Conference napalm::commusic_v1

107.0. "Commodore Amiga Computer" by NOVA::RAVAN () Sat Jun 15 1985 16:37

I recently received the following article about the new Amiga from Usenet's
net.micro.cbm.  I expanded the original 40 column justified text to 80 columns.
I did not edit some obvious typos and grammar, feeling that urtext was much more
reliable in this case.  Note that this information is now at least
fourth-generation.

===================

Newsgroups: net.micro.cbm,net.micro,net.rumor
Path: decwrl!sun!amdahl!dwl10
Subject: "Valid" AMIGA info.
Posted: Tue Jun 11 09:48:38 1985

Xref: sun net.micro.cbm:724 net.micro:9809 net.rumor:837

The following information was obtained from a Washington, D.C.
Commodore BBS. It is third generation info, but the source seems to
know wat he is talking about.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Readers - 'ARLANL' is the DELPHI  user name  of  Sheldon  Leeman,  author  of
"Mapping the 64" and a  whole  lot  of those Compute! articles  you've  read.
This is a letter he left on  the  C-64 sig on Delphi.

  3147 5-JUN-11:42: C-128 & Amiga
   Hard AMIGA Facts! (Re: Msg 2998)
   From: ARLANL       To: LUNERANGER

Steve, calling the Amiga a  Mac  clone is like calling a PC AT a  big  pocket
calculator.  They are similar in  some sense (like they are both computers  &
they both use  the  68000  chip,  they both have  mouse-controlled  windowing
environments), but so then are the  64 and  the  VIC,  and  nobody  has  ever
confused them.  I have had a chance to talk to the designers of the  machine,
and several of the people who attended the programmers seminar that Commodore
held in Monterey about two weeks  ago. At  that  seminar,  the  Amiga  people
supposedly  supplied  enough  detailed information that you  could  build  an
Amiga  with  the  information   given. Everybody  had  raves  both  for   the
seminar  and  for  the  machine.   The reaction was much more  positive  than
that for the GEM seminar held  earlier by Digital Research.  At that seminar,
  many  Mac  programmers   came   away disappointed with the system resources
which they found much weaker than  the Mac.  At the Amiga seminar, however, I
had a friend who sat  next  to  a  Mac programmer.  He said at the  beginning
of the seminar,  the  guy  was  raving about the Mac, how  powerful  it  was,
and how easy to program. By the second day, however, he was  ready  to  throw
away his Mac.

   Please keep in mind  that  none  of am not privy to official CBM  info  as
of yet.  I am going to take  the  oath of  secrecy  in  a  couple  of   days,
however, so I  will  not  be  able  to comment after that.  But you should be
able to verify most of this  in  about 6-7 weeks  when  Commodore  makes  its
official announcement.?
?
   The Amiga is a 68000 based computer with a windowing environment like  the
Macintosh or GEM.  Notice that I  said "like",   not   identical    to,    or
compatible with.  It is not compatible with anything, least of all any of the
other Commodore computers.  If anybody sees this as a CBM product, he or  she
should dismiss that  notion  entirely. If anything, it should be  thought  of
as the  next-generation  Atari,  since Jay Minor (who designed  some  of  the
original  Atari  chip  set)  was  also involved in the chip set design of the
Amiga, and the design philosophies  of the machines are  similar.   Commodore
had nothing to do with  this  machine. They left  it  up  to  Amiga  entirely
(which was  wise,  because  nobody  at Commodore has the smarts to deal  with
anything as elegant  and  sophisicated as the  Amiga).   Forget  about  using
your   Commodore   disk   drives   and printers with this machine.  It  would
be like trying to use a cassette drive with a  PC  AT.   Also,  forget  about
using Mac software, or  GEM  software. "LIKE"  definitely   does   NOT   mean
compatible.  Also, FORGET  ABOUT  IBM. Despite the fact  that  Amiga  at  one
point mentioned the possibility of  an 8088 co-processor, as  far  as  I  can
tell that was dropped long ago, and is a DEAD ISSUE.  You will not see it, at
least in the near future.

 So, here are the basic specs  of  the Amiga:

   68000 processor running at  8  MHz. It will come with 256K of memory,  and
can be  expanded  to  512K  internally (though you will need a  little  board
to do so).  More memory can  be  added externally, and the  operating  system
can  handle  up  to  8  MEGABYTES   of contiguous memory (no bank  switching,
no segment  registers,  no  smoke  and mirrors).  There is NO  provision  for
cartridge ROM. It will also come  with one built-in 3 1/2" disk  drive,  with
an  approximate  capacity   of   800K. Additional disk drives  can  be  daisy
chained (up to 4 floppies  total)  off the back port.  The second disk  drive
uses the system power  supply,  so  it does not need its own.   There  is  no
hard disk as of yet, but third parties will  no  doubt  jump  in,   and   the
software support is there  already  in the OS.   The  system  comes  standard
with a nice keyboard (cursor  pad  and numeric pad) as well as a mouse (which
plugs  into  the   joystick   port   I believe).   Those  of  you   who   are
starting to foam at  the  mouth  about the mouse should  stop  it  right  now
(you look silly).  YOU DON'T?  HAVE TO USE THE  MOUSE.   The  cursor
control  keys  will  move  the   mouse pointer, and all mouse  functions  can
be  accomplished  from  the   KEYBOARD (which also has  ten  function  keys).
As far as ports,  there  are  standard serial and parallel ports (i.e. for  a
Centronics printer and RS-232).  Video out  is  to  any   kind   of   monitor
availble--analog  RGB,  digital   RGB, compositie, or even a  TV  set.  There
are even video  and  audio  IN  ports. The video IN  allows  you  to  take  a
composite signal (say from your VCR or video  camera)  and  display  it  with
computer  graphics  overlaid  on   the screen !!!!  Likewise, audio  in  will
let you operate on  an  outside  audio source.  Both supposedly can  be  used
to digitize outside signals (audio and video),   though    some    additional
hardware may be necessary (albeit less than  to  do  the  same   with   other
computers).   Finally,  there  is   an expansion  port  on  the   side   that
contains virtually all of the  signals from  the  system  bus.   This  is   a
TOTALLY OPEN architecture machine.   A planned expansion box will let you use
all kinds of cards  from  third  party manufacturers (like  for  hard  disks,
and even co-processors (if anybody  is still interested in IBM after  looking
at this), and memory expansion up to 8 Megs).

 About Amiga graphics.

    The  screen   comes   in   several resolutions, from 640x400 in  2  color
mode to 320x200 with 32  colors  (like the  highest  64  resolution  with   a
choice   of   32   colors   for   each individual   pixel).     Colors    are
selected  from  a  palette   of   4096 possible colors.  You are by no  means
restricted to one graphic  mode  at  a time -- in fact, you could  even  have
windows with different graphics  modes sitting next to each  other!   To  get
the best picture,  you  are  going  to need an 'analog' RGB  monitor,  though
any monitor will  work.   In  fact,  I have seen the Amiga produce a readable
80 column display on a color  TV  with my own eyes (though  Amiga  recommends
that if you use  a  tv,  you  cut  the display down to 60 characters).

   What about sprites   Amiga  has  4 with  16  colors  per,  or  8  with  8
colors. They are 16 bits wide, and  as tall as the screen.  Do you  know  how
on the 64 you can "multiplex"  sprites using interrupts, so  that  there  are
more than 8  On the Amiga, the system will do the multiplexing for  you  (no
interrupts required), and even let you decide priority in the case  that  two
or more  "incarnations"  of  the  same sprite coincide.

   But   who   needs   sprites    The computer has several graphics  support
chips, big  VLSI mothers as dense as a 68000 CPU.  One of these is a  blitter
(or bit block graphics transfer chip), that can move  around  images  on  the
bit-map screen at  high  speeds.   The system lets  you  define  "blobs"  (or
blitter objects).  These blobs can  be any size, up to as big as the  screen.
To move them around, all you  have  to do is tell the blitter to  erase  that
set  of  pixels  and  set  them   down somewhere else, and PRESTO! its  done.
Since a lot of the  graphics  is  done using dedicated  hardware,  its  FAST.
There are features like hardware  line drawing and filling (you just tell  it
where  to  draw  the  line,  with   no tiresome calcuations of each point  on
the line).

    One of the nicest features of  the graphics hardware is that it uses  the
"off-phase"  periods  of  the   system clock, when the processor is not using
the  bus.   As  a  result,   graphics, sound, and i/o for the most  part  run
in the background, without  taking  up any processor time at all.   When  the
processor tells the graphics  chip  to draw  a  line  or  fill  a  shape,  it
doesn't have to hang around  and  wait for it to get done.  Instead, it  goes
on to its next instruction, while  the graphics  chip  takes  care  of   biz.
Likewise, when the  processor  request disk access, the DMA controller  takes
over,  so  that  the  next  thing  the processor  knows,  its  got  a   whole
buffer   full   of   data   (the   DMA controller also make for  FAST,  FAST,
FAST disk access).  I  was  told  that with medium-heavy animation going  on,
the 68000 would only lose about 5%  of its throughput speed.

 Another important thing  to  remember is that  the  Operating  System  takes
care of a whole  lot  of  things  that normally  get  done  by   applications
software. For example, on the 64,  you need a program to let you  do  bit-map
graphics (like an  extended  BASIC  or drawing  program).   On   the   Amiga,
practically  every  graphics   feature that you can think of is part  of  the
Operating System, so that the commands can be called  by  any  program  (this
should be familiar to  Atari  owners). For example, lets say  you  wanted  to
create a scrolling window on a virtual screen that is 132 characters wide  by
80 lines high.  You tell the  OS  that you  want  the  screen   to   be   132
characters wide, 80 lines high, and it automatically  makes  your  screen   a
scrolling  window   on   that   larger virtual screen.  Want to print out the
who  132x80-   virtual   screen    No problem.   The  system   has   printer
drivers  for  graphics  dumps   to   6 different printers (including  Epsons,
ink jets, and  color  printers)  BUILT INTO (!!!) the OS!

 There are a whole lot  more  features in  the  graphic  department,  like  2
different  background   screens   with switchable priorities, and bit-planes.
But you get the idea (and  my  fingers are getting tired!).  With  the  power
of the graphics  processor,  virtually any kind of complicated  graphics  and
animation  can  be  accomplished  from high  level  languages  like  C   (and
probably   BASIC)   WITHOUT    MACHINE LANGUAGE programming.  My friends  say
that they can't think  of  a  graphics effect that is so complicated that  it
is not supported by the OS,  and  that you would have to resort to ml for.

 About music on the Amiga.

   The Amiga has 4-voice stereo  sound (2 voices on the left  channel,  2  on
the right  channel).   Each  voice  is polyphonic, so that  you  can  play  a
whole chord with a voice.

 The operating system lets you control the waveform of each voice  precisely.
It also has defaults set up,  so  that you could pick a 'piano' or  'trumpet'
voice.   It  supposedly  can  even  do digital sampling.  I  don't  know  too
much about it, but supposedly there is great flexibility and power,  and  the
Operating System handles most  of  the work.

   For example, I'm sure that many  of you   have    heard    the    software
speechsimulator  S.A.M.    Well,   the Amiga has a  much  better  synthesizer
built in, that speaks with a male OR a female  voice.   AND   the   operating
system  allows  you  to  program   the speech with phonemenes OR  a  built-in
text to  speech  conversion  programs. You could literally tell  it  to  READ
you the disk directory out loud!!!

 About the Operating System.

   The  Amiga  operating   system   is called Intuition.  It is  a  windowing
environment with  icons  and  a  mouse (like the Mac).   Unlike the Mac,  you
can  use  the  windowing   environment without the mouse, and  in  fact,  you
can use the system without  the  icons if you like.  There are many layers of
operating system, from the most  basic hardware  functions,   to   OS   entry
points, to the  user  interface.   The programmer is free to use all or none.
Though the MAC  is  known  for  having many programmer's tools built in (like
having the system read the  mouse  for you during  exception  processing  and
handing you the result), the Amiga  is said  to  have  even  more   extensive
support, so that it's OS is more  like a language than and operating system.

     The DOS is not  like  any  other, but is said to have "every conceivable
feature that you could ever think  of, and   then   some".     It    supports
heirarchical directories like PC  DOS, so that you can have directories  with
subdirectories and  sub-subdirectories ad nauseum.

 The most amazing feature of Intuition is that it  is  a  full  MULTI-TASKING
OS!!!    You   can   have   as    many applications  as  memory  will  permit
RUNNING AT THE SAME TIME.   My  friend saw the Amiga folks bring up  the  DOS
window, open another window and run  a graphics demo  program,  open  another
window, and another, until there  were 3  graphics  demo  programs,  a   text
editor,  and  DOS  running  AT  ONCE!! What's  more  amazing,  he  said  that
there was NO VISABLE SLOWDOWN  of  any of the programs.

   What is this amazing computer going to cost you  Well, at the programmers
seminar  they  said  that  the   256K, one-drive system with  an  analog  RGB
color  monitor   would   cost   "under $2000".  Since  then,  talk  has  been
that it may be up to $500 under.

More to follow in the near future.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Sounds good to me. Anyone have any supporting info?
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
                               Dave Lowrey

"To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question....
 ....or is it?"
                                ...!(<sun,cbosgd,ihnp4}!amdahl!dwl10

[ The opinions expressed <may> be those of the author and not necessarily
  those of his most eminent employer. ]
===================
End of copied text.

For a rundown on Atari's new machine, refer to note 48.6.  Please note that
since that information was available, Atari has decided not to market two
versions of the ST (128K and 512K).  Current plans are to market only the
512K version projected at about $799.

Given the above info, I'm going to wait until the Amiga shows up before
deciding on a new machine (and I'm leaning toward the Amiga).

-jim

Ther's already an Amiga magazine out - AmigaWorld by CW Communications.
The first issue is overdosed with Amiga graphics, but an article on MIDI
is promised for the next issue.  The technical details are pretty much
as discussed in 107.0.  It looks pretty impressive, I hope they can deliver
on all the promises.  The guys at Wurlitzer tell me they will be selling
Amigas soon, they are working out the distribution details even now.

I was going to hold off indefinitely on getting a pc for music applications,
but the Amiga looks like it could be the machine I've been waiting for.

There seems to be a real MIDI bandwagon building around the Amiga, but it
will be months before we can be sure.

len.