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It's worth bearing in mind that Hermans wouldn't have been able to rise to prominence in the Amiga market if Ali hadn't run Commodore into the ground.

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Ali came very late in Commodore's downward spiral, which began in 1984 with the Plus/4 and the C128. Post-Tramiel Commodore were a dysfunctional mess which would have sunk long before if not for the very long-term success of the C64 and the briefer success of the Amiga. By the 90s, the execs were all in it basically to see how much cocaine and hookers they could score with company funds before the debts caught up with them.

That's an exaggeration. But not much.

Besides which, Ben never really "rose to prominence". He had a stab at licensing ports of some flopped Windows games to Amiga, Linux and Mac, which failed. Then he had a stab at making an AmigaOS successor and massively underestimated the task. Then he foolishly tried to stand up against Amiga Inc massively outwitting him, and has spend every moment since playing people like chess pieces in the absolutely most cynical manner to try to clear his debts. If he ever does, the mess he leaves to do so will make Ali look surgical.

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In that were the case, particularly given the state of that company, can you explain why they would need another one?

They're not rumours...

#6

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Not my fight except one thing that bugs me here in your statement. The C128 sold 5.7 million worldwide. I'd hardly lump that in "downward spiral".

@number6

Maybe they simply don’t have the rights to actually use it no more? Having source gode is one thing, having copyright is a different matter. Take the leaked 3.1 sources for example, many people have it on their HDD’s and it is also in the OS4 svn repo, but Cloanto (or perhaps the C-A Acquisition Corporation) is the only one who can legally use it. Additional work by Olaf Barthels etc is copyrighted by him, but since that builds on Cloanto owned property, those parts are Shared Copyrights that would need agreement from all the involved copyright owners (Cloanto and Olaf both).

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The 128 was an overengineerd brainfart that only sold by accident.

If C= had wanted a real 64 successor it should have been something like the C65 or the C900.

Both offcourse turned obsolete once they bought the Amiga.

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People like to poop on the 128, including Bill Herd himself at times, but "only sold by accident" is wrong. To this day the 128 has a following. I personally upgraded from a 64 to a 128 in 1986. I knew exactly what I was getting and I was not disappointed. The 128 was not directly competing against the Amiga 1000. They were entirely different price points. My friend bought one of the first A1000s off the line, it cost him nearly $3,000. I didn't have anywhere near that kind of money. My 128 cost me something like 1/10th of that.

It's not the question wether the 128 sold, but wether it made sense as a project.

1st hint is the Z80 which made it complicated/expensive to build, all for running C/PM an OS already on it's dead bed by that time. The 128mode might have made sense if it had come in updated C64 chips (maybe it did no expert on the 128).

What it should have been.

C64CR as super-cheap base and an 128 that just offered bit more while costing only extra pennies, just like A500 vs A500+.

So yes, add "HighRes" (aka 80 col), yes add a bit more RAM, yes add the floppy (that everyone had to have anyways) and maybe add some MHz.

If that didn't work, start developing the A1000CR 2 years earlier (aka A500).

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I don't actually think so.
At that time 8 bit were still heavily used.
The 128 had 80 column screen and a lot of additional goodies.
Also the Apple II was still being sold.

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The C900 was an entirely different attempt to follow the Unix track.
The C900 as well as the Amiga 2000 UX was no success at all.


Manfred

[ Edited by asrael22 21.03.2019 - 18:18 ]

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Sure minor upgrades to a 1977 design, not something in any way as weird as the 2 CPU, 2 GPU 3 mode C128.

Apple kinda did their 128 with AppleIII a few year earlier which failed.


C128 designed as an C64+ would have made sense, maybe in the same way that Amstrad did the 6128 and later the 6128+ as a replacement/upgrade for the 464 and 664.

C64 was not designed for banking memory and Amstrads 464 can be quite easily upgraded from 64 to 128KB. From user perspective i prefer my C=128DCR over my C64 due to the integrated C1571 and burst mode with C1581. Integrated PSU in DCR is also more reliable than old C64 psu (door stop).

I'll try to tackle this from the perspective of someone who has the C128 (128Dcr to be specific) as my favorite computer of all time.

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That's entirely subjective and you are entitled to that opinion. I'm just trying to make the objective point that unlike C='s true failures, which there were many, C128 was not one of them. They saw a market opportunity, a niche to fill, and it worked for this model.

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The first part about the Z80 and CP/M mode is hard to quantify. Granted, your average home user picking up a 128 as their first computer would be clueless about CP/M, and yes CP/M was on death row by this point. OTOH there were users back then who took advantage of the CP/M mode. Its hard to say if it helped sales in any measurable way.

I will say it was not a totally worthless addition. CP/M on the 128 did have some strong points compared to its competitors in the same market segment. Other 8bit systems capable of running CP/M had major drawbacks, such as the C64 with CP/M cart, Apple II with Z80 card and even the Coleco Adam. None of them could take a CP/M floppy from a traditional dedicated CP/M system and run it, or read the data. I've read that some businesses actually used Apple II with Z80 cards in a business setting, even though getting software to execute and data on to the Apple would be a major head ache, especially back then. The 128 with 1571 (and 1581 too) could read and write practically any native CP/M disk (minus 8" obviously). I've personally taken disks like WordStar for Kaypro, put it in the 1571 and ran directly. I've taken Dbase II for Televideo, put in 1571 and run it.

So yeah, CP/M mode is an arguable point. But even if it wasn't a major selling point by 1985, it didn't degrade the system just being there.

As for the 2nd part above, updated chips, it does in a way. 64 mode is basically the same chips. The only exceptions are the SID Chip in some models (8580 SID), which is just slightly different, and the 2 MHz-capable 8502 variant. The CPU could only run full 2Mhz in 64 mode by turning off the video output. However, it could run 2mhz "in the borders" with video still active which gave a performance boost of something like 15%. There were indeed some commercial games that took advantage of the extra speed. its minor you could argue, but there is a difference.

Outside of 64 mode and in 128 mode with 80 column video (separate RGBi output) is a different story. It had its own video chip, the VDC and obviously an extra 64K of base RAM. The 128 could DMA memory between banks. Commodore dropped the ball a little by advertising the 80 Column mode (VDC) was text only. However software developers and hobbyists quickly discovered that not to be the case. The VDC had enormous gfx capability. The most significant use of the 80 column mode was Geos 128 Operating System. Geos 128 was heads and shoulders over Geos 64 and was very widely used. In 80 column mode you also got the full 2Mhz CPU speed.

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When the A500 came out, the C128 was still selling strong. This is what I think you are missing here. The cost of a C128 with 1571 was still less than half of an A500. My first Amiga was an A500. Without getting deep in my personal story, I was underwhelmed by the A500 in many ways. Yes I grew to love the Amiga, but a reasonable 128 setup verses an Amiga 500 setup in ~87-89, the 128 easily won IMO. It was far cheaper too.

Also as mentioned above, the 128 did have expanded gfx capabilities. Those were vastly underused outside of Geos 128, Basic 8 and a few other programs. Here are a couple examples.

VDC Mode Mania

VDC Demo (On real hardware, uploaded by me almost a decade ago. The choppiness in the video was due to YT compression, it was not present on the real hardware or my recording).

Gunfright 128/VDC version (We are starting to get a number of new game ports that take advantage the 128/VDC mode. C= should have advertised this feature).

Hopefully not TLDR. I am a C128 fanboy

-Edit-
I spent a good part of my teen years online using BBSes. I was almost always in 128/80 column mode using BobsTerm 128, and later Desterm. There was no comparing with terminal programs in 64 mode. 40 column just didn't cut it for PC based BBSes, and "soft80" was hard on the eyes. You also get faster rs232 speeds in 128/80 column fast mode (2mhz).

[ Edited by redrumloa 22.03.2019 - 14:33 ]

>I've personally taken disks like WordStar for Kaypro, put it in the 1571 and ran directly.
> I've taken Dbase II for Televideo, put in 1571 and run it.

Aka, no point writing serious C128 native SW

> 80 column video (separate RGBi output)

Sounds as bad as the AtariST monitor situation

>The cost of a C128 with 1571 was still less than half of an A500.

The cost (to build) or the price (C= asked) ?
I'd guess it's the 2nd as C= had no prob slashing the A500*s price by 60% over time with no other cost savings apart from RAM (and maybe an even sweeter deal on those 7MHz 68000)

I'd say the A300/600 is a similar case, supposed to be a cheaper A500, turned out more expensive to build.
To incompatible for games (ECS,Kick2.0 missing numeric KBD) to weak for serious use.

Still it sold in numbers (below cost) and sure some just love the little bugger today.

I had and used GEOS 128. It was good. It was no match for the AmigaOS. The 128D costed as much to make as an A500 and slowed the upgrades to the Amiga. I got my first Amiga in 1993. It was an A1200. Commodore should have cut production of its 8 bit line sooner.

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Outside of games, 128 native mode was very well supported.

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The Commodore and Amiga branded monitors such as 1084, 2002 etc etc had both composite and RGB modes. It was a simple witch on the front. I had a 2002 back in the day. Switching was no big hassle. Since there was 2 video outputs, a (very) small amount of software too advantage of this. You could actual use dual displays on a 128 back in the 80s.

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So how did they get the intellectually challenged sorceress to adhere to the device?

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Bit of a problem then that the C128/C64 were almost entirely seen as games computers by the late 80s. Which was one of Commodore's main problems - not knowing it's market. It lived off some early successes for years, spent next to nothing on R&D, and didn't know how to compete even if they could. By the 90s they were beyond all recovery.

If I can steer things back on point, the much-maligned Mehdi Ali came to Commodore when it was already a basket-case heading for oblivion. He gleefully asset-stripped it of course, but was not responsible for its downfall (although traditionally Commodore fanboys, as fanboys do, like to look for easy answers that don't impinge on the rose-tinted views of their heroes).

Ben Hermans, on the other hand, came to a platform that was commercially almost dead, but had a thriving retro community. Within six years, his divisive tactics had pretty much turned the tens of thousands of people into dozens. It goes beyond even failed business plans - he couldn't have done much more damage if he had a secret grudge and had intentionally squandered a fortune in trying to destroy it.

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Ben Hermans isn't exactly ignoring Commodore though, so don't worry:
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Source

I've already written many times about IAmiga/Manomio and the Hyperion and Cinemaware connection, but I found the above interesting, considering the source of this claim.

#6

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Ah yes, the Amazing Settlement Agreement. Not only does it give Hyperion the apparent right over OS3.x and below, the boingball, and the Amiga and AmigaOS names, but also Commodore IP too.

Well obviously only a world-class IP lawyer with connections to NASA, NATO and the European Union could make "The Software" literally apply to anything that is software.

> I found the above interesting, considering the source of this claim.

It's essentially the same he already wrote on his website before.

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Who is the source?

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Actually, he is probably an out-of-the-world class IP laywer, possible connections to the planet Krypton, his superpower is indeed making it "possible" to shift anything that other people owns. Maybe he will bundle Windows and Mac OS as well? And some games from Rockstar? And the Coca Cola logotype? Anything is possible with his IP superpowers...

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Thank you for that.

I'm afraid that the Manomio story has great need of a more complete timeline to put all the facts in order. I'm not sure anyone is willing to take that on.
Manomio's licensor was, of course, the same licensor to CommodoreUSA. Both licenses were terminated after the bankruptcy of Asiarim's licensing arm and subsequent lawsuit against Asiarim.
Lawsuit Source
Also detailed here

The Amiga side is more clear.
Hyperion side mentions only Cinemaware
but
clearly shows Manomio involved
Why did not Hyperion mention Manomio unless there was a big problem?
As I recall Cinemaware ran into problems over this arrangement as well.

#6

@thread

For what it's worth, Amiga Documents 3.0.1 is now available:

Source

The new information seems to be the "bullet points" added towards the bottom of the linked section.

#6

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The problem was IMO not the 128 as such.
But the wrong decisions of the managers in charge at Commodore.
The number of projects were just too many and many were not dropped in favour of Amiga (i.e. the 8 bitters) which resulted in Amiga advanced and developed much too slow against the PC and Apple competition.