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amiga |
2 definitions found From Jargon File (4.2.3, 23 NOV 2000) [jargon]: Amiga n A series of personal computer models originally sold by Commodore, based on 680x0 processors, custom support chips and an operating system that combined some of the best features of Macintosh and Unix with compatibility with neither. The Amiga was released just as the personal computing world standardized on IBM-PC clones. This prevented it from gaining serious market share, despite the fact that the first Amigas had a substantial technological lead on the IBM XTs of the time. Instead, it acquired a small but zealous population of enthusiastic hackers who dreamt of one day unseating the clones (see {Amiga Persecution Complex}). The traits of this culture are both spoofed and illuminated in The BLAZE Humor Viewer (http://www-ccsl.cs.umass.edu/~barrett/bm/Viewer_Sections/Main.HTML). The strength of the Amiga platform seeded a small industry of companies building software and hardware for the platform, especially in graphics and video applications (see {video toaster}). Due to spectacular mismanagement, Commodore did hardly any R&D, allowing the competition to close Amiga's technological lead. After Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 the technology passed through several hands, none of whom did much with it However, the Amiga is still being produced in Europe under license and has a substantial number of fans, which will probably extend the platform's life considerably. From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (13 Mar 01) [foldoc]: AmigaA range of home computers first released by {Commodore Business Machines} in 1985 (though they did not design the original - see below). Amigas are popular for {games}, {video processing} and {multimedia}. One notable feature is a hardware {blitter} for speeding up graphics operations on whole areas of the screen. The Amiga was originally called the Lorraine, and was developed by a company named Amiga" or "Amiga, Inc.", funded by some doctors to produce a killer game machine. After the US game machine market collapsed, the Amiga company sold some {joysticks} but no Lorraines or any other computer. They eventually floundered and looked for a buyer. Commodore at that time bought the (mostly complete) Amiga machine, infused some money, and pushed it through the final stages of development in a hurry. Commodore released it sometime[?] in 1985. Most components within the machine were known by nicknames. The {coprocessor} commonly called the Copper" is in fact the "{Video} Timing Coprocessor" and is split between two chips: the instruction fetch and execute units are in the Agnus" chip, and the {pixel} timing circuits are in the Denise" chip. Agnus" and Denise" were responsible for effects timed to the {real-time} position of the video scan, such as midscreen {palette} changes, {sprite multiplying}, and {resolution} changes. Different versions (in order) were: Agnus" (could only address 512K of {video RAM}), "Fat Agnus" (in a {PLCC} package, could access 1MB of video RAM), "Super Agnus" (slightly upgraded "Fat Agnus"). Agnus" and "Fat Agnus" came in {PAL} and {NTSC} versions, "Super Agnus" came in one version, jumper selectable for PAL or NTSC. Agnus" was replaced by Alice" in the A4000 and A1200, which allowed for more {DMA} channels and higher bus {bandwidth}. Denise" outputs binary video data (3*4 bits) to the "Vidiot". The Vidiot" is a hybrid that combines and amplifies the 12-bit video data from Denise" into {RGB} to the {monitor}. Other chips were Amber" (a "flicker fixer", used in the A3000 and Commodore display enhancer for the A2000), Gary" ({I/O}, addressing, {glue logic}), Buster" (the {bus controller}, which replaced Gary" in the A2000), "Buster II" (for handling the Zorro II/III cards in the A3000, which meant that Gary" was back again), Ramsey" (The {RAM} controller), DMAC" (The DMA controller chip for the WD33C93 {SCSI adaptor} used in the A3000 and on the A2091/A2092 SCSI adaptor card for the A2000; and to control the {CD-ROM} in the {CDTV}), and Paula" ({Peripheral}, Audio, {UART}, {interrupt} Lines, and {bus Arbiter}). There were several Amiga chipsets: the "Old Chipset" (OCS), the "Enhanced Chipset" (ECS), and {AGA}. OCS included "Paula", "Gary", "Denise", and "Agnus". ECS had the same "Paula", "Gary", Agnus" (could address 2MB of Chip RAM), "Super Denise" (upgraded to support Agnus" so that a few new {screen modes} were available). With the introduction of the {Amiga A600} Gary" was replaced with Gayle" (though the chipset was still called ECS). Gayle" provided a number of improvments but the main one was support for the A600's {PCMCIA} port. The AGA chipset had Agnus" with twice the speed and a 24-bit palette, maximum displayable: 8 bits (256 colours), although the famous "{HAM}" (Hold And Modify) trick allows pictures of 256,000 colours to be displayed. AGA's Paula" and Gayle" were unchanged but AGA Denise" supported AGA "Agnus"'s new screen modes. Unfortunately, even AGA Paula" did not support High Density {floppy disk drives}. (The Amiga 4000, though, did support high density drives.) In order to use a high density disk drive Amiga HD floppy drives spin at half the rotational speed thus halving the data rate to "Paula". Commodore Business Machines went bankrupt on 1994-04-29, the German company {Escom AG} bought the rights to the Amiga on 1995-04-21 and the Commodore Amiga became the Escom Amiga. In April 1996 Escom were reported to be making the {Amiga} range again but they too fell on hard times and {Gateway 2000} (now called Gateway) bought the Amiga brand on 1997-05-15. Gateway licensed the Amiga operating system to a German hardware company called {Phase 5} on 1998-03-09. The following day Phase 5 announced the introduction of a four-processor {PowerPC} based Amiga {clone} called the "{pre\box}". Since then, it has been announced that the new operating system will be a version of {QNX}. On 1998-06-25, a company called {Access Innovations Ltd} announced {plans (http://www.micktinker.co.uk/aaplus.html)} to build a nwe Amiga chip set the {AA+}, based partly on the AGA chips but with new fully 32-bit functional core and 16-bit AGA {hardware register emulation} for {backwards compatibility}. The new core promised improved memory access and video display DMA. By the end of 2000, Amiga development was under the control of a [new?] company called {Amiga, Inc.}. As well as continuing development of AmigaOS (version 3.9 released in December 2000), their "Digital Environment" is a {virtual machine} for multiple {platforms} conforming to the {ZICO} specification. As of 2000, it ran on {MIPS}, {ARM}, {PPC}, and {x86} processors. {Home (http://www.amiga.com/)}. {Amiga Web Directory (http://www.cucug.org/amiga.html)}. {amiCrawler (http://www.amicrawler.com/)}. Newsgroups: {news:comp.binaries.amiga}, {news:comp.sources.amiga}, {news:comp.sys.amiga}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.advocacy}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.announce}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.applications}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.audio}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.datacomm}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.emulations}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.games}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.graphics}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.hardware}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.introduction}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.marketplace}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.misc}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.multimedia}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.programmer}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.reviews}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.tech}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.telecomm}, {news:comp.Unix.amiga}. See {aminet}, {Amoeba}, {bomb}, {exec}, {gronk}, {guru meditation}, {Intuition}, {sidecar}, {slap on the side}, {Vulcan nerve pinch}. (2001-02-14)
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