@ppcamiga1

Quote:

ppcamiga1 wrote: i buy ppc amiga because it works like my a1200 only [bullshit] times faster

You obviously didn't buy an A1200 circa 1993, because if you had, and used it for more than just playing games, you'd see your comparison is ridiculous.

- In 1993, Commodore Amiga 1200 was a retail system, maybe not in post-Soviet Poland but in western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, it was available at major retailers.
- It was a complete consumer product, capable of working out of the box, compatible with a large library of productivity and creative software and peripherals.
- Amiga OS 3 came with all the drivers to support all the hardware that was available in the A1200
- It was also excellent value for money in 1993, allowing personal/home computer users to do a lot of different things with their hard-earned money
- Over the 7 years between 1993 and 2000, the A1200 had many upgrade options available.

None of the PPC systems sold with AmigaOS 4 can say the same

- Since 2009, they have not been sold through major retailers
- It is often sold as just a hobby board, like the old Apple 1. An complete systems are more like DIY PCs
- AmigaOS 4 does not come with all the driver to support all the hardware on these PPC boards
- They do not represent good value for money because they cost anywhere between a mid-tier - to top-tier PC or Mac, but you can only do about 25% of what those systems can do
- For the the 12 years since the X1000 or the 7 years since the X5000 were released, or for any of the SAM440 and SAM460 boards, how many upgrade options have the systems received?

So tell me again how much "better" an AmigaOS 4 PPC system today or 7 years ago, than an A1200 in 1993.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: - It was also excellent value for money in 1993, allowing personal/home computer users to do a lot of different things with their hard-earned money

No it wasn't.

Didn't get that HD version? -> useless toy

Did get an HD? -> decent value IF you were already heavily invested in the Amiga eco system

For anything/anybody else getting a bottom tier PC was the better option, hence why C= sold so few units and wouldn't have sold more if they had the cash flow to make them.

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@agami

i buy ppc amiga because it works like my a1200 only 1000 times faster
you have not ppc amiga and everything you wrote about it is total bs
stop your usuall crap and start working on something useful on x86/arm

@ppcamiga1

I ask again - isn’t it Hyperion you should be mad at? It’s Hyperion that has chosen the path of 68k over PowerPC. OS4 development stagnated because of Hyperion. Hyperion is why you cannot run OS4 on affordable PowerPC. Hyperion are the ones who will not port to ARM or whatever modern. Hyperion are the ones refusing to make your unix with AmigaOS environment on top.

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B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: @Hammer I'm talking about the right tool for the job at hand and how "enabling" Amiga OS 3.x was as an operating system in 1993-1994, and you're talking about the colour bit depth of icons, via a series of irrelevant chronological facts.

The argument was about the GUI look.

Quote:

$ for $, a creative person running AmigaOS 3.x in 1993/94 could accomplish more than a person running either Windows 3.1 or Apple's System 7.x

Reminder, Pentium 60 was released in 1993, Windows NT 3.1 was released in 1993 and NT 3.5 was released in 1994.

Adobe Premiere 4.0 was released for Macintosh in July 1994, and for Windows in December 1994.

Newtek's Video Toaster did nothing for Amiga's 24-bit general-purpose graphics.
Toaster Flyer NLE is anchored to a Zorro II SCSI controller specifically designed for use with the Video Toaster. Neither are transportable on NG Amigas, Amithlon, WinUAE, and wedge Amigas.

Amiga's Zorro II/III install base wasn't mass-produced in the scale of the PC's AT ISA, VLB, and PCI slots.

PAL regions had Opalvision (https://amiga.resource.cx/exp/opalvision). Opal software is anchored with Opalvision hardware, hence it's not transportable on NG Amigas, Amithlon, WinUAE, and wedge Amigas.

Meanwhile on the Mac 68K,
Adobe Premiere 1.0 NLE was released in 1991. Apple has a color RTG-like solution with the 1987 Macintosh II e.g. Color Quickdraw API.
Adobe Premiere 4.0 NLE was released in 1994. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gVj7ygYNEo

Mac68K's Adobe Premiere 4.0 NLE / Shapeshifter still works for PiStorm-Emu68'ed Amiga 500/1200. LOL


https://ia600606.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/35/items/amiga-world-1994-11/Amiga_World_Vol_10_11_1994_Nov_jp2.zip&file=Amiga_World_Vol_10_11_1994_Nov_jp2/Amiga_World_Vol_10_11_1994_Nov_0016.jp2&id=amiga-world-1994-11&scale=4&rotate=0
From Amiga World Nov 1994, Windows NT-based four R4400 MIPS CPU cores workstations that accelerate Lightwave raytraced render during 1994.

Amiga's 68060 @ 50Mhz experience was in 1995.

Phase 5's CyberGraphX RTG was released in 1995 and Village Tronic's Picasso96 RTG was released in 1996.

Last edited by Hammer on 20-Feb-2024 at 05:03 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 20-Feb-2024 at 05:00 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 20-Feb-2024 at 04:50 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 20-Feb-2024 at 04:42 AM.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@ppcamiga1

Quote:

ppcamiga1 wrote: @agami i buy ppc amiga because it works like my a1200 only 1000 times faster you have not ppc amiga and everything you wrote about it is total bs stop your usuall crap and start working on something useful on x86/arm

PowerPC AmigaOS 4.1 doesn't run Deluxe Music 2.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@agami

Quote:

Given the circumstances that Commodore found itself in (qualifier), most of them of its own making for sure: their in-house pool of skills, existing projects at various levels of completion, their manufacturing capability, logistics, partner and distribution network, existing market momentum, competition, financial situation and crippling debt, about two bad sales quarters away from bankruptcy; they were really only capable of producing a machine like the A1200 and/or CD32, which is for all intents and purposes another A1200 SKU.

They definitely had the time. The A500 was still going in 1992 after being on the market since 1987 with little changes. When ECS arrived it already looked obsolete against what the Mac had and PC. ECS should have been standard on the A500. While AGA leaped ahead of ECS it did look like a 32 bit hack to a 16 bit chipset.

Quote:

There's an excellent scene in Apollo 13 which illustrates this really well

I recall that one.

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Side note: Of course the A500 is more popular than the A1200, just like the C64 is more popular than the C128. The install base for the former is at least a single order of magnitude greater than the latter.

The C128 tried to be a C64 and couldn't survive as a whole new machine. OTOH the A1200 didn't need to be a new machine but would be expected to be compatible.

@Hammer

If only «Deluxe Music 2» was popular program, that developers actually wanted to update, its not.

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@Hypex

A500 was still selling when Commodore killed it for the A600.
A stupid decision. In 1991 they shipped around million A500/A500+(A figure A600 and A1200 combined couldn't match). The fact is, A500+ was still a great beginners cheap computer with a huge games and software library and I believe it could have been extremely popular even deep into the 90s in markets with lower purchasing power- killing it made no sense. It could have continued bellow the A1200.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

NutsAboutAmiga wrote: @Hammer If only «Deluxe Music 2» was popular program, that developers actually wanted to update, its not.

Popularity is another subject.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@WolfToTheMoon

Quote:

WolfToTheMoon wrote: @Hypex A500 was still selling when Commodore killed it for the A600. A stupid decision. In 1991 they shipped around million A500/A500+(A figure A600 and A1200 combined couldn't match). The fact is, A500+ was still a great beginners cheap computer with a huge games and software library and I believe it could have been extremely popular even deep into the 90s in markets with lower purchasing power- killing it made no sense. It could have continued bellow the A1200.

According to David Pleasance, the problem is the factory transfer from Hong Kong to the Philippines.

Commodore's Philippines factory couldn't match Hong Kong's production output.

In terms of expandability, the A600 is inferior to the A500Plus (with Zorro I expansion bus). EoL A500 has caused problems for 3rd party companies like GVP.

PCMCIA slot is based on PC's ISA slot and it's unable to replace the 68000 CPU or offer poor man's Zorro II bus boards (e.g. Bodega Bay for A500). This problem was corrected with A1200.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@agami

Quote:

agami wrote: @ppcamiga1 Quote: ppcamiga1 wrote: i buy ppc amiga because it works like my a1200 only [bullshit] times faster You obviously didn't buy an A1200 circa 1993, because if you had, and used it for more than just playing games, you'd see your comparison is ridiculous. - In 1993, Commodore Amiga 1200 was a retail system, maybe not in post-Soviet Poland but in western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, it was available at major retailers. - It was a complete consumer product, capable of working out of the box, compatible with a large library of productivity and creative software and peripherals. - Amiga OS 3 came with all the drivers to support all the hardware that was available in the A1200 - It was also excellent value for money in 1993, allowing personal/home computer users to do a lot of different things with their hard-earned money - Over the 7 years between 1993 and 2000, the A1200 had many upgrade options available.

For the Australian 1993 market, I dispute this.

Baseline A1200 was about AUD $799 and adding a 68030 accelerator (GVP A1230 with 68030 @ 40Mhz with 4 MB RAM, $1099 AUD) it's into the 486SX-25 and 486SX-33 price range.

A1200's laptop 2.5-inch hard disk wasn't cost-competitive.

Australian Amiga Review, Nov 1993


Sep 1993, 486SX-33 based PC for $1545 AUD with 4MB RAM, 130 HDD, SVGA card, 14-inch SVGA monitor, etc.


For economies of scale, Commodore UK pushed for an accelerated CPU A1200 bundle and it was rejected by Commodore International.

Last edited by Hammer on 27-Feb-2024 at 02:23 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 27-Feb-2024 at 02:20 AM.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: A1200's laptop 2.5-inch hard disk wasn't cost-competitive.

I agree on this. In fact I had to fit a 3.5" hard disk (several of them were suitable: both fitting and without requiring a new power supply) on my A1200.
And like me did A LOT of people that didn't want to pay almost DOUBLE the price for the stupid decision of Commodore engineers.

Only Bruce Abbot can defend Commodore's decisions. As usual, I've to say.

@Hammer

I don't use 8 bit audio software.
It was outdated even 30 years ago.

Last edited by ppcamiga1 on 27-Feb-2024 at 07:06 AM.

@ppcamiga1

Quote:

I don't use 8 bit audio software. It was outdated even 30 years ago.

Is 8Bit Audio outdated, is this true what you say?

Maybe it makes sense to understand what the Amiga chipset provides.
The Amiga chipset provided 8bit samples + plus 6bit Volume per channel.
This means you have for each sample its own volume.
This is a very big quality difference to 8bit samples with fixed volume.

For games 8bit samples for SNDFX with volume is often still today a very good solution.
And even modern PC games still use 8bit samples here and there today.

For music playback like CD playback, I assume we all agree that 16bit sounds better.

As we all know more channels and support for 16bit samples was on the todo-list for the next Amiga chipset upgrade... but Commodore went belly up before the new Amiga chipset did come out.

Super-AGA of course does include all the features that were on the Amiga chipset wishlist.
Super AGA has 16 Amiga DMA based Audio channels, each supporting 8bit/16bit/32bit stereo samples

Quote:

Hammer wrote: A1200's laptop 2.5-inch hard disk wasn't cost-competitive.

But is this just black and white?

True a 2.5 Laptop drives had a higher price per MB
This is a clear disadvantage.

But what advantages did they have?
* needing less power!!
* producing less heat, and being less noise
* being a lot more resilient to movement of the Amiga

Maybe you recall that in the old days drives were very sensitive to movement of the Computer.
You could even crash/destroy your drive with this.
Laptop drives were designed to be more forgiving to this.

I think as always there are two sides to the coin.

@cdimauro

Quote:

I agree on this. In fact I had to fit a 3.5" hard disk (several of them were suitable: both fitting and without requiring a new power supply) on my A1200. And like me did A LOT of people that didn't want to pay almost DOUBLE the price for the stupid decision of Commodore engineers.

Yeah, bodging/shoe horning in a 3.5" HD into an A1200 was really the only option in 1992-1994. I got a 540MB 2.5" hard drive in 1996 I believe, so prices were a bit more sane by then!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@Hammer

Quote:

For economies of scale, Commodore UK pushed for an accelerated CPU A1200 bundle and it was rejected by Commodore International.

I don't think I can ever forgive C= for this final nail in the coffin for the UK market! The CD1200 was a ridiculous last throw of the device and the SKU with the 030 upgrade was always an afterthought even then despite taking up the trapdoor space with no ability to run the CD1200 alonside a Blizzard Accelerator! The CD1230 was never prototyped as far as I know, never mind an A1200 with built in CD!!!

I'm just glad they didn't take Psygnosis, The Bitmap Brothers and Bullfrog with them! Sensible Software were not so lucky and Team17 only survived because of Andy Davidson and Worms!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@Gunnar

Quote:

Actually INTEL did not invent Vektor - they took a lot from HP SIMD MAX vector invention. (which coder also called MADMAX at the time) Intel was just good in their marketing of the ideas the took. [/quote No but they did conjure up this MMX thing. As a side note I wonder if Phase 5 would have been better off choosing HP-RISC instead. They knew this is what Commodore chose. And it would have given an upgrade path to Intel. [quote] While AMMX also has the three letters MMX in the name .. in reality AMMX is totally different than Intel MMX.

It could have also been called AMAX.

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AMMX has much more powerful instructions than INTEL MMX And with AMMX you can do a lot stuff that it impossible with INTEL MMX.

MMX is now left behind in place of SSE which replaces x87 as well.

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But if you are not a programmer and dont know this ... then this might not be easy to for you to see...

Not professionally. But I have programmed the 7501 on my C16, the 68K on my A500, some Amiga E, C and done some basic PPC but avoid it. I haven't specifically written vectored code though.

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As you might know myself and many of the Apollo worked at IBM in PowerPC development...

Yes, did it dire before or after you left?

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So we know Altivec / VMX like the back of our hand ... And we tried with AMMX to make something much better to use for game coding than Altivec...

Well, VMX doesn't look like it's evolved, last I checked it was still stuck at 128 bits which is rather obsolete when Intel is at 1024 bits now is it? Power 9 may be different. But in Amiga land it doesn't matter as VMX is dead on OS4 currently with the latest machines.

@Hypex

Quote:

Well, VMX doesn't look like it's evolved, last I checked it was still stuck at 128 bits which is rather obsolete when Intel is at 1024 bits now is it?

I can see that someone without coding experience - looks at 1024 bits and things that this is most important.
But is this really the most important?

No, in reality more bits is not what is important.
Real programmers know this.

What is really important you ask?

What is really important are the features of the instructions and if the instructions have limitations.
In reality, 64bit instruction with no limitation will often beat 1024 bit instructions with limitations.


That 1024 is bigger than 128 is easy to see.
And yes every child can say this - without understand the topic.

I my opinion an intelligent conversion would be to review the instructions features and their limitations
and based on this you could discuss in which areas AVX, Altivec or AMMX have each their advantages.

Last edited by Gunnar on 27-Feb-2024 at 04:46 PM.