Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

Interestingly their best sales year is 1992 and 2 years later commodore went down the drain

Commodore counted sales years differently than calendar year: the next fiscal year started on first of July

So the best year was from 01.07.1991 to 30.6.1992.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by pandy71

You forgotten about:

• AT&T DSP3210
• Intel 386
• AMD 386
• Intel 486
• TIGA
• TSENG ET4000AX
• TSENG ET4000W32
• S3
• Sharp X68000
• NEC PC-98
• VESA
• 3DO

Probably many other very important and Amiga 1200 related things i've forgotten too.

& @Promilus: Amiga 1200 did not exist in a vacuum. So mentioning these things can make perfect sense (or at least it would if it was done in moderation).

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Karlos

It's about as relevant as most of the other posts to be honest. How this thread has lasted so long is a mystery.

Maybe not relevant, but at least entertaining. But then again, hardly any posts are 'relevant' in this thread anymore.

[grelbfarlk]

I'm workshopping a book "From Backwoods to Billions" subtitled The Mediocre Rise of Maple Syrup and A1200s and the Great Bee Conspiracy.

If the A1200 was more useful to sugar production in the early 1990s, things would have been a lot different.

For instance, did you know that a C= 1084 or 1080 running in interlaced mode, actually repelled honey bees?

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Right. That explains why modern computers still only run in 16 colors, right?

For evidence, photos work for the insurance industry, but they should be attached to knowledge-based systems.

16 colors are not enough.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

And? The industries with highest number of workers in Australia today are healthcare, retail, and professional scientific and tech services.
I guess they would have no use for a computer with excellent graphics and multitasking, right? Probably still using XTs with monochrome text displays!
Right. That explains why modern computers still only run in 16 colors, right?

What you don't get is knowledge-based systems to integrate these hardware features into business rules.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Molecular modeling on the Commodore Amiga

One of my customers ran a local TV station here for many years with nothing more than an A1200. What did it mostly do? Display photos. That system is long gone, but I went to the blood test clinic the other day and their TV was doing a similar a job of displaying local adverts - except it wasn't, because the streaming video service was down. I felt like telling them I knew of a solution from 1992 that was more reliable...

Hint: A tiny niche market doesn't sustain Commodore. The A600 debacle has pulled the rug under Commodore.

Note why AMD and NVIDIA maintain gaming PCs and game consoles for expansion into healthcare e.g.


AMD example https://www.amd.com/system/files/doc...nd-devices.pdf
AMD Embedded G-Series APU Boosts 3-D Visualization
for Portable Ultrasound Devices.

NVIDIA example https://www.nvidia.com/en-au/industr...dical-imaging/

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

No, over 2.5 million C128's sold say that your argument is flawed.

And? Are you saying it wasn't popular because it ran in interlace? If not then why are you saying anything at all?

Unlike Apple, Commodore didn't achieve a critical business client base size to sustain Commodore.

Apple's 14 million Mac install base in March 1994 is mostly a business client base.

Apple has made sure that their Macintoshes don't look like a toy, have a stable high-resolution mode for business, and have a software library that is ready for work. Apple didn't repeat the Apple II/III disconnect Mac generation jump. Apple introduced MacWorks XL as a software bridge between the Lisa and the Mac.

Commodore killed their early 1980s platforms with a disconnect into the "next-gen" Amiga. The PC continued the early 1980 platform and evolved as a strength for protecting customers' existing software investments while moving forward. Commodore didn't continue the success it made with the C64 into the Amiga.

Commodore has many incompatible 8-bit platforms from PET, VIC-20, Plus4, and C64/C128. Jack Tramiel's Commodore didn't give a damn about the customer's existing software investments and existing Commodore customers didn't give a damn about Commodore. My older cousin (in Gen-X) switched from VIC-20 to a 286-16/VGA PC clone in 1988. My older cousin advised my family to not purchase C64C, C128, Atari ST, and Commodore Colt (XT clone). For excellent game potential with other roles, the Amiga was recommended over the Atari STE (1989).

For the US education market, Commodore's Educator 64 couldn't repeat the success of PET due to the zero-sum monochrome display against the Apple II incumbent, and C64's "toy form" factor lost ground to the Apple II/IIe.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

From personal experience as a computer retailer I can say that most A500s sold here were bought by parents in the hope that it would help with their kids' education.

It's not the cheaper Atari ST.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

We sold a lot of printers with them too. Strange, why would they want a printer if they were only going to play games on it? Color printers too, and banner paper - what were they using that for?

From a "gaming PC" base, NVIDIA attacked and beat workstation graphics vendors. NVIDIA's large economies of scale are a significant advantage over 3DLabs and SGI.

The same "gaming PC" is used for school and university work. Like many others, my selection for gaming PC over the Mac is due to the PC's superior games library.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

8 million units prove they could sell 8 million units despite the machines not meeting your mercurial standards.

Amstrad PCW platform is a dead end.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Most businesses and products don't last forever. IBM reached a dead end.

1. IBM lost control over the PC standard.

2. IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo.

3. The Wintel PC clone platform survived.

4. Intel, MS, and the "gang of nine" made sure IBM was pushed out of the PC standards governance.

5. IBM's second source X86 insurance AMD works as intended and killed Intel's Itanium IA-64 adventure.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Compaq reached a dead end.

Compaq merged with HP. The Wintel PC clone platform survived. The difference with a cloneable platform standard.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Sun Microsystems reached a dead end.

Sun Microsystems was bought by Oracle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquis...le_Corporation

Sun's Solaris died with it.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by TCD

Maybe not relevant, but at least entertaining.

Exactly. The thread we all love to hate

[TuRRIcaNEd]

Look, CBM International (as in the US parent company) was a basket case in terms of management by the late '80s. Irv Gould (as chairman) defenestrated Jack Tramiel in 1984 because he was paranoid that Tramiel and his sons might end up usurping his authority. For better or worse, CBM pulled off a coup by buying Amiga Inc. during that interregnum (and, in fairness, Tramiel's MO would likely not have suited the move), but when it came to the A1000, they didn't have a clue how to market the thing in its original form.

When Tom Rattigan joined as CEO, he oversaw the masterstroke of having the Amiga platform available as a home machine to succeed the C64 (the A500) and a more expandable business machine to take on the PC and compatibles (the A/B2000). This set the stage for the most successful period the platform had - and by way of thanks, Irv Gould fired him.

Medhi Ali came into the picture as a management consultant tasked with assessing CBM's business model and in him Gould found his perfect "yes man". Ali focused almost purely on the US market and came to the conclusion that because the Amiga platform had not been a sales success in the US, the platform should be discontinued at that point, and CBM should be reconfigured as a low-cost PC compatible outfit. As such, all work on the AAA chipset - which was well into development - was shut down by 1991.

Ali's incompetence was best illustrated by the fact that CBM's USP was having their own chip designers and fabrication plants, which Ali's analysis completely disregarded - and it quickly became apparent that there was no way CBM could compete with the likes of Dell, Packard Bell and Gateway in terms of volume in that market.

As such, development of the Amiga as a platform was belatedly resuscitated - but at a point where over a year of R&D effort was already lost. The AGA chipset was developed as a stopgap, and frankly, while the A1200 and A4000 were clearly a rushed and compromised effort, they were more capable than any product developed that quickly and with those limitations had any right to be.

I'm old enough to remember the time the AGA machines came out when I was in school, and I remember my ST-owning friends gloating about the Falcon 030 on paper vs. the A1200 (even though in reality the Falcon was crippled by its ST-derived architecture). A lot of my friends made the jump to PC compatibles around that time (which I couldn't afford).

So yes, the A1200 was arguably too little, too late... But given the circumstances of the time and the cost limitations, the thing was damn-near miraculous.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Gorf

What we know is Ali ordered too few AGA custom chips for Christmas 92, as they still expected the A600 to sell like the A500 before…

Without enough custom chips made by HP they could not meet the demand…
So they largely missed the important Christmas season in 92 as the A600 was dead in the water and could only be sold off at a loss.

Without the stupid A600 and an affordable AA1000 by end of 91 they could have avoided most of their problems

What I am more curious about is at what point in time Commodore’s PC business went sour, or if that product line did make any significant profit in any given year. Never came across any hard numbers here.

There is another 65,000 AGA chipsets that weren't converted into revenue.

These 65,000 CD32 motherboards were allocated for Commodore Canada's partnership with AmiTech's A2200 clone. They were still held in Commodore's Philippines warehouse and seized by creditors.

https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/b...t.aspx?id=1829

Some posters claim there are 100,000 CD32 motherboards in Commodore's warehouse that were seized by creditors.

A financial death spiral occurred and constrained Amiga AGA sales and restricted revenue generation.

The A600 debacle was a mortal wound.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Look, CBM International (as in the US parent company) was a basket case in terms of management by the late '80s. Irv Gould (as chairman) defenestrated Jack Tramiel in 1984 because he was paranoid that Tramiel and his sons might end up usurping his authority. For better or worse, CBM pulled off a coup by buying Amiga Inc. during that interregnum (and, in fairness, Tramiel's MO would likely not have suited the move), but when it came to the A1000, they didn't have a clue how to market the thing in its original form.

When Tom Rattigan joined as CEO, he oversaw the masterstroke of having the Amiga platform available as a home machine to succeed the C64 (the A500) and a more expandable business machine to take on the PC and compatibles (the A/B2000). This set the stage for the most successful period the platform had - and by way of thanks, Irv Gould fired him.

Medhi Ali came into the picture as a management consultant tasked with assessing CBM's business model and in him Gould found his perfect "yes man". Ali focused almost purely on the US market and came to the conclusion that because the Amiga platform had not been a sales success in the US, the platform should be discontinued at that point, and CBM should be reconfigured as a low-cost PC compatible outfit. As such, all work on the AAA chipset - which was well into development - was shut down by 1991.

Ali's incompetence was best illustrated by the fact that CBM's USP was having their own chip designers and fabrication plants, which Ali's analysis completely disregarded - and it quickly became apparent that there was no way CBM could compete with the likes of Dell, Packard Bell and Gateway in terms of volume in that market.

As such, development of the Amiga as a platform was belatedly resuscitated - but at a point where over a year of R&D effort was already lost. The AGA chipset was developed as a stopgap, and frankly, while the A1200 and A4000 were clearly a rushed and compromised effort, they were more capable than any product developed that quickly and with those limitations had any right to be.

I'm old enough to remember the time the AGA machines came out when I was in school, and I remember my ST-owning friends gloating about the Falcon 030 on paper vs. the A1200 (even though in reality the Falcon was crippled by its ST-derived architecture). A lot of my friends made the jump to PC compatibles around that time (which I couldn't afford).

So yes, the A1200 was arguably too little, too late... But given the circumstances of the time and the cost limitations, the thing was damn-near miraculous.

1. Amiga Ranger Chipset with VRAM was canceled in 1987. The original Los Gatos Amiga team was dismantled.

The remaining engineering and leadership team is unproven compared to the key original Los Gatos Amiga-led 3DO (with VRAM).

2. According to Dave Haynie, there was a "read my lip, no new chips" directive during the "32-bit" A3000 development.

A500 Rev 6A's 2 MB Chip RAM reserve capability is already baked in during 1989 i.e. PCB's 2 MB Chip RAM jumpers.

3. According to Lew Eggebrecht, AAA only has 1 year of serious development starting from 1989.

AAA reached the silicon stage with bugs before cancelation. AAA wouldn't solve 3D math problems.

AGA-based AA3000+ reached a bootable state in Feb 1991.

In 1991, Commodore UK advised Ali for the A300 to replace the C64.

Commodore Germany demanded a hard disk capable of A300. Commodore management mandated hard disk.

Inserted PCMCIA requirements since both IDE and PCMCIA are based on the PC's ISA bus.

Scope creep caused the A300 to evolve into A600. High-speed TTLs are used to bridge between Gayle PCMCIA Fast RAM and Agnus side Chip RAM.
For PCMCIA, additional TTLs are used for byte swap since the PC is a little-endian. The goal for a cheaper A500 to replace the C64C was nuked. The A600 cost more than A500.

In Q1 1992, A600 was released and canceled A500. A600 was a sales flop.

PCMCIA's "memory only" mode requirement caused a delay for A1200's Budgie (Buster/Ramsey/Bridgette integration). Buster/Ramsey/Bridgette integration is a cost-reduction measure.

A4000's Bridgette replaces the A3000's four TTLs bridging CPU bus and Agnus custom chip bus. This is a cost-reduction measure.

Without PCMCIA, A500 with AGA could have been released in late 1991 with the existing support chips i.e.

Fat Gary = Gayle in A1200.

Ramsey = Budgie. 32-bit memory controller for CPU's Chip RAM or Fast RAM.

Four TTLs bridge = Bridgette in A4000 or Budgie in A1200.

Buster is not needed due to missing PCMCIA's host adapter mode. Buster is needed for Zorro II-like functions.

CD32's Akiko integrates Budgie, Gayle two CIAs, and hardware C2P. This is a cost-reduction measure.

Bill Sydnes applied his "PCJr" mentality and removed $20 DSP3210.

[TuRRIcaNEd]

Originally Posted by hammer

Note why AMD and NVIDIA maintain gaming PCs and game consoles...

FWIW, I'm old enough to have built a Wintel machine around the OG NVidia Geforce256 back in 1999... Then as now, the concept of a graphical/media subsystem operating independently of the CPU is arguably the Amiga's greatest legacy.

Apple's 14 million Mac install base in March 1994 is mostly a business client base.

With all due respect, come off it... By 1998 Apple was on life support, propped up almost entirely by DTP/QuarkXpress. It was the advent of the iPod (and the iTunes platform) - not the Mac - that resurrected Apple in the early 2000s.

(Don't even get me started on how borked MacOS9 on the "fruity" iMacs turned out to be...)

Apropos of nothing, for a short while, the fastest Mac on the market was an Amiga 4000 with a 68060 accelerator running Shapeshifter.

The PC continued the early 1980 platform and evolved as a strength for protecting customers' existing software investments while moving forward. Commodore didn't continue the success it made with the C64 into the Amiga.

Both the A1000 and the A/B2000 were capable of running MS-DOS software via the "Sidecar" and "Bridgeboard" respectively. There was no point in retaining backward compatibility with the C64 because the C64 was never a business machine.

Jack Tramiel's Commodore didn't give a damn about the customer's existing software investments

Back in 1984, that didn't really matter. CP/M still ruled the roost at the time.

...and existing Commodore customers didn't give a damn about Commodore.

Here in the UK, I can attest that this wasn't the case.

For the US education market ... C64's "toy form" factor lost ground to the Apple II/IIe.

The C64 was never really intended for the educational market though - the geriatric BASIC that shipped with the machine saw to that.

[The A500 is] not the cheaper Atari ST.

Well no - for one thing it shipped with a fully-functional operating system featuring flawless pre-emptive multitasking. No other home machine in the world could compete in that sense.

...my selection for gaming PC over the Mac is due to the PC's superior games library.

Not because MacOS is and has always been an arse-backwards travesty of a GUI?

1. IBM lost control over the PC standard.

Indeed - can you imagine how different things might have been if IBM had won the court case against Compaq?

3. The Wintel PC clone platform survived.

Arguably as a result of corporate inertia and sheer dumb luck than competence. It's worth noting that the "PC97" standard which became a thing when I was compelled to bite the bullet and build a Wintel box for Uni owed more to the Amiga than the OG PC architecture-wise.

4. Intel, MS, and the "gang of nine" made sure IBM was pushed out of the PC standards governance.

Extra ironic given that the only reason IBM gave BillG the time of day was because his parents worked for the firm as product lawyers and the IBM bigwigs were convinced that the PC project would be a commercial failure.

5. IBM's second source X86 insurance AMD works as intended and killed Intel's Itanium IA-64 adventure.

Intel made a couple of major mis-steps in the late '90s. Itanium was one, the other was Pentium 4.

The difference with a cloneable platform standard.

And yet Apple tried that in the late '90s - it almost killed them off.

Sun's Solaris died with it.

For better or worse, probably a good thing. Linux very quickly turned out to handle the low-level stuff better.

[dreadnought]

A new multi-quote challenger appears...

...somebody asked why this thread has 200+ pages. Well...

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

CD32's FMV module has the following:

1. 24-bit DAC (STM's STV8438CV) for 16.7 million colors display.

2. MPEG-1 decoder (C-Cube CL450, 352 x 240 pixels @ 30hz, 352 x 288 pixels at 25 Hz, pixel interpolation and frame duplication to produce output formats of 704 x 240 pixels at 60 Hz or 704 x 288 pixels at 50 Hz ),

https://websrv.cecs.uci.edu/~papers/...LES/060803.PDF

CL450 has about 398K transistors with up to 40 MHz. CL450 includes a programmable on-chip "purpose-built" RISC processor with some assist hardware. In quantities of 100K or more per year, the price is less than $50 in 1992.

3. LSI l64111qc (Digital Audio Decoder, 16-bit DAC),

4. 512 KB local RAM, NEC 423260 DRAM 4Mbit (512 KB) with 80 ns.

5. Lattice ispLSI 1024-60LJ CPLD.

Commodore is willing to spend on this non-core business by following the failed CDI.

Commodore says NO for RISC co-processor @ 40 Mhz with Amiga's general purpose.

Commodore says NO for 512 KB Fast RAM with Amiga's general purpose.

Commodore says NO for 24-bit color 704 x 288p with Amiga's general purpose.

Commodore says NO for 16-bit stereo audio Amiga's with general purpose.

The argument against DSP3210 was implemented on CD32's costly FMV module with a very narrow functionality! The fuking double-speaking fools.

The Amiga has been sabotaged.

[TuRRIcaNEd]

Originally Posted by hammer

1. Amiga Ranger Chipset with VRAM was canceled in 1987. The original Los Gatos Amiga team was dismantled.

The remaining engineering and leadership team is unproven compared to the key original Los Gatos Amiga-led 3DO (with VRAM).

It seems that you consider the concept of VRAM as important in terms of then-future capability... May I ask why?

It's also worth pointing out that while members of the original Los Gatos team developed the 3DO, that platform ended up being financially non-viable due to the expense of producing the hardware.

2. According to Dave Haynie, there was a "read my lip, no new chips" directive during the "32-bit" A3000 development.

Which jibes with Ali's roadmap involving the "managed decline" of the platform, no?

3. According to Lew Eggebrecht, AAA only has 1 year of serious development starting from 1989.

Originally pencilled in for a 1991 release though, no?

AAA reached the silicon stage with bugs before cancelation. AAA wouldn't solve 3D math problems.

It didn't need to - in 1991 an equivalent of VGA Mode 13h (i.e. "chunky" mode) would have been enough.

In 1991, Commodore UK advised Ali for the A300 to replace the C64.

Because Nintendo and Sega had embarked on a major marketing push into Europe by 1990, just as they had done in the US and Canada from around 1986. A low-cost machine equivalent in capability to the existing A500 (which was around £200 more expensive than the consoles) made sense.

Commodore Germany demanded a hard disk capable of A300. Commodore management mandated hard disk.

Again - not entirely a bad idea. The expense of adding a hard disk to the A500 was a problem as PC compatibles started to become cheaper.

Inserted PCMCIA requirements since both IDE and PCMCIA are based on the PC's ISA bus.

The goal for a cheaper A500 to replace the C64C was nuked.

In fairness, by 1991 that notion was on a hiding to nothing anyway due to Nintendo and Sega's aggressive marketing and price-slashing.

In Q1 1992, A600 was released and canceled A500. A600 was a sales flop.

Agreed, but I'd argue it was already too late by then.

Buster/Ramsey/Bridgette integration is a cost-reduction measure.

A4000's Bridgette replaces the A3000's four TTLs bridging CPU bus and Agnus custom chip bus. This is a cost-reduction measure.

Well, yes... Being able to spec and fab their own custom chips was CBM's biggest commercial advantage.

Without PCMCIA, A500 with AGA could have been released in late 1991 with the existing support chips

Having PCMCIA made it much simpler for third-party firms to develop CD-ROM and SCSI interfaces, mind...

Bill Sydnes applied his "PCJr" mentality and removed $20 DSP3210.

Would it have helped? While the Falcon 030 had a DSP, it was crippled by being connected to a bus which couldn't make the most of it...

The Amiga has been sabotaged.

Yes, deliberately by Medhi Ali's roadmap as far as I can tell...

[TuRRIcaNEd]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

A new multi-quote challenger appears...

Oops, did I do wrong?

[hammer]

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

FWIW, I'm old enough to have built a Wintel machine around the OG NVidia Geforce256 back in 1999... Then as now, the concept of a graphical/media subsystem operating independently of the CPU is arguably the Amiga's greatest legacy.

NVidia was co-founded by key SUN GX and AMD microprocessor engineers (it's either AMD's 21K or 29K or X86).

From 1989, https://old.hotchips.org/wp-content/...S8/HC1.8.2.pdf
SUN GX series graphics workstation with CG6 architecture.

SUN's TEC features 3D transforms with 51 MFLOPS FP32.

For https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Priem (this person designed the IBM Professional Graphics Adapter and SUN GX graphics chip).
-------------
https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Pixar_Image_Computer
Pixar Image Computer (1988)

The Channel Processor (CHAP for short) is a four-way parallel (RGBA) image computer made up of four 16-bit AMD 21116 bit-slice processors (each running at 10 MHz) and four Logic Devices LMU17 16 x 16 hardware multipliers in an SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) architecture, which was ideal for imagery and video applications. It can execute instructions at 40 MIPS

Apple's Macintosh Display Card 8·24 GC for its Macintosh IIfx(1990), featuring AMD's 30 MHz Am29000 RISC processor, 64 KB static RAM cache, and 2 MB of VRAM. Am29000 accelerates Quickdraw for Macintosh IIfx. For Macintosh Quadra 840av and 660av, AT&T DSP3210 (RISC-DSP for 3D and multimedia) accelerates Quickdraw. The RISC threat is real.

For https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jensen_Huang

NVIDIA delivers workstation 3D graphics for the masses. NVIDIA's founders are from the SUN GX workstation and AMD microprocessors.

--------------------
I also assembled my Celeron 533A/440ZX/TNT2 Wintel PC.

I skipped "Geforce 256" for GeForce 2 MX along with Athlon Tbird 1.133 Ghz.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

With all due respect, come off it... By 1998 Apple was on life support, propped up almost entirely by DTP/QuarkXpress. It was the advent of the iPod (and the iTunes platform) - not the Mac - that resurrected Apple in the early 2000s.

My comments are for the A1200's context i.e. leadup to AGA and 1992 and 1994 date range.

During the late 1990s, X86 CPUs engaged in the Ghz race, and the PowerPC camp didn't keep up.

I'm aware of Apple's late 1998 difficulties.

For the 1994 context, Apple came out swinging with PowerPC and the floating point was strong. The RISC threat is real.

Intel released the Pentium Pro in 1995.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

(Don't even get me started on how borked MacOS9 on the "fruity" iMacs turned out to be...)

My university has a fleet of PowerMacs. This is for 1997 to 1999.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Apropos of nothing, for a short while, the fastest Mac on the market was an Amiga 4000 with a 68060 accelerator running Shapeshifter.

This issue is covered by https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=91337

For the Amiga, 68060 @ 50 Mhz and Shapeshifter was a 1995 experience.

Luckily for Apple, the A4000 install base was only a tiny thousands and Escom went bust in 1996.

CPU-extensive Mac applications have PowerPC natives e.g. Adobe Premiere 5.1.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Both the A1000 and the A/B2000 were capable of running MS-DOS software via the "Sidecar" and "Bridgeboard" respectively.

They weren't cost-effective and not enough to dislodge incumbents with existing PCs text-based Lotus 123 and Word Prefect.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

There was no point in retaining backward compatibility with the C64 because the C64 was never a business machine.

CBM's PET has had early success in the business markets.

Backward compatibility is important for PC gaming, hence BeOS X86 can jump the lake!

Windows 95 allows backward compatibility with DOS games.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Back in 1984, that didn't really matter.

Backward compatibility is important for PC gaming, hence BeOS X86 can jump the lake!

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

CP/M still ruled the roost at the time.

Nope,



Sales of microprocessor-based computers (in thousands of units) after the release of the IBM PC. Source: http://jeremyreimer.com/m-item.lsp?i=137

https://monegro.org/work/2018/2/20/i...-brief-history

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Here in the UK, I can attest that this wasn't the case.

A reminder of population size in 1984:
UK: 56.42 million (1984).

JP: 120.1 million (1984).
US: 235.8 million (1984).

C64's success level didn't continue for the Amiga or C128.

British Empire didn't exist in 1984.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

The C64 was never really intended for the educational market though - the geriatric BASIC that shipped with the machine saw to that.

For the larger US market, Commodore tried Educator 64.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Well no - for one thing it shipped with a fully-functional operating system featuring flawless pre-emptive multitasking. No other home machine in the world could compete in that sense.

A1000s' release has near zero business applications. Normies has day jobs.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Not because MacOS is and has always been an arse-backwards travesty of a GUI?

1985 Macintosh has business apps i.e. MS Excel, MS Word, Aldus PageMaker, and 'etc'. Mac's QuarkXPress in 1987.

Software sells the hardware.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Indeed - can you imagine how different things might have been if IBM had won the court case against Compaq?

Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Arguably as a result of corporate inertia and sheer dumb luck than competence. It's worth noting that the "PC97" standard which became a thing when I was compelled to bite the bullet and build a Wintel box for Uni owed more to the Amiga than the OG PC architecture-wise.

PC architecture allows for partitioned graphics adapters which allows rapid evolution.

IBM had a Professional Graphics Controller in 1984 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profes...ics_Controller

The Amiga didn't partition its graphics architecture.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Oops, did I do wrong?

Hah, no, not at all - to the contrary. We need fresh blood to keep this thread going

[hammer]

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

It seems that you consider the concept of VRAM as important in terms of then-future capability... May I ask why?

It's also worth pointing out that while members of the original Los Gatos team developed the 3DO, that platform ended up being financially non-viable due to the expense of producing the hardware.

3DO has 2 million sales which is greater than AGA's 600,000 estimates.

Gold Star(LG)'s 3DO is priced at $399.

[ Show youtube player ]
Tomb Raider on the 3DO

Again, software sells hardware.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Which jibes with Ali's roadmap involving the "managed decline" of the platform, no?

Looks like it.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Originally pencilled in for a 1991 release though, no?

According to Irving Gould's interview with AGA's release.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

It didn't need to - in 1991 an equivalent of VGA Mode 13h (i.e. "chunky" mode) would have been enough.

Lisa's 256 color resolution modes are entry SVGA. It's missing "chunky".

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Again - not entirely a bad idea. The expense of adding a hard disk to the A500 was a problem as PC compatibles started to become cheaper.

Nope, AdIDE was cheap enough for A500.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

In fairness, by 1991 that notion was on a hiding to nothing anyway due to Nintendo and Sega's aggressive marketing and price-slashing.

It's about delivering a certain gaming experience.

Gaming PC moved into 32-bit texture-mapped 3D gaming experience which is above SNES's strong 2D gaming experience.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Well, yes... Being able to spec and fab their own custom chips was CBM's biggest commercial advantage.

Nullified by fab contractors. STM's fabs were formally state-owned by Italy.


From https://medium.com/discourse/tsmc-th...an-be0774531bb

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Taiwanese government gave the semiconductor industry strategic priority for development.

Against a state power, CBM is at a disadvantage. Ask EPA.

Originally Posted by TuRRIcaNEd

Would it have helped? While the Falcon 030 had a DSP, it was crippled by being connected to a bus which couldn't make the most of it...

Falcon's DSP56K wasn't designed for 3D.

AT&T marketed DSP3210 as "3D and multimedia DSP".

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

A new multi-quote challenger appears...

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

& @Promilus: Amiga 1200 did not exist in a vacuum. So mentioning these things can make perfect sense (or at least it would if it was done in moderation).

It could have perfect sense if thread will be related to discussion about graphics cards, x86 CPU's and gaming on PC.

Explanation: If i use 8514 as example that even PC leading HW vendors realized necessity to deliver some HW acceleration graphic to customers - at some point even fast general CPU was not enough to fulfill customers expectations and per se Amiga was one of the first, widely available platforms where HW graphic acceleration was provided as default functionality - this was paradigm shift - PC was delayed approx decade to start offering this.And this was all about graphic HW acceleration - not which VGA card was fastest in Doom on x86 platform - hope it is clear now.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by hammer

The argument against DSP3210 was implemented on CD32's costly FMV module with a very narrow functionality! The fuking double-speaking fools.

you need multiple DSP's like AT&T DSP3210 to implement above functionality - probably at least 4 perhaps 8 and also develop set of software libraries to perform such functionality - using market proven solution was less risky especially under time pressure and in overall expected sales (low) figures for FMV. But i agree with you that not introducing DSP as part of standard configuration in Amiga was one of biggest mistakes - i bet that developers rather quickly adapt DSP.

Originally Posted by hammer

The Amiga has been sabotaged.

Multiple times...