Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Commodore Research and Development.
Message-ID: <17114@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 4 Jan 91 18:21:14 GMT
References: <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 67

In article <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu writes:

OK, no major counter-productive flames here, boys and girls.  Just a few
clarifications.

	"Better to keep the mouth closed and be thought a fool,
	        than to open it and remove all doubt"


>   CASE 1: THE CMOS CHIPSET AND THE ATARI LYNX
>   Some of the original Amiga founders were able to scale the Amiga chipset
>down somewhat and produce a CMOS version of it that preserves the 4096 colors
>and 4-voice stereo sound of the Amiga.  

The Handy, or "Atari Lynx" as it is unfortunately known today, is hardly a
scaled down Amiga.  It does have a very nice graphics display and a killer
sprite engine.  And a 6502 in it that's running a bit faster than the 4502
on the A2232 serial card.  Makes for a killer little game box, and I'd 
consider no other if I wanted a killer little game box.  But it has nothing
more in common with the Amiga than the fact that Dave and RJ created it,
and that it also has 4096 colors.  So an Amiga makes a nice development
environment for it.  


>   CASE 2: COMMODORE'S PC-CLONE R&D:
>   Commodore is perpetually a full generation behind the rest of the world
>in developing PC-xompatible systems.  

Commodore introduces its PC Clones in Europe first, some never make it here.
Originally, none of them were sold here, and even now, they're mainly sold as
home machine, not business machines.  Which is really where an MS-DOS machine
belongs.  And Commodore doesn't try to be on the top of the heap with Compaq, 
IBM, and the like.  PC Clones are a second tier effort at C=.

>   CASE 3: THE A2410 "U-LOWELL" VIDEO BOARD:

This board came to C= as a proposal from the University of Lowell Center for
Productivity Enhancement.  C= has funded previous Amiga-related projects 
there (actually, both funding and a great deal of technical help have gone
into this one).  Since this board looks like a good match for Amiga UNIX, it 
has been moving to product-hood.  But it's hardly been a high priority thing,
since it does no one much good until UNIX is completed.  This board is
intended to provide be a decent UNIX workstation type display, and in fact
is very similar to the displays on our color Apollo systems here at C=.  It
is not intended to be for 24 bit video work, which of course would give you
a NTSC/PAL compatible interlaced display.  Anything at CAD resolutions that's
also 24 bits deep is on the fringe at this point, up in Silicon Graphics
terratory where few if any PC class machines are welcome.  The ULowell design
could have been accelerated at any point if it became important.  It's about
done now.  So is UNIX.  Imagine that.  But such a creature, even if it was 
Amiga chip compatible (of course, it doesn't even come close), is far too
expensive to make a standard part of every Amiga.  

>   CASE 5: HIGH-DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES:
>These drives have been available for so long that
>they are already being considered out-of-date, and several companies
>(including IBM and NeXT) are moving beyond these drives to 2.88MB drives.

The only one with 2.88 MB drives is NeXT.  IBM hasn't announced that they're
moving to 2.88 MB drives, and in fact, the industry rumor mill has it that
IBM is looking a very different technology to go beyond 1.44 MB.  

-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
	"Don't worry, 'bout a thing. 'Cause every little thing, 
	 gonna be alright"		-Bob Marley