English Amiga Board - View Single Post - State of computer graphics when Amiga was born...

Weaselrama · 18 October 2020, 17:12

I often wonder if people who are new to the Amiga Retro scene, or at least, are interested to check out what the hullabaloo is about, aren't put-off by some pictures of the Workbench running at low-resolution with the original 4-color icons and horribly wide window frame components and buttons and the weird backdrop window and look no further.

When I upgraded my Amiga 1000 to the 2.04 ROM with the Insider II/Kwikstart II boards, I have to admit, I was really disappointed with how the 640x200 (?) NTSC Workbench looked. It already seemed archaic in 1992 considering how the Mac II and Win 3.1 looked. I ran it in 640x400 interlaced and bought an external flicker-fixer screen that I duct-taped over my monitor. Mind you, I didn't have a good monitor - I was still using the Commordore monitor I'd used with the C64 which effectively was just nominally better than a decent TV. But even with a proper monitor like the 1084(?) or a Multiscan that my buddy ran with his 500, those resolutions just didn't look "modern" by 1992 PC/Mac standards. Of course, this is the difference between OCS/ECS vs SVGA.

If you're going to show off the Amiga Workbench in all its glory, higher resolution and at least Magic Workbench are must-haves to make the Amiga at least seem like it belonged to the computer world of the early 90s regardless of its outstanding capabilities.

I remember being thrilled checking out the AGA Amigas that came to the computer store in 1992. Two things stand out in my memory: Being able to view pictures in their own windows on the Workbench instead of being shown alone in a separate screen, and how crisp the mouse pointer looked in Distant Suns. When I ran Distant Suns on my 1000, the pointer was at a lower res and was "squashed."

I understand that Commodore was trying to update the Workbench running in an 80s graphical environment and making it compatible with both ECS/OCS and AGA. Aesthetics meant a lot to me which is why I was floored by NeXTstep which looked great even at lower res. The Workbench can just look garish until some improvements like MWB are introduced.

EDIT: I realize the up-side to all this is that it made the Amiga extremely configurable to suit the user's tastes. And we do.

18 October 2020, 17:12	#309
Weaselrama Registered Voter Join Date: Oct 2019 Location: Neunkirchen aP, DE Age: 62 Posts: 570	I often wonder if people who are new to the Amiga Retro scene, or at least, are interested to check out what the hullabaloo is about, aren't put-off by some pictures of the Workbench running at low-resolution with the original 4-color icons and horribly wide window frame components and buttons and the weird backdrop window and look no further. When I upgraded my Amiga 1000 to the 2.04 ROM with the Insider II/Kwikstart II boards, I have to admit, I was really disappointed with how the 640x200 (?) NTSC Workbench looked. It already seemed archaic in 1992 considering how the Mac II and Win 3.1 looked. I ran it in 640x400 interlaced and bought an external flicker-fixer screen that I duct-taped over my monitor. Mind you, I didn't have a good monitor - I was still using the Commordore monitor I'd used with the C64 which effectively was just nominally better than a decent TV. But even with a proper monitor like the 1084(?) or a Multiscan that my buddy ran with his 500, those resolutions just didn't look "modern" by 1992 PC/Mac standards. Of course, this is the difference between OCS/ECS vs SVGA. If you're going to show off the Amiga Workbench in all its glory, higher resolution and at least Magic Workbench are must-haves to make the Amiga at least seem like it belonged to the computer world of the early 90s regardless of its outstanding capabilities. I remember being thrilled checking out the AGA Amigas that came to the computer store in 1992. Two things stand out in my memory: Being able to view pictures in their own windows on the Workbench instead of being shown alone in a separate screen, and how crisp the mouse pointer looked in Distant Suns. When I ran Distant Suns on my 1000, the pointer was at a lower res and was "squashed." I understand that Commodore was trying to update the Workbench running in an 80s graphical environment and making it compatible with both ECS/OCS and AGA. Aesthetics meant a lot to me which is why I was floored by NeXTstep which looked great even at lower res. The Workbench can just look garish until some improvements like MWB are introduced. EDIT: I realize the up-side to all this is that it made the Amiga extremely configurable to suit the user's tastes. And we do. Last edited by Weaselrama; 18 October 2020 at 18:12.