eric@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Eric Lavitsky) (08/27/85)
Hi,
net.micro.amiga is finally here. As a proud owner of a Commodore Amiga,
I would like to open this newsgroup with an offer. I have now had a few
days to play with my machine and go through much of my documentation.
Please post questions (technical please, not 'where can I get one'), and
I will do my best to answer them on this group. I hope to be able to post
a few sources and code examples soon, but am unable to do so at this time.
I am very excited about this machine, though most people won't be able
to get their hands on one till the end of September, I hope to spread
some of that enthusiasm around. I will try to answer questions with a
minimum of overhead, but please forgive me if I lose myself now and
then and ramble about how great the machine is etc.
Here we go!...
Eric
--
ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
SNAIL: 16 Oak St., Flr 2
New Brunswick, NJ 08903dje@petrus.UUCP (Danny J. Espinoza) (08/29/85)
> > Hi, > > net.micro.amiga is finally here. As a proud owner of a Commodore Amiga, > I would like to open this newsgroup with an offer. I have now had a few > days to play with my machine and go through much of my documentation. > Please post questions (technical please, not 'where can I get one'), and > I will do my best to answer them on this group. I hope to be able to post > a few sources and code examples soon, but am unable to do so at this time. > > I am very excited about this machine, though most people won't be able > to get their hands on one till the end of September, I hope to spread > some of that enthusiasm around. I will try to answer questions with a > minimum of overhead, but please forgive me if I lose myself now and > then and ramble about how great the machine is etc. > > Here we go!... > Eric > -- > > ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS > UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric > SNAIL: 16 Oak St., Flr 2 > New Brunswick, NJ 08903 Okay. Let's start asking questions! 1) How good are the sound capabilities of the Amiga? Is there any good software that uses it? Will there be software like MusicWorks and ConcertWare? 2) What's the resolution of the screen? How many colors can the Amiga display at the same time? Tell us all about the graphics. -- Danny Espinoza ...!bellcore!dje or dje@bellcore.ARPA
dmak@watarts.UUCP (Derwin Mak) (08/29/85)
In response to the offer that was made, here are some questions:
1. Could I easily interface a shugart compatible 5.25 inch diskette
drive (80 tracks double sided) to the amiga.
2. Will my MX80 printer work with the amiga and can I use it to print
graphics or do I have to go out and purchase a special printer as
with the Macintosh.
3. How fast is the amiga (with a single process running). I'm talking
about computation speed, disk access speed and graphics speed.
Comparisons to other micros (ie IBM PC or APPLE MAC) would be
helpful here.
4. And now a question requiring a highly subjective response:
How easy is it to write programs for the amiga that utilize the mouse
icons and windows and other related user interface stuff.
How easy is it to write programs which do not use fancy user interfaces?
How good are the software development tools (ie assembler, C compiler,
Pascal compiler) etc.
Thanks.cg@myriasb.UUCP (Chris Gray) (08/29/85)
..
You're gonna get flack about building this news group, but I'm on your
side - long live net.micro.amiga!!
Here's a couple of questions for you:
- how wide is the on-board data bus 8? 16? 32?
- how wide is the data bus that goes off board?
does it require any extra wait states?
- Does your machine have the DOS in ROM or RAM?
(I think most of us would prefer the RAM variant - maybe we can
pursuade Amiga/Commodore to forget about ROMing it.)
- I gather the coprocessors can do line drawing. About how many lines
per second can they draw? How much does bogging the coprocessors
down really slow down the 68K?
- How's the documentation you get? How much, how complete?
- What software do you get with it? (BASIC and/or Logo I don't care about)
There, that should keep you busy for a while!
Chris Gray {...,ihnp4}!alberta!myrias!cgkim@mips.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn) (08/30/85)
[ ... yum ... yum ... yum ... ] > Hi, > > net.micro.amiga is finally here. As a proud owner of a Commodore Amiga, > I would like to open this newsgroup with an offer. I have now had a few I'm very happy to see net.micro.amiga appear, and since you've offered, there *are* a few (thousand! :-)) questions I have: 1 - Can you give us your impressions of the "robustness" of the OS; how solid is it thusfar? 2 - I'd like to get an early machine so as to have the writeable "control" store, but I would want to be able to keep the OS up-to-date. Do you have any information on the upgrade policy for "kickstartable" Amigas? And what about a possible conversion over to ROMs at a later date; has Commodore made any commitments? 3 - Can you elaborate on the memory map? There are alot of areas marked "reserved" in the August Byte article; any info on their various functions? 4 - What s/w is available; I would be primarily interested in development s/w, initially? 5 - How good is the technical documentation, and in what depth? Does it include schematics? Is the bus well-defined? Could I (for example) find out if the access time to the "control-store" RAMs is shorter that to the (future) ROMs? 6 - How good is the hi-res color monitor? Dot pitch? Crispness? Any flicker in the 600x400 pixel mode? Interlaced? That should do to get the ball rolling, I think (and I didn't even ask how you managed to get one so early ... hmmmm). > I am very excited about this machine, though most people won't be able > to get their hands on one till the end of September, I hope to spread > some of that enthusiasm around. I will try to answer questions with a Shouldn't be too hard to spread around ... I think alot of us are just as excited as you are (well, maybe not quite ... we don't have one yet :-))! Thanx n advance, /kim UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!kim DDD: 415-960-1200 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems Inc, 1330 Charleston Rd, Mt View, CA 94043 -- UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!kim DDD: 415-960-1200 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems Inc, 1330 Charleston Rd, Mt View, CA 94043
knf@druxo.UUCP (FricklasK) (08/30/85)
->Okay. Let's start asking questions!
->1) How good are the sound capabilities of the Amiga? Is there any good
->software that uses it? Will there be software like MusicWorks and
->ConcertWare?
It blows AWAY anything so far available! You can digitize the output of your
stereo! And Electronic Arts is coming out with come great software for it!!
And commodore is coming out with a plug in digital keyboard for it!! And you
can use its memory as a sequencer!!! And I'm going really heavy on the exclams!!! !!!! !!!! !! !!!!! !!
(etc!)
Software for it will include:
Harmony (Commodore) composition software, optional keyboard.
Instant Music (Electronic Arts)
Deluxe Music Construction Set (Electronic Arts)
All available at release, with more due out in November.
2) What's the resolution of the screen? How many colors can the Amiga
display at the same time? Tell us all about the graphics.
Resolution:
640x200 16 colors, non-interlaced.
320x200 32 colors, non-interlaced.
640x400 16 colors, interlaced.
320x400 32 colorsm interlaced.
Composite, digital RGB, and analog RGB outputs. (need analog monitor to take
full advantage of the 4096 possible colors.)
"Hold and modify" mode to display all 4096 colors at once.
Eight hardware sprites, up to 16 pixels wide by any height, ap to 12 colors.
Graphics coprocessor ("copper").
Dedicated processor that moves around pieces of the screen ("Blitter").
Built in animation routines in ROM.
Custom peripheral/sound chip, creates complex waveform sound generation.
That's the basics. If you want to get technical, Lavitsky will have to
answer.
'`'`'
Ken
'`'`'
Friends of Amiga
Boulder's First Amiga User Group (or shouldI say fan club)
--
Danny Espinoza
...!bellcore!dje or dje@bellcore.ARPAss@wanginst.UUCP (Sid Shapiro) (08/30/85)
Thanks for the offer. A short question which you may not know the
answer to, just to keep things interesting.
I saw the presentation of the Amiga at the BCS the other day. There
was IBM emulator software. The demonstrator had 2 machines going.
One specifically to show off the emulator. He loaded the emulator,
then booted a PCDOS disk, then fired up lotus. But then he switched
to the other machine for the full blown amiga demos. Can you not run
the emulator in one window and normal amiga stuff in other windows?
Do you have to do a machine reset to get back to native amiga world?
And finally does the emulation handle graphics (ibm graphics, not
amiga)
One comment: I was blown away by the demo. This looks like a very
exciting machine - particularly when the price is mentioned. But I
wonder, will the price still be great when it finally hits the
stores?
Anyway, thanks for the group and the of information. Looking
forward to lots of good stuff here.
--
Sid Shapiro -- Wang Institute of Graduate Studies
[apollo, bbncca, ucadmus, decvax, linus, masscomp]!wanginst!ss
ss%wang-inst@Csnet-Relay.ARPA
(617)649-9731warack@aero.ARPA (Chris Warack) (08/30/85)
ro.UUCP |@ ___ | seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest! |_______| sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!aero!warack || || \ Aerospace Corporation, M1-117, El Segundo, CA 90245 ^^^ ^^^ `---------(|=
homeier@aero.ARPA (Peter Homeier) (08/30/85)
I am very interested in the how the new Amiga machine compares with
the Apple Macintosh. Could you prepare a technical discussion showing
each machine's strengths and weaknesses relative to the other? Both
machines are of the same general type, yet have some obvious and
interesting differences (i.e., available software, color).
Peter Homeier
ARPANET: homeier@aerospace
--
Peter Homeier ______
Arpanet: homeier@aerospace / o \_/
UUCP: ..!ihnp4!trwrb!aero!homeier \__/___/ \wm@tekchips.UUCP (Wm Leler) (08/31/85)
If you would like to learn more about the Amiga there is a long article about it in Byte magazine this month. I've also seen a videotape of the "launch" in NYC, which features a long demo, and have some of the technical manuals. I have played with one only briefly, not long enough to find any weaknesses. Summary of Amiga - You can read the specs anywhere, so I will give a (very) subjective rundown. I was most impressed by the sound generation facilities. I heard a demo of a variety of sounds, including tom-toms, and a heavy-metal distorted guitar that sounded like the real thing. Sounds can be "recorded" digitally and reproduced, or you can generate new sounds. There are four channels, two of which can be used for envelope control (attack, decay, etc.). You have complete control over waveform and envelope. Sound generators are DMA driven, so they don't tie up the 68000. There is also builtin speech generation that can generate speech from unrestricted text. The graphics resolutions are fairly standard, either 320 by 200 (non interlaced) with 32 colors, or 640 by 400 (interlaced) with 16 colors. There is a 12 bit color lookup table. There is also a mode where the pixel value is taken to be a signed difference from the last pixel, so all 4096 colors can be shown on the same screen. It takes 3 pixels to change color completely this way, but that is not really a drawback since the eye's spatial frequency response to color is rather limited (the NTSC standard does not allow a full color change per pixel, for instance). There are also 8 hardware sprites. The user can have multiple screens, each with a different resolution. Each screen can have multiple windows. The Amiga has true multitasking, so more than one application can run simultaneously. The impressive part about the Amiga graphics is the animation. One of the custom chips is a co-processor that can perform actions based upon the state of the display, so animation can be synchronized with display refresh. There is also support for collision detection, fast polygon filling, line drawing, and bit-bliting. This system is fast. I saw a demo of the flight simulator that everyone has seen on the Apple and IBM, except that instead of line graphics, it had full filled polygons running in real time. Other cute features - an IBM PC emulator that lets you run MS-DOS software unmodified (at around 70% processor speed, 100% I/O speed). Genlock option so you can synch graphics with video. Modem that can answer the phone and talk to people. My personal opinion is that this is the machine the Mac should have been. The only concern I've heard about this machine is that it might be too late to grab any market, but who cares? I'm going to buy one. It uses a 68000, and can run MS-DOS, so there is going to be plenty of software for it. Besides, what software hacker could resist it? Wm Leler
ewa@sdcc3.UUCP (Eric Anderson) (09/01/85)
In article <974@druxo.UUCP> knf@druxo.UUCP (FricklasK) writes: >->Okay. Let's start asking questions! > >->1) How good are the sound capabilities of the Amiga? Is there any good >->software that uses it? Will there be software like MusicWorks and >->ConcertWare? > >It blows AWAY anything so far available! You can digitize the output of your >stereo! And Electronic Arts is coming out with come great software for it!! >And commodore is coming out with a plug in digital keyboard for it!! And you >can use its memory as a sequencer!!! And I'm going really heavy on the exclams!!! !!!! !!!! !! !!!!! !! Does this mean it has a MIDI port? or is that extra? how much extra?
eric@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Eric Lavitsky) (09/02/85)
Hi,
Well, here's my first attempt at answering some questions.
I will begin by telling everyone what I got in my developer's package:
For $1900:
1 256K Amiga PC
1 256K Memory Add On
1 External 3.5 inch floppy
1 Analog RGB Monitor - 640x200 (Model 1070)
Lattice C Native development system
Lattice C MS-DOS Cross compiler
Assembler and Linker
AmigaDOS User's Manual
AmigaDOS Developer's Manual
AmigaDOS Technical Reference Manual
AmigaDOS User Interface Guide
Amiga Hardware Reference Manual
Amiga ROM Kernel Manual
Lattice Manual (Preliminary)
Various Updates to certain manuals
I don't know too much about the marketing end of this machine. Commodore
has said that they are still deciding on what their policy regarding ROM
upgrades will be. The OS is very robust, though the documentation needs
a little more. I am having a little trouble figuring this whole mess out -
I am hoping that the next release of the documentation will be more complete
(some sections like sound are missong from my set now). There are no
schematics in my documentation, and I can`t make total sense of the expansion
bus pinouts (though I'm no EE).
I have a few different releases of the OS - V27, V28.9 and V28.11. The latest
version does crash now and then, but V29 is supposedly available now. I
managed to grab a beta-release of graphicraft and musicraft. The colors and
sound are both crisp and impressive. My stereo does a nice job - I can't
wait for the final versions of these programs (and Marble Madness too!).
More to follow.
Eric
--
ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
SNAIL: 16 Oak St., Flr 2
New Brunswick, NJ 08903eric@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Eric Lavitsky) (09/02/85)
Hi,
I did manage to grab a pre-release of the PC emulator as well. Once
going in PC mode, that`s all you can use the Amiga for. No nice windows
or multi-tasking. You must totally reset the machine to recover to the
Amiga OS. I don't know if the emulator handles graphics for things like
Flight Simulator as I don't have a 5-1/4 inch drive.
Eric
--
ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
SNAIL: 16 Oak St., Flr 2
New Brunswick, NJ 08903rbt@sftig.UUCP (R.Thomas) (09/03/85)
> anybody besides me interested in getting OS9/68K running on the Amiga? > Somebody's bound to have thought of it by now. > > Doug Hall Actually, I'm surprised that the same thought didn't occur to the developers of either (both) of the amiga or the 520ST. It would seem that OS9/68K would be an ideal substrate for the 'visual/mac-type' user interface that they provide. Does anybody know why they decided to "go their own way" and develop custom OS's for their machines. Are the OS9 developers so unreasonable about relicensing that this was impossible? Or is there something about OS9 that makes this less sensible than I think it is? Rick Thomas ihnp4!attunix!rbt
moose@ames.UUCP (Mary Kaiser) (09/03/85)
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR DESPERATE PLEA FOR INFO ***
Some of here are very interested in using Amigas (Amigi?) as laboratory
computers. I know this is an obscure application that most of y'all
couldn't care less about, but would those who can answer the following
questions please bear with us (and who knows, some of these issues might
be relevant to your applications):
1) Will the Amiga have (either on the motherboard or as a peripheral) a
real-time *programmable* clock?
2) How good are the A/D, D/A capabilities of the Amiga, and how accessible
are they?
3) Can the audio output be programmed such that the Amiga could be used
for psychoacoustic studies? That is, do you have precise control
over wave shape, amplitude, and temporal onset for the two channels?
Thanks to all for any information. I will post any received info of
general interest.
U.S. Mail: Mary Kaiser net.mail: ames!moose@RIACS.ARPA
Mail Stop 239-3
NASA-Ames Research Center
Moffett Field, CA 94035
ATT(MCI,Sprint): (415) 694-6789clark@sdcsla.UUCP (Clark Quinn) (09/03/85)
> > anybody besides me interested in getting OS9/68K running on the Amiga? > > Somebody's bound to have thought of it by now. > > Actually, I'm surprised that the same thought didn't occur to the > developers of either (both) of the amiga or the 520ST. It would seem that > OS9/68K would be an ideal substrate for the 'visual/mac-type' user > interface that they provide. > Or is there something about OS9 that makes this less sensible than I think > it is? > I have been reading about OS9 for awhile on this newsgroup, and I wonder, what is OS9? It seems to be a nice operating system for 68000 processors, handling windows and things. That is just a guess, however, and not really enough information. Could someone please POST a brief description of OS9 that might illuminate some of us who are not aware of this wonder and explain why it would be a good idea for Amiga/520ST? If possible, a pointer to some sort of way to find out more would be welcome also. Thanks in advance, -- Clark Clark N. Quinn Institute for Cognitive Science C-015 University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093 (619) 452-2541 (UCSD): (619) 481-0952 (Home) {ucbvax,decvax,akgua,dcdwest}!sdcsvax!sdcsla!clark OR clark@nprdc
hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Charles Hedrick) (09/04/85)
> Some of here are very interested in using Amigas (Amigi?) as laboratory
Amiga is Spanish ("friend", feminine). Plural is amigas.rbt@sftig.UUCP (R.Thomas) (09/05/85)
Your posting got truncated by the time it got to us. Please repost it. Thanks! The following is all we got -- > ro.UUCP > |@ ___ | seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest! > |_______| sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!aero!warack > || || \ Aerospace Corporation, M1-117, El Segundo, CA 90245 > ^^^ ^^^ `---------(|=
dmm@calmasd.UUCP (David M. MacMillan) (09/05/85)
>> Some of here are very interested in using Amigas (Amigi?) as laboratory > >Amiga is Spanish ("friend", feminine). Plural is amigas. Even if "amiga" were Latin, it would be first declension, thus its nominative plural would be "amigae" (other examples of first declension nouns used in English might include "larva" (nom. plur. "larvae"). Only second declension nouns such as "alumnus" form the nom. plural with "i" (alumni). However, since amiga is Spanish, and doubtless chosen by the manufacturer's marketing dept. to mean "friend", the Spanish plural must be taken to be correct. As it corresponds to the English plural, this shouldn't be so difficult. Don't you love it when people clutter up a perfectly useful technical newsgroup with arcane philological details. David M. MacMillan PAX VOBISCUM, AMIGA. (which, here, is in the Vocative case)
knf@druxo.UUCP (FricklasK) (09/05/85)
>In article <974@druxo.UUCP> knf@druxo.UUCP (FricklasK) writes: >>->software that uses it? Will there be software like MusicWorks and >>->ConcertWare? >> >>It blows AWAY anything so far available! You can digitize the output of your >>stereo! And Electronic Arts is coming out with come great software for it!! >>And commodore is coming out with a plug in digital keyboard for it!! And you >>can use its memory as a sequencer!!! And I'm going really heavy on the exclams!!! !!!! !!!! !! !!!!! !! >Does this mean it has a MIDI port? or is that extra? how much extra? Yes, for about $200 extra, I don't know availability. '`'`' Ken '`'`'
moose@ames.UUCP (Mary Kaiser) (09/06/85)
> > Some of here are very interested in using Amigas (Amigi?) as laboratory > > Amiga is Spanish ("friend", feminine). Plural is amigas. I know, but Amigi had such a nice ring to it...
mwherman@watcgl.UUCP (Michael W. Herman) (09/09/85)
It's probably time to use a new Subject line. Welcome! has worn out its welcome.
peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (09/11/85)
> It would seem that > OS9/68K would be an ideal substrate for the 'visual/mac-type' user > interface that they provide. Does anybody know why they decided to "go > their own way" and develop custom OS's for their machines. Are the OS9 > developers so unreasonable about relicensing that this was impossible? I thought that the ATARI was using a variant of CP/M-68K. That was what my fallible sources informed me (confirmation or denials, anyone?).
ccrdan@ucdavis.UUCP (Dan Gold) (09/15/85)
> > It would seem that > > OS9/68K would be an ideal substrate for the 'visual/mac-type' user > > interface that they provide. Does anybody know why they decided to "go > > their own way" and develop custom OS's for their machines. Are the OS9 > > developers so unreasonable about relicensing that this was impossible? > > I thought that the ATARI was using a variant of CP/M-68K. That was what my > fallible sources informed me (confirmation or denials, anyone?). I believe that the Atari will be using the GEM system or something very similiar. Dan Gold ...ucbvax!ucdavis!minnie!ccrdan -- Dan Gold ...ucbvax!ucdavis!minnie!ccrdan
jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura) (09/19/85)
In article <575@sftig.UUCP> rbt@sftig.UUCP (R.Thomas) writes: > [Re: Amiga and 520ST] >OS9/68K would be an ideal substrate for the 'visual/mac-type' user >interface that they provide. Does anybody know why they decided to "go >their own way" and develop custom OS's for their machines. Are the OS9 >developers so unreasonable about relicensing that this was impossible? >Or is there something about OS9 that makes this less sensible than I think >it is? > >Rick Thomas >ihnp4!attunix!rbt The cost of licensing OS-9 isn't unreasonably high. If you check around, you'll find that it's generally licenced for about $100.00 U.S. The Shack is able to sell it for as little as $70.00 Canadian. There's no doubt that you could probably negotiate roughly the same cost as Microsoft charges for 'Mess-DOS' (nice term coined by a Compuserve OS-9'er). The only downside is that BASIC09 might cost a bit. On the otherhand, the Helix QuadraTerm (4 port OS-9, 68008, 1/2 meg. RAM, 10 Meg. Hard, 1 80 track floppy, OS-9 68K, BASIC09, Stylograph word- processor, DynaCalc Spreadsheet, mail merge, spelling checker all *included*) sells for $2695.00 US. You can add a cheap smart term for as little as $500.00 Canadian (a very good term at that) and come out way ahead of the Amiga, the ST520 or *any* legal or even illegal PC-Clone. Note that all this software is time-tested and proven! Why wasn't it done? Frankly, I intend to find out in detail and report in on BIX (I'm the moderator of the 'os.9' conference on the Byte Information eXchange). I expect that they just didn't want to pay anybody *anything* for their main system software. The GEM system was a must for Atari, in order to beat the Amiga onto the market. If Tramiel had the time, I think he would have tried to do that much in house as well. The Amiga Software was not begun by Commodore. A certain amount was produced by the original designers of the Amiga. I don't have all the details in that regard either. Between the two, my impression is that the current Atari ST5200 would be the easier of the two to set up OS-9 on. The Amiga's hardware interface is too dependant on it's current system to interface to OS-9 and still use it to it's maximum potential. In short, you'd end up keeping most of the original software and running OS-9 in the space remaining, which wouldn't be much. To create a whole new optimized set of drivers would be, in this case substantially less trivial. Not impossible mind you, but you wouldn't be able to do a lot of the neato graphics & sound stuff as a coherent production as easily for quite a while. Cheers! -- Jim O. -- James Omura, Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto ihnp4!utzoo!lsuc!jimomura