Page 1 of 1
False hopes
Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2013 2:51 pm
by Justin
I have been enjoying reading olduse.net - a USENET feed that is delayed 30 years. Some of my favorite posts are excited rants about "up and coming" products that turned out to be massive flops. A few weeks back there was much excitement about the IBM "peanut" (which turned out to be the PCjr). Another guy proudly proclaimed that the Apple ][ was dead and an Atari 16-bitter was going to take over (never heard of that particular model - perhaps a predecessor to the 1040ST?).
Here is one relevant to this group:
Subject: Comedore's New Machine ?
Newsgroups: net.micro.cbm
Date: Tue, 4-Oct-83 11:55:06 EDT (30 years, 7 weeks, 10 hours ago)
Organization: MITRE Corp., Bedford MA
I am extremely interested in the rumors that Comedore is going to come
out with a home computer based on the Z8000 chip and will come with 512K and
UN*X. There seems to be more in this than just gossip, as Comedore had
contacted both Zilog and Bell.
Is this to ever be or have the plans been shot down in flames ?
Keith Fung
Mitre
Bedford, Mass
There are also some crazy C-64 questions
Re: False hopes
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 4:26 am
by TMorita
If I remember correctly, the Commodore Amiga was orginally supposed to be based on the Z8000.
The Z8000 was late to market, so they wound up using the 68000 instead.
Toshi
Re: False hopes
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 5:40 am
by BigDumbDinosaur
If I remember correctly, the Commodore Amiga was orginally supposed to be based on the Z8000.
The Z8000 was late to market, so they wound up using the 68000 instead.
Toshi
And ended up with a better machine.
Re: False hopes
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 6:04 am
by Tor
Ah, the
Commodore 900. At least that's the only Z8000 Commodore I've heard of. But according to Wikipedia it was designed in 1985, and that Usenet rumour posting is from 1983..
-Tor
Re: False hopes
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 11:03 pm
by BigDumbDinosaur
Ah, the
Commodore 900. At least that's the only Z8000 Commodore I've heard of. But according to Wikipedia it was designed in 1985, and that Usenet rumour posting is from 1983..
-Tor
Evidently the 8563 VDC was originally intended for the 900 but instead ended up in the flat C-128.
Re: False hopes
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 11:09 pm
by BigEd
You may have seen this BDD, but for anyone who hasn't: Bil Herd tells a good story here of VDC adventures:
http://c128.com/phase-locking-vdc-vic-c ... rt-version
Cheers
Ed
Re: False hopes
Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 2:52 am
by BigDumbDinosaur
Yeah, the 8563 was a mess. The 8568 was somewhat better but still lacked the ability to block copy more than a page of RAM.
Re: False hopes
Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2013 5:13 pm
by LGB
If I remember correctly, the Commodore Amiga was orginally supposed to be based on the Z8000.
The Z8000 was late to market, so they wound up using the 68000 instead.
Toshi
As far as I know Commodore 900 was designed to have that CPU (Z8000). Amiga (had different name then, can't remember, Lorine or something similar) was not designed by Commodore originally, but the design was bought by Commodore (and renamed to Amiga later). Then having the success of the new Amiga architecture caused the plans with 900 to blow over. As far as I know, I mean ... But AFAIK, it was never planned Amigas to have Z8000, totally different plans.
Re: False hopes
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 5:23 am
by TMorita
If I remember correctly, the Commodore Amiga was orginally supposed to be based on the Z8000.
The Z8000 was late to market, so they wound up using the 68000 instead.
Toshi
As far as I know Commodore 900 was designed to have that CPU (Z8000). Amiga (had different name then, can't remember, Lorine or something similar) was not designed by Commodore originally, but the design was bought by Commodore (and renamed to Amiga later). Then having the success of the new Amiga architecture caused the plans with 900 to blow over. As far as I know, I mean ... But AFAIK, it was never planned Amigas to have Z8000, totally different plans.
I think you mean Lorraine.
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/prototypes/lorraine.html
It does look like I am confusing the C900 with an early Amiga, yes.
Toshi