Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

The problem started already earlier on. Tseng's ET4000 design had a very nice fast ISA bridge, but ISA was dying and replaced by Vesa-Local and PCI, and the Bus speed mattered less with more capable bus systems such as PCI. Tseng also missed to integrate the RAMDAC and the clock generator, which means that their design was not only more expensive (two additional chips needed), it was also limited in resolution as the VGA core of the Tseng has to fetch up to four times wider screens for true-color.

Its registers are 11 bit wide, allowing 2048 bytes(!) to be fetched by scanline. Divide by 3 to get the maximal width for 24-bit truecolor, and consider that you need thrice the pixel speed to get the same amount of pixels on the screen.

The ET6000 was already too late in the market to make a substantial difference - Tseng's competitors could deliver more, cheaper.

Cirrus died by missing the 3D market, but that's another chapter. Tseng was already brain-dead with the arrival of the ET4000.

Setting the timeline:

https://dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufac...tseng_labs.php
By 1991, according to IDC, Tseng Labs held a 25% market share in the total VGA market.

Tseng had a significant VGA market share in 1991.

VLB SVGA is a concern during 486's rise.

From https://www.intel.fr/content/dam/doc...ual-report.pdf
Intel reported the following
1. In 1994's fourth quarter, Pentium unit sales accounted for 23 percent of Intel's desktop processor volume.
2. Millions of Pentiums were shipped.
3. During Q4 1993 and 1994, a typical PC purchase was a computer featuring the Intel 486 chip.
4. Net 1994 revenue reached $11.5 billion.
5. Net 1993 revenue reached $8.7 billion.
6. Growing demand and production for Intel 486 resulted in a sharp decline in sales for Intel 386 from 1992 to 1993.
7. Sales of the Intel 486 family comprised the majority of Intel's revenue during 1992, 1993, and 1994.
8. Intel reached its 6 to 7 million Pentiums shipped goal during 1994. This is only 23 percent unit volume.

The 1992 year was the start of 486's dominating Intel's revenues. AMD was aggressive in the 386DX market.

S3 Trio 64 was released in 1995.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal.../1024/1488924/
Tseng's W32 supply issue, promises were made and they were sued by shareholders.

On May 19, 1993, representatives from IBM informed Gibbons that IBM was experiencing problems in their manufacturing facilities which would require a reduction in its need for the W32 until IBM's problems were resolved.
...
2. March 9, 1993 Reuters Report

Defendant Gibbons was interviewed by Reuters news service on March 9, 1993 and was quoted as saying the he expected TLI to ship 1.2 to 1.7 million W32 units in the second quarter of 1993. As it turned out, Defendants ended up shipping approximately 844,056 W32 units in the second quarter.[11] Plaintiffs contend that even if TLI's best internal estimates for the second quarter were realized, the range given by Gibbons was unattainable. Defendants respond that the Reuters report was not an accurate reflection of the interview that took place. Specifically, Gibbons maintains that he told *1030 the reporter that he expected that "demand" for the W32 would be between 1.2 to 1.7 million units. Nevertheless, Defendants argue that even if Gibbons made the statement attributed to him, he had a reasonable basis for doing so.

...
b. Defendants' Supply of W32 Units
As of March 9, 1993, TLI had ordered approximately 1.2 million W32s from Toshiba for delivery in the second quarter of 1993. (Ex. 24 of Defs.' Mem.). TLI also ordered an additional 325,000 units for delivery during the second quarter of 1993 for a total of 1,525,000 units. Plaintiffs cite a letter dated February 1, 1993 from Toshiba proposing a support plan by which Toshiba would provide capacity for up to 1.45 million chips in the second quarter and argue that this amount is "far less than the 1.7 million units of the upper end of Gibbons' projections." See Pls.' Mem. at 52, n. 40. Defendants correctly point out that the 1.45 million figure is also far above the lower end of Gibbons' range. Defendant Gibbons does not dispute that at the time he was interviewed by the Reuter's reporter on March 9, 1993, he did not expect Toshiba to be able to supply TLI in the upper end of the range. However, Reuters printed a range and the undisputed facts show that Toshiba had the capacity to supply TLI with enough W32s to be well within such a range.

...

Judgment is entered in favor of Defendants and against Plaintiffs.

W32 has production problems with IBM and Toshiba covered W32's production shortfalls.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal.../1024/1488924/

Tseng's W32 production rate via contract fabrication far exceeds Commodore's Amiga AGA production rate.

IBM... LOL...

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by hammer

Setting the timeline:https://dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufac...tseng_labs.phpBy 1991, according to IDC, Tseng Labs held a 25% market share in the total VGA market. Tseng had a significant VGA market share in 1991.

...and yet, they were doomed. Why? Lack of innovation. They did not realize that their unique point of selling (high-speed ISA bridge) became obsolete, and they forgot to innovate by integrating RAMDAC and clock generator, (or even beyond) integrate 3D.

See a pattern here?

Originally Posted by hammer

S3 Trio 64 was released in 1995.

And the ET6000 one year later. Too late.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

...and yet, they were doomed. Why? Lack of innovation. They did not realize that their unique point of selling (high-speed ISA bridge) became obsolete, and they forgot to innovate by integrating RAMDAC and clock generator, (or even beyond) integrate 3D.

ATI Mach32 1992 example. https://vgamuseum.info/media/k2/item...252d7ea_XL.jpg
Still split.

ATI Mach64 CX 1994 example
https://vgamuseum.info/index.php/com...-ati-mach64-cx
Still split.

ATI Mach64 GX 1994 example
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_Ma...e:Mach64gx.jpg
Still split.

ATI WinCharger (Mach64) 1995 example.
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/wincharger.c3168
Combined DAC.


Tseng Labs ET6000 (128-bit 2D card) was released in 1996.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tseng_...ile:ET6000.JPG
Combined DAC.

Meanwhile, ATI Rage 3D (Mach64 with 3D) was released in April 1996. RAGE II was released in Sep 1996.

NVIDIA Riva 128 (128-bit) was released in Jan 1997. https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/riva-128.c1306

ATI RAGE III (64-bit) was released in Mar 1997.

ATI Rage 128 (128-bit) was released in Aug 1998. https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-spec...28-vr-agp.c879

3DFX's Voodoo Rush in 1997. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3dfx#/...VoodooRush.jpg Integration issues with 3DFX.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by hammer

ATI Mach32 1992 example. https://vgamuseum.info/media/k2/item...252d7ea_XL.jpgStill split.ATI Mach64 CX 1994 examplehttps://vgamuseum.info/index.php/com...-ati-mach64-cxStill split.

Released 1994:

"Mach64 CT/264CT - Cost-reduced Mach64 with integrated RAMDAC and clock chip (up to 2 MiB DRAM)

[TEG]

Originally Posted by hammer

"Zero-sum" matching wouldn't displace the incumbent.

The C64 was vastly cheaper than a PC clone in 1982 !



From the bot, 1982 C64 was 595$ and 1541 floppies drive was 400$, green screen something like 400$ too.

595+400x2+400 = 1,795$ !

You add the cost of the better case, the new motherboard, you can sell it for 1,999$ and seriously made buyers think of it. It was not "Zero-sum".

[TEG]

Originally Posted by hammer

"Zero-sum" matching wouldn't displace the incumbent.

https://archive.computerhistory.org/...-05-01-acc.pdfPage 119 of 981For 199268000-12 = $5.568EC020-16 PQFP = $16.06, 68EC020-25 PQFP = $19.99,68EC030-25 PQFP = $35.9468030-25 CQFP = $108.7568040-25 = $418.5268EC040-25 = $112.50---CompetitionAM386-40 = $102.50386DX-25 PQFP = $103.00486SX-20 PQFP = $157.75486DX-33 = $376.75486DX2-50 = $502.75Motorola's "zero-sum" price match 68030-25 against Intel's 386DX-25, meanwhile AMD breaks the status quo with Am386-40.

Refer to C128's "zero sum" high-resolution text mode for business.

Microsoft and Apple breaks the status quo with MS Excel and MS Word for Mac and Windows 2.x products against incumbents like high-resolution text-based Lotus 123, Word Star, and Word Perfect. Amiga's Word Perfect 4.x and 5.x ports are from the MS-DOS text version, hence they wouldn't displace the incumbent.

The C128 was 1985, way too late. In 1982 or early 1983 it would not have been the same if a 80 columns graphical card would have been available for a C64 desktop.

But J. Tramiel was obsessed to fight in the low range and dispersed the R&D efforts with the Plus/4, Commodore 16 (1984) and TED chip.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Released 1994:

"Mach64 CT/264CT - Cost-reduced Mach64 with integrated RAMDAC and clock chip (up to 2 MiB DRAM)

This Mach64 CX has an external AT&T DAC. From https://vgamuseum.info/index.php/com...-ati-mach64-cx

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Released 1994:

"Mach64 CT/264CT - Cost-reduced Mach64 with integrated RAMDAC and clock chip (up to 2 MiB DRAM)

S3's one large main SVGA chip integration.

Your cited ATI Mach64 CT/264CT's integration is inferior.

I purchased a no-name OEM S3 Trio 64UV PCI in 1996 for "bang per buck" reasons and it's many times cheaper than Phase 5's CyberGraphics 64 (S3 Trio 64U) upgrade for my A3000.


This is my no-name OEM S3 Trio 64UV+ PCI. 3DFX Voodoo 1 fits this use case i.e. attaching 3D with existing strong 2D card.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by TEG

The C64 was vastly cheaper than a PC clone in 1982 !



From the bot, 1982 C64 was 595$ and 1541 floppies drive was 400$, green screen something like 400$ too.

595+400x2+400 = 1,795$ !

You add the cost of the better case, the new motherboard, you can sell it for 1,999$ and seriously made buyers think of it. It was not "Zero-sum".

1. For the US education markets, Commodore's Educator 64 targets Apple II.

2. The original IBM PC's MDA has 720 × 350p high resolution text mode. With IBM PC's MDA, text-based Lotus 123, Word Star and Word Perfect have an entrenched position in the business microcomputer market.

Since Lotus 123 exploited PC's MDA and higher memory storage, Lotus 123 displaced text-based VisiCalc.

C64 doesn't address this issue and the status quo breaker needs to do better e.g. GUI WIMP based MS Excel and MS Word for Macintosh and Windows 2.x. Microsoft's early GUI MS Excel and MS Word breaks text-based Lotus 123 and Word Perfect entrenched position.


From https://www.pagetable.com/?p=547
C64's sales pattern


NES's nation-wide release for the American market was in 1986.

VGA and Amiga was released in 1987.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

It is an issue in the A1200, but only because the method of resetting the port is different from the A600 (and undocumented). The root problem is that because PC cards are usually designed for PCs they may not reset properly on power up and/or take too long to initialize. AA Gayle has a PCMCIA reset output, but it doesn't work on the A1200 because the OS doesn't know how to do it. That's where the program CardReset comes in.

A1200 should reset the PCMCIA card while in host mode (e.g. 64KB IO address window). Don't reset the PCMCIA card while in "memory only" mode.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

I believe I responded to that already, but: No, that's not true. It was designed *not* to issue a card reset when booting because that could hang your system if any operating system component was sitting in the RAM on the card. Of, course, by today's standards, using a PCMCIA card to expand the memory of your machine sounds silly, but back then, it was considered an option.

https://lyonsden.net/a1200-pcmcia-re...-hardware-fix/

The A1200 PCMCIA reset bug is an annoying glitch in the implementation of the card slot on the A1200 that was never fixed by Commodore. In a nutshell the Amiga 1200’s Gayle chip fails to reset PCMCIA cards during system resets such as when you press ‘CTRL A A’. Whether this is an issue for the user largely depends on the card being used but my network card is definitely one of those that is affected by the bug. Without either a software or hardware fix it requires a full power cycle to restore card functionality every time the bug manifests.

I’ve written about this issue before where I described fixing it using two command line programs called CardPatch & CardReset on Aminet. That software solution served me pretty well up until recently when I ran into the issue again after doing a clean AmigaOS3.2 install. After scratching my head wondering why Roadshow wasn’t working I decided it was time for a permanent hardware fix so that I would never encounter the issue again.
....

If everything has gone to plan the Amiga will boot up normally with no visible signs that anything has changed… except that PCMCIA cards will just work as intended now. No more unresponsive network cards after a reset from now on then!

I’ve had the device fitted for a week now and experienced no issues with my cards since. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

I also have this hardware AA-Gayle reset fix for my A1200.

A1200 should reset the PCMCIA card while in host mode (e.g. 64KB IO address window). Don't reset the PCMCIA card while in "memory only" mode.

Alternatively, Commodore should put a jumper that allows two behavior modes.

16-bit memory for A1200's 68EC020-14 is not a good configuration when chasing after 386DX-16 with 32-bit system RAM.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

1. For the US education markets, Commodore's Educator 64 targets Apple II.

In 1983. Far too late to compete against the Apple II, which was released in 1977 (6 years earlier). With the Apple II so entrenched, one has to wonder - what was Jack thinking?

If it had a color monitor to take full advantage of the C64 it might have been more attractive. Even better would be educational software for it that kids could use on the family C64 at home. But turning the C64 into an Apple II lookalike was not a smart idea.

2. The original IBM PC's MDA has 720 × 350p high resolution text mode.

Have you actually used an original IBM PC with MDA? It sucks. If it had been introduced by anyone other than IBM nobody would have wanted it.

With IBM PC's MDA, text-based Lotus 123, Word Star and Word Perfect have an entrenched position in the business microcomputer market.

C64 doesn't address this issue

Everything PC was entrenched because nobody got fired for buying IBM.

However there was still a market for a lower cost computer that could run business applications. By 1983 the C64 could leverage its position as the most popular home / hobbyist computer with 2 million users to provide them with home office / small business functionality too - remembering that at this time computers were a novelty in the small business world and few could justify the expense of an IBM PC.

and the status quo breaker needs to do better e.g. GUI WIMP based MS Excel and MS Word for Macintosh and Windows 2.x.

Windows 2.0 came out in 1988 and was not widely used. The Mac also only had a very small part of the business market. Text mode was far more efficient both for the computer and the user. A WIMP GUI was useful for writing fancy letters or generating flashy reports, but most business users weren't doing that stuff in the 80's.

Microsoft's early GUI MS Excel and MS Word breaks text-based Lotus 123 and Word Perfect entrenched position.

In 1993 Word Perfect had 60% of the word processing software market. Lotus 123 also did very well in the marketplace until 1989 with Release 3.0, which was the first version to require a 286.

Interestingly both programs were originally written in x86 asm, and their declines coincided with moving from asm to C. Perhaps users valued efficiency more than new features and fancy GUIs?

NES's nation-wide release for the American market was in 1986.

The NES sucked. Imagine trying to do your accounts on that!

VGA and Amiga was released in 1987.

Er...

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by hammer

https://lyonsden.net/a1200-pcmcia-re...-hardware-fix/

What does the opinon of a hardware hacker has to imply? That the person making such statements did not understand the full picture? To be honest, I didn't understand this either and made some bad decisions concerning the A1200 PCMCIA in Os 3.1.4, but such problems happen if certain designs are not communicated clearly.

Originally Posted by hammer

16-bit memory for A1200's 68EC020-14 is not a good configuration when chasing after 386DX-16 with 32-bit system RAM.

It is not, but it is not the only bad decision CBM made. CBM wanted to save some bucks by going for a cheaper EC CPU, and therefore also had to place the PCMCIA-Configuration space in 24bit memory, which causes also a lot of distractions. These are a couple of quite foul compromizes they made causing quite some headache.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

16-bit memory for A1200's 68EC020-14 is not a good configuration when chasing after 386DX-16 with 32-bit system RAM.

I don't think many people had a 386DX-16 in 1992.

AMD 386DX-40 was a popular 'mid-range' system at that time - for many times the price of an A1200. Totally different market both for that reason and because you didn't buy an Amiga when you wanted IBM compatibility!

If the A1200 was 'chasing after' anything in the PC world it would be a 386SX-16, which was a popular 'entry level' PC at the time. And guess what? They were roughly equivalent in compute power. The A1200's CPU was a bit slower but the AGA chipset more than made up for it in 2D games and graphics. Both sucked at 3D. Doom gets a miserable 3.4 fps on a 25 MHz 386SX. An A1200 with 32 bit FastRAM gets 3.6 fps, making it ~1.6 times faster than a 16 MHz 386SX.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

CBM wanted to save some bucks by going for a cheaper EC CPU, and therefore also had to place the PCMCIA-Configuration space in 24bit memory, which causes also a lot of distractions. These are a couple of quite foul compromizes they made causing quite some headache.

The only compromise I can think of is being in Zorro-II memory space, limiting FastRAM to 4MB when PCMCIA memory is active. This may seem like a waste, but we should remember a few things:-

1. In 1992 4 MB was a lot of FastRAM. The A590 maxed out at 2 MB, and the A4000 only came with 4 MB. 386-SX PCs (the A1200's competition in PC land) came with 1 MB or 2 MB total, and 486's typically came with 4 MB. Until Windows 95 came out 8 MB was generally considered extravagant.

2. The A1200 was based on the A600 (it was originally called the 'AA600') and so inherited the A600's PCMCIA memory map for compatibility. On the A600 it wasn't a problem because nothing else could use that space.

3. 'Power' users would get an accelerator card with full 32-it CPU and local RAM at a higher address, so it wasn't a problem for them either.

4. The A1200 was a low-end machine, and getting the price down was critical to its success. A full 32-bit 68020 would cost significantly more (not just the CPU itself but also the PCB etc.). It would suit a mid-range model better, and then you might as well put an 030 in it.

It was only a problem for cheapskates who wanted the maximum possible amount of trapdoor RAM and a PCMCIA card in memory mode...

...and Amiga fans of course, who are always looking for something to complain about.

[TuRRIcaNEd]

Originally Posted by hammer

Quadra 660AV's cost is $2299 which includes the following items
...
Quadra 605 cost is $979 which includes the following items

vs

Amiga 4000/040 @ 25Mhz for $2299.

You're being disingenuous. Apple's Quadra (or Centris - as it was called in the UK*) range was the base model of the Macintosh range (crucially, it only had a single expansion slot) - strictly speaking, it ought to be compared to the A1200 as opposed to the A4000/040, which was very much the flagship of the Amiga range at the time.

And yes, the OG Quadras used 68EC040s, however the caveat there is that the Macintosh platform had no hardware acceleration out-of-the-box - *everything* had to be implemented in software.

* - I remember this specifically because my then-girlfriend's stepfather had an 060-based Centris circa 1998... When he retired the machine I was all set to ask him if I could take it away rather than simply having him throw it out in the hope I could snaffle the 060 to use in my A1200... Alas, we split up before that could happen...

Apple's customer base spent 1.2 million PowerMacs in 1 year i.e. 1994.

Again, as far as I can tell, inaccurate. According to this link :
http://kpolsson.com/apple/appl1994.htm
Apple announced shipping "the one millionth Power Macintosh computer or upgrade" on the 19th of January 1995. That "upgrade" caveat is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting.

Furthermore, this article :
https://www.tampabay.com/archive/199...wer-mac-sales/
explicitly states that Apple reported shipping 145,000 new PowerMac machines by April 1994 - with Apple refusing to report current sales figures when the article was published in June 1994.

I replaced my Y2001 Athlon 1.1 Ghz TBird+MSI K7T133A Turbo-R (VIA KT133A) with Y2002 Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67 Ghz) Palomino + ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (nForce2 with IEEE-1394 FireWire).

Yup, but we're talking 2000/2001 here - the Amiga platform had been dead as a doornail for about 4 years at that point.

Rumors.

Yup, there were a lot of those between 1992 and 1994.

In September 1990, Microsoft broke with I.B.M. over the role of Microsoft's increasingly popular Windows 3.0.

Yes. IBM effectively bet their share of the x86 PC market on OS/2. It didn't work out well for them.

The AIM alliance, also known as the PowerPC alliance, was formed on October 2, 1991, between Apple, IBM, and Motorola.

Yes, but ultimately the platform was unable to compete with the commodity x86 compatible market in terms of performance, and for several years Apple rather embarrassed themselves trying to pretend otherwise.

Pentium Pro has a compromised 16-bit performance. Pentium II fixed this issue.

But affordable PIIs didn't really arrive until around 1998.

That's false in the 1994 and 1995 time periods. Hint: SpecFP92.

Are we talking about the synthetic benchmarks Apple used to try to pretend that PowerMacs were outperforming Wintel machines? Again, I was there - and as I understood things at the time, while what the PPCs were doing was very elegant and clever, all the x86 compatible CPUs simply made up for it in terms of raw computing horsepower.

My 1996 selection is based on games, hence the gaming PC (Pentium 150) is selected.

It was already way too late by 1996 - as I'm sure you'd agree.

1. Wintel has a superior distribution model i.e. there are multiple vendors for PC clones.

IBM fought that tooth-and-nail, and eventually failed, with MS being the biggest winner in that regard.

2. Windows 2.x 286/386 with Mac ports of Excel (1988) and Word 2.0 (1989) has dislodged text-based Lotus 123 and Word Prefect.

While Excel was originally developed for the Mac, it's worth bearing in mind that MS's business model in the '80s and '90s was "Embrace and Extend". The fact of the matter is that the Mac platform never had a prayer of supplanting the PC compatible in the business market, but in 1985 MS's attempt at a GUI was in its infancy. Reading between the lines it's reasonable to conclude that MS used the Mac platform as a loss leader while they navigated the legal hurdles which restricted Windows 1.0.

I'm somewhat ancient by modern standards, and I clearly remember the "state of the art" on the DOS/Windows platform circa 1991 - at that point WordPerfect still technically ruled the roost, and it wasn't until the advent of Windows 3.1 and Word 6.0 that what eventually became MS Office started to achieve dominance.

According to Dataquest November 1989, VGA crossed more than 50 percent market share in 1989 i.e. 56%.

Yes - in the business market sector. Still prohibitively expensive for the home market until the Far Eastern vendors started shipping competitive hardware at significantly lower cost.

Apple had 1.2 million PowerMac unit sales in 1994.

Masculine bovine faeces. (See above)

The Macintosh 512K was released in September 1984 replacing Macintosh 128K (released January 1984).

Still lacking in expandability - the Macintosh was originally intended to be Apple's entry level GUI model with Lisa being the flagship. Jobs apparently had to be dragged kicking and screaming into endorsing the Macintosh as the sole platform.

...Apple's 1.2 million unit sales in a single year?

As mentioned above, that figure needs to be taken with a metaphorical shovelful of salt.

Fact: the Amiga didn't deliver video NLE to the masses.

Nor did the Mac. Your point?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

[IMG]This is my no-name OEM S3 Trio 64UV+ PCI. 3DFX Voodoo 1 fits this use case i.e. attaching 3D with existing strong 2D card.

I remember doing that. It sucked. Then the Voodoo card died. A few years later the VGA card died too. Then the next one did.

These days I don't bother with graphics cards, I just use the video built into the motherboard chipset. It's slower, but plenty fast enough for my needs - just like the A1200!

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The only compromise I can think of is being in Zorro-II memory space, limiting FastRAM to 4MB when PCMCIA memory is active.

Where else can you put it? Z-II area is the only continuous region offering a 4MB window for it. Thus, that was pretty much the only option given the restriction of a 24bit address space.

[TuRRIcaNEd]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Everything PC was entrenched because nobody got fired for buying IBM.

Thank you.
Ultimately it was the inertia from that "acquired wisdom" that set things on the path we stand on today.

Once IBM were legally barred from preventing competitors building and selling compatible machines it was effectively only a matter of time, because once the fundamental hardware design becomes a commodity, there's nothing stopping a whole host of firms working to drive the cost of components down.

The 1985 Amiga's USP was a chipset and OS which was designed to work around the CPU and RAM limitations of the time - the platform's performance belied how modest the raw horsepower actually was. Unfortunately CBM rested on their laurels, and what once put the platform five years ahead of the competition ended up holding it back once Moore's Law kicked in and RAM prices came down.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by hammer

Your cited ATI Mach64 CT/264CT's integration is inferior. I purchased a no-name OEM S3 Trio 64UV PCI in 1996 for "bang per buck" reasons and it's many times cheaper than Phase 5's CyberGraphics 64 (S3 Trio 64U) upgrade for my A3000.

Yes, of course it is cheaper. That's the whole point why S3 survived (at least longer). P5 had to develop a Zorro to ISA or Zorro to PCI bridge for their cards, and that of course costed more. With a market as small as the Amiga, you pay of course premium. But their Trio64 based design was superior to the Tseng-based Merlin, for example. At least it worked. (-;