Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Turrican_3]

No disappontmeint at all here.

Yes, it wasn't nearly as revolutionary as the original A1000, nor a huge success like the A500.
Yes, doing serious computing would not be that easy anyway if you pushed graphics too much (AGA made Workbench slow if you had a lot of colours)
Yes, audio could have been improved instead of recycling the same good old Paula.

Yet, despite all those objective issues, I loved the A1200.

Coming from the aforementioned 1MB A500 with only an external drive it felt like a huge improvement in terms of "personal computing" potential, especially when I started adding an hard drive, more RAM and a more powerful processor.

The Amiga was really for the creative people, and I wasn't even talented... but the sotware/hardware combination just motivated me enough to try lots of different things (2D/3D graphics, music composition/reproduction, etc) that simply no other machine that I've owned after made so pleasant to do.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Rich_hard1

At the time, those with Amigas all wanted the A1200

Erm nope, it was quite obvious at the time the excitement and disappointment in the specs was not enough to justify £400 to upgrade for most people who already owned Amigas, and if Commodore couldn’t sell it to the very market they would sustain it they would have no chance with the wider consumer marker, hence why the cheaper A600 outsold it in its very short production time.

Originally Posted by Rich_hard1

By the time it eventually got released, just a few months after the tiny a600, commodore were initially filing for bankruptcy.

They didn’t file for bankruptcy for another 18/19 months.

Originally Posted by Rich_hard1

Some might say, the very idea of Amiga home computing spurred the evolving home console market, who knows without the Amiga, we probably wouldn’t see many of the game systems over the past 20 years or so. Or a very different way of gaming anyway.

Every machine is part of gaming history, some influencing more than others, the Amiga definitely had a big impact in the history of European gaming, but not so pretty much anywhere else, the console sector would have continued with or without the Amiga, just like gaming continued in other parts of the world when the US had its videogame crash in the 80s.

[Turrican_3]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

hence why the cheaper A600 outsold it in its very short production time.

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?)

[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.