Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Turrican_3

Do you have any source for this?

As far as I understand Amiga sales figures are still being debated, especially on a per-model basis (except the ill-fated CD32 perhaps?)

According to the Amiga History Guide, 200,000 A600's were sold in 1992, and 144,000 A1200's in 1992-3.

But the suggestion that A1200 sales were poor because people didn't want them is wrong. In fact Commodore couldn't keep up with the demand. If only they had released the A1200 instead of the A600 it would have captured those earlier sales as well - and perhaps even more. When the A600 was released a lot of people were very disappointed, as they were expecting something more like the A1200. A lot of sales were probably lost right there when disappointed potential customers moved to PCs.

Sales figures don't mean a lot anyway. The C64 sold mullions, but that doesn't make it better than the A1200. As for people thinking it was 'not enough to justify £400 to upgrade' the vast majority of A500 users never bought one - their parents did. So of course they didn't want to spend £400 (if they even had that kind of money).

I don't know about the UK, but down here in New Zealand the vast majority of all home users were rampant pirates, and the main justification for the higher price of an Amiga was all the awesome pirated games you could run on it. Why buy an A1200 when it would probably just have compatibility issues with your warez?

But for those of us who wanted more than just something to play stolen games on, the A1200 was a bargain compared to the alternatives. Full of promise, and cheaper than an A500 once you added a hard drive etc.

[Turrican_3]

Thanks Bruce!

You make some interesting points, I believe the scenario here was unfortunately quite similar, with me being part of the problem.

I was too young, still studying and hence with very little money to invest in hardware and especially software; things would have gone VERY differently, at least on a personal level, had I had a job: but as soon as I started purchasing more and more original software it was already too late for the Amiga.

[sandruzzo]

We all agree that A1200 was good for many points, and worse for the same degree. But I think, that we'll agree about the Magic of Amiga has been doing: after 30 years, we're still here, working on that Machine and talking about it!

Only Amiga make it possible!

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Only Amiga make it possible!

Was that not the catchphrase on their promo videos!? Lol

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

Was that not the catchphrase on their promo videos!? Lol

Gotcha!

[redblade]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I don't know about the UK, but down here in New Zealand the vast majority of all home users were rampant pirates, and the main justification for the higher price of an Amiga was all the awesome pirated games you could run on it. Why buy an A1200 when it would probably just have compatibility issues with your warez?

But for those of us who wanted more than just something to play stolen games on, the A1200 was a bargain compared to the alternatives. Full of promise, and cheaper than an A500 once you added a hard drive etc.

Can confirm, I didn't own much origional software here in New Zealand, Unless I brought it second hand.

Also the amiga magazines were very expensive once the import taxes were added. As a kid I only brought Amiga Power and then Amiga Format afterwards. I should have brought Amiga Format or Amiga Computing instead as they came with Devpac, Amos, BlitzBasic, MED, ProTracker. Oh well..

[CrazyPepsi]

Ohh well i still have commodore and amiga i always play amiga games at weekend
Do i do that with my Playstation 4 ?? noo games are so boring

[Pyromania]

I was kind of disappointed that the audio hardware was not updated on AGA. If you read the book “The Amiga Years” you’ll find our some of the engineers were trying to get that included but Commodore was already running out of time and money by then. It caught the Ali disease. I guess if you really needed better audio back then you could just buy a Studio 16 card. It won’t fit in an A1200 though.

[Hewitson]

I don't think it was a huge deal that Paula wasn't updated. I mean, the existing one already produced some of the best music we have ever heard. Also the 56khz samplerate is still not achieved by most PC's.

What should have been upgraded, and absolutely had to be upgraded to keep up with the consoles, was the graphics hardware. 8 sprites on a 1992 machine? The Megadrive and SNES annihilate AGA in terms of sprite capabilities.

[no9]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I don't think it was a huge deal that Paula wasn't updated. I mean, the existing one already produced some of the best music we have ever heard. Also the 56khz samplerate is still not achieved by most PC's.

Yeah, but if we talk about games 4 voices limit was more negative aspect than max samplerate of Paula. You never hear in games sounds that come even close to half of that value because of even more limiting storage. From time to time I wonder why they didn't just put there two Paulas to A1200 to work in parallel. 8 channels doesn't impact memory requirements nor storage for stuff like games. It is much more useful than 16 bit sound for example.

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by no9

Yeah, but if we talk about games 4 voices limit was more negative aspect than max samplerate of Paula. You never hear in games sounds that come even close to half of that value because of even more limiting storage. From time to time I wonder why they didn't just put there two Paulas to A1200 to work in parallel. 8 channels doesn't impact memory requirements nor storage for stuff like games. It is much more useful than 16 bit sound for example.

Maybe cos DMA slots, and costs?

[no9]

I feel like such outdated chip couldn't be expensive so probably that former one is the reason.

[Samurai_Crow]

Re:Paula

The reason Paula wasn't expanded in AGA was that somebody didn't get paid and they walked off with the original Paula design and so the AGA Paula had to be redesigned from scratch for compatibility reasons.

[redblade]

Originally Posted by Samurai_Crow

Re:Paula

The reason Paula wasn't expanded in AGA was that somebody didn't get paid and they walked off with the original Paula design and so the AGA Paula had to be redesigned from scratch for compatibility reasons.

So this might also explain no High Density floppy support as Paula also did the floppy? Or was that the CIA chip?

[8bitbubsy]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I don't think it was a huge deal that Paula wasn't updated. I mean, the existing one already produced some of the best music we have ever heard.

Gravis Ultrasound was released in 1992, same year as AGA was out.
That card had 32 hardware channels mixed at 16-bit 44.1kHz. Even though it had linear resampling interpolation (muddier sound than Paula) and a lowering of output frequency if more than 14 voices were active, it was eating Paula for breakfast (imo).
Four 8-bit voices was not that impressive in 1992, and I would pick 44.1kHz with more channels over 56kHz 4 channels any day. The 56kHz rates mode was also not that much used, as most software and games ran in the lower screen resolution mode where 28kHz voice rate was max.

Yeah, the Amiga had some impressive music, but I'm more impressed by PC tracker music.

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Also the 56khz samplerate is still not achieved by most PC's.

Most modern sound card DACs can do 96kHz and even 192kHz. This is not something the general man on the street would need, as 44.1kHz can already contain all human-audible tone frequencies (44.1kHz/2=~22kHz tones). This makes more sense for music production, before mastering to lower rates. So yeah, not sure what you are talking about there.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by 8bitbubsy

Gravis Ultrasound was released in 1992, same year as AGA was out.
That card had 32 hardware channels mixed at 16-bit 44.1kHz. Even though it had linear resampling interpolation (muddier sound than Paula) and a lowering of output frequency if more than 14 voices were active, it was eating Paula for breakfast (imo).

Computer Games World in October 1993 had this to say about the Gravis Ultrasound:-

"Due to the need for many TSR's, lack of publisher support, and poor Sound Blaster emulation, we find it hard to recommend this card to anyone other than a Windows MIDI musician."

So which PC's came with it? None, you had to pay US$199 if you wanted one. But due to lack of compatibility you probably also had to buy a somewhat more compatible card like the Sound Blaster 16 (US$249). So now you are up for US$448, plus lots of hassle and still no guarantee that all your games will work.

32 16-bit 44.1kHz hardware channels would be pretty useless if none of your games used them, and even more useless if it couldn't even emulate the original Paula sound properly. Not 'upgrading' the sound in the A1200 might have disappointed some people, but it had one huge upside - compatibility. Amiga sound cards were available, but since all Amigas already had a Paula inside we didn't have to worry about compatibility. And 27 years later we still don't have to worry about it.

[no9]

Originally Posted by 8bitbubsy

Four 8-bit voices was not that impressive in 1992

They solve one important dilemma for developers and players which they faced many times: music or sfx? There could a third option pop up: both, where available.

Almost every game that runs on A1200 could take advantage of it, if they have taken it into account:

music or sfx:
[ Show youtube player ]
what the heck, perfect gun silencer?
[ Show youtube player ]


16-bit can be utilised fully only by software dedicated to music/sound where all available system resources can be sacrificed for that single use.

[daxb]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

32 16-bit 44.1kHz hardware channels would be pretty useless if none of your games used them, and even more useless if it couldn't even emulate the original Paula sound properly.

Of course the old already existing games wouldn't use them but the new games could use them. Similar to having more RAM available or a HD instead of floppies. An Paula upgrade would work with the old 4 channels Paula. Maybe native without the need of emulation.

Not 'upgrading' the sound in the A1200 might have disappointed some people, but it had one huge upside - compatibility.

But you change compatibility with leaving musician they went to systems that support multi channel and 16 bit 44,1kHz. I really missed that doing music on my A1200. On the other hand a hardware synthesizer + drum machine + effect device would make the A1200 more better.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by daxb

But you change compatibility with leaving musician they went to systems that support multi channel and 16 bit 44,1kHz. I really missed that doing music on my A1200. On the other hand a hardware synthesizer + drum machine + effect device would make the A1200 more better.

The Atari ST was very popular among musicians even though it only had a crappy AY sound chip. Why? Because it had MIDI ports. Real musicians had a synthesizer keyboard that they wanted to hook up to the computer, and the ST had that capability out of the box.

Ironically the Amiga's superior sound made it less popular with musicians, because the MIDI cable was an extra you had to purchase and you could (just) get away with using only internal sound in a music program. If only Commodore had put MIDI sockets in the Amiga, or bundled machines with a MIDI cable, things might have been different. Instead they bundled a music program with the A500 that merely made people wish for more internal sound channels!

But in the end that was a good thing, because it encouraged Amiga musicians to make the most out of Paula's 4 channels. It's why we now have such a huge selection of awesome MOD files that play on any Amiga, not just those with a particular sound card or MIDI device.

Yes, the A1200 could have had a hardware synthesizer + drum machine + effect device, plus a 16 bit stereo CODEC etc. etc. all 100% with Paula or even as a separate device with its own memory, but it would have significantly raised the price and delayed the machine's release - for a market that was already lost.

To gauge how much Amigans were prepared to pay for advanced sound you only have to look at what they did (or didn't) put up money for. Professional users were already using high-end sound cards for video production etc., but unlike the PC market few A1200 owners were willing to shell out on a hard drive or extra memory to run games, and even fewer considered buying any of the add-on sound products that were available. The tiny Amiga market compared to PCs meant that game developers couldn't afford to limit their sales to a small fraction of it. And again the fact that the Amiga's sound was already 'good enough' ironically made owners less interested in upgrading.

The A1200 was designed to be a compatible replacement for the A500, not for high-end professional use. But if you wanted more it was easy enough. I bought a cheap MIDI synthesizer, and built my own MIDI cable from parts costing ~$15. At one time I also had an Aura plugged into the PCMCIA port, but it was just a novelty as I had no real use for 16 bit recording and playback.

I think the main reason many Amiga owners pined for more advanced sound was PC envy. All those big numbers made them feel inadequate, even though a suitably equipped Amiga was quite capable of meeting their actual needs. But that is what drove the PC market too - the difference being that PC owners were willing to pay for it.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by no9

music or sfx:
[ Show youtube player ]

One of the things I love about my Nissan Leaf is that you can listen to music at a reasonable volume without being distracted by engine noise.

what the heck, perfect gun silencer?
[ Show youtube player ]

And what would a continuous rat-a-tat have added to the game? The background music was already making it difficult to hear the enemies' shots.

16-bit can be utilised fully only by software dedicated to music/sound where all available system resources can be sacrificed for that single use.

My ears have an upper frequency cutoff of 3kHz and background noise level of about -40dBm, so 16 bit sound is completely wasted on me. 16 bit effects are unnecessary in a game, and if you need it for background music then that's what the CD32 (or A1200 with CDROM drive) was for. Why waste memory and cycles when you can play it direct from CD?

As for the overhead of mixing sound channels during the game, if a stock A1200 has enough grunt to do all the graphics and regular sound then an accelerated machine should have plenty left over for mixing. But of course that would mean upgrading your machine to get the advanced sound effects, which was anathema to Amiga owners.