From: mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A 386 AmigaClone?!
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16f (beta) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith
Date: 30 Aug 92 17:09:54 PST
Organization: Amiga makes it possible

In article <92241.164903MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> Norman St. John Polevaulter <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
> In article <mykes.0d1y@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG>, mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike
> Schwartz) says:
>
> >In article <92235.010235MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu (Norman St.
> >John Polevaulter) writes:
> >> Mike, I hope you take this in a friendly way, but...
> >>
> >> It seems like you want the Amiga to become yet another PC clone.
> >> Do you really think that Yet Another 386 Clone, manufactured by Commodore
> >> (not the best marketers in the world, if that's a surprise to anyone), and
> >> with all the baggage on the side required to kludge the Amiga system onto
> >> that 386, is going to come out with an MSRP cheaper than an ordinary 386
> >clone?
> >>
>
> >Competitive with that ordinary 386 clone.
>
> Well, we start with the cost of a 386 clone. Let's say $1200. This is with
> MS-DOS, of course. Now how much extra would one have to pay for the Amiga
> grafted onto it? $200? $300? THAT determines how competitive it is.
>

You have the price wrong.  That 386 clone costs $399 in a minitower case.  Add
the Amiga chipset of choice:  AA, AAA, AAAA, etc...  And AmigaOS ported to the
386 - a significant effort, but one unlike the CBM Unix effort.

> >> Will it be worth crashing nine-tenths of the Amiga software in existence?
> >> (You thought switching from Kickstart 1.3 to Kickstart 2.0 was bad... on
> >> second thought, nine-tenths is an understatement!)
> >>
>
> >It is my opinion and that of MANY developers that 2.0 should have broken      s
> >9/10th
> >of existing software.
>
> No offense, but I'm not sure I believe this. Are these developers who have
> actually produced programs that would be broken?
>

Yes.  We developers would like to see the RIGHT change made all at once rather
than a series of backwards-compatible kludges hacked in over time.  And frankly,
the cost to CBM's engineering efforts for these compatibilities have been staggering.

>   But in exchange for that, we should have DIG, MP, and  ,
> >VM
> >among other things.  Switching CPUs at the same time would break the remaining
> >apps, but we'd still be getting everything the Amiga needs allatonce.
>
> And starting over FROM SCRATCH. With NO software base (for the Amiga side)
> whatsoever! DIG, MP, and VM are already available in OS/2, so a Completely
> New, Breaks All Previous Software OS for the Amiga side is still not much of
> an attraction. If we're throwing out ALL software in the name of a better OS,
> this OS has to be SPECTACULARILY better just to compete with the IBM side
> of the machine!
>

NO software base for the Amiga side.  False.  How much of the fred fish disk
collection would port over?  The 68K assembly stuff would have to be recoded.
The effort to port something like ProWrite should also be relatively easy.
If CBM did make the switch, they would have to get someone like SAS to
make a DOS compatible and AmigaOS/386 compatible compiler and development
system.

Spectacularly better is exactly what you'd have.  And a future.  And a market
in the US and Japan even.


> The main attraction of the Amiga at the moment is for video. All video
> boards, software, et cetera in existence (including the beloved Video Toaster)
> will be (excuse the pun) useless on this hybrid Amiga. Bang goes another
> reason to buy...
>

I didn't say CBM should stop making 68K based computers, did I?  And instead
of video toaster, you use PC toaster :)  If CBM can sell A600s in Europe,
great!  If they can sell A4000s to TV stations, great!  But if they want to
sell to business and the home in quantity, they have to do a radical change from
what is obviously a failure.

> >And all the software SOURCE code isn't worthless, you know.  Especially if it
> >is in 'C' like so many developers code.  Anything you use off a fish disk now
> >can be recompiled, right?
>
> Um, no offense, but you can't just jump over to another platform and
> recompile all software and have it work fine. You're a developer yourself.
> You've GOT to know this.
>

I'm not saying ALL software.  The software that counts WILL be ported.

> And anyway, how many developers are going to actually DO this? Quite a lot
> would have to "recompile" the machine code segments, too (NewTek, for example.)
> Faced with the task of rewriting every single one of their products, developers
> will rise as one and utter the words "Yeah, right."
>

The 68K assembly stuff won't port easily.  Right.  I know.  This is not a hole
in my proposal.  If CBM ever needed to switch CPUs to go ALPHA (pipe dream), then
the same problem exists.  It is likely that the Assembly programs wouldn't work
even if CBM made the radical changes to the 68K line of Amigas...

> >> Will it be worth alienating the thousands of Amiga developers worldwide,    e
> >whose
> >> specialized knowledge of the 680x0 is now useless? Watch Amiga development
> >> drop to zero instantly.
> >>
>
> >I didn't say to stop making 68K Amigas.  Just to make an Amiga that the
> >general population might buy to increase the potential market.
>
> Two problems:
>
> 1. This x86 Amiga has no software beyond ordinary PC clone software, and
>    is more expensive. Why buy it instead of something else?
>

Not more expensive.  Competitive.

> 2. Now you've split the Amiga user community right down the middle. The

CBM split the Amiga user community in half with the A500 and A2000.  Now
they are doing it again with the new computer.  Watch and see.

>    Wonderful New x86 Breaks Everything OS DOESN'T WORK on the 68K-based
>    Amigas that you want C= to keep making, so the millions of 68K Amiga
>    owners (as well as anyone who buys new 68K ones) are basically shafted
>    as far as getting the cool new OS is concerned.

CBM already has our 68K machine dollars.

>    Plus developers will have to
>    write two wildly different versions of each product to run on both lines
>    of Amigas. With 4 million familiar 68K-based machines on one side,
>    and a couple thousand unfamiliar x86-based machines on the other side,
>    which one do you think they'll ignore in favor of the other?
>

We're talking about 'C' programs.  You just use -68K switch to the compiler or
makefile and you get a 68K binary instead of x86.  DOS programs could work as
well as with a bridgeboard, since you are running on the bridgeboard's big
brother.  You should even be able to run them from the CLI! :)

>    Hint: Remember the Commodore Plus/4 and C-16.
>
> > I'm not fond of the x86
> >in general, but I do see the clone universe moving steadily towards Risc
> >technology, bringing millions of people in and the prices down.  That's a big
> >boat to miss.
>
> As if Motorola IS going to "miss the boat." They're not stupid. If RISC
> becomes a majorly important technology for mid- to low-end computers,
> Motorola will be there. So what if Intel is too? They're not automatically
> better, ya know. Whether Commodore catches the boat along with Motorola
> is a different subject entirely, of course.
>

No, Intel is not automatically better.  They are usually first and cheaper
and more widely used.

> And re, prices: x86's are cheaper, but 68k's are cheap enough. What's the
> current price for a 68030 now, $75?
>

I hope your numbers here are better than your 386 machine priced above :)

> >> Is this strange project even possible to accomplish in the short time frame
> >> before 386es are passe and something entirely new takes their place?
> >>
>
> >It could be accomplished before CBM stopped making 68000 computers :)
>
> The Second Coming of Christ will arrive before CBM stops THAT... :)
>

Agreement?

> >> Is anyone going to even *use* the Amiga mode of this bizarre machine? If
> >> it becomes Yet Another PC Clone, it will sink into mediocrity with the
> >> rest of them.
>
> >You'd obviously use the Amiga mode to run Amiga software.  Stuff that calls
> >the amiga libraries (exec, gfxbase, intuition, etc.).
>
> But there isn't going to BE any Amiga software! It all broke, remember?
>

The stuff that needs to be ported will be.

> My point above was that an Amiga mode with OS/2 like capabilities but no
> software whatsoever will be totally overshadowed by the PClone mode with
> identical capabilities and piles of software. I'm not just whistling Dixie
> here; past examples include --
>
> Commodore 128. The C-128 mode was somewhat more powerful but not hugely
> so. They sold 3 million, yet I can count the commercial packages for the
> 128 mode on the fingers of one hand.
>

C-128 was not CBM's OS running on two cpus.  IT was 2 CBM OSes running on
two cpus.  That's a major difference.  But if CBM had built a PC/C64 combo,
that might have actually been a winner - and kept the C64 software market
much more alive than it is.  But this is also a long long time ago.

> Apple IIgs. Much greater capabilities for the IIgs mode, yet this thing
> spends all its time imitating an Apple II.
>

The IIgs is still supported, if I am not mistaken.  And the IIgs mode was
the best part of the machine and it was taken advantage of.

> Tandy PClones. These things have their own specialized window system and OS.
> They also run ordinary PC software. Tandy is making money off of them, but
> how many developers write for the Tandy window system? (This is the scenario
> I see if, improbably enough, the x86 Amigas DO sell. They'll come with an
> Amiga hanging off the side which nobody ever uses; for all intents and
> purposes, Just Another PC clone. Yawn.)
>

We're talking more like MS-Windows than like Tandy's SW.  10,000,000 people
bought windows.  Doesn't the AmigaOS have enough commercial quality software
to be desireable to people who want to run PC programs, too?

> >Major innovation: better graphics, faster machines, and newer system software.
> >That sounds like you describe the PC world and not the Amiga world.
>
> Yes, we need better graphics, faster machines, and newer system software.
> I just think an x86 Amiga, at least the one you describe, is totally
> wrongheaded. IMHO, and no offense intended.
>

CBM would have a very hard time selling the A3000 for $1000.  That's sad.
Selling 386/486 boxes is a no-brainer.

> > I see the
> >Amiga software making NO concessions to anything that exists for DOS boxes
> >today.
>
> I don't understand what this means.

Amiga software is amiga software.  It calls Exec and Intuitition and GfxBase
directly.  The MS-DOS software doesn't.  So what?

>
> >> You're a smart guy, I'd expected better than that.
>
> >I expected the insults...
>
> They're not insults! You're a developer, you've programmed Amigas, you've
> written cool games, you're ten times more experienced than anyone I know.
> So I just didn't expect a weird idea like this to come from YOU.
>

You may think it's wierd, but it is certainly of the radical nature that
CBM needs to make.  What they are doing and have done over the years and
under many different upper managements has been a loser.  This kind of change
would allow them to get serious notoriety and recognition.

> [Your blood pressure just went up.]       Mark Sachs IS: mbs110@psuvm.psu.edu
>        DISCLAIMER: If it ain't money, Penn State doesn't care about it.
>    "Ladies and gentlemen, I've suffered for my music! Now it's your turn!"

--
Amiga programmer of: GRn, MailMinder, Budokan, Beyond Dark Castle, Dark Castle
Sega Genesis programmer of: Dick Tracy and Marble Madness.
Mike Schwartz  (ames!zorch!amiga0!mykes or mykes@amiga0.sf-bay.org)
1124 Fremont Ave.
Los Altos, CA 94024