ZORRAM

_________________
I HAVE ABS OF STEEL
--
CAN YOU SEE ME? CAN YOU HEAR ME? OK FOR WORK

@bison

Quote:

bison wrote: @cdimauro I've got TDS too, but not as bad as you!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_derangement_syndrome ?

@Karlos

Quote:

Karlos wrote: @Nonefornow Well he also thought hyperloop was a good idea, so who knows how good his judgement is?

Hyperloop is a good idea.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: @Karlos Quote: Karlos wrote: @Nonefornow Well he also thought hyperloop was a good idea, so who knows how good his judgement is? Hyperloop is a good idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop#Criticism_and_human_factor_considerations

@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: PCs built around '87-88 were already capable of running games at good speeds.

'87-88 most PCs were XTs or 286s, and most had Mono, CGA or EGA displays. Few had sound cards. In 1988 CPU speed wasn't as important as custom chips. A 12MHz 286 was a bit faster than a 7MHz 68000, but it had to do a lot more. To cap it off PCs were much more expensive, and few parents could justify the expense just for the kids to play on it.

Even in 1992 when the A1200 came out, Amiga games blew away a typical 386-SX PC in most genres. I know because I was selling both (I had a 386-SX machine displayed alongside an A1200 for comparison). A 486 with VGA and sound blaster card could beat it though, and this was when the Amiga began to lose favor. On top of that many Amiga fans were looking for something new to wow them, and a decked out 486 PC was more exciting than a boring old Amiga - no matter how good it might be. The A4000 was pretty good, but cost about the same as a high-end 486 and didn't have as many exciting new PC games (duh!). Then Windows 95 and Pentium CPUs arrived - but by that time Commodore was gone and the Amiga was a dead man walking.

Two things killed the Amiga, and neither of them was performance related. Firstly, it wasn't a PC. The business world decided early on to standardize on IBM compatibility, and by the time the Amiga arrived already had a huge advantage. The majority of PCs were low-end XTs that didn't have much going for them apart from the big one - being a PC. But this was enough to justify using them in the home as well, displacing the Amiga even from the market it was designed for.

The other problem with the Amiga was the same thing that affected many other home computers - piracy. Having a much smaller installed base meant that even if it was technically superior, developers were less likely to target it because potential sales were much lower. Throw in rampant piracy and it's game over for the Amiga. Paradoxically however, piracy was a big reason for the Amiga 500 selling well. All you had to do was scrape up enough money to buy the base machine, and from then on it was tons of awesome games for the price of a blank disk! Until we killed the golden goose. Of course this mentality also meant that upgrading the machine and buying new models was out - another nail in the coffin.

Quote:

We like SUVs because, I've said above, they are very comfortable. Maybe you never tried them...

You're kidding, right? Of course I've 'tried' them. No nicer to drive than my Leaf. My brother has a Toyota Highlander which I have driven many times. It's an excellent vehicle for driving on bush roads - very powerful and capable of handing the worst conditions. Driving in town isn't so nice though. It's a large vehicle that is hard to maneuver in tight spots. Yesterday my brother spent $300 getting the steering wheel recalibrated after accidentally hitting a curb (he is a very careful driver, but visibility in these vehicles is poor). I hate how you have to wind up the engine on takeoff etc., compared to the Leaf which responds smoothly and instantly with no noise at all.

Having to constantly put dirty, smelly, expensive fuel into it isn't nice either. NZ$2.87/l now, almost up to the price it was before the government reduced the fuel tax.

My old car (a Nissan Sentra) was also very comfortable to drive, but it didn't have any of the modern stuff people expect today like air conditioning, electric windows etc., and it wasn't exactly a power house. Last time I took my brother into the bush in it we got stuck in deep gravel half way up a steep hill, and I had to reverse all the way back down. Looking back I was crazy to do those trips in a vehicle not designed for such conditions, but... good times!

@bhabbott

Quote:

bhabbott wrote: @cdimauro Quote: cdimauro wrote: PCs built around '87-88 were already capable of running games at good speeds. '87-88 most PCs were XTs or 286s, and most had Mono, CGA or EGA displays.

Do you know why I've written '87? VGA...
Quote:

Few had sound cards.

True, but at the time there was already this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_MT-32
Quote:

In 1988 CPU speed wasn't as important as custom chips.

It depends on the game. Games with multiple playfields took advantage of the custom chips.
Quote:

A 12MHz 286 was a bit faster than a 7MHz 68000,

Absolutely not. Clock for clock, a 286 was considerably faster than a 68000.
Quote:

but it had to do a lot more.

Not really for games. Moving bytes around was the absolutely primary thing on games, and x86 were quite fast on that.

BTW, you don't even and strictly need 32-bits for this (in fact, the Amiga data bus was 16-bit: like 8086/186/286/386-sx).
Quote:

To cap it off PCs were much more expensive, and few parents could justify the expense just for the kids to play on it.

That's right.
Quote:

Even in 1992 when the A1200 came out, Amiga games blew away a typical 386-SX PC in most genres. I know because I was selling both (I had a 386-SX machine displayed alongside an A1200 for comparison).

The problem here was that PC games usually didn't get the same level of optimizations that Amiga games had.

Even a 386-SX had A LOT of performances and were better than the 68EC020 of the Amiga 1200.

PC graphic graphics were WAY faster than the Amiga chipset.

And sound cards... well, you already know (see above).

But you had to understand how to use those resources. It happened with Michael Abrash, which "discovered" the Mode-X on '91, albeit VGA was released on '87. This was basically the starting point for PC games to squeeze the most from the hardware. But it was already possible on '87...
Quote:

A 486 with VGA and sound blaster card could beat it though, and this was when the Amiga began to lose favor.

See above: a 486 wasn't needed. It was overkill for the kind of games that Amiga run.
Quote:

On top of that many Amiga fans were looking for something new to wow them, and a decked out 486 PC was more exciting than a boring old Amiga - no matter how good it might be. The A4000 was pretty good, but cost about the same as a high-end 486 and didn't have as many exciting new PC games (duh!). Then Windows 95 and Pentium CPUs arrived - but by that time Commodore was gone and the Amiga was a dead man walking.

Unfortunately you forgot the real killer: Windows 3.0. Release date: 1990.
Quote:

Two things killed the Amiga, and neither of them was performance related. Firstly, it wasn't a PC. The business world decided early on to standardize on IBM compatibility, and by the time the Amiga arrived already had a huge advantage. The majority of PCs were low-end XTs that didn't have much going for them apart from the big one - being a PC. But this was enough to justify using them in the home as well, displacing the Amiga even from the market it was designed for.

Yes, business software was a big problem for Amigas. Even Atari STs were better from this PoV.
Quote:

The other problem with the Amiga was the same thing that affected many other home computers - piracy. Having a much smaller installed base meant that even if it was technically superior, developers were less likely to target it because potential sales were much lower. Throw in rampant piracy and it's game over for the Amiga. Paradoxically however, piracy was a big reason for the Amiga 500 selling well. All you had to do was scrape up enough money to buy the base machine, and from then on it was tons of awesome games for the price of a blank disk! Until we killed the golden goose. Of course this mentality also meant that upgrading the machine and buying new models was out - another nail in the coffin.

Piracy wasn't an Amiga exclusive: there was a lot EVERYWHERE. Even on PCs.
Quote:

Quote: We like SUVs because, I've said above, they are very comfortable. Maybe you never tried them... You're kidding, right? Of course I've 'tried' them. No nicer to drive than my Leaf. My brother has a Toyota Highlander which I have driven many times. It's an excellent vehicle for driving on bush roads - very powerful and capable of handing the worst conditions. Driving in town isn't so nice though. It's a large vehicle that is hard to maneuver in tight spots.

There are radars available since years...
Quote:

Yesterday my brother spent $300 getting the steering wheel recalibrated after accidentally hitting a curb (he is a very careful driver, but visibility in these vehicles is poor).

Visibility on SUVs is much better than other vehicles, and it's one of the primary reasons why people likes them.
Quote:

I hate how you have to wind up the engine on takeoff etc., compared to the Leaf which responds smoothly and instantly with no noise at all. Having to constantly put dirty, smelly, expensive fuel into it isn't nice either. NZ$2.87/l now, almost up to the price it was before the government reduced the fuel tax.

I reveal you a secret: there are EV SUVs, as well as hybrid ones.
Quote:

My old car (a Nissan Sentra) was also very comfortable to drive, but it didn't have any of the modern stuff people expect today like air conditioning, electric windows etc., and it wasn't exactly a power house. Last time I took my brother into the bush in it we got stuck in deep gravel half way up a steep hill, and I had to reverse all the way back down. Looking back I was crazy to do those trips in a vehicle not designed for such conditions, but... good times!

I think that you can take a look at modern SUVs as well: they might impress your how comfortable they are.

@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: Hyperloop is a good idea.

Perhaps, perhaps not. But kudos to Musk for investing in something that might be good idea if anyone was willing to try it.

A few years Musk bought a small company that was trying to make an electric sports car. Everybody in the auto industry laughed at him. Now he's the richest man in the World and they are scrambling to catch up.

We need people like Musk to push the envelope when nobody else dares. Sometimes they fail, and often they have character traits that aren't endearing, but their willingness to not only dream big but turn those dreams into reality is what produces real progress.

There are many things which may be a good idea technically, but until we try them we won't know whether they are practicable. Hyperloop is one of those ideas. It solves one big problem with congested city roads with a solution that is different from others. It might not be economically viable right now despite the potential savings, but Musk and Co. have proven that it works.

In other news, the Australia-Asia Power Link aims to connect a solar farm in the Northern Territory of Australia to Singapore and later Indonesia, in part via a 2,800 mile undersea cable (5 times longer than the currently longest undersea power cable in the World). The scheme also includes a 42 GWh battery for load balancing. Eventually the whole World might be connected together in one big 'super grid', and we wouldn't need huge batteries because there will always be enough electricity generated somewhere.

A few years ago such an idea would have seemed bonkers, even if technically possible. Now it is within our grasp. This would segue in perfectly with electric cars. Imagine your car sitting in the garage at night, being charged with solar electricity from Australia!

Last edited by bhabbott on 28-May-2022 at 08:09 AM.
Last edited by bhabbott on 28-May-2022 at 08:08 AM.

@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: @Karlos Quote: Karlos wrote: @Nonefornow Well he also thought hyperloop was a good idea, so who knows how good his judgement is? Hyperloop is a good idea.

Just to be clear, we are talking about the idea of 750mph* passenger capsules travelling through vacuum tubes? That hyperloop?

*figure varies, typically speed of sound or better.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: Do you know why I've written '87? VGA...

Can't you read? IBM introduced VGA in 1987 with their PS/2 computers. In late 1987 they released an 8 bit card for ISA bus PCs, at a retail price of $595 (~US$1,500 in 2022 dollars). Obviously no PC had VGA before then, but neither did the installed base afterwards. It took several years for VGA cards to become common, and several years before developers routinely used VGA graphics in games. Many 'new' games were just rehashes of CGA or EGA games 'upgraded' to 256 colors. Others used the extra colors very poorly. The cards themselves were often poor performers too, with some '16 bit' cards being no faster than their 8 bit equivalents.

I was involved in PC service and support during that time, and there was still a huge number of PCs being sold with lesser graphics cards. Why? The business market didn't need it, and home users couldn't afford the high-end systems that included it.

Quote:

at the time there was already this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_MT-32

Again you miss the point. From the Wiki article:-

Quote:

King's Quest IV, released in 1988, was the first Sierra title with a complete musical soundtrack scored on the MT-32. The MT-32 with a necessary MPU-401 interface cost $550.00 to purchase from Sierra when it first sold the device.

I worked on hundreds of PC during the 80's and 90's, and never once saw an MT-32. At exchange rates of the time it would have cost over NZ$1000, so it's not surprising they were rare.

A gaming PC with sufficient hardware to match an A500 in 1987-88 was a very expensive proposition. The vast majority of PCs were not suitable out of the box. Many clones didn't even come with an OS, and VGA was an 'upgrade' option. If you wanted a sound card you had to purchase it separately and install it yourself.

But hey, if we are going to play your game then we should also consider what a 'high-end' Amiga could have had in 1988. Commodore's A2620 for the A2000 had a 14.3MHz 68020 and 4MB of 32 bit RAM. The Hurricane 500 (also released in 1988) provided the same capability for the A500. Just what you needed for those 3D flight simulators and driving games.

Quote:

It depends on the game.

For sure. Text adventure games didn't need it. Anything that needed real graphics with smooth scrolling etc. did.

Quote:

Clock for clock, a 286 was considerably faster than a 68000.

A fast 286, sure (the original PC-AT ran at 6MHz with 1 wait state, making it about the same speed as a 7MHz 68000). But when accessing the graphics card it had to slow down to ISA bus speeds. Furthermore the 286 was strictly 16 bit, it didn't didn't have the 32 bit registers of the 68000. Nor for that matter did it have the number of registers, which meant it had to work with memory more.

Quote:

Moving bytes around was the absolutely primary thing on games, and x86 were quite fast on that.

8 bits at a time on bitmapped or 'chunky' screens with 2 bits per pixel (CGA) that still had to be masked out. The Amiga's blitter worked on 16 bits in parallel with the CPU, twice as fast at 'moving bytes around'. The Copper could change colors or screen resolutions on the fly, and sprites overlaid and detected collisions, without any CPU intervention needed. Hardware registers provided smooth scrolling in any direction without having to move any bytes.

"But but, VGA!", you scream. I reiterate that VGA was not that popular in PCs circa 1987-88, so this is irrelevant. But even years later, in a direct comparison I did between an A1200 and 25MHz 386-SX with VGA, the Amiga came out on top for action game quality (on the those games that were designed specifically for the Amiga).

Quote:

BTW, you don't even and strictly need 32-bits for this (in fact, the Amiga data bus was 16-bit: like 8086/186/286/386-sx).

The 68000 only had a 16 bit bus? Who knew! But many VGA cards were still only 8 bit. Furthermore you only had the choice of 4, 16 or 256 colors - nothing in between. So if you wanted more than the crappy 16 colors of EGA you had to go to the max - no optimizing bandwidth and memory usage!


Quote:

The problem here was that PC games usually didn't get the same level of optimizations that Amiga games had. Even a 386-SX had A LOT of performances and were better than the 68EC020 of the Amiga 1200. PC graphic graphics were WAY faster than the Amiga chipset. And sound cards... well, you already know (see above).

There wasn't officially much you could do to optimize EGA or VGA graphics. That some tricks were later found to speed up some operations doesn't change the fact that in 1987-88 such things were not available.

A 16MHz 386-SX with no cache (yes, low-end 386-SX motherboards didn't have it because the CPU was designed to replace a 286) and slow 8 bit I/O bus was not significantly faster than a 14.3MHz 68020 with 32 bit RAM. Add in the AGA chipset's large sprites etc. and the 386 will be struggling to match it.

Only good thing about PC sound cards was the FM synth chip - good if you wanted cheesy synth music that is. But the digital sound only had two channels and could only play 64k blocks, with problems looping. That meant digital sound was limited to spot effects or needed expensive mixing using the CPU.


Quote:

But it was already possible on '87...

'Possible', except nobody knew about it. Hey, maybe something is 'possible' on OCS that nobody knows about yet. But even if so that didn't make the Amiga any more capable in 1987.

Quote:

Unfortunately you forgot the real killer: Windows 3.0. Release date: 1990.

Nope. Windows 3.0 didn't have much affect on the type of software people were using the Amiga for - games. Up until (and even after) Windows 95 came out, virtually all games ran from DOS. And what a pain that was!

Come to think of it, most 'power' users on PCs also eschewed Windows 3.0. On a typical 386-SX it was a bit sluggish in 16 colors, and very sluggish in 256 colors (SuperVGA). It was also a bit buggy. On the older XTs and ATs that most businesses were running it was painful. Most business software ran in DOS.

Quote:

Piracy wasn't an Amiga exclusive: there was a lot EVERYWHERE. Even on PCs.

Did I say there wasn't?

But in my experience PC users were more likely to buy rather than pirate, for several reasons. Firstly they tended to be more affluent and less concerned about cost (they already bought an expensive PC, so why worry about an extra 100 bucks or so?). Secondly they were mostly business users who were conditioned to buying software. Being caught with a pirated game is one thing, having your supplier drop support and blacklist or sue you is another (some did of course, but they faced serious legal hazards by doing so). Thirdly, most PC owners weren't part of the 'scene' with its underground distribution of cracked games. Finally, most PC games had to be installed on the hard drive, making it harder to casually pirate (and your mate probably took a dim view of your asking to 'borrow' that game he paid a lot of money for).

In my shop I sold bucket-loads of shareware disks for PCs. Not so many blank disks though. Obviously my customers weren't distributing them, even though they could have legally. This is probably because they didn't associate with other users like Amiga fans did. There's no point pirating games that you already bought (unless you have 'friends' who want a copy).

The average Amiga fan had 500+ disks of pirated games when he came to sell the machine back to me. The average PC fan might have had 3 or 4 games on the hard drive, with the original games in their boxes too.

But even if PC piracy had been just as bad, it would have made far less difference because there were ten times more PCs than Amigas even at its peak. Developers, publishing houses and retailers knew this. Towards the end it was quite heartbreaking to see one after another drop the Amiga with piracy being the stated reason. There were even cases of games being distributed by pirates before they hit the shelves. In New Zealand, where products typically took a month or more to get here from overseas, it was normal.

Quote:

I reveal you a secret: there are EV SUVs, as well as hybrid ones.

Yes, I know that. I have even driven a hybrid one. I still don't like them. Most SUVs look ugly to me, like the car equivalent of a bulldog. It's even sillier when the electric version has the same square front with ridiculously large grill (needed to keep the gas-guzzling engine cool) blocked up with a hunk of plastic.

Quote:

I think that you can take a look at modern SUVs as well: they might impress your how comfortable they are.

Huh? At my place of work we do have the latest models, including hybrid SUVs (none fully electric yet, but 3 of us own Leafs!).

Last edited by bhabbott on 28-May-2022 at 11:15 AM.

@bhabbott

Quote:

bhabbott wrote: @cdimauro Quote: cdimauro wrote: Do you know why I've written '87? VGA... Can't you read?

Sure. And I've made precise replies to your precise words. Maybe you've to read again what I've written, and then you can see why I gave you my responses. Please pay attention to words.
Quote:

IBM introduced VGA in 1987 with their PS/2 computers. In late 1987 they released an 8 bit card for ISA bus PCs, at a retail price of $595 (~US$1,500 in 2022 dollars). Obviously no PC had VGA before then, but neither did the installed base afterwards.

IBM was the first, introducing the VGA, but it wasn't the only one selling those cards:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Graphics_Array#Hardware_manufacturers

And not only VGAs were produced on the same year: some SVGAs as well. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_VGA
Quote:

It took several years for VGA cards to become common, and several years before developers routinely used VGA graphics in games.

Indeed. The cards were expensive, but the most important thing is that their hardware wasn't well known (to better use it).
Quote:

Many 'new' games were just rehashes of CGA or EGA games 'upgraded' to 256 colors. Others used the extra colors very poorly.

That's not a fault of PCs, rather of software houses which haven't invested much on PC games, included getting good optimizations for them.
Quote:

The cards themselves were often poor performers too, with some '16 bit' cards being no faster than their 8 bit equivalents.

Depends on what you bought...
Quote:

I was involved in PC service and support during that time, and there was still a huge number of PCs being sold with lesser graphics cards. Why? The business market didn't need it, and home users couldn't afford the high-end systems that included it.

Right, and? The topic (that you opened) was about PC as (hardware) platform for games: you haven't talked about prices, audience, etc. in this context.

As I said before, words are important...
Quote:

Quote: at the time there was already this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_MT-32 Again you miss the point. From the Wiki article:- Quote: King's Quest IV, released in 1988, was the first Sierra title with a complete musical soundtrack scored on the MT-32. The MT-32 with a necessary MPU-401 interface cost $550.00 to purchase from Sierra when it first sold the device. I worked on hundreds of PC during the 80's and 90's, and never once saw an MT-32. At exchange rates of the time it would have cost over NZ$1000, so it's not surprising they were rare.

Yes, and? Please see above: you never talked about audience and prices.
Quote:

A gaming PC with sufficient hardware to match an A500 in 1987-88 was a very expensive proposition. The vast majority of PCs were not suitable out of the box. Many clones didn't even come with an OS, and VGA was an 'upgrade' option. If you wanted a sound card you had to purchase it separately and install it yourself.

Again, see above.
Quote:

But hey, if we are going to play your game then we should also consider what a 'high-end' Amiga could have had in 1988. Commodore's A2620 for the A2000 had a 14.3MHz 68020 and 4MB of 32 bit RAM. The Hurricane 500 (also released in 1988) provided the same capability for the A500. Just what you needed for those 3D flight simulators and driving games.

3D wasn't suitable for Amigas, whatever your powerful CPU and fast memory used with them.
Quote:

Quote: It depends on the game. For sure. Text adventure games didn't need it. Anything that needed real graphics with smooth scrolling etc. did.

That's false. There was a reason why I've talked about multiple (dual, for Amiga) playfields before: those demanded more resources on PCs (you have to read the data from two playfields, instead of just one, for composing the framebuffer).

Besides that, the rest was suitable.
In fact, since the EGA, PCs had:
- (hardware) smooth scrolling;
- possibility to display the screen from any part of the video memory;
- dual / triple buffering (consequence of the previous one);
- vertical blank interrupt;
- possibility to check if the display controller was showing the screen or not (horizontal or vertical blanking periods);
- logical operations on bitplanes (included the chained bitplaned on Mode-X et similar), albeit limited to some horizontal pixels portion (absolutely not flexible as with the Blitter);
- split screen (you can set a raster line, and the display controller reaches it, then it begins displaying the graphics starting from location 0 of the video memory. Useful to simulate fixed screens of a certain height at the bottom of the display);
- programmable resolutions (up to 800x600 with 16 colors. Up to 400x600 with 256 colors on VGA);
- no interlace.

I think that most of amigans didn't know that those "crappy" cards were able to do all of that.
Quote:

Quote: Clock for clock, a 286 was considerably faster than a 68000. A fast 286, sure (the original PC-AT ran at 6MHz with 1 wait state, making it about the same speed as a 7MHz 68000).

No, it was still quite faster even with those handicaps.

Take at look at its instructions timings on Appendix B: https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_intel802866ProgrammersReference1983_14588005/page/n263/mode/2up Specifically, you can already see the MOV instructions. But don't stop at that: it's useful to check also the other instructions (at least the most commonly used ones) and compare them with the 68000 equivalents..
Quote:

But when accessing the graphics card it had to slow down to ISA bus speeds.

Depends on the video card, because the ISA bus was capable to offer a good bandwidth.
Quote:

Furthermore the 286 was strictly 16 bit, it didn't didn't have the 32 bit registers of the 68000.

Sure, but does it matter for video games? Not that much.

BTW, on 68000 coders tried to use 16-bit data as much as possible for performances reasons.
Quote:

Nor for that matter did it have the number of registers, which meant it had to work with memory more.

Same as above: usually not that much important for videogames.
Quote:

Quote: Moving bytes around was the absolutely primary thing on games, and x86 were quite fast on that. 8 bits at a time on bitmapped or 'chunky' screens with 2 bits per pixel (CGA) that still had to be masked out.

CGA? Why do you talk of a graphic card of C64 times?

EGA was already available well before the '87. And on '87 VGA was introduced.
Quote:

The Amiga's blitter worked on 16 bits in parallel with the CPU, twice as fast at 'moving bytes around'.

Right, and what's the point? Even the 8086 was able move 16 bits at the time. 80186 did it better. And even better was the 8086 (again, see its manual).

But you had to setup the Blitter as well, and it had a cost in terms of wasted clock cycles.
Quote:

The Copper could change colors or screen resolutions on the fly,

Not really screen resolutions: you could only select low-res or high-res. And it wasn't that useful, anyway.

And you hadn't the possibility to change the colors as you liked: there was a minimum period of 8 pixels (AFAIR). This without counting the display controller which could have stolen (color) clock cycles to the Copper.

Copper was nice, but had its limits.
Quote:

and sprites overlaid and detected collisions, without any CPU intervention needed.

How many games used it? Only a few I think, because sprites were very limited and that's the reason why the Blitter was the primary actor on Amiga.
Quote:

Hardware registers provided smooth scrolling in any direction without having to move any bytes.

See above: even the EGA had this possibility.
Quote:

"But but, VGA!", you scream. I reiterate that VGA was not that popular in PCs circa 1987-88, so this is irrelevant.

Not popular, but used. For example:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/moebius-the-orb-of-celestial-harmony/screenshots

You can check the differences with the CGA and EGA versions, as well as the Atari ST and Amiga one.

And I can provide several other examples.
Quote:

But even years later, in a direct comparison I did between an A1200 and 25MHz 386-SX with VGA, the Amiga came out on top for action game quality (on the those games that were designed specifically for the Amiga).

Guess what: the same could have happened with the PC.

On late '92 PCs had SVGAs and even the low cost 386SX that you mentioned had enough performances for 2D videogames (even with multiple playfields) and with 3D games.
Quote:

Quote: BTW, you don't even and strictly need 32-bits for this (in fact, the Amiga data bus was 16-bit: like 8086/186/286/386-sx). The 68000 only had a 16 bit bus? Who knew! But many VGA cards were still only 8 bit.

Yes, but you ALSO had 16-bit cards.

However you're also mixing different things and periods of time. On late '92 (which I assume is your reference here) 32-bit buses for PCs & videocards were WIDELY available. Even on '97 there was IBM's microchannel, which was 32-bit.

So, I don't understand why you continue to talk about 8 (not even 16-bit!) video cards at the end of '92.
Quote:

Furthermore you only had the choice of 4, 16 or 256 colors - nothing in between.

That was a limit, for sure. However on '87 PCs had the possibility to display 256 colors out of 262144: Amiga had to wait FIVE years to have the same. This allowed PCs to have much more colorful videogames at the time.

And in the meanwhile the PC moved to 15, 16, 24, and 32-bit graphic...
Quote:

So if you wanted more than the crappy 16 colors of EGA you had to go to the max - no optimizing bandwidth and memory usage!

Correct, but see above.

However PCs had the possibility to use the system memory for graphics, whereas for the Amiga chip ram was almost always needed, which was very limited both in size AND bandwidth.
Quote:

Quote: The problem here was that PC games usually didn't get the same level of optimizations that Amiga games had. Even a 386-SX had A LOT of performances and were better than the 68EC020 of the Amiga 1200. PC graphic graphics were WAY faster than the Amiga chipset. And sound cards... well, you already know (see above). There wasn't officially much you could do to optimize EGA or VGA graphics. That some tricks were later found to speed up some operations doesn't change the fact that in 1987-88 such things were not available.

It's evident that you don't know the PC hardware: there was A LOT possible, and even before '87!

As I've said before, all features that I've listed before were already available with the EGA ('84!). How many games do you know that used them?
Quote:

A 16MHz 386-SX with no cache (yes, low-end 386-SX motherboards didn't have it because the CPU was designed to replace a 286) and slow 8 bit I/O bus was not significantly faster than a 14.3MHz 68020 with 32 bit RAM.

First, I don't believe so. It has to be seen on which scenarios.

Second, this was a super low-entry/cost hardware for a PC. If your target was games, then you had MUCH better, at a reasonable price, at the end of '92.
Quote:

Add in the AGA chipset's large sprites etc.

Please, don't tell me about such "large sprites"! Have you EVER developed an AGA videogame? I don't think so.

Otherwise you should know that just enabling the hardware scroll then you lost ALL of them, and only one with 4 colors sprite was available. I'm talking about the system using 64-bit fetches for the display (which was REQUIRED to free some clock cycles for CPU and/or Blitter).

But even with videogames without scrolling, they weren't convenient: too big! You wasted a lot of memory.
Quote:

and the 386 will be struggling to match it.

See above: the 386 had no problems with sprites of any size on any screen (hardware scrolling included). Of course, because it had no sprites!

But this way it was also possible to zoom and rotate "sprites" on a PC: its limits become also its strengths.
Quote:

Only good thing about PC sound cards was the FM synth chip - good if you wanted cheesy synth music that is.

Like the Roland?
Quote:

But the digital sound only had two channels and could only play 64k blocks, with problems looping.

With 16-bit samples.
Quote:

That meant digital sound was limited to spot effects

No, it depends on how you used it.
Quote:

or needed expensive mixing using the CPU.

Not expensive for such processors.

I've also created an 8-voices mixer for the Amiga, and it wasn't so much CPU intensive (and I missed to implement some tricks to make it even faster).
Quote:

Quote: But it was already possible on '87... 'Possible', except nobody knew about it. Hey, maybe something is 'possible' on OCS that nobody knows about yet.

I don't think so. On Amiga you had everything published by Commodore and even with examples / code.

On PC it was the opposite. The VGA registers were published by IBM on the PS/2 manuals, but it was really hard to understand on how you could have used them. And zero examples, or course...
Quote:

But even if so that didn't make the Amiga any more capable in 1987.

See above: it made no difference on Amiga. But a BIG difference on PCs...
Quote:

Quote: Unfortunately you forgot the real killer: Windows 3.0. Release date: 1990. Nope. Windows 3.0 didn't have much affect on the type of software people were using the Amiga for - games. Up until (and even after) Windows 95 came out, virtually all games ran from DOS. And what a pain that was!

Games used mostly the DOS.

But in this context you haven't talked only of games. That's why Windows 3.0 matters, and I've cited it.
Quote:

Come to think of it, most 'power' users on PCs also eschewed Windows 3.0. On a typical 386-SX it was a bit sluggish in 16 colors, and very sluggish in 256 colors (SuperVGA).

I don't know which video cards and processors you had. Because Windows 3.0 introduced the GDI, and it was possible to hardware-accelerate it (like many cards did. Including a Blitter for this).
Quote:

It was also a bit buggy.

Not so much. But wasn't the Amiga o.s. bugged as well? And you had ROMs...
Quote:

On the older XTs and ATs that most businesses were running it was painful. Most business software ran in DOS.

Right. And if you go on some shops they are still used...
Quote:

Quote: Piracy wasn't an Amiga exclusive: there was a lot EVERYWHERE. Even on PCs. Did I say there wasn't? But in my experience PC users were more likely to buy rather than pirate, for several reasons. Firstly they tended to be more affluent and less concerned about cost (they already bought an expensive PC, so why worry about an extra 100 bucks or so?). Secondly they were mostly business users who were conditioned to buying software. Being caught with a pirated game is one thing, having your supplier drop support and blacklist or sue you is another (some did of course, but they faced serious legal hazards by doing so). Thirdly, most PC owners weren't part of the 'scene' with its underground distribution of cracked games. Finally, most PC games had to be installed on the hard drive, making it harder to casually pirate (and your mate probably took a dim view of your asking to 'borrow' that game he paid a lot of money for). In my shop I sold bucket-loads of shareware disks for PCs. Not so many blank disks though. Obviously my customers weren't distributing them, even though they could have legally. This is probably because they didn't associate with other users like Amiga fans did. There's no point pirating games that you already bought (unless you have 'friends' who want a copy). The average Amiga fan had 500+ disks of pirated games when he came to sell the machine back to me. The average PC fan might have had 3 or 4 games on the hard drive, with the original games in their boxes too.

We had a different experience.
Quote:

But even if PC piracy had been just as bad, it would have made far less difference because there were ten times more PCs than Amigas even at its peak. Developers, publishing houses and retailers knew this. Towards the end it was quite heartbreaking to see one after another drop the Amiga with piracy being the stated reason. There were even cases of games being distributed by pirates before they hit the shelves. In New Zealand, where products typically took a month or more to get here from overseas, it was normal.

That's the point: PC had a WIDER audience, so that's why piracy didn't impacted software houses like on Amiga
Quote:

Quote: I reveal you a secret: there are EV SUVs, as well as hybrid ones. Yes, I know that. I have even driven a hybrid one. I still don't like them. Most SUVs look ugly to me, like the car equivalent of a bulldog. It's even sillier when the electric version has the same square front with ridiculously large grill (needed to keep the gas-guzzling engine cool) blocked up with a hunk of plastic.

Then that's just a matter of taste.

I liked my first SUV (a BMW X1. Benzine).
Quote:

Quote: I think that you can take a look at modern SUVs as well: they might impress your how comfortable they are. Huh? At my place of work we do have the latest models, including hybrid SUVs (none fully electric yet, but 3 of us own Leafs!).

And you did't find them comfortable?

@cdimauro @Karlos

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: @agami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop#Criticism_and_human_factor_considerations

Quote:

Karlos wrote: @agami Just to be clear, we are talking about the idea of 750mph* passenger capsules travelling through vacuum tubes? That hyperloop? *figure varies, typically speed of sound or better.

Yes.

Criticisms can be laid at any and all things we have considered to use, and the things we use every day, that we consider good ideas.

Hyperloop is a good idea.

Just like it was a good idea to have humans hurtling through air at supersonic speeds (~1,300mph) in an aluminum alloy tube to get from Paris to New York in 3.5h.

Perhaps it's too early for the Hyperloop idea to be fully realized. It may require the fruits of future material science, and generations of humans to grow up in a world where all modes of transport are entirely computer controlled, but the idea itself has the level of merit to which we commonly attribute the adjective of 'good'.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

One of my favourite scenes from Contact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnkEace3rb4

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: @cdimauro @Karlos Quote: cdimauro wrote: @agami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop#Criticism_and_human_factor_considerations Quote: Karlos wrote: @agami Just to be clear, we are talking about the idea of 750mph* passenger capsules travelling through vacuum tubes? That hyperloop? *figure varies, typically speed of sound or better. Yes. Criticisms can be laid at any and all things we have considered to use, and the things we use every day, that we consider good ideas. Hyperloop is a good idea. Just like it was a good idea to have humans hurtling through air at supersonic speeds (~1,300mph) in an aluminum alloy tube to get from Paris to New York in 3.5h. Perhaps it's too early for the Hyperloop idea to be fully realized. It may require the fruits of future material science, and generations of humans to grow up in a world where all modes of transport are entirely computer controlled, but the idea itself has the level of merit to which we commonly attribute the adjective of 'good'.

Ideas can be good, but remain ideas. What's important is if the idea is feasible and, more important, if it makes sense from costs / benefits.

Specifically, does it make sense to invest on this project if, for example, it costs 10 times the highest speed solution (see the link) but only doubling the speed?
So, not even taking into account all problematics of the Hyperloop: just from a cost / speed perspective.

@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: One of my favourite scenes from Contact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnkEace3rb4

Dreams are... dreams.

Like dreaming to reach life outside our solar system.

We're limited, we have limited resources, and our doom is to remain within those boundaries.

"It is inevitable..."

@agami

How should one judge the merit of an idea? In the abstract, it's clearly subjective. Thankfully we are not dealing in the abstract when it comes to hyperloop. We are dealing with a practical idea that aims to solve a problem. We can therefore be objective.

The goal of hyperloop is to provide a fast, safe and reliable alternative form of transport for distances and timescales that today we'd generally fall back onto aviation to provide. We can be objective in our measure of how good it is on that basis.

The idea of vacuum trains proper (low friction transit though an evacuated tube) is about as old as powered flight. Both faced significant practical challenges based on the materials science and engineering of the day. One of those has been achieved and is now commonplace.

Let's consider the advantages of vacuum trains. In theory, a magnetically levitated vacuum train can be accelerated to huge speeds using cleaner energy sources than a passenger plane which today is still coupled to burning fuel. Without significant friction and air resistance, you get a greater efficiency in terms of work done for a given amount of energy. These are useful.

Let's consider the disadvantages now. Firstly, you need to build your tunnel and you need to maintain a vacuum or at least, significantly reduced pressure for it to be practical. You can build overground or underground, or bits of both.

Overground tunnels are in theory just pipes, so easy to build in sections. However, every point on the outer surface is subject to 100kPa that isn't being matched internally. That's ten metric tons per square metre, give or take. Do not underestimate the force exerted by 1 atmosphere. The whole pipe is poised for catastrophic implosion at the first failure. Then you have the seals needed to maintain a vacuum in a tube made in sections. Usually, vacuum seals are for small pipes and easily fabricated. Here we are talking about something a lot bigger. And there will be thousands of them over the length of any inter city route.

Let's say you have a material strong enough. You can build a pipe, but anyone that has ever seen long pipelines will point out the obvious need to have regular sections in them that usually contain a U bend. These are to allow the long sections to expand and contract with temperature changes. You don't want any such stresses in your vacuum tube as it's already under extreme stresses as it is. How do you put a mechanism in place that doesn't involve such turns? You could maybe engineer some sort of telescoping sections but I don't imagine they will be great at holding a vacuum.

The next thing is maintaining the vacuum. Any non completely catastrophic failures are going to need the affected section of pipe to be replaced. Unless you have regular gates inside and can isolate it, you are repressurising the whole pipe. Gates add further complexity and failure points to your vacuum tube.

Finally, the raw physics of a passenger capsule, in a tube at 700mph or so. Assuming you solve all other issues, the KE of the capsule and it's cargo is enormous. Any failures of this would be catastrophic. There's also the probability of debris in the tube, loosened by the inevitable vibration and other entropy. A loose nut or bolt that pops up ahead of the capsule is going to hit it like a round of ammunition. The results of this would be catastrophic.

Finally, you might just get a regular break down situation. Assuming you have gates and can repressurise the affected section, you can rescue without much risk.

Now put the whole thing underground. All the same challenges in maintaining the vacuum, plus the new one of subsidence, tectonic shifts etc and the general issue that the tube itself is pretty much inaccessible.

Objectively, given the problems it aims to solve, hyperloop is a bad idea. Perhaps in another hundred years these will be solved issues and the idea makes sense. But today, it doesn't.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

@Karlos

Everything you've laid out are considered engineering challenges, and they do not make the idea any less of a good one.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@Karlos

Quote:

Karlos wrote: Let's consider the disadvantages now. Firstly, you need to build your tunnel and you need to maintain a vacuum or at least, significantly reduced pressure... Let's say you have a material strong enough. You can build a pipe, but anyone that has ever seen long pipelines will point out the obvious need to have regular sections in them that usually contain a U bend... Finally, the raw physics of a passenger capsule, in a tube at 700mph or so... Assuming you solve all other issues, the KE of the capsule and it's cargo is enormous. Any failures of this would be catastrophic... There's also the probability of debris in the tube, loosened by the inevitable vibration and other entropy. A loose nut or bolt that pops up ahead of the capsule is going to hit it like a round of ammunition.

All valid reasons why it's obviously impractical, but...

These challenges are not that much different to other modes of transport. One can imagine you telling the Wright brothers that their attempts to make high speed air transport practicable would fail for similar reasons. OK, so they showed that a flimsy craft built as light as possible could fly a few feet off the ground at 30 mph. But no way would this progressively lead to huge metal aircraft with pressurized cabins doing 250 mph at 20,000 ft less than 35 years later, or in another 25 years even larger craft achieving a ludicrous 1350 mph at 60,000 ft.

I mean, the kinetic energy of such a machine and its cargo would be enormous, and just imagine if a loose nut hit it in flight... Then there's the enormous amount of power required to propel it to that speed, and the ridiculous cost which would make it totally uneconomic. Even if they managed to build one, nobody would pay to fly in it.

Quote:

Now put the whole thing underground. All the same challenges in maintaining the vacuum, plus the new one of subsidence, tectonic shifts etc and the general issue that the tube itself is pretty much inaccessible.

Yes. This is why underground 'tube' railways proved to be impracticable, and why Switzerland is still cut off from the rest of world because they couldn't dig a 57 km long tunnel through the Alps and run high speed trains through it at 160 mph.

Quote:

Objectively, given the problems it aims to solve, hyperloop is a bad idea. Perhaps in another hundred years these will be solved issues and the idea makes sense. But today, it doesn't.

Hyperloop is exploring the possible. A practical implementation may work at lower speeds over relatively short distances in areas that are too congested above ground. Some of its principles may be used in related technologies. But right now it's still in the development stage. We can't say whether it's a good or bad idea until a practical implementation is developed.

I can think of several other ideas that have had a lot more money poured into them for much longer without practical results.

Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy Quote:

The experiments produced 59 megajoules of energy over five seconds (11 megawatts of power). This is more than double what was achieved in similar tests back in 1997... There's huge uncertainty about when fusion power will be ready for commercialisation. One estimate suggests maybe 20 years.

@bhabbott

Quote:

These challenges are not that much different to other modes of transport. One can imagine you telling the Wright brothers that their attempts to make high speed air transport practicable would fail for similar reasons

I'm sure you can imagine it but as I have a reasonable grasp of physics I doubt I would have made a comparable objection. The Wright brothers weren't tying to make a passenger jet. They were trying to prove that an aerofoil could result in enough lift to make powered flight possible. I'm sure you'll agree there's a big difference in the proposition between what they did and what hyperloop is aiming to do.

As for loose debris, it's extremely unlikely for a hard, dense object like a nut to strike a plane in flight primarily because it's surrounded by clear air for thousands of metres in every direction. Aircraft tend to fly around or above dangerous weather that could contain large hailstones for such reasons. Even so, the occasional bird impact happens, albeit rarely at top speed.

Contrast this to a long tube, made of sections, containing a track, made of sections, hurtling past your capsule at Mach 1, mere centimetres away. You really think these risks are equivalent to a plane in flight?

Quote:

A practical implementation may work at lower speeds over relatively short distances in areas that are too congested above ground.

What possible benefits would this have over, say a regular overhead train? All it offers is a lot of additional complexity and cost to a addressing problem that had a perfectly good existing solution.

The only real proposed benefits of vacuum trains are speed and energy efficiency (assuming all engineering challenges are met) over longer distance travel. Not even proponents of hyperloop would suggest it's better than conventional electrically powered trains for short distances.

Last edited by Karlos on 30-May-2022 at 10:26 AM.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

Kick *ss AmigaOS version for space tablet computers!

Those hundreds of Mars travellers need something to play/work with.

+ Elon would have enough funds to buy all needed parties (Morph+Hyperion+...) to build true AmigaNG OS for radiation-hardened SoC/system (+hobby niche).

++ btw. is there other radiation hardened SoC beside PPC?

Last edited by KimmoK on 30-May-2022 at 11:04 AM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 30-May-2022 at 11:03 AM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 30-May-2022 at 11:03 AM.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@KimmoK

It ain’t happening. We’d colonise Mars before Musk bought Amiga. He makes calculated business decision and finds a way to benefit from them. He’d be hard pressed to figure out what to do with this lol.
Quote:

KimmoK wrote: Kick *ss AmigaOS version for space tablet computers! Those hundreds of Mars travellers need something to play/work with. + Elon would have enough funds to buy all needed parties (Morph+Hyperion+...) to build true AmigaNG OS for radiation-hardened SoC/system (+hobby niche). ++ btw. is there other radiation hardened SoC beside PPC?

Last edited by GadgetMaster on 30-May-2022 at 11:45 AM.

_________________
Trust me. I'm a doctor.

PADDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

_________________
I HAVE ABS OF STEEL
--
CAN YOU SEE ME? CAN YOU HEAR ME? OK FOR WORK