Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[nikosidis]

No, not disappointed just happy that it is still alive. Merry Xmas and have a good night

[Karlos]

Trying to remain objective about the A1200 in hindsight is tricky. If I remember Xmas 1993, I had absolutely zero regret or sense of disappointment. It was an awesome upgrade over the 600 I'd had. The 600 was my first Amiga, but the 1200 allowed me to do so much more. I didn't even own a PC until the early naughties and didn't purpose build one for myself until end 2007.

All that time the A1200 was my main machine, upgraded by then to BlizzPPC/BVPPC and all the RAM I could shove in it.

[Cyprian]

Originally Posted by Ras Voja

Yes, gives us TT hi res mode, full 32 bit bus, Falcon DSP and std MIDI port in A1400 and it would save the day. Too bad Atari did not make a FreeMINT system out of it

actually they did - the heart of the MultiTOS (the OS released with the Falcon) is the MiNT kernel

[ImmortalA1000]

Falcon is one of a few machines ever released in the UK that I've never owned. Prices went up quite fast relatively and I never had a reason to get one back then. The most 'advanced' Atari systems I own are a pair of Mega STEs with max spec inc 1.44mb floppy and auto-booting hard drives. One even has a network card in there. But the Falcon is the true rival offering to the A1200 and I've never used a real machine. I do have two Acorn A3010 Archimedes though and I prefer my A1200, don't ask my why I just do

[Weasel Fierce]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Falcon is one of a few machines ever released in the UK that I've never owned. Prices went up quite fast relatively and I never had a reason to get one back then. The most 'advanced' Atari systems I own are a pair of Mega STEs with max spec inc 1.44mb floppy and auto-booting hard drives. One even has a network card in there. But the Falcon is the true rival offering to the A1200 and I've never used a real machine. I do have two Acorn A3010 Archimedes though and I prefer my A1200, don't ask my why I just do

I always lusted after the Falcon just because they were weird and neat but couldn't justify paying the prices they fetch now

[grelbfarlk]

From this thread I can say for sure the A1200 is so bad it's probably not real. Now, I've never actually seen an assembled A1200 in person, but just the description of it kind of makes me throw up in my mouth. The only A1200 I really used was the bottom shell with a motherboard. And despite having a nice sensible crippled awful 24-bit edge connector for the CPU slot, it was surprisingly finicky requiring cleaning and reseating constantly. "Oh hey it's plugged in too far, no pull it out a little, oh ok it's booting now."
I think it's reasonable to assume no actual A1200, if they were ever like really built and sold like this existed.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

The only A1200 I really used was the bottom shell with a motherboard.

Well, there's your problem. It was missing half the good bits!

And despite having a nice sensible crippled awful 24-bit edge connector for the CPU slot, it was surprisingly finicky requiring cleaning and reseating constantly. "Oh hey it's plugged in too far, no pull it out a little, oh ok it's booting now."

Funny, I have the same problem with my PCs - like the 386SX motherboard I just bought that I have to unplug and reinsert the cards into several times to get it to work.

I think it's reasonable to assume no actual A1200, if they were ever like really built and sold like this existed.

Well PCs were often sold as just a motherboard so I can't see why not. Or did Commodore not approve of such practices?

Anyway I have a lovely A1200 motherboard that I bought off eBay a few years ago as a spare. Works perfectly every time! Only problem is I don't have a keyboard for it. It's not my most minimalist Amiga though - that honour goes to my A2000, which is just the keyboard. Someday I must marry the two up. But what would I call it?

[ImmortalA1000]

My first C= computer, a VIC-20, had a failed PSU and was returned 3 months after purchase. My second C= computer, a C64, had a failed PSU, returned for an exchange new C64 (now with brown not orange function keys).

Never had any problems at all with my A1200, been packed away for the last 10 years or so but the whole time I had it nothing actually went wrong with my launch day purchased UK PAL A1200. That's one thing I can't fault it for.

(my used A1000 did have a problem but only because the idiot who owned it before me used a PC serial cable as an A1000 parallel printer cable lol after that was sorted it worked flawlessly until the day I sold it 7 years later).

[Korban]

@d4rk3lf

That's a very,... err,... "creative" post.
Point n click adventures were superior to Amiga versions 9 times out of 10, even in the early to mid 90's. Games like Zool2 on PC, even on a 386 were better than even AGA versions. Popular titles like Mortal Kombat 1 and 2, Super Street Fighter 2 are also vastly superior to the Amiga versions. PC had popular platformers like Earthworm Jim, Sonic CD, Sonic 3d and Lomax where the Amiga didnt.
Games like doom, quake, and pretty much anything 3d on a pc from the mid 90's were beyond what the Amiga has ever been able to do, even with a fully maxed out Amiga. Voodoo cards were available for PC in the mid 90's as were pentiums that are in excess of anything the Amiga has ever seen.
By the end of the 90's the geforce 256 was available as were pentium 3 and athlon closing in on 1ghz.
These were dozens of times more capable that the fastest Amiga ever in terms of games.
And the software availability absolutely dwarves anything that utilizes heavily upgraded Amiga's have.
Even though Voodoo cards are usable on Amigas with pci busboards the drivers dont come close to what is available for Win9x or Linux, nor is the performance, even with similarly specced cpus.
And pcs were a lot cheaper for infinitely more powerful hardware.

I enjoy the Amiga as much as the next enthusiast, but your post is obscene to the point its verging on insanity.

[acidbottle]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

From this thread I can say for sure the A1200 is so bad it's probably not real. Now, I've never actually seen an assembled A1200 in person, but just the description of it kind of makes me throw up in my mouth. The only A1200 I really used was the bottom shell with a motherboard. And despite having a nice sensible crippled awful 24-bit edge connector for the CPU slot, it was surprisingly finicky requiring cleaning and reseating constantly. "Oh hey it's plugged in too far, no pull it out a little, oh ok it's booting now."
I think it's reasonable to assume no actual A1200, if they were ever like really built and sold like this existed.

That is quite an unfortunate impression you have of the 1200!

Had 2 1200s and is simply my favorite computer of all time. Never had an issue with either of them and felt the extra memory and cpu speed (at the time in the 90s) were a good upgrade on the A500.

[Havie]

Originally Posted by acidbottle

That is quite an unfortunate impression you have of the 1200!

Had 2 1200s and is simply my favorite computer of all time. Never had an issue with either of them and felt the extra memory and cpu speed (at the time in the 90s) were a good upgrade on the A500.

Seconded and still love my 1200 and certainly thought it was a good upgrade at the time. Lovely machine and had lots of easy expandable potential that the A500 didn't (including internal options keeping your desk uncluttered).

[Weasel Fierce]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Anyway I have a lovely A1200 motherboard that I bought off eBay a few years ago as a spare. Works perfectly every time! Only problem is I don't have a keyboard for it. It's not my most minimalist Amiga though - that honour goes to my A2000, which is just the keyboard. Someday I must marry the two up. But what would I call it?

They average out to be the Amiga 1600

[grelbfarlk]

But the Amiga 1600 yes it has an external keyboard and it's pizza box shaped but the external keyboard has a cable that is 2" long and is made from a flimsy membrane attached with finicky clips which if it is ever tugged it might not ever work again.

[logo]

My Amiga 1200 has been my best Amiga and my best computer. (previous ones were 500+,STE,MSX)
I have been able to upgrade it almost endlessly, from 14 Mhz to 200 MHz, from 0 MB of Fast RAM to 64 Mo, from 2 MB of Chip RAM to 8 Mo of Video Memory, from pretty slow 256 colors mode to 65K, from 4 (8 bit) PCM channels to 8 (14 bit) channels.
It gave me great games in very different styles, and fantastic drawing programs but... Commodore, Escom, etc... failed.

One of the reasons of the shipwreck is : a lot of OCS/ECS owners didn't like the AGA Chipset. They have pretended AGA was too expensive and not powerful enough. I have to say that I often felt frustration in their comments, because some of them had just bought their A600 or A500+ a few time ago. In the end, I saw a lot of them wait, and buy later a weaker and more expensive PC. Of course, in 1992, it was possible to buy a more powerful PC than an A1200 (out of the Box), but for wich cost, and how many people had the opportunity to acquire such Beast ? Most of my friends swapped their Amiga for a poor 286 or 386sx. Only the richest ones could access to a 386DX.

Then, some of them have missed the best A1200 years and are now here to explain how bad A1200 was. In my world, most of the ones who kept their A1200, were frustrated by the death of Commodore and the lack of interest from developpers after that, but have really enjoyed their machines.

[Tigerskunk]

I still think the 1200 is a wonderful computer. Upgradable, beautiful case, and it would easily have been powerful enough to give 1992 era PCs a run for their money.

I am very sure you could have done any of those games that the PC was running away with on a Vanilla 1200.

Most of these adventure and simulation games were just low frame rate but colourful. Which would have been no problem for the 1200 as it's true color and can output 256 colors (which most of these PC games of the era don't even use).

And on the action game side, the 1200 is very capable as well, as if not for one blunder they did with not giving each attached sprite pair its own palette index. Had they done this, the 1200 would have been very competitive to even a SNES (except one less layer of parallax).

[Havie]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

I still think the 1200 is a wonderful computer. Upgradable, beautiful case, and it would easily have been powerful enough to give 1992 era PCs a run for their money.

I am very sure you could have done any of those games that the PC was running away with on a Vanilla 1200.

Most of these adventure and simulation games were just low frame rate but colourful. Which would have been no problem for the 1200 as it's true color and can output 256 colors (which most of these PC games of the era don't even use).

And on the action game side, the 1200 is very capable as well, as if not for one blunder they did with not giving each attached sprite pair its own palette index. Had they done this, the 1200 would have been very competitive to even a SNES (except one less layer of parallax).

And more sprites would have been good so no need to multiplex!

[Karlos]

One of my main interests those days was making music. The A1200 made OctaMED more useful. There was a time when I ran one A1200 with just an 8MB trapdoor memory upgrade as a midi sequencer, with a bit of lightweight Paula audio, playing the more expanded unit running MIDIIn as a multitimbral almost 16-bit sampler. That machine has 256MB which made for a great sampler.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Korban

@d4rk3lf

That's a very,... err,... "creative" post...
I enjoy the Amiga as much as the next enthusiast, but your post is obscene to the point its verging on insanity.

Not sure on what my post you're referring, since I think I have several in this thread, but it doesn't really matter.

If I would be on desert island, and were able to choose any comp with unlimited number of games and apps, I'd always choose A500, over 386 DX40, or A1200 over 486, or some 060 Aga, over Pentium.
Not just because of games, but also, because of apps like Deluxe Paint, Octamed, Real 3D, Lightwave...
As for the games... even some games I could miss from PC (Master of Orion, Master of Magic, Warcraft 1 and 2.. etc) I could still hypothetically play them with mac emulator...

I am still standing in the position that transferring to PC pile of junk, was not worthy until 2002-2003.. at least for average user.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Havie

And more sprites would have been good so no need to multiplex!

But multiplexing is so easy on Jay Miner machines. They are basically designed with this feature in mind.

Shame you cannot have 16 colors per attached sprite pair, since then you could have two parallaxing playfields and lots of 64 px wide multiplexed objects on screen almost each with its own color palette.

That would be almost SNES level of gfx fidelity.

The rest can done by the very fast 020 CPU and 2mb chip is plenty of RAM to pull a lot of stuff off. Imo no need for fast RAM except you want to use the Workbench.


All that's missing here are more colorful moving objects, something that I can pull off easily on SNES and Neo Geo, but not on the A1200.
[ Show youtube player ]

So, that's my only problem with that architecture when it comes to console like action games. The rest is really really great and en par.

[Korban]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

I am still standing in the position that transferring to PC pile of junk, was not worthy until 2002-2003.. at least for average user.

Tens of millions of "average users" disagreed.
People en masse changed to PC because it was the platform of choice for the average user. It had the software, hardware and price.