Commodore rights and chips blueprints

[ovale]

Hyperion is in bankruptcy, Cloanto confirms it owns the copyrights http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2015-02-00027-EN.html , aeon is acquiring rights on amiga software... but in all this mess... where are the chips blueprints?<br />
<br />
Atari people have been able to find them http://atariage.com/forums/topic/154479-new-gtia-chips/ . <br />
<br />
Is it possible that with all this interest on commodore and Amiga technology these valuable artifacts have been lost and nobody cares?

[Adrian Browne]

That cloanto news is an interesting read. Clears up alot of misconceptions.
So are hyperion cold or is there yet a spark?

[Nekoniaow]

Originally Posted by ovale

Hyperion is in bankruptcy, Cloanto confirms it owns the copyrights http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-...-00027-EN.html , aeon is acquiring rights on amiga software... but in all this mess... where are the chips blueprints?<br />
<br />
Atari people have been able to find them http://atariage.com/forums/topic/154479-new-gtia-chips/ . <br />
<br />
Is it possible that with all this interest on commodore and Amiga technology these valuable artifacts have been lost and nobody cares?

Copyrights on the software and books are one thing but I see no mentions of all hardware related patents in the article on Amiga-News. I guess this could mean that Gateway still holds the rights to them. I guess that no one still cannot really create and sell a legal Amiga hardware.

Several questions remain though:
- Why does AmigaInc still exist if it doesn't hold any rights to anything?
- What rights exactly does Hyperion still own (assuming it's not liquidated after the bankruptcy)?

I understand that Cloanto decided to stay silent on the topic to avoid unnecessary confusion while it wasn't certain it could acquire the rights to the Amiga names, software and documentation. That was very wise from them.

Also, contrary to many previous owners they have survived over the years without making waves and by contributing something of value to the Amiga community so this seems to be a positive thing. But now I'm really curious about what they intend to do with these rights. Cloanto is a pure software company so I doubt they can venture into making hardware that easily given their lack of experience and the high capital expenses hardware requires. Will they maintain the Amiga alive purely as a software artefact?

I'm really curious to hear what plans they have in mind.

[pandy71]

Someone (not sure if it was Dave Haynie) confirmed that Commodore lost most of chipset documentation at the end of existence.
Recreating chip set seem to be only one way to truly reproduce original behavior (large part of features is still not implemented correctly as it is unknown - GCR mode Paula for example, blitter in Agnus especially line/fill mode etc).
This can be made today (and as outcome VHDL/Verilog code can be created and as such later used to FPGA or perhaps even ASIC creation).
AFAIK OCS is no longer protected.

[ovale]

Well... It is hard to believe that a corporation owning a chip foundry (mos) lost *all* the tapes and blueprints of its chips (I mean not only the Amiga chipset) as was nothing AND the companies who acquired the rights of what was commodore did the same.

IMO there is part of the story that is still untold.

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by Nekoniaow

Copyrights on the software and books are one thing but I see no mentions of all hardware related patents in the article on Amiga-News. I guess this could mean that Gateway still holds the rights to them. I guess that no one still cannot really create and sell a legal Amiga hardware.

Patents last ~20 years, so most or all Amiga-related ones will have expired by now.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by ovale

Well... It is hard to believe that a corporation owning a chip foundry (mos) lost *all* the tapes and blueprints of its chips (I mean not only the Amiga chipset) as was nothing AND the companies who acquired the rights of what was commodore did the same.

IMO there is part of the story that is still untold.

I've read some time ago about such cases in semiconductor industry, sometimes lost of blueprints of a chip was reason to close company... strange, weird, rarely happens but it is true.
I can imagine that Commodore was this kind of company where IP especially at the end may be not considered as very important as sometimes companies not relly aproeciate technology they have assuming that they will always own technology.
Luckily nowadays this is not problems and chips can be open and layout can recreated from real silicone and this is no longer expensive and after 30 years seem that Amiga technology is no longer considered as extremely valuable IP.

[ovale]

Yes, all true and possible but ...
MOS designed tens (hundreds?) chips and this was its core biz.

I assume design artifacts were store is secure chambers and multiple places.

I also assume that when a company like this or Commodore is bought (and when was bought it was absolutely reasonable to think at evolutions of those chips or other chips still under development) one of the first things done during the due diligence is to deposit in a virtual secure chamber the IPs or at least proved reverence to how obtain them).

Another one, I think blueprint for PCBs, cases are archived on a similar way chips are. An these have been used for sure to produce the last slightly modified a1200. So ESCOM(?) Should have been exposed to such archives at some point.

Anyway, I hope people who know and have been involved in Amiga design or management, and still active in the Amiga scene, like Dave or Peter, could shed some light or be interested in finding how things went.

[Amiga1992]

As far as I remember, the last known owner of the hardware IP was Gateway. Dunno what happened after that, though, and that was a while ago.
I retain all rights to be wrong, though

[kamelito]

IIRC on youtube you see Jery ellsworth showing it's Amiga chipset recreation and she have the schematic of the chips not sure which one.
I can't test now but it's maybe that one : [ Show youtube player ]

Kamelito

[pandy71]

Perhaps IP was owned by Gateway but Gateway was never interested to restart Amiga as technology, MOS/CSG ids different story - based on information's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Tec...croelectronics seem that all technical files (layouts/masks) may be lost...

But as long we have working IC then decaping them and recreate schematics is not a problem.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by pandy71

But as long we have working IC then decaping them and recreate schematics is not a problem.

I suppose that's what Jens is doing with his Clone-A project!

I wonder if it's still going forward?

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by jbenam

I suppose that's what Jens is doing with his Clone-A project!

I wonder if it's still going forward?

Well, He said that They made Reverse Engineering trough detailed behavior analyze. So still Clone-A can have some functionality implemented in different way than original chipset. Some parts of chipset was never documented sufficiently.

Accordingly to Jens They finished all work and waiting for business opportunity ;O - whatever it means...

As OCS was made in 5um process then it should be quite simple to degate .

[voxel]

jerry had the paula blueprints ^^)

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by voxel

jerry had the paula blueprints ^^)

Maybe, not confirmed and She is too expensive - significantly cheaper will be give 3 chips to professional company:

http://www.chipworks.com/index.php
http://www.siliconinvestigations.com/

and there is few independent analyst...

btw
Jerry don't see any difference between wavetable and DDS... not sure about this all but perhaps i'm oversensitive...

[ovale]

Maybe someone living in USA can use this http://www.users.on.net/~clockmeiste...r/CSG-Auction/ as starting point to track who acquired CSG stuff. After all, this should be public documents and available somewhere.

About decapping, these guys already have Amiga chips. Maybe someone expert with the tool can use kickstarter (or similar) to finance the reverse engineering.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Well, He said that They made Reverse Engineering trough detailed behavior analyze. So still Clone-A can have some functionality implemented in different way than original chipset. Some parts of chipset was never documented sufficiently.

Accordingly to Jens They finished all work and waiting for business opportunity ;O - whatever it means...

As OCS was made in 5um process then it should be quite simple to degate .

Exactly, that's a shame, I would really like to see CloneA having 100% compatibility (if it ever comes out!) - the only way of getting an 1:1 copy with all the quirks of the original chips would be to decap them

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by ovale

Maybe someone living in USA can use this http://www.users.on.net/~clockmeiste...r/CSG-Auction/ as starting point to track who acquired CSG stuff. After all, this should be public documents and available somewhere.

We need to search for tapes (but i'm afraid that they may be lost as mentioned earlier - this will be not firs and last when technical documentation is lost - tapes are easy to destroy).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDSII and your link http://atariage.com/forums/topic/154479-new-gtia-chips/

Originally Posted by ovale

About decapping, these guys already have Amiga chips. Maybe someone expert with the tool can use kickstarter (or similar) to finance the reverse engineering.

Yes, i've raised this earlier - have no experience with kickstarter but i will be glad to put some donation on it.

Originally Posted by jbenam

Exactly, that's a shame, I would really like to see CloneA having 100% compatibility (if it ever comes out!) - the only way of getting an 1:1 copy with all the quirks of the original chips would be to decap them

With 5um this can be made in home but with my procrastination syndrome i wouldn't declare anything.
Anyway seem that deccaping is nothing special nowadays and probably it is only one chance to recover and protect Amiga IP (also offer some improvements however for me beside some small improvement it is more important to have single chip solution).

[ovale]

Just realized I have not put the link in my previous post. "These guys" are people behind visual6502. They accept donations, maybe they have nothing against being kickstarter-ed http://visual6502.org/donate_cash.html

[NorthWay]

The late Dave Needle said in one of the videos with him that he held the only working (i.e. not doctored) schematics of the chips and I understood him to mean he still had them.

I wonder if they have been taken care of after his unfortunate departure, and, if scanned and published (Joe Decuir(sp?) has done such for his Atari stuff AFAIK. Just saying.), who would pop up and start crying.