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There doesn't appear to have been a lot of discussion about this, for some reason. Yes, the 68k is a 32-bit processor, and yes, AmigaOS is 32-bit, but for about fifteen years the Amiga was referred to as a 16-bit machine. There appears to be a deliberate attempt to avoid saying this in-article, which is confusing. Chris Cunningham 15:05, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I think the problem is that "bit"-ness can refer to many different things, but yes I agree, I think there should be some mention here. From what I remember, all of the 68000-based Amigas tended to be referred to as "16 bit" machines (not sure if they were marketed as such - although note that they did market the CD32 as the "world's first 32-bit CD-ROM based games console", which seems to imply they didn't think the CDTV counted as 32-bit...). Mdwh 20:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
When I purchased my Commodore Amiga 500 in 1988, it was not marketed as a 16 bit. It was marketed as an "upgrade for the Commodore 64" with an emphasis on # of colors (16 vs. 4096) and multitasking (which the C64 could not do). Nobody in the 80s talked about bits. It just was not a topic of conversation. ----- The first time I ever heard the word "bit" in a sales pitch was with the Sega Genesis, which was the 1990s. But in the 80s? The concept did not exist in the marketing brochures. 162.58.0.64 16:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
FWIW, I just went back and looked through the Premier issue of Amiga World, the very first issue of a magazine dedicated to the Amiga, and when they do mention the system's CPU, they reference 16/32. BcRIPster ( talk) 14:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Why is this article under the "Amiga" heading, and not "Commodore Amiga"? After all, my Commodore Amiga 500 has a great big Commodore logo on it (along with all the Workbench); it wasn't made by IBM or Atari. I suppose it's consistent with how the Apple Macintosh is listed under just "Macintosh". Anyway. Just curious. 162.58.0.64 16:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
There was also a campaign by Commodore to NOT call it the Commodore Amiga but "The Amiga by Commodore" because of Commodore's reputation as making 'toy' computers like the 64. No wonder they're gone now. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
69.125.110.223 (
talk) 19:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Boing Ball was recently AFD'd with the result being merge. Could someone who knows more about this than I do perform the merge please? Cheers, Miremare 13:56, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
No discussion about sliced HAM? This was a technique used on the original Amigas to use all 4096 colors without the "blur" of HAM. It required the full attention of the CPU (i.e. no multitasking), but the pictures were beautiful and crystal-clear. I stopped using HAM after I discovered Sliced HAM. - Theaveng 17:00, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Here's a good reference from IBM.com, under "compatibility" "Ham and Cheese". Dreadstar † 06:22, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Another thing I used to do with my Amiga was create a backup Workbench disk, but I would use a compression program to make every command 1/2 its normal size. This offered several advantages: (1) Loaded off the floppy faster. (2) Used less space in the RAM: drive. Unfortunately I don't remember of the name of the program I used..... I only remember the characteristic "flashing" that happened every time I typed "info" or "copy" or some other command. - Theaveng 20:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
It was called PowerPacker. I can find a bunch of references to programs that will unpack Amiga PowerPacker files, but not a good ref on the program itself. - Chrisfeohpatti ( talk) 19:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
A tribute to The B-52's' song appears on the Commodore Amiga A500 PCB, ROCK LOBSTER is included in the silk screen along with the component labels and copyright information. ( not Trivia, but important to the model ), Reference http://geektechnique.org/images/amiga500-light-3.thumb.jpg
George Robbins was the perpetrator, and added a B52's song title to every board he worked on.
( Real Trivia ) Other boards thus defaced were:
A600 - Junebug A1200 - Channel Z A590 - Party Mix (Also, the front LEDs labelled 'fred' and 'wilma') Reference http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=88403
Someone should add the real trivia to the trivia section, an A500 is known as a "rock Lobster" e.g. "I have a rock lobster", amiga owners would know that I have a 500 and is not trivia. 172.201.210.190 18:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
The magazine Amiga Format very often refered to the A500 as a rock lobster, unfortunatly I no longer have the magazines or the A500, I upgraded to an A500+ that i still have ( not a rock lobseter ) :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.201.71.185 ( talk) 20:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
The Commodore 64 sold 30 million units. How many Amiga 500s/2000 were sold? - Theaveng 10:43, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Another historic use was in the production of the game show Lingo. I don't have a citable source for this other than my own memory, but if someone else can do so and wants to add it, feel free. -- Rob ( talk) 07:44, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone have the Byte [p]review of the A1000 online? I remember a comparison of the Amiga vs. Mac where they went into graphics primitives and the Amiga's true preemptive multitasking vs. the classic Mac's hackish DA "implementation" and it ended up by predicting the Amiga would have twice the product life of the Mac or some such because the Amiga's problems were easily fixable but the Mac's were deep-rooted and architectural. Very prescient writing, all things considered. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.110.223 ( talk • contribs) 19:22, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
So this source was just removed from the article again using the following rationale:
The supplied citation is NOT of the 1980s press. Therefore it does not support the "contemporary press called it 16 bit" assertion. You need to find an article with a 1980s dateline.
It would appear obvious to me that while the URL is obviously not from the eighties (because they, like, didn't have websites then) that it describes a magazine from that period, which quite clearly (from the source) described the Amiga as a 16-bit machine. This is what we call a " secondary source". I don't see the grounds for removing this reference are valid. Chris Cunningham ( talk) 18:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, 8-bit, 16-bit, etc... was a video game industry phenomenon. It came into play with the Amiga when they launched the CD32 and attempted to enter the console market. Prior to that the Amiga was generally considered a PC and PCs didn't get "x-bit" descriptions, they were described by Mhz. To that end I did a quick scan though first year of Amiga World, Amazing Computing, etc... and my recollection was confirmed by the language I found. If the word "bit" was referenced, it generally occurred in a chart and 16/32 was what was written. I'm looking for my issues of Byte that first covered the system to see what language was used there, but this is getting silly. BcRIPster ( talk) 03:08, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I remember UK Spectrum magazine Crash at least referring to the Amiga and Atari ST as 16-bit machines in the late 1980s, distinguishing them from the 8-bits (e.g., see [1]). I can't remember if the Amiga was actually marketed as a 16-bit machine though.
As for "The One for 16-bit Games", there's plenty of information on this at [2]. This certainly counts as a secondary source, and directly references primary material, including scans of the magazine. Mdwh ( talk) 03:46, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
There doesn't appear to have been a lot of discussion about this, for some reason. Yes, the 68k is a 32-bit processor, and yes, AmigaOS is 32-bit, but for about fifteen years the Amiga was referred to as a 16-bit machine. There appears to be a deliberate attempt to avoid saying this in-article, which is confusing. Chris Cunningham 15:05, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I think the problem is that "bit"-ness can refer to many different things, but yes I agree, I think there should be some mention here. From what I remember, all of the 68000-based Amigas tended to be referred to as "16 bit" machines (not sure if they were marketed as such - although note that they did market the CD32 as the "world's first 32-bit CD-ROM based games console", which seems to imply they didn't think the CDTV counted as 32-bit...). Mdwh 20:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
When I purchased my Commodore Amiga 500 in 1988, it was not marketed as a 16 bit. It was marketed as an "upgrade for the Commodore 64" with an emphasis on # of colors (16 vs. 4096) and multitasking (which the C64 could not do). Nobody in the 80s talked about bits. It just was not a topic of conversation. ----- The first time I ever heard the word "bit" in a sales pitch was with the Sega Genesis, which was the 1990s. But in the 80s? The concept did not exist in the marketing brochures. 162.58.0.64 16:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
FWIW, I just went back and looked through the Premier issue of Amiga World, the very first issue of a magazine dedicated to the Amiga, and when they do mention the system's CPU, they reference 16/32. BcRIPster ( talk) 14:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Why is this article under the "Amiga" heading, and not "Commodore Amiga"? After all, my Commodore Amiga 500 has a great big Commodore logo on it (along with all the Workbench); it wasn't made by IBM or Atari. I suppose it's consistent with how the Apple Macintosh is listed under just "Macintosh". Anyway. Just curious. 162.58.0.64 16:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
There was also a campaign by Commodore to NOT call it the Commodore Amiga but "The Amiga by Commodore" because of Commodore's reputation as making 'toy' computers like the 64. No wonder they're gone now. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
69.125.110.223 (
talk) 19:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Boing Ball was recently AFD'd with the result being merge. Could someone who knows more about this than I do perform the merge please? Cheers, Miremare 13:56, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
No discussion about sliced HAM? This was a technique used on the original Amigas to use all 4096 colors without the "blur" of HAM. It required the full attention of the CPU (i.e. no multitasking), but the pictures were beautiful and crystal-clear. I stopped using HAM after I discovered Sliced HAM. - Theaveng 17:00, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Here's a good reference from IBM.com, under "compatibility" "Ham and Cheese". Dreadstar † 06:22, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Another thing I used to do with my Amiga was create a backup Workbench disk, but I would use a compression program to make every command 1/2 its normal size. This offered several advantages: (1) Loaded off the floppy faster. (2) Used less space in the RAM: drive. Unfortunately I don't remember of the name of the program I used..... I only remember the characteristic "flashing" that happened every time I typed "info" or "copy" or some other command. - Theaveng 20:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
It was called PowerPacker. I can find a bunch of references to programs that will unpack Amiga PowerPacker files, but not a good ref on the program itself. - Chrisfeohpatti ( talk) 19:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
A tribute to The B-52's' song appears on the Commodore Amiga A500 PCB, ROCK LOBSTER is included in the silk screen along with the component labels and copyright information. ( not Trivia, but important to the model ), Reference http://geektechnique.org/images/amiga500-light-3.thumb.jpg
George Robbins was the perpetrator, and added a B52's song title to every board he worked on.
( Real Trivia ) Other boards thus defaced were:
A600 - Junebug A1200 - Channel Z A590 - Party Mix (Also, the front LEDs labelled 'fred' and 'wilma') Reference http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=88403
Someone should add the real trivia to the trivia section, an A500 is known as a "rock Lobster" e.g. "I have a rock lobster", amiga owners would know that I have a 500 and is not trivia. 172.201.210.190 18:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
The magazine Amiga Format very often refered to the A500 as a rock lobster, unfortunatly I no longer have the magazines or the A500, I upgraded to an A500+ that i still have ( not a rock lobseter ) :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.201.71.185 ( talk) 20:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
The Commodore 64 sold 30 million units. How many Amiga 500s/2000 were sold? - Theaveng 10:43, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Another historic use was in the production of the game show Lingo. I don't have a citable source for this other than my own memory, but if someone else can do so and wants to add it, feel free. -- Rob ( talk) 07:44, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone have the Byte [p]review of the A1000 online? I remember a comparison of the Amiga vs. Mac where they went into graphics primitives and the Amiga's true preemptive multitasking vs. the classic Mac's hackish DA "implementation" and it ended up by predicting the Amiga would have twice the product life of the Mac or some such because the Amiga's problems were easily fixable but the Mac's were deep-rooted and architectural. Very prescient writing, all things considered. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.110.223 ( talk • contribs) 19:22, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
So this source was just removed from the article again using the following rationale:
The supplied citation is NOT of the 1980s press. Therefore it does not support the "contemporary press called it 16 bit" assertion. You need to find an article with a 1980s dateline.
It would appear obvious to me that while the URL is obviously not from the eighties (because they, like, didn't have websites then) that it describes a magazine from that period, which quite clearly (from the source) described the Amiga as a 16-bit machine. This is what we call a " secondary source". I don't see the grounds for removing this reference are valid. Chris Cunningham ( talk) 18:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, 8-bit, 16-bit, etc... was a video game industry phenomenon. It came into play with the Amiga when they launched the CD32 and attempted to enter the console market. Prior to that the Amiga was generally considered a PC and PCs didn't get "x-bit" descriptions, they were described by Mhz. To that end I did a quick scan though first year of Amiga World, Amazing Computing, etc... and my recollection was confirmed by the language I found. If the word "bit" was referenced, it generally occurred in a chart and 16/32 was what was written. I'm looking for my issues of Byte that first covered the system to see what language was used there, but this is getting silly. BcRIPster ( talk) 03:08, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I remember UK Spectrum magazine Crash at least referring to the Amiga and Atari ST as 16-bit machines in the late 1980s, distinguishing them from the 8-bits (e.g., see [1]). I can't remember if the Amiga was actually marketed as a 16-bit machine though.
As for "The One for 16-bit Games", there's plenty of information on this at [2]. This certainly counts as a secondary source, and directly references primary material, including scans of the magazine. Mdwh ( talk) 03:46, 12 January 2008 (UTC)