Some questions about the Minimig.

[arkpandora]

Hi,

I am considering buying a Minimig, but as I am not a specialist I would like to ask you Minimig users/specialists some questions/confirmations.

1. Can you confirm that the scan-doubled signal is digital, in other words that especially animation quality is identical to the one of an Amiga with a CRT video monitor or an Amiga through a Picasso IV's scan-doubler for example, and not the ugly animation quality I get with LCD TV/monitors scan-doubling analog Amiga input ?

2. Can you confirm that you need a 50 Hz monitor ?

3. Can I expect some games/demos to work perfectly although some others don't work at all, in other words can you confirm that what prevents some games/demos from working doesn't harm others in any way ?

4. Is it worth waiting for a possible update of the Minimig before buying one ?

Thank you for any help !

[arkpandora]

Well, good question - I mean good answer.

Not as far as I'm concerned, as if I don't receive any answer I will buy one, and if the answer is "Yes" I would only wait because I already have what I need - that is a classic Amiga.  Anyway I don't think that waiting potential customers had any influence in the Amiga's destiny, as they are not a distinguishing feature of the Amiga, or only as a consequence of other factors, which as far as I'm concerned were and would still be a reason to buy an Amiga.

[arkpandora]

@Tension

I was just remembering a rant that CU Amiga Magazine had in it`s last issue. It was basically blaming A500 owners who didn`t upgrade as the cause of Amiga development stopping. I would agree with that statement.

As I said, this phenomenon was true for any computer owner, not only the Amiga owner.  But the Amiga owner had no reason to upgrade, because even until Commodore's end in 1994 most Amiga games were designed for a 1986 setup, whereas most PC games were designed for recent setups.  Journalists - especially video games journalists - are to blame here, as most of them were simply ignoring the Amiga except the popular basic models and setups (500, 600, 1200, CDTV and CD32), and some even complained when a game was programmed for a high-end Amiga.  As a result, the public thought that the Amiga was only an old machine and games had to be programmed for the same basic models in order to sell.  Death was the only possible end.

I suppose that CU Amiga and other Amiga-specific magazines showed a different behaviour, and their readers were already Amiga owners, which in addition were most probably not only interested in games but other software that needed more powerful Amiga setups.


@bloodline

It was the users fault, by sticking with the A500, software developers would generally target 1985 technology...

See answer above.

But the big problem was Commodore using the same Technology from the first to the last Amiga... Had C= locked into a 6month product cycle (though very ambitious for the early 90s) then things would have been better...

I answered a similar post from you in another thread.  Commodore's slowness was primarily a natural consequence of this journalism phenomenon : seeing that the press was only interested in recent PC and Mac models but old basic Amiga models, all Commodore had to do in the end is making IBM compatible systems or trying to retrain as low-cost game consoles manufacturer...

[arkpandora]

@DyLucke

Actually can be designed a very capable mainboard
maintaining some Amiga standards to make this "new"
system a continuation from the Classical Amiga, and
add to this new platform enough pieces of "oldskool"
hardware to make it retro-compatible via some
kind of easy emulation.

I agree with you, but to my knowledge such a system doesn't exist yet, and as far as I'm concerned I still haven't managed to obtain normal animation in emulators (but I'm still working on it).

We can't just think about
running old programs, we need to move on

Evolve or die. That's a rule.

We lost the battle and we can't think on being in the
past if we want to survive.

evolve and open your eyes

As a result, if buying a Minimig is being stuck in the past, then using any Amiga is being stuck in the past as well, and _you_ are stuck in the past.  My purpose is opposite : I'm not running "old programs", but some titles that I love and see as timeless works of art.  You would be stuck in time by letting them disappear.

it's futile
to buy a new comp in order to run old software, when
you can still get some "originals" just go for a classic
second hand Amiga

Old second-hand computers stand a good chance of breaking within the next years, unlike a new machine like the Minimig.  Since I am no good at all with my hands, it is an important difference.

or be a bit more ambitious...

You are talking to yourself.

That retro-policy made Amiga to
be stuck for a decade without 3D capabilities

3D graphics is not progress : it's just a different technique of expression.  There's nothing "retro" about the Amiga or 2D in themselves.  Only people are retrograde.

same machine formats

What do you mean ?

low clock rates and small memory amounts

Were you a journalist at the time ?  ;-)

Classic Amiga can't die, can be emulated properly if we
add key hardware to NEW and MODERN systems.

I am looking forward to such a solution.

[arkpandora]

Thank you everybody for your answers.

I see two different Minimig software compatibility lists :

http://www.opencircuits.com/Minimig_Software_compatibility
http://www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/what_works.htm

Wouldn't it be a good idea to merge them ?


@DyLucke

Easy, get a Classic computer for our little pieces of art,
and get a new board that means improvement to use new
software and new capabilities.

As I said, reliability is the key for me, so that a Minimig suits me better than anything else I know as long as the software works on it.

But as you can know UAE does fairly good on PC's, just
figure what could be emulated if you add some custom
oldskool chips on a new Amiga computer. (Emulation would
be way easier, way efficient for only a bunch of $ more)
That's what i mean.

Actual Amiga manufacturers that are able to design a
"minimig" that is not an "improvement" by itself but
an old computer in a new shape, could add the
imprescindible hardware used on that minimig to our
new mainboards to add some "oldskool emulation mode",
with a really effective result.
But noone decided to do that.

Yes, and adding real custom chips to emulation could solve my animation problem that I mentioned in my previous post.

As a resume, i would not buy a minimig, i would buy an
Efika or a Sam440ep instead a minimig, and keep at the same
time my old A1200 till the moment some of these platforms
reach the point of having an efficient backards emulation
using software or maybe using some part of hardware
either in future models.

I still haven't found the time to learn what the Efika and Sam440ep are.

the result of every improvement effort Phase5 or other
great companies also was "New oudtated hardware".

Why? Our Viper accelerators could not compete with
PC's in performance due the loooooooooooow clock rate
of our A1200 and A4000 mainboards... 14mhz. And if
you were able and lucky enough and rich enough to
afford an A4000 with some 3D card like the
"awesome" "Cybervision 64 3D" you got a really
expensive sollution using an S3 Virge chip, while
PC's were using GPU's even ten times faster...
Even my Playstation was more efficient than that
and costed a fraction of what my Amiga costed.

Of course, but you are talking about the 90s : at that time the harm was already done by the press, which on the contrary and most of the time _wanted_ the Amiga hardware to be old and slow and the software to be programmed for those setups (just open any video game magazine of that time), and the technology factor you describe cannot be considered as the primary factor of the Amiga's destiny - it's just a normal consequence of public perception.  And the high prices were just a normal consequence of this low demand.

That's what happens when new hardware gets stuck
by using a platform designed with standards
from 15 years ago, Commodore got stuck with
that retrocompatibility, so third party manufacturers
were not able to improve the system by themselves.

Retrocompatibility was important, and wasn't a problem at all in the IBM-PC world, so I don't think it is a significant factor either.  Since general public press refused to know the existence of the Amiga 2000 then 3000 and 4000, because of complex psychological factors, the public has ignored them as well, and the Amiga was already condemned to commercial then development death at the time the 500 and 2000 were released.  Since graphic or processor cards were equally ignored by the press hence the public anyway, I suppose that Commodore concluded that improving the system and joining forces with third-party manufacturers would not help the sales.



@DrDekker

As I remember it most A500 owners (myself included) were unwilling to upgrade because:

1. The majority of games were poorly coded and would only run on bog standard A500/A1000/A2000.

I agree, and I think I can demonstrate that it is the only consequence of bad journalism.

2. High end/expanded Amiga's still had very poor printer output compared to the PC.

To my knowledge the Mac had similar problems, but survived.

3. High end Amiga's cost an arm and a leg - but still lagged behind the PC in most (all?) business applications.

4.Expansions and peripherals also cost an arm and a leg. Since only ray tracing software and the like could take real advantage of the added harware it seemed like a lot of wasted money to the average user.

That is only a secondary factor, since price is the consequence of poor sales, which in turn are a consequence of public and press perception.  In the 80s, 386 PCs had a worse quality-price ratio than a 68030 A2000, if I remember well.

5. PC's were becoming much cheaper, powerful and better supported.

This is a corollary.



@alexh

Thank you for your help !

arkpandora wrote:
3. Can I expect some games/demos to work perfectly although some others don't work at all, in other words can you confirm that what prevents some games/demos from working doesn't harm others in any way ?

No

Well, the idea of buying a Minimig is not very exctiting anymore then, as I need it to run at least some games perfectly.  I think I will rely on others' experience.

STOLEN SOFTWARE

Who has edited ?  If this "stolen" means "copied although copyrighted", it must be noted that discontinued software on perishable magnetic media has to be copied in order to be used, and in order to be preserved if it has cultural/artistic value.  Any copyright is wrong preventing this, unless the authors/artists themselves expressly want their work to disappear (even this may be discussed when it comes to a masterpiece).



@TheDaddy

Thank you for your advices.  If I buy a Minimig I won't miss your case.

[arkpandora]

Hi,

An ongoing issue with Amiga, since its inception back in the 80s was an unclear upgrade path.
At the same time, PC platform was becoming less expensive and migration path was very clear: you got yourself an IBM AT, you added some memory, Windows 3.1, some well-supported software and you could use it for pretty much anything you wanted without sinking a lot of money into each individual upgrade option. You could easily figure out what type of RAM your motherboard needed.

On the hardware side, was upgrading an A2000 more unclear a path than upgrading a PC ?  To my knowledge, anybody able to upgrade a PC by himself was able to upgrade an A2000, and the others just untrusted the upgrade to their computer dealer.  On the software side, as A.org member Bloodline said in another thread, the drivers were sometimes weak or buggy.  But any hardware manufacturer knows that hardware is useless without an efficient driver : only poor sales can explain such a weakness.  So to my knowledge the "upgrade path" cannot be a first cause of the Amiga's demise.  

On top of that upgrade options (expansion cards in particular) were very pricey and seemingly aimed at some "professional market" (whatever that was back in the day.
At the same time, PC platform was becoming less expensive

Price too cannot be considered independently of sales volume.  Anyway a 68030 A2000 had not a worse quality-price ratio than a 386 PC if I remember well, and at the same time the PC was aimed at "professional markets" even more than the Amiga.

You could easily add a hard drive to a PC. For A500, you had to spend $1500 for that GVP paperweight with a hard drive inside. In those days, you could get a very nice IBM AT for $1500 *with a hard drive*.

To my knowledge, adding a hard drive to an A500 was easier than adding a hard drive to a portable/laptop PC of the same time.  A desktop PC of the 80s should be compared to an A2000, not an A500.

A3000 and A4000 were, IMHO, vastly overpriced when they were released.

I agree with you, but the later the period the more important the sales factor.

Consider that Commodore was never considered to be an avantgarde (as Apple for example)

Really ?

and this is again a marketing/perception issue

This is the problem.  As far as Commodore is concerned marketing was public perception.  And public perception was journalism.  Journalism should have been information : instead it was public perception, thus creating a spiral of commonplace.  Since commonplace was and still is "bigger is better" as well as "smaller must be eliminated", any computer manufacturer that dares to offer small computers with built-in keyboard but no screen is only a "console" manufacturer, in other words is not interesting and must be eliminated.  Every generic computer magazine I have read is a clear illustration of this process.  Apple survived mainly (only ?) because they had no such keyboard-computers along with their desktop computers.

Even today, as I am piecing together my Amiga collection, my head is "spinning" sometimes from all the upgrade options, their specs, differences and, above all, prices.

Wasn't the infinite IBM-compatible PC hardware a source of head-spinning ?

PPC cards in particular were a disaster - in marketing, pricing and distribution.

PPC was the end of the Amiga, so its "marketing, pricing and distribution" cannot be anything of an early factor : it was a foreseeable consequence.

Anyone blaming the Amiga users for Amiga's demise on the market is barking up a wrong tree.

As far as technology is concerned, most people buy what they want or are told to buy, so even the best product may not survive if image and word of mouth are the only rule : information is the key of objectivity, so journalists were the key of the Amiga's destiny.

Amiga's current situation (lawsuit, no hardware) is just a continuation of the "market strategy" started back in the 80s: we are the best and you cannot do anything to us.

In the 80s there was hardware, and general public doesn't care about what is behind the product.

As with many other machines and technologies, wide acceptance, pricing and clear upgrade path can spell success or a disaster within a few years.
Amiga has slipped away because of that attitude and a much more inferior platform prospered (PC) because it was affordable, versatile and had much better software support (this also falls into "versatility" category).

In conclusion, again I think that these factors are mainly consequences of a primary factor.

There are many lessons in Amiga's demise and none of them seems to have been learned by Powers to Be who own the Amiga, in name, trademark or otherwise.

I don't know anything about what are and do those "Powers to Be who own the Amiga" nowadays, so I can't express any view about it.