What Killed Commodore and Amiga ?

[kevin]

This was a question that came up on FB..  and bellow is my reply

Apathy killed most of the 80's home computer giants..  Moving on from a big success takes a lot guts and it's clear they just didn't the right people in at the helm at the correct times. 

On the back of the C64,  C= tried a lot of stuff tho..   Portable C64's / cut down C64's /  C16's / C128 / C65 etc etc -  Jumping on the Amiga when the opportunity came up.   Revising the A1000 into A500 was a smart move, but then we get CDTV's / A600's.  The CDTV was concept that nobody knew they wanted.     I remember the local C= dealer doing a press conference when it magically became available and nobody could make head nor tails of what or why anyone would buy one ?     

Heading into the 90's it was clear from the arcades that classic Amiga OCS / ECS wasn't going to cut it for more much longer.  Popular games in the arcades at the time had huge sprites counts and hardware transformations (rotations / scaling) - I was excited when AGA was announced but have to admit felt the CD32 was seriously under powered by the time we get to release.    It would have awesome to have built in chunky modes from day one, but they would have have beefed up the blitter  or include a programmable DSP.   

They were a wave behind really, so by the time we get to 93 / 94 / 95 they were caught in an undertow; a world transforming  from classic 2D into hardware accelerated 3D in home markets.   PSX / N64 / Sega Saturn etc   They couldn't say they couldn't see it coming;  it was obvious..  They just stuck their heads in the sand and hoped people would stand still awaiting AAA.. 

   Sounds familiar doesn't it ? :)

[stevmjon]

yeah i heard stories back then about bad management too. they actually 'owned' the market for a while, but they stayed set on a particular path, while pc caught up and kept expanding, so won the market.
it is a shame because commodore amiga for example was powerful for the cpu speed and memory size (meaning it was smaller that pc but more powerful, until pc just rocketed ahead).

i myself owned an amiga 500 and then an amiga 4000 and loved them, then later saw pc growth and i changed too. i still have the amiga 500 in the cupboard. i couldn't let it go.
i look at it now and then and feel both sad and happy, lol.

[kevin]

  It's sad really..  Commodore were a mess by the end,  APPLE did the same though.  They couldn't see past the early success of the Apple II and upper management wanted to ring every cent out of it..  but the world changed..   


 

i myself owned an amiga 500 and then an amiga 4000 and loved them, then later saw pc growth and i changed too. i still have the amiga 500 in the cupboard. i couldn't let it go.
i look at it now and then and feel both sad and happy, lol.

  What kind A4000 did you have ?  030 /040  -   A mate and I  went to a trade show in probably late 93 / early 94 purely to buy an A4000 / 030 -   I think he got it from Maxwells a well known C= dealer in Melbourne for a fraction of the price of one up here.. 

  I was so disappointed with the lack of Chunky pixels mode in AGA..  Which even introduced a bunch of other issues when you switched  on 32bit or 64 bit bandwidth/burst modes,  this limited to how much overscan you could have with sprites.  To scroll on 64 mode you needed at least 64 pixels off the left hand edge of the screen.  But if you did this you lost the last couple of hardware sprites.  Which have a lower priority in hardware.       

  Even with all of its flaws I sill love my little A1200/030 system..   
 

[stevmjon]

i am not sure about the a4000 type. i bought it second hand for $950, and the person left a whole bunch of programs on it, and that is how i found lightwave 3D.

i only had it for about 1 year, because i pulled it apart to clean it, and when i put everything back in, 2  smaller slot in boards were only about 1 mm apart, and i was going to try a put something between them to prevent contact, but didn't, and then i heard a zap and slowly the computer was shutting down earlier and earlier until you could only have the computer on for seconds. i took it to an amiga specialist, and stupidly didn't tell them what i thought it could be (the small boards touching). and they couldn't fix it.

i actually gave it away to an amiga dealer so he could make use of any parts.

just wondering, how early on did you start learning about programming, with very good knowledge of hardware/software?

[kevin]

i only had it for about 1 year, because i pulled it apart to clean it, and when i put everything back in, 2  smaller slot in boards were only about 1 mm apart, and i was going to try a put something between them to prevent contact, but didn't, and then i heard a zap and slowly the computer was shutting down earlier and earlier until you could only have the computer on for seconds. i took it to an amiga specialist, and stupidly didn't tell them what i thought it could be (the small boards touching). and they couldn't fix it.

   :( 

i actually gave it away to an amiga dealer so he could make use of any parts.

  Somebody scored..   Worth a small fortune now. :(    recently sold some of my Amiga stuff an A500 & Monitor and the last few games (Boulder Dash of all things)  which went surprisingly easily.  Still have my original and my 1200 and a number disk boxes.   

just wondering, how early on did you start learning about programming, with very good knowledge of hardware/software?

    14ish..  A few weeks after we got our Apple II compatible..  If you wanted to do graphics you have to read / write (peek/poke) the chips directly.   I don't recall too uch of the Apple part from it's horrendous video memory layout.   Where pixels we're next to each other, there was this weird pattern.  So to plot a dot was a nightmare.   I ended up buying a book on Apple II machine code and just stumbling my way through it.   Could do stuff, but definitely wasn't wrapping my head around how it was working. 

    The Vic 20 / C64 were easier.   C64 hardware reference manual was the be all and end all of that machine.    Internally it was a bit simpler but still rather strange to how a modern system works.   The Vic chip had so many qurks you could exploit which forced you to try and understand what was happening. Even simple effects required version very accurate timing.  Something as simple as a gradient made you an elite coder at the time.  It's scary what people can do on those machines today.