Things the Amiga didn't get right from Day 1

[Arne]

It's already been mentioned, but I'd say the Amiga should've been more or less bundled with a good joypad. IIRC they were working on controllers during the secret early development, as a sort of front for the company. Then we all ended up with Tac-2s.

I didn't like Amiga Basic. It was rather unwieldy to use. It would've been cool to boot into a more powerful terminal-basic combo. I wonder how that would've played out, with intuition on disk instead... bad for chipram likely.

Generic (useful) 16 colour palettes is one of my favourite topics. No matter what, one has to make a decision on style and sacrifices though. It's useful to pixel a few things (as many as possible really) as it's incrementally informative. Often I end up changing the palette to accommodate for the new subjects while supporting the old. Generally I'd say the palette should feature not just graphical/popping colours for text (RGBY), but also skin tones and nature colours, and most old palettes don't do those well.

Here's my 16 colour AMOS default palette (WIP), with 16 sprite register colours which are hue offset. It's arranged in 4 colour ramps so blitting tricks can be used to shade/highlight.



I also have a few palettes on my site.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Foebane

I call bullshit on the "superior" claim, and it was only because "Never The Same Color" is such an inferior TV technology compared to PAL, where those Apple and Atari approaches were more consistent in colour reproduction. I mean, I remember having a CRT in the UK that could support easily NTSC, but I thought that the "tint" colour control was somewhat silly, as PAL TVs just do not have that sort of thing.

If you knew how Apple produced its colors you wouldn't call bullshit on that claim. You see, the Apple-II doesn't generate a chroma signal at all, it just relies on the pixels themselves having the required frequency and phase to fool the TV into thinking it's seeing a chroma signal. Normally a pair of pixels can produce 4 colors this way - black (both off), white (both on), and two colors from the other two combinations. However the Apple II 'Hi-Res' graphics display only uses 7 bits out of each byte for pixels. The 'spare' bit is used to shift the pixels by half a clock, creating another two colors for those 7 pixels. With this system you do not have fine control over the colors. Nobody chose orange, green, purple and blue, they are simply the colors that this technique produces.

A similar technique was used to produce 16 colors in 'Lo-res', using patterns of dots to create 1/4 clock phase changes. Again there is no fine control over the colors produced, so the palette looks a bit peculiar.

Color on the Apple II


That crude system became a big problem for 'Euro' Apples. Changing the frame rate to 50Hz was easy, but producing the correct colors in PAL wasn't. The technique used for NTSC doesn't work because the pixel frequency is wrong, but even if it wasn't the colors would come out different because PAL and NTSC have different phase values for each color.

Take a look at the Eurocolor schematic and you will see... a bunch of resistors used to generate voltages related to the color of each pixel, which then become the U and V inputs of a PAL color encoder.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by Arne

It's already been mentioned, but I'd say the Amiga should've been more or less bundled with a good joypad. IIRC they were working on controllers during the secret early development, as a sort of front for the company. Then we all ended up with Tac-2s.

oh this is an extremely good opinion. yes and it should have had two buttons (at least - i mean two buttons is trivial, anyway) so more games would have been programmed to use them.

it's a funny thing, they never seemed to know whether it was supposed to be for games or not. yes it's not just a console, it's a computer, so it can do so much more than games. but then they'd bundle the Amiga with games but not with a joypad/joystick of any kind so how were you supposed to play them? we had Quickshot 2 already though, from previous computer..

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Arne

It's already been mentioned, but I'd say the Amiga should've been more or less bundled with a good joypad.

But we all know that wouldn't have happened. Instead we would have gotten a crap joypad that many of us didn't want (I prefer a proper joystick) that would have raised the price, then we would have to spend more money on a good one. Better to let the customer buy their own joypad or joystick, then they can decide how much they want to spend. I made a custom joystick with arcade machine parts because most of the joysticks you could buy were junk (eg. the infamous and aptly named 'Quickshot' brand).

A good joypad is more important for a console system because it is the only interface. The Sega Megadrive had a good joypad, but it wasn't released in Europe until late 1990. Most console machines before that time had crap joypads or joysticks. Meanwhile many games on the Amiga used the mouse and keyboard for more precise control and more functions, whereas console games forced you to use a joypad even when it wasn't appropriate - because that's all they had.

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by Arne

It's already been mentioned, but I'd say the Amiga should've been more or less bundled with a good joypad. IIRC they were working on controllers during the secret early development, as a sort of front for the company. Then we all ended up with Tac-2s.

One of the appeals of the Sony PlayStation when it came was the very good Joypad. And later they improved it even more with analog sticks and Dual-Shock with vibration.

Commodore instead of creating Amiga specific and unique joystick, left third parties to offer crap joysticks, including the Atari CX40 joystick:

[ Show youtube player ]

Imagine playing Street Fighter 2 with such handle called Joystick...

[Foebane]

In my experience of such controllers in the early 90s, it was the one-button joysticks that I had on both the Atari ST and Amiga, in addition to the (native) mouse control that both systems enjoyed. All the joysticks I ever had only emphasised one button, which confused me when I found out that the Amiga computers had apparent support for TWO-button joysticks.

And when I found out that the CD32 had multi-button support in its basic crap controller, including shoulder buttons, I was like OY VEY, how the HELL did they pull that off? Come to think of it, how did they?

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by Foebane

And when I found out that the CD32 had multi-button support in its basic crap controller, including shoulder buttons, I was like OY VEY, how the HELL did they pull that off? Come to think of it, how did they?

well in fact the Amiga can support THREE buttons already.. but it gets better.. the "third button" can actually be programmed as an output, as well as an input. and that's how the CD32 pad works. all the extra buttons are basically a serial connection, controlled by that 3rd button in output mode.

In fact this is also how the Megadrive pads work, well they don't work like a serial connection they are simply multiplexed on that extra output line. However a Megadrive pad won't work on an Amiga straight away because two of its pins are swapped around. I always wanted to make an adapter that swapped them around to get programmable access to all the buttons on a Megadrive pad, but i never got round to it.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

If you knew how Apple produced its colors you wouldn't call bullshit on that claim. You see, the Apple-II doesn't generate a chroma signal at all, it just relies on the pixels themselves having the required frequency and phase to fool the TV into thinking it's seeing a chroma signal.

Precisely. This was a "Woz" hack. The Atari 8 bits could also create "colors" this way, using high-res graphics of officially 320 pixels aside. There, the technique is called "artifacting" - but besides that, it had also a proper 160 pixel mode with color.

The problem is, as stated, that it only works for NTSC, on PAL with color carrier having 5/4th of the frequency of the pixel clock, it does not work, and thus many cheap Apple ports come out as black & white on the PAL Ataris.

Worse, the NTSC colors itself depended on the chip generation as the phase shift changed slightly from version to version, so all variants of red/blue,purple/green,blue/red were present, depending on the generation.

It was a first generation attempt of creating color by playing games with the TV standard, but it was not robust and not forwards compatible.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Precisely. This was a "Woz" hack. The Atari 8 bits could also create "colors" this way, using high-res graphics of officially 320 pixels aside. There, the technique is called "artifacting" - but besides that, it had also a proper 160 pixel mode with color.

The problem is, as stated, that it only works for NTSC, on PAL with color carrier having 5/4th of the frequency of the pixel clock, it does not work, and thus many cheap Apple ports come out as black & white on the PAL Ataris.

Worse, the NTSC colors itself depended on the chip generation as the phase shift changed slightly from version to version, so all variants of red/blue,purple/green,blue/red were present, depending on the generation.

It was a first generation attempt of creating color by playing games with the TV standard, but it was not robust and not forwards compatible.

These hacks honestly suck, why be so cheap? That's why I love the Atari 8-Bit so much, it at least attempted standardised colour signals, even if artifacts were visible sometimes. I've seen the Atari "artifacting" myself on my own family's colour TV back in the 80s, and I thought it sucked, because there was only ever two weird colours, it was inconsistent, and it looked ugly. Then again, the artifacting was only really visible on the Atari 8-Bit's severely limited hi-res modes, which honestly were bad. I could rail on about that forever, but that's another story for another time.

[Thomas Richter]

This was not really a limitation of the Atari - even a C64 cannot create reliable color on its hi-res resolution. You only get a reliable color if you draw two colored lines next to each other. To test this, draw a 10101010 alternating pattern in hi-res on the C64 and you also see some patterns in weird colors.

The problem is the severely limiting SD TV standard - it is 422 (NTSC) or 420 (PAL) subsampled, meaning that the chroma standard only has half the resolution in horizontal (NTSC) or both (PAL) direction.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

This was not really a limitation of the Atari - even a C64 cannot create reliable color on its hi-res resolution. You only get a reliable color if you draw two colored lines next to each other. To test this, draw a 10101010 alternating pattern in hi-res on the C64 and you also see some patterns in weird colors.

The problem is the severely limiting SD TV standard - it is 422 (NTSC) or 420 (PAL) subsampled, meaning that the chroma standard only has half the resolution in horizontal (NTSC) or both (PAL) direction.

Yes, I've known about this all my life, since I had my first Atari 8-Bit and access to both colour and black and white CRTs at the time.

It's generally the way that SD TV processes colour in analogue transmissions. For example, I've seen certain scenes in movies and TV shows with strong colours, usually primary, on a colour CRT...

...but then I see the same scenes on a black and white CRT, and I can see dot patterns replacing the strong colours if I tune the channel at a certain point, and I knew then that the dot patterns were responsible for producing the colours.

And these dot patterns appeared to be nearly at the same resolution of the hi-res of the 8-bit computers, so would cause colour to be reproduced under certain patterns purely by coincidence and NOT by design on a colour CRT.

[Old_Bob]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

well in fact the Amiga can support THREE buttons already.. but it gets better.. the "third button" can actually be programmed as an output, as well as an input. and that's how the CD32 pad works. all the extra buttons are basically a serial connection, controlled by that 3rd button in output mode.

It surely wouldn't have cost much per unit to stick a cheapo three button pad like this in the Batman Pack box...



It may be the worst joypad in the universe (well, almost) but it establishes the standard. Another button on the tank mouse wouldn't have hurt, either.

B

[Arne]

Exactly, it's more about establishing a 2+ button standard early on. The Amiga supported it already but in actuality the third party market got to decide and we ended up with a selection of unusable one button sticks, and some more expensive unusable sticks "with real microswitches" and still only one button. Tragic. It hurt so many games. Waggle joysticks were truly a dead end for general gaming.

Now, as for the Amiga being a console-computer... that's just what a computer was at the time for me. Maybe it was different in the US where afaik IBM and business machines were bigger. Looking back now, it might seem like the Amiga was a peculiar hybrid, but that's just because the PC dystopia came and eventually normalized.

[Mrs Beanbag]

my dad was always going on about the Amiga being "a multimedia machine" whatever that means, i don't know, but it's what sold him on it.. he was always infuriated by all the ads that only sold them as a games platform. but there you go. it was somewhat expensive as such tbh, and the quality of the games was often lacking compared to Nintendo for instance. personally i used it for art, music, programming &c.. a console wouldn't have served me very well at all.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

my dad was always going on about the Amiga being "a multimedia machine" whatever that means, i don't know, but it's what sold him on it.. he was always infuriated by all the ads that only sold them as a games platform. but there you go. it was somewhat expensive as such tbh, and the quality of the games was often lacking compared to Nintendo for instance. personally i used it for art, music, programming &c.. a console wouldn't have served me very well at all.

The Amiga WAS/IS the first ever "multimedia computer", a system that could reproduce sounds and images in realistic detail (PCM/HAM) if given enough memory and processing power, and it has been realised many times over since its launch in 1985, with Demoscene prods and everything. All other computer systems for similar prices at the time (especially PC) were sorely lacking in those regards.

I find Amiga games to be lacking too, except those groups and teams who fully utilised the unique abilities of the Amiga's chipset, of which there simply weren't enough. Most Amiga games were rudimentary, cheap and/or rushed ports from lesser systems.

I had computers like the Atari 8-Bits, the ST and the Amiga since I was a child, I was heavily productive on them, producing my own stuff, and my parents at one point had the temerity to ask if I would prefer a sodding games console instead, as they thought that's all I did!!

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by Foebane

I find Amiga games to be lacking too, except those groups and teams who fully utilised the unique abilities of the Amiga's chipset, of which there simply weren't enough. Most Amiga games were rudimentary, cheap and/or rushed ports from lesser systems.

You right. The Bitmap Brothers always got praise heaped on them but their games always seemed to me to be near-identical ports of the Atari ST version with better title screen music. On the opposite hand, Psygnosis really pulled out all the stops when it came to graphics effects &c, but were somewhat disappointing in the game design department, with monotonous gameplay that was just TOO HARD. Oh and loading times.. always with the loading times..

Early Amiga games (and also demos) were often very crude-looking. It took a while before anyone really knew how to use the Amiga's hardware at all, it's something easy to learn but hard to master.. we were getting too many games with bad scrolling well into the '90s. This is something the 16 bit console games never had to worry about, with their tile-based screen modes and huge numbers of hardware sprites. I would forego the hundreds of colours copper effects just to get everything at a solid 50fps. Factor 5 seemed to be the ones with the eye for quality in that department, it's why Turrican gets so much respect, they had the basics down from the beginning. And little presentational details like having different music to suit the theme of each level, rather than one annoying sample-packed tune playing all the way through like far too many Amiga games did (and then making you select EITHER music OR sound effects because having both was just Too Hard apparently )

I had computers like the Atari 8-Bits, the ST and the Amiga since I was a child, I was heavily productive on them, producing my own stuff, and my parents at one point had the temerity to ask if I would prefer a sodding games console instead, as they thought that's all I did!!

All so relatable.. my mum called literally everything i did with a computer "playing" and was always trying to get me to go and play outside instead.. now it's what i do for a living, and she has the cheek to say she's proud of me now

[chb]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

This was not really a limitation of the Atari - even a C64 cannot create reliable color on its hi-res resolution. You only get a reliable color if you draw two colored lines next to each other. To test this, draw a 10101010 alternating pattern in hi-res on the C64 and you also see some patterns in weird colors.

No, most C64s won't show weird colours, as a) the pixel clock is deliberately choosen not to be in sync with the color clock, and b) the VIC II is generating separate chroma and luma signals, that are only later mixed to form a composite signal, that step including an LPF on the luma.. As that filter is not perfect, there are slight chroma artifacts, but those are only visible with gray or b/w patterns. Only early VIC IIs show stronger artifacts. Apart from that, the C64 has a s-video out (separate luma/chroma lines) which also does not show artifact colours (see below).

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

The problem is the severely limiting SD TV standard - it is 422 (NTSC) or 420 (PAL) subsampled, meaning that the chroma standard only has half the resolutio in horizontal (NTSC) or both (PAL) direction.

Artifact colours have nothing to do with color subsampling - that just produces washed-out colours. It's a result of chroma and luma signals having overlapping frequency bands on composite/RF output, so luma patterns can get interpreted as chroma information. Having separate Y/C lines completely eliminates that problem, apart from possible crosstalk issues.

[Arne]

IIRC, most of my friends used their Amiga for both gaming and work/dev/music/art (if not initially, they were eventually converted). Keyboard and mouse games worked better so when I gamed I mostly played those (TBS/RTS, Lemmings, Frontier and other slower games). The Amiga did have some ok/good action games (despite HW & Joy issues) but contemporary game consoles generally did those much better. I don't think it's fair to say that Amiga games were bad across the board. Whenever I game on my Amiga nowadays I stick to the kb&mouse stuff (which actually still holds up well) and avoid the action games - even my favorites from back in the day.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

All so relatable.. my mum called literally everything i did with a computer "playing" and was always trying to get me to go and play outside instead.. now it's what i do for a living, and she has the cheek to say she's proud of me now

Oh, I've been there. When I asked to take CS at school in the mid 80s, I was told no, there's no future in it. You need to study biology and physics, like the rest of the family did. Was barred from using computers at all for a year, again as there was no future in them and nobody made any living with video games.

Now I code for a (very, very good) living and it's all "oh, we could all see you were destined for this".

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Foebane

These hacks honestly suck, why be so cheap?

Home computers were very expensive back then. Anything that lowered the price was welcome - even it compromised performance and usability. Being able to display any kind of color on TV was well worth it when the alternative was an expensive RGB monitor. Woz's 'hacks' cut hundreds of dollars off the price of the Apple II compared to what a conventional design would cost.

In New Zealand home computer prices were even higher due to import duties and shipping costs. Here's an advert from issue #1 of Bits & Bytes magazine in Sept 1982 (all prices in NZD):-

Atari 400 $1295
Atari 800 $2695
Disk drive $1595

VIC-20 $899
Disk drive $1299
Printer $899

The ZX81 was only $199, but it had only 4 chips in it and barely enough RAM to display a few lines of monochrome text. A VIC-20 with disk drive and printer cost the equivalent of NZ$12000 dollars today. Back then it was sold to farmers as a business computer!

Woz's color 'hack' was actually quite brilliant. 6 colors without any extra video memory, no complex logic or analog circuits required, faster graphics rendering and lower memory requirements than a conventional bitmapped display, no loss of resolution to get color, and compatible with both color and monochrome composite monitors and TVs (with a nice textured appearance in monochrome that also printed well on a dot-matrix printer). It looks crude today, but was a good match to the hardware and expectations of the time.