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I'm confused by some of the model discussion in the text overlays in this. It mentions the A3000 and A4000 and describes them in ways that don't seem to match t

I'm confused by some of the model discussion in the text overlays in this. It mentions the A3000 and A4000 and describes them in ways that don't seem to match the actual products. It describes the A3000 as the first AA-based (AA was called AGA by the time it went to market) machine that was never released, but the Amiga 3000 was actually an ECS-based machine with a 68020 or 68030 CPU, a hard disk, and a built-in flicker fixer for solid VGA output. It did reach market and sold modestly. I owned one. It could be described as slapped together from Amiga 2000 parts, I guess. The A4000 is described as slapped together from A3000 parts, but it was actually the first AGA-based machine (followed by the 1200), with the whole new chipset and architecture, and a 68030 or 68040 CPU. On another front, the CD32, at the time, seemed like such a ridiculous distraction to me, and stories at the time seemed to indicated Commodore lost money on the massive bet they made on it. But, in everything I've read, the company really bet hard on it, and many folks who tell the story from inside seem to believe the CD32 was a great idea and maybe should have been pushed even harder. I don't know what to think of it. I loved my Amigas, and it was really heartbreaking to see Commodore fail so spectacularly, and seemingly because of extremely poor management. Reading the article yesterday about the various post-Tramiel CEOs was really interesting, and a story I'd never seen in its entirety. I mostly knew about the failures. Gould was well-known and well-hated at the time, the others and their various failings were less famous/infamous.

relaxitup 11y ago
Can you provide a link to the article about the post-Tramiel Commodore CEO's? Thanks.
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  http://www.filfre.net/2015/11/the-68000-wars-part-4-rock-lobster/ http://www.filfre.net/2015/11/the-68000-wars-part-4-rock-lob... It's pretty good, and definitely had a lot of business details I didn't know, like the fact that Rattigan actually had the company on a recovery path before Gould ousted him.
ZenoArrow 11y ago
> "I'm confused by some of the model discussion in the text overlays in this. It mentions the A3000 and A4000 and describes them in ways that don't seem to match the actual products." Knowing about the unreleased A3000+ may help clear up the confusion: http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/prototypes/a3000plus.html http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/prototypes/a3000plus.html Regarding the CD32, it was basically an A1200 with a CD drive. I think it had one CD32-only custom chip, I forget what it was called. In any case, it was possible to convert a CD32 into an A1200. The A1200 was a popular machine, I'm sure the CD32 would've lasted a little longer if Commodore didn't close, even if it was just lived on as a living room version of a desktop Amiga rather than as a pure games machine. As an aside, I believe the first GTA game was originally being developed for the Amiga, but the Amiga version was dropped after Commodore went bust. If the CD32 needed a 'killer app', it may have found it in GTA. That said, both the CD32 and the A1200 were a couple of years late IMO. I remember reading something from Dave Haynie saying that AGA could've been ready in 1990. If the CD32 was competing with the SNES and MegaDrive instead of the Saturn and PlayStation, I suspect it would've been a lot more successful. EDIT: My memory may have mangled this Haynie quote (different chipset, different year: http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/acutiator.html http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/acutiator.html I messed up on the quote, but considering OCS was released in 1985, 1990 for AGA doesn't seem too much of a stretch.
- EvanAnderson 11y ago
  The CD32-specific custom chip is Akiko (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_custom_chips#Akiko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_custom_chips#Akiko), which did chunky-to-planar conversion in hardware.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    Yeah, Akiko, that's the one.

relaxitup 11y ago

Can you provide a link to the article about the post-Tramiel Commodore CEO's? Thanks.

SwellJoe 11y ago
http://www.filfre.net/2015/11/the-68000-wars-part-4-rock-lobster/ http://www.filfre.net/2015/11/the-68000-wars-part-4-rock-lob... It's pretty good, and definitely had a lot of business details I didn't know, like the fact that Rattigan actually had the company on a recovery path before Gould ousted him.

ZenoArrow 11y ago

> "I'm confused by some of the model discussion in the text overlays in this. It mentions the A3000 and A4000 and describes them in ways that don't seem to match the actual products." Knowing about the unreleased A3000+ may help clear up the confusion: http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/prototypes/a3000plus.html http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/prototypes/a3000plus.html Regarding the CD32, it was basically an A1200 with a CD drive. I think it had one CD32-only custom chip, I forget what it was called. In any case, it was possible to convert a CD32 into an A1200. The A1200 was a popular machine, I'm sure the CD32 would've lasted a little longer if Commodore didn't close, even if it was just lived on as a living room version of a desktop Amiga rather than as a pure games machine. As an aside, I believe the first GTA game was originally being developed for the Amiga, but the Amiga version was dropped after Commodore went bust. If the CD32 needed a 'killer app', it may have found it in GTA. That said, both the CD32 and the A1200 were a couple of years late IMO. I remember reading something from Dave Haynie saying that AGA could've been ready in 1990. If the CD32 was competing with the SNES and MegaDrive instead of the Saturn and PlayStation, I suspect it would've been a lot more successful. EDIT: My memory may have mangled this Haynie quote (different chipset, different year: http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/acutiator.html http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/acutiator.html I messed up on the quote, but considering OCS was released in 1985, 1990 for AGA doesn't seem too much of a stretch.

EvanAnderson 11y ago
The CD32-specific custom chip is Akiko (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_custom_chips#Akiko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_custom_chips#Akiko), which did chunky-to-planar conversion in hardware.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  Yeah, Akiko, that's the one.