Amiga Ranger Prototype Found!

[kamelito]

@Chrisxyz
I read at eab.abime.net that Toni WinUAE author could include Ranger in WinUAE if he can have roms dumps and high res pictures of the motherboard but you better ask him directly. Is all this possible ?
Kamelito

[Pentad]

I would love to look through that version of Kickstart (24.2).  We don't have anything like that in the community.

Of course, I think we should make a copy of all the roms we encounter with these old machines.  Not for piracy but just for archiving.

-P

[klx300r]

very cool:afro:

[psxphill]

Wow, Brian Bagnall has just posted about the Amiga Ranger prototype that has been found by Dale Luck!

Unless I'm missing something this doesn't have any Amiga chipset in it at all, it appears to be the reference design of the Zorro expansion for the A1000. Similar to what third parties released http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/paljr

This explains why c00000 memory is referred to as Ranger ram though. The PalJr flyer http://amiga.resource.cx/adcoll/adcoll.pl?id=paljr&pg=5 says it supports 1mb of memory at c0000, although it's real fast ram and not just chip ram that can't be used as chip ram that you find on fat agnus systems. Kickstart 1.2 doesn't care how the memory works, it probes the area and if ram is there then it's added. Essentially Kickstart 1.2 is the software support for Ranger.

Ironically this makes the Amiga 1000+Ranger, the prototype for the german Amiga 2000. Zorro-I and Zorro-II are essentially the same expect for the form factor because commodore Germany wanted it to be more PCish.

I'm still not convinced either way about the new improved chipset, it's entirely possible they did a design for a vram agnus/denise that could do 1024x1024. I am less convinced that any silicon was ever produced.

The Amiga 1k prototype http://chrisxyz.smugmug.com/Amiga-1k-prototype/ should probably be labelled Amiga Lorraine prototype. The Amiga 1000 name didn't exist for a long time after this and the hardware will be very different. If the reported history is true then this will be outputting a composite video signal natively and not rgb, so if ham works (not a given) then it should be possible to do the effects that it was originally designed for.

[chrisxyz]

Dale was pretty adamant that Ranger DID NOT have a new chip design, it was not the purpose.  I have more images (but they are not up on my smugmug and wont be there till after the celebrations next weekend).  And yes it should of probably been labeled lorraine.  Yes the zorro riser board you see was for an amiga 1000 (they had to develop on something)....its pretty similar to something like "Bill's Board" or one of the other trillion zorro expansion boards you can get after market.  I think most of the HW development was perhaps around the zorro and cards.  Though I think the Ranger would of been pretty cool and the 2k is a bit ugly looking it was probably a good call commodore made to go with the german design.  After all, it gave them more space to also jam a bridgeboard type gig into the case to sell more "stuff".  The ranger is more like a 3k, but the 3k is considerably bigger than the ranger case design.  The square zorro boards do line up with the dimensions of the cavity in the thermal test design so I believe that was "to scale".

[Gulliver]

The Amiga 1k prototype http://chrisxyz.smugmug.com/Amiga-1k-prototype/ should probably be labelled Amiga Lorraine prototype. The Amiga 1000 name didn't exist for a long time after this and the hardware will be very different.

I disagree, it should be named "Joe Pillow", because of the name of the airplane ticket they took to carry it to the famous CES show where it was shown for the 1st time

[psxphill]

I disagree, it should be named "Joe Pillow", because of the name of the airplane ticket they took to carry it to the famous CES show where it was shown for the 1st time

Joe Pillow was a pillow that they used to protect Lorraine.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/08/a-history-of-the-amiga-part-3/3/

I do wonder if anyone kept him.

Dale was pretty adamant that Ranger DID NOT have a new chip design, it was not the purpose.

My point was that even if a new chip set was being worked on then it won't be found in this as it's only an add on for the A1000 and doesn't contain any Amiga chipset (OCS or whatever).

The Ranger concept may only have been what this prototype represented, or it might have been a whole new computer. My gut feeling is that when commodore Germany cobbled together the A2000, Jay wanted to keep control he probably over egged what benefits continuing with Ranger could provide & in that situation the claims might be more like smoke and mirrors (*). As commodore Germany wouldn't be able to compete with creating a new chipset he probably thought that would be a winning hand, but like poker you might be playing with the deck stacked against you. With hindsight you could argue that commodore should have listened to Jay as they were pretty incapable of creating a new chipset. Everything that came later was just a hack on the original work, although there is no evidence that Jay would have been any better.

(*) I suspect this was why he claimed the Fat Agnus concept wouldn't work either.

[Rob]

Whatever the case, I'm sure Dale Luck is going to be bombarded with "Ranger" questions at the weekend.

[scuzzb494]

I took this picture at Dale's house.  We will be reshooting a lot of these artifacts and some hopefully will see their way into Brian's fine work.

Firstly this was pulled out of Dale's vast vaults for the 30th anniversary event in Mountain View, CA on 25th and 26th July (amiga30.com).  Luca Severini should also get thanks for cleaning up these artifacts and Bill Borsari for putting the past year of effort in to make the event happen! If you come to the event you will get to see this up close and personal.  A LOT of effort has gone into this event and is going to have LOTs of things possibly never seen before.  There is also going to be the largest gathering of original Amiga employees since the 80's all available to ask new and unusual questions to....I am personally so excited as this has been 30 years in the making.

I spoke to Dale about the Ranger and the idea there was a new chipset is bogus.  This was a new mechanical design (case) and the ability to have multiple expansion cards (zorro cards).  The image Brian posted is of a case mockup that was for thermal testing of the mechanical design.  It would be great if we could get the wikipedia article on this subject corrected (there was no "Ranger Chipset".....well the Zorro autoconfig logic doesnt really count.

For now let me leave you with more images of the ranger, some crisp images of Agnus and a couple of the developer units.  Enjoy and spread the word for the 30th Anniversary, its a great excuse to visit the San Francisco Bay Area and meet some of our geek idols.



http://chrisxyz.smugmug.com/Amiga-Ranger-what-should-of/

http://chrisxyz.smugmug.com/Amiga-1k-prototype/

http://chrisxyz.smugmug.com/Amiga-pre-A1K-developer-units

http://chrisxyz.smugmug.com/Agnus-chip/

p.s. These images are placed into the Creative Commons but please give attribution if citing them.

Enjoy
Chris Collins & all of the Amiga 30th volunteer team

Thanks for that... The rabbit hole just got bigger.

[chrisxyz]

So I was carrying around the Agnus wire wrap (its 8 boards as you can see).  Its never going to work again I am sure since there are shorts and wires loose.  That said its certainly fragile.  On top of that its probably (my guess) about 30 lbs in weight.  There is a set of interesting hinge mechanisms down one side so they could flip it open like a book and it creeks like a 1950's horror movie.  Its an AMAZING piece of history.  An approach to chip design we will not see again.  I felt very fortunate that Dale let me get within 10ft of this thing.  Whats interesting is that a few weeks ago I was standing with Dave Needle, Bob Burns and Dale Luck and I mentioned "lorraine", Dave said "ok what is that, I cant remember?"  Bob Burns remark was "well the internet says it was ....".  Saturday will be interesting to hear from the team starting with Joe Decuir and Ron Nicholson where they will talk about the initial design of the custom chips.  again if you can make it here is the info (amiga30.com)

[Pentad]

Chris,

Do you know what ever happened to Bob Pariseau?  

-P

[NorthWay]

It would be interesting to have it photographed into minute detail: The ultimate documentation to how the chipset was constructed.

And then to have wossname-microscope pictures to compare with.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

It would be interesting to have it photographed into minute detail:

You just reminded me to take my "real camera" down off my shelf to pack it.  And to think I was about to go to this thing with just a camera phone!  

[Blatboy]

I hope you post some of those pics you take for sad suckas like me that can't make it out there!

Thanks so much for posting chrisxyz.  Awesome.

[bitman]

I've used your nice pictures for BBoAH - you have been added as contributor to the entries.

[psxphill]

Whats interesting is that a few weeks ago I was standing with Dave Needle, Bob Burns and Dale Luck and I mentioned "lorraine", Dave said "ok what is that, I cant remember?" Bob Burns remark was "well the internet says it was ....".

Supposedly it was a code name to hide exactly what it was they were working on. As such you can't blame the internet as what it says was reported in the press before the world wide web even existed. As the press could only know what they were told they should probably look closer to home for any inaccuracies. I'd love to know what it was actually used for, as well as when the "Amiga PC" name came and went.