Violett'Blossom wrote:I am amused by retro hardware however I haven't got any chance to play with breadbin computers, what's so cool about them ?
What can they do that for instance 8088 can not ?
First up. An Amiga is not a breadbin computer. That is the Commodore64, and only the original design. It was a nickname, because it looked like a breadbin. What you are thinking of, are Amiga500, Amiga500-Plus, Amiga600 and Amiga1200. They are sometimes referred to, as a wedge computer or a all-in-one-keyboard computer.
Second. What can an Amiga do, as a 8088 can not do. That is the same as asking, what an x86 PC can do, compared to an Amiga4000. And since you are asking about breadbin's, yet thinking about Amiga's, then I asume that you are talking about one of the four that I have listed.
Now. What can the platform do, as an 8088 can not. Hmmm.... It is an easy question to answer. Yet it will be a really long answer. It also depends on if you are talking classic Amiga hardware, modern PPC Amiga hardware or FPGA reimplementation. Or simply refer to Amiga as the AmigaOS. The difference can sometimes be as big/large as the difference between a 486dx2-66-CirusLogicVLB with Windows95 and a Pentium3-Voodoo3 with Windows98.
I will give you a couple of examples on what you can do with an ClassicAmiga....
- Multitasking with 4 programs open at the same time (or more), using 1mb of Ram.
- Doing GFX without the use of the CPU, because the chipset does the work, leaving the CPU free for other stuff.
- Dynamic Ramdisk, resizing it self, depending on what you put in it. (Always the same size as what it contains).
- Synthesiser. (music)
- Video editing directly with native TV signal.
- Full auto configuration. (intelligent Plug And Play)
And it can do so much more.... These were only a few examples on what it was capeable of in 1985. It simply dwarfed any competition out there. And was 10 years ahead of anything on the market for home computers. The only stuff that gave you more, was something like Silicon Graphics. Sure you were able to upgrade any computer, yet I do not think that eighter mac nor x86 had any video acceleration at that time. If they did, then it was corporate turf and not home useage.
Just look at the 1985 Amiga introduction (YouTube) and compare it to an average x86 or Mac at the same 1985 price range.
Why is it so populair? Well... Mostly because we grew up with it. Secondly because it is a unique platform. It is just so special, compared to a 486dx33 ET4000-ISA Dos-6.22 machine.
EDIT:
Now...
That introduction video is "just" the original machine, wich later became the Amiga1000. That was 2 years before the Amiga500 and Amiga2000. 500/2000 did bring some new impovements to the table, yet Commodore did not push the platform that far, as they were able to do. And that is a completely diffrent story... What you were able to do at some point in the 90's, was to run the Amiga as the fastest Mac that money could buy.
1992 Amiga1200, running faster than a Mac from the same year - YouTube
Or...
You can pimp an Amiga600 to incredible speed, compared to stock configuration - YouTube (A little over 135 times faster in this case)
Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....
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