13 June 2024, 09:23 | #5081 | |||
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Today I watched a new YouTube video by Zeusdaz of the motorcycle game Prime Mover, released in 1993. I started viewing it before reading the description and was trying to decide if it was OCS or AGA. With that smooth animation and all those colors it must be running on an at least an A1200, right? Wrong. Stock 1MB A500! [ Show youtube player ] We didn't need a 50MHz 030 with FPU and 4MB RAM and 120 MB hard drive to play awesome games like this (or AGA games which promised to be even better). All we needed was a stock A1200 at £369 including VAT. Quote:
In that same advert we also see the Amstrad Mega Plus 486DLC-33 (386DX with 1k cache and 486 instructions), here priced at £899 + VAT = £1056.83 with 4MB RAM and a 130MB hard drive. However according to Wikipedia this machine was never actually released. On page 40 of that magazine we see another advert with prices including VAT. The Commodore DT486SX-25 with 4MB RAM and 80 MB hard drive is priced at £980 (incl. VAT). Of course it didn't come with a sound card and speakers, so add another £100 or so if you want any more than a few weak chirps from the tiny onboard sounder. AFAIK it had an onboard Western Digital WD90C30 ISA VGA chip - not exactly ET4000AX level performance. Last edited by Bruce Abbott; 13 June 2024 at 09:44. |
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13 June 2024, 13:42 | #5082 |
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From https://websrv.cecs.uci.edu/~papers/...LES/060803.PDF
CD32's FMV module's $50 C-Cube CL450 SoC includes a licensed MIPS-X RISC CPU with 40 Mhz clock speed . You're looking at 40 million instructions per second (MIPS) RISC-based CPU i.e. it's like parts of PS1's CPU or Rendition Verite v1000's MIPS-like RISC CPU. The PS1 can be characterized as "half-software" because the geometry transforms are done through a CPU-like coprocessor, then sent to a mostly 2D GPU capable of filling in the gaps with affine transformations. Last edited by hammer; 13 June 2024 at 15:25. |
13 June 2024, 14:12 | #5083 | ||||
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Page 4 of 132 A1200 Dynamite Pack's 349 UKP made no mention of VAT inclusive. Look in the mirror. Irrelevant. Quote:
[ Show youtube player ] Amiga OCS's Super Hang on (Europe) in 1988. It was a good port for its time. [ Show youtube player ] SNES Street Racer with Mode 7. [ Show youtube player ] "32-bit" 3DO's Crash and Burn released in 1993. [ Show youtube player ] "32-bit" gaming PC's IndyCar Racing released in 1993. [ Show youtube player ] Amiga AGA's VirtualGP released in 1999. This game needs a fast "32-bit" 68030 CPU in the 40 to 50 Mhz range! The result is similar to "32-bit" gaming PC's IndyCar Racing. There's no change in AGA display capability, A1200/CD32 needs higher math power. [ Show youtube player ] Amiga AGA's Flyin High with 68040 class CPU. There's no change in AGA display capability, A1200/CD32 needs higher math power. For 1993-1994 Amigas, Amitech/Commodore Canada's A2200 config2 clone (68030 @40 Mhz) and A4000/040 (68040 @ 25 Mhz) can run VirtualGP. Quote:
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https://segaretro.org/Mega_PC "at the time of release the machine was unsuccessful due to its high retail price" Amstrad 'Mega PC' includes extra items: 1. A higher-cost multisync VGA monitor with 15 kHz and 31 kHz video input capability. This is similar to the Commodore 1942 monitor. Typical lower-cost VGA monitor clones will not display a 15 kHz video source. 2. Actual Sega Mega Drive hardware. 3. Amstrad Mega PC Control Pad. 4. Yamaha FM sound chip is shared between Mega Drive and PC's AdLib. 5. Amstrad 'Mega PC' has a custom PC motherboard. https://segaretro.org/Teradrive Sega Teradrive has IBM's PS/2 Model 30 286 (IBM DOS J4.0/V) base and Mega Drive. The Teradrive was developed jointly by Sega and IBM Japan. Sega attempted to enter the PC business via partnerships. This is like an A2000 with a full PC bridgeboard card in reverse. Last edited by hammer; 13 June 2024 at 15:20. |
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13 June 2024, 14:33 | #5084 | |
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Sure I could have bought a SNES for cheap but I couldn't code on that. Or hook up my old printer and do some document work. You get the idea. And all for £300. Why would I be disapopointed with that? |
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13 June 2024, 14:50 | #5085 |
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All I can say is, if you bought an A1200 and it was a disappointment, you didn't do your due diligence. It's not as if the specification was a secret.
I loved mine so much I bought another two over the years. |
13 June 2024, 15:02 | #5086 | |
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13 June 2024, 15:10 | #5087 | |
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AGA is fine, it just needs low cost higher math power (object manipulator). |
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14 June 2024, 08:36 | #5088 | |||||
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From Brian Bagnall's book Commodore The Final Years:- Quote:
However... Quote:
So in what way might Eggebrecht have 'crafted the A1200 better' if he was brought in earlier? Quote:
But... Quote:
What the market really needed was a successor to the A500 with the AA chipset and a 68EC020 at a price similar to the A500. This is effectively what we got with the A1200, which was the realization of the AA500 that Porter and Rubin originally planned to have ready by mid 1992. Lew Eggebrecht clearly favored producing a low-end Amiga with AA, but he didn't actually do much to achieve it. Instead he opened the door for a wide range of models to be produced - which Commodore didn't have the resources to realize. Commodore's aspirations crashed into the reality of its weak financial state, with the unfortunate result that development of AA Amigas was delayed while management figured out what they could afford to produce. So the A500 was replaced with the ECS A500 Plus 'as planned', and the 'lower-end' (but not) ECS A600 was produced soon after, when the A1200 should have filled both roles. If anything, Lew Eggebrecht did more to cause that debacle than prevent it. In the end though, the A1200 came out only a few months after it was originally planned to, and with more stuff in it. Considering how Commodore almost never managed to release a model on time anyway (a problem many companies have), the A1200 wasn't far off the mark. (BTW just so you know, I had to type those quotes from Brian Bagnall's book out by hand, and I am not a fast typist. This post took over 2 hours to create!) |
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14 June 2024, 08:55 | #5089 | |
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IMO the practice of showing retail prices without VAT/GST was borderline fraud. In that advert I clipped the price from for example, the inclusion of the actual price only in fine print in a magazine catering to consumers would not be acceptable today. |
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14 June 2024, 14:59 | #5090 | ||||||||
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2. The PC's partitioned graphics architecture allowed the PC platform to evolve. This factor benefits the customer. 3. IBM's imposed second source insurance (e.g. AMD) allowed X86 to continue against Intel's IA-64. Second-source insurance works as intended and reduces platform-ending risk. This factor benefits the customer. 4. There are good ideas from IBM PGC i.e. 256 colors 640x480p use case and VGA-like monitor. The development for IBM PGC is helpful for its designer to gain experience and continue SUN GX R&D and ultimately, co-founded NVIDIA. With minor tweaks, a PGC monitor can used as a VGA monitor. VGA monitor standard was cloned. 256 colors use case was resued for 1986 MCGA, 1987 VGA, and 8514. IBM has a solid 256-color use case. IBM PGC has a 4096 color palette like NEC's ?PD7220 for PC-98 (1982). The Amiga's 4096 color palette wasn't original. Jay Miner has a "workstation graphics for the masses" approach. 5. IBM EGA tried hardware C2P experience led to VGA's chunky pixels. VGA standard was cloned. Quote:
A3000's four TTL bridge chips were integrated into Bridgette and Budgie. Gary evolved into Gayle, AA Gayle, and Akiko (which includes Budgie). Gary evolved into Fat Gary. Quote:
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AA Lisa's double pumps (64-bit memory access on the 32-bit bus) 3.5 Mhz which is 140 ns read/write cycle and about 7 Mhz effective. With 4X bandwidth for Lisa, double scan resolution modes like 640x400p/640x512p 256 colors are similar to entry-level SVGA's 640x480p 256 colors. AA Alice is for backward compatibility with DSP3210 as a new object manipulator. The 32-bit memory controller is Ramsey and it was subsumed into Budgie. 68020/68EC020, 68030/68EC030, and DSP3210 have hardware barrel shifters. CPUFastBilt can exceed Alice's legacy Blitter (3.5 Mhz 16-bit, 7MB/s, roughly equivalent to 7 MIPS 8bit or 3.5 MIPS 16bit or 1.75 MIPS 32bit). Stock A1200's 68EC020 has 1.35 MIPS. Bilt workload, stock A1200's gimped 68EC020 is 47% of Alice Blitter. https://techmonitor.ai/technology/mo...eap_68000_line Date: April 24, 1991 Motorola releases 68EC020-16 for $15 and 68EC020-25 for $19 for lots of 10,000. Samples in April 1991 and volumes in the next quarter i.e. June-Aug 1991. AA500 with 68EC020-16, AGA, Ramsey, Fat Gary (8 address lines wouldn't be used), 4 TTLs bridge (combined as Bridgette) chips could be configured quickly. Not factoring the Amiga, no other post-16 bit games bias platforms will be depending on Motorola's 68K math power e.g. Sega rejected 68030 and selected SuperH2, 3DO selected ARM60, Sony selected MIPS and Nintendo selected MIPS. For CD32's FMV module, Commodore selected CL450's MIPS-X CPU in a limited use case. Quote:
VideoToaster has 24-bit graphics and it wasn't general purpose for the Amiga. Due to the PC's partitioned graphics architecture, VGA's 256 colors become the baseline standard. PC VGA clones acted like Commodore's cost reduction team for IBM. IBM was fabricating ET4000 chips. Quote:
A Buster-like function needs to be included due to PCMCIA (via Gayle) and needs byte-swap. This leads to Budgie and AA Gayle results. Quote:
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1. Lew Eggebrecht wasn't in the hot seat. Bill Sydnes has the hot seat. Who demanded for IDE? Hint: Commodore Germany. 2. You're forgetting that the year 1992 was a large financial blow due to double debacles from A600's release and A500 cancellation. This is Bill Sydnes factor! 3. Fact: Bill Sydnes is the person who was fired by Ali, NOT Lew Eggebrecht. 4. AA3000+ and A1000+ AA projects were frozen for "more than 6 months" to focus on the ECS adventures i.e. A1000Jr and A300(A600). This is the Bill Sydnes factor! AA3000+ revision 1 reached surface-mounted chip design before being frozen. "A1000Jr" refers to Bill Sydnes. "More than 6 months" wasn't used to complete AA machines. AA3000+ is the prototype AA. "A1000Jr" did NOT include Gayle or AA-Gayle and Budgie since they were NOT completed in 1991. AA-Gayle is dependent on A300's Gayle R&D. Last edited by hammer; 14 June 2024 at 17:59. |
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18 June 2024, 04:59 | #5091 | |
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For gamers, you're selling "dreams". Commodore's Amiga platform either delivers the "full 32-bit, texture mapped 3D" gaming experience or competes against low-cost SNES's strong 2D. Commodore's bad actions caused the Amiga to be pushed out of the gaming market and the Amiga didn't have Apple's business (non-gaming) customer size to remain economically viable. There's no sugarcoating this fact, but it didn't stop Raspberry Pi from creating its semi-custom ARM-based platform and establishing a new customer base. There is no Michael Abrash-like advocate for the Amiga's optimized C2P advocacy from 1991 to 1995 time period. I can name names who didn't open-source their recent open-source ports. PS; Emu68 with RPi3 has its 1st 3D accelerated Warp3D library. Last edited by hammer; 18 June 2024 at 05:05. |
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19 June 2024, 09:17 | #5092 |
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Yes, definitely. To the point where I would never have considered to buy it (68020 ? Seriously ? No Fast RAM ? The system I was excited about was the A4000.
Actually since I traded my A500 (against some extra payment) for an A2000 to a friend of my brother I was in love with bigbox Amigas. Still so today, my AmigaOne x1000 is my favorite Amiga today. Though I today also have an A1200. With a PiStorm Cm4 included. Guess that also counts as a Bigbox Amiga ^^ And as you write about Commodore's errors - the errors were too much "low end system", always focusing on the lowend - A1200, A600, A500+ - when what would have been needed was more on the Highend. Actually including higher screen res. And properly integrating RTG (okay, not at the time of release of A1200 yet, I think first Graphics Cards came out 1993 only or something like that) into graphics.library. Focusing on Lowend caused them to get irrelevant when other gaming platforms overtook them. And to save the gaming part they would have needed to do what Apollo did today, the SAGA chipset (still mediocre today, if you compare to other options - PiStorm and OS4 systems - but back then even a much reduced version of what Apollo did today (maybe just up to 640x480 and 16 Bit color, at that time of course no 3D Options yet) would have been what would have saved the Amiga (and Commodore). |
19 June 2024, 11:16 | #5093 | |||
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The A1000jr" didn't include the AA chipset because it was not ready to be put in a production model. Bill Sydnes was instructed by Mehdi Ali to put ECS in it because Gould was expecting a new model. This was a mistake for sure, but the proximate cause was that they didn't have a working AA chipset to put in it. This was not the fault of Gould, Ali or Sydnes. This was on the engineers who should have had it ready earlier. But what would your golden boy Lew Eggebrecht have done? We don't need to speculate because Brian Bagnall gives us the answer on page 327 of Commodore The Final Years, Quote:
But why did the AA3000 not go into production? One reason is that the A3000 had bombed due to its high price and the silly attempt to market it as a Unix box. The A3000AUX was launched in March 1991 at a list price of US$6998 excluding monitor. Had they produced the AA3000 it would be an expensive gamble that probably wouldn't pay off, and it wasn't the machine the market wanted anyway. Bill Sydnes halted it for good reason (note however that the prototypes were still used for development of the AA chipset). But again, what would Lew Eggebrecht have done? Quote:
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19 June 2024, 14:55 | #5094 | |||||
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Prove it.
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ECS A1000Jr and ECS A3400 are based on ECS A3000. ECS A1000Jr has minus Amber's framebuffer, minus Amber, minus $20 DSP3210, PIO IDE replaced SCSI controller, minus SDMac chip, 68020-25 replaced 68030-25, and Zorro II slots. Quote:
Amber's framebuffer (three 256K×4 field memory chips, about 60 ns access, OKI MSM514221), Amber was used for the A2320 flicker fixer. The retail price can be obtained for the Amber card. A4000's Bridgette replaced the A3000's four TTL bridge chips. https://archive.org/details/amiga-wo...e/n57/mode/2up Amiga World Magazine (November 1993), page 58 of 100, A1200 price $379 A3000 5MB, 105HD, price $899 A3000 is missing core AGA chips i.e. Alice, Lisa, Video DAC SM (Triple 8-BIT), and 2 MB 140 ns read/write cycle FP DRAM (about $52). Hint: partial cost for "CD32" card e.g. less than $100. Moving SCSI/SDAC from Ramsey bus to Super Buster's Zorro III bus for A4091 SCSI exposed DMA bugs with Super Buster Rev7 and 9, need Rev 11. $899 + $299 CD32 = $1,198 which is cheaper than $1599 A4000/030. LOL. $899 + $100 partial cost CD32 = $999. Commodore is price gouging. A3000 doesn't need AA-Gayle and Budgie which includes Buster and Ramsey functions. If the A3000 had partitioned Amiga graphics, the CD32 card would have solved the AGA problem. Commodore Canada/Amitech has a better spec A2200 clone with AGA+Akiko C2P, 68030@ 40 Mhz, 68882 @ 40 Mhz, A1200 CPU slot, A3000/A4000 CPU slot, and seven Zorro slots for $1599. https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/b...uct.aspx?id=19 Your argument is absurd. Quote:
1. A3000AUX doesn't exist i.e. it's A3000UX. 2. A3000UX includes pricey AT&T licensed System V SVR4 UNIX and included the X Window System, Commodore 3070 tape drive, and optional TIGIA A2410 graphics card, A2065 Ethernet card, and A2232 multi-port serial card were also shipped with the machine. Microsoft's Windows NT's existence is to replace AT&T-licensed Xenix. Last edited by hammer; 19 June 2024 at 16:19. |
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19 June 2024, 16:38 | #5095 | ||
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Amiga platform has a weak "business" relational database software. Oracle 7.1 was released on Windows NT in 1994. Oracle v6 was released on Novell Netware 386 in 1988. Before the arrival of Windows NT Server, Novell claimed 90% of the market for PC-based servers. If I have an AmigaOne x1000, I can't use it in a lawyer office due to missing software. For the graphics workstation in 1993, Amiga had a major deficit in math power i.e. a dead duck against MIPS R4000, DEC Alpha, and Intel Pentium. Last edited by hammer; 19 June 2024 at 16:56. |
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20 June 2024, 01:42 | #5096 | ||
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Windows NT Quote:
As you might have noticed, Windows XP is x86 only. A competitor using NT on incompatible hardware wouldn't get far. Windows NT was followed by Windows 2000 in late 1999, which brought it closer to Windows 95/98. By this time Microsoft was not that interested in creating a 'portable' OS (for obvious reasons). In 2001 they introduced Windows XP and the transition was complete. An Amiga running NT would be just as much an orphan as classic Amigas were, unless it had Intel inside. Eggebrecht was right when he said there was no place for the Amiga at the high end. This is why he pushed to keep it low end with ECS/AGA. If only Commodore had realized this earlier they might have managed to keep the Amiga line going for a few more years. Eventually it would die like all home computers did, but we would have been a lot less disappointed with a Commodore that faded away rather than crashed and burned right when they were finally starting to get it together. A1200+ would have been awesome! |
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20 June 2024, 05:20 | #5097 | |||||
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https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17344 Windows 2000 Server Beta 3 for DEC's Alpha CPU. Windows 2000 Server Beta 3 for Alpha includes DEC's !FX32 (x86 translator) which enables X86 Win32 apps to run. DEC was killed off by Intel. Alpha CPU licensed to Samsung https://www.eetimes.com/samsung-race...ion-alpha-cpu/ Samsung's Alpha EV7 couldn't keep up with the X86 Ghz race. Samsung tried to enter the Alpha EV6 chipset markets which compete against AMD/VIA's K7 EV6 chipsets. https://www.si.edu/object/microsoft-...%3Anmah_742558 Windows NT for Intel i860 is real. NT-based Windows 10/11 non-X86 CPUs like ARM are not new and they need to run in little-endian mode. Only Xbox 360's Windows NT 5.0-based OS operates in big-endian mode. Quote:
1. Microsoft joined IBM's OS/2 project in August 1985 and transferred Xenix to SCO. 2. Microsoft hired Dave Cutler in 1988 for the Windows NT project since IBM OS/2's progress was very slow. IBM OS/2 1.1 in October 1988 is still targeting the 286 CPU e.g. IBM Personal System/2 Models 30. Windows 2.x 386 already supports 386 CPU in 1988. Windows NT was to be known as OS/2 3.0. 3. Microsoft and IBM split in 1990. https://arstechnica.com/information-...gedy-of-os2/3/ Quote:
----------- https://www.itprotoday.com/server-vi...t-of-the-story Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story. Ex-DECer Dave Culter doesn't give a damn about OS/2. Quote:
There's nothing MS-DOS with Windows 2000's NT 5.0. https://retrosystemsrevival.blogspot...ows-nt-40.html Quote:
Windows NT family replaced MS-DOS. Windows NT family replaced 16-bit 286 OS/2. From Windows NT 3.1's 1993 release, Microsoft gave MS-DOS users about 7 years to transition to Windows NT-based Windows XP (NT 5.1). Open source DOSbox project started in 2002 year. ----------- Modern-day PiStorm32's RPi 4B for A1200 is Windows 10/11 ARM edition capable as per the original Amiga Hombre's goals. Last edited by hammer; 20 June 2024 at 06:32. |
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20 June 2024, 08:25 | #5098 | |
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20 June 2024, 08:55 | #5099 | |
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Generally when people say 'Windows XP' they mean 'Windows XP', not 'Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for Itanium'. I didn't mention Itanium because it was a non-entity in the personal computer market, and because it was specifically designed to be Intel's successor to x86 - not a 'foreign' architecture like PA-RISC or ARM. Commodore was looking at using PA-RISC in high-end machines. Imagine if they had somehow convinced Microsoft to port Windows NT to it. Would they then have a machine to compete against mainstream PCs? No - it would fizzle just like Itanium did, only worse. Back in the mid 90's I said that if you're going to switch CPUs the obvious choice is Intel Pentium (not PPC or some other dead-end). Applications could easily be recompiled, just like was done with AROS. You didn't need a dedicated OS. Just create a compatibility library and compile apps to run directly in Windows 95, or even simply port the code over to Win-32 (not difficult). And of course this is exactly what happened. Developers had no problem converting their Amiga programs to the PC. The future high-end 'Amiga' would be... a PC! Commodore's trying to take a different path was foolish, and bound to fail. Unfortunately by the time they realized this they had wasted too many resources and were too weak to see their plans for low-end Amigas through. But we shouldn't be sad. They did manage to get the awesome A1200 and CD32 out before they imploded. |
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20 June 2024, 08:59 | #5100 |
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I think it may be helpful to have some moderation in this group. Let's not fall out over differences of opinion with a computer that is dear to us all in some way, even if there are 5099 posts to argue why it wasn't what we'd hoped.
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