New Z3660 card for A3000/4000

[eXeler0]

Now this looks interesting...
[ Show youtube player ]

[fgh]

It does indeed!
It's nice that you can still use a real 060 and JUST add memory, rtg, network and storage

[VladR]

Very interesting ! How will RTG support work in this case ?

[Wrangler]

Originally Posted by VladR

Very interesting ! How will RTG support work in this case ?

I'll be covering RTG etc in part 2, so check that out when it lands

[klx300r]

I’ve been saying this for the past 5 years or so but yet again I’m amazed how many awesome hardware projects have been released

This beauty for our big boxes which emulates an 040 like my Pistorm32 does in my 1200 won’t have any issues running 060 specific software/ demos (at least that’s my experience with my PiStorm32)

big time congrats to all involved with this project

[Kin Hell]

Originally Posted by klx300r

I’ve been saying this for the past 5 years or so but yet again I’m amazed how many awesome hardware projects have been released

This beauty for our big boxes which emulates an 040 like my Pistorm32 does in my 1200 won’t have any issues running 060 specific software/ demos (at least that’s my experience with my PiStorm32)

big time congrats to all involved with this project

I couldn't agree more & love my Pi CM4 setup.

Fantastic work.

[VladR]

Originally Posted by Wrangler

I'll be covering RTG etc in part 2, so check that out when it lands

Oh, I absolutely will !

Originally Posted by klx300r

I’ve been saying this for the past 5 years or so but yet again I’m amazed how many awesome hardware projects have been released

This is funny, actually. I could care less about any CPU advances from last decade. That doesn't deliver the WOW factor anymore.

But this new Amiga HW stuff, it just tickles something inside my heart that delivers this feeling of immense joy, excitement, and amazement - just like 30+ yrs ago !
Cannot explain in rationally...

[abu_the_monkey]

I find all the new hardware interesting and enjoy seeing versions of what could have been if the 68k cpu development had not been discontinued, but, I have struggled with the whole RTG thing for as long as I can remember.

It (RTG) just seems very non Amiga. it is good don't get me wrong I love workbench and system friendly software in ridiculous resolutions and colour depths but it is just the same as on any PC with a graphics card has.

probably why I like the idea of the A314 (for the A500/600) as it offers something different. A co-processor that works with the chipset rather than replace it completely with an off the shelf PC graphics chip.

[Phantomz]

AGA Emulation might be nice for Amiga 3000 users if it's possible?

[VladR]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

I find all the new hardware interesting and enjoy seeing versions of what could have been if the 68k cpu development had not been discontinued, but, I have struggled with the whole RTG thing for as long as I can remember.

So, not even 30 yrs ago ? Even back then RTG felt non-Amiga to you?

[trixster]

Saying rtg feels ‘non Amiga’ is very strange. The Amiga magazines of the early 90s were full of reviews for graphics cards which gave Amigas some form of rtg, be it through egs, cybergraphx or Picasso

[derSammler]

RTG means you are not using OCS/ECS/AGA, but that is what the Amiga is all about. RTG stuff could also run on any other plattform with no difference in the result. So yes, RTG is kind of non-Amiga.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by derSammler

RTG means you are not using OCS/ECS/AGA, but that is what the Amiga is all about. RTG stuff could also run on any other plattform with no difference in the result. So yes, RTG is kind of non-Amiga.

Those who had A500/600/1200 back in the day had no relation to RTG, but for many big box Amigas, RTG or even other types of custom display adapters (like OpalVision) were a very natural part of the big box Amiga experience.

[trixster]

Originally Posted by derSammler

RTG means you are not using OCS/ECS/AGA, but that is what the Amiga is all about. RTG stuff could also run on any other plattform with no difference in the result. So yes, RTG is kind of non-Amiga.

If you only use (or did use) an Amiga to play games, then yes rtg could seem to be non Amiga. But if you used an Amiga as an actual computer and did anything other than just play games, to suggest something like rtg is ‘kind of non-Amiga’ is nonsense. You’re pretty much suggesting that big box Amigas, which were designed around the principle of being expandable, were ‘non Amiga’, which is absurd. One of the amazing things about the Amiga and its OS was it could handle almost seamlessly lots of expansions that took it way beyond the base hardware.

[Kin Hell]

Originally Posted by trixster

If you only use (or did use) an Amiga to play games, then yes rtg could seem to be non Amiga. But if you used an Amiga as an actual computer and did anything other than just play games, to suggest something like rtg is ‘kind of non-Amiga’ is nonsense. You’re pretty much suggesting that big box Amigas, which were designed around the principle of being expandable, were ‘non Amiga’, which is absurd.

"One of the amazing things about the Amiga and its OS was it could handle almost seamlessly lots of expansions that took it way beyond the base hardware."

& 30 years on, it still is.....

[VladR]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Those who had A500/600/1200 back in the day had no relation to RTG, but for many big box Amigas, RTG or even other types of custom display adapters (like OpalVision) were a very natural part of the big box Amiga experience.

So, were there even any major RTG-only games for those big box Amigas back then ?

[Jope]

Not really. RTG was/is used mostly for productivity tasks. The custom chip modes are so slow and the resolutions are so tiny, when you're doing OS friendly stuff.

[grelbfarlk]

Ever wonder what the "96" in Picasso96 stood for?

There was the Karate game for Opalvision, which was awful, but one of the few 16-bit or 24-bit games ever made until the RTG platforms CyberGraphX and Picasso96 were mature enough.

It was a much worse problem than "why weren't there more AGA games?" Who would dedicate the resources to a game that maybe would run on a few thousand Picasso IIs or a few hundred Merlins or a few thousand Cybervisions or a few hundred Retinas, but each version would only run on one of these boards?
We had a trickle of RTG games after all that settled down, but by then the Amiga hardware market was dead.

[abu_the_monkey]

The 96 is from the year it (Picasso96) was released.
CGX was released in 95 I think.
Picasso for the PicassoII/+ was 93
before that was EGS (92?) which never really took off.
anything else was too bespoke and not really RTG.

I didn't intend to de-rail the thread.
It is just my own struggle with RTG and like I said, I do see some advantages in having/using it.

[qz3fwd]

RTG is a direct consequence of Commodores stagnation of the Amiga platform and demands of users. 320x200 multi color modes must have been great in 1985, but by the early 1990’s the Amiga was long in the tooth with incremental updates/upgrades. Users wanted higher resolutions / color ranges than anything AGA was capable of.