From: Dave Haynie (dhaynie@jersey.net)
Subject: Re: Why do you think...
 
View this article only
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Date: 2004-03-13 21:54:10 PST

On 10 Mar 2004 19:13:29 GMT, Joona I Palaste <palaste@cc.helsinki.fi>
wrote:

>""Azrael" <afn04314ATafn.org>" <"Azrael". <afn04314ATafn.org>@p0.f0.n0.z0.fidonet.org> scribbled the following:
>> In message <00433fe8@elebbs.bbs>, Joona.I.Palaste@p0.f0.n0.z0.fidonet.org
>> wrote: 
>> A C64 can also be expanded with a better processor, more memory, a new OS
>> and so on. But it is true that the vast majority of the software written for
>> the C64, even today, will run on a stock machine. 

And, as well, that very little software runs with the additions. The
C64 was just too primitive to allow big changes in a compatible way. 

>> I wish the Amiga could have somehow maintained backwards compatability with
>> the C64. I think that would have made the Amiga a much greater success.

Nope; if anything, it would have crippled the Amiga. There is a time
when things need to change. The Amiga did more new stuff in a single
product introduction than any new computer before or since. Invoking
too much of the past would certainly have hurt this. 

>> users would have been more likely to upgrade to an Amiga than some other
>> platform, and there were a lot of C64 users out there when the Amiga was
>> introduced. 
>Backwards compatibility with the C64 for the Amiga is pretty much
>impossible. The computers differ far too much, starting right down from
>different processor architectures, one of which is 8-bit, the other
>32-bit. The processors weren't even made by the same company!

Well, the Amiga's keyboard was much closer (based originally on a
6500/1 chip, though the "Cherry" keyboards for the A2000 were using
something else, they were an OEM deal). 

>Think about it: How would *you* have wanted the backwards compatibility?
>You insert a C64 disk into the Amiga's 5.25" drive and type
>LOAD "*",8,1
>RUN

Really. The only proper way to run C64 software on the Amiga was via
an emulator. A bunch of them existed, but didn't sell all that well.
One big reason was simple: when you used an Amiga, you had a far more
advanced computing environment. Most users would not give that up to
run the C64 software. 

And emulation was the only way it could possibly have been kept
compatible. We discovered, in the C128 project, that the C64 ROM was
very much _functionally_ part of the C64's hardware description.
Changing anything would break some commercial application, as they had
nasty habits, like jumping into undocumented routines in BASIC, etc.
just to save RAM. We had originally changed the font, just to
de-uglify it a bit, but this caused the Island Graphics paint program
to take something like 20-30 minutes to boot up, because it "missed"
when trying to dot a bit "i" it drew from ROM. So the C128 actually
banks the font ROM between C128 and C64 mode, in hardware. 


Dave Haynie       | Chief Toady, Frog Pond Media Consulting
dhaynie@jersey.net| Take Back Freedom! Bush no more in 2004!
"Deathbed Vigil" now on DVD! See http://www.frogpondmedia.com