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Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

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First post, by Violett'Blossom

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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 ?

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Reply 1 of 426, by Scali

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The Amiga was, and is, pretty much unique.
Where a PC had a 'dumb' chipset, where the CPU has to move around every byte to get something on screen or out of the speaker, the Amiga had a very advanced chipset to take care of this.
Programming an Amiga is very similar to a modern multi-core PC with a GPU: you have multiple processors available in your system, and you can process multiple workloads in parallel, which you just have to synchronize when they complete.

There are endless possibilities for effects and optimizations.
In fact, people are still pushing the boundaries.
This is a demo released only a few weeks ago, at the Revision 2019 demo party, on the original 1985 CPU and chipset:
https://youtu.be/iD9xk3SDSYc

It plays back animations with 3d polygons in realtime. Try doing that on a PC from 1985 with just a floppy drive and 1 MB of memory (just getting that level of audio and video would already be impossible on a PC, given that VGA and Sound Blasters did not yet exist).

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Reply 2 of 426, by brostenen

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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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Reply 3 of 426, by Scali

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Perhaps to put it another way...
In the 70s, 80s and early 90s, arcade machines were the state-of-the-art when it came to realtime computer graphics and sound.
Companies like Atari and Sega would develop special hardware to push the limits, because that's what brought in the money.
The Amiga was originally developed as an arcade/game platform as well (by a team of engineers who left Atari), so a lot of effort was spent on its graphics and sound hardware. But over time, the project changed to perhaps be a game console, and eventually turned into a home/personal computer.
But the arcade-DNA was still in there: cutting-edge graphics and sound, way ahead of anything else on the market.

Funny enough, during its life, the Amiga did actually become an arcade machine, when it was used as the basis of the Virtuality machines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuality_%28gaming%29
The Amiga was once again ahead of its time: a virtual reality system with 3D goggles and motion sensors, in 1991. You know, that thing that has become a fad again recently with Oculus Rift and such.
And at the end of its life, it was also made into a game console, the CD32: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_CD32
It was effectively an Amiga 1200 without the keyboard, but with a built-in CD-ROM.

http://scalibq.wordpress.com/just-keeping-it- … ro-programming/

Reply 5 of 426, by stalk3r

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Amiga was an excellent hobbyist machine. Good video and sound combined with upgrade possibilities, all in a charming package. Not to mention the loads of quality games back then.

Reply 6 of 426, by j^aws

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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 ?

I'd like to see an 8088 do this, circa 1985, around the launch of the Amiga 1000 (not a breadbin, rather a pizzabox):
https://youtu.be/nSONKMisWis
This blew my mind as I actually saw this TV show in 1985 as a kid.

On the subject of arcades and multimedia, later, the platform was launched as an arcade system under the Arcadia branding:
https://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/ … ct.aspx?id=2005
This was a little too late and didn't do well, but underlines the platforms heritage.

Reply 7 of 426, by Tiido

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The simple answer I think is that there were shitton of games that beat anything on PCs both graphically and soundwise until 3D games began to become to norm. in the 80's there was no contest, Amiga wiped floors and ceilings with all the competing computers as far as games went.

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Reply 9 of 426, by brostenen

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And not to mention that hard to explain "soul" that the Amiga have. You need to experience it, first hand, in order to understand what it is all about. If you have a chance to play and try an Amiga500, then please do it. Then find a 1987 x86 MS-Dos computer and an 1987 Mac and play with them... Then you will see what makes the Amiga so special and why other platform did not fully catch up in 1995.

Well...
Perhaps BeOS and BeBox. Yet that was extremely short lived.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
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Reply 10 of 426, by realnc

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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 ?

A high-end Amiga would cost thousands of dollars. It had its own architecture. Just like PCs had expansion slots, so did Amigas. You could upgrade the CPU, the RAM, you could add sound cards, graphics cards, etc. This is an Amiga board:

6slmVC4s.jpg

These weren't C64s, you know 😀 And even the entry-level Amigas, like the A500, had some expansion capabilities.

What can they do that for instance 8088 can not ?

Well, the 8088 cannot be compared to any of the Amigas. The entry-level Amigas were more comparable to a 286, and the high-end ones comparable to a 386 or 486.

Reply 11 of 426, by brostenen

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realnc wrote:

Well, the 8088 cannot be compared to any of the Amigas. The entry-level Amigas were more comparable to a 286, and the high-end ones comparable to a 386 or 486.

Word... And truth there....
Amiga's were essential 16 bit machines, 286 machines are 16 bit. Commodore64 are 8 bit, and 8086/88 are 8 bit. Well... Internally the 8086 is a 16 bit CPU, and the rest of an 8086 machine are 8 bit. As a starting point. Stuff can differ to an extend and to some degree.

In this case.... 8088 vs. Amiga. Then Bit's can not be directly compared. The Amiga was like just a completely different arcitecture. And that said. I actually enjoy using an C64 over an Amiga. Yes... The Amiga is AWESOMME, yet I like a good breadbin better. Others might like Mac's instead of Amiga's and others like WinXP machines better than Amiga's..... In the end. It is all a personal taste that matters.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 13 of 426, by brostenen

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stalk3r wrote:
A picture is worth a thousand words […]
Show full quote

A picture is worth a thousand words

9gGxYTJ.jpg

True.... And I have that picture as a post card. Yet personal experience beats any picture. 😉
Or it might just be the fact, that I experienced the Amiga, when there were an actual Amiga culture.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 15 of 426, by brostenen

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Yeah.... Just google "amiga used for movie special effects".

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 16 of 426, by alvaro84

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realnc wrote:

Well, the 8088 cannot be compared to any of the Amigas. The entry-level Amigas were more comparable to a 286, and the high-end ones comparable to a 386 or 486.

Its closest parallel would be a 386SX, I think. 32-bit internal registers, 16-bit data bus, 24-bit address bus for a 16-MiB address space. Totally a 386SX.

And this 68000 was basically a contemporary to the 8088. Later the gap narrowed and even disappeared but in the 80s even the CPU was immensely better. Let alone the chipset with 64/4096 colors and 4-channel wavetable sound. And autonomy to do graphic tasks alone.

I'd say the PC needed a VGA and a GUS to reach/exceed its potential - and a stronger CPU of course.

Oh, and I had no Amiga back in the day. What a pity. Now I have 2 500s in my closet waiting for abway to try them...

Last edited by alvaro84 on 2019-05-13, 02:39. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 18 of 426, by j^aws

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Tiido wrote:

The simple answer I think is that there were shitton of games that beat anything on PCs both graphically and soundwise until 3D games began to become to norm. in the 80's there was no contest, Amiga wiped floors and ceilings with all the competing computers as far as games went.

In Europe, Australia and the Americas, yes. In Japan, the Sharp X68000 rocked, although its architecture came 2 years later, circa 1987.

In hindsight, the Amiga platform should've released with a dedicated games controller offering multiple action buttons that mimicked arcade controls.