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Poll : Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Yes
No
Pancakes
 
PosterThread
paolone 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 29-Oct-2021 8:01:41
#21 ]
Super Member
Joined: 24-Sep-2007
Posts: 1143
From: Unknown

Quote:

AP wrote:
@matthey: Regarding AmigaOne you are not 100% correct. "AmigaOne" was the official brand for new "Amigas" from the parent-company at that time (Amiga Inc., former Amino). So historical an AmigaOne is of course an official Amiga-computer.


Yes, and this is just one of the biggest mistakes those companies did. Creating a 'dualism' between 'Amiga' and 'AmigaOne' could only lead to a single truth: "Amiga"s and "AmigaOne"s were different things.

The example of Macs doesn't apply here: Macintosh computers have always been produced by the same company, no matter how this company and its products changed in the meantime. This can't be told about Amigas.

Anyway, Amiga is a commercially dead platform from the 90s which got a tumultuous agony and post-mortem diversification, so anyone here can now pretend what Amiga means today.

But the only simple truth here is that no matter what we think: now that the currently Amiga-branded C-A Aquisition has bought all assets, names and IPs, hey can call "Amiga" whater they want and anything branded Amiga by them will be, please it or not, the new Amigas.

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AP 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 29-Oct-2021 13:02:12
#22 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 31-Jul-2003
Posts: 617
From: Vienna/Austria

@paolone: I agree with you, Amiga Inc. could have chosen a better name for "their" new Amigas. Even "Amiga Walker" was better

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QBit 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 29-Oct-2021 13:05:20
#23 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 15-Jun-2018
Posts: 474
From: Unknown

@paolone

Amiga is so to speak.. PANCAKES!

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matthey 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 29-Oct-2021 19:36:36
#24 ]
Super Member
Joined: 14-Mar-2007
Posts: 1968
From: Kansas

@AP Quote:

Regarding AmigaOne you are not 100% correct. "AmigaOne" was the official brand for new "Amigas" from the parent-company at that time (Amiga Inc., former Amino). So historical an AmigaOne is of course an official Amiga-computer.

As Amiga Inc. had no intention to produce hardware, their plan was to do this with hardware-partners and license the brand to them, but nevertheless it was their official name for NG-Amigas with AmigaOS4 (after considering AmigaDE as new AmigaOS before).

They could have named their attempt for new Amiga-computers "Amiga 8000" or "Amiga Super-Walker", but their choice was "AmigaOne".


Usually electronic device products have the following nomenclature.

business product_line model

Commodore Amiga 1000
Amiga Technologies Amiga 4000T
A-Eon AmigaOne X5000

My opinion is that AmigaOne is a related but different product line from Amiga. It is branded differently as Amiga Inc. licensed the AmigaOne IP brand name to Hyperion who sublicensed it to A-Eon. It looks like Amiga Inc. did not want the product line to be called Amiga likely to preserve the right to produce an Amiga product line. In my opinion, there is no question that AmigaOne is a brand line as it is run together where "Amiga One" with separated words could be confused with an Amiga product line if the One is joined with the model. An "A-Eon Amiga One Thousand" is confusing and could lead to claiming "A-Eon Amiga 1000" or "A-Eon Amiga 100" is an "Amiga One" product line as well. As Amiga Inc. reserved the right to use the Amiga product line, Amiga Corporation which acquired or will be aquiring Amiga Inc.'s IP should be able to use the Amiga name in a product line even without the Hyperion lawsuit being resolved.

It is possible to blur the general nomenclature somewhat for a marketing advantage. Consider the following examples.

Amiga Corporation Amiga Pi40 (SBC board only)
Amiga Corporation Amiga Pi120 (SBC in an Amiga 1200 style case)

The Pi at the start of the model number could designate lower end products of the Amiga product line while taking advantage of brand name recognition of a competitors product.

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cgutjahr 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 29-Oct-2021 21:33:33
#25 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 969
From: Unknown

Claiming that an AmigaOne is "an official Amiga computer" while it can not legally be called an Amiga is... funny.

The idea that anything other than the A500 to A4000 range of computers could even be an "Amiga", is responsible for a lot of the mess we're in right now. Instead of porting the OS we all loved to sane hardware, vendors got away with selling us a load of crap. Because the "Amiga" is a platform, not just an OS - you know?

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Zylesea 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 29-Oct-2021 22:23:32
#26 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 16-Mar-2004
Posts: 2263
From: Ostwestfalen, FRG

@Lou

The Draco had the CIAs and hence quite a good compability. Virtually all RTG/AHI programs worked.
Back in the days I thought "ooomph, that $$$$ costing thing is not even running normal Amiga gfx, what's the thing about it then?" I just hadn't understood until I had my first RTG/RTA-System. The Draco was the way C= should have walked. The custom gfx chips weren't competetive anymore. But a system with a modernized bus and fast CPU/RAM.
As a transition to a fully hardware abstracted system the design with CIAs included was a pretty clever move.

The draco shares a bit with current "Amiga" hardware. The production runs were small, the cost hence high and eventually it was not wide spread but tiny niche.
But in the 90ies it was a viable way, in the 2020ies not though....

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tonyw 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 29-Oct-2021 22:42:05
#27 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 3240
From: Sydney (of course)

@bison

Do third-party add-ons make it "not an Amiga any more" ?

When the first Amiga 2000 was fitted with a plug-in graphics card, was it still an Amiga?
When an Amiga 4000 was fitted with a Picasso II or a Picasso IV, was it still an Amiga?
If you plug an audio daughterboard into a Picasso IV, does that immediately make it "not an Amiga" ?
When you plug in a Cyberstorm accelerator with SCSI adaptor, does that make it "not an Amiga any more" ?

A more grey area: Is a machine an Amiga if it runs Amiga software? Only if it runs it natively? If it says "Amiga" on the case?

Everyone to his or her opinion.

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matthey 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 0:37:54
#28 ]
Super Member
Joined: 14-Mar-2007
Posts: 1968
From: Kansas

Zylesea Quote:

The Draco had the CIAs and hence quite a good compability. Virtually all RTG/AHI programs worked.
Back in the days I thought "ooomph, that $$$$ costing thing is not even running normal Amiga gfx, what's the thing about it then?" I just hadn't understood until I had my first RTG/RTA-System. The Draco was the way C= should have walked. The custom gfx chips weren't competetive anymore. But a system with a modernized bus and fast CPU/RAM.
As a transition to a fully hardware abstracted system the design with CIAs included was a pretty clever move.


The CIAs were cheap enough to add and do help compatibility quite a bit. The Boxer went further with a FPGA implementation of the Amiga custom chipset with some enhancements like more chip memory bandwidth. As Lou suggests, the Amiga custom chipset quickly fell behind. While it started ahead in overall design, it used older more conservative and cheaper technology to implement it. The custom chips were NMOS when CMOS was already available and the chip fabrication process was not state of the art. The idea was to produce a high tech design but affordable chipset for the masses. CBM did little to upgrade the Amiga chipset as chip fabrication technology was taking off. It was only the AGA Lisa which was finally upgraded to CMOS by HP using a more up to date chip fabrication process and AGA chip memory bandwidth improvements didn't keep up with technology which was advancing quickly as new chip processes were introduced. Jay Miner designed the Ranger chipset to improve bandwidth and features earlier but CBM nixed it as costing too much. CBM tried to use the cheapest gfx memory possible. As Lou states, The Amiga like C65 custom chip clock frequency was the same as that of the Amiga but added 256 colors in low resolution which would have been great for the Amiga when it was struggling to keep up with PC games with 256 colors. By the time CBM went bankrupt, all the Amiga custom chip logic should have been on one chip. The performance problem was not the Amiga custom chips but CBM management. Even with semi-modern technology today, the performance of the Amiga custom logic designs still shine as FPGA implementations demonstrate. In addition, the minimal logic of the Amiga custom chips is practically free in silicon today like it was so cheap to add the CIA support to the Draco.

Zylesea Quote:

The draco shares a bit with current "Amiga" hardware. The production runs were small, the cost hence high and eventually it was not wide spread but tiny niche.
But in the 90ies it was a viable way, in the 2020ies not though....


Trying to compete with niche computer production is difficult in any decade. Economies of scale are huge in computer production. Chip process improvements are starting to slow down, are getting more expensive and are offering less improvement due to current leakage which encourages better and longer life designs. This is also likely to encourage more efficient integrated custom designs (SoCs, HSA APUs, etc.) rather than quickly assembled commodity hardware.

Last edited by matthey on 30-Oct-2021 at 12:40 AM.

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kolla 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 8:13:43
#29 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 20-Aug-2003
Posts: 2859
From: Trondheim, Norway

Amiga CD32 has no CIA chips, so boohoo.

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AP 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 8:33:02
#30 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 31-Jul-2003
Posts: 617
From: Vienna/Austria

@cgutjahr: I know that you hate everything regarding AmigaOS4 and its hardware but the AmigaOne-brand was the official name for new Amiga-computers with AmigaOS4 from Amiga Inc. That is not funny but a historical fact.

Afterwards there where different vendors selling AmigaOne-computers (Eytech, ACube, A-EON).


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kolla 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 11:22:06
#31 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 20-Aug-2003
Posts: 2859
From: Trondheim, Norway

Historic fact, but still funny.

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cgutjahr 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 12:29:32
#32 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 969
From: Unknown

Quote:

he AmigaOne-brand was the official name for new Amiga-computers with AmigaOS4 from Amiga Inc.

No. "AmigaOne" was the official name for new Amiga computers running AmigaDE. The "One" in the name is referring to the "one OS to unite them all" approach of AmigaDE: An AmigaOne could feature a x86, PPC, Arm, SH4 or MIPS CPU ("Zico specs").

It's just that nobody wanted to build AmigaDE based AmigaOnes - except Eyetech. Several disastrous failures later, the Eyetech product was no longer an A1200/Escena hybrid running AmigaDE and AmigaOS 3.9 but a relabeled Teron motherboard. It's almost as if the universe was trying to tell us something, right from the beginning....

Not to mention that no entity other than Eyetech ever got an "AmigaOne" naming license from Ainc - and even Redhouse was so tired of that crap that his last effort simply shipped as the "µA1". Later AmigaOne products had a brand license from Ben Hermans, of all people. And they no longer seem to have one anyway...

But yeah, let's call it "an official Amiga computer" because we can not legally call it an Amiga. That makes sense.

Quote:

That is not funny but a historical fact.

These two are not mutually exclusive, especially not in this community.

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thinkchip 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 14:12:25
#33 ]
Super Member
Joined: 26-Mar-2004
Posts: 1183
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

@bison

This topic keeps popping up. Amigas that came after the original Amiga, the 1000, had custom chips that were significantly different from the 1000. Does that mean that all the Amiga's that came after weren't "real Amigas"? Computers in general have always taken advantage of new technology. Modern Amigas / AmigaOnes have interchangeable video hardware. How is hardware that performs the same function different? It's the function, not the form, that is important.

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OneTimer1 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 15:07:13
#34 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 3-Aug-2015
Posts: 962
From: Unknown

@paolone

Quote:

paolone wrote:
Quote:

AP wrote:
@matthey: Regarding AmigaOne you are not 100% correct. "AmigaOne" was the official brand for new "Amigas" from the parent-company at that time (Amiga Inc., former Amino). So historical an AmigaOne is of course an official Amiga-computer.


Yes, and this is just one of the biggest mistakes those companies did. Creating a 'dualism' between 'Amiga' and 'AmigaOne' could only lead to a single truth: "Amiga"s and "AmigaOne"s were different things.


Full ACK.

Calling the computer an AmigOne was on purpose, Amiga Inc, refused to give away there precious rights for that brand name.

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FairBoy 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 15:14:53
#35 ]
Member
Joined: 8-Jun-2020
Posts: 76
From: Unknown

WTF. While you bunch of sad losers pointlessly "discuss" about what's a real Amiga and what's not over and over again, real Amigans are happily playing with their X5000s, Amiberry Pis, Sams, MISTs, MorphOS Macs, Vampires, WinUAE PCs, PPC A1200 towers with practically unused custom chips, classic 68k A1200s, whatever flavour I missed, and they all rightfully call it a true Amiga experience or even their Amiga.

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Srtest 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 16:34:47
#36 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 15-Nov-2016
Posts: 259
From: Israel, Haderah

Is it really about something real or is this about philosophy?

Was the original Amiga an ideal or was its design ideal for what it needed to accomplish? Like any great invention, the thought of what could be was fueled by what should be. The Amiga design is about several components working with each other in a way that always presents everything at the tip of the finger of the user. Whereas other computers of the time had a thought process of getting assignments done and then thinking about the user, the original designers didn't comply with that lets channel all the horse power through one outlet and if it isn't enough then "that's how things work".

Now, was the Amiga's advantage due to others not having enough of a horse power to challenge its approach?

I think wanting to win this is more of a philosophical thing which some may prefer adhering to. You could say that Amiga's entire approach is more gestalt than that - making itself available to various users in ways never thought of before. Whether that is creation, gaming or going back and forth.

When the Amiga was created the internet wasn't a thing but isn't the net works exactly like that? that there isn't a single input and output but more like a... net? So did Amiga's idea had similarities with the web? Maybe that is the real comparison of the the argument as opposed to the philosophical one. When everything is derived today both from a leisure standpoint and a business standpoint from a joint collaboration directed through combined operations, the basis of those components might not be anymore in isolated parts which are also combined to work together.

Maybe if your operation isn't made using a sitting and conjoining but rather a press of a button on a remote, then it goes back to what works behind the scene and how does that effect what you want to accomplish. What is a signal that is based on one single source looking for a different one rather than operating under the assumption that lesser parts are joining in getting a single command done? Are we dealing with complexities by employing a model based on a flat perspective?

Last edited by Srtest on 30-Oct-2021 at 06:38 PM.

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matthey 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 17:02:51
#37 ]
Super Member
Joined: 14-Mar-2007
Posts: 1968
From: Kansas

kolla Quote:

Amiga CD32 has no CIA chips, so boohoo.


The CD32 integrated the CIA logic into the Akiko ASIC chip with other glue logic. Amiga compatible FPGA hardware has the CIA logic integrated into a larger FPGA chip. Upgrades to the CIA logic are possible including more tolerant timing which may boost performance, adding a 3rd CIA unit like AAA planned and better electrical protection so they aren't damaged as easily as CIA chips in early Amigas.

Srtest Quote:

Is it really about something real or is this about philosophy?


I would say it is about the legality of who owns the Amiga brand and who can legally label Amiga products. I recognize that philosophy, based on historic Amiga brand association, plays an important role in the acceptance and sales of Amiga products though.

Srtest Quote:

Now, was the Amiga's advantage due to others not having enough of a horse power to challenge its approach?


The Amiga was not about raw horse power but powerful and efficient designs for an affordable price. The minimalist preemptive AmigaOS played an important part in the multimedia capabilities and power user experience while an OS can offer no horse power but rather only spare horse power and allow it to be better harnessed. The 68020 was already available when the Amiga was released and the Amiga custom chips were created in older NMOS and using an affordable chip fabrication process. This circles back to the Amiga philosophy. Some people may argue the Amiga philosophy was lost to raw horse power commodity hardware designs before CBM went bankrupt due to poor management not upgrading the technology fast enough. Newer technology mostly surpassed the Amiga with raw power but less efficiency so performance is important as is price (performance/price being a key metric of hardware competitiveness).

Last edited by matthey on 30-Oct-2021 at 05:52 PM.

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ppcamiga1 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 17:57:16
#38 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 23-Aug-2015
Posts: 762
From: Unknown

threads like this are pure BS.
Attacks on ppc, Amiga (one) is road to nowhere.
The only way to advice people use amiga like solutions on x86 or arm is to make they worth of use.
Nobody sane will use amiga like solutions on x86 or arm when it everything can be done
many times faster on win/lnx/onx.

So if You dont like ppc start working on AROS to made it worth of use.

Last edited by ppcamiga1 on 30-Oct-2021 at 05:57 PM.

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AP 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 17:57:52
#39 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 31-Jul-2003
Posts: 617
From: Vienna/Austria

@cgutjahr
Quote:

No. "AmigaOne" was the official name for new Amiga computers running AmigaDE.


Thank you for the history-lesson but I am of course aware oft the whole AmigaDE-thing (one of the many stupid plans and false promises of AmigaInc.). I even mentioned it two comments ago. Nevertheless they decided to keep the name AmigaOne for their NG-"Amigas"with AmigaOS4 in general. So my argument that AmigaOne was the chosen brand for NG-Amigas (first with AmigaDE, later with AmigaOS4) is still valid.

Regarding to your "But yeah, let's call it "an official Amiga computer" because we can not legally call it an Amiga. That makes sense."

Not really true. Maybe this is the case today but historical and on the first place Amiga Inc. decided to name their NG-"Amigas" "AmigaONE" with all the freedom to chose an other name (and isn't Amiga included in AmigaONE)?

Other question: Would it more "Amiga" for you if a computer is just called "Amiga" regardless of the OS? Like the "Amiga mini" from CommodoreUSA? Then put a sticker on your Linux-box and be happy, for me this isn´t the definition of an Amiga.

What I am saying is: This is nitpicking and I am tired to hear this from AmigaOS4-haters over and over. It´s like: "I don´t like AmigaOS4 and dedicated hardware. But no matter what you say, take this: It´s not "Amiga" anyway!"

This is your opinion. Historical it is. And even not: For me is hardware designed to run AmigaOS4 of course an Amiga-computer these days. Even if Commodore survived a modern Amiga wouldn't have fancy custom-chips these days. I assume they would have taken the Apple-route. The constant feature of Apple-computers/Macs is the OS and of course this is also true for "Amiga" this days.

Quote:

"That is not funny but a historical fact."
These two are not mutually exclusive, especially not in this community.


At least here I agree with you.

Last edited by AP on 30-Oct-2021 at 06:00 PM.
Last edited by AP on 30-Oct-2021 at 06:00 PM.

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AP 
Re: Is an Amiga without custom chips a real Amiga?
Posted on 30-Oct-2021 17:59:03
#40 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 31-Jul-2003
Posts: 617
From: Vienna/Austria

@FairBoy: Couldn't agree more!

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