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A4000 desktop advantages over A3000?

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Mark Gregory

nieprzeczytany,
17 maj 2000, 03:00:0017.05.2000
do
I'm considering adding an A4000 to my Amiga menagerie, but I'm puzzled about
a few things. I've checked other online sources, but none that I've found
answer these questions:

Other than using SIMMs instead of ZIP RAM, and having an IDE controller,
what does an A4000 desktop offer that an A3000 doesn't?

Does the A4000 desktop have the second video slot that the A4000T does?

Does the A4000 desktop have an integrated flicker fixer built in to the
motherboard, like the 3000?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Mark Gregory

Erik Inge Bolsø

nieprzeczytany,
18 maj 2000, 03:00:0018.05.2000
do
On Wed, 17 May 2000, Mark Gregory wrote:
>Other than using SIMMs instead of ZIP RAM, and having an IDE controller,
>what does an A4000 desktop offer that an A3000 doesn't?

Let's see. AGA. Easier removal of the motherboard from the case, I
suspect. 3.0 or 3.1 ROMs as standard. HD diskette drive as standard.
Socketed custom chips unlikely.

But A4000D is inherently a lower-end machine than the A3000 was. (Original
cost at launch of the A3000: 3000 £ ... original cost of the A4000D at
launch: 2000 £ .... original cost of the A3000T at launch: 4500 £ ... no
information about the A4000T)

>Does the A4000 desktop have the second video slot that the A4000T does?

No. The 4000D's standard zorro daughterboard has 4 Zorro III slots, 3
16-bit ISA slots and 1 video slot. (But you can buy third-party
daughterboards for it that do have a second video slot.)

>Does the A4000 desktop have an integrated flicker fixer built in to the
>motherboard, like the 3000?

No.

--
Erik I. Bolsø | email: <knan at mo.himolde.no>
| irc: Knan / #linux.no @ Undernet


Robert J Williams

nieprzeczytany,
18 maj 2000, 03:00:0018.05.2000
do

Mark Gregory <greg...@cadvision.com> wrote in article
<39238...@news.cadvision.com>...

> I'm considering adding an A4000 to my Amiga menagerie, but I'm puzzled
about
> a few things. I've checked other online sources, but none that I've found
> answer these questions:
>
> Other than using SIMMs instead of ZIP RAM, and having an IDE controller,
> what does an A4000 desktop offer that an A3000 doesn't?

The AGA chipset.

More space for drives (4x3.5 and 1x5.25) although this isn't quite a useful
as it sounds because the case is very cramped and the cables from five
devices can easily impede air flow. Even so it is hand to be able to have a
CD-ROM in the case rather than an external box.

Another advantage with the A4000 is that the only chip revision you really
have to worry about is Buster, you want -11 for compatibility with DMA
Zorro III cards where as -09 is buggy. With the A3000 there are several
chips which have been upgraded (Ramsey, DMAC, SCSI, Buster) and even having
the latest versions of all of them doesn't always seem to assure
compatibility with accelerators and the like.

A bit of a double edged sword is the fact that the A4k is pretty much all
surface mount (except buster if you're lucky!) this means you don't have so
many problems with chips walking out of their sockets as on the A3000 but
if a chip does need replacing then it's a major operation.

> Does the A4000 desktop have the second video slot that the A4000T does?

No, it has one video slot.

> Does the A4000 desktop have an integrated flicker fixer built in to the
> motherboard, like the 3000?

No, although AGA is capable of more useful DblPAL/NTSC and Multiscan
productivity screen modes than ECS (where they could only had 4 colours),
these work on some SVGA monitors.

FYI I have an A4000 Desktop in an Ateo Concepts tower and an A3000D which
is my main machine as I need something more portable. In general I prefer
the A3000 (the SCSI is great and it just has a "classic" feeling about it)
as long as you have a graphics card, but there's no denying that the case
is cramped and tricky to work on (13 screws to get at the RAM, ROMs etc.
and you have to remove all your Zorro cards!) but it does look nice!

HTH

Robert

--
| Vice Chairman and Mag Editor | rob...@seal-amiga.co.uk |
| SEAL - South Essex Amiga Link | A3000 CSPPC/060 CVPPC 64Mb OS3.5 |
| http://www.seal-amiga.co.uk | PageStream ImageFX Photogenics |
- Issue 5 of Clubbed magazine is imminent see website for contents -

redr...@my-deja.com

nieprzeczytany,
18 maj 2000, 03:00:0018.05.2000
do
Just want to add my 2 cents. Instead of paying the extra premium for a
A4000d, buy an A3000T. A3000T's are going for less than A4000d on eBay.
A3000t's are most likely the best computer C=ommodore ever made. BTW-
A3000t has 5 Zorro slots and most likely all updated chips and Int2
hack needed.

Jim


In article <39238...@news.cadvision.com>,


"Mark Gregory" <greg...@cadvision.com> wrote:
> I'm considering adding an A4000 to my Amiga menagerie, but I'm
puzzled about
> a few things. I've checked other online sources, but none that I've
found
> answer these questions:
>
> Other than using SIMMs instead of ZIP RAM, and having an IDE
controller,
> what does an A4000 desktop offer that an A3000 doesn't?
>

> Does the A4000 desktop have the second video slot that the A4000T
does?
>

> Does the A4000 desktop have an integrated flicker fixer built in to
the
> motherboard, like the 3000?
>

> Thanks in advance for any help.
>
> Mark Gregory
>
>


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Dauber

nieprzeczytany,
18 maj 2000, 03:00:0018.05.2000
do
Erik Inge Bolsø <kn...@mo.himolde.no> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.3.96.100051...@yme.mo.himolde.no...

> Let's see. AGA. Easier removal of the motherboard from the case, I
> suspect. 3.0 or 3.1 ROMs as standard. HD diskette drive as standard.

Not always standard -- there were a few A4000s that had a DD drive. [Mine
does -- the person I bought it from claims that that's how it was when he
got it, and I do remember reading that the A4000 did have a few DD models.]


--
--------------------------------------------------------
Get rid of "mike-love" to reply via e-mail.

John Hertell

nieprzeczytany,
18 maj 2000, 03:00:0018.05.2000
do
Mark Gregory wrote:

> Other than using SIMMs instead of ZIP RAM, and having an IDE controller,
> what does an A4000 desktop offer that an A3000 doesn't?

IDE an advantage??? (ok lowpriced disks..)

> Does the A4000 desktop have an integrated flicker fixer built in to the
> motherboard, like the 3000?

No.

imho the Amiga 3000 is the far BEST Amiga ever produced (casing exluded
:))

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
18 maj 2000, 03:00:0018.05.2000
do
>
> imho the Amiga 3000 is the far BEST Amiga ever produced (casing exluded
> :))

The A3000 should have had a new graphics chipset(much better). Also it's doubtful if
they should have done the A1200(and CDTV,A600).

Why not make a A1200 you wonder, well you can't have a graphics card in it. And
after some years the graphics chipset/memory is outdated but still have to be supported
in games because alot of the users still have them and don't want to buy a new computer
after 2 years. Also very few new games are being made during 2 years.

SCSI is expensive, no good idea. SCSI is really crap. I can't understand why anyone think
it's great.

They should have made one affordable model instead, basically like the IBM PC
compatibles and Mac. There weren't enough Amiga users simply.

IMNSHO it's crap.


Jörgen Johansson

Fredrik Svensson

nieprzeczytany,
18 maj 2000, 03:00:0018.05.2000
do
On 18 May 2000 19:45:57 +0200, "JJ" <jj...@algonet.se> wrote:

>>
>> imho the Amiga 3000 is the far BEST Amiga ever produced (casing exluded
>> :))
>
>The A3000 should have had a new graphics chipset(much better).

The A3000 did have a new chipset at the time it was released.

> Also it's doubtful if
>they should have done the A1200(and CDTV,A600).
>
>Why not make a A1200 you wonder, well you can't have a graphics card in it. And
>after some years the graphics chipset/memory is outdated but still have to be supported
>in games because alot of the users still have them and don't want to buy a new computer
>after 2 years. Also very few new games are being made during 2 years.

There is a slight contradiction here. First you say that the A3000
shold have a new chipset. Then you go on saying that chipsets get
outdated after a couple of years anyway, advocating a desktop or tower
model, so that it's possible to add a graphics card. AFAIK the A3000
offer both variants :-)

>
>SCSI is expensive, no good idea. SCSI is really crap. I can't understand why anyone think
>it's great.

SCSI is great!

>
>They should have made one affordable model instead, basically like the IBM PC
>compatibles and Mac. There weren't enough Amiga users simply.

IIRC most, if not all, Mac's came equipped with SCSI (quality before
quantity).

>
>IMNSHO it's crap.

I'm not quite sure what you mean? The A3000? The A1200? Amigas in
general? SCSI?

>
>
>Jörgen Johansson

Health!
Fredrik Svensson

John Hertell

nieprzeczytany,
18 maj 2000, 03:00:0018.05.2000
do
JJ wrote:
>
> >
> > imho the Amiga 3000 is the far BEST Amiga ever produced (casing exluded
> > :))
>
> The A3000 should have had a new graphics chipset(much better). Also it's doubtful if

> they should have done the A1200(and CDTV,A600).

so? AGA sucks pretty bad anyway, cant see ANY reason to use AGA. gfx
card you know?

> SCSI is expensive, no good idea. SCSI is really crap. I can't understand why anyone think
> it's great.

IDE is toys, sucks up all your CPU power. SCSI is for professionals.

I wouldnt touch a IDE CD-Writer, IDE DVD and IDE disks are ONLY for
storage not system files etc.

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do

> >The A3000 should have had a new graphics chipset(much better).
>
> The A3000 did have a new chipset at the time it was released.

They were about the same as the old one. Can you use more colors in Workbench
and games, how many more? Not much of improvement from when OCS was released.

> There is a slight contradiction here. First you say that the A3000
> shold have a new chipset. Then you go on saying that chipsets get
> outdated after a couple of years anyway, advocating a desktop or tower
> model, so that it's possible to add a graphics card. AFAIK the A3000
> offer both variants :-)

There is no contradiction. The custom chips was needed by the AmigaOS. Also
you need something to start with, there were not much gfx cards, standardized
drivers, or? And also more Amiga would be sold because it's less expensive than
a computer with gfx card. So? Well, I don't mean it's bad with custom chips with the
alternative to use a gfx card at that time. Some sort of built in graphics is needed
anyway so you have to have it.

> >They should have made one affordable model instead, basically like the IBM PC
> >compatibles and Mac. There weren't enough Amiga users simply.
>
> IIRC most, if not all, Mac's came equipped with SCSI (quality before
> quantity).

There were no reason for Commodore(or Apple) not to sell more computers, right?
If you buy a cheap EIDE HD you could buy a gfx card from Commodore later, any reason
to have SCSI then? The SCSI HD manufacturers would make the money and not Commodore,
why?

> >IMNSHO it's crap.
>
> I'm not quite sure what you mean? The A3000? The A1200? Amigas in
> general? SCSI?

The A1200 and SCSI, as of A3000 it all depends on the price, it was quite expensive so
that's why I think A3000 is crap too. The PC was much cheaper(and had better hardware).


Jörgen Johansson

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do

>
> so? AGA sucks pretty bad anyway, cant see ANY reason to use AGA. gfx
> card you know?

But they have to have built in gfx chips, that's the reason.

> IDE is toys, sucks up all your CPU power. SCSI is for professionals.
>
> I wouldnt touch a IDE CD-Writer, IDE DVD and IDE disks are ONLY for
> storage not system files etc.

Amiga wasn't that "professional".


Jörgen Johansson

Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do
Back on 18-May-00 12:45:57 JJ jj...@algonet.se Wrote:

(snip)

>SCSI is expensive, no good idea. SCSI is really crap. I can't understand why
>anyone think it's great.

Hmm, how about the ability to have up to 7 devices both internally and
externally?

How about the fact that most SCSI controllers on the Amiga are DMA, which uses
far less CPU than the A1200/600/4000 IDE controllers do?

How about the ability to have a SCSI Fast-Wide controller which is faster than
_ANY_ IDE drive on the Amiga?

<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner.


Ronny Tennebekk

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do
>SCSI is expensive, no good idea. SCSI is really crap. I can't understand why
>anyone think it's great.

Yes, SCSI is expensive, but it's the fastest media controller available
on the Amiga...

Regards
Ronny Tennebekk


John Hertell

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do
JJ wrote:

> > so? AGA sucks pretty bad anyway, cant see ANY reason to use AGA. gfx
> > card you know?
>
> But they have to have built in gfx chips, that's the reason.

Yes but I uses the built in gfx only for times when something have gone
totaly WRONG.
and then only for a period to reinstall my system from backup. so it
could be a 2 color 640x480 I wouldnt mind.

> > IDE is toys, sucks up all your CPU power. SCSI is for professionals.
> >
> > I wouldnt touch a IDE CD-Writer, IDE DVD and IDE disks are ONLY for
> > storage not system files etc.
>
> Amiga wasn't that "professional".

Maybe not, but I still wouldnt touch a IDE CD-Writer etc. on my systems
I have SCSI when I can.
OK my harddive on this machine is a 20GB IDE due to its price, but I
will soon get a SCSI RAID set for
the OS (Linux) so that will change.

(too bad my laptop has IDE only, there ARE 2.5" SCSI disks aswell..)

IDE is and will forever be TOYS for me and only to be used as a
fileharddrive and maybe cd ROM.

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do
> Yes but I uses the built in gfx only for times when something have gone
> totaly WRONG.
> and then only for a period to reinstall my system from backup. so it
> could be a 2 color 640x480 I wouldnt mind.
>

AmigaOS had to have it at that time(OS 2.1?).


>
> Maybe not, but I still wouldnt touch a IDE CD-Writer etc. on my systems
> I have SCSI when I can.
> OK my harddive on this machine is a 20GB IDE due to its price, but I
> will soon get a SCSI RAID set for
> the OS (Linux) so that will change.
>
> (too bad my laptop has IDE only, there ARE 2.5" SCSI disks aswell..)
>
> IDE is and will forever be TOYS for me and only to be used as a
> fileharddrive and maybe cd ROM.

Well, actually, I think the Amiga is a toy(like the filesystem for example).
I think SCSI is great technically to, but the fact is there are more EIDE users
therefore it has lower prices and you can still buy a SCSI card if wanted to.


Jörgen Johansson

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do

Technically SCSI is great. But it was a mistake to use it in A3000 because
Amiga has to compete with PC and Mac to survive. Almost everybody uses EIDE
and don't care if SCSI is better technically. They would had to have about the same
prices and performance as PC and Mac. It doesn't have to be a "super computer".
PC is slower than Mac and it was quite irrational to buy a PC instead of a Mac
in the 80's.

Locutus From Borg

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do
John Hertell <jo...@hertell.nu> wrote:

> JJ wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > imho the Amiga 3000 is the far BEST Amiga ever produced (casing exluded
> > > :))
> >

> > The A3000 should have had a new graphics chipset(much better). Also it's dou


>> btful if
> > they should have done the A1200(and CDTV,A600).
>

> so? AGA sucks pretty bad anyway, cant see ANY reason to use AGA. gfx
> card you know?
>

> > SCSI is expensive, no good idea. SCSI is really crap. I can't understand why
>> anyone think
> > it's great.
>

> IDE is toys, sucks up all your CPU power. SCSI is for professionals.
>
> I wouldnt touch a IDE CD-Writer, IDE DVD and IDE disks are ONLY for
> storage not system files etc.

Thats what i do think! It uses too much CPU power and when the CPU is
involved, graphic components also get less bandwidth on the busses.

Also, IDE has only 4 devices max. and the cable length must not exceed
50 cm or something.

Then i think about SCSI and see that even a MacPlus with SCSI-1(pseudo,
see *) can handle up to 6 SCSI devices (CPU itself is initiator with ID
7). Modern SCSI protocols support 16 or more devices connected, and they
all can be of different SCSI protocols. The maximum cable length can be
quite long (3-5m with 5Mhz narrow SCSI).

All in all, i am happy i can spread my SCSI units all over the table,
turning them on an off when needed and hot plugging them. I know SCSI
doesnt 'have' hotplugging really, but you can easily disconnect a HD
when you havent mounted it.

But since SCSI Harddisks are all High-End models, its getting really
expensive if you need storage. And for my archives, i dont need
UltraWide-SCSI but Gigabytes. So i am quite happy i have internal IDE
drives and external SCSI for CDR, MO, Scanner and stuff.

Locutus From Borg

PS: On the other hand, say the A600 had SCSI internally, then you
couldnt add larger drives anymore since 2.5" SCSI disks are no longer
manufactured.

Locutus From Borg

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do
JJ and a few others mentioned the Amiga being a "Toy" or just
technically not advanced.

While I am not an experienced Amiga guy - i only have the A500 and an 40
Mhz A600 - i think this is not entirely true...

I think the Amiga isnt a toy in the way it has always been one, i
believe the Amiga became a toy. Let me explain:

Back when the Amiga was invented (not Commodore), it was way ahead of
other computers. In a few ways, of course. People also say the mac was
ahead. In some ways... At least the Amiga was ahead compared to others
for the same market.

When i look at the A500's Hardware and remember its date, i am happy to
see what this machine all can do. and how good. considering its
ruducilous 7 Mhz. Its already had certain DMA, it uses a series of
Co-Prozessors, its stereo, its entiry back is full of connectors (go and
see a PeeCee laptop), it boots when something eatable comes...:)

But then i switch over to my A600. This machine has some accelerator
inside, a 68030 at 40 Mhz and some more RAM and a FPU socket. But if i
remove this, theres more or less an A500. Wait!

OK, we got an IDE interface, something called "ECS" chipset and which i
dont know what it consists of. But its still 7 Mhz. Its still DD Floppy
drive (but still better than a HD floppy at halfspeed, hm...). And i
even lack the expansion slot that made the A500 connect to more things
than an A600 can. But i have PC-Card slot. Nice 2 Megs in there:)

What did commodore do? They wanted to make it a game console, someone
told me. So the A600 is a cheap A1200 (which itself is a cheap
A3000/4000?). Now i wonder the strategy to use a cheap low-end chipset
rather than existing "high-end" ones. The production cost is the same,
more or less, no matter what video chip it is. Since the A4000 chipset
is already developed, it wouldnt have cost Commodore much.
The CPU is a cost factor, of course, but using a 2$-68000 is maybe a
little... too cheap? I mean, it has CoProzessors, sure, but still...
(The MacPlus CPU (8MHz) even had to do the video since it only had one
GLU chip...)

I am happy with all Amigas, this is sort of a computer that i like,
althought i have troubles with the workbench 'philosophy'. But i
understand why they are pretty much history. With the help of Commodore
itself...

Locutus

PS: Some said the A3000 was HighEnd and the A4000 not, but according to
the benchmarks i have seen, the A4000 is much faster than the A3000? And
isnt the A4000 offering upgrade to PowerPC with its CPU slot?

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do

The production cost may be the same but if almost eveyone buys EIDE HD they have
lower price than SCSI. If you buy a cheap EIDE you can buy a graphics card from Commodore,
why let the HD manufacturer get the money? Stupid.

Using a IDE in the 80's was irrational unless it was much cheaper. You have to
keep a low cost if you want to sell many computers(or HD and (don't forget the
underdeveloped countries).

I agree A500 was awesome, but they didn't come up with what they had to and what
they had before: awesome graphics chips. That basically what you want CPU power
great graphics.

I've read that the A3000 has a better design or something, but I doubt you will notice
when you use it. What counts is what I mentioned above, gfx and CPU and of course
software.


Jörgen Johansson

Erik Inge Bolsø

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do
On 19 May 2000, JJ wrote:
>The production cost may be the same but if almost eveyone buys EIDE HD
>they have
<massive snippage>

(Sorry. I know this belongs in *.advocacy, but no matter.)

All right. Let me summarize a few things to you. Let us think back to
1989, the year the A3000 was introduced. A 286 or 386SX running Windows
286 or just plain DOS was the mainstay PC. (Windows 3.0 came a year
later, in 1990) The 486 was introduced this year. A common PC had no sound
capability to speak of (maybe an adlib card). VGA was becoming common, but
still expensive.

The A3000, on launch, was intended to be a high-end graphics and video
workstation, and had a price tag to match, £3000. High-end workstations
have always had SCSI, and will always have SCSI. (Standardized in 1982,
its mostly-compatible precursor SASI was started work on in 1979.)
And by the way, the original IDE/ATA specification was specified in 1989.
Would it make sense to you to launch a new high-end computer with a new,
unproven, low-end disk interface? I thought not.

Note that with a genlock, the Scala MM presentation program, and two video
recorders, you had a very good video editing system. For the high-end
people, there was the Video Toaster, that perfectly well could be used for
TV broadcasts. What did the PC or the Mac have at that time that could
match? Nothing.

11 years ago, the A3000 was one of the best computers out there. Today,
it's not, but _we don't care_. Why should we, after all?

So, JJ, please go away.

--
Erik I. Bolsų | email: <knan at mo.himolde.no>

John Hertell

nieprzeczytany,
19 maj 2000, 03:00:0019.05.2000
do
JJ wrote:

> AmigaOS had to have it at that time(OS 2.1?).

In that time yeah but not now.

> > fileharddrive and maybe cd ROM.
>
> Well, actually, I think the Amiga is a toy(like the filesystem for example).
> I think SCSI is great technically to, but the fact is there are more EIDE users
> therefore it has lower prices and you can still buy a SCSI card if wanted to.

The Amiga a Toy? nah for me it is a machine with a very nice operating
system.
the Filesystem sucks yes.

But I wouldnt ever again buy an A4000(have had some) to get an A4000 to
be desent you HAVE to
buy:

A Scandoubler (present in A3000)
SCSI Controller (present in A3000)
Gfx Card (needed for an A3000 aswell)
3.1 Roms (needed for an A3000 aswell)

and as an A4000 is more expensive then the A3k so why waste money on
hardware that you doesnt use?
(WHO ever uses AGA today?)

--
// John "Chucky" Hertell
\\// Amiga since 18:th of Sep. 1987

AVOID Microsoft use Linux or Amiga OS

John Hertell

nieprzeczytany,
20 maj 2000, 03:00:0020.05.2000
do
John Hertell wrote:
>
> In that time yeah but not now.

Whaa I'm tired.. ofcoz AOS needs onboard graphics :)

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
20 maj 2000, 03:00:0020.05.2000
do

> All right. Let me summarize a few things to you. Let us think back to
> 1989, the year the A3000 was introduced. A 286 or 386SX running Windows
> 286 or just plain DOS was the mainstay PC.

Ok, thank you, and what harddisk interface did PC have? It fits perfectly
with my argumentation that they should have had the most commonly used
interface to be able to sell more computers. Which leads us to your next
argument:



> The A3000, on launch, was intended to be a high-end graphics and video
> workstation, and had a price tag to match, £3000. High-end workstations
> have always had SCSI, and will always have SCSI.

It should have SCSI because it was intended to be "high-end graphics and
video computer". Come on, it doesn't need a SCSI.

>High-end workstations have always had SCSI, and will always have SCSI.

What kind of argument is that? I have never said they should have done a
high-end workstation so don't bring it up here.
They should have done one type of computer that many could afford and
want to buy.

> And by the way, the original IDE/ATA specification was specified in 1989.
> Would it make sense to you to launch a new high-end computer with a new,
> unproven, low-end disk interface? I thought not.

Well it doesn't have to have a SCSI to be a high-end computer and
that's not what you wrote before either. You wrote "high-end workstation"
and "high-end graphics and video computer". You can't keep it together
yourself, how am I supposed believe in it?

They should have used the most sold interface for this type of computer.
I don't mean any of the types you mention because they can't be separated
from a PC/Mac except "high-end workstation" but it isn't a Silicon Graphics
type of computer you know only a little better than PC/Mac.

It's not unproven, it was the most sold for this type of computer, right?
You said it yourself. The PC buyers did not buy an unproven interface they
bought a new PC they believed in.

> Note that with a genlock, the Scala MM presentation program, and two video
> recorders, you had a very good video editing system. For the high-end
> people, there was the Video Toaster, that perfectly well could be used for
> TV broadcasts. What did the PC or the Mac have at that time that could
> match? Nothing.

They can't create a niche by doing a good graphics computer(and it's not in the
Silicon Graphics niche either). They should have realised it and used whatever PC
used unless they really had to(did they have to?) because it had to compete with
PC/Mac.

> 11 years ago, the A3000 was one of the best computers out there. Today,

> it's not, but we don't care. Why should we, after all?

It doesn't matter if they do a great computer unless it sells. OK! They had to sell
more to survive and it's not a niche. I didn't care 11 years ago either because it's
crap.

> So, JJ, please go away.

I expect an excuse for that one. I have never offended anybody, think more carefully
about how you argument and what you say to other people the next time. I certainly don't
have to "go away" even if I was wrong. I think most people would agree about that.

Jörgen Johansson

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
20 maj 2000, 03:00:0020.05.2000
do

Some use AGA still, but it's not very useful showing lots of graphics on the WB screen.

I used a A1200 with a 68060 and AGA to surf the net. But I used a patch called
FBlit that lets the CPU do the blitter job, it helps alot.

Over a long period most games didn't have gfx card support, I don't know why.

In the demo scene it was only AGA and now on later days(or 1-2 years) gfx support
is used too sometimes, but most games and demos after 1993 is AGA only.


Jörgen Johansson

Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
20 maj 2000, 03:00:0020.05.2000
do
Back on 19-May-00 12:29:19 JJ jj...@algonet.se Wrote:
> Technically SCSI is great. But it was a mistake to use it in A3000 because
> Amiga has to compete with PC and Mac to survive.

At the time of it's release the Mac was SCSI and finding prebuilt PC's with
SCSI wasn't all that uncommon(unlike today) which is why the 3000 WAS
competitive with those systems.

Remember that IDE had(and still has) some severe limitations like not being
able to add external drives of any kind, a limitation of only 2 drives per
controller, it also uses the CPU to handle all of the transfers and with a
slow CPU that can have a dramatic impact on performance.

> Almost everybody uses EIDE and don't care if SCSI is better technically.

It's not a matter of "technically", SCSI _is_ better. do you really think
that A1200 owners are overjoyed to have the IDE controller on their systems?
with it they're limited to only 2 drives(if they can find space for 2 in their
case) and none of them can be external, they can't add external Zip drives,
CD-RW drives, CD-ROM drives, scanners or anything else.

if they want to add those things then they either need a SCSI controller or a
tower case(which can be quite expensive) and even with the tower case they're
still saddled with the slow IDE PIO Mode 0 controller and the lack of
external expansion.

The Celeron system sitting next to my 2000 here has 3 IDE controllers here and
a SCSI Ultra 2 controller, even though I can have up to 12 IDE drives the
single SCSI controller can handle up to 15. even though 2 of the IDE
controllers are Ultra DMA 66, the SCSI drives have always outperformed them by
a very large margin, if you turn off the caches then UDMA66 drives run at
about 5 to 8 Megs per second while my Ultra 2 drive(seagate) runs at 14 Megs
per second and doesn't touch the CPU while doing it.

Do a comparison before you say "technically" again.

> They would had to have about the same prices and performance as PC and Mac.

You're confused if you think that IDE was as popular in the late 80's or early
90's as it is today, remember that the 3000 was first built quite some years
ago.

When the 3000 was released about the only advantage of IDE over SCSI was it's
price, every other advantage was in SCSI's favor.

Actually, that's still true today.

> It doesn't have to be a "super computer". PC is slower than Mac and it was
> quite irrational to buy a PC instead of a Mac in the 80's.

Not all that irrational if you consider which one sells more today.

<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

If you didn't get caught, did you really do it?


Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
20 maj 2000, 03:00:0020.05.2000
do
Back on 19-May-00 14:01:09 JJ jj...@algonet.se Wrote:
>The production cost may be the same but if almost eveyone buys EIDE HD they
>have lower price than SCSI. If you buy a cheap EIDE you can buy a graphics

>card from Commodore, why let the HD manufacturer get the money? Stupid.

>Using a IDE in the 80's was irrational unless it was much cheaper. You have
>to keep a low cost if you want to sell many computers(or HD and (don't forget
>the underdeveloped countries).

Which is why IDE was included with the 600, 1200 and 4000.

>I agree A500 was awesome, but they didn't come up with what they had to and
>what they had before: awesome graphics chips. That basically what you want
>CPU power great graphics.

Please point out what awesome graphics chips were available when the A500 was
released. as far as I know, there weren't any.

Even AGA was several years down the road and the Mac and PC were using 16(or
less) color displays. that the 500 could do 4096 colors with pictures WAS a
technical marvel.

Remember that in 85 or 86 the C64 was still to be found in most homes, the
80286 was king of the hill and servers were using 386 systems, the Mac was a
all in one(except for the keyboard) cased system and used the 68000 while
power Mac(LOL) users were using the 68020 CPU.

>I've read that the A3000 has a better design or something, but I doubt you
>will notice when you use it. What counts is what I mentioned above, gfx and
>CPU and of course software.

None of which existed when the 3000 was released. you can't compare the 3000
to current PC and Mac designs since they didn't exist back then.

You really don't have a clue as to what was available in 1989, do you?

<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

The early worm has a death wish.


Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
20 maj 2000, 03:00:0020.05.2000
do
Back on 19-May-00 18:43:51 JJ jj...@algonet.se Wrote:
>> All right. Let me summarize a few things to you. Let us think back to
>> 1989, the year the A3000 was introduced. A 286 or 386SX running Windows
>> 286 or just plain DOS was the mainstay PC.

>Ok, thank you, and what harddisk interface did PC have?

At that time? it was pretty much a mixed bag of SCSI and ESDI with some RLL
and MFM thrown it for flavor.

Oh yeah, there was also that very crappy IDE...

It was limited to only 540 Meg drives and didn't allow for CD-Rom, Tape drives
or anything else. CD-Rom drives were either SCSI or they were not used.

But...

IDE controllers didn't start showing up on the motherboard until the socket 5
motherboards (P60-P66) were designed (a few 486 boards with PCI had them
integrated into the board but most didn't) so you could have just about
anything on the board that you wanted as the default controller.

The only reason that IDE is so popular today is that it's _built in_ to the
motherboard on almost every PC board made, which means that if SCSI was there
instead then this topic would be pointless.

(BIG snip)

<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

All stressed out and no one around to choke....


JJ

nieprzeczytany,
20 maj 2000, 03:00:0020.05.2000
do

> IDE controllers didn't start showing up on the motherboard until the socket 5
> motherboards (P60-P66) were designed (a few 486 boards with PCI had them
> integrated into the board but most didn't) so you could have just about
> anything on the board that you wanted as the default controller.

Great! You can buy what you want, the less expensive ATA or the high performing
SCSI. That should fit most users and sell the most. It's what the customers want
,realize this. That's how the A3000 should have been built.

> The only reason that IDE is so popular today is that it's _built in_ to the
> motherboard on almost every PC board made, which means that if SCSI was there
> instead then this topic would be pointless.

No, No, I don't think the PC designers flipped the coin to choose between
ATA and SCSI.

Yes, of course it would be pointless, I don't really mind SCSI otherwise
and I've never said so.

Jörgen Johansson

Patrick Ford

nieprzeczytany,
22 maj 2000, 03:00:0022.05.2000
do
JJ wrote:

> > so? AGA sucks pretty bad anyway, cant see ANY reason to use AGA. gfx
> > card you know?
>
> But they have to have built in gfx chips, that's the reason.

And what did PCs or Mac s have to compare with A3000's graphics in 1989?
Two colours for Mac and crappy CGA for PC!

>
> > IDE is toys, sucks up all your CPU power. SCSI is for professionals.
> >
> > I wouldnt touch a IDE CD-Writer, IDE DVD and IDE disks are ONLY for
> > storage not system files etc.
>

> Amiga wasn't that "professional".

Where are you getting all this ridiculous nonsense? How old are you? About
12, I guess. You seem to have no idea what existed in 1989. If Amiga wasn't
professional, who do you suggest was buying all those A3000s?

If Amiga wasn't professional, whay was it mandatory for cable
TV companies, video editors and animation producers? Why is is still used
by cable TV companies all over the world and still used in every
animation workshop in the world? Why are Draco and Casablanca Amiga based?

Very stupid and ignorant people usually try to conceal their stupidity and
ignorance, but you seem to want to display yours to the world and revel in
it.
--
+ =================================+
|| Patrick Ford
|| Auckland,
|| Gnaw Thighland, NZ
+ =================================+

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
22 maj 2000, 03:00:0022.05.2000
do
> Where are you getting all this ridiculous nonsense? How old are you? About
> 12, I guess. You seem to have no idea what existed in 1989. If Amiga wasn't
> professional, who do you suggest was buying all those A3000s?

I guess they sold more A500, that's why I said it wasn't that professional and
they should have come up with a new game computer for these users instead.
Most people knew Amiga as a games computer don't forget that. The description
"professional" doesn't fit, and that's a fact..

> If Amiga wasn't professional, whay was it mandatory for cable
> TV companies, video editors and animation producers? Why is is still used
> by cable TV companies all over the world and still used in every
> animation workshop in the world? Why are Draco and Casablanca Amiga based?

Because it was the best alternative, not because it was "professional".
Amiga started as a games computer but obviusly it can be used professionally.

> Very stupid and ignorant people usually try to conceal their stupidity and
> ignorance, but you seem to want to display yours to the world and revel in
> it.

Another insult, amazing you want to dislay yours too since you care so much
about it.


Jörgen Johansson


JJ

nieprzeczytany,
22 maj 2000, 03:00:0022.05.2000
do
> JJ wrote:
>
> > > so? AGA sucks pretty bad anyway, cant see ANY reason to use AGA. gfx
> > > card you know?
> >
> > But they have to have built in gfx chips, that's the reason.
>
> And what did PCs or Mac s have to compare with A3000's graphics in 1989?
> Two colours for Mac and crappy CGA for PC!

Hmm, strange that doesn't belong there, but I guess you're right anyway. What's the point?


Jörgen Johansson


John Hertell

nieprzeczytany,
22 maj 2000, 03:00:0022.05.2000
do
JJ wrote:
>
> > Where are you getting all this ridiculous nonsense? How old are you? About
> > 12, I guess. You seem to have no idea what existed in 1989. If Amiga wasn't
> > professional, who do you suggest was buying all those A3000s?
>
> I guess they sold more A500, that's why I said it wasn't that professional and
> they should have come up with a new game computer for these users instead.
> Most people knew Amiga as a games computer don't forget that. The description
> "professional" doesn't fit, and that's a fact..

The fact is that when the Amiga 3000 did come out it was meant for
professional
and it was a real monstermachine. Its 25MHz 030 outperformed the PC of
that time.
(as a 25MHz 030 can outperform a 50MHz 486DX (not the slow DX2 but the
DX one)

With its FAST SCSI Controller (one of the fastest on the market, Maxtor
used
Amiga 3000 to see how fast their drives was then)

I remember when a friend of mine got his 16MHz A3000, what a
monstermachine.

> Because it was the best alternative, not because it was "professional".

It WAS professional.

Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
22 maj 2000, 03:00:0022.05.2000
do

The point seems to be that you're comparing a modern PC with an old A3000, try
comparing the 3000 with the PC hardware that was available at the time.

There's no way that you could convince me that IDE would have been better
since I was working as a Technician building and repairing PC systems at the
time(1989), had you used the alternatives to SCSI available at the time you
wouldn't be carrying on with this.

I also own about 20 different ESDI, RLL and MFM drives that aren't worth using
for anything other than paperweights, I also have about a dozen old IDE drives
that have about as much performance in modern hardware as a rock does.

And I also own about 20 different old SCSI drives, I still have the ancient
Quantum 40 Meg prodrive that I bought new for about $150 when it first came
out(I don't remember when I bought it but it was well before 1989) and even
today it still works flawlessly and gets about 3 Megs per second.

That's pretty much the difference between SCSI and other drive types, so far
even old SCSI-1 drives will still work flawlessly in even Ultra SCSI-2
controllers.

Now try running a PIO mode 0 drive in an Ultra 66 IDE controller, the hint
here is that it doesn't work unless you also have a host U66 drive. I can
still boot up the system with that ancient 40 Meg prodrive or my Rodime 200
megger.

SCSI has set standards that are still backwards compatible even with the first
SCSI drives and IDE can't do that if they want to get higher performance.

To get this remotely back on topic, the 3000 was designed for the power user
system and those systems have SCSI controllers instead of some off the wall
controller like a MFM or RLL drive controller

Perhaps you should complain to your server and try telling them to stop buying
SCSI drives, I know they use them since they're more reliable than IDE drives
and have faster performance.

When you build a server words like "IDE" don't even enter the discussion.

<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

Grinnin' like a mule eatin' sawbriars....


Geoffrey D. Oltmans

nieprzeczytany,
22 maj 2000, 03:00:0022.05.2000
do
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Erik_Inge_Bols=F8?= (kn...@mo.himolde.no) wrote:

: And by the way, the original IDE/ATA specification was specified in 1989.


: Would it make sense to you to launch a new high-end computer with a new,
: unproven, low-end disk interface? I thought not.

Not only that, ATA drives were wildly incompatible with each other if you
used drives from different manufacturers together. On top of that IDE was
intended to interface more or less directly with the x86 platform's bus,
not a 68k machine.


--
*Geoff!*

Gl...@canit.se

nieprzeczytany,
22 maj 2000, 03:00:0022.05.2000
do
> + On 20-Maj-00 06:51:52
+Greg Tallent <g...@gte.net> wrote

>>Ok, thank you, and what harddisk interface did PC have?

>At that time? it was pretty much a mixed bag of SCSI and ESDI with some RLL
>and MFM thrown it for flavor.

I would say that MFM(/RLL) where the absolutely most common interface then,
and it REALLY sucked.. I'm VERY glad that C= didn't use this crap in the A3000..

>Oh yeah, there was also that very crappy IDE...

>It was limited to only 540 Meg drives and didn't allow for CD-Rom, Tape
>drives or anything else. CD-Rom drives were either SCSI or they were not
>used.

..Or had their own controllercard.. I once owned a 1x CDROm with it's
own ISA controllercard[1].. a few years ago I exchanged it with an original
copy of Pirates (For Amiga) and the poor guy who have it now says that
it uses up 90-100% CPU in win95 on his mothers P133 when accessed :)


[1] Or integrated in the soundcard, like in my old PAS16 card..


| Apollo fastslot accelerators page - Http://www.canit.se/~glenn/apollo.html |
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Gl...@canit.se

nieprzeczytany,
22 maj 2000, 03:00:0022.05.2000
do
> + On 21-Maj-00 20:29:18
+JJ <jj...@algonet.se> wrote

>> >They should have made one affordable model instead, basically like the IBM
>> >PC compatibles and Mac. There weren't enough Amiga users simply.
>>
>> Huh ? did you ever checked the PC pices at the time A1200 was launched ?

>Yes, sure, every company, school bought them(IBM PC). You could run
>Windows,Word,Excel, and even mpeg movies all that in 1992. It was the most
>used, there weren't that many good games yet though. Did you want to be
>without one, did you want an Amiga instead, I did not.

..And they costed alot more than A1200.. And the "fun" software sucked.. it
was very useable for DTP and CAD, but it had no fun software..

And what PC's did people had home ? ..most likely an 386 with
a little RAM and MAYBE color VGA.. (640x480x4 / 320x200x8)

>I think the PC back then was good, but not before Windows.

Win 2/3.x really sucked, and that was the current versions.. W95/8 is useable but
arrived several years later ..and I still don't like it..

Patrick Ford

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
JJ wrote:

> > Where are you getting all this ridiculous nonsense? How old are you? About
> > 12, I guess. You seem to have no idea what existed in 1989. If Amiga wasn't
> > professional, who do you suggest was buying all those A3000s?
>
> I guess they sold more A500, that's why I said it wasn't that professional and
> they should have come up with a new game computer for these users instead.

They should have done a lot of things they didn't do. But it's a very
childish view that "they should have come up with a new game computer." In
fact that is exactly what they did with the CD32, and history shows that it
was exactly the wrong thing to do, and one of the things that broke
Commodore. Be an armchair expert if you like, but please don't deny the
facts of what actually happened.

> Most people knew Amiga as a games computer don't forget that.

So what? Most home PC users know them only as games machines and WWW
browsers.

> The description "professional" doesn't fit, and that's a fact..

It's not a fact, for for a number of reasons, starting with a lack of definition of
the word "professional," and continuing with the already established fact that
you have no knowledge of what the computer industry had to offer in 1989.

>
> > If Amiga wasn't professional, whay was it mandatory for cable
> > TV companies, video editors and animation producers? Why is is still used
> > by cable TV companies all over the world and still used in every
> > animation workshop in the world? Why are Draco and Casablanca Amiga based?
>

> Because it was the best alternative, not because it was "professional".

Oh what rubbish! Why was Amiga the chosen computer for NASA's space launch
telemetry? Why was it the main tool for Disney's animation studios? With
your lack of knowledge, there is no possible way you can assess what is or
was "professional." A2000 and A3000 were very much professional machines,
and made some people a hell of a lot of money.

> Amiga started as a games computer but obviusly it can be used
professionally.

It did NOT start as a games computer. If it had it would have had no
keyboard, no printer port, no serial port, no designed in genlock
capability, no music composition capability. A casual glance at the OS and
hardware would show anyone who knew a little about computers that is was
definitely not designed as a games computer.

It just happens that the capability for multimedia and everything else it
had mades it also eminently suitable for games.

Is it too much to ask you to get an adult to check your posts before you
send all the rubbish you have been posting? You should at least check up on
some of the fgacts before you dribble on. Try telling the people who sell
high end $100,000 systems that SCSI is crap. I doubt very much that they
base their engineering and commercial decisions on what dim-witted
school kids tell them.

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>>>> so? AGA sucks pretty bad anyway, cant see ANY reason to use AGA. gfx
>>>>> card you know?
>>>>

>>>> But they have to have built in gfx chips, that's the reason. <-- I wrote


>>>
>>> And what did PCs or Mac s have to compare with A3000's graphics in 1989?
>>> Two colours for Mac and crappy CGA for PC!
>

> >Hmm, strange that doesn't belong there, but I guess you're right anyway. <-- I wrote


> >What's the point?
>
> The point seems to be that you're comparing a modern PC with an old A3000, try
> comparing the 3000 with the PC hardware that was available at the time.

No, No, I haven't said PC or Mac had better graphics at that time. A3000 has ECS not
AGA, it's not possible I'm comparing a modern PC with A3000, OK! I don't know why
he wrote that, it doesn't mean you should write some silly stuff there too.
Please stop posting if you haven't got anything to add.

> And I also own about 20 different old SCSI drives, I still have the ancient
> Quantum 40 Meg prodrive that I bought new for about $150 when it first came
> out(I don't remember when I bought it but it was well before 1989) and even
> today it still works flawlessly and gets about 3 Megs per second.

3Mb/s, wow!

>I can
> still boot up the system with that ancient 40 Meg prodrive or my Rodime 200
> megger.

Yes, but only a guy like you would.

> To get this remotely back on topic, the 3000 was designed for the power user
> system and those systems have SCSI controllers instead of some off the wall
> controller like a MFM or RLL drive controller

> Perhaps you should complain to your server and try telling them to stop buying
> SCSI drives, I know they use them since they're more reliable than IDE drives
> and have faster performance.

No, I have been writing about Amiga and SCSI. <- That is the topic. Models
after A500 wasn't interesting for gamers. Gamers were the majority of the
users.



Jörgen Johansson

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> They should have done a lot of things they didn't do. But it's a very
> childish view that "they should have come up with a new game computer." In
> fact that is exactly what they did with the CD32, and history shows that it
> was exactly the wrong thing to do, and one of the things that broke
> Commodore. Be an armchair expert if you like, but please don't deny the
> facts of what actually happened.

I agree about the CD32, but I've never said they should have done it.
It uses almost the same gfx chips as A1200 and A4000, it's an enhanced A1200, that's not
what I meant with a "new game computer". You just make up things and use it as arguments.

> > The description "professional" doesn't fit, and that's a fact..
>
> It's not a fact, for for a number of reasons, starting with a lack of definition of
> the word "professional," and continuing with the already established fact that
> you have no knowledge of what the computer industry had to offer in 1989.

Another reason not to call it "professional" then.

> > Because it was the best alternative, not because it was "professional".
>
> Oh what rubbish! Why was Amiga the chosen computer for NASA's space launch
> telemetry? Why was it the main tool for Disney's animation studios? With
> your lack of knowledge, there is no possible way you can assess what is or
> was "professional." A2000 and A3000 were very much professional machines,
> and made some people a hell of a lot of money.

Seems professional to me, but they didn't choose it because it was "professional"
that was my point and it's not rubbish. I have never assesesed what is professional,
I said Amiga was mainly a game computer,"not that professional". You are making up
lots of stuff I never wrote. Why is that?

> > Amiga started as a games computer but obviusly it can be used
> professionally.
>
> It did NOT start as a games computer. If it had it would have had no
> keyboard, no printer port, no serial port, no designed in genlock
> capability, no music composition capability. A casual glance at the OS and
> hardware would show anyone who knew a little about computers that is was
> definitely not designed as a games computer.

Perhaps you should read the patent: http://www.geocities.com/~amooga/patent.html
it says it's a "video game home computer", "video game and personal computer".

You make up that a game computer should not have keyboard et.c. and then you use it as
an argument.

> It just happens that the capability for multimedia and everything else it
> had mades it also eminently suitable for games.

Again, read the patent.

> Is it too much to ask you to get an adult to check your posts before you
> send all the rubbish you have been posting? You should at least check up on
> some of the fgacts before you dribble on. Try telling the people who sell
> high end $100,000 systems that SCSI is crap.

Well, now who is childish? Check up some facts yourself. I've haven't
said SCSI is crap on other computers, it's off topic, I have been writing
about Amiga,Mac,PC. This is a newgroup about Amiga hardware not $100,000
systems.

>I doubt very much that they
> base their engineering and commercial decisions on what dim-witted
> school kids tell them.

I've never said that either.

Now listen here kid, stop posting here and stop being abusive. You have made up things to
use as arguments. That because you can't figure out anything better. Anyone can see that.


Jörgen Johansson

Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
Back on 22-May-00 13:54:59 Glenn Gl...@canit.se Wrote:
>> + On 20-Maj-00 06:51:52
> +Greg Tallent <g...@gte.net> wrote

>>>Ok, thank you, and what harddisk interface did PC have?

>>At that time? it was pretty much a mixed bag of SCSI and ESDI with some RLL
>>and MFM thrown it for flavor.

>I would say that MFM(/RLL) where the absolutely most common interface then,
>and it REALLY sucked.. I'm VERY glad that C= didn't use this crap in the
>A3000..

At least with SCSI we can still buy and use new drives, which is kinda hard to
do with RLL or MFM drives.

While I don't remember much about ESDI I think it was meant to be a variation
to SCSI.

>>Oh yeah, there was also that very crappy IDE...

>>It was limited to only 540 Meg drives and didn't allow for CD-Rom, Tape
>>drives or anything else. CD-Rom drives were either SCSI or they were not
>>used.

>..Or had their own controllercard..

I was going to add that but I didn't remember when CD-ROM really hit
mainstream use, I was pretty sure it was around then but not if it was in
1989.

>I once owned a 1x CDROm with it's own ISA controllercard[1].. a few years ago
>I exchanged it with an original copy of Pirates (For Amiga) and the poor guy
>who have it now says that it uses up 90-100% CPU in win95 on his mothers P133
>when accessed :)

>[1] Or integrated in the soundcard, like in my old PAS16 card..

Yep, my MediaVision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 board had a Sony interface and,
strangely, a good SCSI controller which worked with my first SCSI Zip drive
when the cable was converted from internal to external with a slot adapter.
it also worked great with my Texel(now Plextor) 1x cart load CD player.

Actually the PAS16 was generally an excellent board when you consider than
even without Wavetable MIDI it still had one of the better FM synthesis chips
available. it also worked great with my copy of Vamaha XG MIDI software player
on my old 486 DX4 120 system.

<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

Every minute you spend angry wastes 60 happy seconds.


Marcel DeVoe

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
JJ <jj...@algonet.se> wrote:
>> Where are you getting all this ridiculous nonsense? How old are you? About
>> 12, I guess. You seem to have no idea what existed in 1989. If Amiga wasn't
>> professional, who do you suggest was buying all those A3000s?

> I guess they sold more A500, that's why I said it wasn't that professional and
> they should have come up with a new game computer for these users instead.

> Most people knew Amiga as a games computer don't forget that. The description


> "professional" doesn't fit, and that's a fact..


Nonsence. I remember when my relative went looking to buy an Amiga. They
looked at an A2000HD. Then they say an A2500. When they inquired about it
the salesman told them that they didn't want that, that it "was for
Professionals. Musicians mostly".

>> If Amiga wasn't professional, whay was it mandatory for cable
>> TV companies, video editors and animation producers? Why is is still used
>> by cable TV companies all over the world and still used in every
>> animation workshop in the world? Why are Draco and Casablanca Amiga based?

> Because it was the best alternative, not because it was "professional".


> Amiga started as a games computer but obviusly it can be used professionally.

You're obviously mis-remembering about during when the Amiga was being
first worked on, the developers in order to keep the money backers at bay,
told them that was what they were developing, a games machine, in order to
hide that they wer working on a true 32 bit computer, the first of it's
kind.

If that isn't professional, I don't know what is.

>> Very stupid and ignorant people usually try to conceal their stupidity and
>> ignorance, but you seem to want to display yours to the world and revel in
>> it.

> Another insult, amazing you want to dislay yours too since you care so much
> about it.

No, it is you who are insulting us by presenting your ignorance as truth
and trying to re-write history to suit your wrongful "perception" of
what the Amiga was originally about.

--
Marcel J. DeVoe - mde...@shore.net - Team *AMIGA*
A4091scsi CV64 96 megs CDRW M1764-17" Catweasel FUSION/Emplant
A4000/060 CyberStorm MKII overclocked 66mhz - see "How to Overclock!"
and "DIY A4000 Tower for $45" @ http://www.shore.net/~mdevoe
Got an overclocking story to tell of /any/ kind?
Send it to me and I will post it to my "Overclocker's Web Page".

Patrick Ford

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
JJ wrote:

> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > They should have done a lot of things they didn't do. But it's a very
> > childish view that "they should have come up with a new game computer." In
> > fact that is exactly what they did with the CD32, and history shows that it
> > was exactly the wrong thing to do, and one of the things that broke
> > Commodore. Be an armchair expert if you like, but please don't deny the
> > facts of what actually happened.
>
> I agree about the CD32, but I've never said they should have done it.
> It uses almost the same gfx chips as A1200 and A4000, it's an enhanced A1200, that's not
> what I meant with a "new game computer". You just make up things and use it as arguments.

No I don't . I was answering direct quotes from your posts. You have chosen
to snip those. If it was imp[ortant to me I could go back to youre original
message and quote them again.

>
> > > The description "professional" doesn't fit, and that's a fact..
> >

> > It's not a fact, for for a number of reasons, starting with a lack of definition of
> > the word "professional," and continuing with the already established fact that
> > you have no knowledge of what the computer industry had to offer in 1989.
>
> Another reason not to call it "professional" then.
>

> > > Because it was the best alternative, not because it was "professional".
> >

> > Oh what rubbish! Why was Amiga the chosen computer for NASA's space launch
> > telemetry? Why was it the main tool for Disney's animation studios? With
> > your lack of knowledge, there is no possible way you can assess what is or
> > was "professional." A2000 and A3000 were very much professional machines,
> > and made some people a hell of a lot of money.
>
> Seems professional to me, but they didn't choose it because it was "professional"
> that was my point and it's not rubbish. I have never assesesed what is professional,
> I said Amiga was mainly a game computer,"not that professional". You are making up
> lots of stuff I never wrote. Why is that?
>

> > > Amiga started as a games computer but obviusly it can be used
> > professionally.
> >

> > It did NOT start as a games computer. If it had it would have had no
> > keyboard, no printer port, no serial port, no designed in genlock
> > capability, no music composition capability. A casual glance at the OS and
> > hardware would show anyone who knew a little about computers that is was
> > definitely not designed as a games computer.
>
> Perhaps you should read the patent: http://www.geocities.com/~amooga/patent.html
> it says it's a "video game home computer", "video game and personal computer".

Perhaps you should think about what "home computer" and "personal
computer mean.

> You make up that a game computer should not have keyboard et.c. and then you use it as
> an argument.

>

> Well, now who is childish? Check up some facts yourself. I've haven't
> said SCSI is crap on other computers, it's off topic, I have been writing
> about Amiga,Mac,PC. This is a newgroup about Amiga hardware not $100,000
> systems.

You said SCSI is crap and Amiga should have had IDE. That is just too damn
silly, and shows that your knowledge of computers then and now is
insufficient for you to make such an assertion. The reason for high spec
computers to have SCSI is that it is superior in every way. That was the
reasin for my reference to $100,000 systems.

>
> >I doubt very much that they
> > base their engineering and commercial decisions on what dim-witted
> > school kids tell them.
>
> I've never said that either.

But you did say SCSI is crap and Amiga should have had IDE. The common
standard in 1989 was MFM, anfd I doubt if even you would be able to say
that would have been a good choice. Perhaps I am mistaken--maybe you would.

SCSi was a perfect choice because HDs and CDRoms were available, and so
were SCSI scanners.


>
> Now listen here kid, stop posting here and stop being abusive. You have
> made up things to
> use as arguments. That because you can't figure out anything better.
> Anyone can see that.

I have simply directly answered your inane rubbish, and you have snipped
all the quotes of your posts which I had answered. That action speaks
louder than words.

Do not email me again.

Patrick Ford

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
Greg Tallent wrote:

>
> I was going to add that but I didn't remember when CD-ROM really hit
> mainstream use, I was pretty sure it was around then but not if it was in
> 1989.

I think they are, but there were no CDs to put in them. Earlier than that,
software was suploied for the Amstrad CPC (Z80 based). No they didn't have
an interface--it was simply audio and was used the same as a tape
datasette. It took five to ten minutes to load a 30k game

Ross Vumbaca

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
Hi,

Patrick Ford wrote:

> They should have done a lot of things they didn't do. But it's a very
> childish view that "they should have come up with a new game computer." In
> fact that is exactly what they did with the CD32, and history shows that it
> was exactly the wrong thing to do, and one of the things that broke
> Commodore. Be an armchair expert if you like, but please don't deny the
> facts of what actually happened.

I'm on your side in this, but leave out the CD32..;-) It didn't break
Commodore, in fact it could've saved them if they had enough money to
manufacture more units.. Also they had not enough money to make FMV
units.. shame..

Regards,

Ross..

--
*TO E-MAIL ME: Reverse the order of the domain name in my e-mail
address.*

Ross Vumbaca, a 'poor' Uni student at USyd.edu.au
http://www.fl.net.au/~rossv, e-mail: rossv@fl dot net dot au (fix this
if you e-mail me!)

Running on an Amiga 3000, NEC M700 17" thingy,
030/25, ECS, 8Mb Fast, 2Mb Chip, SCSI HDD's (never mind their size)
Kickstart 3.1 (40.68), OS 3.5, Linux 2.0 (RedHat 5.1), C= A2065 and an
Opalvision
card - ("Designed in Australia", and keeping the Zorro bus populated).
--

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> No I don't . I was answering direct quotes from your posts. You have chosen
> to snip those. If it was imp[ortant to me I could go back to youre original
> message and quote them again.

Yes you do, you make it sound like I wanted them to do a CD32 then you say it's wrong,
that is not legitimate.

> > > It did NOT start as a games computer. If it had it would have had no
> > > keyboard, no printer port, no serial port, no designed in genlock
> > > capability, no music composition capability. A casual glance at the OS and
> > > hardware would show anyone who knew a little about computers that is was
> > > definitely not designed as a games computer.
> >
> > Perhaps you should read the patent: http://www.geocities.com/~amooga/patent.html
> > it says it's a "video game home computer", "video game and personal computer".
>
> Perhaps you should think about what "home computer" and "personal
> computer mean.

Read it through and you see that the only use mention there is video game computer,
so I guess it was it's main purpose and therefore it started as a "game computer".
How can you say it did not?

>You said SCSI is crap and Amiga should have had IDE. That is just too damn
>silly, and shows that your knowledge of computers then and now is
>insufficient for you to make such an assertion. The reason for high spec
>computers to have SCSI is that it is superior in every way. That was the
>reasin for my reference to $100,000 systems.

I haven't said a high spec computer should have anything else than SCSI
and I haven't said they should. You make it up and use it as an argument, it's
not legitimate.

>But you did say SCSI is crap and Amiga should have had IDE. The common
>standard in 1989 was MFM, anfd I doubt if even you would be able to say
>that would have been a good choice. Perhaps I am mistaken--maybe you would.

Well, OK, IDE was not the most used, then use MFM instead. That's my point.

>I have simply directly answered your inane rubbish, and you have snipped
>all the quotes of your posts which I had answered. That action speaks
>louder than words.

Another insult, why should I answer all the stuff you have been writing.
If I snipped anything it's because it's off topic or not interesting for
me to comment anymore.

I snipped:

>> Most people knew Amiga as a games computer don't forget that.
>

>So what? Most home PC users know them only as games machines and WWW
>browsers.

OK, the point is it's mostly used as a game computer and WWW browsing.
Can you figure it out now? I don't think it was a good idea to abandon
their largest buyer group. Do I have to explain this? Obviously you can't
figure it out and I'm tired of your bullshit so I don't comment everything
you write. It's not some kind of proof you have legitimate arguments.

Anything else I snipped, just tell me.

I expect an exuse for your insults.

and this:

>Do not email me again.

you do not bring up in a newsgroup posting since you can mail me(and did) and it's an
answer to the mail, which wasn't anything to get upset about was it? This and your insults
tells me you got a bad moral.

Jörgen Johansson

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
> You're obviously mis-remembering about during when the Amiga was being
> first worked on, the developers in order to keep the money backers at bay,
> told them that was what they were developing, a games machine, in order to
> hide that they wer working on a true 32 bit computer, the first of it's
> kind.
>
> If that isn't professional, I don't know what is.

I did not know that, but still most users were gamers, why abondon them, all I'm
saying is I think that was a bad idea since it's hard to find a niche with a personal
computer.

> No, it is you who are insulting us by presenting your ignorance as truth
> and trying to re-write history to suit your wrongful "perception" of
> what the Amiga was originally about.

Come on, it's not meant as an insult, but his obviously is, it's nothing to get that upset
about. I'm not trying to re-write history, silly you, I got it wrong then, but most users
were gamers and that's why they sold a lot of computers.

Still my main point have not been commented, only single things I wrote. You haven't
been able to figure it out so far, I would not call that very clever.

Jörgen Johansson

redr...@my-deja.com

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do

> SCSI is expensive, no good idea. SCSI is really crap. I can't
understand why anyone think
> it's great.

SCSI does NOT overload the CPU. SCSI supports other devices other than
harddrives/cd-roms. The ONLY disadvantage of SCSI is a higher pricetag.

> They should have made one affordable model instead, basically like the
IBM PC
> compatibles and Mac. There weren't enough Amiga users simply.
>

> IMNSHO it's crap.

What?!?!? In 1990 when the A3000 came out the IBM PC models available
were twice the price!! Mac was more expensive too! The same with the
A1200 in 92, however I am not a big 1200 fan for other reasons..

Jim


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
> Back on 23-May-00 00:02:06 JJ jj...@algonet.se Wrote:
> >> The point seems to be that you're comparing a modern PC with an old A3000,
> >> try comparing the 3000 with the PC hardware that was available at the time.
>
> >No, No, I haven't said PC or Mac had better graphics at that time. A3000 has
> >ECS not AGA, it's not possible I'm comparing a modern PC with A3000, OK! I
> >don't know why he wrote that, it doesn't mean you should write some silly
> >stuff there too. Please stop posting if you haven't got anything to add.
>
> Please point out where I said squat about graphics. i'm talking about the
> drives, I don't know what you're talking about.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>> JJ wrote:
>>
>> > > so? AGA sucks pretty bad anyway, cant see ANY reason to use AGA. gfx
>> > > card you know?
>> >
>> > But they have to have built in gfx chips, that's the reason.
>>
>> And what did PCs or Mac s have to compare with A3000's graphics in 1989?
>> Two colours for Mac and crappy CGA for PC!
>Hmm, strange that doesn't belong there, but I guess you're right anyway.
>What's the point?

The point seems to be that you're comparing a modern PC with an old A3000, try
comparing the 3000 with the PC hardware that was available at the time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here it is.


Jörgen Johansson


Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
Back on 23-May-00 00:02:06 JJ jj...@algonet.se Wrote:
>> The point seems to be that you're comparing a modern PC with an old A3000,
>> try comparing the 3000 with the PC hardware that was available at the time.

>No, No, I haven't said PC or Mac had better graphics at that time. A3000 has
>ECS not AGA, it's not possible I'm comparing a modern PC with A3000, OK! I
>don't know why he wrote that, it doesn't mean you should write some silly
>stuff there too. Please stop posting if you haven't got anything to add.

Please point out where I said squat about graphics. i'm talking about the
drives, I don't know what you're talking about.

If you can't figure out who said what then maybe YOU should stop posting.

By 'modern PC' I was talking about the UDMA 33 and 66 controllers, which
isn't a fair comparison base to judge the 3000 with.

don't even get me started about the graphics available today.

>> And I also own about 20 different old SCSI drives, I still have the ancient
>> Quantum 40 Meg prodrive that I bought new for about $150 when it first came
>> out(I don't remember when I bought it but it was well before 1989) and even
>> today it still works flawlessly and gets about 3 Megs per second.

>3Mb/s, wow!

The available PIO mode 0 IDE drives only had a 3.3 Megs maximum theoretical
transfer rate(DMA 0 was limited to 2.2 Megs per second) so getting 3 Megs per
second on a drive that predated IDE isn't anything to laugh at.

>>I can
>> still boot up the system with that ancient 40 Meg prodrive or my Rodime 200
>> megger.

>Yes, but only a guy like you would.

But the ability to actually do so is quite an advantage.

>> To get this remotely back on topic, the 3000 was designed for the power
>> user system and those systems have SCSI controllers instead of some off the
>> wall controller like a MFM or RLL drive controller
>
>> Perhaps you should complain to your server and try telling them to stop
>> buying SCSI drives, I know they use them since they're more reliable than
>> IDE drives and have faster performance.

>No, I have been writing about Amiga and SCSI. <- That is the topic. Models
>after A500 wasn't interesting for gamers. Gamers were the majority of the

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Then explain the A1200. or the 600, CDTV and CD32.

Foot in mouth disease? :)

While we're at it, all of those systems listed there either come with or have
available SCSI interfaces which are widely used by many users, care to guess
why?

>users.


<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

Go ahead....we're cleared for "weird".


Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
Back on 23-May-00 04:56:05 Ross Vumbaca ro...@au.net.fl Wrote:
>Hi,

>Patrick Ford wrote:
>
>> They should have done a lot of things they didn't do. But it's a very
>> childish view that "they should have come up with a new game computer." In
>> fact that is exactly what they did with the CD32, and history shows that it
>> was exactly the wrong thing to do, and one of the things that broke
>> Commodore. Be an armchair expert if you like, but please don't deny the
>> facts of what actually happened.

>I'm on your side in this, but leave out the CD32..;-) It didn't break
>Commodore, in fact it could've saved them if they had enough money to
>manufacture more units.. Also they had not enough money to make FMV
>units.. shame..

Yep, the CD32 was a huge success for C= but they just didn't have the needed
cash to build more of them for users and with the FMV module they could have
quite possibly recovered from their problems since this when combined with the
CD32 was a cheaper alternative to the other systems that could view VCD movies
that were just becoming available.

Had C= managed to recover from their problems then we would be watching movies
on our Video CD systems today and there would be new Amiga systems as
well(that is if someone would have been smart enough to assassinate the
management at C=).

<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

How can 1/4 oz. of chocolate become 4 lbs. of fat?


Gl...@canit.se

nieprzeczytany,
23 maj 2000, 03:00:0023.05.2000
do
> + On 22-Maj-00 15:37:24
+JJ <jj...@algonet.se> wrote

>> Where are you getting all this ridiculous nonsense? How old are you? About
>> 12, I guess. You seem to have no idea what existed in 1989. If Amiga wasn't
>> professional, who do you suggest was buying all those A3000s?

>I guess they sold more A500, that's why I said it wasn't that professional

Sony have sold alot more PSx than SGI have sold Onyx2's.. so I guess that
PSx is more professional then ?

>and they should have come up with a new game computer for these users
>instead. Most people knew Amiga as a games computer don't forget that. The


>description "professional" doesn't fit, and that's a fact..

Most people use their PC's at home for gaming too.. but that was NOT IBM's intention
when they constructed their first "PC" machines..

>> If Amiga wasn't professional, whay was it mandatory for cable
>> TV companies, video editors and animation producers? Why is is still used
>> by cable TV companies all over the world and still used in every
>> animation workshop in the world? Why are Draco and Casablanca Amiga based?

>Because it was the best alternative, not because it was "professional".


>Amiga started as a games computer but obviusly it can be used professionally.

If professionals use it, it's professional.. ..or do you think Win NT are
professional coz M$ writes it on the case ?

..And besides that, A3000 was very expensive, it's pretty clear that C= aimed at
the professional market from the beginning..

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
24 maj 2000, 03:00:0024.05.2000
do
> >> Where are you getting all this ridiculous nonsense? How old are you? About
> >> 12, I guess. You seem to have no idea what existed in 1989. If Amiga wasn't
> >> professional, who do you suggest was buying all those A3000s?
>
> >I guess they sold more A500, that's why I said it wasn't that professional
>
> Sony have sold alot more PSx than SGI have sold Onyx2's.. so I guess that
> PSx is more professional then ?

No, the text says "since there were more A500 users then A3000 users Amiga
was not that professional". Read carefully before you comment.


Jörgen Johansson

Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
24 maj 2000, 03:00:0024.05.2000
do
Back on 23-May-00 13:28:44 JJ jj...@algonet.se Wrote:
>> Back on 23-May-00 00:02:06 JJ jj...@algonet.se Wrote:
>>> JJ wrote:
>>>
>>> > > so? AGA sucks pretty bad anyway, cant see ANY reason to use AGA. gfx
>>> > > card you know?
>>> >
>>> > But they have to have built in gfx chips, that's the reason.
>>>
>>> And what did PCs or Mac s have to compare with A3000's graphics in 1989?
>>> Two colours for Mac and crappy CGA for PC!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You mean this part?

the part that Patrick Ford wrote?

If you bothered to leave the headers in then you would know that.

Again, WHERE DID I SAY SQUAT ABOUT GRAPHICS!

Instead of calling you the clueless moron that you are i'll just attach the
original post from Patrick to the end of this, try actually reading it this
time.

And fix your damn newsreader so problems like this don't happen again.

>>Hmm, strange that doesn't belong there, but I guess you're right anyway.
>>What's the point?

>The point seems to be that you're comparing a modern PC with an old A3000,


>try comparing the 3000 with the PC hardware that was available at the time.

Please point out where I used the word "graphics" here?

Do you even know what the word "hardware" means?

>Here it is.

No, you're wrong again.
(as usual)

<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

Hehehe... Let's see them figure this one out!

Original post from Patrick Ford:
--

From: "Patrick Ford" <pa...@ihug.co.nz>
Subject: Re: A4000 desktop advantages over A3000?
Date: 22 May 2000 06:56:35 GMT
Message-id: <392982E3.MD...@ihug.co.nz>
Path: dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!su-news-
hub1.bbnplanet.com!paloalto-
snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!enews.sgi.com!news.xtra.co.nz!ihug.co.nz!not-for-
mail
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Organization: Not a hell of a lot
References: <39238...@news.cadvision.com> <3924157F...@hertell.nu>
<39244875.MD...@algonet.se> <39245EA4...@hertell.nu>
<39248816.MD...@algonet.se>
NNTP-Posting-Host: p73-tnt4.akl.ihug.co.nz
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-Newsreader: MicroDot-II/Amiga NC 1.4.4 [NC2-#00000301] -
http://www.vapor.com/
Xref: washdc3-snh1.gtei.net comp.sys.amiga.hardware:105831

JJ wrote:

> > so? AGA sucks pretty bad anyway, cant see ANY reason to use AGA. gfx
> > card you know?
>
> But they have to have built in gfx chips, that's the reason.

And what did PCs or Mac s have to compare with A3000's graphics in 1989?
Two colours for Mac and crappy CGA for PC!

>


> > IDE is toys, sucks up all your CPU power. SCSI is for professionals.
> >
> > I wouldnt touch a IDE CD-Writer, IDE DVD and IDE disks are ONLY for
> > storage not system files etc.
>
> Amiga wasn't that "professional".

Where are you getting all this ridiculous nonsense? How old are you? About


12, I guess. You seem to have no idea what existed in 1989. If Amiga wasn't
professional, who do you suggest was buying all those A3000s?

If Amiga wasn't professional, whay was it mandatory for cable


TV companies, video editors and animation producers? Why is is still used
by cable TV companies all over the world and still used in every
animation workshop in the world? Why are Draco and Casablanca Amiga based?

Very stupid and ignorant people usually try to conceal their stupidity and


ignorance, but you seem to want to display yours to the world and revel in
it.

Gl...@canit.se

nieprzeczytany,
24 maj 2000, 03:00:0024.05.2000
do
> + On 23-Maj-00 07:11:17
+Greg Tallent <g...@gte.net> wrote

>>I would say that MFM(/RLL) where the absolutely most common interface then,
>>and it REALLY sucked.. I'm VERY glad that C= didn't use this crap in the
>>A3000..

>At least with SCSI we can still buy and use new drives, which is kinda hard
>to do with RLL or MFM drives.

And the best part is that you can take an modern SCSI-card and still use that
old 20MB SCSI1-drive from stoneage on it.. ..as well you can take a modern drive
and just hook it up on a really old SCSI-controller..

Compatiblity in both directions Aah.. :)

>While I don't remember much about ESDI I think it was meant to be a variation
>to SCSI.

I thought that IBM used EDSI on their PS/1 machines ? ..I have a bunch of them here
and they have some strange harddiskcontroller..

>>>Oh yeah, there was also that very crappy IDE...

>>>It was limited to only 540 Meg drives and didn't allow for CD-Rom, Tape
>>>drives or anything else. CD-Rom drives were either SCSI or they were not
>>>used.

>>..Or had their own controllercard..

>I was going to add that but I didn't remember when CD-ROM really hit


>mainstream use, I was pretty sure it was around then but not if it was in
>1989.

I'm not really sure about the exact time here either, but the first CDROM's I
saw where manufactured by LSI (Laser storage incorporated or something) and
had their own controllercard, they also had some strange caddy that wan't
compatible with "modern" caddys..

>>[1] Or integrated in the soundcard, like in my old PAS16 card..

>Yep, my MediaVision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 board had a Sony interface and,
>strangely, a good SCSI controller which worked with my first SCSI Zip drive
>when the cable was converted from internal to external with a slot adapter.
>it also worked great with my Texel(now Plextor) 1x cart load CD player.

There was two wersions, one with a proprietary interface, and one with SCSI..
unfortunatly I had the first :(

>Actually the PAS16 was generally an excellent board when you consider than
>even without Wavetable MIDI it still had one of the better FM synthesis chips
>available. it also worked great with my copy of Vamaha XG MIDI software
>player on my old 486 DX4 120 system.

I still have my card somewhere, but don't use it.. I exchanged it for a
standard SB16 coz it where more compatible with DOS-games..

JJ

nieprzeczytany,
25 maj 2000, 03:00:0025.05.2000
do
>You mean this part?
>
> the part that Patrick Ford wrote?
>
> If you bothered to leave the headers in then you would know that.

Didn't know I mixed things up, but the quote is complete...



> Again, WHERE DID I SAY SQUAT ABOUT GRAPHICS!

You don't have to repeat that, since you told me(this time) you did not write it.

> Instead of calling you the clueless moron that you are i'll just attach the
> original post from Patrick to the end of this, try actually reading it this
> time.

Instead? You are! Are you for real? This is a sign that you don't know or care what
you write. You are clueless because you never understood my point, you were only
attacking single statements whithout seeing the point, if you would you could
have figured out some sensible arguments perhaps. Learn from this and again don't
insult people.


> And fix your damn newsreader so problems like this don't happen again.

Yes, and I wont send it as mail instead of post either...


Jörgen Johansson


Patrick Ford

nieprzeczytany,
26 maj 2000, 03:00:0026.05.2000
do
JJ wrote:

> > >> Where are you getting all this ridiculous nonsense? How old are you? About
> > >> 12, I guess. You seem to have no idea what existed in 1989. If Amiga wasn't
> > >> professional, who do you suggest was buying all those A3000s?
> >

> > >I guess they sold more A500, that's why I said it wasn't that professional
> >
> > Sony have sold alot more PSx than SGI have sold Onyx2's.. so I guess that
> > PSx is more professional then ?
>
> No, the text says "since there were more A500 users then A3000 users Amiga
> was not that professional". Read carefully before you comment.

How many of which they sold has absolutely no relevance to whether the
A3000 or Amiga in general was professional. Almost every manufacturer of
everything sells high volume of low specced goods and low volume of high
specced.

Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
26 maj 2000, 03:00:0026.05.2000
do
Back on 25-May-00 13:59:45 JJ jj...@algonet.se Wrote:
>>You mean this part?
>>
>> the part that Patrick Ford wrote?
>>
>> If you bothered to leave the headers in then you would know that.

>Didn't know I mixed things up, but the quote is complete...

But not made by me as you said.

>> Again, WHERE DID I SAY SQUAT ABOUT GRAPHICS!

>You don't have to repeat that, since you told me(this time) you did not write
>it.

Then why say that I did write that?

If I actually did write that then i wouldn't have any problem with admitting
it but I usually KNOW what I said or didn't say in a post.

>> Instead of calling you the clueless moron that you are i'll just attach the
>> original post from Patrick to the end of this, try actually reading it this
>> time.

>Instead? You are! Are you for real?

No, actually i'm an AI program gone amuck....

Had you left in the reply string that everyone writes(like at the top of this
post) then figuring out who said what wouldn't have been all that difficult
but for some strange reason you clip the reply string which usually causes
confusion over who said what.

This is exactly why there is a reply string in almost every post. and I know
that "X-Newsreader: MicroDot-II/Amiga 1.4.4 [#00018916]" allows you to add
one.

>This is a sign that you don't know or care what you write.

Why thank you Doctor Freud. perhaps you next want to point out that using an
Amiga is a sign of an unhappy childhood?

>You are clueless because you never understood my point,

Do you normally suffer from paranoia?

Hate to burst your balloon but you have yet to MAKE A POINT.

What exactly is the point of all this? that the 3000 really needed an IDE
controller? that the 3000 was a bad design? that IDE should be the de facto
standard for everything?

Enquiring minds(yeah right) want to know...

>you were only attacking single statements whithout seeing the point, if you
>would you could have figured out some sensible arguments perhaps. Learn from
>this and again don't insult people.

Says the person claiming that I was talking about graphics when in reality
that had absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.

I've posted several sensible arguements over the past few weeks, none of which
you've chosen to reply to.

And you STILL haven't figured out what was available in 1989 for a
professional system drive controller. IDE sure wasn't it.

>>and fix your damn newsreader so problems like this don't happen again.

>Yes, and I wont send it as mail instead of post either...

Hmm, I have yet to send anything to you in Email.

Still having problems figuring out who said what?

<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

Clark Kent is a transvestite.


Patrick Ford

nieprzeczytany,
27 maj 2000, 03:00:0027.05.2000
do
JJ wrote:


> >But you did say SCSI is crap and Amiga should have had IDE. The common
> >standard in 1989 was MFM, anfd I doubt if even you would be able to say
> >that would have been a good choice. Perhaps I am mistaken--maybe you would.
>
> Well, OK, IDE was not the most used, then use MFM instead. That's my point.

MFM *WAS* used until it became obsolete. Several C= HD controllers could
use MFM and SCSI. MFM was obsolete in 1989 and IDE was inadequate. In
choosing SCSI they chose what all the world except you knows was the best
choice. Your assertion that SCSI is crap is too silly to even be worth
refuting. SCSI was then and still is the best HD interface, which is whay
it is universally used in critical and important applications. Why do you
think all video production systems and all ISP servers use SCSI? What other
system has simple provision for 7 devices and logical support for 49
devices all on one host adapter? How would I plug in 3 HDs, one ZIP drive,
a CDRom drive and scanner if I had no SCSI controller? Have you ever used
an MFM system that you are retrospectively promoting as suitable for the
A3000? I can assure you that if A3000 had used MFM, not one would have
been sold.

> you do not bring up in a newsgroup posting since you can mail me(and
> did)

My email to you was one line: "Do not email me again."

I do not want offensive and insulting emails from you or anyone.

> and it's an
> answer to the mail, which wasn't anything to get upset about was it?

Indeed no. If a silly terrier yaps at me from behind a fence as I walk
down the street I don't get upset, and neither did i get upset at your
email. I was just mildly annoyed.

> This and your insults tells me you got a bad moral.

Nope, I have checked my moral and it is one of the best available.

Craig Blackman

nieprzeczytany,
29 maj 2000, 03:00:0029.05.2000
do
Shall we get back to the real discussion.

The 4000D actually has slower access to the motherboard memory than the
3000. CBM again wanted to make things cheaper.

They used IDE because the drives and interface are cheaper NOT because it
is better. IDE slows down the system because of its use of the CPU. IDE
cannot do more than one task at a time vice SCSI. SCSI can actually do a
sophisticated scheduling of tasks that is much more technical than I can
explain here. IDE is actually slower than SCSI2 FAST but faster than
SCSI2.

In plain fact IDE was not a good choice for a multitasking machine such as
the Amiga but it did lower CBM's cost.

CBM left the 31khz port off of the 4000. Big mistake with the advent of
so many monitors that require a minimum speed of 31khz.

While the 3000 doesn't have AGA it is not very important since the advent
of RTG and the various boards we have available to us today.

My choice is first a 4000T which solves many of the 4000D problems and
then a 3000T.

But despite the facts included this in only IMHO.

_____________________________________________________________
"Everyone is entitled to my opinion."
| mailto: (sk...@flash.net) |
Cheers from Craig of Tucson, Arizona, USA
--------------------------------------------------------------

" "
- Marcel Marceau


Neil Williams

nieprzeczytany,
29 maj 2000, 03:00:0029.05.2000
do

On Monday May 29 2000, Craig Blackman said to Greg Tallent:

CB> The 4000D actually has slower access to the motherboard memory than the
CB> 3000. CBM again wanted to make things cheaper.

Nope - not from what I can tell.

An A4000 is as fast or faster when accessing motherboard fast RAM as the
A3000, as long as you use /any/ CPU card except the Commodore-Amiga 040 @
25MHz card.

At least, my A4000/030 accesses memory about a 1/3 faster than my 4000/040.

CB> They used IDE because the drives and interface are cheaper NOT because
CB> it is better. IDE slows down the system because of its use of the CPU.
CB> IDE cannot do more than one task at a time vice SCSI. SCSI can

Only if you have more than one device attached to each interface..

CB> actually do a sophisticated scheduling of tasks that is much more
CB> technical than I can explain here. IDE is actually slower than SCSI2
CB> FAST but faster than SCSI2.

Depends what IDE interface you're using, doesn't it? :)

But SCSI is in general much better, yes.

CB> CBM left the 31khz port off of the 4000. Big mistake with the advent
CB> of so many monitors that require a minimum speed of 31khz.

Their line of thinking was "the 4000 (AGA) can run 31KHz natively, so why
bother with a super-expensive scan doubler and flicker fixer?" The problem
there being that many programs open PAL or NTSC screens, damn what the user
wants.


--
Neil Williams, Yourolund mailto:ne...@tkgbbs.freeserve.co.uk ICQ:18223711
http://www.aio.co.uk http://www.tkgbbs.freeserve.co.uk fiydoh 2:442/107
Zeus Developments, comms s/w: http://www.bleach.demon.co.uk/zeus/

Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
29 maj 2000, 03:00:0029.05.2000
do
Back on 28-May-00 20:35:23 Craig Blackman sk...@flash.net Wrote:
>Shall we get back to the real discussion.

There was a real discussion???

>The 4000D actually has slower access to the motherboard memory than the

>3000. CBM again wanted to make things cheaper.

Err, no. the 4000 only has a problem accessing the motherboard memory if you
use the stock 3640.

>They used IDE because the drives and interface are cheaper NOT because it
>is better. IDE slows down the system because of its use of the CPU. IDE
>cannot do more than one task at a time vice SCSI. SCSI can actually do a
>sophisticated scheduling of tasks that is much more technical than I can
>explain here. IDE is actually slower than SCSI2 FAST but faster than
>SCSI2.

Since the drive uses PIO modes(PIO mode 0) the drive will have a faster
transfer rate with faster CPUs.

>In plain fact IDE was not a good choice for a multitasking machine such as
>the Amiga but it did lower CBM's cost.

If everything is internal(like on the 1200) then IDE is a reasonable choice
but if the user wants to expand the system(like most A1200 users) then SCSI is
needed for it's more flexible use of drives. using IDE on the 3000 would have
ended it's career about 20 minutes after it's release.

>CBM left the 31khz port off of the 4000. Big mistake with the advent of


>so many monitors that require a minimum speed of 31khz.

I never did figure that one out, I always assumed that the higher numbered
systems were more superior to the lower numbered systems, in many ways the
4000 is a step backwards from the 3000.

The 4000 does, however, compensate for this somewhat by allowing the use of
the 'doubled' modes(IE Double NTSC) which are running at near 31Khz and work
on most 31Khz monitors.

>While the 3000 doesn't have AGA it is not very important since the advent
>of RTG and the various boards we have available to us today.

_At the time_ it was very important since the advent of the Amiga graphics
card was still quite a few years in the future. while there were some
graphics cards available at that time they usually cost about 3 times the
price of a 3000...

>My choice is first a 4000T which solves many of the 4000D problems and
>then a 3000T.

Like the integrated 4091?

>But despite the facts included this in only IMHO.

As are all posts without about 6000 witnesses to prove the poster is right...


<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

Age is a high price to pay for maturity.


Craig Blackman

nieprzeczytany,
2 cze 2000, 03:00:002.06.2000
do
On 29-May-00 14:33:27, Re: A4000 desktop advantages over A3000?, Greg Tallent typed:

>Back on 28-May-00 20:35:23 Craig Blackman sk...@flash.net Wrote:

>>The 4000D actually has slower access to the motherboard memory than the
>>3000. CBM again wanted to make things cheaper.

>Err, no. the 4000 only has a problem accessing the motherboard memory if you
>use the stock 3640.

Neil and Greg. Duh. Come on. I am talking about the 4000D as shipped
and I am talking about memory on the motherboard. And Neil what
test equipment or documentation did you use to come to your conclusion?
It is well known within the engineering side of the Amiga community that
CBM messed up on 4000D motherboard memory access. Now if you come upon
some info on the 4000T I would love to know if it was fixed.

>>They used IDE because the drives and interface are cheaper NOT because it
>>is better. IDE slows down the system because of its use of the CPU. IDE
>>cannot do more than one task at a time vice SCSI. SCSI can actually do a
>>sophisticated scheduling of tasks that is much more technical than I can
>>explain here. IDE is actually slower than SCSI2 FAST but faster than
>>SCSI2.

>Since the drive uses PIO modes(PIO mode 0) the drive will have a faster
>transfer rate with faster CPUs.

Can the 4000D IDE run faster than the PC IDE?

>>In plain fact IDE was not a good choice for a multitasking machine such as
>>the Amiga but it did lower CBM's cost.

>If everything is internal(like on the 1200) then IDE is a reasonable choice
>but if the user wants to expand the system(like most A1200 users) then SCSI
>is needed for it's more flexible use of drives. using IDE on the 3000 would
>have ended it's career about 20 minutes after it's release.

Not just expansion. The IDE drives use the computer for control of the
IDE bus, unlike SCSI. Also, IDE only does one thing at a time. SCSI
actually has a very sophisticated way of scheduling tasks so that you can
do more than one task at a time.

>>CBM left the 31khz port off of the 4000. Big mistake with the advent of
>>so many monitors that require a minimum speed of 31khz.

>I never did figure that one out, I always assumed that the higher numbered
>systems were more superior to the lower numbered systems, in many ways the
>4000 is a step backwards from the 3000.

CBM did this with their other computers too. Remember that the Plus4 a
severly crippled machine came out after the C64.

>The 4000 does, however, compensate for this somewhat by allowing the use of
>the 'doubled' modes(IE Double NTSC) which are running at near 31Khz and work
>on most 31Khz monitors.

It can't compenstate that you MUST have a 15Khz machine to setup the
machine. I.E. without a native 31Khz mode you are SOL right from the get
go.

>>While the 3000 doesn't have AGA it is not very important since the advent
>>of RTG and the various boards we have available to us today.

>_At the time_ it was very important since the advent of the Amiga graphics
>card was still quite a few years in the future. while there were some
>graphics cards available at that time they usually cost about 3 times the
>price of a 3000...

We are making a choice today and today AGA is OBE.

>>My choice is first a 4000T which solves many of the 4000D problems and
>>then a 3000T.

>Like the integrated 4091? Yep, on board SCSI is a winner.

_____________________________________________________________
"Everyone is entitled to my opinion."
| mailto: (sk...@flash.net) |
Cheers from Craig of Tucson, Arizona, USA
--------------------------------------------------------------

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
- Shaw


Craig Blackman

nieprzeczytany,
2 cze 2000, 03:00:002.06.2000
do
On 29-May-00 05:58:10, Re: A4000 desktop advantages over A3000?, Neil Williams typed:

> On Monday May 29 2000, Craig Blackman said to Greg Tallent:

CB>> The 4000D actually has slower access to the motherboard memory than the
CB>> 3000. CBM again wanted to make things cheaper.

>Nope - not from what I can tell.

It is an engineering fact that the motherboard memory on the 4000D is
slower than the 3000

>An A4000 is as fast or faster when accessing motherboard fast RAM as the
>A3000, as long as you use /any/ CPU card except the Commodore-Amiga 040 @
>25MHz card.

>At least, my A4000/030 accesses memory about a 1/3 faster than my 4000/040.

What did you use to measure this?

CB>> They used IDE because the drives and interface are cheaper NOT because
CB>> it is better. IDE slows down the system because of its use of the CPU.
CB>> IDE cannot do more than one task at a time vice SCSI. SCSI can

>Only if you have more than one device attached to each interface..

What? You need to read the SCSI and IDE specs. There is no question of
the superiority of SCSI over IDE. Cost is the only thing that makes IDE
appealing.

CB>> actually do a sophisticated scheduling of tasks that is much more
CB>> technical than I can explain here. IDE is actually slower than SCSI2
CB>> FAST but faster than SCSI2.

>Depends what IDE interface you're using, doesn't it? :)

Since we are talking about the 4000D I would just guess that that is the
IDE we are talking about. But the top speed SCSI today is 160 and IDE is
66 although the sustained rates for each are slower.

>But SCSI is in general much better, yes.

CB>> CBM left the 31khz port off of the 4000. Big mistake with the advent
CB>> of so many monitors that require a minimum speed of 31khz.

>Their line of thinking was "the 4000 (AGA) can run 31KHz natively, so why
>bother with a super-expensive scan doubler and flicker fixer?" The problem
>there being that many programs open PAL or NTSC screens, damn what the user
>wants.

Since when can the 4000 run 31Khz natively. I defy you to setup a 4000
with only a 31Khz monitor connect. Can't be done. With software
modification you can get it up to about 29-30Khz but to do that you need a
15Khz monitor to set it up.

Lets see you boot most any game and the 4000 will not drive a 31Khz
monitor for the game. The only Amiga with NATIVE 31Khz is the 3000.
Period.


_____________________________________________________________
"Everyone is entitled to my opinion."
| mailto: (sk...@flash.net) |
Cheers from Craig of Tucson, Arizona, USA
--------------------------------------------------------------

Don't lend people money. It causes amnesia.


Neil Williams

nieprzeczytany,
2 cze 2000, 03:00:002.06.2000
do

On Friday June 02 2000, Craig Blackman said to Neil Williams:

On reading this I see you're being very defensive - or appear to be - calm
down, I'm not trying to break reputations ;)

CB>>> The 4000D actually has slower access to the motherboard memory than

CB>>> the 3000. CBM again wanted to make things cheaper.


>> Nope - not from what I can tell.

CB> It is an engineering fact that the motherboard memory on the 4000D is
CB> slower than the 3000

You've got me interested! :)

I don't own an A3000 but all readings I've see have been slightly slower.
I've always taken the argument that the A3000's m/b RAM is faster as being due
to the seriously downgraded results from the A3640 040 card, as shipped in the
A4000(t)/040.

>> An A4000 is as fast or faster when accessing motherboard fast RAM as the
>> A3000, as long as you use /any/ CPU card except the Commodore-Amiga 040
>> @ 25MHz card.

>> At least, my A4000/030 accesses memory about a 1/3 faster than my
>> 4000/040.

CB> What did you use to measure this?

Bustest, of course.

Here's some results from an A4000/040:

12.all on nuke:System/c> bustest ?
ADDR/K,SIZE/K,CHIP/S,FAST/S,ROM/S,MEGA/S: chip fast
BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv) Buffer: 262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768
========================================================================
memtype addr op cycle calib bandwidth
fast $077F0000 readw 181.2 ns normal 11.0 * 10^6 byte/s
fast $077F0000 readl 350.6 ns normal 11.4 * 10^6 byte/s
fast $077F0000 readm 357.1 ns normal 11.2 * 10^6 byte/s
fast $077F0000 writew 332.4 ns normal 6.0 * 10^6 byte/s
fast $077F0000 writel 661.3 ns normal 6.0 * 10^6 byte/s
fast $077F0000 writem 659.6 ns normal 6.1 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $001B8000 readw 860.9 ns normal 2.3 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $001B8000 readl 861.0 ns normal 4.6 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $001B8000 readm 860.8 ns normal 4.6 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $001B8000 writew 863.0 ns normal 2.3 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $001B8000 writel 862.7 ns normal 4.6 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $001B8000 writem 862.9 ns normal 4.6 * 10^6 byte/s


And the same from an A4000/030 -- again, only testing motherboard memory.

11.Ram Disk:> nuke0:system/c/bustest chip fast
BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv) Buffer: 262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768
========================================================================
memtype addr op cycle calib bandwidth
fast $077E0000 readw 185.0 ns normal 10.8 * 10^6 byte/s
fast $077E0000 readl 294.2 ns normal 13.6 * 10^6 byte/s
fast $077E0000 readm 272.9 ns normal 14.7 * 10^6 byte/s
fast $077E0000 writew 248.2 ns normal 8.1 * 10^6 byte/s
fast $077E0000 writel 248.2 ns normal 16.1 * 10^6 byte/s
fast $077E0000 writem 209.2 ns normal 19.1 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $00028000 readw 538.9 ns normal 3.7 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $00028000 readl 573.3 ns normal 7.0 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $00028000 readm 629.0 ns normal 6.4 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $00028000 writew 575.0 ns normal 3.5 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $00028000 writel 574.8 ns normal 7.0 * 10^6 byte/s
chip $00028000 writem 573.9 ns normal 7.0 * 10^6 byte/s


Here are the results for the m/b memory on the BusTest author's A3000:

1> bustest addr=07010000
BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv) Buffer: 262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768
========================================================================
memtype addr op cycle calib bandwidth
user $07010000 readw 159.3 ns normal 12.6 * 10^6 byte/s
user $07010000 readl 299.0 ns normal 13.4 * 10^6 byte/s
user $07010000 readm 298.8 ns normal 13.4 * 10^6 byte/s
user $07010000 writew 254.5 ns normal 7.9 * 10^6 byte/s
user $07010000 writel 511.8 ns normal 7.8 * 10^6 byte/s
user $07010000 writem 507.5 ns normal 7.9 * 10^6 byte/s


As you can see, my experience is that the 040 card from Commodore is the
problem. The A4000/030 is clearly quite faster than the A3000, especially
during writes.

The A3000 had a head start, being fitted with an '060, but you can't beat the
electronics of the matter..


CB>>> They used IDE because the drives and interface are cheaper NOT

CB>>> because


CB>>> it is better. IDE slows down the system because of its use of the

CB>>> CPU.


CB>>> IDE cannot do more than one task at a time vice SCSI. SCSI can

>> Only if you have more than one device attached to each interface..

CB> What? You need to read the SCSI and IDE specs. There is no question
CB> of the superiority of SCSI over IDE. Cost is the only thing that makes
CB> IDE appealing.

I'm sorry, but please re-read my statement. IDE "cannot do more than one task
at a time" if there are two drives connected, if there is only one then what's
to break the data stream?

If it's running a single task, there's no need for multi-tasking! ;-)

I know SCSI is superior, christ most my machines have it in preference to
IDE..

>> But SCSI is in general much better, yes.

Oh, look.

CB>>> CBM left the 31khz port off of the 4000. Big mistake with the advent
CB>>> of so many monitors that require a minimum speed of 31khz.

>> Their line of thinking was "the 4000 (AGA) can run 31KHz natively, so
>> why bother with a super-expensive scan doubler and flicker fixer?" The
>> problem there being that many programs open PAL or NTSC screens, damn
>> what the user wants.

CB> Since when can the 4000 run 31Khz natively.

Umm.. right now?

CB> I defy you to setup a 4000
CB> with only a 31Khz monitor connect. Can't be done.

But.. but..

<looks at monitor, back to A4000 - does same with A1200>

I'm doing it now!

I'm in Multiscan:Productivity - which Screenmode tells me is currently running
"31.44 KHz vertical, 60Hz horizontal."

CB> Lets see you boot most any game and the 4000 will not drive a 31Khz
CB> monitor for the game.

No. As I said above, yah?

CB> The only Amiga with NATIVE 31Khz is the 3000.
CB> Period.

Yes.

My A4000T has a PicassoIV, so I have a superior scan doubler and deinterlacer
anyway :) <hides from further onslaught!>


--
Neil Williams, Britannia mailto:ne...@tkgbbs.freeserve.co.uk ICQ:18223711

Neil Williams

nieprzeczytany,
2 cze 2000, 03:00:002.06.2000
do

On Friday June 02 2000, Craig Blackman said to Greg Tallent:

CB> Neil and Greg. Duh. Come on. I am talking about the 4000D as shipped
CB> and I am talking about memory on the motherboard. And Neil what test
CB> equipment or documentation did you use to come to your conclusion? It
CB> is well known within the engineering side of the Amiga community that
CB> CBM messed up on 4000D motherboard memory access.

Please see my other message.

CB> Now if you come upon
CB> some info on the 4000T I would love to know if it was fixed.

For clarification:

The slow 4000/040 results were obtained from an A4000T (Buster 11, all newest
chips and the 3.2 040 card).

The faster 4000/030 results were obtained from an A4000 D (Buster 11, all
newest chips).

Both are standard, and as such only have memory on the motherboard.

The A3000 is described thus:
"this test was done on an A3000 with a CyberStorm Mk2 accelerator board.
the ROM is actually a copy of the Kickstart in RAM remapped with the
rom2fast program."

I have no reason to believe that Bustest is inaccurate: in other tests, it
matches perfected the empirical and theoretical throughput of the A1200's chip
RAM, the Zorro2 bus and the Zorro3 bus.

Warren Block

nieprzeczytany,
2 cze 2000, 03:00:002.06.2000
do
Neil Williams <ne...@tkgbbs.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

> I have no reason to believe that Bustest is inaccurate: in other tests,
> it matches perfected the empirical and theoretical throughput of the
> A1200's chip RAM, the Zorro2 bus and the Zorro3 bus.

Please don't confuse this argument by injecting facts! 8-)

--
Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota * USA
http://www.rapidnet.com/~wblock

Greg Tallent

nieprzeczytany,
3 cze 2000, 03:00:003.06.2000
do
Back on 02-Jun-00 02:52:48 Craig Blackman sk...@flash.net Wrote:
>On 29-May-00 14:33:27, Re: A4000 desktop advantages over A3000?, Greg
>Tallent typed:
>>Back on 28-May-00 20:35:23 Craig Blackman sk...@flash.net Wrote:

(snip)

>>>They used IDE because the drives and interface are cheaper NOT because it
>>>is better. IDE slows down the system because of its use of the CPU. IDE
>>>cannot do more than one task at a time vice SCSI. SCSI can actually do a
>>>sophisticated scheduling of tasks that is much more technical than I can
>>>explain here. IDE is actually slower than SCSI2 FAST but faster than
>>>SCSI2.

>>Since the drive uses PIO modes(PIO mode 0) the drive will have a faster


>>transfer rate with faster CPUs.

>Can the 4000D IDE run faster than the PC IDE?

If the PC is also using PIO mode 0 then probably. if you want to compare PIO
mode 4 or 5(unofficial) then try it on an even playing field.

>>>In plain fact IDE was not a good choice for a multitasking machine such as
>>>the Amiga but it did lower CBM's cost.

>>If everything is internal(like on the 1200) then IDE is a reasonable choice
>>but if the user wants to expand the system(like most A1200 users) then SCSI
>>is needed for it's more flexible use of drives. using IDE on the 3000 would
>>have ended it's career about 20 minutes after it's release.

>Not just expansion. The IDE drives use the computer for control of the
>IDE bus, unlike SCSI. Also, IDE only does one thing at a time. SCSI

^^^^^^^^^^^
Ever seen a PIO SCSI controller? they do exist.

>actually has a very sophisticated way of scheduling tasks so that you can

>do more than one task at a time.

This is the one hurdle that IDE won't be jumping anytime soon, at least it
won't if the drive makers want to keep the ability to be backwards compatible
with all of the current IDE stuff.

>>>CBM left the 31khz port off of the 4000. Big mistake with the advent of


>>>so many monitors that require a minimum speed of 31khz.

>>I never did figure that one out, I always assumed that the higher numbered


>>systems were more superior to the lower numbered systems, in many ways the
>>4000 is a step backwards from the 3000.

>CBM did this with their other computers too. Remember that the Plus4 a
>severly crippled machine came out after the C64.

Never bothered with that one once I got my C64. even the C128 didn't hold
much interest with me and considering that I can emulate any of them on the PC
whenever I feel the urge to do so...

>>The 4000 does, however, compensate for this somewhat by allowing the use of
>>the 'doubled' modes(IE Double NTSC) which are running at near 31Khz and work
>>on most 31Khz monitors.

>It can't compenstate that you MUST have a 15Khz machine to setup the
>machine. I.E. without a native 31Khz mode you are SOL right from the get
>go.

Of course at the time the ability to have 256 color screens running on a
normal TV was one helluva good thing considering the price of 31Khz monitors.

>>>While the 3000 doesn't have AGA it is not very important since the advent
>>>of RTG and the various boards we have available to us today.

>>_At the time_ it was very important since the advent of the Amiga graphics
>>card was still quite a few years in the future. while there were some
>>graphics cards available at that time they usually cost about 3 times the
>>price of a 3000...

>We are making a choice today and today AGA is OBE.

The minute that SVGA came out with the ability to show more than 256 colors
the days of AGA were numbered.


<tsb>
Greg Tallent |Amiga2000 GVP 040/33mhz/3.1 72 megs,7 gig/OpalVision|
gwt at gte.net |Zoom 56k, Syjet, Zip, Picasso II 2Meg, Plextor CD-R|

Anything you try to fix will take longer and cost more than you thought


Neil Williams

nieprzeczytany,
3 cze 2000, 03:00:003.06.2000
do

On Friday June 02 2000, Warren Block said to Neil Williams:

>> I have no reason to believe that Bustest is inaccurate: in other tests,
>> it matches perfected the empirical and theoretical throughput of the
>> A1200's chip RAM, the Zorro2 bus and the Zorro3 bus.

WB> Please don't confuse this argument by injecting facts! 8-)

Doh, sorry - forgot I was in csa.#? ;)

Gl...@canit.se

nieprzeczytany,
3 cze 2000, 03:00:003.06.2000
do
> + On 02-Jun-00 08:52:48
+Craig Blackman <sk...@flash.net> wrote

>>Since the drive uses PIO modes(PIO mode 0) the drive will have a faster
>>transfer rate with faster CPUs.

>Can the 4000D IDE run faster than the PC IDE?

I don't think I ever seen a PIO0 device get 2MB/sec RAW on a PC.. but it
might be possible..

>>>In plain fact IDE was not a good choice for a multitasking machine such as
>>>the Amiga but it did lower CBM's cost.

>>If everything is internal(like on the 1200) then IDE is a reasonable choice
>>but if the user wants to expand the system(like most A1200 users) then SCSI
>>is needed for it's more flexible use of drives. using IDE on the 3000 would
>>have ended it's career about 20 minutes after it's release.

>Not just expansion. The IDE drives use the computer for control of the
>IDE bus, unlike SCSI. Also, IDE only does one thing at a time. SCSI

Yeah, tell that to my Apollo 4060 SCSI-interface..

>actually has a very sophisticated way of scheduling tasks so that you can
>do more than one task at a time.

Depends on how the SCSI-part is solved.. normally you use a SCSI-chip and use
DMA to/from it.. then it works wonderful..

If you do everything in software like Apollo 4060 does.. it actually eats
MORE CPU than the internal IDE..

Gl...@canit.se

nieprzeczytany,
3 cze 2000, 03:00:003.06.2000
do
> + On 02-Jun-00 08:52:49
+Craig Blackman <sk...@flash.net> wrote

CB>>> The 4000D actually has slower access to the motherboard memory than the
CB>>> 3000. CBM again wanted to make things cheaper.

>>Nope - not from what I can tell.

>It is an engineering fact that the motherboard memory on the 4000D is
>slower than the 3000

A4000/040 yes, A4000/030 no.

..Or ok, with SC-RAM in the A3000 it's slightly faster than the A4000/030,
but with normal RAM they have more or less the same memoryaccess..

Craig Blackman

nieprzeczytany,
5 cze 2000, 03:00:005.06.2000
do
On 02-Jun-00 08:11:37, Re: A4000 desktop advantages over A3000?, Neil Williams typed:

>I'm sorry, but please re-read my statement. IDE "cannot do more than one
>task at a time" if there are two drives connected, if there is only one then
>what's to break the data stream?

That's not the problem. IDE takes each task one at a time. If it was an
elevator and three people got on and they pushed 5 then 2 and then 10.
That is the order IDE would accomplish the tasks. SCSI would do 2, 5, 10.
Of course it is more complicated than that. But for a multitasking
machine IDE is a killer. If you have a non-multitasking,
non-multithreaded computer, then IDE will not cause any problems.

>If it's running a single task, there's no need for multi-tasking! ;-)

Of course. I also run a PC and am thinking about SCSI for it. But, I
don't know enough about the crappy OS to know if it would make much of a
difference. SCSI 160 would at least add some speed. Boy would I love to
see that on an Amiga.

>I know SCSI is superior, christ most my machines have it in preference to
>IDE..

> >> But SCSI is in general much better, yes.

>Oh, look.

CB>>>> CBM left the 31khz port off of the 4000. Big mistake with the advent
CB>>>> of so many monitors that require a minimum speed of 31khz.

> >> Their line of thinking was "the 4000 (AGA) can run 31KHz natively, so
> >> why bother with a super-expensive scan doubler and flicker fixer?" The
> >> problem there being that many programs open PAL or NTSC screens, damn
> >> what the user wants.

CB>> Since when can the 4000 run 31Khz natively.

>Umm.. right now?

CB>> I defy you to setup a 4000
CB>> with only a 31Khz monitor connect. Can't be done.

>But.. but..

But but what. We are talking about NATIVE modes here. Not modes that you
can get with a scandoubler. The 3000 series is the only one that has that
built in.

><looks at monitor, back to A4000 - does same with A1200>

>I'm doing it now!

If you will please note, I said SETUP not run. So you are NOT doing it
(Setting up the computer) I have run my 4000T in all
of those modes. But to SETUP the computer you need a scandoubler or a
15Khz monitor.

>I'm in Multiscan:Productivity - which Screenmode tells me is currently
>running "31.44 KHz vertical, 60Hz horizontal."

Terrific! But that is running not setting up the computer.

Try your 31Mhz monitor with an empty HD partition as your boot and the 3.1
floppies. You will not be able to setup the computer because you can't
see a screen to setup the screen modes. As I stated from the beginning.

CB>> Lets see you boot most any game and the 4000 will not drive a 31Khz
CB>> monitor for the game.

>No. As I said above, yah?

No and again no. You are not booting a game (Booting meaning booting from
a floppy that the game comes on) that goes directly to the 31Khz mode.

CB>> The only Amiga with NATIVE 31Khz is the 3000. Period.

>Yes.

>My A4000T has a PicassoIV, so I have a superior scan doubler and deinterlacer
>anyway :) <hides from further onslaught!>

I also have the PicassoIV so that I can have a 31Khz output. But this is
certainly not native to the Amiga.

BTW I do love the Amiga but CBM really jerked us all around by taking the
scan doubler out of the 4000 series.


_____________________________________________________________
"Everyone is entitled to my opinion."
| mailto: (sk...@flash.net) |
Cheers from Craig of Tucson, Arizona, USA
--------------------------------------------------------------

If it doesn't seem like it's worth the effort, it probably isn't.


Neil Williams

nieprzeczytany,
5 cze 2000, 03:00:005.06.2000
do

On Monday June 05 2000, Craig Blackman said to All:

>> I'm sorry, but please re-read my statement. IDE "cannot do more than
>> one task at a time" if there are two drives connected, if there is only
>> one then what's to break the data stream?

CB> That's not the problem. IDE takes each task one at a time. If it was

Yes?

CB> an elevator and three people got on and they pushed 5 then 2 and then
CB> 10. That is the order IDE would accomplish the tasks. SCSI would do 2,
CB> 5, 10.
CB> Of course it is more complicated than that. But for a multitasking
CB> machine IDE is a killer. If you have a non-multitasking,
CB> non-multithreaded computer, then IDE will not cause any problems.

No.

CB>>> Since when can the 4000 run 31Khz natively.
>> Umm.. right now?
CB>>> I defy you to setup a 4000
CB>>> with only a 31Khz monitor connect. Can't be done.
>> But.. but..

CB> But but what. We are talking about NATIVE modes here. Not modes that
CB> you can get with a scandoubler. The 3000 series is the only one that
CB> has that built in.

I'm not using a scan doubler! I said so below!

CB> If you will please note, I said SETUP not run. So you are NOT doing it
CB> (Setting up the computer) I have run my 4000T in all of those modes.
CB> But to SETUP the computer you need a scandoubler or a 15Khz monitor.

Well, that's almost irrelevant, even if you ignore that a 15KHz display is
visible on a 31KHz monitor - it wraps, not breaks up like 31KHz on 15KHz.

CB>>> Lets see you boot most any game and the 4000 will not drive a 31Khz
CB>>> monitor for the game.
>> No. As I said above, yah?

CB> No and again no. You are not booting a game (Booting meaning booting
CB> from a floppy that the game comes on) that goes directly to the 31Khz
CB> mode.

Why did you say I was wrong then? I said no it won't display!

CB>>> The only Amiga with NATIVE 31Khz is the 3000. Period.
>> Yes.
>> My A4000T has a PicassoIV, so I have a superior scan doubler and
>> deinterlacer anyway :) <hides from further onslaught!>

CB> I also have the PicassoIV so that I can have a 31Khz output. But this
CB> is certainly not native to the Amiga.

Well, it fits anyway..

Where's the other reply I'm waiting for? :)


--
Neil Williams, 0,0. mailto:ne...@tkgbbs.freeserve.co.uk ICQ:18223711

Craig Blackman

nieprzeczytany,
18 cze 2000, 03:00:0018.06.2000
do
On 05-Jun-00 04:41:05, Re: A4000 desktop advantages over A3000?, Neil Williams typed:

> On Monday June 05 2000, Craig Blackman said to All:

>I'm not using a scan doubler! I said so below!

Actually, you are. The output of the Picasso IV is doubled and flicker
fixed when the Amiga is putting out 15Khz.

>Well, that's almost irrelevant, even if you ignore that a 15KHz display is
>visible on a 31KHz monitor - it wraps, not breaks up like 31KHz on 15KHz.

Since when? When the manufactorer states that a monitor will display to
say 29 or 30Khz that is usually it. My monitor shows a blank screen if I
try to input 15Khz into it. That means when you setup the Amiga
(non-3000, without a display card) that you are unable to see the setup
screens to put the Amiga into a 30Khz mode.

>Where's the other reply I'm waiting for? :)

Neil. By God, I hope there's not more. :-}


_____________________________________________________________
"Everyone is entitled to my opinion."
| mailto: (sk...@flash.net) |
Cheers from Craig of Tucson, Arizona, USA
--------------------------------------------------------------

Gravity...It's Not Just a Good Idea. It's the Law.


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