some fancy ideas for a extended (68k?) CISC-CPU

[Minuous]

It doesn't really need a CD-ROM drive, eg. you could install it from your CF card.

[bloodline]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Precisely, so they threw the thing together rather quickly, and lacked a clear perspective. This way, we have system components made by people that had good ideas and clear visions (exec, intuition), system components that were just collections of helper functions (graphics), some last-minute glue code (layers) that duplicates functions of graphics and intuition, and some hot-patched disk layer (Tripos). Or as Olaf put it: AmigaOs looks as if it is held together by several layers of glue, duct-tape and chewing gum. I can only agree.

I've always thought that the graphics.library was a mess! It's reassuring to know I'm not the only one.

I never really understood the relationship between layers, graphics, and intuition, they all seem like parts of something bigger arbitrarily split out in to essentially random components.
I would love to have an academic technical discussion around the flaws and how things might have been implemented properly (if anyone else would find such a thought experiment fun?). Though that would probably be best in the System sub forum, not this hardware one.

Thus, you feel that AmigaOs was done by separate engineers, separate working groups, each more or less capable, sometimes with diverging goals and ideas, but a technical management that provided a clear vision and a clear overall design of the thing was missing. AmigaOs is exactly the manifestation of the lack of management at CBM.

100% agree. I might be misremembering, but I'm sure RJ Mical said much the same thing at a conference once!

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

So then neither neither did IBM, or practically anyone else in the personal computer industry at that time. Hell, IBM couldn't even write their own OS! They thought people would use their PC on TV with ROM BASIC and cassette tape storage! How out of touch was that? And when that didn't happen, they released the PC JR, a total flop in the marketplace! What were they thinking?

In its infinite wisdom CBM management later (1991) hired the PCjr product manager William Sydnes as head of product development.
We all know how this ended...

Commodore sold a total of around 4 million Amigas despite mismanagement and a weak financial position.

As far as I know it is closer to 7 million ... not that this would change anything.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by bloodline

I would love to have an academic technical discussion around the flaws and how things might have been implemented properly (if anyone else would find such a thought experiment fun?). Though that would probably be best in the System sub forum, not this hardware one.

Created a new Thread:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=105283