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From: ccplumb@watnot.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: The Next Amiga
Message-ID: <12821@watnot.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Apr-87 13:30:28 EST
Article-I.D.: watnot.12821
Posted: Wed Apr  8 13:30:28 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Apr-87 05:01:05 EST
References: <3367@udenva.UUCP> <1643@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>
Reply-To: ccplumb@watnot.UUCP (Colin Plumb)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 32

grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes:
>This year, we're going to introduce two new Amiga machines and a bunch of
>expansion products and peripherals.  We are addressing 68020 performance
>through an add-in card, rather than an exotic high-dollar MAC-II approach.
>If people are willing to pay for this kind of performance, I won't take
>long to put the 68020 down on the mainboard and christen it an A3000 or
>whatever.

a) Thanks for the reassurance.  It's *very* nice to know C-A is doing
   something that we will eventually get our hands on.

b) A 68020-vased Amiga does have a few interesting possibilities...

Putting a 68020 in the motherboard lets the chip mem bus be 32 bits wide,
and run at 14 (or even 21! *that* would be nice!) MHz, so the processor
can do things to it faster.  If the graphics chips can use it as well,
we can get things like 8 bitplanes in high-res; if they can't, it wouldn't
be too hard to redo the I/O sections to handle the higher bus speed, even
if the chips still run at 8 MHz internally.  (I think... please tell me
if I'm wrong.  I suspect the 32-bit interface would be harder.)

How much would an '020 add to the price of a new Amiga?  It would probably
take a while to get the higher-speed hardware working, but Los Gatos could
probably put it together without great difficulty.  (Hint, Hint to C-A
management!)  

Happy hacking to all C-A's R&D types.
--
	-Colin Plumb (watmath!watnot!ccplumb)

Silly quote:
He's letting ground grow under his feet.