POLL: What is the most viable Amiga platform for *you*?

[KThunder]

I think you missed what I said, I said a 16bit 6502 compatible cpu and then mentioned the 65816 as an example that it could be done and done well. The apple IIgs is pretty impressive machine, and though it is clocked at 2.whatever mhz the snes does pretty well too. The gs was actually a good bit better than the original mac.


http://oldcomputers.net/appleiigs.html

[KThunder]

I didn't say use a 65816 I said they should have had their own  16bit 6502 cpu!!!

[KThunder]

Mos/CSG Commodore had the 6502 from what 1974 or 75, they had their own chip fab; it is insane that they never produced a 16bit upgrade to the 6502.

They sold the C64 into the 90's so there definitely was a market there. And they had the fabrication abilities in the mid-80s.

and besides the Phenom II x6 is a multicore 64bit cludge, on a 32bit pentium cludge, on a 32bit 386 cludge, on a 16bit 286 cludge, on a 8/16bit 8088 cludge and it does great.

[KThunder]

I would agree with that, unless you have sold millions of computers with said cpu, have a large software base, and have the capability of working around legacy problems.

In hindsight there is another factor as well though. The 68020 was pretty much perfectly compatible with the 68000, the 68030 slightly less so, the '040, even less and the '060 well don't even try to run it without software patches. Coldfire are pretty much incompatible. Looking back, a cpu design produced and maintained by Commodore is even better.

Your one comment on Intel being bleeding edge fabrication is my point. In the 70's MOS was bleeding edge, the 6502 took the world by storm because MOS and MOS alone knew how to fix their masks and raise chip yeilds to 70% where intel and others were throwing away 70%.

By the 80's MOS/CSG was average, and by the 90's they were well behind, all because Commodore used the vertical integration to raise profits and then not invest in additional capability. That started with the Amiga and the 68000. All of their previous computers used MOS chips almost exclusively.