Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

That's very nice and polite way to say it.

You see, I am religious person. And when I was youngster, and was hearing scratching and beeping from PC speaker for the first time, it helped me envision how sounds in hell sounds like.

"Welcome to Hell! You were an Amiga fan? Well, down here we use 386s with Adlib soundcards! Enjoy! Muahahahahaha!"

I suspect most people moved with what was around them. I owned an A1200 - and loved it, btw - because everyone else had one. Literally everyone I knew had an Amiga of some description.

We had user groups well into the very late 90s full of them. Shops were starting to sell less Amiga games, but the local market had stalls of games for a few quid each. Heaven.

Hammer and Bruce can quote sales figures until the cows come home, they don't mean anything to anyone but them. I used Amigas because everyone else did.

I only jumped ship to the PC when it became necessary. But you best believe that when I got the opportunity a couple decades later to go back to the 1200? I jumped at the chance.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Dunny

I don't think anyone is arguing that the PC didn't murder the Amiga for gaming.

But the games I saw on average consumer PCs of friends around me back when AITD came out were awful and the sound was worse than on the Amiga. You can't say that it wasn't - because that was my lived experience.

Maybe you and your rich circle of friends could afford gaming PCs at that point in time but nobody I knew could. It was going to be a good few years after that before PCs became anything like affordable for the average UK buyer.

My family's computer budget remained around $1500 AUD budget from 1989 to 1994. A500 Rev6A Starter Pack + 1084S monitor was about $1300 in 1989. A500 had the "power without the price" entry point in 1989. In 1990, a 512KB RAM card was purchased for A500.

There was a time when 386DX-33/386DX-40 and 486SX-25/486-33 neared $1500 budget.

$1500 AUD is equivalent to about $1000 USD or 750 UKP.

My family's annual budget for computers in your UK's context is between 399 UKP to 800 UKP i.e. consumers above 399 UKP and below 999 UKP.


For Australia
June 1992's PC 386DX


During Australia's October 1992,

386DX-40 PC with 128 KB cache, 2 MB RAM, 80 MB HDD, 1.44 FDD, Keyboard, Super IDE card, 512 KB SVGA card, SVGA monitor, 2 serial, 1 printer port, 1 game port, mini-tower) has $1570 AUD

VS

June 1993's Amiga 1200.


Amiga 1200 wasn't a player in Australia's Q4 1992 market due to low production units. A1200 had just 44,000 units in the UK.

vs

Sep 1993's 486SX25 (near Xmas 1993)


In Australia, the Amiga wasn't price competitive later in 1992 and 1993.


ET4000 for $145 AUD.
Sound Blaster 2.0 for $135 AUD.

This is without factoring PC's "new 32 bit texture-mapped 2.5D/3D game experiences" in 1992 to 1994 i.e. software sells hardware.

1992's A600 had a sales flop debacle. Cite: Commodore the Inside Story - The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant by David Pleasance.
----------------------------------



https://archive.computerhistory.org/...-05-01-acc.pdf
Page 119 of 981, DataQuest's market data.

For 1992
68000-12 = $5.5.
68EC020-16 PQFP = $16.06, it's $15 in 1993 Q1.
68EC020-25 PQFP = $19.99, it's $18 in 1993 Q1.

68030-16 CQFP = $70, Y1993 has $60. Not price competitive.

68EC030-25 PQFP = $35.94. Not Unix/Linux capable.
68030-25 CQFP = $108.75, Y1993 has $92. Not price competitive when AMD's Am386-40 enters the market, Motorola focused on Intel price guide for the MMU equipped 68030. For Sega Saturn, 68030 was rejected on price against SuperH2.

68040-25 = $418.52 (not price competitive), Y1993 has $337.50 (not price competitive). The BOM cost for the full 68040-25 is the same as 68EC040-25 since they use the same chips.
68EC040-25 = $112.50 (useless for desktops)
---
Competition

AM386-40 = $102.50, Y1993 has $42.75. Unix/Linux capable.
386DX-25 PQFP = $103.00, Y1993 has $55.25. Unix/Linux capable.

486SX-20 PQFP = $157.75, Y1993 has $87.75. Unix/Linux capable.
486DX-33 = $376.75, Y1993 has $205.75. Unix/Linux capable.
486DX2-50 = $502.75, Y1993 has $275.00. Unix/Linux capable.

Discounts are not included.

A1200 has a "healthy profit margin" - Commodore the Inside Story- The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant by David Pleasance. A1200 has been PCJR'ed.

Mass MMU deployment enables Xenix, Linux, Windows NT and OS/2. ARM world focused on MMU enabled Linux.

Motorola wasn't wise enough promote mass Unix/Linux as an insurance against depending on single source vendor platforms like Atari TOS, C=Amiga and Apple Mac. Motorola should have MMU equipped 68010+ to price out 68000 i.e. pricing out the 68000 prepares for 68020/68030/68040.

ARM gained standard MMU with ARMv4T instruction set.

For handhelds, Palm OS 5.0 switched to ARMv4T CPU and dumped uncompetitive DragonBall 68K.

Motorola lost workstations.
Motorola lost desktops.
Motorola lost game consoles.
Motorola lost handhelds.

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by hammer

My family's computer budget remained around $1500 AUD budget from 1989 to 1994. A500 starter kit + 1084S was about $1300 in 1989. A500 had the "power without the price" entry point in 1989.

There was a time when 386DX-33/386DX-40 and 486SX-25/486-33 neared $1500 budget.

$1500 AUD is equivalent to about $1000 USD or 750 UKP.


For Australia
June 1992's PC 386DX


VS

June 1993's Amiga 1200.


Amiga 1200 wasn't in Australian Q4 1992 market due to low production units.

vs

Sep 1993's 486SX25 (near Xmas 1993)


In Australia, the Amiga wasn't price competitive later in 1992 and 1993.

This is without factoring PC's "new 32 bit texture-mapped 2.5D/3D game experiences" in 1992 to 1994.



ET4000 for $145 AUD.
Sound Blaster 2.0 for $135 AUD.

Yeah, this is how I recall it.... AU has always been behind the times somewhat.


Initially I wasn't disappointed in the A1200, but I do admit a prime motivator to buy it, was my loyalty to the Amiga brand, and at the time I thought I was helping 'support the company' for their 'next' computer, that was gunna compete head to head with the newer peecees & graphics card that were starting to hit the market...


Of course, the rest is history ...but I still have the A1200 ~ I can't even recall how many times I've replaced x86 stuffs....(should've kept them as well, looking at vintage c86 hardware prices =)

[hammer]

Originally Posted by giantclam

Yeah, this is how I recall it.... AU has always been behind the times somewhat.

Initially I wasn't disappointed in the A1200, but I do admit a prime motivator to buy it, was my loyalty to the Amiga brand, and at the time I thought I was helping 'support the company' for their 'next' computer, that was gunna compete head to head with the newer peecees & graphics card that were starting to hit the market...

Of course, the rest is history ...but I still have the A1200 ~ I can't even recall how many times I've replaced x86 stuffs....(should've kept them as well, looking at vintage c86 hardware prices =)

When compared to the US, Australia had a slightly weaker currency but it's stronger than New Zealand's.

A1200 had potential when it wasn't "PCJr'ed" into oblivion.

Flyin High AGA example

[ Show youtube player ]
Running on AGA.

[ Show youtube player ]
Running on 68040.

Flyin High's texture mapped 3D is fixed point math, hence 68LC040 and 68LC060 is enough. 3DO and PS1 are fixed point math based 3D.

A1200's AGA needs math power at about 040 and 060 level i.e. $20 DSP3210 @ 50Mhz.

Since the stock A1200 had a "healthy profit margin" for Commodore, the priority should be DSP3210 and 68EC020-25 instead of A1200HD's uncompetitive laptop 2.5 inch hard disk SKUs. Commodore Germany's demanded hard disk capable and hard disk equipped A600 and A1200 SKUs.

Most customers are looking at compute power per dollar with mass storage taking the back seat.

A1200's "healthy margin" claim by David Pleasance is found in Commodore the Inside Story - The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant, Chapter 12.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by gunatm

No. I was a hardcore Amiga user and for me the option to use 256colours/Ham8 was a winning situation. In 1995 when I got my A1200 there were still some good games made. In the end of 1996 I bought my first PC, and I used my A1200 still for quite a while upgraded with a Blizzard 1230IV including SCSi.

AGA had potential when the primary object manipulator wasn't the Blitter.

[ Show youtube player ]
Quests Of Nargoth running AGA HAM8, unreleased RPG Amiga game.

This game tech demo runs fine on AGA's 640x200 HAM8 (raster display) with PiStorm32-Emu68 (compute power for object manipulator processing).

For Quake 320x200p benchmarks with high CPU power, AGA 256 colors has about 50 fps while HAM8 has about 40 fps. HAM8 has overheads on the Amiga AGA. The display capability is okay.

With Fast RAM and strong CPU, AGA can handle 640x200p 8 bitplanes display with a reasonable frame rate.

Display capability is nothing without a strong object manipulator processor. For 3D, AAA would be nearly useless with 68EC020-16 @ 7Mhz effective.

I purchased my A1200 Rev 1D4 as "not working, as is" in the year 2020, but it was working with the timing issue in the expansion bus and the floppy drive had failed. My assessment for A1200 is the need for compute math power, hence I purchased TF1260 with full 68060 Rev1. My alternate timeline without my A3000 would be A1200 with 68LC040 or 68060, but the install base is a concern.

Like SNES, A1200 can't avoid DSP and SuperFX addon tactics.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

From my recollection the majority of fans who were disappointed with the A1200 on release were disappointed before it was even a thing, and it would take something truly earth-shattering to change their minds. Nothing that Commodore could realistically produce would satisfy them.

A1000 was "earth shattering" so to speak, regarding its capabilities. A500 price and accesibility continued that trend. But god forbid anybody could be disappointed with A1200, which has offered none of that and was merely a piddling update compared to these models. I can't even blame Commodore that much for this, because the times of miracle chips and maverick designers were over, but the fact remains, and so I can't blame those who thought so at the time (or now) either.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The sooner those people piss off and go play with their PCs or PlayStations or whatever the better.

Ah, you got to love the welcoming (and not at all elitist) attitudes of some of the resident grognards But, understandably, in the Church Of Commodore there is no room for apostates! Even if the idea of being able to chew gum and walk at the same time (ie not being a stuck up fanboi and diversify the hardware) is these days quite widespread among the peoples of this Earth. I'd call it common sense, but if you want to insist that we are somehow "butt hurt", then feel free to do so, though I think it's rather self evident that the only people ITT this label applies to are the ones who can't accept this simple logic.

Originally Posted by Dunny

"Welcome to Hell! You were an Amiga fan? Well, down here we use 386s with Adlib soundcards! Enjoy! Muahahahahaha!"

I must admit it's quite eyebrow-raising to read this kind of mockery from somebody who has originated from and is well known and respected in the ZX Spectrum scene. Surely you must see the similarities?

That aside from the fact that I'd much rather play AitD (etc etc) on a machine with Adlib than not play it at all on the glorious A1200 with Paula.

Originally Posted by Dunny

I suspect most people moved with what was around them. I owned an A1200 - and loved it, btw - because everyone else had one. Literally everyone I knew had an Amiga of some description.

Seems like you and your circle of rich friends were living the good life then

Well, I owned an A500 well into mid-Nineties, and so did most people around me (and some still using 8 bit stuff) with nary a A1200 in sight (although some more well to do ones did have 3/4-86s). I guess I could extrapolate it into some universal truth (and don't you dare question my "lived experience"!) but I won't, since these kinda local anecdotes (which Bruce is particularly fond of) mean nothing when discussing global trends.

And the fact remains, much as y'all like to complain about hammer's syntax, is that 386/486 (and even Pentiums soon) were not really the domain of the "rich" anymore, even in the early Nineties. Saying so is a really silly attempt to turn it into a class war, even more so when we all know that it's the humble PC which ended up actually being the "people's computer", not some single-brand machine. More and more middle class households were buying into this, and even the less well to do enthusiasts, because they could see that in the short and long run the pay off is much better than getting bogged down with a dead end platform with no modern software (be it games or standard template programs).

[hammer]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

A1000 was "earth shattering" so to speak, regarding its capabilities. A500 price and accesibility continued that trend. But god forbid anybody could be disappointed with A1200, which has offered none of that and was merely a piddling update compared to these models. I can't even blame Commodore that much for this, because the times of miracle chips and maverick designers were over, but the fact remains, and so I can't blame those who thought so at the time (or now) either.

With US inflation, A500's 1987 $699 USD price point is about $863.20 USD in 1992. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about...ion-calculator

A1200's $599 USD price point in Q4 1992 went Atari ST/PCJr tactics and A1200 still has a "healthy profit margin" for Commodore.

A1200's $599 USD price point in 1992 would be $485.05 in 1987 i.e. an Atari ST.

3DO targeted the $699 price number, but this is a pure "games console". $699 in 1993 would be $549 in 1987. The A500's price range in 1988.

The Amiga has a slight premium hardware over the cheapo Atari ST. I didn't expect the Amiga went "Atari ST".

Atari Falcon picked the wrong parts and Atari ST's games back catalogue was the inferior versions. My Atari Falcon's component selection would be 68EC020-25 and DSP3210 @ 50 Mhz on 32-bit bus. 68EC020-28 Mhz would be needed to close the gap with fast 386DX-33 which countered Am386-40

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by hammer

A1200's $599 USD price point in 1992 would be $485.05 in 1987 i.e. an Atari ST.

Not quite so, because without HDD A1200 was rather pointless, whereas A500 or Atari ST made perfect sense at a time when great games fit on 1-2 floppies.

[OlafSch]

@Hammer

Harddrives were standard at PCs at that time. You leave away important but expensive components and then you are profitable? Without processor it would have been even more profitable . Reality was most games at that time already run from Harddrives. You cannot sell something that runs from 8-10 discs. Today we have whdload so the problem is no longer there, at that time it was a big problem. To get it somehow usebale from disc needed additional work and thus costs, for a much smaller and shrinking market. Then easiest way to solve it... drop amiga at all. And that happened.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

@Hammer

Harddrives were standard at PCs at that time. You leave away important but expensive components and then you are profitable? Without processor it would have been even more profitable . Reality was most games at that time already run from Harddrives. You cannot sell something that runs from 8-10 discs. Today we have whdload so the problem is no longer there, at that time it was a big problem. To get it somehow usebale from disc needed additional work and thus costs, for a much smaller and shrinking market. Then easiest way to solve it... drop amiga at all. And that happened.

Desktop PCs had the cheaper dollar per MB 3.5 inch HDDs.

A1200 is not a laptop!

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by hammer

Desktop PCs had the cheaper dollar per MB 3.5 inch HDDs.

A1200 is not a laptop!

Laptop?

A1200 competed with desktop PCs

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by hammer

My family's computer budget remained around $1500 AUD budget from 1989 to 1994. A500 Rev6A Starter Pack + 1084S monitor was about $1300 in 1989.

Dude, you could afford a damn monitor???

Jesus. I still don't have one for the Amiga. Nobody did, we used the RF port and a colour portable TV. My A1000 came with an A520.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I must admit it's quite eyebrow-raising to read this kind of mockery from somebody who has originated from and is well known and respected in the ZX Spectrum scene. Surely you must see the similarities?

We were kids when we had Speccies The Amiga was the upgrade, the PC was not. The PC was great for spreadsheets in Lotus, not games.

Seems like you and your circle of rich friends were living the good life then

As I say, we were kids when we had Speccies, I didn't get the Amiga 1000 - second hand for £360 made by working four or five paper rounds over the summer - until I was 16. The 1200 I didn't get until I was 21 in (I think) 1995 and working a stable job!

But that was pretty short lived and about the turn of the century I caved and bagged a PC - by that time the good games were coming out and the Amiga was feeling very slow.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

Laptop?

A1200 competed with desktop PCs

2.5-inch IDE HDDs are laptop components and they have an inferior "dollar per MB" value.

Without modification, A1200 officially supports laptop 2.5-inch IDE HDDs.

Hard disk is platform-neutral and Commodore selected a handicap when they selected a laptop 2.5-inch IDE HDDs while squeezing every buck on the CPU. LOL. Commodore Germany's hard disk-capable A600 mandate was a sales flop and it doomed Commodore. A600's IDE and PCMCIA adventure didn't improve Commodore's profitability.

The first public release of WHDLoad was on September 5, 1996.

The A1200 wasn't using 1.44 MB (1.76 MB for A3000/A4000's custom half-speed FDD) high-density FDD.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Dude, you could afford a damn monitor???

Jesus. I still don't have one for the Amiga. Nobody did, we used the RF port and a colour portable TV. My A1000 came with an A520.

That's a demographics issue with your immediate social circle, but it doesn't remove the fact that John Carmark's statement against the Amiga is about the install base to run his games with minimal expense risk to his company.

My 1084S monitor doubles as a secondary small TV when connected to a VCR. 1084S monitor supports composite inputs which many VCRs also support. It's a matter of priority.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Not quite so, because without HDD A1200 was rather pointless, whereas A500 or Atari ST made perfect sense at a time when great games fit on 1-2 floppies.

My UK-originated A1200 Rev 1D4 wasn't the A1200/HD model and Commodore selected an inferior "dollar per MB" 2.5-inch laptop HDD.

The reason why I argued for 25 Mhz or 28 MHz CPU clock speed is to exploit the general consumer's ignorance about CPU clock speed i.e. the same tactics for crappy 3.2 Ghz PPE for Xbox 360 and PS3, the Ghz race and 'etc'.

------
AMD aimed at 40Mhz for its 386DX clone when near-price competitors are either 386DX-33 or 486SX-25. In the 1990s, there was extensive marketing about the number four, 4th gen, and quads.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I said,

"the majority of fans who were disappointed with the A1200 on release were disappointed before it was even a thing."

The system requirements for Alone in the Dark were low enough (286, 640k, MCGA) that the A1200 should have been able to handle it, but in late 1992 the A1200 had only just been released and had virtually no user base. If the game was to be ported to the Amiga they would target OCS because that's where the market was. But this would be challenging and the results disappointing - if they even bothered. Amiga fans were primed to expect this ever since VGA games started coming out on the PC.

So it would be "Oh look, PCs are already getting fantastic games like Alone in the Dark and now finally we get a machine that makes it possible on the Amiga too, but how long before we get the games?". You're not going to get Alone in the Dark on the Amiga until maybe mid 1993 if you're lucky, which makes you sorely disappointed that the A1200 wasn't a thing a year earlier. In practice of course we didn't get this game at all (unless you ran a Mac emulator), just another example how the A1200 was way to late to avoid disappointment.

SNES had extra time to build a 256-color install base when it landed on Amiga's core European markets. SNES was in a better position in terms of the higher install base which feeds into 3rd party game studio's investment decisions.

PC wasn't designed like a games console, hence its graphics hardware is modular and upgradable. The majority of PC owners weren't locked out of VGA/SVGA clone upgrades.

For pre-Amiga RTG, the Amiga platform behaves like a game console generation switch since "Amiga graphics" wasn't modular by design.

Only Amiga rendered the full 32-bit 68020/68030/68040 Amigas as dead ends for 256-color Amiga games.

PC had a longer time to build a 256-color install base in addition to superior economies of scale and modularity.

Commodore's best revenue years for the Amiga were in 1989, 1990, and 1991, hence Commodore has a dilemma.

If AGA was released in 1991 as the AA500+ and AA3000+ while ignoring Commodore Germany's IDE demands, the AGA Lisa's fabrication capacity needs to be ready by early 1991.

The AGA transition during 1991 needs to reach 1 million units production rates or cut the "fat" in Commodore's corporate operations e.g. early PC clone manufacturing termination and convert into Nintendo/Apple style single platform focus.

In the early 1990s, PC SVGA cloners and SNES weren't crazy enough to mandate 16.7 million 24-bit color palettes as their baseline designs i.e. 18-bit and 15-bit color palettes were enough.

1991's 1000Jr(A2200) has extra chips for PIO-0 IDE without using the Gayle chip.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

Commodore selected an inferior "dollar per MB" 2.5-inch laptop HDD.

It wasn't inferior, it was necessary to fit the form factor of the A1200. To support a 3.5" hard drive the A1200 case would have to be significantly larger, and the power supply would need higher wattage. These things would raise the price, not only of the HD model but also the base model.

The 'standard' price of the A1200 in the US was $399 for the base model, with $140 extra for the HD/40 model. Bare 40MB 3.5 inch drives were selling for perhaps $20 less than that, but after factoring in the required cable, bigger case and power supply there wouldn't be anything in it.

The reason why I argued for 25 Mhz or 28 MHz CPU clock speed is to exploit the general consumer's ignorance about CPU clock speed i.e. the same tactics for crappy 3.2 Ghz PPE for Xbox 360 and PS3, the Ghz race and 'etc'.

That's disgusting. Amiga fans would not be amused.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

To support a 3.5" hard drive the A1200 case would have to be significantly larger

That's not what you said before

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Unless you had a serious case of PC envy and just had to have the biggest drive possible, in which case it was possible to stuff a 3.5" drive into the A1200.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by hammer

That's a demographics issue with your immediate social circle, but it doesn't remove the fact that John Carmark's statement against the Amiga is about the install base to run his games with minimal expense risk to his company.

My 1084S monitor doubles as a secondary small TV when connected to a VCR. 1084S monitor supports composite inputs which many VCRs also support. It's a matter of priority.

Of course it's a matter of priority. If a monitor costs at least a significant portion of a month's wages - if not more - and a TV will do the same job then you don't buy a monitor.