So you were put in charge of making the 060 based amiga

[runequester]

So lets say Commodore had built an 060 based amiga, before jumping ship to other hardware (or dying).
You were put in charge of the design plans:

Here's the requirements:

It must run an 060 processor.

There must be two models: The A5000 (big box, more expensive system) and the A1600 (Cost reduced A1200 style case)

It must be ready by 1996

The rest is largely up to you.



What features do you hope to pack in ?

[kedawa]

I'd make it brown.  That's for sure.

[runequester]

I'd make it brown.  That's for sure.

So it wont change colour 15 years later ?

[pan1k]

SCSI
IDE
Hybrid PCI/Zorro Busboard
AAA Chipset
Ability for 32MB FAST RAM
1.76 MB Floppy
Built in Scandoubler
PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard compatibility

[Kronos]

So lets say Commodore had built an 060 based amiga, before jumping ship to other hardware (or dying).
You were put in charge of the design plans:

Here's the requirements:

It must run an 060 processor.

There must be two models: The A5000 (big box, more expensive system) and the A1600 (Cost reduced A1200 style case)

It must be ready by 1996

The rest is largely up to you.



What features do you hope to pack in ?

I would have licenced the Draco and be done with it ....

[Gulliver]

The A5000 would basically be a Macrosystem DraCo 060 with the Alpha coprocessor slot modified for an x86 board.

The A1600 would be An A1200 motherboard with an EC 060 and 16MB fastmem built-in (if you want more, use a trapdoor expansion), it should also have a RTC and a 1MB flash kickstart with an atapi cdrom boot option. The IDE interface should be fully buffered and 40 pins, not 44. The case is modified in a way that it could hold a cdrom with some kind of metal cradle as an optional.
Built in 23 RGB to 15 pin VGA adapter and graffity card functionality (chunky modes).

[ChaosLord]

Ability for 32MB chip RAM

[J-Golden]

I'd do all of the above and cut a deal with newtek to report the VT4 BACK to the Amiga...  WITH PAL OPTIONS!!!!! :elvis:

[desiv]

OK, I'll just design the low end model then..

For starters, no 060.  That was too expensive in the day...
I think a decent 040 would be good, possibly even a faster 030.  In fact, I think it would be a 40Mhz or so 030.
I would make the CPU a card that plugs in tho, so it can be upgraded.
I'd recommend that the high end model be the same upgradable CPU socket, but marketing might want a more clear line between the two models..

But no 1 slot for all upgrades.
The default CPU card would have sockets (SIMMs?) for RAM, probably max out at 8M, comes with 2M.  Need to give them a reason to upgrade.

IDE DMA on-board.  1 IDE drive (40M? initial).  No option without a HD.

CDROM would be questionable.  They were still a bit spendy at that time, and this is the low end model.  I'll probably say no CDRom in this model.

Floppy would be HD 1.7M.

The 1200 had a PCMCIA that was used a bit, so I'd upgrade that to a cardbus slot.
If needed, peripherals can be added through there.

Now, the tricky part is video.  By now, I get a feeling in the market that video might be an issue if I want this model to sell for more than a year.  So, video, like CPU is slot/socket based.  Basically similar to AGA.  Trying to keep costs down.  I'd see about adding a mode with more on screen colors through the deal I've made with BlackBelt (The HAM-E people).  I would add C2P, as Doom is out by now and we need that.  It would be a bit rushed and not as fast as it should be, but improved on Akiko.  ;-)
The video "card" (internal card) would come with 2M CHIP.  Plans for a 4M Chip with FF upgrade to start selling about 8 months after the release would be worked on.

Sound would be the same.  (I know, cost cutting....)

I would get rid of the trapdoor slot.  The CPU slot/socket, combined with a video upgrade and cardbus should be plenty.

It would look virtually identical to the A1200.

So, it would be a 40Mhz 030 with 2M CHIP and 2M Fast and a 40M HD priced at $500.
Also, a prepackaged version with 4M fast and a 120M HD would be available at launch for $650.

The video upgrade (4M Chip and FF) would retail for $150, but not be available for about 8 months.  

Delays in the design of the new RTG graphics on the higher end model would mean my lower end model would be out to market about 6 months before the 060 high end.  ;-)  :-)

Reviews are generally favorable, with Amigaworld dedicating a an issue to the new "PC Killer."   ID wouldn't port DOOM, but Team 17's Alien Breed 3D optimized for this model would start to be bundled after a few months (slow sales) along with Lemmings.
The new "A 1600 Home pack" as it would be called, is released after about 6 months and comes with a CD32 style game pad (only slightly modified to keep costs down) and sells for $475.

;-)

desiv

[dammy]

For starters, no 060.  That was too expensive in the day...

Agreed.  I would have told them for the 060 model, to save their money and push the AAA on to a PCI, have WB 3.1 ported to x86 and used the C= PCs (with PCI slots) that had a slightly slower 486 that were not selling well plus create a Window's driver for the AAA so money can be made selling it to the Windows world.  That just might have saved C= from going under.

Yes, old games and apps would not run, but if a few decent games were then ported to x86 Amiga, I doubt there would have been too much of an uproar.  When the Amiga lost new game production, it was over.

[the_leander]

I would have licenced the Draco and be done with it ....

/Thread

[actung_bab]

well to start with am no designer cant even draw a circle hehe
bring out a amiga 1200 + or call it amiga 1400 .
it have inbuilt cdrom us standred pc ports for mouse have the udated AAA chipset
use a 3/12 hard drive with buffered ide interface
as it was think biggest mistake was just having cdrom inbuilt for the cd 32
because alot software makers didnt want go the cdrom route for the games it seems
and who wants spend yet more money have hassle mess of yet another power brick
and addon oh buffered serial port too
and sold with ram card as standred

[orb85750]

I would have licenced the Draco and be done with it ....

Draco was great for its purpose (video), but it's not a full-blown Amiga.

[Matt_H]

The production version of the Nyx prototype.

[fishy_fiz]

I guess all you can really do is fix the bottlenecks. A minor chipset revision to be able to access more chipram and fixes/tweaks for exisiting problems. Not to be negative, but by this time amiga was too out of date to bother fixing in its then current guise, even '060's by this point in time shouldve been bare minimum. Instead of tinkering around that time it'd have been time to start things again as amiga had too many hardware problems/shortcomings to fix. Doesnt mean I didnt/dont love the classics, its just that by the time aga was out they where so far behind that trying to fix them was a lost cause and they shouldve instead made new machines rather than tweaking technology from the early 80's.

p.s. the above is written assuming this thread is talking about a successor to a1200/a400/etc. and is based on realistic ideas. If we're going a little more into the realms of the hypothetical then some sort of 3d acceleration seems a good idea (even '060 + reasonable (even for the time) 3d acceleration could give amiga gaming a kick in the pants), 16 bit audio, useful sprite hardware (even "fixed" aga level sprites would be nice (ie. 8 useable 64pixel wide sprites)), at least 16 bit screenmodes (2x8bit playfields would be nice), the ability to mix and match playfields depending on bit depth (ie. 2x4 bit playfields + 1 8 bit for triple playfields, etc.). It's a shame Amiga hardware never went that one extra generation. With some small alterations to end up with the type of ideas I suggested (which are still very dated) my creative retro impulses wouldnt need to be so compromised.