@DiscreetFX

After reading Brian Bagnall's Commodore - The Final Years, there's no proper leadership over Commodore's engineering staff.

After removing the original Amiga team's design governance over the Amiga project, Commodore's engineers and management are #metoo R&D map based on the competitor's current product releases.

The behavior is similar to C128's high-resolution text mode because the PC MDA competition has done it.

Monochrome hi-res Denise vs four-color hi-res Denise drama was a large time-wasting #metoo similar to C128's #metoo R&D approach.

If the R&D approach is based on a competitor's current product release with a #metoo response, it's too late.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

Goaaallll! Over 100% funded!

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan

@RobertB

Yes!

I'm looking forward to reading this book when it's released.

_________________
Sent from my Quantum Computer.

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @DiscreetFX After reading Brian Bagnall's Commodore - The Final Years, there's no proper leadership over Commodore's engineering staff. After removing the original Amiga team's design governance over the Amiga project, Commodore's engineers and management are #metoo R&D map based on the competitor's current product releases. The behavior is similar to C128's high-resolution text mode because the PC MDA competition has done it. Monochrome hi-res Denise vs four-color hi-res Denise drama was a large time-wasting #metoo similar to C128's #metoo R&D approach. If the R&D approach is based on a competitor's current product release with a #metoo response, it's too late.

Finally you got it!

Welcome to the (SAD) reality...

@cdimauro

Looks like you, Hammer & I agree on something, high five!

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 31-Jul-2024 at 07:35 AM.

_________________
Sent from my Quantum Computer.

@DiscreetFX

Quote:

DiscreetFX wrote: @cdimauro Looks like you, Hammer & I agree on something, high five!

Not yet. At least, not fully convinced, since he's still defending Commodore engineers on the other threads.

But the above comment looks promising. Let's see...

If only someone had been there to tell the engineers what to do…

_________________
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@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: If only someone had been there to tell the engineers what to do…

He was also somewhat critical of Commodore's hardware and software engineers, feeling they were "hardware hackers" and unprofessional...

He = Lew Eggebrecht, Vice President of Engineering at Commodore.

More on this:
http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahistory/leweggebrecht.html
The engineers were happy to have a project to work on so that lack of direction really was overcome.
[...]
if you leave engineers alone they'll re-invent the wheel every time and we can't afford to do that

Last edited by cdimauro on 01-Aug-2024 at 05:57 AM.

@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: @kolla Quote: kolla wrote: If only someone had been there to tell the engineers what to do… He was also somewhat critical of Commodore's hardware and software engineers, feeling they were "hardware hackers" and unprofessional... He = Lew Eggebrecht, Vice President of Engineering at Commodore. More on this: http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahistory/leweggebrecht.html The engineers were happy to have a project to work on so that lack of direction really was overcome. [...] if you leave engineers alone they'll re-invent the wheel every time and we can't afford to do that

It shows the lack of strong leadership to direct engineers towards a common goal i.e. upgrade Amiga's core graphics architecture in a timely manner.

Lew omits Bill Sydnes being fired by Ali and "more than six months wasted" on ECS Amiga models.

AA3000+ revision 1 was in a frozen state under Bill Sydnes before its AGA chipset was dropped into ECS A3400 which turned into A4000.

Due to the PCMCIA and IDE mandates from A300/A600, extra work is needed for AA-Gayle and Budgie instead of shipping "as is" Fat Gary and Ramsey.

A300's Gayle evolved from A500's Gary. A1200's AA-Gayle evolved from A300's Gayle.
AA3000+'s Fat Gary evolved from A500's Gary. There is a re-invent of the wheel.

A1200 wasn't A500 with AGA+Ramsey+Fat Gary since there were extra AA Gayle and Budgie chips that didn't exist in the AA3000+ Pandora prototype.

Last edited by Hammer on 01-Aug-2024 at 06:29 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Aug-2024 at 06:27 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Aug-2024 at 06:22 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Aug-2024 at 06:16 AM.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: @Hammer Quote: Hammer wrote: @DiscreetFX After reading Brian Bagnall's Commodore - The Final Years, there's no proper leadership over Commodore's engineering staff. After removing the original Amiga team's design governance over the Amiga project, Commodore's engineers and management are #metoo R&D map based on the competitor's current product releases. The behavior is similar to C128's high-resolution text mode because the PC MDA competition has done it. Monochrome hi-res Denise vs four-color hi-res Denise drama was a large time-wasting #metoo similar to C128's #metoo R&D approach. If the R&D approach is based on a competitor's current product release with a #metoo response, it's too late. Finally you got it! Welcome to the (SAD) reality...

From Brian Bagnall's Commodore - The Final Years,
Quote:

The Plus Computers After receiving feedback from the European marketing managers, Jeff Porter knew he would have to adjust the specs for his planned Amiga roster. On November 9 he began reconfiguring the existing lineup. He consolidated the new line of Amiga computers into the “Plus� line of computers, which centered on the upcoming AA chipset, due mid-February 1991. These would include the A500 Plus, the A1000 Plus, and the A3000 Plus. (skip) The A500 Plus, due in 1991, would not use the AA chipset. Rather, it would use ECS and the upcoming OS 2.04. Porter had been able to further cost reduce the A500 from just over $200 to only $176. This would allow Commodore to retail the computer for under $500 when it debuted. George Robbins was responsible for the design of the A500 Plus. Porter also planned to release a sleek computer called the A1000 Plus, which used a faster Motorola 68000 chip, and the upcoming AmigaOS 3.0 with the required changes to handle the AA chipset. (skip) For a while, Porter considered making an A2000 Plus. However, when the A1000 Plus spec changed to include the faster 680EC20 processor, the A2000 Plus became largely redundant and was cancelled. (skip) If the AA chips arrived on time, Augenbraun expected to release his A1000 Plus by the end of 1991.

Porter's plans include the following models for intended 1991,
ECS A500 Plus,
AGA A1000 Plus, this is effectively A1200 with a pizza case and keyboard.
AGA A3000 Plus, this is AA3000+.

AA3000+ motherboard can drop into the existing A3000 case as a lower-cost upgrade.


From Brian Bagnall's Commodore - The Final Years,
Quote:

AA First Prototypes Back in September 1989, George Robbins proposed an intermediate level Amiga chipset, called Pandora, to bridge the gap until AAA appeared. The chipset, consisting of a graphics chip called Lisa and an improved Agnus called Alice, was supposed to be ready in early 1990. Rubin had given the go ahead and six chip engineers had been working full time under the project leader, Bob Raible. The Pandora code-name was soon changed. “Then it was called AA,� says Dave Haynie. The new name took its meaning from baseball, where AAA (triple-A) was the top tier league and AA was the next tier down. “There was AAA and this was a little bit less than AAA, so it was two A’s, which didn’t really stand for anything.� As work progressed on the graphics chip, Lisa, it became clear that the timeline was too ambitious. Jeff Porter set a more realistic expectation of late 1990. As Porter predicted, CSG produced the first prototype chips by late November 1990 and testing began. By early December, the team felt the Lisa chip would be delivered ahead of schedule. All but the color table was working, a problem Raible felt he could overcome with a hack. The lowered ambitions of AA had allowed a rapid development cycle. “AA was hybrid 16/32-bit,� says Dave Haynie. As a result of the 16-bit operations, some modes such as Super HAM were still only fast enough to display static images rather than fast animation. The AA chips continued to be revised and tested through early 1991 until they were good enough to use in the A1000 Plus and A3000 Plus prototypes. Dave Haynie managed to boot up his A3000 Plus with AmigaOS and the AA chipset in February 1991. By March 27, when the tested AA chips were ready, the list of stable features was impressive. AA could display 256 colors from a palette of 16 million colors. It could theoretically play 24-bit digital video (although presently it could only display 8-bit video) due to a four times increase in bandwidth (and using the digital-to-analog converter chip in the A3000 Plus). It could use 64-bit sprites, which could now be controlled in the border areas. It had the aforementioned new 8-bit HAM mode, called Super HAM. And finally, the scan doubling and deinterlacing hardware, formerly on Amber, was now handled right on the chip. (skip section with feature wish list) (skip section with management stopping feature wish list being added to AGA).

For March 1991, these are the stable features of AA3000+.

This is before the Bill Sydnes "A1000Jr" ECS stupidity.

Quote:

Dethroned Most of Ali’s managers came from IBM, and they attempted to import parts of the IBM culture. (skip) On June 6, 1991, Bill Sydnes, Lew Eggebrecht, and Jeff Porter flew to Frankfurt to host a large meeting of regional Commodore heads. (skip) Bill Sydnes himself told Ali he could do a better job with the Amiga technology if it was under his direct control. “He eventually convinced Mehdi to let him have the entire Amiga development team,� says Porter. To accomplish this, Sydnes would need to place his own loyal people into leadership positions. “Sydnes was a PC guy, so he immediately promoted PC guys,� recalls Dave Haynie. (skip section with pro-PC's Jeff Frank winning corporate politics) Frank put himself forward with a proposal to cut back on the cost of Amiga computers while bringing them out in a timely fashion.

Jeff Frank beats Jeff Porter in corporate politics. Jeff Frank manages Commodore's PC division!


Quote:

On June 20, 1991, Jeff Frank took over the entire Amiga group, leaving Porter in the cold. Even the C65 project would now be managed by Frank. (skip) In order to make his takeover go smoother, Frank attempted to send Porter to a PCMCIA conference. Porter would have none of it, and suggested Lew Eggebrecht should attend instead. Frank continued his demands for four days, with Porter declining each time. Porter still held onto the hope that he could retain his position and did not want to allow himself to be undermined.

Jeff Frank is one of the pro-PC managers governing the Amiga projects.

Quote:

Killing Projects 1991 (skip) Ali and Sydnes were ready to change Commodore’s path. The two had to decide whether Commodore should even continue with the high-end Amiga products, or instead concentrate on IBM PC clones and low-cost, mass-market computers such as the A500 and C65. Bill Sydnes decided to cancel the A3000 Plus computer, which would have been Commodore’s answer to all the criticisms in the A3000. “He was the kind of guy who came in saying, ‘I'm gonna do everything my way.’ He started to basically put every single project at Commodore on hold,� says Eric Lavitsky, who had helped with the A3000 Plus. “Basically the A3000 Plus got put on the back burner. We continued to work on it a little bit as we could. Dave Haynie was working on the hardware.� (skip large sections) The Sydnes Era Begins 1991 (the meat of this book, buy the book) (skip) Jeff Frank, overseeing Robbins, ultimately saw the project through to completion as ordered by his boss, Bill Sydnes. They would continue working on the A300 for the remainder of 1991 and into early 1992. (skip) Due to the AA Task Force, Commodore did not release the A1000 Plus in time for the 1991 holiday season. (skip) Amiga 600 1992 (skip) The resulting product would appeal to almost no one. “Bill was out of his depth when it came to the Amiga,� says Jeff Porter. “The A300 was started because he promised Mehdi he could cost reduce the A500. It cost more. That'll teach you to try to out cost-reduce Porter. (skip)

With the AGA projects being frozen, the focus is on Commodore's PC clones for mid to high-end and ECS-based A300 for low-end.

The full blame is on pro-PC management and Bill Sydnes.

AA R&D was restarted in October 1991 aka AA Task Force. "More than six months" for bug fixing was lost!

Ex-IBM-ers for Commodore-style cost reduction is a joke.

Commodore management also has anti-GVP, hence the PCMCIA-only slot, the removal of CPU edge connector expansion, and A500's cancellation.

Quote:

A1200 Origins (skip) In February 1992, Ali told Sydnes he wanted a “full court press� to produce an A500 class machine using the upcoming AA chipset by September 1992. All this even before the AA chipset was done beta testing and months before the A600 launch in May. (skip) On March 19, Robbins finished the design requirements and pinouts for Budgie (a budget version of the Bridgette chip for the AA600) and AA Gayle.

Too late....

AA600 project = A1200. That's March 1992. That New Zealander is BS'ing.

Last edited by Hammer on 01-Aug-2024 at 09:24 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Aug-2024 at 09:22 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Aug-2024 at 09:16 AM.
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Last edited by Hammer on 01-Aug-2024 at 08:26 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Aug-2024 at 07:58 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-Aug-2024 at 07:56 AM.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: I'll back any project to which Dave Haynie is attached.

I'm not sure, maybe if he would announce a FPGA/ASIC A5000 desktop or console.

Last edited by OneTimer1 on 01-Aug-2024 at 01:50 PM.

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @cdimauro Quote: cdimauro wrote: @kolla He was also somewhat critical of Commodore's hardware and software engineers, feeling they were "hardware hackers" and unprofessional... He = Lew Eggebrecht, Vice President of Engineering at Commodore. More on this: http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahistory/leweggebrecht.html The engineers were happy to have a project to work on so that lack of direction really was overcome. [...] if you leave engineers alone they'll re-invent the wheel every time and we can't afford to do that It shows the lack of strong leadership to direct engineers towards a common goal i.e. upgrade Amiga's core graphics architecture in a timely manner.

That was one thing (as it was reported by Eggebrecht), but you don't (or don't want) to pay attention to what was written about the engineers. Here a recap for your convenience:

- hardware hackers
- unprofessional
- re-inventing the wheel

Clear now?
Quote:

Lew omits Bill Sydnes being fired by Ali and "more than six months wasted" on ECS Amiga models. AA3000+ revision 1 was in a frozen state under Bill Sydnes before its AGA chipset was dropped into ECS A3400 which turned into A4000. Due to the PCMCIA and IDE mandates from A300/A600, extra work is needed for AA-Gayle and Budgie instead of shipping "as is" Fat Gary and Ramsey. A300's Gayle evolved from A500's Gary. A1200's AA-Gayle evolved from A300's Gayle. AA3000+'s Fat Gary evolved from A500's Gary. There is a re-invent of the wheel. A1200 wasn't A500 with AGA+Ramsey+Fat Gary since there were extra AA Gayle and Budgie chips that didn't exist in the AA3000+ Pandora prototype.

Right and? What about the responsibilities of the engineers?
Quote:

Hammer wrote: @cdimauro Quote: cdimauro wrote: @Hammer Finally you got it! Welcome to the (SAD) reality... From Brian Bagnall's Commodore - The Final Years, Quote: The Plus Computers After receiving feedback from the European marketing managers, Jeff Porter knew he would have to adjust the specs for his planned Amiga roster. On November 9 he began reconfiguring the existing lineup. He consolidated the new line of Amiga computers into the “Plus� line of computers, which centered on the upcoming AA chipset, due mid-February 1991. These would include the A500 Plus, the A1000 Plus, and the A3000 Plus. (skip) The A500 Plus, due in 1991, would not use the AA chipset. Rather, it would use ECS and the upcoming OS 2.04. Porter had been able to further cost reduce the A500 from just over $200 to only $176. This would allow Commodore to retail the computer for under $500 when it debuted. George Robbins was responsible for the design of the A500 Plus. Porter also planned to release a sleek computer called the A1000 Plus, which used a faster Motorola 68000 chip, and the upcoming AmigaOS 3.0 with the required changes to handle the AA chipset. (skip) For a while, Porter considered making an A2000 Plus. However, when the A1000 Plus spec changed to include the faster 680EC20 processor, the A2000 Plus became largely redundant and was cancelled. (skip) If the AA chips arrived on time, Augenbraun expected to release his A1000 Plus by the end of 1991. Porter's plans include the following models for intended 1991, ECS A500 Plus, AGA A1000 Plus, this is effectively A1200 with a pizza case and keyboard. AGA A3000 Plus, this is AA3000+. AA3000+ motherboard can drop into the existing A3000 case as a lower-cost upgrade.

This plan was unrealistic, as it was proven by the AA development.

Quote:

From Brian Bagnall's Commodore - The Final Years, Quote: AA First Prototypes Back in September 1989, George Robbins proposed an intermediate level Amiga chipset, called Pandora, to bridge the gap until AAA appeared. The chipset, consisting of a graphics chip called Lisa and an improved Agnus called Alice, was supposed to be ready in early 1990. Rubin had given the go ahead and six chip engineers had been working full time under the project leader, Bob Raible. The Pandora code-name was soon changed. “Then it was called AA,� says Dave Haynie. The new name took its meaning from baseball, where AAA (triple-A) was the top tier league and AA was the next tier down. “There was AAA and this was a little bit less than AAA, so it was two A’s, which didn’t really stand for anything.� As work progressed on the graphics chip, Lisa, it became clear that the timeline was too ambitious. Jeff Porter set a more realistic expectation of late 1990. As Porter predicted, CSG produced the first prototype chips by late November 1990 and testing began. By early December, the team felt the Lisa chip would be delivered ahead of schedule. All but the color table was working, a problem Raible felt he could overcome with a hack. The lowered ambitions of AA had allowed a rapid development cycle. “AA was hybrid 16/32-bit,� says Dave Haynie. As a result of the 16-bit operations, some modes such as Super HAM were still only fast enough to display static images rather than fast animation. The AA chips continued to be revised and tested through early 1991 until they were good enough to use in the A1000 Plus and A3000 Plus prototypes. Dave Haynie managed to boot up his A3000 Plus with AmigaOS and the AA chipset in February 1991. By March 27, when the tested AA chips were ready, the list of stable features was impressive. AA could display 256 colors from a palette of 16 million colors. It could theoretically play 24-bit digital video (although presently it could only display 8-bit video) due to a four times increase in bandwidth (and using the digital-to-analog converter chip in the A3000 Plus). It could use 64-bit sprites, which could now be controlled in the border areas. It had the aforementioned new 8-bit HAM mode, called Super HAM. And finally, the scan doubling and deinterlacing hardware, formerly on Amber, was now handled right on the chip. (skip section with feature wish list) (skip section with management stopping feature wish list being added to AGA). For March 1991, these are the stable features of AA3000+.

Which doesn't mean that the chips where production ready.

According to the above, the first prototype arrived on November 1990. So, it was the first silicon = A0 (first revision of the first step) as per silicon industry terminology, and it takes ca. 3 months for every step and/or revision (e.g.: it's called tape-out).

Consider that new projects require more steps and revisions before being ready for production.

For example, when I've joined Intel I've immediately worked to Skylake's A0: it was booting Windows (not Linux, AFAIR), but was unstable and it crashed sometimes. From stepping B to C the SGX extension was changed. And AFAIR it went in production with stepping D. So, it required 7-8 tape-outs = from 7 x 3 = 21 to 8 x 3 = 24 months.

So, it was unrealistic to have AA working at the second tape-out (March 1991). In fact, it required more time to fix the bugs and go in production.
Quote:

This is before the Bill Sydnes "A1000Jr" ECS stupidity.

Which counts only for 6 months, right? You can do the math yourself taking the Amiga 1200 & 4000's production time.
Quote:

Quote: Dethroned Most of Ali’s managers came from IBM, and they attempted to import parts of the IBM culture. (skip) On June 6, 1991, Bill Sydnes, Lew Eggebrecht, and Jeff Porter flew to Frankfurt to host a large meeting of regional Commodore heads. (skip) Bill Sydnes himself told Ali he could do a better job with the Amiga technology if it was under his direct control. “He eventually convinced Mehdi to let him have the entire Amiga development team,� says Porter. To accomplish this, Sydnes would need to place his own loyal people into leadership positions. “Sydnes was a PC guy, so he immediately promoted PC guys,� recalls Dave Haynie. (skip section with pro-PC's Jeff Frank winning corporate politics) Frank put himself forward with a proposal to cut back on the cost of Amiga computers while bringing them out in a timely fashion. Jeff Frank beats Jeff Porter in corporate politics. Jeff Frank manages Commodore's PC division! Quote: On June 20, 1991, Jeff Frank took over the entire Amiga group, leaving Porter in the cold. Even the C65 project would now be managed by Frank. (skip) In order to make his takeover go smoother, Frank attempted to send Porter to a PCMCIA conference. Porter would have none of it, and suggested Lew Eggebrecht should attend instead. Frank continued his demands for four days, with Porter declining each time. Porter still held onto the hope that he could retain his position and did not want to allow himself to be undermined. Jeff Frank is one of the pro-PC managers governing the Amiga projects. Quote: Killing Projects 1991 (skip) Ali and Sydnes were ready to change Commodore’s path. The two had to decide whether Commodore should even continue with the high-end Amiga products, or instead concentrate on IBM PC clones and low-cost, mass-market computers such as the A500 and C65. Bill Sydnes decided to cancel the A3000 Plus computer, which would have been Commodore’s answer to all the criticisms in the A3000. “He was the kind of guy who came in saying, ‘I'm gonna do everything my way.’ He started to basically put every single project at Commodore on hold,� says Eric Lavitsky, who had helped with the A3000 Plus. “Basically the A3000 Plus got put on the back burner. We continued to work on it a little bit as we could. Dave Haynie was working on the hardware.� (skip large sections) The Sydnes Era Begins 1991 (the meat of this book, buy the book) (skip) Jeff Frank, overseeing Robbins, ultimately saw the project through to completion as ordered by his boss, Bill Sydnes. They would continue working on the A300 for the remainder of 1991 and into early 1992. (skip) Due to the AA Task Force, Commodore did not release the A1000 Plus in time for the 1991 holiday season. (skip) Amiga 600 1992 (skip) The resulting product would appeal to almost no one. “Bill was out of his depth when it came to the Amiga,� says Jeff Porter. “The A300 was started because he promised Mehdi he could cost reduce the A500. It cost more. That'll teach you to try to out cost-reduce Porter. (skip) With the AGA projects being frozen, the focus is on Commodore's PC clones for mid to high-end and ECS-based A300 for low-end. The full blame is on pro-PC management and Bill Sydnes. AA R&D was restarted in October 1991 aka AA Task Force. "More than six months" for bug fixing was lost!

But they remain 6 months, right? From October 1992 it could have been April 1992. But definitely NOT beginning of 1991.
Quote:

Ex-IBM-ers for Commodore-style cost reduction is a joke.

Then please tell about what Commodore engineers have done to enhance the Amiga platform from the A1000 'til when those IBM guys arrived.

I'm really curious...
Quote:

Commodore management also has anti-GVP, hence the PCMCIA-only slot, the removal of CPU edge connector expansion, and A500's cancellation.

Sure, nothing to say: we know how the management "worked".

But they aren't the only guilties here.
Quote:

Quote: A1200 Origins (skip) In February 1992, Ali told Sydnes he wanted a “full court press� to produce an A500 class machine using the upcoming AA chipset by September 1992. All this even before the AA chipset was done beta testing and months before the A600 launch in May. (skip) On March 19, Robbins finished the design requirements and pinouts for Budgie (a budget version of the Bridgette chip for the AA600) and AA Gayle. Too late.... AA600 project = A1200. That's March 1992.

Right, and?
Quote:

That New Zealander is BS'ing.

Hum... You seems to have no good relationship New Zealander, but... this is a bit too much to be reported here to "prove" something.

@cdimauro

Quote:

@cdimauro That was one thing (as it was reported by Eggebrecht), but you don't (or don't want) to pay attention to what was written about the engineers. Here a recap for your convenience: - hardware hackers - unprofessional - re-inventing the wheel Clear now?

Eggebrecht's narrative is incomplete.

Commodore was doomed under Bill Sydnes and Jeff Frank (from the Commodore PC business).

After Bill Sydnes and Jeff Frank took over Amiga R&D governance, these pro-PC advocates for low-end A600 and mid-to-high PC product mix plans.

It took Mehdi Ali's direction to produce A1200 which overrides pro-PC advocate's low-end Amiga and mid-to-high PC product mix plan.

Jeff Frank made sure the Amiga would NOT be a threat to Commodore's fast 386DX-33 and 486-based PCs.

For strong dollar currency countries, I knew there were SKU gaps between A500/A1200 and A3000/A4000.

Brian Bagnall's Commodore - The Final Years book confirms the sabotage of the Amiga's product stack.

Quote:

@cdimauro Right and? What about the responsibilities of the engineers?

Refer to Jeff Frank's product mix advocacy.

Quote:

@cdimauro This plan was unrealistic, as it was proven by the AA development.

Jeff Frank and Bill Sydnes "lost more than six months" for completing AA.

Regardless of AAA or AA display solution, weak compute power will not change "missing in action" for mainstream texture-mapped 3D games.

The A500 has more than enough performance to play contemporary multiplatform 2D games from 1987 to 1990.

Sony's PS1 has enough performance to play contemporary Pentium class multiplatform texture-mapped 3D games from 1995 and beyond. The mass-produced Amiga models have dropped from these characteristics.

Have you noticed the pattern?

Quote:

@cdimauro Which doesn't mean that the chips where production ready. According to the above, the first prototype arrived on November 1990. So, it was the first silicon = A0 (first revision of the first step) as per silicon industry terminology, and it takes ca. 3 months for every step and/or revision (e.g.: it's called tape-out). Consider that new projects require more steps and revisions before being ready for production.

The "lost more than six months" for completing the AA project is on Jeff Frank (from Commodore PC division) and Bill Sydnes.

When directed by Mehdi Ali, A1200's Budgie and AA-Gayle chips were completed in about two months. This direction should have been after the AA3000+ revision 1 status before being frozen.

Again, it took Mehdi Ali's direction to produce A1200 that overrides pro-PC advocates' low-end Amiga and mid-to-high PC product mix plan.

AA platform should have been building its install base around Xmas Q4 1991 to be ready against SNES's Sep 1992 European release which is Amiga's core market.

SNES's Sep 1992 European release was ready for Q4 1992 Xmas European sales.

Quote:

@cdimauro Then please tell about what Commodore engineers have done to enhance the Amiga platform from the A1000 'til when those IBM guys arrived.

68EC020's release schedule is an important factor.

Quote:

From Commodore - Final Years by Brian Bagnall, Jeff Porter had initially conceived an A1000 Plus in early November 1990 with a $350.42 bill of materials using a 16-bit 14 MHz 68000 processor and two Zoro II slots. However, Augenbraun countered his proposal with a more powerful 32-bit 16 MHz 68EC020 and a single slot for $351.96. “My original concept was it was going to have one expansion card so it was supposed to just have an edge card connector on the end of the board, not the male one that an A500 had where it needed special peripherals,� explains Augenbraun. “A female one so it could just take a regular A2000 [Zorro II] card. And it would have a hard drive interface built in.� However, Porter favored two Zorro II slots, based on the feedback he received in Europe. “It was really supposed to have one card but it grew to two cards,� says Augenbraun. “Jeff really felt strongly that it needed two cards and I was resistant because of cost. We did a riser card which annoyed me because it was another 20 bucks in cost.� The A1000 Plus would reside in a “pizza box� form factor case, similar to the one used by the original A1000, minus the keyboard garage. “It was supposed to be a $1000 computer. We were thinking we would ship with a hard drive and everything. (skip) If the AA chips arrived on time, Augenbraun expected to release his A1000 Plus by the end of 1991.

The target price for A1000 Plus with AA is USD $1000 which is about $1500 AUD i.e. my price range.

Notice the two Zorro II slots for USD $1000 A1000 Plus which could expand Amiga's Zorro II addon market.

I prefer the A1000 Plus with AA to be released for Xmas 1991 or Q1 1992 instead of the A600 ECS. This would stop customers like my Dad from wasting their spending budgets on dead-end ECS stupidity.

AA only needs higher compute power and an extra 1 MB Fast RAM for PC's VGA Mode X/Mode 13h resolution and join the "3MB game consoles" target group i.e. 3DO, Saturn, and PS1.

Like many others, my family's purchase of 386DX-33/ET4000-based gaming PC in Xmas 1992 is a retaliation against the ECS stupidity. My family's 386DX-33/ET4000-based gaming PC budget is around $1500 to $1600 AUD.

For my mid-price range, Jeff Frank made sure it's a PC choice, not the Amiga.

As presented, I prefer the "A1000 Plus with AA" over my A3000 and A1200.

Quote:

But they remain 6 months, right? From October 1992 it could have been April 1992. But definitely NOT beginning of 1991.

My argument is not "beginning of 1991". I prefer Xmas Q4 1991 or Boxing Day sales Q1 1992.

Q4 Xmas sales are important. Hint: Apple's PowerMac Q4 1994 Xmas sales surge.

Last edited by Hammer on 02-Aug-2024 at 07:44 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 02-Aug-2024 at 07:42 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 02-Aug-2024 at 07:07 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 02-Aug-2024 at 06:55 AM.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @cdimauro Quote: @cdimauro That was one thing (as it was reported by Eggebrecht), but you don't (or don't want) to pay attention to what was written about the engineers. Here a recap for your convenience: - hardware hackers - unprofessional - re-inventing the wheel Clear now? Eggebrecht's narrative is incomplete.

No, it wasn't. From the same interview:

It's not th at Commodore didn't want to be open, it was just difficult with the management they have had in the past.
[...]
The process of converting a design to a product is something Commodore has always had difficulty with.
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro Right and? What about the responsibilities of the engineers? Refer to Jeff Frank's product mix advocacy.

You haven't answered...
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro This plan was unrealistic, as it was proven by the AA development. Jeff Frank and Bill Sydnes "lost more than six months" for completing AA.

Nevertheless, the project wouldn't have been mature 'til Q2 1992.
Quote:

Regardless of AAA or AA display solution, weak compute power will not change "missing in action" for mainstream texture-mapped 3D games.

That's the problem with the "creative" engineers which Commodore had and the only thing that they were capable of was the stupid Akiko chip.
Quote:

The A500 has more than enough performance to play contemporary multiplatform 2D games from 1987 to 1990.

Sure.
Quote:

Sony's PS1 has enough performance to play contemporary Pentium class multiplatform texture-mapped 3D games from 1995 and beyond. The mass-produced Amiga models have dropped from these characteristics. Have you noticed the pattern?

Yes: a more concrete upgrade was needed with AGA, at least.
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro Which doesn't mean that the chips where production ready. According to the above, the first prototype arrived on November 1990. So, it was the first silicon = A0 (first revision of the first step) as per silicon industry terminology, and it takes ca. 3 months for every step and/or revision (e.g.: it's called tape-out). Consider that new projects require more steps and revisions before being ready for production. The "lost more than six months" for completing the AA project is on Jeff Frank (from Commodore PC division) and Bill Sydnes. When directed by Mehdi Ali, A1200's Budgie and AA-Gayle chips were completed in about two months. This direction should have been after the AA3000+ revision 1 status before being frozen. Again, it took Mehdi Ali's direction to produce A1200 that overrides pro-PC advocates' low-end Amiga and mid-to-high PC product mix plan.

Same as above: the AGA machines could have been ready only for Q2 1992.
Quote:

AA platform should have been building its install base around Xmas Q4 1991 to be ready against SNES's Sep 1992 European release which is Amiga's core market. SNES's Sep 1992 European release was ready for Q4 1992 Xmas European sales.

That's wishful thinking, since AGA -> Q2 1992, at least.

Anyway, for playing at the same level of the SNES an upgrade of the chipset on 1990 would have been possible, requiring only some small changes (as per my articles). Read: AGA wasn't needed.
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro Then please tell about what Commodore engineers have done to enhance the Amiga platform from the A1000 'til when those IBM guys arrived. 68EC020's release schedule is an important factor.

Not needed for the 16-bit consoles Age: a 14Mhz 68000 would have been enough to have the Amiga strongly saying its own on the game market.
Quote:

Quote: From Commodore - Final Years by Brian Bagnall, Jeff Porter had initially conceived an A1000 Plus in early November 1990 with a $350.42 bill of materials using a 16-bit 14 MHz 68000 processor and two Zoro II slots. However, Augenbraun countered his proposal with a more powerful 32-bit 16 MHz 68EC020 and a single slot for $351.96. “My original concept was it was going to have one expansion card so it was supposed to just have an edge card connector on the end of the board, not the male one that an A500 had where it needed special peripherals,� explains Augenbraun. “A female one so it could just take a regular A2000 [Zorro II] card. And it would have a hard drive interface built in.� However, Porter favored two Zorro II slots, based on the feedback he received in Europe. “It was really supposed to have one card but it grew to two cards,� says Augenbraun. “Jeff really felt strongly that it needed two cards and I was resistant because of cost. We did a riser card which annoyed me because it was another 20 bucks in cost.� The A1000 Plus would reside in a “pizza box� form factor case, similar to the one used by the original A1000, minus the keyboard garage. “It was supposed to be a $1000 computer. We were thinking we would ship with a hard drive and everything. (skip) If the AA chips arrived on time, Augenbraun expected to release his A1000 Plus by the end of 1991. The target price for A1000 Plus with AA is USD $1000 which is about $1500 AUD i.e. my price range. Notice the two Zorro II slots for USD $1000 A1000 Plus which could expand Amiga's Zorro II addon market.

Another failure, then. History has taught nothing, eh?

Amiga 1000 -> Failure
Amiga 2000 -> Failure
Amiga 3000 -> Failure
CDTV -> Failure

All "desktop" Amiga failed.

Commodore was an home computers company and those were the ones which made the big money.
Quote:

I prefer the A1000 Plus with AA to be released for Xmas 1991 or Q1 1992 instead of the A600 ECS. This would stop customers like my Dad from wasting their spending budgets on dead-end ECS stupidity.

Your preference it not the preference of the mass market: see above.
Quote:

AA only needs higher compute power and an extra 1 MB Fast RAM

No, absolutely: it wasn't yet the time.
Quote:

for PC's VGA Mode X/Mode 13h resolution and join the "3MB game consoles" target group i.e. 3DO, Saturn, and PS1.

Which were > 1992 -> out of context.

I've to recall you that AGA arrived on 1992...
Quote:

Like many others, my family's purchase of 386DX-33/ET4000-based gaming PC in Xmas 1992 is a retaliation against the ECS stupidity. My family's 386DX-33/ET4000-based gaming PC budget is around $1500 to $1600 AUD. For my mid-price range, Jeff Frank made sure it's a PC choice, not the Amiga. As presented, I prefer the "A1000 Plus with AA" over my A3000 and A1200.

Whatever. You're talking about markets which are DISTANT from the usual one where Commodore gained a lot of money.
Quote:

Quote: But they remain 6 months, right? From October 1992 it could have been April 1992. But definitely NOT beginning of 1991. My argument is not "beginning of 1991". I prefer Xmas Q4 1991 or Boxing Day sales Q1 1992.

Unfortunately it could have been only Q2 1992, because the chipset was still too buggy.
Quote:

Q4 Xmas sales are important. Hint: Apple's PowerMac Q4 1994 Xmas sales surge.

Apple = super-expensive = NOT Commodore's market...

@cdimauro

Quote:

@cdimauro No, it wasn't. From the same interview:

Lew's information is incomplete.

Quote:

@cdimauro You haven't answered...

I have answered the driver for 1990-1992 clusterfukc situation.

Quote:

@cdimauro Nevertheless, the project wouldn't have been mature 'til Q2 1992.

1. Budgie and AA-Gayle didn't exist in the entirety of 1991. AA-Gayle is dependent on A300's Gayle's PCMCIA and IDE mandate.

Budgie includes links to PCMCIA memory mode.

2. "More than six months" wasted on ECS "A1000Jr" and ECS A300/A600 by Jeff Frank and Bill Sydnes.

AA based A1000 Plus and AA3000 Plus were frozen around March 1991.

A1000Jr has the usual A3000's ECS Agnus, ECS Denise, 32bit Fat Gary, 32bit Super Buster, two CIAs, 32bit Ramsey memory controller, and four bridge chips (later replaced by 32bit Bridgette and 32bit Budgie).

A300/A600 has two bridge chips between PCMCIA's 16-bit Fast RAM and 16-bit Chip RAM.

3. Commodore's $366 million loss is on Jeff Frank, Bill Sydnes and Mehdi Ali.

4. A1200's development was started by Mehdi Ali's directive in Feb 1992 and CD32 follows A1200.

Quote:

From Commodore - The Final years Despite the worsening disaster of 1993, Commodore had one more ace up its sleeve to play. After taking over from Henri Rubin and Jeff Porter, the Bill Sydnes/Lew Eggebrecht/Mehdi Ali trio had decided to cut out high-end Amigas including the A3000 Plus and focus on lowend Amigas, such as the A600 and A1200. They also focused on the PC clone market, while cutting out the low-end PC clones. And they cut the low-end video game machine, the C65. Since then, the executives had reversed course and restarted the high-end Amiga line with the A4000, as well as starting a low-end video game machine, the CD32. In other words, they were now back to the same product lines they had previously cancelled. The project with the most urgency for the company was indisputably the CD32.

Quote:

@cdimauro That's the problem with the "creative" engineers which Commodore had and the only thing that they were capable of was the stupid Akiko chip.

For most part, Akiko is just a cost-reduction measure to combine AA-Gayle, Budgie, and two CIA chips.

If Amiga had "game ready" Blitter C2P sample code as part of standard Commodore's game SDK, this C2P issue would be less for 3rd party developers.

SNES has a good Mode 7-related SDK which helps with baseline consistency.

Gaming PC platform had public access to Michael Abrash's game-ready Mode X sample code since July 1991 which helps with baseline consistency.

Good "game ready" SDK matters.

A1200's development was started by Mehdi Ali's directive in Feb 1992 and CD32 follows A1200.

The year 1991 was critical for AA bug fixing.

Jeff Frank and Bill Sydnes lost "more than six months" with ECS focus and frozen AA R&D.


Despite AAA or AA+ chunky pixel mode, 68EC020 @ 14 Mhz compute power wouldn't be enough for a mainstream texture-mapped 3D gaming experience. This is like attaching ET4000W32 to 386DX-16.


Jeff Frank is the main driver for the low-end ECS Amiga and mid-to-high-end SVGA PCs product mix.

Jeff Frank is the main advocate (driver) for canceling AA-based A1000Plus and AA3000Plus.

AA3000Plus is the main development platform for AA debugging.

Quote:

From Commodore - the Final Years, Frank put himself forward with a proposal to cut back on the cost of Amiga computers while bringing them out in a timely fashion. (skip) In order to make his takeover go smoother, Frank attempted to send Porter to a PCMCIA conference. Porter would have none of it, and suggested Lew Eggebrecht should attend instead. Frank continued his demands for four days, with Porter declining each time. Porter still held onto the hope that he could retain his position and did not want to allow himself to be undermined. A few days later, Porter was left out of the Monday morning engineering meeting and was soon notified he was no longer allowed to park his car in the VP parking lot, although he continued attempting to. Relations between Porter and Frank soon became heated. Porter wore his heart on his sleeve and taunted Frank whenever he had a chance, resulting in the two verbally sparring when they met. In early July, managers were instructed not to invite Jeff Porter to meetings (except for CDTV) unless Jeff Frank requested the invite. Porter was now only left with the CDTV-CR project in the multimedia division—the same place Henri Rubin and Harold Copperman had been demoted to before him. “That was a real crime,� says Joe Augenbraun. However, Porter would make the most of his new lot in life. (skip) Killing the High End Amigas Ali and Sydnes were ready to change Commodore’s path. The two had to decide whether Commodore should even continue with the high-end Amiga products, or instead concentrate on IBM PC clones and low-cost, mass-market computers such as the A500 and C65. Bill Sydnes decided to cancel the A3000 Plus computer, which would have been Commodore’s answer to all the criticisms in the A3000. “He was the kind of guy who came in saying, ‘I'm gonna do everything my way.’ He started to basically put every single project at Commodore on hold,� says Eric Lavitsky, who had helped with the A3000 Plus. “Basically the A3000 Plus got put on the back burner. We continued to work on it a little bit as we could. Dave Haynie was working on the hardware.� (skip) The Fate of A1000 Plus The other AA product under review by Bill Sydnes and Mehdi Ali, the mid-tier A1000 Plus, was highly anticipated by Commodore International sales managers, especially in the UK and Germany. (skip) Dave Haynie echoes the enthusiasm of the engineers towards the A1000 Plus. “More than anything, I think that machine, done the way it was being done in early 1991, could have kept Commodore around, given the times.� (skip) Although the year began with engineers believing in the Plus computers, by the end of the year it looked like any future projects would be determined by a group of former IBM managers with no particular fondness for Commodore’s unique Amiga computers.

A1000 Plus was modified from AA to ECS i.e. A1000Jr. The existing A3000 reached $899 USD in 1993!




Quote:

@cdimauro Which were > 1992 -> out of context.

Wrong. Game releases in 1993 and 1994 would be in development in 1991 and 1992.

Gaming PC platform had public access to Michael Abrash's game-ready Mode X sample code since July 1991 which helps with baseline consistency.

From 1991 to 1994, the Amiga doesn't have Michael Abrash's evangelism.

If your argument is based on public PC game releases in 1993 and 1994, you're too late.

3rd party game developer's POV is a B2B argument.

Last edited by Hammer on 04-Aug-2024 at 03:32 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 04-Aug-2024 at 03:11 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 04-Aug-2024 at 03:05 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 04-Aug-2024 at 02:44 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 04-Aug-2024 at 02:43 AM.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @cdimauro Quote: @cdimauro No, it wasn't. From the same interview: Lew's information is incomplete.

I don't think so, but you can always fill the gap, if you have other.
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro You haven't answered... I have answered the driver for 1990-1992 clusterfukc situation.

And what about 1985-1990? What such great engineers did in FIVE years, BEFORE that the "IBM guys" arrived (and only for 2 / 2.5 years)?
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro Nevertheless, the project wouldn't have been mature 'til Q2 1992. 1. Budgie and AA-Gayle didn't exist in the entirety of 1991. AA-Gayle is dependent on A300's Gayle's PCMCIA and IDE mandate. Budgie includes links to PCMCIA memory mode. 2. "More than six months" wasted on ECS "A1000Jr" and ECS A300/A600 by Jeff Frank and Bill Sydnes. AA based A1000 Plus and AA3000 Plus were frozen around March 1991. A1000Jr has the usual A3000's ECS Agnus, ECS Denise, 32bit Fat Gary, 32bit Super Buster, two CIAs, 32bit Ramsey memory controller, and four bridge chips (later replaced by 32bit Bridgette and 32bit Budgie). A300/A600 has two bridge chips between PCMCIA's 16-bit Fast RAM and 16-bit Chip RAM. 3. Commodore's $366 million loss is on Jeff Frank, Bill Sydnes and Mehdi Ali. 4. A1200's development was started by Mehdi Ali's directive in Feb 1992 and CD32 follows A1200.

Again, SIX months delay means that a production could have been possible only on Q2 1992.
Quote:

From Commodore - The Final years Despite the worsening disaster of 1993, Commodore had one more ace up its sleeve to play. After taking over from Henri Rubin and Jeff Porter, the Bill Sydnes/Lew Eggebrecht/Mehdi Ali trio had decided to cut out high-end Amigas including the A3000 Plus and focus on lowend Amigas, such as the A600 and A1200. They also focused on the PC clone market, while cutting out the low-end PC clones. And they cut the low-end video game machine, the C65. Since then, the executives had reversed course and restarted the high-end Amiga line with the A4000, as well as starting a low-end video game machine, the CD32. In other words, they were now back to the same product lines they had previously cancelled. The project with the most urgency for the company was indisputably the CD32.

That was already too late. The disaster happened before that.
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro That's the problem with the "creative" engineers which Commodore had and the only thing that they were capable of was the stupid Akiko chip. For most part, Akiko is just a cost-reduction measure to combine AA-Gayle, Budgie, and two CIA chips.

Right, but here I was referring to the hardware C2P "great" idea.
Quote:

If Amiga had "game ready" Blitter C2P sample code as part of standard Commodore's game SDK, this C2P issue would be less for 3rd party developers.

No, it required packed/chunky implemented on Denise/Lisa. At the last 8 bits packed, which was the most important one.

And I've already PROVED how it could have been implemented FULLY RESPECTING the Amiga's proper/unique architecture, with very minimal costs:
https://www.appuntidigitali.it/19959/beyond-akiko-grafica-packed-al-minor-costo-usando-i-bitplane/
(it's in Italian, but it can be easily translated with DeepL, Bing, Google, etc.).
Quote:

SNES has a good Mode 7-related SDK which helps with baseline consistency.

Mode 7 was THE exception in the 16-bit "consoles" panorama. At the time 2D was the target.
Quote:

Gaming PC platform had public access to Michael Abrash's game-ready Mode X sample code since July 1991 which helps with baseline consistency.

Mode X (and Y) was intended mainly for 2D.

It was ALSO used for 3D, but with the purpose of going beyond the 320x200 of Mode 13h.
Quote:

Good "game ready" SDK matters.

And Amiga had a good one.
Quote:

A1200's development was started by Mehdi Ali's directive in Feb 1992 and CD32 follows A1200. The year 1991 was critical for AA bug fixing. Jeff Frank and Bill Sydnes lost "more than six months" with ECS focus and frozen AA R&D.

Which means: at least Q2 1992 for production.
Quote:

Despite AAA or AA+ chunky pixel mode, 68EC020 @ 14 Mhz compute power wouldn't be enough for a mainstream texture-mapped 3D gaming experience. This is like attaching ET4000W32 to 386DX-16.

Again, you continue to think to the Amiga like a PC. No, it had CUSTOM hardware! Why you want to offload ALL 3D computing to the CPU?!?
Quote:

Jeff Frank is the main driver for the low-end ECS Amiga and mid-to-high-end SVGA PCs product mix. Jeff Frank is the main advocate (driver) for canceling AA-based A1000Plus and AA3000Plus. AA3000Plus is the main development platform for AA debugging. Quote: From Commodore - the Final Years, Frank put himself forward with a proposal to cut back on the cost of Amiga computers while bringing them out in a timely fashion. (skip) In order to make his takeover go smoother, Frank attempted to send Porter to a PCMCIA conference. Porter would have none of it, and suggested Lew Eggebrecht should attend instead. Frank continued his demands for four days, with Porter declining each time. Porter still held onto the hope that he could retain his position and did not want to allow himself to be undermined. A few days later, Porter was left out of the Monday morning engineering meeting and was soon notified he was no longer allowed to park his car in the VP parking lot, although he continued attempting to. Relations between Porter and Frank soon became heated. Porter wore his heart on his sleeve and taunted Frank whenever he had a chance, resulting in the two verbally sparring when they met. In early July, managers were instructed not to invite Jeff Porter to meetings (except for CDTV) unless Jeff Frank requested the invite. Porter was now only left with the CDTV-CR project in the multimedia division—the same place Henri Rubin and Harold Copperman had been demoted to before him. “That was a real crime,� says Joe Augenbraun. However, Porter would make the most of his new lot in life. (skip) Killing the High End Amigas Ali and Sydnes were ready to change Commodore’s path. The two had to decide whether Commodore should even continue with the high-end Amiga products, or instead concentrate on IBM PC clones and low-cost, mass-market computers such as the A500 and C65. Bill Sydnes decided to cancel the A3000 Plus computer, which would have been Commodore’s answer to all the criticisms in the A3000. “He was the kind of guy who came in saying, ‘I'm gonna do everything my way.’ He started to basically put every single project at Commodore on hold,� says Eric Lavitsky, who had helped with the A3000 Plus. “Basically the A3000 Plus got put on the back burner. We continued to work on it a little bit as we could. Dave Haynie was working on the hardware.� (skip) The Fate of A1000 Plus The other AA product under review by Bill Sydnes and Mehdi Ali, the mid-tier A1000 Plus, was highly anticipated by Commodore International sales managers, especially in the UK and Germany. (skip) Dave Haynie echoes the enthusiasm of the engineers towards the A1000 Plus. “More than anything, I think that machine, done the way it was being done in early 1991, could have kept Commodore around, given the times.� (skip) Although the year began with engineers believing in the Plus computers, by the end of the year it looked like any future projects would be determined by a group of former IBM managers with no particular fondness for Commodore’s unique Amiga computers. A1000 Plus was modified from AA to ECS i.e. A1000Jr. The existing A3000 reached $899 USD in 1993!

Which was good! ALL desktop Amigas were a FAILURE!

The PRIMARY target should always have been the low-end / SBC Amigas.
Quote:

Quote: @cdimauro Which were > 1992 -> out of context. Wrong. Game releases in 1993 and 1994 would be in development in 1991 and 1992.

Again, I was referring to the Saturn, 3DO and PS1 that you've reported. That's a completely new generation of products / consoles
Quote:

Gaming PC platform had public access to Michael Abrash's game-ready Mode X sample code since July 1991 which helps with baseline consistency.

Which was for 2D, primarily.
Quote:

From 1991 to 1994, the Amiga doesn't have Michael Abrash's evangelism.

We had the documentation, so we haven't needed any evangelist.
Quote:

If your argument is based on public PC game releases in 1993 and 1994, you're too late. 3rd party game developer's POV is a B2B argument.

No, I'm simply talking about hardware DEVELOPMENT, which started some years BEFORE their production.

So, exactly like the new software.

Which, to be more clear, means that when the AGA arrived by end of 1992, you cannot think about adding a 3D hardware acceleration because two years after the new consoles arrived: its hardware & specs where already defined and being worked on a couple of years before that, when there's no pressure on having 3D support.

3D support could have been done for the NEXT project.

@cdimauro

Quote:

@cdimauro And what about 1985-1990? What such great engineers did in FIVE years, BEFORE that the "IBM guys" arrived (and only for 2 / 2.5 years)?

Reminder, IBM didn't execute low-cost VGA chipsets like SVGA cloners. IBM is not the threat, it's SVGA cloners.

My Xmas Q4 1992 386DX-33 based gaming PC's graphics card is not an IBM's genuine VGA i.e. it was Tseng Labs ET4000AX SVGA clone that was released in 1989.

From experience, IBM's VGA on PS/2 Model 55SX is slow while Tseng Labs ET4000AX's Mode 13h and Mode X are very fast.

A1200's C= AGA has no problems beating PS/2 Model 55SX's IBM VGA.

For SVGA cloners, IBM provides use case leadership for 256 colors and 640x480p resolution baseline targets.

SVGA cloners have extra years to optimize their cost reduction and improve upon the VGA standard while 8514 is largely optional since Windows's RTG standard is the big elephant in the room.

IBM VGA's Mode X/Mode 13h with AMD's K7 Athlon XP 1800Mhz is still very slow. No amount of CPU power can deliver IBM VGA's 320x200p 256 colors at Quake demo1 60 fps i.e. it's 8.6 fps.

On the A1200 with PiStorm-RPi CM4 (ARM Cortex 72 @ 1.8 Ghz)-Emu68, Clickboom's Quake demo1 is about 60 fps.

This shows C= AGA needs a compute power increase.

From experience having an IBM PS/1 Model 55SX in my home, I'm not impressed with IBM's VGA. I rather have an A1200's AGA instead.

My IBM PS/1 Model 55SX was sold to fund a 386DX-33/ET4000 PC clone.

--------------
During 1987-1988, the 68020 CPU has $77 BOM cost with Commodore's discounts. This is beyond a game console/A500/A1200 price range CPU.

Amiga's chipset is designed around the CPU with 16-bit or 32-bit bus differences. The Amiga doesn't have the PC's partitioned graphics architecture.

Lower cost 68EC020 didn't exist until early 1991. A1000 Plus would quickly respond to Motorola's price vs performance change.

A major problem is Motorola since they didn't duplicate 68000's success.


Quote:

@cdimauro Again, SIX months delay means that a production could have been possible only on Q2 1992.

The actual statement is "more than six months delay" before restarting AA's R&D.

The A1200 project was started on Feb 1992.
A1200's Budgie and AA Gayle was completed in March 1992.
A1200 was released on 21 October 1992.

Without the "six months" delay, May 1992 would be A1200's release date, hence the A300/A600 debacle could been avoided.

Without the "seven months" delay, April 1992 would be A1200's release date, hence the A300/A600 debacle could been avoided.

A1200 has the extra two chips i.e. Budgie and AA Gayle that started from Feb to March 1992, hence at least two months for A1200.


Moving Mehdi Ali's A1200 directive from 1992 into March-April 1991 would have cut another two months, but AA-Gayle requires R&D from A300/A600's Gayle. PCMCIA and IDE-equipped Gayle would consume its R&D time.


---------------------

"AA Task Force" was started in October 1991 and it's nearly useless according to Dave Haynie

Quote:

From Commodore - The Final Years, AA Task Force (skip) The A3000 Plus was now demoted to becoming a test vehicle for the AA chipset, but not necessarily a production system. “By the second revision of the board I was ordered to not make it into a product,� says Dave Haynie. (skip) Commodore sold the 50 existing Amiga 3000 Plus machines they had built as development systems for programmers. (skip) Sydnes habit of disparaging and shutting down existing projects rankled the West Chester engineers. “His first mission was to destroy the appearance that the former administration, Henri Rubin and Jeff Porter, were as organized and far along as they were,� claims Haynie. Eggebrecht, Sydnes, and Jeff Frank eventually restarted AA development in October. They created a group, called the AA Task Force, led by AA project leader Bob Raible to deal with the problematic chipset. Thirteen engineers including Ted Lenthe, George Robbins, and Dave Haynie attended the weekly meetings, starting October 3, 1991. Dave Haynie felt the meetings were mostly pointless, or worse, slowed down development of AA. “Basically, in order to slow down the advance of the AA chipset, the new management formed the AA Task Force, which met something like once a week to report on the chips and basically just say stuff still worked,� says Haynie. “There had been a couple of chipset bugs I found, but I was able to fix them externally.�

"AA Task Force" is largely a time-wasting talk fest.
----

Quote:

From Commodore - The Final Years, A500 Plus Holiday 1991 Due to the AA Task Force, Commodore did not release the A1000 Plus in time for the 1991 holiday season. The engineers felt this computer, more than any other, could help Commodore’s fortunes. “Changing the casework probably set it back nine months. It missed Christmas because of the case,� says Joe Augenbraun. “And once it missed Christmas, the company started rolling downhill. At a $1000 price point, that would have been a high-volume product. That would have done really well for the company.

Blame the A1000 Plus case delay on Jeff Frank. A1000 Plus's design needs to fit into a Commodore's PC case.

From 1991 to early 1992, Commodore sold 50 A3000Plus units to developers i.e. AA was already in limited production run during 1991.


Quote:

From Commodore - The Final Years, Amiga 3200 Started (A3200/3400) (skip) On April 30, during a weekly product conference call with Mehdi Ali in New York, a new Amiga named the A3200 began under project leader Greg Berlin. Sydnes also told Berlin that the A2200 he was working on with Joe Augenbraun, the unwanted ECS version of the A1000 Plus nicknamed the A1000jr, would be delayed or cancelled. Ali wisely decided it was better to give the Europeans what they wanted rather than trying to force a product on them. Ali also began taking control away from Sydnes and overriding his decisions. (skip) He gave project leader Greg Berlin less than five months to produce the machine, which he wanted to ship in September 1992. Naturally, it would be a rush job. Berlin and the others were now faced with no vacations for the entire summer. If Berlin met the schedule, this would be a record development time for a system from start to finish. Unfortunately, none of the ideas from the Acutiator could be implemented in Berlin’s new system. Ali wanted the system out quickly, and the three custom chips required by Acutiator were months away. As Lew Eggebrecht recalled, “We had a chipset that was fully functional, very cost effective and 32-bit... so we started converting our entire product line."

AGA was "fully functional" about five months before Sep 1992 i.e. April-May 1992.

Remove "six months" wasted, that's Nov 1991.

For "more than six months" waste, remove seven months wasted, that's Oct 1991.

Remove A1200's extra two months due to AA Gayle and Budgie, that's Aug 1991.

A1000 Plus with AA could have squeezed near the end of Q4 1991.

Add the two extra months for A1200 and release in H1 1992, and the A300/A600 debacle wouldn't exist. A600 would be AA varaint i.e. AA600 aka A1200.

Commodore would have extra time to ramp up AGA's production without the ECS A300/A600 debacle.

Customers who spent their money on the ECS A600 would be the AA600 variant.

The production money for ECS A600 would be spent on the AA600 variant.

"A1000 Plus" with AA would be competing against gaming PC's core $1000 USD market.

My Dad wouldn't spend on ECS A3000, and it would be A1000 Plus with AA.

A500's happy days continue into AA600 successor without the large P&L loss.

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No, I'm simply talking about hardware DEVELOPMENT, which started some years BEFORE their production. So, exactly like the new software. Which, to be more clear, means that when the AGA arrived by end of 1992, you cannot think about adding a 3D hardware acceleration because two years after the new consoles arrived: its hardware & specs where already defined and being worked on a couple of years before that, when there's no pressure on having 3D support.

There was pressure to add 3D compute power. This is why AAA was canceled and switched to 3D bias Hombre.

I purchased my 386DX-33/ET4000 gaming PC in Xmas Q4 1992 due to incoming texture-mapped 3D game previews in the PC gaming press.


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3D support could have been done for the NEXT project.

For 1993-1994, 386DX-33, Am386DX-40, 486SX-25 and 486SX-33 gaming PCs need to be countered at the lowest cost possible. Are you arguing for the Amiga to be MIA for 2 years?

Sony PS1's 3D solution didn't have Z-buffer hardware acceleration which is effectively a step above software 3D renderer. PS1 is not 3DFX Voodoo class 3D acceleration.

For B2B, Sony PS1 was operational in December 1993 with Ridge Racer as a demonstration to attract other 3rd party game developers.

Sony is using the extra time to gain 3rd party developers during 1993 and 1994. Sony didn't follow 3DO's force Q4 1993 release with a weak game library.

From Pentium 60/66's 1993 release, the gaming PC platform has until PS1's Q4 1995 release to build up Pentium's install base. PC world has a head start against PS1's Q4 1995 release.

Intel has shipped 6 to 7 million Pentiums between 1993 to the end of 1994.

To close the gap, extra compute power for 3D must be in place for the Amiga.

The "3MB game console" group's custom 3D hardware is just a low budget method for processing 3D workload since the Pentium class CPU is expensive.

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Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@cdimauro

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Amiga 1000 -> Failure Amiga 2000 -> Failure Amiga 3000 -> Failure CDTV -> Failure All "desktop" Amiga failed. Commodore was an home computers company and those were the ones which made the big money..

Correction, they sold in big numbers and made o.k. (at best) money.

C=/Amiga needed the big box units to be a success in order to drive SW development outside of games.

The lack of that SW is what made the Amiga a "toy computer" in the public eye which leads back to big boxes not selling.

At some point you could buy a PC for small money that was good enough for games and could still run the "real" apps,

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- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@Kronos

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Kronos wrote: The lack of that SW is what made the Amiga a "toy computer" in the public eye which leads back to big boxes not selling. At some point you could buy a PC for small money that was good enough for games and could still run the "real" apps

Commodore was the wrong company to purchase Amiga. C= was trying to piss with the big boys, naming themselves CBM. They had an identity crisis, and buying Amiga as a FU to Atari is not really a strategy.

Like you said, a regular business machine (IBM Compatible) could be wrangled into playing games, but it wasn't until mid-to-late '90s that there was critical mass in people purchasing a "PC" with the primary goal of playing games, and running apps as the secondary goal.

Even if a household had a $5,000+ budget for computing technology, they would not have purchased an IBM-compatible big box and an Amiga/Apple big box. That's not how purchasing logic works with most people. We establish a value metric based around the cost of the solution vs. cost of the problem. We generally don't spend $1,000 to solve a $100 problem.

Thus, being able to do actual billable work at home, manage household budget/balance the checking account, write documents, draft plans for projects, is solving problems for which not having a solution is potentially costing hundreds of dollars a month, so it makes sense to spend ~$2,400 for a multi-tool to solve them. Pays itself off within a year. That's good value.

If the problem is how do we entertain ourselves when going to the movies, watching TV, listening to music, radio, magazines, board games, aren't enough, the absence of a solution is difficult to cost because these things are generally perceived as wastes of time. So to solve the entertainment problem with computing tech in the '80s and early '90s, any solution above $500 would be perceived as poor value.

I don't begrudge CBM for wanting big-box profits: selling people a business machine first, and an entertainment machine second. But they purchased Amiga, which is an entertainment machine first, and a business machine second. In the late '80s and early '90s, who in their right mind would spend over $1,000 on an entertainment machine?

Just as "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans", so too it seams that the Amiga creative market (between business and entertainment) is what emerged while CBM were busy making other plans.

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All the way, with 68k

@agami

You forget that C= was successful in that area for quite some while.

Typewriters, Calculators and PETs is what made them big.

Failure to support PET costumers beyond initial sale and the lack of an upgrade option is what lead them onto the path to doom.

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada