5 ms·

I rememver using Amiga to circa 1993 when the problems for Commodore was quickly getting apparent. Switching to PC was weird. It felt like I moved from a platfo

by jug 11y ago

I rememver using Amiga to circa 1993 when the problems for Commodore was quickly getting apparent. Switching to PC was weird. It felt like I moved from a platform with good sound and graphics to PC speaker and barely VGA. I quickly had to adjust to the new world of essential expansion cards. Not a world I particularly enjoyed. I kept being puzzled why they didn't just put in awesome miltimedia hardware and custom designed the whole system for it.

agumonkey 11y ago
The question was more why did the market react more to subpar clones rather than a nice builtin box like the Amiga. I was too young to know, was it much more expensive than the average PC ? or lack of mainstream game / soft ?
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  The classic excuses for getting a computer back in the day was to 'help the kids with their homework' or to do work at home. Even though the Amiga was capable of being a business machine, it was seen as a hobbyist/gaming machine. If the Amiga had native support for the leading business software (Lotus 1-2-3, etc...) and had the option to work with the IBM-PC compatible disk format, things could've turned out differently. Then again, that was just one of the many missed opportunities with the Amiga.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    I can't say 'need for school' wasn't how I bargained with my mother to get a modem. I can see how people would not spend money on this machine. Which is absurd knowing how it unleashed so many creativity ...
  - Annatar 11y ago
    Amiga DID have the "option to work with the IBM-PC compatible disk format": starting with AmigaOS 2.# (KickStart 37.###), the operating system came with the MS-DOS FAT driver. One could either have it loaded by explicitly clicking on the "PC0" icon in the "DOSDrivers" drawer (directory), or have it be automatically loaded by putting the relevant commands in S:User-Startup. DF0: would then have the equivalent PC0:, DF1: PC1:, DF2: PC2: and DF3: (the fourth floppy drive) PC3:. The Amiga floppy drives could read double or high density floppies formatted at 720 KB (although in general, DS-HD floppies were unreliable when formatted at low density 720 KB capacity); if one installed high density floppy drives, the MS-DOS FAT driver could read and write 1.44, and up to 2.88 MB MS-DOS, FAT formatted floppies.
    - ZenoArrow 11y ago
      Didn't know that, thanks for the tip. Shame it didn't have the leading business software to go along with it.
    - rasz_pl 11y ago
      > if one installed high density floppy drives no, unless you mean _one_ particular model sold with Amiga 4000 - chinon FZ357A spinning at half the rpm. Amiga doesnt have traditional fdc controller with hardware MFM/NRZI encoder, instead uses part of audio chip for serialization and operates on raw data stream. Problem is Paula can only handle 500Kbit/s, while HD floppies require 1000Kbit/s. http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=55344 http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=55344
      - anexprogrammer 11y ago
        That was another of the issues that 3000+, and the new Paula + peripheral chips was pegged to resolve. 3000+ was meant to be enough of a step forward to buy time to release AAA. Those 3000+ chips were just about ready if I remember right. Cancelling AAA was an Ali cost decision, it would probably have been well received releasing AAA even late 90s. A4000 was a horrible low budget kludge as there was no money for anything 90/91 on.
        rasz_pl 11y ago
        No it wouldnt. Amiga was dead man walking due to culture of clueless management at Commodore. Tramiel took pride in not knowing a first thing about computers, he would be as happy selling cars or meat. His replacement was even worse, not to mention rest of the management. Besides world moved on, even cheaper Sega Megadrive was better, never mind PlayStation. Then came the revolution, 1997 was the year of real 3D accelerators, Voodoo/Riva 128, 1998 Voodoo2/tnt. Amiga still couldnt muster a doom clone running at 320x240 above 7 fps while PC saw Quake 2, Unreal, half-life, Tribes and Thief.
        anexprogrammer 11y ago
- aidenn0 11y ago
  There are a lot of answers to that. Price was an issue, and PC-compatibles very quickly became a race-to-the-bottom in the 90s, putting a lot of PC makers out of business. Commodore had a lot of self-imposed issues as well, which you can read about in this series of articles.
  - samastur 11y ago
    No, it wasn't. Amiga500 cost about 1000 German marks. PC cost about 2500 and you got a Hercules card and appalling sound. It took a while before PC made any financial sense except of course if you had to use applications available only on DOS/Windows.
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      Respect the laws of marketing or you will only be a cult classic footnote in the history of mankind.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Price and modularity. Yes, the 2000 series (and later) had expansion slots etc. But most people knew the Amiga via the 500, 600 and 1200 keyboard computers. And even with the expandability, the core magic lived within the custom chipset that basically acted like a second computer. In comparison, everything but CPU and RAM lived on expansion boards in the PC.

by jug 11y ago

agumonkey 11y ago

The question was more why did the market react more to subpar clones rather than a nice builtin box like the Amiga. I was too young to know, was it much more expensive than the average PC ? or lack of mainstream game / soft ?

ZenoArrow 11y ago
The classic excuses for getting a computer back in the day was to 'help the kids with their homework' or to do work at home. Even though the Amiga was capable of being a business machine, it was seen as a hobbyist/gaming machine. If the Amiga had native support for the leading business software (Lotus 1-2-3, etc...) and had the option to work with the IBM-PC compatible disk format, things could've turned out differently. Then again, that was just one of the many missed opportunities with the Amiga.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  I can't say 'need for school' wasn't how I bargained with my mother to get a modem. I can see how people would not spend money on this machine. Which is absurd knowing how it unleashed so many creativity ...
- Annatar 11y ago
  Amiga DID have the "option to work with the IBM-PC compatible disk format": starting with AmigaOS 2.# (KickStart 37.###), the operating system came with the MS-DOS FAT driver. One could either have it loaded by explicitly clicking on the "PC0" icon in the "DOSDrivers" drawer (directory), or have it be automatically loaded by putting the relevant commands in S:User-Startup. DF0: would then have the equivalent PC0:, DF1: PC1:, DF2: PC2: and DF3: (the fourth floppy drive) PC3:. The Amiga floppy drives could read double or high density floppies formatted at 720 KB (although in general, DS-HD floppies were unreliable when formatted at low density 720 KB capacity); if one installed high density floppy drives, the MS-DOS FAT driver could read and write 1.44, and up to 2.88 MB MS-DOS, FAT formatted floppies.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    Didn't know that, thanks for the tip. Shame it didn't have the leading business software to go along with it.
  - rasz_pl 11y ago
    > if one installed high density floppy drives no, unless you mean _one_ particular model sold with Amiga 4000 - chinon FZ357A spinning at half the rpm. Amiga doesnt have traditional fdc controller with hardware MFM/NRZI encoder, instead uses part of audio chip for serialization and operates on raw data stream. Problem is Paula can only handle 500Kbit/s, while HD floppies require 1000Kbit/s. http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=55344 http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=55344
    - anexprogrammer 11y ago
      That was another of the issues that 3000+, and the new Paula + peripheral chips was pegged to resolve. 3000+ was meant to be enough of a step forward to buy time to release AAA. Those 3000+ chips were just about ready if I remember right. Cancelling AAA was an Ali cost decision, it would probably have been well received releasing AAA even late 90s. A4000 was a horrible low budget kludge as there was no money for anything 90/91 on.
      - rasz_pl 11y ago
        No it wouldnt. Amiga was dead man walking due to culture of clueless management at Commodore. Tramiel took pride in not knowing a first thing about computers, he would be as happy selling cars or meat. His replacement was even worse, not to mention rest of the management. Besides world moved on, even cheaper Sega Megadrive was better, never mind PlayStation. Then came the revolution, 1997 was the year of real 3D accelerators, Voodoo/Riva 128, 1998 Voodoo2/tnt. Amiga still couldnt muster a doom clone running at 320x240 above 7 fps while PC saw Quake 2, Unreal, half-life, Tribes and Thief.
        anexprogrammer 11y ago
aidenn0 11y ago
There are a lot of answers to that. Price was an issue, and PC-compatibles very quickly became a race-to-the-bottom in the 90s, putting a lot of PC makers out of business. Commodore had a lot of self-imposed issues as well, which you can read about in this series of articles.
- samastur 11y ago
  No, it wasn't. Amiga500 cost about 1000 German marks. PC cost about 2500 and you got a Hercules card and appalling sound. It took a while before PC made any financial sense except of course if you had to use applications available only on DOS/Windows.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    Respect the laws of marketing or you will only be a cult classic footnote in the history of mankind.
digi_owl 11y ago
Price and modularity. Yes, the 2000 series (and later) had expansion slots etc. But most people knew the Amiga via the 500, 600 and 1200 keyboard computers. And even with the expandability, the core magic lived within the custom chipset that basically acted like a second computer. In comparison, everything but CPU and RAM lived on expansion boards in the PC.