bakken@tahoma.UUCP (Dave Bakken) (03/03/87)
[ line eater food ]
Some thoughts and a few questions about the elusive A2500 Ranger, which seems to
be out of the picture until at least fall:
1) Please give us a Ranger, not just expecting us to buy an A2000 and
upgrade to the 68020. See items 3, 4, and 6.
2) Please give us X-Windows, Version 11, in addition to the current window
system. X-11 is in beta now (or real soon) and is supposed to hit the
streets by fall. I really like the windows now, better than the windows
from workstations A,M, and S. But X-11 would give the A2500 users
a host of public domain programs that will likely be circulating
within 6-12 months. And it would make it easy for vendors to
port sophisticated applications to the A2500 that probably would not get
ported if it were not that easy. CAD and CAE programs, especially circut
schematic capture, simulation, and PCB layout seem likely
candidates.
3) Please give us a 19" monitor and at least 700x1000 resolution.
I have worked on 19" workstations tubes from 2 different vendors, and
then gone home to my 13" Amiga, and the extra room sure makes a difference.
With 13" screens you can really see one page of information at once, where
with 19" you can see most of 2 1/2 pages.
I think the cost of bigger tubes will go down soon. I saw a flood of
20" monitors for $450-$500 on sale this January, and a 27" (Sony?) for $600
(unfortunately, none had RBG - I checked at least 6 of them). Sony seems
enlightened on this, at least if you look at their KV1311CR, so perhaps they
will have out a larger monitor with RGB out by fall. Does anyone know how
much more it costs a manufacturer to make a monitore with analog RGB than
with NTSC?
4) Please give us Unix with the Korn shell. And please give us a full Unix,
not selling make or other utilities separately.
5) Thank heavens the A2000's planned 68020 upgrade includes an MMU,
according to BYTE and COMPUTE. That means our Ranger will have to, also.
Has anyone heard when this upgrade should hit the streets (maybe we may
hear after C-A announces the A2000 or units ship in volume). Given how
quickly the A2000 followed the Sidecar, I think it is not unreasonable to
assume the Ranger announcement will follow fairly quickly after the shipment
of that upgrade.
6) CA seems to doubt whether there is a market for a $2500-$3000
super-PC. Certainly marketing realities rather than the dreams
of comp.sys.amiga subscribers (this one included) must dictate many of
the details of the machine, but I think they are underestimating the market.
Look at how many business types and even home users paid $3000-$5000 for XT
or AT systems when they first came out. When they see how much they can get
done on the A2500 with the horsepower, large and elegant windows, and IBM
compatibility and slots (which seems to be a given), I think a lot may jump.
(Perhaps I should say *IF* they see this, because CA advertising types seem
to like chiq BW pictures of schoolchildren or pictures of King Tut rather
than showing off the multitasking and elegent windowing interface, which
set it apart from all other PCs. The machine sells itself, given half
a chance). And there are a lot of companies that would like to give each
technical type a workstation on his/her desk but are too cheap or lack the
insight to pay $10K-$15K per desk. Me thinks a lot of these may jump, too,
especially with Unix and X-11.
7) 8 sound channels would be very nice.
8) An SCSI port built in would be nice, too, and a strong selling point.
9) Finally, a question. Could the OS provide a convention for a program
to detect which Amiga model it was running on so it could fully exploit
its features. Otherwise, programs might be written to the lowest
common denominator (A500) and not take advantage of the 2500. For
example, if the A2500 had 8 sound channels a software vendor might have
to have an A2500 version of his music program or only use 4 channels.
Comments are welcome - I hope this stimulates some discussion about what
features are desirable and feasible for the Ranger. C-A, how about a
comment on 7-9?
Dave Bakken
Boeing Commercial Airplane Company
Flight Simulation Lab
uw-beaver!ssc-vax!shuksan!tahoma!bakken
(206) 237-5890
My views are my own, not my employer's. Don't let them deter you from
buying the 747 you've been saving hard for.chas@ssc-vax.UUCP (Chas Boyd) (03/06/87)
In article <140@tahoma.UUCP>, bakken@tahoma.UUCP (Dave Bakken) writes: > > 1) Please give us a Ranger, not just expecting us to buy an A2000 and > upgrade to the 68020. Dave goes on to show a wish list for the NEXT Amiga, based on a 14MHz 68020. One thing he does not specifically mention is a 14MHz blitter. It is very important that this be provided as there is a large category of applications which are limited not by number crunching power, but by how fast bits can be copied to the screen. For example: the main difference between PC flight simulators and the real ones here at Boeing is the screen replot rate. Although the displayed database may be very complex, the time required to paint the screen forms the major portion of the replot cycle. To perceive actual motion, replot rates must exceed 10 to 15 per second. The first personal computer to achieve this speed will open up a whole new category of applications that will have tremendous impact. (It may be true that with the wider bus of the MC68020, a blitter might not offer as much of an advantage as the current one does over the 68000, but if one can be made to work at 14MHz it should be included.) I was hoping that 1987 would be the year that such machines would appear, but I was disappointed. Instead this was the year of IBM compatibility, a step backwards in the area of graphics performance. Both C-A, and Atari devoted their efforts to IBM compatibility instead of bringing out 68020 based systems. Apple has announced a 68020 system, but it apparently has no specialized graphics hardware. Oh, well maybe 1988. Chas. -- UUCP (uw-beaver|fluke)!ssc-vax!ssc-bee!chas (Charles Boyd) ARPA ssc-vax!ssc-bee!chas@uw-beaver WORK (206) 773-3878 Now is the time for all good men to HOME (206) xxx-xxxx come to the aid of their planet...
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (03/06/87)
Interesting thoughts. Basically, you want a SUN. All the questions seem to pertain to that notion except the last few, so I'll address those: >5) Thank heavens the A2000's planned 68020 upgrade includes an MMU, > according to BYTE and COMPUTE. That means our Ranger will have to, also. > Has anyone heard when this upgrade should hit the streets (maybe we may > hear after C-A announces the A2000 or units ship in volume). Given how > quickly the A2000 followed the Sidecar, I think it is not unreasonable to > assume the Ranger announcement will follow fairly quickly after the shipment > of that upgrade. The way it looks, with its special 'cpu' slot, the A2000 will be the upgradable to just about anything (68020, MMU, you name it). Unless there's a nut heading C-A, I doubt the Ranger will come out the door until C-A sees how the A2000 pans out. My personal opinion is that the A2000 will become the 'ranger' and the ranger will become vaporware. >6) CA seems to doubt whether there is a market for a $2500-$3000 > super-PC. Certainly marketing realities rather than the dreams > of comp.sys.amiga subscribers (this one included) must dictate many of > the details of the machine, but I think they are underestimating the market. > Look at how many business types and even home users paid $3000-$5000 for XT > or AT systems when they first came out. When they see how much they can get > done on the A2500 with the horsepower, large and elegant windows, and IBM > compatibility and slots (which seems to be a given), I think a lot may jump. > (Perhaps I should say *IF* they see this, because CA advertising types seem > to like chiq BW pictures of schoolchildren or pictures of King Tut rather > than showing off the multitasking and elegent windowing interface, which > set it apart from all other PCs. The machine sells itself, given half > a chance). And there are a lot of companies that would like to give each > technical type a workstation on his/her desk but are too cheap or lack the > insight to pay $10K-$15K per desk. Me thinks a lot of these may jump, too, > especially with Unix and X-11. The IBM compatibility is definately a plus, but for different reasons. having IBM expansion slots means the A2000 will suddenly have access to ALL the third party boards out for the IBM. The A2000 is specifically configured to allow the Amiga to own a partition on an IBM compatible hard disk (with no limitations on size). Having a window "which is the IBM" is a delightful extra, but I personally don't plan to use that aspect of the compatibility. In otherwords, you can add *CHEAP* hard disks to your Amiga. >7) 8 sound channels would be very nice. Nahhh. >8) An SCSI port built in would be nice, too, and a strong selling point. Now this *would* be a good idea. And C-A, if you do plan to do an SCSI, please do it right. Apple screwed theirs up totally. Use one of the new SCSI controller chips and make it DMA. >9) Finally, a question. Could the OS provide a convention for a program > to detect which Amiga model it was running on so it could fully exploit > its features. Otherwise, programs might be written to the lowest > common denominator (A500) and not take advantage of the 2500. For > example, if the A2500 had 8 sound channels a software vendor might have > to have an A2500 version of his music program or only use 4 channels. The OS already allows you to do this. Simply try to allocate more than 4 sound channels and you'll soon know. In the same way, you could attempt to allocate a different serial device... on some later Amiga with additional serial ports it would work. On the current A1000, it would return an error. Checking a system by model is a *bad* idea, since you don't know what a person might have added to his Amiga. -Matt
daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (03/06/87)
in article <140@tahoma.UUCP>, bakken@tahoma.UUCP (Dave Bakken) says: > 3) Please give us a 19" monitor and at least 700x1000 resolution. I like big monitors, too, and work with them all the time. Its not the size you pay for, though, as much as the resolution. Fer Instance, a 13" RGB monitor like the 1070 might list at $500. You could reasonably expect to find a 20" version at maybe $700-$800, if the vendor decided a large monitor was a good thing. Which in this example, it isn't....Because a 20" monitor at 640x400 isn't very pleasing to the eye. All you're doing is blowing up the size of your pixels. So you move to a higher resolution monitor. And things get real expensive, real fast. Your monitor's logic switches from TTL to ECL. And the poor Amiga, as it exists, is going to have a hard time generating a 1000x800 pixel image with any reasonable number of bit planes, its just not fast enough, even if it kicks the processor off the video bus for awhile. The monitor is expensive, really. The big color monitors we use here for out Apollo Workstations go for something around $4000 a piece, for 1024 x 1024 color. Certainly volume and cost reductions could bring this down, but you'd still pay $1500-$2000 for such a color monitor. That's why no PCs, not even the new Apples (being the newest graphic oriented computers on the block) have a standard resolution of over 640 pixels or so (well, you can get a little over 700 on the Amiga, though most don't use it that way). > 4) Please give us Unix with the Korn shell. And please give us a full Unix, > not selling make or other utilities separately. Sounds like a marketing decision. I don't know if any marketing types read this regularly or not. >5)Given how > quickly the A2000 followed the Sidecar, I think it is not unreasonable to > assume the Ranger announcement will follow fairly quickly after the shipment > of that upgrade. >6)CA seems to doubt whether there is a market for a $2500-$3000 > super-PC. Certainly marketing realities rather than the dreams > of comp.sys.amiga subscribers (this one included) must dictate many of > the details of the machine, but I think they are underestimating the market. > Look at how many business types and even home users paid $3000-$5000 for XT > or AT systems when they first came out. When they see how much they can get > done on the A2500 with the horsepower, large and elegant windows, and IBM > compatibility and slots (which seems to be a given), I think a lot may jump. I'm not sure that C-A doubts a market for machines in the 2.5K-3K range, I just imagine that C-A doubts that folks will buy a Commodore machine priced in that range. Obviously a stock A1000 is better in many respects than a PC of most any flavor. But corporate America doesn't usually buy intelligently, from the point of view of power computing. The Amiga's only a year and 1/2 old or so, its still behind in software. This is the year it really starts to catch up. Personally, for my work here at Commodore, I'm ready to jump ship, hell, I'm at the edge of the plank right now, just waiting for a good schematic capture and simulation package to push me over the edge (the Amiga already beats my VAX at running MicroGnuEmacs). But I've been using this machine at home for over a year, and I think about what I'm buying before I buy it. The A1000 did sell on its reputation more than its advertising, but probably did very little to replace any PClone type boxes, I think the majority of those who bought it were either too smart to bother with a PC[lone] in the first place, or sick of PC[lones] and interested in a "real computer". If there was an application on the Amiga that couldn't easily exit on a PC (like some real CAD maybe?), then it might break full force into business and scientific markets enough to justify a 68020 base machine for $2500 or so. Or wait a few years until we can make a 68020 base machine for $1500 or $1000.... > 7) 8 sound channels would be very nice. True, though I don't think we've got enough DMA slots open in the current setup. Of course, if you're going to enhance the video somehow, it might be possible to enhance the audio too. But also consider that each audio channel takes a rather large section of the Paula chip, so its very unlikely that any more could be fit into any reasonable form of Paula. It might require another chip sitting on the register bus. > 8) An SCSI port built in would be nice, too, and a strong selling point. The A2000's got a SCSI card from Commodore. It also does ST-506 for anyone with cheap PC drive they'd like to use. > 9) Finally, a question. Could the OS provide a convention for a program > to detect which Amiga model it was running on so it could fully exploit > its features. Otherwise, programs might be written to the lowest > common denominator (A500) and not take advantage of the 2500. For > example, if the A2500 had 8 sound channels a software vendor might have > to have an A2500 version of his music program or only use 4 channels. Isn't that already in there? You can allocate virtual sound channels with the audio.device, which map into physically existant sound channels. > Dave Bakken -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __ ____ ____ _____ _____ _____ Dave Haynie /// / _ | / __ \ / _ \ / _ \ / _ \ Commodore Technology /// / / | | /_/ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |\ /// / /__| | ____/ | | | | | | | | | | | | | |\\/// / ____ | / ____/ | | | | | | | | | | | | \\// / / | | | |____ | |_| | | |_| | | |_| | {ihnp4,etc.}!cbmvax!daveh \/ /_/ |_| \______| \_____/ \_____/ \_____/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
page@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (03/06/87)
The here-say around here is that Los Gatos was working on the Ranger (which rumor has it was just a mondo-expandable-modular Amiga) while Commodore Germany was working on the A2000. The A2000 won out. With only 6 people left at Amiga, and the Los Gatos facility closing its doors at the end of this month, I doubt we'll see the Ranger. ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. ulowell!page, page@ulowell.CSNET
kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth) (03/06/87)
All I want from the next Amiga is Virtual Memory and memory protection. I can live with the screen the size it is now. I can live with AmigaDOS. I can live with a 68010 (like the one in my SUN, which isn't too bad after all). All I want is for one process to be protected from the evil whims of another process. All I want is for my system not to be trashed when one program goes out to lunch and starts writing garbage into memory. An MMU doesn't have to be expensive. The AT&T UNIX PC did a very clean and inexpensive MMU with some fast statuc RAMS. An MMU doesn't have to be fancy and doesn't have to be made by the same company as the processor. Virtual memory and memory protection are the last pieces in the "home computer". With protected memory, a home computer can stay "up" virtually forever. You can finally count on it to answer your phone, run your appliances and so forth. You can leave it running unattended without wondering how long it will last. I'd like a 68020, bigger screen, and all that, but I don't know if I would pay more for it when it comes right down to it. I also bought an Amiga because it was $1500, and an equivalent (ha ha) PC system was about $5K. I would spend $1-2K for a computer for myself. I wouldn't spend $5K. An Amiga-as-a-UNIX-box will never sell. SUN already does that. Apple will be there soon. One of the things that differentiates Amiga is that it is a price leader. The amiga software is UNIX-like enough to reduce porting problems to a reasonable level. It is inexpensive hardware and software that give the Amiga it's advantages. Look for more ways to do fancy things inexpensively. Look for new areas (the genlock, the answermate (remember the answermate?)) in which to innovate. The Amiga will never survive in a me-to market.
ali@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer) (03/06/87)
---- Well, Dave Bakken had a lot of thoughts and questions about what might be incorporated into the Amiga in the future... Here's a question from me... How generic are 5&1/4" drives like the one to be put in the A2000 for IBM emulation? I mean, does the drive itself have anything to do with what format data is on the disk, or is it the disk controller that determines most parameters? The actual question is, can the 5&1/4" drive destined for the A2000 read Commodore 64 disks, given a different controller? I imagine (with maybe a bit of clever programming) the Amiga could emulate a C64 in full time (including to the smallest details including sound, sprites, the different video modes, etc), in software only. Then all you would need is the disk controller chip to be plugged into one of the slots, and how much could that cost? Any comments? Am I right in assuming that all the hardware one would need is a disk controller? And am I right in assuming the Amiga can emulate a C64 in software? If it was possible for the A2000 to fully emulate a C64 for less than $50 plus the price of the disk drive, it might make current C64 owners happy and more willing to spend money on an Amiga (rather than some other machine). Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu, decwrl!rocky.stanford.edu!ali
cmcmanis@sun.uucp (Chuck McManis) (03/06/87)
Many people have flamed the Amiga for not being the machine of their dreams just as many have adamantly supported it for being so wonderful. To quote 'The Guy in the Cape' I am a "card carrying Amiga Tribesman" so understand that the following will be a bit biased :-), I also work at Sun and have a good feel for what it costs to produce a '020 based UNIX workstation domestically. With that said on with the story ... In article <140@tahoma.UUCP>, bakken@tahoma.UUCP (Dave Bakken) writes: > > Some thoughts and a few questions about the elusive A2500 Ranger, which seems to > be out of the picture until at least fall: > > 1) Please give us a Ranger, not just expecting us to buy an A2000 and > upgrade to the 68020. See items 3, 4, and 6. The A2000 and even A1000 with the CSA 68020 board set is a very powerful machine. It is also compatible with existing software. > 2) Please give us X-Windows, Version 11, in addition to the current window > system. X-11 is in beta now (or real soon) and is supposed to hit the > streets by fall. I really like the windows now, better than the windows > from workstations A,M, and S. But X-11 would give the A2500 users > a host of public domain programs that will likely be circulating > within 6-12 months. And it would make it easy for vendors to > port sophisticated applications to the A2500 that probably would not get > ported if it were not that easy. CAD and CAE programs, especially circut > schematic capture, simulation, and PCB layout seem likely > candidates. I doubt Commodore will 'give' you X-windows although there is no reason why you can't port it yourself. If the interface is as independent of UNIX as it should be, then within 6-12 months one should be able to get it running? (I have no information on how difficult this would be.) If you can figure out a way to sell your port of X it would probably pay for that CSA expansion board above :-). The reason that Commodore probably wouldn't do this is fairly obvious, it has no backwards compatibility and they do want to support the 200K + users out there. The other question is size, how much space does X take and how much overhead is there per task, will it fit in 1 meg? 2? I don't know. > 3) Please give us a 19" monitor and at least 700x1000 resolution. > I have worked on 19" workstations tubes from 2 different vendors, and > then gone home to my 13" Amiga, and the extra room sure makes a difference. > With 13" screens you can really see one page of information at once, where > with 19" you can see most of 2 1/2 pages. > I think the cost of bigger tubes will go down soon. I saw a flood of > 20" monitors for $450-$500 on sale this January, and a 27" (Sony?) for $600 > (unfortunately, none had RBG - I checked at least 6 of them). Sony seems > enlightened on this, at least if you look at their KV1311CR, so perhaps they > will have out a larger monitor with RGB out by fall... (I may be wrong, but Dave appears to be confusing actual monitor size versus how many pixels can be displayed. If I mis-read the above I apologize) Changing the size of the monitor does not change the 'resolution' of the screen. The pixels just get bigger. My next message will contain a quick synopsis of video graphics generation for a better explanation of this. I will say this here though, monitor prices are currently about as follows 19" Monochrome - 60Khz monitors (1K X 900 possible) are about $800 19" Color RGB - 60Khz monitors (1K X 900 possible) are about $3200 13" Color RGB - 32Khz monitors (750 X 450 possible) are about $500 13" Monochrome - 15.575 Khz (640 X 400 interlaced) are about $70 13" Color RGB - 15.575 Khz (640 X 400 interlaced) are about $250 19" Color RGB - 15.575 Khz (640 X 400 interlaced) are about $600 Your prices may vary. The 13" hi-res color above is a NEC multisync and the 19" Color at the bottom is a Sony XBR monitor. The 19" prices are pretty much bare bones monitors, some manufacturers like BarCo will wrap it up in a plastic shell for you (So you don't electocute yourself on it) > .... Does anyone know how > much more it costs a manufacturer to make a monitore with analog RGB than > with NTSC? Only what it costs to add the connectors to drive each gun and some level shifting circuitry. However if it is NTSC compatible don't look for any more that 640 X 400 resolution. (See the next posting) > 4) Please give us Unix with the Korn shell. And please give us a full Unix, > not selling make or other utilities separately. Do you know how *big* UNIX is? Even if people weren't screaming bloody murder at the price of a hard disk you would need at least 40 Mbytes of space, additional hardware in the system (an MMU at least if you wanted VM) Ok, so that adds another $2000. At least with the A2000 you can use those cheap IBM PC harddisks. You are going to need them. > 5) Thank heavens the A2000's planned 68020 upgrade includes an MMU, > according to BYTE and COMPUTE. That means our Ranger will have to, also. > Has anyone heard when this upgrade should hit the streets (maybe we may > hear after C-A announces the A2000 or units ship in volume). Given how > quickly the A2000 followed the Sidecar, I think it is not unreasonable to > assume the Ranger announcement will follow fairly quickly after the shipment > of that upgrade. Hmmm, well maybe if you believe that Commodore will build a 'ranger.' Personally I have seen Commodore build nothing but C-64's for a while, I would make the wild speculative guess that since the A2000 with 68020 upgrade puts them smack in the middle of the current PC wars that they would instead turn to reducing costs and fight that battle based on their manufacturing skills. I don't see any indication that they want to get into the UNIX workstation business and take on Sun, Apollo, DEC, and IBM. Also note that when the A2286 (AT plug in) is available for the A2000 you can buy one of those, a 2 Meg ram card, a maxstor 160Meg disk, and Xenix/V from Microsoft or Santa Cruz Operations. Then run UNIX as a background window on the Amiga. Really clever hackers could run X or NeWS on the Amiga side UNIX on the AT side and have them communicate via the shared memory. > 6) CA seems to doubt whether there is a market for a $2500-$3000 > super-PC. Certainly marketing realities rather than the dreams > of comp.sys.amiga subscribers (this one included) must dictate many of > the details of the machine, but I think they are underestimating the market. > Look at how many business types and even home users paid $3000-$5000 for XT > or AT systems when they first came out. When they see how much they can get > done on the A2500 with the horsepower, large and elegant windows, and IBM > compatibility and slots (which seems to be a given), I think a lot may jump. > (Perhaps I should say *IF* they see this, because CA advertising types seem > to like chiq BW pictures of schoolchildren or pictures of King Tut rather > than showing off the multitasking and elegent windowing interface, which > set it apart from all other PCs. The machine sells itself, given half > a chance). And there are a lot of companies that would like to give each > technical type a workstation on his/her desk but are too cheap or lack the > insight to pay $10K-$15K per desk. Me thinks a lot of these may jump, too, > especially with Unix and X-11. Bad news Dave, Commodore is betting that there is a market for a $2500 to $3000 super-PC and it is called the Amiga 2000, coming to a store near you. Given the estimate that initial pricing will be $1500 and the monitor is $500 (High Persistence) and the SCSI disk and controller are another $900 your looking at a $2900 multitasking Super-PC. If they built the 'ranger' as you described it today it would cost $10 to $15K. (like wow deja-vu). Something that maybe you haven't considered is that the workstation business is *very* competitive, and every major workstation vendor is trying it's best to put out UNIX workstations at the lowest possible price. AND THEY STILL COST $12,000. Commodore doesn't have access to any miracle sources of free equipment, why should they be able to produce them more cheaply? Even the Mac ][ when fitted out with high resolution color and a disk is $11,000 (and that doesn't include UNIX or more memory). > 7) 8 sound channels would be very nice. This would be nice, and the hardware to drive them. Assuming people are using the audio.device there should not be compatibility problems. Personally I would like to see a MIDI port too, not necessarily to add a synthesizers sound capability, simply to add the synthesizers keyboard. Right now I use my DX100 as a keyboard for the Amiga when I am not dialed up. > 8) An SCSI port built in would be nice, too, and a strong selling point. According to the press the A2000 will have a SCSI port as an option, when it is released (plug in board). I agree building it in is the smart way to go. > 9) Finally, a question. Could the OS provide a convention for a program > to detect which Amiga model it was running on so it could fully exploit > its features. Otherwise, programs might be written to the lowest > common denominator (A500) and not take advantage of the 2500. For > example, if the A2500 had 8 sound channels a software vendor might have > to have an A2500 version of his music program or only use 4 channels. Well as mentioned above you could conceivably keep asking for sound channels until the open failed. But most people don't do that. As it stands the A500, A2000, and A1000 are all identical in built in hardware capabilities. So you don't need to know which one you are on. If they change the machine radically it would be a good thing to have as a variable in ExecBase or something. > Comments are welcome - I hope this stimulates some discussion about what > features are desirable and feasible for the Ranger. C-A, how about a > comment on 7-9? > Dave Bakken As you can see you got some :-). Stay tuned for Basic Amiga Video, same bat time, same bat channel. -- --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (No one lives forever.) Meyer) (03/07/87)
In article <8703060857.AA19199@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: > The IBM compatibility is definately a plus, but for different reasons. >having IBM expansion slots means the A2000 will suddenly have access to ALL >the third party boards out for the IBM. The A2000 is specifically configured >to allow the Amiga to own a partition on an IBM compatible hard disk (with >no limitations on size). Having a window "which is the IBM" is a delightful >extra, but I personally don't plan to use that aspect of the compatibility. >In otherwords, you can add *CHEAP* hard disks to your Amiga. You're working on the Assumption that the Amiga sans one of the '8 boards can use what's in those slots. I've seen nothing to indicate that this is true. I've had at least one hardware designer ask me why anyone would want to do that. Hard disks aren't the reason - there is a combined SCSI/ST-506 card listed for the machine. It's all the _rest_ of the IBM hardware. Builtin modems; DA hardware; other stuff I can't recall right now (been to long since I looked at a BYTE). While I'm here, someone asked for X. Notice that an X 68020 server binary is 300K+. You really can't run X on a system w/out expansion memory and a hard disk, and it'll be hard then. Maybe Chuck can tell us how big a (S)NeWS server binary is. Finally, I find Matt's answer somewhat amusing. I remember him makin a very similar posting abouta year ago, effectively asking for a Sun. Nice to see you've decide that the Amiga & AmigaDOS are good things, Matt. <mike But I'll survive, no you won't catch me, Mike Meyer I'll resist the urge that is tempting me, ucbvax!mwm I'll avert my eyes, keep you off my knee, mwm@berkeley.edu But it feels so good when you talk to me. mwm@ucbjade.BITNET
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (03/08/87)
In article <158@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> ali@rocky.UUCP (Ali Ozer) writes: >I imagine (with maybe a bit of clever programming) the Amiga could >emulate a C64 in full time (including to the smallest details including >sound, sprites, the different video modes, etc), in software only. >Then all you would need is the disk controller chip to be plugged into >one of the slots, and how much could that cost? It might be possible, however it is often a mistake to assume that the predecessor is so <generic negative> that you can emulate it in software in real time. The 6502 is still a fast microprocessor, especially when munching 8-bit data, and the VIC chip is a pretty tricky little gadget by itself. >Any comments? Am I right in assuming that all the hardware one would need >is a disk controller? Actually, you don't need a disk controller, the *hardware* is perfectly cable of driving the standard Commodore Serial Bus out through the parallel port. Unfortunatly, nobody has written a serial bus driver, primarily because the Amiga peripherals are much advanced over anything avaiable for the C64. I've heard of a number of projects attempting to emulate machine x on machine y. Generally, they get to the point where you can run k% of the programs at reasonable speed, but as you try to increase k, the emulation becomes slower and slower. Perhaps I'll be surprised someday. -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (03/08/87)
In article <2700@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (No one lives forever.) Meyer) writes: > >You're working on the Assumption that the Amiga sans one of the '8 >boards can use what's in those slots. I've seen nothing to indicate >that this is true. I've had at least one hardware designer ask me why >anyone would want to do that. Hard disks aren't the reason - there >is a combined SCSI/ST-506 card listed for the machine. It's all the >_rest_ of the IBM hardware. Builtin modems; DA hardware; other stuff I >can't recall right now (been to long since I looked at a BYTE). Right, no bridge card, not PC slot action. UNLESS, you plug in one of those PC or AT on-a-card things. Of course that's basically what the bridge card is, but it also contains a dual-ported memory to allow the two systems to communicate. >Finally, I find Matt's answer somewhat amusing. I remember him makin >a very similar posting abouta year ago, effectively asking for a Sun. >Nice to see you've decide that the Amiga & AmigaDOS are good things, >Matt. Well, to give Matt credit, most of his bitching was about AmigaDOS itself. I assume he's found there's a lot more to the system then that... -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) (03/08/87)
In article <1513@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: >In article <158@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> ali@rocky.UUCP (Ali Ozer) writes: > >>I imagine (with maybe a bit of clever programming) the Amiga could >>emulate a C64 in full time (including to the smallest details including >>sound, sprites, the different video modes, etc), in software only. > >It might be possible, however it is often a mistake to assume that the >predecessor is so <generic negative> that you can emulate it in software >in real time. The 6502 is still a fast microprocessor, Really? You think so? The fastest I've ever seen those things commercially is 2 MHz. The C-64 runs at (slightly less than) 1 MHz. After moving to the 68K, the very THOUGHT of going back to the 6502 makes me gag. >especially when >munching 8-bit data, and the VIC chip is a pretty tricky little gadget >by itself. > It's tricky because of all the design barfs made on it. Granted, if you happen to have a scope and detailed knowledge of hardware, you can make a bitmapped screen out of sprites with the thing (a friend of mine actually did this). But trying to do anything using the "obvious" approach generally lands you into trouble. >I've heard of a number of projects attempting to emulate machine x on >machine y. Generally, they get to the point where you can run k% of >the programs at reasonable speed, but as you try to increase k, the >emulation becomes slower and slower. Perhaps I'll be surprised someday. Personally, I'm of the opinion that it should be more than possible for a 7.14 MHz 68K to emulate a >1 MHz 6502 in software, generally. After all, the underlying processor architectures and philosophies are similar (any data movement sets flags, rich addressing schemes, etc.). Tacking on the hardware emulation will definitely slow things down, especially when accessing the VIC chip (should we emulate the 40 microsecond CPU tromping every eight video lines?). The CIA chips shouldn't be too troublesome; we've got similar hardware in the Amiga. How we'd do the sound is anybody's guess. Sounds like a major commercial project. Who wants to be first? _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ ________ ___ Leo L. Schwab \ /___--__ The Guy in The Cape ___ ___ /\ ---##\ ihnp4!ptsfa!well!ewhac / X \_____ | __ _---)) ..or.. / /_\-- -----+==____\ // \ _ well ---\ ___ ( o---+------------------O/ \/ \ dual ----> !unicom!ewhac \ / ___ \_ (`o ) hplabs -/ ("AE-wack") ____ \___/ \_/ Recumbent Bikes: "Work FOR? I don't work FOR The _O_n_l_y Way To Fly! anybody! I'm just having fun."
hatcher@INGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Doug Merritt) (03/08/87)
In article <1513@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: >>[6502 emulation] might be possible, however it is often a mistake to assume >>that the predecessor is so <generic negative> that you can emulate it in >>software in real time. The 6502 is still a fast microprocessor, In article <2725@well.UUCP> The Guy in the Cape writes: > Really? You think so? The fastest I've ever seen those things >commercially is 2 MHz. The C-64 runs at (slightly less than) 1 MHz. After >moving to the 68K, the very THOUGHT of going back to the 6502 makes me gag. 68000 versus 6502 wars is not the point here. George Robbins is telling the gospel truth; it is hard to do real time processor emulations, even if the processor in question is one you don't like. >>munching 8-bit data, and the VIC chip is a pretty tricky little gadget >It's tricky because of all the design barfs made on it. Granted, if Again, the fact that you don't like it does NOT make it easy to emulate in real time. The fact that your 68K clock speed is about 7-8 times that of the 6502 does not necessarily make the 68K run 7-8 times faster than the 6502. Almost certainly not, as a matter of fact. By comparison with the 68K, the 6502 is sort of a RISC processor. Its code density is better for the kinds of things it does well. Its code density is very poor on the things that 68000's do, but that's not the point in an emulation. The authors of Sargon claim that Sargon runs faster on 6502 than on 68000s. This may be biased, but I find it easy to believe. The problem is that everybody thinks that a high clock speed means a linear increase in speed. Very far from the truth. Read comp.arch for a while. People also think that more powerful instructions mean a faster processor. Sometimes true, but more often not (hence the idea of RISC). People further think that a machine with 32 bit pointers will run faster than one with 16 bit. Definitely the opposite of the truth, all else being equal; each indirection must fetch twice as much data before it can do the same operation. As George said, it might be possible. But don't blithely assume that it *has* to be possible; it might not be. There's a lot of confusion surrounding architectural and performance issues, so I'm probably inviting flames here. Fine, do it by email. I have a fair amount of professional experience with design and implementation of both instruction set architectures and compilers. So while I may be wrong, I am *very* sure of my opinions :-) Doug
phils@tekigm2.TEK.COM (Philip E Staub) (03/09/87)
In article <2725@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: >>[ a discussion to which Leo is responding containing comments that a 6502 is a pretty quick machine] > Really? You think so? The fastest I've ever seen those things >commercially is 2 MHz. The C-64 runs at (slightly less than) 1 MHz. After >moving to the 68K, the very THOUGHT of going back to the 6502 makes me gag. > Careful here. I've been sucked in by that trap. Notice that the clock rate does *not* indicate how long it takes to execute one instruction. The 6502 requires *at most* 2 clocks to execute each instruction, where the 68000 requires no fewer than 4. Granted the instructions are generally more primitive, but there still will be no way to emulate more than one 6502 instruction per 68000 instruction (in fact it will take several). Let's make some rash assumptions here: First, let's assume you *can* emulate any 6502 instruction with a single 68000 instruction. Next, let's assume that an "average" 68000 instruction requires 6 clocks per instruction, while an "average" 6502 instruction requires 1.5. The way I figure it, that means that a 2 MHz 6502 would require an 8 MHz 68000 to emulate it in "real time" even if no other overhead (read: software emulation of whatever other hardware had to be done) were required. (Yes, I know you said < 1MHz, but the 1 6502 instruction = 1 68000 instruction is also bogus. The translation will require something on an instruction by instruction basis) ... > Personally, I'm of the opinion that it should be more than possible >for a 7.14 MHz 68K to emulate a >1 MHz 6502 in software, generally. After >all, the underlying processor architectures and philosophies are similar >(any data movement sets flags, rich addressing schemes, etc.). ^^^^^ > Yeah, but watch out for the "carry = not borrow" flag. You'll have to watch out for what the last instruction was before you decide to "bcc" or "bcs". -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phil Staub tektronix!tekigm!phils (206) 253-5634 Tektronix, Inc., ISI Engineering P.O.Box 3500, M/S C1-904, Vancouver, Washington 98668
grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins) (03/09/87)
I really don't want to go on about this for too long, but since it has some bearing on understanding the situation with the transformer, here goes. In article <2725@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: >In article <1513@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: >>It might be possible, however it is often a mistake to assume that the >>predecessor is so <generic negative> that you can emulate it in software >>in real time. The 6502 is still a fast microprocessor, > Really? You think so? The fastest I've ever seen those things >commercially is 2 MHz. The C-64 runs at (slightly less than) 1 MHz. After >moving to the 68K, the very THOUGHT of going back to the 6502 makes me gag. Different processor families require a different number of clock cycles to perform a given unit of work. In the case of a memory cycle, the 6502 needs one clock cycle, the 68000 needs 4. Therefore a 8 MHz 68000 can only access memory twice as fast as a 6502. That you get 16 bits instead of 8 probably won't help any. >>especially when >>munching 8-bit data, and the VIC chip is a pretty tricky little gadget >>by itself. > It's tricky because of all the design barfs made on it. Granted, if >you happen to have a scope and detailed knowledge of hardware, you can make >a bitmapped screen out of sprites with the thing (a friend of mine actually >did this). Ah, but remeber you have to emulate the "bugs" too... > Personally, I'm of the opinion that it should be more than possible >for a 7.14 MHz 68K to emulate a >1 MHz 6502 in software, generally. After >all, the underlying processor architectures and philosophies are similar >(any data movement sets flags, rich addressing schemes, etc.). Work it thru. Assume you can use as much memory as you want, and you can even start at absolute 0. The minimal interpreter overhead for a nop goes something like - mov (pc.reg)+,reg; asl reg,n; jmp interp(reg). Anything else adds cycles. Think of all those expensive addressing modes you'll use just to access the simulated memory space, not to mention the fun of simulating interrupts. > Tacking on the hardware emulation will definitely slow things down, >especially when accessing the VIC chip (should we emulate the 40 microsecond >CPU tromping every eight video lines?). The CIA chips shouldn't be too >troublesome; we've got similar hardware in the Amiga. How we'd do the sound >is anybody's guess. I'll admit you should be able to do reasonably well simulating an Apple ][, with it's nice static display, maybe even get better than 50% performance, but a C64... > Sounds like a major commercial project. Who wants to be first? I think several places have have already tried, but reality has to strike sooner or later... -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (03/09/87)
in article <2725@well.UUCP>, ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) says: >>>I imagine (with maybe a bit of clever programming) the Amiga could >>>emulate a C64 in full time (including to the smallest details including >>>sound, sprites, the different video modes, etc), in software only. >> >>It might be possible, however it is often a mistake to assume that the >>predecessor is so <generic negative> that you can emulate it in software >>in real time. The 6502 is still a fast microprocessor, > > Really? You think so? The fastest I've ever seen those things > commercially is 2 MHz. The C-64 runs at (slightly less than) 1 MHz. After > moving to the 68K, the very THOUGHT of going back to the 6502 makes me gag. Well, when you consider that the 6502 running at 2MHz is accessing memory at the same rate as an 8MHz 68000, (both have memory cycle times of 2MHz), it doesn't make the 6502 sound all that slow. Of course, the 68000 is accessing 16 bits of memory in most cases, versus 8 bits, it has much more internal efficiency, etc. Still, I don't think you'll have all that much trouble emulating the C64's 6510, which, by the way, runs at 1.02MHz in the NTSC version of the C64 (the C128 can run at 2.04MHz). >>especially when >>munching 8-bit data, and the VIC chip is a pretty tricky little gadget >>by itself. >> > It's tricky because of all the design barfs made on it. Granted, if > you happen to have a scope and detailed knowledge of hardware, you can make > a bitmapped screen out of sprites with the thing (a friend of mine actually > did this). But trying to do anything using the "obvious" approach generally > lands you into trouble. Nearly every commercial video game is doing squirrely little things with the VIC chip. Like reprogramming things based on raster interrupts (life was tough without a coprocessor), diddling with graphics modes on the fly, etc. Many of these things required hand-timed timing loops to work correctly. I don't think you'll be able to do all of this, in real time, without some hardware assist of some kind. The VIC will definately be hard to emulate. And the 6502, while not in itself hard to emulate at full speed from an instruction-functional point of view, may be hard to eumlate in real time from a memory cycle point of view, which is just about what you'd have to do to get things like interrupt initiated timing loops to work correctly. Still, I'd like to see a good attempt at it. > How we'd do the sound is anybody's guess. Actually, a good portion of the SID's sound could probably be emulated. For one thing, the SID doesn't have an interrupt output, so there's really no feedback from the SID to the processor for sound related things. The SID analog ports might be a bit tougher, but they're not used much, and I don't think hooking the Amiga mouse into the SID emulation such that it looks like a 1351 mouse would be much trouble. > Sounds like a major commercial project. Who wants to be first? We're still hearing rumors, though still nothing in real life... > ________ ___ Leo L. Schwab > \ /___--__ The Guy in The Cape > ___ ___ /\ ---##\ ihnp4!ptsfa!well!ewhac > / X \_____ | __ _---)) ..or.. > / /_\-- -----+==____\ // \ _ well ---\ > ___ ( o---+------------------O/ \/ \ dual ----> !unicom!ewhac > \ / ___ \_ (`o ) hplabs -/ ("AE-wack") > ____ \___/ \_/ > Recumbent Bikes: "Work FOR? I don't work FOR -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __ ____ ____ _____ _____ _____ Dave Haynie /// / _ | / __ \ / _ \ / _ \ / _ \ Commodore Technology /// / / | | /_/ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |\ /// / /__| | ____/ | | | | | | | | | | | | | |\\/// / ____ | / ____/ | | | | | | | | | | | | \\// / / | | | |____ | |_| | | |_| | | |_| | {ihnp4,etc.}!cbmvax!daveh \/ /_/ |_| \______| \_____/ \_____/ \_____/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mwm@eris.UUCP (03/10/87)
In article <782@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> chas@ssc-vax.UUCP (Chas Boyd) writes: > Dave goes on to show a wish list for the NEXT Amiga, based on a 14MHz > 68020. One thing he does not specifically mention is a 14MHz blitter. Rumor has it that the Sun3 has a blitter that nobody uses, because blitter setup time + blit time is greater than doing it with the 68020. Given that most blitter-type operations can be done in small loops, and the cache on the 68020 being large enough to hold small loops, this makes sense. After the first pass through the loop, it runs out of cache, so the time to do memory fetches/stores dominates. Someone from Sun (hi, chuck) care to comment? <mike -- But I'll survive, no you won't catch me, Mike Meyer I'll resist the urge that is tempting me, ucbvax!mwm I'll avert my eyes, keep you off my knee, mwm@berkeley.edu But it feels so good when you talk to me. mwm@ucbjade.BITNET
rorden@kolob.UUCP (03/11/87)
in article <1515@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>, grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins) says: > > Right, no bridge card, not PC slot action. UNLESS, you plug in one of > those PC or AT on-a-card things. Of course that's basically what the > bridge card is, but it also contains a dual-ported memory to allow the > two systems to communicate. > What about an alternative bridge card that just passes through the PC bus? You would probably only need the I/O space on the PC side to be mapped into the Amiga side's address space. Then you could get to all those cheap PC-bus cards to drop into your Amiga. Sure, you still have to write drivers, etc., and figure out how to map the PC interrupts to the Amiga. They could be concentrated into one interrupt and distinguished by reading a register on the bridge. Has Commodore already thought of this one? -- Randy Rorden, Icon International {ihnp4,decvax,seismo!ut-sally} 774 South 400 East, Orem, UT. !utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!nrc-ut!iconsys!rorden
kent@xanth.UUCP (03/12/87)
In article <543@dragon.tc.fluke.COM> kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth) writes: >All I want from the next Amiga is Virtual Memory and memory protection. [...] >An MMU doesn't have to be expensive. [...] Even if it were, it is crucial to the operation of a multitasking machine, as the experience with the guru hovering always over ones shoulder under workbench V1.1, and, less threatenly, under V1.2, proves daily. >I'd like a 68020, bigger screen, and all that, but I don't know if I would >pay more for it when it comes right down to it. I also bought an Amiga >because it was $1500 [...]. >I would spend $1-2K for a computer for myself. I wouldn't spend $5K. I wouldn't either, but I would spend an extra $500 for an MMU, a 68020 or, better, 68030 with a doubled clock speed, and a floating point accelerator, with the software to make it work. The current OS make the fallacious assumption that all "professional" software vendors are capable of writing software that does its own memory management. This violates the standard practice of doing a job that must be done everywhere, in one place instead, and doing it right. Memory is just another "device", and there should be one "driver" taking care of it, not one per program. The results of this one execrable design decision has done more to hurt the Amiga's sales than all other weak features put together. No business can live with a machine that drops dead hourly. Worse yet, memory management is so simple that most CS undergraduate programs include writing a memory management routine as a class project in the data structures class. Why wasn't it done right in AmigaDOS? With an MMU, perhaps the OS upgrade would be easy enough to tempt Commmodore to do the job properly next time. >An Amiga-as-a-UNIX-box will never sell. SUN already does that. Apple will >be there soon. I disagree. A UNIX (tm) system at Amiga 1000 prices would sell like hotcakes to universities, a huge market, and to all outside the university systems who have had the chance to fall in love with the power and flexibiity of UNIX. One university mandating the Amiga as the "school computer" can provide 15,000 or more sales - refer Dartmouth's experience; and there are hundreds of universities out there. Commodore had no choice but to do a quick and dirty OS release at the time, they came very near bankruptcy, and really needed the cash flow the Amiga 1000 has provided. The attempt to make a UNIX-like OS was 100% behind schedule, and AmigaDOS got the product out the door and gave Commodore some breathing room. However, AmigaDOS is the biggest sales weakness of an otherwise excellent product, and now is the time for it to be either drastically upgraded, or preferably replaced with an independently engineered UNIX clone. Not so much for the end user, but simply because 3rd party software development in a mixed BCPL and C/UNIX-clone environment is so much harder than a pure C/UNIX environment that product releases have been slow. As Apple proved long ago with the contrast in initial acceptance of the Apple II and the Macintosh, it is third party hardware and software that makes or breaks a home computer product, so anything Commodore can do to ease third party development is just money in the bank for Commodore. > One of the things that differentiates Amiga is that it is a >price leader. [...] It is inexpensive hardware and software >that give the Amiga it's advantages. Look for more ways to do fancy things >inexpensively. Look for new areas (the genlock, the answermate (remember >the answermate?)) in which to innovate. The Amiga will never survive in a >me-to market. Amen. As a Commodore stockholder, I weakly applaud the Amiga 2000's IBM compatibility features (just because there are a lot of people out there in business land unsophisticated or conservative enough to think a computer has to be an IBM clone to work at all, and they make buying decisions), although it was silly to aim at the PC level performance, which is pretty out of date in today's business community, where the XT is considered a minimum, and the AT a preferable level of performance, for today's office. As an Amiga _owner_, however, I let out a scream of frustration at the announcement. I had the money to buy any PC I wanted [well, almost ;-) ]. My opinion of the IBM PC(tm) has been and is that it has held back innovation in personal computers by five years or more, by luring most of the hardware and software talent into the PC and clone effort, running after a design that was three years behind the state of the art when it was released. I, and all the other current Amiga 1000 owners, bought our machines in part as a rebellion against the IBM domination of the marketplace. We made out like bandits on that decision, but I would sure rather see Commodore working to provide me an upgrade path through new machines that do what the Amiga does faster, better, with more reliability and more modern chip sets. I can always buy a clone for $500 if I am forced, at gunpoint, to run some IBM software to do something I can always do better with the Amiga and newer software that takes advantage of multitasking, windows, the blitter, copper, keyboard processor, voice output, and all the other wonderful, Amiga unique features. But I, and those like me, ARE the Amiga market. I've shown five friends in the market for a personal computer my Amiga, and they all bought (ta-da) Amigas. Any of them could have bought PC clones for 1/3 as much, but, for whatever reasons, they chose the "bold experiment" of NON-compatibility to the IBM "standard", and love their machines as much as I do. As fast as we who currently own Amigas show them to friends, the market for an innovative machine expands. Get out there and show the flag! Sigh. Maybe the A3000 will give me a machine to do ray-tracing in less than a day, to do near real time Mandelbrot and Julia set exploration, to do graph theory NP complete operations in reasonable time for small n [ ;-) ], to do flight simulator III (tm-to-be) with shaded polygons, fractal tree forests, and Chicago O'Hare traffic patterns with planes stacked 100 deep, to do screamingly fast massive relational database joins on a cheap 1 Gbyte hard disk, to do 19,200 baud file transfer while multitasking, and all the other outrageous stuff a true computer junkie wakes up in a hot sweat from dreaming about. Meanwhile, I love my present replacement for my good old Apple II+ (tm). I'm waiting on my add on memory, wishing for a second disk, and hoping for an AmigaBASIC that knows how to multiply big long integers and get the sign right. Keep those new computers coming Commodore! Wait 'til you see my multi-bit-plane, envelope-folded torus, 1280 by 800 cell all on screen Life display in 16 colors! Zowie, chillun! Puffer trains forever! Amiga lives! -- Kent Paul Dolan, "The Contradictor", 25 years as a programmer, CS MS Student at ODU, Norfolk, Virginia, to find out how I was supposed to be doing this stuff all these years. 3D dynamic motion graphics a specialty. Work wanted. Disclaimer hell! \ / I love my opinions, so I set them free. If they bring Eat red death, } { me friends, we'll share joy. If they bring me lawyers, shysters! / \ I'll keep right on sending them out ... excellent bait! UUCP : kent@xanth.UUCP or ...seismo!decuac!edison!xanth!kent CSNET : kent@odu.csnet ARPA : kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu Voice : (804) 587-7760 USnail: P.O. Box 1559, Norfolk, Va 23501-1559 Wisdom: "Peace in mankind's lifetime. Why leave a whole universe unexplored?"
stever@videovax.UUCP (03/12/87)
In article <2748@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>, Mike Meyer (mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU) writes: > . . . > Given that most blitter-type operations can be done in small loops, > and the cache on the 68020 being large enough to hold small loops, > this makes sense. After the first pass through the loop, it runs out > of cache, so the time to do memory fetches/stores dominates. An even bigger win is that if you have to process the data you are going to blit, you can do so on the fly -- as you stream it through the 68020. This saves one load and one store for each piece of data. However, the blitter in the Amiga performs a very important function -- display refresh. Because this is done in a way that doesn't interfere with the CPU (if the CPU is executing out of FAST memory), both can run at once. So, how about _two_ 68020s -- one to run the programs and one to perform all the display processing? Then, use Video RAM as the display memory, and . . . Steve Rice ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- new: stever@videovax.TV.TEK.COM old: {decvax | hplabs | ihnp4 | uw-beaver}!tektronix!videovax!stever
cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (03/13/87)
In article <692@xanth.UUCP>, Kent Paul Dolan writes: > In article <543@dragon.tc.fluke.COM> Kurt Guntheroth writes: > >>I would spend $1-2K for a computer for myself. I wouldn't spend $5K. > > I wouldn't either, but I would spend an extra $500 for an MMU, a 68020 or, > better, 68030 with a doubled clock speed, and a floating point accelerator, > with the software to make it work. Given the way Motorola costs things, I would say that samples of the 68030 will probably go for about $500 and be available to the general public in early '88. Boards that use them maybe in late '88 or early '89. Sheer speculation would put the cost of the '881 at about $100 at that time. So look to pay a lot more than $750 for a an add-on board with those two chips on it. (In 1989 of course) > ... The current OS make the fallacious > assumption that all "professional" software vendors are capable of writing > software that does its own memory management. This violates the standard > practice of doing a job that must be done everywhere, in one place instead, > and doing it right. Memory is just another "device", and there should be > one "driver" taking care of it, not one per program. The results of this > one execrable design decision has done more to hurt the Amiga's sales than > all other weak features put together. No business can live with a machine that > drops dead hourly. Worse yet, memory management is so simple that most CS > undergraduate programs include writing a memory management routine as a > class project in the data structures class. Why wasn't it done right in > AmigaDOS? With an MMU, perhaps the OS upgrade would be easy enough to tempt > Commmodore to do the job properly next time. Maybe I am not reading what Kent wrote, but from what I know of the Amiga it has a first rate memory management package. The routines AllocMem, FreeMem, AllocRemember, and FreeRemember provide excellent memory management support. I tell them how much memory I want, and what restrictions it has (must be CHIP, clear it first, must be PUBLIC etc) and they go out and get it for me, and tell me if it is unavailable. The only thing they don't do is prevent me from freeing someone elses memory or trying to free my own memory twice. If I don't mind the performance hit I can layer these routines through my own that make sure I haven't done one of these cardinal sins. >>An Amiga-as-a-UNIX-box will never sell. SUN already does that. Apple will >>be there soon. > > I disagree. A UNIX (tm) system at Amiga 1000 prices would sell like hotcakes > to universities, ... etc etc etc Remember when this was "If someone could sell a UNIX system for under $10K they would sell millions of them!" ? The point should be "Is Commodore the company to sell a cheap UNIX box?" I don't think so, not at this time of their life. > > However, AmigaDOS is the biggest sales weakness of an otherwise excellent > product... I would suggest that many people said "Multitasking O/S ? This is the machine for me!" I was one of them, there were others. AmigaDOS is not UNIX, it doesn't try to be UNIX, and in many cases is 'better' than UNIX for what it does. Have you ever tried to write fast real time response software under UNIX ? Not to start any flames here, it is *different* and does some things nicely, it also assumes your program won't beat up other programs. My favorite corallary is the 'C vs PASCAL' approach to O/Ses. Ever notice how the PASCAL advocates will point out that in C you can write all over the other variables in your program simply by exceeding the bounds of an array? That's because C expects you to declare an array of the size you need and not write out side of it. It is powerful and also dangerous. PASCAL will stop your program and tell you you tried to go out of bounds on an array. AmigaDOS and UNIX are like that, AmigaDOS assumes you know what you are doing and won't scribble over everyone elses memory, but if you want to you can. UNIX won't let you (unless you are the super user). Again, it is powerful and it is dangerous. > UUCP : kent@xanth.UUCP or ...seismo!decuac!edison!xanth!kent And interesting machine indeed. As the level of awareness as to just how flexible the Amiga OS is becomes prevalent, more and more of the 'problems' with the Amiga will be solved by innovative, compatible, and portable software. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (04/07/87)
In article <155@kolob.UUCP> rorden@kolob.UUCP (Randy Rorden) writes: >in article <1515@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>, grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins) says: >> Right, no bridge card, not PC slot action. > >What about an alternative bridge card that just passes through the PC >bus? You would probably only need the I/O space on the PC side to be >mapped into the Amiga side's address space. Then you could get to all >those cheap PC-bus cards to drop into your Amiga. Sure, you still have >to write drivers, etc., and figure out how to map the PC interrupts >to the Amiga. They could be concentrated into one interrupt and >distinguished by reading a register on the bridge. Has Commodore already >thought of this one? Yep, I'm hoping sombody will do this one for us. Personally, I have no interest in MS(yeech)DOS, but would love to be able to directly access the PC bus cards without unwanted software/80xxx intercession. I don't think Commodore will do such a card, because of too much product confusion between this and the "real" bridge cards. It sounds like an excellent third-party project, expecially if they work up drivers for the n-most popular expansion cards - serial, disk, I/O, etc... --- personal opinions here, folks ---- -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)