Sun Apr 28 17:24:13 2002
Anyway, Harb was kind enough to digitize and upload the entire Dave Haynie Amiga Deathbed Vigil movie (2 hours!) in MPEG4, and I've been watching it and watching it...
I've written the first draft of the introduction to my book, and I'll post it here if anyone is interested.
Sun Apr 28 17:26:09 2002
Sun Apr 28 17:30:13 2002
Sun Apr 28 17:32:12 2002
Sun Apr 28 17:37:21 2002
Sun Apr 28 17:40:42 2002
Sun Apr 28 18:01:26 2002
The Story of the Amiga, and the people who made it happen, and
The story of the death of the Amiga, and the people who made that happen
Introduction – The Last Day
The flag was flying at half-mast when Dave Haynie drove up to the headquarters of Commodore International for what would be the last time.
Dave had worked for Commodore at their West Chester, Pennsylvania headquarters for xxx years as a senior engineer. His job was to work on advanced products, like the revolutionary AAA chipset that would have again made the Amiga computer the fastest and most powerful multimedia machine available. But AAA, like most of the projects underway at Commodore, had been cancelled (a year ago?) in a series of cost-cutting measures, the most recent of which had reduced the staff of over 1000 people at the factory to less than 30.
“Bringing your camera on the last day, eh Dave?” the receptionist asked in a resigned voice.
“Yeah, well, it’s not like the company is going to accuse me of spreading secrets, are they?” he replied.
Dave took his camera on a tour of the factory, his low voice echoing through the empty hallways. “I just thought about it this morning,” he said, referring to his idea to film the last moments of the company for which he had given so much of his life. “I didn’t plan this.”
The air conditioners droned loudly as he passed warehouse after warehouse. Two years ago these giant rooms had been filled with products. Commodore had sold $1 billion worth of computers and computer accessories that year. Today they were completely empty.
Dave walked upstairs and continued the tour. “This is where the chip guys worked,” he said as the camera panned over empty desks. The “chip guys” were engineers designing VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) custom microchips on advanced CAD workstations. These chips had always formed the heart of the Amiga computer. Five years later, most personal computers would include custom chips to speed up the delivery of graphics, sound and video, but the Amiga had done so since its introduction in 1985.
“Wow, one guy is still here!” Dave said, zooming in on the workstation of Brian Rosier. “And he’s actually working!” The workstation screen showed a complex line graph, the result of a simulation of a new chip design. “This is for my next job,” the engineer said, smiling. Most of the technical people would not be out of work for very long.
Dave passed his own office. The camera zoomed up to an empty bottle of ale displayed proudly on a shelf. “This was for the birth of my son,” he said, then panned around the rest of the desk, filled with papers and technical manuals. “I felt I had to do something,” he said before he left.
“This was my workbench,” he explained as the tour continued. On the desk were various Amiga computers, a Macintosh IIsi, tons of test equipment, and a large prototype circuit board.
“And this… this is Triple-A,” he said, with a mixture of pride and bitterness. “I read on the ‘net that AAA didn’t exist. Well, here it is!” He pointed out the memory slots, the expansion bus, and various other features. Many of the Commodore engineers were on the Internet, back before the World Wide Web existed, when the ‘net was just text and was the exclusive domain of academics and researchers, and a few dedicated hobbyists. AAA had been the subject of hundreds of rumors, from its announcement, to a series of delays and its final cancellation. While there were those who believed it had never existed, there were also others who went the other way, who endowed AAA with mythic properties, perpetually waiting in the wings for its revival and subsequent domination of the computer industry. These people would keep the faith for years, in the subsequent trying times for the Amiga after the death of its parent company. They refused to let go of the dream.
Others were more pragmatic. “Here’s Dr. Mo!” Dave exclaimed, finding Greg Berlin, manager of high-end systems at Commodore International, crouched down on the floor, pulling chips out of a personal computer and placing them, one at a time, on top of the large tower case.
“Dr. Mo in pilfer mode,” he said, looking up from his task. His face registered laughter, guilt, sadness and resignation all at the same time. He sighed. “Well, I’ve been waiting all these years, I finally broke down and I’m doing it. I finally decided, I’ve been here long enough that I deserved something.” He looked at the tiny, pathetic little pile of chips, as if the supreme inequity of this trade was suddenly hitting him. “So I’m taking a couple of RAM chips,” he said.
Sun Apr 28 19:29:13 2002
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Sun Apr 28 19:44:11 2002
Sun Apr 28 20:15:32 2002
Introduction: The Last Day
The Dream (the founding of the amiga)
The Dreamers (Jay Miner, RJ Mical, etc) -- this might be merged with Ch1
The Computer (The Lorraine, and what it did)
Commodore (The company, in all its g(l)ory)
The Demo Groups (how the Demoscene led to great games)
The Gamers (the greatest games of their time)
The Toaster (the story of NewTek)
The Death of the Dream (Commodore folds)
The Dreamers Move On (Atari Lynx, 3DO, etc)
Life After Death (Endless resurrection rumors)
Epilogue: The Curse of Great Technology
Sun Apr 28 20:51:23 2002
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Sun Apr 28 21:33:56 2002
;) Actually, now that you mention it, I worked with Greg Berlin in 98-97 at another hardware company, many of whom were former GVP employees.
Very well-written, JR. It was a fun and interesting read.
I'm taking orders for VCDs of the video, if anyone is interested. ;)
Sun Apr 28 21:47:04 2002
The project to write the story of the Amiga is something I've been toying with for a couple of months, but only started doing seriously last week. I've downloaded a set of interviews with Jay Miner, designer of the original Amiga chipset, in MP3 format. Interesting stuff.
Harb, what was Greg like? What did you two do at this company?
Mon Apr 29 03:00:21 2002
from Jeremy Reimer posted at 5:47 pm on April 28, 2002
Harb, what was Greg like? What did you two do at this company?
Greg was/is tall. Very tall. ;) When we worked together, he was a generally quiet guy (all our engineers seemed to be that way ;)) but when he laughed, you heared him on the other side of the building.
At the time we worked together, he was an engineer at a hardware developer (mostly video stuff); I was the net admin/system purchaser/product tester/TS quasi-overseer. It was mostly fun while it lasted -- they worked on some pretty interesting tech (most of which never saw the light of day) and were one of the first to develop DVD decoding cards back in the days when the CPU didn't have enough juice to handle it as well as everything else. ;) This company mostly developed higher-end PCI/ISA mpeg capture cards for NLE and DVD decoder cards for OEMs when I was there. Now they're doing "project and system integration services" after buying some company back in December. I haven't been in touch with anyone who's still there since I left.
Mon Apr 29 04:18:21 2002
damnit, now I gotta install WinUAE again.
Mon Apr 29 04:52:52 2002
if you don't want to exhaust your bandwidth would you email a link? Please!
thank you vewy much!
:)
Jeremy, great intro. I like.
Thu May 2 00:55:48 2002
I posted on comp.sys.amiga.advocacy a request for help and links... I'm in major research mode now.
Did you know Jay Miner was responsible for the custom chipset design of the Atari 2600, Atari 400/800, AND the Amiga? That man was a design god.
Thu May 2 01:58:11 2002
from Jeremy Reimer posted at 8:55 pm on May 1, 2002
Did you know Jay Miner was responsible for the custom chipset design of the Atari 2600, Atari 400/800, AND the Amiga? That man was a design god.
Yes, actually I do. :D
It's interesting that, hardware-wise, the Amiga got its start thanks to a number of former Atari people, while the ST got its start thanks to a number of former Commodore people.
One anecdote I recall is that the reason why early ST gfx demos looked better than Amiga demos of the same period was because a number of ex-Commodore programmers had done them; their experience doing tight programming on a C64/C16/Vic20 was an immediate benefit to the ST, whereas the Amiga was starting basically from scratch. But we all know that it didn't take long for the Amiga to best the ST graphically (it already had the hardware to do it, it just needed the talent to bring it out :p). [Side note: You could probably apply this to the current situation with the Xbox. ;)]
Another thing I remember is that the ST was rushed into production when Atari lost its bid for Amiga, Inc. They needed to bring out a 16-bit box ASAP since Commodore now had theirs, and Apple's came out the year before. A number of hw & sw devs from C= followed Tramiel to Atari, which AIR was what allowed them to bring such a product to market so quickly.
It's fortuitous that you brought this thread to the top, since just tonight I got an email from my ex-C= friend saying that he'll add his anecdotes. I sent him the URLs for your board and this thread, so hopefully we'll see him soon.
Fri May 3 03:34:50 2002
Fri May 3 04:10:59 2002
I'm looking forward to some juicy details and interesting anecdotes. :D
Sat May 11 21:07:03 2002
Harb, what happened to the guy? Can I email him?
Sat May 11 22:30:07 2002
He did pop his head into the forum when I told him about your project, but he didn't register because he said it "looked hokey." I think DrP might have scared him away with his "I just masturbated 4 times in an hour" thread. ;)
Sat May 11 22:41:30 2002
I think DrP might have scared him away with his "I just masturbated 4 times in an hour" thread.
Well hey, we aim to please... heh
Sat May 11 23:01:49 2002
he said it "looked hokey."
No, he musta seen something posted by the Mighty AYB. He could be described as hokey, the masturbation thread would be more accurately described as 'disturbing'
BTW, he needs his daily dose of hokeyness, so maybe I should send him some smam :)
Sat May 11 23:55:40 2002
Sun May 12 00:07:24 2002