VCF East 9.1 - Dave Haynie "Commodore Part 3 - The Amiga Years"

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  • Опубліковано 22 лис 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 104

  • @KarlHamilton
    @KarlHamilton Рік тому +2

    Could listen to Dave talk for days

  • @MikeAldred
    @MikeAldred 7 років тому +56

    Commodore management really snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

  • @alpaykasal44
    @alpaykasal44 6 років тому +17

    This was an AMAZING presentation! how did I not find it sooner? Haynie is the man.

  • @helmuthschultes9243
    @helmuthschultes9243 4 роки тому +3

    Got my AMIGA UNIX for my A3000 delivered just 1 week before Commodore dropped it as a product. Waited nearly 4 months for it to receive effectively a deadend product.
    Must say it seemed to work well, but given no longer supported it never got used much.
    Lter got a A4000 and added a 68060/PowerPC card to that.
    Overall had A1000, A3000, A4000 and access to three A500. Also supplied many users with external floppy drives both 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" types, possibly over 500 using small adapter cards to make them compatible.
    All my gear still around but most likely corroded by battery leak on the A3000.

  • @Ichinin
    @Ichinin 7 років тому +61

    I've throw away many PC's in the dumpster i never really cared about because they never really stood out and were rather bland machines. I've never considered throwing an Amiga into a dumpster.

    • @TheGuruMeditation
      @TheGuruMeditation  7 років тому +12

      Agreed. There is something special about the Amiga and other retro computers that a PC lacks. They have a soul.

    • @005AGIMA
      @005AGIMA 6 років тому +10

      I'll get lynched here. I literally threw one in a dumpster. BUT...i regret it to this day. So you dont lynch me, the back story is...... I purchased after much saving and help from my family, an Amiga 500 Batman pack as a teenager and I LOVED it. Had it for years. Only ever selling it (in good working order) to another family when I felt the need to "upgrade" to a 386 PC. Keeping in mind I had to sell 1 machine to finance the next back then. Even the family buying it off me had to pay me in installments, such had it kept it's value in the condition it was in. Fast forward to ....around 2001 / 2002, my boss at the time GAVE me an amiga he was going to throw out. I used it about twice. A few short months later we were moving from the UK to Australia and hence having to get rid of stuff. Charity shops wouldn't take the amiga as it's an "electrical good" and they "can't guarantee safety". I can still remember the day we were dumping the last of our items we'd been unable to sell. I recall holding this FREE amiga, in box, and being conflicted but saw no other option. It was dumped. Fast forward AGAIN to this time last week, 2018, and I've just ordered another Amiga Batman pack IN BOX, and I paid ORIGINAL retail price for it too. THis one will go with me to my grave. I hope that redeems me.

    • @HerbJon
      @HerbJon 5 років тому +5

      Same. I have 19 Commodore machines, almost all are up and running still. 😊

    • @uelude
      @uelude 5 років тому +2

      Totally, still have both my Amigas after manu house moves.. many PCs and laptops thrown away over the years.. That said many an Amiga crushed at the Deathbed Vigil party haha

    • @vapourmile
      @vapourmile 5 років тому

      Easily solved by buying a better PC.

  • @ProctorSilex
    @ProctorSilex 9 років тому +21

    I was in high school when I found the Amiga years too late. I picked up an A1200 from The Camera Shop in Quakertown, PA when a friend was manager there. Every month, I got the CU Amiga with the floppies and read it cover to cover. It blew me away that the PC was just beginning to surpass (only in certain ways) the already aging Amiga in 1998 and I hoped that the Amiga would somehow rise again and save me from the inevitable world of Microsoft and the crappy PC.
    Beginning with the death of Commodore, the birth of Windows 95, and finishing within a few years of working in the industry, computers lost their mystique for me. I can only imagine what would have been had I known to ask my parents for a C64 instead of the NES and SNES.
    It's crazy to think that these systems were developed nearby in West Chester!

    • @snooks5607
      @snooks5607 6 років тому +6

      One thing I've run into time and time again since starting out with computers in 1990, it's never too late. I had a C64 and no NES, programmed some basic but couldn't figure out assembly, had no compilers nor books, only got back into programming with linux and web in 1998. After longwinded road of vb,php,perl,python,java,js,c#,c++ through the years now 30y later I'm finally working with assembly, messing with emulators, hacking all the games and having the time of my life.
      Another thing, our brains rationalize everything, it will find a reason for lack of inspiration and it's easy to feel that it's out of your control. BS. Those thoughts are only excuses the brain pulls out of thin air to try to keep on top of things. It's like with hallucinogens and bad trips, ride it out, try something else, pretty soon another good thing comes along and that dopamine train is right back on track.

    • @ProctorSilex
      @ProctorSilex 2 роки тому

      @Lassi Kinnunen 81 Indeed, there were PCs technically faster than the Amiga earlier as you wrote. Also, the PlayStation and N64 blew past the Amiga well before. I was thinking about the user experience of the PC in general which I didn't see change for most people until around 1998. Before then, the overwhelming majority of PCs I saw were abysmal piles of clunky junk rife with bugs. Around then, I noticed a huge market shift to much more capable PCs (albeit still rife with bugs largely from Windows).
      From 94-97, I usually had the fastest computer in the room and that box could play much more advanced games than my A1200, but my PC was still slow loading Windows and doing mundane things. The A1200 had a more responsive UI and boot time. In the magazines, I saw that people were doing far more advanced 3D modeling with an Amiga than I could do on my PC (my main interest at the time). The ability to do video work that my PC couldn't affordably do (if at all) also raised my impression of the Amiga.

  • @RandyWaage
    @RandyWaage 10 років тому +11

    Wow, thanks for posting. I LOVED the Amiga and it's so very cool to hear the inside scoop on what was going on at the time. They were so ahead of the competition at the time. And you could actually afford some of them unlike the Apple computers at the time which usually were much more expensive. Such a shame Commodore crashed and burned.

    • @TheGuruMeditation
      @TheGuruMeditation  9 років тому +3

      Thanks for the kind comment Randy Waage So glad you liked the video. Yes, I totally agree. The Amiga was way ahead of its time and brought together a great community of people that I am still friends with today. It was a very special machine for sure.

  • @DavidCNavas
    @DavidCNavas 4 роки тому +1

    Every time I hear about the 3210 I cry a little. Such a loss of opportunity.

  • @MrRetroville
    @MrRetroville 9 років тому +10

    It's pretty clear that they were rag tag. But this "whatever" mentality gave these geniuses the freedom to do their thing and make amazing machines. If they had good management that could allow these guys to do their thing, and do what is necessary to manage a major computer company, no one would be talking about Apple or Microsoft. They were just nerds that did everything better, except what is necessary, marketing and corporate stuff. This wasn't their game. But these guys created the greatest, most innovative gaming computer of all time. So much better than anything of the era.

    • @uelude
      @uelude 5 років тому

      Commodore really got bang-for-the-buck with those engineers!! Brilliant engineering: Cash starved.

  • @cartayno
    @cartayno 7 років тому +11

    I love listening to Dave talk about Commodore (and tech in general) makes me feel smarter!
    NB:- I have an A1200 and I had an A500 before that. I spent a lot of time with these systems up until about 2000 and l was passionate about learning more about them. The hardware was elegant, the OS small and efficient and the guys out there that still make new hardware that makes these old machines do things that the designers never saw coming - I salute you o7. Best machines EVER.
    Modern systems, including Linux, just don't have that same spark (imo). Although ther eis new HW on the way via A-EON, the old OS should be made open-source and re-compiled (he says it like it's a simple thing!) to run on ARM chips.
    AmigaOS would FLY on a Raspi.
    AmigaOS ftw ;)

    • @TheGuruMeditation
      @TheGuruMeditation  7 років тому +6

      Awesome! Glad you enjoyed the video. We love listening to Dave talk as well, but unfortunately it makes us feel dumber, LOL!

  • @laurencevanhelsuwe3052
    @laurencevanhelsuwe3052 4 роки тому +2

    Haynie mentions the Next Cube being the inspiration for certain ideas within Commodore. On the software side, the Cube was the trigger for a systems software project that few people know of: the clean-room implementation of (Display) Postscript for the Amiga. In true Commodore chaos fashion, this project was done by a satellite R&D team in Kingston-upon-Hull (UK) that few US colleagues even knew about. If you Google "Commodore Postscript" you'll get some more background on yet another successful engineering project that Commodore management decided not to use in the end.

  • @aztockdog
    @aztockdog 4 роки тому +1

    Cool follow up video after I just watched the extended Deathbed Vigil from Dave...

  • @tubedude54
    @tubedude54 5 років тому +3

    I remember running x-cad on my A4000 sometime in the 1990's. At work we had autocad running on an IBM with a 286 and math co processor. My A4000 running cad was 100x faster than that IBM! We dreaded when the IMB did a refresh of the screen and redrew the display... one time it took 40 minutes to do that redraw where my A4000 would do a redraw in seconds! One guy I knew put about 8000$ in ram in his IBM just so his redraws would be faster but they still were no where close to my A4000!

  • @pythagorasaurusrex9853
    @pythagorasaurusrex9853 5 років тому +5

    (Once) Proud owner of an A500, A4000D and A4000T (PPC). Sigh, that were the good old times. Amiga was once so much better than those crapy MS/DOS/IBM machines. I always wondered what would have happened if these geniuses had the right management in their back.

  • @garygough6905
    @garygough6905 5 років тому +2

    Loved using Amigas, and I was basically the warranty shop for southern Sask. for Commodore from later PETs on. Got hired when a friend suggested me when someone tried adding memory to one of the 8K PETs with the drill holes to prevent people from expanding them to 32 K ( wasn't pretty but jumpers fixed it ). I got to buy the second 1000 in the province since I was working in the shop. The machine really needed a hard drive. Put a Sidecar on it, sliced a slot for cables and bolted 2 * 32 meg drives on top ( no space for a hard drive in the sidecar, let alone 2 ). In that configuration it did well compared to the PDP 11/34 that took up the dining room. ( and much nicer graphics :-) )

  • @justice4g
    @justice4g 4 роки тому +3

    he looks so young for an almost 60 yr old

  • @SuperHammaren
    @SuperHammaren 4 роки тому +1

    I upgraded my old A2000 some years ago with 68030 card, flickerfixer, larger harddrive, dos 3.1 etc. 4 external disk drives now as well as XT card with 51/4 drive. Love my old machine so that one I will never sell.

  • @brainfarth
    @brainfarth 5 років тому +2

    When I was 16 in 1988, I piggy-backed a pair of sid chips for stereo sound on my C=64. I followed the directions from a local BBS in Portland, OR. I also used to meet up at local pizza hookups with local nerds. Good times.

    • @TheGuruMeditation
      @TheGuruMeditation  5 років тому

      That's awesome!

    • @robwebnoid5763
      @robwebnoid5763 5 років тому

      It's now 2019 & there's a small commodore user group that meets up at a pizza joint monthly in Portland Oregon. Coincidence? See www.commodorecomputerclub.com . I aim to join that group someday. Dave, you should visit them if you haven't already.

  • @lamelama22
    @lamelama22 9 років тому +2

    Thanks for sharing. I had seen the previous VCF commodore talk, but I was unable to make it home to the Wall/Squan area last year for VCF. Enjoyed it.

    • @TheGuruMeditation
      @TheGuruMeditation  9 років тому

      Thanks for the kind comment. Glad you liked the video! We will have a "30 Years of Amiga" exhibit at this year's VCF East In Wall if you are able to make it.

  • @OscarCastillo1
    @OscarCastillo1 10 років тому +2

    Wow! This was a blast hearing about the details behind the scenes from back in the day. I wish I had known about this year's VCF meetup. I would have liked to have been there considering how close I am to Wall, NJ.

    • @TheGuruMeditation
      @TheGuruMeditation  10 років тому

      Oscar keep checking their site. www.vintage.org/ The VCF East is usually in April. It is a great time!

  • @MarcoPon
    @MarcoPon 9 років тому +8

    Last part about the ST is gold! :)

  • @csours
    @csours 5 років тому +3

    Gatorade = Gate Arrayed ... took me a while to put that together

  • @marcusbrooks2118
    @marcusbrooks2118 5 років тому +1

    In the late 80s I worked at a little company in Austin that did Amiga expansion and software products. At one point I was tasked with replacing all the daughter card programmable logic chips in the company's Amiga 1000s (IIRC to support PAL video). When I opened the one on my desk, however, I was surprised to find no daughter card. All those chips had been moved to the motherboard, along with a general reduction of chip count. At some point we had somehow acquired a cost-reduced Amiga 1000 prototype that was now sitting innocently on my desk. I never knew how or why, or what happened to it afterwards. I still wonder about it sometimes.
    Of course, I backed out of this curiosity without touching its programmable logic, though I think it's the same machine I converted later to PAL video. (Sadly, I lost track of several 3-D animations that I did there partly because they were in PAL video, and there was no other machine I could play them on.)

    • @TheGuruMeditation
      @TheGuruMeditation  5 років тому

      Oh wow, I wonder what happened to that machine. Very cool story, thanks for sharing it Marcus

  • @artemusprine
    @artemusprine 4 роки тому

    When he says the AT&T 3210 was 10x faster than the 68040 at 32-bit FP...
    I had a 25MHz 040 for a while (until I upgraded to a 50MHz 060/PPC). If they could have rendered Caligari, imagine, Lightwave, that fast... We'd all be on Amigas now.

  • @MonkeyForNothing
    @MonkeyForNothing 9 років тому +14

    Great video, but there's one thing that didn't really got an answer. Dave says here that the CD32 was "well designed". I'm guessing he's talking from an engineers perspective.
    What Id love to hear is if they were aware of the competing and upcoming systems? (There were *a lot* of systems released in 93/94). How did they arrive at the conclusion that a console based on a "vanilla" A1200 would compete well? I've seen a 030 prototype card for the CD32.. so apparently they considered it.
    Edit: Now, given Dave' s description of Commodore being in pretty bad shape in 1993, it's not difficult to imagine they designed a "minimum R&D effort" console in hope to earn some desperately needed cash. And it is consistent with the way Commodore did things (Like releasing a Commodore 64GS in 1990, WTF?)
    Still, he called it "well designed", maybe he was simply impressed with the way the AKIKO chip was done at the time... IDK...

    • @DarthVader1977
      @DarthVader1977 5 років тому

      get* an answer

    • @jsrodman
      @jsrodman 5 років тому +1

      If you listen to what Dave is saying, he's commenting on these designs from a perspective of quality of execution. He's talking about whether the way the system is put together is effective, efficient, and cost effective, not so much about market fit or raw power.
      I think everyone is aware that the cd32 didn't stand a chance against the existing super Nintendo and the forthcoming Sony playstation.

    • @SuperHammaren
      @SuperHammaren 4 роки тому

      @@jsrodman The super nintendo suck, however regarding playstation I agree.

    • @martin-ot
      @martin-ot 4 роки тому

      Yes, it was a pretty terrible and stupid idea (just like Philips CDi).

  • @GuruMediator
    @GuruMediator 8 років тому +6

    Great upload! Not to mention a great channel name! ;-)

    • @TheGuruMeditation
      @TheGuruMeditation  8 років тому +2

      +GuruMediator Ha ha, thanks! Sounds like we are a match made in heaven! Software Failure!!! -- Bill

  • @helmuthschultes9243
    @helmuthschultes9243 4 роки тому +1

    Forgot also have two CD32 units.

  • @RetroGraty
    @RetroGraty 8 років тому +2

    amazing video ! :) thank you

    • @TheGuruMeditation
      @TheGuruMeditation  8 років тому +1

      You are welcome! Thanks for the kind words AC! -- Bill

  • @XalphYT
    @XalphYT 6 років тому +2

    18:37 The Amiga 3000 story starts here.

  • @artemusprine
    @artemusprine 4 роки тому +1

    "I'm summoning the Germans."

  • @alexanderwingeskog758
    @alexanderwingeskog758 5 років тому +2

    @26:40 Running MS-DOS/IBM was kinda stupid when "having" an Amiga, but that maybe was just me (Dave). Nope it was not just you... Most Amiga owners thought the same thing (at least the one who was born in the 70's, the older 50-60's guys was more IBM compatible somehow...)

    • @Tech-geeky
      @Tech-geeky 4 роки тому

      Pretty much emulations appeared on all platforms...Perhaps the idea was "Well Mac had a Amiga emulator, but i guess CrossDross kinda contributed to that that one off" but i think it started in 1985 with Amiga 1000

  • @michaelvasey8773
    @michaelvasey8773 4 роки тому +2

    I swear every time I read or listen to anything from ex-Commodore guys I find out about some other completely random new system they developed then cancelled or released to complete disinterest because it wasn't a C64 or Amiga. Talk about management by random 8-ball.

  • @rwdplz1
    @rwdplz1 4 роки тому

    25:05 Was not expecting to find a fellow Fiero owner :D

  • @Lucretia9000
    @Lucretia9000 Рік тому

    I had an A4000/040@25MHz and it was slower than my A1200/Blizzard 030/882@50MHz.

  • @cthutu
    @cthutu 5 років тому +2

    Bil, you lost a lot of weight since the talk you did for part 2!

  • @uelude
    @uelude 5 років тому

    "Perhaps I will get a Vampire 1200 when it comes out" Wow, have you done a vid on that?

  • @artemusprine
    @artemusprine 4 роки тому

    I still imagine how cool Acutiator would have been, there would not have been an SGI Indy if that architecture had been completed on time.
    I still think, if things had went a hair differently, there could have been an Amiga with Jaguar chips. I know that was never even a remote possibility. But if Commodore and Atari had anticipated Apple moving to PowerPC and Motorola ditching 68k they could have headed them off. Imagine Dave Haynie's architecture with Ed Hepler and John Mathieson providing custom chips?
    If I'd hit the lottery for $50M in 1992 I could have bought enough Commodore stock to save the Amiga. My fantasy Amiga 2002 would have been the Streammaster with full 680x0 support, and using the NUON chip for 3D and video. By then NUON would have been on its 2nd or 3rd gen. I'd use QNX to boot the system but sandbox the apps by running multiple emulations of AmigaOS using AREXX to communicate between them... It would have been badass.

  • @mercster
    @mercster 4 роки тому

    I had a Fiero as a teenager! In the 90s, I think it was an 81 or something. Shitty car, but I sure looked cool!

  • @antonbaumgartner7726
    @antonbaumgartner7726 3 роки тому +1

    *Bil Herd ;-)

  • @Tech-geeky
    @Tech-geeky 4 роки тому

    38:45 What about the internal HD?

  • @chukchee
    @chukchee 5 років тому

    What happened to the Amigo?

  • @DumbledoreMcCracken
    @DumbledoreMcCracken 5 років тому +1

    Always wanted an A500, and sorry I didn't buy one.

  • @kansalta
    @kansalta 7 років тому +1

    Part 1 link?

    • @Tech-geeky
      @Tech-geeky 4 роки тому

      I really had to search for Part 1 and 2... UA-cam suggestions sux.

  • @LaPabst
    @LaPabst 5 років тому +1

    Load 8,1,8..... Run

  • @MrRobbyvent
    @MrRobbyvent 5 років тому +1

    in any case they would never have won the race with PC systems rapidly growing in power at a pace that they could not sustain.

    • @zakathzakath6184
      @zakathzakath6184 5 років тому

      I think would be here and faster at this moment if Amiga would stay at the race.Check at Ytube this Power Mac G5 full PPC64 os,by Luigi Burdo.Then you can meaby understand...Check also x5000

    • @davidaustin6962
      @davidaustin6962 5 років тому

      The problem was never not being able to beat PC in regards to speed or power consumption. There is a lot that goes toward market performance ... distribution channel ownership and deals being one of the biggest ones, marketing itself, timing (Amiga was actually ahead of it's time so people didn't pay extra for it because the software wasn't there to take advantage of it), management / culture (keeping braintrust in-house), and the list goes on.

    • @oldtwinsna8347
      @oldtwinsna8347 5 років тому

      correct, the closed platform is proof of that. PC vs Mac, iPhone v Android. anyone who remembers how computer shopper magazine was the size of a phonebook filled with pc clone stuff can understand there was no way to match.

    • @Tech-geeky
      @Tech-geeky 4 роки тому

      Seems PC was doing really well.. At least in the business management. No one would have bought PC's by the numbers if it was just a 'dead paper weight' So there must of some evidence there.

  • @technokat
    @technokat 3 роки тому

    CBM had the something like the ipad , and failed

  • @hardwarecodes
    @hardwarecodes 10 років тому

    Recommended! Buying New Amiga Systems in 2012 *Amiga NG music*
    ua-cam.com/video/4inWlmr71yg/v-deo.html

  • @SM-sk1sm
    @SM-sk1sm 2 роки тому

    Hey Dave look at my Avatar YOU Know who I am You worked for me. It's time to tell the truth..ie I was there too

  • @rabidbigdog
    @rabidbigdog 7 років тому

    Sole-der, not so-der.

  • @mcswabin207
    @mcswabin207 9 років тому

    Interesting. How much hair is growing out of your ear though?

    • @davidaustin6962
      @davidaustin6962 5 років тому +1

      I thought there was no such thing as a stupid question, but then you had to go prove that wrong.

    • @Tech-geeky
      @Tech-geeky 4 роки тому

      that's how HD goes

  • @onkelebert787
    @onkelebert787 6 років тому +2

    A nerdy freak is allowed to talk about his system.

    • @woswasdenni1914
      @woswasdenni1914 5 років тому +4

      that nerdy freak is in top 1% IQ, where you at? double digits?

    • @onkelebert787
      @onkelebert787 4 роки тому

      @Tone. If you say so.

    • @onkelebert787
      @onkelebert787 4 роки тому

      @@woswasdenni1914 It's cute to see how helpless fanboys react. But nerds are like that. No sex, no life, always freaking out. Well, no Corona either, since you never leave the house anyway. Stay healthy, the world would be less fun without you.

  • @ThunderAppeal
    @ThunderAppeal Рік тому

    I only recently discovered that there may have been a BSD/*nix port to a Commodore.
    I owned a 64 many many years ago.
    If Commodore had a *nix ported to it back then the IT landscape today would have been unrecognizable today.
    It is possible that Linux would have had an uphill battle and IBM/variants would have *never* dominated the PC market to the degree it had, microshaft would have been contained.
    Mind boggling what could have been.