Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[BrooksterMax]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

One thing that surprised me about the UK Amiga market was the popularity of 'packs' with a base machine and bundled games etc. To me that seemed silly - paying for titles you probably didn't want, but no hard drive? And why would anyone buy an A1500? But again, that may reflect the different market down here - where everyone had been using PCs for years, and nobody bought a game unless they really wanted it.

Agree the 1500 was an oddball, although I have seen some discussion that it was a move to counter the Checkmate 1500. I own an Commodore A1500 now as it was the first Amiga I ever used oddly enough
https://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=1315

As for the bundles, personally being a teenager at the time in the 90s - they had massive appeal particularly coming off the 8bit. That fancy artwork on the box called out - whether it be Batman or Lemmings that was on my Cartoon Classics pack. Marketing doing its thing, and I am sure pulled in others. Those packs looked more appealing than the vanilla stock base units. I'm glad they existed as I got Lemmings but also Deluxe Paint which was awesome - never would have tried or bought that without it being included upfront.

On the original topic I would have liked to seen the A1200 earlier than when it launched and with some fast RAM. I happily own one now, but it was not epic enough at the time for me to upgrade from my A500+

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

The first part i agree with, the second i don't, the A1200 was the worst selling budget Amiga ever produced! Even the A600 outsold it by 2-1 and that had less time on the market before being discontinued!

The A600 was also much cheaper, which has a direct influence on sales for a market where parents are buying machines for their kids.

I have ranted before in other threads, but the only reason people still have a soft spot of the A1200 was because it was the last small form factor Amiga produced, had their been another model after the A1200 would have quickly been forgotten about and people would hold it in the same regard as a A500+ or A600.

That may be true, but it's also being a little free and loose with the logic, and thus missing the actual reason people wanted, and still want, the A1200: It was a more powerful machine, the pinnacle of the small form factor Amigas, and therefore the most desirable for many people. The A500+ and A600 weren't serious upgrades over the 500; the 1200 was. If further, more powerful models had been released, then of course it would be in a similar boat to the A600, but they didn't and so it remains both the most powerful small form factor Amiga, and also the most easily expanded small form factor Amiga.

[chue]

Retromancave made a video about the backstory of the 1500 - it does seem it is a response to the CheckMate product.

[ Show youtube player ]

[roondar]

Overall, AGA and the A1200 along with it are (IMHO) highly underrated. The A1200 offers way more computing power than the A500 and AGA, when used well, does offer significant advantages over OCS for games.

The real problem was that the Amiga market was pretty much dead when the AGA machines arrived and as such we simply didn't see the same amount of effort put into games as we did during the OCS days. Most AGA games are poorly optimised in general or bad Mega Drive ports. Not to mention that a whole bunch of games that were released after the A1200 launch never got an AGA version to begin with.

Some exceptions do exist, but by and large the above is true.

Originally Posted by theq

This is simply not true. Almost all the games, if not all, I ever borrowed from my friends (that owned A500s) worked. Just booted up in either OCS or ECS mode and all was well. I only starded having compatibility issues when trying to play games from hard drive. But then programs like "killaga" and such did the trick.

+1
Most OCS/ECS games and programs do work on an A1200. The idea that the A1200 was crap due to compatibility issues is simply nonsense.

Originally Posted by AdvanceFollow

Windows 95 had preemptive multitasking, but the Mac didn't get that until Mac OS X came out in 2001. So multitasking was still a valid selling point in 1998.

Windows 95 was way less stable than Amiga OS 3.1 though. I saw a ton of blue screens after 'upgrading'. It felt like the worst of both worlds: not as good as DOS for games, not as good as Windows NT for productivity.

IMHO Windows only became truly usable with the release of Windows 2000 (NT 3.51 will also work in a pinch, but that was not aimed at the consumer market and it shows in support for games etc).

[Adropac2]

I would have liked just a little more speed than what we got because it could have allowed for 3d games to have truly performed and then felt like a substantial upgrade in 3d terms

Still loved it though

[Retro1234]

It filled a gap for a while but nothing came along after and the A1200 had no significant price drop and PC prices had started to drop.

Also Workbench was truly dated Windows 3.11 and all it's software wiped the floor.

Workbench is better than 3.11 but at the time 3.11 offered so much stuff that was wanted also Ms Word and Publisher etc.

[roondar]

It may be me, but I've never gotten the love for the early versions of Windows.

Workbench was miles better for day to day use than Windows 3.11. Even WB 1.3 was more usable. Both were also far more stable than using Windows 3.11 for day to day use. The myth that the Amiga had an unstable OS quickly dies if you're forced into using Windows before the NT kernel took over.

The only thing that Windows 3.11 had going for it were the productivity apps, but the DOS ones were almost always better anyway. Seriously, some of us Amiga users don't remember just how good we had it back then.

When I eventually upgraded to a new PC (with Windows 98SE), I liked the faster hardware. But I loathed the OS. It was an unstable mess that did not actually do it's job (i.e. the whole multitasking business) all that well. I missed using my A1200 and ended up setting it up in a corner and using it regularly for several more years.

[Retro1234]

Workbench 1.3 was pretty terrible did you ever try the notepad thing. 2.x was a big step up but 3.x wasn't much in the world of Windows 3.11.

This was another mistake kick1.3 in the CDTV

Very! little investment in the OS and Tools for the OS.

and 3.11 was stable probably used in every Business and school by that time on a regular basis without problems.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

This was another mistake kick1.3 in the CDTV

The entire CDTV was a mistake, and I say that as someone who was a developer for it.

and 3.11 was stable probably used in every Business and school by that time on a regular basis without problems.

Amiga 1200 release date: October 21, 1992.

Windows 3.11 launch date: November 1993.

3.x wasn't much in the world of Windows 3.11

Well yeah, considering that Windows 3.11 didn't even exist...

[Antiriad_UK]

I wasn’t disappointed with the a1200 as I just enjoyed being able to stay on the Amiga. But I have no real nostalgia for it. I had an a500 from 89 until 93 I think and I LOVED it. I think it’s because I was so into watching/trying to write demos on it and getting new demos in the post every week while at school.

I got my a1200 just before uni and I liked it well enough I don’t think I watched a single aga demo on it (girls/social related I imagine). I ended up using it as my internet machine until 1998 then I moved to pc to play half life - that was quite the jump. Great for games but I’d lost that scene feeling.

I still have my 1200 but it’s the a500 I miss. I dont remember why it wasn’t kept.

[ExiE]

One of the problems I see in A1200 was missing HD floppy (and upgraded Paula chip able to read HD floppy disks at full speed).

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by theq

This is simply not true. Almost all the games, if not all, I ever borrowed from my friends (that owned A500s) worked. Just booted up in either OCS or ECS mode and all was well. I only starded having compatibility issues when trying to play games from hard drive. But then programs like "killaga" and such did the trick.

When I got my 1200, I had hundreds of cracked 500 games on disk. Even with using the early-startup and setting it to OCS/ECS and disabling caches, most of them refused to work. I do realise that in some cases the incompatibilities would have been caused by the cracktros themselves, rather than the actual games.

As a result, I had to have both the 500 and the 1200 set up. Whilst 486/Pentium PC's were running 8088 XT software with no issues (admittedly a CPU slowdown TSR was often required).

Originally Posted by Steril707

The A1200 would have been amazing and sold like hot cakes in 1990.

Even in 1990 it paled in comparison to the Sega Megadrive, in terms of a gaming machine.

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Workbench 1.3 was pretty terrible did you ever try the notepad thing. 2.x was a big step up but 3.x wasn't much in the world of Windows 3.11.

This is seriously, one of the most misinformed posts of all time on this forum. In terms of it's efficiency, size, and ease-of-use, WB 3.1 is still decades ahead of the competition.

[phx]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Even in 1990 it paled in comparison to the Sega Megadrive, in terms of a gaming machine.

Regarding the capabilities of the chipset you may be right, but the Megadrive was just a games console. The Amiga was so much more (Bruce Abbott already pointed that out here: http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=135)

I never had any interest in a piece of hardware which restricts you on playing games - and even made that unnecessarily hard with ridiculous "joypads".

This is seriously, one of the most misinformed posts of all time on this forum. In terms of it's efficiency, size, and ease-of-use, WB 3.1 is still decades ahead of the competition.

I agree completely. Windows was a joke, until the NT-kernel entered the consumer market (as Roondar said). Which means AmigaOS was probably the best OS behind Unix until 2000.

[Retro1234]

Amiga never had anything to compete with Filemanger, MS Publisher , Ms Word So many Graphic editors so yes the OS was seriously behind Microsoft.

[Amigan123]

The problem was medhi ali from what I have read, he was wasting a lot of resources on Commodore PC division and leaving the Amiga with a barebone staff so there was no dramatic change from ECS to the AGA chipset, if they had made a big graphics upgrade It could have taken a lot market share from the Mega Drive, SNES and PC's of the time, with the right custom chips it would have had arcade perfect conversions and this would have been a real console killer, look at the Sharp x68000 games were basically arcade perfect due to the architecture

[phx]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Amiga never had anything to compete with Filemanger, MS Publisher , Ms Word So many Graphic editors so yes the OS was seriously behind Microsoft.

I'm talking about the OS. You are talking about 3rd-party software.

[madlax]

I was very please upgrading from a 1MB A500 to the A1200 when it came out. I later added 4MB Fast RAM, which gave it a nice speed boost, and then added a 250MB HDD later. It was a great machine.

I don't think AGA games actually run at 256 colors for the most part and even if they did, it didn't make them much better than their counterparts. I remember playing Body Blows ECS even though it had an AGA version because it felt faster. It was great however to be able to view GIFs in 256 colors and JPEGs in HAM8.

Adding a 030 card gave it another nice boost. At that time my best friend had a 486SX with sound card and VGA graphics. Click and point adventures just looked so much nicer. Of course Wing Commander 2 and later 3 were out of reach for me on the Amiga.

I later got my hands on a 3000T with 040 and RTG. That one quickly became my main computer.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Workbench 1.3 was pretty terrible did you ever try the notepad thing. 2.x was a big step up but 3.x wasn't much in the world of Windows 3.11.

I'm 100% serious. Workbench 1.3 was way better than Windows 3.11. Case in point: this terrible notepad app on the Amiga could be run side by side with other programs and this would actually work.

This was not generally the case with Windows 3.11, were running more than one program either meant task switching (which tended to crash the machine on a non irregular basis so no one I knew actually did this) or running a program, doing your thing, saving, quiting and then running another program. It sucked.

I used Windows 3.11 for ages at school and business and it caused many more problems than it solved. MS-DOS was better and that's saying something.

To say that Amiga's OS is worse either means you didn't really use it, or that you're looking at Windows now and misremembering just how awful it was in day to day use.

and 3.11 was stable probably used in every Business and school by that time on a regular basis without problems.

Windows 3.11 was not stable for me. I used it for hours/days/months on end (no choice in what your school or company uses) and it seemingly always ended in crashes, lost work and irritation. I wasn't the only one with problems either, I've heard more complaints about the Windows 3 series than any other 'OS' I've ever used.

The only reason it was so popular is that it was a slight step up from MS-DOS (it had a GUI after all) and that was the market leader. MS-DOS, by the way, is also crap. Which just goes to show that popularity says absolutely nothing about quality.

And yes, I used Windows 3.11 on a multitude of different computers. It was horrible on each and every one of them. Workbench 3.0/3.1 was miles better. Oh, it also comes with a much better editor if that's what you want. The A1200, out of the box, came with a powerful and useful OS. I seriously liked that machine - from day one. Got much better with my Blizzard 1230MK IV though, I'll admit that.

The same cannot be said for PC's at that time, which may have had technically better hardware (which you'd expect given the price difference) but the OS was terrible and quite a bit of the 'essential' software was highly overrated.

----

Originally Posted by Hewitson

When I got my 1200, I had hundreds of cracked 500 games on disk. Even with using the early-startup and setting it to OCS/ECS and disabling caches, most of them refused to work. I do realise that in some cases the incompatibilities would have been caused by the cracktros themselves, rather than the actual games.

This was not my experience, quite a few of the A500 cracks I had worked fine without any alteration and most of the ones that didn't work ran correctly merely after disabling caches. And when that didn't work, I got close to '100%' results using a simple degrader program.

But it is true that some group of games doesn't work on the A1200. It's just in my experience that number was closer to something like 5% (maybe 10% at a stretch) than what you seem to have gone through.

Whilst 486/Pentium PC's were running 8088 XT software with no issues (admittedly a CPU slowdown TSR was often required).

There were plenty of old PC games that did not run properly on a Pentium even with a slowdown TSR. I ran into a whole bunch of problems trying to do just that. Many old PC games directly hit the CGA or EGA hardware and that didn't work on Super VGA cards. Some really old stuff could only run directly from 5 1/4 inch floppy and tended to not like HD drives. Then there's the problems with MS-DOS: newer versions of DOS used different amounts of memory, which led to all sorts of incompatibilities (though this affected mostly somewhat newer games). Well, for me anyway - apparently you were much more lucky.

My point here is that the results of a single person's experience should be treated carefully.

[AlphaAmiga]

When my brother got his I was jealous, as I was still using a C64, but when I got mine I loved it (still do).

I felt that it was a definite step up from my other brothers A600 - but at the time I was just only interested in playing games on it and maybe playing around in workbench, I wasnt really interested in the larger scene or the specs or how other system compared so was not mindfull of the short cummings that are apparent in relation to other hardware available at the time due to Commodores missmanagement.

Still love it tho.

But, I am disappointed with mine right now, struggling to get the blasted thing working (i'll be starting a new thread about it here to see if anyone can help me diagnose the problem.

Fingers crossed its not the Apollo 060 :-(

Just want my Son to start playing games on it with me to help me relive some happy memories.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

When I got my 1200, I had hundreds of cracked 500 games on disk. Even with using the early-startup and setting it to OCS/ECS and disabling caches, most of them refused to work.

I also had A1200, and a CD with lots of cracked games.
95% worked right off the bat... the other 5% could be resolved with boot options.
The ONLY game I could never made to run was Moonstone.

The funny thing about Moonstone is that, years later, I couldn't make it to run, even on winuae (early versions), and when I wanted once to only watch it on youtube, the whole youtube crashed.
I am afraid to try it out now on my A500, because I think the chandelier will fall on my head, or asteroid will hit my house, or some other natural or divine force will prevent me to see it.