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Offline restore2003Topic starter

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Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« on: July 16, 2003, 04:59:59 PM »
This has probably been discussed before, but what the heck  ;-)

Where would Amiga been today if Commodore did not hire Mehdi Ali as their Chief, and did not cancel the AAA chipset?

 :-?
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Offline jd997uk

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2003, 05:13:32 PM »
This sorta question should be brought up with Dave Haynie. Since he was the guy who was closest to real development, his perspective alone would be worth listening to.

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Offline mikeymike

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2003, 05:27:23 PM »
There are so many other factors as well, like how long it would have taken to develop the AAA chipset to release status.  Also, I think Commodore's stance of the Amiga primarily being a toy rather than a producitivity-capable machine would have killed it sooner or later.

Or, x86 architecture and related development would have continued exactly as it has, and x86 would still be the cheaper, better performing option it is now.

And what if the Amiga had clung on to its own hardware technologies for too long, leaving behind the advantages of technologies like AGP has to offer?  What is the likeliness of technologies like Zorro slots with only one company's research funding going to be able to match AGP, PCI, PCI-X, etc?

Assuming that Commodore would have made subsequent decisions at the right times, I think they would have ended up with a share like Apple's to the market.  Or maybe Microsoft/Apple might have bought them up by then?  Assuming that didn't happen, and Commodore/Amiga was still in practical existence and profit today, PPC development may be further along the road than it is now, but otherwise I think the picture would look much the same as it is now.

There are times when new ventures of making new technologies is appopriate, but not all the time.  The last decade or so belongs to x86.  Occasionally some new incompatible technology will break the mould and legacy of older compatible technologies, but it doesn't work all the time.
 

Offline Wolfe

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2003, 05:58:45 PM »
The Amiga technology should have been sold to someone other than C=.   Then it would have had a better chance at survival as ...........C= was its worst nightmare..... :-D
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Offline gnarly

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #4 on: July 16, 2003, 06:27:17 PM »
Quote

Wolfe wrote:
The Amiga technology should have been sold to someone other than C=.   Then it would have had a better chance at survival as ...........C= was its worst nightmare..... :-D
And also its bestest dream. Remember the good times under Commodore? It was ace for a long time. But AGA was too little, too late. And AKIKO should have been on all of the AGA mobos right from the start.

If only my foresight was as 20/20 as my hindsight :-)
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Offline zee4

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #5 on: July 16, 2003, 06:46:03 PM »
Quote
What is the likeliness of technologies like Zorro slots with only one company's research funding going to be able to match AGP, PCI, PCI-X, etc?


Just a minnor point, but C= had already decided to switch to PCI instead of continuing the Zorro series by late 1993 (they announced this at the November WOC/WOA Toronto show that year).

I tend to agree with what I belive Dave H. had said, basically AAA was outdated by 1993 and it made sense to move to more standard parts (Hombrie was sort of its own thing and not designed to run AmigaOS). This was true of the original Amiga- they used off-the-shelf parts where those worked and designed custom parts where no suitable parts existed.

As far as x86, I think PPC ended up where it did because only Apple used it on the desktop, a few million PPCs (say in a A1200-type system) might have changed Mot's mind. Maybe IBM will save it yet if they get serious about PPCLinux- early signs are positive.

Zoltan
 

Offline zee4

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #6 on: July 16, 2003, 06:50:16 PM »
Quote
AKIKO should have been on all of the AGA mobos right from the start.


Unfortunately it was a bit of a hack, I think programmers eventually figured out how to do what it did faster than the AKIKO chip did (though it might have needed an '030, though I can't remember for use). What really was needed was some new hardware, C= basically never spent the money needed to keep developing new hardware. I guess they learned the wrong lesson from the C64 :)

Zoltan
 
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #7 on: July 16, 2003, 07:01:36 PM »
Quote

zee4 wrote:
Quote
What is the likeliness of technologies like Zorro slots with only one company's research funding going to be able to match AGP, PCI, PCI-X, etc?


Just a minnor point, but C= had already decided to switch to PCI instead of continuing the Zorro series by late 1993 (they announced this at the November WOC/WOA Toronto show that year).

I tend to agree with what I belive Dave H. had said, basically AAA was outdated by 1993 and it made sense to move to more standard parts (Hombrie was sort of its own thing and not designed to run AmigaOS). This was true of the original Amiga- they used off-the-shelf parts where those worked and designed custom parts where no suitable parts existed.

As far as x86, I think PPC ended up where it did because only Apple used it on the desktop, a few million PPCs (say in a A1200-type system) might have changed Mot's mind. Maybe IBM will save it yet if they get serious about PPCLinux- early signs are positive.

Zoltan


Yes, Dave Haynie stated that PCI was to be the new Amiga bus.

Also the Commodore-Amiga design team had already chosen HP's PA-150 as the next Amiga CPU (and I believe a second one as part of the chipset, for GFX...)

Without Mehdi Ali, Dave Haynie would have been promoted to president of Commodore... and I would be typing this on an Amiga  :-P

Offline realstar

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #8 on: July 16, 2003, 07:43:11 PM »
One important thing to consider is that
Commodore was moving towards an HP risc
solution using a new *nix based OS for
the Amiga line AFAIK.  Things would be
very different now if that had happend. ;)

They didn't really see any value in the OS or
how it functioned and just wanted to make the
next "console" computer like the C64->Amiga->?
in my opinion.

Commodore went from the C64 to the Amiga
without any thought as to what the users
might think of it and same would have
happend to the Amiga although the name would
have most likely been retained.  Much of the
development of Amiga is now in community led
efforts that would never have been possible in
the old Commodore days... :)
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #9 on: July 16, 2003, 08:29:25 PM »
Quote

realstar wrote:
One important thing to consider is that
Commodore was moving towards an HP risc
solution using a new *nix based OS for
the Amiga line AFAIK.  Things would be
very different now if that had happend. ;)

They didn't really see any value in the OS or
how it functioned and just wanted to make the
next "console" computer like the C64->Amiga->?
in my opinion.

Commodore went from the C64 to the Amiga
without any thought as to what the users
might think of it and same would have
happend to the Amiga although the name would
have most likely been retained.  Much of the
development of Amiga is now in community led
efforts that would never have been possible in
the old Commodore days... :)


Yup, you've hit the nail on the head.

Commodore were not interested in the Amiga, it was simply their next product... it would have been cast aside just like the C64 was, as soon as the next gen machine was ready.

Oddly this makes perfect sense, but has one fatal flaw, the Next gen machine would have been too much like the Amiga for it to replace the Amiga...

From the C64 to the Amiga is a massive jump in the way computers work... the next gen machine would have just been faster, and a bit better.

Offline Wolfe

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #10 on: July 17, 2003, 12:14:36 AM »
The Amiga started out as a blessed child in the arena of computing because it was sooooooo cool and capable.  If someone else purchased the tech and dedicated to do the research it would be alive today - I stronly believe that.

C= coulnd't make up it's mind on what tech to put out, what direction the tech should take so instead of dedicating to make one system superior, they went in all directions.  Which limited funds, research and had mass failures.

C-64/128  Amiga  PC and all the parts to there series CDTV etc.

A company that was dedicated to the Amiga tech could have went far.

From birth it was the "Grail" of desktop computers.  Everyone saw a new vision and road to travel for the future of computing and C= had the lead and fumbled the ball.
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Offline Dr_Righteous

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #11 on: July 17, 2003, 10:51:40 AM »
Amiga was a game/graphics machine when people wanted business machines... Now people want game/graphics machines, and we have to make due with altered business machines. (Or we become retro-computing freaks and create an Amiga scene... Oh wait, we've done that!)
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Offline restore2003Topic starter

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #12 on: July 17, 2003, 12:15:44 PM »
Ok, so now what? How can Amiga gain some of its popularity back? How can non amiga users be convinced to switch side? If you were head of Amiga Inc, what would u have done to achieve these goals?

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Offline mikeymike

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #13 on: July 17, 2003, 12:24:45 PM »
@ restore2003
Quote
If you were head of Amiga Inc, what would u have done to achieve these goals?


At the moment I think the best move is to see how well OS4 does when it is released, and once there is some decent software support for it (eg. a decent web browser, office-type apps), which will probably have given the OS enough time to mature and have a little more polish with some patching, I'd push the whole product (A1/OS4) to the masses through techie-journo websites as a cool, quiet-running machine with an efficient, decent performing small footprint operating system which has all the features most people need.

I would then make sure the XE model A1 gets a few processor upgrade options in the future to bring its speed up about 500MHz at the most, then the next Amiga hardware would be IBM PPC 970 (if IBM say that the 970 will be at the start of a decent upgrade path), and OS4 at least provide minimal support for it initially (at least so that it is a faster setup), then OS5's codebase being virtually entirely 64-bit.
 

Offline restore2003Topic starter

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Re: Commodore without Mehdi Ali
« Reply #14 on: July 17, 2003, 12:31:47 PM »
It would have been way easier if the A1 mobo`s were a bit cheaper, but i cant blame them, they dont sells hundreds of thousands mobo`s like MSI or ASUS.
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