Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Weasel Fierce]

Though given how many WHDload games have begun to be patched to use CD32 controllers, it could be a case of "build it and people will figure out what to do with it" ?

[Daedalus]

Yep, lots of WHDLoad games have been patched to use the CD32 controller, and some have been patched to use a 3-button controller of a different type to the MD pad. I could be wrong, but I don't think any of those patched games use lowlevel.library - they read the CD32 pad directly, so adding MD pad support to lowlevel.library wouldn't change anything there.

[Weasel Fierce]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Yep, lots of WHDLoad games have been patched to use the CD32 controller, and some have been patched to use a 3-button controller of a different type to the MD pad. I could be wrong, but I don't think any of those patched games use lowlevel.library - they read the CD32 pad directly, so adding MD pad support to lowlevel.library wouldn't change anything there.

Someone would have to specifically patch the game to use the updated library I assume?

[Daedalus]

Yep, and don't forget that lowlevel.library was brought in with Workbench 3.1. Yes, that's very old these days, but there are many people out there still using 3.0, or even 2.x for their WHDLoad setups, and such patched games wouldn't be compatible with those setups.

[grond]

Wasn't lowlevel.library officially available as a free download similar to setpatch?

[TheLurker]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Technically it's not an 'accelerator' board, because the A4000 doesn't have an onboard CPU.

Later '030 models did have the CPU on the motherboard, so you could upgrade them with a 3640. I suppose you could find one cheap from people that upgraded their 4000s. But I doubt there were very many of those machines sold!

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TheLurker

Later '030 models did have the CPU on the motherboard, so you could upgrade them with a 3640. I suppose you could find one cheap from people that upgraded their 4000s. But I doubt there were very many of those machines sold!

That would be the A4000cr, the 'cost reduced' version which had a 25MHz 030 and 68882 socket on the motherboard (basically the guts of the A3630 CPU board transferred to the motherboard to make it cheaper). They were also produced without these parts installed, presumably for the 040 version which didn't need them.

Just because some later variants of the A4000 came with a slower CPU doesn't change the fact that the A4000/040 came stock with an 040, so it's not right to say that this was an 'accelerated' A4000. It was the original standard model.

That lower spec versions of the A4000 were produced is a pity, because it allowed naysayers to denigrate its capabilities. But Commodore and Amiga Technologies weren't the only manufacturers to do this. In 1987 IBM brought out the PS/2 line with faster CPUs, VGA graphics, high density 3.5" floppy drives and micro-channel bus, except for the Model 30 which had an 8086, MCGA graphics, 720k drive and 8 bit ISA bus. What a joke!

Yet somehow IBM and PC clone manufacturers were able to get away with producing lower spec machines without PC fans denigrating them for it. Owners of low-end machines crowed about how great the PC was by citing performance of top of the line models that few had because they were so expensive, while also gloating about the 'low' price they paid for their pieces of shit. Today I received a 486 PC clone that was typical of those sold in the mid 90's. It would have been advertised as having 32 bit VL bus and '1MB Super VGA graphics'. So what did I find inside? A crappy Trident 9000 ISA bus card!

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

A modified lowlevel.library could only do one thing: pretend that an MD pad was a CD32 pad

Yeah that's the idea. I'm not sure how much CD32 titles used lowlevel.library, but many I think. Most of the stuff released in the last five years-I know five years LEWL doesn't matter, but they all support the lowlevel.library if they support joystick, like any SDL stuff or the 3D engines.

I wonder about the A4000cr, like was it like the A600 and actually not cost reduced? We're going to reduce cost by not including a chip RAM socket, and use a coin cell battery, but including a whole 68030 on the motherboard is going to save us MUNNEY!

[Yesideez]

It could definitely have been made a lot better (totally agree re same sound chip) but overall, I loved it.

[GearCross]

Speaking on the fact that I never had anything better than a hand-me-down A500 back in 93, all I can say is that it was pretty much what my 6 year old self dreamt of owning when "drooling" over some magazines of the time.

Unfortunately that A500 developed some issues so I ended up with an also hand-me-down PC with a 16MHz 386SX. Saying it was a downgrade would be a gross understatement.

Even as a fan of the Amiga computers, I will say that the A1200 was too little too late, not from what I seen back then, since I was not nearly as knowledgeable about the hardware nor aware at the time the company was basically on its way out, but comparing with what I read about it and the general history of the Amiga, I feel it's getting a lot more spotlight time from the community now, 30 years later, than it did back then. I only managed to get a hold of an A1200 a couple years ago, but I've been enjoying everything about it, pretty much a dream that became true.

[oscar_ates]

If it had come with additional 2mb fast ram and 28mhz 68020, it could run Doom so it was not doomed

[redblade]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

If it had come with additional 2mb fast ram and 28mhz 68020, it could run Doom so it was not doomed

I don't think this would be possible because of the math calculations involved, and the cycles needed for Chunky 2 Planar.

But I do remember a low resolution mode (F5 ??) which changed it from a 1x1 to maybe a 2x2 on the 486 of you just made the border smaller. But my 486DX66 with 8Mb RAM and SB16 had no problems.

But that extra oomph would have been great for Lucas Art point and click adventure ports and arcade quality conversions of Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat (Well I guess it depends who ported them).

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by redblade

I don't think this would be possible because of the math calculations involved, and the cycles needed for Chunky 2 Planar.

But I do remember a low resolution mode (F5 ??) which changed it from a 1x1 to maybe a 2x2 on the 486 of you just made the border smaller. But my 486DX66 with 8Mb RAM and SB16 had no problems.

But that extra oomph would have been great for Lucas Art point and click adventure ports and arcade quality conversions of Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat (Well I guess it depends who ported them).

Commodore had a slogen, ”computers for the masses, not the classes”. The A1200 was probably priced right, so question is how much more they could/should have squeezed in there. 28 MHz 020 should have been their target from the start of the 1200 project. I cant imagine 28MHz were much more expensive than 14MHz. 020 was about 8 years old by then. (Imagine someone releasing a computer today with a 8 years okd CPU) Could have removed the RF output to save a few bucks.
But the there is the memory question.
Some time ago I made the same argument for the CD32. 28MHz cpu, 1.5 MB chip, 0.5MB fastmem as default.
I think the general agreement is that this still wouldnt have changed much in the end though. Different specs but same outcome. PC, 3d cards, Playstation…

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

(Imagine someone releasing a computer today with a 8 years okd CPU)

Of course they do, the only difference now, is they release so many cpu’s on a yearly basis with name changes and minor changes to resell them.

Buying a new computer with for example a Pentium Gold processor (listed on Curry’s UK website today) is like buying a computer spec cpu from seven years ago in all but name.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

If it had come with additional 2mb fast ram and 28mhz 68020, it could run Doom so it was not doomed

68030 50 mhz is already not great for Doom.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Thorham

68030 50 mhz is already not great for Doom.

I think DREAD proved that you could have had great FPS games on Amiga if the default spec for both A1200 and CD32 would have been 28MHz CPU + some fast RAM.
What doesnt run great is a straight *Port* of Doom.
If you look at the various releases back then (snes!, jaguar, saturn, playstation, 3do and what not) Id say most of those were much more re-writes than ports.

[oscar_ates]

They should added the chunky mode as well. Years of stagnation led to self destruction for commodore

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

They should added the chunky mode as well. Years of stagnation led to self destruction for commodore

Not saying they shouldn't have.. but that's a "different reality" path scenario as they didn't have the tech at that point in time (or even the years after that).
On the other hand, faster CPU and memory are off the shelf products so very little R&D was required.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

I think DREAD proved that you could have had great FPS games on Amiga if the default spec for both A1200 and CD32 would have been 28MHz CPU + some fast RAM.
What doesnt run great is a straight *Port* of Doom.
If you look at the various releases back then (snes!, jaguar, saturn, playstation, 3do and what not) Id say most of those were much more re-writes than ports.

This is a valid point. I've played AB3D on 28MHz 020 with fast ram and it was smooth, save a few later levels. Obviously, that used a chunky copper low res mode that wasn't fantastic but we can see how well Dread runs on even a stock A1200, let alone a modestly accelerated one.

The AGA specification should've included some fast ram, by default is a hill I will die on. Maybe it was amigaworld.net where I said it, but the objections over cost are nonsensical. Ram price was around 30 USD in 1992 and was falling steadily in the months and years before that. You would think it made sense to hedge bets. Make room to allow fast ram to be fitted to the board should the cost be low enough close to production or have a 1200+ model that includes it later if the cost hasn't fallen with projections.

You know what weren't falling rapidly in price? FPUs. Admittedly it didn't waste a huge amount of motherboard space (not sure about the traces) but it must have been blindly obvious to all the engineers that uncontended fast ram would benefit the system more than an onboard FPU. Almost nothing required an FPU then and the software that did generally wasn't aimed at home computer users. As an upgrade to the 500 and 600, the choice to make board space for this and ignore fast memory seems unfathomable. People who needed FPU then typically had a big box model already.

Anyone who bought an A1200 was sold half a computer. You got the other half when you shelled out even more money to install fast memory, at a cost to you that was multiples of what it would've cost had it have been on board in the first place.

[redblade]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Commodore had a slogen, ”computers for the masses, not the classes”. The A1200 was probably priced right, so question is how much more they could/should have squeezed in there. 28 MHz 020 should have been their target from the start of the 1200 project. I cant imagine 28MHz were much more expensive than 14MHz. 020 was about 8 years old by then. (Imagine someone releasing a computer today with a 8 years okd CPU)

I've been trying to find the cost of 68EC020FG16 and 68EC020FG25 processor around that time and have had no luck. It also seems that the Motorola page and that time seemed to be a dynamic page so had no individual prices on it

Update
Prices retrieved from https://techmonitor.ai/technology/mo...eap_68000_line (April 24, 1991)
https://web.archive.org/web/20221223...eap_68000_line

Per 10,000 CPUS

• 68EC000/8 $2.95USD
• 68EC020FG16 $15USD
• 68EC020FG25 $19USD
• 68EC030/25 $43USD
• 68EC030/40 $65USD
• 68EC040/25 $160USD
• 68040/25 $595USD

Wow Only $4USD price difference between the 16mhz and 25mhz 68EC020 what a game changer.