From: Aric.Caley@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Future Amiga chipset
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Nov 17 1992
Date: 19 Dec 92  03:33:00

> Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
> From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett)
> Message-ID: <BzFyvK.127@news.iastate.edu>
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
>
> >  Lets  see,  when  did
> >MicroChannel  come  out..  1988?
>
>   1987.
>
> > or so?  And EISA was a after that.  Thats
> >what..  a 7 year wait?
>
>   The first 386s came out in 1986.  That's a one-year wait.  As I said, the
> original ISA bus was fine for 8088 and 80286 systems.  It wasn't until the
> first 386 systems came out that the ISA bus broke down.

Its  still  a  6-7 year wait from when the IBM first came out.  ISA sucked,
even  before  the  386.  It was "fine" for a 286, but only because that CPU
wasnt fast enough to really bring out the inadequecies [sp?] of ISA.

> > The Amiga came out in 1985, and we got Zorro III in
> >1990,  only a 5 year wait, for a bus standard that is supperior to anything
> >else.
>
>   Hardly.  The Zorro III bus is simple and sweet.  It works with the Moto
> 68000 series, and only with the Moto 68000 series.  It has few facilities to
> take advantage of advanced 64-bit RISC processors, for example, as

Same  as  EISA,  which  is the only 32 bit fast slot system that is actualy
being supported to any degree..

> MicroChannel does.  It gets the job done on '030 and '040 Amigas, and does
> this job very well.  But it cannot compete with MicroChannel as an advanced
> generalized system bus.

And  how  many  systems use MicroChannel?  Almost none.  The clone industry
thumbed  their  noses  at  IBM when they tried to make MicroChannel the new
standard.   So  they  created EISA.  ISA by FAR is the standard for old and
NEW  PC's.   EISA  is second, MicroChannel last.  If MicroChannel was/is so
great, why didnt the clone companies use it?

I  don't care how generalized MicroChannel is.  Zorro III is still at least
as good if not better.

> >How  many  IBM's have EISA or Microchannel?  Not very many.  And 99% of all
> >cards are for 16 bit ISA and will remain so for quite a while.
>
>   Lots of 486 systems have EISA.  With LocalBus having recently been
> standardized by VEGA, lots more will be getting it soon.

MOST  new  clones  do  not have EISA or MicroChannel.  The VAST majority of
installed  clones  are  ISA.   "Lots" doesnt mean a thing.  LocalBus is now
standardized?    Great,  yet  another  standard!   EISA,  MicroChannel  and
LocalBus.

And  talk about non-generalized busses - LocalBus is completely tied to the
Intel CPU.

> >Who cares?  If I wanted VM, I'd go buy Gigamem *right now*.
>
>   With GigaMem, and there guarantees that it will continue to be supported
> and updated?  Are there any guarantees that it will run under fewer OS
> versions?  The company that developed GigaMem could go out of business
> tomorrow, or Commodore could change something at any time to make GigaMem

The same can be said about ANY piece of software.

> no longer work.  A real Amiga virtual memory solution has to be supported
> by Commodore.

It  would  be nice, but I dont see it as a priority.  But get enough people
together who want it, and you may be able to prove that people want it more
than other things (like RTG, networking, DSP, new chips, new computers, new
everthing).  They DO listen sometimes.

> >It  depends  on  what  your  definition  of  decent  colour  capability is.
> >Apparently, you're still waiting, since you've said repeatedly that AGA and
> >the  A4000  were big disapointments.
>
>   Disappointments in non-interlaced resolution, chip RAM addressing, and
> audio capabilities.  The color capabilities are adequate, for now.

It sounds like are still waiting.

> >Meanwhile the rest of the Amiga world
> >has  had  the  Video Toaster, DCTV, DMI Resolver, Firecracker, etc etc, for
> >quite some time now.
>
>   With all but one being low-resolution interlaced video cards with slow
> screen updates, and the only one that isn't being hugely expensive.

DCTV  is  pretty  low-res,  admitedly.  Its also only $379.  The others ARE
hi-res.  And prices compare well to similar cards for the Mac.  The Toaster
is  SLOW?  Pardon moi?  Of course most of them are interlaced - the Amiga's
niche  is  video so naturaly, card makers cater to that.  DUH.  What do you
consider hi-res??

> >>How long will the Amiga market have to wait for
> >>updates to the sound capabilities in the lowest-common-denominator Amigas?
> >
> >Sunrize  DSP  card(S!)  are available now, there is a 32 voice 16 bit sound
> >card  based  on the E-mu proteous chips, and last but not least Commodore's
> >own  DSP  is  on the way.
>
>   Nice hardware.  What can I do with it?  Can DMCS use one of these DSP
> cards?  Can anything use one of these DSP cards?

DMCS  sucks.   Its OLD.  The E-Mu card claims to emulate MIDI, so that just
about  any  modern music program will work with it.  I'm not sure about the
Sunrize  card,  though  there  is  software with it.  And I am sure lots of
developers are already working on stuff for Commodore's DSP card.

How  is  the IBM or Mac any better off in this regard?  The standard on the
IBM is the SoundBlaster.  There are other cards but not much runs on them.

> > And what about the lowest-common-denominator IBM
> >clones?   Those  things have NO SOUNDS TO BE HEARD (quote from Red Dwarf :)
> >asside from a simple beeper.
>
>   The IBM systems also have NO VIDEO TO BE SEEN.  I guess Commodore should
> remove the Amiga video capabilities from the custom chips
> and replace it with a
> monochrome text chip.

No.   But  they should put the custom chips on a card.  Of course, this has
nothing to do with what I said.

The lowest common denominator IBM clone has no sound other than a beeper.
Of the machines that have sound, most are SoundBLasters.

The  LCD  Amiga  has 4 channel 8-bit sound.  Not great, but not bad either;
and better than SoundBlaster in many ways.

> >>How long will the Amiga market have to wait for memory protection and OS
> >>features to make AmigaOS virus-resistant?  How long will
> >>the Amiga market have
> >
> >No  OS  is  ever  virus-resistant.
>
>   OS/2 has virus-resistant features.  Granted, people will find ways around
> these features, but existing MS-DOS virii cannot harm an OS/2 machine.

Well   DUH.    MS-DOS   programs   are   "emulated"  in  an  "encapsulated"
envirionment,  and  are  totaly separated from one another.  OF course they
can't harm one another.  It would be fairly easy to do this on the Amiga as
well,  but  none  of the programs would interact in any way, and you'd have
multiple  copies  of  AmigaOS running and taking up memory.  Rediculous and
useless.

> > Memory protection is much harder to add
> >than  you  think.
>
>   It's also hard to add multitasking to an OS that was originally written
> without it.  but that never, ever stopped Amigoids from jumping on MS-DOS
> and
> Mac systems for not having good multitasking capabilities.

True.   However,  adding  multitasking  to  MS-DOS  (Windows)  and  the Mac
(multifinder)  did  not  cause the majority of software to break (not run).
Adding  memory  protection  to  the  Amiga would cause nearly EVERYTHING to
break!   We  have a small selection of software as it is.  MP doesnt do you
much good if there's nothing for it to protect.

> >>to wait for device-independent graphics?  How long will the Amiga market
> >
> >Not  long.
>
>   Only seven years and counting.  Not very long -- in geologic time.

Did  IBM's  and  Macs have DIG in 1985?  No.  The Mac got DIG in 1987 or so
(with  the  Mac  II).  That takes 2 years off your figure.  5 year wait and
counting.   IBM's didnt get it till some time after that (OS/2 and Windows,
which  both  sucked  really hard for a few years).  Now, again, like MP, if
they  had  added  DIG  in 1987, most applications would have ceased to run.
Not good.  That would have killed the Amiga.

> >  They're  working on it.  In the mean time, several third party
> >companies have created their own solutions to the problem.
>
>   That barely work.

They worked when I looked at them.

>   Use CD-ROM with what?  The Fish disc?  The AB20 disc?  CDTV titles which

Thats a start.

> are not guaranteed to run at all on Amigas, and which are written for a
> keypad and a low-res display, and which have no "Amiga" features?
>
>   Suppose I'd like to run something like the "Music Madness" Mac CD-ROM disc
> which contains 400M of music, tools and effects, and utilities to allow a
> person to build all kinds of tunes.  Is anything like this available for the
> Amiga?  Or how about something like the Mac "Trade Opportunities" CD which
> contains information about global trade from public and private sources?
>
>   I can count on one hand the number of Amiga CD-ROM products that are
> available.

Thats not Commodore's fault, entirely.  Go talk to those companies, and ask
them to do Amiga versions.

> >Ever  heard  of  the  DMI Digital Editmaster?  It digitizes, compresses and
> >saves  to  harddrive  full  colour video at 30FPS using JPEG compression at
> >ratios  from  15:1  to  70:1.   Naturaly, it will play it back also in real
> >time.  Who needs MPEG when you can do JPEG in real time.
>
>   JPEG was intended for still images.  Making JPEG work on animations in
> real time is a major kludge.  Ask anyone who is familiar with QuickTime.

Yeah.   QuickTime is software.  The DMI board is HARDWARE.  It uses JPEG in
REAL  TIME,  30  fps.  What more could you want?  JPEG compresses more than
MPEG will.

> > The list price is
> >$2495.
>
>    The MPEG decompression hardware for CD-I from Philips will list for $300,

Will.  *WILL*.  Not DOES.  ITS NOT OUT YET.  FOR ANY COMPUTER.

> and offer the same performance.  MPEG was developed for full-motion video,
> which is why it will be cheap.  Motorola is reportedly working on an MPEG
> decompression chip which will be available for $50 in big quanties.

And when that comes out, great.  But its not out yet.

There  is  nothing  wrong  with  JPEG  compression  hardware  that works in
real-time and ratios up to 70:1.  Especialy when you can buy one NOW.

> >>   Hardly.  In the PC industry, most of R&D is spent on software-oriented
> >>research and development.  The Amiga market seems must more infatuated
> with
> >
> >BULL.   Most  of  the  R&D  is spent on developing incredibly cheap crapola
> >hardware to sell to brainless consumers like you.
>

No argument?

> >>hot hardware and less oriented toward real computing applications.  This
> is
> >
> >Yeah.   We  have  all  kinds  of  hot hardware and no way at all to use it.
> >Sure.   Thousands  of  people bought Toasters and just dont know what to do
> >with them since there's no real software for it.
>
>   Have you ever contemplated that name "Video Toaster"?  The Video Toaster
> was developed as a standalone video appliance.  It needs no software other
> than what comes with it.

The  Toaster  in  one product among many.  And is there anything wrong with
the  Toaster software?  It doesn't need any other software because it comes
with it all already.

> -!-
> | Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
> -!------------------------------------------------

 -Dances With Coyotes - World's slowest programer-Given that God is infinate-
 -AKA Dances V2.0, Coyote, Critter, Magnet, Major-and  that  the universe is-
 -- Former Net-Lurker - YES, an AMIGA godammit! --also  infinate,  would you-
 --- Still limping along with AmigaOS 1.3  :(  ---like a toasted  tea  cake?-


--- Maximus 2.01wb
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy