Nebulon

Right-handed. So in my case, the right hand. If I'm playing it on a home console with a D-pad, then left -- of course. I don't have much trouble switching hands in that case. However, trying to use the arcade machine with my left hand would twist my brain a bit.

For those who haven't already seen this page: http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco/Documents/Manuals/Hardware/

Looks like one of the programmers dug up more of it:

In my case, I'm using an Atari 800XL, a Commodore 1084 monitor, and a cable that connects the 800XL to the composite input on the 1084. I'm really happy with this arrangement. So that's what I'd recommend. You could use the Commodore 64's monitor instead of the 1084.

I suppose to be fair about my gripe about AGA's graphics capabilities, I should mention that there were a number of graphics cards available for the Amiga (in the case of the following video, I can see a number of features with the included software that didn't show up on the PC until quite a while later in programs like Painter): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwUO4qQ56kQ

There's a pretty neat photo floating around of the creator of Blender and the creators of LightWave Layout and LW3D Modeler hanging out together.

This is interesting to see. Sort of puts me in mind of how a Skynet conversation would have gone back in a 1980s parallel universe: http://www.windytan.com/2012/11/the-sound-of-dialup-pictured.html?m=1

Try setting it to a 256-color desktop. And then I looked up at the message from OLD CS1 and realized that he's already mentioned this. Believe me, I love AmigaDOS 2.x and 3.x. It's just the slowness of using it with more than 128 colors that irks me.

Well, okay. I'm going to try the PS controller again. Maybe it's just the PSP controller that I have trouble with...

I'm all about non-textured shaded polygons. They look classy. Bring on Starblade!

According to people who have programmed the Amiga (and according to Joe Decuir himself), the Amiga is actually not hard to program. It isn't a SEGA Saturn situation by any means. As for the DSP.... The intent is to use it for audio. And that would essentially be the same scenario as the Soundblaster Live card and its DSP. Nothing taxing on the programmer in either case. It's pretty straight-forward for people who write audio apps. On the topic of co-processors, the Agnus really is a co-processor. It doesn't just have to process graphics data; it can process any data that's fed to it and it can do it independently of the CPU. You make a good point about the Cirrus Logic card as far as static graphics and chunky-pixel scaling goes. It's true, Amiga users had been asking Commodore to please give them non-interlaced 1024x768 (or at least 800x600) with 256 colors -- since at least 1990. But of course that fell on deaf ears. And that was the PC's edge (along with decent polygon rendering speeds starting around 1991). However, as Zzip mentioned, scrolling on a PC in 1992 was abysmal. I used to work at a store configuring, selling, and supporting PCs throughout the late 1980s and into the early 2000s. I'd spend my days supporting Windows and then I'd go home and use my Amiga 500 (and later 4000). It was a good opportunity to compare and contrast the two platforms). Serial transfer speeds on a 68030-equipped Amiga edged out the 16550A UART on the PC (not to mention the 8250). 115,000 bps was not a problem. In fact the Amiga's serial transfer rating has a theoretical max speed of close to a million bits per second when error-correction is disabled). And while the Amiga bus may sound complex, it's actually quite elegant. That's part of the machine's ability to smoothly multitask and even provides a system of plug-and-play that works (whereas it took M$ almost two years to iron the bugs out of Windows 95's plug and play implementation). People talk about the Soundblaster card a lot. Many of them seem to forget that the first one was 8-bit monophonic and that the SB16 had terrible DACs. Having said that, you hit the "year everything changed" dead on. 1992/1993 was the beginning of the death knell for the Amiga. That was when the PC started taking the lead in certain areas. However, it wasn't until about Windows 95 came out that the PC had a real GUI that could somewhat compete with AmigaDOS 3. Even at that, an Amiga 4000/040 could multi-task the doors off of a PC (try putting a CD in the drive of a PC right up into the PIII era and observe the sudden inability to so much as move the mouse pointer). Also as Zzip mentioned, PCI was the big advancement on the PC. It was when the PCI-based 3D accelerator cards came out (along with the Sound Blaster Live card) that I finally had to walk away from the Amiga. Those advancements -- coupled with Windows NT/2000 -- were just too much power to ignore. And setting the time machine back to the 1980s again, it's hard to compete against cheap clones that offer enough business performance on easy-to-read displays. Even the Atari ST tried to take them on with their high-resolution productivity mode. By rights they should have been able to make a significant dent in the PC market. Again though, it's the clones -- an important advantage in leverage that the Mac, ST, and Amiga did not have. The platform with the most machines in place wins the devs and sets the standards.

Hot on the heels of I-Robot and quite a bit earlier than S.T.U.N. Runner:

19.5 K of RAM in 1962 would have been a crazy-huge amount of RAM.

Memory protection from day one (which they almost had and very cost-effectively -- see the book Commodore: The Amiga Years). Bring out an update like AGA earlier (like in 1990). And with that update, fix the AGA bandwidth problem and make sure that its 256-color desktop display mode is fast as hell (along with a much larger maximum capacity for Chip RAM). Move the CPU to the PowerPC series as soon as the PPC became cost-effective and (if the significance of 3D had been more apparent at the time) start boosting the system's 3D capabilities. Skip ECS and the Amiga 3000 and go straight to AGA (or something a bit better than AGA) and get AmigaDOS 2.0 out to users much earlier. AmigaDOS/Workbench 2.0 marked the point at which the Amiga's operating system became a real OS. It's just a shame that it wasn't available earlier. Bring the audio up to 16-bit with at least 8 channels and include a DSP (like in the Atari Falcon). Chunky-pixel support earlier would have helped. Then-again, it was hard to predict what a crazy fad chunky-pixel gaming would turn out to be in the 1990s). Save additional money by skipping the CDTV, A600, and CD32. None of these are big design changes. Nothing radical. Some has to do with timing. In my mind, the Amiga is what it is. I don't expect it to be a huge business machine. Design and entertainment on the other hand...

The bulk of the games on the Amiga are OCS. I find that when it comes to Amiga gaming, I spend the most time on the following: Amiga 500 (with 1MB Blitter set to PAL by default) 512K RAM upgrade (for a total of 1MB) Kickstart 1.3 External disk drive. 1084 monitor. No hard drive. A lot of people are ga-ga about the Amiga 1200. However, I can't think of enough AGA games that I actually like better than the OCS games. And when it comes to OCS and ECS titles, there are lots of compatibility issues when trying to run them on the A1200 (even when it's set to OCS). If the point is to work with AmigaOS/Workbench, then I'd say the best option is to jump straight to the Amiga 4000 (or at least take the Amiga 1200 to a 68030). Workbench on a 68020 is a bit sluggish. If they want to try before they buy, there's always a simulation like this:

Unless you have a really fat thumb, you are effectively dealing with four buttons even though the plastic is one connected piece underneath the shell. For example, there's no comparison in response time when playing a game of Pac-Man using an XBOX controller as compared to a Sony PSP's D-Pad.

Ah okay, I see. If I want to run it in OS-9 Level 2 I need a second disk drive (waaah!). I was hoping to boot into OS-9 Level 2 and then run the game -- all using one drive. I guess that can't be done. Oh well... ** Wait ** maybe it is possible to run it under OS-9 Level 2 using one drive. I finally got it to work. First, I booted from the OS-9 Level 2 disk. Then I typed chx /d0/CMDS Next I typed cave and pressed Enter. It would be nice if the manual told OS-9 newbies how to change to the CMDS directory. So now I can use the second controller button. Yay!

Q1: Is there a list somewhere of which Color Comptuer drives are double-sided and which disk controllers support those drives? Q2: I'm seeing disk images for the CoCo that are 360K. I'm guessing these are for double-sided disks under OS-9 Level 1 or Level 2. Anyone know how to put one of those images onto a double-sided 5.25" OS-9-formatted diskette?

The gap in the D-pad kills me when playing twitch games (same for the PSP). Unless I can position my thumb just right, I end up hopping from button to button (which is too slow for some games). For me, the plus-shaped D-pads have the advantage.

I use the XB 360 and XB Classic S controller's D-pad all the time. I've had no issues at all. Nice and responsive and great even for games requiring high-speed cornering line Pac-Man for example.

Holy smokes, I tried this game with a digital control-pad/stick adapter on the weekend and it's way easier. Note: There's a disk image of Downland out there that's been modded to work on the CoCo 3.

Having used the controllers across the various major consoles and handhelds, I'd say the Sony Dual Shock is indeed very good. However, I firmly stand by the XBOX 360 controller as the best game pad design thus far. So I guess it's the difference between great and greater.

Satan's Hollow would be a good one to compare across systems. The C64 port is amazing.

Once the whole series is completed, you could open an arcade for hamsters.