This is what I think of Amiga in (near) future. After Commodore have been sold to ESCOM, many Amiga users have been worried about the future of Amiga. Then everybody started giving advises what ESCOM (or Amiga Technologies, or VIScorp.) should do with Amiga. - Well this is something like that. Amiga Generally =============== Graphic: -------- New chipset. AGA is bit outdated and SLOW. It would be nice if new chipset had Bitplane and ChunkyPixel modes. 24 bit modes are must. 3D acceleration functions would be SOOOOOO NICE. Graphic Modes should be split in three main groups. VIDEO - PAL and NTSC DBLVIDEO - DBLPal and DBLNtsc - doubled and without flickering (31KHz), but the same resolutions as Pal/Ntsc SVGA - Standard SVGA resolutions (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1280? ) Chip Memory should be faster (60ns EDO), and at least 4 MB capacity (more expandable). Sound: ------ Not Much to say, 16bit and sampler. MIDI available. Processor(s): ------------- If Amiga should go PowerPC then go PowerPC in all models. If it's too early then go on with MC68040 and MC68060, they might be expensive, but no one is buying computer without at least 15 MIPS (Pc market). Drives: ------- Hard drive - IDE in low-end models, SCSI and IDE in high-end models. Floppy drive - HD drive that is faster then one in A4000. CD ROM - IN EVERY MODEL!!! Expansions: ----------- Zorro should maintain in it's existing form, might get upgraded to Zorro IV with 64bit wide bus. PCI should replace ISA slots in 'big' Amigas, and be fully usable by Amiga. AMIGA MODELS: ============= Low End Amiga. -------------- A1200 as a low-end machine is too low-end. Few things should be changed, first of all CPU. It's slow, OK not to slow, but for today applications (games) it is. MC68040 (at least LC or EC version) would be very nice. FAST ram sockets are must. Do you remember that all-mighty, Amiga 500? It was some piece of hardware, you could take out Agnus throw it on the ground, put it back in Amiga, and it'll work! Unfortunately A500 is too old for nowdays, 10 years of life in computer world is very long time. Sad thing is to watch A500 slowly dying. Machine most of us adored is being sold for 150 DM (or less) in 1995. What could be done is to develop "A500 Tuning Kit". This kit would consist of new motherboard with AGA (or AAA) chipset, MC68040 (or MC68060), fast ram sockets, IDE controler, PCMCIA.... This new motherboard should replace old A500 motherboard. Since you already own case for it, keyboard, PSU, Floppy drive (if you can live with 880KB) it would be cheap replacement. Authorised dealers, or services would provide new motherboards with complete upgrading. Old motherboards could be recycled (ports, MC68000...) and used in other products (intelligent SCSI or emulator boards with MC68000 !?). Doing the same for A2000 users would be interesting. High end Amiga -------------- High-end. Well high-end Amiga's were really high-end, but there was some stupidities (no SCSI in A4000?, bottlenecked FAST ram..). High-end Amiga's are OK, but please take care when designing them, there is so many STUPID mistakes. It would be nice to put PCI slots in next generation of high-end Amigas together with Zorro IV slots. It's possible (at least physically) because PCI slots would fit instead ISA slots inside Amiga. THE PROJECT: ============ My "dream" machine Actually it's not too much dream, it could be done, but when and how much it would cost????. Anyway, I'm still dreaming. Here are tha specs: ------------------- - MIDI tower case - two 5.25" external drive bays - two 3.5" external drive bays - two 3.5" internal drive bays - 250~300 WATT power supply - Ergonomic keyboard - Ergonomic mouse - CPU - Motorola MC68060 or Motorola PowerPC (603e?) - 32/64bit architecture - New Chipset (AAA?) - Graphic is true 24bit with chunky pixel and bitplane modes. - CHIP ram is expandable to 16MB or more with standard memory modules - Sound is 16bit - Additional internal ports for MPEG(1/2) coder/decoder, and wave tables - Expansions - 7 Zorro IV 64bit Amiga internal expansion slots - 5 PCI 64bit internal expansion slots - 2 internal Video slots in-line with Zorro IV slots - Processor slot - Wave table slot - MPEG coder/decoder slot - Drives - FAST (Wide) SCSI-2 device controller - 32 bit EIDE device controller - 3.5" 2 Gigabyte SCSI-2 hard drive - CD ROM drive - Floppy drive 1.76 megabyte (high speed) - Ports - external floppy drive port (not necessary) - high speed RS-232 serial port - high speed Centronics parallel port - 2 FIREWIRE serial ports (mouse/joystick, VR glove, ArtPad's,...) - 15kHz color RGB analog video port - S-VHS video output - 31KHz SVGA video output - stereo audio input/output ports (standard 1/4" jack) - Headphones and microphone input/output - Digital Audio port - Ethernet BNC connector - High density SCSI-2 port - MIDI in, out, thru ports - OS - Support for multiprocessor systems - Networking/Internet ready - User friendly as earlier AmigaOS-es I'm not too hot for PPC. But if you go PowerPC then our Power Amiga should be able to emulate old Amiga, Mac, PowerMac, and IBM PC. And all that should be included with AmigaOS (it's peace of cake - ShapeShifter, PC-Task, just ring its programmers) CHECK PLEASE! - I (oh I :P) think that this machine --===***COULD***===-- be sold for ~5000 DM (or even LESS). Of course, I hope that price would mean equal QUALITY. If you think that this machine would reach 1000 units in sales, here's option: - Put OUT: SCSI-2, 16MB CHIP ram, Ethernet, PCI slots, Zorro slots, and put it in a compact home case and you have a computer for ~1500 DM. AND SHOOT ME IF I'M WRONG! To be honest "I don't have enough money to buy cheap equipment" Milan Belic Koste Nadja 9 21240 Titel YUGOSLAVIA Or use this e-mail (IT'S MY FRIENDS - JUST PUT NOTE THAT IT'S FOR ME): sentinel@eunet.yu P.S. Think about notebook Amiga !!!!! I'd rather by that then a notebook PC.