What spec would the A1200 had launched with if it was up to YOU

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by appiah4

I would go so far as to say no Amiga computers (I am excluding CDTV/CD32 for being obvious consoles) were ever intended or marketed as gaming machines. They were all primarily multimedia home computers.

Yes, that was the vision and frankly the reason I bought an Amiga and what defines the Amiga for me.
The "Amiga confessions" thread shows I am not alone with that, since even here in this rather gaming focused board a lot of people weren't that much into gaming at all...

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Yes but this is an anachronical vision. The first A1000 wasn't intended to play mostly games. And when Commodore released the A500 and the A2000, there was still a computer intended to be used with the OS.

Are you sure? TBH this is quite brave statement - it was best graphic for money on market for quite long time - Commodore probably had no clue what to do with Amiga - how to market such computer... this was quite obvious shortly after Amiga premiere and i have impression that this doesn't changed till last Commodore days.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Commodore probably had no clue what to do with Amiga - how to market such computer...

That's also what RJ Mical thinks about the early Amiga days.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Are you sure? TBH this is quite brave statement - it was best graphic for money on market for quite long time - Commodore probably had no clue what to do with Amiga - how to market such computer... this was quite obvious shortly after Amiga premiere and i have impression that this doesn't changed till last Commodore days.

Well Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry were most known for their arty/creative side rather than their gaming expertise, yet Commodore chose them to promote the Amiga. And even EA, commissionned by Commodore IIRC, made serious apps for the Amiga at the beginning.
It seems to me very clear that in its US domestic market, the Amiga wasn't expected to be a toy machine (and ended up not being one, in fact). The price tag of the A1000 was also very high for a simple gaming machine (like the C64 was)

[TEG]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Well Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry were most known for their arty/creative side rather than their gaming expertise, yet Commodore chose them to promote the Amiga. And even EA, commissionned by Commodore IIRC, made serious apps for the Amiga at the beginning.
It seems to me very clear that in its US domestic market, the Amiga wasn't expected to be a toy machine (and ended up not being one, in fact). The price tag of the A1000 was also very high for a simple gaming machine (like the C64 was)

Yeah and after the launch nothing much happened it seems. I remember, I was desperately peeling magazines and the only thing I can remember is Arcticfox and Marble Madness. It was so poor.

They clearly had machines production problems and bugs to fix but they can have maintain the flame by flooding the market or redactions with demo disks or simply screenshots of digitized HAM image. They can made a digitalisation of Debbie Harry singing some seconds of Blondie next song, pay/hire some artist to create nice exclusives image. ProPaint was here, we can see it at the Amiga launch. So drawing can be made.

The two years after the A1000 launch deserve to be examined in detail. From my point of view it's the twilight zone.

[ Show youtube player ]

[oscar_ates]

Biggest problem was Amiga got stuck with ntsc/pal resolutions with interlaced flickering screens coming from console origins. Also planar graphics was designed for 128 kb ram computers and it was severely outdated in 1990s. Blitter was there to support 68000 cpu bottleneck and did not get upgraded suites that to68020/30 type more modern processors

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

Biggest problem was Amiga got stuck with ntsc/pal resolutions with interlaced flickering screens coming from console origins. Also planar graphics was designed for 128 kb ram computers and it was severely outdated in 1990s. Blitter was there to support 68000 cpu bottleneck and did not get upgraded suites that to68020/30 type more modern processors

On the other hand: the Amiga would have never gotten its most professional application - the VideoToaster - if it didn't have its NTSC norm compatibility and genlock capabilities....

And it would not have its success as a low cost home computer, if it would have requires a monitor instead of a TV, which most had already sitting around.

But I was a and still am an advocate for higher resolutions - and the Atari ST did this one absolutely right by offering an additional 31kHz mode...

This would have been possible for the Amiga as well with rather small modifications as ECS shows... only that ECS came too late - it should have been there in 87 with the start of the A500 and A2000

I agree of course with the lack of development in later models - especially for the A1200 and AGA, as I already pointed out in this thread.

Even if we leave all this to the side and only look on what could have been done from 1991 onwards (as this thread suggests), there are so many low hanging fruits and missed opportunities ....

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by TCD

That's also what RJ Mical thinks about the early Amiga days.

Well... RJ had knowledge but same impression was quite obvious to most of us - no clue, no vision, sometimes luck but no defined plan...
Perhaps this is because CBM in fact didn't designed Amiga so there was no link or bounds within company with Amiga...

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Well Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry were most known for their arty/creative side rather than their gaming expertise, yet Commodore chose them to promote the Amiga. And even EA, commissionned by Commodore IIRC, made serious apps for the Amiga at the beginning.
It seems to me very clear that in its US domestic market, the Amiga wasn't expected to be a toy machine (and ended up not being one, in fact). The price tag of the A1000 was also very high for a simple gaming machine (like the C64 was)

I think this is common strategy nowadays - choose some well recognized face and try to build some marketing strategy - it work rarely on large scale - in Europe we can observe Kevin Costner advertising Italian tuna or Brad Pitt advertising coffee machines... I would say Andy Warhol and Blondie was not so bad celebrities to advertise unique multimedia computer.

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

Biggest problem was Amiga got stuck with ntsc/pal resolutions with interlaced flickering screens coming from console origins. Also planar graphics was designed for 128 kb ram computers and it was severely outdated in 1990s. Blitter was there to support 68000 cpu bottleneck and did not get upgraded suites that to68020/30 type more modern processors

Well... many machines after 1990 don't offered any hardware acceleration - Amiga was also opportunity for developers to learn something completely new and i think this is most important factor for whole generation of developers/coders/programmers but also customers/users.
And no one forced you to use interlace - similarly on game consoles where interlace was possible but used rarely (even if with proper coding/usage it could offer benefits).

Originally Posted by Gorf

On the other hand: the Amiga would have never gotten its most professional application - the VideoToaster - if it didn't have its NTSC norm compatibility and genlock capabilities....

And it would not have its success as a low cost home computer, if it would have requires a monitor instead of a TV, which most had already sitting around.

Even VGA is build around NTSC foundation - simply TV technology dominated also computers - CRT tubes was almost identical for both, differences was very small - mostly related to phosphor used for TV (B/W) and computers (amber, yellow, green).

Originally Posted by Gorf

But I was a and still am an advocate for higher resolutions - and the Atari ST did this one absolutely right by offering an additional 31kHz mode...

This would have been possible for the Amiga as well with rather small modifications as ECS shows... only that ECS came too late - it should have been there in 87 with the start of the A500 and A2000

A2024 was offered around 1989/1990 - CBM could offer cheap B/W deinterlacers offering similar or better non interlaced screen than ST and ST didn't offered 31kHz so for example VGA monitor can't be used with ST (as it was 35.7KHz).
But i have impression that market didn't expected 640x400 B/W from Amiga. There was no third party interface build even if it was very simple due digital video signals on video port and side to A2024 with integrated Headley device there was Moniterm adapter and also board so there was market for A2024 parameters.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Well Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry were most known for their arty/creative side rather than their gaming expertise, yet Commodore chose them to promote the Amiga. And even EA, commissionned by Commodore IIRC, made serious apps for the Amiga at the beginning.

In the second issue of Amiga World (Nov/Dec 1985) Electronic Arts put out a two page advert titled 'Why Electronic Arts is committed to the Amiga". It said:-

The Vision of Electronic Arts

We believe that one day the home computer will be as important as radio, stereo and television are today...

A Promise of Artistry

The Amiga is advancing our medium on all fronts. For the first time, a personal computer is advancing the visual and aural quality our eyes and ears demand...

The first Amiga products from Electronic Arts are near completion... Some of them are games like you have never seen before, that get more out of a computer than other games have. Other's are harder to categorize, and we like that.

Under that text were pictures illustrating 6 programs. Guess what they were? That's right, all games.

It is clear that for EA the Amiga was all about games and entertainment, not business applications. It would work with your TV and stereo, not hide away in an office hooked up to a high resolution monitor and daisywheel printer.

Another hint as to what they imagined the Amiga would be was saying that "For the first time, a personal computer is advancing the visual and aural quality...". This is in 1985. IBM's EGA display adapter was introduced in 1984. EGA had beautifully sharp flicker-free 8x14 pixel color text and high resolution 640x350 16 color graphics. EA obviously knew this, but weren't satisfied with it. Why not? Because it was great for business apps but not great for games.

The Amiga was designed to work with a TV for the same reasons most other home computers were - because it would primarily be used for entertainment, and because it was cheaper - which was fine because you didn't need a high resolution display for non-business stuff.

'Serious' apps for the Amiga didn't gain much traction because that's not what most people bought it for. A word processor, spreadsheet or accounting application had their place, but you only got them only for those occasional times that you needed them - and the Amiga was good enough to run them. The rest of the time the computer would be used for its primary purpose - entertainment.

It seems to me very clear that in its US domestic market, the Amiga wasn't expected to be a toy machine (and ended up not being one, in fact). The price tag of the A1000 was also very high for a simple gaming machine (like the C64 was)

And yet the C64 was promoted as a business computer! The A1000 debuted at almost the same price as IBM's 'gaming machine' the PC jr (introduced in 1984), but was far more powerful and competent which justified the price.

It always annoyed me how business oriented US computer magazines were. Amiga World was no exception. Games were pushed to back of the magazine and treated like an afterthought - something you did to wind down at the end of a hard day at the office. British magazines were much more rounded in their coverage and not afraid to admit that the Amiga was all about having fun - whether it be playing (or creating) games, making music, drawing pictures etc.

For some people a large part of the fun is making the machine itself more powerful and prettier. But make no mistake, this is still a game. What do you really need that 800MHz CPU, 2GB of RAM and 2560×1440 24 bit screen for - to show off your fancy icons and backdrop images? To watch YouTube videos? Play 3D games? I wish Amiga fans would admit that their complaints about how the Amiga wasn't 'serious' enough for them are all BS.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Gorf

But I was a and still am an advocate for higher resolutions - and the Atari ST did this one absolutely right by offering an additional 31kHz mode...

No, they didn't. It actually sucked because it only worked in monochrome.

That's not what the Amiga was about. Atari got away with it because the color screen modes weren't that great and the single-tasking OS suited apps that took over the machine. On the Amiga you want to see all your screen modes in 31kHz and be able to drag down screens etc. But the chipset didn't have the power to do that. And then you would need an expensive dedicated monitor too (remember that VGA didn't come out into 1987, 2 years after the Amiga was released - so there wasn't a pool of cheap VGA monitors to take advantage of).

I don't understand why people thought a high resolution flicker-free display was so important. What would you use it for?

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

No, they didn't. It actually sucked because it only worked in monochrome.

This mode was definitively a big part of the success of the Atari ST in Germany.
People actually bought it because of this monochrome high resolution output and flicker-free display.
Of course not for games, but for work, writing, desktop publishing and so on.

It was a substitute for the Macintosh, that simply no one could afford in Germany (besides Apple not being really interested in that market yet...)

The lack of such a screen-mode on the Amiga was constantly brought as an argument against it and gave it more of a toy image.

That's not what the Amiga was about.

Depends on who you ask ...

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Gorf

The lack of such a screen-mode on the Amiga was constantly brought as an argument against it and gave it more of a toy image.

If you say so. I had a 520ST and two Macs for a while. They all felt like toys to me.

[ztronzo]

A1200 with 020 for me seems about OK except for 2 things which I would have included:
1. 8bit audio with 8 audio channels because the games of that era really required it.
2. A double-density floppy drive capable of reading 1.76 MB floppies, because PC standard was already High Density 1.44 MB and Amiga Low Density drive could only read 720KB PC disks using cross-DOS. Would have kept the Amiga alive a few years longer. All future Amiga models should have included a DD floppy drive as standard.

I would also have liked to see an A1300 with an 030 starting at 33Mhz and 16bit audio and an easy accessible CD-ROM slot (not a tray) as a standard base.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The Amiga was designed to work with a TV for the same reasons most other home computers were

If that's true, then why did you need an RF modulator to actually do that?

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

'Serious' apps for the Amiga didn't gain much traction because that's not what most people bought it for.

If that was true, then magazines like Amiga Shopper wouldn't exist.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

What do you really need that 800MHz CPU, 2GB of RAM and 2560×1440 24 bit screen for

To run Visual Studio

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Thorham

If that's true, then why did you need an RF modulator to actually do that?

I wonder how many people actually could compare the RF output to a monitor (1084 for example) back in the day. The difference was very noticeable. Using AmigaBasic on a TV via the RF was a pain while on a 1084 is was really nice even compared to a PC.

[appiah4]

Originally Posted by Thorham

If that's true, then why did you need an RF modulator to actually do that?

One and done.

[grond]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

In the second issue of Amiga World (Nov/Dec 1985) Electronic Arts put out a two page advert titled 'Why Electronic Arts is committed to the Amiga". It said:-
Under that text were pictures illustrating 6 programs. Guess what they were? That's right, all games.

Perhaps Electronics Arts isn't the right company to expect business software from? Even Microsoft wouldn't have had any software to port to a GUI-oriented computer in 1985. But perhaps Commodore should rather have tried to get Lotus and whatever were the blockbuster business programs ported to the Amiga than develop a bridgeboard. They could even have offered doing such ports themselves (not under license but as a service to the owning company).

[grond]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I don't understand why people thought a high resolution flicker-free display was so important. What would you use it for?

To spend more time in front of the computer without getting headaches. Perhaps even an entire office day. Workplace safety regulations prohibited flicker screenmodes, yet you needed them to get work done. Nobody likes the feeling of looking on a sheet of paper through a periscope.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by grond

Even Microsoft wouldn't have had any software to port to a GUI-oriented computer in 1985.

Microsoft did write AmigaBASIC though. Plus Excel started as a Macintosh program in 1985: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micros...#Early_history

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by TCD

Using AmigaBasic on a TV via the RF was a pain

Originally Posted by TCD

on a 1084 is was really nice

Yeah, that sure was a nice monitor.

Originally Posted by grond

To spend more time in front of the computer without getting headaches.

Exactly. You'd think it's obvious.

Originally Posted by grond

Nobody likes the feeling of looking on a sheet of paper through a periscope.

At least on a PAL system you can still get 283p using overscan.