[comp.sys.amiga] Custom chips

840445m@aucs.UUCP (Alan W. McKay) (04/21/89)

Following is a very trivial question that has been bugging the hell out
of me off and on for quite some time.  You may think me strange to be 
bothered by such nonsense ... but here goes.

The Amiga has three custom chips, right?  Denise, Paula and Agnus.  Fine.
That was their names in the orignal 1000.  O.K. so who is this Gary guy
that I've been hearing about?  Did one of the other chips get a sex-change?
I know it wasn't Agnus since she has gained weight recently.  Are Denise
and Paula still with us?  If one of them did have a sex change ... why?
Why didn't we hear anything about problems she was having?  We could have
helped her through her problems without going to such drastic ends.:-)
-- 
% Alan W. McKay     %                                             %
% Acadia University %   " The world needs more Socrates           %
% Wolfville N.S.    %     walking the streets today "             %
% CANADA            %                       - S. Corbett          %

bdiscoe@tybalt.caltech.edu (Ben W. Discoe) (04/23/89)

In article <1845@aucs.UUCP> 840445m@aucs.UUCP (Alan W. McKay) writes:
>
>The Amiga has three custom chips, right?  Denise, Paula and Agnus.  Fine.
>That was their names in the orignal 1000.  O.K. so who is this Gary guy
>that I've been hearing about?  Did one of the other chips get a sex-change?
>

Well, I've been around a while (keeping track of this here Amiga-Loraine
machine since it's first appearance on mag covers) and I've more names than
those for the most excellent chips.

   Denise <-> Daphne
   Paula  <-> Portia
   Agnus  <-> Agnes

  or Larry, Curly and Moe or whatever you like.  Gary is a new gate-array chip
who appears mostly to straighten things out since the A1000.

   Does anyone (like real C-A people) know the inside on this topic?

-----------------------------
just a frosh on pass/fail... Ben Discoe

daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (04/25/89)

in article <1845@aucs.UUCP>, 840445m@aucs.UUCP (Alan W. McKay) says:
> Keywords: Amiga, Denise, Paula, Agnus, Gary

> The Amiga has three custom chips, right?  Denise, Paula and Agnus.  Fine.
> That was their names in the orignal 1000.  O.K. so who is this Gary guy
> that I've been hearing about?  

Agnus, Paula, and Denise were the three original Amiga custom chips, and are
full custom LSI chips.  For the A500, Agnus gained weight by sucking in some
of the peripheral logic around her and going from 48 to 84 pins (also allowing
her to manage 1 meg of RAM, though initially only 1/2 of that was CHIP memory).
Also new for the A500 way Gary, a gate array that replaced a good deal of the
other glue logic on the A1000 board.  For the US designed A2000 (eg, "B2000"),
we added yet another custom gate array, Buster, who controls the expansion 
bus.

> % Alan W. McKay     %                                             %
-- 
Dave Haynie  "The 32 Bit Guy"     Commodore-Amiga  "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: D-DAVE H     BIX: hazy
              Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession

karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) (04/26/89)

In article <1845@aucs.UUCP> 840445m@aucs.UUCP (Alan W. McKay) writes:
>The Amiga has three custom chips, right?  Denise, Paula and Agnus.  Fine.

Agnes means "lamb of God," by the way...
-- 
-- uunet!sugar!karl  | "Nobody hipped me to that, dude." -- Pee Wee
-- Usenet BBS (713) 438-5018

johnf@stew.ssl.berkeley.edu (John Flanagan) (04/26/89)

In article <3749@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes:
>In article <1845@aucs.UUCP> 840445m@aucs.UUCP (Alan W. McKay) writes:
>>The Amiga has three custom chips, right?  Denise, Paula and Agnus.  Fine.
>
>Agnes means "lamb of God," by the way...

Close.  :-)  "Agnus" means "lamb", "agnus Dei" means "lamb of God."
(No flame intended, honest :-)
Which brings up something I've been wondering for a while:
is the chip really named "Agnus" or "Agnes"?  The A500 manual lists it as 
"Agnus", but I think I've seen authoritative (C-A) people spell it 
"Agnes."  Was one of the secretaries named Agnes?  Or was the reference
suposed to be to lambs?  Or maybe it originally referred to a person, 
but the spelling was changed out of tact when the chip was fattened? :-)

>-- uunet!sugar!karl  | "Nobody hipped me to that, dude." -- Pee Wee
>-- Usenet BBS (713) 438-5018

John Flanagan
johnf@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu

bdiscoe@tybalt.caltech.edu (Ben W. Discoe) (04/26/89)

>Which brings up something I've been wondering for a while:
>is the chip really named "Agnus" or "Agnes"?  The A500 manual lists it as 
>"Agnus", but I think I've seen authoritative (C-A) people spell it 
>"Agnes."  Was one of the secretaries named Agnes?  Or was the reference
>suposed to be to lambs?  Or maybe it originally referred to a person, 
>but the spelling was changed out of tact when the chip was fattened? :-)
>
>John Flanagan
>johnf@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu

  Ok, I posted this before, but it didn't seem to make it.  I've been
fascinated with the custom chips since the Amiga's debut on magazine covers
in mid '85.  I've seen the chips have distinctly different names:

   Agnus  <->  Agnes
   Paula  <->  Portia
   Denise <->  Daphne 

Would somebody (like "authoritative" C-A people) please explain these?

bvk@hhb.UUCP (Brett Kuehner) (04/26/89)

In article <23605@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, johnf@stew.ssl.berkeley.edu (John Flanagan) writes:
> In article <3749@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes:
> >In article <1845@aucs.UUCP> 840445m@aucs.UUCP (Alan W. McKay) writes:
> >>The Amiga has three custom chips, right?  Denise, Paula and Agnus.  Fine.
> >
> Which brings up something I've been wondering for a while:
> is the chip really named "Agnus" or "Agnes"?  The A500 manual lists it as 
> "Agnus", but I think I've seen authoritative (C-A) people spell it 
> "Agnes."  Was one of the secretaries named Agnes?  Or was the reference
> suposed to be to lambs?  Or maybe it originally referred to a person, 
> but the spelling was changed out of tact when the chip was fattened? :-)
> 
> >-- uunet!sugar!karl  | "Nobody hipped me to that, dude." -- Pee Wee
> >-- Usenet BBS (713) 438-5018
> 
> John Flanagan
> johnf@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu

And why is "Fat Agnus" also called "FANG" in the schematics? For quite a while
after I saw that, I involuntarily read "Agnus" as "Angus", which I guess would
be a cow, not a lamb.... I'm sooo confused.


		Brett
--
Brett Kuehner, HHB Systems, Mawah, NJ
...!princeton!hhb!bvk
bvk%hhb@princeton.EDU

fc@lexicon.com (Frank Cunningham) (04/27/89)

In article <3749@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes:
> Agnes means "lamb of God," by the way...

'agnus' = 'lamb', 'dei' = 'of god'. Haven't any of you secular humanoids
heard a mass lately ?
-- 
-Frank Cunningham	smart: fc@lexicon.com
			dumb: {husc6,linus,harvard,bbn}!spdcc!lexicon!fc
			phone: (617) 891-6790

mjw@cs.cmu.edu (Michael Witbrock) (04/27/89)

> *Excerpts from ext.nn.comp.sys.amiga: 25-Apr-89 Re: Custom Chips Karl*
> *Lehenbauer@sugar.ha (288)*

> Agnes means "lamb of God," by the way...
No, It just means lamb.

My computer is a no-religion zone.

peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (04/29/89)

In article <3749@sugar.hackercorp.com>, karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes:
> Agnes means "lamb of God," by the way...

Actually, Agnes is just 'lamb'. The 'of god' part is implied. From the latin,
"Agnus Dei".
-- 
Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva      `-_-'
...texbell!sugar!peter, or peter@sugar.hackercorp.com  'U`

lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (05/01/89)

In <3749@sugar.hackercorp.com>, karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes:
>In article <1845@aucs.UUCP> 840445m@aucs.UUCP (Alan W. McKay) writes:
>>The Amiga has three custom chips, right?  Denise, Paula and Agnus.  Fine.

>Agnes means "lamb of God," by the way...

Well, actually, 'Agnus dei' is "Lamb of God", but yes, that is the origin of
the name for the chip.

--
Frisbeetarianism: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on
                  the roof and gets stuck.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ 
|   //   Larry Phillips                                                |
| \X/    lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca or uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips  |
|        COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322                                        |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

) Seaman) (11/17/89)

With all the discussions lately about the ECS, and things Commodore
"should do" to improve Amy, I have a question.

A couple of months ago, I remember (don't I?) reading a statement that I
assume to be a rumor (it was in one of the many Amy magazines), that
basically said that Commodore was working on a super-enhanced version of
the custom chipset that was faster, and had a palette of 32768 colors.
Also, as a result of the increased speed, there were a few new modes,
such as 256 color (lo-res) mode, and 32768 color HAM.  The rumor also
indicated that complete compatibility would exist with all existing
modes.

O.K.  Is there *ANY* truth to this rumor?  I know I didn't dream it, but
I have gone over my magazines for hours on end, and can't locate it
again.  Even if it isn't true :-), it would seem to be a perfect way to
give Amy a face lift that anyone could plug in (at least 500 and 2000
owners) without the added expense of a Toaster, or Commodore's rumored
2610 (16 million color) board.

-- 
Chris (Insert phrase here) Seaman |  /o  -- -- --
crs@cpsc6a.att.com <or>           |||    -- -- -        I'm Outta Here!
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