03 May 2024, 06:32 | #4001 |
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Poland
Posts: 868
|
@dreadnought
|
03 May 2024, 06:37 | #4002 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Hastings, New Zealand
Posts: 2,715
|
Quote:
I also don't believe that Commodore should have been developing their own games. Their job was to produce the hardware and OS, just like other computer manufacturers did. IMO what Commodore should have done is what John Sands did in New Zealand when they were selling the Sega SC3000 here - encourage users to develop and submit their own games, distributing them and paying royalties based on sales. This rapidly expanded the software library and got a lot of people into programming games who wouldn't otherwise have bothered - myself included. Commodore should have produced a 'developer's edition' Amiga package for the same price as other packages, with freely distributable versions of the development tools. That would cost them little while turbocharging the development scene. The main reason I bought an Amiga was so I could program its amazing hardware, and I'm sure many others did the same (one reason the demo scene was so active). That needed to be cultivated! Commodore wasted millions on extremely expensive ad campaigns that were not worth the money. This shows that they didn't really understand the home computer scene. IBM successfully marketed their PCs to businesses who just wanted a computer to do their accounts etc. Apple pitched the Mac to graphics artists and university students who just wanted a computer to create documents. Commodore tried to position the Amiga in those markets, when they should have promoted it as a home computer for hobbyists. Machines like the C64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC didn't come with BASIC for nothing. And while those machines - like the Amiga - were mostly used for playing games, where did many of those games come from? Hobbyists! |
|
03 May 2024, 06:42 | #4003 |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Hastings, New Zealand
Posts: 2,715
|
|
03 May 2024, 06:57 | #4004 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Hastings, New Zealand
Posts: 2,715
|
Quote:
If someone could port the original Tomb Raider games to the Amiga I would play them all over again. Sadly I don't think that will happen in my lifetime, even though we now have Amigas powerful enough to do it easily (getting 3~5 fps out of the Vampire 600 in PC Task, which believe it or not is actually playable!). |
|
03 May 2024, 07:19 | #4005 | ||||||
Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2020
Location: Sydney/Australia
Posts: 1,025
|
Quote:
Following the PC example, the Amiga should start with disabled CPU cache until Workbench 3.0 requests max CPU performance. Some Amiga games use direct address into Kickstart 1.3's functions and it breaks on Kickstart 2.0 and 3.x. Commodore UK released ReloKick 1.3 on Amiga magazine coverdisks. WHDLoad is for hard disk with a Degrader/ReloKick combo use case. Before WHDLoad, I used https://aminet.net/package/util/misc/Degrader and ReloKick. Quote:
AA3000+ prototype was later cloned by the Amiga community and its design was released by ex-Commodore engineer Dave Haynie. Atari could have planned for product segmentation with 16-bit 030 Falcon and 32-bit 030 Falcon. Typical Tramiel's product segmentation mindset. Quote:
In 1993, PCs 386DX-40 and 486SX-25/486SX-33 were in the price range of the A1200 with 030 @ 33 Mhz to 50 Mhz accelerators. Without access to Commodore's economics of scale, Amiga's 3rd party accelerators didn't have performance/cost for Doom-type games. Quote:
Quote:
After looking at Falcon's schematics, the 030 front side bus is 16-bit. Quote:
Amiga 4000/030 BusSpeedTest https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys...m/aMw2s4s1dWQJ And the same from an A4000/030 -- again, only testing motherboard memory. 11.Ram Disk:> nuke0:system/c/bustest chip fast BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv) Buffer: 262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768 ======================================================================== memtype addr op cycle calib bandwidth fast $077E0000 readw 185.0 ns normal 10.8 * 10^6 byte/s fast $077E0000 readl 294.2 ns normal 13.6 * 10^6 byte/s fast $077E0000 readm 272.9 ns normal 14.7 * 10^6 byte/s fast $077E0000 writew 248.2 ns normal 8.1 * 10^6 byte/s fast $077E0000 writel 248.2 ns normal 16.1 * 10^6 byte/s fast $077E0000 writem 209.2 ns normal 19.1 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00028000 readw 538.9 ns normal 3.7 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00028000 readl 573.3 ns normal 7.0 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00028000 readm 629.0 ns normal 6.4 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00028000 writew 575.0 ns normal 3.5 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00028000 writel 574.8 ns normal 7.0 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00028000 writem 573.9 ns normal 7.0 * 10^6 byte/s Those who can afford A4000/040, can afford unpopulated 040 WarpEngine and recycle A3640's 68040-25 CPU. A3640's CPU is socketed for this purpose. ------------- A3640's basic design has evolved into A3660 with 68060 and Z3660 with yet another Z-Turn board ARM9-to-68K emulator+RTG and 68060 combo. Z3660 with Z-Turn ARM9 FPGA board allows for 68060 with local FastRAM and RTG or PiStorm style ARM-to-68K emulator and RTG. Z3660 offers "get out of jail" from the expensive Motorola influence for big box A3000/A4000. https://github.com/shanshe/Z3660 Amiga 68K is getting out of Motorola's influence. Amiga 68K platform has PiStorm original, PiStorm16 (WIP), PiStorm32, and Z3660 projects for the full exit from Motorola's influence. I'm aware of the PiStormST project. After looking at Falcon's schematics, the 030 front side bus is 16-bit and you can't reuse the built-in 030 for a simple 32-bit RAM expansion. Tramiel's product segmentation decisions made sure Falcon's built-in 030 CPU was jailed in 16 bits. Last edited by hammer; 03 May 2024 at 08:15. |
||||||
03 May 2024, 08:37 | #4006 | ||||
Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2020
Location: Sydney/Australia
Posts: 1,025
|
Quote:
Quote:
Both AMD GPUOpen and NVIDIA have game-centric code sample libraries. Hint: Psy-Q. Quote:
Unlike other PC OEMs, Commodore maintains its ecosystem platform like Microsoft or Apple. I'll argue for Commodore's Xbox team or at least Commodore's game SDK on par with Psy-Q game-centric SDK. Sega Saturn SDK wasn't the best example of game SDK. If you force "reinvent-the-wheel" R&D discovery on a game console platform, that's burning boilerplate development time. Quote:
PS; I'm influenced by Psy-Q game-centric SDK. Last edited by hammer; 03 May 2024 at 08:43. |
||||
03 May 2024, 09:06 | #4007 |
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: France
Posts: 646
|
|
03 May 2024, 09:10 | #4008 | ||
Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2020
Location: Sydney/Australia
Posts: 1,025
|
Quote:
PC's Moto Racer has a network multiplayer option while the PSX version has a split screen. Ridge Racer up to 1,468,507 units sold in Japan and the United States. Destruction Derby sold more than 1 million copies by August 1996. Quote:
Last edited by hammer; 03 May 2024 at 09:33. |
||
03 May 2024, 10:32 | #4009 | |
Computer Nerd
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Rotterdam/Netherlands
Age: 48
Posts: 3,839
|
Quote:
You can't be serious |
|
03 May 2024, 11:37 | #4010 |
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Poland
Posts: 868
|
Playing 3d games at several FPS was a way to go in early 90s... Nowadays ppl tend to buy extremely expensive gaming equipment (eSport-like) to reach well over 200FPS with 144Hz refresh rate and the funny fact is... it doesn't necessarily help as the actual choppiness or occasional slowdowns are from that "1%" framerate which dips to <60 ... so as long as it is well over 60 100% of the time there should be no issues. And game developers doesn't necessarily fight those bottlenecks with framerate drops because the fact is... there's always some equipment which handles them well so what's the point. And that's why current sales of gaming PCs or consoles are looking still pretty good. And why gaming industry thrives despite many of the games being overly flashy and without actual artistry...
But regardless - PS1 did receive a number of titles which were great hit (despite Bruce being uninterested by them just like many ppl found Gloom or other amiga exclusive games rather dull), Amiga 1200 nor CD32 never did. Not at the launch, not later as well. One fairly original and unique title might be Napalm but that's pretty damn far after Commodore went bankrupt. Many of initially Amiga games found a way to PC DOS or Windows with SuperFrog, Worms, Settlers or few of Alien Bread games being no exception. So going back to Amiga stuff... Dave Haynie didn't see Ranger chipset nor blueprints. Ok... several years later he didn't know that Hepler is working on PA-RISC chipset for Amiga either. And at the same time Dave himself was already working on something similar. So... that only proves commodore inter communication did suck a big time and management over R&D efforts was absolutely horrible. And I believe in one interview or meeting with fans Dave actually had an anecdote about one guy working on a closed project for months because nobody told him it was already dead... And as for Pleasance - he's not a technical guy. He understood technology rather poorly that's why he made many bold claims about amiga superiority. Although I think Commodore UK did play things fairly good at that time. So... PC was for everything (and also most business oriented stuff). Atari for a while was music synth oriented. Apple did try to find a way into schools with decent results and did excel for a while with DTP software. Amiga was kind of gaming machine and the unique feature of A2k/3k was 3rd party video toaster. How Commodore missed that golden opportunity for recognition in the field of TV and VHS is beyond me... AGA wasn't solution to stay afloat.... it was solution to not sink that bloody fast. Sure, if they made and effort and actually released AGA machine mid '91 (instead of end of '92) that might've boost up sales quite a lot for ~2 years and keep them afloat. But it didn't happen despite them being perfectly capable - if properly funded and organized - to make it reality. So... A1200 disappointment? Sure. In many ways. Was it enjoyable despite of that? Sure... in many ways. Could they have done things better? Yes. Could they have done things better starting from 90s? No... I don't think so, there was a chain of events which started with introduction of A1000 and the biggest hit was doing A500, biggest miss was taking a long time to do that and taking even more to get a worthy successor for A500... |
03 May 2024, 11:38 | #4011 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2024
Location: Dublin
Posts: 5
|
Quote:
Unfortunately, none of them IBM compatible and one very disappointed Dad when he tried to edit that all important MS Word Doc he needed for Monday am. Not saying you bought an Amiga 1200 to do Turbo Tax (you didnt). Not saying pay MS to port Word to Amiga. But a bit of licensing or something for that propriety File Type by Commodore on behalf of these Amiga vendors may have saved poor students a PC purchase that bit longer and and made your standard 1200 that bit more saleable to your average computer illiterate. It was all about being IBM compatible, right. |
|
03 May 2024, 12:09 | #4012 |
Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2021
Location: Utrecht/Netherlands
Posts: 335
|
From Redit interesting comment:
https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comme...d_lasted_into/ TheAnalogKoala • 3y ago • Edited 3y ago The Amiga was doomed almost as soon as it came out. I happen to be a chip designer myself and this comes from a place of love but the only way Amiga could have survived was with an assload of investment (way more than was made) in R&D and fab capability (and capacity) and they would have had to become a console company. Once the PC world caught up to Amiga there was no fighting it. The custom chipset that made the Amiga so amazing was also an anvil around its neck. Commodore has outdated processing technology (still using NMOS logic long after it was obsolete) and coasted for years on an incredibly tight design. The chips were hard to program for and forced you to program to the metal for good performance. This made backward compatibility almost impossible without including the original chips as cores in some new design. But, Commodore couldn’t do that since they had only a handful of chip designers at any one time, none as talented as Jay Miner. Besides, they were to busy doing cost reductions to do any real R&D. Commodore milked the Amiga (and the C64) for as much cash as they could get. R&D just wasn’t in their DNA. The initiative at the end with HP was too little, too late. Commodore never had more than a skeleton crew of very dedicated and talented engineers, but it wouldn’t be enough. If they had a lot more investment, and upgraded their fabs, and were successfully able to transistion the Amiga into a console (they tried, but too late) it might have lasted longer. But, given their level of incompetence I don’t think so. |
03 May 2024, 12:52 | #4013 |
Computer Nerd
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Rotterdam/Netherlands
Age: 48
Posts: 3,839
|
Thank goodness that didn't happen. The idea of the Amiga becoming nothing but a game console is pure horror
|
03 May 2024, 13:06 | #4014 |
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Poland
Posts: 868
|
Design centered around amiga chipset would only last as a gaming console so ... where's the actual horror? 68k was EOP, from non x86 only ARM came out decent but I can hardly imagine Commodore engineers would invest into that. So you'd end up with PC-like Amiga with PA-RISC sh**ty processor and hardly backward compatible h/w and OS. AND of course gaming console as well...
Horror! |
03 May 2024, 14:34 | #4015 | ||||||
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2019
Location: Germany
Posts: 3,307
|
Quote:
Quote:
Ok, frankly, CBM *did* invest a bit - they had Microsoft port their Basic from Apple to Amiga (including the bugs and design deficiencies). But this also showed how CBM viewed the system: As a "home computer" on which users would create their own software. They did not understand that the market worked differently now - in a sense, CBM might have considered the Amiga more as a "glorified C64" than a productive system or a games console (if you like), and that the market worked differently. The market size of hobby developers using Basic is too small. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
No, that time was over when Amiga entered the scene. The volume is too low, and hobbyists do not have sufficient financial power to invest into the evolution of the hardware. Last edited by Thomas Richter; 03 May 2024 at 14:39. |
||||||
03 May 2024, 15:15 | #4016 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2024
Location: Dublin
Posts: 5
|
Ha ha
Quote:
Then again 99.9% users bought an Amiga to copy the games. So targeting the Hobbyist/Enthusiast market like that wouldn't really be enough to sustain a (once) global corporate giant without major restructuring/selling off. And all the Amiga fun is 68k isn't it. So all legacy. Still. Would have been fairly cool, lots of creative fun. Something (68k) like that, nicely packaged, re-imagined and targeted would probably still sell today Last edited by smellysocks77; 06 May 2024 at 01:14. |
|
03 May 2024, 17:17 | #4017 |
HOL/FTP busy bee
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Germany
Age: 46
Posts: 31,941
|
I'm sure you were. Unfortunately most people did enjoy the game. It was a major reason why the Playstation became very popular.
The 'Amiga users will never stop complaining about Commodore' and your very narrow 'For me it was great' narratives don't mix that well. But that is of course just my personal opinion. |
03 May 2024, 17:51 | #4018 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Hastings, New Zealand
Posts: 2,715
|
This came later, when there were games to copy. I'm talking about before then - the critical phase when a new platform has just been released and has not yet generated a large software library.
I bought an A1000 in 1987 (I would have bought one earlier if the PAL version was available in New Zealand). At this time, 2 years after it was released, only ~100 titles had been produced (compare this to the C64, which in 2 years had amassed ~750 titles). Of these 100 titles, very few were actually for sale here. So I had almost no games worth playing, and not much in the way of tools to develop my own - just Amiga BASIC, and the MetaComCo assembler which I purchased separately. Many users were not buying the Amiga just to copy games. This is shown by the vibrant demo scene, the hacker scene (were they really doing it just to copy games, or was the hacking itself the main attraction?), and the popularity of PD distributions like Fred Fish and Aminet. Then there was AMOS Quote:
Clearly there was a lot of interest in game development among Amiga users. Those 300 AMOS PD disks didn't come from commercial software houses. Now it may be that in the Amiga's heyday 90% of users were only consumers, but that still left 10% who weren't. And perhaps only 1% would produce commercial quality software, but with ~4 million systems sold this represents ~40,000 developers. That is a resource that Commodore should have have tapped into more, rather than leaving it up to 3rd parties. |
|
03 May 2024, 18:16 | #4019 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Poland
Posts: 868
|
Quote:
|
|
03 May 2024, 19:00 | #4020 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Hastings, New Zealand
Posts: 2,715
|
Quote:
Let's face it - no matter which way you slice it the Amiga's days were numbered. The only way it could survive a little longer was by building on the strength of its existing legacy and user base, which was bound to dwindle. Even as system sales were at their peak, developers were complaining about rampant piracy cutting into their profit margins. Developers on other platforms were becoming less interested in the Amiga because there weren't enough users willing to buy games. It wasn't so much the hardware that was the problem, but the lack of potential market for their product. Games were also getting more sophisticated, requiring much higher effort that demanded millions of sales to justify the investment. Only the few most popular platforms were worth developing for, and that group was shrinking. By the mid 90's the console market had become overcrowded. What could an Amiga that wasn't an Amiga add to get ahead of the pack? Nothing. It would have to rely on its unique computing features. But after 1995 that was gone too. The 'computer illiterate' masses were now buying PCs with Windows 95, which the entire 'personal computer' industry was set up to support. If Commodore was able to operate on lower sales it could have survived at a least until the new millennium. But it wasn't. Years of bad product choices, expensive ineffective marketing and mounting debt took their toll. The few good products they produced didn't compensate enough, and the sales numbers required to service the debt were too high. The A1200 was a good product, but it couldn't make up for the bad ones that came before it. Of course butt-hurt Amiga fans will blame Commodore for that, but we should remember that without Commodore there would be no Amiga. Nobody else was foolish enough to put the investment into realizing it. We should also remember all the other home computer manufacturers who fell by the wayside as the market consolidated. Commodore actually survived longer than most, and achieved greater success. Instead of getting upset about what the Amiga might have been that didn't eventuate, we should celebrate what it did become and enjoy it. Who cares if there are only a few thousand of us? That small community is still as vibrant as it ever was. Who cares that the Amiga can't do as much as a modern PC? It still does plenty enough to keep us interested. A machine with PA-RISC sh**ty processor and hardly backward compatible h/w and OS would not have helped. It would be an outlier. The big advantage of all the Amigas Commodore produced is that they are all part of the same family. Even the CD32 can easily be turned into the equivalent of an A1200. This binds the community together and makes our efforts more worthwhile. The only exception to that is NG 'Amigas' with OS4, which have done the opposite. A PA-RISC based 'Amiga' would have made it worse. |
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 3 (1 members and 2 guests) | |
Bruce Abbott |
Thread Tools | |
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
A1200 RF module removal pics + A1200 chips overview | eXeler0 | Hardware pics | 2 | 08 March 2017 00:09 |
Sale - 2 auctions: A1200 mobo + flickerfixer & A1200 tower case w/ kit | blakespot | MarketPlace | 0 | 27 August 2015 18:50 |
For Sale - A1200/A1000/IndiAGA MkII/A1200 Trapdoor Ram & Other Goodies! | fitzsteve | MarketPlace | 1 | 11 December 2012 10:32 |
Trading A1200 030 acc and A1200 indivision for Amiga stuff | 8bitbubsy | MarketPlace | 17 | 14 December 2009 21:50 |
Trade Mac g3 300/400 or A1200 for an A1200 accellerator | BiL0 | MarketPlace | 0 | 07 June 2006 17:41 |
|
|