06 March 2023, 12:21 | #2181 |
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Wow, now you guys are really halucinating. C64 compatibility added into an A1000? The C64 was selling strong and would be doing so for another few years. The way those machines were built back then any change would break compatibility. The Amiga was different (but unfortunately treated like a C64 by programmers) and it was originally aimed at a completely different market. Adding C64-compatibility to an Amiga is like adding a towing hitch to a Ferrari because people might want to be able to use their old trailer with the Ferrari. Buy a C64 in addition to an Amiga if you need C64 software! C64 compatibility wouldn't help in making the Amiga anything else but a glorified games console. It's not like productivity software was a particularly strong point of the C64, is it? Commodore shouldn't have made ANY 8 bit computers at all but price-reduced C64s after they introduced the Amiga. That's all there is to that IMO.
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06 March 2023, 13:13 | #2182 |
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Ahahah.
I love where this thread is going. Beginning by demanding that the stock A1200 run Doom to blaming the A1000 for not being C64 compatible natively. I'll add that not any Amiga is able to make coffee which is a shame considering how cheap coffee maker machines where at that time. Keep on going that way, I'm going to grab more pop corn. |
06 March 2023, 13:25 | #2183 | |
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Coffee would be a good idea and go very well with the (video)toaster and some HAM!
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Last edited by Gorf; 06 March 2023 at 13:39. |
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06 March 2023, 13:46 | #2184 |
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06 March 2023, 13:50 | #2185 | ||
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@grond
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@sokolovic Quote:
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06 March 2023, 14:01 | #2186 | |
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Now this thread seems like the Complaints office of Amiga History, no matter if these complaints are unrealistic or contradictory. |
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06 March 2023, 14:08 | #2187 | ||||
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But it would also be a nice development platform for C64 software and it would mitigate one of the biggest problems every new platform has: no software at start. Quote:
For many the A1000 was yet another incompatible computer by Commodore ... they had quite a history at that point :-/ That did not ensure trust in the new platform ... "ok, 1984 they released the Plus/4, 85 the Amiga, lets see what they do in 86..." Providing (optional) compatibility - at the very least for C64 BASIC programs in software and with an add-on module for the C64/VIC/PET would have shown the customers, that Commodore cares about them. That would have been a better path than the ugly sidecar... Quote:
Commodore made initially some good decisions with Textcraft and Graphicraft, but did not follow up on this. There never was a "Cellcraft" ... Later Commodore bundled GEOS with every C64 ... but sadly they did not make a deal with Berkeley Softworks to create something for the Amiga. Instead GEOS got ported to the PC as GeoWorks and later to PDAs... Quote:
It is a valid thought experiment, if a more compatible Amiga would have made the C128 obsolete and would have sold in the millions from the start. |
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06 March 2023, 14:15 | #2188 | |
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Sidecar https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/b...ct.aspx?id=333 but with bare minimum hardware to let C64 apps running on A1000, 500, 2000. If crappy XT was ok for Amiga why great C64 wasn't? One might say "but that's internal competition, who would buy C64 if they can get much more powerful machine with low-cost add-on which let you play C64?" Well. Yes. But on the other hand "why buy slow and 8bit machine if you can get new 32bit one and still run old software if needed"? I'd say C64 compatibility board would be way more popular than those XT and AT emulators. What about A1200? Well it was the first cheap model which could actually run C64 full software emulation (barely) fast enough to be playable. |
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06 March 2023, 14:45 | #2189 | |||||
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06 March 2023, 14:57 | #2190 |
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06 March 2023, 15:02 | #2191 |
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I'm not into cars but even I find that sacrilege.
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06 March 2023, 15:44 | #2192 | |||||
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Why the A1000 did not include Commodores famous IEC Bus for wich they offered a bunch of peripheral is another riddle. No expansion port - the Amiga would emulate such things as a Freezer .. With such an expansion the A1000 would be the ultimate development tool for the C64: stopp the C64 side, inspect RAM, take snapshots of the state, manipulate things, roll back if it fails and so on... It also makes it much easier to develop games for both machines. Quote:
all the hours people spent typing in listings, or little programs they invented themselves ... The Amiga could be a little bit intimidating at first for someone, who came from the C64 and just learned to do a little bit of BASIC on that machine. Quote:
C128 development? How expensive is one Bil Herd? OK OK, we was not alone, but the development costs of that machine are probably one of the lowest in computer history. (that does not make it a good idea automatically) Quote:
Last edited by Gorf; 06 March 2023 at 16:01. |
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06 March 2023, 16:21 | #2193 | |||
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06 March 2023, 16:39 | #2194 | |||
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I was thinking of the physical DIN-port and support in the OS for the 1541 (and higher) as well as printers, plotters, modems and whatnot. Thinking more about that, maybe Commodore should have thrown in an additional 6510 on the A1000 motherboard as peripheral controller handling serial (sorry Paula), parallel and MIDI ... I mean, they even used one in the keyboard - these things were dirt cheap! (All you would need then to gain full C64 compatibility, is a small add-on card with VIC-II and SID on it...) Quote:
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That is why they came up with things like the REU. It is not like Commodore would not have had a compatible CPU with integrated MMU since 1982: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6509 |
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06 March 2023, 22:12 | #2195 | |||||
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I believe you from your first post about it. My sentence was bad formulated. Thanks for the new details Quote:
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Buyers were stuck a least one year I think. Quote:
From a 1985 standpoint nobody was knowing the future of computers (kind of obvious sentence but I mean it was still the beginning of personal computers, hard to look back in the rear-view mirror to anticipate what will the future be). This was still the 8 bits area and the best games were the C64 games, the rest was promises only. So you would have had directly, at least, from a 1985 point of view, an incredible software library from the start. If you market it correctly you can even say "Look how I'm a powerful computer, I can run without a problem the C64 in a window". And "I'm Commodore, I believe in the future of my brand, you made the right choice." Last edited by TEG; 06 March 2023 at 22:19. |
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06 March 2023, 22:57 | #2196 | ||
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That makes things a little bit more complicated. I was going through some scenarios in my head on my ride home: What if that C64-device would work similar to the "A314" - beaming its output directly into the chipram of the Amiga? We would need a portion of the ChipRAM that is off-limits for the 68K, the C64-add-on takes control over this in every second time-slot. (that are the slots the 68K would usually get - the other ones are reserved for Angus. Angus would feed that output to Denise, if we point the bitplane pointers accordingly) No, that is not the RAM access time of the C64 but the synchronized output of a modified VIC-II. This chip would not create a video signal, but write its output to 4 bitplanes in the Amiga-ChipRAM... On the Amiga-side this would look like a normal 4-BitPlane-LowRes Screen, which can be in front or behind and is even dragable. That would be the "deluxe" version. Much easier would have been a cut down C64 on a Zorro-board and it own video-out. Quote:
At least they got a feeling, what it would be - some predictions are even very accurate. Surely the original Amiga-Team got some things pretty right. They thought "multimedia" before the term existed. They felt, that a computer is not just for office or in a different setup for games, but for art, creativity, entertainment, fun .... Bill Gates (hate him as I do) was also one of these people who just knew computer would be everywhere and do everything. Steve Jobs saw the GUI at Xerox and just knew "that's it". And later he experiences the early internet and again he just saw the future. (he is not well known for that, but there is an old interview that proves that) And of course Chuck Peddle - he also visualizes a world were computers would be every day tools for everybody in the 70s Last edited by Gorf; 06 March 2023 at 23:11. |
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06 March 2023, 23:34 | #2197 | |||
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One of the attractions of the Amiga was that it did have 'industry standard' ports. Centronics printers and RS323 serial devices were ubiquitous since PCs and other platforms used them, whereas Commodore's IEC bus was proprietary so devices had to be specially made for it. There's no end to the ports that could have been built into the A1000 to make it compatible with more stuff 'out of the box', but such feature creep just leads to greater expense, trickier ergonomics and customer confusion. Quote:
No, Commodore should not have 'thrown in an additional 6510 on the A1000 motherboard'. Quote:
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06 March 2023, 23:46 | #2198 |
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Just saw on some forums Escom produced 60k A1200s in 1995 and could sell only 9000. So it was a kind of trying to resurrect the dead donkey you bought They did not even bother about cd32s that were seized by Philippines
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06 March 2023, 23:47 | #2199 | |||||
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But getting users to buy your equipment would! Even if it would be mostly via some indirect buys: If people would keep their old 1541 when they upgrade to an amiga and sell their C64 without, the next buyer is more likely to buy himself a new 1541... Quote:
You knew exactly, what I was trying to say here ... Quote:
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07 March 2023, 00:31 | #2200 |
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