Amiga Ranger is an unreleased prototype personal computer by

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ''Kommodore'' * Air commodore, a ...

which was intended to be the second generation Amiga chipset, prior to ECS. It was designed by the original

Los Gatos Los Gatos (, ; ) is an List of municipalities in California, incorporated town in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population is 33,529 according to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is located in the San Franci ...

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

team including

Jay Miner Jay Glenn Miner (May 31, 1932 – June 20, 1994) was an American integrated circuit designer, known primarily for developing graphics and audio chips for the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit family and as the "father of the Amiga". Early life Jay ...

Overview

After the release of the

Amiga 1000 The Commodore Amiga 1000, also known as the A1000, is the first personal computer released by Commodore International in the Amiga line. It combines the 16/32-bit Motorola 68000 CPU which was powerful by 1985 standards with one of the most adv ...

began to design its intended successor, between 1986 and 1987. Code-named Amiga Ranger, it was planned to be highly expandable like

Amiga 2000 The Amiga 2000, or A2000, is a personal computer released by Commodore in March 1987. It was introduced as a "big box" expandable variant of the Amiga 1000 but quickly redesigned to share most of its electronic components with the contemporary Ami ...

with better graphics and CPU. The Ranger is said to have possibly included a

68010 The Motorola MC68010 processor is a 16/32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1982 as the successor to the Motorola 68000. It fixes several small flaws in the 68000, and adds a few features. The 68010 is pin-compatible with the 68000, ...

68020 The Motorola 68020 ("''sixty-eight-oh-twenty''", "''sixty-eight-oh-two-oh''" or "''six-eight-oh-two-oh''") is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. A lower-cost version was also made available, known as the 68EC020. In keeping ...

CPU. Information for this new

chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components An electronic component is any basic discrete device or physical entity in an electronic system used to affect electrons or their associated fields. Electronic components are ...

remains unclear. However, the sound system may have still been the same as the original chipset. According to R. J. Mical, the new

kept the original 13-bit DAC for its

CLUT In computer graphics, a palette is the set of available colors from which an image can be made. In some systems, the palette is fixed by the hardware design, and in others it is dynamic, typically implemented via a color lookup table (CLUT), ...

but with quadrupled color registers from 32 to 128. The color palette would have remained at 4096 colors but the

resolution Resolution(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Resolution (debate), the statement which is debated in policy debate * Resolution (law), a written motion adopted by a deliberative body * New Year's resolution, a commitment that an individual mak ...

could go up to 1024×1024 pixels with 128 colors (7-bit color depth). Additionally the

can address up to of

Chip RAM Chip RAM is a commonly used term for the integrated RAM used in Commodore's line of Amiga computers. Chip RAM is shared between the central processing unit (CPU) and the Amiga's dedicated chipset (hence the name). It was also, rather misleadingly, k ...

space. Ranger used 2 MB

VRAM Video random access memory (VRAM) is dedicated computer memory used to store the pixels and other graphics data as a framebuffer to be rendered on a computer monitor. This is often different technology than other computer memory, to facilitate b ...

as chip memory. In an interview,

described benefits of using VRAM instead of

DRAM Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxid ...

; this gave the display system enough memory bandwidth for 1024×1024 pixel displays. From the known specification, it could be said that Ranger chipset was designed to compete with the Sharp

X68000 The is a home computer created by Sharp Corporation. It was first released in 1987 and sold only in Japan. The initial model has a 10 Megahertz, MHz Motorola 68000 Central processing unit, CPU, 1 Megabytes, MB of Random Access Memory, RAM ...

and Apple

Macintosh II The Macintosh II is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from March 1987 to January 1990. Based on the Motorola 68020 32-bit CPU, it is the first Macintosh supporting color graphics. When introduced, a basic sys ...

personal computers (both released in 1987) which take advantage of VRAM technology.

made sure that the Ranger

was completed and fully tested before he left Commodore in hope that one day the company would release it. But at that time, VRAM was considered expensive compared to DRAM, so Commodore refused to release Ranger for its high price which was unsuitable for the low-end systems like

Amiga 500 The Amiga 500, also known as the A500, is the first low-end version of the Amiga home computer. It contains the same Motorola 68000 as the Amiga 1000, as well as the same graphics and sound coprocessors, but is in a smaller case similar to that ...

to cover its costs. Dale Luck is in possession of a Ranger system

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

, but it's unknown what state it is in. In a few years, VRAM costs dropped to be only 20% more than DRAM, so Commodore planned to use VRAM in the

AAA chipset The AAA chipset (Advanced Amiga Architecture) was intended to be the next-generation Amiga multimedia system designed by Commodore International. Initially begun as a secret project, the first design discussions were started in 1988, and after m ...

, the next-gen Amiga chipset left in an unfinished state when the company went into voluntary liquidation in 1994. Some thoughts of a built-in

blitter A blitter is a circuit, sometimes as a coprocessor or a logic block on a microprocessor, dedicated to the rapid movement and modification of data within a computer's memory. A blitter can copy large quantities of data from one memory area to anot ...

per playfield designed in Ranger had been rejected by

Dave Haynie Dave Haynie is an American electrical engineer and was chief engineer at Commodore International. He is vocal in the Amiga community. See also * Metabox (on German Wikipedia) * PIOS The International Open Series (often referred to as Pontin ...

. However, a post on Team Amiga explained the Ranger idea:

References

Amiga history guide article about Ranger

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20071020092451/http://www.amigau.com/aig/jayminerinterview.html Jay Miner interview about next generation Amiga
Article about Amiga Ranger (french)

Photo of Dale Luck's ranger prototype