Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Karlos

If the A1200 had been launched with integrated fast memory instead of a clockport that was ultimately next to useless and a hole in the board for an FPU that was never fitted,

Several things about the A1200 motherboard design indicate that Commodore was keeping their options open. This includes the headers for extra ChipRAM (which originally was only going to be 1MB), and in later revisions a removable mouse port, perhaps to suit a different case design.

The clockport turned out to be not useless, but would have more useful if they had included more signals. The 2 extra chip select lines indicate that Commodore was thinking it could be used for other things.

The space for an FPU cost almost nothing and would have been a welcome addition if they had managed to source some cheap FPUs to go there. It is interesting to note that the vast majority of (3rd party) RAM boards for the A1200 also had an FPU socket on them, so Commodore wasn't the only one who thought it was a good idea.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

I beg to differ. This is actually *why* the PC worked. You could get your base model really cheap, but over time, would expand it. It is pretty much how I used my A2000.

But the base model A2000 cost a lot more than an A1200 (for obvious reasons). The A1200 was supposed to be a cheap mass market machine for people who mostly would not upgrade it beyond more RAM etc.

If we look at consumer PCs today they follow the same design philosophy. Custom PC assembly is pretty much a niche market these day. Recently I visited the biggest local electronics store to see what PC s they had, and not a single one was the classic 'big box stuffed full of cards', they were all laptops and 'desktops' with a laptop-style motherboard stuck inside the monitor.

While most users could not afford 1000$ (or € or whatever) for one machine, they could afford 2000$ over years, piece by piece. In the end, the machine is then more expensive, true, but then, who cares?

Most users want a machine they can use now, not have to buy extra parts to make it useful. But the Amiga fan is not 'most users', he is a special breed with special needs. The question is was it worth Commodore's time and money to pander to the Amiga fan? In the short term perhaps, but ultimately I think the answer is no because satisfying the Amiga fan became impossible.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Most users want a machine they can use now, not have to buy extra parts to make it useful. But the Amiga fan is not 'most users', he is a special breed with special needs. The question is was it worth Commodore's time and money to pander to the Amiga fan? In the short term perhaps, but ultimately I think the answer is no because satisfying the Amiga fan became impossible.

The A2000 (and your average PC back then, unexpanded) was a machine you could use *right now*. Not a problem. Just remember that the market back then was different from the market now.

[Karlos]

@bhabbot

...he is a special breed with special needs.

That's one way of putting it

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

Indeed all that money went to other companies which is a strategic business mistake. I had harddisk, Blizzard 030/50 with 8mb ram. Commodore got nothing from these extras. We think A1200 could be much better, not coming with a 1984 cpu and it would last longer as well.

I see the opposite.

After the A500 and A2000 Commodore's next big idea was the A3000. It had everything in there already - and cost a fortune. Only a year later they were selling it below cost to move them, a 'strategic business mistake' of epic proportions. If only they had led with something like the A1200 instead their fortunes might have been quite different.

It's hard to make money out of hardware alone, and even harder when you are making all of it. The PC became popular in part because it was a free-for-all with many 3rd party manufacturers efforts combined. IBM tried to go the other way with PS/2 and microchannel etc., and failed. Better to just get stock machines out there and let 3rd party manufacturers make stuff for them, then find another way to get revenue from the increasing user base.

It has often said that Commodore didn't understand what they had. But in a way they understood more than the people who criticize them. Their real problem was not being confident enough to go with what they had. The Amiga was never going to win against the PC, it had to find a niche the PC didn't fill. For while they found it with the A500 - but fans (and some in Commodore) felt inadequate and wanted something to match the PC. This was doomed to fail.

Commodore should have promoted the Amiga as a gaming machine with hobbyist computing functions. This would fill the gap between PCs and consoles (which is what it did do for many years). They should have encouraged hobbyists to create stuff for the Amiga so there would be a steady supply of unique content for it. The demo scene was a big part of the Amiga's attractiveness. This should have been nurtured, not ignored. Piracy was a big problem, but only due to the business model used.

By the mid 90's the internet was becoming a thing. Commodore could have made use of this with a business model revolving around online content, like the big games companies do today. The hardware would just be the point of entry into this world - monetizing its use is where they would get most of their income. Fans would be creating and consuming content, making money from it and getting it cheap. Commodore would also be taking their cut, and everybody would be happy.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

After the A500 and A2000 Commodore's next big idea was the A3000. It had everything in there already - and cost a fortune. Only a year later they were selling it below cost to move them, a 'strategic business mistake' of epic proportions. If only they had led with something like the A1200 instead their fortunes might have been quite different.

Look at the A3000: A prime example of "what could we possibly do wrong". It was not only more expensive than the A2000, it also did not offer any advantage over it. Just the old ECS chipset the A2000 had, and a flicker fixer. No miracle nobody wanted it. You could take the A2000, and equip it with a turbo board, a flicker fixer and a SCSI hostadapter (if not present on the turbo board), and you had something better than the A3000.

Of course, such an equipped A2000 would, in sum, cost more than the A3000, but there was no incentive to buy a new machine because it had new features. It was the same old crap in a new expensive box. AGA would have certainly helped to make it sell, but there was no investment into technology. CBM was pushing boxes instead of driving the development.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

The A2000 (and your average PC back then, unexpanded) was a machine you could use *right now*. Not a problem. Just remember that the market back then was different from the market now.

Yes, but an A500 was much cheaper. The cost of an A2000 was only justified when you added other stuff to it. If you bought one it was because you really wanted a hard drive, extra RAM, faster CPU etc.

In the early days when such stuff was very expensive or not available it might have made sense to buy a stock A2000 with single floppy drive. But few people kept their A2000s stock for long, not just because they could finally afford to upgrade but because what is effectively an expensive A500 in a big box is not satisfying.

I'm not saying this was an invalid choice, and I'm sure we all appreciate Commodore making the A2000 for us, but it wasn't going to achieve anywhere near the sales volume that the A500 did because most people want everything they need 'in the box' when they buy it. I saw this in the PC market all the time. Few customers were interested in what a machine could be upgraded to, they wanted everything now, even if it stretched their budget.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Yes, but an A500 was much cheaper. The cost of an A2000 was only justified when you added other stuff to it. If you bought one it was because you really wanted a hard drive, extra RAM, faster CPU etc.

Actually, I bought one because I considered that I would be able to expand it at some point, which actually happened, though much later. I did not really considered this immediately, I just found that the A2000 would be a more future-proof investemnt - which it was, considering that I still have one (though not the same box). At the time I could affording to upgrade my A2000, the A3000 appeared, but why would I buy the same old stuff *again* if I could, with a smaller investment, bring my A2000 to a performance similar to the new expensive box. It made no sense whatsoever.

[Korban]

In regard to the original question, no, I wasn't disappointed.

I knew what I was buying into and it was a significant upgrade over the floppy based a500 I'd been using before. That's what I wanted. The fact that it couldn't compare to a PC for a lot of things was moot for me. For the things I wanted of a PC I used, shock horror, a PC.

The a1200 gave me more ram, a faster cpu, a harddrive, made a noticeable and welcome improvement to a lot of software I enjoyed on the A500 and offered moderately improved versions of games at times as well as some new games that weren't available to the A500.
Over time, with upgrades, it also offered me what ended up being my personal favorite era of the Amiga (mid to late 90's, for my tastes was the peak of the Amiga; sure it was on its last legs commercially, but a lot of the software was made by enthusiasts who wanted to push the system which resulted in a very "Amiga" pool of software that was beyond what the 16bit consoles and computers of the late 80's were capable of).

In a nutshell it was a better Amiga that was affordable. That's what I wanted.
The fact that <insert system here> was more capable, just around the corner, better supported, whatever, etc. simply wasn't part of the equation for me.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Look at the A3000: A prime example of "what could we possibly do wrong". It was not only more expensive than the A2000, it also did not offer any advantage over it. Just the old ECS chipset the A2000 had, and a flicker fixer. No miracle nobody wanted it. You could take the A2000, and equip it with a turbo board, a flicker fixer and a SCSI hostadapter (if not present on the turbo board), and you had something better than the A3000.

As someone who bought an A3000 I disagree. The A3000 offered significant technical advances - 32 bit CPU access to 2MB of ChipRAM, potentially much faster Zorro-III bus, flicker fixer that handled all modes and didn't chop the bottom off PAL screens, 32 bit CPU daughter-board socket, high density floppy drive, high performance integrated SCSI. It also had a more attractive form factor for those of us used to the A1000.

If you wanted all that stuff right now, as I did, the A3000 seemed like a good package. And it cost about the same as a high-end 386 PC so the price didn't seem too bad - for those of us who could afford it. But that was precious few of us. Commodore wasn't going to get rich of this machine the same as they weren't getting rich off the A2000, because there weren't enough customers who could justify the expense (most just wanted to play games and perhaps do a bit of hobby computing).

It was the same old crap in a new expensive box... CBM was pushing boxes instead of driving the development.

No, it wasn't - and no, they weren't. You can argue that they didn't innovate enough if you must, but to say it was just the 'same old crap in a new expensive box' is wrong.

[sokolovic]

Wasn't the original VideoToaster didn't fit in the A3000 case ?
Now THIS would be a Silly move considering the success thé VideoToaster had in the US.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

As someone who bought an A3000 I disagree. The A3000 offered significant technical advances - 32 bit CPU access to 2MB of ChipRAM, potentially much faster Zorro-III bus, flicker fixer that handled all modes and didn't chop the bottom off PAL screens, 32 bit CPU daughter-board socket, high density floppy drive, high performance integrated SCSI. It also had a more attractive form factor for those of us used to the A1000.

Those were all features I do know today, but I did not know back then. SCSI? I rather bought a GVP 030/040. It was a higher clocked CPU with local RAM, and better than the A3000 daughterboard. Of course, it also costed a fortune (back then sponsored from an internship at IBM), but it was the better deal.


The flickerfixer is exactly the same as in the A3000, but there were no additional modes I could use. SHires and productivity were so slow, they were not practical. I had no idea about Zorro-III or whether it would have been beneficial to me back then. I had no idea about wider chip RAM access. All I saw was "same chipset, new CPU, new flicker fixer... and the PRIIICCEEE!" I can get something better for that money, and I did.


Issue of the A3000 was that it was targetted at professionals, but the screen resolution and modes were not "on par" anymore. It was old technology.



That was quite different when I saw the first A1000 at the CeBit fair in Germany. This was jaw-dropping. Preseting the *same* stuff years later was... lame.

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Wasn't the original VideoToaster didn't fit in the A3000 case ?
Now THIS would be a Silly move considering the success thé VideoToaster had in the US.

Honestly, the VideoToaster is the only good thing they released for Amiga...

[grond]

Wasn't there something with the A3000, Unix and Sun? The fact that the A3000 flopped was likely also management-driven.

[grond]

Originally Posted by Korban

In a nutshell it was a better Amiga that was affordable. That's what I wanted.
The fact that <insert system here> was more capable, just around the corner, better supported, whatever, etc. simply wasn't part of the equation for me.

Was the fact that it was only 400GBP on release a part of the equation for you? Just like you said, more powerful systems that weren't Amigas were irrelevant to me. But I wanted a powerful Amiga when there was only a cheap A1200 and an overpriced A4000 the priciest parts of which I would soon replace for better-made alternatives (shitty 040 board).

[sandruzzo]

In a perfect world we should had A1200 with 020 28mhz and fully 32 bit Chipsets as well with at least +1mb of fast mem, and A4000 as the same but with more chip-ram, fast-mem at 56mhz bus with PPC cpu and OS as well.

[Korban]

Originally Posted by grond

Was the fact that it was only 400GBP on release a part of the equation for you?

Definitely.
I just wanted to continue the Amiga hobby I already had, but with a few extra niceties.
Had I not bought the a1200 I'd have gone for an a2k rather than an a4k. The premium for the a4k was just too high.
Im glad I went the a1200 route though given the wider support AGA received vs RTG, and it's arguable whether RTG on Zorro 2 is better than AGA a lot of the time anyway.

[Thomas Richter]

From my own experience, the A2000 with RTG feels faster and better than the A1200 with AGA. I have both machines. Of course, it depends on "which RTG". If the board lacks a blitter, and it is up to the (poor) CPU to move around data, then it becomes slow.

AGA really does not have much to offer - chip ram is slow, Zorro-II is slow, but the RTG card typically has true-color, and a blitter that can handle true-color, and a chunky bitplane arrangement.

[NorthWay]

I wont speak ill of the A1200, but for one feature that I thought unneccessary: It was sized for a 2.5" harddrive and not a 3.5". If the goal was to get access to cheaper parts then they should have found a way to go the whole hog.

[Korban]

Originally Posted by NorthWay

I wont speak ill of the A1200, but for one feature that I thought unneccessary: It was sized for a 2.5" harddrive and not a 3.5". If the goal was to get access to cheaper parts then they should have found a way to go the whole hog.

I suspect a 2.5 inch drives lower power consumption was as much of a reason for using a 2.5" drive as space.