Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask

[Zak]

Many years ago I heard somebody say, that the A1200 was initially planned with Akiko chip and that there is a spare place for it on the mainboard.
I always wanted to know if that´s true, I couldn´t respond to this opinion since I am no expert.

[s2325]

I saw somewhere that 3DO hardware was planned as Amiga 1000 or 500.

[Steve T]

Originally Posted by Zak

Many years ago I heard somebody say, that the A1200 was initially planned with Akiko chip and that there is a spare place for it on the mainboard.
I always wanted to know if that´s true, I couldn´t respond to this opinion since I am no expert.

I don't know anything about that, but there is a spare area, looking like should accomodate a large chip - its to the left of the 020 on most (probably all?) revisions. Always wondered what it was for and assumed it was for an 030 version.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Steve T

I don't know anything about that, but there is a spare area, looking like should accomodate a large chip - its to the left of the 020 on most (probably all?) revisions. Always wondered what it was for and assumed it was for an 030 version.

I thought that space was for an FPU.

[Steve T]

Originally Posted by demolition

I thought that space was for an FPU.

So, whats the catch?

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by Steve T

So, whats the catch?

as far as i know its not a space for the akiko its for the fpu.

[Steve T]

Originally Posted by roy bates

as far as i know its not a space for the akiko its for the fpu.

I'm not doubting that it is for an FPU, just why is it never used, whats the catch?

[mikrucio]

Here is one i have never been able to work out!

90% of all Amiga Games are PAL
yet they do not cover a full 320x240 screen.
most games only cover a typical 320x200 screen.
So the game typically only fill 3/4 of a monitor screen...

Is it because most game devs were from USA?
ITS BUGGING ME!

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by Steve T

I'm not doubting that it is for an FPU, just why is it never used, whats the catch?

I think this was discussed in another recent thread. Apparently it works just fine if you stick an FPU in there, perhaps an oscillator or a little extra logic is required but otherwise, no catch. I think the reason you never see one fitted is that anyone needing a high performance A1200 would have at least a trapdoor RAM board and it is simpler to include one on that than solder a new chip as an upgrade. I wonder if any were ever factory fitted with an FPU?

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by jimbob

I think this was discussed in another recent thread. Apparently it works just fine if you stick an FPU in there, perhaps an oscillator or a little extra logic is required but otherwise, no catch. I think the reason you never see one fitted is that anyone needing a high performance A1200 would have at least a trapdoor RAM board and it is simpler to include one on that than solder a new chip as an upgrade. I wonder if any were ever factory fitted with an FPU?

it was probably a cost cutting excercise as well,its cheaper not to have the fpu and 74 logic on board let alone the fastram.
if you think about it,not much uses the fpu anyway so it was probably best to let the end user make that choice.and the fpu that went there wasent very fast compared to what was built into later cpu's.
well,thats my take on it anyway.

[Steve T]

Jimbob, Roy Bates, Thanks for the info! I found a thread that mentioned it, but, seemed best left buried.... I have started a new discussion topic for this here: http://eab.abime.net/hardware-mods/6...tml#post898939

[Zak]

Originally Posted by demolition

I thought that space was for an FPU.

Thanks for clearing information.

Originally Posted by mikrucio

Here is one i have never been able to work out!

90% of all Amiga Games are PAL
yet they do not cover a full 320x240 screen.
most games only cover a typical 320x200 screen.
So the game typically only fill 3/4 of a monitor screen...

Is it because most game devs were from USA?
ITS BUGGING ME!

I think there is a NTSC version for many programs, they´re just not popular on the web. If games were produced on 320x256, you would have to completely redraw them for NTSC and it would be two completely different versions. I also think that ports from other computer systems were easier to perform with NTSC resolution.

[xArtx]

Hi,
I'll bet there were many demos that broke the language barrier in style,
but I doubt that foreign language boxed games were sold commercially.

My question is if any/many games spread through either piracy or free PD
became popular in a country of a different native language.
where the game might be simple enough that instructions are not needed.
That includes English speaking countries as well!

[TCD]

Originally Posted by xArtx

...
but I doubt that foreign language boxed games were sold commercially.

A lot of games with English text were sold here (and still are). That includes games with lots of text like adventures or RPGs. I'm pretty sure that the other way around was next to zero though.

[phx]

Originally Posted by mikrucio

90% of all Amiga Games are PAL
yet they do not cover a full 320x240 screen.

PAL is typically 320x256, but the most important difference is that is uses a frame rate of 50Hz instead of 60Hz.
I guess there are two reasons for the many PAL games:

1. Most games were developed in Europe.

2. Running at a slower frame rate of 50Hz gives the developer more time to render all the action. Still they don't always use the full 320x256 resolution, because it would consume some of the just won time again.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by TCD

A lot of games with English text were sold here (and still are). That includes games with lots of text like adventures or RPGs. I'm pretty sure that the other way around was next to zero though.

Your instincts are spot on! It's quite a novelty to be able to download foreign language versions of games and educational titles (you know which ones I'm talking about ) shared here via The Zone.

[TCD]

I bet most non English speaking countries had English games on the shelves We had a good share of localised games (most only had a German manual though), but a lot of countries didn't have many localised games at all. I'm still somewhat stumped that we only have 4 Greek games on HOL (http://hol.abime.net/hol_search.php?N_ref_language=20) and quite a few Greek members here on EAB. I'd like to hear (for example) how the situation was there for Amiga (and other) games in the 80s & 90s

[Mark Wright]

Originally Posted by mikrucio

Here is one i have never been able to work out!

90% of all Amiga Games are PAL
yet they do not cover a full 320x240 screen.
most games only cover a typical 320x200 screen.
So the game typically only fill 3/4 of a monitor screen...

Is it because most game devs were from USA?
ITS BUGGING ME!

There are two reasons for this - as I see it.

In the early years of the Amiga's commercial life outside of the USA (beginning with the launch of the A500 in 1987) UK/Euro publishers were aware that the biggest installed Amiga userbase was NTSC-land, so they kept an eye on compatibility for licensing/exports. Having recently re-read contemporary UK publications such as The Games Machine and ACE it's clear that it took a while before a UK/Euro published game threw caution to the wind (late 1989?) and just went for it (Pacmania perhaps?).

Plus, given that most early Amiga UK/Euro efforts were ports of Atari ST software (and I'm sketchy on the details of why this is...) most games that filled a full lores ST colour screen (with scanlines) only filled 3/4 of an Amiga lores screen (without scanlines, but with better definition). Handy for publishers with an international outlook, but always looked ugly to me and was *NEVER* referenced in magazine reviews of the day, despite being noteworthy and obvious!

For example: in PAL-World, load up a disk with one of those 50/60Hz bootblock toggles, switch to 60Hz, then swap the disk for Super Hang On. The game now fills the screen and is ST speed. With scanlines, but that was arcade-authentic back then...

What I never understood was why the CLI window, upon booting Workbench in PAL-World, defaulted to the NTSC size... even though you could drag it to PAL size. It took someone to make a (very popular) CLI command to put in the startup-sequence that would resize the window automatically.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by Mark Wright

What I never understood was why the CLI window, upon booting Workbench in PAL-World, defaulted to the NTSC size...

As far as I remember (and I may be wrong) this was caused by a bug in Kickstart's PAL/NTSC detection routines, sometimes the window was opened in full PAL mode.

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by TCD

I bet most non English speaking countries had English games on the shelves We had a good share of localised games (most only had a German manual though), but a lot of countries didn't have many localised games at all. I'm still somewhat stumped that we only have 4 Greek games on HOL (http://hol.abime.net/hol_search.php?N_ref_language=20) and quite a few Greek members here on EAB. I'd like to hear (for example) how the situation was there for Amiga (and other) games in the 80s & 90s

In my city it was not easy to find a great selection of Amiga games back then, unfortunately. Although I remember even before the Amiga, that you could easily find many titles for C64, Amstrad CPC or ZX Spectrum. I won't mention Atari STs, those were extremely rare even at its 'peak'.

Regarding hardware, things were much better though.