FPGA for dummies

[NorthWay]

This is funny. No, make that amusing.

Jay Miner and crew did old-fashioned logic design, possibly with pencil and paper, at best with some pretty rudimentary electronic tools. Remember how they went out to buy workstations the moment C= bought them up? Digital design required some top notch equipment (like Apollo workstations).

So, Meet Joe Pillow: A heap of chips, wires, and boards.
Now, take a look at AGA. Anyone think that was not designed in VHDL or Verilog? Can't be for a proper Amiga those then.

[NorthWay]

Papper is just emulation of real writing..

I thought the Amiga team used SAGE computers (aka "Agony") ..?

I think you needed a SAGE to bootstrap the dev box?

[NorthWay]

How commodore made AGA is irrelevant, it's how you make something that behaves like AGA that is important.

I knew I shouldn't have taken too many steps at once, so I'll break it down:

Is AGA a "proper Amiga" chipset (feel free to define proper so we don't have to go back on that later)?

[NorthWay]

"Is AGA a "proper Amiga" chipset?"
Perhaps it's a partial replica? Doesn't matter, because it was designed and made by the makers of Amiga.

Was it? How many of the original Los Gatos crew were left at C= to do AGA?

And yes, it matters. Either AGA is a proper Amiga chipset or it isn't. Make up your mind.

Why does it matter? Because the VHDL/Verilog design can probably be scrunched from someones security backup (if exonerated). That gives you the _original_ AGA design. In pure electronic form. Ready to be pushed into silicon again in 2011 (make that 2012).
But I guess according to some funny "rules" it wont fly unless it is done in the same fab process as the original was? And certainly not implemented with an FPGA or two.

(I guess Jens Schoenfeld is a heretic who will be first up against the wall for having pulled chips one by one out of an A1000 and replaced them with an FPGA.)

[NorthWay]

The AGA chips that commodore designed and had manufactured are "proper". Anything you design and manufacture are not the same.

I'll join you in playing your game of semantics:

If C= was still alive today (and filthy rich) and pulled out their original VHDL/Verilog for AGA to make a "20-years celebratory model" 4000 and had new chips manufactured by one of today's chip foundries in a current fab, would that be a proper Amiga?
If they made an internal test first to check their tools and used FPGAs to implement it, would that be a proper Amiga?

If I had a backup tape passed over from a friend of a friend with the original design and had it implemented in the same fab as used in 1990(91?) would that be a proper Amiga?
If yes, would it be if implemented in a current fab?
If yes, what about if I used FPGAs for it?

If you attend a faire with Jens Schoenfeld showing two A1000s and he tells you "one of these have had the custom chipset removed and replaced with FPGAs" and you can't tell the difference (assuming you have all the sw in the world to bring along to test), which one is a real Amiga?