Sacking of Los Gatos engineers point of no return?

[Franko]

It's funny how after all this time folk still ask these questions and with the benefit of hindsight suggest a lot of what ifs and if only's...

We all know the story and who was to blame, it would be much better to support and encourage current & real Amiga teams & projects like NatAmi, AROS, MorphOS, MiniMig, X1000 etc... rather than mull over the past and sit here procrastinating on just what should have been done...

Hindsight and opinions of the past while interesting aint gonna benefit no-one in our dwindling community. Seems to me as much as I love everything Commodore & Amiga, that all the time taken to make these posts about the Amigas past history would be much better spent on encouraging the aforementioned "live" projects and keeping them in the spotlight and generally encouraging the few developers we have left...

Just my two bobs worth...

(either that or bash the hell out of CUSA again just to liven the place up a wee bit... )

[desiv]

...it would be much better to support and encourage current & real Amiga teams & projects like NatAmi, AROS, MorphOS, MiniMig, X1000 etc... rather than mull over the past and sit here procrastinating on just what should have been done...

We can't do both??  

I see this as the same type of interest in reading "alternate history" type books.  What ifs...
It is fun to read a book that imagines that Babbages Difference Engine WAS built and used and there's a whole culture around it..
Doesn't mean I can't also SLAM Ada Lovelace as a really weak programmer..

er..  :confused:

That analogy didn't actually work very well..  But you get the point..  :roflmao:

desiv

[Franko]

We can't do both??

I see this as the same type of interest in reading "alternate history" type books.  What ifs...
It is fun to read a book that imagines that Babbages Difference Engine WAS built and used and there's a whole culture around it..
Doesn't mean I can't also SLAM Ada Lovelace as a really weak programmer..

er..  :confused:

That analogy didn't actually work very well..  But you get the point.. :roflmao:

desiv

Very true...

And even with that analogy I get your point...

[psxphill]

It would be interesting to know whether Commodore was taking about Chunky designs at all seriously before that.

Probably not and that is why they failed.

[Khephren]

we are well in to Amiga 'fantasy football' land with this thread (again!)....but it is Amiga.org...so why not?

I would probably not have bothered with ECS (!), and plowed all resources into AGA, bring it out better and earlier.

Instead, I'd have given ECS machines a HD disk drive, and more ram and a 14mhz 68k.You'd get better graphics, better sample quality and less disk swaps that way.  Maybe some NV ram for game saves/direct WB boot sans floppy. That's it, and cost reduced OCS down to one chip.

Other upgrades could be done in software, by just nosing outside the company for five minutes.  such as Bill Williams HAM for games mode, and use of TFMX or Octalyser for extra sound channels. These things already worked on OCS 7mhz. So your 14mhz OCS could advertise 256 col, 8 sound channels (just don't tell anyone it's software only).

[Digiman]

You have no idea what projects were in development, what ideas were brought to the engineering management, what got cancelled, what got the green light only to be shelved once production costs became apparent.

Not sure what you are trying to say here, but Commodore strategy was low cost, high volume.

That would be a nasty hack, which given Paula's intimate relationship with the system (interrupt controller etc) probably would have required a lot of work, just to make it work... Which would have added at least $10 BOM on to the design ($40 in retail), for some more sound channels, of which the Amiga already had more than most machines? How do you explain that to your manager?

In a company like Commodore, if something isn't broken... You don't fix it and you certainly don't make it more expensive.


Never made it to production. It's a case in point, and is actually against your argument.

All your comments go against you too. I agree with A_N.

The c65 would have been a bottom feeder and yet had blitter and 256 col screens and A500 couldn't match chunk screens of C65. This added to your comment about how tricky 2nd Paula would have been is proof positive the people left had little idea how to improve OCS because I'm sure Miner/Needle/Mical trio wouldn't have taken 6 years for 50% improvement to 66% of the OCS chipset, Given Lynx & 3DO I'm sure they could have made something like AAA workable by 1992 as well. Sorry if this offends other engineers but Lynx battery powered chipset had sprite scaling/rotation....what did OCS Denise ever get replaced by? Exactly.

And actually 4 channels was just about fine in the 80s (even though 1979 Atari 400/800 had 4 too) but even then Archimedes/IIgs/Mac etc had much more sound channels as did some consoles and 4 is not even enough to replicate SFX+Music of md 80s arcade games. 10+ channels normal in 16bit consoles too by the time of Megdrive/SNES.

As for secret projects....based on how underwhelming AGA, AKIKO,VDC,TED were compared to talent responsible for SID,VIC,OCS well......explains a LOT, no disrespect but what Commodore employed was not at cutting edge genius level and regardless of costs C= were doomed whatever they did.

The truth is the guys who designed the legendary C64/OCS chipsets weren't even employed by Commodore a year later let alone their technical dominance emerge.

My comment about performance vs price/performance was after OCS C= never found anything like OCS/VIC+SID price performance as AAA = too expensive/performance. But then why should an A4000/040 have the same untouched 8bit sound chip as an A600 despite costing £1750 more? Ridiculous, I think $40 extra on a $3250 machine is a loss they could afford. Clueless.

And if you read EDGE #23 you will see the drop in profits is proportional to Amiga losing any technical edge on alternative hardware. They're lucky Archimedes games were programmed in an even worse way than US Gold Outrun. Archimedes wiped the floor with OCS ECS AND AGA .....even had better CPU than A1200 6 years before on Arch A310....and yet it was launched in 87 for less than A2000 from day one. Faster and 256 colour depth cued Zarch (Virus by Firebird on Amiga) games shows how far ahead Acorn was in 87 compared to new 32bit AGA in 1992 A1200!

So....pretty much my opinion is unwavering unless RJ Mical says otherwise seeing as Miner has passed away.

@Franko - general question to others who may agree or disagree

@everyone - YMMV

[Khephren]

The c65 would have been a bottom feeder and yet had blitter and 256 col screens and A500 couldn't match chunk screens of C65. This added to your comment about how tricky 2nd Paula would have been is proof positive the people left had little idea how to improve OCS because I'm sure Miner/Needle/Mical trio wouldn't have taken 6 years for 50% improvement to 66% of the OCS chipset, Given Lynx & 3DO I'm sure they could have made something like AAA workable by 1992 as well. Sorry if this offends other engineers but Lynx battery powered chipset had sprite scaling/rotation....what did OCS Denise ever get replaced by? Exactly.

And actually 4 channels was just about fine in the 80s (even though 1979 Atari 400/800 had 4 too) but even then Archimedes/IIgs/Mac etc had much more sound channels as did some consoles and 4 is not even enough to replicate SFX+Music of md 80s arcade games. 10+ channels normal in 16bit consoles too by the time of Megdrive/SNES.


My comment about performance vs price/performance was after OCS C= never found anything like OCS/VIC+SID price performance as AAA = too expensive/performance. But then why should an A4000/040 have the same untouched 8bit sound chip as an A600 despite costing £1750 more? Ridiculous, I think $40 extra on a $3250 machine is a loss they could afford. Clueless.

And if you read EDGE #23 you will see the drop in profits is proportional to Amiga losing any technical edge on alternative hardware. They're lucky Archimedes games were programmed in an even worse way than US Gold Outrun. Archimedes wiped the floor with OCS ECS AND AGA .....even had better CPU than A1200 6 years before on Arch A310....and yet it was launched in 87 for less than A2000 from day one. Faster and 256 colour depth cued Zarch (Virus by Firebird on Amiga) games shows how far ahead Acorn was in 87 compared to new 32bit AGA in 1992 A1200!

Lot of truth there, but a few not quite right

OCS sound was PCM sample based, most consoles were FM/PSG. SNES had proper PCM, megadrive had one PCM channel, but plenty of FM channels.

Archimedes were very powerfull, but processor driven. The CPU had to shoulder the weight of most of the tasks. It was not price comparable to other machines for running games, nor was the IIgs or Mac comparable to low end Amigas.

Of course once you get to high end, your comparisons with higher end mac/IIgs/kitchen sink are bang on. The chipset does not scale in it's abilities.

[actung_bab]

Commodore UK had more marketing sense than CBM, which isn't hard. They also had stacks of money from selling A500's by the truckload, to people who mostly used them for playing pirate games.
 
If Commodore UK had continued the way they were going then it would only have been a temporary stay of execution. As Commodore collapsed the games developers were already leaving for the new CD consoles (hoping for less piracy).
 
There wasn't much room for serious software either, there were a few niche markets that did ok for a while but you have to be pretty serious to drop a couple of grand for a Toaster/TBC/etc.

true dude what comes down to is ibm compatible pcs have got the market for the biz use
in general to kkep compitblity with word ext got the games marekt well trully covered

Whats that leave consoles apprently sony wasint even going have console of there own
They made it for another company imagine commodore brought it

Mr haynie is cool i do wonder what happned to orginal people delvolped amiga
and whay the left the company oh yeah commodre brought the amiga but yuo thought
they wanted to be involved with here baby
seems to me you need leader to bring marketing and admin and engineers get there opio0ions and then make a descesion bit unfair calling anyone clueless negitve
sure they did there best should been guy top making right choices, but then maybe need some new guys in design to just have fresh ideas who knows bit late know hindight all can be
experst l whou7ld not be any good running amiga hehe , you have to be cold and clear thinking not get wraped up in emotion of the amiga to sometimes if get somone completly out the loop they going try ideas that might seem not amiga like but might worked for future
look phaze 5 did same goes for sam
steve jobs didnt just go no that anent mac way and hese moved it from being pc maker to
gaget maker too ipod ipad dude is good ideas guy for sure hope gets better too

seems i know hark on about this but you need a leader not a corpration
to bring about leading edge designs or just inique ideas

Mr honda was that in motorcycle world steve jobs bill gates etc

I  think maybe sadley no matter what happned amiga was going go broke anyhow
Just its day was done everthing has a life to it even people

just enjoy what time it did have to shine and boy did it shine get on be postive

[actung_bab]

We can't do both??  

I see this as the same type of interest in reading "alternate history" type books.  What ifs...
It is fun to read a book that imagines that Babbages Difference Engine WAS built and used and there's a whole culture around it..
Doesn't mean I can't also SLAM Ada Lovelace as a really weak programmer..

er..  :confused:

That analogy didn't actually work very well..  But you get the point..  :roflmao:

desiv

yes u can if you want its free world apprently hehe
agree with franko thought too
yes talk about the past but not to point upsetting very people that put in blood sweet tears to make the hardware because if feel and am unamimous on this
To have opion is fine but unless u have abilty to do better better to close mouth
before talkie either that or buy something u think u like btter

[runequester]

To be fair, the Chunky Pixel craze didn't really kick in (that is- become apparent that it was going to be the way to do things in Computer Games) until Doom in 93.  (Wolfenstein was a sign, but Doom really did it).
ECS was released in 92.

It would be interesting to know whether Commodore was taking about Chunky designs at all seriously before that.

I agree, more chip RAM should have been an option.

desiv

Actually ECS was 1990. AGA was 92, which is probably what you meant

Doom was released the very end of 1993. By then, there wasn't really anything that could be done as the upper management had squandered it.

People like to jump on this or that technical detail to be the one true answer, but I dont think the answer lies there.

Watching the deathbed vigil, Haynie mentions that the 500 was still selling well when it was cancelled. CD32's sold very well, despite computer geeks being focused on specs. The problem was they couldn't get enough out there to sell.

The hang up on pure specs and processing power never made as much impact in the real world as computer geeks like to think. Otherwise, the nintendo would have vanished, windows would never gotten off the ground, and nobody would buy a gaming console today.
Most people don't really care about those things.

[runequester]

Probably not and that is why they failed.

What pre-1994 games would have benefited from a chunky mode?

By the time Doom is out, Commodore is basically a done deal.
Unless we are figuring that Team 17 is going to beat ID software to the whole "first person shooter" thing, its purely theoretical.

[psxphill]

What pre-1994 games would have benefited from a chunky mode?
 
By the time Doom is out, Commodore is basically a done deal.
Unless we are figuring that Team 17 is going to beat ID software to the whole "first person shooter" thing, its purely theoretical.

It is theoretical, but the only way that commodore could have succeeded would have been to head off the move to PC and console gaming.
 
The only way they could have done that would have been if they'd produced a platform that was good for texture mapped 3d games.
 
By not realising this, they kept plugging away at 2d hardware because it was selling well. Something like hombre should have been out instead of AGA. However Commodore were used to it being cheap to produce and didn't invest.
 
They needed to produce something game changing, like the Amiga was compared to the c64. Nobody in control had the appetite or vision.

[bloodline]

What pre-1994 games would have benefited from a chunky mode?

With a decent blitter and some VRAM, all of them

By 1992, I was using the Blitter for almost everything... With sprites for some "effects"... I did often use dual playfields to increase visual complexity and reduce load on the blitter, but that was to cover the deficiency in the hardware

-Edit- Just want to add that the only real advantage of Planar Graphics over chunky is that they can more efficiently use the available memory... But once you have 2mb or more, that advantage is mute

[psxphill]

With a decent blitter and some VRAM, all of them

The original blitter would have worked more or less with chunky pixels, it would be just like having a 2 colour display. You'd have to be careful not to set a stupid shift when blitting, although that would be an interesting effect. Moving the blitter to 32bit would have made it more efficient.

 
AGA chip ram bandwidth would probably have been good enough, although it would be better if you could have enough bandwidth for dual playfield 8 bit or single playfield 16 bit without saturating the bus.

 
020ec would be good enough if a simple texture mapper was implemented in the blitter, you could use line draw hardware as the basis for the edge tracing and you just need a small texture cache and a line mapper.

 
The extra bandwidth would allow for high res productivity screens for the big box amigas & the 3d texture mapping would be useful for fast test previews in modelling applications.

 
Doom on the PC probably wouldn't have happened. It was just an expanded tech demo to show off what you could do with a fast processor and chunky pixels anyway.

 
If CBM had started this after the A500 was launched then they should have been able to ship it by 1991. It would have been expensive to make at first, but the money from the a500's would have made up for this. By positioning the cheap version as a cd based console that could have a floppy/keyboard added and sold it at the price of a megadrive + 32x + megacd then it would have made it more attractive to the masses.

 
So basically no CDTV/A500+/A600/A3000 & all the other projects that got canned.
 
Apart from new hardware there should only have been cost reduction changes made. So switch to surface mount etc, but keep all the expansions the same. This would have allowed processor & scsi cards etc to get very cheap.

 
The only other thing they would have needed was good marketing & not wasting money.

[bloodline]

The original blitter would have worked more or less with chunky pixels, it would be just like having a 2 colour display. You'd have to be careful not to set a stupid shift when blitting, although that would be an interesting effect. Moving the blitter to 32bit would have made it more efficient.
 
AGA chip ram bandwidth would probably have been good enough, although it would be better if you could have enough bandwidth for dual playfield 8 bit or single playfield 16 bit without saturating the bus.
 
020ec would be good enough if a simple texture mapper was implemented in the blitter, you could use line draw hardware as the basis for the edge tracing and you just need a small texture cache and a line mapper.

I agree, the Amiga's blitter would have done just fine with a chunky mode, and it would have improved performance in certain areas, but the question was " pre '94 games improved by chunky graphics"... Without some VRAM the improvements would have been minimal...

[Khephren]

The least a chunky mode would have done, was give us non dithered 3D. Most amiga flat shaded 3D games were in 16 (4bp) colours to keep the frame rate up. I think even without VRAM, we could have had 32 colour 3D.

@PSXPhil
"It is theoretical, but the only way that commodore could have succeeded would have been to head off the move to PC and console gaming."

The Amiga was in a dangerous place, between the PC and the consoles. It was also an ideal place- It could have replaced both, it did for me, for a long time. Over time, consoles have become more PC like (films, music,facebook, browsing etc)
And many PC's have attempted to become more console like (shuttle, XBMC etc).
In away, both have become more Amiga like.

The PC sounded like a jet engine, cost a lot, and came in this massive 1970's style case, not living room, or child bedroom friendly.

The consoles were lobotomized computers.

There was still a big gap for an amiga style computer.