BigD Quote:

OK but without proper updated graphics, sound etc is it REALLY what we needed? Why was Haynie overruled with the AGA decision?

Dave Haynie was not in charge of engineering. I believe it was Jeff Porter until Mehdi Ali brought in Bill "PCjr" Sydnes who made the following changes.


Amiga 3000+ (cancelled)
Amiga 1000+ (cancelled)

Amiga 300 (upgraded and cost increased the cost reduced Amiga 300 to Amiga 600)
AGA (delayed)

David Pleasance said in a YouTube video interview that Bill had 40 CBM PC engineers while there were 7 Amiga engineers. It appears Medhi and Bill tried to pivot away from the Amiga but the bottom fell out of the PC market as it became saturated. Dave Haynie said in another video that CBM PCs cost more for CBM to manufacture than they could sell them for. He may not have been exaggerating. It is better to sell hardware that is different which should be considered when looking at ARM or x86-64 based Amiga hardware today. This was really the pivotal moment that killed CBM and the Amiga. The Amiga chipset was already behind in development and this AGA delay was the nail in the coffin. AA+ is what AGA should have been in '88-'91 but by the time Lew Eggebrecht was making decisions in engineering after Sydnes, CBM was so far gone that the specs never make it off paper. Everyone knows who sunk CBM and the Amiga. Watch the Deathbed Vigil again if there is any doubt.

Last edited by matthey on 06-Oct-2022 at 08:28 PM.
Last edited by matthey on 06-Oct-2022 at 08:00 PM.
Last edited by matthey on 06-Oct-2022 at 07:57 PM.

@BigD

Quote:

OK but without proper updated graphics, sound etc is it REALLY what we needed?

The A3000 was the greatest machine commodore ever made and to this very day it is the greatest computer I own.

It wasn’t aimed at talentless consumers.

@bhabbott

Quote:

bhabbott wrote: 'Back in the day' I had an A1200 with 40MHz 030 set up in the shop on a multisync monitor running Workbench in Double PAL 640x480, and it was great for word processing etc. We also used that machine for faxes and for scanning and printing photos. HAM8 was much better than typical PCs that only had 256 colors, and in Windows were stuck in that mode so desktop operation was sluggish.

Then why don't you use HAM8 for the Workbench as well? It should be super-fluid, right?
Quote:

The Amiga can easily transmit 115200bd at full speed with the right software.

Yes: a software that takes control of almost all system, to be sure to don't loose data.
Quote:

Many PCs didn't have a buffered serial port either,

Depends on the age / year.
Quote:

but this didn't matter for programs like LapLink, which took over the machine and accessed the serial port directly.

Like your mentioned software for the Amiga?
Quote:

Quote: Oh and floppy disk access was still slow. Stupid slow half/spin speed. What are you going on about? Amiga floppy drives don't spin at 'half' speed, and they aren't that slow. An A1200 can read from the drive as fast as it can send the data.

Someone already replied: not for 1.44MB floppies.

And do you know why we never saw 2.88MB floppies (even running at 1/4 of the speed) for Amigas?
Quote:

The truth is, AAA would have solved nothing. Trying to compete head-to-head with PCs was bound to fail. By 1995 the Amiga had lost its last advantage over PCs in the 'serious' market, and was being swamped by them in the high-end gaming market. Its only hope was as a low-end hobbyist computer and gaming console.

The Amiga lost the technology advantage much, much before. And the videogames market as well.

Because Commodore slept instead of working on new chipsets after the Amiga 1000.

@Bosanac

So serious computer professional/experts didn't need AGA on the A3000? They didn't need more slots so that the Toaster would fit properly? Come off it, it wasn't perfect!

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

@DiscreetFX

Quote:

DiscreetFX wrote: @kolla NeXT machines were nice and very high res and sharp for the time but very expensive especially if you wanted color. Now for the important question. Would you take a B&W computer over the list of computers on the link below? https://www.cioinsight.com/innovation/quantum-computing-companies/

There is no list of computers there, only companies.

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

Why was A4000? What was its primary purpose?

Maybe it was to be the developer’s system for those making games for CD32 and A1200?

Anyone in need of better graphics would buy dedicated hardware anyhow, typically bundled with its own graphics software (or rather, vice versa).

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @Bosanac So serious computer professional/experts didn't need AGA on the A3000? They didn't need more slots so that the Toaster would fit properly? Come off it, it wasn't perfect!

I pre-ordered an A3000 and it was my main machine for 10 years, eventually being upgraded with a 50MHz 060, RTG and Ethernet. It certainly wasn't perfect. To start off with it was ridiculously expensive - about the same price as a Compaq 386. That's understandable considering it had similar hardware specs, but the price put it out of reach of most home computer buyers. Other flaws included the case being too small to add much stuff, very noisy PSU fan, flaky SCSI, under-performing Zorro III bus, difficult to install ZIP RAM chips, and the peculiar inclusion of ECS productivity mode when it already had a flicker fixer.

But no, 'serious computer professional/experts' didn't need AGA. they needed 24 bit color for video work etc., which is why most 3rd party graphic cards concentrated on this area. AGA was mostly for games and low-end productivity use, and being able to use a VGA monitor without a separate flicker fixer. For 'serious professional/experts' an A2000 (stuffed with cards) was what they needed.

@bhabbott

I can well imagine that if an A3000 owner wanted to play AGA games they'd more likely buy an A1200 to do it on than sidegrade to the A4000.

The A4000T on the other hand...

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: @bhabbott Then why don't you use HAM8 for the Workbench as well? It should be super-fluid, right?

Why would I? Apart from Workbench not being compatible with HAM8, why would I waste precious ChipRAM and bandwidth when 8 colors is plenty enough?

But that's the Amiga fan, never satisfied and always wanting more. OCS Amigas struggled with 8 colors, and most PCs back then only ran 16 colors in WIndows - so you would think getting a faster 8 or 16 color Workbench would be enough. But no - they wanted at least 256 colors in the highest resolution possible. Why? because it was there, and because they were consumed by PC envy.

The Amiga doesn't need a high resolution desktop because each application can open its own screen. But PCs can't. On a PC the desktop isn't just for launching apps, everything has to use it. Therefore the desktop resolution has to be good enough for the most demanding applications. Want to display a 24 bit image? The desktop has to be 24 bit, with all of its performance implications. Most PCs in 1992 had very poor performance in 256 colors, let alone 24 bit. That was a bit deal for them, but shouldn't have been for Amiga users.

Quote:

Someone already replied: not for 1.44MB floppies.

Amiga floppies are 880k, not 1.44MB. More PC envy?

Quote:

And do you know why we never saw 2.88MB floppies (even running at 1/4 of the speed) for Amigas?

The same reason we didn't see them on PCs? It wasn't a standard format, and the extra capacity wasn't worth the hassle.

What happened to 2.88 MB floppies?
Quote:

In 1990, IBM shipped its highest-end 486-based PS/2 models with 2.88 megabyte floppy drives. Sun and NeXT also shipped 2.88 megabyte floppies in their most expensive workstations. But these were the $10,000 systems of their day, the systems where no expense was spared. Mainstream systems didn’t come with them. And even if you wanted one, they weren’t easy to find. You could buy 720K and 1.44 megabyte floppy drives at any computer store, even consumer electronics stores. If you didn’t know what magazines to read, you didn’t even know 2.88 megabyte floppy drives existed. And they were expensive. The drives were announced in 1988 at a promising price of $300, and the price never really came down from there. Looking through old magazines, I had a hard time finding one even for that price, even four years later. Some companies were asking $500 for the drives. The disks themselves were also scarce and expensive.

The main day-to-day use for floppy disks on PCs was for backups, but as hard drives got bigger even 2.88MB wasn't enough. Many businesses used tape drives, which were cheap but dedicated for one use only and possibly not that reliable (users didn't find out until they had to restore their data). I sold heaps of tape drives to PC users.

Then in 1994 Iomega invented the ZIP drive, which held 100MB on a 3.5" floppy-sized disk. Other manufacturers followed suit with similar solutions (eg. 3M's LS120 'Super Disk' with 120MB capacity). In 1998 I developed an Amiga driver for parallel port ZIP drives.


Quote:

The Amiga lost the technology advantage much, much before. And the videogames market as well. Because Commodore slept instead of working on new chipsets after the Amiga 1000.

The Amiga never really had the 'technology advantage' over the high-end and videogames market. It's strength was in being a better home computer than other contemporary machines (C64, Amstrad, ST, Tandy 1000 etc.). The OCS chipset was so good that the Amiga was on top of that market into the 90's, largely because it was a popular platform that developers got to know and were able to get the best out of. Unfortunately the Amiga wasn't popular enough to be the primary target of most developers - if it had we would have seen a lot more great stuff and fewer ugly ports.

When the A1200 was released a lot of users complained about its lack of 100% compatibility with OCS games. Many also voiced their disappointment with AGA games. Why? Because just having more colors, more detailed backgrounds and smoother movement wasn't enough. For most genres a well designed OCS game is good enough that AGA (or VGA) doesn't add that much. This fact vindicates Commodore's 'tardiness' in developing new chipsets.

Commodore wasn't the only one to push a 'standard' for as long they could rather then continuously bringing out new technologies. The average length of time between the release of new console models was in the order of 6 years, not much different from the Amiga (7 years from OCS to AGA). Amstrad kept the same chipset in its CPC range for 6 years, finally adding sprites and 4096 colors in 1990 (5 years after the Amiga). IBM released VGA in 1987, and it was still the base level for PC games 10 years later (and still mostly being used as a dumb frame buffer).

Your complaint is typical of butt-hurt Amiga fans, who - not understanding its limitations - believed the hype about it being the best machine ever! Then they felt betrayed when having to face the truth. Which is silly. The Amiga, like all home computers and consoles of the day, was not designed to be constantly upgraded with new technologies, and there was no reason to believe it wouldn't have a life cycle just like the others. Eventually it too would become 'retro' - and that is not a bad thing.

Last edited by bhabbott on 07-Oct-2022 at 12:23 AM.

@bhabbott

Quote:

Amiga floppies are 880k, not 1.44MB. More PC envy?

Amigas DID come with 1.44MB floppy drives e.g. the Chinon FZ-357a. But because C= had no intention of ever updating Paula (despite the sound capabilities looking long in the tooth by 1992) it was another kludge! Paula can't cope with the bandwidth required by a HD Floppy Drive so they halved the RPM!! You just couldn't write it!



P.S. An Amiga gets 1.76MB from a standard HD Floppy! It also allowed you to swap data with 'normal people' in the 90s and early 00s without having to use your own DDs!

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

@Karlos

Quote:

Karlos wrote: @bhabbott I can well imagine that if an A3000 owner wanted to play AGA games they'd more likely buy an A1200 to do it on than sidegrade to the A4000.

That is exactly what I did.

My A3000 was for software development, not playing games. I got an A1200 when I had to develop AGA titles. After Commodore collapsed I moved the A3000 to the shop and used it for business stuff for a few years, then moved it back home and loaned the A1200 to my father (a totally computer illiterate pensioner who couldn't handle Windows). I made a floppy drive interface for the CD32 and used that for while instead, then my father moved house and I got the A1200 back. In 2001 I sold the A3000 and replaced it with a PC, but kept the A1200 (which I still have today).

Actually I had so many computers over that period that I can't remember what happened to most of them. Many got sold or swapped for other machines when I got tired of them. Some were dismantled for parts (including many PCs) and some were made into Frankenstein hybrids - like the A1000 that I gutted and installed an A600 motherboard with 030 accelerator card, hard drive and CDROM drive into. Wish I had kept that one! I also used to break down motherboards, monitors and printers into component parts for repair jobs. At one time I had several thousand ICs taken off PC motherboards - wish I had kept them too!

@bhabbott

Quote:

The Amiga, like all home computers and consoles of the day, was not designed to be constantly upgraded with new technologies, and there was no reason to believe it wouldn't have a life cycle just like the others. Eventually it too would become 'retro' - and that is not a bad thing.

The Amiga WAS designed to be upgradable. Heck even the CD32 can be turned into a fully functioning 030 (if not 060) CD-Rom capable A1200 alike computer! The issue was C= sold widgits and hadn't understood they needed to develop an ongoing computer platform! Absolute idiots! At least Good ol' Chicken Lips made Irving Gould even more rich!

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

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: Amigas DID come with 1.44MB floppy drives e.g. the Chinon FZ-357a. But because C= had no intention of ever updating Paula (despite the sound capabilities looking long in the tooth by 1992) it was another kludge! Paula can't cope with the bandwidth required by a HD Floppy Drive so they halved the RPM!! You just couldn't write it!

Yes, a huge kludge it was - but a clever one. It was something a company like Commodore could do because they could convince the drive manufacturer to make a special unit for them. I wonder who developed it?

I had a Chinon FZ-357A in my A3000, but I never used HD floppies in it. Compatibility was more important to me than getting a bit of extra capacity.

Quote:

It also allowed you to swap data with 'normal people' in the 90s and early 00s without having to use your own DDs!

Perhaps the reason I didn't use it was that the 'normal' people I associated with all had Amigas. If a PC user gave me a disk it would probably have files on it that I couldn't use anyway - like a Word document or PC executable. I usually had a 'PC' of some kind (often just a bare motherboard stuck on a wooden slab) for that stuff if it was needed, and later the Internet which solved the problem for good.

@BigD

Quote:

The Amiga WAS designed to be upgradable.

There you go with your delusions again. Even upgrading a bog standard A1000 to anything beyond the software KickStart that it shipped with involved cracking open the case and installing a 3rd- party daughter board with ROM chips on it and cutting traces. Oh, you wanted ECS to go with that? That involved cracking open the case again and swapping out a PLCC chip that in most cases broke the PLCC socket in the process (happened to me on an A2000). Oh, you want more than 512KB/1MB of ChipRAM? You again had to swap out a PLCC chip with a FatAgnus on a daughter board AND run a bodge wire too, or cut some traces. (Can anyone say MegaChip2000?). Want a faster processor for your Amiga? Adding a new processor usually broke whatever software I had in my library or I had to disable caches which negated the entire upgrade. Oh, you want to upgrade to the latest, greatest version of AmigaOS? Gotta crack open the case and swap out ROM chips and again, this upgrade broke most of my software. My Amiga had the worst backward compatibility and upgradeability of any systems I've ever owned.

Stop it with the preaching as there's no longer a congregation that'll hear your bullshit and believe you anyway.

Last edited by ferrels on 07-Oct-2022 at 02:06 AM.
Last edited by ferrels on 07-Oct-2022 at 02:05 AM.

bhabbott Quote:

I pre-ordered an A3000 and it was my main machine for 10 years, eventually being upgraded with a 50MHz 060, RTG and Ethernet. It certainly wasn't perfect. To start off with it was ridiculously expensive - about the same price as a Compaq 386. That's understandable considering it had similar hardware specs, but the price put it out of reach of most home computer buyers.

The Amiga 3000 price depended on when it was purchased. They were very expensive at first but ended up being only expensive when AGA competitors came out. I doubt they were selling well when AGA competitors were released but that's typical CBM poor planning. If the 3000+ was upgraded to AGA, then it would have been still selling, the 4000 could have been skipped, and they could have gone right to the 4000T which is what Newtek really needed for the Toaster.

bhabbott Quote:

Other flaws included the case being too small to add much stuff,

Amiga 3000 expandability was good and the case a practical size. The bigger problem was heat and lack of integration. The Amiga chipset was still NMOS (an AGA Amiga 3000+ would have had a CMOS Lisa at least) and it hadn't moved to a smaller process or been better integrated to fewer chips. Dave Needle and R. J. Mical had integrated two of the 3DO DMA custom chips and the DSP into one chip in 1994 after the 3DO released in 1993. CBM used more expenisve and hotter running PALs instead of reprogrammable CMOS GALs which were introduced in 1985 (Amiga users burn new GALs to replace PALs today). Add a hot 68040 and some expansion cards and it gets toasty inside the case.

bhabbott Quote:

very noisy PSU fan,

The fan is not variable speed and it is smaller diameter than a tower PSU fan so it winds up like a jet engine but still not that bad. The 3000T PSU fan is louder and also runs at full speed all the time.

bhabbott Quote:

flaky SCSI,

Every Amiga 3000 owner I knew replaced their WD proto SCSI chips with non proto versions. CBM soldered terminator packs instead of allowing removable ones probably to save money (like using cheaper proto chips?). There were a few other SCSI problems from early 3000s but I believe most issues were fixed quickly.

bhabbott Quote:

under-performing Zorro III bus,

Zorro III should have had an advantage compared to EISA and should not have been much behind PCI but CBM was cheap and incompetent once again.

bhabbott Quote:

difficult to install ZIP RAM chips,

I didn't have much trouble getting them in. I've heard they are harder to get out. Not a good package for ease of installation and tolerance to damage though. CBM actually didn't cheap out as much as possible with memory for once though.

bhabbott Quote:

and the peculiar inclusion of ECS productivity mode when it already had a flicker fixer.

The flicker fixer just made the Amiga 3000 more expensive. It was more professional than the ECS productivity mode which lacked the memory bandwidth for normal Amiga colors while AGA had the bandwidth. The extra dollar or two for AGA probably would have offset the cost of the flicker fixer and the simplification along with the AGA Lisa would have lowered temps as well. Maybe Bill Sydnes was trying to sabotage the Amiga.

bhabbott Quote:

But no, 'serious computer professional/experts' didn't need AGA. they needed 24 bit color for video work etc., which is why most 3rd party graphic cards concentrated on this area. AGA was mostly for games and low-end productivity use, and being able to use a VGA monitor without a separate flicker fixer. For 'serious professional/experts' an A2000 (stuffed with cards) was what they needed.

The Toaster and Scala both took advantage of AGA for productivity (embedded) use though. The Toaster is high end embedded use and the higher NTSC AGA resolutions and colors were quite useful while chunky modes would have been easier to work in but also would have consumed more memory. Toaster systems were high end but base systems had a modest footprint. The Toaster needed lots of expansion and a big power supply like you said. Scala kiosks needed specific expansions and to reduce the cost though. The Amiga CD32 was good for kiosks. All CBM had to do was keep integrating, keep making incremental enhancements and keep reducing prices and they could have become what the Raspberry Pi is today but more than a decade earlier. CBM upper management was clearly incompetent though. Dave Needle and R. J. Mical accomplished more in one year with the 3DO chipset than CBM accomplished in one decade with the Amiga chipset.

Last edited by matthey on 07-Oct-2022 at 02:32 AM.

@Karlos

A4000T was a fantastic beast. I miss the one I gave away on an Amiga.org contest in 2009.

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 07-Oct-2022 at 03:19 AM.

_________________
Sent from my Quantum Computer.

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @Hammer The ECS machines were a joke period! What benefit does an A3000 have over an A2000 with 030 accelerator really? Obviously it had a pretty case but seriously!

Blame Bill Sydnes "PC Jr" ECS job.

Amiga 3000 has a built-in flicker fixer with a frame buffer that enabled 640x400 or 640x512 16 colors on par with PC VGA's 640x480 16 colors, but PC world has moved from VGA's 640x480 16 colors.

Reminder, C65's 256-color display capable with a 4096 color palette chipset was completed in December 1990. LOL

C65's 256-color display was 8-bit planes based. I preferred C65's R&D effort on the Amiga.

Quote:

All that faffing with PC upgrades sound horrific! It had nothing comparable to autoconfig and other than Doom all the 2D stuff was STILL better on the Amiga AGA in 92/93 IMHO!

PC has many Doom clones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o9yOBBWPgM
286 @ 16 Mhz based PC with fast VGA and Sound Blaster delivering A500/partly A1200 2D experience.

DOS4GW enables 386's 32-bit pointer and 32-bit flat memory model that are similar to 68020/68030 CPUs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GojpwZMBHz4
Amiga 1200 with Fast RAM running arcade quality Final FIght port. The object movement and render were done on the stock 68EC020 CPU @14 Mhz with 32-bit Fast RAM with AGA acting like a dumb fast frame buffer.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@matthey

Quote:

Every Amiga 3000 owner I knew replaced their WD proto SCSI chips with non proto versions. CBM soldered terminator packs instead of allowing removable ones probably to save money (like using cheaper proto chips?). There were a few other SCSI problems from early 3000s but I believe most issues were fixed quickly.

My Amiga 3000/030/882 @ 25 Mhz was Kickstart 2.04 ROM variant, and I didn't replace the SCSI chip since it's enough for SCSI CD-ROM 2X (targeted for the Apple market) and 120 MB SCSI hard disk.


Quote:

Zorro III should have had an advantage compared to EISA and should not have been much behind PCI but CBM was cheap and incompetent once again.

Zorro III's 13.5 MByte/s implementation while Intel's 1st PCI chipset has 25 MByte/s implementations.

Quote:

I didn't have much trouble getting them in. I've heard they are harder to get out. Not a good package for ease of installation and tolerance to damage though. CBM actually didn't cheap out as much as possible with memory for once though.

Expanding my Amiga 3000's 1MB Chip + 1 MB Fast RAM config to 2MB Chip + 4 MB ZIP Fast RAM wasn't hard.

3DO has a cost blow out i.e. 3DO games console was priced at US$699 and it wasn't a home computer.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Karlos

Quote:

Karlos wrote: It's difficult to judge AGA without the benefit of hindsight. ... In hindsight, ok, it wasn't great. It would've been better if it had offered a chunky pixel mode. There are many other ways in which it could've been better. I think had I have been a power user at the time I would've been particularly disappointed going from something like the A3000 to the A4000. Except I wasn't. I went from an A600 to an A1200. And Ioved it!

I had a very similar experience. I moved from an A500 to A1200HD in late '92. Zero regrets. Horizons expanded 1000%. I owe my technology career to that dream machine.

Yes, a little over a year later in 1994 (Doom was released in December of 1993), it was clear that Amiga's proverbial day in the sun was at an end, Commodore bankruptcy not withstanding.

I remember going to a friend's place, who had sold his Amiga and put together a 486DX2-based PC. While he enjoyed the raw modal performance, and the Doom gameplay, he did also marvel at the multitasking abilities of my A1200.

The A1200 was a much more versatile machine. It did many things and all of them well enough. And while not an Open Computing platform, it did OK in terms of expansions, well beyond the needs of its time.

I didn't see enough advantage in the the DOS-based computing of a 486 machine, and Windows 3.x was not loved even by Bill Gates. But I did eventually in late 1995 buy a Pentium 90 PC with 2MB RAM, + (if memory serves) a S3 Trio 2MB card + I think it was 500MB HDD, 1.44 FDD, CD-ROM, SoundBlaster 16 audio, some IO card, in a nondescript beige box, 15" monitor, with DIN keyboard and serial mouse, with Windows 95 + Encarta 95, and I think it did set me back about $2,500 AUD for the lot.

While Quake blew my mind in 1996, it wasn't until I ran GLQuake in 1997 on a 3dfx Voodoo card that I remember thinking computer gaming was never going to be the same.

Last edited by agami on 07-Oct-2022 at 09:16 AM.
Last edited by agami on 07-Oct-2022 at 06:27 AM.
Last edited by agami on 07-Oct-2022 at 06:26 AM.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@AGA

The trend that not enough, if any, foresaw in 1991/92, and might not have believed you if you traveled back in time to tell them, is that computer gaming was about to have an elite class: People who will spend mucho dinero on computer hardware to have the best gaming experience, with games that push the envelope of what is digitally possible.

_________________
All the way, with 68k