What if Commodore had lasted one year longer?

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

CBM didn't need to introduce 'compatibility layers' because the OS and hardware was already compatible with earlier versions.

If the platform would have been taken seriously, it would have been necessary at some point to introduce a serious Os, like Apple or MS did, and at that point, this would have been the solution. AmigaOs could not withstand in any market with its lack of protection and security mechanisms for much longer.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The problem with this phrase is it doesn't tell you anything about how much 'mass' is required or why.

How much: As much as to create a self-sustainable market, that is, as much as needed to sell products in a market to make it suitable as a business model. Of course, one can only estimate upfront what that size would be, but only because it's estimated doesn't make that invalid.


Why? Oh, c'mon, turn on the brain. Because if the market is too small, you don't make a business, and nobody will jump on the technology because there is no advantage to do so.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

You described EGS as a failure, but what really 'failed' was the platform it was designed for - Amiga 24 bit graphics cards. It 'failed' because those cards were expensive and not sufficiently desired by the broader market. But did they expect to capture that market anyway?

The product "graphic cards" did not find sufficient number of customers, but while the price was certainly one reason, another reason was that there weren't sufficient number of software products to take advantage of them, and there weren't sufficient number of programs to take advantage of because EGS failed to deliver a sufficient amount of compatibility for them, and software vendors were not interested enough to port software to it, because there was no sufficient market. This is a "deadly circle" you can only break out if you ensure that there is sufficient incentive for customers to buy cards or software. Without compatibility and sufficient software, there was no incentive.



It was simply not the right approach.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

EGS was released in 1992 with GVP's EGS 110/24. It supported other 24 bit cards as well, but that still wasn't enough to reach the 'mass' needed for wider adoption because the other cards were also very much niche products. At that time the majority of PCs were struggling to produce 256 colors in 640x480, and 24 bit color was considered an extravagance in the PC world too. The most well-known 24 bit chipset was Texas Instruments' TIGA, which did not sell well due to the high price and limited applications.

TIGA had the same problem as EGS 110/24. It was too expensive, and it did not include VGA compatibility, which was the de-facto standard PC programs (or games) depended upon. TIGA was "put in the void space" without any backwards compatibility layer and at a price point which was not interesting for a sufficiently large audience. It is still an odd-ball as it does not provide any direct frame buffer access games or applications designed for VGA depended upon. Big mistake.



Later on, "Super VGA" chipsets became the norm (such as the Cirrus on the Spectrum), and they were interesting to the customers because they were able to run legacy software that depended on the (albeit lousy) VGA capabilities, yet offering more to new applications. Then, the register based Super VGA "interface" was replaced by the VESA bios, and ultimately by the windows driver system. ("Designed for Microsoft windows").



Super VGA provided an upgrade path to customers. TIGA did not.
This is how the game works. You never throw old technology over board and replace it by something new. You open migration paths for customers. That's also the reason why PCs still carry all the legacy crap like the A20 gate around.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But it was far easier to achieve critical mass on the PC due to the much larger userbase and willingness to pay more. Ti convinced Microsoft to put generic 24 support into Windows 3.0, and when the VESA bus was introduced in 1992 it provided the bandwidth needed for effective use of 24 bit color and higher resolutions. Within a few years 24 bit cards had become a standard feature in PCs - though most still had Windows set to 256 colors for better performance.

And the boat sailed away without TIGA, which was not much of a surprise.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Of course by that time Commodore was gone, so we can only speculate on what they would have done. The real 'critical mass' failure was the Amiga itself, which couldn't maintain enough sales to keep Commodore afloat. No matter what EGS did it couldn't change that.

For the platform as a whole, of course.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Super VGA provided an upgrade path to customers. TIGA did not.

Amiga graphics cards didn't have to 'provide an upgrade path to customers', because they didn't replace the on-board chipset so they didn't need to emulate it. The EGS Spectrum had a built in pass-through to display all screen modes on the same monitor, or you could use dual monitors. This guaranteed 100% compatibility with all non-RTG capable software and displays (whereas most VGA cards are only partially compatible at the hardware level).

This is how the game works. You never throw old technology over board and replace it by something new. You open migration paths for customers

There's only one game in town - being 'IBM' compatible. The Amiga was playing the wrong game from the start, so it was doomed from the start. All this talk about how Commodore should have done this or that with the Amiga is irrelevant. The only thing they did even half right right was make PC clones.

The Amiga was a mistake from day one, a mistake that Commodore could only have corrected by dumping it as soon as possible. But they didn't, with the result that millions of Amiga fans suffered an emotional trauma that lingers to this day. Some are so much in denial of the Amiga's death that they still drag its rotten corpse around pretending it has some life left in it. It's pathetic and kind of sad, seeing all these deluded souls trying to play a different game in a desperate attempt to enjoy it. I wish I could go back in time to 1919 and kill Irving Gould in his crib, thus saving us untold pain and suffering. How much happier we would be today if Commodore and the Amiga had never existed!

Or perhaps we can imagine a world where other games exist, and people who play those games are not branded losers because they are a small minority. Imagine a world where different platforms can coexist peacefully, and even interact with each other for mutual benefit. A world where being different is celebrated, and the less capable are not discriminated against for being 'broken by design'. That world does exist - if you let it.

We are not throwing old technology over board and replacing it by something new - that has never been the Amiga way. In fact we are preserving the old technology and making it work better, rather than 'upgrading' to something new. Unlike those tortured souls who still hope the Amiga will one day reach 'critical mass' in some modified form, I am am quite happy with what I have. I don't need your so-called 'serious' OS. I don't need fancy 3D graphics cards or GHz speed CPUs or memory protection or any of the other stuff people pine for that modem PCs have - my Amiga is fine just the way it is. It's more alive today than it was in 1992, and I will continue to enjoy getting more out of it until the day I die.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Amiga graphics cards didn't have to 'provide an upgrade path to customers', because they didn't replace the on-board chipset so they didn't need to emulate it.

Yes, of course they did have to. A customer buying "program A" first, and then a graphics card would probably expect that "Program A" runs on this card and exploids its possiblities to full extend, and not to run it only with a subset of the features the card offers. Can you run Pagestream on 24 bit mode with EGS? No, you cannot. You would buy a new program.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The EGS Spectrum had a built in pass-through to display all screen modes on the same monitor, or you could use dual monitors. This guaranteed 100% compatibility with all non-RTG capable software and displays (whereas most VGA cards are only partially compatible at the hardware level).

While it guaranteed compatilbity, it did not provide the advantage of the graphics card to its user. Essentially, you are saying "of course it's compatible if I take the graphics card out of the game". Well, that's trivially true, but not very useful.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

There's only one game in town - being 'IBM' compatible. The Amiga was playing the wrong game from the start, so it was doomed from the start.

Not quite. Back then, there would still have been chance for the machine to become important in some market, if development had continued. Apple wasn't "IBM compatible" either, yet it found its clients. At the time of its introduction, the "unique selling point" of the Amiga was its multimedia capability, something that came years later with Windows.



So there was really something.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

All this talk about how Commodore should have done this or that with the Amiga is irrelevant. The only thing they did even half right right was make PC clones.

Maybe. This strategy only works if your PC clones have some advantages over that of your competitor. Either in the price point, but there CBM could not compete with asian vendors. Or with some technical finesse, but CBM had nothing to offer in this respect. It was "oh, just another boring IBM clone".

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The Amiga was a mistake from day one, a mistake that Commodore could only have corrected by dumping it as soon as possible.

The machine was created by "computer freaks", not by a computing business, and the time of home computers was doomed to end already. It was a technically advanced machine, put into the wrong market.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

We are not throwing old technology over board and replacing it by something new - that has never been the Amiga way.

It is never the business way either. You just "improve old technology" and offer something that does all the old does, but improves some aspects of it. That's the entire core of the success story of the PC. It started as a lousy kludgy platform that only overcame its restrictions one after another. I'm still waiting for the time the A20 gate and the real mode are thrown overboard, but it can still be a long wait.


If you want to introduce new technology, this new technology needs to provide a "quantum leap", some really big improvement customers want to go for, and such events rarely happen. Some of them were CD audio, or JPEG image compression, or MP3.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Yes, of course they did have to. A customer buying "program A" first, and then a graphics card would probably expect that "Program A" runs on this card and exploids its possiblities to full extend, and not to run it only with a subset of the features the card offers.

Sorry, but: NO!!

This is nonsense.

Not only for the Amiga platform but in general.

Nobody expected any old MDA or CGA program to suddenly explore all possibilities of a VGA card, just because you bought such a card!
And guess what:
None of these programs did, because no programmer could anticipate VGA before it was announced!

Amiga gfx-cards that came with EGA like the GVP-cards, would allow you to display any old Amiga Chipset Mode via the same connector as long as your monitor supports these modes.
This is EXACTLY the same behavior as an early VGA card with backwards compatibility would allow you to do:
all old programs would use the still build in CGA mode, just like old Amiga programs would still use the Chipset.

(later VGA cards would drop the CGA mode completely or emulate it in software...)

Can you run Pagestream on 24 bit mode with EGS? No, you cannot. You would buy a new program.

Since what version does Pagestream support a 24 Bit mode and was that before or after EGS was published?
Hmm?

(not only that: even older versions of Pagestream will run on a EGA screen and therefor on a "new" gfx-card and it will even take adavanate of the higher resolutions ... just not the higher colour-depth, which versions of this time frame would not do in general, no matter what gfx-system)

[azul120]

Originally Posted by Promilus

Saturn wasn't far off in numbers only. It had stupidly complex architecture which required a lot of effort from developers to use it efficiently and still lacking in 3D area. New libraries and devtools appeared eventually but it was still one giant PITA. N64 missed opportunity with CD and what's most funny Playstation is just a revenge on Nintendo because how it stood Sony up during initial design for CD add-on for SNES which ultimately was never accomplished and since Sega CD was relatively fruitless Nintendo ended any CD development for their consoles for quite some time (and with that foolish move they both created their worst enemy and severely constricted their new consoles with low capacity medium). Now the only thing which actually would've helped CD32 to thrive (slightly) was ... if Sony actually did that SNES Playstation. But since it didn't happen... I just can't see a scenario where it actually becomes popular. Not CD32, nor Amiga 1200 CD.

Playstation would have happened one way or another. Ken Kutaragi, after designing the SNES sound chip, badgered Nintendo into permitting a CD-ROM drive, which they only agreed to after it was insisted that it would not be used for CD-ROMs. Of course, they hadn't realized that Sony managed to slip full final approval rights and royalties to all software, and ability to produce their own hardware units based on the tech, basically entering the market completely at Nintendo's expense. So of course Nintendo would have been stupid to take the deal. (Sony and Nintendo were later forced to work together again in '92, with Nintendo getting a much better deal, but then Ken later decided he could do it without Nintendo and convinced the rest of Sony to break it off.)

https://kotaku.com/the-weird-history...-mo-1828860861

All semi-OT, but Sony did poach a lot of Amiga development veterans, Psygnosis notable amongst them.

[TCD]

'Poach'? In 1995 I could imagine most of Amiga devs were more than happy to find a new job.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TCD

'Poach'? In 1995 I could imagine most of Amiga devs were more than happy to find a new job.

Psygnosis was acquired by Sony in 1993, for £20 million. They continued to publish games for the Amiga, FM Towns, 3DO, Sega Mega Drive and PC after that. The last Amiga game they produced was All New World of Lemmings in 1995.

[TCD]

Yes. Benefactor being the last Amiga exclusive as far as I can tell. Still doesn't change the fact that by 1995 most Amiga devs would be more than happy to work for Sony

[gimbal]

If they could stomach the switch from 2D to 3D of course. 1995 wasn't exactly the best of times to be a game developer that dropped out of high school to follow their dream

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Estrayk

There was nothing to do against clone pc's.
Silicon Graphics, Acorn (computer series), Atari, Commodore, Sharp (X68000), Fujitsu (PCx9xx), Tandy, Amstrad.......... they all fell


The Macs did not fall by a miracle.

1. Apple matched Xmas Q4 1993 486SX PC clone USD $1000 price range with 68LC040 based Quadra 605 as the bridge for PowerPC's 1994 introduction. Apple's competitive vs performance largely kept its existing customers within Apple's ecosystem.

Atari, Commodore, and Sharp didn't release USD $1000 680LC040 based 486SX-25/486SX-33 "Doom PC clone box" counter offerings. MacDoom was released in 1994.



2. Silicon Graphics workstation graphics was road-killed by NVIDIA's GeForce 256.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Psygnosis was acquired by Sony in 1993, for £20 million. They continued to publish games for the Amiga, FM Towns, 3DO, Sega Mega Drive and PC after that. The last Amiga game they produced was All New World of Lemmings in 1995.

Sony-owned Psygnosis created time-exclusive "32-bit" 3D console games for PlayStation e.g. Wipeout in 1995. The Saturn version was released a year later in late 1996.

"All New World of Lemmings" didn't deliver a "32-bit" 3D gaming experience.

For Xmas Q4 1995, Wipeout (3D) was released on the 29th of September 1995 for PlayStation and fast 32-bit enabled gaming PCs.

Psygnosis released Formula 1 (3D) in 1996 for PlayStation and Pentium-class gaming PCs. I purchased my Pentium 150 (overclocked to 166 Mhz via a single 60 Mhz to 66 Mhz FSB jumper)+S3 Trio 64UV PCI clone PC in 1996 just for Quake and other Pentium class 3D games and sold my Amiga 3000 (AmigaOS 3.1, 68030/68882 @ 25Mhz, 4MB FastRAM, 2 MB Chip RAM) instead of upgrading it with uncompetitive Phase 5's CyberStorm 68060 @ 50Mhz and CyberVision 64 (S3 Trio 64U) combo. My gaming PC selection's time-exclusive games are the main cause instead of Apple's PowerMac.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Gorf

Sorry, but: NO!!

This is nonsense.

Not only for the Amiga platform but in general.

Nobody expected any old MDA or CGA program to suddenly explore all possibilities of a VGA card, just because you bought such a card!
And guess what:
None of these programs did, because no programmer could anticipate VGA before it was announced!

Amiga gfx-cards that came with EGA like the GVP-cards, would allow you to display any old Amiga Chipset Mode via the same connector as long as your monitor supports these modes.
This is EXACTLY the same behavior as an early VGA card with backwards compatibility would allow you to do:
all old programs would use the still build in CGA mode, just like old Amiga programs would still use the Chipset.

(later VGA cards would drop the CGA mode completely or emulate it in software...)

Since what version does Pagestream support a 24 Bit mode and was that before or after EGS was published?
Hmm?

(not only that: even older versions of Pagestream will run on a EGA screen and therefor on a "new" gfx-card and it will even take adavanate of the higher resolutions ... just not the higher colour-depth, which versions of this time frame would not do in general, no matter what gfx-system)

Big Box Amigas weren't mass-produced like A1200 or mini-tower PC clones. A1200 has a reduced-cost 32-bit Super Buster chip known as Budgie which also includes a 32-bit Fast RAM controller which is similar to A3000's Ramsey 32-bit Fast RAM controller.

https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_h.../n603/mode/2up
PC Mag 1992-08, page 604 of 664,
Diamond Speedstar 24 (ET4000AX ISA) has $169 USD asking price.

GVP's EGS card's uncompetitive performance vs price is the real nonsense.

Despite Commodore engineers laying the groundwork for mid-range SKU between Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000, Commodore management refused to release USD $999 mini-big box Amiga AGA SKU and Amiga's big box expansion cards didn't gain economies of scale.

Commodore International didn't replace Commodore UK's Amiga 1500 with the AGA variant.

Unlike Apple, Commodore International didn't offer price competitive 68LC040 solution against 1993's PC 486SX-25 and 486SX-33. Cost-reduced Amiga 4000 with 68LC040 accelerator at $999 USD or Amiga 1200 with 68LC040 accelerator @ $799 USD is preferable over Amiga 4000 with 68030/68882 @ 25 Mhz.

Mass-producing 68040 socket infrastructure for the Amiga opens the door for mass-produced 68060 upgrades.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

CBM didn't need to introduce 'compatibility layers' because the OS and hardware was already compatible with earlier versions.

critical mass: a size, number, or amount large enough to produce a particular result

The problem with this phrase is it doesn't tell you anything about how much 'mass' is required or why. You described EGS as a failure, but what really 'failed' was the platform it was designed for - Amiga 24 bit graphics cards. It 'failed' because those cards were expensive and not sufficiently desired by the broader market. But did they expect to capture that market anyway?

EGS was released in 1992 with GVP's EGS 110/24. It supported other 24 bit cards as well, but that still wasn't enough to reach the 'mass' needed for wider adoption because the other cards were also very much niche products. At that time the majority of PCs were struggling to produce 256 colors in 640x480, and 24 bit color was considered an extravagance in the PC world too. The most well-known 24 bit chipset was Texas Instruments' TIGA, which did not sell well due to the high price and limited applications.

Trident 8900CL and ET4000AX VGA modes can play Doom-type games and display high-resolution/high colors/true colors desktop WIMP GUI.

[ Show youtube player ]

Doom (low details) on 386DX-40 with 128K cache
Tseng Labs ET4000AX ISA = 26.751 fps
Trident 8900CL ISA = 23.0088 fps
WD90C32 = 26.838 fps (Diamond Speedstar 24X)

ET4000AX can scale to 32 fps with a faster X86 CPU.

These perform like A1200 AGA with 68030 @ 40 Mhz to 50 Mhz!

Commodore's AGA struggled with 256 colors 640x480 desktop WIMP GUI.

TIGA couldn't play Doom in 1993 since TIGA wasn't dual-purpose for gaming PCs and office/workstation PCs. TIGA is not backward compatible with PC's CGA/EGA/VGA.

Gaming PC's Doom-capable minority install base murders the entire Amiga install base.

Amiga 3000 (and other Amiga 2000s) with GVP EGS is useless for Amiga port RTG CGX/P96 games.

I owned Amiga 3000 and I view EGS as a pointless solution in 1992. +600 Deutsche Mark for GVP 24 EGS was LOL. I rather buy lower cost ET4000AX with PC games.

EGS was useless during the Amiga's CGX/P96 RTG era when many PC to Amiga RTG game ports needed CGX game-related APIs. P96 supports the CGX API layer.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Amiga graphics cards didn't have to 'provide an upgrade path to customers', because they didn't replace the on-board chipset so they didn't need to emulate it. The EGS Spectrum had a built in pass-through to display all screen modes on the same monitor, or you could use dual monitors. This guaranteed 100% compatibility with all non-RTG capable software and displays (whereas most VGA cards are only partially compatible at the hardware level).

Most fast SVGA clones can play gaming PC's AAA titles in 1993 e.g. Doom, Wing Commander, and 'etc'.

GVP EGS Spectrum was nearly pointless when Commodore's AGA arrived in late 1992 and AGA games targeted AGA chipset. When AGA arrived in 1992, GVP EGS Spectrum's sales were linked with small Amiga 4000's install base while older "big box" Amigas with OCS/ECS chipsets were "end of life". Apollo-Core's SAGA upgrade didn't exist for OCS/ECS owners.

Commodore can't survive with just the niche Video Toaster market and the YouTube-related mainstream video editing market didn't exist in 1992.

"It's only Amiga makes it possible" to obsolete a "full 32-bit CPU with 32-bit Fast RAM" machine before it's time. With "big-Box" Amiga 3000 or Amiga 2000 with full 32bit 68020/68030/68040 accelerator cards, this is like throwing a fully working 386DX-40-based PC that is stuck with TIGA and EGA during 1992. A game console chipset mentality wouldn't work for "big box" desktop computers.

Desktop PC clones with 386DX CPU can be upgraded with a fast ET4000AX graphics card which can play both 1993-era Doom and legacy PC games.
For PC gaming in 1993, Trident 8900CL or ET4000AX SVGA clones was treated as a faster IBM VGA.

In the modern desktop gaming PC market, the lowest AMD A620/A520 chipset-based gaming PC has at least a single PEG slot (PCIe with 16 lanes).

Amiga 1200's chipset can support a single 32-bit slot for the CPU accelerator and graphics. Commodore International didn't offer Amiga 2400 AGA with a single Zorro III and CPU accelerator slots SKU that is placed between Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000.

My YouTube-related video editing machine is served by a PCIe version 5 gaming PC with NVIDIA's RTX ADA graphics card, not by Newtek's VT solution.

My little gaming HTPC box (in place of PS5/Xbox game console) is based on the AMD B550 chipset Asrock Mini-ITX motherboard with a single PEG slot.

16-bit AGA Alice and ECS Agnus are very similar with a major difference being with AGA's Lisa and ECS's Denise, hence there's an open-source project that targets the AGA-on-ECS upgrade path. AGA-on-ECS Lisa's replacement chip would need access to faster Chip RAM bandwidth.

Microsoft demonstrated its RTG solution like WinG and DirectX's DirectDraw with Doom ports i.e. games! 1992 EGS doesn't run Doom, enough said.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by hammer

TIGA couldn't play Doom in 1993 since TIGA wasn't dual-purpose for gaming PCs and office/workstation PCs. TIGA is not backward compatible with PC's CGA/EGA/VGA.

TIGA can't run Doom as nobody give a shit to convert 386 code to TMS34010/34020 - it is pointless to compare TIGA with VGA as TIGA board is independent computer with CPU that can run Doom on it's own RAM.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by pandy71

TIGA can't run Doom as nobody give a shit to convert 386 code to TMS34010/34020 - it is pointless to compare TIGA with VGA as TIGA board is independent computer with CPU that can run Doom on it's own RAM.

1 Microsoft ported Doom for WinG and DirectX's DirectDraw (i.e. Doom95), hence don't expect a spoonfed from 3rd party developers, hence why platform holder like Microsoft has taken software development control for Windows Doom port e.g. Doom95. IDsoftware released WinQuake in Jan 1997 using DirectX's DirectDraw.

2. TIGA being a single-board computer is not unique since IBM PGA has on-board Intel 8088 microprocessor.

As a PC gamer in 1992, I don't give a shit about TIGA. TIGA died along with IBM's XGA and MCA when the big elephant in the room was "Design for Windows" accelerators which is Microsoft's multi-vendor RTG solution for the PC.

Like SGI, Commodore couldn't survive with just a tiny Video Toaster market. Microsoft's demonstrated Doom ports for Windows 3.1's WinG and Windows 95's DirectShow was the correct game-centric approach.

As a PC gamer (AMD/NVIDIA combo) in the early 2000s, it's a good thing that NVIDIA smashed SGI into oblivion. AMD's game-centric Mantle-influenced Vulkan API ended OpenGL.

In 1992, GVP EGS did nothing for Amiga's gaming scene. GVP went bust in 1995 since the Amiga platform didn't have a clone platform business model.

IBM's 1984 PGA has 640x480 with 256 colors from a palette of 4,096 with CGA compatibility. When compared to IBM PGA, Amiga 1000's OCS innovation is the lower asking price via Commodore's chip integration and cost reduction. PC SVGA cloners have taken a cost reduction from the workstation graphics role from Commodore.

Due to Commodore management's "read my lips, no new chips" directive during Amiga 3000's development, Commodore engineers weren't allowed to build graphics functions on Amiga 3000's Ramsey 32-bit @ 25 Mhz memory controller and PCB motherboard design. There is no Agnus replacement with a 020/030 32-bit bus since AGA Alice still has 68000 memory controller behavior and A1200 Budgie's 68020/030 32-bit memory controller design was wasted.

My main reason for the P96/CGX selection over EGS is games and P96 hardware's low cost of entry.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

1. Apple matched Xmas Q4 1993 486SX PC clone USD $1000 price range with 68LC040 based Quadra 605 as the bridge for PowerPC's 1994 introduction. Apple's competitive vs performance largely kept its existing customers within Apple's ecosystem.

An ecosystem neither Amiga nor PC fans were interested in. An LC040 with no FPU, so forget about raytracing etc. No space in the box to put a CDROM or other stuff. Monitor and extended keyboard are extra (and I'm betting they weren't cheap). 4MB RAM and 80MB hard drive, not exactly earth-shattering for a machine that has the entire OS on disk and has to load it into RAM.

I don't see it as any kind of 'bridge', more like suckering people into buying something that is about to be made redundant.

Atari, Commodore, and Sharp didn't release USD $1000 680LC040 based 486SX-25/486SX-33 "Doom PC clone box" counter offerings. MacDoom was released in 1994.

Oh wow I wonder why? Maybe because Apple were selling them off below cost, like Commodore did with the A3000 to make way for the A4000 (only difference is the A3000 was actually useful and could be upgraded to stay relevant).

MacDoom needed 8MB RAM and a CDROM drive, two things we don't see here. You will need a memory upgrade and an (expensive) external SCSI CDROM. By the time you have outfitted your Quadra 605 with everything needed to run Doom the price will have ballooned to equal or exceed that of a typical PC, and be much higher than an A1200/HD with 030 board.

Doom - Mac IIvx (32MHz 030) vs Quadra 700 (25MHz 040)

[ Show youtube player ]

The Quadra is pretty slow (especially considering the window size is 2 steps down), definitely slower than my A1200 with 50MHz 030. The IIvx is a slideshow!

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

"All New World of Lemmings" didn't deliver a "32-bit" 3D gaming experience.

You mean like this?
3D Lemmings

Rob Allsetter of Sega Saturn Magazine commented that the 3D concept made the gameplay cumbersome and difficult to master: "Once you've familiarised yourself with the method it's a lot less hassle, but there are still those moments when, with only a split second left, you find yourself changing a camera angle to actually see what's going on rather than choosing lemming roles to save them." He also complained that the puzzles are highly frustrating

All New World of Lemmings

Mike Dailly, programmer at DMA Design, recounted that "Lemmings 3 was a bit crap … more to end our commitment to Psygnosis than actually do a good game. The larger character size really spoiled it, but it was done like that because we had been approached by The Children's Television Workshop who wanted to use the character and the game; they wanted the characters to be bigger, and that really complicated things

But...

A reviewer for Next Generation gave the DOS version three out of five stars, commenting that "Although the basic idea is still to save the suicidal beasts, DMA has carefully avoided the 'more of the same' trap by increasing the size of the lemmings, laying down some fantastic new backgrounds, and adding a host of features ... An excellent new perspective on an old stand-by."

Retro Rant Game Review #43 - All new world of Lemmings (AGA Amiga)
[ Show youtube player ]

"Overall rating:- 8.2/10"

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by hammer

1 Microsoft ported Doom for WinG and DirectX's DirectDraw (i.e. Doom95), hence don't expect a spoonfed from 3rd party developers, hence why platform holder like Microsoft has taken software development control for Windows Doom port e.g. Doom95. IDsoftware released WinQuake in Jan 1997 using DirectX's DirectDraw.

2. TIGA being a single-board computer is not unique since IBM PGA has on-board Intel 8088 microprocessor.

As a PC gamer in 1992, I don't give a shit about TIGA. TIGA died along with IBM's XGA and MCA when the big elephant in the room was "Design for Windows" accelerators which is Microsoft's multi-vendor RTG solution for the PC.

Once again TMS34010/34020 is very fast CPU with ISA focused on graphics processing. It outperformed significantly general CPU's like 8088.
It can perform regular code same like universal CPU. You can produce Doom code turning PC as input controller - this will be most efficient way to avoid ISA bus bottleneck.

TI biggest issue was lack of cheap development tools (this apply to 340x0 family and to 320x0 DSP family) - this was probably biggest issue with TIGA - they focused on limited market. But in past TIGA based accelerators offered highest possible performance and this something that can't be ignored.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

An ecosystem neither Amiga nor PC fans were interested in. An LC040 with no FPU, so forget about raytracing etc.

In 1993, raytracing was moving towards RISC workstations and 1st generation Pentiums.

Commodore can't survive with just the Lightwave 3D market.

NVIDIA made hardware-accelerated raytracing for mainstream games with mass market appeal.

High-performance Pentium FPU is a requirement for the 1996 Quake with mass market appeal. Quake killed most 586 clones.

Quake's FPU requirement is still a headache for A-eon A1222+ and forced Apollo-Core to release the "Quake enabler" FPU for Vampire V2.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

No space in the box to put a CDROM or other stuff.

The same problem with A3000. I purchased a no-name external SCSI CD-ROM drive targeted for the Apple market for my A3000.

IDE can support a CD-ROM drive.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Monitor and extended keyboard are extra (and I'm betting they weren't cheap).

VGA monitor clones are relatively low cost, but the Amiga chipset didn't have a built-in sync doubler like on VGA chipsets.

Extended keyboard clones are relatively cheap.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

4MB RAM and 80MB hard drive, not exactly earth-shattering for a machine that has the entire OS on disk and has to load it into RAM.

4MB of system RAM and 80 MB HDD is good enough for 1993 and 1994 Doom-type games.

Don't use higher-cost 2.5 laptop HDDs.

Quadra 605 has a separate VRAM.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I don't see it as any kind of 'bridge', more like suckering people into buying something that is about to be made redundant.

Oh wow I wonder why? Maybe because Apple were selling them off below cost, like Commodore did with the A3000 to make way for the A4000 (only difference is the A3000 was actually useful and could be upgraded to stay relevant).

Quadra 604 has PowerPC upgrades. Quadra 604 is about keeping Apple customers within Apple's ecosystem with 486SX-25 PC competitive pricing.

A3000 is a dead end for AGA-targeted games. I prefer my current A1200 over my old A3000.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

MacDoom needed 8MB RAM and a CDROM drive, two things we don't see here. You will need a memory upgrade and an (expensive) external SCSI CDROM. By the time you have outfitted your Quadra 605 with everything needed to run Doom the price will have ballooned to equal or exceed that of a typical PC, and be much higher than an A1200/HD with 030 board.

MacDoom shareware doesn't require a CDROM drive.

MacDoom didn't kick the MacOS while the PC version had minimal 32-bit DOS extensions.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Doom - Mac IIvx (32MHz 030) vs Quadra 700 (25MHz 040)

[ Show youtube player ]

The Quadra is pretty slow (especially considering the window size is 2 steps down), definitely slower than my A1200 with 50MHz 030. The IIvx is a slideshow!

The difference is Apple's platform vendor support.

John Carmack was seeking mass-produced platform vendor support for running Doom. IDsoftware is seeking Nintendo-like official SuperFX mass-production addon support.

Commodore UK advocated CPU-accelerated A1200 SKUs, but Commodore International refused. Commodore has no problems releasing PC clones with higher performance 386DX and 486SX machines that are slotted between the A1200 and A4000/040 price range.

A1200 with 50 Mhz 030 accelerator has access to 50Mhz 32-bit Fast RAM which is good for rendering the final framebuffer before sending it to Lisa's raster and Chip RAM. The problem is mass-produced platform vendor support.