A New Amiga Architecture - 3AC

[EAUniW]

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[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Gorf

analog video out? really?

And why not?

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

And why not?

• bad quality
• lower max resolution
• new monitors no longer support it
• need for analog parts on the board
• need for RF shielding

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Gorf

• bad quality

Originally Posted by Gorf

• lower max resolution
• new monitors no longer support it
• need for analog parts on the board
• need for RF shielding

Obviously, it's not meant for or high resolutions or new monitors. And there is a substantial amount of people who are still using the old tubes, which is why projects such as Next or MiSTeR have it covered.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Obviously, it's not meant for or high resolutions or new monitors. And there is a substantial amount of people who are still using the old tubes, which is why projects such as Next or MiSTeR have it covered.

as you say: these projects have it already covered ...

[EAUniW]

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[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by EAUniW

I dunno, what's on offer?.

If you want to be era-appropriate then probably MIPS. Should be fast enough to emulate a 7mhz 68k for the games back catalogue, and much faster in native mode.

Ok course, in pipe-dream land you can just design your own CPU / ISA.

[Gorf]

@ EAUniW

you may want to read this thread:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=87378

[EAUniW]

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[Gorf]

Originally Posted by EAUniW

I did and it's a nice read but a little fairytale,

it is - and it is meant to be one.

not that mine is exactly grounded in reality but it's a more realistic evolution.

you did not go into technical details at all (except for naming the chips), so we can not judge if any of this is realistic.

Also: what is the relevance for NOW?
How are you going to develop and implement it?

[EAUniW]

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[Mathesar]

If you would like to design a new kick-a$$ Amiga make it 100% compatible. So, make it an AGA machine with some nice fast CPU and maybe some more chip ram and just make everything faster:

Faster chip memory access, faster blitter, more audio DMA slots, cleaner audio implementation so that AHI 14bits modes are really 14bit clean.
Make it have a high-quality build in scandoubler/flicker fixer that doesn't give you any jailbars. Give it native support for SD-cards or some other modern flash device.
Make it a keyboard design for that retro feeling. Hell, if you feel like it also give it some extra floppy DMA slots so that you can use PC HD floppies.

But, whatever you do, do NOT give it any fancy new features and new register bits. Nobody uses it anymore and anyway, most amiga users just want to show off their sysinfo comment :-)

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by EAUniW

The same relevance as with the Vampire, the ZX Next, the Mega65, to continue the legacy of beloved computing platforms while preserving their historical and innovative features.

Sorry for being unclear: that was not the kind of relevance I meant.
I was referring to your statement:

Yes, there are projects that have it covered but they're modern implementations. The 3AC is meant to answer the question of what could've came after AGA in 1992/3 if AGA had appeared in 1989/90....

So what relevance does this alternative timeline have, if you are going to implement your board?
How exactly is it different from MISTer or Vampire? And why? And who?

[EAUniW]

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[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Mathesar

Faster chip memory access, faster blitter, more audio DMA slots, cleaner audio implementation so that AHI 14bits modes are really 14bit clean.

since AHI uses 14bit modes to play back 16bit samples/audio (I have seen no other use case yet) it makes sense to have 16bit channels.
"Pamela" on the Vampire does that (mixed at 24bit internally)

Make it have a high-quality build in scandoubler/flicker fixer that doesn't give you any jailbars. Give it native support for SD-cards or some other modern flash device.

we have this already in different FPGA solutions ... but modern TVs/monitors don't need it anyways: they are perfectly flicker free at 25Hz

Make it a keyboard design for that retro feeling. Hell, if you feel like it also give it some extra floppy DMA slots so that you can use PC HD floppies.

use case?
(you would need no additional DMA slots: if Paula could handle 32bit accesses the DMA timing can stay the same ... but who wants to handle floppies? And why the hell would you need HD floppies )

But, whatever you do, do NOT give it any fancy new features and new register bits. Nobody uses it anymore and anyway, most amiga users just want to show off their sysinfo comment :-)

So? MISTer or Minimig do that already

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by EAUniW

I dunno, just an idea I had about the Amiga I'd have loved to have used in the '90s.

Don't get me wrong: I like those retro computer projects

But your idea seems terribly unclear to me. It is all very vague.
And you still did not really answer the question, how (and why) this would be any different from existing projects and why we would prefer it over them.

[EAUniW]

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[Gorf]

Originally Posted by EAUniW

It'll be different because it'll use discrete chips much like in the original Amiga instead of an FPGA .....

ok ... do you have ANY idea how expensive that would be?

(Now even my fairy tale alt-reality seems more realistic!)

Unless you can spend at least 100 million dollars for this project: forget it.

[EAUniW]

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[EAUniW]

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