P96 Licensing Status

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by grond

eXeler0: when the v1200 is out by the end of the year, you won't need a reloaded because even most broken a1200 boards will do the job. Or, to be more precise, when custom chip emulation is done inside the fpga, all the board needs do to is to provide power, mouse, joystick and keyboard data.

How does that make a person feel who has declared to be in possession of all remaining stock of amiga custom chips? Desperate.

It was more of a "nostalgia" thing. My original A1200 bought and owned by me since 1993 has a Apollo 1260 card in it. Then Id use a reloaded mobo + new Special Edition case + Vampire1200 for a modern version of the A1200.
Anyway, I feel we're drifting off topic now, so Ill stop talking about this :-)

In any case, I'm hopeful this P96 drama will get sorted out sooner rather than later.

[gulliver]

@ThomasCGX

You could probably come to an easy agreement with Frank Mariak:

You get hold of the entire 68k Amiga sourcecode and binaries and the right to do with it whatever you want. And you could offer him the same deal in regards of the MorphOS development and binaries stuff.

So it would be mutually exclusive and beneficial.

You keep ownership of 68k Amiga stuff exclusively.
Frank Mariak keeps exclusive ownership of the MorphOS stuff.

[JimDrew]

Hi Thomas - welcome to the drama!

The Picasso96 system that we are talking about is the code likely derived from your original work. I know the stuff you have done, because we had a few conversations long ago when I made video drivers for EMPLANT's Mac emulation for the Domino and other cards of that era.

The recent level of interest in the Picasso96 system has to do with several FPGA based Amiga emulators. I am working with MikeJ on the FPGA Arcade Replay, and we have a Picasso96 compatible RTG driver. However, it is very limited compared to what it could be - only supporting the hardware sprite, and a few basic blitter replacements. What everyone is after is the driver source code, or at least some detailed documentation about how the system replacements are done. The PicassoIV board has a Cirrus chip that is used to handle quite a few of the system drawing (blits) and so the acceleration is quite fast. If we knew exactly what to patch and what is to be expected, we can make similar improvements to our drivers.

Now... having said that, if there is information about the Cybergraphics system I am all for jumping ship and switch to it. I am just looking for the fastest possible RTG.

Jim Drew - EMPLANT/FUSION/PCx/etc. Utilities Unlimited

[ptyerman]

Originally Posted by cmsj

Perhaps that's just a lack of available parts, but who knows. If he's just refusing to do it for his own reasons, that's on him when the Vampires eat his lunch.

A lack of suitably priced 040/060's is a barrier that's true, but the Apollo team have managed by going around it altogether and using a FPGA.
He could have done the same but I'm not sure he has the required skill to make a 040/060 card anyway. They are definitely a lot different and harder to design than a 030 accelerator.
He could have chosen to work with people like these and take the platform forward, but no, he would rather buy ALL the remaining supplies of Amiga custom chips and attempt to make himself a monopoly in the 68k market and put a stranglehold on the community.

[Overflow]

Originally Posted by ptyerman

A lack of suitably priced 040/060's is a barrier that's true, but the Apollo team have managed by going around it altogether and using a FPGA.
He could have done the same but I'm not sure he has the required skill to make a 040/060 card anyway. They are definitely a lot different and harder to design than a 030 accelerator.
He could have chosen to work with people like these and take the platform forward, but no, he would rather buy ALL the remaining supplies of Amiga custom chips and attempt to make himself a monopoly in the 68k market and put a stranglehold on the community.

I understand what you are saying, but unless Im missing some major obstructionism from Jens I think you are being somewhat unfair.
I see refrences to issues being mentioned here and there etc.
BUT, Ive purchased hardware from Jens that I couldnt really get anywhere else. USB addons used to be "Out of stock" in every amigashop. Individual Computers? Readily available. Same for a few other things.
Then you have accelerators with more memory. I want a faster Amiga with more memory, and was looking at the 030 ACA with 128megs, but since I already had Blizzard 030/50, I just ended up purchasing memory from Ebay.
But noone else had accelerators for sale.
Where I agree with you, there is a market for 060. I would probarly have purchased a 060 accelerator if it was available 2 years ago from IC.
Not anymore due to Vampire.

But I was thankful for the hardware I could purchase from Jens when I wanted it.

Again, Ive been gone for over a decade, only to return relativly recently, and not knowing all the players in the current market. I just find the outrage a bit odd, unless Im missing something really nasty.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by ptyerman

A lack of suitably priced 040/060's is a barrier that's true, but the Apollo team have managed by going around it altogether and using a FPGA.
He could have done the same but I'm not sure he has the required skill to make a 040/060 card anyway. They are definitely a lot different and harder to design than a 030 accelerator.
He could have chosen to work with people like these and take the platform forward, but no, he would rather buy ALL the remaining supplies of Amiga custom chips and attempt to make himself a monopoly in the 68k market and put a stranglehold on the community.

it is much easier to buy old software than to design new accellerators or (even more harder) to do something like apollo in FPGA. If it is really Jens S. who is trying to buy P96 and is originator of the message than it is hardly a good thing for the community. But I think if he really tries that route he is also wrong. Business is not only supply but also goodwill of customers. If people hate a supplier (even or expecially if he is monopolist) and are not really needing something (like in this case for a hobby) they will not buy. So at the end all will loose. We will see in next days.

[SMF]

Originally Posted by ThomasCGX

found part of the Picasso source and sorry to say: I did remember incorrectly: it was 93
if I read this correctly, not 96. Sorry about that. So now I have no idea what this
'Picasso96' actually is, probably someone disasm'ed the original since it was easier
to do than CGX and built upon this ?

It sound's highly unlikely that "Thomas" would not know what Picasso96 is since it was the only competing product to CGFX and we all know how big the egos is in every camp and throwing mud at each other is what we do best. But go ahead and release the sources.

[dirkies]

there is not really enough information to judge things the right way here (it looks like we're missing a lot of the picture and almost looks like only a little piece was put on twitter to encourage speculation and flame wars) but it is really a pity these battles over the Amiga keep on going on 20 years after its demise, whether it is because of ego, money or simply patent trolling.

For me personally, the older my systems become, the cheaper it must be to maintain it (repair/upgrade). It costs already a fair deal of money these days if you want to put some fresh live in these 20-30 year old machines, and I did buy from virtually all existing shops/vendors out there and multiple individual hobbyists, because I have no problem to support them. But there are limits of course.

Now in the worst case, if 1 supplier takes over the whole market (by killing off all competitors + killing any incentive for innovation alongside), and then overcharge users to buy his software/hardware products (in fact this is how every monopolist works), that would really mean the end of my nostalgic love for Amiga, and sell everything and never look back.

Same would apply if a handful of people/companies form a cartel, make sure the prices are always inflated wherever you buy, and send out cease and desist messages to anyone trying to start up something that may harm their self-esteemed acceptable profit margins.

ps: now the wickedest thing would be the twitter thing was a pure hoax just to start a war against a certain 'individual'!

[kolla]

Originally Posted by SMF

It sound's highly unlikely that "Thomas" would not know what Picasso96 is since it was the only competing product to CGFX and we all know how big the egos is in every camp and throwing mud at each other is what we do best. But go ahead and release the sources.

Almost nobody used P96 back then, CyberGraphX was standard and P96 was an oddball piece of software needed for certain Picasso cards. It was not a competing product, because almost nobody used it. Later on CyberGraphX became bluecamp and in lack of alternatives, P96 was grabbed for redcamp, and suddenly became "official" Amiga RTG. Personally, I find P96 utterly cumbersome and clumsy to use and configure.

[SMF]

@kolla

LOL, almost nobody used P96? i hope you have something to back that up with.
I can only agree on that P96 have a strange preference program with a gui that are not standard anywhere, But even a retarded person should be able to learn how to use it and then it's easy and powerfull to work with it.

[kolla]

P96 came late in the game (1996, duh) and CyberGraphX had already been around for a while, I can merely back up my statement with my own experiences from being quite active in the 90ies. Having a graphics card was in itself rather rare, and the big player was Phase5 with the various Cybervision cards, the only Picasso card that was "current" was the Picasso-IV card. All Phase5 cards came with CyberGraphX, and it supported older Picasso cards well. It wasn't until Elbox came around with Mediator that p96 picked up. Biggest user base of P96 has probably always been UAE, but it allows much simpler implementation.

[SMF]

@Kolla
Yeah that sounds quite likely that the userbase for a new software starts at 0 and then increases. But it's still quite unlikely that Frank & Thomas was so blind that they didn't notice a new competitior.

[kolla]

Except that it never really was a competition.

[SMF]

@Kolla

Do you also deny the holocaust? They were both operating on a shrinking market, the p5 produced cards lasted a little longer then the rest but then eventually we had the pci bussboards and the mediator turned out as the winner.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by alexh

I don't think that is true is it? I thought the licensing was you had to pay to sell a graphics card with a P96 driver?

No one paid when the Radeon and Voodoo drivers were developed... did they?

Because they (Elbox) were bloody pirates, that's why. The P96 developers were very upset, as anyone who read the Mediator mailing list or amiga-news remembers.

[SMF]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Because they (Elbox) were bloody pirates, that's why. The P96 developers were very upset, as anyone who read the Mediator mailing list or amiga-news remembers.

But nothing really bad happend in the end except that the p96 guys didn't get any money. So i see no reasons for the new greedy HW producers to pay for other peoples work. Just opensource it!

[idrougge]

The way I see it: If you don't want to pay for a 060, make your own 060 in an FPGA. If you don't want to pay for the drivers, make your own bloody drivers.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by idrougge

The way I see it: If you don't want to pay for a 060, make your own 060 in an FPGA. If you don't want to pay for the drivers, make your own bloody drivers.

in this case (it seems) that someone wants to monopolise the market through buying a specific software. So what is your strange posting about?

[SMF]

@OlafSch

ThomasCGFX will opensource cgfx so don't worry! Unless the morphos bastards gets in the way.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by SMF

@OlafSch

ThomasCGFX will opensource cgfx so don't worry! Unless the morphos bastards gets in the way.

I push my both thumbs but I would not bet that the "Morphos bastards" will permit it. We will see what happens.