Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cimshop!davidm From: cimshop!davidm@uunet.UU.NET (David S. Masterson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: Re: (B) 68040 vs. gfx coprocessor Message-ID: Date: 3 Feb 90 02:43:07 GMT References: <633@xdos.UUCP> <3046@pur-phy> <16389@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <677@h.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu> <4733@sbcs.sunysb.edu> Sender: davidm@cimshop.UUCP Organization: Consilium Inc., Mountain View, California. Lines: 61 In-reply-to: root@sbcs.sunysb.edu's message of 1 Feb 90 19:18:53 GMT In article <4733@sbcs.sunysb.edu> root@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Systems Staff) writes: In article <677@h.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu> dbl@h.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu writes: If we want to talk about pipe dreams but stay in the realm of possibility, how about the motorola DSP to handle sound (and other various and sundry stuff) and add the TI 34020 to do the windowing, gfx, etc, and top these new players off with an '030/040 running in the mid to low double digits (25-50 MHz). The beauty of this (and the real complement to the system software designers) is by replacing a library here and there this could work with CURRENT applications that do not grab the hardware. Replace graphics.library, audio.device, etc etc, and enjoy the speed increases. This should be doable if a wee tad expensive. Maybe even put these guys on a board for the 2000 owners (me in particular). Anybody know if this possible? COuld the hardware be put on boards and slipped into the video slot/cpu slot? Yes, this is possible. Yes, people have thought of these things before. The real question is whether a market that seems to whine about any peripheral that costs more than $299 would pay back the effort required to develop a machine with the capabilities you've stated. A machine loaded with a 34020, 56001 (or 96002), 50 mHz 68030, and surrounding architecture to run such chips at full speed would almost certainly carry a US $12K+ end user price tag. Would *you* be willing to put up that kind of money? In the home market, 99% no. In the business arena, that depends on the cost/benefit ratio. Amiga will never be the business player that IBM, Sun, DEC, etc. are, but it does have a potential ace in the hole that they do not -- the home market. Unix made it into the corporate consciousness through the college market. Programmers who learned Unix at college wanted to continue using it at work and management found that it was cheaper to give them Unix then to retrain them. The same idea can work in the Amiga market. If home video/audio developers learn "great" things on their home Amiga and start using it on the job, there could be a demand for Amigas in the business market. However, the two markets are different. The at-home programmer might settle for days of ray-tracing in order to get potentially professional results because he hasn't got the bucks to move up. The business programmer, on the other hand, doesn't have time to waste and potentially does have the bucks to spend (certainly more than the home user) and would want to upgrade hardware for superior performance. In fact, he might be willing to "accept" things on the Amiga that he might not on other equipment (IBM, SUN, DEC) because he is "used to" the Amiga at home. Therefore, any high-powered/expensive hardware/software developer for the Amiga would do well to remember the large percentage of users that are currently using the Amiga and direct a low-end, compatible system at them in order to garner interest in the high-end system for the work place. Also, obviously, Commodore must not pull an Apple-ism and shoot for the high-end (business) market and forget the low-end (home) market. The selling point that can beat (or at least win a few battles against) the other workstation makers is the body of people that can say "Amiga... I use that at home and it does great... maybe I should look into it here at work". -- =================================================================== David Masterson Consilium, Inc. uunet!cimshop!davidm Mt. View, CA 94043 =================================================================== "If someone thinks they know what I said, then I didn't say it!"