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A lot of words there. But the word ‘console’ is there exactly once. Games consoles killed the Amiga, just like they did all other home computers that were primarily used for games. I don’t know anyone that used the Amiga for anything other than games. PCs survived because they were genuinely used for business, not just games.
I mean TV studios and media houses, but admittedly, that's not exactly a huge market.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Amiga platform was originally built on game-console hardware. Incidentally, so was the Raspberry Pi, which is why the first Raspberry Pi models were comparatively very cheap.
The platform is irrelevant. They were more expensive than games consoles. So they lost, just like all other true personal computer manufacturers. They had too many components and couldn’t compete.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was not a big Amiga user, but on the Atari ST we had a graphics abstraction API (VDI) from day one. Had the notion of a virtual device and drawing surface. All done through a proper syscall TRAP system, too. I am given to understand that the AmigaOS syscall API was in the form of JMPs. So when the Falcon and TT Etc came along with full 16-bit 256 colour SVGA-like graphics, anything properly written GUI "just worked…
It used JMP, but you looked up the API base addresses from a fixed address, ($4 IIRC) so it worked basically the same. But only like some turned based games, and like some chess games etc used that API. The rest maybe used the APIs to allocate a screen but they were banging hardware after that. Most didn't even use the OS even to read the keyboard, which became an annoyance on the A600 which lacked some of the keys.
Separate topic from graphics and device independence though
A lot of words there. But the word ‘console’ is there exactly once. Games consoles killed the Amiga, just like they did all other home computers that were primarily used for games. I don’t know anyone that used the Amiga for anything other than games. PCs survived because they were genuinely used for business, not just games.
I did (but also for games). That wasn't the problem. The problem was computers built on closed architecture didn't have a future even if company didn't went to shit like Commodore did.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The platform is irrelevant. They were more expensive than games consoles. So they lost, just like all other true personal computer manufacturers. They had too many components and couldn’t compete.
Were they? I bought my Amiga 500 around 1992 for $200 USD at Software Etc. I think the Nintendo was around $100 USD and the games were often much more expensive. Not to mention most games were just the cost of a floppy disk if you had Amiga friends.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The platform is irrelevant. They were more expensive than games consoles. So they lost, just like all other true personal computer manufacturers. They had too many components and couldn’t compete.
I think it was lack of vision and financial mismanagement that killed them more than anything technical. Edit: an interesting take with the games consoles, I never really thought about it from that angle before. But it makes a lot of sense. Console makers get a cut of the revenue stream of the games. Commodore never saw a cent of that and the only commercial niche they briefly owned was low-budget TV production, like…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It used JMP, but you looked up the API base addresses from a fixed address, ($4 IIRC) so it worked basically the same. But only like some turned based games, and like some chess games etc used that API. The rest maybe used the APIs to allocate a screen but they were banging hardware after that. Most didn't even use the OS even to read the keyboard, which became an annoyance on the A600 which lacked some of the keys.
I mean the advantage of the TRAP approach is more amenable to supervisor/user mode switch and memory protection and the like? Separate topic from graphics and device independence though
Everything could have been fixed with the March of Moore. The OS could have gotten a hypervisor and been running each program in its own "VM" thinking it was the only program on the machine.
A lot of words there. But the word ‘console’ is there exactly once. Games consoles killed the Amiga, just like they did all other home computers that were primarily used for games. I don’t know anyone that used the Amiga for anything other than games. PCs survived because they were genuinely used for business, not just games.
As to what killed Amiga - I think it's in the article - the lagging behind the x86 performance, especially when 386DX-40 came about, and please allow me to propose one additional, if not the primary, factor - that our fathers suddenly began to require Word and Excel to do their work at home.
A lot of words there. But the word ‘console’ is there exactly once. Games consoles killed the Amiga, just like they did all other home computers that were primarily used for games. I don’t know anyone that used the Amiga for anything other than games. PCs survived because they were genuinely used for business, not just games.
I did (but also for games). That wasn't the problem. The problem was computers built on closed architecture didn't have a future even if company didn't went to shit like Commodore did.
Do you honestly think that the general public gave two shits about closed architectures?
The vast majority of people, who were using computers, were using them to play games. People completely misremember how little interest the general public had in computers (for serious tasks) at the time.
The only exception to that really was the IBM PC. It didn’t have an open architecture either. For a long time it was the case that if you didn’t buy an IBM branded PC, you couldn’t guarantee that any software would actually work on it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Were they? I bought my Amiga 500 around 1992 for $200 USD at Software Etc. I think the Nintendo was around $100 USD and the games were often much more expensive. Not to mention most games were just the cost of a floppy disk if you had Amiga friends.
$100 < $200