4 ms·

The way Amiga was build, graphic subsystem being its own thing with CPU clued on the side, swapping CPUs would be the easiest task. Even the slowest available R

by rasz 1y ago

The way Amiga was build, graphic subsystem being its own thing with CPU clued on the side, swapping CPUs would be the easiest task. Even the slowest available RISC CPU would emulate <1mips 68000-7 above real time speed with ease. PA-RISC werent sold on open market, but Amd 29K, Sun Spark, MIPS R3000 and Motorola 88100 were. 1991 Q1 25MHz CPU prices: Am29K $135 ~15-20 mips only with expensive SRAM/caches 88100 $82 ~15 mips but supposedly its a TERRIBLE CPU according to Apple engineers R3000 $150 25 mips? almost Playstation 1 :) SPARC $100 20 mips for comparison Motorola 68030 9mips $160, 68040 supposedly ~25mips !!$640!! with limited supply, Intel 486DX2 66MHz ~25mips $400-700 available late 1992. But Commodore was more interested in waiting for 1992 cost reduced 4mips $24 68EC020-16 crap comparable to $40 386SX-16. > $150M loan from Bill Gates There was no loan. Microsoft lost lawsuit over theft of Apple Quicktime code https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_150m/ https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_...

mrandish 1y ago
> There was no loan. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-wh...
- rasz 1y ago
  What would you believe is true, a court documents or a PR piece on the cover of TIME? No doubt that quote for the press was part of the settlement, just like Microsoft pledging IE/Office support for 5 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corp.#Impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Micros... Now imagine Jobs not settling and waiting one year to 1998 when DOJ decided to rip Gates ass wide open https://www.justice.gov/archive/atr/public/press_releases/1998/1764.htm https://www.justice.gov/archive/atr/public/press_releases/19... Microsoft barely survived splitting in two, Court confirmed Microsoft an illegal monopoly and initial judgment was catastrophic for MS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... , a couple more arguments from a strong witness and it might have happened.
  - mrandish 1y ago
    I didn't see anything in the linked document saying the transfer of $150M pictured in Time Magazine (and reported independently by many other news outlets) was quid pro quo settlement as part of that lawsuit. That's an alternate hypothesis you're proposing which I have no opinion on. You said "There was no loan" in response to my citing an event that's overwhelmingly accepted as an historical fact by every mainstream source. You're welcome to have a different opinion but my citing an accepted historical fact was not incorrect. Both Jobs and Gates discussed the loan publicly in various interviews together and separately. The loan was secured by equity. It was on both corporation's audited financial statements. Later reporting said Microsoft eventually made money on the transaction which would also have been reflected in their audited financial statements. If you disagree with the widely accepted historical record, feel free to deep dive the financial statements and other public records to overturn the consensus on what happened. In the meantime, I'm not interested in debating your alternate hypothesis about an accepted historical fact which I cited as a minor supporting element in a long list of things supporting a sub-point. Entirely separate from the accepted historical record surrounding the loan, I've always suspected that one reason Gates was willing to give Apple a loan secured by equity in an almost bankrupt company was that it was useful to Microsoft for Apple to survive. The existence of plausible competitive alternatives is one point any company defending an anti-trust action would make. Whereas the DOJ would certainly use the lack of any viable competitive alternatives as another element supporting their anti-trust case. Neither point would have been definitive nor conclusive, just one supporting element out of many. As far as I'm aware, neither Gates nor anyone else involved has ever said this was a reason motivating the loan nor is there any evidence of that but it makes sense given the context. I thought that at the time and, although it was unproven (and unprovable), I think the context was so blindingly obvious, everyone in the industry just accepted that it was probably a key driver motivating the loan. It was simply the smart move for MSFT to make - and to whatever extent Jobs may have alluded to the anti-trust context in his discussions with Gates (if he did), it was savvy of him to realize the DOJ's anti-trust actions created an incentive for MSFT to help ensure Apple's near-term survival and leverage that context to Apple's benefit. That MSFT eventually profited on the transaction was just icing all around.
    - 1y ago
mrandish 1y ago
> swapping CPUs would be the easiest task. My point was not that PA RISC wouldn't have the horsepower to emulate a 68K computer. My point was that Commodore fully emulating the Amiga architecture well enough to play highly-optimized games (which heavily leveraged the complex interactions of the Amiga's co-processors) would be extremely challenging (not due to speed but complexity) and that I was skeptical they would have managed to do it (especially given their depleted resources and software bench). I've discussed this with Amiga engineers who worked at Commodore and they were skeptical of that plan at the time, so I don't think my skepticism is unjustified.

by rasz 1y ago

mrandish 1y ago

> There was no loan. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-wh...

rasz 1y ago
What would you believe is true, a court documents or a PR piece on the cover of TIME? No doubt that quote for the press was part of the settlement, just like Microsoft pledging IE/Office support for 5 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corp.#Impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Micros... Now imagine Jobs not settling and waiting one year to 1998 when DOJ decided to rip Gates ass wide open https://www.justice.gov/archive/atr/public/press_releases/1998/1764.htm https://www.justice.gov/archive/atr/public/press_releases/19... Microsoft barely survived splitting in two, Court confirmed Microsoft an illegal monopoly and initial judgment was catastrophic for MS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... , a couple more arguments from a strong witness and it might have happened.
- mrandish 1y ago
  I didn't see anything in the linked document saying the transfer of $150M pictured in Time Magazine (and reported independently by many other news outlets) was quid pro quo settlement as part of that lawsuit. That's an alternate hypothesis you're proposing which I have no opinion on. You said "There was no loan" in response to my citing an event that's overwhelmingly accepted as an historical fact by every mainstream source. You're welcome to have a different opinion but my citing an accepted historical fact was not incorrect. Both Jobs and Gates discussed the loan publicly in various interviews together and separately. The loan was secured by equity. It was on both corporation's audited financial statements. Later reporting said Microsoft eventually made money on the transaction which would also have been reflected in their audited financial statements. If you disagree with the widely accepted historical record, feel free to deep dive the financial statements and other public records to overturn the consensus on what happened. In the meantime, I'm not interested in debating your alternate hypothesis about an accepted historical fact which I cited as a minor supporting element in a long list of things supporting a sub-point. Entirely separate from the accepted historical record surrounding the loan, I've always suspected that one reason Gates was willing to give Apple a loan secured by equity in an almost bankrupt company was that it was useful to Microsoft for Apple to survive. The existence of plausible competitive alternatives is one point any company defending an anti-trust action would make. Whereas the DOJ would certainly use the lack of any viable competitive alternatives as another element supporting their anti-trust case. Neither point would have been definitive nor conclusive, just one supporting element out of many. As far as I'm aware, neither Gates nor anyone else involved has ever said this was a reason motivating the loan nor is there any evidence of that but it makes sense given the context. I thought that at the time and, although it was unproven (and unprovable), I think the context was so blindingly obvious, everyone in the industry just accepted that it was probably a key driver motivating the loan. It was simply the smart move for MSFT to make - and to whatever extent Jobs may have alluded to the anti-trust context in his discussions with Gates (if he did), it was savvy of him to realize the DOJ's anti-trust actions created an incentive for MSFT to help ensure Apple's near-term survival and leverage that context to Apple's benefit. That MSFT eventually profited on the transaction was just icing all around.
  - 1y ago

mrandish 1y ago

> swapping CPUs would be the easiest task. My point was not that PA RISC wouldn't have the horsepower to emulate a 68K computer. My point was that Commodore fully emulating the Amiga architecture well enough to play highly-optimized games (which heavily leveraged the complex interactions of the Amiga's co-processors) would be extremely challenging (not due to speed but complexity) and that I was skeptical they would have managed to do it (especially given their depleted resources and software bench). I've discussed this with Amiga engineers who worked at Commodore and they were skeptical of that plan at the time, so I don't think my skepticism is unjustified.