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Amiga Graphics Archive

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Re: Amiga Graphics Archive

#51
post #16
post #10

I missed out on the Amiga (introduced in 1985) at the time, being an early PC adopter. Went from CGA (1981) directly to VGA (1987). In terms of colors the most popular VGA modes (320x200 or 320x240, 256 color palette, 18 bit color depth) are superior to the most popular Amiga graphics modes (320×200 or 320x256, 32 color palette, 12 bit color depth). But somehow Amiga graphics is still often nicer .

Amiga happened way before VGA was mainstream.

Amiga 1000 was released in mid-1985, although I think few units were shipped before 1986. Amiga 500 was 1987 - same year as VGA, its little brother MCGA, and the Mac II.

Not sure when VGA would have been considered mainstream... 1989 maybe? Mac LC was 1990, so probably before that.

VGA and Mac color were better for most practical things. Square pixels and far fewer resolution/flicker/color tradeoffs.

Re: Amiga Graphics Archive

#52

A super minor nitpick: it’s jarring to see the Amiga referred to as 16 bit. It wasn’t described that way at the time: it was universally (that I saw anyway) called a 32 bit machine, and reasonably. It had a flat 32 bit address space (although the 68000 itself didn’t support all those address lines because what kind of supercomputer would need 4GB of RAM?). All the registers and operations were 32 bit. Some of the int…

As someone that was there, it was certainly referred to as 16 bit machine between my higschool and tiny demoscene city group.

As it followed up on our ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 8 bit home computers.

Re: Amiga Graphics Archive

#53
I'm getting older and forgetting a lot, but I hope I never forget the feeling of seeing this as a kid in 1989.

You can see and experience old things, but it's impossible to recreate the context in which they were originally experienced. You can't erase your experience of 40 years of technical progress which makes this sort of thing feel merely quaint in comparison.

Re: Amiga Graphics Archive

#54
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I second that 16 bit or 16/32 was far more commonly used than 32, due to the 16 bit bus.

The bus always seemed like the oddest part to zero in on. By analogy, an Opteron in 2003 was a 64 bit CPU with a 32 bit HyperTransport bus, but no one called an Opteron system 32 bit. The width of a particular internal implementation detail is a strange duck IMO.

I think part of it was that to hardware companies the bus width is actually extremely important - the whole system is built around it, and the programming model the software guys work with less so.

And then the other part of it is the marketing angle: everyone knew full 32-bit inside and out chips were just on the horizon. Downplaying the 68k’s 32-bitness would give them a selling point for the 68020.

Re: Amiga Graphics Archive

#55

A super minor nitpick: it’s jarring to see the Amiga referred to as 16 bit. It wasn’t described that way at the time: it was universally (that I saw anyway) called a 32 bit machine, and reasonably. It had a flat 32 bit address space (although the 68000 itself didn’t support all those address lines because what kind of supercomputer would need 4GB of RAM?). All the registers and operations were 32 bit. Some of the int…

I recall the A500 series as being thought of as 16-bit in the UK -- the 32-bit marketing started with the A1200, and devices based on it, like the CD32 (hence the name).

> the 32-bit marketing started with the A1200

That was because the A1200 was the first Amiga to have a 68020 as the native CPU on the motherboard. The 68020 had 32-bit data registers and 32-bit address registers. Earlier Amiga's were designed around the 68000 CPU which was instruction set compatible with later 680x0 CPUs (which featured backward-compatible super sets). In the 68000's data registers only had 16 data lines connected externally, requiring two cycles to read or write 32-bits and the 32-bit address registers didn't have their upper 8 bits connected to external pins, limiting the directly addressable RAM to 16MB (24-bits). These compromises allowed the CPU to fit in a 64 pin DIP package while the standard 68020 came in a 114 pin PGA package and was fully 32-bit internally and externally.

However, it's confusing because the A1200 had a lower cost version of the 68020, the 68EC020, which also didn't have the top 8 bits connected and came in a smaller 100 pin QFP package. So technically, it had the same addressable RAM limit as the 68000 (although it had other instruction set and clock speed improvements).

Prior the the A1200 (1992) here was an earlier Amiga model, the A2500 (1989), which came with a full 68020 CPU but it was a 68000-based A2000 with Commodore's A2620 add-on accelerator card pre-installed, so it had both CPUs (although the 68000 was unused when the accelerator was added).

Re: Amiga Graphics Archive

#56

A super minor nitpick: it’s jarring to see the Amiga referred to as 16 bit. It wasn’t described that way at the time: it was universally (that I saw anyway) called a 32 bit machine, and reasonably. It had a flat 32 bit address space (although the 68000 itself didn’t support all those address lines because what kind of supercomputer would need 4GB of RAM?). All the registers and operations were 32 bit. Some of the int…

While I too am a huge fan of the legendary 68000, as well as the proud owner of many Amigas from 1985 onward, the marketing and media reports sometimes glossed over important technical details. The 68000 CPU, which all Amigas from 1985 to 1990 were designed around, does have 32-bit data and address registers but that doesn't mean it was purely a 32-bit architecture - even internally. Some important internal components like the ALU were only 16-bit. Additionally, the external data width was 16-bit, requiring two accesses to read or write a 32-bit register to RAM, which did have a meaningful performance impact since memory access is a critical bottleneck, especially in a CPU with no cache. As you note, at least this 'double pumping' was automatic and mostly hidden from programmers.

The 68000's address registers didn't have their upper 8 bits connected to external pins, limiting the directly addressable RAM to 16MB (24-bits). These external width compromises allowed the 68000 to fit in a 64 pin DIP package while the standard 68020, which did connect all 32 data and address lines, came in a 114 pin PGA package. Large packages with more pins were a significant cost while double-pumping data accesses and a 16MB limit on addressable RAM weren't significant issues for most 1980s desktop computers - especially since the 68000's elegantly orthogonal instruction set was so performant in other ways.

Thus, many of us more technically literate fans broadly thought of the 68000 as having 32-bits internally but 16-bit data / 24-bit address width externally. However, that was incorrect because the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and two arithmetic units were also 16-bit only, generally requiring at least twice as many cycles even for purely internal 32-bit math operations, whereas the 68020 and later CPUs didn't. That's why the 68000 is probably best described as "a hybrid 16/32 bit internal architecture with 16-bit external data width and 24-bit addressing."

It gets even more confusing because some later Amiga models like the A1200 (1992) didn't have a standard 68020 but instead a lower cost version, the 68EC020, which also didn't have the top 8 address lines connected and came in a smaller 100 pin QFP package. So technically, it had the same addressable RAM limit as the 68000, although it had full 32-bit internal and external data widths, ALU, a 256 byte cache and many other other instruction set and clock speed improvements common to later 680x0 CPUs. The way a lot of us thought of the 68000's 16/32 architecture as being limited just in the memory addressing was really a more appropriate description of the difference between a full 68020 and 68EC020. The 68000's ALU being 16-bit is the inarguable smoking gun that makes it incorrect to think "it's really a 32-bit CPU internally" as I used to.

However, that should take nothing away from just how incredible the 68000 was. My first computer had the 68000's little brother, the 6809, which was generally the fastest 8-bit CPU clock-for-clock due to being an 8/16 bit design in much same way the 68000 was 16/32 bit. While the 6809 was incredibly fast, when I got a 68000-based A1000 in 1985 and programmed it in assembly language, it blew my mind how incredibly fast it was. Then in 1988 when I added an A2620 accelerator card to my A2000, it's full 68020 with 32-bit internals and direct 32-bit read/write to 4MB of RAM was like going from a Ferrari to a Lear Jet. Despite how the 68000 was confusingly marketed and inaccurately described by some media, it was truly a leap forward, but the reality is the 68020 was really the first true 32-bit CPU in the line.

Re: Amiga Graphics Archive

#57

I'm getting older and forgetting a lot, but I hope I never forget the feeling of seeing this as a kid in 1989. You can see and experience old things, but it's impossible to recreate the context in which they were originally experienced. You can't erase your experience of 40 years of technical progress which makes this sort of thing feel merely quaint in comparison.

Those memories are crisp and vivid

Re: Amiga Graphics Archive

#59
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I second that 16 bit or 16/32 was far more commonly used than 32, due to the 16 bit bus.

The bus always seemed like the oddest part to zero in on. By analogy, an Opteron in 2003 was a 64 bit CPU with a 32 bit HyperTransport bus, but no one called an Opteron system 32 bit. The width of a particular internal implementation detail is a strange duck IMO.

All ALU operations are also more expensive with 32 bit operands. So 16 bit data bus, 24 bit address bus. Slower arithmetic with 32 bit operands. I never though of it as a 32 bit CPU.

Re: Amiga Graphics Archive

#60
post #10

I missed out on the Amiga (introduced in 1985) at the time, being an early PC adopter. Went from CGA (1981) directly to VGA (1987). In terms of colors the most popular VGA modes (320x200 or 320x240, 256 color palette, 18 bit color depth) are superior to the most popular Amiga graphics modes (320×200 or 320x256, 32 color palette, 12 bit color depth). But somehow Amiga graphics is still often nicer .

The cost between an A500 and a VGA-enabled PC in 1987 ($699 vs $3500-ish?) would have put them in such different categories and customer segments that they would rarely interact.

I remember seeing a PC one of the rich kids brought to boarding school in 1990 and realising it was just crisper than my A500. The PC’s in the school lab were all green and orange screens with one colour CGA, so this was quite a surprise. Still took me some time to accept reality :)

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