Alfred Chicken AGA

MethodGit · 17 January 2002, 01:41

I checked out the Alfred Chicken page at GAGE and noticed this interesting piece of information:

Quote:

Alfred Chicken - AGA

Copyright: 1993 Mindscape and TwiLight

Number of Disks: 2 (dos)

Minimum Requirements: AGA

Harddisk Installable: Yes

(CPU details cut out because it was too fiddly to make the tables fit and look right )

Does anyone know if such a 2-disk version was ever available? I'd really like to see this for myself.

Anyone with any information (or possibly even the game itself) should say their words here.

Drake1009 · 17 January 2002, 02:22

I have a CD32 version which plays from disk but that was only one disk and the entire game seems to be there.

Could be interesting to see what made it take up a disk more.

Well maybe it's not true but you can always hope, but there have been other times GAGE have been off on their info.

Twistin'Ghost · 17 January 2002, 02:27

There was maybe a version that came with ECS and AGA versions in the same package?

Drake1009 · 17 January 2002, 11:44

Wouldn't it make more sense to package the OCS and AGA version together?

MethodGit · 17 January 2002, 17:02

I've just noticed on the WHDLoad site that Codetapper is currently working on adapting the 2-disk AGA version.

Maybe if I ask him what that version was all about exactly we might get some facts.

I've sent a PM to him, so let's wait a while.

CodyJarrett · 17 January 2002, 17:30

I'm pretty sure there were three versions - ECS, AGA and CD32.

Drake1009 · 17 January 2002, 18:41

Weren't there an OCS version too? The original which was uploaded worked on a standard A500 setup with OCS chipset.

TikTok · 17 January 2002, 19:50

In most case (but not all) OCS is effectively the same as ECS isn't it? In terms of games I mean.

MethodGit · 17 January 2002, 19:54

That's what I was thinking as well.

I don't know of any specific games in which OCS and ECS are definitely considered seperate entities.

Twistin'Ghost · 18 January 2002, 01:07

No, there were indeed differences between ECS and OCS. Many games broke under ECS, for example those E/A games that are so often discussed, but there were others, too. Also, some games took advantage of the revisions between the old chipset and ECS.

TikTok · 18 January 2002, 01:51

Twistin, can you tell me whether 1Meg chip RAM is an ECS only thing please? I can't for the life of me remember if you could have an A500 with 1Meg chip. I seem to remember that capability being something to do with (fat) Angus, which IIRC is a separate entity from the ECS chipset and Kickstart 2.

Twistin'Ghost · 18 January 2002, 16:17

Well, I can't definitely say for sure that the 1meg (Fatter Agnus) chip will *not* work with OCS, as I have never physically tried it. But I do know that when ECS was introduced, part of the upgrade included the Fatter Agnus. Although at the time, I only upgraded that chip and not the Denise chip, so I do know that you could/can do a partial upgrade. But the one-meg thing is definitely an attribute of ECS.

MethodGit · 18 January 2002, 18:02

Ok, considering that my Amiga has 1Mb Chip RAM and uses Kickstart 1.3 (or it might be 1.2, I think it shows that number on the startup screen) and Workbench 1.3, does that make my system OCS or ECS? Although if I can remember back, Stardust probably required you to have the Fat Agnus chip installed in your Amiga, and I could run that game just fine (I don't have the full game though, I just played the Amiga Power tunnel demo

) - so maybe it's ECS?

My mind appears to be scrambling itself trying to work all this out.

TikTok · 18 January 2002, 19:41

@Twistin
Thanks for the info. The problem with emulators is that they let you do crazy things. You want an OCS machine with 8Meg chip? An AGA machine with a 68000 and 512K chip? No problem!

@Marz
Your A500 uses the OCS chipset.

Actually, I wish I had my Amiga Format Special with me here because then I could confirm how many revisions of Angus there were. I think there was Angus, Fatter Angus, and Fat Angus. Although perhaps the final one was called Really Fat Angus. Then again, the word Obese seems to spring to mind?!

Damn Commodore and their silly naming

Twistin'Ghost · 19 January 2002, 05:23

Quote:

Originally posted by TikTok
@Twistin
Thanks for the info. The problem with emulators is that they let you do crazy things. You want an OCS machine with 8Meg chip? An AGA machine with a 68000 and 512K chip? No problem!

Yeah, that is pretty funny, the no-no's emulation allows (sorta). Some of that stuff should be greyed out when other things are ticked, but hey..

Quote:

Originally posted by TikTok
@Marz
Your A500 uses the OCS chipset.

Well, yes and no. Particularly for gaming, I would call his system ECS because he has the 1-meg Fatter Agnus, even if his Denise is the standard model. A lot more games took advantage of the 1-meg of chip ram than they ever took advantage of even the original halfbright modes of the Denise. much less the Super Denise. Technically, his machine is both, but as games are concerned, I would call his system ECS. Still, others lean in the direction of thinking WB2.x when they think ECS, but since most Amiga games don't arse with WB, that concept is out, too.

Quote:

Originally posted by TikTok
Actually, I wish I had my Amiga Format Special with me here because then I could confirm how many revisions of Angus there were. I think there was Angus, Fatter Angus, and Fat Angus. Although perhaps the final one was called Really Fat Angus. Then again, the word Obese seems to spring to mind?! Damn Commodore and their silly naming

Heh, I have seen journalists use terms like obese and the like, but it's unofficial. Here's the way I remember it: the Agnus (sometimes called the OCS Agnus) was only used on the A1000, then there was the Fat Agnus (PAL, NTSC and PAL/NTSC versions), then ECS gave us Fatter Agnus with 1 meg of chip ram (and of course the Super Denise rounded out the ECS, if you chose to upgrade that chip), then there was the 2meg chip ram version called Super Agnus (A3000 owners had these). For the AGA boxes, they used Alice rather than the traditional Agnus line. Not exactly sure what is different here, since I never owned an AGA machine.

MethodGit · 19 January 2002, 13:50

@Twist: what kind of Amiga do/did you own then? Are you like me, and just played around with an A500 (which was pretty good enough for most top games)?

You have to wonder where they got the chip names from, though: did they just talk to random people in their offices and ask if they wanted their name to be given to a small chip? I can imagine the scene back then...

Twistin'Ghost · 19 January 2002, 17:46

My first Amiga was an OCS A500 which was later upgraded to ECS (without the Super Denise). A shady dealer pulled some crooked moves on my A500 which caused CBM to send me a brand new A500 (which was ECS, btw), then that machine got replaced by an A2000 (which was used professionally for video production on TV commercials, industrial films, etc.). That A2000 was equipped with lots of memory and hard drives, as one might expect, but also with a Video Toaster and some other goodies. We were using this with our video production/graphics studio. Last time I saw that machine, it was laying dead in the back of that studio amongst other rubble, replaced by high end PC's, SGI's, AVID-loaded Macs, etc.

After I left that company, I bought a used A2000 from a friend who sold his soul to programming console and PC games, and 3D cards. I still have that A2000/HD/030 today, although it's in almost as bad condition as the one in the back of the graphics studio! When time permits, I will restore it to its original sheen. I don't have them here, but I also have about 5 A500's of various configs. We also acquired an A1000 or two in all of that (lost track of where they ended up). And some complete conman sold me an A1200 that never ever worked and has been lost in time. What else...oh, and I bought a new CD32 at a trade show once, but since it was NTSC and everything good on CD32 is PAL, I never even used it (most TV's here in the US are NTSC only, so the box was only taking up space...I sold it on ebay along with about 20 CD's.)

7-Zark-7 · 20 January 2002, 15:19

Marz-I could be wrong, but I believe the Amiga custom chip names date right back to the Amiga origins.
The names Agnus,Paula etc. were all the nicnames of the various custom chips of the Amiga. In the early initial development phases I believe Jay Miner & Co. were quite paranoid about the security surrounding the development of the Amiga project.
For the revolutionary design that turned out to be the Amiga they were v. cautious that noone outside the project knew about it.
Hence they used girlfriends names etc. to discuss things "in code" when communicating with one another.

MethodGit · 25 January 2002, 17:31

You know, we were all talking about Amiga chips and forgot the main subject of this thread: where can the 2-disk version of Alfred Chicken be obtained???

One possible solution would probably be to ask Codetapper for the ADFs but he'd probably say "no" anyway, knowing how he treats me often.

Shame really, he's probably the only person right now who's got a working copy!

RetroMan · 25 January 2002, 17:42

Here´s some explanation for the names of the custom chips :

PAULA -------> Port Audio Uart and Logic
DENISE -----> Display Encoder
AGNUS ------> Address GeNerator Unites
CIA ----------> Complex Interface Adaptor

There are some more, I know, but I cannot remeber exactly

17 January 2002, 17:02	#5
MethodGit Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: The Streets Age: 40 Posts: 2,731	Ah! I've just noticed on the WHDLoad site that Codetapper is currently working on adapting the 2-disk AGA version. Maybe if I ask him what that version was all about exactly we might get some facts. I've sent a PM to him, so let's wait a while.

25 January 2002, 17:42	#20
RetroMan Registered User Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Germany Age: 51 Posts: 3,704	Off Topic again ! Here´s some explanation for the names of the custom chips : PAULA -------> Port Audio Uart and Logic DENISE -----> Display Encoder AGNUS ------> Address GeNerator Unites CIA ----------> Complex Interface Adaptor There are some more, I know, but I cannot remeber exactly

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17 January 2002, 02:22	#2
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	I have a CD32 version which plays from disk but that was only one disk and the entire game seems to be there. Could be interesting to see what made it take up a disk more. Well maybe it's not true but you can always hope, but there have been other times GAGE have been off on their info.

17 January 2002, 02:27	#3
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	There was maybe a version that came with ECS and AGA versions in the same package?

17 January 2002, 11:44	#4
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	Wouldn't it make more sense to package the OCS and AGA version together?

17 January 2002, 17:30	#6
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,166	I'm pretty sure there were three versions - ECS, AGA and CD32.

17 January 2002, 18:41	#7
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	Weren't there an OCS version too? The original which was uploaded worked on a standard A500 setup with OCS chipset.

17 January 2002, 19:50	#8
TikTok Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Malayasia Age: 43 Posts: 657	In most case (but not all) OCS is effectively the same as ECS isn't it? In terms of games I mean.

17 January 2002, 19:54	#9
MethodGit Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: The Streets Age: 40 Posts: 2,731	That's what I was thinking as well. I don't know of any specific games in which OCS and ECS are definitely considered seperate entities.

18 January 2002, 01:07	#10
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	No, there were indeed differences between ECS and OCS. Many games broke under ECS, for example those E/A games that are so often discussed, but there were others, too. Also, some games took advantage of the revisions between the old chipset and ECS.

18 January 2002, 01:51	#11
TikTok Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Malayasia Age: 43 Posts: 657	Twistin, can you tell me whether 1Meg chip RAM is an ECS only thing please? I can't for the life of me remember if you could have an A500 with 1Meg chip. I seem to remember that capability being something to do with (fat) Angus, which IIRC is a separate entity from the ECS chipset and Kickstart 2.

18 January 2002, 16:17	#12
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	Well, I can't definitely say for sure that the 1meg (Fatter Agnus) chip will not work with OCS, as I have never physically tried it. But I do know that when ECS was introduced, part of the upgrade included the Fatter Agnus. Although at the time, I only upgraded that chip and not the Denise chip, so I do know that you could/can do a partial upgrade. But the one-meg thing is definitely an attribute of ECS.

18 January 2002, 18:02	#13
MethodGit Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: The Streets Age: 40 Posts: 2,731	Ok, considering that my Amiga has 1Mb Chip RAM and uses Kickstart 1.3 (or it might be 1.2, I think it shows that number on the startup screen) and Workbench 1.3, does that make my system OCS or ECS? Although if I can remember back, Stardust probably required you to have the Fat Agnus chip installed in your Amiga, and I could run that game just fine (I don't have the full game though, I just played the Amiga Power tunnel demo ) - so maybe it's ECS? My mind appears to be scrambling itself trying to work all this out.

18 January 2002, 19:41	#14
TikTok Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Malayasia Age: 43 Posts: 657	@Twistin Thanks for the info. The problem with emulators is that they let you do crazy things. You want an OCS machine with 8Meg chip? An AGA machine with a 68000 and 512K chip? No problem! @Marz Your A500 uses the OCS chipset. Actually, I wish I had my Amiga Format Special with me here because then I could confirm how many revisions of Angus there were. I think there was Angus, Fatter Angus, and Fat Angus. Although perhaps the final one was called Really Fat Angus. Then again, the word Obese seems to spring to mind?! Damn Commodore and their silly naming

19 January 2002, 13:50	#16
MethodGit Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: The Streets Age: 40 Posts: 2,731	@Twist: what kind of Amiga do/did you own then? Are you like me, and just played around with an A500 (which was pretty good enough for most top games)? You have to wonder where they got the chip names from, though: did they just talk to random people in their offices and ask if they wanted their name to be given to a small chip? I can imagine the scene back then...

19 January 2002, 17:46	#17
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	My first Amiga was an OCS A500 which was later upgraded to ECS (without the Super Denise). A shady dealer pulled some crooked moves on my A500 which caused CBM to send me a brand new A500 (which was ECS, btw), then that machine got replaced by an A2000 (which was used professionally for video production on TV commercials, industrial films, etc.). That A2000 was equipped with lots of memory and hard drives, as one might expect, but also with a Video Toaster and some other goodies. We were using this with our video production/graphics studio. Last time I saw that machine, it was laying dead in the back of that studio amongst other rubble, replaced by high end PC's, SGI's, AVID-loaded Macs, etc. After I left that company, I bought a used A2000 from a friend who sold his soul to programming console and PC games, and 3D cards. I still have that A2000/HD/030 today, although it's in almost as bad condition as the one in the back of the graphics studio! When time permits, I will restore it to its original sheen. I don't have them here, but I also have about 5 A500's of various configs. We also acquired an A1000 or two in all of that (lost track of where they ended up). And some complete conman sold me an A1200 that never ever worked and has been lost in time. What else...oh, and I bought a new CD32 at a trade show once, but since it was NTSC and everything good on CD32 is PAL, I never even used it (most TV's here in the US are NTSC only, so the box was only taking up space...I sold it on ebay along with about 20 CD's.)

20 January 2002, 15:19	#18
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,270	Marz-I could be wrong, but I believe the Amiga custom chip names date right back to the Amiga origins. The names Agnus,Paula etc. were all the nicnames of the various custom chips of the Amiga. In the early initial development phases I believe Jay Miner & Co. were quite paranoid about the security surrounding the development of the Amiga project. For the revolutionary design that turned out to be the Amiga they were v. cautious that noone outside the project knew about it. Hence they used girlfriends names etc. to discuss things "in code" when communicating with one another.

25 January 2002, 17:31	#19
MethodGit Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: The Streets Age: 40 Posts: 2,731	You know, we were all talking about Amiga chips and forgot the main subject of this thread: where can the 2-disk version of Alfred Chicken be obtained??? One possible solution would probably be to ask Codetapper for the ADFs but he'd probably say "no" anyway, knowing how he treats me often. Shame really, he's probably the only person right now who's got a working copy!

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