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Those 3 68000 based machines did ok against the PC until the 486 arrived. At that point all Motorola had was the 68030, and it wasn't enough progression. If the

Those 3 68000 based machines did ok against the PC until the 486 arrived. At that point all Motorola had was the 68030, and it wasn't enough progression. If the processor line had had more legs, then maybe Commodore and Atari could've remained competitive. I think they both did 68030 based machines, but it was too small a step. Then it became a battle of operating systems.

icedchai 2y ago
It wasn't just the 486. It was SVGA and SoundBlaster cards making the Amiga and Atari multi-media capabilities mostly irrelevant. The 486 also made 386 machines very cheap, which obviously worsened the problem.
- beagle3 2y ago
  Indeed, but it was just enough. In 1995, the PC was finally starting to move from 8-bit to 16-bit sound. The Amiga was capable of 14-bit stereo sound in 1985. It required a trick that only became popular around 1990, but the hardware was capable on day 1. Of note, the C64 was capabale of 8-bit sound on day 1 in 1981, but this was only discovered (by Linus Akesson IIRC) around 2010.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  Even EGA was good enough for most people - and it was non-interlaced at 60Hz, much better than what Amigas could do back then. When VGA came out, it became clear the Amigas couldn't keep up with the ecosystem around the PC.
  - vardump 2y ago
    Amiga could do 384x240 (64 colors or 4096 color HAM) and 768x240 16 colors 60 Hz without any interlacing. Much, much better than EGA.
  - DerekL 2y ago
    The original chip set (OCS), which debuted with the Amiga 1000 in 1985, could display 320 by 200 in four colors, or 640 by 400 in 16 colors, and the colors selected from a gamut of 4096. This is non-interlaced in 60 Hz. A PAL display would have higher vertical resolution in 50 Hz. It could go up to 16 colors in high res or 32 in low res, but this could slow down other operations.
    - ChainOfFools 2y ago
      Any resolution with 400 pixel vertical scan on the Amiga was interlaced, no exceptions until too many years after the first OCS and ECS chipsets released. and when the solutions did come they were burdoned by kludges necessary so as not to break backwards compatibility - and especially not to complicate life for the killer app of the platform at the non-gaming level, the video toaster, which was very tightly integrated with the Amigas interlaced video system.
      - vardump 2y ago
        ECS and AGA could do non-interlaced 400 line scanning. ECS could do non-interlaced 640x480 (+overscan) with 4 colors. In the documentation, 35 nanosecond pixels. AGA same, but with 256 (or 262144 HAM) colors.
        icedchai 2y ago
        Almost nobody had a monitor that supported those modes.
        ChainOfFools 2y ago
        Exactly what I was thinking of with respect to kludges necessary for backwards compatibility. I think Commodore made one monitor that supported a bi-modal scan rate, and it was something like twice as expensive as the the regular Amiga monitor range. I also recall a somewhat exotic NEC 17" flat-face CRT monitor that was completely out of the question pricewise for almost anybody except institutions, that also could do it by virtue of having a continuously variable sync clock from 15 khz up to 45 or so.

icedchai 2y ago

It wasn't just the 486. It was SVGA and SoundBlaster cards making the Amiga and Atari multi-media capabilities mostly irrelevant. The 486 also made 386 machines very cheap, which obviously worsened the problem.

beagle3 2y ago
Indeed, but it was just enough. In 1995, the PC was finally starting to move from 8-bit to 16-bit sound. The Amiga was capable of 14-bit stereo sound in 1985. It required a trick that only became popular around 1990, but the hardware was capable on day 1. Of note, the C64 was capabale of 8-bit sound on day 1 in 1981, but this was only discovered (by Linus Akesson IIRC) around 2010.
rbanffy 2y ago
Even EGA was good enough for most people - and it was non-interlaced at 60Hz, much better than what Amigas could do back then. When VGA came out, it became clear the Amigas couldn't keep up with the ecosystem around the PC.
- vardump 2y ago
  Amiga could do 384x240 (64 colors or 4096 color HAM) and 768x240 16 colors 60 Hz without any interlacing. Much, much better than EGA.
- DerekL 2y ago
  The original chip set (OCS), which debuted with the Amiga 1000 in 1985, could display 320 by 200 in four colors, or 640 by 400 in 16 colors, and the colors selected from a gamut of 4096. This is non-interlaced in 60 Hz. A PAL display would have higher vertical resolution in 50 Hz. It could go up to 16 colors in high res or 32 in low res, but this could slow down other operations.
  - ChainOfFools 2y ago
    Any resolution with 400 pixel vertical scan on the Amiga was interlaced, no exceptions until too many years after the first OCS and ECS chipsets released. and when the solutions did come they were burdoned by kludges necessary so as not to break backwards compatibility - and especially not to complicate life for the killer app of the platform at the non-gaming level, the video toaster, which was very tightly integrated with the Amigas interlaced video system.
    - vardump 2y ago
      ECS and AGA could do non-interlaced 400 line scanning. ECS could do non-interlaced 640x480 (+overscan) with 4 colors. In the documentation, 35 nanosecond pixels. AGA same, but with 256 (or 262144 HAM) colors.
      - icedchai 2y ago
        Almost nobody had a monitor that supported those modes.
        ChainOfFools 2y ago
        Exactly what I was thinking of with respect to kludges necessary for backwards compatibility. I think Commodore made one monitor that supported a bi-modal scan rate, and it was something like twice as expensive as the the regular Amiga monitor range. I also recall a somewhat exotic NEC 17" flat-face CRT monitor that was completely out of the question pricewise for almost anybody except institutions, that also could do it by virtue of having a continuously variable sync clock from 15 khz up to 45 or so.