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A story about restoring and upgrading a Commodore Amiga 1000

celso.io

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Re: A story about restoring and upgrading a Commodore Amiga 1000

#31

Post by wk_end »

kstrauser wrote: post #4

That was beautiful. Nicely done, and congratulations on your restomod A1000! I’ve heard people describe it as a 16 bit computer a few times lately though and it always catches me off guard. It was usually referred to as a 32 bit computer at the time, and defensibly so. Some of its implementation details were 16 bit, like the data bus and ALU, but they were largely invisible to users and programmers. Assembly code use…

It was pretty commonly accepted at the time that the 68000 was a "16-bit CPU" because of its ALU and data bus width, despite the 32-bit being clearly ISA. The Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, for instance, is always referred to as a 16-bit console, even having it embossed right on its shell.

The technical truth is that using a single number to describe the "bits" of a CPU is going to be inadequate in many cases (including this) so this was a choice by marketing.

I'm not sure why that was the case; one would think marketers would have rushed to use the biggest, most impressive sounding numbers available. Maybe they wanted to keep something in reserve for when the 68020 came down the pipe? Maybe they were scared of being criticized or even sued for false advertising since the chip wasn't "truly" 32-bit?

Re: A story about restoring and upgrading a Commodore Amiga 1000

#32

Post by wk_end »

kstrauser wrote: post #30
vardump wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

680[01]0 had only 23 address lines (A1-A23), 16-bit word size, thus 16 MB addressable memory. There’s also LDS (lower data select) and UDS pins for 8-bit I/O chips.

Modern AMD64 CPUs only have around 48 address lines, but we don't describe them as 48 bit. Registers and pointers are 32 bit, too.

Likewise, the 6502 and Z80 had 16 address lines, but we never describe them as 16-bit.

Re: A story about restoring and upgrading a Commodore Amiga 1000

#33

Post by eggy »

Nice restoration and article, thanks!

I bought my Amiga 1000 in 1986. I loved it. I was learning animation using Hash Inc's Animation:Master. People get impatient with web page loads today, but boy, waiting for a low-res animation to render could teach you patience!

I had started in 1977 with a Commodore PET 2001, and was a Commodore person until I bought an Apple PowerPC and loaded MkLinux with the Mach microkernel on it. Later Minix was my choice. I always rooted for Minix over Linux years later, and I still think a microkernel is better than a monolithic one.

Sadly, my Amiga 1000 was stolen from my NYC apartment in 1988, while I was at work.They left the HP laser printer which was more valuable at the time. I learned animation, kept up with programming from my PET days, and got into music trackers. I never bought an A2000 or A3000 or had a VideoToaster, although I really wanted one. Apple one the print/graphics market and Commodore lost its multimedia market with it.

The Amiga will always be my favorite Commodore. I had a Vic-20 and a C-128 at one point too.

Re: A story about restoring and upgrading a Commodore Amiga 1000

#34

Post by mightyham »

As a keyboard enthusiast, I'll add that the commadore Amiga 1000 keyboard contains the fairly uncommon Mitsumi Standard Mechanical Type II tactile switch. The mechanism uses a horizontally placed spring, which gives it a unique feeling, in my opinion, comparable to a nice rubber dome keyboard but with a hard bottom out.

[1] https://deskthority.net/wiki/Mitsumi_standard_mechanical

Re: A story about restoring and upgrading a Commodore Amiga 1000

#35

Post by snvzz »

juancn wrote: post #15
actionfromafar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The floppy drive cries out to be replaced with an SD card reader, there are several on the market :)

I thought about getting a gotek and replacing it with that.

Research FlashFloppy before buying anything.

There's many variants of hardware it can run on. Not all goteks are built the same.

Re: A story about restoring and upgrading a Commodore Amiga 1000

#36

Post by ddingus »

wk_end wrote: post #31
kstrauser wrote: post #4

That was beautiful. Nicely done, and congratulations on your restomod A1000! I’ve heard people describe it as a 16 bit computer a few times lately though and it always catches me off guard. It was usually referred to as a 32 bit computer at the time, and defensibly so. Some of its implementation details were 16 bit, like the data bus and ALU, but they were largely invisible to users and programmers. Assembly code use…

It was pretty commonly accepted at the time that the 68000 was a "16-bit CPU" because of its ALU and data bus width, despite the 32-bit being clearly ISA. The Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, for instance, is always referred to as a 16-bit console, even having it embossed right on its shell. The technical truth is that using a single number to describe the "bits" of a CPU is going to be inadequate in many cases (including th…

Like the 6809 is an 8 bit chip?

I buy that argument.

My personal reference is the 68K is a 16 bit chip, like the 6809 is an 8 bit chip.

Moto just made really great CPUs at that time.

And the fact is Moto did well by making sure the future was clear for 32 bits. Mostly just a hardware change.

(Except for people who stuffed info into those upper address bits. Oops!)

Re: A story about restoring and upgrading a Commodore Amiga 1000

#37

Post by ddingus »

wk_end wrote: post #32
kstrauser wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern AMD64 CPUs only have around 48 address lines, but we don't describe them as 48 bit. Registers and pointers are 32 bit, too.

Likewise, the 6502 and Z80 had 16 address lines, but we never describe them as 16-bit.

Right, it is generally about the ALU.

It is hard to give registers too much weight, because both Moto designs used large registers.

Re: A story about restoring and upgrading a Commodore Amiga 1000

#39

Post by msephton »

rcarmo wrote: post #14
celso wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That was beautiful. Nicely done, and congratulations on your restomod A1000! Author here. Thanks, had a lot of fun! Not sure why the original post from a few days ago didn't merge with this one, it's the same url ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42832032

Yeah, you posted it a few hours before I did ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42839928 ), and neither got voted up (and, mysteriously, mine was not detected as a dupe inside a very short time window, as it seems like it should happen). I'm going to blame the first part on us being in Europe and most of the HN crowd living in US timezones :)

There are some esoteric rules about what qualities for a merge and what doesn't. Sadly, I can never remember them

Re: A story about restoring and upgrading a Commodore Amiga 1000

#40

Post by yzydserd »

kstrauser wrote: post #4

That was beautiful. Nicely done, and congratulations on your restomod A1000! I’ve heard people describe it as a 16 bit computer a few times lately though and it always catches me off guard. It was usually referred to as a 32 bit computer at the time, and defensibly so. Some of its implementation details were 16 bit, like the data bus and ALU, but they were largely invisible to users and programmers. Assembly code use…

That’s not my recollection at the time. It was always 16-bit. The Archimedes was often portrayed with the USP of being 32-bit at the time.
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