Confessions of a CSPPC Owner

[Roj]

Confessions of a CSPPC Owner

In the mid-to-late 1990s, I managed to get my hands on a Cyberstorm PPC 233 accelerator for my A4000. At the time, it was such a breath of fresh air. My Amiga 4000 was now as fast, if not faster than the mid-range Windows PC that sat next to it. And whether or not it was actually faster, it didn't matter. It felt faster. It was much more comfortable to use in ways that are still difficult to explain.

I have to admit that having the CSPPC as early as I did has turned out to be a tremendous disadvantage. I see Windows for what it is: a machine that started with bad architecture and a disjointed user interface. It was an interface which lacked a focus of design, and was instead an incoherent conglomeration of ideas from people who couldn't agree on anything, and instead implemented their own parts of the interface "their way," completely disregarding what came before them and with little concern with what could come after them.

Those that haven't experienced the speed and fluidity that a CSPPC brought to an Amiga will likely never understand the conflict that I deal with every time I use Microsoft or Apple products today. I know how it could work. I've seen how it should work. But alas, Amigas are somewhat rare, and Amigas with CSPPCs are extremely rare. And the vision that comes from having gained familiarity with an Amiga with a CSPPC is virtually impossible to pass on to others. And others who actually are willing to listen to and understand that vision exist only in a fairy-tale world.

Call me crazy. Call me a Grade-A Moron. That is the curse of a CSPPC owner.

[Karlos]

Those that haven't experienced the speed and fluidity that a CSPPC brought to an Amiga will likely never understand the conflict that I deal with every time I use Microsoft or Apple products today. I know how it could work. I've seen how it should work. But alas, Amigas are somewhat rare, and Amigas with CSPPCs are extremely rare. And the vision that comes from having gained familiarity with an Amiga with a CSPPC is virtually impossible to pass on to others. And others who actually are willing to listen to and understand that vision exist only in a fairy-tale world.

Call me crazy. Call me a Grade-A Moron. That is the curse of a CSPPC owner.

Have you tried any of the "next gen" derivatives? We might fight like rabid animals over which to use and why, but there's a reason we do it; that...  essence you are trying to describe is the one thing they all have in common, at least to many an Amiga fan. Of course, there are puritans that insist only on genuine original Amiga hardware (I'm kinda 50/50 on that front, they'll have to prize my BPPC based A1200 from my cold, dead hands).

Trying out AROS will literally cost you nothing. Trying out MorphOS will cost you next to nothing. Trying out OS4 will, sadly, cost you an arm and a leg on "new" hardware, but if you can find a second-hand machine for sale, there's no real need to re-mortgage the house.

[runequester]

I sort of get that feeling with MOS, but you are completely right. There's an intangible "something". It's like porn but without the goats and gimp masks.
Everybody knows it when they see it, but you can't quite put words to it.

[Iggy]

I'm realy surprised that we're still here and that if anything the NG OS' appear to be gaining momentum.
Its nice to have something that boots in about half a minute, that isn't a power hungry resource hog.

[kd7ota]

The only thing closest to a PPC Amiga feel is my MorphOS on a MDD G4 Mac.  I was not ready to pour $800+ on a piece of hardware that can die any day.  MDD was about $90 and already had 2gb ram, 1.42ghz cpu, 250gb hard drive, and a radeon 9000 video card.  Slap on MorphOS and you're ready to rock.

I must admit I used to be a die-hard Amiga fan and would reject anything else trying to be Amiga, but MorphOS was a damn good experience of what Amiga should be like.

*Not to be taken personally*

[mechy]

Confessions of a CSPPC Owner

In the mid-to-late 1990s, I managed to get my hands on a Cyberstorm PPC 233 accelerator for my A4000. At the time, it was such a breath of fresh air. My Amiga 4000 was now as fast, if not faster than the mid-range Windows PC that sat next to it. And whether or not it was actually faster, it didn't matter. It felt faster. It was much more comfortable to use in ways that are still difficult to explain.

I have to admit that having the CSPPC as early as I did has turned out to be a tremendous disadvantage. I see Windows for what it is: a machine that started with bad architecture and a disjointed user interface. It was an interface which lacked a focus of design, and was instead an incoherent conglomeration of ideas from people who couldn't agree on anything, and instead implemented their own parts of the interface "their way," completely disregarding what came before them and with little concern with what could come after them.

Those that haven't experienced the speed and fluidity that a CSPPC brought to an Amiga will likely never understand the conflict that I deal with every time I use Microsoft or Apple products today. I know how it could work. I've seen how it should work. But alas, Amigas are somewhat rare, and Amigas with CSPPCs are extremely rare. And the vision that comes from having gained familiarity with an Amiga with a CSPPC is virtually impossible to pass on to others. And others who actually are willing to listen to and understand that vision exist only in a fairy-tale world.

Call me crazy. Call me a Grade-A Moron. That is the curse of a CSPPC owner.

Finally someone puts some of my thoughts to words that i couldn't. The csppc made life good on amiga.
I have to fully agree. The csppc was one of the finest amiga add-ons ever. The UWscsi seemed blistering fast(and still holds its own well). The built in features to use a cdrom without installing a bunch of stuff,and other nice features really make it a one of a kind card. It sped up everything incredibly back in the day and the ppc side made playing mp3's,reading pdf's and editing big res pix a pleasure. The csppc blows the Bppc out of the water in performance on scsi alone as well as the ppc side addressing the ram in 64bit.Also a 604e vs the 603.

You haven't lived until you had one. The newer ppc boards and os's on mac may work fine and be faster but they lack the "class" of a csppc i guess.

mech

[bbond007]

I had the flagship BlizzardPPC 240/060/50. I ended up selling it over 10 years ago.

The nicest thing about it was the ability to add Bvision and later g-rexx.

The whole PowerUP vs WarpOS thing was really was really big fiasco, and the PPC was not a huge speedup over the 060. Using the PPC bins always seemed to make the amiga more prone to random crashes...

For me it was just an expensive MP3 player. I guess now you have OS 4.1 classic that I did not have back then...

The biggest letdown was FusionPPC never working on Blizzard.

That is why this time around I went for the 1260.

[Methuselas]

Pssh. The best Amiga I ever had was when I blew 200$ on Amithlon. Now *THAT* was an "Amiga....."

[spirantho]

I bought my CS-PPC for £900 when it was new. It was the top of the range (then) 200MHz one, and naturally has an early serial number.

My A1 running OS4 is great - my Sam 440ep is a lovely machine - but the A4000 is the one I'm most attached to.

Right now I'm playing Ultima VII on it via PC-Task, using the 68060.

It's still an awesome machine, and no NG Amiga or Mac will take that away from it - there's just something about it being an actual Amiga in hardware as well as software that makes it really special.

I was paying off what I borrowed for it for a year but I've never regretted it at all.

[Damion]

That is the curse of a CSPPC owner.

Cursed indeed, hard to forget all those broken and disappearing CSPPC cards!

I'd rather have a good '060-only board any day, but that's just MHO.

[psxphill]

I sort of get that feeling with MOS, but you are completely right. There's an intangible "something". It's like porn but without the goats and gimp masks.
Everybody knows it when they see it, but you can't quite put words to it.

Just like this on jimmy kimmel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdIWKytq_q4
 
That intangible "something" is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias

[danbeaver]

Have you tried any of the "next gen" derivatives?  Trying out OS4 will, sadly, cost you an arm and a leg on "new" hardware, but if you can find a second-hand machine for sale, there's no real need to re-mortgage the house. [Edited for brevity]

"Next Gen" Amiga's run OS 4.1, as does an A4000 w/ a CSPPC.  A 4000 with a CSPPC runs OS 4.1 natively without any extra hardware (well a HDD and CDROM do help).  The OS is somewhat higher than Windows 7, but when was the last time a Windows Developer answered you forum posts?

Extra costs for the A4000+CSPPC owner?  A PCI solution helps, but OS 4.1 doesn't care really which, as Hyperion wrote their own drivers and support the inexpensive PCI cards and  a dozen Zorro RTG's.  USB will cost you if you don't already have a Subway or Deneb.  A Radeon 92XX or Voodoo3 3000?  Less than 100 USD.  DMA is an issue with OS 4.1, as they only allow one device (the CSPPC's), but I keep waiting to see if the paradigm shifts.

I installed MOS 3.1 on a Mac Mini in a dual boot with OS X (some cat) and to me MorphOS feels more like a MAC than an Amiga.  AmigaOS 4.1 may have a Unix structure to it's development, but the under belly of the beast is that full feeling of being in control of your own operating system.  I too bought a CSPPC in 1992 (and another last year for my backup A4000T); I never got the value out of the investment until I put OS 4.1 on it and dug into the system.  Can it keep up with my office PC?  It doesn't have to;  they are two different beasts, used for different purposes.  I built my first PC in 1988, and more-or-less stay 2 Moore's Cycles behind the forefront.  That's a lot of PC parts in storage bins (a least I give them to charities when I can).  Can't say that about my Amiga's; they stay is service and get refined as able.

[klx300r]

...
I installed MOS 3.1 on a Mac Mini in a dual boot with OS X (some cat) and to me MorphOS feels more like a MAC than an Amiga....

careful now Grandma might put this line in his signature:p

cue the blue artillary...pull:swords::idea::destroy:

[runequester]

Just like this on jimmy kimmel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdIWKytq_q4
 
That intangible "something" is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias

Interesting article, thanks!

[NovaCoder]

I had the flagship BlizzardPPC 240/060/50. I ended up selling it over 10 years ago.

The nicest thing about it was the ability to add Bvision and later g-rexx.

The whole PowerUP vs WarpOS thing was really was really big fiasco, and the PPC was not a huge speedup over the 060. Using the PPC bins always seemed to make the amiga more prone to random crashes...

For me it was just an expensive MP3 player. I guess now you have OS 4.1 classic that I did not have back then...

The biggest letdown was FusionPPC never working on Blizzard.

That is why this time around I went for the 1260.

I agree, wish they'd just stuck with 060's (eventually got them up to a reliable 100Mhz) with tons of RAM and fast on-board SCSI.   Couple that kind of CPU card with a decent 3D PC graphics card and you'd have had a very respectable system for most of the 90's.