dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (11/07/86)
The current Amiga is hot. If you intend to create 'new' Amiga's with 'better this' and 'better that', DON'T MAKE ANY MISTAKES! It had better be a *lot* better. Don't go half-way. I would strongly advise that any 'new' Amiga have AT LEAST 1024x1024 resolution (obviously you need a custom screen here). Also, I suggest you increase the # bit planes allowed without contention to 8. Remove the DMA address range limits COMPLETELY... increasing it to 2 MEG is not good enough. I don't care if you introduce a priority scheme which allows faster access to certain parts of ram, but the most you should impose on the OS is an 'advisory load memory range'. USE A 68020!!! Do NOT use an MMU (it's going to be expensive as it is and an MMU would make it incompatible with the Amiga's already well-designed OS). Forget about waiting for Motorola's 68030 (just in case you get the thought). And you had better make this cheap.... the machine will flop if it's price is anywhere near SUN's workstations due to the fact that SUN has much more prestige than C-A in the high-end workstation area. The idea is to have two machines on the market, the Amiga, and the (Ranger?). Which are medium and high-level versions of the same basic design. The current state of the OS is such that you could easily make the software upward compatible, and us program-writers could easily make it compatible the other way as well. Alternately, if you only make small improvments to the new machine, it would compete directly with the current Amiga. I needn't tell you that this would probably cause the downfall of the new machine. -Matt
higgin@cbmvax.commodore.COM (Paul Higginbottom) (11/07/86)
In article <8611062128.AA11889@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: >The current Amiga is hot. Agreed. >If you intend to create 'new' Amiga's >with 'better this' and 'better that', DON'T MAKE ANY MISTAKES! I guess they'll try to heed that warning from now on! >It had better be a *lot* better. Don't go half-way. >I would strongly advise that any 'new' Amiga have AT LEAST 1024x1024 >resolution (obviously you need a custom screen here). Also, I suggest you >increase the # bit planes allowed without contention to 8. > >...more wishes on DMA addressibility... > >USE A 68020!!! Do NOT use an MMU (it's going to be expensive as it >is and an MMU would make it incompatible with the Amiga's already >well-designed OS). Forget about waiting for Motorola's 68030 >(just in case you get the thought). > >And you had better make this cheap.... the machine will flop if it's >price is anywhere near SUN's workstations due to the fact that SUN has much >more prestige than C-A in the high-end workstation area. The idea is to have >two machines on the market, the Amiga, and the (Ranger?). Which are medium >and high-level versions of the same basic design. The current state >of the OS is such that you could easily make the software upward compatible, >and us program-writers could easily make it compatible the other way as well. >... > -Matt It's the last paragraph that gets me - the overall message sounds like: "Oh puleeaz make it a color Vax workstation for under $2000!!" YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING - the monitor ALONE to give decent 1Kx1K COLOR resolution is gonna run $2000. Also, who says Commodore wants to compete with Sun? If they do they've got a lot of work to do! How about a network file system? How about even a Commodore-brand HARD DISK!?!?!? The Suns these days use (around) 16Mhz 68020's - how much do you suppose they cost a crack - probably $100. And, if you're going to use that fast a processor, you might as well put in FAST RAM chips and they ain't cheap either, especially now that Uncle Sam regulates the price. In summary, I don't believe Commodore should even think about directly competing in the workstation market - the support would be too expensive. What Commodore seems to be doing from the rumors makes sense - improve what they have! Yes it will compete with what's being sold now but what's being sold now might not go on being sold forever. I.e., new machines REPLACE, not compete with, the existing ones. I doubt, for example, if Apple sells too many basic Macintoshes anymore. The Mac Plus is a much better machine. Commodore is in the home and personal computer business, as I see it, and not the "micro-mini" or workstation market. Oh, and one last thing - like it or not, Commodore would have to put Unix on a workstation product - it's become the defacto standard - and the going price for a System V distribution license is ONE MILLION DOLLARS last time I enquired. Regards, Paul. Disclaimer: I work for myself, and my opinions are my own. Commodore is in the home and personal computer business (as I see it), and
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (11/07/86)
>I'm sorry Matt, but I beg to differ. I'm just plain sick and tired of >having to reboot my machine just because of a wayward pointer in a program >I'm developing. SOME sort of memory management to protect myself from myself >would be terrific. An MMU doesn't have to be incompatible with the OS. You >could always disable it, but I think that for the extra protection it affords, >it's a must. > >A multi-user system without an MMU is suicide! I wouldn't buy it. Not for >my business, anyways. > >And you don't need an '020. An '010 would do nicely. Also, according to the >Byte article on 68K MMUs, you can even get some MMUs for the 68000. Buy yourself a SUN. I am being practical. If C-A put a MMU in their Amiga(s), the cost of the machines would be too high (in my opinion). Besides, if your going to have an MMU, you also want full resource tracking in the kernal so when programs die, they don't effect the rest of the machine. Additionaly, the current message passing system assumes shared memory, and that would have to be changed. In short, to add an MMU would require a complete rewriting of the OS almost from scratch... If C-A stays with the current kernal model (which is very well done by my standards), an MMU would be impractical. Then again, it is true that you could selectively enable an MMU for specific programs which stay within certain bounds, if it weren't too expensive, the best route to go is make it a programmer's option and allow him to turn it on and off at will. -Matt
kdd@well.UUCP (Keith David Doyle) (11/08/86)
In article <8611062128.AA11889@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: > The current Amiga is hot. If you intend to create 'new' Amiga's >with 'better this' and 'better that', DON'T MAKE ANY MISTAKES! It had >better be a *lot* better. Don't go half-way. > > I would strongly advise that any 'new' Amiga have AT LEAST 1024x1024 >resolution (obviously you need a custom screen here). Also, I suggest you >increase the # bit planes allowed without contention to 8. We already disagree here. I would advise against designing out one of the biggest Amiga markets, VIDEO!. I'd rather see a new Amiga that went to 12 (or 24 or whatever ) bit planes at 640x400 NTSC (yes, interlaced) than to require an expensive 1kx1k monitor while eliminating features like Genlock, etc. I'd like to see built in floating point hardware, 32 bit bus, etc. but I'd much prefer 640x400x24 to 1kx1k or 2kx2k or 4kx4k or whatever you can dream up. I want more colors with anti-aliasing hardware! NOT more pixels. But that's *my opinion*. Keith Doyle ihnp4!ptsfa!well!kdd