How would you have designed AGA Amigas?

[KThunder]

i agree with others that aga should have had chunky modes. i think i'd go further and say it should have been on a card. the 4000 should not have had graphics on the mobo. the 1200 yes but not the high end machine. other computer companies were doing that so the trend was there.
an aga card with chunky modes that could disable the ecs on a 3000, provide all graphics for a 4000 and dare i say it even been released for pci, could have given the system more flexibility had commodore lived to release a 5000.
of course 3rd party card makers would have suffered unless they integrated an aga chip into their design or emulated it.

also they could have upgraded paula somehow. as amazing as amiga audio is by '92 pcs had mostly caught up.

[KThunder]

@hell labs
actually the 8088 and 8086 weren't cloned. amd was a second-source for intel. ibm agreed to use the 8088 only on the condition that intel get a second source. it wasnt till the 486 that amd truly cloned the 486 since the lawsuit over intel 386 microcode wasnt settled.
motorola had second-sources but only true clones of the 68000. noone cloned the 020 and up cpus.

the problem with mostec using pin compatibility with the 6800 was that they claimed it and put it right in the docs and adverts for their chips.

[KThunder]

i think the best thing atari and commodore should have done was work together. commodore should have made the high-end machines and atari the low-end and game machines. there was way too much animosity between them for that though.

[KThunder]

Ah I see.

But 8080/ Z80, right? That counts. Infact i'd say the Z80 was even more blatant because they gave away the design for free. Probably the worlds fist recorded instance of Pirate copied hardware outside the soviet union.

yeah 8080 and z80 counts. that a clone and upgrade in one. the z80 was way better, and not really a clone

the z80 is just a better chip single power voltage more and better instructions, double the registers for quicker interrupt response. kindof like if amd came out with a core 5 cpu today

[KThunder]

yeah, but it was still compatable. I think commodore cranking out the 68k equivalent to the z80 would make sense.

by the time aga came around mostecs chip fab was still in the 80's they had to outsource aga (denise?) because they couldnt make it. they could produce 16bit cpus if they tried as well as ocs, ecs, dumb frame buffers, and memory controllers but anything else was beyond their capabilities.

the vertical-integration of chip-fab and computer manufacturer was good in the 80's but commodore held mostec back. by 85 they should have had a 16-bit 6502 by 90 a 32bit etc. instead for years they spit out varients of the 6501, 6502, 6510, 8510 etc. etc.

[KThunder]

actually by 85 they should have been able to make the 68000 themselves

oh wait maybe that is what you mean. ok i agree

[KThunder]

yeah they were loving up on the cash cow c64 and letting the techs do something or other with the amiga. no focus no plan for the future.