You betray the Amiga by playing DOOM!

[no9]

You betray the Amiga by playing DOOM!

But it was fun!

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

These threads, from time to time, makes forum less monotonic.
We can't talk all the time about serious hardware and software issues.

As for the OP question.
I couldn't care less about Doom back then.
Never been that impressive to me

I'm always fascinated about the moderation decisions to close discussion, as if there is never value.

People rush about some troll or phish accusations. You reach out for a chat or to shoot the breeze and you're a "troll" or "pish"

Hi, I'm YouKnowWho...nice to meet you.

"PISH!" "TROLL!"

Nuts d4rk3lf. I agree with your assessment. Also, NEVER liked those DOOM style 3D games from day 1. But obviously I'm in the minority it appears. Or rather WE'RE in the minority.

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by johnnybarker

"Amiga had 2 viruses, right? TWO! As in...one virus, two virus - the end. How nice is that? Not even serious one like Covid-19 or whatever. Just 2 common colds...that's all that Amiga had. Beautiful."

https://www.vht-dk.dk/amiga/warning/warn.htm

Oh...just variants, "mutations" if you will of the base 2 viruses. I should start a thread about DATA LOSS on the Amiga. As in, how many KB of data did you ever lose on the amiga as a result of an Amiga Virus?

[EAUniW]

Me too, I think Doom and its ilk are boring.

Much prefer platformers.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by EAUniW

Doom didn't kill the Amiga, Commodore killed the Amiga.

The Amiga should've been onto its third major chipset revision by 1992 with Hombre on the horizon to take on CD equipped PCs and the PlayStation 1.

OCS - 1985
AGA - 1989
AAA - 1992
Hombre - 1995

Inept management lead to years of work being pissed up the wall. ECS was a hotfix for the 3000 and AGA was a stopgap for a stopgap for a stopgap.

I agree bad management at Commodore killed the Amiga.

But I wonder if AGA, AAA and Hombre had been released every 3 successive years, would Commodore have also suffered from the Osborne effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect

[jotd]

I enjoyed DOOM on the amiga very much in 1997. I don't think I betrayed the amiga since...

[EAUniW]

I think that the Amiga would've eventually abandoned using pure custom chips and went onto to become what the Mac is, a PC with a different OS. There was no way to keep up with PC evolution unless you put an army of people into chip development.

But it would've made for a happier '90s with the 1200 and 4000 being true AAA and Hombre being the last stand of the custom chipset before seeing the rise of the PowerPC and Intel Amiga. Hombre was a monster, the equivalent of the PlayStation 1 and was designed to be either a standalone machine or a PCI card that slotted into a PC. Reminds me of the Vampire.

Let's not forget that Hombre and AAA were backwards compatible with O/ECS so people wouldn't feel so abandoned and more likely to stay with the Amiga and go onto the next chipset iteration rather than jump ship completely to the PC as we saw from 1994 onwards.

The Amiga would've survived healthily until 1998 with Hombre. Hombre 2 would've kept it going until 2000 but at that stage, nothing was holding back the PC, they were getting immensely powerful.

The Amiga was doomed as soon as AAA became AGA, even before then. Probably in the late '80s as AGA really should've been in place for the 3000 in 1990 and AAA in 1992 for the 1200 / 4000. OCS lingered for SEVEN years until AGA came along as a really poor stopgap.

[aeberbach]

The future arrived with DOOM. To ignore it would have been stupid. At that point there was no saving the Amiga, it did not contribute to the Amiga's death, only made it obvious.

DOOM was just so good compared to every game we knew. By the time it appeared the Amiga was suffering badly from being too expensive, from being in short supply and from being a very dated machine in comparison with the cheap PCs that were around. A friend and I had A1200s and loved them, then DOOM appeared and we knew it was all over. Years of anger at Commodore, unable to understand why they had not developed and marketed and sold this clearly superior computer - suddenly no more reason to care. It was time too let it go.

(Surely the modern comparison is Android vs. iOS - why hasn't Android stamped iOS into the ground, it's so much cheaper and can be picked up at the local supermarket? Because Android is by comparison garbage - the approach of requiring a JVM has always cripple Android to the point that more cores and faster processors have never been enough to make it compete with iOS devices. "Project Butter", Kotlin, Flutter, all these promises and they have never even been close... This final nail in the coffin for Android is support - who wants to pay for a flagship phone when it's not even able to load the latest OS three years after purchase?)

[EAUniW]

Originally Posted by aeberbach

The future arrived with DOOM. To ignore it would have been stupid. At that point there was no saving the Amiga, it did not contribute to the Amiga's death, only made it obvious.

DOOM was just so good compared to every game we knew. By the time it appeared the Amiga was suffering badly from being too expensive, from being in short supply and from being a very dated machine in comparison with the cheap PCs that were around. A friend and I had A1200s and loved them, then DOOM appeared and we knew it was all over. Years of anger at Commodore, unable to understand why they had not developed and marketed and sold this clearly superior computer - suddenly no more reason to care. It was time too let it go.

(Surely the modern comparison is Android vs. iOS - why hasn't Android stamped iOS into the ground, it's so much cheaper and can be picked up at the local supermarket? Because Android is by comparison garbage - the approach of requiring a JVM has always cripple Android to the point that more cores and faster processors have never been enough to make it compete with iOS devices. "Project Butter", Kotlin, Flutter, all these promises and they have never even been close... This final nail in the coffin for Android is support - who wants to pay for a flagship phone when it's not even able to load the latest OS three years after purchase?)

Which is why Hombre should've been in place for 1994 and the arrival of DOOM.


It would've played it nicely and kept the Amiga in the eyes of the public as a competitive gaming machine.

[rare_j]

It was not only Doom. I was also really liked by X-Wing.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by rare_j

It was not only Doom. I was also really liked by X-Wing.

Me too, I'm currently playing through the sequel Tie Fighter on my MiSTer and it's still great fun

Did someone mention DOOM?

[ Show youtube player ]




Talking of the chipset revisions, these days I'm thinking that AGA should never have happened. It was a poorly though out desperate attempt to update OCS/ECS.

An A600 with 2 MB chipram in an A1200 sized case would have sold very well if it was released in 1990 and marketed as an A500+.

Post 1990 they really needed to break away from the old chipset completely and drop hardware backward compatibility (Hombre)

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by aeberbach

The future arrived with DOOM. To ignore it would have been stupid. At that point there was no saving the Amiga, it did not contribute to the Amiga's death, only made it obvious.

Yep - Doom wasn't the cause, it was an effect.

Take a look at the graphs below and you will see that the Amiga never really had a chance.

Commodore certainly made a lot of mistakes, but considering the state they were reduced to when Tramiel left it's miracle that they managed to get any Amigas out the door at all. That they went on to produce machines with more advanced capabilities is even more amazing. That Amigas are still functional, useful, and valuable 27 years after their maker's death is incredible, and a testament to Commodore's design and manufacturing skills. How many PCs from that era do you know of that are still functioning? How may other 'alternative' computer platforms from that era have the same following, or are even worth your time? (Atari? Nope, Acorn? Nope. Apple? Are you kidding?).

DOOM was just so good compared to every game we knew. By the time it appeared the Amiga was suffering badly from being too expensive, from being in short supply and from being a very dated machine in comparison with the cheap PCs that were around.

By the time Doom appeared Commodore was already pretty much dead, so it's hardly surprising Amigas were in short supply. But as for being too expensive that is nonsense - no PC was ever cheaper. What you mean is the higher price of a PC was justifiable. Why? Firstly because it was a 'serious' machine, not a 'toy'. Secondly because all the latest games were coming out on PCs.

Why did PC's attract more game development than Amigas? The reason is obvious - users. By 1987 there were 50 times more PC users than Amiga users, and the gap continued to increase. At first PCs were mostly used for business applications, but it wasn't long before they replaced home computers too. PC users were adults who could afford to pay more for hardware and software. They also had much less incentive to pirate games, since they could afford to just buy them whatever the cost. That was a winning combination for the games industry, despite early PCs having less capable hardware than Amigas. By the time Doom arrived the Amiga's fate had already been sealed years ago - not due to any fault in the machine itself, but because there were so many more affluent PC users.

A friend and I had A1200s and loved them, then DOOM appeared and we knew it was all over. Years of anger at Commodore, unable to understand why they had not developed and marketed and sold this clearly superior computer

Commodore did develop and market the Amiga. But the typical Amiga user had no appreciation of what was involved in doing that.

How many people did you know that had an IBM computer? I bet it was very few if any. I bet the vast majority of them had clones 'manufactured' from parts made in the far East, the 'manufacturers' were just assemblers who didn't have to do any R&D apart from reading reading installation manuals, and their 'marketing' consisted of putting ads in local rags. How do I know that? Because that's what my business (and everybody else) was doing at the time.

In contrast, Commodore had to carry the entire R&D load themselves, and dealers were expecting them to market it as well. Meanwhile all PC manufacturers had to do was mention those 3 magic letters 'IBM'.

Surely the modern comparison is Android vs. iOS - why hasn't Android stamped iOS into the ground, it's so much cheaper and can be picked up at the local supermarket? Because Android is by comparison garbage

I have a Galaxy Y, a great little phone which is still working perfectly after 10 years. The only reason I might want to 'upgrade' is that it too is old to take the Covid app (but hey, a pen is not much slower at signing in). The latest iPhone is very slick and a technological marvel, but I wouldn't have one. Too expensive, too big, not enough extra in it to justify the enormous price tag. And being an Apple product it treats you like a criminal.

Your comparison fails on many levels, but it does hit the spot on one for me - why should I buy the latest wiz-bang phone (or computer) and discard the one I know and love? Over the years I have had many computers, including real IBMs and clones of all sorts, but I always kept the Amiga 1200 because it was my favourite. Today I use it as much or more than the PC. I even play Doom on it occasionally.

The war between PC and Amiga users has always been silly. One might have thought they would drop it today, but here we are still having to defend our choice.

[ma693541]

I have to admit that I played DOOM a lot on the PC, but I always went back to my beloved A500 and A1200. When the A1000 came out I was sold and wanted one because of it graphic, sound and multitasking abilities, Yes, I was lucky to see one tested. The PC was at that time just rubbish. No multimedia, beep, beep sound and not so colourful as the A1000 in graphic.

[LoadWB]

Stipulating the thesis is unironic, I can find consolation and sweet justice celebrating Amiga by usurping the very thing which doomed it.

[aeberbach]

Well I wasn't going to do this, but I am. Bruce - Macintoshes from the same era are worth it. I have two SE/30s! And I would buy an Atari 800 if I could find one. Not an ST though, wouldn't go that far.

(And wouldn't an iOS vs. Android flame war be a fitting end to this very silly thread?)

[Konrad]

Already one or two years prior to Doom the PC versions of the most known/played games were mostly better.
I always preferred the music+sound of the Amiga over the early MSDOS games. But PC versions were mostly more colorful, were always played from harddisk, more fluent.
There were exclusive nice titles for the Amiga, of course. But this was also the case for PC.

In 1992 you already had great games for PC where you wouldn't have a comparable title on Amiga: Alone In The Dark, Ultima Underworld, Comanche, and many others.
Here Commodore should have already taken the next step, but this wasn't the case.

In 1993 the PC really took off. Privateer, Indy Car Racing, Subwar 2050 (textured), X-Wing, Strike Commander.

Yes, I just mentioned 3D games. It's not all about 3D games, in fact I prefer 2D games mostly. But everyone could see that PC gaming advanced very fast and offered many more possibilities. With no real competition in the computer market the PC was getting big.

A lot of people switched for gaming either to consoles (for pure gaming, lack of competition, see CD32 thread too late too few) or to the PC (if they wanted to have the possibility to also use productivity software).

By that year I still preferred the Amiga, as I loved the games and used productivity software on it and PCs just had Windows 3.1., which I hated.
But I already played lots of PC games. And with the Arrival of Windows 95 the productivity software took a big step forward.

[EAUniW]

Konrad makes a good point. There were no comparable titles on the Amiga because the hardware simply wasn't up to supporting it.

It would've took a revolution in a post-OCS/AGA chipset to even begin to match PCs which by 1992 were evolving fast in the gaming arena. Textured polygons, CD soundtracks, 3D acceleration. These were then distilled into the first true 3D consoles such as the PS1, Saturn and N64. True as in could do justice to the wishes of the developer and not just put a few polygons up on the screen and claim it was playable or pretty or immersive 3D.

For the Amiga to have competed, even for another four or five years, they would have had to make the same jump Nintendo did, from the SNES, a low powered 2D console to the N64, a real whopper in terms of graphics capability. I don't think the Hombre chipset would've made sense if it launched any later than early 1994 but it would've gave the Amiga enough clout to survive until the late '90s as an alternative to the PC.

The Amiga was doomed as a custom chipped computer against the PC and the rise of the GPU in the late '90s, but the last hurrah could've been much, much nicer.

[khph_re]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Yep -Take a look at the graphs below and you will see that the Amiga never really had a chance.

It isn't split by use, a lot of those PC machines will be for business proposes.



My personal view is, if the A500 had been released in 1985, and not the A1000, the Amiga would have gained a bigger market share over those two important years, and if a decent chipset upgrade in 1990/1991, it might still be here today - though running on standard parts. I'd have given 8bit owners a rebate to upgrade to amiga.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by aeberbach

The future arrived with DOOM. To ignore it would have been stupid.

No.
Doom (unimpressed) people were not stupid.
Not everyone were impressed with Crysis, and wanted to sell his soul, in order to play it in best detail and smooth.

When Doom was released, Amiga was still so ahead on the PC on so many stuff.
To name a few: 2D Games, 2D apps, easy and intuitive OS, price range (you could buy 040 (that can also run Doom nicely) for the money you need to buy PC to play Doom nicely).

People forgets what hassle was PC back then, where every new game you want to try was enigma if it will work, or what hacks you need to do to make it work. In addition, when you make game to work, you can get too fast fps (unplayable), or variable between fast and slow changing all the time (My expirience with Mortal KOmbat 2 on friends 386),

And to refer once more to the part I quote:
No, people didn't know if 3D Games like Doom were in the future, because at the same time some other games tried to push interactive video games (like Sega CD), or titles on PC like REbell Assoult, where video sequences are majority of the games.
People don't even know if polygons are future, or more like nurbs 3D shapes are.

As the old saying: It's easy to be general after the battle.

[commodorejohn]

*plays DOOM on Amiga*