Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Cost of all the custom chips (and other chips except for DRAM) in the A1200 was $11. The A1200 was supposed to be a replacement for the A500 that only cost a little more (and would eventually be cheaper), not hundreds of dollars more. Putting a DSP chip in it would be an extravagance.

I was under the impression the A600 was supposed to be the A500 successor, not the A1200 - why would Commodore introduce two successors for the same machine in the same year and try to sell them in parallel?

As we know: having two machines targeting the low end and none targeting the mid range did not turn out well for Commodore. Understandably customers wanted the better machine that did cost only little more and rejected the A600.

So we went now (again!) full cycle:
The A1200 should have been the AA1000+ and it should have been introduced in 91 or at the latest in early 92.

Customers in most markets Commodore was targeting were willing to pay little bit more for a computer, that delivered the "bang for the buck".
A AA1000 with (little) FastRAM and DSP would have provided the specs and the necessary "awe-factor" to carry on the Amiga multimedia legacy.

For the customers that could not afford a mid-range computer just let then A500 run its course like they did with then C64 or Apple with the Apple IIe.
Maybe until 93.
The AA machines would switch to AA+ by then.

[Promilus]

@Gorf - A600 was going to be a dirty cheap ECS machine, cheaper than A500. But A500+ came out first and A300 project did get slightly fat and was too expensive so they had to stop distribution of A500 (+) because they could not sell A600. And even then they were only able to sell it after dropping the price massively (so... no business opportunity here). And then... A1200 came out pissing off A600 owners.

[TEG]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Cost of all the custom chips (and other chips except for DRAM) in the A1200 was $11. The A1200 was supposed to be a replacement for the A500 that only cost a little more (and would eventually be cheaper), not hundreds of dollars more. Putting a DSP chip in it would be an extravagance.

I think, for the 1992 A1200 people could pay more for a computer than for the 1987 A500. There was the inflation and especially, computers were becoming something more and more essential. The 20$ DSP could have been a very good investment for CBM if a "Boing Ball II" or "Juggler II" demo, I mean a new catching eyes demo, would have been made and ordered by Commodore to show never seen effect (yeah I know, this is the most unrealistic point of this DSP discussion).

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

In fact in 1992 nobody was expecting a DSP chip in any Amiga. It certainly was not something anyone was disappointed about at the time.

Not in France. I clearly remember, I was at the big computer exhibition in Paris, something one year before the A1200 was delivered, the CBM stand was still quite big and I asked to a Commodore representative if the awaited new machine will have a DSP and he answered me "probably not". So the idea was in the air.

By the way I regret to have no photo of those stand.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But why didn't they have a better product? Commodore could easily have put a DSP chip in the 'A1000jr', but would fans be satisfied with that? Of course not. The same old ECS chipset with DSP thrown in to compensate would not go down well.

Of course since the A1000jr itself was a braindead concept. I thought we already agreed on that ...
To come up with a new mid-range ESC machine, wenn the AGA chipset was already done is beyond stupid.
That's why the DSP should have been part of an AA1000

Dave Haynie put DSP in the A3000+, but couldn't finish the design because the AGA chipset wasn't working.

We are talking about two different machines here:
the A3000+ (with DSP) and the AA3000 (with AGA)
The first totally worked and the second also booted, but AGA needed some minor bug fixing.
In both cases I would consider the design per se as finished but not yet polished for production.
At this point in time it should have been a "all hand on deck" situation to make the AA3000+ a product and bring it to the market in 91 as the first computer of the new lineup (giving it the dame A4000 would be fitting, instead of the A4000 we got in reality a year later)

Until they got it going there wouldn't be any Amiga with DSP. Furthermore the A3000+ was going to be expensive, and they needed a much cheaper machine to attract more customers. Haynie got upset when the A3000+ was cancelled, but it was the right decision.

Again - two different machines.
The A3000+ got canceled because they didn't want to go the DSP route
The AA3000 eventually evolved into the A4000 with a lot of holdups, partial redesign cut downs during the process - with none of them being really helpful.

Perhaps if the engineers had concentrated on producing the A1200 in 1991 rather than playing around with exotic DSP chips

it was not "exotic" at all.
And it wasn't by any means a large group doing the A3000+ and the AA3000 boards ... more or less just one person.
Resources were wasted on other things like the CD-ROM drive for the A500, the afore mentioned A1000jr and of course designing PC boards.

it might have been released early enough to avoid Commodore's demise in 1994. Even when late it was a good seller, with demand constantly exceeding supply.

I agree here (also again!): the earlier the better
And yes: it surely would have made an impact.
But still AGA on its own is just missing the "awe-factor" - that little extra, that gave the Amiga the edge over contemporary machines for many years. Even by 91 AGA+020 would have been only barely catching up - missing the "one more thing" - the little extra.
A DSP could have been exactly that - other realistic suggestions welcome.

Having DSP sound capabilities, fast image editing/compression, and build in modem capabilities at the rise of the internet (especially in the US and Canada) do sound very convincing to me.

A non expanded Falcon is capable of playing mp3s - imagine Amiga owners sharing "music floppies" like game disks

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Very strange it hasn't happened yet

It's almost seems like nobody cares anymore

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by TCD

It's almost seems like nobody cares anymore

Perhaps it prevents similar discussions from spreading elsewhere?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Perhaps it prevents similar discussions from spreading elsewhere?

Maybe, but then it would really make sense to have a separate forum for 'those' threads.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by TCD

Maybe, but then it would really make sense to have a separate forum for 'those' threads.

Don't give anyone any ideas.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Don't give anyone any ideas.

I guess we can safely assume that we are way past the 'this will sort itself' point.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Don't give anyone any ideas.

Would not be a bad thing, would it?

It would make this and similar threads "disappear" from this sub-board, which some users clearly would prefer.
As for me: just move it to "nostalgia", because that's what it largely is.

[babsimov]

Originally Posted by hammer

Amiga Hombre 's PA-RISC aimed around 120 Mhz. If Commodore's PA-RISC didn't include an FPU, then DSP3210 @ 66 Mhz (33 MFLOPS FP32) is still useful.

The PA-RISC used for Hombre is based on the Hitachi PA50 (50 mhz).

The official documents from Ed Hepler give a lot of information about Hombre.
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=87342

As i understand, the PA/50 is used as a base, but the FPU has been removed. Ed Hepler indicates (for investors) that he would like to be able to include an FPU, or at least some FPU functions. He also wanted a PA-RISC license so that he could produce its own derivatives of PA-RISC, like Hitachi and others.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Gorf

As for me: just move it to "nostalgia", because that's what it largely is.

Or just create a new 'Ramble incoherently about stuff' forum

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by TEG

I think, for the 1992 A1200 people could pay more for a computer than for the 1987 A500. There was the inflation and especially, computers were becoming something more and more essential.

The audience also grew up - it were not longer kids and teens that would only play games, but older teens and young adults, that grew up with that kind of technology and waned something more powerful. Often earning their own money by then and no longer depending on convincing their parents to buy it.

[Mr-Z]

Since my A1200 has s PiStorm32+CM4 I'm not disappointed anymore

[TEG]

Originally Posted by Mr-Z

Since my A1200 has s PiStorm32+CM4 I'm not disappointed anymore

Now we need a DSP3210 emulator for the CM4 to judge the pertinence of the different points of view expressed in this thread

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Gorf

I was under the impression the A600 was supposed to be the A500 successor, not the A1200 - why would Commodore introduce two successors for the same machine in the same year and try to sell them in parallel

The A600 was supposed to be the C64 successor.
The A1200 was replacing the A500 in the Commodore Line. The A500 was the mass market standard Amiga before 1992. So was supposed to be the A1200 after.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Mr-Z

Since my A1200 has s PiStorm32+CM4 I'm not disappointed anymore

Honestly with hardware this fast and this capable, with new OS updates to boot you might be forgiven for thinking the Amiga was no longer dead.

But still there are people disappointed with the Amiga.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Dunny

But still there are people disappointed with the Amiga.

No, just with the AGA machines at the point of their release, which led among other things to an early demise of the platform
Thats all.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

The A600 was supposed to be the C64 successor.
The A1200 was replacing the A500 in the Commodore Line. The A500 was the mass market standard Amiga before 1992. So was supposed to be the A1200 after.

So they wanted an incompatible C64 successor with hard disc and PCMCIA?
While still working on the C65?
And while still selling the C64 after the A600 came out?
I see ...

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Gorf

So they wanted an incompatible C64 successor with hard disc and PCMCIA?While still working on the C65?And while still selling the C64 after the A600 came out?I see ...

I'm not saying that's logical but that's what they were saying when the A1200 was released. The A300/600 was supposed to be the low cost entry to the Commodore machines and replacing the C64 and the A1200 the successor of the A500 for the home computers. The A4000 replacing both the A2000 and the A3000 for the professional market.
They were thinking in market segment, not compatibilities or OS or whatever.