From: long@incubus.adsp.sub.org (Joerg Meenen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: A4000, really?
Date: 4 Sep 92 03:34:46 GMT
Organization: ImageArts/Amtek

hi brian
you asked for information on the new amigas? here you are ...
i found this article in the "incubus" bbs in germany.

I've been chomping at the bit to speak out and right now I just don't        
care about the non-disclosure agreements.  We have been beta-testing         
the A4000 and another model which may be called the A1000 Classic,           
A800, or possibly some other name.  Both are based on the AA chipset and should be able to hold their own against other machines on the           
market, but there are still a few areas where they are lacking. The A4000 is pretty much an A3000 with an 040 on the motherboard, the        
AA chipset instead of the ECS, and beta 2.1 ROMS.  Ours has 16M fast         
RAM and 4M chip, expandable to 64M and 16M respectively. ZIP RAM like       
that in the A3000 is used, but there is a chance that production             
machines will go to SIMMS. Our machine has a 105M Quantum hard drive        
and a true full- speed high-density floppy. The expansion slots are         
Zorro III and appear to be identical to those on the A3000. I am not        
positive, but the cpu slot looks to be the same as the one found on          
the A3000.The other machine is housed in pizza-box style case 3" high and 15"          
wide and deep.  It has a 16MHz 030, the AA chipset, 2.1 ROMS, and            
sockets for up to 16M fast RAM and 4M chip RAM. It has the same             
floppy drive as the A4000, but the hard drive is only a 52M Quantum.There is a daughterboard with two Zorro III slots and one inline video       
slot, but it looks to be very cramped in there. The cpu slot is in          
the same orientation as that of the A3000 and A4000, but there is not        
much clearance. It is a very nice compact package and manages to look       
even "sexier" than the A3000/A4000.
Both machines sport the same I/O ports, starting with the same ports         
found on the A3000. SCSI and parallel ports, as are the RGBA, VGA,        
and audio ports.  There is a microphone port that works with the built-      
in digitizer, with 8bit 22kHz sampling possible.  Not exactly CD             
quality, but better than the toy CODEC samplers found on the NeXT,machine, with the joystick ports stacked vertically.  This stacking          
leaves just enough room for a pair of MIDI ports and another port that       
was covered with a plastic cap on both of our units. We pried it off         
and it looks like a PCMIA slot, but we've not been able to confirm           
this.  Given that the A600 has one, this would not be a bad idea,            
but it seems odd that it was covered up like that.
The new mouse looks to be the same as the pregnant mouse, but the            
A3000 came with a three button and the other machine a two button.           
Both had standard A3000 keyboards. ike existing Amigas instead of a       
new breed. The most shocking thing about            
these machines is how much they feel like existing Amigas instead of a       
new breed. 
The AA chipset is a real improvement over the ECS, but it may not be         
enough to keep the Amiga competitive for another 7 years.  Some of the       
chips are similar to those in the ECS, but none look to be drop-in           
replacements for existing machines.  Agnus, Denise, and Paula have           
been improved and all three are now surface mount chips roughly the          
size of the fat Agnus. There are three other chips that have tape            
covering the names, but one of them is certainly an Amber type de-           
interlacer chip.  It has what 1M of VRAM in order to handle the              
increased color depths and de-interlaces all but the highest                 
resolution modes.  We peeled back the tape a bit on the other two            
and one is named Lisa, the other was just  a number. The Lisa chip          
appears to be responsible for the graphics, but its relationship with        
Agnus and Denise is not so clear.  The other chip may be the rumored         
DSP chip, but none of the software we have mentions it specifically.There is an A/D chip for the microphone and two D/A chips for the            
audio in the same general area, so they are probably related.
Amiga owners will be surprised at some of the features of the AA             
chipset and disappointed with others.  The resolutions supported are         
similar to those of the ECS, with the addition of the 800x300, 800x600       
interlaced, 1280x480,  and 1280x960 interlaced.  The Amber de-                
interlacer works with all of the modes, but most SVGA monitors can't         
handle the non-interlaced 1280x960 mode.  All modes can be up to 8           
bitplanes except for the 1280 modes, which  are limited to six.  The          
palette is 24 bit, but there is a way to simulate 12 bit for compatibility with some older software. A pleasant surprise is the           
SuperHAM mode which uses 10 bits to allow for pseudo-24 bit color.           
This works in the 320 and 640 modes and is nothing short of                  
spectacular, with the bonus of being able to handle up to 30fps for          
some amazing animation.  The 800 and 1280 modes have 8 bit 256k color        
and 6 bit 4096 color HAM modes, respectively.  There is still a              
problem with fringing on raw images, but the  better programs seem to         
do a pretty good job with reducing the problem.  The sprites now             
change to match the resolution of the screen, so pointers look much          
more professional. They may be up to 64 pixels wide, with no height          
limitation.  There are still only eight per scanline, but the number         
of colors is up to 16 in all modes except for 1280, which is onlyfour.  All in all, these Amigas have graphics that hold their own            
against offerings for the PC and Mac, but they won't be able to last         
for another seven years without improvement.

... so far.
i am not sure, but i think a guy called daniel drum posted this arrticle.
thanx daniel.

bye and prost.

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