Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

you need to factor in that there was 3 years between the C64 and A1000, but 7 years between the A1000 and A1200 - so it'd need to be over double the speed increase to be "equivalent"

No I don't.

Imagine if I was comparing the Amiga 1000 to the Amstrad CPC664 (my previous computer). It was released on April 25, 1985. The A1000 was released on July 23, 1985. Now let's say we agree that the A1000 was (say) 4 times better than the Amstrad. So by your reasoning Commodore would have to release a new Amiga 4 times better than the A1000 in October 1985!

If we are going to consider the time frame of updates, it should be within the same computer line. The C64 came out in 1982. The C128 added 80 column text and a 2MHz CPU in 1985, but 99% of games just ran in C64 mode. After that, nothing. The Amstrad CPC got a graphics upgrade in 1990, 6 years after the 464 (still the same old 4MHz Z80 though). The ZX Spectrum got 128k RAM and AY sound chip in 1985, but no CPU or graphics improvements. And it stayed that way until it was discontinued in 1992, 7 years later. The Tandy Color Computer came out in 1980. 6 years later the Color Computer 3 doubled the CPU speed and added some graphical improvements. The BBC Micro was introduced in 1981. 5 years later the BBC Master got 128k RAM, but graphics and sound etc. remained the same. It was discontinued in 1994, 9 years later.

Meanwhile the Amiga got 64 colors in 1986, 512k base RAM in 1987 (expandable to 1MB) in the A500, 14MHz 020 and 25MHz 030 in the A2500 in 1988/9, VGA screen modes and 2MB ChipRAM in the A3000 in 1990, and finally AGA in 1992 in the A1200 and A4000.

Comparing the Amiga to most other home computers, it certainly wasn't lagging in improvements over its lifespan.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Comparing the Amiga to most other home computers, it certainly wasn't lagging in improvements over its lifespan.

And if you compare it to PCs, it certainly was - which is what mattered in the end.

[FOL]

Its an Amiga, thats all that counts.
When your 14, you are not going to be disappointed with an AGA Amiga.


I never owned one until 2004. I got a CD32 at 16. Someone did borrow me an A1200 with PCMCIA CDROM, I was blown away at the time. I say borrow, they wanted me to set it up to do video editing. As they did professional filming of events. I was 15 at the time, first job, it was awesome.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

No I don't.

Imagine if I was comparing the Amiga 1000 to the Amstrad CPC664 (my previous computer). It was released on April 25, 1985. The A1000 was released on July 23, 1985. Now let's say we agree that the A1000 was (say) 4 times better than the Amstrad. So by your reasoning Commodore would have to release a new Amiga 4 times better than the A1000 in October 1985!

If we are going to consider the time frame of updates, it should be within the same computer line.

It's not my reasoning, it's yours. You said the step up from C64 to A1000 is comparable to the step from A1000 to A1200. All I'm saying is that's a rather disingenuous comparison if you ignore the time difference.

I think it's a dumb argument in the first place. The Amiga 500 (which was where most people went) felt like a massive leap over the C64 and even as late as 1988 seemed like the cutting edge. By 1992, however, the A1200 didn't feel like a big difference and compared to competition either from the PC for serious stuff or the MegaDrive/SNES for gaming, seemed generally behind the times.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by FOL

Its an Amiga, thats all that counts

If you are a potential customer having to make a decision between competing systems, no, that's "not all that counts."

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by FOL

Its an Amiga, thats all that counts.
When your 14, you are not going to be disappointed with an AGA Amiga.


I never owned one until 2004. I got a CD32 at 16. Someone did borrow me an A1200 with PCMCIA CDROM, I was blown away at the time. I say borrow, they wanted me to set it up to do video editing. As they did professional filming of events. I was 15 at the time, first job, it was awesome.

I was 18 and I still wasn't disappointed.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

The Amiga 500 (which was where most people went) felt like a massive leap over the C64 and even as late as 1988 seemed like the cutting edge.

Even in 1990 there was the PC-Engine and the MegaDrive, but the Amiga 500 was still pretty neat. In 1992 with the SNES and PC it was indeed a different market and the lack of software that could show off how the A1200 was better than the A500 didn't help.

[Promilus]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Not really. The 6502 was really ill-suited for higher programming languages. Its stack is too small (256 bytes) and it has no means of addressing data relative to the stack pointer, required for objects of automatic storage duration that are allocated on the stack.

Home computers never really were designed to handle much of the productivity software written in high level languages anyway and games back in 80s were written mostly in assembly (especially for commodore machines). So what's exactly your point?

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Interesting to note that the Archimedes had a shorter lifespan than the Amiga (8 years vs 11 years), during which time it received virtually no improvements apart from a slightly faster CPU. Yet strangely, fans don't complain bitterly about it.

RiscPC, various StrongARM systems and today the PRi. They don't really have anything to complain about, they can run the latest RiscOS on Pi.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Karlos

RiscPC, various StrongARM systems and today the PRi. They don't really have anything to complain about, they can run the latest RiscOS on Pi.

But... but it misses the 'Archimedes' sticker.

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by TCD

But... but it misses the 'Archimedes' sticker.

That frivolous Vampire thingie also misses the 'Amiga' sticker, for all we know

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Cris1997XX

That frivolous Vampire thingie also misses the 'Amiga' sticker, for all we know

Burn the heretics!

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by TCD

Burn the heretics!

Fine, fine! I'll bring my A500 and a bunch of garlic lol