bakemono wrote on 2024-05-06, 14:11:
Jo22 wrote on 2024-05-05, 23:00:To be honest, I'm not even sure if I had used it if it was working.
The Janus software does merely support CGA and MDA (no Hercules!), so there's little of 286/386 era software that would run well.
Common use of bridge boards is just to run a shim program which allows the Amiga side to utilize an ISA ethernet card, which are more common than Zorro ethernet cards.
Good point, I remember. Getting access to cheap AT-Bus HDDs was one of these applications, I believe.
But still, the Commodore bridgeboards were a bit overpriced and didn't do PC platform any justice.
And the lack of Hercules support is something that still bothers me.
I'm ashamed of those Commodore engineers who thought that plain IBM™ MDA was good enough (CGA isn't worth being mentioned).
Because it doesn't (didn't) reflect reality in any way. Even if the Amiga didn't have the screen resolution, a virtual screen with scroll bars was possible.
In fact, I do have an 1980s laptop here, which does feature this. It's the Halikan 286.
Sometimes I wonder if this was done on purpose, so that Amiga fans could continue to make fun of PC hardware.
On the other hands, the Commodore bridgeboards never really evolved, were deeply stuck in the past.
Everything was based on that A2088XT PC card. Which itself was being based off that A1060 sidecar, I assume.
PS: There are pass-through cards, also, I believe. So the Amiga side can see the ISA slots. Golden Gate II is such a card, I think.
There's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dFLsT5T0RQ
I have no experience of such boards, though. Not sure how good they were.
Edit: By "CGA isn't worth being mentioned" I meant in a business context, I didn't mean to sound snobbish.
I mean who buys an extremely expensive PC emulator hardware (more expensive than the Amiga itself) just to play Alley Cat?
If there's anything an Amiga power user misses, it's not a low-end gaming experience, but PC productivity software (ACAD, floor planning software, Word perfect, Lotus 1-2-3).
Or business "games" to a stretch, like golf simulations, strip poker, ms flight simulator or a professional chess game.
Niche games not natively available on the Amiga platform.
And that's were Hercules was very important, simply. It was monochrome, but hi-def.
Psion chess in Hercules mode looks way more elegant than in CGA, for example.
To an avid chess player, this might be important.
Edit: To give an idea how awesome Psion Chess and Hercules graphics could be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx2aNlTqzvs&t=660
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