Unfortunately, Jay Miner the genius behind the Amgia chips died in 1994 and was ill for several years before. The hope for next gen Amiga chips would have never happened, sadly.
I knew there was a cancelled AAA chipset, but I didn’t know that about Jay Miner. That’s awful.
For many reasons, the fantasy I describe above was never going to be possible. My point was to wonder out loud about what the best possible course of action would have been, and how far that might have realistically taken them…
Commodore never understood the value of software compatibility. They would never provide backwards compatibility with the M68K Amiga, and a new machine would be DOA.
Apple struggled for years to develop a modern operating system with memory protection and preemptive multitasking. It’s a hard problem, and very expensive.
Other machines like the Tandy provided PC-compatible-ish machines with better graphics and sound than PC, but failed anyway due to network effects. Also, you can’t just ship a set of expansion cards for PC and drivers. People love standards and this kind of situation led to the deaths of many a sound card and graphics card company.
It seems likely Windows 95 would have killed the Amiga anyway. They were on borrowed time.
For many reasons, the fantasy I describe above was never going to be possible. My point was to wonder out loud about what the best possible course of action would have been, and how far that might have realistically taken them…
Commodore never understood the value of software compatibility. They would never provide backwards compatibility with the M68K Amiga, and a new machine would be DOA.
Apple struggled for years to develop a modern operating system with memory protection and preemptive multitasking. It’s a hard problem, and very expensive.
Other machines like the Tandy provided PC-compatible-ish machines with better graphics and sound than PC, but failed anyway due to network effects. Also, you can’t just ship a set of expansion cards for PC and drivers. People love standards and this kind of situation led to the deaths of many a sound card and graphics card company.
It seems likely Windows 95 would have killed the Amiga anyway. They were on borrowed time.