This is the year the 2000 really takes off
7 min read
The AMIGA 2000 From Commodore
The best part of the meeting was saved until last. Gail Wellington outlined Commodore’s plans for the next year. Many of the products have I heen shown at trade fairs but this was the first time they had all been talked about in such detail. Most, but not all, of the products are aimed at A2000 owners.
The A2031 is a video card which allows a second colour monitor to be connected. This is particularly useful for lectures where the standard RGB port may be used to drive a video projector.
The professional video market is clearly important to Commodore – the Amiga 1000 genlock card has won Commodore a lot of friends. To capitalise on this it has two new cards for the A2000, The A2300 is a “cheap” genlock, with the same specification as the A1000 genlock but without the sound.
There is simple video titling software, The A2300 is classed as semi-professional, so it won’t be found in big television stations — it is more likely to be used by schools and colleges which want to make training films.
More advanced users will want the A235O Professional Video Adapter (PVA). This is a two card genlock for the Amiga B2000 only, developed in conjunction with the New York institute of Technology. It offers software control uf the genlock with frame grabbing and can freeze in real lime. II will not digitise in real lime but all the processing is digital for accuracy.
The PVA can cope with any Amiga resolution, including HAM, and the advanced software can optimise the palette. Software can be used to switch between different video sources, as well as mixing the Amiga signal. This professional adapter will encourage the use of Amigas throughout the British television community.
All hard disc users bemoan the need to start the system up with a floppy disc. The 2090A will cure this. It offers the same functions as the existing 2090 hard disc controller, but will auto boot with Kickstart 1.3. This is a new rom for the A500 or A2000, and a disc for the A1000 should be available this summer.
All Amiga users should be interested in the 1.3 Workbench. This works with the existing Kickstart 1.2 but offers many enhancements. There are 21 printer drivers which include the H-P Paintjet and Xerox 4020. Programs which use the standard libraries will find that the mathematical capabiiites have been greatly improved, maintaining full IEEE floating point accuracy.
There is automatic detection for the 68881 maths co-processor, so some maths intensive programs will be considerably faster, The text display routines will be faster and the fast File system speeds hard disc access times by as much as 600 per cent. Commodore has signed a deal with Adobe which has allowed it to licence Times Roman and Helvetica fonts.
The world shortage of dynamic ram has not really affected Commodore’s ability to fulfil the promise of an 8Mb memory board for the A2000. The A2052 2Mb board will be discontinued – although I know of one editor who is still keen to get his and replaced with the A2058. 8Mb board.
This uses the new 1Mb chips as opposed to the standard 256 hit chips which are causing Atari and Amstrad such headaches. The hoard will be sold with 2Mbs of ram and upgraded to 4 or 8Mb by the user. This will be more expensive than a 2052 and available soon.
The really exciting news was about the A2620 68020 processor. again for the A2000. This runs at 14MHz -twice the standard Amiga speed – and has a 14MHz 68881 maths coprocessor. Anyone who is doing a lot of calculation might find it worthwhile to swap their 68881 for a 25MHz version of the chip. As standard, the board comes with 2Mbs of ram. although it can be upgraded to 4Mbs. Indeed this expansion is necessary it you want to run Unix.
UNIX is the reason why the A2620 has a 68851 memory management unit. It is a multitasking, multi-user operating system which is common on mini and mainframe computers. To be able to offer it at micro prices is a real achievement.
Commodore will be shipping AT&T version 5.3 of Unix together with its own window operating system. This maintains a high degree of software compatibility with Xwindows, but runs very much faster. Unix will mean that the Amiga will find its way into many more universities.
A long-persistence monitor has been promised for a long time. This will reduce the flicker in the interlace modes but cause last moving objects, like the mouse pointer or alien craft, to blur. The Commodore A2080 has a high resolution, non-glare screen and stereo sound, but future Amiga developments may mean that the A2080 does not make it as far as the home computer market. The A2080 looks like a 1084, the standard Amiga monitor, which will also be upgraded to stereo.
The long persistence monitor would he the best thing Commodore could offer for desktop publishing if it were not fur the A2024 monochrome monitor. This needs a 1Mb Amiga but otherwise it will work with ail Amigas. It gives a screen resolution of 640 by 200, 640 by 400 non-interlaced and 1008 by 800 on American (NTSC) machines and 640 by 256, 640 by 512 non-interlaced and a 1008 by 1024 on European (PAL.) systems. All in up to four shades of grey.
A SOFTWARE patch to Workbench will allow many existing programs to function with the monitor. It works by storing four frames at a time and displaying them all at once. Instead of the usual refresh rate of 60Hz the A2024 refreshes at 15 Hz. Software which needs to be modified mainly needs minor tweeks. The Amiga team at Los Gatos has had SiarGlider running. The 126 column by 128 line display will make an excellent DTP, spreadsheet or CAD monitor.
The lynch pin of the Amiga’s design is its custom chip design. Since the early days of the machine, Commodore and Amiga have been experimenting with improved versions of the chips. The first have now been finalised. The Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) offers a screen resolution of 320 by 512 and 640 by 512 non-interlaced in addition to the current screen modes and requires a new version of Workbench. When they are available, all Amigas will be fitted with ECS as standard.
Existing users will be able to take their Amiga to a designated Commodore service centre and have the new Agnus, Denise and Gary chips fitted. Even if you are not going to take advantage of the extra screen modes, the ECS allows the custom chips to access a full megabyte of ram.
To use the new ECS modes you need a special, multisync monitor. Commodore will have its own bisync monitor called the A1950 which supports both old and new screen modes as well as stereo sound. But, like all multi sync monitors, it will not be cheap.
The business community is still stuck in an IBM rut, so as a sop to them Commodore has an AT bridgeboard as an addition to the existing XT bridge. This comes with 640k ram and vastly improved libraries. It runs at 10MHz and can autoboot from a hard drive with the new A2090a controller board.
The announcement of two types of Amiga 2500 is a little misleading. The machines are essentially Amiga 2000s with options installed. The Amiga 2500 AT is an A2000 with the AT bridgeboard. 2090A disc controller, ECS. the A2620 68020 processor, an Amiga 3.5in drive, a 1,2Mb A* type floppy and a 40Mb hard disc.
The Amiga 2500UX is an A2000 with ECS, a 68020, the 2000A controller, Unix and a 100Mb hard disc. There will be an optional tape streamer. All Amiga 2000 owners will he able io upgrade to the 2500 specification if they can get the bank manager to agree.
Networking is becoming more important, and there are a number of add-in cards for the A2000, Ameristar has a high specification Ethernet card which will allow an Amiga to share a network with mini and mainframe computers. In independent tests this board was found to he the fourth best Ethernet controller in a field of well over 100 products, in competition with companies like Olivetti, Apple and DEC.
Compatibility is very important in networking. You need to use other people’s standards if you want to he accepted, so the Appletalk network from Progressive Peripherals which will allow the Amiga to be connected to Macintosh peripherals as well as to Macintoshes, should prove popular with users of this network.
Gail was less forthcoming on plans for 1989, which are rumoured to include an Amiga 3000 with a 68030, and a 68030 card for the Amiga 2000, a possible laser printer and a hard disc for the A500. Commodore has demonstrated a transputer card for the A2000 which runs the same helios as the much trumpeted Atari Abaq.
The Amiga range is now so broad, with so many good things in prospect, that it will start to appeal to many more people. And Commodore has all the bases covered all it need do now is capitalise on the ST price hike.
Gail took the opportunity to explain why Commodore is not having problems with the price of ram. She explained that Commodore is the world’s biggest buyer of dynamic ram. IBM is a bigger user, but makes its own. Commodore’s demand is so great that it places orders up to two years before it needs the ram.
This means that Commodore has at least six, and possibly nine months grace before worrying about the cost of the chips. Most experts believe that the ram shortage will be over by then.
Normally a chip manufacturer would be loath to fulfil an order at a low, fixed price when the same products could be sold for considerably more on the open market. But Commodore buys a lot more than just ram from these manufacturers, who could not afford to lose the sales of things like disc drives if they upset Commodore.
The conference ended with Dr Haleem issuing a set of proposals for a Commodore developers’ support programme to encourage developers to get together and share information. An advisory board will be elected at the next developer meeting to be organised by Commodore soon. So if you work for a company which has Amiga products under development you should write to Dr Haleem at Commodore in Maidenhead.
Source : AMIGA COMPUTING
Source of information – AMIGA Computing of June 1988 – Download of the magazine below:
