Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Do you want me to carry on, or do you see already how ridiculous your point is?

Please, do continue I'm sure that hammer will get your point after just another 50 or so posts

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by TCD

Please, do continue I'm sure that hammer will get your point after just another 50 or so posts

That was a rhetorical question I'm pretty sure he's busy linking to his old mag screenshot archive as we speak.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by TheLurker

Not just EAB POV, but Europe/UK as well. I know US sales weren't a lot - 700,000 I've read - and ole hammer always brings up the Video Toaster niche deal in the walls of text. But the VT was released 5 years after the 1000.

A1000 was a sales flop.

VT was released in 1990 which is during Amiga's golden era. The Amiga install base was rapidly increased from 1987.

VT's announcement was in 1987 which is the same year as A2000's release along with A500.

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[ Show youtube player ]
For 1990, both PC and Amiga have Disney Animation Studio software.

Originally Posted by TheLurker

There were all kinds of graphic/multimedia applications available before the toaster. There's a reason InfoChannel/Scala originated on the Amiga.

InfoChannel 0.97L was released in 1988.

Originally Posted by TheLurker

And guess what? It doesn't matter if the primary use case was games in Europe. Commodore made the conscious choice to segment the platform into high-end/low-end.

That didn't matter when A500's cancellation and A600's sale flop led to Commodore's unstainable P&L losses by the end of 1992.

Commodore West Germany modified the baseline Amiga OCS design for A2000. A500 with ZII bus board and Buster.

Commodore Germany demanded a hard disk mandate that led to the A300 being scope creep into the A600. PCMCIA was inserted with A300's project.

This led to A500's cancellation and large unstainable P&L losses by the end of 1992. A600's profit margin is less than A500's.

Just from UK and Germany AGA numbers, A1200/CD32 vs A4000 (Germany's 11,300) ratio is about 50:1. The UK's A1200/CD32 sales in 1993 were near A500's golden era which is not replicated in Germany (second strongest Amiga market) or other European countries.


Amiga AGA install base from Amiga's two largest markets

Germany:
Amiga 1200 = 95,500
Amiga CD32 = 25,000
Amiga 4000/030 = 7,500
Amiga 4000/040 = 3,800
Sub-total: 131,800

UK:
Amiga 1200 (Oct - Dec 1992) = 44,000 (Amiga Format May 1993)
Amiga 1200 (Jan - Aug 1993) = 100,000 (Amiga Format September 1993)
Amiga 1200 (Xmas 1993) = 160,000 (Amiga Format 56 Feb 1994)
Amiga CD32 (Xmas 1993) = 70,000 (Amiga Format 56 Feb 1994)
Sub-total: 374,000

Total: 505,800 AGA units.

1. Reference
https://web.archive.org/web/20230726...ory/sales.html
2. Amiga Format 56 Feb 1994

[Thorham]

All this still doesn't make the Amiga a games system

[hammer]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

As a current owner of an A4000, A4000, A4000, A4000, A4000, A4000, I can swap in my Merlin, a Piccolo, a Picasso II or IV or an EGS Spectrum or a Voodoo 3-3000 or a Radeon 9200 or a ZZ9000 and get more or less the exact same gaming support with some varying amounts of performance and features, speaking to the diverse expandibility of big box Amigas.

1. They were mostly pointless for games when I had my A3000/030 (25 Mhz, AmigaOS 3.1, 4MB Fast RAM, 2MB Chip RAM, 120MB HDD, external CD-ROM 2X). This A1200 topic's date range is up to Commodore International's April 1994 bankruptcy.

2. A4000, a tiny minority in a few thousand units install base.

3. Amiga RTG wasn't matured in the 1990 to 1994 time scale. CGX was released in 1995 and buggy P96 was released in 1996. Commodore promised its RTG solution as FUD against GVP EGS efforts.

4. John Carmack's 1994 statement includes Amiga's tiny install base to run Doom. It's a PR crush for the 1994 operational Commodore UK and Commodore BV(Netherlands).

5. G-Rex 4000D PCI and Mediator PCI 4000D were released around the year 2001.

Vampire's "more than 10,000 unit sales" rivals Commodore Germany's A4000 unit sales. LOL.

https://amiga.resource.cx/adcoll/pre...cs_1993-11.jpg
In Nov 1993,
Merlin (ET4000W32) 2MB has $799 USD cost and it's $1685.31 in 2023 with inflation. This is about $799 USD is about $1000 AUD. This is the reason why I switch to the PC.

https://amiga.resource.cx/exp/merlin

the design of Merlin was not finished when the card went into production, leading to many problems
compatibility problems with other Zorro cards
incompatibility with 060 processors
incompatibility with all GVP processor cards
reset problems
the small registers of the ET4000 chip led to problems with 24 bit screens larger than 680×576 (8 and bit screens have no problems)

Germany has about 144,100 Zorro II/ Zorro III market size with 124,500 units for A2000 (from 1987 and beyond).

PS; My WinUAE configuration has A4000's G-Rex 4000D PCI and Voodoo 3 PCI. I have my "What If" big box Amiga alternate timeline test.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Thorham

All this still doesn't make the Amiga a games system

Sure. "We don't care about games" Amithlon was a failure along with AmigaPPC NG efforts.

There's a good chance the A3000/A4000's 32-bit Zorro III and 32-bit CPU slot market size is less than 30,000 to 40,000.

"The NeXT computers experienced relatively limited sales, with estimates of about 50,000 units shipped in total."

Commodore is too bloated to support NeXT's unit sale scale.

[Dunny]

eh, if it comes with a keyboard as stock it ain't a console.

[Amigajay]

The general term ‘console’ can be related a lot of things, but ‘video games console’ was termed as a device that played video games and connected to the users television set.

As far as i recall the A500 never came with a TV modulator until the A500+ pack in 1991, so for something on the very fringe of being called a video games console, the A500 is not it!

As for after this point, feel free to call them ‘Computer Consoles’ !

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

‘video games console’ was termed as a device that played video games and connected to the users television set.

That makes Apple II and certain IBM PC models consoles too


I really think it's easier just to follow what this page says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_computer

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by hammer

You stated, "By 1991 customers were already used to the fact the computer technology is moving at a rapid pace and that you can get the newest and fastest machines with more features at a higher price."

This market expectation is under the context of PC clones, NOT the Amiga!

No, there is not a shred of evidence to support your claim.
Moore's law or at least its effects were well know to all customers of digital devices. This is not even limited to computers.

Magazines and newsgroups were full of speculations of how Commodores next Amiga would be like, rumors were widespread and people across the board expected technical advances.

My first answer was in reply to your claim, a new advanced custom chipset by end of the 80s would have "osborned" the A500.
This is still nonsensical as the Osborn effect describes dropping sales due to premature announcements and NOT by actually releasing a new improved product.
This is vaporware vs. real product.

The release of the Macintosh II with high-res colour-gfx in 1987 did by no means hurt the b/w Mac Classic line, which would be continued until 1993.

Releasing some AA-equivalent 32bit Amiga chipset in 88 or 89 in an high end machine, would not hurt the low end A500, but prove very beneficial in the long run.
It also would have given customers the assurance the Amiga custom chip design is no dead end, but can evolve in a powerful way.

[pixie]

Originally Posted by Gorf

Releasing some AA-equivalent 32bit Amiga chipset in 88 or 89 in an high end machine, would not hurt the low end A500, but prove very beneficial in the long run.
It also would have given customers the assurance the Amiga custom chip design is no dead end, but can evolve in a powerful way.

Which is how Nvidia uses their top of the line 4090s... as an halo product.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by pixie

Which is how Nvidia uses their top of the line 4090s... as an halo product.

Exactly.
And in addition, there is alway a small fraction of customers, who are willing to pay insane money just to get the latest and greatest, so these top of the line products can still be profitable.

An AA-equivalent custom chip could have been done by Commodore and even produced in house by using two Denise chips in tandem. A little bit like the dual Monica setup in AAA: even pixels done by Denise-A, odd pixels done by Denise-B

Agnus would only need small changes like one additional select line on the RGA bus and one additional register to tell which Denise is targeted.
DMA fetches would be 32bit wide: lower halve goes to Denise-A, upper half to Denise-B.

A modified Amber-linebuffer would stitch the output together and feed the Vidiot.

So even with minimal R&D and unchanged chip-fab this should have been doable.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Thorham

All this still doesn't make the Amiga a games system

^ what he said

Yes, it mainly was a 'games' system for me, but I loved to use it as a computer too. Same with my C64.

[TheLurker]

Originally Posted by TCD

^ what he said

Yes, it mainly was a 'games' system for me, but I loved to use it as a computer too. Same with my C64.

I didn't even think of the Amiga as a games system, as I used it exclusively for graphics, sound, multimedia and video applications. I purchased 3 games total - Lemmings, Wings and It Came From the Desert. My magazine of choice was Amiga World, which was almost exclusively applications centric with a small number of pages for game reviews.

It doesn't matter if that's "niche". It was the primary use case in the US IMHO.

[Mikidi]

Originally Posted by TheLurker

I didn't even think of the Amiga as a games system, as I used it exclusively for graphics, sound, multimedia and video applications.

Audio was a dealbreaker for me. Not only the 4 channel limitation, the software was also bottleneck. There was only Protracker (and its clones) and Octamed, all trackers and with the same 4 channel limit. There was also only one proper audio editor. There was only one audio tool for one slot, eg. no competition for Octamed - only Octamed.

Expanding the audio hardware for Amiga (1200) was nonexistence and if I'd get some mystical AHI thingy, there was no proper software to support it.

Is there even modern 8 channel trackers for Amiga?

Sure there was the Midi side of Amiga, but apps like Bars & Pipes was for more aimed people who knew music first, then computers. Amiga was my first touch of music and computers, trackers is like coding the music.

I transitioned to PC & FastTracker and eventually to the modern DAWs.

[pixie]

Originally Posted by Mikidi

Is there even modern 8 channel trackers for Amiga?

Yes... and for a long time

[Mikidi]

Originally Posted by pixie

Yes... and for a long time

but... for Amiga 1200?

[pixie]

Originally Posted by Mikidi

but... for Amiga 1200?

Yes
Oktalyzer, Octamed

[TheLurker]

Originally Posted by Mikidi

Audio was a dealbreaker for me. Not only the 4 channel limitation, the software was also bottleneck. There was only Protracker (and its clones) and Octamed, all trackers and with the same 4 channel limit. There was also only one proper audio editor. There was only one audio tool for one slot, eg. no competition for Octamed - only Octamed.

Expanding the audio hardware for Amiga (1200) was nonexistence and if I'd get some mystical AHI thingy, there was no proper software to support it.

Is there even modern 8 channel trackers for Amiga?

Sure there was the Midi side of Amiga, but apps like Bars & Pipes was for more aimed people who knew music first, then computers. Amiga was my first touch of music and computers, trackers is like coding the music.

I transitioned to PC & FastTracker and eventually to the modern DAWs.

I had a Sunrize AD516. Although my use case was audio/voiceovers for video production/multimedia presentations, not music per se.

[Mikidi]

Originally Posted by pixie

Yes
Oktalyzer, Octamed

Oktalyzer was for KS1.2 and Octamed has only 4 audio channels.

Quick search resulted with Digibooster and Milkytracker, which both supports more than 4 audio channels.. but with not A1200 since there are no audio soundcards for it.

DigiBooster 3.1 system requirements:
AmigaOS 3:
Minimum:
68020, Harddrive, 8 MByte Fast-RAM, Workbench 3.0, MUI 3.8, AHI 4.x, screenmode 640x480.
Recommended:
AmigaOS 3.x, 68060/50 MHz, 16 MByte Fast-RAM, graphics card, soundcard.