How would you have designed AGA Amigas?

[ElPolloDiabl]

If you were clever enough to spot the trends how would you have designed the AGA Amigas? Turning too little, too late into just enough and just in time.

[ElPolloDiabl]

I would have ditched the A1200 and come out with 2 A4000's a low spec version and a high spec version. The low spec version could be 020 and 32 bit zorro. Then have a high spec version with and 030 or greater.
Get rid of the A600, but keep the CD32 as the 'wedge' system with optional keyboard & mouse.
CD-Roms were a great cost saving after the initial investment. Staying with big box systems would make it easier to add RTG, 16 bit sound and a CD-rom. It might have made the difference.

[NovaCoder]

The 4000 would not have been AGA (RTG only).

The main problem with the 1200 was that it was released too late.  If it had come out in say 1990 as the A500+ with a fast 68000 and AGA it would have sold like hot cakes.

[runequester]

I'd have pushed hard drives, as well as some fast RAM, but the trick is to still hit a spot where the amiga would be competitive price-wise.

I don't think there's any way around the fact that the 68020 just was not cutting it though

[DamageX]

Improve the old 7MHz bus/chipset speed. 12.5MHz would be nice and would work with the same 80ns DRAM. There wouldn't be time for two memory reads within two clocks, behind the CPU's back, as there is on AGA, but a longer burst read could be used and bandwidth would be almost the same without it anyway. Other benefits: blitter runs faster, 12.5MHz/25MHz gives a proper 320/640 wide resolution on a VGA monitor.

Scanline buffering: so the bus speed doesn't need to divide evenly into the pixel clock, and enabling scan doubling with full backwards compatibility

Chunky 8-bit mode. Possibly with a mixed-mode where if the high bit is set then the low 7 bits are combined with the next byte to make a low-res 15-bit RGB pixel. So 128-color high-res could be mixed with 32K-color low-res.

2-4 more sound channels with high sampling rates (video scanrate independent) and the possibility to combine two 8-bit channels into one with 16-bit resolution.

Other Paula improvements to enable high serial port speeds without dropping bits and high density floppies at the normal rotational speed.

Make it so the blitter can handle 32-bit word size

[lsmart]

I think on the hardware side we would need Ethernet and 3d graphics. This would have taken Commodore to the mid 90. A Quake like network game would have driven the sales.
On the software side something like today's Amicygnix would have kept many folks from leaving for Linux.
To gain developers in 98 Commodore should have had it's own Java Implementation. None of these had to be for free. Just make sure you don't mess with DRM and sueing your customer.
Finally in 2001 you had to be there with something portable and something that can burn DVDs from DV-Camcorder stuff.

Oh, and somebody would have had to create a good Microsoft Word compatible converter or wordprocessor.

[dougal]

The A1200 would have had at least a 68030 with 28Mhz or 40Mhz . Ram would be upgradable via standard PC ram allowing at least up to 32Mb.

The A1200 would also have as standard a low spec Picasso96 compatible 1Mb RTG graphics hardware built in with a slot to optionally upgrade it. A built in Scandoubler/Flickerfixer would have been a great addition too, but if that would have been too expensive then a slot/connector for an optional one would have been good

Another nice touch would have been an external 40pin IDE connector as standard for the cheap and easy installation of IDE CD-Rom.

[Vulture]

optional 2mb fast ram socketed on board, allow added ram to be configured as chip ram, 68030@28, fpu socket on board, RTC, proper chunky modes, proper 24-bit output with flicker-fixer/scan-doubler (even if only as an optional add-on to reduce the cost of the basic model), faster/more capable AGA chipset, 16-bit Paula, PIO-5 capable IDE controller, high density floppy, 32bit pcmcia slot, vga out or -at least- an adapter for RGB->VGA, clock port at least twice as fast to be a proper expansion option, workbench with virtual mem and memory protection (since 68030 has a full MMU) even if it killed much compatibility, 12 Fkeys, pgup-pgdown keys, full parallel port.

[Khephren]

I'd have got rid of the PCMCIA port. It was an expensive (though almost out of date) laptop part. Would have spent the money on A superHD floppy drive, fast RAM and a faster processor. Rejigged the case to allow a 3.5" HDD upgrade, and maybe room for a slimline CD upgrade.

Also, i'd have had the machine boot completely from ROM, with a small amount of EEPROM (upgradable) For wall papers/files/utilities/system upgrades. Maybe 512K. It would then perform a lot like a HDD equipped machine, but at a fraction of the cost. None of that constant swapping disks.

Updated Paula to 16 bit
Maybe add Midi, the ST was on it's last legs, Commodore could have canibalised their market.

Maybe even buy the ROM off Atari and sell Amiga A1200 with ST compatability


Added chunky modes, maybe 24bit modes as well.

Some sort of anti flicker hardware to allow interlace to display better, and be suitable for games.

Maybe added a DSP to help decode audio/video and perhaps help with 3D

Upgraded the blitter to blit 3D objects.

Socketed processor and ram, allowing the trapdoor to be used for other upgrades.

HAM or 24bit chunky workbench. That would have wowed people.

Created a mid range desktop/tower same as above, but with zorro's, but no ISA.
...sold off the pc division early,
...bought some top games companies with the proceeds.

[bloodline]

In all honesty, the Atari Falcon was basically what the Amiga A1200 should have been. Had the A1200 been build to those specs, it would have been the bare minimum to survive... Commodore would have clung on much longer...

[goldfish]

Easy answer Natami but it looking like its taking as long as commodore to come out with a public product. But still wishing

[Crom00]

In the case of the A1200
030 CPU
socket for 68882
DSP SLOT or SOCKET for DSP sound chip (I guess this is what the clock port became)
CPU SLOT
AGA Amber chip and VGA cgraphics chip with CYBERGFX or RTG support instead of the software screen promotion
Simm Socket on motherboard
recofigurable CHIP/fast ram sizes
Midi built in
Desktop IDE port
VIDEO IN And GENLOCK PORT
Pizzabox case with PS2 mouse and  Keyboard connectors


With the glut of CD32's showing up on EBAY it'd be interesting to make a CD32 expansion device that would extend the functionality and allow it to fit in an ATX style case.

After the demise of commodore I remember seeing ads for machines called the A2200 that were supposed to be modified CD32's with somekind of expansion board if I remember corectly.

[tone007]

I'd have got rid of the PCMCIA port. It was an expensive (though almost out of date) laptop part.

PCMCIA almost out of date in 1992?  That's only slightly ridiculous, considering you can still find new PCMCIA cards today (sure, most are CardBus by this point.)  I bet 600/1200 users everywhere appreciate the low cost to get their machines on the network and ease of data transfer via PCMCIA/CF adapters.

[AndyLandy]

I'd take things back a year:

Still make the A500+, but with an EC020 and 2MB Chip onboard. Maybe add an internal IDE connector too, use this as a sensible intermediate system to run down stocks of remaining ECS chips and A500 cases. Remain compatible with existing edge-connector devices.

Scrap the A600 altogether.

A1200, but this time with a socketed '030 (Offer a choice of CPU speeds perhaps) and with 2MB Chip and 2/4/8MB Fast option. PCMCIA is probably a better option than a proprietary connector on the side.

[Hell Labs]

More like how i'd have done commodore:

Stop developing 8-bit computers after the c64, but give it a ram slot and sell models with higher ram. Make a constant effort to miniturize the design.

Released the 500 and 2000 in 1985.

Make a C64 compatability card for amiga.

Clone the 68K archetecture. MOS tech is right there, so use it guys. motorola aren't doing anything special.

Put a ton of funding into developing a new chipset for release in 1990. chipset should be capble of chunky, and have atleast a simple 3D accelerator that could do texture mapping. Think "almost playstation", like ocs was "almost megadrive". Monitor drivers that include 800x600 and 1024x768 are needed too.

Develop the hell out of the OS.

skip 500+, 600, cdtv, and those stupid commodore PCs. Release the 1200 and 4000 in 1990 CPU should be socketed and a range of speeds avalible. use HD floppys in the 1200.

behold, a non bankrupt commodore.