The Amiga Video Toaster: Why superior technology doesn’t always win the day

[SysAdmin]

Interesting new article discussing Amiga Video Toaster on startup smart.


There is a myth that there is an inevitable path of technological  advance where new, superior technologies inevitably knock off their  older predecessors.  
 It’s a myth many tech tart-ups are prone to. Build a better mouse trap and they’ll sell by the truckload.
 
 Well, to any of you holding these myths to be self-evident, Old Taskmaster has just three words to say: Amiga Video Toaster.
 
 See, back in the day when people asked “Mac or PC”, (well, Mac or IBM  compatible as it was back then), there was a third option many opted  for: The Amiga.

(Read the rest on the link below)

http://www.startupsmart.com.au/technology/the-amiga-video-toaster-why-superior-technology-doesnt-always-win-the-day/2013072210272.html

[carvedeye]

Great read

[Matt_H]

Nice to see someone in the popular press who understands the lessons of the past.

[desiv]

Well, interesting read, but it has a few issues..
The author kind of glosses over the fact that the Amiga isn't the Video Toaster..  ;-)

In fact, you could argue that the "Video Toaster" DID win the day, in it's market.  It was a wildly successful product for NewTek.
Now, that success didn't last, but that was due to a number of reasons....

As for the overall hint of the story, that the Amiga was the best technology in the PC market at the time and didn't win, I agree.  But, they don't really delve into why, other than mentioning poor management and marketing.   Well, yeah...  That kills a lot of products...  But that's also a HUGE area...  Poor management could be anything really...

So, I agree with the sentiment behind the story, but I think the story just said a badly managed company can die even if they have a great product..  

:-)

desiv
btw, not complaining about the existence of the article..  Any positive mention of the Amiga is great!! :-)

[Aegis]

Yes, the Toaster was hugely successful, helped kick-start the desktop 3D revolution with LightWave and is still around today in the form of NewTek's Tricaster - hardly a failure.

Commodore's mismanagement was the death of the Amiga, I still remember the video of Jay Miner chastising people for applauding Commodore's gaming ads - he knew exactly what the Amiga was capable of (in terms of an enabling technology for the masses) and how far ahead of its time it was - Commodore sadly, didn't.

[LiveForIt]

Yes it cost less, but it also came whit less RAM then PC's, this was true for all cheap models, this was huge frailer because, as Amiga was marked it as home computer / gaming computer, the result was that many games came as cut down versions, also a letter failed because the A1200 did not come whit built in CDROM while it was common to have it in the PC's, only 2MB while PC did have 4MB in 1992, it was a failure to adapt to the marked, also the CPU was too slow in the A1200. It was great computer but it was crippled.

 Another thing the Amiga did not have that PC did have, it was easy to upgrade a PC, just replace the CPU, or put in some extra ram modules, the A1200 and A500 required special upgrades.

 As my friends puts it, he left the Amiga because he wanted more adult games, not just Mario games, he was more intro adventure games, and the rpg (role playing games).

[motrucker]

This writer apparently doesn't remember that every cable TV franchise in the country and at least one Video Toaster system. How in the hell is that a failure?!
Selective memory sucks....

[Aegis]

Yes it cost less, but it also came whit less RAM then PC's, this was true for all cheap models, this was huge frailer because, as Amiga was marked it as home computer / gaming computer, the result was that many games came as cut down versions, also a letter failed because the A1200 did not come whit built in CDROM while it was common to have it in the PC's, only 2MB while PC did have 4MB in 1992, it was a failure to adapt to the marked, also the CPU was too slow in the A1200. It was great computer but it was crippled.

To be fair, by the time the A1200 appeared, Commodore was already in a downward spiral - AA appeared far to late, it was an incremental upgrade and shipping a 'new' low-end Amiga with a 68EC020 and no fast RAM was inexcusable.

Not to take anything away from the A1200 - it was popular and was (is) a great Amiga, just not the one that was needed at the time - so much R&D had already been wasted on superior systems by then but it was all thrown aside.

Commodore had plenty of time (and money) to compete with PCs of the time but instead of making better Amigas they made... PCs *facepalm*

Another thing the Amiga did not have that PC did have, it was easy to upgrade a PC, just replace the CPU, or put in some extra ram modules, the A1200 and A500 required special upgrades.

Easy for who? Not your average user of the time, that's for sure - Autoconfig was one of many features the Amiga had that made upgrades (comparatively) a breeze - considering their form-factor, Amigas were incredibly easy to upgrade - want more memory? Slot in a board and switch on - how much easier does it get?

As my friends puts it, he left the Amiga because he wanted more adult games, not just Mario games, he was more intro adventure games, and the rpg (role playing games).

Which was as I mentioned, the point where the Amiga was already in decline - games like Dune 2, Monkey Island, Eye of the Beholder, Dungeon Master etc. were all superior on the Amiga when they debuted, when these more 'adult' games started to become PC exclusives the Amiga was already well into decline.

The Amiga's glory days were during the A500/A2000 heyday - once the A600 appeared it was all downhill from there on

[LiveForIt]

Well the SCSI PCI cards came whit ROM that enabled you configure and boot from it, as for graphic card this where pretty standard, booted into text mode, simple design but it worked, I think this was possible on ISA too, this was true Plug&Play.
 
What Microsoft later called Plug&Play was nothing more than drivers included on installation CD, and also ability to download drivers from the internet, of course never worked, as Microsoft even to this day, has no vendor drivers on their servers, and you have to look for product and vendor id's, to identify the products you have in the computer, and Google your way to the right drivers.


Autoconfig worked because it worked like PCI/MSDOS, roms where filed whit needed drivers.

As for PC CPU's they were seated in socket, so you can replace you 486SX whit 486DX, and you got small book describing how to set multiplayer and clock, it was easy, and sheep compared to this custom build accelerator boards or Amiga.
 
 I agree however that configuring memory on PC/MSDOS was hell.
Base mem, EMS, XMS, and high mem, and upper mem, really hated that.
  Having to disable the CDROM, and mouse driver or load it up in high mem to get enough base memory to load programs.

[Aegis]

Yes, PC's continued to evolve in directions the Amiga should have taken - the A4000T was the first (and last) Amiga to take a more modular approach.

My perspective on things though is that by the time the 486 came around (1989), the Amiga was already on an irreversible decline - its custom architecture kept it somewhat competitive with PCs of that time but in 1985 when the A1000 debuted, the Amiga quite literally blew away all the competition.

The A500 was hugely successful (particularly in Europe) but between 1987-1992 (introduction of the A1200) there was no significant improvements made to the Amiga line - 5 years may not seem like a lot but PC's changed drastically in that time.

Commodore didn't know how to sell the Amiga and they didn't anticipate the need to upgrade the line - most of their development went into cost-cutting so they could make old hardware cheaper - a legacy from the C64 I guess which was sold in the same basic configuration from 1982 'til 1995.

They were incredibly slow to market with things like hard disks and CD-ROM - of course, financial black-holes like the CDTV, A600 and their PC business didn't help...

[desiv]

Well the SCSI PCI cards came whit ROM that enabled you configure and boot from it,

Yes, but again, that's after the Amiga's intro..
PCI was introduced in 1993 and didn't become standard on PCs until 1994.

That's well after the A1200 was released...

What we are comparing is back when the Amiga had the edge.
In 1987, when the A500 was released, they had only just started releasing 386 based PCs (the first was the Compaq DeskPro 386 in 1986, and it was REALLY EXPENSIVE!!!).
So, most PCs were still XTs with 640k.  Yes some people had more memory (me, I had a 286 inboard and 2M RAM), but it wasn't very common..
Yeah, 640k was more than the standard 512k, but the Amiga performed well with it's 512k, and the extra money to go to 1M wasn't much, especially considering what you had to pay to get above 640k on a PC, and there wasn't much software that could even use it...

As for PC CPU's they were seated in socket, so you can replace you 486SX whit 486DX, and you got small book describing how to set multiplayer and clock, it was easy, and sheep compared to this custom build accelerator boards or Amiga.

Totally agree, but again that was much later in the cycle.
1989 was when the first 486s were released (and again were outrageously expensive) and the Amiga was at the top of his game...
This should have been when Commodore realized that the next model (the A1200) had to compete with that level of power..
But the 1200 (which I love) came out only competitive because of the "power of the Amiga" (OS and custom chipset) and not the power of the CPU and RAM.
Big mistake, although like you said, it could have been acceptable if the CPU/RAM upgrades weren't that expensive.
But those early 030's and 040's were pretty darn expensive.

At LEAST Commodore could have allowed us to add FAST RAM to the A1200 without needing a board..  Even those 4/8M boards were spendy, when compared to just buying some chips for the PC. (and they took up your slot, so you get an accelerator later, the RAM you bought is useless..)
 
If you can't beat the current, then at LEAST make it easy to upgrade..

Imagine the 1200 released with a replaceable / clock upgradeable 030 (maybe initially running just at 14Mhz, but you could buy a faster 030/clock to get it to 30Mhz if you wanted at the time???) WITH a SIMM slot so you could easily add at least 2M of FAST RAM.  

That would have made the initial Wolfenstein / GLOOMs at least competitive.  And with those more reasonable, then people would have been more likely in a few years to go for the 040 board with 4M of FAST RAM (or more) at 30Mhz and up.  

But for me at the time, the jump to an 030 was too spendy and not justifiable, and the 040's were so spendy that I was able to just upgrade my PC to 486 level for less.
(I was also starting to get paid for PC work by then, so having a newer PC at home was more beneficial than the Amiga..)

Oh well.. ;-)

desiv

[mikrucio]

are we arguing history again?>.....shame shame

[persia]

The VideoToaster lives on as the TriCaster, Lightwave also lives on.

[danbeaver]

are we arguing history again?>.....shame shame

 "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" -- George Santayana

[Djole]

As i understand things, Toster was never release for PAL (Europe). Why is that ? Since it was so popular in USA I am sure Europe would consume a lot of units too. Was Newtek too small at the time to setup a global network ?