Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by TCD

aimed at kids wanting to play games and could tell their parents that a computer could also be used for other things.

That was true, though

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I'm not. I have always defended the Amiga's relevance as a 'toy'.

Which in relation to the Amiga is very negative indeed, and also just not true. A toy system wouldn't have a non-games library like the Amiga, and certainly not magazines like Amiga Shopper and some others.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

One poster in particular likes to describe Amiga OS as a 'toy' with negative connotations.

Which is highly absurd.

[OlafSch]

I think all the discussions are because someone used the phrase "toy" in regards of amiga. Amiga was of course much more than just a toy, it was at the beginning ahead of all competition regarding hardware, amigaos was extremely efficient and fast and extremely flexible. There were not only A500 who were used for gaming mainly but also A2000, A3000 who were expandable for professional applications. We all know that.

Unfortunately Amiga, if marketed at all, was seen as a pure home computer used for gaming. PC was seen as "professional", they even made the weakness to a strength saying desktops like workbench are for childs, if you want to work professional you use a PC with MS-DOS. When they got something like that too, suddenly using a desktop was professional.

Commodore failed both on necessary hardware development and strategy but also on marketing. The only professional area where amiga was successful was desktop video. With the hardware, faster development and a better strategy more would have been possible. But Commodore never had a vision where to go. As I already wrote, even amiga engineers used PCs. In the company amiga never got the attention it deserves, it was just another "product".

[Dunny]

Didn't see any A4000s or A3000s in my local dealers. All the Amiga stuff was games packs. Action pack, Desktop Dynamite pack, Computer Combat pack. That sort of thing.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

they even made the weakness to a strength saying desktops like workbench are for childs, if you want to work professional you use a PC with MS-DOS. When they got something like that too, suddenly using a desktop was professional.

People really thought like that? Wow

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by Thorham

People really thought like that? Wow

yes

[pixie]

Originally Posted by Thorham

People really thought like that? Wow

indeed

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Thorham

People really thought like that? Wow

Well ... it was more of a spin... a retroactive justification of not having a system with a decent GUI.

Like driving a car with a stick instead of an automatic, because it is somehow "better", or mobile phones are only for yuppies, vinyl records sound better than CD, B&W movies are more artistic.....

[Gorf]

The A1000 was a revelation at the time it came out. It was capable of so many things people would never assosiate with computers. It gave ordinary customers the possibility to do not only "ordinary" computer tasks, but gave them a tool for creativity and of course fun. At a price far below any contemporary machine. The A500 continued this legacy with an even lower price.

The A1200 simply could not recreate that.
We sent pages over pages comparing its price to an equally equipped PC, but that is missing the point: even if it may have cost twice as much (which it did not), such PCs were now in the affordable range for the vast majority of customers.

Yes, there are always those who could not have afforded a "multimedia" or gaming PC, but if we look back at the numbers, this was simply not longer true for the vast majority. The sales numbers show this clearly.

The A1200 simply did not have the undeniable edge over the PC, which previous models had at the time. And yes: this was disappointing.

It would have needed the "one more thing", the little extra, the plus the others would not have.

A DSP for sound-mixing and modem functionality might have been such a thing (already discussed at length), of a better chipset with some early rudimentary 3D support, or maybe a "floptical"-drive* that would hold 20MB - rendering a HD unnecessary for a couple of years.
(just one of the above, not all three, might have been enough)

*(a drive that could also use legacy floppies as well as 20MB disks - with a bunch of those disks I probably would not have missed a real HD much, even if if would have been probably quite slow. I later got a SCSI ZIP-drive, which I loved)

[TEG]

Originally Posted by Thorham

People really thought like that? Wow

People are programmed through mass media. So the one who manage to have the loudspeaker can tell people DOS is the better solution and the way to go as long as it fit his agenda. So yeah, people will think "like that" because they simply don't know a better solution is available and if by chance they learn about it, they will discard it because the loudspeaker does not say so. Especially in the corporate world.

So the importance of not wasting the money Commodore had in 1985 and to make a very good communication campaign. Which they felt miserably.

Apple had the same problem until Steve Jobs return. They were sinking due to bad communication. He fired the marketing agency, worked with a new designer he trusted for the creation of the iMac and launched a huge campaign to let people know about it. We know the rest.

I will relate you an anecdote. It was something like 1988, a classmate known I was in computers. He asked me a question about his PC config.sys, memory problems and so on. I was like "??? was the f*** are you talking me about. I don't have to configure such tricky things on my computer". Being exclusively with my Amiga, I was knowing absolutely nothing about the PC nuts and bolts at the time and far from my imagination such problems could existed. So from this day he though I was in fact not a real "computer man" and ignored me. I felt in the toys users category just because my computer was better than his own and I don't have to fight with the mess of "the official way to go". From this moment I understood the battle was badly engaged.

[PortuguesePilot]

Regarding the viewing of the A500 as a "toy" for games, I remember one of the few Amiga ads I saw before I owned an Amiga which was a split A4 sheet that on one side had a guy playing and on the other side was the same guy working, all with the Amiga 500. So Commodore themselves marketed the Amiga 500 as a gaming machine. True, they also marketed it as working machine, at least in this ad, but they didn't shy away from the gaming aspect of it.

And before crucifying Commodore let's remember that this was around 1987/1989, when the common PC was an over-expensive Intel 8088@4.77MHz CGA PC-Speaker MS-DOS 640kB RAM XT-clone and was seen as overkill for domestic affairs. Just a couple of years back, a "home computer" was a ZX Spectrum, an Atari 800 or a Commodore 64. The Commodore 64 was (and still is) the best-selling home computer in history. Why? Because it was relatively cheap and was VERY GOOD AT GAMES.

This in a time when the console market had the infamous 1983 crash and the console market simply "died" until the NES resurrected it in late 1985. The "home computer" saved the gaming market in the West and these home computers, safe rare exceptions, were almost always operated by Gen-Xrs whilst the "serious" PC market was used mostly by Baby Boomers (who, apparently, were unable to get joy from such things as "computer games"). So, the home computer was usually operated by young kids or adolescents who - incidentally - loved gaming.

Cheaper price + good graphics and sound = good games = lots of machines sold. It worked for the C64 and Commodore just tried to keep the formula with the Amiga. It may seem like a bad decision now - for obvious reasons - but it definitely didn't look so bad in 1987. Granted, the Amiga was so much more than a mere games machine - even in its latest iterations, already when they were too little, too late - but trying to capitalize on the Amiga's exceptional graphics and sound abilities for games (after all, why do you think that stuff like the Blitter and Copper were there for?) was NOT a bad idea. In fact, it was precisely that which allowed the Amiga 500 to sell so many machines in Europe and outdo the rather similar but less competent (graphically and sonically) Atari ST.

We all know the drill after 1992/3, but the emergence of the PC as the clear victor of the "computer wars" - which seems so inevitable and obvious in retrospect - was only clear AFTER the advent of the affordable 486+SVGA+SB clones and the release of "Doom".

tl,dr: A cheap but competent A500 sold as a "gaming machine" (or, "a toy") was not such a bad move by Commodore. It was just a bad idea in the long run after the paradigm shift brought forth by 3D gaming, which the Amiga (both OCS and AGA chipsets but also the 680x0 CPU family) were ill-equipped to deal with. And also the rise of the internet as we know it today (WWW/http protocol).

[TCD]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

We all know the drill after 1992/3, but the emergence of the PC as the clear victor of the "computer wars" - which seems so inevitable and obvious in retrospect - was only clear AFTER the advent of the affordable 486+SVGA+SB clones and the release of "Doom".

Quite frankly the only 'computer wars' the Amiga was involved with was against the Atari ST in the mid to late 80s. Which the Amiga won (except maybe in France). The PC just got upgraded constantly and the Amiga didn't. Doom was surely a big 'win' for the PC, but at the time it arrived the Amiga was a dead computer barely standing. One of the problems actually was that Commodore didn't try to 'fight' with the PC and pretty much tried to compete with the consoles instead in the early 90s.

[Thorham]

Commodore certainly didn't view the A500 as a toy initially:

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Commodore certainly didn't view the A500 as a toy initially:

And sadly the marketing department did not get the facts right:

"dazzling 3D graphics manipulation and animation powers"
Nope - and as if the amazing 2D power wasn't good enough

And no: with a Genlock you can not capture images ... a genlock is no screengrabber...

"4 unique dedicated chips" ... did they count Garry? But not the CIAs?

All in all to much emphasis on optional tools like genlock and digitizer, which are not part of the package.

And even a typo: "workshopful of" instead of "workshop full of"

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

tl,dr: A cheap but competent A500 sold as a "gaming machine" (or, "a toy") was not such a bad move by Commodore. It was just a bad idea in the long run after the paradigm shift brought forth by 3D gaming, which the Amiga (both OCS and AGA chipsets but also the 680x0 CPU family) were ill-equipped to deal with. And also the rise of the internet as we know it today (WWW/http protocol).

It was probably the right move (especially in Europe) as the original approach with the A1000 more or less failed - in parts due to the Atari ST, which strangely enough was due to its label as "Jackintosh" gaining a little bit more traction in the office and DTP field.

But doing one thing does not mean neglecting all others. The A2000 was an attempt to sell a more professional machine, but Commodore did a really bad job in marketing it, overpriced it without improving technical specs and did not care for software.
A decent office suite early on, would have done wonders - they did start with TextCraft for the A1000 but never build upon that ...

And once they finally got some professional killer apps and tools like the VideoToaster and a bunch of raytracers, to position the Amiga as a top video editing ad creation tool, they did next to nothing to exploit that field.

[TEG]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

Cheaper price + good graphics and sound = good games = lots of machines sold. It worked for the C64 and Commodore just tried to keep the formula with the Amiga

IMHO your forgot the important marketing part in the mix. Jacques Tramiel managed to buy discounted TV slots where initial announcers disengage for a reason or another. So C64 ads appeared a lot and on interesting hours. The successful jingle "Are you keeping up with the Commodore?" was made and a bunch of TV adverts were shooted.

In the US everyone known the C64 existed and it has had a knock-on effect on other countries.

[ Show youtube player ]
[ Show youtube player ]
[ Show youtube player ]
[ Show youtube player ]

Guess who was targeted in this one:
[ Show youtube player ]

They advertise at the radio too in different languages. Here's the French add:
https://www.commodore.ca/gallery/vid...nch)_small.mp3


I'm not sure for the Amiga, especially the A1000.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by TEG

I'm not sure for the Amiga, especially the A1000.

They made a futuristic ad that felt to me like a "2001: A Space Odyssey" rip-off early on ... which nobody understood:

[ Show youtube player ]

And later some "Back to the Future" rip-off - can't find it now...

here is an other one for the A1000:

[ Show youtube player ]

[TEG]

Originally Posted by Gorf

here is an other one for the A1000:

[ Show youtube player ]

A text promoting good values for sure:

When you were born, you had no idea how fierce the competition was going to get. All those eager achievers determined to win the race for success.
Being good isn't good enough anymore. To earn and keep your piece of the pie, you need an unfair advantage. A new way to make the most of your special talents and creativity. Hard work and ambition alone aren't enough to keep you moving up.

The ballerina and the pie animations are as smooth as displayed by a 8 bits machine. Not to mention the atmosphere of the 60s. Great for a machine which expresses the future

And what you see at the end? A very young kid with a ball in the hands, sending the subliminal message of a toy.

Who validated this abomination?

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Commodore certainly didn't view the A500 as a toy initially:

Disney Animation Studio on Amiga doesn't use 4096 color HAM mode.

[ Show youtube player ]
Disney Animation Studio software for Amiga and PC. Disney's software was used in US schools.

The problem, Hollywood is a smaller market for desktop computers when compared to DTP and back office (e.g. MS Word, MS Excel) markets. Big Hollywood uses SGI render machines. Smaller studios used the "ganging" lower-cost CPU accelerated A2000 workstations method which the commodity PC camp also used the same ganging method in a large scale.

The smaller A3000's case was incompatible with Video Toaster 2000. Motorola couldn't keep up with Intel/AMD's CPU evolution pace.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Gorf

It was probably the right move (especially in Europe) as the original approach with the A1000 more or less failed - in parts due to the Atari ST, which strangely enough was due to its label as "Jackintosh" gaining a little bit more traction in the office and DTP field.

But doing one thing does not mean neglecting all others. The A2000 was an attempt to sell a more professional machine, but Commodore did a really bad job in marketing it, overpriced it without improving technical specs and did not care for software.
A decent office suite early on, would have done wonders - they did start with TextCraft for the A1000 but never build upon that ...

And once they finally got some professional killer apps and tools like the VideoToaster and a bunch of raytracers, to position the Amiga as a top video editing ad creation tool, they did next to nothing to exploit that field.

Commodore bungled the Video Toaster with A3000's smaller case. Blame Jeff Porter.

A white-colored A2000 size case with A3000's 68030 CPU acceleration would be okay for the Video Toaster. Jeff Porter wasn't careful with the Video Toaster's use case. Video Toaster's 24-bit graphics did nothing for general-purpose Amiga graphics.

Amiga 2000/4000 with Video Toaster Flyer NLE competed against Macintosh 840AV with Adobe Premiere NLE/After Effects or Avid Video Shop NLE.

Amiga's transition into MPEG-based video NLE wasn't good when every desktop Pentium PC have the potential to gain MPEG acceleration via game centric video card while its limited for Amiga's big box which numbered in a few thousands. The mass produced wedge Amigas was largely locked out from Amiga compatible video NLE due to hit-the-metal with 3rd party add-on Zorro II/III cards.

For video NLE use case, there is a clear separation between millions of wedge Amigas and a few thousands of big box Amigas.

For wedge Amigas with fast 68K CPUs, Mac's video NLE software is the available pathway. LOL

For social media video NLE boom, the Amiga is missing in action when AmigaNG PowerPC didn't have Zorro II/III slots to run Amiga's 68k-based hit-the-metal video NLE software.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

Regarding the viewing of the A500 as a "toy" for games, I remember one of the few Amiga ads I saw before I owned an Amiga which was a split A4 sheet that on one side had a guy playing and on the other side was the same guy working, all with the Amiga 500. So Commodore themselves marketed the Amiga 500 as a gaming machine. True, they also marketed it as working machine, at least in this ad, but they didn't shy away from the gaming aspect of it.

And before crucifying Commodore let's remember that this was around 1987/1989, when the common PC was an over-expensive Intel 8088@4.77MHz CGA PC-Speaker MS-DOS 640kB RAM XT-clone and was seen as overkill for domestic affairs. Just a couple of years back, a "home computer" was a ZX Spectrum, an Atari 800 or a Commodore 64. The Commodore 64 was (and still is) the best-selling home computer in history. Why? Because it was relatively cheap and was VERY GOOD AT GAMES.

This in a time when the console market had the infamous 1983 crash and the console market simply "died" until the NES resurrected it in late 1985. The "home computer" saved the gaming market in the West and these home computers, safe rare exceptions, were almost always operated by Gen-Xrs whilst the "serious" PC market was used mostly by Baby Boomers (who, apparently, were unable to get joy from such things as "computer games"). So, the home computer was usually operated by young kids or adolescents who - incidentally - loved gaming.

Cheaper price + good graphics and sound = good games = lots of machines sold. It worked for the C64 and Commodore just tried to keep the formula with the Amiga. It may seem like a bad decision now - for obvious reasons - but it definitely didn't look so bad in 1987. Granted, the Amiga was so much more than a mere games machine - even in its latest iterations, already when they were too little, too late - but trying to capitalize on the Amiga's exceptional graphics and sound abilities for games (after all, why do you think that stuff like the Blitter and Copper were there for?) was NOT a bad idea. In fact, it was precisely that which allowed the Amiga 500 to sell so many machines in Europe and outdo the rather similar but less competent (graphically and sonically) Atari ST.

We all know the drill after 1992/3, but the emergence of the PC as the clear victor of the "computer wars" - which seems so inevitable and obvious in retrospect - was only clear AFTER the advent of the affordable 486+SVGA+SB clones and the release of "Doom".

tl,dr: A cheap but competent A500 sold as a "gaming machine" (or, "a toy") was not such a bad move by Commodore. It was just a bad idea in the long run after the paradigm shift brought forth by 3D gaming, which the Amiga (both OCS and AGA chipsets but also the 680x0 CPU family) were ill-equipped to deal with. And also the rise of the internet as we know it today (WWW/http protocol).

During Amiga's golden era, the Amiga desktop computers was the late 1980s "gaming PC" which can do both gaming and productivity to a certain degree e.g. missing stable "business" high-resolution modes.

Commodore couldn't repeat Amiga OCS's introductory wow factor when they dismantled the original Los Gatos Amiga team.

From Commodore The Final Years by Brian Bagnall, hi-res color Denise was mostly competed by the end of 1987 and it was delayed by management.

For Amiga OCS's existing Chip RAM bandwdith, there were debates between "low energy" monochrome hi-res Denise 8369/8369R1 vs maximiser's hi-res color Denise 8373. R&D effort was wasted on releasable monochrome hi-res Denise 8369/8369R1.

Drop-in ECS upgrade chips had a window opportunity from 1987 to 1989 which coincides with Microsoft's Windows 2.x (with Mac ports of Excel and Word) move to displace established text-based Lotus 123/WordStar/WordPerfect.

Following A500, Dale Luck wanted 16-bit (65,536) color before 24-bit (16.7 million) color chipset. Jeff Porter wanted "8 bit planes with 16 million colors" i.e. AGA. Meanwhile, SNES used a 15-bit (32,768) color palette with up to 256 colors display with chunky pixels.