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Author Topic: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga  (Read 8349 times)

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Offline Iggy

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #29 on: April 11, 2014, 05:48:34 PM »
Quote from: bloodline;762344
The Amiga brought together a bunch of different technologies in a single well thought out package in a format that people found useful to use. I consider that original.

There was nothing original about the components that made up the iPad, but until Apple put the right parts into the right package, no one was even slightly interested in tablet computing.

Engineering is always about compromise, and it takes a while to get the balance right.

The Amiga was a breath of fresh air when released and was such a strong design, it held its own for almost 6 years with little or no serious upgrades!

"with little or no serious upgrades" - funny, most A.org posters would object to that, but I'd agree. Dave and company's enhancements were minor.

The iPad isn't that impressive. And, as stated before, the elements that made up the Amiga had their foundations in other company's research.

Edit - Then again, looking back over my posts, my attitude in this thread has been pretty fecal eyed.
I like old Sun systems for similar reasons, and they didn't invent a great deal of their earlier technology either.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2014, 06:04:54 PM by Iggy »
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Offline ElPolloDiabl

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #30 on: April 11, 2014, 06:43:26 PM »
Amiga had the CDTV. It was expensive and there wasn't really an upgrade path for it.
For something like that you need a lot of adopters. With a large market you have an awesome appliance.
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Offline matthey

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #31 on: April 11, 2014, 07:55:52 PM »
Quote from: Iggy;762357
"with little or no serious upgrades" - funny, most A.org posters would object to that, but I'd agree. Dave and company's enhancements were minor.

I agree with that and I think Dave Haynie would also. C= management had their heads somewhere in a dark place that doesn't smell good. They didn't understand the technology they bought and owned. They didn't know what to do with it. Computers before that were generally created and then upgraded and/or cost reduced and then went on to a whole new design. Many of the engineers did see the potential though. They created the hardware of the future in many cases only to have it stopped by management and budget shortfalls (also management's fault). The engineers were frustrated. Jay Miner was not happy with what happened to the Amiga either. He wanted to make upgrades. Very few of the original engineers survived the C= purchase and relocation. Dave doesn't talk about this because he wasn't there yet. I wish Bil Herd would have given some more C= history before Dave and the reasons why he left when he did.

Quote from: Iggy;762357
Edit - Then again, looking back over my posts, my attitude in this thread has been pretty fecal eyed.
I like old Sun systems for similar reasons, and they didn't invent a great deal of their earlier technology either.

The Amiga is pretty special even it ultimately did not live up to it's potential. Don't blame the Amiga/C= engineers for it's failures though.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2014, 08:26:37 PM by matthey »
 

Offline Iggy

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #32 on: April 11, 2014, 10:15:36 PM »
Fair enough.
Commodore management and their bean counters screwed the pooch.
I'll try to lay off Dave over resentment about an old comment.

It is worth noting, though, that he didn't address Piru's post.
"Not making any hard and fast rules means that the moderators can use their good judgment in moderation, and we think the results speak for themselves." - Amiga.org, terms of service

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Offline bloodline

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #33 on: April 11, 2014, 10:21:26 PM »
Quote from: Iggy;762357
"with little or no serious upgrades" - funny, most A.org posters would object to that, but I'd agree. Dave and company's enhancements were minor.


If you take the time to watch Dave's awesome talk, he says clealy that the C= engineers were constantly trying to push the technology... But the C= management would cancel any project that looked even slightly expensive... We were stuck with OCS for 5 years... Followed by ECS, and as Dave explains in the video, a very slight upgrade to AGA... Which was basically ECS where the C= had managed to figure out how to double the data rate on the bus for no extra cost...

Quote

The iPad isn't that impressive. And, as stated before, the elements that made up the Amiga had their foundations in other company's research.


I said nothing about impressive, I answered your original assertion of original. The only thing impressive about the ipad (other then the battery life) is the quantities in which people purchased it...

The iPad was an original approach to building table computers, by taking well established technologies and put them them together in an original package. :)

Quote

Edit - Then again, looking back over my posts, my attitude in this thread has been pretty fecal eyed.
I like old Sun systems for similar reasons, and they didn't invent a great deal of their earlier technology either.


You don't have to like Dave Haynie to watch and enjoy the video :)

Offline itix

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #34 on: April 12, 2014, 12:00:11 AM »
Quote from: bloodline;762365
If you take the time to watch Dave's awesome talk, he says clealy that the C= engineers were constantly trying to push the technology... But the C= management would cancel any project that looked even slightly expensive... We were stuck with OCS for 5 years... Followed by ECS, and as Dave explains in the video, a very slight upgrade to AGA... Which was basically ECS where the C= had managed to figure out how to double the data rate on the bus for no extra cost...

It is not always so simple. A failed research project could drain all money out of the company and Amiga didnt boom until Amiga 500 was launched in 1987. In Amiga history 1987 is quite late.

Quote
I said nothing about impressive, I answered your original assertion of original. The only thing impressive about the ipad (other then the battery life) is the quantities in which people purchased it...

Hey, its 2048x1536 retina display on 10 inch display is quite nice. Many new laptops dont support more than 1920x1080 pixels.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2014, 12:02:31 AM by itix »
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Offline Iggy

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #35 on: April 12, 2014, 12:17:50 AM »
Quote from: itix;762366
Hey, its 2048x1536 retina display on 10 inch display is quite nice. Many new laptops dont support more than 1920x1080 pixels.

Maybe you want to squint at a 2048 by 1536 resolution displayed on a 10 inch device, but I find even 1920 by 1080 on a 15 inch display a little too small.
Sure, great for pictures, lousy for most text displays.
"Not making any hard and fast rules means that the moderators can use their good judgment in moderation, and we think the results speak for themselves." - Amiga.org, terms of service

"You, got to stem the evil tide, and keep it on the the inside" - Rogers Waters

"God was never on your side" - Lemmy

Amiga! "Our appeal has become more selective"
 

Offline Pentad

Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #36 on: April 12, 2014, 02:09:16 AM »
Quote from: Iggy;762306
No your "research" on this is pretty lame.
And Dave's comments were based on hearsay.

When you consider the differences in hardware and the basic structural differences between Amiga OS and MorphOS, the idea of using any Amiga code is pretty ludicrous.

OS4 made that attempt and that was probably a large part of the delay in releasing it.

While you all seem enamored by the "huge" developments of the past (none of which were particularly original), I stay in the present.

BTW - Maybe its just that I was never that impressed with Commodore, its hardware, or its engineers.


Iggy:  You are always an endless source of astonishment.  I love reading your quirky interpretation of Amiga history.  Facts be damned, you weave some of the most unique and entertaining conclusions of anyone here.  I could buy you a beer and listen to your stories all night!
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Offline matthey

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #37 on: April 12, 2014, 02:17:27 AM »
Quote from: Iggy;762364

It is worth noting, though, that he didn't address Piru's post.


Dave Haynie didn't address Piru's post on amiga.org but he did make some follow up statements on amigaworld.net:

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=33564&forum=25&start=540&viewmode=flat&order=0#611325

Quote

hazydave wrote:
Quote

More importantly, the MorphOS guys have always vehemently denied that they stole any code.


The MorphOS project came from Phase V... after Phase V ended, former employees started up BPlan (eg, "Plan B"), who eventually merged with a couple folks from Thendic France to form Genesi.

Now, I do not have direct personal knowledge of all MorphOS sources. But back when Phase 5 was working on their "C Exec" and other things, starting to re-create AmigaOS themselves in the mid-1990s, I was working with Andy Finkel at Amiga Technologies. The Phase 5 guys were really after AT to use tome of their stuff (and pay them, natch). Andy did a code review of the C Kernel, and found it was copied from AmigaOS source code. In fact, even the comments were copied, assembler to C.

Maybe MorphOS is clean, maybe not. Maybe no one actually knows. But that's such a transgression, I wouldn't trust anyone involved in Phase 5, or any code that can be traced back to Phase 5.


And:

Quote

hazydave wrote:
@itix
They still don't understand clean room development. If you have seen the Amiga source code, you cannot produce a legally separate work-alike. So any copied comments are absolute proof that the code is dirty. And they're not rejecting my claim, if you go back into those linked documents, that the comments were copied.

Point in fact -- I just don't care about MorphOS. It's not AmigaOS, it might as well be Windows for all I care. If you like it, I'm pretty certain at this point no new legal entanglements are going to happen.  If the MorphOS people would like to swear in public that not a line of code or comment is copied from the AmigaOS sources or derived from the Phase 5 code (fruits of a poisonous tree, in legal terms), I will not mention MorphOS again.


Personally, it doesn't matter as whoever owns the Amiga technology isn't using it (was the Amiga Inc. transfer quid pro quo?). Even if the MOS developers did copy the sources, it's like stealing from a dumpster. I hope they make good use of anything they have been able to save.

Quote from: itix;762366
It is not always so simple. A failed research project could drain all money out of the company and Amiga didnt boom until Amiga 500 was launched in 1987. In Amiga history 1987 is quite late.


It did take a while for the Amiga to become popular as the price was high but C= was still making a lot of money off the C64 and paying it's high level executives millions as Haynie mentioned in the speech.
 

Offline pwermonger

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #38 on: April 12, 2014, 02:29:15 AM »
Quote from: Iggy;762306
No your "research" on this is pretty lame.
And Dave's comments were based on hearsay.

[...]

BTW - Maybe its just that I was never that impressed with Commodore, its hardware, or its engineers.


Hearsay only matters in court. But it really is totally irrelevant to me.

Something to keep in mind is, if not for the Commodore Hardware and its Engineers, there would be no Amiga OS 4 right now, or MorphOS.

They made Amigas that could hold accelerators, that allowed Phase 5 to make the PPC accelerator that needed PPC software that started them adding it to Amiga OS, that eventually evolved into MorphOS.
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #39 on: April 12, 2014, 10:26:39 AM »
Quote from: itix;762366
It is not always so simple. A failed research project could drain all money out of the company and Amiga didnt boom until Amiga 500 was launched in 1987. In Amiga history 1987 is quite late.


But the C64 was selling well and the executives were very well paid... It wouldn't have hurt to put some money back into the Amiga ;)

Quote

Hey, its 2048x1536 retina display on 10 inch display is quite nice. Many new laptops dont support more than 1920x1080 pixels.


I was referring to the original iPad (which ignited the table computer revolution), and I agree... You'll have to prise my iPad out of my cold dead hand :)

Offline bloodline

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #40 on: April 12, 2014, 10:31:37 AM »
Quote from: Iggy;762367
Maybe you want to squint at a 2048 by 1536 resolution displayed on a 10 inch device, but I find even 1920 by 1080 on a 15 inch display a little too small.
Sure, great for pictures, lousy for most text displays.


??? -Parse error...

Actually text is what makes the ultra high resolution iPad display worth it... Pictures are naturally antialiased, with few sharp edges and so looks fine even at low resolution (as long as you have a high colour gamut)... But text looks horrible on low res displays no matter what... On the iPad it looks like printed text!

Offline itix

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #41 on: April 12, 2014, 11:25:27 AM »
Quote from: bloodline;762381
??? -Parse error...

Actually text is what makes the ultra high resolution iPad display worth it... Pictures are naturally antialiased, with few sharp edges and so looks fine even at low resolution (as long as you have a high colour gamut)... But text looks horrible on low res displays no matter what... On the iPad it looks like printed text!


Iggy made assumption that higher resolution would mean cramming more text and images to 10 inch display which is not case here. It is just that text and images are displayed in higher detail.
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Offline itix

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #42 on: April 12, 2014, 11:44:11 AM »
Quote from: matthey;762369
Quote
hazydave:
If the MorphOS people would like to swear in public that not a line of code or comment is copied from the AmigaOS sources or derived from the Phase 5 code (fruits of a poisonous tree, in legal terms), I will not mention MorphOS again.
Personally, it doesn't matter as whoever owns the Amiga technology isn't using it (was the Amiga Inc. transfer quid pro quo?). Even if the MOS developers did copy the sources, it's like stealing from a dumpster. I hope they make good use of anything they have been able to save.

By the way... AmigaOS 4 is toxic. AmigaOS 4 is poisoned by developers who have seen MorphOS and AROS source code. I dont know if any of MorphOS developers have seen AmigaOS source code but I know that RJ Mical has seen AmigaOS source code and did consult MorphOS developers long ago. But it doesnt end there. AmigaOS developed at Commodore was poisoned by developers who had seen source code from other operating systems and ideas were adopted to AmigaOS.

But hazydave's view are understandable. He is not a software guy and he is just wrong about everything software related.

Quote
It did take a while for the Amiga to become popular as the price was high but C= was still making a lot of money off the C64 and paying it's high level executives millions as Haynie mentioned in the speech.

But Amiga had not been proven successful.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2014, 11:46:31 AM by itix »
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Offline Iggy

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Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #43 on: April 12, 2014, 03:01:50 PM »
Quote from: Pentad;762368
Iggy:  You are always an endless source of astonishment.  I love reading your quirky interpretation of Amiga history.  Facts be damned, you weave some of the most unique and entertaining conclusions of anyone here.  I could buy you a beer and listen to your stories all night!

Quirky?
Ah, your probably right.
I get a lot more "quirky" when discussing politics, religion, or history (then again, we are talking history).

Quote from: itix;762383
...He is not a software guy and he is just wrong about everything software related.

Thanks for the pointer to the AmigaWorld post.
Same vague hearsay from Andy, no real evidence.
And again, 68K machine code would be of limited utility.

And doesn't "trust" Phase 5 personnel? Why? They fought to keep the platform alive. And Ralph Schmidt (who is at the core of Finkel's accusations) is an amazing programmer who created the MorphOS kernel (which in no way resembles Amiga OS).

On the iPad, You're all right, it hadn't occurred to me that the text could simply be more detailed.
"Not making any hard and fast rules means that the moderators can use their good judgment in moderation, and we think the results speak for themselves." - Amiga.org, terms of service

"You, got to stem the evil tide, and keep it on the the inside" - Rogers Waters

"God was never on your side" - Lemmy

Amiga! "Our appeal has become more selective"
 

Offline psxphill

Re: Dave Haynie Talks About Developing The Commodore Amiga
« Reply #44 from previous page: April 12, 2014, 04:21:29 PM »
Quote from: bloodline;762365
But the C= management would cancel any project that looked even slightly expensive...

They didn't cancel AAA fast enough. The way I see it please like Dave were supposed to be the caretakers who kept the old Amiga going until the "real heroes" delivered the AAA chipset. Top management wouldn't want to waste money on the old technology with AAA coming.
 
When you have someone at the top that doesn't understand the technology and yes men at every level down then things go wrong real fast.
 
Someone from engineering should have foreseen that AAA was going to be a disaster from day one.