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Author Topic: Why doesn't the AmigaOne just include the custom chips?  (Read 4567 times)

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Offline Doobrey

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Re: Why doesn't the AmigaOne just include the custom chips?
« Reply #14 from previous page: November 05, 2002, 04:58:15 PM »
It`s not just the cost of producing new custom chips..
Where the hell would they plug into the A1?
As for sticking them on a PCI card, there are precious few slots on it as it is.

On schedule, and suing
 

Offline Valan

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Re: Why doesn't the AmigaOne just include the custom chips?
« Reply #15 on: November 05, 2002, 05:07:33 PM »
What would you run on them that would not look or sound better on the new hardware?

If 100% compatability means demos and Imagine2 then forget it.

New software on new hardware will make the chips totally obsolete a few months after the release of OS4.
 

Offline MagicSN

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Re: Why doesn't the AmigaOne just include the custom chips?
« Reply #16 on: November 05, 2002, 06:11:38 PM »
I am not sure of it anymore, but if I remember
right chip production plants do not do the type
of chips which were used by the Amiga Custom Chipset any more. So you would need to redo
the chips as a different kind of chipset (I think that Mick Tinker thing was supposed to do
something like that, also having all chips on
one single chip instead).

IMHO software which still uses the custom chipset usually can be emulated by using UAE just fine. And if someone still uses AGA for
a PPC program - hey, he should update his software to use Graphics Board code instead, or at least optionally :) But if we think of it most software requiring the Custom-Chipset could run on UAE.

Including AGA on AmigaOne would be a waste,
as you then had to drag around this old
(how do I say "crap" in a way not offending
to Custom Chipset lovers ? :) For the record - I did not say "Crap", just think of whatever replacement-word you can come up with for those four letters :) Right, people not wanting AGA can insert "crap" as replacement if they want, hehehe...) right into the future Amiga hardware. This is not only a discussion of COST.

If someone does a PCI-Expansion with the AGA on Board - fine, he can do this. But no such
stuff on the MOTHERBOARD. Also we definitely would NOT want to push back the AmigaOne because of - AGA.

Steffen Haeuser
 

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Re: Why doesn't the AmigaOne just include the custom chips?
« Reply #17 on: November 05, 2002, 06:42:16 PM »
Sorry, for my ignorance, but I have been away from Amiga for a number of years.

Given that the new A1 will have a relatively fast G3 or G4, and that an adequate JIT 68K emulator will be included with AOS4.0, how impossible would it be for someone to develop a faster emulated version of the amiga custom chips?
 

Offline Lando

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Re: Why doesn't the AmigaOne just include the custom chips?
« Reply #18 on: November 05, 2002, 07:43:03 PM »
Quote

hnl_dk wrote:
I would like "ECS on PCI"-card, that would be nice :-D

I don't want AGA, I want ECS :-D

Who has the IP for the ECS chips???

Maybe they could combine it into one chip, might make it 64/128/256bit but remain the compatibility :-o


That would be a great solution.  Having new features doesnt mean you have to ditch all the old ones.

To get a bit technical...
If you stick 0x13 in ax and then do an int 10h on a pc (even with a mighty radeon 9700) guess what? you're in VGA 320x200 8-bit screenmode.  And what happens if you then write some random values to a000000h? Yep, pixels appear on the screen! Its called backwards compatibility.  Has this held the PC back? I don't think so!

 What will happen if you write to $dff100 on an A1?
Crash!
 

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Re: Why doesn't the AmigaOne just include the custom chips?
« Reply #19 on: November 05, 2002, 09:37:15 PM »
>I don't see how manufacturing the old chips would be a problem. All the necessary
>logic could now be contained on a single die, and I doubt any semiconductor company
>would turn down a paying contract.

And who exactly wil be paying for that contract? Chips ain't cheap. An 0.18 micron mask set costs over US$100000. That's JUST MASKS. No layout effort, no design effort, no verification, no manufacturing costs, nothing but the masks. (Masks are to chips what negatives are to camera film photographs) 0.22u or 0.25u designs are a bit cheaper, but still ain't cheap.

Plus there's the rumors that the Escom/Gateway buyout had lost track of the CAD files. If that rumor is true, then they don't know where the schematic/netlist design is to build a new layout from. (Or was it the Commodore/Escom buyout that rumor goes with?)

FPGAs would be cheaper inthe long run, as they'd never sell enough AmigaOnes with AGA built-in to pay for the chip production in the quantities needed. An Amiga product today could never pay for custom chips, the pricing just isn't feasible. Commodore sold a few million Amigas, on that scale it's doable. On AmigaOne's scale, it's not practical to do custom chips.

Besides, what do we get out of it? Paula on board? Easy and much cheaper to emulate. AGA? So maybe some AGA-only games won't work. Keep your 1200 and play them on that... ECS? Run UAE. It's not worth the price involved.

Besides, as a number of people have said, the AmigaOne is the MAI's Teron board, or very very close to it. Which is already laid out. You'd have to start the motherboard design from scratch as well. Again, is it worth the extra cost of redoing the board? I don't think so.
 

Offline SlimJim

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Re: Why doesn't the AmigaOne just include the custom chips?
« Reply #20 on: November 05, 2002, 09:56:58 PM »
So nowadays I would have no use whatsover of having the old hardware conned to A1? It all
can be done better in sofware? (I haven't been much
into this emulation scene before).
 
In short, my vanilla A1200 is "useless" in this respect?
.
SlimJim