why people express anger towards Microsoft?

Nigel Goodwin · Jun 22, 2009

blueroomelectronics said:
I think my Commodore PET ran at 1MHz

Yes, the PET was 1MHz, my Tangerine was only 0.75MHz.

blueroomelectronics · Jun 22, 2009

Is nike6 banned permanently or just on a timeout?

duffy · Jun 22, 2009

Clock speed is a poor indication of processor performance.

Pommie · Jun 22, 2009

Wasn't the Amiga the first machine with hardware video acceleration. The blitter if I remember rightly, is it a coincidence that the main windows function to move graphics around is called bitblit?

Mike.

Nigel Goodwin · Jun 22, 2009

Pommie said:
Wasn't the Amiga the first machine with hardware video acceleration. The blitter if I remember rightly, is it a coincidence that the main windows function to move graphics around is called bitblit?

It had a bitblitter chip for graphics acceleration, and a separate sound processor chip as well.

The Amiga was used on a lot of TV shows, for all kinds of on-screen graphics, and even the entire animated computer graphics on a big budget SciFi series - "Babylon 5".

UTMonkey · Jun 22, 2009

Nigel Goodwin said:
But the Amiga had lots of nice co-processors inside, that made it considerably faster - funnily enough, designed by an ex-Atari guy if I remember correctly?.

True, with chip names like "Fat Agnes" and "Denise" and the "Copper" it was the start of something special.

ST guys only rebuttal was that the ST had build in MIDI .

Yep, I used to be a coder for a demo\swapping crew called Ipec Elite - there should still be a few of my "demos" out there somewhere.

Almost a waste of my youth ;-)

and heres a link http://bitworld.bitfellas.org/demo.php?id=1309

UTMonkey · Jun 22, 2009

duffy said:
Clock speed is a poor indication of processor performance.

Not if you have ever played "Top Trumps"

Nigel Goodwin · Jun 23, 2009

UTMonkey said:
True, with chip names like "Fat Agnes" and "Denise" and the "Copper" it was the start of something special.

ST guys only rebuttal was that the ST had build in MIDI .

The Amiga required very little to add MIDI, the serial hardware was already in place, and it just needed simple interface hardware - as little as one resistor, for a simple MIDI out.

I designed, and had published, a simple and cheap Amiga MIDI interface, in the AUG magazine, and it was partly reprinted in Computer Shopper.

killivolt · Jun 23, 2009

Nigel Goodwin said:
The Amiga required very little to add MIDI, the serial hardware was already in place, and it just needed simple interface hardware - as little as one resistor, for a simple MIDI out.

I designed, and had published, a simple and cheap Amiga MIDI interface, in the AUG magazine, and it was partly reprinted in Computer Shopper.

You guy's started some real discussions around here with all this banter about history and such.

Thanks for memory lane still loving it.

Nigel, that's a piece of history we needed to know. I like to here when people do things even as simple as a resistor.

Thanks.

kv

Triode · Jun 23, 2009

Rendering mustve taken weeks per scene! I remember that show looking ok, you could easily tell it was CG, but it still looked pretty good.

smanches · Jun 23, 2009

The Toaster was the s**t back then for all kinds of video compositing. It could even do it live.

Still had great graphics for being early 1990's.

Nigel Goodwin · Jun 23, 2009

Triode said:
Rendering mustve taken weeks per scene! I remember that show looking ok, you could easily tell it was CG, but it still looked pretty good.

They used the Amiga 4000 series and Toaster, like smanches says, it was an amazing piece of kit - a lot of stuff could be done in real time.

Torben · Jun 24, 2009

Nigel Goodwin said:
They used the Amiga 4000 series and Toaster, like smanches says, it was an amazing piece of kit - a lot of stuff could be done in real time.

Video Toaster on the Amiga was certainly light years ahead of anything else available at the price point for the time, that's for sure. But just to pick a nit, actually B5 only used that in the early days. Later on they moved to Pentiums, Alphas, Macs, and SGI, running a variety of software from such as Lightwave and After Effects for various tasks. A lot of stuff could be done in real time on the Amigas but for the early B5 stuff they used an Amiga render farm.

Yeah, not important. But I'm a huge B5 fan so I had to at least mention it.

Always wanted an Amiga or ten. There are still a few out there in the wild but sadly you don't see them around here much. In their day nothing could really touch them (and for some things they're still darned impressive, I hear).

Torben

Nigel Goodwin · Jun 25, 2009

Torben said:
Yeah, not important. But I'm a huge B5 fan so I had to at least mention it.

B5 was shown here on CH4, and the series launched when I was away on holiday in Wales (near Port Merion - where The Prisoner was filmed). No problem I though, I'd watch it there - but in Wales CH4 is replaced by S4C, a channel completely in Welsh, which didn't show B5

So I missed the very first episode.

Always wanted an Amiga or ten. There are still a few out there in the wild but sadly you don't see them around here much. In their day nothing could really touch them (and for some things they're still darned impressive, I hear).

I've still got my original A500, an early one with an American keyboard - I've also got an A600 which I saved as it was been thrown out

Torben · Jun 25, 2009

Nigel Goodwin said:
B5 was shown here on CH4, and the series launched when I was away on holiday in Wales (near Port Merion - where The Prisoner was filmed). No problem I though, I'd watch it there - but in Wales CH4 is replaced by S4C, a channel completely in Welsh, which didn't show B5

So I missed the very first episode.

Well, the first episode set up some stuff but insofar as acting and direction goes it's a bit B-grade. But I love that stuff (in context) so it works for me.

I've still got my original A500, an early one with an American keyboard - I've also got an A600 which I saved as it was been thrown out

Colour me jealous.

Torben

duffy · Jun 25, 2009

Nigel Goodwin said:
...an early one with an American keyboard

What, a "$" instead of a "£", or is there more to it?

Pommie · Jun 25, 2009

duffy said:
What, a "$" instead of a "£", or is there more to it?

There are quite a few. The most annoying was that @ and " are swapped.

Mike.

duffy · Jun 25, 2009

What annoys me is that crazy long stretch to get your right pinky over to hit the Enter key. Do English keyboards have the colons and quotes between the "L" and Enter keys?

Pommie · Jun 25, 2009

I've lost track now as I am currently on an Australian keyboard. However, if you are interested, wikipedia seem to have an extensive list.

Mike.

Nigel Goodwin · Jun 25, 2009

duffy said:
What, a "$" instead of a "£", or is there more to it?

A few more than that, but you simply load a UK driver that matches the keys as marked, rather than the standard UK or American ones.

I can't say I ever found it a problem in any way.

why people express anger towards Microsoft?

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