When is an FPU chip really needed????

[Iggy]

Did I ever say that I do not understand this stuff? Frankly, if I want to get the most of a machine, I'll get a PC. If the competition is to get the most out of as little as possible, stick with a plain 68K at 7MHz and get creative. That is the art. Heck, even a 1.7Mhz 6502 can do interesting things if you know how to play it.

Or slower, if you look at some of the C64 demos, but we are still talking about Amigas here, and there is no one standard for them.
Sure, '040 and '60 cpus MAY be an unfair comparisons, but they are more common than 1.7 MHz C64s (without taking the C128 into account).

As to PCs, to each his own, but the point of a demo is what you can do within the constraints of specific hardware, and a demo on a PC should be MORE impressive than on something less capable.

[Iggy]

Who's talking about the breadbox? I'm *of course* talking about the predicessor of the Amiga, the Atari 8-bit machines by Jay Miner. (-:

I'm a big fan of hacking 8 bit Ataris (I even have one 130XE with a 63B09 in it).
But the gpu steals cycle from the cpu in that design, making the difference between a 1 MHz "breadbox" and a 1.78 MHz Atari negligible.
Beside, those two rely on MOS cpus, and I've always preferred real Motorola.

It is curious that the 68000 doesn't access memory any faster (just over a larger bus), what the 8 bit cpus do in one cycle, the "better" cpu takes four cycles to accomplish.

I kind of miss the 8 bit stuff (except for that 64K address limitation).

[Iggy]

That's likely true. The Atari 8-bit are an older design, and it shows in some cases. Yet, it is a fascinating design whose second edition became the Amiga.
...

Absolutely, both Jay Miner at work.
And I like what the Atari community has managed to do with the 8 bit machine (which frankly appeals to me more than the STs).

Lotharek's boards are particularly interesting (especially the fpga gpu board). And like I said, I have one 130XE with a Hatachi 6809 derived cpu in it.
In some ways, like you mentioned, kind of a "Proto-Amiga".