From: dburnett@emunix.emich.edu (Don Burnett)
Subject: Re: Avoid the Amiga 4000
Organization: Eastern Michigan University
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 16:15:06 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.193356.6639@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>   Over two and-a-half years ago, when the Amiga 3000 came out, many people
>remember how much I flamed the system because of the few improvements it 
>offered in the overall characteristics that make the Amiga an Amiga.  But to
>its credit, the A3000 did not head in reverse on any key technologies, either.
>The A3000 offered substantial improvements in areas such as display resolution,
>HD access, HD speed, and CPU speed.  It offered no improvements in the key
>areas of sound and color graphics capabilities.  But it was in no way worse
>than Amigas that came before it in any areas.
>
>   The A4000 is a different story.  With the A4000, the only substantial
>improvement is color.  And it becomes clearer every day at just what the costs
>have been to improve the color capabilities.  In the key area of display 
>resolution, the A4000 is substantially inferior to the A3000, do to the fact
>that the A3000 has a Display Enhancer and the A4000 does not.
>
 Since the display enhancer uses the same video slot, has anyone tried 
 sticking one of these in the A4000??? Would it de-interlace all of the
 old modes, and by flicking the switch you could bypass it?? The A2320
 just might work. I dare someone here on the net to try it..

>   The Display Enhancer in the A3000 is arguably its best feature.  It allows
>all resolution modes (except for the Super HiRes modes, which are limited in
>color capability on the A3000 anyway) to be boosted to a high-quality 31Khz
>display.  Resolution modes that were non-interlaced before are improved
>substantially by removing the scan-lines.  And interlaced modes are now totally
>flicker-free.  Because of the Display Enhancer, the A3000 is usable with lots
>of very high-quality monitors.  I know one person who found a bargain on a
>19" workstation monitor which syncs down to 31Khz, offers a brilliantly sharp
>picture with lots of colors (as many colors as any computer can put out),
>and just plain works beautifully with the A3000.  With the Display Enhancer,
>the user never has to worry about whether or not his or her monitor can sync
>down to 15Khz because it never has to.
> 
  Complaining because you can't run out and by a PC monitor for this 
  puppy is ridiculous.. The dblNTSC modes have the same characterisitics
  as their NTSC predecessors which are still present for compatibilty 
  reasons, plus video compatibility.. Has anyone tried renaming the 
  dblNTSC Icon to NTSC, or even with filezap and editing the monitor 
  file.. This sounds like a hack, but if I remember the 2.04 monitor
  ICONS in tooltypes you could rename the mode if you kept the address
  in hex the same.. 

  I don't think it's fair to complain about Commodore supporting new
  graphics modes. I think it's more fair to complain at developers for
  not having new software ready that supports these modes *NOW* We have
  had AmigaDOS 2.04 for over a couple of years and if these so-called
  Commercial developers were supporting 2.04 for real, not just the 
  look at feel we would have support for multiple graphics 
  graphics modes right now.. Not just those of the original graphics 
  chips. Commodore set forth standards and gave them and developers
  plenty of time to implement them.. Why doesn't Gold Disk, 
  Softlogik, etc. support the display database functionality that
  has been here for a while.. Commodore never ever said they would
  support de-interlacing as a forever feature (but gee doesn't 
  that seem to be what they have done with the dblNTSC modes). Why 
  doesn't ADPRO support public screens as a tooltype??

>   The A4000 is a totally different story.  At first, I was a little confused
>about the function of the scan-doubler and promoter features of the AGA Lisa
>video chip.  I thought at first that Commodore had basically moved the 
>Display Enhancer internally to the Lisa chip.  I realise now that I was wrong.
>The scan-doubler is not new at all, and is present in pretty much the same
>form in the ECS Denise.  In fact, it should be possible to generate the 
>A4000's DblPAL and DblNTSC modes on any Amiga with the ECS Denise, but with
>very tight color restrictions.  I have also found that the "Promoter" is not
>hardware at all, but simply a function of AmigaDOS 3.0.  With 3.0, the OS
>can be told to intercept calls to open NTSC and PAL screens, and open DblNTSC
>and DblPAL screens instead.  This has lots and lots of problems, though, which
>I will get to in a bit.
>  
  I hope someone from Commodore clarifies this because this doesn't make
  sense to me what you are saying.. Scan doubling the NTSC modes to 
  de-interlace them seems like a compatible way of doing things to me..

  However some people may think that you mean scan doubling NTSC modes 
  on the ECS would be the same thing as productivity mode in the multiscan
  monitor icon from workbench, which it's not because they have distictly
  different pixel screen sizes (640x400 versus 640x480).. Also, technically
  the mode works different too as I understand it with relation to sprites
  etc..

>   The biggest problem with the A4000 by far is its lack of a Display Enhancer.
>With the A4000, it is no longer possible to purchase a monitor that will only
>handle scan frequencies of 31Khz and up.  If an Amiga problem insists on 
>opening a standard 15Khz NTSC or PAL mode screen, the screen will be opened
>at 15Khz no matter what.  The "Promotion" feature of the OS only works for 
>a tiny few, well-written Amiga programs, and no games.  This means that a user
>of an A4000 will have to put up with a flickering display in programs such
>as PageStream, and games such as SimAnt and SimEarth that can open interlaced
>screens.  And there will be nothing that the user will be able to do about it
>until the software is updated to support the A4000.  Additionally, all games
>will have scan-lines on an A4000.
> 

  Awe Gee, why should we blame Commodore for this problem, when these
  developers have had way long enough to support 2.04 features including
  the display database in full.. I haven't seen a truly 2.04 specific
  program yet.. Even ADPRO which supports 2.x much better than any
  program out there (I could say that about 3.x too!) still is 1.3 
  runnable, and doesn't support the 2.x display database feature..

  Nothing the owner can do?? Why not write the so called commercial  
  developers now and tell them to truly support 2.04 at least.. This
  is ridiculous.. There can't be *THAT* many owners still only using
  1.3.. If so I'd be suprised.. 

  Also, why doesn't someone sit down and write a hack or a new monitor
  icon that just substitutes the dblntsc modes for the ntsc modes..  
  It can't be that difficult..  If it only works on productivity 
  software that's just fine.. Most people who own 4000's this early
  on probably didn't buy them to run 1.3 games on it..

  Also here is a temporary fix for A4000 owners now with multiscans:
   Set the display to dblntsc mode on the workbench.. 
   Under the tooltypes of Pagestream or Pro Page etc.. type the 
   following: 

     SCREEN=WORKBENCH   

   Save the tooltypes out and run your program.. It won't take 
   advantage of the extra colors, but it will allow you to open 
   your software on a flicker free 16 color display, and because
   the software will only use 4 of those colors it should be 
   blazingly fast on the A4000.. Now you can run your favorite
   productivity software (except DPAINT) until a new version
   of it works with your extra colors and just might support
   the extended palette as well..

>   It gets worse, though.  With the A4000, it is no longer possible to use
>high-quality monitors that can only sync to frequencies of 31Khz and up.  To
>be usable on an A4000, the monitor **MUST** be able to sync as low as 15Khz.
>This is because of the very reasons I stated above.  If a user were to try to
>use a VGA or multisync monitor that cannot handle the 15Khz frequencies, the
>display would by reduced to garbage every time a program or game opened a
>15Khz NTSC or PAL screen.  Don't worry, it gets even worse than this.  It
>turns out that the DblPAL and DblNTSC modes are output at 29Khz, not 31Khz.
>This means that if a monitor were used that cannot sync to frequencies lower
>than 31Khz, the only modes usable would be the few and unsupported VGA modes
>(including the Productivity mode).
> 
  Some people think if you have enough money to buy an A4000 you might 
  be able to afford a new monitor which takes advantage of it's new 
  modes and the 1960 isn't that expensive..
  
  Also many of the older Multiscanning monitors which aren't
  being made anymore can do 15Khz and up to 1024x768 interlaced on a PC
  which you are not using it for anyway.. With the A4000 who needs high
  VGA frequencies anyway, especially if the hardware doesn't support it.

  This is a good opportunity for a lot of PC owners to sell their used
  1024x768 SuperVGA monitors on misc.forsale to people who want them 
  now, since they have been going real cheap because PC people want
  the non-interlaced type..

>   What would this mean to someone such as the person I mentioned above, who
>already has a monitor that cannot sync lower than 31Khz?  If this person were
>to "upgrade" from an A3000 to an A4000, he or she would have to borrow a
>monitor that can handle the 15Khz frequencies just to boot the machine.  This
>is because the A4000 probably defaults to a 15Khz 640x200 NTSC mode as it is
>configured out of the box.  The user would have to borrow a low-frequency 
>monitor just to adjust the preferences to yield a Productivity screen, so
>that the system would be at all usable.  And even then the system would be
>only marginally usable, as every other program and all games produced a
>garbaged display on the monitor.  
> 
  You intimate that the problem is not fixable through software could
  someone from CATS please clarify..

>   In short, many A3000 owners who have been using high-quality monitors will
>have to replace their monitors with inferior ones usable on the A4000.  I have
>thoroughly checked to monitors that can handle frequencies as low as 15Khz,
>and few such monitors have ever been manufactured.  Many of the ones that
>were developed have been discontinued since I checked for them over two years
>ago.  The Commodore monitors are just about the only monitors available now
>that will work with the A4000.
>
>

 Gee, that means there must be some very inexpensive used ones out there
 available from PC owners looking to sell it to get a 72hz non-lace model
 for  their PC's right?? Otherwise new owners will have to buy the 
 Commodore brand monitor and make things just a little more profitable
 for Commodore and it's dealers so they can stay in business right??

>   The point of all of this is that it has become clear to me lately just how
>much the A4000 retrogrades in the important area of non-interlaced display 
>resolution.  The system is vastly inferior to the A3000 in this respect.  So
>I seriously recommend that anyone considering the purchase of an A4000 not
>purchase one, at least until a Display Enhancer becomes available for it. 
>Some people might want to simply abandon the A4000 altogether, purchase an
>A3000 instead, and upgrade it with a third-party video card as soon as DIG
>becomes available for the Amiga.  (The A4000 retrogrades in more than just the
>area of display resolution, though.  Due to its use of IDE instead of SCSI,
>the A4000 retrogrades in the area of HD access and HD speed as well)
>  
  Hard disk access may be a definite question here, but why wait for a 3rd
  party, the video slot is free in the A4000 why not try to stick a 
  2320 in it and see if it works.. It should work because the video 
  slot is backwards compat. *IF* there isn't any weirdness going on..

  All you have really done is suggested that Commodore hasn't fixed the
  flicker problem.. If the software developers were doing what they 
  should for the past two years this wouldn't be a problem.. except with
  some old games.s. Most people who know about the operating system think
  this could be fixed easily in software. Why make it a big issue.. It's
  a shrt term growing pain problem..

  Has anyone tried plugging in a GVP or some other maker SCSI controller
  into the A4000's zorro III? It should work if you really can't make
  due with the built-in until some 3rd party or Commodore comes out with
  a SCSI-II controller that makes Zorro III scream...

>   BTW, so far the odd-numbered Amigas (A1000 and A3000) have turned out to
>be the marginally good systems, and the even-numbered Amigas (A2000 and A4000)
>have turned out to be disappointing pieces of shit.  I hope this trend does 
>not continue.  But even if it does, at least it bodes well for the A5000.
>

 Sounds like you are really upset here at Commodore.. Why promogate the
 rumor that Amiga graphics still flicker?? Someone e-mailed me who hadn't
 seen the machine and asked me that.. I said yes, some of the old modes
 do, but wait until you start using the new 8 bit modes and HAM8 modes
 that don't. The new modes and speed far outway these temporary problems
 that are severely magnified.. Are you buying the new machine on the
 potential the new capabilities ad, or are you buying it just to stay
 compatible with what you had.. If so, keep your old machine and buy
 a PC or A MAC to go along side it.. That should solve the problem..
 Me I am buying on the new products potential. I also will buy hardware
 like a monitor made specifically to take advantage of it, not for
 some other platform..

 Marc: Note I am not flaming you, nor defending my purchase as so many
 people have here (or C= for that matter).. I have a 486 also sitting
 around here too.. I like it, but it has other deficientcies where the
 Amiga does not as well.. On a whole I still like the Amiga better..
 Note I also need to learn how to spell better or at least learn how
 to use the unix spell checker..

 =DonB=

>---
>| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
>--------------------------------------------------
>           Amiga 4000:  JUST SAY NO!!!!


-- 
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