote: Not needed: the 68040 followed the next year and crashed all ARMs. LOL! How much was an '040? Why wasn't it in the A3000? Oh it was already grossly over-priced, that's right!

And what's the point here? The A3000 has a CPU daughter board which can be easily replaced with a 68040 one.

I've to recall you that in THIS part of the discussion it was only about ARM vs 68k processors. So, no official computer was involved.
Quote:

Quote: [quote] You keep providing a lot of people with laughs. Me especially. I noticed eveyone else jumped off the cpu debate but apparently you're not smart enough so here we go: Actually OTHER people jumped in, and you were not able to contrast the results.

Yes they keep talking about all these extra instructions the 68000 has without looking into the cycle counts. Wow - so much proof![/quote]
Actually Matt has shown a 68000 AND 6502 program that calculates a 32 bit addition. And there's nothing extra on that: just ordinary, common instructions.

Guess what: you've stated nothing against those programs.
Quote:

I mean we should destroy all RISC processors for their incompetence! CISC rules! Oh wait - that's not actual reality is it?

Yes, you've reported the reality one time in your life: CISC ruled and continue to rules, and there's no RISC processor since more than 4 decades.

IF you know what a RISC and CISC processor are, of course, which I obviously and strongly doubt.
Quote:

Again keep ignoring this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k_jP73Ly7A An unrealistic example that still favors the 68000 and the 68000 loses.

See above: this "benchmark" is only good for idiots which don't understand computer architectures and, more general, computer science.
Quote:

Make it more realistic by incrementing an array of memory locations and the 68000 would get crushed.Â

What's the problem? Here we go:

void increment_array_elements(int * a, int n)
{
    while (n--)
        ++*a++;
}

Quote: despite the fact that I linked you a cheap expansion showing how the RAM was directly wired to the gpu Sure, you have WIRE an external expansion to the VDC. Easy task, yes.

Quote: Hopeless, I've written this: the "slow" 68000 was doing a big part there You have not even basic understand of what people write. P.S. Not time to fix the layout. I'll not waste other time on that. What I saw from Fighting Spirit was about 2-3 frames of animation per move. It 'looks' fast but animating 2 frames per character isn't much.

@bhabbott

Quote:

@bhabbott You mean it had the video hardware on a plug-in card. But the next design, the PCjr, had graphics hardware integrated into the VGA chip on the motherboard, and shared memory just like the Amiga. Fast forward to today and what do almost all PC motherboards have?

Bill Sydnes' PCJr is a sales flop and its specific graphics architecture didn't continue with EGA and VGA standards.

IBM PS/2 Model 55SX's motherboard VGA has discrete 256 KB video memory. Hit-the-metal PC VGA games work on either motherboard VGA or discrete VGA.

For modern desktop PCs, IGP can be disabled for compatible GPUs, hence proving the PC's partitioned graphics architecture.

I have desktop Zen 4-based Ryzens with RDNA 2 with 2 CU-based IGP which is disabled!

Both Zen 4's RDNA 2 IGP and NVIDIA RTX GPU support legacy VBIOS/VGA standards i.e. run hit-the-metal PC DOS 32bit-protected mode Doom.

Quote:

@bhabbott The graphics card that cost more than a whole PC and was controlled via commands sent to its onboard 8088 CPU?

Cost is a different topic.

PCG evolved into 8514's fixed-function acceleration features.

Stable 640x480p and 256 color use cases were recycled for VGA and 8514 which led to SVGA clones.

SVGA cloners applied aggressive cost-reduction R&D for VGA and 8514 standards. Commodore wasn't the only company with a cost reduction specialty.

IBM's slow VGA wasn't the major threat to the Amiga OCS, it was the faster VGA/SVGA clones e.g. Tseng ET4000, Trident 8900CL, WD90C32.

For Doom's resolution level, the Amiga would need AGA just to rival Tseng ET4000AX, Trident 8900CL, and WD90C32.

IBM delivered "the standard" for SVGA cloners to follow.

Quote:

@bhabbott I wouldn't say that was 'pointing' anywhere. The Amiga got VGA scan rates in 1988 without any changes to the standard graphics chipset, and it had higher performance.

The Amiga 2000 with productivity mode demonstration includes the ECS Denise and ECS Agnus (at least 1 MB ECS Agnus A variant).

For ECS, there are no changes with 3.5 Mhz memory timings.

-----------------
From https://discord.com/channels/784428461330530305/1183751373397966900

ECS-like resolution timings can be done on OCS via CPU intervention.

Quote:

twilen: There is even crazier ross(tm) modes that are not yet published, for example 800x600 (800x300 non-laced) PAL timing compatible mode that works even on an A1000! Basically hardwired hblank period is disabled (and replaced with black during hsync period) and vblank period is shortened. "Only" need to poke VPOSW exactly in right cycles with exactly right values.. ... It probably isn't that useful because it needs 7MHz 68000. This trick requires CPU timed VPOSW writes, copper isn't good enough because it can only do even cycle writes (and only ECS/AGA copper can do VPOSW writes)

For full ECS, Denise and Agnus (includes the Copper) needs to be upgraded.

1989 released A500 Rev6A has ECS Agnus (with ECS Copper). A2000 Rev 6.x is A500 Rev6A counterpart.

ECS Copper has a minor design change from OCS Copper.

1989 released A500 Rev 6A (and A2000 Rev 6x counterpart) has ECS Agnus with minor ECS Copper and ECS Blitter improvements.


Quote:

@bhabbott Chaotic how? They had a similar goal to IBM, and only took a little longer to get there. Yes they had to scale their plans back to match the reality of their chip manufacturing capabilities, but they were always working towards the same goal (keep OCS compatibility while adding high scan rates and 256 colors etc. just like VGA).

1. The Amiga didn't exploit CSG's 2-micron process node since it was frozen in the 5-micron process node until AGA's 1.5-micron process node for Lisa (external fabs) and Alice (CSG).

2. Henri Rubin's #metoo monochrome high-res Denise directive in mid-1986 is proven to be the wrong R&D direction.

Henri Rubin didn't factor in IBM PGC (1984) and IBM's MCGA (1986).

IBM's MCGA released VGA's mode 13h in 1986. VGA mode 13h has extra hardware features that led to Mode X.

Jeff Porter's 8 bit-planes argument during 1987 is the minimum.

Henri Rubin wasted time with the following,
1. #metoo monochrome high-res Denise vs four-color high-res Denise vs eight-color high-res Denise.
2. Hi-res monitor A2024 R&D with just 5000 units. LOL
3. TIGA-based A2410.


Quote:

@bhabbott Only in Commodore's case there wasn't such a pressing need because the OCS chipset was already pretty good.

False. Jeff Porter's CDTV-CR's ECS had extra hardware C2P which was before the CD32 project.

Jeff Frank spec'ed barebone AA600(A1200), hence it didn't include CDTV-CR's extra hardware C2P.

Quote:

@bhabbott, And the Amiga had an important 'use case' that PCs didn't, broadcast standard TV compatibility.

TV production has a smaller market potential when compared to Mac's DTP/GUI Excel/GUI Word.

The sales results speak for themselves i.e. 14 million Macs in 1994 vs 4 to 5 million Amigas.

MS PowerPoint says hi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvTW2S4Hko0
The Presentation Software Wars: How Microsoft PowerPoint Beat Lotus & Harvard Graphics

Quote:

@bhabbott, Oh, you mean 'stable 640x480p with 256 colors' for business applications. Yes, that's what the PC was all about. It took many years before it met the 'use case' most people were interested in - entertainment.

Don't assume.

VGA delivered stable 640x480p with arbitrary 16 colors which is the minimum.

VGA delivered arbitrary 256 colors at around 320x200 (Mode 13h) or 320x240 (Mode X) which is the minimum.

Competitive pressure pushed VGA cloners into SVGA levels.

Quote:

@bhabbott, Boring!

Earning money is still money.


Quote:

@bhabbott, The A1000 wasn't primarily designed for traditional business use. Being a new platform with a totally different OS it would obviously take a while to build up the software base, just like the Mac took a while. But trying to compete head-to-head with the PC was bound to fail (as many others found out). No problem, the Amiga had something else - excellent graphics and sound for games and animation - to exploit another niche.

For Mac 512K's 1985, it had Aldus PageMaker, Microsoft's GUI Excel, and GUI Word.

Quote:

@bhabbott, That's not to say it didn't get business apps though. I used Pro Calc for spreadsheets, Professional Page to create manuals, box artwork and CD inlays (all professionally offset printed), GPFax for sending and receiving faxes, Final Writer for word processing, and Easy Ledgers for point-of-sale and accounts (which was much more sophisticated than the typical Quick BASIC programs most businesses here were using!).

Amiga's Professional Calc v1.0 was released in 1991 which was too late to establish a beachhead.

Hint: Mac's GUI Excel was released in 1985. PC's GUI Excel for Windows 2.x was released in 1987.


Quote:

@bhabbott, You would be right that there were 'weaker relationships' with most PC software vendors, for the obvious reason that the Amiga wasn't a PC. But graphics hardware had nothing to do with it. AutoCAD started out being used on CGA in 640x200 with 2 colors. Looked dire, and wasn't great to use either. Yet it quickly became the industry standard, while better CAD programs on the Amiga went nowhere. Why? Because IBM, that's why - even with crappy CGA.

CGA is a 1981-era PC graphics standard along with MDA. CGA's 640x200 has 15 kHz timings.

Intel has 8087 FPU along with 8086 and 8088 CPUs. Intel 8087 was released in 1980.

Does 68000 have an FPU co-processor chip? 68881 was introduced in 1984 in conjunction with 68020.

Motorola was late with the discrete FPU add-on.

AutoCAD had access to the VGA market.

8087 and 80287 acted as lower-priced SKUs when 80387 was released.

For 1985, SUN-3's 68881 and 68020 workstations are expensive when compared to PC-AT clone with 286/287 combo.

1986 starts economies of scale via Compaq's DeskPro 386 and PC 386 clones.


From Dataquest November 1989, VGA crossed more than 50 percent market share in 1989 i.e. 56%.
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/components/dataquest/0005190_PC_Graphics_Chip_Sets--Product_Analysis_1989.pdf

Low-End PC Graphics Market Share by Standard Type
Estimated Worldwide History and Forecast

Total low-end PC graphic chipset shipment history and forecast
1987 = 9.2. million, VGA 16.4% market share i.e. 1.5088 million VGA.
1988 = 11.1 million, VGA 34.2% i.e. 3.79 million VGA.
1989 = 13.7 million, VGA 54.6% i.e. 7.67 million VGA.
1990 = 14.3 million, VGA 66.4% i.e. 9.50 million VGA.
1991 = 15.8 million, VGA 76.6% i.e. 12.10 million VGA.
1992 = 16.4 million, VGA 84.2% i.e. 13.81 million VGA.
1993 = 18.3 million, VGA 92.4% i.e. 16.9 million VGA.

Amiga's stable high-resolution SKUs didn't have access to A500's economies of scale/

For Amiga OCS, the A2024 high-res grey scale monitor add-on only has 5000 units which wouldn't change the platform's stable high-resolution install base.


For Rev 6 Amigas, Commodore refuses to sell AmigaOS 2.04 and ECS Denise upgrade kits for existing 16-bit Amigas i.e. existing Amiga customers must buy new Amigas. Read Commodore The Final Years.


From Commodore The Final Years,
Quote:

Although Amiga OS 2.04 was well tested and ready for release by the end of May, due to Commodore management, it would take a surprising number of months before the software would be released to users. (skip) Nesbitt fully expected Commodore to release an upgrade kit for AmigaOS 2.04 after he departed, but with the new management headed by Mehdi Ali and Bill Sydnes, it did not look like it would happen. “Basically, marketing had decided they weren’t going to release AmigaOS 2.04 as an upgrade, but instead were going to force everyone to just buy new hardware to get the new OS,� says Denny Atkin, a full time editor at Compute! magazine. “Engineering was of course aghast.� The Amiga software team wanted Commodore US, run by Jim Dionne, to release an upgrade kit for existing Amiga owners. Commodore’s engineers had a history of leaking information to magazines in an attempt to pressure management. AmigaOS developer Mike Sinz reached out to the Compute! editor to attempt to exert pressure. “I knew Mike from the BIX online service and he got in touch with me and told me anonymously,� says Atkin. “I knew people in the computer press,� says Sinz. “Denny Atkin and I were talking. I told him, ‘You can’t quote me but Commodore is saying they won’t make the 2.04 upgrade kit for existing systems. We think it's a horrible idea because we need people to upgrade, otherwise we can’t make forward progress. At some point 1.3 won’t be compatible at all.’� Atkin went to work, not only covering the story but also posting online messages to places like Usenet about the decision. He pleaded with Amiga users to generate a letter writing campaign aimed at Jim Dionne. “Denny leaked the information without making it traceable to me,� says Sinz. “There was immediate public backlash and corporate had to make the 2.04 upgrade kit. It was extremely subversive.�

Commodore management delays AmigaOS 2.04 release and upgrade kits.

Last edited by Hammer on 03-Sep-2024 at 04:01 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 03-Sep-2024 at 03:56 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 03-Sep-2024 at 03:47 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 03-Sep-2024 at 03:26 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 03-Sep-2024 at 03:23 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 03-Sep-2024 at 02:12 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 03-Sep-2024 at 01:28 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: @bhabbott Quote: @bhabbott I wouldn't say that was 'pointing' anywhere. The Amiga got VGA scan rates in 1988 without any changes to the standard graphics chipset, and it had higher performance. The Amiga 2000 with productivity mode demonstration includes the ECS Denise and ECS Agnus (at least 1 MB ECS Agnus A variant). For ECS, there are no changes with 3.5 Mhz memory timings.

Correct. And it was quite inferior to the VGA, which allowed 16 colours at 640x480 (without interlace, of course).
Quote:

----------------- From https://discord.com/channels/784428461330530305/1183751373397966900 ECS-like resolution timings can be done on OCS via CPU intervention.

No, it can't, as you clearly reported:
Quote:

Quote: twilen: There is even crazier ross(tm) modes that are not yet published, for example 800x600 (800x300 non-laced) PAL timing compatible mode that works even on an A1000! Basically hardwired hblank period is disabled (and replaced with black during hsync period) and vblank period is shortened. "Only" need to poke VPOSW exactly in right cycles with exactly right values.. ... It probably isn't that useful because it needs 7MHz 68000. This trick requires CPU timed VPOSW writes, copper isn't good enough because it can only do even cycle writes (and only ECS/AGA copper can do VPOSW writes)

In fact, if it requires an ECS or AGA, then it can NOT be done on OCS...
Quote:

Jeff Porter's 8 bit-planes argument during 1987 is the minimum.

It was just on paper, as an answer to Apple's Mac II and IBM's VGA: it had to be discussed AND then implemented, taking some years.

@cdimauro

Quote:

@cdimauro, Correct. And it was quite inferior to the VGA, which allowed 16 colours at 640x480 (without interlace, of course).

640x480p = progressive.

640x400i or 640x512i = interlace.

Quote:

@cdimauro, In fact, if it requires an ECS or AGA, then it can NOT be done on OCS...

It can be done with a specific 7.1 Mhz 68000.

The Copper reduces the CPU load.

Changing the 7.1 Mhz 68000 causes this feature to break.

The Copper is cheaper than including an extra 7.1 Mhz CPU.

56 kHz audio Paula can be done by CPU on OCS Amigas, but Agnus DMA reduces the CPU load. Agnus DMA is cheaper than including an extra 7.1 Mhz CPU.

1989 released A500 Rev6A has ECS Agnus with OCS Denise and this Amiga config is the majority.

Quote:

@cdimauro, It was just on paper, as an answer to Apple's Mac II and IBM's VGA: it had to be discussed AND then implemented, taking some years.

Rubin's "go ahead" was in Sep 1989.

1st AA prototype arrived in Dec 1990.

AA was booting AmigaOS in Feb 1991. Listed stable AA features in March 1991. AA Gayle and Budgie are missing which are part of (anti-GVP) PCMCIA and IDE mandates.

Last edited by Hammer on 04-Sep-2024 at 02:19 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 04-Sep-2024 at 02:16 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 03-Sep-2024 at 06:58 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 03-Sep-2024 at 06:55 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

@matthey

Quote:

@matthey, CBM could have added a 6502 family CPU to the Amiga chipset

CDTV-CR prototype has CSG's 4510 SoC which includes 65CE02 CPU. https://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cbm/cd500/cdtvcrMotherboard3.jpg

For SNES, 65C816 CPU is not good enough since the Super FX is RISC 16bit CPU-DSP with reasonable MUL instructions (e.g. LMULT's 16x16 signed multiply), 512-byte cache, and 10 Mhz to 20 Mhz clock speed.

When compared to SuperFX, 65CE02 wasn't purpose-designed for 3D math and 16x16 multiply.

Quote:

@matthey, CBM failed at not just enhancing the Amiga but providing high quality and optimized C64 and IBM PC emulators for the Amiga too.

IBM PC emulator is just a weak #metoo move.

Henri Rubin supported the X86 bridgeboard and inline ISA slots i.e. run with actual PC VGA cards.

Emulated VGA on Amiga OCS is a joke.

Last edited by Hammer on 04-Sep-2024 at 03:30 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

@Lou

Quote:

What I saw from Fighting Spirit was about 2-3 frames of animation per move. It 'looks' fast but animating 2 frames per character isn't much. Meanwhile if you compare the SNES, TG-16 and Genesis versioned of Super Street Fighter, animations had 4-6 frames, thought the 68000 Genesis version was outputting only 3-4. Visually, the Sega Genesis version is the weakest. The only knock on the TG-16 versin is it's lack of paralax background which is a common limitation of it's gpu..so even spending extra cycles to animate some aspects of the background, it was still superior overall to the Genesis version. Some reviews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emUYspkL27w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opm_pLVTrM8 You can see here in this faithful Amiga 500 version that since it includes all the animation frames it just looks SLOW. Also, I haven't studied in dept but I don't see ANY paralax! At least the TG-16 still had a parallax-effect floor. Epic fail! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekg-Mr9OQb0 So now we have apples to apples to apples to apples.

SNES, TG-16, and Genesis have discrete video memory bandwidth e.g. stock A500 would be behind Genesis's 16-bit system DRAM and 8-bit VRAM on memory bandwidth.

A500's $C0 memory range wasn't designed as Fast RAM.

A500 Rev6A's ECS Agnus's Copper can operate on both odd and even cycles which effectively 2X performance over OCS Copper, but without Fast RAM, it's gimped.
A500 Rev6A is the Amiga model majority.

For European markets, SNES was released in 1992 which is also A1200's release year.

For Q4 1992, Commodore management didn't order enough Lisa chips from HP and fell back to manufacturing 1 million A600s vs 44,000 A1200. Without this mistake, Commodore could have ordered 500,000 Lisa chips for 500,000 A1200s for Q4 1992 (cite: Dale Luck).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33kH9DdNznA
Street Fighter II AGA: The impossible Amiga port, made possible...?

Stock A1200 is capable of performing arcade-quality Street Fighter II port when it's designed for AGA. The problem is AGA's install base being "Atari ST'ed" by the larger Amiga OCS/ECS install base.

Shared platform releases for Amiga OCS and AGA will cause shared game design issues.

For both A500 Rev6A+ and A1200, $C0 memory range should have been designed as standard Fast RAM.

A1200's PCMCIA "memory only" design is mostly wasted, hence should have been $C0 32-bit Fast RAM standard config. From CD32 reveal, 8 MB RAM is just $20 extra over 2 MB RAM.

From Commodore - The Final Years, PCMCIA is just anti-GVP political move.

Blame Jeff Franks for AA600/A1200's barebone with PCMCIA configuration.

Last edited by Hammer on 04-Sep-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