Hardware close to an Amiga - after the Atari ST

[amiga_Forever]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

In relation to the Amiga 500:

Sharp X68000 (better than the Amiga, IMO)
Apple Macintosh Plus
Acorn Archimedes A3000 (though a 32/32bit RISC instead of a 16/32 CISC, the final product - in terms of gaming software - was pretty equivalent to an Amiga.)
IBM PC Compatible 386 (also different in terms of architecture, but also somewhat comparable to the Amiga in terms of gaming software if it was equipped with a sound card)

In terms of 8bit proximity, both the C64 (natch) and the Atari 800 are noticeable ancestors of the Amiga.

You reckon an Acorn was comparable to an Amiga ? I used one in school, and they had good selection, but i guess its mostly what it's used for.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by amiga_Forever

You reckon an Acorn was comparable to an Amiga ? I used one in school, and they had good selection, but i guess its mostly what it's used for.

As someone who has written an Acorn FPGA core (A540)... the Archimedes series kicks the Amiga's ass and eats it for breakfast. No comparison at all. The iPhone is an Archie basically.

It was too expensive.. way too expensive and it needed 8 times the RAM to do the same as an Amiga. There was no DMA... but since the ARM cpu is basically the best blitter ever there was no need.

[Xebec]

I know this isn't the question -- but -- the Atari 800 is probably the closest machine architecturally to the Amiga .

- Custom chips (3) sharing RAM with processor. (4 if you count the processor...)
- System clock is based on the PAL/NTSC frequencies (1.77/1.79 mhz)
- "Color full" 256 colors, with tricks to display all on screen at once (line by line palette changes)
- Hardware sprites ("player/missle graphics")

And in one way is more advanced than the Amiga (and Atari ST):
- Atari SIO is an early form of USB (carries data, voltage across a universal cable -- devices have firmware that upload upon power on). The speed this serial port can sustain is higher than the serial ports on the ST or Amiga.. (72000 bps or higher works)

For a system launched after the Amiga 1000; I'd vote for the Sharp X68000 easily. It was built to run games/arcade ports -- the original Amiga (and Atari 800) was/were designed as games machines. Though, the X68000 did have separate VRAM (i.e. What Jay Miner wanted in 87-89)..

Atari STE (1989) is the purely closest cousin of course..

Acorn Archimedes is a cool machine though it doesn't have sprite support, hardware scrolling assist (blitter), or a lot of the tricks the other machines listed here have.

[hitchhikr]

Back on topic.

The TI-89, TI-92, TI-92 Plus and Voyage 200 from Texas Instruments are running on 68k processors (10/12 mhz) and using a simple frame buffer as video memory (planar like the Amiga).

There's a lot of games (some with sources, some without, in C or ASM) here:

http://www.ticalc.org/pub/

Converting them to a machine like the Amiga shouldn't be too hard (they may require redrawing the gfx for higher resolutions and adding music/fx, tho ).

[Zarchos]

Originally Posted by Xebec

I know this isn't the question -- but -- the Atari 800 is probably the closest machine architecturally to the Amiga .

- Custom chips (3) sharing RAM with processor. (4 if you count the processor...)
- System clock is based on the PAL/NTSC frequencies (1.77/1.79 mhz)
- "Color full" 256 colors, with tricks to display all on screen at once (line by line palette changes)
- Hardware sprites ("player/missle graphics")

And in one way is more advanced than the Amiga (and Atari ST):
- Atari SIO is an early form of USB (carries data, voltage across a universal cable -- devices have firmware that upload upon power on). The speed this serial port can sustain is higher than the serial ports on the ST or Amiga.. (72000 bps or higher works)

For a system launched after the Amiga 1000; I'd vote for the Sharp X68000 easily. It was built to run games/arcade ports -- the original Amiga (and Atari 800) was/were designed as games machines. Though, the X68000 did have separate VRAM (i.e. What Jay Miner wanted in 87-89)..

Atari STE (1989) is the purely closest cousin of course..

Acorn Archimedes is a cool machine though it doesn't have sprite support, hardware scrolling assist (blitter), or a lot of the tricks the other machines listed here have.

It has hardware capabilities, and that includes the hardware sprite, but they are not fully supported by the OS, and Acorn discouraged their usage by direct hardware access (as explained by Shaun Hollingworth).
All this for the sake of compatability with future Acorn machines.
Hardware scrolling was doable on the Archie, and today new, easier, techniques are possible thanks to the creation of a pseudo H-Sync interrupt nobody had bothered to code at the time, except one German demo coder in 1993.
(The Archies have no hardware h-sync interrupt).
The challenge was to code a software solution to get a precise h-sync interrupt using one of the 2 Mhz timers.
It is completed. Including a MOD playroutine and a keyboard handler not conflicting.
It works.
It opens brand new possibilities, from palette changes (multiple per scanline) to hardware multidirectional scrolling, as the Archie is fast enough to redefine all values of the registers found in the video controller and the memory controller, at the end of each scanline.
This is possible thanks to the ARM architecture with its fast accessing the memory, and its low latency to deal with interrupts.
In these matters, just compare with a 68000, you will see how ridiculously sluggish the Motorola chip is compared to the Acorn ARM2 as found in the 1st generation of Archies. (The ARM is roughly 4 times faster than the 68000 in these 2 areas).

[dlfrsilver]

True but the archie is a niche machine with very few people. The Amiga has the biggest computer communauty.

So Arm or 68000, who cares ?

[nobody]

Actually the ARM was/is a great CPU. I bet if RJ Mical and Dave Needle were around and developing a next gen Amiga they would use it. They used it on the 3DO.
In fact the Amiga should be ARM based long time ago.

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by turrican3

Hi guys,
after the atari st which hardware is the more near of the amiga ????
Off course with the goal to port games.
edited : 1st mac 68000 generation ???

For porting it depends really of how much the games are using specific hardware. Only the 680x0 processors are shared between the machines, so you can use the code (main logic) to some extend, but anything using the hardware have to be rewritten.

Other computers having the 680x0 processor computers are Apple Lisa, Macintosh, Sinclair QL, X68000, Atari ST, Sun and Apollo Domain workstations.
Consoles: Sega Mega Drive, Atari Jaguar, Sega CD.
Arcade games: Too many to mention them. Most notable Sega's System 16, Capcom CP System, CPS-2 and SNK's Neo Geo.

With that being said it is actually easier to port something if you have the source code for whatever platform it is (even if it is written in assembler), than disassembling it from other computer and trying to port it to Amiga (own experience).

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Zarchos

In these matters, just compare with a 68000, you will see how ridiculously sluggish the Motorola chip is compared to the Acorn ARM2 as found in the 1st generation of Archies. (The ARM is roughly 4 times faster than the 68000 in these 2 areas).

You keep negating that the 68000 in the Amiga doesn't have to be as fast as the ARM because it has significant hardware advantages over the Archimedes that means it doesn't need to be.

The ARM in the Arc has the standard Amiga 500 beat for vectors, for everything else, the Arc is at a significant disadvantage.

Thems the facts

[Zarchos]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

In relation to the Amiga 500:

Sharp X68000 (better than the Amiga, IMO)
Apple Macintosh Plus
Acorn Archimedes A3000 (though a 32/32bit RISC instead of a 16/32 CISC, the final product - in terms of gaming software - was pretty equivalent to an Amiga.)
IBM PC Compatible 386 (also different in terms of architecture, but also somewhat comparable to the Amiga in terms of gaming software if it was equipped with a sound card)

In terms of 8bit proximity, both the C64 (natch) and the Atari 800 are noticeable ancestors of the Amiga.

Archies are 32/26 and not 32/32.
Clearly the Archies are not gifted with specialised chips for, among other things, gaming, as found in the Amigas.
Their architectures haven't much in common.
In most cases, for 2D games, the Amiga beats the Archie (8 Mhz) but highly optimised (generated) code on the Archie can make a BIG difference.
The user base and the lack of interest for games gave the result that no programmer pushed the Archie as far as Amiga programmers did for the Commodore.
I only see the unreleased game Scorpius as using clever programming techniques on the Archie.
Furthermore, in 2D, hardware acceleration hasn't been used on the Archie.
Now it is available, it is going to be interesting to see what can really be achieved on the Acorn machine.
I see tremendous speed gains, and with the right algos, to me, the Archie will clearly beat the Amiga, and in 256 colour screen modes.

For 3D, realtime, (not players reading coords and filling segments, as found in the Amiga demos), there is just no questioning the Archie, with the outstanding power of its CPU, + chunky screen modes, puts the Amiga to shame (and in 256 colours).
Rather disappointing for the Commodore machine, when supposedly it has hardware segment drawing capability, when the Archie has no specialised chip, but 'simply' fast multiple load and store registers instructions.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Zarchos

This is not wishful thinking as the code to use the hardware is ready, and now a full documentation is being written.
For the clever algos to use these new hardware accelerated features, well, I am the author.
So your remarks really make me laugh, as I very well know what I can achieve ;-)
And I do not want to change the past : facts are Commodore and Atari went bankrupt and just left nothing, when Acorn closed some business, sold others, and gave the world the technology used by nearly 100% of handheld devices.
History will remember the Amiga as a failure, and Acorn being the truely innovative company with the ARM technology and the Archimedes as a major technological leap forward.

Yes, I know very well how the Amiga can boast allegedly colourful (and in reality : hideous) displays : a few sprites, tiny, with their own palette, a few bitplanes to boast 16 or rarely 32 colours, and copper effects added to claim there are thousands of colours on screen.
The other modes I also know them, with their limitations (there is no free lunch on the Amiga, contrary to what too many enthousiasts claim).
I prefer 256 colour screen modes on the Archie, where any pixel can be any colour amongst these 256.
But hey, do not worry, now the Archie can also display thousands of colours on screen, as you do with the copper.
And as we can change all VIDC registers on each scanline, changing screen modes, resolution and colour depth, will be very interesting.
Even the hardware sprite, with its own palette, now fully reprogrammable on each scanline, will be an interesting additional bit.

All about 20 years late.

How was the Amiga a failure? It was commercially viable for at least ten years, very few machines get to boast a lifespan half that.

Dreamcast? MegaCD? 3Do? CDi? WiiU?

I think you need to reaquaint yourself with the word failure, it doesnt mean what you think it means.

Theres no 'alledgedly' about the copper, it made lots of games very colourful, lots of games in excess of 100+ colours for decent games was the norm.

Im not sure how you can describe it as hideous when the Archimedes had the same 4096 colour pallette as the Amiga.......

Displaying thousands of colours (which Archimedes games rarely did) presumably comes at a cost......the cost was giving the processor too much to do.

A few sprites and tiny? Sure, the Amiga sprite hardware isnt as adept as the Megadrive or SNES, but in the right hands its perfectly capable with multiplexing of doing some pretty good things.....and then you go onto brag about the Arc's SINGLE hardware sprite as if that remotely compares?!?!?!?!

Listen, because you have a problem listening and cant seem to grasp reality.

The Archimedes was/is a good machine, no-one who knows them or has seen them in action disputes it, but the fact remains, in the majority of areas when it comes to game mechanics, the Amiga 500 has the Archimedes beat in ALL areas except vectors.

It was a fact 20 years ago, and its still a fact now. It doesnt matter if people have developed new and interesting routines to simulate hardware scrolling on the Arc, because its all too late, no-one cares anymore, because just like the Amiga, the Arc is commercially dead.

You can pretend that all the Amiga is, is a slow ass 68000, with barely functional hardware attached to it, but that hardware more than made up for the shortfall of a slower processor than the ARM processor.

I appreciate you love and like the Archimedes, and some of us like it too, but you coming here to an Amiga board, spouting nonsense about a machine you clearly dont understand very well is laughable.

If your routines are so magical, feel free to do a 1:1 copy of Shadow of the Beast in 512k of memory on the Archimedes and get back to me.

Its time for you to put up or shut up, you keep banging on about these amazing new routines, lets see them in action, because talk is cheap

[PortuguesePilot]

Regardless of what numbers people can put out or specific tech demos or whatever, this single fact stands straight: the Archimedes lost to the Amiga when it came to games. Period. That is absolutely undeniable. And come on! Games were all we cared about back in the day. Don't pretend I'm wrong.

Due to that single fact, it's why we currently have accelerator boards for the Amiga, hardware and software being developed, there are tons of Amiga related websites, an active community (if grumpy and elitist) and the Archie? Well, it's virtually dead.

The Archimedes, as a machine, had its merits and strong points, won't say it didn't, and the ARM technology was/is very significant, but I would never trade any of my beloved miggies for any Archimedes. Ever.

[Zarchos]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

Regardless of what numbers people can put out or specific tech demos or whatever, this single fact stands straight: the Archimedes lost to the Amiga when it came to games. Period. That is absolutely undeniable. And come on! Games were all we cared about back in the day. Don't pretend I'm wrong.

Due to that single fact, it's why we currently have accelerator boards for the Amiga, hardware and software being developed, there are tons of Amiga related websites, an active community (if grumpy and elitist) and the Archie? Well, it's virtually dead.

The Archimedes, as a machine, had its merits and strong points, won't say it didn't, and the ARM technology was/is very significant, but I would never trade any of my beloved miggies for any Archimedes. Ever.

1. I agree for the 1st part and not the second : many people thought gaming was a waste of time, and programming a brand new CPU was a rewarding experience (and I was one of them. I had an Amiga500 too, to play games, and admire the demos, but quickly chose a Japanese megadrive and a neogeo.
End of gaming on the Amiga. When I got a GUS for my PC I never ever listened to any 4 channel tunes on the Amiga, but switched to S3Ms, XMs, of course).
2. The Archimedes had successors, unlike the Amigas, they are for example the RISC PCs, the Iyonix, more recently the Raspberry Pis. The RISC OS scene is very far from dead, you should inquire. It is true gaming is nobody's concern, like in the past, though. And that is just excellent : playing is not expressing one's creativity.
3. Good for you, that is only personal opinion, so I won't argue, and will respect it. This is all about what struck you in your teen years, and not based on facts, but on affect.

[Tigerskunk]

Wasn‘t the ARM all but forgotten for many years? I certainly never heard about it until mobile devices came into the light, and there it was chosen for its low energy consumption and less for any of its other capabilities.

Well that was my impression, anyways.

And on the Archie, I remember it for Lander/Zarch and that was it.

[coder76]

Fun thread.. yes, a lot of computers and consoles beat the A500, but it has old hardware released back in 1985 (same as A1000, but with more memory). Those machines and consoles which were released some years laters, like Archimedes, Sega Megadrive, and SNES outperforms the A500 hardware in many areas at least on paper.

But these days, people have often an AGA machine, with some 68030-68060 CPU, which outperforms probably easily most Archies. This is the mid range of Amiga computers. Lately, we also got some FPGA Amigas, with a 68080 CPU that equals a 1000 MHz 68030 or 500 MHz 68040 in performance. And modern screenmodes + 16 bit audio. The Amiga still has a future, while there is no new hardware development for Archimedes that I know of.

[Locutus]

Originally Posted by coder76

The Amiga still has a future, while there is no new hardware development for Archimedes that I know of.

The Archimedes platform was never much about bare metal stuff. The OS has been opensource for years and runs completely natively on modern ARM hardware such as the Raspberry Pi's, PandaBoards, Iyonix (custom xScale machine) and the Elesar Titan (a beast of a board).

All of those are (except the Iyonix) affordable and RISCOS development is reasonably alive, far more then say OS4.

And yes, this runs old 'OS Clean' software perfectly fine, if its built against the old 26 bit program counter CPU mode there's a compatibility layer application (end user wise about as transparent as Trance/Petunia)

(i realise i might just now have invited another flamewar, ROOL vs Amiga 'NG' mwuahahaha)

[coder76]

Originally Posted by Locutus

The Archimedes platform was never much about bare metal stuff. The OS has been opensource for years and runs completely natively on modern ARM hardware such as the Raspberry Pi's, PandaBoards, Iyonix (custom xScale machine) and the Elesar Titan (a beast of a board).

All of those are (except the Iyonix) affordable and RISCOS development is reasonably alive, far more then say OS4.

And yes, this runs old 'OS Clean' software perfectly fine, if its built against the old 26 bit program counter CPU mode there's a compatibility layer application (end user wise about as transparent as Trance/Petunia)

(i realise i might just now have invited another flamewar, ROOL vs Amiga 'NG' mwuahahaha)

I realize that most old stuff runs with software emulation these days too. But its really unreliable, and does not guarantee real-time performance (even if the emulator is perfect, the system it is running on may cause problems). I'm sure many are still happy with e.g. UAE, but when the day comes when FPGA-based Amigas are mature enough to be made in ASIC (clock speed increases by a factor of at least 10x), they are too fast to be emulated.

[DamienD]

Please refraim was abusing people / using language like you have in your previous post Zarchos.

If you can't have a simple discussion then I suggest that you ignore this thread completely.

Last warning from me.

[prowler]

Enough!

Thread closed.

Expect many posts to be removed when time allows.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Zarchos

'Now I have to ..' ?????
'or backup my claims' : read this : fuck you. I do not take orders, you moron.
I piss on your face just everyday.
Never again dare talk to me this way. Understood ?

Ok, after some thought and discussion with other Global Moderators / Moderators; it's now time for you to leave EAB

You are clearly on the wrong forum and only here to stir shite up...

I've temporary banned you in the past for your actions, still you haven't learnt from your mistakes.

Good riddance!!! C'est la vie!!!

Edit: and I'm also REALLY looking forward to YOUR Archie version of "Shadow of the Beast"...

I'm sure I'll be dead before it sees the light of day; but even if by some miracle it gets released, I'm positive that it won't be even half as good as the Amiga version