Was A1200 to blame for Falcon's failure?

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

(i have updated what you wrote since no one used the 1200 naked)

I feel I want to dispute this. I got my accelerator (a Blizzard 1220) well after Commodore’s demise, and by that time, a lot of A1200s had gone into the closet already.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by idrougge

I feel I want to dispute this. I got my accelerator (a Blizzard 1220) well after Commodore’s demise, and by that time, a lot of A1200s had gone into the closet already.

I used my A1200 without an HDD or Accelerator for many years prior to my getting both later on. And I was one of the first in my circle of friends to upgrade so yeah. Same.

[Megalomaniac]

I expect that most people who used A1200s for 'serious' tasks probably bought a hard drive and at least some fast RAM if not an accelerator, but did most people who bought them primarily for games? 43 AGA games have at least 50 votes on LemonAmiga (16 of them also with non-AGA versions), and by my reckoning of those only Sim City 2000, OnEscapee and Simon the Sorceror 2 need more than a stock A1200, and only SC2000 was released while the Amiga was really commercially viable. Just about all the other 40 run well from floppies on an 020 without fast RAM. Publishers didn't seem to believe there was enough of a market for games which needed more than a stock A1200 - can we look at the cancellation of stuff like Pizza Tycoon and Battle Isle 2 for evidence?

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Rob68K

I got to play with a Falcon before most people and the first thing I did was identify what it could do really well that nothing else could at that time..... so I sampled the first minute ( the most 1 partition of the hard drive could hold ) of 'Heavy Fuel' by Dire Straits at CD Quality, played it back REALLY LOUD and blew my f*cking mind.

I think that sample stayed on there all the while we had the thing.

the falcon is crippled with hardware bugs..... those were pre-production models, what we call prototype machines.

For example, out of the SDMA bug, there is also a problem with big files, above 20mb in size, the files get silently corrupted.

In order to fix that you need you modify the buffer size in hddriver the value '100' need to be changed for '300'.

[Snoopy1234]

I have a Falcon. Did it really fail? They are a quality, sought after machine even today.

@dlfsilver. Good info about buffers. Mine was already set up when bought. TBH I haven't used it enough to test that.

[Megalomaniac]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

the falcon is crippled with hardware bugs..... those were pre-production models, what we call prototype machines.

For example, out of the SDMA bug, there is also a problem with big files, above 20mb in size, the files get silently corrupted.

In order to fix that you need you modify the buffer size in hddriver the value '100' need to be changed for '300'.

How common were files of more than 20Mb in size in those days though?

It's a shame Atari released what were essentially prototype models, perhaps in the hope of preventing the A1200 from getting too much of a lead, and scrapped it in favour of the Jaguar before those had sold through and a 'proper' model could be launched. No doubt these niggles would have been fixed before long, the original A1000 launched with some bugs and issues, e.g. the need to boot Kickstart from disk on every switch-on.

Did the Falcon 'fail'? In as far as whether enough sold to make it a viable development platform, yes. In terms of whether people who bought it for serious use were happy with it, I'm not sure. I guess it delayed those people's move to the PC, which is either good or bad depending on your point of view - I doubt many ST loyalists would have bought an A1200 no matter how logical a buy it was (most great Amiga-but-not-ST games did work on the A1200 from launch, for example)?

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by idrougge

According to Petro Tyschtschenko’s memoirs, Commodore Germany published sales figures for the first time ever in the beginning of 1994. To that date, they had sold 95 500 A1200s.

Around 300 000 A1200 in UK at the end of 1993 and 95 000 in Germany by thé demise of Commodore.

That's make around 400 000 solds A1200 in UK/Germany before Commodore went bankrupt and that's without counting every others countries outside UK and Germany

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Snoopy1234

I have a Falcon. Did it really fail? They are a quality, sought after machine even today.

@dlfsilver. Good info about buffers. Mine was already set up when bought. TBH I haven't used it enough to test that.

They are sought, but quality is another subjet, hum hum.....

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

How common were files of more than 20Mb in size in those days though?

Sorry, but when you are doing direct to disk recording, guess what happens...

You very quickly arrive to files size this big.

It's a shame Atari released what were essentially prototype models, perhaps in the hope of preventing the A1200 from getting too much of a lead, .....

The ST/STE line already lost the match. You can't win against the machine that got the lead, and even more with a machine that is more crippled than the previous ST line (this said, the 1200 also had its own bugs, but nothing coming as far as what the falcon had).

and scrapped it in favour of the Jaguar before those had sold through and a 'proper' model could be launched. No doubt these niggles would have been fixed before long, the original A1000 launched with some bugs and issues, e.g. the need to boot Kickstart from disk on every switch-on.

The jaguar was really a big mistake. The same as the one Commodore did with the CD32.

Did the Falcon 'fail'? In as far as whether enough sold to make it a viable development platform, yes. In terms of whether people who bought it for serious use were happy with it, I'm not sure.

It failed mainly because Atari did not sold enough of them, and worse, the publishers had arguments against Atari "we will develop on Falcon if Atari sell many thousand of them".

I guess it delayed those people's move to the PC, which is either good or bad depending on your point of view - I doubt many ST loyalists would have bought an A1200 no matter how logical a buy it was (most great Amiga-but-not-ST games did work on the A1200 from launch, for example)?

Many ST users bought an A500 with the ST line got dead on the market. That's why Commodore sold so many Amigas in 1991.

[Calabazam]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

The jaguar was really a big mistake. The same as the one Commodore did with the CD32.

I have been more impressed with the Jaguar than the CD32 though.
I never liked the CD32 because it is juste a stripped down computer (except Akiko), juste like Amstrad did the GX4000 out of the CPC6128+.