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[amiga92570]

Originally Posted by Digiman

1990 IS the time of 286 crap as far as branded machines for sale in high street shops to normal general public goes, 25mhz 386 machines cost more than Macs and that's a fact sorry. People did not want to send cheques for £1000/$2000 for some cobbled together 16mhz 386SX crap with PC speaker sound built in some small time shed of a backstreet business via 2" square adverts in black and white text lost in PCW magazine

IBM 486? ha ha even the Amstrad PC2386 was $4500 with 20mhz 386 with 4mb RAM and 64mb hard drive, if IBM sold a 486 in 1989/90 it would have been more than a CRAY-1 my dear fellow (and they would have proved time travel is possible to the future and back )

PC was not cheap, some of you forget just what a rip-off price those crappy PCs were in the very early 90s. PC sales rocketed due to hype/overpriced Mac only competition left by 1994 If Commodore had sold their A1400 at Xmas 1993 they would have cleaned up at £500-600 for a 28mhz 4mb, 3.5" IDE hard drive, CD-Rom setup in a smart 3 box design like slimline PCs. They sold you CD32 toilets for £399 instead oops!

Oh and Wing Commander was ****! Feel sorry for the morons who spent £2000 on a 286 with various extras just to play that heap of dog **** game

PC2386 source

This fellow will have to disagree. The IBM was sold at costco in 1990 (386 model) for $1300 dollars. I know as my brother and I both purchased one. The Cray is a silly comparison (we had one at Rockell where I worked, It took three floors in a high rise with all the drives, tapes, and memory). We had plenty of IBM computers of all models. You really think the average person would buy a 3000 in 1990? You are dreaming. I was making about $90,000 a year and did not buy one because of cost and I could not do work on it. Most personal use was limited to low end, so I guess the little chart will have to be redrawn to compare what different groups were buying. How about engineering, music, video, home use, gaming, etc. You may be to young to remember these things, so I can only assume you are trying to divulge your info from the internet, but you are clearly wrong.

[Pentad]

Crumb,

I'm honestly not trying to give you a hard time but allow me to comment:

Originally Posted by Crumb

That's an urban legend... DRACO ran AmigaOS3.1 quite fast without the need of custom chips.

I'm not sure what you mean by this statement. AmigaOS requires a number of custom chips to function properly.

Originally Posted by Crumb

BTW, 2.x to 3.x software transition was quite smooth. You had professional high quality software like ImageFX, AdPro, Photogenics, Lightwave, Cinema4D, Real3D, Imagine, Caligari Truespace, Bars'n'pipes, Pagestream... you could even paint with TrueBrilliance, and there were professional and affordable video solutions not available for any of the listed systems. Final Copy, Final Writer and Wordworth were excellent packages too.

You are mixing a number of arguments here in this section of text. While I would agree that the transition from 1.3 to 2.x was decent it was by no means smooth. If I cared more I could offer you a number of articles on OS 2.x that Amiga World ran at the time but suffice to say it was a painful move for all involved.

Commodore tried to motivate publishers by running ads for OS 2.x with the catch phrase "...and the list keeps growing..." or something to that effect. OS 2.x was a major shift in the AmigaOS technology and it was growing pains. The shift was good for Commodore and the Amiga at the time.

As you stated, there were many fine applications that upgraded and worked well with 2.x and beyond. In the end, some 1.3 applications did not work and their owners decided not to move beyond 1.3.

I think many developers saw the Amiga platform stagnate compared to PC and Mac and decided not to fund the upgrade of their applications.

As for 'affordable video solutions', yes, there were many of those available for the Amiga well before other platforms.

Originally Posted by Crumb

In 1994 we were happily multitasking and most computer users didn't know what that meant and even claimed it was useless. And our applications were quite professional and most of them more affordable than similar programs in other systems.

I'm not sure you are remembering 1994 correctly or your use of the word 'multitasking' is incorrect here. These are a few the operating systems/computers that allowed multitasking in 1994:

Windows 3.x
MacOS (First there was Switcher and then MultiFinder)
DOS (many application switchers)
CPM
Atari (Atari TT and Falcon with MultiTOS)
VAX
Unix

With the exception of VAX and Unix, a major program crash would take out the entire computer. However, people were happily multitasking on their computers. They were running more than one program at a time, cutting and pasting between them, and cursing when one program crashed and took down the entire system.

I'm not saying that every crash could bring down the system but Atari, Apple, and Commodore did not offer memory protection so its very easy for one program to bring down the whole machine.

If you want to completely trash AmigaOS 1.0 to 3.x, just write to memory location $4. That's it. Memory location 4 is the only absolute location in the system. You destroy that pointer and the AmigaOS is dead.

AmigaOS is a pre-emptive OS where just about everyone else on the list is co-op (excluding Unix and VAX) but we're just splitting hairs.

Originally Posted by Crumb

really? Win95 crashed much more easily than AmigaOS. And it crawled in hardware way faster too. And needed 8MB to be useable. By the late 80's most of people used monotask-OSes like MacOS or MSDOS+Windows. But most of them didn't have a clue about what multitasking meant and as you can suppose memory protection was an even more strange word for them.

I think MS did a pathethic job with Win95. They should have marketed a NT workstation version as Win95 instead of creating that "thing". OS2 was simply superior and even allowed running Win3.1 apps too. It was not until WinXP that peecee users got a stable Windows system. Until WinXP you could hang Win95/98/ME as easy as AmigaOS3.x. Win95 with 4MB was unusable. Swapping floppy disks in my A500 was a less painful experience and usually more productive.

Let's talk about what you've said here:

First, I am no way a fan of Microsoft but I also try to be fair person. When you take all things considered, Microsoft did an admirable job with Windows 95 (excluding ME). You may scuff and mock my post but at least hear me out.

The programmers at Apple and Commodore had it insanely easier compared to the programmers at Microsoft. Apple and Commodore controlled both the OS and the core hardware. If you have any idea how hard it is to write a kernel, imagine how hard it would be not knowing what type of core system it will be installed on.

The programmers for Windows had to write an OS that sat on top of DOS, had to work with thousands of different hardware configurations, remain backwards compatible, and unify a driver set (DirectX) for the very first time.

Seriously, that is an amazing set of goals to aim for. I'm not saying that you have to like Microsoft or that Windows 95 was the greatest OS ever. I'm saying that for all that it had to do, they did a decent job for their first time out.

To be honest, I used to bash Microsoft and Windows 9x just as much as anybody else. Then I had to write a kernel for hardware in college and boy does that help you to see the world a bit differently.

I would absolutely agree that the AmigaOS was much more stable than Windows 9x. However, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN! Writing a kernel for a handful of platforms should be a piece of cake compared to the zillion configurations of the PC world.

I guess in the end I feel that if you are going to compare Operating Systems you have to take into account the hardware it has to run on. Apple and Commodore never had to address the issues that Windows developers had to address.

Originally Posted by Crumb

AGA in 1994 was not as bad as you may think, it allowed you to watch ham8 pr0n and animations smoothly. They should have improved more the CDXL format to take advantage of 030/040. Amiga was very cost effective solution.

Amiga also sported Autoconfig(tm) and it has worked very well until today.

A3000/4000 16MB limit was not really important until many years later. With 2MB of chipram you could do many things at once while other systems had to spent money in both gfx and normal ram. Even soundcard ram in some cases.

Amigas used to sound much better connected to a 1084s monitor than the old and crappy yogourt-like speakers used by 90% pc users in the 90s.

In 1994 AmigaOS was simply superior

It may not seem like it but I am a huge fan of the Amiga and of Commodore. I owned most of the best machines by Commodore and wonder 'what if' like most of you. AutoConfig was brilliant but by 1994 Paula was outdated...

In 1994 AGA was too little too late. Doom and Wolfenstein 3D were huge and for the first time PC games made the Amiga look dated.

[freqmax]

Something Amiga did was to give graphics, video, multitasking and cpu-performance with a low price tag. Macs had a serious price tag and no acceleration to boot. x86 just sucked in all departments.

Amiga was integrated such that databuses could work in parallell. Co-chips does things without bothering the cpu etc. Macs and x86s were all peek & poke more or less. Multimedia sucked as a consequence.

Commodore had some really interesting projects like the Hombre project (speaking of PPC WB). The hinder.. management greed?

As said earlier, in 1985 Amiga screwed the competition.

Memory protection would also been really useful.

Originally Posted by Crumb

In 1994 we were happily multitasking and most computer users didn't know what that meant and even claimed it was useless. And our applications were quite professional and most of them more affordable than similar programs in other systems.

Says quite much.
DOS, huh? Win95 no stabiity or quick response. Infact the first PC were bought with the intention to use it as a PPP<->Ethernet proxy due Ethernet card prices for Amiga. Atari ST lacked the cool graphics and sound of Amiga (asfair). At the comparable time Amiga had power graphics and stereo. PC had amber text and beep.

ISA bus vs Zorro was also a hands down.

Agree with digiman that a port of KS/WB to PPC or PA-RISC etc.. would have left the m68k obsolescence behind.

(What is AKIKO btw?)

Finally a fan photo of Medhi Ali!

[fishy_fiz]

Originally Posted by Pentad

Crumb,

I'm honestly not trying to give you a hard time but allow me to comment:



I'm not sure what you mean by this statement. AmigaOS requires a number of custom chips to function properly.

I think what he means is exactly what he said. Draco ran OS3.x without custom chips ( as does amithlon). Not sure how that could be made clearer.

[bloodline]

Originally Posted by fishy_fiz

I think what he means is exactly what he said. Draco ran OS3.x without custom chips ( as does amithlon). Not sure how that could be made clearer.

I'm pretty sure the Draco's have real CIA chips, the rest of the OS is patched... Not sure how interrupts were dealt with, they must have had an interrupt controller set up like Paula

[runequester]

Originally Posted by Pentad

It may not seem like it but I am a huge fan of the Amiga and of Commodore. I owned most of the best machines by Commodore and wonder 'what if' like most of you. AutoConfig was brilliant but by 1994 Paula was outdated...

In 1994 AGA was too little too late. Doom and Wolfenstein 3D were huge and for the first time PC games made the Amiga look dated.

Well, Doom wasn't out when AGA came out, but the writing was certainly on the wall. A VGA style chipset was what had been needed.

[Pentad]

Originally Posted by fishy_fiz

I think what he means is exactly what he said. Draco ran OS3.x without custom chips ( as does amithlon). Not sure how that could be made clearer.

Your selection of examples is very interesting:

Are you suggesting that Amithlon does not emulate the custom hardware the AmigaOS needs to function?

You might want to research how it (and UAE derivatives) work:

"The emulator, developed by Bernd Meyer, is based upon the authors' experience with the WinUAE JiT emulation, but features some dramatic changes to increase emulation speed (at the loss of compatibility). The slim-line ISOLinux distribution is used to boot directly into the Amiga emulation, removing the need for users to interact with a host operating system. This simple, yet effective change resulted in many users favouring Amithlon over AmigaOS XL as the emulation of choice."

Please read further about it here: http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/emulators/amithlon.html

Draco did use custom chips:

2 CIA chips
1 Kickstart Rom
Paula (according to a post on Usenet that I found)

I would consider these custom chips.
You can read further here:

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showha....cgi?HARDID=43

and here:

http://amiga.resource.cx/mod/draco.html


Cheers!

[Gulliver]

@Pentad
I can assure you the DraCo never used Paula, it used a modified Tocatta soundcard. Cia chips, are not custom chips, but generic 68000 auxiliary chips sold at electronic shops. And kickstart roms are nothing more than eeproms/proms that you can probably buy at your local electronics shop.
So you see the DraCo had no custom Amiga chipset at all. They relied on a heavily modified kickstart, that was patched upon boot.

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by warpdesign

Seriously:

- no flicker/fixer
- no chunky modes
- dead slow graphics for anything with 256 colors/640x480 (I won't even talk about the 1024x768 video mode you're listing)
- 8 bit sound, no input

As a production machine, it was behind anything else you mean ?

Btw, what about software support ? What did you have with this machine ?

Classic Amigas has 14bit audio hack.

[Selles]

My PC at the time blew the doors off all of those machines.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Selles

My PC at the time blew the doors off all of those machines.

/me readies mil-spec tranquillizer gun. One dart already chambered...

[the_leander]

Going back to the OPs original chart...

Wasn't the Falcon priced around the same as an A1200? It seems a little unfair to compare a £350 machine to, in the case of the 4k £1000+ system.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by the_leander

Going back to the OPs original chart...

Wasn't the Falcon priced around the same as an A1200? It seems a little unfair to compare a £350 machine to, in the case of the 4k £1000+ system.

I seem to remember Power Computing selling them for a bit more than a base A1200 around '93. Can't remember the exact prices though, something like £300 for the A1200 and £350 for the Falcon. Don't quote me on those though.

[bloodline]

Originally Posted by Gulliver

@Pentad
I can assure you the DraCo never used Paula, it used a modified Tocatta soundcard.

Quite... But no one was talking about audio, Paula is a very specific and unusual interrupt controller (which AmigaOS relies on)... Though I can imagine that it would be quite easy to handle that aspect with off the shelf parts.

Cia chips, are not custom chips, but generic 68000 auxiliary chips sold at electronic shops.

Pop down to Maplin and pick me up a dozen MOS6526s cheers... Oh wait the company that made them went bankrupt in 1994... That's sucks, if only I could remember the name of that company...

Do your research

And kickstart roms are nothing more than eeproms/proms that you can probably buy at your local electronics shop.
So you see the DraCo had no custom Amiga chipset at all. They relied on a heavily modified kickstart, that was patched upon boot.

True.

[bloodline]

Originally Posted by Karlos

I seem to remember Power Computing selling them for a bit more than a base A1200 around '93. Can't remember the exact prices though, something like £300 for the A1200 and £350 for the Falcon. Don't quote me on those though.

I agree it's unfair to compare the A4000 and the Falcon, vague memories of the Falcon costing about £100 more than the A1200... I remember arguing with some poor chap at school about how much better the A1200 was and for quite a bit less... I was a nasty zealot