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Amiga Forever

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Re: Amiga Forever

#51

Post by bitwize »

rbanffy wrote: post #20

At the time Commodore made PCs, it could have been worthy to port AmigaOS to x86 (8088 was a bit too puny, but 286 and 386 could compare to 68K). An earlier lost opportunity was when Sun approached the offering to market the 3000/UX as a low-cost Unix workstation. The world could be a lot different had Commodore management been so boneheaded. OK. I'm being harsh. At the time, with the information they had, those deci…

286 and 386 were NOT comparable to 68k. Much Amiga development was done in 68k assembly which was an absolute joy compared to x86, and mapped almost directly to C. Plus the PC was starved for IRQ lines, and the Amiga environment lives and dies on interrupts. Because PCs lacked the Agnus and Paula chips that made the Amiga so compelling, AmigaOS on the PC would have struggled, especially during the 80s, had it been written. Most likely the developers of the day would have declared the task impossible.

IBM licensed some Amiga technology for OS/2 in the 90s, which is probably about as good a "PC AmigaOS" as we'd ever get (absent recent efforts like AROS).

Re: Amiga Forever

#52

Post by pieter_mj »

rbanffy wrote: post #20

At the time Commodore made PCs, it could have been worthy to port AmigaOS to x86 (8088 was a bit too puny, but 286 and 386 could compare to 68K). An earlier lost opportunity was when Sun approached the offering to market the 3000/UX as a low-cost Unix workstation. The world could be a lot different had Commodore management been so boneheaded. OK. I'm being harsh. At the time, with the information they had, those deci…

I wouldn't be surprised if AmigaOS was tightly integrated with its custom chipset (denise, fat agnus comes to mind as a colorful name for some of these), making it a lot more difficult to port it to x86.

Re: Amiga Forever

#53

Post by JohnBooty »

Cockbrand wrote: post #28
wslh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even enjoying a Commodore Amiga as a teenager we cannot forget Atari 1040ST competitor which included MIDI and was also innovative. Just read that was popular in some locations for CAD. It is difficult to talk about failed business, business many many times are successful for reasons beyond the technology involved. Just look nowadays how organizations are using Microsoft Teams, they could be locked, have a high cost…

Built-in MIDI and the excellent 100Hz monochrome screen were very strong selling points for the ST back then, for different niches of the market. Especially given the strong audio capabilities of the Amiga, including a MIDI interface should have been a no-brainer for Commodore to position it in the music production industry. On the other end of the market, the always slightly flickering 1081/1084 color monitor made t…

Wow, I had no idea that the ST had 100hz modes. That's so cool.

Folks who grew up in the post-CRT era might not realize what a difference 100hz vs. 60hz could make with CRT monitors when you were staring at a screen for 8+ hours a day.

Re: Amiga Forever

#54

Post by Razengan »

gbraad wrote: post #27
rbanffy wrote: post #20

At the time Commodore made PCs, it could have been worthy to port AmigaOS to x86 (8088 was a bit too puny, but 286 and 386 could compare to 68K). An earlier lost opportunity was when Sun approached the offering to market the 3000/UX as a low-cost Unix workstation. The world could be a lot different had Commodore management been so boneheaded. OK. I'm being harsh. At the time, with the information they had, those deci…

Harsh? Truth... Commodore under Irving Gould and Mehdi Ali was a sinking ship due to severe mismanagement.

I only thing I remember about the name "Mehdi Ali" from various documentaries etc. is that he was a serial ship-sinker.

Re: Amiga Forever

#55

Post by Razengan »

The core appeal of those 1980s "console-computers" could still be relevant today: Something you can start coding on as soon as you switch it on and run all software* on it without worrying about hardware or OS compatibility.

Does no one else realize that enough to make a modern product like that?

* (made for that platform)

Re: Amiga Forever

#56

Post by indymike »

rbanffy wrote: post #20

At the time Commodore made PCs, it could have been worthy to port AmigaOS to x86 (8088 was a bit too puny, but 286 and 386 could compare to 68K). An earlier lost opportunity was when Sun approached the offering to market the 3000/UX as a low-cost Unix workstation. The world could be a lot different had Commodore management been so boneheaded. OK. I'm being harsh. At the time, with the information they had, those deci…

The 268 had a segmented memory model which effectively made it possible to only access RAM in 64K pages. The 68000 had a flat memory mode and other differences that would have made a port of AmigaOS to a 286 very difficult because of the downgrade in capabilities (video controller architecture is another huge issue, too). In many ways the 286 should have been awesome, but wasn't. The 386 was more of a 68000 series competitor, and I believe it came out about the same time as the 68030 - so by the time Intel chips could compete with Motorola, four years had passed (and in that era, four years was like two decades).

Re: Amiga Forever

#57

Post by squarefoot »

Cockbrand wrote: post #26
mattl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a Commodore branded Escom PC running OS/2 in early 1996 but I’m guessing they made PCs before that in some parts of the world? In Europe it was all Amiga in the 90s

They did in fact build PC clones from the 1980s onwards, starting with the XT compatible PC-10 and the AT compatible PC-20. These were made in Germany, IIRC. Apparently they weren't bad, but back then I didn't understand the point when they had the much more powerful Amiga platform.

Their point was that the Amiga was a gaming machine, and they had no intention to make a full personal computer out of it, at least that was their idea when they stubbornly refused to ship it without a hard disk. That would be understandable given the high prices of storage back then, but they also insisted with low res graphics and lack of a cheap RTC chip, which killed almost all chances to use it in offices. I consider myself brave for having drawn my own business cards using Pagestream on a A500 with one megabyte of RAM and a flickering interlaced TV screen.

Re: Amiga Forever

#58

Post by squarefoot »

ultrablack wrote: post #8
Daviey wrote: post #3

I'm always touched seeing Amiga content, it really changed my view on technology and drove me into my career. I did think to myself, wouldn't it be funny if they had a Guru Meditation error on 404 page errors, and of course they do: https://www.amigaforever.com/some_page_that_doesnt_exist/

Good times :) When I want some time to myself at work, I book meetings with the title "Guru meditation". Obviously. :)

I find strange that nobody thought of creating "Guru Meditation" flashing signs in the style of the Amiga one, to be used in place of "Do not disturb" signs. I know a good number of nostalgic Amiga users like me who would absolutely love such a gadget.

Re: Amiga Forever

#59

Post by Cockbrand »

Cockbrand wrote: post #29
mrwh wrote: post #4

I'm returning to my childhood home in a couple of days after many years away, and now I'm wondering about searching the attic for my A1200, and whether any of the games I wrote for myself way back when, in Amos and then Amiga E, are still recoverable. Probably not; if the disks exist they're almost thirty years old, and probably best kept running in some corner of my memory. I'll try though.

I can totally still read my 35+ years old Workbench disks, which have been booted from hundreds of times. It's amazing, really.

That said, I've created images of the important diskettes from my youth, so I still have them even when the media eventually fail.

Re: Amiga Forever

#60

Post by chris_j »

Cockbrand wrote: post #28
wslh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even enjoying a Commodore Amiga as a teenager we cannot forget Atari 1040ST competitor which included MIDI and was also innovative. Just read that was popular in some locations for CAD. It is difficult to talk about failed business, business many many times are successful for reasons beyond the technology involved. Just look nowadays how organizations are using Microsoft Teams, they could be locked, have a high cost…

Built-in MIDI and the excellent 100Hz monochrome screen were very strong selling points for the ST back then, for different niches of the market. Especially given the strong audio capabilities of the Amiga, including a MIDI interface should have been a no-brainer for Commodore to position it in the music production industry. On the other end of the market, the always slightly flickering 1081/1084 color monitor made t…

The ST in mono was alas only around 71hz. Still very nice. Sadly my family could not afford a mono monitor and and I used my ST through the family TV but I used a friend's mono monitor a few times and it was very nice.
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