BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) (10/20/90)
In Message <1990Oct19.051510.15213@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Ethan Solomita <es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu> writes: > There is one thing which many people are either >forgetting and not realizing. Every dollar which Commodore spends >on their advertising budget is taking a dollar away from some >other important division, such as improving the O/S, etc. Also, >the advertising money could be not-spent and thus lower our >prices. This is true, but very misleading. Advertizing is the very best form of spending, because it directly results in increased sales, and thus more revenues. If Commodore were to only spend money on R&D, support, and manufacturing, their sales would go to zero, and they would not have any more money to spend on R&D, support, and manufacturing. Whereas if Commodore would spend more money on advertizing, they would get more revenues, and thus have more money to spend on advertizing, R&D, support, and manufacturing. > Commodore is running themselves, recently, as a >not-for-profit company! They made only $1.5 million on sales of >over $850 million this past year (7/1/89 - 6/30/90). That is >compared to a profit on the order of $50 million on $950 million >in sales the year before. Commodore has not payed dividends in >ages. They are spending every dime they have, and borrowing to >boot. Commodore only has just so much money. Why is this? Perhaps it is because Commodore is now paying the price for not doing any advertizing for the past five years. Commodore has to make up for the lack of advertizing for the past five years, plus spend more money equivelent to the amount of money they'd be spending on advertizing now if they had been advertizing for the past five years. There is a similar story in R&D. It is obvious now that, until Copperman came along, Commodore did not do much in research and development for the Amiga. If Commodore had started doing any research and development of the 32-bit chipset three years ago, it should be finished by now! But I am willing to bet that Commodore did not no any R&D on the 32-bit chipset until Copperman came along and put things in order. So, Commodore has to make up for the lack of progress in R&D for the past five years, in addition to spending more money on R&D equivelent to the amount they'd be spending on R&D now if they had been making progress for the past five years. It all comes down to the sins of the past making Commodore's present a real nightmare. > Apple this QUARTER had sales of over $1 billion. >Commodore cannot compete on a financial level with Apple, yet. >Don't expect as many ads as Apple gives or you'll be >disappointed. Besides, Apple already has a professional image. >They can show a computer and people will say it must be good. >Commodore doesn't get the same respect when they advertise. >People should be behind the A500 advertisements, because if it >weren't for the sales of the A500 Commodore would be bankrupt >long ago. And why is this? Perhaps it is because Apple has been making study progress in all areas for the past five years. Apple has been doing steady, continuously increasing advertizing for the past 10 or so years, and Commodore didn't advertize at all until recently. Apple has also been steadily increasing all of the MACs capabilities since its introduction, whereas even the very latest Amiga (the Amiga 3000) still has the same color, sound, and overall graphics as the very earliest Amiga (the Amiga 1000). BTW, when you compare Apple's U.S. sales revenues to Commodore's U.S. sales revenues, the difference is even greater. Apple's U.S. revenues outnumbers Commodore's U.S. sales revenues by a factor of about 20. > All IMNSHO's liberally dispersed where required. 8) > > -- Ethan > >Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu > >GorbachevAwards++; >free (SovietUnion); >IndependentRepublics += 15; -MB-
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (10/20/90)
In article <34005@nigel.ee.udel.edu> BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: > >In Message <1990Oct19.051510.15213@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Ethan Solomita ><es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu> writes: > >> There is one thing which many people are either >>forgetting and not realizing. Every dollar which Commodore spends >>on their advertising budget is taking a dollar away from some >>other important division, such as improving the O/S, etc. Also, >>the advertising money could be not-spent and thus lower our >>prices. > > This is true, but very misleading. Advertizing is the very best form >of spending, because it directly results in increased sales, and thus >more revenues. If Commodore were to only spend money on R&D, support, >and manufacturing, their sales would go to zero, and they would not have >any more money to spend on R&D, support, and manufacturing. Whereas if >Commodore would spend more money on advertizing, they would get more >revenues, and thus have more money to spend on advertizing, R&D, support, >and manufacturing. > Not really misleading. You obviously can't spend everything on marketing nor nothing on marketing. There is some balance in the middle. I agree with your position that Commodore's past history of treating the Amiga like a game machine in terms of no R&D/ads is coming back to haunt them. This does not mean that Commodore should lag behind in R&D. Commodore, as you often state is being caught up with very rapidly in price/performance. If we cut R&D things get worse. Also, WHAT do you cut? A 32-bit chip set? Unix? WB3.0? Compugraphic fonts? How about cutting developer tool development? In the end it'll hurt no matter where it comes from. Commodore is spending about 2/3 of its expenditures (not including material) on marketing/ads. If Commodore spent as much as Apple spends on marketing, the impact on R&D would be MORE than enormous. > > -MB- -- Ethan Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu GorbachevAwards++; free (SovietUnion); IndependentRepublics += 15;
peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (10/21/90)
In article <1990Oct20.055220.16833@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: > Commodore, as you often state is being caught up with > very rapidly in price/performance. If we cut R&D things get > worse. Also, WHAT do you cut? A 32-bit chip set? Unix? WB3.0? UNIX. UNIX is the B-2 Bomber of the Amiga. The machine is competing price- performance smack-dab into the midrange of the UNIX-on-PC market, and is priced right next to the NeXT, Sparcstations, etc.... It doesn't have a mission, and it costs a lot of $$$. But it's not needed... Commodore just needs to get a competant bloody ad agency. Hell, they could use comp.sys.amiga for the purpose and blow their existing stuff away. Floating houses? Give me a break... it's like the 1984 Macintosh ad: which worked because Apple had the two Steves and the mystique. Commodore doesn't. Show *what* the Amiga can do. Use Amigas for the ads, exclusively. And none of this kid-stuff, either: get NewTek to cut a DemoReel for the job. Christ, Apple uses Amigas internally... let that cat out of the bag. "Apple and IBM talk about Multimedia. We created it. Look at some of our customers, who've been using it while everyone else waits for Big Blue..." (flash a bunch of names on the screen, the last one being Apple. So what if most of the rest are small TV stations and PBS shows... who's going to notice?). -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (10/23/90)
In article <34005@nigel.ee.udel.edu> BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: > There is a similar story in R&D. It is obvious now that, until >Copperman came along, Commodore did not do much in research and >development for the Amiga. Just a point of clarification here -- there are a number of Commodore divisions. Harry Copperman runs the US Sales and Marketing division, which reports to Commodore International. The Technology groups: Commodore Technology, Commodore Semiconductor Group, and Commodore-Amiga, also report to Commodore International. Now, assuming Harry Copperman has turned around US Marketing, and from my non-marketing preception it sure looks like he has done wonders, it stands to reason that the R&D groups will now be getting input from the US Sales and Marketing groups, along with any other local Sales and Marketing groups like those from Germany, England, France, etc. What this does not imply at all is that R&D had no direction until Mr. Copperman arrived on the scene. He doesn't run the technology groups. >If Commodore had started doing any research and development of the 32-bit >chipset three years ago, it should be finished by now! Obviously I can't say anything directly about this. But I will remind the audience that the first Amiga chip set took about 5 years to complete. And Commodore has produced new and improved versions of the original set, the ECS chips, which are shipping in the 3000 and, at least with Agnus, everywhere else. > BTW, when you compare Apple's U.S. sales revenues to Commodore's U.S. >sales revenues, the difference is even greater. Apple's U.S. revenues >outnumbers Commodore's U.S. sales revenues by a factor of about 20. Which is exactly the reason they brought in Mr. Copperman; the US sales were way behind the European sales, where Commodore actually leads Apple in many markets. There was alot of history to undo here. Under Jack Tramiel's leadership, Commodore basically abandoned all but the low end home machine market in the late 70's and early 80's in the USA. The European market got the CBM business machines (8032, 8096, etc) and eventually the PC clones, so the Commodore name wasn't strictly associated with the VIC-20 and C64 in Europe when the Amiga came along. > -MB- -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Standing on the shoulders of giants leaves me cold -REM
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (10/23/90)
In article <15331@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >Obviously I can't say anything directly about this. But I will remind the >audience that the first Amiga chip set took about 5 years to complete. And >Commodore has produced new and improved versions of the original set, the >ECS chips, which are shipping in the 3000 and, at least with Agnus, everywhere >else. Although the improvements to the chip set are useful, what people are really clamoring for are a faster chip set and a Denise/Agnus that support 24-bit color. I have no doubt that Commodore is working on achieving these goals, and that no Commodore employee is allowed to say anything, but I hope the end-all goal is not the U.ofL. board, but rather some inherent change to the internals. >-- >Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" > {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy > Standing on the shoulders of giants leaves me cold -REM -- Ethan Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu GorbachevAwards++; free (SovietUnion); IndependentRepublics += 15;
navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David C. Navas) (10/24/90)
In article <15331@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >Obviously I can't say anything directly about this. But I will remind the >audience that the first Amiga chip set took about 5 years to complete. I know I shouldn't add fuel to the fire, BUT Jay Miner has been quoted as saying it'd take him about six months to bring a 32-bit chip set to market. Of course, they've been busy lately, what with the BUSTER and AMBER and RAMSEY, etc, etc. Hopefully they'll be given direction and put into some back room with a sign that says, "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 32-BIT CHIPSET IS DONE" [Here's hoping we get motherboard upgrades for that chipset soon! ;) ] David Navas navas@cory.berkeley.edu Get -MB- off the net, elect him as our next Vice President. [It's a joke.]
C503719@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU (Baird McIntosh) (10/24/90)
In Message-ID: <1990Oct23.064817.21087@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) said:
> Although the improvements to the chip set are useful,
>what people are really clamoring for are a faster chip set and a
>Denise/Agnus that support 24-bit color. I have no doubt that
Personally, I'd like a nicer Paula which might have: 16 bit samples capability
and 8 or more (we can hope :-) voices with 4 voices per channel. I'm not too
technically-informed concerning Paula, so maybe someone else can add to this
list of features for the Perfect Paula. (and let's not call her fat :-)
| Baird McIntosh | c503719@umcvmb.missouri.edu <-or-> c503719@umcvmb.bitnet |
| COOL DRIVING TECHNIQUE #23: Drive without brake lights. |
| (Light deactivation method is unimportant; just try to appear oblivious.) |es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (10/24/90)
In article <901023.160924.CDT.C503719@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU> C503719@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU (Baird McIntosh) writes: > >Personally, I'd like a nicer Paula which might have: 16 bit samples capability >and 8 or more (we can hope :-) voices with 4 voices per channel. I'm not too >technically-informed concerning Paula, so maybe someone else can add to this >list of features for the Perfect Paula. (and let's not call her fat :-) > It would be nice to have true CD quality audio from Paula, but I REALLY think this should be low priority, for two reasons: first, the Amiga's audio capabilities are already excellent and compare quite favorably with CD sound with a good digitizer. Second, most people who really need professional quality sound are using MIDI and get most of their sound from the MIDI instruments. Besides, there are add-on boards you can buy. >| Baird McIntosh | c503719@umcvmb.missouri.edu <-or-> c503719@umcvmb.bitnet | >| COOL DRIVING TECHNIQUE #23: Drive without brake lights. | >| (Light deactivation method is unimportant; just try to appear oblivious.) | -- Ethan Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu GorbachevAwards++; free (SovietUnion); IndependentRepublics += 15;
njg2@po.CWRU.Edu (J. Norell Guttman) (10/24/90)
With regard to other improvements regarding sound, how about a new speech chip that sounds partially human and has a basic understanding of english! Amiga is #1!!!! J.Norell Guttman njg2@po.cwru.edu
BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) (10/24/90)
In article <15331@cbmvax.commodore.com> Dave Haynie <daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com> writes: >In article <34005@nigel.ee.udel.edu> BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: >>If Commodore had started doing any research and development of the 32-bit >>chipset three years ago, it should be finished by now! > >Obviously I can't say anything directly about this. But I will remind the >audience that the first Amiga chip set took about 5 years to complete. And >Commodore has produced new and improved versions of the original set, the >ECS chips, which are shipping in the 3000 and, at least with Agnus, everywhere >else. I would like to add that most of the R&D on the original chipset was done by the original Amiga company, which was a very small company with only thousands of dollars to spend on R&D. Even though Commodore is not as big as, say, Apple, IBM, or Compaq, Commodore is still much, much bigger than the original Amiga company, with millions of dollars to spend on R&D. More money means less time to complete R&D. So, I maintain that the 32-bit chipset should be done by done, if Commodore has been working on it for any time at all. >-- >Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" > {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy > Standing on the shoulders of giants leaves me cold -REM -MB-
navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David C. Navas) (10/24/90)
In article <901023.160924.CDT.C503719@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU> C503719@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU (Baird McIntosh) writes: >list of features for the Perfect Paula. (and let's not call her fat :-) Of course not, silly. It's Portly Paula. ;) David Navas navas@sim.berkeley.edu "Excuse my ignorance, but I've been run over by my train of thought." -me
sutela@polaris.utu.fi (Kari Sutela) (10/24/90)
njg2@po.CWRU.Edu (J. Norell Guttman) writes: >With regard to other improvements regarding sound, how about a new >speech chip that sounds partially human and has a basic understanding >of english! I'd say that hardcoding a language into a chip wouldn't be too wise. Please, keep in mind that there are other languages besides english (and a significant portion of Amiga sales comes from non-english-speaking countries). BTW, are there any plans on providing international versions of the translator.library in the future? Kari Sutela sutela@polaris.utu.fi -- Kari Sutela sutela@polaris.utu.fi
borgen@stud.cs.uit.no (Boerge Noest) (10/24/90)
In article <29099@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU writes: > >I know I shouldn't add fuel to the fire, BUT Jay Miner has been quoted as >saying it'd take him about six months to bring a 32-bit chip set to market. > Am I the only person in the world that has read the interview with Jay Miner (Amiga User International June(?) 1988) where he said he had completed a new chipset with 2M addressing and some 1000x1000 resolution, based on VRAM? This was supposed to have been done before Los Gatos was completely closed down. >David Navas navas@cory.berkeley.edu -- _____________________________________________________________________________ |/// borgen@stud.cs.uit.no (Borge Nost) \\\| |// ...and then there was AMIGA... \\| |/ studying at the worlds northernmost university \|
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (10/26/90)
BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: | I would like to add that most of the R&D on the original chipset was |done by the original Amiga company, which was a very small company with |only thousands of dollars to spend on R&D. Even though Commodore is not |as big as, say, Apple, IBM, or Compaq, Commodore is still much, much |bigger than the original Amiga company, with millions of dollars to spend |on R&D. More money means less time to complete R&D. So, I maintain |that the 32-bit chipset should be done by done, if Commodore has been |working on it for any time at all. Throwing money at a problem does not make it go away or finish up a project any faster. This is the same attitude our government has. And it hasn't helped us any. True, you can finish a project faster with more money than with no money, but just because you have the bucks doesn't equate to a solution. Designing IC's are a bit harder than you think. -- John Sparks |D.I.S.K. Public Access Unix System| Multi-User Games, Email sparks@corpane.UUCP |PH: (502) 968-DISK 24Hrs/2400BPS | Usenet, Chatting, =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|7 line Multi-User system. | Downloads & more. A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of----Ogden Nash
ifarqhar@sunc.mqcc.mq.oz.au (Ian Farquhar) (10/30/90)
In article <sutela.656751981@polaris> sutela@polaris.utu.fi (Kari Sutela) writes: >I'd say that hardcoding a language into a chip wouldn't be too wise. Please, >keep in mind that there are other languages besides english (and a significant >portion of Amiga sales comes from non-english-speaking countries). Do phonems vary greatly from language to language? Amusingly, has anyone looked at what words are stored in the translator.library? The names of the compeditor's computers, for instance, are there! >BTW, are there any plans on providing international versions of the >translator.library in the future? One feature that I would like to see in AmigaOS is the provision of support for internationalism ie. a library that knows what time zone the user is in, what their system of measurement is (ie. metric or otherwise), the language, the currency, date formats etc. Hopefully, such a library would also contain a series of common text strings in different languages ("Non-DOS disk in drive %s", "Insert volume %s in any drive", "OK", "Cancel"). This would mean that the applications programmer could ask for a message by code, get a pointer to the string, but not worry about the language which would be set by preferences. -- Ian Farquhar Phone : 61 2 805-9404 Office of Computing Services Fax : 61 2 805-7433 Macquarie University NSW 2109 Also : 61 2 805-7205 Australia EMail : ifarqhar@suna.mqcc.mq.oz.au
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (10/31/90)
In article <693@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz> ifarqhar@sunc.mqcc.mq.oz.au (Ian Farquhar) writes: >In article <sutela.656751981@polaris> sutela@polaris.utu.fi (Kari Sutela) writes: >>I'd say that hardcoding a language into a chip wouldn't be too wise. Please, >>keep in mind that there are other languages besides english (and a significant >>portion of Amiga sales comes from non-english-speaking countries). > >Do phonems vary greatly from language to language? YES, definitely. All non-English speaking countries suffer hard from the American-only translator and narrator of Amiga. Many guys of different countries (including me) have made attempts to build their own translator programs to output their own language using the provided phonemes. You can get it to a stage where it is quite understandable German, IF you take an hour or two to get accustomed to this voice. But it sure does have an extreme American accent and is not able to produce some of viably needed sounds. Worst thing in these American phonemes are the vowels. They are not plain, steady or clear. You know, in other languages the vowels are rather straight, constant sounds, whereas in American they always end in a transition to i or something else. Yes, and some vowels used here are plainly not existing in the current phoneme set. You know we Germans have those "umlauts". But also the normal 'a' or 'e' like we pronounce them are not available. Generally, German is pronounced rather in the front of your mouth while American is pronounced way back in your throat, the 'r' being an extreme example. And things have gotten worse with the new narrator of OS 2.0, it's even more specialized for American and less usable for other languages. Adapting this speech system to other languages is told to be a $120,000 thing per language, no other country did it until now. (Well, it's also an American company offering this, it is to be suspected whether they can twist their speech science to the way other languages need.) -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
limonce@pilot.njin.net (Tom Limoncelli) (11/02/90)
[All typos are due to a definite lack of sleep. I've been awake since 7:30AM and it's 1:45AM now] Is it that the narrator.device needs to have more phonemes, or is it that the translator.library needs to have a better translation system? I consulted the campus linguistics guru this morning. (Dr. Roger Wescott) and he said that all languages that a human can speak can be represented in I.P.x. (International Phonetics X, where X = something that I'm too tired to recall right now). So, it is possible to have a narrator.device with "enough" phonemes for a truly international Amiga. So, it comes down to "would the $$$ invested result in comparable profits?" I think the answer is "no" considering that so few programs use it. It's chicken and egg (which is a shame... but welcome to reality). -Tom -- tlimonce@drew.edu Tom Limoncelli "Flash! Flash! I love you! tlimonce@drew.bitnet +1 201 408 5389 ...but we only have fourteen tlimonce@drew.uucp limonce@pilot.njin.net hours to save the earth!"
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (11/02/90)
>7:30AM and it's 1:45AM now]
It's two things:
1. You definitely would need at least some additional phonemes that
are just not existing in the current narrator. And if you want to die
gracefully, you could optimize ALL phonemes for every language you
may want to implement. (I would very much like to at least try this
way of upgrading by only adding few phonemes.)
2. What you would need in every case is a translator for every
language. Here are the biggest differences in languages how they
translate from written text to speech. But this is comparably a
much simpler task than doing a narrator. I know of several attempts
where this has already been done with the old narrator and languages
like German and Italian (perhaps some more), and this was done by
non-linguists with considerable success (well, I'm not talking of
my solution :-).
--
Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions...
Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterkdavid@twg.com (David S. Herron) (11/05/90)
In article <693@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz> ifarqhar@sunc.mqcc.mq.oz.au (Ian Farquhar) writes: >In article <sutela.656751981@polaris> sutela@polaris.utu.fi (Kari Sutela) writes: >>I'd say that hardcoding a language into a chip wouldn't be too wise. Please, >>keep in mind that there are other languages besides english (and a significant >>portion of Amiga sales comes from non-english-speaking countries). > >Do phonems vary greatly from language to language? Err.. no. Phoneme's are >exactly< units of sound which can be produced by human vocal cords. There is a whole branch of Linguistics which covers this ground: Phonetics. There's a few competing notations for representing Phonemes in text but they all boil down to the same idea; proceed from a knowledge of the vocal tract & what sounds it can possibly make, and come up with a particular glyph (or glyph combination) to denote each sound. Using this one can represent any utterance in any language. Unfortunately for: >>BTW, are there any plans on providing international versions of the >>translator.library in the future? It's not easy/simple to translate from text to phoneme strings. Especially if you wanna do it for multiple languages. Especially since dialect differences is where phoneme differences surface. Especially since Phonemes provide very little control over inflections, something which gives the "humanness" of human speech. However .. half-assed attempts at generating phoneme strings can work pretty well & be understandable. And once the phoneme string is generated you don't need a seperate speech-synthesis library/device for each language. It just turns phoneme's into sound.. So all that would be needed is multiple front ends for the speech device which accepts text in different languages & produces phonemes. The programmer still has to provide the strings in multiple languages. This is because there is no way, that I know of, to translate morpheme's into text. (Morphemes are from yet another branch of Linguistice: Semantics. They are the units of meaning which make up words.) -- <- David Herron, an MMDF & WIN/MHS guy, <david@twg.com> <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <david@ms.uky.edu> <- <- Use the force Wes!
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (11/09/90)
In article <1990Oct24.113939.9535@hod.uit.no> borgen@stud.cs.uit.no (Boerge Noest) writes: >In article <29099@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU writes: >>I know I shouldn't add fuel to the fire, BUT Jay Miner has been quoted as >>saying it'd take him about six months to bring a 32-bit chip set to market. That's silly, and I really doubt that Jay said it, at least in the context of an Amiga chipset. Sure, you could design a 32 bit graphics display chip using gate arrays. Keep it simple, like the Macintosh IIci video gate array, and you might have it out on the market in six months, assuming it worked on the first revision. A full custom Amiga style chip set would take much longer. Heck, the first one took what, 5 years or so? Certainly the design tools are better now, but the design is that much more complex if you mean a real 1990s type upgrade of the whole set when you say "32 bit chip set". >Am I the only person in the world that has read the interview with Jay >Miner (Amiga User International June(?) 1988) where he said he had >completed a new chipset with 2M addressing and some 1000x1000 resolution, >based on VRAM? There was apparently some work done toward adding a monochrome-only mode that worked with VRAM, but no chips were built toward that end. Unless you count the current Fat Agnus, which in theory has the ability to support a VRAM fetch cycle, though you'd need something other than Denise to do anything with whatever data got into those shift registers. And for any reasonable mapping of that data on-screen, you'd need lots and lots of low density VRAMs replacing the relatively few 1 MB density parts currently used on the Chip bus. >>David Navas navas@cory.berkeley.edu -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Standing on the shoulders of giants leaves me cold -REM
seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) (11/09/90)
In-Reply-To: message from limonce@pilot.njin.net >It's a chicken and egg (which is a shame...but welcome to reality). But "chicken and egg" isn't really "chicken and egg,"... What am I talking about? (hmmm, you're thinking,"has this boy lost it?") The egg came first. I've forgotten who said it (and who told me for that matter), but potentiality precedes actuality, therefore the egg must have come befor the chicken. I know this has absolutely nothing to do with what your post was about...but when I saw your last line I remembered the rule...had to post it :') Sean >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.0 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc | B^) VISION GRAPHICS B^) ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc@nosc.mil | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com | Dual A3000 based, custom Help keep the | computer graphics, RealWorld: Sean Cunningham competition // | animation, presentation, Voice: (512) 992-2810 under \X/ | simulation, accident- | scene re-creation, and "Does anyone remember laughter?" Robert Plant| recreation...(whew!) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (11/10/90)
In <5521@crash.cts.com>, seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) writes: >In-Reply-To: message from limonce@pilot.njin.net > >The egg came first. I've forgotten who said it (and who told me for that >matter), but potentiality precedes actuality, therefore the egg must have come >befor the chicken. Potentiality precedes actuality, therefor the chicken came first. Since a chicken is just an egg's way of making another egg, a chicken is just a potential egg. I Must be tired from the two-night struggle to repair a friend's 300 meg HD. -larry -- It is not possible to both understand and appreciate Intel CPUs. -D.Wolfskill +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle) (11/11/90)
In article <2200@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes: >In <5521@crash.cts.com>, seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) writes: >>In-Reply-To: message from limonce@pilot.njin.net >> >>The egg came first. I've forgotten who said it (and who told me for that >>matter), but potentiality precedes actuality, therefore the egg must have come >>befor the chicken. > >Potentiality precedes actuality, therefor the chicken came first. Since a >chicken is just an egg's way of making another egg, a chicken is just a >potential egg. Screw the philosophy stuff. The egg came first. The chicken, through natural and artificial selection, evolved from another kind of bird (jungle fowl, I believe). Although impossible to judge exactly which one it was, some bird was the first chicken. This bird hatched from an egg laid by a bird that was not a chicken. This egg preceded the first chicken. Therefore, the egg came first. Now, get back to work. -Dan Dan Zerkle zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (916) 754-0240 Amiga... Because life is too short for boring computers.
navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David C. Navas) (11/11/90)
In article <15725@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >That's silly, and I really doubt that Jay said it, at least in the context >of an Amiga chipset. Yep, he did say it -- straight from a guy who had lunch with him. >longer. Heck, the first one took what, 5 years or so? Certainly the design >tools are better now, but the design is that much more complex if you mean >a real 1990s type upgrade of the whole set when you say "32 bit chip set". That's silly :) [turn about is fair play] There is an enormous difference between creating a chipset, and adding a 32 bit datapath to an existing design. It is quite true, however, that he probably didn't mean a "32 bit chip set" which was twice as fast [Mhz], CMOS, higher color density, built in Spline and compression capabilities, 8/24 capable, 16-bit eight voice plus DSP and a Toaster-in-Denise that some folks out in Netland would like :) [Myself included, of course] >Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" > {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy > Standing on the shoulders of giants leaves me cold -REM Please don't take this as serious -- if it was, I'd probably be posting it in csahardware. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind a Toaster-in-Denise if you've got one on the drawing board :) Incidentally, if it really does take 5 years for a chipset design, and the new ECS is our update for 1990 -- does that mean I'll have to wait until 1995 for another, or would it be fair to say that the new ECS is a stop-gap measure for a problem which will be better addressed at some nearer date [ie. when we have software to support such chips]? [Hope that was sufficiently vague enough not to warrant a canned-response :) ] David Navas navas@cory.berkeley.edu "Excuse my ignorance, but I've been run over by my train of thought." -me (and Calvin)
seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) (11/15/90)
In-Reply-To: message from lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca I think you must be tired...a chicken, a potential egg? Since when do chickens become eggs? Sean >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.0 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc | B^) VISION GRAPHICS B^) ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc@nosc.mil | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com | Dual A3000 based, custom Help keep the | computer graphics, RealWorld: Sean Cunningham competition // | animation, presentation, Voice: (512) 992-2810 under \X/ | simulation, accident- | scene re-creation, and "Does anyone remember laughter?" Robert Plant| recreation...(whew!) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (11/15/90)
In <5649@crash.cts.com>, seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) writes: >In-Reply-To: message from lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca > > >I think you must be tired...a chicken, a potential egg? > >Since when do chickens become eggs? Since the beginning of course. A chicken becomes an egg in the same way an egg becomes a chicken. The inside part emerges. It's just that the shells look a LOT different. :-) -larry -- The only things to survive a nuclear war will be cockroaches and IBM PCs. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+