Who currently owns the rights

[CatHerder]

For the Amiga chipset? (AGA) and all it's sub chips.

Did Gateway sell it all off or did they sell the rights but retain the patents and hardware technology or what? Anyone know for certain?

I'm pretty sure, "somebody" could manufacture a 2 or 3 chip (complete system - heck the CD32 was 1/2 way there)) micro board that was an A4000 or A1200 and market it with an internal 200+ games package for about $75.00 - could split it up even further (smaller internal ram requirements) and market it similar to current Intellivision and Atari game sticks that retail for $19.00 (although the Amiga GameStick would be more of a higher-end consumer device for around $50-$100).

If you wanted to get all fancy schmancy, you could also produce a docking station that included a zorro3 slot, nic, rgb port, serial port, parallel port, etc. I think all that is really required though would be a small footprint game device with a couple USB ports and a tv out.

I'm really suprised nobody did this already. I guess the liscences (and more importantly the ic info) are spread all over the place?

"Retro Gaming" is all the rage and current a huge multimillion dollar market - who has the rights, so somebody with the brains and the money can resurrect some of this?

[Hammer]

Refer to Amiga Forever 6.x.  

[Brian]

Perhaps because although it would be a sweet lil thing for us Amigans why would we buy it and secondly who else apart from the Amiga community would be interested of old games on "old" hardware?

200+ games you say, I'm thinking rights and who to talk to and all that. A smarter way would probably be to include a way to boot of ADF's from a CD or DVD and let the users download the software them selves from the web and then include a CD with only a few realy great games.

[itix]

History of the Amiga

While Gateway still owns the Amiga patents, Amino acquires the right to use Amiga patents, all existing licenses, trademarks logos, Amiga OS, Amiga International (including current operation, inventory, the Amiga International internet site and registered domain names).

Amino has changed its name to Amiga Corporation.

It looks like Amiga HW is controlled by Gateway still.

[itix]

Oh, this is interesting:

The much exalted Plug-and-Play could come to be only after Microsoft bought the Amiga AutoConfig technology patents.

:-?

[CatHerder]

Brian wrote:
Perhaps because although it would be a sweet lil thing for us Amigans why would we buy it and secondly who else apart from the Amiga community would be interested of old games on "old" hardware?

200+ games you say, I'm thinking rights and who to talk to and all that. A smarter way would probably be to include a way to boot of ADF's from a CD or DVD and let the users download the software them selves from the web and then include a CD with only a few realy great games.

You're kidding right?

- Intellivison LIVES just shipped it's 1,000,000th unit last month. And that's not counting software versions (that's JUST the Direct-to-TV game pad alone).

- Atari TV GAMES shipped it's 1,000,000th unit 10 months ago.

Retro gaming is a hot commodity right now. Current chip technology makes it possible to put an Atari 2600 and 10-20 games in a chip smaller than a nickel. An Intellivision LIVES game stick can actually fit every single Intellivision game on one chip - but smart marketing splits them into 10 and 20 packs. The cost to manufacture is pennies - plus the game companies love the new stream of royalty revenue from a previously dead product line.

I'm not talking about a new Amiga, I'm talking about a scaled down Amiga Retro Games machine. The rights to games are easy to aquire - all you need to do is sign papers and pay the money. Any company that sees that they could potentially make a few grand or more off a title that has made them $0 in the past ten years is more than happy to accept your check.

I'm positive if the technology was available (the Amiga chipset - even if it's just 1MB ECS games and chipset) to the right people it would be a slam dunk $50,000,000 sales in the first 12 months. And then just think... an "Amiga Lives" company is out there, all monied up.

But alas! There hasn't been a company with smart business sense in the Amiga technologies realm in the past 15 years (Commodore included).

[adolescent]

I think the Amiga is still too complex to cheaply emulate in a single chip.  But, with the Sega Mega Drive PlayTV out it looks like they're getting closer (I haven't seen if there's a real 68000 and/or Z80 in there or if they've shrunk it down to a single custom chip).

But, since the C64DTV is released on 11/26 that will keep me happy for some time.  There's already talk of hacking on mass storage devices, pc keyboards, etc. to make it a super C64.

Edit:  I found pics of the inside of the Mega Drive PlayTV and it is in fact a single chip.  The only two chips on the board are the 32Mb ROM for the games and the MD guts (assumably the 68000 + Z80 + whatever other custom chips were needed).  Unfortunately, it only has 6 games.  

[minator]

I'm not talking about a new Amiga, I'm talking about a scaled down Amiga Retro Games machine. The rights to games are easy to aquire - all you need to do is sign papers and pay the money. Any company that sees that they could potentially make a few grand or more off a title that has made them $0 in the past ten years is more than happy to accept your check.

It could actually work, the chips could probably be combined on a single chip these days - including the CPU.  It wouldn't need cutting edge chip technology so it'd be cheap to develop as well.  You could probably do it as a hybrid using the main custom chips and a better CPU to emulate the other chips and CPU.

If you didn't want to develop a chip (which is still a fairly serious investment) it could be done using a special purpose PC.

But alas! There hasn't been a company with smart business sense in the Amiga technologies realm in the past 15 years (Commodore included).

They'll never go for it, it's a sensible way for Amiga to make money and that'll never do...

[CatHerder]

I think that's where people get mislead.

You don't "emulate" anything in these game devices. You simply miniaturize the original chips into one single smaller chip. It's not a processor pretending to be an Atari, it's the whole Atari (every simgle circuit) inside that one chip. Same goes for the MegaDrive PlayTV - it's not emulating, it's the real deal inside the one chip.

The games are contained in the 2nd chip. That's the only place there is added expense - you need a larger ROM (or NVRAM) for more games or larger games. Everyone here knows how many Amiga games you could fit on a 16MB ROM, all you need to do is make one single processor that contains an entire A500.

intel chips are currently being produced at .09 microns (unless you count the 386 and 486 chips they still make, those are still 0.19 microns). The Amiga 500, for example, used Motorolla 68000's which were 1.5 microns, the Fatter Agnus was 1.4 microns. There's the physical space to take the exact designs of every single Amiga custom chip and supporting chip, and slap them into a single 0.10 micron chip (it would end up being smaller than 1 inch by 1 inch). (The 68000 would fit in a chip 1/1500th the size).

It's apparent that the 68000 already exists in miniature form (MD PlayTV), so the 68000 would be considered a tool-set already at whatever chip manufacturer makes the PlayTV chip. How hard could it be to add the other chips in there with a new chip seeing as how the 68000 is already in a toolset?

You wouldn't need the expandability, you wouldn't need the zorro slot, you wouldn't need all the ports, etc for the first cheap version.

I seriously think it's possible if the original chip plans exist. I also think it wouldn't take too much money to pull off ("only" a million or so to get it ready for production - that's peanuts when you'd sell over a million of the things at $30-$50 each). I think the magic price-point is $29.95 though (anyone will spend up to thrity bucks on a kid's gift - but $49.95 makes you actually evaluate what it is you are buying). Maybe it would cost a bit too much to deliver an amiga game TV pad right now, maybe that's a year or two off still.

It's a fantastic idea though.

[Matt_H]

itix wrote:
Oh, this is interesting:

The much exalted Plug-and-Play could come to be only after Microsoft bought the Amiga AutoConfig technology patents.

:-?

I have trouble believing this. I don't think this is a very accurate reconstruction of Amiga history.

[CatHerder]

It's actually might not be far from the truth. There were a few things that when taken to task, Microsoft doled out the cash rather than fight in court while having their OS sales halted. Same sort of thing with "flickering pointer technology" (that's probably not the exact wording) that probably played a small part in Commodore's demise.

Back in the early 90's a very smart lawyer in the US decided to research what computer technologies were commonplace but not patented. He arrived at "flickering pointer technology". The end result was IBM, Microsoft, Apple, PB, etc all grumbled and paid the license fee so people could have "flickering pointer technology" (ie. a mouse pointer) on their computers and the companies could continue to sell product uninterrupted. I recall only Atari and Commodore took the guy to court as they didn't have the $1 million fee (or whatever rediculous amount it was), and at the same time they also didnt have the money to pay for a sustained legal battle - right around this time C= filed for chapter 11.

[SamuraiCrow]

itix wrote:
Oh, this is interesting:

The much exalted Plug-and-Play could come to be only after Microsoft bought the Amiga AutoConfig technology patents.

:-?

Actually the patents to AutoMount expired before MicroSoft introduced Plug-and-Play.  Trying to re-patent something that was already patented is unenforcable.  That's why MicroSoft's plug-and-play patent is vulnerable to being overturned as it is preceeded by prior art.

[Matt_H]

@ SamuraiCrow

Yes, that sounds more accurate. I think that Microsoft, strangely, had almost nothing to do with the Amiga. Buying a patent off of Commodore seems impossible.

[bloodline]

adolescent wrote:
I think the Amiga is still too complex to cheaply emulate in a single chip.  But, with the Sega Mega Drive PlayTV out it looks like they're getting closer (I haven't seen if there's a real 68000 and/or Z80 in there or if they've shrunk it down to a single custom chip).

Nah, The XScale CPU can run UAE without much trouble.

The Amiga hardware is totally out of date, the technology can't even be FAB'ed any more, and it would cost a fortune to rework it for modern technology. The problem with Amiga custom chip tech is that you can't simply miniturise it and put it all on one chip, the chip designs simply won't work anymore.

Your cheapest option is to get one of the 500Mhz ARM chips (XScale) and run an emulation on it.

[minator]

the technology can't even be FAB'ed any more

Any modern fab should easily be able to manufacture the Amiga chipset, they would need modified for the different silicon process but that's nothing spectacular.

The problem with Amiga custom chip tech is that you can't simply miniturise it and put it all on one chip, the chip designs simply won't work anymore.

You wouldn't "just shrink" them (doesn't work over more than a few generations), they would need to be re-synthesized but they are simple chips by todays standards so that'd hardly be a problem.

The most difficult bit is probably getting the original CAD models and finding something which can handle them today.

If the gate level designs still exist in a CAD package there's plenty of companies who can produce a semi-custom "Amiga on a chip" for the right price (with optional 24bit Gfx and 16 bit sound).


I actually think it's a good business proposition.