Challenging the A3000

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Gorf

my point was, that they all faced the same costs for a large proportion of the product (even shipping and so on). The only real difference in production cost is the >100$ mainboard.

Philips CDi was listed for 700$ when CDTV 999$ - CDi was superior to CDTV in terms of HW but lacked SW Amiga capabilities - perhaps this was main reason for pricey CDTV.

Originally Posted by Gorf

true.
I still wonder: when would have been the best point in time, to sell the PC-department?
(they were quite successful in the late 80s especially in Germany where C= even outsold IBM in some years)

perhaps never - seem C= never realized like many similar companies that with his approach to business model he is unable to compete on PC market.
C= for sure consider PC as mainline of business - Amiga was seen as associated line of products.

Originally Posted by Gorf

sure they where low volume - but not by intention AFAIK.
That is the first time i hear of such a thing. Can you back this up somehow?

By intention - both designs use Xilinx FPGA - FPGA is not suitable for mass consumer market - they are always very expensive - good for niche products or products where some updatability capabilities are required (like fixing design errors).
Look at other products - always custom IC's even if CSG was not capable to produce such IC's then Commodore ordered custom from different sources - this didn't happen for CDTV and for A570 - Xilinx FPGA used in both cost IMHO around 40 - 50$ alone.

Originally Posted by Gorf

the CDTV had no floppy. (at least not in 91. Later there was a bundle with floppy and keyboard)
so the cost of a floppy is irrelevant, or even proves my point:
the bare mainbord was cheap.

True but other components are same level of cost - VFD display for example.

Originally Posted by Gorf

not any longer. we are talking 91 now. 1MB is down to >40$ (for end customers!).

Well i would rather estimate closer to 100$ cost for 1MB of DRAM (1Mb DRAM cost was around 9 - 12$ and you need 8 IC's to form 1MB)

Originally Posted by Gorf

I am very well aware of all the prices back than.
I have done quite some research on this matter. (besides my own memory)

Yes, somewhere between 1990 and 1991 huge drop of prices on semi market is visible - not sure how C= was placed on this - perhaps they ordered stock for old prices and need to pay more for 10 times cheaper IC's

Originally Posted by idrougge

Actually, the CDTV was a costly endeavour for Commodore. Since it sold much less than expected, Commodore ended up with an inventory of useless custom CD drives and outstanding orders for more drives which had to be repaid to the manufacturer.

Can't prove anything but as i wrote earlier CDTV and A570 may be exception due intentional high cost of design (by intentional i mean someone in C= decided to not pursue cheaper design and use something that looks more like prototype) Perhaps under time pressure (this is time when on market some CD based technology begin to be seen as another breakthrough in consumer market).
Never owned CDTV, i'm only owner of A570 (bargain sale in Berlin) but i know people decided to sold owned A500 and replace it by CDTV as more versatile and also nicer alternative (CDTV could be a part of your this time home cinema setup - i mean VCR, 26 inch CRT and perhaps some stereo amplifer) with access to CD.

[Gorf]

Philips CDi was listed for 700$ when CDTV 999$ - CDi was superior to CDTV in terms of HW but lacked SW Amiga capabilities - perhaps this was main reason for pricey CDTV.

In the end even Philips failed with this idea, despite of investing heavily in this project - in the end over a billion $ loss.

But for Commodore it was almost steal to develop the CDTV. The small team around Carl Sassenrath developed a similar (to CDi) product with a fraction of the cost - so I still think it was not a bad idea... it was just the wrong price.

Or:
If you want to keep the price, put in at least a 14MHz 68000 or 68010.
CDTV software title had to change a few things anyway, so a faster CPU would not lead to more incompatibility.
This would have avoided the impression of a "A500 in a fancy black box" many had back than.

By intention - both designs use Xilinx FPGA - FPGA is not suitable for mass consumer market - they are always very expensive - good for niche products or products where some updatability capabilities are required (like fixing design errors).
Look at other products - always custom IC's even if CSG was not capable to produce such IC's then Commodore ordered custom from different sources - this didn't happen for CDTV and for A570 - Xilinx FPGA used in both cost IMHO around 40 - 50$ alone.

That was Mr. Ali's foult again... and Sassenraths. The CDTV team was sitting somewhere in California and had almost no contact to the rest of C=.

Many things could have been done more cost effective, with the experts and engineers at C=.

And of course the rush to market: there was probably not enough time for a custom IC... and thats probably the reason for the existence of the huge "diagnostic port" on the board also...

Many of these issues where addressed in die CR version (cost reduced), but because the CDTV was no success, this version was never build in numbers.
http://amiga.resource.cx/mod/cdtv2.html
(and still way to many interfaces for such a product...)

So C= wanted it to be a mass-product, but they simply failed.

True but other components are same level of cost - VFD display for example.

All the other CD players for less than 500$ also had glowing displays.

Well i would rather estimate closer to 100$ cost for 1MB of DRAM (1Mb DRAM cost was around 9 - 12$ and you need 8 IC's to form 1MB)

Nope! around $45 - for a total Megabyte as advertised in "Byte" magazine in February 1991.

Yes, somewhere between 1990 and 1991 huge drop of prices on semi market is visible - not sure how C= was placed on this - perhaps they ordered stock for old prices and need to pay more for 10 times cheaper IC's

I think C= management could have been actually stupid enough to do so, while everybody else was already doing "build to order".

Funny enough, the ram price stagnated the next couple of years around 30-40 $ until 1996.

[MigaTech]

This started because I said no space for CDROM on A3K! Still as you are both off topic I shall just state this, Commodore had an habit of going west with most of their designs.

1. CDTV had the S*** caddy < Top spec for the day!
2. A570 had the S*** caddy < Just why ?
3. CD32 had the lift up lid < They were totally skint by then!

Break all three down, they got non of it right and then just plummeted there after.

Commodore didn't know their heads from their asses by the end!

*Edit : kgc210 pointed out CDTV had caddy not Drawer like CDI system.

[kgc210]

CDTV Is caddy the same as A570

[MigaTech]

Originally Posted by kgc210

CDTV Is caddy the same as A570

S*** you are correct I was thinking CDI, DOH !!

In that case they never got any of them right!!

[kgc210]

A lot of early PC CD Drives used caddy esp Sony drives.

Didn't some on Mac's use them as well?

[MigaTech]

TBH, I am being a little unfair on the caddy system. It's just I F***ING hated changing the disc what a complete and utter waste of time.

The drawer design was much better. We all know why Commodore went for the Caddy don't we?

I owned only 1 CDTV back in the late 1990's and I thought then it was cool but just didn't work for me as a machine. Funny thing is Commodore got the colour right after how long? The CD32 would of been awesome in CDTV colour, instead of the one they chose.

Just some of the top contenders :

Silver / Back
Silver / Red
White / Black
White / Red
Gold
Chrome
Clear

It took the Mac's to show the World that colours had to be predominant on computer designs. Now just wonder what a Silver / Black Amiga 3000 would of looked like?

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by MigaTech

3. CD32 had the lift up lid < They were totally skint by then!

well - it needed to be as cheap as possible, and i would say, C= did almost everything right that time.
The CD32 was selling very good in Europe and it would have done so in the USA if they where allowed to sell it there...
(stupid decision by a judge: how is a company supposed to pay outstanding bills, if it is no longer allowed to sell stuff to earn money??)

the only thing perhaps is that the CD32 is a year to late - should have been 92 instead of 93.

(but that is true for all Amigas after the original A1000:
A500/A2000 should have been 86, A3000 89, CDTV 90, AGA (AAA?) 91.
That would have made a huge difference....)

*Edit : kgc210 pointed out CDTV had caddy not Drawer like CDI system.

One more reason you can not sell it for 1000 bugs!!

This started because I said no space for CDROM on A3K!

I wrote it somewhere above already.
The 3000 would have looked even better if it were just 2 inch wider: that would provide enough space for a nice slot-in cd-drive next to the floppy.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by MigaTech

TBH, I am being a little unfair on the caddy system. It's just I F***ING hated changing the disc what a complete and utter waste of time.

Get more caddies!
Best one for every cd-rom

It took the Mac's to show the World that colours had to be predominant on computer designs. Now just wonder what a Silver / Black Amiga 3000 would of looked like?

I was thinking of this earlier ... there where some stupid laws in Europe and USA, how office equipment had to look like colourwise, some stupid health and safety stuff. Thats why all PCs in the 80s and early 90s had these 50 shades of beige.

Workstations like from SUN and SGI where the first not caring much about this - and of course Steve Jobs with the all black NeXT-Station.

IBM followed with the black ThinkPad - the color was a big deal back than and only applied to mobile computers ...

Escom in Germany also sold black computers - but they had to warn customers that these are not for office use....


Back to the A3000: there is only one better color i could imagine: brushed steel

[MigaTech]

@Gorf, I agree with you on the CD32 being right but do you not think it would of been so much better with a drawer CDROM, instead of Lift up flap?

The CD32 to me just didn't and doesn't look cool enough and that colour was just awful. < Sorry to all CD32 lovers, no offence intended.

Also you are right about the release years etc. Yet some state that the A500 Plus should never of happened, yet it did.

If the A3K+ and the AGA 3K tower would of happened, then maybe the A4K would never of been?

The A600 was the big mistake in most persons opinion. Cost cutting was OK but not on all machines. They should of Bumped A600 and put all the extra into the CD32.

Trying to stay on topic and talk about this too, If GM's are monitoring this?

The A3K was probably the only time Commodore almost gave us the perfect Amiga! It was just missing the AGA !!

Get this: The only A3K I ever owned was incomplete and didn't work!

[Gorf]

@Gorf, I agree with you on the CD32 being right but do you not think it would of been so much better with a drawer CDROM, instead of Lift up flap?

I would probably have some other changes done first:
RAM-Split to 1.5 ChipRAM and 0.5 FastRAM
28MHz CPU
DSP (the AT&T thingy from the 3000+)

With that configuration it would have survived Doom (literally) and even hold up against the PlayStation for a while...

If it would have got theses specs, I would not care if it even was a caddy-drive

If the A3K+ and the AGA 3K tower would of happened, then maybe the A4K would never of been?

It would have been something completely different - maybe the first AAA machine ;-)

[dannyp1]

Was AGA even developed yet when the A3000 was released?

[MigaTech]

Originally Posted by Gorf

RAM-Split to 1.5 ChipRAM and 0.5 FastRAM
28MHz CPU
DSP (the AT&T thingy from the 3000+)

Now that is what I call specifications, why is it that they didn't do this? Oh how it all seems so simple nowadays!

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by MigaTech

Now that is what I call specifications, why is it that they didn't do this? Oh how it all seems so simple nowadays!

Stupidity.

Until the very end the managers at C= did not understand how important CPU speed is. Customers and developers were craving for faster processors on every platform, but C= did not get it.

(same problem with the A2000:
The German A version allowed at least real FastRAM via the "co-processor" slot - Dave Haynie had to cut this version down to the A2000B... no more easy FastRAM but slow ranger-ram.
And still the same 7MHz 68000 :-/
The A2000 was supposed to be "high end", they offered it for more money than the A1000.

Instead of CPU (and slow-RAM) on the mainboard it should have used the CPU-slot for this exclusively. This would have allowed C= to offer a range of different CPU cards: from 68000 without RAM, over 68010 with 16bit FastRAM to 68020 with 32bit fast ram...
And the mainboard would have been cheaper to produce without the 68K on it...
... and without the mostly redundant ISA-slots)

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by dannyp1

Was AGA even developed yet when the A3000 was released?

Not at release but the first AGA board was in fact a A3000 board - successfully booting in February 91

So a new revision of the A3000 with AGA on board could have been on the market almost a year before the A4000.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Gorf

The German A version allowed at least real FastRAM via the "co-processor" slot - Dave Haynie had to cut this version down to the A2000B... no more easy FastRAM but slow ranger-ram.

By the time the B2000 happened, Fast RAM was on Zorro boards anyway, the A2091 could contain 2MB of it and Commodore sold their own 8MB board too.

The motherboard RAM would be configured as Chip RAM when proper Fast RAM was installed, so I don't really see the CPU slot mem expansion as a very big loss.

By any other ways of measuring the B2000 is a far superior product.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Gorf

In the end even Philips failed with this idea, despite of investing heavily in this project - in the end over a billion $ loss.

Well... market was not ready for this. We have constantly same situation - i recall so called 3D TV (stereoscopy) - huge hype, 2 years vigorous marketing and lack of significant market penetrations to provide sustainability. Now we have HDR, 4k soon 8k .

Originally Posted by Gorf

But for Commodore it was almost steal to develop the CDTV. The small team around Carl Sassenrath developed a similar (to CDi) product with a fraction of the cost - so I still think it was not a bad idea... it was just the wrong price.

Or:
If you want to keep the price, put in at least a 14MHz 68000 or 68010.
CDTV software title had to change a few things anyway, so a faster CPU would not lead to more incompatibility.
This would have avoided the impression of a "A500 in a fancy black box" many had back than.



That was Mr. Ali's foult again... and Sassenraths. The CDTV team was sitting somewhere in California and had almost no contact to the rest of C=.

Many things could have been done more cost effective, with the experts and engineers at C=.

And of course the rush to market: there was probably not enough time for a custom IC... and thats probably the reason for the existence of the huge "diagnostic port" on the board also...

Many of these issues where addressed in die CR version (cost reduced), but because the CDTV was no success, this version was never build in numbers.
http://amiga.resource.cx/mod/cdtv2.html
(and still way to many interfaces for such a product...)

So C= wanted it to be a mass-product, but they simply failed.

All this clearly shows that approach was like - "we must have something" - it was quite clear that CD didn't bring expected/promised return and whole idea was frozen for CD32 times (i agree too late, AGA shall be part of 3000 times).

Originally Posted by Gorf

All the other CD players for less than 500$ also had glowing displays.

True but with one important difference - volume - those products was sold in hundreds thousands, sharing same cheap platform with small difference (like added digital audio output, or fancy capacitors or similar "audiophile" features). Commonly VFD was same for whole family - for sure you see this even today - some icons visible but not active (or features like media player embedded but not active and you need to pay extra).

Originally Posted by Gorf

Nope! around $45 - for a total Megabyte as advertised in "Byte" magazine in February 1991.

I think C= management could have been actually stupid enough to do so, while everybody else was already doing "build to order".

Funny enough, the ram price stagnated the next couple of years around 30-40 $ until 1996.

Trust me - if you offering machine in March 1991 you not buying components to made it in February 1991.
Live sufficiently long to see how greedy people behave and how blindly and how narrow they think - nowadays corporation repeating same mistakes only money (at least number) are bigger - we are owned by bunch of greedy morons.
Amiga was never appreciated by C=, it was never mainline of C= products and when C= realize (if they realize as i doubt on this) how important is Amiga it was too late to do something. And Mr Ali using Irvin Gould language was šmondak...


btw Caddy was a nice thing - allowing CD protection and at the same time quick CD swap capabilities. Caddy was common on professional market, tray was preferred on consumer market, on those times caddy was very cheap when compared to CD drive and CD discs so you could easily have few of them, sometimes even replacing ordinary CD box (not difficult if you have 20 CD's on your shelf).

[MigaTech]

Originally Posted by pandy71

btw Caddy was a nice thing - allowing CD protection and at the same time quick CD swap capabilities. Caddy was common on professional market, tray was preferred on consumer market, on those times caddy was very cheap when compared to CD drive and CD discs so you could easily have few of them, sometimes even replacing ordinary CD box (not difficult if you have 20 CD's on your shelf).

It was C*** slow to accept and slow to return disc. You had to piss about with the plastic release squeeze and it was just awful. Probably why they never bothered adding one to the A3K.

The drawer CD drive is way better, Phillips knew something back then, that Commodore and even Apple didn't. When Commodore had finished its negotiations with AT&T over the software OS bundles, Apple jumped on the band waggon and it helped deliver their Quadra 660 & 840 systems. They still hadn't got it together then 2 years on, as those ugly units also had caddy CD system!!

Best thing about those Quadra's was the 040 and PPC compatibility and upgrade. Now if only Commodore had realised this for the A3K ! You want to argue about price, just check how much they were asking for Quadra systems back then.

[pandy71]

Once again - can't confirm your complains on caddy same of complains apply to tray (not opening, slow etc). CD caddy was very efficient protection method of CD disc. Plenty of SCSI drives was only caddy version - this was valid for few years and later caddy drives began to fade out.
Nowadays you can't buy new caddy and this is big issue (i regret personally not buying few spare caddy's for my A570).

Perhaps this will be better explanation http://www.vintagecomputing.com/inde...k-cd-rom-caddy

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Jope

By the time the B2000 happened, Fast RAM was on Zorro boards anyway, the A2091 could contain 2MB of it and Commodore sold their own 8MB board too.

The motherboard RAM would be configured as Chip RAM when proper Fast RAM was installed, so I don't really see the CPU slot mem expansion as a very big loss.

Only with ECS Agnus - with OSC there was no way to have more than 512k ChipRAM.

"FastRAM" over ZorroII is slow. It is OKish for a 7MHz 68K but is horrible for anything faster, starting with a simple 14Mhz hack.

Thats why CPU and RAM should have been sitting on a cpu-board in this slot from the first version on.

By any other ways of measuring the B2000 is a far superior product.

Can you elaborate, please?