Bloatware AmigaOS?

[uncharted]

@HenryCase

Don't mind me, I'm just being a grumpy sod today.

[HenryCase]

uncharted wrote:
@HenryCase

Don't mind me, I'm just being a grumpy sod today.

I should be the one apologising uncharted, I was a little out of order with my tone before. Sorry.

Getting (almost) back on topic, how long do you think OS4 (not the version we have now) would have taken to come out if Commodore hadn't stopped producing Amigas?

Here's some release info for key versions of Workbench:
v1.0 - 1985
v2.0 - 1990
v3.0 - 1992
v3.1 - 1994

So I'm thinking v4 would have been around 1995/1996? Of course it wouldn't have been as good as the version we have now. I suppose it would have been launched with the AAA chipset Amigas.

[downix]

HenryCase wrote:

uncharted wrote:
@HenryCase

Don't mind me, I'm just being a grumpy sod today.

I should be the one apologising uncharted, I was a little out of order with my tone before. Sorry.

Getting (almost) back on topic, how long do you think OS4 (not the version we have now) would have taken to come out if Commodore hadn't stopped producing Amigas?

Here's some release info for key versions of Workbench:
v1.0 - 1985
v2.0 - 1990
v3.0 - 1992
v3.1 - 1994

So I'm thinking v4 would have been around 1995/1996? Of course it wouldn't have been as good as the version we have now. I suppose it would have been launched with the AAA chipset Amigas.

No, '95-'96 would have been post-AAA, Hombre chipset.  AAA was to be 3.0, but CBM put it's development on pause, instead releasing the interim AGA.  When they restarted AAA development, they soon found themselves too far behind the curve, so they began Hombre, slated for release in '95.

[persia]

My guess is that we would be looking at AmigaOS 8.0 today, a single DVD distro, requiring just half a gig of ram on a Core 2 Duo machine.  

The custom chips would have long been done away with, it's easier and cheaper to use off the shelf video cards.

Trypos would have long been replaced with a BSD variant.

Toaster, now 100% software would be included with every Amiga.

Amiga would have several firewire posts, and a ton of USB ports, as well as DVI and ethernet.

[HenryCase]

downix wrote:
No, '95-'96 would have been post-AAA, Hombre chipset.  AAA was to be 3.0, but CBM put it's development on pause, instead releasing the interim AGA.  When they restarted AAA development, they soon found themselves too far behind the curve, so they began Hombre, slated for release in '95.

Thanks for this info.

Just out of interest, if AAA had been released instead of AGA (i.e. at the same time) how would it have compared, tech specs wise, with IBM-PC compatible and Apple graphics h/w?

[downix]

HenryCase wrote:

downix wrote:
No, '95-'96 would have been post-AAA, Hombre chipset.  AAA was to be 3.0, but CBM put it's development on pause, instead releasing the interim AGA.  When they restarted AAA development, they soon found themselves too far behind the curve, so they began Hombre, slated for release in '95.

Thanks for this info.

Just out of interest, if AAA had been released instead of AGA (i.e. at the same time) how would it have compared, tech specs wise, with IBM-PC compatible and Apple graphics h/w?

AAA compared well to IBM/Apple from roughly 1995 levels, but was due to come out in 1990/1992.  The main advantage to AAA was the ability to grow the system, that is the chipset was no longer bound to the CPU, but was modular, using an interconnect bus (originally the AMI bus, but later replaced with PCI) enabling upgradeability to Hombre when that was due to ship in 1995.  

AAA was based on ECS, not AGA, don't forget, so the talk of releasing it today is still a step backwards, as it would break AGA apps.

[A6000]

persia wrote:  
The custom chips would have long been done away with, it's easier and cheaper to use off the shelf video cards.

I must disagree with you here, if the last 12 years has taught us anything it is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to build an amiga at a competetive price using off the shelf parts.

The custom chip set has always been of critical importance to the success of the amiga, and I think that any new amiga cannot compete on price and specification UNLESS it uses a third generation custom chipset, even if it is little more than an asic gluing together some third party chips.

The amigaone was extortionately priced and was only bought by the true believers, it did not add any new users to our community.

I hope that the next minimig version does not copy AGA but goes straight to an HDTV ready graphics mode, IE: 1920 x 1080 x 24 with an external DSP for 24 bit audio. The custom chipset meant that the amiga could do more than a pc yet cost less, if the amiga is to survive another 25 years we must return to that concept.

[A6000]

Another problem with off the shelf parts is the very short life cycle of parts nowadays, we suffered greatly when motorola announced the end of the 68k line, yet there is a suggestion that we use a whole raft of third party chips which will result in obsolescence and the need to redesign the amiga every time one of these chips is discontinued, at least in future, if an amiga manufacturer were to use custom chips they would have more control over the lifecycle of their products.

Also, an integrated custom chipset results in tighter kickstart code, and a more stable platform.

[downix]

A6000 wrote:
I hope that the next minimig version does not copy AGA but goes straight to an HDTV ready graphics mode, IE: 1920 x 1080 x 24 with an external DSP for 24 bit audio. The custom chipset meant that the amiga could do more than a pc yet cost less, if the amiga is to survive another 25 years we must return to that concept.

Fully agreed.  While, sure, modern day GPU's are more than adequate, truth is, the rest of a PC or Mac's chipset is downright anemic for performance.  I build these things every day, and deal with these limitations.  Example, the common AC97 sound system that's universal nowadays.  It is bogged to the CPU, which means you loose performance with it even existing in the memory map, and not all BIOS allow for disabling of them.  Same with the disk controllers, USB controller, etc.  

A from-scratch design would definately stand out, and with the reduced costs for prototyping and custom fabbing, could really be done.  I've been working on my chipset for how long now?  10 years as of last friday.  I know these costs, and I've witnessed the cost to produce go through the floor.  My first-gen design would have cost me $480,000 for each of the 8 chips it used.  Today, $1,850 for the same chipset.  My current design of 2 chips would cost me roughly $4500 for a full speed prototype, vs the millions back in 1997.

Look at the rise of nVidia and XGI, two fabless semiconductor companies that have risen over the past few years.  See where they're going.  It's more than possible for us.

[AmiGR]

I must disagree with you here, if the last 12 years has taught us anything it is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to build an amiga at a competetive price using off the shelf parts.

Huh? All the problems associated with building an Amiga with off the shelf parts are due to no serious company trying. It's even more impossible to build an Amiga with custom chips than it is with off the shelf parts when you're producing anything less than 100,000. Remember Phase5? They needed to sell 20,000 PPC cards to get even and they sold half that and their boards did not even have custom ASIC's. Imagine how many more you'd have to sell to get even with a fully custom chipset.

[downix]

AmiGR wrote:

I must disagree with you here, if the last 12 years has taught us anything it is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to build an amiga at a competetive price using off the shelf parts.

Huh? All the problems associated with building an Amiga with off the shelf parts are due to no serious company trying. It's even more impossible to build an Amiga with custom chips than it is with off the shelf parts when you're producing anything less than 100,000. Remember Phase5? They needed to sell 20,000 PPC cards to get even and they sold half that and their boards did not even have custom ASIC's. Imagine how many more you'd have to sell to get even with a fully custom chipset.

Exactly.  Phase5 by not using custom logic was forced to pay far more per-board than if they had ASIC'd the parts together, to reduce the overall cost of production.  That is why the VIC-20 could price-undercut the TI-99A so much, Commodore custom-made the chips, resulting in lower cost to produce.  Yes, the R&D and initial cost is higher, but the end-price is far lower.

The MiniMig, don't forget, uses a "custom made" single chip to replace 4 chips, which themselves were custom made to reduce the cost to produce the original multi-thousand-chip Lorraine unit.  Your arguement about cost is a paper tiger, the cost of producing is nothing when compared to the cost savings by having reduced the overall number of parts in the product.

[persia]

Custom graphics chips were a bad idea.  First of all you are reinventing the wheel, companies like NVIDIA and ATI spend millions of dollars on designing video cards, don't tell me that a company that can't pony up an additional $7K for it's OS could possibly do what NVIDIA and ATI do.

Also, having the video on a card means that you are in control, maybe you by your system with a low end video card and then expand later or you replace an old card with new.  Either way you are in control.  

Of course if you make the computer then a custom video chip set can be a big dongle I suppose, but the bigger and better dongle is intel's trusted platforn technology, that's what Apple uses.

I admit speculating on what Amiga would have done had they survived is difficult and there was virtually zero chance of survival, but the point is that had Amiga survived, Amiga OS today would look abosolutely nothing like Amiga oS 4.

[AmiGR]

Exactly. Phase5 by not using custom logic was forced to pay far more per-board than if they had ASIC'd the parts together, to reduce the overall cost of production. That is why the VIC-20 could price-undercut the TI-99A so much, Commodore custom-made the chips, resulting in lower cost to produce. Yes, the R&D and initial cost is higher, but the end-price is far lower.

According to Laire, the licences to use the VHDL synthesis software were half a million. Plus R&D, they really would have no chance to break even, even if they used ASIC's. At the numbers they sold, the cost savings of the production would not outweight the R&D and setup costs.

The MiniMig, don't forget, uses a "custom made" single chip to replace 4 chips, which themselves were custom made to reduce the cost to produce the original multi-thousand-chip Lorraine unit. Your arguement about cost is a paper tiger, the cost of producing is nothing when compared to the cost savings by having reduced the overall number of parts in the product.

That is true when we're talking about numbers but look at the post I replied to and tell me, what would be the chances of the AmigaOne, for instance, being cheaper had it not been based on off-the-self hardware? This market does not really have the numbers to allow companies to produce and sell enough to cover the cost of custom hardware and make profit.

[itix]

Exactly. Phase5 by not using custom logic was forced to pay far more per-board than if they had ASIC'd the parts together, to reduce the overall cost of production. That is why the VIC-20 could price-undercut the TI-99A so much, Commodore custom-made the chips, resulting in lower cost to produce. Yes, the R&D and initial cost is higher, but the end-price is far lower.

Too bad this scheme did not continue on Amiga series. I wonder why Commodore was selling Amiga 1000 with such insane price tag.

[downix]

itix wrote:

Exactly. Phase5 by not using custom logic was forced to pay far more per-board than if they had ASIC'd the parts together, to reduce the overall cost of production. That is why the VIC-20 could price-undercut the TI-99A so much, Commodore custom-made the chips, resulting in lower cost to produce. Yes, the R&D and initial cost is higher, but the end-price is far lower.

Too bad this scheme did not continue on Amiga series. I wonder why Commodore was selling Amiga 1000 with such insane price tag.

Hrm?  $1000 for a machine that beat $4000 workstations, graphically?

Incidentally, the cost to produce the VIC20 was $165, vs $485 for the similar-spec TI-99A4

[downix]

AmiGR wrote:

Exactly. Phase5 by not using custom logic was forced to pay far more per-board than if they had ASIC'd the parts together, to reduce the overall cost of production. That is why the VIC-20 could price-undercut the TI-99A so much, Commodore custom-made the chips, resulting in lower cost to produce. Yes, the R&D and initial cost is higher, but the end-price is far lower.

According to Laire, the licences to use the VHDL synthesis software were half a million. Plus R&D, they really would have no chance to break even, even if they used ASIC's. At the numbers they sold, the cost savings of the production would not outweight the R&D and setup costs.

Funny, at the same time I paid a lot less for my software.  For Eddas development, I shelled out approx $1200 for my software package

The MiniMig, don't forget, uses a "custom made" single chip to replace 4 chips, which themselves were custom made to reduce the cost to produce the original multi-thousand-chip Lorraine unit. Your arguement about cost is a paper tiger, the cost of producing is nothing when compared to the cost savings by having reduced the overall number of parts in the product.

That is true when we're talking about numbers but look at the post I replied to and tell me, what would be the chances of the AmigaOne, for instance, being cheaper had it not been based on off-the-self hardware? This market does not really have the numbers to allow companies to produce and sell enough to cover the cost of custom hardware and make profit.

Actually, very good chances.  I did a cost breakdown for a similar move at about the same time, by migrating to a fixed ASIC and integrating as much as possible, saved almost $45 on production costs.  The toolup would have cost approx $37000, mind you, so you'd have to sell 825 boards to break even.  But this would have eliminated the whole Mai-supply issue, and given you a faster chipset to boot.