4 ms·

It's my understanding that AAA was supposed to be the successor to ECS, but business problems forced the creation of AGA, a stop-gap (so they thought) successor

It's my understanding that AAA was supposed to be the successor to ECS, but business problems forced the creation of AGA, a stop-gap (so they thought) successor since ECS was rapidly becoming too out-of-date to compete with PCs. Commodore never resolved its business problems and the rest is history.

snvzz 4y ago
Furthermore, Ranger, not ECS, was supposed to be the successor of OCS, with much higher specs. Ranger was even finished and ready to go, but CBM management decided against it. It would have shipped around 1988. Management culture of overruling architects was one of many reasons CBM went to hell.
- LeoPanthera 4y ago
  In Commodore's defense, Ranger needed (at the time) very expensive VRAM to work, and would have made Ranger-equipped Amigas prohibitively expensive.
  - snvzz 4y ago
    That was CBM's argument line. CBM didn't see value in having the best machine, or being first to market.
  - rasz 4y ago
    VRAM requirement suggests it was BW starved. Easiest was of adding BW without bumping clock is going wider, thats what AGA did. Ranger wouldnt matter anyway with its 7 bit color, planar arrangement like AGA when games went all in on high color bitmaps. Wing Commander runs at ~1fps on AGA (CD32) because of planar to packed conversion.
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      > Wing Commander runs at ~1fps on AGA (CD32) because of planar to packed conversion. Are you sure about that? It was running decently on Amiga 500, I would expect it would run much faster on A1200 hardware (including the CD32)
      - rasz 4y ago
        Ok, it drops to 1fps, normal AGA Wing Commander framerate is around 3-6fps https://youtu.be/n5wXmeI8w9k?t=479 https://youtu.be/n5wXmeI8w9k?t=479. A500 is ~2-6fps https://youtu.be/iR1Nc4hLKq4?t=936 https://youtu.be/iR1Nc4hLKq4?t=936 ? and this was full 25pount/$50 retail release game with 85-90% ratings, simply amazing :o
    - snvzz 4y ago
      The never released AAA, unlike AGA, had non-planar aka packed aka chunky modes. CD32, unlike A1200/A4000, had an extra chip handling many tasks specific to that console, and that chip also had specific hardware for planar to packed conversion.
      - actionfromafar 4y ago
        Commodore biz decisions were, to steal an expression, a Fractal of Bad Biz Design. Even the tragically underpowered CD32 and Amiga 1200 machines would have been twice as fast for gaming if they had 64 kilobytes of extra RAM. Why? They had 2 megs, of "slow" RAM, slow because it shared bus cycles with the graphics and because CPU caches had to be turned off. It they had just a sliver of dedicated CPU RAM, games could have put inner loops in that RAM and achieved 2 to 4 times the speed in many calculations. You could buy expansion RAM (2 megs or 4 megs were common) which did that, but very few customers did, and almost no games took advantage. This was at the tail end of Commodore life, but it's such an obvious example of penny wise, pound foolish decision.
        icedchai 4y ago
        They could've also gone with a different configuration: 1 meg chip, 1 meg fast. Or even have spent a couple bucks more and made it hardware configurable! Few Amiga games needed 2 megs chip. Remember, the original systems only had 512K chip RAM.
        snvzz 4y ago
        >Few Amiga games needed 2 megs chip. Can you name any? Non-AGA that is. (As AGA machines all came with 2MB chip) I can't even name any that require 1MB chip. There were machines like the A500+ and A600 that shipped 1MB chip, but they didn't sell anywhere as much as the a500. Some A500 (like mine) have an Agnus that supports 1MB chip but unfortunately, unless the board is modified (a trace needs to be cut and replaced by another, a "solder jumper"), trapdoor expansion will show up as slow rather than extra chip.
  - fulafel 4y ago
    An alternative history where Amiga originally shipped at the same or higher price point than Macintosh is interesting to imagine. Follow ons would then presumably have had more budget headroom for advanced custom hardware designs. Less initial users but possibly a shot at longevity.
    - snvzz 4y ago
      "low-end" A500 could have been ECS, with Ranger being A2000-only. Instead, A2000 was that much more expensive, while not adding anything that'd justify its pricing. Insanity.
      - icedchai 4y ago
        So true. The base A2000 was way over priced. All you got for the extra money was empty expansion slots!
- h0l0cube 4y ago
  > Management culture of overruling architects was one of many reasons CBM went to hell. I used to be a massive fan of Amiga (still am) to the point where I'd still be waving the banner in the late 90s as my friends all were playing Quake and laughing at me. I've often been tantalized by these 'what ifs', but it's pretty clear in retrospect that IBM PCs were always going to win. IBM (accidentally) democratized hardware expansion with PC clones, so technological advances could be stolen from other architectures, and competition could reduce costs. And, crucially, they already had a massive value advantage by having an excellent suite of business software, justifying their purchase price for many households. Looking at the graphs in this article it's pretty clear they had already won the war by the mid-80s. https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/5/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/5/
  - rvense 4y ago
    It sounds like you're speaking from the assumption that a monopoly is inevitable in computing - the PC was so good, all other platforms had to fail. But all other platforms didn't fail. If Commodore had run their company properly and delivered viable products, marketed them properly, there are people would have bought them. It's an open question if that could have supported a viable niche business and for how long.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      What would have saved the other platforms is what (I argue) saved the Mac - the Internet itself. Unfortunately it came a bit too late (widespread) for too many of the platforms, and Moore's Law finished everything else off.
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      > monopoly is inevitable in computing it's not a monopoly, it's an open standard, which is the opposite of a monopoly.
      - h0l0cube 4y ago
        Precisely. IBM PCs also had a software ecosystem and brand around delivering business value. Just like Mac did. They both survived because of this. Once those ecosystems are established, it's hard to supplant them.
- icedchai 4y ago
  It’s pretty sad how the platform stagnated until 1992 with AGA. ECS didn’t add much. AGA was too little, too late.

snvzz 4y ago

Furthermore, Ranger, not ECS, was supposed to be the successor of OCS, with much higher specs. Ranger was even finished and ready to go, but CBM management decided against it. It would have shipped around 1988. Management culture of overruling architects was one of many reasons CBM went to hell.

LeoPanthera 4y ago
In Commodore's defense, Ranger needed (at the time) very expensive VRAM to work, and would have made Ranger-equipped Amigas prohibitively expensive.
- snvzz 4y ago
  That was CBM's argument line. CBM didn't see value in having the best machine, or being first to market.
- rasz 4y ago
  VRAM requirement suggests it was BW starved. Easiest was of adding BW without bumping clock is going wider, thats what AGA did. Ranger wouldnt matter anyway with its 7 bit color, planar arrangement like AGA when games went all in on high color bitmaps. Wing Commander runs at ~1fps on AGA (CD32) because of planar to packed conversion.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    > Wing Commander runs at ~1fps on AGA (CD32) because of planar to packed conversion. Are you sure about that? It was running decently on Amiga 500, I would expect it would run much faster on A1200 hardware (including the CD32)
    - rasz 4y ago
      Ok, it drops to 1fps, normal AGA Wing Commander framerate is around 3-6fps https://youtu.be/n5wXmeI8w9k?t=479 https://youtu.be/n5wXmeI8w9k?t=479. A500 is ~2-6fps https://youtu.be/iR1Nc4hLKq4?t=936 https://youtu.be/iR1Nc4hLKq4?t=936 ? and this was full 25pount/$50 retail release game with 85-90% ratings, simply amazing :o
  - snvzz 4y ago
    The never released AAA, unlike AGA, had non-planar aka packed aka chunky modes. CD32, unlike A1200/A4000, had an extra chip handling many tasks specific to that console, and that chip also had specific hardware for planar to packed conversion.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      Commodore biz decisions were, to steal an expression, a Fractal of Bad Biz Design. Even the tragically underpowered CD32 and Amiga 1200 machines would have been twice as fast for gaming if they had 64 kilobytes of extra RAM. Why? They had 2 megs, of "slow" RAM, slow because it shared bus cycles with the graphics and because CPU caches had to be turned off. It they had just a sliver of dedicated CPU RAM, games could have put inner loops in that RAM and achieved 2 to 4 times the speed in many calculations. You could buy expansion RAM (2 megs or 4 megs were common) which did that, but very few customers did, and almost no games took advantage. This was at the tail end of Commodore life, but it's such an obvious example of penny wise, pound foolish decision.
      - icedchai 4y ago
        They could've also gone with a different configuration: 1 meg chip, 1 meg fast. Or even have spent a couple bucks more and made it hardware configurable! Few Amiga games needed 2 megs chip. Remember, the original systems only had 512K chip RAM.
        snvzz 4y ago
        >Few Amiga games needed 2 megs chip. Can you name any? Non-AGA that is. (As AGA machines all came with 2MB chip) I can't even name any that require 1MB chip. There were machines like the A500+ and A600 that shipped 1MB chip, but they didn't sell anywhere as much as the a500. Some A500 (like mine) have an Agnus that supports 1MB chip but unfortunately, unless the board is modified (a trace needs to be cut and replaced by another, a "solder jumper"), trapdoor expansion will show up as slow rather than extra chip.
- fulafel 4y ago
  An alternative history where Amiga originally shipped at the same or higher price point than Macintosh is interesting to imagine. Follow ons would then presumably have had more budget headroom for advanced custom hardware designs. Less initial users but possibly a shot at longevity.
  - snvzz 4y ago
    "low-end" A500 could have been ECS, with Ranger being A2000-only. Instead, A2000 was that much more expensive, while not adding anything that'd justify its pricing. Insanity.
    - icedchai 4y ago
      So true. The base A2000 was way over priced. All you got for the extra money was empty expansion slots!
h0l0cube 4y ago
> Management culture of overruling architects was one of many reasons CBM went to hell. I used to be a massive fan of Amiga (still am) to the point where I'd still be waving the banner in the late 90s as my friends all were playing Quake and laughing at me. I've often been tantalized by these 'what ifs', but it's pretty clear in retrospect that IBM PCs were always going to win. IBM (accidentally) democratized hardware expansion with PC clones, so technological advances could be stolen from other architectures, and competition could reduce costs. And, crucially, they already had a massive value advantage by having an excellent suite of business software, justifying their purchase price for many households. Looking at the graphs in this article it's pretty clear they had already won the war by the mid-80s. https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/5/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/5/
- rvense 4y ago
  It sounds like you're speaking from the assumption that a monopoly is inevitable in computing - the PC was so good, all other platforms had to fail. But all other platforms didn't fail. If Commodore had run their company properly and delivered viable products, marketed them properly, there are people would have bought them. It's an open question if that could have supported a viable niche business and for how long.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    What would have saved the other platforms is what (I argue) saved the Mac - the Internet itself. Unfortunately it came a bit too late (widespread) for too many of the platforms, and Moore's Law finished everything else off.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    > monopoly is inevitable in computing it's not a monopoly, it's an open standard, which is the opposite of a monopoly.
    - h0l0cube 4y ago
      Precisely. IBM PCs also had a software ecosystem and brand around delivering business value. Just like Mac did. They both survived because of this. Once those ecosystems are established, it's hard to supplant them.
icedchai 4y ago
It’s pretty sad how the platform stagnated until 1992 with AGA. ECS didn’t add much. AGA was too little, too late.