Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

UK 17.5% VAT is applied for A1200 and PCs i.e. the British population has to pay it, hence it's a neutral factor.

Only when the prices are shown including VAT. For PCs it usually isn't. If you don't specify 'including VAT' I'll assume it isn't.

According to Amiga Computing Issue 062 Jul 1993, page 3 of 164, page 4 of 164
Amiga 1200 Comic pack with 60 MB HDD is £539
Amiga 1200 Comic pack with 120 MB HDD is £679

M1230XA with 68030 at 50Mhz and 4MB RAM is £499

Total price:
£1,038 for 60 MB HDD
£1,178 for 120 MB HDD

Irrelevant.

Today I watched a new YouTube video by Zeusdaz of the motorcycle game Prime Mover, released in 1993. I started viewing it before reading the description and was trying to decide if it was OCS or AGA. With that smooth animation and all those colors it must be running on an at least an A1200, right? Wrong. Stock 1MB A500!

[ Show youtube player ]

We didn't need a 50MHz 030 with FPU and 4MB RAM and 120 MB hard drive to play awesome games like this (or AGA games which promised to be even better). All we needed was a stock A1200 at £369 including VAT.

Commodore DT486dx-25 for £760, 4MB RAM, 52MB HDD, MS-DOS 5.0, Win3.1, mouse, 14" colour VGA monitor...

If my family lived in the UK at our 1992-1993 income level as a state government employee, Commodore DT486dx-25 would be selected.

Your magazine image shows an Amstrad 'Mega PC', which was a 386SX-25 with 1MB RAM, 256k generic VGA, Adlib sound card, 40MB hard drive, and an ISA bus card emulating a Sega Mega Drive. Initially priced at £999.99 + VAT, it was later reduced to the fire sale price of £599 + VAT = £703.83.



In that same advert we also see the Amstrad Mega Plus 486DLC-33 (386DX with 1k cache and 486 instructions), here priced at £899 + VAT = £1056.83 with 4MB RAM and a 130MB hard drive. However according to Wikipedia this machine was never actually released.

On page 40 of that magazine we see another advert with prices including VAT. The Commodore DT486SX-25 with 4MB RAM and 80 MB hard drive is priced at £980 (incl. VAT). Of course it didn't come with a sound card and speakers, so add another £100 or so if you want any more than a few weak chirps from the tiny onboard sounder. AFAIK it had an onboard Western Digital WD90C30 ISA VGA chip - not exactly ET4000AX level performance.

[hammer]

From https://websrv.cecs.uci.edu/~papers/...LES/060803.PDF

CD32's FMV module's $50 C-Cube CL450 SoC includes a licensed MIPS-X RISC CPU with 40 Mhz clock speed . You're looking at 40 million instructions per second (MIPS) RISC-based CPU i.e. it's like parts of PS1's CPU or Rendition Verite v1000's MIPS-like RISC CPU.


The PS1 can be characterized as "half-software" because the geometry transforms are done through a CPU-like coprocessor, then sent to a mostly 2D GPU capable of filling in the gaps with affine transformations.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Only when the prices are shown including VAT. For PCs it usually isn't. If you don't specify 'including VAT' I'll assume it isn't.

Amiga_Shopper_Issue_32_1993-12_Future_Publishing_GB
Page 4 of 132
A1200 Dynamite Pack's 349 UKP made no mention of VAT inclusive.

Look in the mirror.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Irrelevant.

Irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Today I watched a new YouTube video by Zeusdaz of the motorcycle game Prime Mover, released in 1993. I started viewing it before reading the description and was trying to decide if it was OCS or AGA. With that smooth animation and all those colors it must be running on an at least an A1200, right? Wrong. Stock 1MB A500!

[ Show youtube player ]

Irrelevant. Aging 16-bit graphics.

[ Show youtube player ]
Amiga OCS's Super Hang on (Europe) in 1988. It was a good port for its time.

[ Show youtube player ]
SNES Street Racer with Mode 7.

[ Show youtube player ]
"32-bit" 3DO's Crash and Burn released in 1993.

[ Show youtube player ]
"32-bit" gaming PC's IndyCar Racing released in 1993.

[ Show youtube player ]
Amiga AGA's VirtualGP released in 1999. This game needs a fast "32-bit" 68030 CPU in the 40 to 50 Mhz range! The result is similar to "32-bit" gaming PC's IndyCar Racing. There's no change in AGA display capability, A1200/CD32 needs higher math power.

[ Show youtube player ]
Amiga AGA's Flyin High with 68040 class CPU. There's no change in AGA display capability, A1200/CD32 needs higher math power.


For 1993-1994 Amigas, Amitech/Commodore Canada's A2200 config2 clone (68030 @40 Mhz) and A4000/040 (68040 @ 25 Mhz) can run VirtualGP.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

We didn't need a 50MHz 030 with FPU and 4MB RAM and 120 MB hard drive to play awesome games like this (or AGA games which promised to be even better). All we needed was a stock A1200 at £369 including VAT.

Bulldust. For stock A1200, you're arguing for a $199 USD SNES 2D gaming experience.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Your magazine image shows an Amstrad 'Mega PC', which was a 386SX-25 with 1MB RAM, 256k generic VGA, Adlib sound card, 40MB hard drive, and an ISA bus card emulating a Sega Mega Drive. Initially priced at £999.99 + VAT, it was later reduced to the fire sale price of £599 + VAT = £703.83.

Amstrad 'Mega PC' includes an actual Mega Drive hardware i.e. it's NOT emulated hardware. Your argument is bulldust.

https://segaretro.org/Mega_PC
"at the time of release the machine was unsuccessful due to its high retail price"

Amstrad 'Mega PC' includes extra items:
1. A higher-cost multisync VGA monitor with 15 kHz and 31 kHz video input capability. This is similar to the Commodore 1942 monitor. Typical lower-cost VGA monitor clones will not display a 15 kHz video source.
2. Actual Sega Mega Drive hardware.
3. Amstrad Mega PC Control Pad.
4. Yamaha FM sound chip is shared between Mega Drive and PC's AdLib.
5. Amstrad 'Mega PC' has a custom PC motherboard.

https://segaretro.org/Teradrive
Sega Teradrive has IBM's PS/2 Model 30 286 (IBM DOS J4.0/V) base and Mega Drive. The Teradrive was developed jointly by Sega and IBM Japan. Sega attempted to enter the PC business via partnerships.

This is like an A2000 with a full PC bridgeboard card in reverse.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by hammer

Bulldust. For stock A1200, you're arguing for a $199 USD SNES 2D gaming experience.

I bought my A1200 in '95 for about £300 on sale iirc - it was a present from my gf - and I could plug it in immediately and play. No need for a monitor, HDD or accelerator. I used it stock for more than a year.

Sure I could have bought a SNES for cheap but I couldn't code on that. Or hook up my old printer and do some document work. You get the idea.

And all for £300. Why would I be disapopointed with that?

[Karlos]

All I can say is, if you bought an A1200 and it was a disappointment, you didn't do your due diligence. It's not as if the specification was a secret.

I loved mine so much I bought another two over the years.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Dunny

I bought my A1200 in '95 for about £300 on sale iirc - it was a present from my gf - and I could plug it in immediately and play. No need for a monitor, HDD or accelerator. I used it stock for more than a year.

Sure I could have bought a SNES for cheap but I couldn't code on that. Or hook up my old printer and do some document work. You get the idea.

And all for £300. Why would I be disapopointed with that?

I bought my UK A1200 for about $300 USD as "not working for parts", but it works. The floppy drive needs replacing. The seller was ignorant about Amigas and my A1200 was found in the attic. I'm guessing the home was inherited from a relative.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Karlos

All I can say is, if you bought an A1200 and it was a disappointment, you didn't do your due diligence. It's not as if the specification was a secret.

I loved mine so much I bought another two over the years.

A1200 could have been crafted better with Lew Eggebrecht in the hot seat from 1988.

AGA is fine, it just needs low cost higher math power (object manipulator).

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

A1200 could have been crafted better with Lew Eggebrecht in the hot seat from 1988.

"I was disappointed in the A1200 because Lew Eggebrecht wasn't in charge"

From Brian Bagnall's book Commodore The Final Years:-

The Plus Computers 1990

Another IBM engineer would soon join Commodore... in mid September... a senior engineer named Lewis Eggebrecht came in to help out the engineers. Eggebrecht... had been the chief architect and design team leader on the original IBM PC... "Lew was brought in as a friend of Bill Sydnes," says Porter. "He was Mehdi's golden boy."

Aside from his duties managing the PC group, Eggebrecht was instructed to help Jeff Porter develop a marketing plan for the Amiga line...

You have to admit that putting the "chief architect and design team leader on the original IBM PC" on the job of planning the Amiga's future was shrewd. Who better than the man responsible for revolutionizing the personal computer industry!

However...

Jeff Porter and Henri Ruben had planned to introduce several Amiga computers in 1991 using the ECS chipset and Amiga OS 2.0, including a new version of the A500 in 1990 to replace the aging model, as well as junior A3000 called the A1500 for around $1250 retail. The A1500 was essentially a resurrection of the super A500/A800 idea that had been spawned in 1987 to fill a product gap between the A500 and A2000.

They had also planned to release a series of updated Amiga computers using the new Pandora chipset, now called AA. The plan called for using the AA chipset in an A3000 variant, called the AA3000, for summer 1991 release. He also wanted the AA chipset in an AA500 by the summer of 1992.

Here we see that even before Eggebrecht was brought in, plans for (what became) the A1200 were already in place, with a target release date not far off what we got.

So in what way might Eggebrecht have 'crafted the A1200 better' if he was brought in earlier?

Both Rubin and Gould had been pushing Porter to deliver a cheaper Amiga system since 1988. This goal would continue under Mehdi Ali and Bill Sydnes. Porter was tasked with coming up with an A300, a small Amiga computer in a C65-sized keyboard case that retailed for $300. However, he was having a hard time getting the bill of materials down to the required $120. Instead, he favored the C65...

In November, in preparation for a Commodore International meeting in Frankfurt, Porter developed a company roadmap for 1991... Porter's initial vision consisted of an improved A500 Plus with the AA chipset for $500, a C65 with keyboard and drive for $250, and a C65 game machine for $150...

Eggebrecht felt he should present the regional subsidiaries with a larger variety of low-end Amigas and judge the product based on feedback... [Porter] added four low-end Amigas on the list, ranging from a $300 Amiga 200 right up to a $450 Amiga 600.

At the November 9 meeting in Frankfurt, the Germans stated a preference for the Amiga 200, the A500 Plus with AA chipset, and the C65. Kelly Summer of Commodore UK wanted all of the products, though one of his managers felt the cartridge aspect of the A200 would be difficult to pull off. Mehdi Ali felt the A500 Plus should be offered but at the same price as the current A500, rather than dropping the price. He favored the C65 computer over the C65 game machine, and he wanted it released June 1991.

The other indication from the European marketing heads was that they were not interested in the ECS chipset. All they wanted in the new computers, including the new A500 computer, was the AA chipset.

Eggebrecht's contribution was giving regional marketing heads more say in what specs the low-end Amiga(s) should have. This makes sense because they knew their market better than the engineers did.

But...

After receiving feedback from the European marketing managers, Jeff Porter... consolidated the new line of Amiga computers... The A500 Plus, due in 1991, would not use the AA chipset...

Porter also planned to release a sleek computer called the A1000 Plus, which used a faster Motorola 68000 chip, and the upcoming Amiga OS 3.0... to handle the AA chipset. He believed it could compete against Apple's low-cost Mac LC...

For a while, Porter considered making an A2000 Plus. However, when the A1000 Plus spec changed to include the faster 68EC020 processor, the A2000 plus became largely redundant and was cancelled. The final [Amiga] would be an A3000 Plus with the new AA chipset...

Rounding out the releases would be a cost reduced CDTV and the C65

So despite regional managers wanting an A500 Plus with the AA chipset, Porter favored putting it in mid-range and high-end models only. This makes some sense because a 68000 based Amiga would not be able to make best use of the AA chipset. It really needed at least a 68020. OTOH the low end was where the biggest sales potential was, and putting AA in more expensive models only would discourage developers from producing titles for it because the market was too small.

What the market really needed was a successor to the A500 with the AA chipset and a 68EC020 at a price similar to the A500. This is effectively what we got with the A1200, which was the realization of the AA500 that Porter and Rubin originally planned to have ready by mid 1992.

Lew Eggebrecht clearly favored producing a low-end Amiga with AA, but he didn't actually do much to achieve it. Instead he opened the door for a wide range of models to be produced - which Commodore didn't have the resources to realize. Commodore's aspirations crashed into the reality of its weak financial state, with the unfortunate result that development of AA Amigas was delayed while management figured out what they could afford to produce.

So the A500 was replaced with the ECS A500 Plus 'as planned', and the 'lower-end' (but not) ECS A600 was produced soon after, when the A1200 should have filled both roles. If anything, Lew Eggebrecht did more to cause that debacle than prevent it.

In the end though, the A1200 came out only a few months after it was originally planned to, and with more stuff in it. Considering how Commodore almost never managed to release a model on time anyway (a problem many companies have), the A1200 wasn't far off the mark.


(BTW just so you know, I had to type those quotes from Brian Bagnall's book out by hand, and I am not a fast typist. This post took over 2 hours to create!)

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

Amiga_Shopper_Issue_32_1993-12_Future_Publishing_GB
Page 4 of 132
A1200 Dynamite Pack's 349 UKP made no mention of VAT inclusive.

Look in the mirror.

I said that PCs usually were priced ex VAT. This is because they were business products, whereas consumer products like the Amiga 1200 always included VAT. I don't know what the law was in the UK at the time, but in New Zealand showing the retail price including GST was 'strongly encouraged' but not mandatory. In my shop all prices included GST (and this was stated so customers would not get confused).

IMO the practice of showing retail prices without VAT/GST was borderline fraud. In that advert I clipped the price from for example, the inclusion of the actual price only in fine print in a magazine catering to consumers would not be acceptable today.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

"I was disappointed in the A1200 because Lew Eggebrecht wasn't in charge"

From Brian Bagnall's book Commodore The Final Years:-
You have to admit that putting the "chief architect and design team leader on the original IBM PC" on the job of planning the Amiga's future was shrewd. Who better than the man responsible for revolutionizing the personal computer industry!

1. The PC clones covered IBM's pricing and performance mistakes and maintained the IBM PC standard.

2. The PC's partitioned graphics architecture allowed the PC platform to evolve. This factor benefits the customer.

3. IBM's imposed second source insurance (e.g. AMD) allowed X86 to continue against Intel's IA-64. Second-source insurance works as intended and reduces platform-ending risk. This factor benefits the customer.

4. There are good ideas from IBM PGC i.e. 256 colors 640x480p use case and VGA-like monitor. The development for IBM PGC is helpful for its designer to gain experience and continue SUN GX R&D and ultimately, co-founded NVIDIA.

With minor tweaks, a PGC monitor can used as a VGA monitor. VGA monitor standard was cloned.

256 colors use case was resued for 1986 MCGA, 1987 VGA, and 8514. IBM has a solid 256-color use case.

IBM PGC has a 4096 color palette like NEC's ?PD7220 for PC-98 (1982). The Amiga's 4096 color palette wasn't original. Jay Miner has a "workstation graphics for the masses" approach.

5. IBM EGA tried hardware C2P experience led to VGA's chunky pixels. VGA standard was cloned.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

However...
Here we see that even before Eggebrecht was brought in, plans for (what became) the A1200 were already in place, with a target release date not far off what we got.

The A1200 project is just AA3000's core Pandora chipset dropped into A600. When merging with A600, several changes need to be executed for Gayle, Ramsey, and Buster. Ramsey/Buster evolved into Budgie with a modification link with AA-Gayle.

A3000's four TTL bridge chips were integrated into Bridgette and Budgie.

Gary evolved into Gayle, AA Gayle, and Akiko (which includes Budgie).
Gary evolved into Fat Gary.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

So in what way might Eggebrecht have 'crafted the A1200 better' if he was brought in earlier?

Eggebrecht's contribution was giving regional marketing heads more say in what specs the low-end Amiga(s) should have. This makes sense because they knew their market better than the engineers did.

Market intelligence is good, but it must be judged and balanced i.e. Bill Sydnes' factor.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But...
So despite regional managers wanting an A500 Plus with the AA chipset, Porter favored putting it in mid-range and high-end models only. This makes some sense because a 68000 based Amiga would not be able to make best use of the AA chipset. It really needed at least a 68020.

AA Lisa requires a 32-bit memory bus with faster memory read/write cycle access times i.e. 140 ns read/write cycle is effectively 7 Mhz.

AA Lisa's double pumps (64-bit memory access on the 32-bit bus) 3.5 Mhz which is 140 ns read/write cycle and about 7 Mhz effective.

With 4X bandwidth for Lisa, double scan resolution modes like 640x400p/640x512p 256 colors are similar to entry-level SVGA's 640x480p 256 colors.

AA Alice is for backward compatibility with DSP3210 as a new object manipulator.

The 32-bit memory controller is Ramsey and it was subsumed into Budgie.

68020/68EC020, 68030/68EC030, and DSP3210 have hardware barrel shifters. CPUFastBilt can exceed Alice's legacy Blitter (3.5 Mhz 16-bit, 7MB/s, roughly equivalent to 7 MIPS 8bit or 3.5 MIPS 16bit or 1.75 MIPS 32bit). Stock A1200's 68EC020 has 1.35 MIPS. Bilt workload, stock A1200's gimped 68EC020 is 47% of Alice Blitter.

https://techmonitor.ai/technology/mo...eap_68000_line
Date: April 24, 1991
Motorola releases 68EC020-16 for $15 and 68EC020-25 for $19 for lots of 10,000. Samples in April 1991 and volumes in the next quarter i.e. June-Aug 1991.

AA500 with 68EC020-16, AGA, Ramsey, Fat Gary (8 address lines wouldn't be used), 4 TTLs bridge (combined as Bridgette) chips could be configured quickly.

Not factoring the Amiga, no other post-16 bit games bias platforms will be depending on Motorola's 68K math power e.g. Sega rejected 68030 and selected SuperH2, 3DO selected ARM60, Sony selected MIPS and Nintendo selected MIPS.

For CD32's FMV module, Commodore selected CL450's MIPS-X CPU in a limited use case.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

OTOH the low end was where the biggest sales potential was, and putting AA in more expensive models only would discourage developers from producing titles for it because the market was too small.

It would be the Atari TT vs ST vs Mega ST situation.

VideoToaster has 24-bit graphics and it wasn't general purpose for the Amiga.

Due to the PC's partitioned graphics architecture, VGA's 256 colors become the baseline standard. PC VGA clones acted like Commodore's cost reduction team for IBM. IBM was fabricating ET4000 chips.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

What the market really needed was a successor to the A500 with the AA chipset and a 68EC020 at a price similar to the A500. This is effectively what we got with the A1200, which was the realization of the AA500 that Porter and Rubin originally planned to have ready by mid 1992.

A1200 is more than just the A500 with 68EC020, AGA, Ramsey, Fat Gary, and four TTL bridge chips. You're forgetting technical details.

A Buster-like function needs to be included due to PCMCIA (via Gayle) and needs byte-swap. This leads to Budgie and AA Gayle results.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Lew Eggebrecht clearly favored producing a low-end Amiga with AA, but he didn't actually do much to achieve it. Instead he opened the door for a wide range of models to be produced - which Commodore didn't have the resources to realize. Commodore's aspirations crashed into the reality of its weak financial state, with the unfortunate result that development of AA Amigas was delayed while management figured out what they could afford to produce.

You're forgetting that the year 1992 was a large financial blow due to the Bill Sydnes' A600 debacle.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

So the A500 was replaced with the ECS A500 Plus 'as planned', and the 'lower-end' (but not) ECS A600 was produced soon after, when the A1200 should have filled both roles. If anything, Lew Eggebrecht did more to cause that debacle than prevent it.

Bullshit.

1. Lew Eggebrecht wasn't in the hot seat. Bill Sydnes has the hot seat. Who demanded for IDE? Hint: Commodore Germany.

2. You're forgetting that the year 1992 was a large financial blow due to double debacles from A600's release and A500 cancellation. This is Bill Sydnes factor!

3. Fact: Bill Sydnes is the person who was fired by Ali, NOT Lew Eggebrecht.

4. AA3000+ and A1000+ AA projects were frozen for "more than 6 months" to focus on the ECS adventures i.e. A1000Jr and A300(A600). This is the Bill Sydnes factor! AA3000+ revision 1 reached surface-mounted chip design before being frozen. "A1000Jr" refers to Bill Sydnes.

"More than 6 months" wasn't used to complete AA machines. AA3000+ is the prototype AA.

"A1000Jr" did NOT include Gayle or AA-Gayle and Budgie since they were NOT completed in 1991. AA-Gayle is dependent on A300's Gayle R&D.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I said that PCs usually were priced ex VAT. This is because they were business products, whereas consumer products like the Amiga 1200 always included VAT. I don't know what the law was in the UK at the time, but in New Zealand showing the retail price including GST was 'strongly encouraged' but not mandatory. In my shop all prices included GST (and this was stated so customers would not get confused).

IMO the practice of showing retail prices without VAT/GST was borderline fraud. In that advert I clipped the price from for example, the inclusion of the actual price only in fine print in a magazine catering to consumers would not be acceptable today.

If the game experience is not textured mapped 3D, then the platform competes against low-cost SNES's strong 2D gaming experiences.

For gamers, you're selling "dreams".

Commodore's Amiga platform either delivers the "full 32-bit, texture mapped 3D" gaming experience or competes against low-cost SNES's strong 2D.

Commodore's bad actions caused the Amiga to be pushed out of the gaming market and the Amiga didn't have Apple's business (non-gaming) customer size to remain economically viable.

There's no sugarcoating this fact, but it didn't stop Raspberry Pi from creating its semi-custom ARM-based platform and establishing a new customer base.

There is no Michael Abrash-like advocate for the Amiga's optimized C2P advocacy from 1991 to 1995 time period. I can name names who didn't open-source their recent open-source ports.

PS; Emu68 with RPi3 has its 1st 3D accelerated Warp3D library.