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From: ta...@ccvax.iastate.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Commodore Research and Development.
Message-ID: <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu>
Date: 3 Jan 91 06:34:49 GMT
Sender: n...@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
Lines: 87
I would seriously like someone to tell me why, over the past few years,
Commodore's research and development has become very, very lax. To prove
my point I would like to present six cases in which Commodore hardware R&D
has fallen well behind the rest of the industry -- in some cases two or
three generations behind.
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. Commodore, with a much larger
budget for R&D, has been unable to do anything with the Amiga chipset except
make some very minor improvements. Commodore has been trying for many years
to produce a CMOS version of the Amiga chipset that finally includes some
significant improvements, but completion of this chipset is probably still
many years away.
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 did not have any IBM PC
compatible systems at all until PC/AT-compatible systems were readily
available. Commodore also did market their first PC/AT-compatible systems
until 386-based systems were widely available. Finally, Commodore did
not get their first 386-based systems on the market until 486-based systems
were becoming available from a large number of companies.
CASE 3: THE A2410 "U-LOWELL" VIDEO BOARD:
It is very plain how much confidence Commodore's management has it
their engineers. When the Commodore manglement people finally realized
that their flagship computer system had fallen several generations behind
the rest of the world in video display technology, they did not have their
engineers develop a new video board for the Amiga. Instead, they decided
to purchase one from outside the company. Even with this, the graphics
capabilities of the A2410 are no better than those of video boards that
have been available for MAC and PC-compatible systems for several years,
and the A2410 isn't even available yet.
CASE 4: COMMODORE'S CD-ROM TECHNOLOGY:
Commodore, to this day, does not have any CD-ROM products available for
any of their systems. Commodore is developing the consumer-oriented CDTV,
but the CDTV is not available yet, whereas CD-ROMs have been available
for MAC and PC-compatible systems (in some cases as standard hardware) for
several years.
CASE 5: HIGH-DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES:
High-density 1.44MB 3.5" floppy drives have been available for PC/AT
and 80386-based systems for several years. They have even been available
for MAC systems for mor than two years, and are now standard hardware
on all MAC systems. 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.
2.88MB drives are readily available for MAC and PC-compatible systems from
several third-party companies. Now that 2.88MB drives are becoming
increasingly common, the Amiga is only now just starting to have 1.44MB
drives become available for it, and they are not compatible with IBM 1.44MB
drives and are not even from Commodore.
CASE 6: LAPTOP COMPUTER SYSTEMS:
Now that monochrome laptop computers are as common as briefcases,
and many companies are starting to produce color laptop computer systems,
Commodore has only very recently produced their first monochrome laptop
computer, and it is a PC-clone. Commodore has absolutely no laptop Amigas
of any kind, and the few third-party "portable" Amigas that are available
are so bulky as to make desktop computer systems look like hand-helds by
comparison. In addition to this, all of these "portable" Amigas are
monochrome -- an insult to the 4096-color Amiga.
If a small company like Epix -- with an R&D budget much smaller than
Commodore's -- can produce what is essentially a handheld Amiga, complete
with the Amiga's 4096 colors and four-voice stereo sound, then Commodore
should be able to produce a color Amiga laptop that preserves these
capabilities of the Amiga and more. There are color laptop 80386 machines,
Apple is developing a color laptop Macintosh, and there are even some color
laptop SPARCstations, but there are absolutely no color laptop Amigas.
In conclusion, I feel that Commodore has fallen so for behind in their
R&D that they will probably never catch up. Commodore has never been
a company that produces innovative new technologies, and very likely never
will be. Commodore is a 'catch-up' company that is forever trying to
catch up with the rest of the industry, to avoid going out of business
altogether, and will likely always be this way.
AMIGA -- YESTERDAY'S TECHNOLOGY, FOREVER!!!
-MB-
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: da...@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: da...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 67
In article <1991Jan3.00344...@ccvax.iastate.edu> ta...@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
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dsinc!unix.cis.pitt.edu!sjcst2
From: sjc...@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Scott J. Corley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Commodore Research and Development.
Message-ID: <75723@unix.cis.pitt.edu>
Date: 5 Jan 91 08:46:50 GMT
References: <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> <17114@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Reply-To: sjc...@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Scott J. Corley)
Organization: University of Pittsburgh, CIS
Lines: 50
Posted: Sat Jan 5 02:46:50 1991
In article <17...@cbmvax.commodore.com> da...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
writes:
>
> CASE 3: THE A2410 "U-LOWELL" VIDEO BOARD:
>
>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.
>
>--
>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
Dave , does this mean that we wont see SVGA resolution graphics on the
next generation of the Amiga chipset because it has to stay compatible
with the 15.75kHz scan rate of NTSC and getting SVGA resolution
requires a higher scan rate? I hope this isnt true. Even if Commodore
or some 3rd party company comes out with a FlickerFixer for a high
resolution NTSC compatible mode , it still isnt as good as having a
high scan rate built in. I have a A3000 and I hate it when you move
things on the screen and you get a double image because of the
built in FlickerFixer. Its really annoying when reading text.
Scott Corley
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!
rutgers!cbmvax!daveh
From: da...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Commodore Research and Development.
Message-ID: <17192@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 7 Jan 91 20:23:23 GMT
References: <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> <17114@cbmvax.commodore.com>
<75723@unix.cis.pitt.edu>
Reply-To: da...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 79
In article <75...@unix.cis.pitt.edu> sjc...@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Scott J. Corley)
writes:
>In article <17...@cbmvax.commodore.com> da...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
writes:
>> CASE 3: THE A2410 "U-LOWELL" VIDEO BOARD:
>>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=.
>Dave , does this mean that we wont see SVGA resolution graphics on the
>next generation of the Amiga chipset because it has to stay compatible
>with the 15.75kHz scan rate of NTSC and getting SVGA resolution
Have any of these standards groups finally gotten together and decided what
"SVGA" really means? As for scan rates, ECS already does a VGA compatible
31kHz scan rate, so I guess in some ways, that answers your questions --
while 15kHz compatibility is important, it's not the limit. What limits
the complexity of any built-in Amiga video display is, ultimately, the cost
of the thing. We can always build more expensive add-ons, just like Apple,
IBM, Sun, and the rest of the world does. What's built-in, though, as to
be justified, in terms of unit cost and R&D costs.
>I have a A3000 and I hate it when you move things on the screen and you get
>a double image because of the built in FlickerFixer. Its really annoying
>when reading text.
On your A3000, you can elimiate that in WorkBench by going to "productivity"
mode, though you'll lose some colors. On any non-interlaced display, the
A3000 VDE system avoids this "digital ghosting" by simply scan doubling,
rather than frame buffering. Certainly this is a good thing to build in, and
obviously a more advanced system could extend "productivity" resolutions to
more bitplanes.
Lots of people out there want better built-in graphics. So do I. However,
it's not obvious to folks who don't have to build such chips how complex an
operation this is. Let's look at the PC market in comparion. They have a
number of register level video standards, which in the past at least were set
mainly by IBM: CGA, EGA, MCGA, VGA, 8514?, and most recently, XGA. IBM was
kind of secretive about VGA, so it took a few years for the several chip
companies out there to clone a VGA device, which is about a 30,000 transistor
device. These clones were, in general, register-level copies, since no one
had the IBM schematics (I don't know if anyone actually tried to reverse
engineer real IBM VGA chips, though this is done in practice through the
industry). So far, at least one company has just recently done an 8514 clone,
which was made more difficult due to its line-draw hardware and the fact that
IBM didn't disclose the register model at all. Now XGA, which is rumored to be
roughly a 100,000 transistor device, is being released. Based on the fact
that IBM is telling all, apparently, about the device, in order to lure folks
into adopting XGA vs. any of the existing VGA+ clone things out there as a
standard, the folks who watch the chip business are estimating XGA clones in
2 to 3 years.
Now lets look at the Amiga chips. Any one Amiga chip is likely to be nearly
as complex as an 8514 or XGA device. While C= certainly has had all the
schematics for these things all along, back in '85 when the A1000 came out,
they were all hand drawn. It takes awhile to put them into CAD format, and
obviously they were all hand done designs, not based on any of the automated
logic generation things you use for modern chip designs. And of course,
they're all in NMOS. ECS Agnus is about the largest chip you'd want to put
into NMOS. Anything going at a higher speed, or adding major features,
would have to go into CMOS. That implies a redesign -- this is a custom
chip, not a gate array. You specific real transistors, and count on them,
not simply gates as you would in designing a gate array (they let me
design gate arrays, like Buster, but only real chip designers like Bob
Raible design full chips).
So, I just want everyone to realize that our chip guys haven't just been
sitting idly by since '85, or even '88 when ECS chips started coming out.
They just have had alot more work on their hands than most folks realize.
> Scott Corley
--
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
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!ns-mx!iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu!
ceres.physics.uiowa.edu!news.iastate.edu!ccvax.iastate.edu!taab5
From: ta...@ccvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Commodore Research and Development.
Message-ID: <1991Jan7.212330.1@ccvax.iastate.edu>
Date: 8 Jan 91 03:23:30 GMT
Sender: n...@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
Lines: 56
In article <17...@cbmvax.commodore.com> da...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
writes:
>Lots of people out there want better built-in graphics. So do I. However,
>it's not obvious to folks who don't have to build such chips how complex an
>operation this is. Let's look at the PC market in comparion. They have a
> [stuff deleted]
>So, I just want everyone to realize that our chip guys haven't just been
>sitting idly by since '85, or even '88 when ECS chips started coming out.
>They just have had alot more work on their hands than most folks realize.
OK, designing a chipset is quite a bit of work. However, it would
help if Commodore was spending more on research and development.
As a friend of mine said in a recent message in this thread, companies
in the U.S. spend an average of around 8% of their total sales on R&D.
This is considered fairly poor, because companies in Japan spend an
average of 15% of their total sales on R&D. In fact, Business Week ran
an article once that said, basically, that if American companies do not
start spending more on R&D, that America will continue to lose technological
ground to other countries.
Now let's look at Commodore. Until recently, Commodore had been spending
only slightly more than 2% (actually 2.1%) of their total sales on R&D.
In the 1990 fiscal year, they raised it, but only to slightly more than
3%. No wonder it is taking Commodore's engineers so long to produce that
chipset...
In a world where spending of 8% of total sales on R&D is considered
poor, spending of 3% of total sales on R&D is much too low. Big
companies like Exxon or IBM can get away with spending small amounts
(as a percentage of total sales) on R&D, but a small company like
Commodore cannot. The average for the computer industry is around 7%,
and until Commodore gets their R&D spending up to at least this level
(preferably much higher, because small companies tend to have to
spend larger percentages of their sales on R&D than large companies),
Commodore will continue to lose technological ground to their competitors.
In conclusion, the 32-bit Amiga chipset is a lot of work for Commodore's
engineers because Commodore has so few of them. If Commodore had been
spending at least the industry average of 7% of their sales on R&D all
along (instead of 2.1%), Commodore would have had more engineers to work
on the chipset, and the chipset might even be done by now. As it is,
the chipset probably will not be available for at least another three years,
if I correctly interpret the vague hints given by various Commodore
engineers on CSA.
>--
>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
-MB-
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!wuarchive!udel!haven!uvaarpa!vger.nsu.edu!manes
From: ma...@vger.nsu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Commodore Research and Development.
Message-ID: <439.278981b1@vger.nsu.edu>
Date: 8 Jan 91 12:24:17 GMT
References: <1991Jan7.212330.1@ccvax.iastate.edu>
Lines: 39
In article <1991Jan7.21233...@ccvax.iastate.edu>, ta...@ccvax.iastate.edu
(Marc Barrett) writes:
> In article <17...@cbmvax.commodore.com> da...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
writes:
> [Lots deleted]
> In conclusion, the 32-bit Amiga chipset is a lot of work for Commodore's
> engineers because Commodore has so few of them. If Commodore had been
> spending at least the industry average of 7% of their sales on R&D all
> along (instead of 2.1%), Commodore would have had more engineers to work
> on the chipset, and the chipset might even be done by now. As it is,
> the chipset probably will not be available for at least another three years,
> if I correctly interpret the vague hints given by various Commodore
> engineers on CSA.
>
Ah.. the Mongollian Horde concept. It worked for IBM why not Commodore?
(smile)
>
>>--
>>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
>
>
> -MB-
^^^^
(There is no cure)
-mark=
+--------+ ==================================================
| \/ | Mark D. Manes "Mr. AmigaVision"
| /\ \/ | ma...@vger.nsu.edu
| / | (804) 683-2532 "Make up your own mind! - AMIGA"
+--------+ ==================================================
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!sunic!uupsi!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!
sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!gatech!udel!mmdf
From: TA...@ccvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Commodore Research and Development.
Message-ID: <41220@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Date: 9 Jan 91 09:25:50 GMT
Sender: m...@ee.udel.edu
Lines: 76
In article <439.27898...@vger.nsu.edu>, <ma...@vger.nsu.edu> writes:
>In article <1991Jan7.21233...@ccvax.iastate.edu>, ta...@ccvax.iastate.edu
(Marc Barrett) writes:
>> In article <17...@cbmvax.commodore.com> da...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
writes:
>> [Lots deleted]
>> In conclusion, the 32-bit Amiga chipset is a lot of work for Commodore's
>> engineers because Commodore has so few of them. If Commodore had been
>> spending at least the industry average of 7% of their sales on R&D all
>> along (instead of 2.1%), Commodore would have had more engineers to work
>> on the chipset, and the chipset might even be done by now. As it is,
>> the chipset probably will not be available for at least another three years,
>> if I correctly interpret the vague hints given by various Commodore
>> engineers on CSA.
>>
>
>Ah.. the Mongollian Horde concept. It worked for IBM why not Commodore?
Actually, I am talking about the Japanese Horde concept, and it does
work, at least for the Japanese.
Have you ever wondered why all VCRs, all camcorders, all CD players,
all laserdiscs, most TVs, and most computers are made in Japan? People
in the U.S. have blamed it on cheap labor, but this is only a small part
of the real reason. The real reason? Better engineering.
Japanese companies put 2-3 times the engineering talent into their
products as do American companies. The result: better products. Companies
in other countries are catching onto this idea, and are putting putting
more of their total sales into research and devlopment. Unfortunately,
companies in the U.S. have yet to learn this idea, especially companies
like Commodore. It is fortunate that very few U.S. companies are as
bad as Commodore in this respect, though, or we'd be in *REALLY* bad
shape!
As for IBM, the mainframe market is totally dominated by IBM, precisely
because IBM spends quite a lot on R&D. IBM is one of the few U.S.
companies that are still highly respected in Japan, precisely because
IBM is one of the few U.S. companies that have caught onto the concept
of putting a lot of money (as a percentage of total sales) into R&D.
BTW, over half of IBM's R&D budget goes into long-range scientific R&D --
research that may not pay off for 50 years or more, if at all. A lot of
research at IBM is on things like superconductivity, nanotechnology,
and other research that does not turn short-term profits. By comparison,
ALL research at Commodore is very short-term, precisely because
Commodore's managers are more worried about short-term profits then
long-term strength.
>
>(smile)
>
>
>>
>>>--
>>>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
>>
>>
>> -MB-
> ^^^^
> (There is no cure)
>
>
> -mark=
>
> +--------+ ==================================================
> | \/ | Mark D. Manes "Mr. AmigaVision"
> | /\ \/ | ma...@vger.nsu.edu
> | / | (804) 683-2532 "Make up your own mind! - AMIGA"
> +--------+ ==================================================
-MB-