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Author Topic: Amiga hardware superiority  (Read 10978 times)

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Re: Amiga hardware superiority
« on: December 01, 2010, 03:41:53 PM »
Quote from: Karlos;596053
The A4000 was towards the very end of the Commodore era when it was clear the company was sinking fast.

If you look earlier than that, it's pretty clear that the A1000 owned anything the competitors had at the time.

Other than the obvious A4000T, the only other machines in that list that interest me are the Falcon and X68030. The NeXT box would be kind of interesting but a bit meh.
I've got a NeXT box right here... But for some weird reason it has a picture of a half eaten fruit on it :-?

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Re: Amiga hardware superiority
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2010, 03:47:55 PM »
Quote from: Franko;596065
At the end of the day it's not really about which machine had the better hardware specs, it's really about what the all those clever coders & programmers wrote for it, that made each machine what it was... :)
Hmmm, no... I think what is boils down to, is which one did you get for christmas when you were ten ;)

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Re: Amiga hardware superiority
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2010, 08:21:01 AM »
Quote from: fishy_fiz;596308
I think what he means is exactly what he said. Draco ran OS3.x without custom chips ( as does amithlon). Not sure how that could be made clearer.
I'm pretty sure the Draco's have real CIA chips, the rest of the OS is patched... Not sure how interrupts were dealt with, they must have had an interrupt controller set up like Paula :)

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Re: Amiga hardware superiority
« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2010, 12:33:10 PM »
Quote from: Gulliver;596333
@Pentad
I can assure you the DraCo never used Paula, it used a modified Tocatta soundcard.


Quite... But no one was talking about audio, Paula is a very specific and unusual interrupt controller (which AmigaOS relies on)... Though I can imagine that it would be quite easy to handle that aspect with off the shelf parts.

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 Cia chips, are not custom chips, but generic 68000 auxiliary chips sold at electronic shops.

 
Pop down to Maplin and pick me up a dozen MOS6526s cheers... Oh wait the company that made them went bankrupt in 1994... That's sucks, if only I could remember the name of that company...

Do your research ;)

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 And kickstart roms are nothing more than eeproms/proms that you can probably buy at your local electronics shop.
So you see the DraCo had no custom Amiga chipset at all. They relied on a heavily modified kickstart, that was patched upon boot.


True.

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Re: Amiga hardware superiority
« Reply #4 on: December 02, 2010, 12:38:10 PM »
Quote from: Karlos;596349
I seem to remember Power Computing selling them for a bit more than a base A1200 around '93. Can't remember the exact prices though, something like £300 for the A1200 and £350 for the Falcon. Don't quote me on those though.
I agree it's unfair to compare the A4000 and the Falcon, vague memories of the Falcon costing about £100 more than the A1200... I remember arguing with some poor chap at school about how much better the A1200 was and for quite a bit less... I was a nasty zealot :(