a600 and a1200 release

[powrslave]

Did commodore tell vendors the a1200 was coming out and if so when?

a600 Release date, March 1992
a1200 21 October 1992

[Hewitson]

No doubt they would have known. The machines were aimed at completely different markets.

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

No doubt they would have known. The machines were aimed at completely different markets.

Correct.

The A600 was aimed at anyone who didn't already have an A500

The A1200 was aimed at EVERYONE (including A500 owners)

But of course, the people MOST pissed off were.....anyone who got the A600 and then saw the A1200 come out

[AmigaHope]

The A600 never should have happened. =( It was more expensive than the A500 for gods sake! If it was meant to be a cost-reduced A500 they sure did a bad job of it.

They should have just put the extra engineering effort into improving the A1200.

[roondar]

Ahh, the A600. The machine I hated at the time but love today.

It's actually my most often used real Amiga due to its smaller footprint. The A1200 is a good second, but it requires so much space in comparison - my desk is too small for it an the PC keyboard

[Hewitson]

I'm not a huge fan of the 600. I do believe it's a pretty big upgrade from a 500 though, since it has IDE and PCMCIA functionality.

The 500 plus should have been the 600, but with a full size keyboard.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

The A600 never should have happened. =( It was more expensive than the A500 for gods sake! If it was meant to be a cost-reduced A500 they sure did a bad job of it.

Apparently costs were higher than expected, and I suppose you could say that was Commodore's fault for 'allowing' it to happen. But the A600 was not meant to be just a 'cost-reduced A500' - if it was they would not have included the PCMCIA slot or IDE port.

Even though it was more expensive that the A500, it was still worth it. I never owned an A500 because I didn't like its sprawled out shape, especially when expanded with a hard drive etc. But I fell in love with the A600 as soon as I saw it. Finally, a design that put everything in a nice small package without compromising on connecter sizes, with just the right slope on the keyboard, clean functional lines with no unnecessary blank spaces, and a beautiful white case! I also loved the way they angled the disk drive for easier disk insertion, and arranged the keys to take up minimum space without being cramped.

I would have paid extra for the A600 even it was just a cost-reduced A500, but the internal hard drive and PCMCIA slot made it a must-have.

They should have just put the extra engineering effort into improving the A1200.

Then we might never have gotten the A1200. Like most sensible manufacturers, they didn't want to jump too far at once. The A600 was Commodore's first foray into all surface mount pcb design, and at the same time trialed a new case design and laptop technology (2.5" hard drive, PCMCIA slot). The success of that design gave them the confidence to produce the A1200.

But what if they they had decided to skip replacing the A500 and just go for an AGA machine? Given how the PC market was going, the logical thing to do would have been to make a cut-down A4000 that used standard PC parts. Perhaps something like this:-

[Marchie]

If they had just released the A300 as it was supposed to be, they would have sold millions. A baby A500 was a brilliant idea: turn yesterday's technology into a cheap-to-make, cheap-to-buy, entry-level computer that you could later pay to upgrade bit-by-bit.

Instead they bungled the development and then doubled-down by releasing it. Fail, fail, fail.

The CD32, even if you thought it was a mediocre console, was a smart idea - console-ise the technology already developed for the 1200.

The CDTV didn't work out, but everyone was groping the dark to make something of CD-ROM technology, and you can't blame them for trying.

But the A600...I just can't think of a justification for it - bad product, killed their own income steam, why why WHY??

Some say the A1200 was disappointing (personally I love it) but at least it actually did something that an upgraded 500 could not. I remember being baffled as a kid when the A600 came out, I didn't understand how it was an upgrade (despite being released FIVE YEARS later).

It seems to be popular today though. And despite the fact that I thought it sold badly there seem to be loads of them floating around. Never saw one here is Australia back in the day, were they big in the UK?

I think if I bought one and scribbled "A300" over the top I'd probably love it.

[Daedalus]

Indeed, the costs were higher than they had intended, at least partly because of the move to surface mount technology which required more R&D time. Releasing it as a cheaper A300 at that point would mean making a loss. If they hadn't gone for the A600, that R&D work would've gone on for the A1200 and A4000 instead, significantly adding to their costs.

[Marchie]

I suppose I can accept the A600 as the sacrificial goat that made the A1200 possible...

Beautiful machine the 1200...

[sean_sk]

Originally Posted by Marchie

Never saw one here is Australia back in the day

My mate bought an A600 even though his family already had an A500. Despite the fact that I loved Amiga's at the time, when he showed it to me I thought it was the most pointless thing ever. I never understood why it existed when it didn't do anything better than the A500. I was ignorant of the fact it had a PCMCIA card slot and an IDE header.

He had since given the unit to me for nothing and now it's my most prized possession ever. It's such a cute little machine. Use it pretty much every day.

[005AGIMA]

The CDTV wasn't a bad move looking back. It just didn't pay off. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but what I mean is, EVERYONE was having a stab at that (non existent) market. The 3DO, CDTV, and Philips CDi (and I'm sure I'm forgetting 1 or 2) were all jostling to use CDROM for "Interactive Video" and more, in a form factor that would fit with any lounge room of the time, rather than looking out of place.

Very smart thinking. Just.....not what anyone was asking for. Play an interactive Video (the main demo piece for these things) for more than 30 seconds, and gamers were turned off by how poor it was, and non gamers (the real target) were confused and equally disappointed.

Too late to jump on board now as they're too rare and too expensive, but the CDTV now, is by far the best looking A500 money can buy

Back on main topic though, the more I learn about the A1200, the more I want one.

Stock but with CF HDD adapter would be awesome. No accelerator. I want to see what it was like out of the box (hard drive aside)

[005AGIMA]

OH MY LORD, THERE WAS A FRONTIER PACK??????
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Commodore...AAAOSwEDhdKxBw

God.....she'd kill me.

I will not bid, I will not....... brb

[sneeker]

Thats wierd, as its basically the computer combat pack, right down to the box and software, with a frontier sticker over the front, frontier and batman returns added to the bundle..

[Marchie]

Originally Posted by 005AGIMA

The CDTV wasn't a bad move looking back. It just didn't pay off. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but what I mean is, EVERYONE was having a stab at that (non existent) market. The 3DO, CDTV, and Philips CDi (and I'm sure I'm forgetting 1 or 2) were all jostling to use CDROM for "Interactive Video" and more, in a form factor that would fit with any lounge room of the time, rather than looking out of place.

Very smart thinking. Just.....not what anyone was asking for. Play an interactive Video (the main demo piece for these things) for more than 30 seconds, and gamers were turned off by how poor it was, and non gamers (the real target) were confused and equally disappointed.

Too late to jump on board now as they're too rare and too expensive, but the CDTV now, is by far the best looking A500 money can buy

I agree, it didn't work out but they were absolutely right to give it a try. Same for the CD32 - had the terminal decline not already begun and prevented them from releasing it properly, the CD32 would have sold well enough to keep the doors open another year or two.

But the A600, I just don't see what it was ever going to achieve, even in theory.

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by sneeker

Thats wierd, as its basically the computer combat pack, right down to the box and software, with a frontier sticker over the front, frontier and batman returns added to the bundle..

I didn't know it existed.

But....
http://www.lemonamiga.com/forum/view...81ea021382c9ba

And again (same guy) here
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=17477

[rare_j]

Deluxe paint was the amiga's killer app. Lack of A600 numpad meant the perspective controls couldn't be used.
Brilliant move by commodore. Leave off the hardware used by your computer's killer app.

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by rare_j

Deluxe paint was the amiga's killer app. Lack of A600 numpad meant the perspective controls couldn't be used.
Brilliant move by commodore. Leave off the hardware used by your computer's killer app.

numeric keypad was also integral for many flight sims on the Amiga.

Not sure if workarounds were possible.

[AmigaHope]

Yeah I played a ton of games that needed the numeric keypad.

The A1200 and the CD32 were just too damn underpowered. If they'd doubled the CPU clock, added even just 1M of fast RAM, and released them just a tiny bit earlier they could have been contenders. 4X the performance for not a huge increase in component costs (25Mhz parts would have only been a few dollars more expensive -- remember 50Mhz was top of the line at the time -- and 1M of RAM would've added maybe $30 at wholesale prices in 1992.)

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Marchie

If they had just released the A300 as it was supposed to be, they would have sold millions.

That's cool, I just personally would never used Amiga 300 name.
Imagine the confusion it would get at the market:
Is this Amiga 500, with half memory? Or half of the games is not working?
Or maybe all working, but processor is on 4Mhz, so games are half speed


But knowing Commodore, they wouldn't miss opportunity to confuse the potential buyers.