Amiga

2 definitions found

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  Amiga n A series of personal computer models originally sold by
     Commodore, based on 680x0 processors, custom support chips and an
     operating system that combined some of the best features of Macintosh
     and Unix with compatibility with neither.
  
     The Amiga was released just as the personal computing world


     standardized on IBM-PC clones. This prevented it from gaining serious
     market share, despite the fact that the first Amigas had a substantial
     technological lead on the IBM XTs of the time. Instead, it acquired a
     small but zealous population of enthusiastic hackers who dreamt of one
     day unseating the clones (see {Amiga Persecution Complex}). The traits
     of this culture are both spoofed and illuminated in The BLAZE Humor
     Viewer (http://www.blazemonger.com/BM/). The strength of the Amiga
     platform seeded a small industry of companies building software and
     hardware for the platform, especially in graphics and video applications
     (see {video toaster}).
  
     Due to spectacular mismanagement, Commodore did hardly any R&D,
     allowing the competition to close Amiga's technological lead. After
     Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 the technology passed through several
     hands, none of whom did much with it. However, the Amiga is still being
     produced in Europe under license and has a substantial number of fans,
     which will probably extend the platform's life considerably.
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  Amiga
       
           A range of home computers first released by
          {Commodore Business Machines} in early 1985 (though they did
          not design the original - see below).  Amigas were popular for
          {games}, {video processing}, and {multimedia}.  One notable
          feature is a hardware {blitter} for speeding up graphics
          operations on whole areas of the screen.
       
          The Amiga was originally called the Lorraine, and was
          developed by a company named "Amiga" or "Amiga, Inc.", funded
          by some doctors to produce a killer game machine.  After the
          US game machine market collapsed, the Amiga company sold some
          {joysticks} but no Lorraines or any other computer.  They
          eventually floundered and looked for a buyer.
       
          Commodore at that time bought the (mostly complete) Amiga
          machine, infused some money, and pushed it through the final
          stages of development in a hurry.  Commodore released it
          sometime[?] in 1985.
       
          Most components within the machine were known by nicknames.
          The {coprocessor} commonly called the "Copper" is in fact the
          "{Video} Timing Coprocessor" and is split between two chips:
          the instruction fetch and execute units are in the "Agnus"
          chip, and the {pixel} timing circuits are in the "Denise" chip
          (A for address, D for data).
       
          "Agnus" and "Denise" were responsible for effects timed to the
          {real-time} position of the video scan, such as midscreen
          {palette} changes, {sprite multiplying}, and {resolution}
          changes.  Different versions (in order) were: "Agnus" (could
          only address 512K of {video RAM}), "Fat Agnus" (in a {PLCC}
          package, could access 1MB of video RAM), "Super Agnus"
          (slightly upgraded "Fat Agnus").  "Agnus" and "Fat Agnus" came
          in {PAL} and {NTSC} versions, "Super Agnus" came in one
          version, jumper selectable for PAL or NTSC.  "Agnus" was
          replaced by "Alice" in the A4000 and A1200, which allowed for
          more {DMA} channels and higher bus {bandwidth}.
       
          "Denise" outputs binary video data (3*4 bits) to the "Vidiot".
          The "Vidiot" is a hybrid that combines and amplifies the
          12-bit video data from "Denise" into {RGB} to the {monitor}.
       
          Other chips were "Amber" (a "flicker fixer", used in the A3000
          and Commodore display enhancer for the A2000), "Gary" ({I/O},
          addressing, G for {glue logic}), "Buster" (the {bus
          controller}, which replaced "Gary" in the A2000), "Buster II"
          (for handling the Zorro II/III cards in the A3000, which meant
          that "Gary" was back again), "Ramsey" (The {RAM} controller),
          "DMAC" (The DMA controller chip for the WD33C93 {SCSI adaptor}
          used in the A3000 and on the A2091/A2092 SCSI adaptor card for
          the A2000; and to control the {CD-ROM} in the {CDTV}), and
          "Paula" ({Peripheral}, Audio, {UART}, {interrupt} Lines, and
          {bus Arbiter}).
       
          There were several Amiga chipsets: the "Old Chipset" (OCS),
          the "Enhanced Chipset" (ECS), and {AGA}.  OCS included "Paula",
          "Gary", "Denise", and "Agnus".
       
          ECS had the same "Paula", "Gary", "Agnus" (could address 2MB
          of Chip RAM), "Super Denise" (upgraded to support "Agnus" so
          that a few new {screen modes} were available).  With the
          introduction of the {Amiga A600} "Gary" was replaced with
          "Gayle" (though the chipset was still called ECS).  "Gayle"
          provided a number of improvments but the main one was support
          for the A600's {PCMCIA} port.
       
          The AGA chipset had "Agnus" with twice the speed and a 24-bit
          palette, maximum displayable: 8 bits (256 colours), although
          the famous "{HAM}" (Hold And Modify) trick allows pictures of
          256,000 colours to be displayed.  AGA's "Paula" and "Gayle"
          were unchanged but AGA "Denise" supported AGA "Agnus"'s new
          screen modes.  Unfortunately, even AGA "Paula" did not support
          High Density {floppy disk drives}.  (The Amiga 4000, though,
          did support high density drives.)  In order to use a high
          density disk drive Amiga HD floppy drives spin at half the
          rotational speed thus halving the data rate to "Paula".
       
          Commodore Business Machines went bankrupt on 1994-04-29,
          the German company {Escom AG} bought the rights to the Amiga
          on 1995-04-21 and the Commodore Amiga became the Escom
          Amiga.  In April 1996 Escom were reported to be making the
          {Amiga} range again but they too fell on hard times and
          {Gateway 2000} (now called Gateway) bought the Amiga brand
          on 1997-05-15.
       
          Gateway licensed the Amiga operating system to a German
          hardware company called {Phase 5} on 1998-03-09.  The
          following day, Phase 5 announced the introduction of a
          four-processor {PowerPC} based Amiga {clone} called the
          "{pre\box}".  Since then, it has been announced that the
          new operating system will be a version of {QNX}.
       
          On 1998-06-25, a company called {Access Innovations Ltd}
          announced {plans (http://www.micktinker.co.uk/aaplus.html)} to
          build a new Amiga chip set, the {AA+}, based partly on the AGA
          chips but with new fully 32-bit functional core and 16-bit AGA
          {hardware register emulation} for {backward compatibility}.
          The new core promised improved memory access and video display
          DMA.
       
          By the end of 2000, Amiga development was under the control of
          a [new?] company called {Amiga, Inc.}.  As well as continuing
          development of AmigaOS (version 3.9 released in December
          2000), their "Digital Environment" is a {virtual machine} for
          multiple {platforms} conforming to the {ZICO} specification.
          As of 2000, it ran on {MIPS}, {ARM}, {PPC}, and {x86}
          processors.
       
          {Home (http://www.amiga.com/)}.
       
          {Amiga Web Directory (http://www.cucug.org/amiga.html)}.
       
          {amiCrawler (http://www.amicrawler.com/)}.
       
          Newsgroups: {news:comp.binaries.amiga},
          {news:comp.sources.amiga}, {news:comp.sys.amiga},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.advocacy},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.announce},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.applications},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.audio}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.datacomm},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.emulations}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.games},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.graphics},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.hardware},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.introduction},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.marketplace}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.misc},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.multimedia},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.programmer},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.reviews}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.tech},
          {news:comp.sys.amiga.telecomm}, {news:comp.Unix.amiga}.
       
          See {aminet}, {Amoeba}, {bomb}, {exec}, {gronk}, {guru
          meditation}, {Intuition}, {sidecar}, {slap on the side},
          {Vulcan nerve pinch}.
       
          (2003-07-05)