Building a next-gen homecomputers in the spirit of Commodore, Atari
Pedro
the era of homecomputers by thinking of a homecomputer design based on
current technology.
So the machine should be affordable (only about $100 more than a console),
accessible and build for multimedia. So you could for example "buy" sega's
dreamcast motherboard design, swap the cpu with a 800 Mhz Hitachi RISC,
add some RAM (say 256), add some I/O logic (currently only for the CD-ROM)
for IDE, USB, etc. And there you have a low cost but powerfull machine. What
OS?
Well, a modified linux.... :) optimised for the machine.
Anybody any ideas? It's just a "gedankexperiment"... but maybe
the market has a spot for such a machine.
Peter de Vroomen
you can get some 200 softwarecompanies to write programs for your platform,
then you're in business. If not, then it will never become more than a hobby
project.
PeterV
Nick Trounson
EvoX dash... does everything you state, has relatively good specs and is
generally un-differable from a stock XBOX.
Nick.
"Pedro" <pe...@sp.net> wrote in message
news:bbkqc4$dkt$1...@odysseus.uci.kun.nl...
Pedro
"Nick Trounson" <carc...@EEDJITSPAMxtra.co.nz> wrote in message
news:boMDa.11495$JA5.2...@news.xtra.co.nz...
Nick Trounson
The EvoX dash replaces the standard Microsoft XBOX frontend software with a
more functional OS.
Nick.
"Pedro" <pe...@sp.net> wrote in message
news:bbodc8$jsi$1...@odysseus.uci.kun.nl...
Gl...@canit.se
+Nick Trounson <carc...@EEDJITSPAMxtra.co.nz> wrote
>"Pedro" <pe...@sp.net> wrote in message
>news:bbkqc4$dkt$1...@odysseus.uci.kun.nl...
>> I'm looking for people who walk around with the same ideal to relive
>> the era of homecomputers by thinking of a homecomputer design based on
>> current technology.
>> So the machine should be affordable (only about $100 more than a console),
>> accessible and build for multimedia. So you could for example "buy" sega's
>> dreamcast motherboard design, swap the cpu with a 800 Mhz Hitachi RISC,
>> add some RAM (say 256), add some I/O logic (currently only for the CD-ROM)
>> for IDE, USB, etc. And there you have a low cost but powerfull machine.
>What
>> OS?
>> Well, a modified linux.... :) optimised for the machine.
>> Anybody any ideas? It's just a "gedankexperiment"... but maybe
>> the market has a spot for such a machine.
>Such a machine exists - the XBOX with an XECUTOR2 replacement BIOS and the
>EvoX dash... does everything you state, has relatively good specs and is
>generally un-differable from a stock XBOX.
No, it's actually crap..
You can buy an used PC cheaper than the Xbox, and it would be alot better
in everythinge xept playing Xbox-games..
An Xbox is just a crippled PC with next to none expansion possibilities,
A PC wins every time when you compare them, except if you want to play
the ridicilous expensive xbox games..
Nick Trounson
I modded my brother's XBOX, which he got for a quarter of the price of an
equivalently set up PC, and it does everything well - plus it plays directy
to a TV without the horrible resolutions of TVout on a videocard.
Don't be disrespecting the XBOX. Some people don't WANT a fullsize PC in
their living room to watch DivX movies.
Nick.
<Gl...@canit.se> wrote in message
news:1424.288T1162...@canit.se...
Nick Trounson
>
> But such a system must be compatible with something or you must have
> new software that means many software developers.And making
> software,especially games is expensive.
>
> Another problem is that production may be expensive and PC parts are
> incredibly cheap.This was part of the death of classic homecomputers
> like the AMIGA or ATARI ST - PC parts became so cheap that Commodore
> or ATARI didn´t have a chance.
>
> A new homecomputer must have these advantages to be successful , then
> , with lots of money involved , it may sell :
>
> - easy as a console
> - powerful as a console
> - every system has the same hardware - that means no driver problems
> as with PCs , were games won´t run smoothly on one system and work
> perfect on another
> - good GUI/OS , better than Windows.Windows is the biggest problem the
> PC has.Many people hate PCs because of Windows.
> - third party support , that means software /games
> - low price , may be more expensive than PC , but the customers must
> see that they´ve bought a better "all-in-one" system
>
> The AMIGA once was such a system , but its graphics and sound chips
> are now too old.A computer like the AMIGA with the hardware of a
> next-gen console , that means 3D hardware,but also 2D for graphic
> programs etc. and a modern version of Workbench would be better than
> any PC.
>
> I always had the idea of a console-based next-gen AMIGA (because the
> original AMIGA started as a console,too ).
> And since most AMIGA programs are quite old today , there could be
> some 68000/68020/030 software emulation just for the classic programs
> which is easier than rebuilding old hardware.
>
> With modern PCs so powerful,it´s also possible to build a system based
> 100% on modern PC parts,which has the advantage of beeing
> cheaper.Instead of Intel CPUs , it would be possible to use
> PowerPC.The advantage of this is that cheap parts are already
> available and with the same parts in every system,it could be
> programmed better than PCs.But it would be no real new hardware.
> But creating a new system with it´s own custom chips would be
> expensive...
>
> ZR
AmigaOne. Just damn unfortunate that Eyetech are buggering about. I'm
excited bout the A1... where is it?
Nick.
BTW there's more fun to be had spending a night playing old games on an
Amiga500 in front of a TV than spending a night playing new releases on a
PlayStation2. :-)
orange
wrote:
>I always had the idea of a console-based next-gen AMIGA (because the
>original AMIGA started as a console,too ).
Isn't A1000 first Amiga? That was not a console.
Nick Trounson
black box. The A1000 was a desktop.
The 500 wasn't really a console either, it was a keyboard-unit type desktop,
like the C64s etc.
And in all realities the Amiga that was most console-ish was the CD32 - 1200
in a box - which was at the end of Commodore's lifespan.
Nick.
"orange" <ora...@drenik.net_nospam> wrote in message
news:gs27evkeo5c074l0j...@4ax.com...
Gl...@canit.se
+Nick Trounson <carc...@EEDJITSPAMxtra.co.nz> wrote
>> >> Well, a modified linux.... :) optimised for the machine.
>> >> Anybody any ideas? It's just a "gedankexperiment"... but maybe
>> >> the market has a spot for such a machine.
>>
>> >Such a machine exists - the XBOX with an XECUTOR2 replacement BIOS and
>the
>> >EvoX dash... does everything you state, has relatively good specs and is
>> >generally un-differable from a stock XBOX.
>>
>> No, it's actually crap..
>>
>> You can buy an used PC cheaper than the Xbox, and it would be alot better
>> in everythinge xept playing Xbox-games..
>>
>>
>> An Xbox is just a crippled PC with next to none expansion possibilities,
>> A PC wins every time when you compare them, except if you want to play
>> the ridicilous expensive xbox games..
First of all, reply to messages in the END, noone takes topposters seriously.
>Crap and crap.
>I modded my brother's XBOX, which he got for a quarter of the price of an
>equivalently set up PC, and it does everything well - plus it plays directy
Either xboxes are extremly cheap, or PC's extremly expensive in your corner of
the world, coz here a Xbox costs slightly over 2000SEK, wich is around US$266,
then the chip cost money, and you have to buy a large harddrive (the inbuilt
are useless if you mod it as you know) ..for that price (around $500 or more)
you get a PC that are ALOT faster in the used market, and for just SLIGHTLY
more you get a new one that totally wipes the floor with the xbox.. AND, you
can expand it.. another ethernetcard ? just connect it.. firewire ? sure,
just connect it.. external modem ? you bet.. video in ? yea.. connect the
cheap card you buy in any shop.. ..and when the hardware is too slow, you
just buy more memory, faster CPU, better gfxcard.. just standard components..
please tell me how you do that with the xbox.. you cant?.. well..
>to a TV without the horrible resolutions of TVout on a videocard.
..That is if you WANT it on a TV, the problem is that you HAVE to use it
on a TV, wich is pretty much *USELESS* for productive work in 2003..
>Don't be disrespecting the XBOX. Some people don't WANT a fullsize PC in
>their living room to watch DivX movies.
Now the discussion wasnt about a divx-player.. it was about the nextgen
homecomputer.. read up a bit before replying to avoid making a fool out
of yourself.
Dave Haynie
>I'm looking for people who walk around with the same ideal to relive
>the era of homecomputers by thinking of a homecomputer design based on
>current technology.
And that, for some reason, isn't a PC?
>So the machine should be affordable (only about $100 more than a console),
>accessible and build for multimedia.
You can get cheap PCs for $350 or so.
>So you could for example "buy" sega's
>dreamcast motherboard design, swap the cpu with a 800 Mhz Hitachi RISC,
>add some RAM (say 256), add some I/O logic (currently only for the CD-ROM)
>for IDE, USB, etc. And there you have a low cost but powerfull machine.
And expen$ive... none of those console designs are made for that level
of expansion. You're talking about a tail-wagging-the-dog situation,
much like the various ill-fated notions of turning a CD32 into some
kind of "real" computer.
>Well, a modified linux.... :) optimised for the machine.
>Anybody any ideas? It's just a "gedankexperiment"... but maybe
>the market has a spot for such a machine.
You might guess (or not) that I've thought this through, too. I was
"there" in the very early days of the personal computer, after all. I
taught myself to program when I was 12 years old, first on a big
desktop HP calculator, then a scientific computer at Bell Labs (a CDC
Cyber 72 I think it was), and eventually on one of the first PET 2001
computers (bought by my friend Scott), then my very own Exidy
Sorcerer.
After college, of course, I jumped at the change to work at Commodore,
because I believed in the idea of a personal computer so much. After
the C128, the Amiga stuff really did gel all those goals into one box,
as I assume most of you here appreciate.
But that was then. As the song goes, "Being grown up isn't half as fun
as growing up". The personal computer is fully grown, now, and no, the
job of making new ones, or watching the industry, certainly isn't as
fun as it was. When you were a kid, every day was full of endless
possibility (in your mind, anyway); most adults pretty much know
what's going to happen today, and tomorrow.. and they're good with
that, more or less.
So I don't really think the "fun" is going to happen that way, again,
on personal computers. Period. Offering something that's less than a
PC doesn't fulfill that demand, being different for difference sake is
not what made the early machines fun.
Rather, I think the party is elsewhere. Like the personal computer
party, most of these are private affairs; if you're not involved now,
you're probably not involved until it moves up a notch or two. I think
it was set-top boxes for a little while: the one I designed for
Metabox, some years back, had many of the things that made the C64 and
the Amiga fun, and it really was a different thing than a PC. Metabox
killed themselves, and few of the STBs were actually done right (if
you go back that far, you'll recall that really was also the case with
most personal computers.. many of them just sucked). I think it was
handhelds for a little while, but that one tapped into Corporate
America so far, they weren't even really done before things got boring
and corporate.
So, what are my ideas? I've been working, for a year now, on another
one of those fun, fundamental, computational things that are still
"wild and wooly" in the way the personal computer was. These things do
come along now and then....
Dave Haynie | Chief Toady, Frog Pond Media Consulting
dha...@jersey.net| "Get get get get over it!" -Ok Go
"Deathbed Vigil" now on DVD! See http://www.jersey.net/~dhaynie/dbv
Nick Trounson
junk that someone has made on their loungeroom floor that has no software
support.
Just close your mouth and smile politely.
Nick.
Nick Trounson
*snip extra stuff*
> >>
> >> No, it's actually crap..
> >>
> >> You can buy an used PC cheaper than the Xbox, and it would be alot
better
> >> in everythinge xept playing Xbox-games..
Used PC with equivalent specs, approx. price on used market: $1000NZ
Brand new XBOX, price from retail store: $499NZ
Note: XBOX (before mod) has a warranty.
> >>
> >> An Xbox is just a crippled PC with next to none expansion
possibilities,
> >> A PC wins every time when you compare them, except if you want to play
> >> the ridicilous expensive xbox games..
Now look at an older machine example.
What's an Amiga 1200 versus the bigger Amiga 4000? It has no Zorro ports, a
surface-mounted processor, surface-mounted RAM, a tiny hard disk and a
custom chipset to complement the hardware configuration, with expansion only
being through the likes of the CPU bus, clock bus or PCMCIA.
The 4000 on the other hand is fully expandable, processor and RAM are
slotmounted, drives are standardized, everything can be changed.
>
>
> First of all, reply to messages in the END, noone takes topposters
seriously.
No-one takes ranting imbeciles seriously either.
>
>
> >Crap and crap.
>
> >I modded my brother's XBOX, which he got for a quarter of the price of an
> >equivalently set up PC, and it does everything well - plus it plays
directly to a TV
>
> Either xboxes are extremly cheap, or PC's extremly expensive in your
corner of
> the world, coz here a Xbox costs slightly over 2000SEK, wich is around
US$266,
XBOX new is about US$250.
> then the chip cost money,
US$25. And installation isn't very difficult
and you have to buy a large harddrive (the inbuilt
> are useless if you mod it as you know)
You run it on an ethernet for a reason - most the people I know who mod
their 'Box leave the old drive in for a while and use the machine as a
standalone MP3 player until they can afford to move up. Drive expansion is
simple.
..for that price (around $500 or more)
Not your $500+ quote I'm afraid. A 120Gb drive is only around the US$125
mark. So the machine total is at $400.
> you get a PC that are ALOT faster in the used market, and for just
SLIGHTLY
> more you get a new one that totally wipes the floor with the xbox..
Actually, a new PC here is AT LEAST NZ$2000 and thats for an entry level
machine.
Used stuff sells for around NZ$1000, and that's normally for very baseline
systems running Windows 98.
> AND, you can expand it..
If you were the soldering guru who was going to build the ninja Dreamcast
based LINUX box, you could expand an XBOX.
> another ethernetcard ? just connect it..
Why would you need two?
> firewire ? sure, just connect it..
Get a Mac.
> external modem ? you bet..
Get ADSL cheapass. Then it plugs into your existing network.
> video in ? yea.. connect the cheap card you buy in any shop..
And if you're working on a TV you *could* just use your VCR. Video editing
isn't really something you do on a console... of any kind.
> ..and when the hardware is too slow, you
> just buy more memory, faster CPU, better gfxcard.. just standard
components..
Not quite. Usually you end up with a machine that has already maxed its
motherboard's capacity, in which case to bump up the memory, CPU or what not
you need a beefed board to match, and with a serious mod like that to a
modern XP machine you'll trigger the antitheft mechanism.
And quite often if you don't upgrade the board you have to hunt for quite a
while to find the right component, my PC for example can't run PC133 SDRAM,
it won't pick up more than half the amount I put in if I use that.
> please tell me how you do that with the xbox.. you cant?.. well..
Well yes you can. If you were any kind of hardware engineer you would figure
a way simple enough. After all its simply an nVidia nFORCE board with a
Pentium III 733 surfacemount. There's a difference between someone who can
work with hardware and someone who can swap cards.
> >to a TV without the horrible resolutions of TVout on a videocard.
>
> ..That is if you WANT it on a TV, the problem is that you HAVE to use it
on a TV, wich is pretty much *USELESS* for productive work in 2003..
Actually, there are already third party adapters to run it on any standard
SVGA monitor. And in addition to that, being an nForce chipset (GeForce2
equiv) you have access to some great resolutions and refresh rates. Besides,
you can connect your XBOX to a data projector easy enough, same as for an
LCD TV, which looks like an LCD monitor anyway.
So its just become a good option for use as a simple machine to run
PowerPoint presentations or play games with your friends in luxury without
squinting at a TV.
>
> >Don't be disrespecting the XBOX. Some people don't WANT a fullsize PC in
> >their living room to watch DivX movies.
>
> Now the discussion wasnt about a divx-player.. it was about the nextgen
> homecomputer.. read up a bit before replying to avoid making a fool out
> of yourself.
Understand the construction of a machine before ranting about how wrong I
am. You don't seem to have a grasp for market pricing on any of the
components involved and are obviously the standard issue cardswapping PC
jockey who doesn't get down and dirty with a soldering iron.
Go investigate. And if you want to rant some more, do so and do it in a way
I can't retort at all, or come back with praise about the Amiga.
Now stop being a cockgobbler and go do some work.
>
Joona I Palaste
on comp.sys.amiga.hardware:
It was the first Amiga ever published commercially. Amiga (not
Commodore) did make some prototypes before that, and they were more
like consoles than computers.
--
/-- Joona Palaste (pal...@cc.helsinki.fi) ---------------------------\
| Kingpriest of "The Flying Lemon Tree" G++ FR FW+ M- #108 D+ ADA N+++|
| http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste W++ B OP+ |
\----------------------------------------- Finland rules! ------------/
"Last year he disrespected me - and then he showed lack of respect."
- Anthony Mason
Jay Dresser
> orange <ora...@drenik.net_nospam> scribbled the following
> on comp.sys.amiga.hardware:
> > On 7 Jun 2003 22:02:16 -0700, zot...@my-deja.com (Zothen Runecaster)
> > wrote:
> >>I always had the idea of a console-based next-gen AMIGA (because the
> >>original AMIGA started as a console,too ).
>
> > Isn't A1000 first Amiga? That was not a console.
>
> It was the first Amiga ever published commercially. Amiga (not
> Commodore) did make some prototypes before that, and they were more
> like consoles than computers.
I have a pre-production Amiga and, except for the sturdiness of the
case and the shielding, it looks just like an A1000. I'm not aware of
anything earlier than that that looked like a console. What are you
referring to?
--
Jay Dresser / org.dresserfamily@usenet
Gl...@canit.se
+Nick Trounson <carc...@EEDJITSPAMxtra.co.nz> wrote
>> >> An Xbox is just a crippled PC with next to none expansion
>possibilities,
>> >> A PC wins every time when you compare them, except if you want to play
>> >> the ridicilous expensive xbox games..
>Now look at an older machine example.
>What's an Amiga 1200 versus the bigger Amiga 4000? It has no Zorro ports, a
>surface-mounted processor, surface-mounted RAM, a tiny hard disk and a
>custom chipset to complement the hardware configuration, with expansion only
>being through the likes of the CPU bus, clock bus or PCMCIA.
Yes, and was alot more cheap then the A3000 was.. even my A1200 with
68030 50Mhz 2/8meg RAM and 245meg harddrive (this was 1993 I think) was
STILL cheaper than my friends A4000/030 25Mhz with 2+4meg RAM and hmm..
was it 120meg of harddrive as standard ? ..then my computer was around
3-5 times faster since it had a much faster memory.. (the motherboard
memory on A4000 sucks as you probably know)
The A1200 wasnt a perfect machine, but it was still a affordable alternative
to the A4000.. also it was more expandable than the xbox..
>The 4000 on the other hand is fully expandable, processor and RAM are
>slotmounted, drives are standardized, everything can be changed.
Yes, I upgraded to a A4000 pretty soon since I saw the joy of a real
gfxcard (CV64 4Meg), however this was a pretty expensive setup.
>> >I modded my brother's XBOX, which he got for a quarter of the price of an
>> >equivalently set up PC, and it does everything well - plus it plays
>directly to a TV
>>
>> Either xboxes are extremly cheap, or PC's extremly expensive in your
>> corner of the world, coz here a Xbox costs slightly over 2000SEK, wich
>> is around US$266,
>XBOX new is about US$250.
Ok, a bit cheaper but similar to here..
>> then the chip cost money,
>US$25. And installation isn't very difficult
You have to solder it (the solderless versions are crap, they only work
ok on the old revision of the xbox) and if you can't do it yourself you
have to let someone do it for you, if this is a shop you quickly end up
with at least US$60 or more.. (btw the chips people at work bought costed
340SEK, thats US$45)
> and you have to buy a large harddrive (the inbuilt
>> are useless if you mod it as you know)
>You run it on an ethernet for a reason - most the people I know who mod
>their 'Box leave the old drive in for a while and use the machine as a
>standalone MP3 player until they can afford to move up. Drive expansion is
>simple.
If you are going to use the machine for something (Remember "nextgen
homecomputer" ?) you HAVE to put in a larger harddrive.. also, such
a computer would probably be targeted to people that dont have another
computer that they could use as fileserver..
> ..for that price (around $500 or more)
>Not your $500+ quote I'm afraid. A 120Gb drive is only around the US$125
>mark. So the machine total is at $400.
..Then you have to get keyboard and mouse and adapters for them to work..
amnd here in sweden a 120gig harddrive cost more than US$125, however
the cost of the harddrive is the same for a PC and the xbox..
>> you get a PC that are ALOT faster in the used market, and for just
>SLIGHTLY
>> more you get a new one that totally wipes the floor with the xbox..
>Actually, a new PC here is AT LEAST NZ$2000 and thats for an entry level
>machine.
I have NO clue about how much one NZ$ is..
But I know that you can build a NEW system for less than SEK4000 (thats
US$533) that are fully useable and *easilly* beat the xbox in performance..
I actually helped a friend to build such a computer for her parents just
a month ago, and that machine was complete except for monitor.. it had the
box, motherboard, CPU, floppy, CD-burner, harddrive, memory, keyboard, mouse..
and please note.. it was NOT the cheapest parts.. it was built to give a
cheap but fairly good computer to replace their old aging P133..
Everything except a monitor and the OS, and monitors can be found free if
you want a used 15", and you also need a TV for the Xbox so.. (the OS
also can be had for free, just depends on wich OS you want to use)
>Used stuff sells for around NZ$1000, and that's normally for very baseline
>systems running Windows 98.
The system listed above was Hmm.. 1.4 or 1.7Ghz Duron I think, it ran XP
perfectly fine (if XP ever runs fine, IMHO its crap, but thats a different
discussion) and most modern games was playable..
Old pentium class systems with W98 can be had for free.. my OpenBSD system
is a AMD K5-PR133 64meg RAM 2gig harddrive I got for free..
>> AND, you can expand it..
>If you were the soldering guru who was going to build the ninja Dreamcast
>based LINUX box, you could expand an XBOX.
Yea sure.. if you have the knowledge and *alot* of free time, but who has that ?
..such a person easilly could get a job instead and BUY a better machine
for the money he get..
>> another ethernetcard ? just connect it..
>Why would you need two?
Why would you need more than 640k RAM ? that oughta be enough for anyone..
>> firewire ? sure, just connect it..
>Get a Mac.
Why ? coz apple own the NAME ?
>> external modem ? you bet..
>Get ADSL cheapass. Then it plugs into your existing network.
Noone can supply ADSL here, I live in a large country with fairly
few people in it.. if you can talk telia (my phone provider) into
selling ADSL to me.. feel free to try.. if you can't.. shut up.
The main thing was that this was just EXAMPLES.. I have firewire on
my PC.. I have two ethernetcards.. I needed it.. a random person also
might have stuff he or she want to connect.
>> ..and when the hardware is too slow, you
>> just buy more memory, faster CPU, better gfxcard.. just standard
>components..
>Not quite. Usually you end up with a machine that has already maxed its
>motherboard's capacity, in which case to bump up the memory, CPU or what not
>you need a beefed board to match, and with a serious mod like that to a
Then you made a stupid choice of motherboard.. in the example computer above
there was THREE RAM sockets, ONE where used (256megs), the motherboard
supported processors way over 2Ghz.. it had an AGP-slot and you could
disable the inbuilt videocard..
>modern XP machine you'll trigger the antitheft mechanism.
If you are stupid enough to use XP you have choosed to agree with that..
"If you cant do the time, dont do the crime"
(Also there are patches to remove that stuff, or you can just run the corporate
edition.. however I would recommend a better OS..)
>And quite often if you don't upgrade the board you have to hunt for quite a
>while to find the right component, my PC for example can't run PC133 SDRAM,
>it won't pick up more than half the amount I put in if I use that.
A new motherboard dont have that problem.. and there is no problem at all
finding old PC133 memorys, even if they can be more expensive.
(my old Dual PPro 200Mhz linuxmachine however.. here we talk rare and
expensive memorys.. the same goes for my sparc machines..)
>> please tell me how you do that with the xbox.. you cant?.. well..
>Well yes you can. If you were any kind of hardware engineer you would figure
>a way simple enough. After all its simply an nVidia nFORCE board with a
>Pentium III 733 surfacemount. There's a difference between someone who can
>work with hardware and someone who can swap cards.
Anyone that try to upgrade an xbox in this way with his solderpen is stupid,
period. ..especially since you can buy a faster PC for a lower cost.
For your information I have a hobby of fixing broken A4000 motherboards, and
I have worked with both design of small (mainly analog) electronic circiuts
and assembling of the preproduction series.. so I have a clue about it..
>> >to a TV without the horrible resolutions of TVout on a videocard.
>>
>> ..That is if you WANT it on a TV, the problem is that you HAVE to use it
>on a TV, wich is pretty much *USELESS* for productive work in 2003..
>Actually, there are already third party adapters to run it on any standard
>SVGA monitor. And in addition to that, being an nForce chipset (GeForce2
I didnt know that, are they patching into the xbox directly or are they just
converting the PAL/NTSC signal ? ..if its the later its worthless.
>equiv) you have access to some great resolutions and refresh rates. Besides,
..If you *buy another* thing.. ..btw do you have a link to such adapter ?
I probably have friends that would be interested..
>you can connect your XBOX to a data projector easy enough, same as for an
>LCD TV, which looks like an LCD monitor anyway.
..in a useless PAL/NTSC resolution.. thats fine for watching movies and
playing most games, but nothing more.
>So its just become a good option for use as a simple machine to run
>PowerPoint presentations or play games with your friends in luxury without
>squinting at a TV.
Hmm.. showing powerpoint presentations for your friends ? I have never
wanted to do that, and if I ever want to I hope someone hit me in the
head until I forget about the idea.. fortunatly enough I would never
use powerpoint at all, the only office software I use is word, and that
is maybe once a year when someone supid send a document that cant be
opened in anything else..
But as I said, for playing games its ok.. I stated in the first letter
that the xbox is good at playing xbox games, wich its built for.. you
can also use it for watching movies, but a normal PC does it better.
>> >Don't be disrespecting the XBOX. Some people don't WANT a fullsize PC in
>> >their living room to watch DivX movies.
>>
>> Now the discussion wasnt about a divx-player.. it was about the nextgen
>> homecomputer.. read up a bit before replying to avoid making a fool out
>> of yourself.
>Understand the construction of a machine before ranting about how wrong I
Try to understand what the discussion is about.. the reason that I replyed
from the beginning was that someone suggested that the Xbox was a nextgen
homecomputer wich is something its really really bad at trying to be.
I understand that the xbox is a machine that is contructed for playing
games and watching DVD's, it works for that (even if I prefere my sony
DVD-player for watching DVD's any day)
>am. You don't seem to have a grasp for market pricing on any of the
>components involved and are obviously the standard issue cardswapping PC
I couldnt care less about how much microsuck are losing on every xbox,
the more the better.. why would I care ? I know that a PC built of
off the shelf parts are better than the xbox..
I dont care about WHY a car costs the specific price, I care about if
it fits my needs and have a good price compared with the alternatives..
its exactly the same..
If the Xbox had sold for SEK800 (around US$100) I probably would have
bought one just for playing games on it.. at that price it also
would have been a good price/performance compared with new PC machines.
>jockey who doesn't get down and dirty with a soldering iron.
I have a bench at home where I have a solderingstation, a few solderingpens,
braids, alot of components, veroboards, instruments (multimeters,
oscilloscope, frequencyconter, signal injectors and so on), even if I dont
use it so much nowadays since my interests have changed a bit with time..
however I still pretty skilled at soldering (both holemounted and SMD)
since I once worked with it, and ofcoz I have a clue about electronics even
if I'm no pro at it..
Dont be so quick to judge people that you dont know a shit about..
>Go investigate. And if you want to rant some more, do so and do it in a way
>I can't retort at all, or come back with praise about the Amiga.
You still havent presented any valid arguments..
Amiga.. well, I mainly use my Amiga at home.. the unixmachines acts as servers
and the windowsmachine is rarely used.. and when it is its usally for movies
and games.. ..ah yea, I also use it to program the carts for my GBA-SP,
since there is no software for any normal OS..
>Now stop being a cockgobbler and go do some work.
..Hmm.. when you dont have any arguments you start with namecalling ?
thats a pretty common way from people that ran out of arguments..
I work nearly every day.. if you check my usenet postings you easilly can see
that 98%? of them are made at off-work time, the rest is made on vacations..
I work to being able to finance my other interests, wich includes fast cars,
wich is not a very cheap hobby..
Dave Haynie
>> + On 10-Jun-03 01:50:26
> +Nick Trounson <carc...@EEDJITSPAMxtra.co.nz> wrote
>>What's an Amiga 1200 versus the bigger Amiga 4000?
There is a certain amount of cost, in a larger, more expandable
machine, that's entirely "potential" -- you get no value on it
immediately out of the box. In the PC world, that's largely been
reduced to issues of PCB real estate, connectors, case, power supply,
etc. In the Amiga days, expansion needed a whole mess of extra parts.
>Yes, and was alot more cheap then the A3000 was.. even my A1200 with
>68030 50Mhz 2/8meg RAM and 245meg harddrive (this was 1993 I think) was
>STILL cheaper than my friends A4000/030 25Mhz with 2+4meg RAM and hmm..
>was it 120meg of harddrive as standard ? ..then my computer was around
>3-5 times faster since it had a much faster memory.. (the motherboard
>memory on A4000 sucks as you probably know)
Actually, A4000 motherboard memory was just fine with an '030. Well,
it was OK; the main A4000 guys (Greg Berlin and Scott Schaeffer) went
to the 32-bit SIMM modules, largerly because of customer concerns,
which screwed up the specialized burst mode supported in RAMSEY with
static column DRAM. On the other hand, the A4000s came with the Rev 4
RAMSEY, which could support 80s DRAM as well as 100-120ns DRAM. So it
wasn't as bad a hit as you'd think. And most of the '030 cards used
off-the-shelf memory controllers, no great shakes those, especially
with faster chips.
The reputation of the A4000's local memory controller was based
largerly on its admittedly crap performance with the '040. After all,
the A4000 was launched as an '040 machine, but the memory system was
always basically an '030 memory bus. There were tweaks in the original
RAMSEY to support burst writes, which the '030 didn't, but that was
intended to make '040s better as A3000 add-ons; we NEVER intended the
A3000 chipset to be used in an '040-native machine.
The A4000 iself is all about the death of Commodore, really, because
that's the era in which those seed were sown. In 1991, I was the only
systems guy working on Pandora (then AA, then AGA) chips, along with
the chip designers like Bob Raible. Well, this work actually began in
1990; it's basically what I did while Greg Berlin was working on the
A3000T (we both did major roles on the A3000). We actually had the
thing booting AmigaOS in February of 1991.
The goal here was what we called the Amiga 3000+, very much intended
to be an upgrade of the Amiga 3000. Along with the '030, the prototype
had an AT&S DSP3210, which could not only process audio, but did
32-bit floating point 5x-10x faster than the '040 (much less '030).
The _idea_ with this machine was to get the DSP3210 and AA running, so
that software (the most new software necessary, all at once, since the
A1000), then build modifications of the system chips for native '040
support.
Here's where the fall of Commodore comes in. Mehdi Ali had been
installed as chief, and by the summer of '91, he had installed Bill
Sydnes as the VP of Engineering. Sydnes main mission, apparently, was
to make the previous management look bad. So, rather than actually
trying to make things better, happen faster, etc. he put it all on the
backburner (well, he did turn the A300 into the A600, and helped
cancel the A500, the only time in C= history in which a popular
product was cancelled).
So the A3000+ went from the fast product tract (we wanted to ship in
April 1992) to a development platform for AA. I built 50 of the Rev2
PCB, and wasn't even allowed (officially) to work on the DSP or put
systems in A3000 casework (both actually happened, of course -- Jeff
Porter was able to keep funding our DSP project, as "Director of
Multimedia Development, or some-such).
Basically, Sydnes had the AA stuff in limbo, indefinitely. He backed a
lesser project, a scaled down A3000 he dubbed the A3200, and everyone
else called "The A1000jr" for various reasons (one being that Sydnes
was the guy behind one of the largest IBM boondoggles in history, the
IBM PCjr). I'm sure some of you've heard the story before. Anyway,
Berlin and Schaeffer where in charge of that one, and they delivered
prototypes. During the design, Scott made what Greg termed "the
cheapest possible 68040 board known to man", to offer _some_
reasonable way to make A3000s and A3200s run with a modern CPU.
So the A3200 was prototyped, and offered as a product. Now, you have
to know how C= works to see this for what it was, but basically, C=
worked as a collection of small companies. The engineering group,
while located mostly in the USA (there had been German and Japanese
groups as well, from time to time), it answered to CIL -- Commodore
International. Also answering to CIL were all of the local sales
companies: CBM, Commodore Canada, German, the UK, Australia, etc. Each
sales company decided how to market C= products in their region; what
kind, how many, bundles, ads, etc. That's one reason C= marketing
could totally suck one place (say, I dunno, the USA maybe) and still
rock elsewhere (Germany, the UK, etc).
So the thing here: not a single order was entered for the A3200. Every
marketing company knew about AA -- after all, they had head of it over
a year before the A3200, and seen it at DevCons in Denver and Milano.
So now, lacking a new 1992 product, Sydnes does a mad dash and tells
Berlin to hook with me and make a AA version of the A3200. That's
basically what the A4000 is, and this, why you have "the cheapest
A4000 card known to man" as standard equipment.
>The A1200 wasnt a perfect machine, but it was still a affordable alternative
>to the A4000.. also it was more expandable than the xbox..
The A1200, oddly for 1991-1992, was actually done right. George
Robbins and his team were allowed to make the new chips they needed to
make the A1200 as it should be. That also grew out of the A3000+
design, but I had no active role myself -- I think all my notes
answered they questions they needed (there were a few issues; some
bugs in the AA chipset were never fixed...).
>
>>The 4000 on the other hand is fully expandable, processor and RAM are
>>slotmounted, drives are standardized, everything can be changed.
>Yes, I upgraded to a A4000 pretty soon since I saw the joy of a real
>gfxcard (CV64 4Meg), however this was a pretty expensive setup.
Expansion for the A4000 was a double edged sword, and both cut. On the
one hand, you had this tiny market. On the other hand, you had this
totally custom expansion bus, which wasn't bad, was a little weird,
came in two versions (old Zorro III as in the A3000, fully implemented
Zorro III in the A4000... with the right Buster chip, anyway -- a
lesson as to why the PC industry employs hundereds of people,
committees, whole chip design teams, etc. to make a new expansion bus,
rather than just one guy, who doesn't even get to work on that full
time). That makes it expensive.
This was really going to be fixed for the next generations. Both
myself and Ed Helper (the "Hombre" guy, one of the early AAA
architectect, and probably the smartest guy we ever had at C=) had
chosen PCI... independently.
>>> Either xboxes are extremly cheap, or PC's extremly expensive in your
>>> corner of the world, coz here a Xbox costs slightly over 2000SEK, wich
>>> is around US$266,
>
>>XBOX new is about US$250.
>
>Ok, a bit cheaper but similar to here..
X-Boxen have largely been subsidized. Originally, MS was reportedly
losing as much as $150 on each box. On paper anyway, Japanese game
consoles can sell profit-free, but can't take a loss. MS had billions
in the bank, and understood the value of owning a piece of this
market, so they didn't care, and this made their relative kludge of a
system more competitive with Sony and Nintendo.
That's actually the best reason, too, to hack an X-Box into something
else. PCs are actually sold at a profit, albeit a small one in the
low-end market. You literally couldn't build an X-Box for the retail
price, much less the wholesale price, even if you were the largest
software company on the planet. Hell, with the right backing and
hacking, you could build a business based on X-Boxen used as computing
engines, cheaper than any possible competition, much less low-volume
computation. :-)
Of course, today, maybe not. It's been a little while, prices have
fallen, PC chipsets have become more integrated on the low end, etc.
When the PSX2 shipped, it was kicking PC ass on graphics performance,
at least on paper. In practice, it wasn't long before PCs were faster
again. The X-box didn't even pretend on that one.
>But I know that you can build a NEW system for less than SEK4000 (thats
>US$533) that are fully useable and *easilly* beat the xbox in performance..
The one problem with game console as "computer" -- they're locked in.
When any new console ships, it may well be the fastest thing around,
or the fastest thing at a given price point. But the PC business is
larger than any console, and really does come close to doubling in a
year.
>>Get ADSL cheapass. Then it plugs into your existing network.
>Noone can supply ADSL here, I live in a large country with fairly
>few people in it..
Same problem here: I live in a large county with fairly few people in
it. No broadband. Don't bash people because things aren't available to
them.
Gl...@canit.se
+Dave Haynie <dha...@jersey.net> wrote
[ A1200 vs A4000 ]
>>Yes, and was alot more cheap then the A3000 was.. even my A1200 with
Ofcoz I meant A4000 here, not A3000.
>>68030 50Mhz 2/8meg RAM and 245meg harddrive (this was 1993 I think) was
>>STILL cheaper than my friends A4000/030 25Mhz with 2+4meg RAM and hmm..
>>was it 120meg of harddrive as standard ? ..then my computer was around
>>3-5 times faster since it had a much faster memory.. (the motherboard
>>memory on A4000 sucks as you probably know)
>Actually, A4000 motherboard memory was just fine with an '030. Well,
Depends, ok, it worked alot better with 030 than 040, but still my A1200
with a Microbotics MBX1230XA had ALOT better memoryperformance than my
A4000 had.. both when I was running 030 and 040 (A3640 that is..)
[CUT]
>static column DRAM. On the other hand, the A4000s came with the Rev 4
>RAMSEY, which could support 80s DRAM as well as 100-120ns DRAM. So it
>wasn't as bad a hit as you'd think. And most of the '030 cards used
>off-the-shelf memory controllers, no great shakes those, especially
>with faster chips.
I have no idea what kind of memorycontroller the MBX1230XA used, but
it was fast.. especially when I overclocked my 60ns SIMM to 50ns
(with the SetXA utility).. (but I dont want to think about what a
60ns 8meg 72p SIMM costed me 1993..)
[ Alot of interesting C= history snipped ]
>>The A1200 wasnt a perfect machine, but it was still a affordable alternative
>>to the A4000.. also it was more expandable than the xbox..
>The A1200, oddly for 1991-1992, was actually done right. George
>Robbins and his team were allowed to make the new chips they needed to
>make the A1200 as it should be. That also grew out of the A3000+
>design, but I had no active role myself -- I think all my notes
>answered they questions they needed (there were a few issues; some
>bugs in the AA chipset were never fixed...).
Mu consern is more of the design.. if the A1200 had an inbuilt RTC, a
SIMM-socket on the motherboard and the case was just a little little larger
so it could house an 3.5" harddrive it would have been a so much better
machine..
In the downside.. if it had that specification I bet taht not so many
people would have invested in 68030/040/060 cards for it.. coz the
number one reason that I bought my 68030-card was that I needed more
memory, and then I the pricedifference between a Blizzard 1220 wasnt
that big.. and then a 030-25 card could offer a real SIMM socket instead,
and then the step wasnt really that big to a 68030-50.. so finally I
took my saved money and bought an MBX1230XA equipped with a 030-50
and 8megs of RAM.. (wich at that point felt like the fastest Amiga I
ever used, since the fastest I knowed of at that point was my friends
A4000/040 (A3640) wich suffered from its slow memory, but totally
wiped my A1200 when it came to renderingtimes in Real3D..:)
>>>> Either xboxes are extremly cheap, or PC's extremly expensive in your
>>>> corner of the world, coz here a Xbox costs slightly over 2000SEK, wich
>>>> is around US$266,
>>
>>>XBOX new is about US$250.
>>
>>Ok, a bit cheaper but similar to here..
>X-Boxen have largely been subsidized. Originally, MS was reportedly
>losing as much as $150 on each box. On paper anyway, Japanese game
>consoles can sell profit-free, but can't take a loss. MS had billions
>in the bank, and understood the value of owning a piece of this
>market, so they didn't care, and this made their relative kludge of a
>system more competitive with Sony and Nintendo.
Actually I seem to remember that the xbox was sold for very high prices
in the beginning, at least in Europe.. virtually noone bought them..
probably this price was the zero-loss/profit price ? (or just a lowloss
price..) then they cut the price ALOT, but still people didnt buy the
machines.. it was first when there was modchips for them that they started
to sell in any volumes.. ..however AFAIK the GAMES for it still doesnt
sell very good compared with the PS2 and GC games..
[ CUT ]
>Of course, today, maybe not. It's been a little while, prices have
>fallen, PC chipsets have become more integrated on the low end, etc.
>When the PSX2 shipped, it was kicking PC ass on graphics performance,
>at least on paper. In practice, it wasn't long before PCs were faster
>again. The X-box didn't even pretend on that one.
But I see it as two different markets.. I HATE the kludgy systems to
play games on the PC.. large installations on your harddrive, you have
to upgrade the OS AND the hardware to get it to work, and if your
hardware is older than 6 months it probably would be slow anyway..
when you uninstall it it leave large parts on the harddrive..
Alot of work, little playing.. thats why I like the console idea,
you put the CD in the drive, start the machine and play! ..it was
the same with old Amigagames.. just put the disk in the drive and play.
Thats one more reason that I dont want an xbox (even if it had any
games that I wanted except the crippled RTCW "successor"), I dont
WANT to put that much work to be able to play the games.. if I would
buy an xbox I would buy a DVD-burner too so I could use it "the right way".
However, this was why I always claimed that "An xbox is good for you
if you want to play xbox games", thats what its good at.
Necromancer666
"Jay Dresser" <j...@altair4.dresserfamily.org> wrote in message
news:854r2w1...@altair4.dresserfamily.org...
I'm assuming that they are refering to the original designs...AKA Lorraine.
Originally, the Lorraine was designed as a console, but once the designs
were starting to be laid out...they decided to not just have the ports for
keyboard/etc(they were putting them in for future expansion)...they decided
to run with it as a computer. By the time the CES came around, they had
decided on the Amiga name, and had a semi-working prototype(8 breadboards
wired together for each of the custom chips). I've heard all the stories
about how they had to keep repairing the thing on the fly. Everyone who saw
it at the CES(in '82 I believe) was highly impressed with it. It would be
almost 2 years before the Atari vs Commodore battle over the Amiga's
technology, and the A1000 hits the market.