Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Amigajay]

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 ...

Well no, because the original A300 brief was for a alot cheaper machine to fill the gap between the C64 and A500.

C65 was abandoned in 1991, and rightly so, the market for enhanced 8-bit machines wasn’t there by the failure of MSX2, Sam Coupe, Amstrad Plus models in the west.

C64 was probably still sold cause Ali f’up the A300 plans and made the A600 come out at the same price as the A500+ and thus having no model to place where the C64 was.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

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.

I guess that was just a retrofitted excuse for the press.
The fact that they did stop the A500+ after the A600 release, but not the C64 tells otherwise.

Also: the A500 was already less expensive than the C64+Floppy, and nobody would use the 64 without it in 1992.

Whatever market segment they might wanted to target with a really cheap A300: it was non existent anyways - not other company swooped in to take that segment. There was no demand.

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Well no, because the original A300 brief was for a alot cheaper machine to fill the gap between the C64 and A500.

See above - there was no real gap anymore, since nobody was interested in a C64 without floppy drive.

[sokolovic]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it was a far fetched argument to justify the A600 release afterward, especially after the release of the A1200.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Gorf

I guess that was just a retrofitted excuse for the press.
The fact that they did stop the A500+ after the A600 release, but not the C64 tells otherwise.

Also: the A500 was already less expensive than the C64+Floppy, and nobody would use the 64 without it in 1992.

Whatever market segment they might wanted to target with a really cheap A300: it was non existent anyways - not other company swooped in to take that segment. There was no demand.



See above - there was no real gap anymore, since nobody was interested in a C64 without floppy drive.

The A500+ and A600 were the same price, every reason to drop the A500+ after the A600 came out. Both being £399 and the C64 £149 in the UK.

C64 and Floppy was £350 in the UK, still £50 cheaper than the A500. And some markets are totallly different, uptake of C64 floppy drives was small in the UK with the majority of software on cassette even after 1992.

Find it strange why you think there was no market for a cheaper Amiga? Imo the only way Commodore could have survived long enough to get Hombre out was too cost reduce the OCS machines down to £200. Just because no other company did it, was more down too they couldn’t do it rather than nobody wanted a slice of that pie!

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

The A500+ and A600 were the same price, every reason to drop the A500+ after the A600 came out. Both being £399 and the C64 £149 in the UK.

AFAIK in some markets the A600 was around $50 more expensive the the A500 initially. In any case:
it was more expensive to produce, so even at the same price it would cut into Commodores margins ...

C64 and Floppy was £350 in the UK, still £50 cheaper than the A500. And some markets are totallly different, uptake of C64 floppy drives was small in the UK with the majority of software on cassette even after 1992.

guess it's time for some old magazines again
naa - to lazy for that right now.

If we take a £50 gap it would still be nonsense to try to fill that with a new product placed in between.

The good old Datasette - well that was a thing of the past in Germany by end of the 80s.

Find it strange why you think there was no market for a cheaper Amiga?

Not only particularly for the Amiga but for any home computer.
As you pointed out by the MSX2, Sam Coupe and Amstrad Plus.
Also very low end PCs like the Tandy or the Schneider Euro PC could have been produced at very low cost by than - but there was no market for such a thing.

Imo the only way Commodore could have survived long enough to get Hombre out was too cost reduce the OCS machines down to £200.

With no margin. Even with all the cost reduction in the world this would not have been a sustainable business.

Anyways: I sincerely doubt that so many more customers would have flocked to the Amiga, just because of such a low price. Most opted for a PC despite its higher price.

Just because no other company did it, was more down too they couldn’t do it rather than nobody wanted a slice of that pie!

As said above: depending on what capabilities you aim for, it was possible. But people did see the capabilities of other computers and these capabilities come with a price. And people were willing to pay more to get a better product.

I think in the early 90s the people that wanted a computer bought a computer - and overwhelmingly they bought computers, that were more expensive than the Amiga.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Well no, because the original A300 brief was for a alot cheaper machine to fill the gap between the C64 and A500.

C65 was abandoned in 1991, and rightly so, the market for enhanced 8-bit machines wasn’t there by the failure of MSX2, Sam Coupe, Amstrad Plus models in the west.

C64 was probably still sold cause Ali f’up the A300 plans and made the A600 come out at the same price as the A500+ and thus having no model to place where the C64 was.

According to Commodore the Inside Story - The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant by David John Pleasance, the A300 project was to replace C64c.

Due to Commodore Germany's demands for hard disk capability, the A300's scope creep turned the project into A600 which has a higher production cost compared to the A500.

[hammer]

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 ...

The C65 project was mostly completed by Dec 1990. The C65 project was cancelled by Commodore's chairman Irving Gould in 1991.

The A300 project was in 1991.

Commodore UK's David Pleasance advocated the A300 project to replace the C64c.

Commodore Germany demanded a hard disk-capable for the A300 model.

From Commodore the Inside Story - The Untold Tale of a Computer Giant by David John Pleasance

THE AMIGA 600 DEBACLE

At CBM UK Ltd, with some very clever marketing, we had
managed to keep sales of the Commodore 64 buoyant for
two years beyond its realistic sell-by date. But in February
or March 1991, after analysing the results from the UK
Christmas sales, it became obvious that the C64 as a
saleable product was dying – in fact, for all intents and
purposes, it was dead.

I went to New York for a meeting with Mehdi Ali during
which I explained to him that we now desperately needed
a very low-cost entry point Amiga to replace the C64. The
idea was to attract that same demographic target
audience, ideally with a similar retail price point of £200,
although I believed we might get away with an entry-level
price of a maximum of £249.


(skipped section, buy the book for more details)


In September that year, all the general managers met
in Frankfurt to agree the final basic specifications of the
A300, and we left the meeting confident that corporate
management were probably – and for the first time ever –
doing what we, and the market, had actually asked for.


Imagine our surprise when in May 1992 we took
delivery of a large quantity of computers with the model
number A600 and not A300!

It transpired that after our Frankfurt meeting the
German subsidiary – who had clearly missed the whole
point of the need and demand for the A300 – had
underhandedly told Mehdi Ali that they could not and
would not sell any Amiga that did not have a hard drive
included, thereby sabotaging the whole well-thought-out
plan to entice C64 buyers into an affordable upgrade
path. Mehdi Ali simply rolled over and conceded, but
never had the balls to talk to me or any other GM about
the change of plan.


This A600 would become a catastrophic disaster for the
following reasons:

• Though it was smaller and had fewer features than the
  A500, it cost more to manufacture.
  
• Being called the A600 gave consumers the impression it
  was a higher specification machine than the A500,
  resulting in sales of the A500 slowing down significantly,
  virtually destroying that existing (and profitable)
  market.
  
• We had prematurely killed off the A500 by introducing
  the A600 instead of the planned A300 – and on which
  we made considerably less money.
  
• Consumers who bought the A600 believing it to be a
  superior model to A500 were very upset, believing they
  had been misled (which of course they had).
  
• The press, with whom we had an excellent relationship,
  absolutely lambasted our misguided rationale, and
  justifiably so.

Commodore Germany, the same camp that runs Escom's Amiga Technologies GmBH! The killer of Amiga Ranger R&D.

Since Commodore Germany manufactures big box Amigas like the A3000, Commodore Germany could be the source for "read my lips, no new chips" during the A3000's R&D phase.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by babsimov

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.

Scanned original documents from
https://archive.org/details/Hombre_2...ge/n5/mode/2up

Commodore Amiga Hombre Chipset by Ed Hepler

Hombre Part 1 shows desktop and tower systems have Hitachi PA/50 add-on CPU.

https://www.openpa.net/pa-risc_processor_other.html
PA/50 reached 60 Mhz.

Commodore's baseline PA-RISC has a 4 KB L1 instruction and 2 KB L1 data caches. Nathaniel contains CPU and Rendering functions.

Hitachi's PA/50L and PA/50M have 8 KB L1 instruction and 4 KB L1 data caches.

The production segmentation is similar to Celeron's smaller cache vs Pentium II's larger cache.

https://www.openpa.net/pa-risc_proce...ther.html#harp
Hitachi HARP-1 processor is a faster version of the PA/50 processor. Hitachi HARP-1 has 8 KB L1 instruction and 16 KB L1 data caches. Up to 150 MHz frequency.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by hammer

Commodore UK's David Pleasance advocated the A300 project to replace the C64c.

Commodore Germany demanded a hard disk-capable for the A300 model.

I remember this.
The thing is:
both sides were probably right, since markets where different.

Germany was probably more right, but they should just have demanded to fast track the A1200 - but had probably no insight of what was going on in development.

Pleasance was probably right for the UK market ... but had no clue about technology or how to archive such a goal.

It is easy to say "just give me an Amiga for £200" - but what was he thinking this would look like and how would he sell it next to the A500, that he obviously wanted to keep as well.

I mean there isn't much you can take out of an A500 to actually save that much money ... smaller case and PCB , SMD ... fine. And then?
That's not nearly enough

What exactly was his plan?
Maybe making the chipset less capable, so the A300 would not cut into the A500 margins?
That would not only be nonsensical, totally incompatible but of course even more expensive to redesign the chips ..

And even in the UK there was certainly no demand for a less than capable Amiga below the A500

[hammer]

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 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).

$699 USD in 1987 would be 1992's $894.84.

A1200 has a launch price of $599 USD which is 1987's $485.05 i.e. Atari ST's price range.

Reference
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about...ion-calculator

A1200 has a healthy price margin for both Commodore UK and Commodore International.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Gorf

I remember this.
The thing is:
both sides were probably right, since markets where different.

Germany was probably more right, but they should just have demanded to fast track the A1200 - but had probably no insight of what was going on in development.

Not for A300 project.

A500 with AdIDE doesn't require Gary modification.

Originally Posted by Gorf

Pleasance was probably right for the UK market ... but had no clue about technology or how to archive such a goal.

It is easy to say "just give me an Amiga for £200" - but what was he thinking this would look like and how would he sell it next to the A500, that he obviously wanted to keep as well.

£249 is the target. CD32 reached £299 with a 2-speed CD-ROM drive along with a two-channel 16-bit DAC.

From CD32's cost reductions, A300 with AGA is possible.

Originally Posted by Gorf

I mean there isn't much you can take out of an A500 to actually save that much money ... smaller case and PCB , SMD ... fine. And then?
That's not nearly enough

What exactly was his plan?
Maybe making the chipset less capable, so the A300 would not cut into the A500 margins?
That would not only be nonsensical, totally incompatible but of course even more expensive to redesign the chips ..

And even in the UK there was certainly no demand for a less than capable Amiga below the A500

For the A300 project, Gary and two CIAs could be integrated like Akiko.

Akiko integrated Gayle, Budgie, and two CIA chips. Budgie integrated Ramsey's, Buster's, and Bridgette's functions. A4000's Bridgette assimilated four TTLs bridge chips for the Amiga custom bus and CPU bus in the A3000. These are cost-reduction measures.

Gayle replaced Gary and added functions for PCMCIA and IDE.

A600 has a PCMCIA slot, five 74LS245 (byte swap area), and two 74LS245 bridge chips between Agnus's Chip RAM and PCMCIA Fast RAM. PCB edge connector is cheaper than a laptop's PCMCIA slot. It was missing A600's "Budgie" cost reduction measures. A1200 has three 74LS245 chips in its byte swap area.

A600 wasn't cost-reduced enough compared to CD32 Akiko's cost-reduction measures. A300 could have IDE-capable Gayle with two CIAs integrated with it and ignore PCMCIA.

The idea is okay, but execution is poor.
------------
According to Dave Haynie's statements from https://amitopia.com/updated-dsp-321...a-3000-is-out/

AGA A3000+ revision 1 has SMD and a working DSP audio subsystem.

A300 wasn't the only project with SMD.


https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/b...t.aspx?id=2015
1991 ECS A1000Jr has SMD.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Gorf

I guess that was just a retrofitted excuse for the press.
The fact that they did stop the A500+ after the A600 release, but not the C64 tells otherwise.

Also: the A500 was already less expensive than the C64+Floppy, and nobody would use the 64 without it in 1992.

Whatever market segment they might wanted to target with a really cheap A300: it was non existent anyways - not other company swooped in to take that segment. There was no demand.

For games, SNES has 150 UKP covered.

Commodore would need A300 with CD32's cost reductions for near-direct price competition against SNES.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by hammer

Not for A300 project.

That is what I was saying: Commodore Germany should have urged the 1200 and no A300/A600 whatsoever.

£249 is the target. CD32 reached £299 with a 2-speed CD-ROM drive along with a two-channel 16-bit DAC.

The DAC was part of the CD-ROm like it is in any consumer CD-Player.
This was part of the package.

Change the CD-drive for a floppy and add a keyboard and a mouse and the missing ports and we are at £350 ... one and a half year later

For the A300 project, Gary and two CIAs could be integrated like Akiko.

not in that amount of time

Cost reducing the A500 as much as possible -> go for it.
Introducing a new Amiga below the A500 -> forget it, stupid stagey

No matter if it was the actual A600 or a cheaper A300:
in both cases just a waste of resources better spent on earlier release of AGA machines and AA+ development.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by hammer

For games, SNES has 150 UKP covered.

Commodore would need A300 with CD32's cost reductions for near-direct price competition against SNES.

Don't try to compete with console prices, if you are selling computers.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Gorf

Of course since the A1000jr itself was a braindead concept. I thought we already agreed on that ...

It wasn't really a concept, but a reaction to AGA not being ready. It was damned if you do, damned if you don't.

To come up with a new mid-range ESC machine, wenn the AGA chipset was already done is beyond stupid.

But it wasn't already done.

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.

AGA needed more than 'minor' bug fixing.

According to Brian Bagnall in Commodore the Final Years,

Jeff Porter and Henri Rubin had planned to introduce several Amiga computers... using the ECS chips and AmigaOS 2.0, including a new version of the A500 in 1990... as well as a junior A3000 called the A1500 for around $1250 retail... They also planned to release a series of updated Amiga computers using the new Pandora chipset... the AA3000, for a summer 1991 release... also... AA500 by summer of 1992.

Both Rubin and Gould had been pushing Porter to deliver a cheaper Amiga system since 1988. This goal would continue under Mehdi Alia and Bill Sydnes... In November, in preparation for a Commodore International meeting in Frankfurt, Porter ... laid out plans for... an improved A500+ with the AA chipset for $500... a C65... and a C65 game machine...

Eggebrecht felt he should present the regional subsidiaries with a wider variety of low-end Amigas and judge the product based on feedback...

The Germans stated a preference for the A200, the A500 Plus with AA chipset, and the C65... The other indication from the European marketing heads is that... all they wanted... was the AA chipset...
And any full-sized Amiga... should come with a minimum of two Zorro slots...

The Plus Computers

After receiving feedback... Jeff Porter... consolidated the new line... into the "Plus" line of computers, which centered on the AA chipset, due mid February 1991. These would include... the A1000 Plus, and the A3000 Plus... which was essentially an A3000 with the new AA chipset and... AmigaOS 3.0. This was planned to be the high-end Amiga system.... until... the A4000 arrived with the AAA chipset... at the end of 1992. Rounding out the releases would be a cost reduced CDTV and the C65.

All of this sounded good, except for one thing, Commodore was on the hook to release the C65, CDTV, A3000UX, A300, A500 Plus, A1000 Plus and A3000 Plus all in the same year... This from a company that had struggled to release a single new system, the A3000, the previous year.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

It wasn't really a concept, but a reaction to AGA not being ready.

That's BS. AA-Gayle and Budgie (integrated Ramsey, Buster, Bridgette) modifications delayed A1200. "More than 6 months" were wasted on ECS jobs.

AA3000's core AGA was operational i.e. your source has "the AA3000, for a summer 1991 release".

Without PCMCIA and IDE integration, AA500+ would have the following
Lisa,
Alice,
Paula,
Ramsey (32-bit memory controller, integrated into Budgie in A1200). This is known to be working.
Fat Gary (evolved into Gayle in A600 and AA-Gayle in A1200). This is known to be working.
Two CIAs,
Four TTL 74 bridge chips (integrated into Budgie in the A1200 and Bridgette in the A4000),
Buster for Zorro II functions which is optional (integrated into Budgie in the A1200).

A300 project impacted AA500+(A1200).

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Gorf

The DAC was part of the CD-ROm like it is in any consumer CD-Player.
This was part of the package.

It's part of the CD-ROM's price.

Originally Posted by Gorf

Change the CD-drive for a floppy and add a keyboard and a mouse and the missing ports and we are at £350 ... one and a half year later

Wrong. Ports are cheap, a floppy drive is cheaper than a two-speed CD-ROM drive, A600's keyboard is cheap. The mouse is exchanged for CD32's gamepad.

CD32 already has two controller ports, RF modulator, a composite out, two audio out, power connector, and power switch. Missing parallel, serial, and floppy ports.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Gorf

And even in the UK there was certainly no demand for a less than capable Amiga below the A500

I agree.

And this meme that the A600 was less than the A500 is only one of perception - perhaps based on the smaller size and lack of numeric keypad. In fact it had more in it than the A500. It was functionally equivalent to an A500+ with internal modulator and IDE hard drive option.

But the lack of numeric keypad meant a very small number of titles wouldn't work with it unless the keys could be remapped - mostly flight simulators that probably need a faster CPU anyway for smooth operation. You couldn't plug an A590 into it, but the internal IDE drive and PCMCIA memory card was cheaper and more ergonomic. The CPU wasn't in a socket so you (theoretically) couldn't install an accelerator card - but how many A500 users would be doing that?

So why was the A600 panned? Because it didn't have AGA. Gould promised AGA way back in early 1991, and all we got was this lousy shrunk down A500. Magazines put on a brave face, but they couldn't hide our disappointment. And nothing Commodore subsequently released would make up for it.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

That's BS. AA-Gayle and Budgie (integrated Ramsey, Buster, Bridgette) modifications delayed A1200. "More than 6 months" were wasted on ECS jobs.

Nope. It was the AGA chipset that delayed it - in particular getting those VGA scan rates to work properly.

AA3000's core AGA was operational i.e. your source has "the AA3000, for a summer 1991 release".

That's what they hoped for.

Without PCMCIA and IDE integration, AA500+ would have the following
Lisa,
Alice,
Paula,
Ramsey (32-bit memory controller, integrated into Budgie in A1200). This is known to be working.

You have no evidence that IDE and PCMCIA were the holdup. I have evidence that AGA graphics was. This is seen in the OS 3.0 source code notes - lots of problems with the graphics hardware, none with IDE or PCMCIA.

I don't know where you got this idea from... guessing you developed a narrative first and then made up facts to support it.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But the lack of numeric keypad meant a very small number of titles wouldn't work with it unless the keys could be remapped - mostly flight simulators that probably need a faster CPU anyway for smooth operation.

Flight sims and other 3D titles were a hugely important part of A500 library and people enjoyed them as they were. Back then "smooth operation" in 3D was mostly pipe dream anyway. Also, many notable CRPGS used the numeric keyboard, eg Dungeon Master, Captive, EotB, Goldbox games, etc.

That said, certainly the numeric keyboard didn't matter that much for people mostly interested in arcade games. though this lot would be perhaps better off looking at consoles at that time anyway.

I can agree that if A600 launched alongside A1200 nobody would complain about it much. But I don't think it caused some long lasting trauma, it's definitely not excuse for A1200's shortcomings.

Whether it'd help much if it actually have AGA is questionable. AGA on its own wasn't really that much of a game changer.