Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Promilus

He ain't wrong about paula being pretty old tech in 92 and certainly old af in 93.

Nope - market penetration and standardization. How many % of PC's in 1992/1993 can provide stereo 4 channel PCM audio? How many of them can deliver quality higher than 22050Hz sample rate?
Such arguments are relative - to us Paula can be old but for many PC owners it was beyond real life scenario.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Nope - market penetration and standardization. How many % of PC's in 1992/1993 can provide stereo 4 channel PCM audio? How many of them can deliver quality higher than 22050Hz sample rate?
Such arguments are relative - to us Paula can be old but for many PC owners it was beyond real life scenario.

That's flawed argument when PC market is very large e.g. larger than 3DO's 2 million install base.

By 1995, Sound Blaster cards had sold over 15 million units worldwide and accounted for seven out of ten sound card sales.

Crushed the entire Amiga install base.

That's not including Sound Blaster clones from the likes of Yamaha.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

That's flawed argument when PC market is very large

But what proportion of them had 4 channel stereo PCM sound? None.

Game developers had to support PCs with nothing but 'PC speaker' sound if they wanted to capture that 'very large' market.

Crushed the entire Amiga install base.

Yes, but not because they had better PCM sound - which they didn't.

That's not including Sound Blaster clones from the likes of Yamaha.

I remember selling PCs with clone sound cards. Most of them were rubbish. I remember struggling to get games working with them. Meanwhile the Amiga did it effortlessly.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The narrative that refuses to die. Why are Amiga fans so invested in it?

"Reason #13 that I was disappointed with the A1200 - it was 'raped by incompetency'!"

Your narrative is false. Amiga's technology leadership under 1987's $700 USD was lost.

The Amiga has slight hardware and price premium over Atari ST and STe.

A1200 has healthy price margin when similar spec CD32 with 2X speed CDROM drive has 299 UKP price target when A1200 has 399 UKP. More than enough for 1 MB Fast RAM with DSP3210 @ 50 MHz or 68EC020-25.

A600, CDTV and CD32's FMV module was misguilded.

IDE and PCMCIA mandates shouldn't have delayed A1000+ AGA's introduction.

Fact: Bill Sydnes was fired for his debacle. Ali didn't factor in Sydnes' failure with PCjr.

[abu_the_monkey]

what exactly was the base model (absolute minimum spec) PC at the time the A1200 was released?

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But what proportion of them had 4 channel stereo PCM sound? None.

Game developers had to support PCs with nothing but 'PC speaker' sound if they wanted to capture that 'very large' market.

Yes, but not because they had better PCM sound - which they didn't.

I remember selling PCs with clone sound cards. Most of them were rubbish. I remember struggling to get games working with them. Meanwhile the Amiga did it effortlessly.

Paula has two DACs.

My Yamaha Opl3 Sound Blaster Pro clone with 16 bit audio in Windows 3.1 is fine.

Adlib was defeated by Sound Blaster.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

what exactly was the base model (absolute minimum spec) PC at the time the A1200 was released?

Intel's sales from 1992 to 1994 was dominated by 486 sales. Intel sold 6 to 7 million Pentiums by the end of 1994.

In 1994, second source x86 AMD was larger than Motorola in terms of revenue and full 32 bit CPU shipments. Motorola couldn't couldn't convert 68000's success for 68020, 68030, 68040 and 68060.

Motorola lost CPU instructions set independence.

Motorola's PowerPC switch was by a single customer i.e. Apple. Motorola didn't create a future for a commodity Unix/Linux platform. Learn from ARM.

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by hammer

Intel's sales from 1992 to 1994 was dominated by 486 sales. Intel sold 6 to 7 million Pentiums by the end of 1994.

In 1994, second source x86 AMD was larger than Motorola in terms of revenue and full 32 bit CPU shipments. Motorola couldn't couldn't convert 68000's success for 68020, 68030, 68040 and 68060.

that is not what I asked.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TCD

Could you elaborate on that claim?

Sound Blaster (not Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16 etc.) had one channel of 8 bit mono PCM sound.

Paula has 4 independent 8 bit channels each with its own playback frequency. To achieve the same with Sound Blaster cards you would need 4 of them.

Sound Blaster did have one thing Paula doesn't though, 9 channel synth sound. So it could play music and still have one channel for digital (non-looping) sound effects. Only problem is the synth chip sounded like a toy music keyboard - because that's what it was made for.

The synth chip gave PC games a certain 'sameness' to their music. sometimes it was appropriate, other times not. The Amiga can produce any sound you want so long as it doesn't need more than 4 channels, or more using a bit of CPU time if you do.

[Promilus]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Nope - market penetration and standardization. How many % of PC's in 1992/1993 can provide stereo 4 channel PCM audio? How many of them can deliver quality higher than 22050Hz sample rate?
Such arguments are relative - to us Paula can be old but for many PC owners it was beyond real life scenario.

It's less relevant what percentage of PCs back then had 4 channel PCM audio. It's more relevant that there were much more PCs with that in absolute numbers than all Amigas ever. And 92 is release date of GUS. So... just compare those 2 solutions and the answer should be pretty darn obvious - doesn't matter how much you want to sugarcoat it, Paula was obsolete tech by then.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Mikidi

Besides having 80s audiochip and not Doom, A1200 (and CD32) did not have EA's NHL series.

16bit Megadrive did.

Atari Falcon's 16 bit audio advantage wasn't a big system seller i.e. 13,000 unit sales level.

The focus is either full 32 bit texture mapped 3D gaming experience at PC's $1000 USD or strong 2D gaing experience at SNES level.

3DO has $500 to $699 USD price range.
A1200 has $500 to $599 USD price range.
SNES has $199 USD price range..

A1200 mastered neither of them. A1200's 2D has similar potential as SNES's strong 2D. Example, AGA's Reshoot Proxima 3 and several Street Fighter 2 AGA tech demos.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

that is not what I asked.

Your argument framing is flawed.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Sound Blaster (not Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16 etc.) had one channel of 8 bit mono PCM sound.

Paula has 4 independent 8 bit channels each with its own playback frequency. To achieve the same with Sound Blaster cards you would need 4 of them.

Sound Blaster did have one thing Paula doesn't though, 9 channel synth sound. So it could play music and still have one channel for digital (non-looping) sound effects. Only problem is the synth chip sounded like a toy music keyboard - because that's what it was made for.

The synth chip gave PC games a certain 'sameness' to their music. sometimes it was appropriate, other times not. The Amiga can produce any sound you want so long as it doesn't need more than 4 channels, or more using a bit of CPU time if you do.

Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 (Opl3) was introduced in 1991.

Sound Blaster 1.0 is 1980s competitor to Adlib.

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by hammer

Your argument framing is flawed.

how so?

the A1200 was a complete 'new minimum' system from commodore.
PC's of the time did not have the same minimum spec?

[hammer]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

how so?

the A1200 was a complete 'new minimum' system from commodore.
PC's of the time did not have the same minimum spec?

A1200/CD32's "minimum system" is meaningless when the install base is relatively small AND they are NOT sufficient for fast 386DX-33/386DX-40 with 4MB RAM game ports.

PC market size is very large and its minority "gaming PC" is far larger than AGA's install base.

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by hammer

A1200/CD32's "minimum system" is meaningless when the install base is relatively small AND they are NOT sufficient for fast 386DX-33/386DX-40 with 4MB RAM game ports.

PC market size is very large and its minority "gaming PC" is far larger than AGA's install base.

so are you saying that a fast 386DX-33/386DX-40 with 4MB RAM game ports is the minimum spec to be PC compatible when the A1200 was launched?
not forgetting you might need a sound card in there also.

interesting.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Dunny

...and your wifi driver is in alpha and regularly locks up the whole Amiga when uploading large amounts of data...

Still using my CF card here, even with SMB2FS and FTPMount.

For my PiStorm32/Emu68/RPi 4B, WiFi Pi was used for 16-bit color 1280x768p Windows RDP.

I used TUF Gaming AX6000 WiFi Router with just 2.4 Ghz WiFi active.

My gaming PCs are connected via 2.5Gbit/s LAN.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

so are you saying that a fast 386DX-33/386DX-40 with 4MB RAM game ports is the minimum spec to be PC compatible when the A1200 was launched?
not forgetting you might need a sound card in there also.

interesting.

For market size context, A1200's Q4 1992 release was released in low numbers i.e. 44,000 in the UK.

The main bulk of A1200/CD32's install base increase was in 1993.

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

https://web.archive.org/web/20230726...ory/sales.html


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

AGA install base from Amiga's strongest markets: 505,800.

Commodore UK MD's David Pleasance was working hard to hold the line.

For the UK market, the A1200's sales rivaled the A500's golden era.

The UK didn't have Japan's market size and couldn't sustain Commodore International. Germany has a unification economic issue with West Germany subsidizing the weaker East Germany.

---------------
Again, "By 1995, Sound Blaster cards had sold over 15 million units worldwide".

My ISA sound card was a lower-cost Yamaha OPL3 "Sound Blaster Pro 2.0" clone.

Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 (Yamaha OPL3) was released in 1991.

PC has its abstraction "AHI" layer with Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions or Windows 3.1.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

Paula has two DACs.

No, it has 4.

Amiga 8364R7 Paula dissection




Here we see the layout of one DAC (the other 3 are identical). Each of the squiggly yellow lines is the input of a transistor (red block) which produces output current, binary weighted according to its associated bit. There are 7 pairs of transistors which pull up or down (depending on waveform polarity) with 7 different current strengths. The upper 3 pairs (bits 6 to 4) are large because they pass high current. The 4 pairs below them are progressively smaller as they pass less current (bit 0 being the lowest). Analog output is the sum of all the currents being produced in parallel.



Follow the link above to see the entire chip in all its glory. You don't appreciate how much work went into it until you realize that it was all drawn by hand onto large sheets of vellum, then digitized, printed, and shrunk down photographically to make the chip masks.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

No, it has 4.

Amiga 8364R7 Paula dissection




Here we see the layout of one DAC (the other 3 are identical). Each of the squiggly yellow lines is the input of a transistor (red block) which produces output current, binary weighted according to its associated bit. There are 7 pairs of transistors which pull up or down (depending on waveform polarity) with 7 different current strengths. The upper 3 pairs (bits 6 to 4) are large because they pass high current. The 4 pairs below them are progressively smaller as they pass less current (bit 0 being the lowest). Analog output is the sum of all the currents being produced in parallel.



Follow the link above to see the entire chip in all its glory. You don't appreciate how much work went into it until you realize that it was all drawn by hand onto large sheets of vellum, then digitized, printed, and shrunk down photographically to make the chip masks.

From Commodore's A500 Training Manual (1989):



Paula's block diagram shows two DA (digital to analog).

From
https://archive.org/details/A500_Tra...e/n27/mode/2up
Commodore Business Machines' A500 service training manual was held in the Australian state of Victoria in 1989.

The accuracy for the A500 training manual is on Commodore.