Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Dunny

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.

You could've used mail order and pay in installments.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

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.

This may be valid for A600 but A1200 with better PCB design could accommodate standard 3.5'' - this was more like logistic decision to keep same IDE 2mm connector, cable and HDD's with A600 and A1200.
So to reduce cost, simplify logistic CBM selected more expensive and perhaps worse solution. I frequently saw A1200 config where 3.5'' HDD was mounted in place of 3.5'' FDD and FDD was connected externally (so from customer/user perspective HDD was more important than FDD).
Obviously CBM missed customers expectations - lack of / insufficient market research.

[oscar_ates]

Originally Posted by pandy71

This may be valid for A600 but A1200 with better PCB design could accommodate standard 3.5'' - this was more like logistic decision to keep same IDE 2mm connector, cable and HDD's with A600 and A1200.
So to reduce cost, simplify logistic CBM selected more expensive and perhaps worse solution. I frequently saw A1200 config where 3.5'' HDD was mounted in place of 3.5'' FDD and FDD was connected externally (so from customer/user perspective HDD was more important than FDD).
Obviously CBM missed customers expectations - lack of / insufficient market research.

There was also an issue with A1200 IDE interface protocol design, some harddisks were incompatible and was not booting the Amiga. I needed to buy a certain brand, it had to be if I remember correctly seagate.

[robinsonb5]

Don't forget the increased power requirements and heat of a 3.5in drive - laptop drives were designed to be installed in a cramped case with little or no cooling and to be power-efficient.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Thorham

You could've used mail order and pay in installments.

There was no need to do that though. We had RF modulators - either built-in or the A520 - and usually a spare TV lying around (or the main TV in the living room if you were a one-TV family like we were).

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

There was also an issue with A1200 IDE interface protocol design, some harddisks were incompatible and was not booting the Amiga.

Strange. I'm on my fifth or sixth HDD and never had issues. I've also had several optical drives and everything just worked.

Originally Posted by Dunny

There was no need to do that though. We had RF modulators - either built-in or the A520 - and usually a spare TV lying around (or the main TV in the living room if you were a one-TV family like we were).

Of course, but a monitor is so much nicer than a TV with RF. It's already much nicer on a C64. For games it's not too bad though.

[sandruzzo]

@hammer
Floating point calculation for games was a joke before Pentium 90 and above. Even PS1 used Fixed Point Math!

Amiga needed more than FP math...

[Promilus]

@Thorham - 3,5'' indeed did fit A1200 fairly easily and was a lot cheaper per MB... So here goes careful planning and target price out of the window...

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by pandy71

This may be valid for A600 but A1200 with better PCB design could accommodate standard 3.5"...
Obviously CBM missed customers expectations - lack of / insufficient market research

The A1200 was designed to be an AGA replacement for the A500. With smd technology they could make it a lot more compact, which some of us appreciated. Some of us thought the A600 was a neat design, and only lacked a full-size keyboard and AGA. Some of us weren't so desperate to get the biggest possible hard drive capacity at the lowest possible price.

But hey, that was only some of us. Others were looking over the fence and seeing PCs with ever-increasing hard drive sizes, faster CPUs and VGA with chuunky 320x200 graphics, and of course those amazing games like Wing Commander and Alone in the Dark that the Amiga couldn't do because crappy Commodore couldn't keep up with the times. And they didn't seem to care about ergonomics either, only that it had the latest hardware in it. Who cares if it's awkward to move around and set up? (I mean, PCs were and nobody cared about that, so...).

You say "Obviously CBM missed customers expectations - lack of / insufficient market research". Market research would have shown them that 90% of customers actually wanted a PC. But that wasn't the answer Amiga fans wanted to hear. Dave Haynie said of Mehdi Ali and Bill Sydnes that:-

They got there and between the two of them they decided that nobody wanted Amigas. They wanted PCs. The spent the next six months pretty much deciding that they should get out of the Amiga business, so they weren't doing anything but the Amiga 300

Haynie was clearly bitter about that - but Ali and Sydnes were right! Fans who complained about all the things the Amiga didn't have that PCs did were telling Commodore that they really wanted a PC!

- this was more like logistic decision to keep same IDE 2mm connector, cable and HDD's with A600 and A1200.
So to reduce cost, simplify logistic CBM selected more expensive and perhaps worse solution.

It's true that the A1200 was a 'stretched' A600 - not to simply logistics but to reduce design time. The same guy who designed the A600 also did the A1200, so of course he kept much of it the same. But there was no reason he couldn't have put a 40 pin standard size IDE connector on it (like the A4000 had) and made room in the case for a 3.5" drive. That would spoil its sleek lines, but it was his decision not to bloat it - one that I agree with.

So if you want someone to blame for this 'perhaps worse solution', put it on Jeff Franks and Harold Robbins - the engineers actually responsible for deciding to do it that way. If I was in Commodore I would have seriously considered making a version of this 'AA A600' (as they called it) that fitted inside the original A600 case. That would be really neat! It's actually possible to do this with a stock A1200 motherboard if you cut off the bit at the end with the joystick port.

I frequently saw A1200 config where 3.5'' HDD was mounted in place of 3.5'' FDD and FDD was connected externally (so from customer/user perspective HDD was more important than FDD).
.

Yes, and that solution was used on A500s too. Only slight problem on the A1200 is that the drive is on an angle, which hard drive manufacturers don't recommend because the bearings wear out faster. Not that this bothered Amiga fans, who would soon be ripping it out to put a bigger one in anyway. Got to have the largest hard drive you possibly can!

My A1200's internal floppy has been out of action for while, so I have been using an external A1010 drive while looking for a replacement. Today I received a Panasonic JU257 HD 3.5" floppy drive which I purchased off Trade Me for NZ$17. This is the same drive which was used in Amiga Technologies A1200s, and can easily be modified to make it 100% Amiga compatible.

My internal floppy drive used to be very reliable, and I enjoyed using it. Having a hard in there would be a bit weird, but as you say it was a possible solution if you desperately wanted to use a 3.5" drive. Personally I would rather have a nice lightweight 2.5" drive. My current hard drive is 'only' 1GB, but I have two 4GB drives pulled from old Pentium laptops if I decide that isn't enough. 4 GB! That would have blown our minds in 1992...

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

There was also an issue with A1200 IDE interface protocol design, some harddisks were incompatible and was not booting the Amiga. I needed to buy a certain brand, it had to be if I remember correctly seagate.

I never found one that didn't work on the A1200. I did have a Quantum 100 MB 'Go' drive on my A600 with KS 37.300 that sometimes wasn't recognized on cold boot or reboot (once it got 'stuck', it stayed that way even on soft reboot). I fixed it with a switch in the cable.

3.5" drives were often problematic due to their much longer startup time. This was caused by drive manufacturers only testing their stuff on PC's, which in those days spent a lot time in POST giving the hard drive plenty of time to spin up.

BTW it wasn't just the Amiga had sometimes had problems. I remember getting a bunch of new hard drives that wouldn't work with our 386SX motherboards. The supplier said it was caused by one having 3.3V logic and the other 5V. I don't know if that was true but we fixed it by sending the drives back and getting a different brand.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

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.

Laptop's 2.5-inch HDD was inferior in "MB per dollar" when to compared to a 3.5-inch HDD.

3.5 inch HDD fits inside A1200 since there are 3rd party 3.5-inch HDD kits.

https://www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=958
A1200 with 3.5 inch HDD. The 3.5 inch HDD needs electrical isolation from the metal shield e.g. paper or cardboard. The metal shield could be optimized for a 3.5-inch HDD.

A split power capable is needed for internal FDD and 3.5-inch HDD. A1200's PSU is designed to power an external FDD and an internal expansion card.


The main reason for the 2.5-inch HDD for A1200 is due to mistakes in the A300/A600's design. A1200 is not A600.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

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.

Wrong. The base model A1200's USD price was $599 when the UK had 399 UKP.

For the US retail market timeline:

Read https://archive.org/details/amiga-world-1992-12
Amiga World December 1992. A1200 missing in action. A1200 missed US Xmas 1992 sales. Amiga retailers were selling dead-end games ECS A600, A2000, A3000 and A3000T.


From https://archive.org/details/amiga-world-1993-01
Amiga World January 1993. A1200 was previewed.

https://archive.org/details/amiga-wo...e/n25/mode/2up
Amiga World February 1993. A1200 was offered for sale from Commodore. Page 26 of 124. The two 3rd party vendors have "CALL Me" for the A1200 offer.

https://archive.org/details/amiga-wo...93-03/mode/2up
Amiga World March 1993.
Page 22 of 124, MBX 1200 advert for A1200
Page 72 of 127, A1200 advert for $599, A1200HD for $849 $250 difference for just the bundled HDD.
Page 74 of 124, A1230 Turbo+ (68EC030 @ 40Mhz, 1 MB Fast RAM) starting from $399.

You're not going to win this debate.

For June 1993.
https://archive.org/details/amiga-world-1993-06
Page 30 of 100, A1200HD with 130 MB HDD = $899. (monitor not included)
Page 52 of 100, A1200 = $549.
Page 54 of 100, A1230+ Turbo = from $389. No Fast RAM fitted.

A1200 RAM/FPU board = from $299. No FPU and No Fast RAM.

Page 68 of 100, A1200 = $499. A1200 HD80 = $775.
GVP A1230 with 68030 @ 40Mhz = $599.

Page 74 of 100,
2.5 inch for A1200 package, add
40 MB = $199
80 MB = $275
120 MB = $405
GVP 1230 Turbo+ with 68030 @ 40Mhz and 4 MB Fast RAM = $599. (This is needed for Doom near full-screen with low details entry point).

VXL-30's
68030 @ 25 Mhz with 2 MB RM = $399
68030 @ 40Mhz with 68882 and 2 MB Fast RAM = $449
68030 @ 40Mhz with 68882 and 8 MB Fast RAM = $849

M1230XA
68030 with MMU @ 50Mhz with no Fast RAM = $399
68030 with MMU @ 50Mhz with FPU @ 50Mhz and 4MB Fast RAM = $699
68EC030 @ 40Mhz with no Fast RAM = $325
68EC030 @ 40Mhz with FPU @ 33Mhz and 4MB Fast RAM = $549

Page 86 of 100
A1200 = $569
A1200 with 40MB HDD = $739
A1200 with 60MB HDD = $789
A1200 with 84MB HDD = $892
A1200 with 128MB HDD = $929

A1200 ($499) with GVP 68030 accelerator with 4MB FastRAM ($599) = $1,098.
Select your HDD comparable against Gateway 2000's e.g. $405 for 120 MB.

A1200 ($499) with GVP 68030 @ 40Mhz accelerator with 4MB FastRAM ($599) and 120 MB HDD ($400)= $1,498. No monitor.

VS

https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf..._June_1993.pdf
Gateway Party List, Page 72 of 314

4SX-33 with 486-SX 33Mhz, 4MB RAM, 170 MB HDD, Windows Video accelerator 1MB video RAM, 14-inch monitor for $1494.
4DX-33 with 486-DX 33Mhz, 8MB RAM, 212 MB HDD, Windows Video accelerator 1MB video RAM, 14-inch monitor for $1895.


Page 128 of 314
Polywell Poly 486-33V with 486SX-33, 4MB of RAM, SVGA 1MB VL-Bus, price: $1250

SoundBlaster Pro clone ISA card is not expensive.
--------------
For Q4 1993 Xmas.

https://archive.org/details/amiga-wo...ge/n7/mode/2up
Amigaworld, October 1993, Page 66 of 104
Amiga 4000/040 @ 25Mhz for $2299 (WTF? price close to Pentium PC clone)
Amiga 4000/030 @ 25Mhz for $1599

Page 48 of 104
A1200 = $399.

Page 82 of 104
M1230X's 68030 @ 50Mhz has $349
1942 Monitor has $389
A1200 with 85MB HDD has $624
A1200 with 130MB HDD has $724

I'm providing the price list and you're not.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

@hammer
Floating point calculation for games was a joke before Pentium 90 and above. Even PS1 used Fixed Point Math!

Amiga needed more than FP math...

3DO, Saturn, and PS1 used fixed-point math, but these game consoles have discrete video memory.

The FPU requirement was pushed by Pentium PCs via Quake.

John Carmack's Quake has single-handedly culled many Pentium clones into oblivion or wreaked their revenues.

Carmack's statement against the Amiga was during 1994 still has operational Commodore UK and Commodore Germany which are Amiga's strongest markets.

$20 DSP3210's 25 MFLOPS FP32 @ 50Mhz offers an alternative from the mentioned fixed point 3D game consoles.

[sandruzzo]

@hammer

I would rather prefer to have a very strong enhanced blitter and copper than a dsp for Math.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The A1200 was designed to be an AGA replacement for the A500. With smd technology they could make it a lot more compact, which some of us appreciated. Some of us thought the A600 was a neat design, and only lacked a full-size keyboard and AGA. Some of us weren't so desperate to get the biggest possible hard drive capacity at the lowest possible price.

A1200 includes embedded AA3000+ hardware features that are missing on 16-bit A500 i.e. integrated 32-bit Ramsey and Buster features.

A1200's 32-bit Fast RAM controller is baked in.

PCMCIA's ISA-based bus implies a mini-PC bridgeboard integration on the Gayle which is 16-bit connected to the Budgie.

A500 doesn't have an ISA-based bus.

Ramsey provides 32-bit memory controller service for 32-bit 68020/68030 CPU.

A direct A500 into AGA wouldn't include Gayle (Fat Gary replacing Gary) and Budgie (Buster/Ramsey) modification.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But hey, that was only some of us. Others were looking over the fence and seeing PCs with ever-increasing hard drive sizes, faster CPUs and VGA with chuunky 320x200 graphics, and of course those amazing games like Wing Commander and Alone in the Dark that the Amiga couldn't do because crappy Commodore couldn't keep up with the times. And they didn't seem to care about ergonomics either, only that it had the latest hardware in it. Who cares if it's awkward to move around and set up? (I mean, PCs were and nobody cared about that, so...).

Commodore management wasted R&D time.

A600's "PC" interfaces such as PCMCIA and IDE weren't a system seller when the A600 was a sales flop. The focus should have been on VGA's pack pixels over PCMCIA and IDE.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

You say "Obviously CBM missed customers expectations - lack of / insufficient market research". Market research would have shown them that 90% of customers actually wanted a PC. But that wasn't the answer Amiga fans wanted to hear. Dave Haynie said of Mehdi Ali and Bill Sydnes that:-
Haynie was clearly bitter about that - but Ali and Sydnes were right! Fans who complained about all the things the Amiga didn't have that PCs did were telling Commodore that they really wanted a PC!

SNES is the other packed pixel 256 color display capable platform, not just the PC VGA.

Unlike Mehdi Ali and Bill Sydnes, Nintendo officially supported math acceleration DSPs for SNES.

For the Doom port, SNES only has one problem which is math power and Nintendo-guaranteed SuperFX2 support.

Again, A600's "PC" interfaces such as PCMCIA and IDE weren't a system seller when the A600 was a sales flop. The focus should have been on VGA's pack pixels over PCMCIA and IDE.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

@hammer

I would rather prefer to have a very strong enhanced blitter and copper than a dsp for Math.

Why?

Amiga blitter can add integer numbers, not just a move engine. The blitter can combine the data from the three source DMA channels in up to 256 different ways to generate the values stored by the destination DMA channel.

Amiga blitter can line draw and color fill polygons, the evolution is toward graphics DSP or GPU. 3DO is from key original Amiga engineers. I remember an Amiga article on the Amiga blitter and F-29 Retaliator.

Jay Miner noted the workstation-class flight simulators and attempted to deliver a solution to the masses.

[sandruzzo]

@hammer

I know well blitter.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

@hammer

I know well blitter.

$20 DSP3210 is just a quick fix for A1200's weak 3D capability.

[babsimov]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

So if you want someone to blame for this 'perhaps worse solution', put it on Jeff Franks and Harold Robbins - the engineers actually responsible for deciding to do it that way.

Yes Jeff Franck s not all white in the questionable design choices of the 600.

If I was in Commodore I would have seriously considered making a version of this 'AA A600' (as they called it) that fitted inside the original A600 case. That would be really neat! It's actually possible to do this with a stock A1200 motherboard if you cut off the bit at the end with the joystick port.

The 600 case is the worst Amiga case ever and this model was Commodore's worst mistake. For the AA500, Commodore should have simply reused the 500 case (like Atari for the Falcon). This would have made Commodore save money (the production line was profitable) and moreover Commodore in its history has regularly done this (VIC20 case reused for the C64 and the C16). Reusing the 500 case would above all have made it possible to have a 3.5 inch hard drive internally and in addition the expansion hatch would have been larger, which would have made it possible to have better expansion cards. The DSP should also have been included as standard. And all this for the summer of 1991, it would have been perfect. Of course the hard drive should have been standard. And even without mentioning always wanting a larger hard drive, a 3.5-inch hard drive would have made it possible, with equal capacity, to have hard drive as standard for less money.


Even better the AA3000 for 1990 instead of the ECS3000, and then the AA500 without DSP (optionnal on a expansion board) for september/octobre 1990. The 500+ ECS remain for the entry level at the same release date.

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by hammer

$20 DSP3210 is just a quick fix for A1200's weak 3D capability.

Quick fix arent' good fix

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But there was no reason he couldn't have put a 40 pin standard size IDE connector on it (like the A4000 had) and made room in the case for a 3.5" drive. That would spoil its sleek lines, but it was his decision not to bloat it - one that I agree with.

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.

Which one is it? The case had to be larger, or a 3.5 inch HDD already fits?