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4. Impulse for Discussion: 68060 Processor (by Thorsten Schoelzel)

»First a question to all of you: who at all does use one? An additional question is, why programmers transfer their software to this processor really weak.

I for myself gladly boast the ownership of a Blizzard1260/50MHz and I was quite proud when I bought this a few years ago. The competent press releases highly praised especially this processor resp. board, but I cannot see why, when I play a game of Quake.

The Blizzard1260 is furnished with the 68060 processor from Motorola with an internal FPU and an MMU. You may compare the power of such an Amiga with a 586 PC.

Why isn't it possible to get Quake running on fullscreen with a decent speed? What do you need a 060 processor for, it might be much better to take the cheaper Blizzard1240/40, mightn't it? I really am stirred up, that I already have a fast processor but still miss the relevant software.

It does not mean just to change a few statements in a program, it takes quite a lot more. Some demos in the scene show the power in such a processor, it ought to be possible to transform it generally.

Because several among you will ask, why I do not change to PPC, let me explain the following. The Amiga is dead and only may be saved by Amiga Incorporated. Therefore it would be a waste of money, if I'd spend it for improvements of my classic Amiga (with are a few exceptions).

Certainly, a system with PPC turboboard & PPC graphics board would not be bad, but what for? Just to say I have a PPC? No, fellows, my money is to good for this, and beside of that my system is completely sufficient for me, even if I miss some items, which can be found at PPC, before all reasonable MPEG, Quicktime & AVI players.

The best example may be AmiPEG, which only runs in AGA mode, but an MPEG movie is played in near full screen with true speed. What a significance would have a further developement of this player for the Amiga 68k series (Sound & FullScreen picture)! But I like especially a newcomer named "Frogger". It would be desirable, that the programmer might assist existing sound boards, then, I am sure, you could listen to the sound of a MPEG movie, the assistance of the MPEGit modul might be advisable. I'd be glad, if in the near future they would attend to it.

There are so many points I might lay hold of to discuss about, because fully developed software for the Amiga is a complete miss.

It is a pity, that no changes are in sight and the Amiga will pursue its way downwards.

Thorsten Schoelzel <amiga-freak@t-online.de>«