01 May 2024, 02:13 | #3941 |
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01 May 2024, 06:35 | #3942 | ||
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The problem is that most of the time Mr Abbott operates in the motte - where the order of the day is saying how terrible PCs were and that perennially ungrateful Amigans had no real reason to defect to them. Now, that's an entirely different kettle of fish, and so it's much easier to retreat to the bailey when called out on the motte. Quote:
Piracy could have been some sort of a factor, though it's really hard to establish how big, and I suppose it was not at all decisive. "Underpowered" shouldn't be dismissed out of hand since for the computer-style games it mattered much more than some simple arcade fare which would still be fun even if severely downgraded, like on GBC. Especially the lack of (cheap) HDD solution was a no-no at this time. But most of all it was the installed user base numbers that spelt the death toll. Now, you can try to spin it positively, saying that "A1200 sold well", but this really is a kind of Big-In-Japan style defence, since these numbers were still minuscule compared to PC and console (even when factoring in the alleged shortage). It goes back to the "but piracy" argument since PC had exactly the same problem, but even if pirated a game could still sell enough - because enough people had the machines. **************************************************************************************** Allright, we're nearly there! 200 pages! Just one more little push... |
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01 May 2024, 08:32 | #3943 |
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It's funny to bring up GBC or GB itself... it's entirely different kind of beast! GBC was kind of NES/SNES portable... two really great platforms with reworked for the hardware but still - many games from the older consoles. They obviously weren't as good as SNES graphics but on relatively small screen it didn't show. It's the same with newer nintendo consoles which aren't going to compete with top dogs Sony and MS. They have found a niche and are exploiting it. Commodore found a niche and didn't know how to exploit it. That's that... there's no single solution, especially from R&D department which could change that. So it would not really matter if there was 50MHz 030 in A1200 and 8MB fast RAM on stock machines or 80MB hdd... it would still not bump up userbase enough nor convince developers to release their titles on the machine. Sure it might've been enough to play Doom but... so what? Apple does similar to what Commodore did - they do OS, they do h/w ... they do software and invest A LOT into development of 3rd party s/w for their platform. How much did invest commodore into that? Aaahh... Sony did create powerful console but without actual relationship with game developers it would've meet the fate of Jaguar or Saturn... And from all of competitors actually Sega was kind of supporting developers (kind of... it was like toxic love actually). Then again - where's commodore? What exactly they did do except releasing machines and OS to the market?
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01 May 2024, 08:38 | #3944 |
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01 May 2024, 09:24 | #3945 |
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Medhi Ali (I believe) screwed up the Japanese launch entirely despite the basics being in place. The Bullfrog, Psygnosis, Team17 and C= UK meeting with Medhi about A1200 030 SKU bundles was mishandled too! They just sold widgets!
Last edited by BigD; 01 May 2024 at 09:30. |
01 May 2024, 10:13 | #3946 | |
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They should've just "clean breaked" it and made Falcon a new fully 32-bit architecture. And Commodore should probably have done the same with the Amiga. Trying to compete with the PC on long-term compatibility was a mistake and introduced too many deficiencies for not much gain. The 8-bit to 16-bit transition worked better by not caring about software compatibility. It's plausible the same could've been true of the next transition. |
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01 May 2024, 11:25 | #3947 | ||||
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At $20 the DSP chip would raise the retail price by ~$50 just for the chip itself, not counting support chips. The high speed static RAM chips wouldn't be cheap. This would certainly exceed the 'magic' £399 retail price that was a big part of the A1200's popularity. The 'original intent' of putting a DSP chip in the Amiga was for video and audio processing, and perhaps for a 'software' modem. AGA's 'object manipulator' was the Blitter. AFAIK the DSP chip was not intended to take over this role. Quote:
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The engineers didn't like this at all. They wanted high-end machines with super-powerful graphics that would beat PCs for years to come, and stuff like DSP chips for real-time movie playback etc. The fact that they couldn't achieve this in a reasonable time frame didn't seem to faze them. Quote:
The 'A1000jr' didn't get released because Lew Eggebrecht sensibly polled Commodore's subsidiaries to gauge demand - which turned out to be zero. Everybody wanted something with enhanced graphics, not another ECS machine. That's when Commodore finally realized that they needed to get AGA systems out ASAP. When the pressure was put on the engineers did a good of the A1200. Just pity they hadn't done it earlier! Reading Brian Bagnall's books 'Commodore the Amiga Years' and 'Commodore the Final Years' one common theme stands out - product releases were constantly slipping due to engineers not focusing enough on getting the job done. This was more apparent after Jack left, though not always. The A1000 was produced quite quickly, as were the A500 and A2000 once the rivalry was sorted out. However after 1987 they started way too many projects with dubious prospects and little urgency to get them finished. |
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01 May 2024, 12:05 | #3948 | |
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Yes, you have information that V sync blank is active but to fully use it you need to determine when it starts as such you need wait and pool status for whole line (or perform some measurement - calibrate and reprogram timer and use later system interrupts hoping that it doesn't de-synchronize too much between V sync start). Obviously using this feature is PITA. |
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01 May 2024, 12:37 | #3949 | ||||
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So when we talk about HW capabilities then we comparing all HW capabilities. - this is pure software design choice/limitation. I can imagine perhaps even not so slow Workbench in HAM mode as Workbench may use only CLUT part of screen (so changing only limited number of planes) and with some tricks this will work in HAM quite OK. Problem is more CPU cycles required but today with PIStorm this is probably possible - also simulating 24 bit converted on the fly to 12/24 bit HAM. Simply no one tried this before... Quote:
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01 May 2024, 12:40 | #3950 | |
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Perhaps you mean it was something already available in the industry outside Intel before that date ? An perhaps if it was not, it was due to the limitation of the technologies as a rise in frequency is needed to do the multiplexing. |
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01 May 2024, 13:04 | #3951 | |
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This was not true of home computers, which typically came with BASIC and an instruction manual that described the hardware well enough to get started. Anyone could develop software for them without direct contact with the manufacturer. Commodore certainly did that and more for the Amiga. Right from the beginning they provided a hardware reference manual, OS programming manuals, and an assembler and compiler that anyone could buy. They had a registered developers program for both personal ($25 per year) and commercial developers. This gave access to developer notes and online forums, personal help from the CATS team, and advance information on new products. Commercial developers could get advance hardware too. If you were a registered developer you would know all this, and then you wouldn't be asking 'What exactly they did do except releasing machines and OS to the market?'. CATS AmigaMail Amiga Developer Conference Denver 1991 Amiga Developer Conference 1993 Amiga Development System |
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01 May 2024, 13:22 | #3952 | |
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The way to do copper bars on VGA is to draw lines of different colors and change the palette entries to color cycle them. You have 256 colors so you can do 256 unique lines. If you want anything else on the screen you will have to give up some of those lines. This still requires CPU time to do the color cycling, but only needs to be done 'sometime' during blank or while racing the beam. Still a pain compared to a copper list, but possibly less CPU intensive than rendering each line in real time. |
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01 May 2024, 13:33 | #3953 | |
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Going from 3.5MHz to 28MHz perhaps could be impossible but to 14MHz perfectly possible. At the beginning of 90's at least one company offered something similar to what we call today SERDES - Am7968/Am7969. Paula communication with Agnus (DMAL) is example that Commodore was aware of this possibility - why it was not used more frequently? No clue. |
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01 May 2024, 13:56 | #3954 | ||||
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OTOH an Amiga decked out with equivalent hardware to a PC had a big downside - it wasn't IBM compatible (which is why I eventually sold my A3000). But if you could only afford the base model Amiga this wasn't an issue, because you couldn't have a PC anyway. So the Amiga suited people with limited budgets, just like earlier home computers did. Quote:
Doom on the Amiga is virtually identical to the PC version, so you get an 'authentic' experience. Even better, you can have endless fun doing various things to improve (or not) the frame rate. "Forget shooting things, I just want to get the highest possible fps!". PiStorm here we come... Quote:
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01 May 2024, 13:59 | #3955 | |
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However using system timer with higher frequency was quite popular (like case for PC speaker when some interrupt rate was set even to 7..8kHz) line raster should be possible. |
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01 May 2024, 15:19 | #3956 | |||
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- According to the Data Sheet, Am7968/Am7969 is from 1994. Description of the chip: Quote:
[Edit] I realized you mean using the data lines for different things. That said, it is true that the technology of multiplexing is know since long... Quote:
Last edited by TEG; 01 May 2024 at 16:44. |
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01 May 2024, 16:47 | #3957 | |
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01 May 2024, 18:06 | #3958 | |
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01 May 2024, 18:19 | #3959 |
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01 May 2024, 18:59 | #3960 |
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The problem being that for David, Wing Commander 1 and Defender of the Crown 2 were potential system sellers in 1994. And also Dangerous Streets.
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