desiv Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 But wouldn't 1MB of video ram have been REALLY expensive? What's the point of the designing the ultimate computer if no one can afford it? That's what almost happened to the Amiga! You obviously have never heard of Apple computers... Mac 128k, 1984 release, $2495.... It worked for them.. desiv (no value judgments either way...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanBoris Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 Cool! I wonder if there is some way to reconstruct some of this prototype stuff above (or at least emulate it on PC/MAC etc.). Curt, any software (binary or source) for this prototype machine? If there is this might make a cool emulation project! Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezz Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 (edited) I'd be surprised if it would have been viable back then to produce it within the accepted price range and still make a sizable profit if it were a consumer aimed system. Perhaps the GUMP was a designers dream concept as mentioned above that would have been revised heavily for the released product? I don't know but I recall on the Amiga's inception after the take up by Commodore Jay Miner was adament that it shiped with 512k ram but Commodore said no way with the cost implications and it was revised by one of the team to 256k. If the Atari plan was to launch the GUMP as per the concept with 1MB of video ram, were Atari planning for it to be an expensive non consumer pro system? Edited October 15, 2009 by Tezz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 Yeah it boggles the mind.. Anyways, sure Commodore limited the RAM on the Amiga 1000 but they finally got some sense and bumped it up from then on out.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezz Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 The story as I understand it was that Jay Miner was sticking to his guns with 512k for the release of the 1000 and told Commodore it wasn't possible to revise everything to bring it down to 256k after they gave the red light to the 512k however one of the team aparently wasn't aware of Jay's wishes and had made the revision requested by the Commodore execs and presented it to them so they had to go with it once it was actually proved possible. In an later interview Jay Miner mentioned that he wanted at least then to have empty sockets on the board so that an easy upgrade was possible but Commodore was not prepared to.. as he put it "pay the additional 3 cents for each socket in the production". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 (edited) Looking forward to it and the book you are working on. Curt is working on an Atari book? Details? Same one we've been talking about all this time. We're partnered on a set actually. Also guys, some of this material will also be up in the video of the presentation I did for Curt and myself at the ECCC last month. Should be up at retrothing.com in the next couple of weeks. Edited October 16, 2009 by wgungfu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted October 17, 2009 Author Share Posted October 17, 2009 Actually Jay wanted to cap the Amiga (Lorraine design) memory at 128K believe it or not, infact he was a little annoyed when someone from the team admitted to the Commodore people - sure we can design the system to have more memory. Most of the high end systems were shot down by Warner Comm management because they would've taken Atari into the realm of high end business computers - Warner wanted to stay in the entertainment business and therefor its owned companies - Atari being one of them had to product entertainment based products. It was that view that stifled Atari's ability to produce and sell more capable systems. Prior to GUMP was GAZA which was a known and documented working prototype system that ran on 2 (in the final spec 3) 68000 processors with high end graphics - meant to compete against HP Apollo and Sun workstations - the system ran CP/M 68K and was fully working and demo'd to Warner, once the demo was finished - again, Warner decided they didn't want to compete in the business field, the project canceled and that same team was then reassigned to build a high end next generation video game system around the Amiga chipset - codenamed "Mickey" after the team leader's wife. I know one of the Corporate Research team was said to have written an OS for GUMP called "Snowcap" which was supposedly based on BSD Unix with a front end GUI. I am still trying to get information from him and if so, I'll be sure to include it. Curt I'd be surprised if it would have been viable back then to produce it within the accepted price range and still make a sizable profit if it were a consumer aimed system. Perhaps the GUMP was a designers dream concept as mentioned above that would have been revised heavily for the released product? I don't know but I recall on the Amiga's inception after the take up by Commodore Jay Miner was adament that it shiped with 512k ram but Commodore said no way with the cost implications and it was revised by one of the team to 256k. If the Atari plan was to launch the GUMP as per the concept with 1MB of video ram, were Atari planning for it to be an expensive non consumer pro system? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted October 17, 2009 Author Share Posted October 17, 2009 Well I'm doing a GDSII conversion of the "Silver" Sprite Processor from GUMP/Sierra. I am looking for the tape out or possible a drive directory that still has "Gold" on it. We've got a good amount of data on AMY already and I know someone has been working on emulating it. If we can get Silver&Gold emulated and running CP/M 68K, then we are very well looking at what the system would've been like. Curt Cool! I wonder if there is some way to reconstruct some of this prototype stuff above (or at least emulate it on PC/MAC etc.). Curt, any software (binary or source) for this prototype machine? If there is this might make a cool emulation project! Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonner242 Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 How It kills me to think of what could of been. Its sad after all these years that Im still in love with my 1000. It was the turning point for me in so many ways...I still love to animate on it. I really cant wait to hear more on this. Thanks Curt for sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 (edited) Actually Jay wanted to cap the Amiga (Lorraine design) memory at 128K believe it or not, infact he was a little annoyed when someone from the team admitted to the Commodore people - sure we can design the system to have more memory... Really. There's a pretty good documentary out there on youtube with interviews called "History of the Amiga" (multipart), and Jay says quite the opposite there. And the the designer (Dave Needle) that told Commodore that you could in fact make it work with 256k was right there and agreeing. Here it is: Not saying he didn't change his mind at some point or wasn't lying or something, you never know... Watching it again, he said "512k from the start, at least from socket capability".. desiv Edited October 17, 2009 by desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 128K would have been a logical choice when they were still in "Super-Console" mode. Even then, it seems a little tight given that sound samples also need to be catered for. But as a console, it would have been logical to have some sort of system where parts of the ROM could be mapped into that part of the address space. Of course, as history has shown, the Chip Memory addressability grew with each generation of Amiga chipset. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 Actually Jay wanted to cap the Amiga (Lorraine design) memory at 128K believe it or not, infact he was a little annoyed when someone from the team admitted to the Commodore people - sure we can design the system to have more memory. Most of the high end systems were shot down by Warner Comm management because they would've taken Atari into the realm of high end business computers - Warner wanted to stay in the entertainment business and therefor its owned companies - Atari being one of them had to product entertainment based products. It was that view that stifled Atari's ability to produce and sell more capable systems. Prior to GUMP was GAZA which was a known and documented working prototype system that ran on 2 (in the final spec 3) 68000 processors with high end graphics - meant to compete against HP Apollo and Sun workstations - the system ran CP/M 68K and was fully working and demo'd to Warner, once the demo was finished - again, Warner decided they didn't want to compete in the business field, the project canceled and that same team was then reassigned to build a high end next generation video game system around the Amiga chipset - codenamed "Mickey" after the team leader's wife. I know one of the Corporate Research team was said to have written an OS for GUMP called "Snowcap" which was supposedly based on BSD Unix with a front end GUI. I am still trying to get information from him and if so, I'll be sure to include it. Curt I'd be surprised if it would have been viable back then to produce it within the accepted price range and still make a sizable profit if it were a consumer aimed system. Perhaps the GUMP was a designers dream concept as mentioned above that would have been revised heavily for the released product? I don't know but I recall on the Amiga's inception after the take up by Commodore Jay Miner was adament that it shiped with 512k ram but Commodore said no way with the cost implications and it was revised by one of the team to 256k. If the Atari plan was to launch the GUMP as per the concept with 1MB of video ram, were Atari planning for it to be an expensive non consumer pro system? Interesting that curt...so what was the point of Atari getting into the computer biz in the first place (apart from competing with commodore and Apple etc), interesting that commodore were having similar issues...i.e until they released the vic20/c64, they didn't want to be seen selling 'games computers' (otherwise the vic 20 would have been designed sooner)and mainly focused on the business systems like the pet/cbm range Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 Really. There's a pretty good documentary out there on youtube with interviews called "History of the Amiga" (multipart)... desiv The documentary isn't bad, as long as you completely ignore RJ's entire stage "presentation". A complete fabrication, it's almost painful to watch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarian63 Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 Actually Jay wanted to cap the Amiga (Lorraine design) memory at 128K believe it or not, infact he was a little annoyed when someone from the team admitted to the Commodore people - sure we can design the system to have more memory. Most of the high end systems were shot down by Warner Comm management because they would've taken Atari into the realm of high end business computers - Warner wanted to stay in the entertainment business and therefor its owned companies - Atari being one of them had to product entertainment based products. It was that view that stifled Atari's ability to produce and sell more capable systems. Prior to GUMP was GAZA which was a known and documented working prototype system that ran on 2 (in the final spec 3) 68000 processors with high end graphics - meant to compete against HP Apollo and Sun workstations - the system ran CP/M 68K and was fully working and demo'd to Warner, once the demo was finished - again, Warner decided they didn't want to compete in the business field, the project canceled and that same team was then reassigned to build a high end next generation video game system around the Amiga chipset - codenamed "Mickey" after the team leader's wife. I know one of the Corporate Research team was said to have written an OS for GUMP called "Snowcap" which was supposedly based on BSD Unix with a front end GUI. I am still trying to get information from him and if so, I'll be sure to include it. Curt I'd be surprised if it would have been viable back then to produce it within the accepted price range and still make a sizable profit if it were a consumer aimed system. Perhaps the GUMP was a designers dream concept as mentioned above that would have been revised heavily for the released product? I don't know but I recall on the Amiga's inception after the take up by Commodore Jay Miner was adament that it shiped with 512k ram but Commodore said no way with the cost implications and it was revised by one of the team to 256k. If the Atari plan was to launch the GUMP as per the concept with 1MB of video ram, were Atari planning for it to be an expensive non consumer pro system? Interesting that curt...so what was the point of Atari getting into the computer biz in the first place (apart from competing with commodore and Apple etc), interesting that commodore were having similar issues...i.e until they released the vic20/c64, they didn't want to be seen selling 'games computers' (otherwise the vic 20 would have been designed sooner)and mainly focused on the business systems like the pet/cbm range Atari was offered the apple and declined as they has thier own in dev. Commodore 64 did not arrive until 82.Not sure anyone paid any attention to VIC and never heard of CBM/PET here in the US back at that time. Atari was 78/89. Atari ended up competing with Apple,personally I thing the Atari was a heck of alot better machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarian63 Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 Actually Jay wanted to cap the Amiga (Lorraine design) memory at 128K believe it or not, infact he was a little annoyed when someone from the team admitted to the Commodore people - sure we can design the system to have more memory. Most of the high end systems were shot down by Warner Comm management because they would've taken Atari into the realm of high end business computers - Warner wanted to stay in the entertainment business and therefor its owned companies - Atari being one of them had to product entertainment based products. It was that view that stifled Atari's ability to produce and sell more capable systems. Prior to GUMP was GAZA which was a known and documented working prototype system that ran on 2 (in the final spec 3) 68000 processors with high end graphics - meant to compete against HP Apollo and Sun workstations - the system ran CP/M 68K and was fully working and demo'd to Warner, once the demo was finished - again, Warner decided they didn't want to compete in the business field, the project canceled and that same team was then reassigned to build a high end next generation video game system around the Amiga chipset - codenamed "Mickey" after the team leader's wife. I know one of the Corporate Research team was said to have written an OS for GUMP called "Snowcap" which was supposedly based on BSD Unix with a front end GUI. I am still trying to get information from him and if so, I'll be sure to include it. Curt I'd be surprised if it would have been viable back then to produce it within the accepted price range and still make a sizable profit if it were a consumer aimed system. Perhaps the GUMP was a designers dream concept as mentioned above that would have been revised heavily for the released product? I don't know but I recall on the Amiga's inception after the take up by Commodore Jay Miner was adament that it shiped with 512k ram but Commodore said no way with the cost implications and it was revised by one of the team to 256k. If the Atari plan was to launch the GUMP as per the concept with 1MB of video ram, were Atari planning for it to be an expensive non consumer pro system? Hopefully we can see what Jay's chipset (amiga) should have been as an Atari! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 (edited) Atari was offered the apple and declined as they has thier own in dev. No, it was just that at the time it was offered (Spring '76) Atari was focused on the VCS, and a lot of the engineers (includnig Al Alcorn) didn't see it as a viable product at the time. And they were right, in '76 personal computers were still homebrew type products with a limited market (which is exactly what the Apple I was). That all changed by the time Atari released the 2600 of course, you had Apple (the Apple II), Commodore (PET), and Radio Shack (TRS-80) all enter with more consumer orientated computers and really jump start the home computer market. Hence they went right from the 2600 to the early PCS designs. Interestingly, they originally wanted an open architecture card system ala the Apple II, but Ray wouldn't allow it. In fact he had a grand vision for a consumer driven "appliance computer" market complete with color coordinated computers ala what Jobs did with the iMac almost 20 years later. Edited October 17, 2009 by wgungfu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted October 18, 2009 Author Share Posted October 18, 2009 It got a LOT worse by 1982... Atari brought it a big team from Control Data Corp into Atari's Home Computer Division around late 1981 and they set about taking the home computer line to just that level, but more to the extreme... to make a "Computer Appliance" A closed box, just plug it in and use it as is. They then through a division called "HAT" went to Racal Vadic and one of their first projects was to take the Atari 850 autoload design to the next level - the Atari 1030... Atari envisioned "Smart Appliance Devices" that you would just plug into your Atari computer and they would supply everything needed, the hardware and software. Just turn them on and use them. The 1030 modem was a very cool idea, its main flaw - no damned support for a disk drive (and why should there - there was no upload/download feature in the built in software) More narrowed minded thinking on a narrow minded path. Its why the 1200XL was a failure and why 3rd parties had to come to the 1030's rescue with more capable software. It wouldn't be until spring of 84' that Atari realized it needed to empower its systems and software with more features and flexibility. The Atari 8bit world would be a much much different place today had the 1090 XL system been released for example. I know a lot like to point out - well ICD and CSS made Parallel bus products and that was it. There all in one boards didn't allow for other devices to co-exist and what was needed was a card card, and to foster 3rd parties to make add-on cards. Look at the Apple ][... the Atari 800 was far superior to it, yet it was taken as a more serious computer and more units sold of it, why - expansion - you have ram cards, 80 column card, rgb cards, printer cards, and so much more. It took a simple "box" and allowed it to grow well beyond its original design. Same with the IBM PC - it was an under powered box --- however, through in a floppy disk controller, MFM hard drive controller, Everex Multi-function card and a 3COM ethernet card and now you've got one serious machine. This is what Atari needed - not a closed box - accept it as is and nothing more design. There in lied its biggest fault - its lack of growing outside of its off the shelve specification. Curt Atari was offered the apple and declined as they has thier own in dev. No, it was just that at the time it was offered (Spring '76) Atari was focused on the VCS, and a lot of the engineers (includnig Al Alcorn) didn't see it as a viable product at the time. And they were right, in '76 personal computers were still homebrew type products with a limited market (which is exactly what the Apple I was). That all changed by the time Atari released the 2600 of course, you had Apple (the Apple II), Commodore (PET), and Radio Shack (TRS-80) all enter with more consumer orientated computers and really jump start the home computer market. Hence they went right from the 2600 to the early PCS designs. Interestingly, they originally wanted an open architecture card system ala the Apple II, but Ray wouldn't allow it. In fact he had a grand vision for a consumer driven "appliance computer" market complete with color coordinated computers ala what Jobs did with the iMac almost 20 years later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 (edited) Curt, I've read interviews elsewhere that Atari had to give up on normal expansion slots because they wanted a TV interface and the FCC regulations of the mid '70s made having both practically impossible. Have you heard anything like that? Also, modems tend to expose a weakness in the SIO design: that a streaming device will lock out all others. Modems were much cheaper when they had no internal buffer and would pass bits as received to a dedicated UART. When the computer switches over the disk drive, the modem has no way to unload incoming data. -Bry Edited October 18, 2009 by Bryan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedWolf Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 Okay here is sneak peak tease #2: Introducing "GUMP"... Curt Wow. It's very interesting that Robert Alkire drew that on a Macintosh. The fonts are unmistakable. Probably in the original MacPaint, in fact, considering the 1984 date on the document. Interesting to know that Atari employees of any kind were using Macs for work back then. It was before the ST, so I guess they could do it without internal company shame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 Okay here is sneak peak tease #2: Introducing "GUMP"... Curt Wow. It's very interesting that Robert Alkire drew that on a Macintosh. The fonts are unmistakable. Probably in the original MacPaint, in fact, considering the 1984 date on the document. Interesting to know that Atari employees of any kind were using Macs for work back then. It was before the ST, so I guess they could do it without internal company shame. Actually it was most likely on a Lisa. They had a large of inventory of Lisas at that time that I believe they were using for dev purposes that were reused later during the ST OS dev as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedWolf Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 Actually it was most likely on a Lisa. They had a large of inventory of Lisas at that time that I believe they were using for dev purposes that were reused later during the ST OS dev as well. Man, I had no idea they used Lisas either. That's very interesting as well. Makes sense that a 68K system would be useful for developing on another 68K system. I wonder if any Atari engineers / R&D people continued to use Macs or Lisas after the Atari ST came out. By the way, I said Macintosh because as far as I know, the Chicago font wasn't available on the Lisa -- it was created by Susan Kare for the Macintosh. And the possibility of an upgraded Lisa -> Macintosh XL is ruled out by the date (the XL launched in '85). Not to say that it's impossible it was drawn on a Lisa, just not likely -- but now I'm just splitting hairs. After all, this is an Atari thread. Great info overall, and excellent work on Curt's part to unearth all this. P.S. I love your websites, Marty. I've been visiting them for a very long time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 (edited) Man, I had no idea they used Lisas either. That's very interesting as well. Makes sense that a 68K system would be useful for developing on another 68K system. I wonder if any Atari engineers / R&D people continued to use Macs or Lisas after the Atari ST came out. No idea if they still did, Curt may have some documentation. By the way, I said Macintosh because as far as I know, the Chicago font wasn't available on the Lisa -- it was created by Susan Kare for the Macintosh. And the possibility of an upgraded Lisa -> Macintosh XL is ruled out by the date (the XL launched in '85). Not to say that it's impossible it was drawn on a Lisa, just not likely -- but now I'm just splitting hairs. After all, this is an Atari thread. Going by the inventory list we have, generated on 4/16/85, it was all Lisas. About 10 of them, each with profile drives. To me the fonts look like the Lisa "system font" as shown on page 2 here: http://www.1000bit.it/SUPPORT/Manuali/APPLE/LISA/craig/LisaFontCharts.pdf Most likely, the drawing was done in Lisa Office, which was released in '83 and included LisaDraw (later ported to the Mac as MacDraw) and LisaProject (which the Gump drawing looks like it could have been done in either) - http://toastytech.com/guis/lisaos1LisaTour.html Great info overall, and excellent work on Curt's part to unearth all this. As Curt stated, it's a team effort. And this is only one of the areas we've been focusing on, we've also been able to uncover and clear a lot of missconceptions about Atari's early period (i.e. Nolan fabrications, etc.). P.S. I love your websites, Marty. I've been visiting them for a very long time. Thanks, though atarihq is Keita and mine's site. Never finished overhauling it, been really busy. Edited October 18, 2009 by wgungfu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laemeur Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 By the way, I said Macintosh because as far as I know, the Chicago font wasn't available on the Lisa -- it was created by Susan Kare for the Macintosh. And the possibility of an upgraded Lisa -> Macintosh XL is ruled out by the date (the XL launched in '85). Not to say that it's impossible it was drawn on a Lisa, just not likely -- but now I'm just splitting hairs. After all, this is an Atari thread. Going by the inventory list we have, generated on 4/16/85, it was all Lisas. About 10 of them, each with profile drives. To me the fonts look like the Lisa "system font" as shown on page 2 here: http://www.1000bit.it/SUPPORT/Manuali/APPLE/LISA/craig/LisaFontCharts.pdf Most likely, the drawing was done in Lisa Office, which was released in '83 and included LisaDraw (later ported to the Mac as MacDraw) and LisaProject (which the Gump drawing looks like it could have been done in either) - http://toastytech.com/guis/lisaos1LisaTour.html RedWolf is right, the font in the drawing is unquestionably "Chicago", which didn't come on the Lisa or Lisa 2 (the V and W glyphs are a dead giveaway when comparing Lisa's "System" with Chicago). However, that still doesn't mean the drawing wasn't done on a Lisa; Wikipedia tells me that the floppy version of MacWorks XL (Mac OS for the Lisa hardware) came out in April '84, just in time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warriorisabouttodie Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 Pardon my ignorance, but I have to ask you experts some things that have always plagued me. If Atari had ended up with the Amiga chipset, would that of meant some kind of console from Atari using the original Amiga chipset? Would Atari have still built a next generation computer around the Amiga chipset or would they have still released the ST computer line? How close to the OCS Amiga would Atari's design have been another words would it have been capable of HAM and HAM-E mode? Some thing else I've always wondered. What would Commodore have released? If Atari did release an Amiga style computer would Commodore have likely rushed to market with a ST like machine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedWolf Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 Wikipedia tells me that the floppy version of MacWorks XL (Mac OS for the Lisa hardware) came out in April '84, just in time. There ya go. That's probably what they used then. Overall, I'm still fascinated that they used Apple Lisas. But back to the topic at hand... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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