LAVITSKY@RUTGERS.ARPA (02/20/85)
From: The.Uninformed <Insert your gripe here> Hello all, I'm just wondering about what happened at the recent Commodore show discussed on the board. How was it? Specifically, I'm looking for information about the new Amiga Lorraine. Was it on display? Could you use it, or was it kept under lock and key? In any case, all I've heard is rumors about what seems to be a great machine. Can anyone confirm or deny the following: 1) Turbo Pascal, built in. The Macintosh boards on the nets have busy with the fact that development of Turbo Pascal for the Macintosh has been put on a back burner in favor of the version for the Amiga. 2) 8 Mhz 68000 cpu with expansion slots able to handle 7 Meg. I know the 68000 can address much more, and 7 Meg is a lot of memory, but why stop there? 3) As for graphics and sound, I've heard 640x300 resolution with 4096(!) colors. Seperate rgb, composite video AND rf modulated signals. Also, there are supposed to be 256 sprites available. Could this mean a graphics coprocessor? For sound there are supposed to be 16 channels with stereo sound (could this mean 2 main sound outputs?). 4) Release date is purported to be sometime during the early bits of summer. The cost I last heard is under $700 with one disk drive. Is the drive a programmable format drive? - 3.5 inch??? 5) Finally, I understand that it will run under a Mac-like environment replete with mouse. This at least seems to be a good move, as I like the Mac's OS (I/O speed not inclusive). By this time, I'm sure all of you who have seen the Lorraine are screaming bloody murder about what I've said, but I have no other source of info except for the rumor mills. Please, I (and the rest of you I'm sure) would like to know what's happening with this machine. Even if the above rumors are just rumors, and if the Atari 'Jackintoshes' make the impact they're supposed to, it's going to be one hell of a summer for computers. One more thing for the rumour mill. I heard from a friend with sources inside AT&T that AT&T is trying to buy out Commodore. What gives? Did they really buy 5% of the stock already? Do they want it for the chip manufacturing facilities? ... Jonathan D. Trudel Trudel@ru-blue.arpa The above message is based on the confused ramblings of a poor and starving computer science student. Any interpretation of the above material as fact is left up to the opinion of the reader, and no responsibility lies with the author. -------
doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (02/21/85)
> 2) 8 Mhz 68000 cpu with expansion slots able to handle 7 Meg. I know > the 68000 can address much more, and 7 Meg is a lot of memory, but why > stop there? I can't confirm/deny this. But even if it's so, I don't understand your problem with it. At the current cost of memories, 7 Meg will cost the manufacturer over $3000 in memory chips alone. What with the support chips, board costs, and markups, you could expect to spend around $15,000 to $20,000 for 7 Meg of memory. Even if the price of memory drops by 2/3, you'ld still be spending over $5000 in memory for your $700 computer. If you had that kind of bucks, you'ld probably buy a more powerful machine to plug the memory into. Why stop? Each slot connector costs money. Address decoding chips cost money. The more slots, the larger the PC board, and that means more expensive board, bigger and more expensive housing, more problems with board warpage. And bigger power supply (memory chips *love* power) and more cooling fans (memory chips *dissipate* that power). Next question: what on earth would you *use* 7 Meg for? Certainly you aren't going to be writing programs that large. And 7 Meg of data is about 2000 typewritten pages worth. I mean, we're talking about a *home* computer here, not something that Bank of America is going to use to run a 500-terminal on-line database. -- Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug
@RUTGERS.ARPA:LAVITSKY@RU-BLUE.ARPA (02/24/85)
From: Eric <LAVITSKY@RU-BLUE.ARPA> Well Doug Pardee replied about the Lorraine: >> 2) 8 Mhz 68000 cpu with expansion slots able to handle 7 Meg. I know >> the 68000 can address much more, and 7 Meg is a lot of memory, but why >> stop there? >I can't confirm/deny this. But even if it's so, I don't understand your >problem with it. At the current cost of memories, 7 Meg will cost the >manufacturer over $3000 in memory chips alone. What with the support >chips, board costs, and markups, you could expect to spend around >$15,000 to $20,000 for 7 Meg of memory. Even if the price of memory >drops by 2/3, you'ld still be spending over $5000 in memory for your >$700 computer. If you had that kind of bucks, you'ld probably buy a >more powerful machine to plug the memory into. Sure, you could expect tp pay that much from any *other* manafacturer. Don't forget, Commodore can make their own chips (MOS Technology) . I bet they could offer a 1 Meg upgrade for ~$300... that's only ~$1800 over the cost of the original machine (for 7 meg). Of course they would have to be really geared up for production of 256k RAMs. Just look at a chip like the SID - Commodore charges ~$20 to dealers for these chips seperately along with 6526s, and VIC IIs - if these chips really cost Commodore near that much the 64 would cost over $500 (it did at first, but when production picks up, blam goes the price). I'm not saying that they will offer memory at such low prices, but they are the ones who can do it. The 64 is 64k of memory ++ and it costs around $130 now. Strip off the support chips and processor etc. and how much do you think the RAM costs them? >Why stop? Each slot connector costs money. Address decoding chips cost >money. The more slots, the larger the PC board, and that means more >expensive board, bigger and more expensive housing, more problems with >board warpage. And bigger power supply (memory chips *love* power) and >more cooling fans (memory chips *dissipate* that power). Well, no one knows for sure what kind of scheme or design they're gonna use to house the thing... hopefully it'll be a sexy functional design. >Next question: what on earth would you *use* 7 Meg for? Certainly >you aren't going to be writing programs that large. And 7 Meg of >data is about 2000 typewritten pages worth. I mean, we're talking >about a *home* computer here, not something that Bank of America is >going to use to run a 500-terminal on-line database. >-- >Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug What could you use 7 Meg for? - How about a Multi user system based on UN*X? Use it in the office, for data sampling, in a school... Picture as many RAM disks as you could ever need... running your favorite game in one window and your terminal program in another. The Lorraine is supposed to be Commodores' *High* end machine, they want to compete with Apple and IBM. No one says you have to dish out the money for 7 Meg either. Start with 512K, if you want more it's available. It can be personal, educational, business, industrial or scientific - If it starts with everything you need at under $700 (list - remember what can happen to the price after it hits the shelves) then expansion capabilities make it all the more attractive - It'll be nice to know the capability is there. Eric Lavitsky, Maintainer of Commodore 64 Kermit. ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS UUCP: ...{seismo,ut-sally,harvard,umcp-cs}!topaz!eric SNAIL: CPO 2765, CN 700 New Brunswick, NJ 08903 -------
ravi@eneevax.UUCP (Ravi Kulkarni) (02/25/85)
>From: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS.ARPA >From: The.Uninformed How true!! But then when you are in the rumors business you can take it for granted. >1) Turbo Pascal, built in. The Macintosh boards on the nets >have busy with the fact that development of Turbo Pascal for the >Macintosh has been put on a back burner in favor of the version >for the Amiga. This is apparently true since it came straight from Philipe Kahn(sp?) the author of turbo pascal. It is certainly an advancement over basic. He might also be doing the OS which is going to be integrated in with GEM. > 2) 8 Mhz 68000 cpu with expansion slots able to handle 7 Meg. >I know the 68000 can address much more, and 7 Meg is a lot of >memory, but why stop there? Lot's of memory implies several things. If you are going to have several megabytes you will need at least some form of parity checking like the IBM pc. Fast I/O and a hard disk almost become necessary otherwise the wait to fill memory will take forever. Efficient use of megabytes of memory almost certainly implies a multi tasking environment. If commodore has added an mmu they almost certainly have had to introduce wait states(foregoing costly alterernatives) slowing things down. If you think commodore's( the designer of the slowest disk drive in the world and the bringer of sparkle to our application programs) going to add any of these goodies you are a bigger sucker than I thought. Oh well, I guess we can always hope. >3) As for graphics and sound, I've heard 640x300 resolution with >4096(!) colors. Seperate rgb, composite video AND rf modulated >signals. Also, there are supposed to be 256 sprites available. >Could this mean a graphics coprocessor? For sound there are >supposed to be 16 channels with stereo sound (could this mean 2 >main sound outputs?). This could be the saving grace for the amiga even if commodore manages to muck up everything else. The graphics chip set that is supposed to be used(originally developed for atari and now under litigation) is very exciting. It is supposed to support raster ops in hardware and have support for animation. The 4096 colors and 640x300 resolution is more likely to be a palette of 4096 colors with only a few available at any one time(probably similar to atari's gtia chip). The resolution is more like 640x200 so it can drive tv sets and standard analog rgb monitors. >4) Release date is purported to be sometime during the early bits >of summer. The cost I last heard is under $700 with one disk drive. >Is the drive a programmable format drive? - 3.5 inch??? I think cost is likely to depend on whether or not they include slots. If they do I have a feeling it will be more like a $1000 with about 128k of ram and a disk drive I certainly hope the amiga is a successfull machine but, if I seem a bit sceptical it is because of my past experience with the c64. I am really rooting for both commodore and atari as right now the only alternative for people wishing to upgrade is an IBM pc(curse their segmented architecture) or an apple mac which has it's own problems for >$2000. I don't want to suggest that the atari and commodore machines don't have problems but, somehow they are easier to put up with knowing the relative costs of the machines. -- ARPA: eneevax!ravi@maryland UUCP: [seismo,allegra]!umcp-cs!eneevax!ravi
doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (02/26/85)
[ Can anyone really want more than 7 Megabytes? ] > Sure, you could expect tp pay that much from any *other* > manafacturer. Don't forget, Commodore can make their own chips (MOS > Technology) . True. But so far MOS Technology has shown its strength to be in making special-purpose chips like SIDs and VICs. They really trailed the industry in coming out with 64K DRAMs. For the first two years the C-64 was made with outside-vendor 64K DRAMs. And since 256K DRAMs seem to be done exclusively in CMOS while MOS Technology's expertise and manufacturing capability is in NMOS, it'll be a few years before MOS Technology is producing 256K or 1M DRAMs. By then the Lorraine will probably be obsolete (from Commodore's point of view). Also, so far Commodore has stayed away from "upgrade" kits. But then, Jack Tramiel isn't running the show any more, so who knows. > What could you use 7 Meg for? - How about a Multi user system based > on UN*X? Use it in the office, for data sampling, in a school... Just what I was afraid you were going to say. In any given system, (computer or otherwise) there is some component which limits the performance. This is lovingly called a "bottleneck". It doesn't matter how much you improve everything else, if you can't improve the bottleneck things won't run faster. In a 68000-based Unix(tm) system, the memory is the bottleneck up to about 2Mb. Above that point, the 68000 becomes the bottleneck. Putting 7Mb on a 68000- based Unix system is a waste of money. > Picture as many RAM disks as you could ever need... How many *is* that? 7Mb is a *lot* of RAM disks. I would suggest that 2Mb would be "as many RAM disks as you could ever need..." > favorite game in one window and your terminal program in another. For this you need 7Mb?????? How about maybe 1MB? > Start with 512K, if you want more it's > available. And you can start with a VW Beetle and upgrade it to a cement mixer truck. But nobody would (I don't think anybody has). The point is that the cost of memory is so high that if you really wanted a multi-user Unix system, you'd simply buy a purpose-built system with a reasonable powerful CPU, and probably an MMU and an FPU, instead of trying to turn a home game-playing computer into a poor imitation. -- Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug
riner@dsd.UUCP (john riner) (02/28/85)
I still can't see why anyone would need 7 megs or more of RAM space. We have a Workstation with 2 Megs and it can run 16 concurrent shells (each has its own window on the screen) and you can't keep track of that many. We have a PDP 11/44 with 2 Megs of memory which serves 64 users and 900 Megs of disc drive so I can't see the need for 7 Megs in a multiuser system either. As for RAMdisk use. This is a possibility but I would think that is a bit of overkill. For all the talk of Commodore beating the price of Apples and IBMs They can surely do that with an excellent competitive product which has features useful to the majority of users and include the exotic in a machine that is slightly more expensive. -- John Riner UUCP: !fortune!dsd!riner AMPEX Corp Redwood City, CA. Nobody knows what I am talking about, so these must be my opinions and not theirs.