Hombre chipset
Encyclopedia
The Hombre chipset was to be a chipset for use in game machine hardware. However, because of Commodore International
's bankruptcy, the Hombre chipset was never released.
and began to design a new 64 bit multimedia
system with 3D
graphics chipset
including fully RISC architecture that would once again bring the Amiga
back into the limelight. It was to be known as "Hombre" multimedia
system and would be developed in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard
over an estimated 18 month period.
' onMouseout='HidePop("54319")' href="/topics/Spanish_language">Spanish
) was based around two chips: a System Controller-chip and a Display Controller chip.
The System Controller-chip was designed by Dr. Ed Hepler, well known as the designer of the AAA Andrea chip. The chip is similar in principle to the chip bus controller found in Agnus, Alice, and Andrea of the Amiga chipsets. The chip featured:
The Display Controller Chip was designed by Tim McDonald, also known as the designer of the AAA Monica chip. It is similar in principle to the Denise, Lisa, and Monica chips found on original Amigas. In addition, the chipset also supported future official or third party upgrades through extension for an external PA-RISC
processor.
These chips and some other circuitry would be part of a PCI card (through a ReTargetable graphics
system). Hombre would form the basis to the Amiga CD32
type game console that would launch in September 1993 and would be competing with Sony's PlayStation
and Sega Saturn
.
There were plans to port the AmigaOS
Exec kernel to low-end systems, but this was not possible due to financial troubles facing Commodore at that time. Therefore, a licensed OpenGL
library was to be used for the low-end entertainment system.
The original plan for the Hombre-based computer system was to have Windows NT
compatibility, with native AmigaOS
recompiled for the new big-endian CPU
to run legacy 68k Amiga software through emulation
. Commodore therefore chose the PA-7150 microprocessor over the MIPS
R3000
microprocessor and first generation embedded PowerPC
microprocessors, mainly because these low-cost microprocessors were unqualified to run Windows NT
. This wasn't the case for the 64-bit
MIPS
R4200
, but it was rejected for its relative high price at the time.
because at the time sprites became less attractive to developers for its limitations compared to fast blitters. Despite lack of compatibility it introduced newer technologies including:
The chipset could be sold either as a high end PCI graphics card with minimal peripherals ASIC
s and 64-bit DRAM, or as a lower cost CD-ROM
based game system (CD64) using cheap 32-bit
DRAM. It could also be used for Set-Top-Box embedded systems.
According to Dr. Ed Hepler Hombre was to be fabricated in 3-level metal CMOS
with the help of HP
(which fabricated AGA Lisa chip and collaborated in AAA chipset designing).
However Commodore was planning to adopt Acutiator advanced architecture designed by Dave Haynie
for Hombre before it went out of business and bankrupt.
Commodore International
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...
's bankruptcy, the Hombre chipset was never released.
History
In 1993, Commodore International cancelled the development of the AAA chipsetAAA chipset
The AAA chipset was intended to be the next-generation Amiga multimedia system designed by Commodore International. Initially began as a secret project, the first design discussions were started in 1988, and after many revisions and redesigns the first silicon versions were fabricated in 1992-1993...
and began to design a new 64 bit multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
system with 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
graphics chipset
Chipset
A chipset, PC chipset, or chip set refers to a group of integrated circuits, or chips, that are designed to work together. They are usually marketed as a single product.- Computers :...
including fully RISC architecture that would once again bring the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
back into the limelight. It was to be known as "Hombre" multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
system and would be developed in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
over an estimated 18 month period.
Design
HombreHombre
Hombre, the Spanish word for "man" and sometimes used informally in English, may refer to:* Hombre , a 1961 novel by Elmore Leonard* Hombre , a 1967 motion picture based on the novel starring Paul Newman, directed by Martin Ritt...
' onMouseout='HidePop("54319")' href="/topics/Spanish_language">Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
) was based around two chips: a System Controller-chip and a Display Controller chip.
The System Controller-chip was designed by Dr. Ed Hepler, well known as the designer of the AAA Andrea chip. The chip is similar in principle to the chip bus controller found in Agnus, Alice, and Andrea of the Amiga chipsets. The chip featured:
- A 100 MHz PA-7150 microprocessor
- An advanced DMADirect memory accessDirect memory access is a feature of modern computers that allows certain hardware subsystems within the computer to access system memory independently of the central processing unit ....
engine and blitterBlitterIn a computer system, a blitter is a circuit, sometimes as a coprocessor or a logic block on a microprocessor, that is dedicated to the rapid movement and modification of data within that computer's memory...
with 3D texture mappingTexture mappingTexture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
and gouraud shadingGouraud shadingGouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes... - 16-bit resolution sound processor with eight voices
The Display Controller Chip was designed by Tim McDonald, also known as the designer of the AAA Monica chip. It is similar in principle to the Denise, Lisa, and Monica chips found on original Amigas. In addition, the chipset also supported future official or third party upgrades through extension for an external PA-RISC
PA-RISC
PA-RISC is an instruction set architecture developed by Hewlett-Packard. As the name implies, it is a reduced instruction set computer architecture, where the PA stands for Precision Architecture...
processor.
These chips and some other circuitry would be part of a PCI card (through a ReTargetable graphics
ReTargetable Graphics
ReTargetable Graphics is device driver API mainly used by 3rd party graphics hardware to interface with AmigaOS via a set of libraries. The software libraries may include software tools to adjust resolution, screen colors, pointers and screenmodes...
system). Hombre would form the basis to the Amiga CD32
Amiga CD32
The Amiga CD32, styled "CD32" , was the first 32-bit CD-ROM based video game console released in western Europe, Australia, Canada and Brazil. It was first announced at the Science Museum in London, United Kingdom on 16 July 1993, and was released in September of the same year...
type game console that would launch in September 1993 and would be competing with Sony's PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
and Sega Saturn
Sega Saturn
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console that was first released by Sega on November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 11, 1995 in North America, and July 8, 1995 in Europe...
.
There were plans to port the AmigaOS
AmigaOS
AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...
Exec kernel to low-end systems, but this was not possible due to financial troubles facing Commodore at that time. Therefore, a licensed OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
library was to be used for the low-end entertainment system.
The original plan for the Hombre-based computer system was to have Windows NT
Windows NT
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
compatibility, with native AmigaOS
AmigaOS
AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...
recompiled for the new big-endian CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
to run legacy 68k Amiga software through emulation
Emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...
. Commodore therefore chose the PA-7150 microprocessor over the MIPS
MIPS architecture
MIPS is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit, and later versions were 64-bit...
R3000
R3000
The R3000 is a microprocessor chip set developed by MIPS Computer Systems that implemented the MIPS I instruction set architecture . Introduced in June 1988, it was the second MIPS implementation, succeeding the R2000 as the flagship MIPS microprocessor...
microprocessor and first generation embedded PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
microprocessors, mainly because these low-cost microprocessors were unqualified to run Windows NT
Windows NT
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
. This wasn't the case for the 64-bit
64-bit
64-bit is a word size that defines certain classes of computer architecture, buses, memory and CPUs, and by extension the software that runs on them. 64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1970s and in RISC-based workstations and servers since the early 1990s...
MIPS
MIPS architecture
MIPS is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit, and later versions were 64-bit...
R4200
R4200
The R4200 is a microprocessor designed by MIPS Technologies, Inc. that implemented the MIPS III instruction set architecture . It was also known as the VRX during development. The microprocessor was licensed to NEC, and the company fabricated and marketed it as the VR4200. The first VR4200, an...
, but it was rejected for its relative high price at the time.
Features
Hombre was designed as a clean break from traditional Amiga chipset architecture with no planar mode support. Commodore also decided to drop support of the original Amiga eight spritesSprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
because at the time sprites became less attractive to developers for its limitations compared to fast blitters. Despite lack of compatibility it introduced newer technologies including:
- Indexed 8-bit (256 colors) chunky mode with 24-bit CLUT (not confirmed by Dave HaynieDave HaynieDave Haynie is the former Commodore International chief engineer on high end and advanced projects. He is still quite vocal in the Amiga community.-Beginnings:...
) - Non-indexed 16-bit chunky graphic modes
- 32-bit chunky with 8-bit alpha channel)
- 1280 x 1024 progressive resolution in 16.8 million colors
- One spriteSprite (computer graphics)In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
with 24-bit colors (for mouse pointer) - 4 playfields at 16-bit graphics mode each
- 3D texture mappingTexture mappingTexture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
engine - Gouraud shadingGouraud shadingGouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes...
- Z-bufferingZ-bufferingIn computer graphics, z-buffering is the management of image depth coordinates in three-dimensional graphics, usually done in hardware, sometimes in software. It is one solution to the visibility problem, which is the problem of deciding which elements of a rendered scene are visible, and which...
- YUVYUVYUV is a color space typically used as part of a color image pipeline. It encodes a color image or video taking human perception into account, allowing reduced bandwidth for chrominance components, thereby typically enabling transmission errors or compression artifacts to be more efficiently...
compatibility with JPEGJPEGIn computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....
support - Enhanced chunky HAMHold-and-ModifyHold-And-Modify, usually abbreviated as HAM, is a display mode of the Commodore Amiga computer. It uses a highly unusual technique to express the color of pixels, allowing many more colors to appear on screen than would otherwise be possible....
modes (not confirmed) - Standard TVTelevisionTelevision is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
/ HDTVHigh-definition televisionHigh-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
compatibility - 64-bit internal data bus and registers
The chipset could be sold either as a high end PCI graphics card with minimal peripherals ASIC
Application-specific integrated circuit
An application-specific integrated circuit is an integrated circuit customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use. For example, a chip designed solely to run a cell phone is an ASIC...
s and 64-bit DRAM, or as a lower cost CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
based game system (CD64) using cheap 32-bit
32-bit
The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory....
DRAM. It could also be used for Set-Top-Box embedded systems.
According to Dr. Ed Hepler Hombre was to be fabricated in 3-level metal CMOS
CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor is a technology for constructing integrated circuits. CMOS technology is used in microprocessors, microcontrollers, static RAM, and other digital logic circuits...
with the help of HP
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
(which fabricated AGA Lisa chip and collaborated in AAA chipset designing).
However Commodore was planning to adopt Acutiator advanced architecture designed by Dave Haynie
Dave Haynie
Dave Haynie is the former Commodore International chief engineer on high end and advanced projects. He is still quite vocal in the Amiga community.-Beginnings:...
for Hombre before it went out of business and bankrupt.
See also
- Original Amiga chipsetOriginal Amiga chipsetThe Original Chip Set was a chipset used in the earliest Commodore Amiga computers and defined the Amiga's graphics and sound capabilities...
(OCS) - Enhanced Chip SetEnhanced Chip SetThe Enhanced Chip Set is the second generation of the Amiga computer's chipset, offering minor improvements over the original chipset design. ECS was introduced in 1990 with the launch of the Amiga 3000. Amigas produced from 1990 onwards featured a mix of OCS and ECS chips, such as later versions...
(ECS) - Advanced Graphics ArchitectureAdvanced Graphics ArchitectureAdvanced Graphics Architecture is the third generation Amiga graphic chip set, first used in the Amiga 4000 in 1992. AGA was codenamed the Pandora chipset by Commodore International internally....
(AGA) - Commodore AA+ ChipsetCommodore AA+ ChipsetThis was the last classic Amiga compatible chipset that Commodore announced in 1992. They planned to release it in 1994 for low end Amiga computers along with AAA.-History:...
(AA+) - AAA chipsetAAA chipsetThe AAA chipset was intended to be the next-generation Amiga multimedia system designed by Commodore International. Initially began as a secret project, the first design discussions were started in 1988, and after many revisions and redesigns the first silicon versions were fabricated in 1992-1993...
(AAA) - Amiga Ranger ChipsetAmiga Ranger ChipsetAmiga Ranger was a prototype computer that was supposed to be the second generation Amiga chipset prior to ECS. It was designed by the original Los Gatos Amiga team including Jay Miner. However Commodore International didn't release this chipset due to its high cost-History:After the release of...
- PA-RISCPA-RISCPA-RISC is an instruction set architecture developed by Hewlett-Packard. As the name implies, it is a reduced instruction set computer architecture, where the PA stands for Precision Architecture...
family processors
External links
- Hombre- The last Commodore custom chipset
- The Dave Haynie Archive with lots of detailed info & specs
- Amiga ReTargetable Graphics
- Acutiator
- CD64: Hombre CD32-style console
- Chris Ludwig Interview- Conducted by Amiga News, 1995 Chris Ludwig Interview Article about Hombre
- CBM's Plans for the RISC-Chipset, by Dave Haynie