Talk:Amiga Advanced Graphics Architecture

AA versus AGA?

Do you have a source for saying that AA was a different version of AGA? I've always heard them as being different names for the same chipset - e.g., see [1]. Mdwh 02:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Source for AA/AGA

To all those who want to revert my creation of 'AA chipset' as a separate article from AGA:

AA is different to AGA. The CD32 had the AGA chipset. The A1200, A4000 and A4000/030 had AA. I quote from Amiga Format Annual 1993, page 29: "For starters, we would expect the 'double-A' chip set, which has just appeared in Commodore's new Amiga 4000, to filter down to the base model... The new chip set is, in theory, just as cheap as the current one to fit."

From Amiga Format Annual '94 page 74: "The Future Entertainment Show in November 1992 sees the UK launch of the new 32-bit Amiga A1200. It looks like an A600 with the numeric keypad restored. Inside it's a different story altogether. It's faster, more colourful and marks the move into a new era of Amiga technology with the Double-A chipset... The graphics have been considerably advanced with the inclusion of the new Double-A chipset. These add a 256-colour mode and a Super-HAM mode with over a quarter of a million colours on screen. The palette of available colours has moved up from 4,096 to an amazing 16.7 million."

People who say that the A1200 had an 'AGA' chipset are correct if they use the acronym 'AGA' to refer to certain extra capabilities, which represented a clear cutoff between 'old school' and 'new school' around 1993. AA included the AGA capabilities. But it was *not* the same silicon as found in the A600, it had extra modes, and it had twice the bandwidth. If you want to put 'AA chipset' under 'AGA', then I can accept that, but don't just revert it - Richardcavell 05:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if there is a typo in what you are saying about the A600, but the A600 had nothing to do with the AA/AGA chipset, it used ECS. As Mdwh mentioned above, AA was renamed AGA to avoid references to other famous "AAs". — Pixel8 11:42, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Pixel8. In the first quote, it's not clear what they mean by "base model" - if this was just when the A4000 had been released, it may have been the A600. In the second quote, it clearly says that the A1200 had AA. I'm confused as to what you're saying - firstly you said that A1200 had AGA not AA, now you say it has AA and not AGA.

As for the CD32, it did have a slightly different chipset, but this was more advanced, not less, due to the addition of a new chip (Akiko) for chunky to planar conversion. So not only was this distinction not marked by AA versus AGA, but also it is incorrect to say that the CD32's chipset was less advanced.

The timescales are all wrong here too. The A1200 was released in 1992, not 1994 as you say in AA chipset. The CD32 came out in 1993, so it's rather confusing if a "4th generation" chipset came out after the 3rd generation! Mdwh 16:08, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]