Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[grond]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Ok, A1200 was good but not like A500 was. What would you have added to make it more appealing, without going overboard?

Really? 8bit chunky pixel mode, 32bit blits, possibly 16bit audio. At least the first two would have been easy and rather obvious additions. I would also have put the CPU in the A1200 on a daughterboard to make it strategically possible to upgrade the platform straight from the factory and not from the aftermarket.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by grond

Really? 8bit chunky pixel mode, 32bit blits, possibly 16bit audio. At least the first two would have been easy and rather obvious additions. I would also have put the CPU in the A1200 on a daughterboard to make it strategically possible to upgrade the platform straight from the factory and not from the aftermarket.

Not as sure about 16 bit audio. For the same DMA bandwidth I'd much rather have had 8 channels of regular Paula. If we're talking sound improvements, it would have been lovely if there were either separate left and right volume controls pet channel or a pan and volume. Given the way the volume control works in Paula (seemingly it uses a counter based PWM on the DAC power and relies on the analogue side to basically smooth that) this may have been tricky to do.

[grond]

@Karlos: yes, I agree with all of what you write. The "possibly" silently referred to the question whether such a resolution would actually have been possible at all with the chip technology MOS/Commodore had. Power Supply Rejection Ratio is a big factor here, 96dB aren't easily obtainable on an otherwise digital chip producing lots of noise and having transistors with a very low small-signal resistance. Thus, 16bit audio would probably have required an additional chip which would have made it prohibitively expensive.

In any case, if 16bit audio resolution had been possible, the updated audio part should have given the choice between 8*8bit or 4*16bit. With the 32bit chipmem bus both would have come for free and would have fit into the existing DMA slot scheme with ease.

I also agree about panning. I guess in such a case the 8*8bit channels would have become 4 stereo channels.

[sandruzzo]

What about 8 audio channels and the ability to mix 2 samples for each one of them, and audio volume for each sample?. What about trap door ram without bitplanes dma schedule and HW registers too?

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by grond

@Karlos: yes, I agree with all of what you write. The "possibly" silently referred to the question whether such a resolution would actually have been possible at all with the chip technology MOS/Commodore had. Power Supply Rejection Ratio is a big factor here, 96dB aren't easily obtainable on an otherwise digital chip producing lots of noise and having transistors with a very low small-signal resistance. Thus, 16bit audio would probably have required an additional chip which would have made it prohibitively expensive.

In any case, if 16bit audio resolution had been possible, the updated audio part should have given the choice between 8*8bit or 4*16bit. With the 32bit chipmem bus both would have come for free and would have fit into the existing DMA slot scheme with ease.

I also agree about panning. I guess in such a case the 8*8bit channels would have become 4 stereo channels.

For modules and games, the ability to independently pan the 8 channels anywhere in the stereo field would've really helped immersion. Even the most basic 4 channel modules could've sounded much better this way, leaving 4 free for sound effects in games etc.

For 4 stereo channels you'd just set the pans to extreme L/R and let rip.

[oscar_ates]

Amiga was designed by Jay Miners' team of engineers not by the Commodore. Commodore put little on the what the original great engineering team did. Around 1990s there was an interview with Jay Miner on the status of Amiga tech. He said Commodore/Amiga was already so behind the competition, it would be impossible to catch up. And in the end, this turned to be true in 4 years time Commodore collapsed.

[Weasel Fierce]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

If only Commodore had produced an Amiga with performance similar to a 486 in 1992/3. Oh wait...

Amiga owners never got over the C64 mentality.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Weasel Fierce

Amiga owners never got over the C64 mentality.

As a student in 92/93, the A4000, no matter how lustworthy it seemed at the time, was completely out of my price range. So was a 486 PC. The relative pros and cons of each were of no consequence to me at the time.

I remember a friend in my first year of university had a reasonably well specced 386 with VGA at the time but was won over by a then unexpanded A1200 on it's screen dragged multitasking of Protracker, deluxe paint and workbench.

[Retro1234]

Not really but knowing what I know now could probably of setup a nice A1200 office computer with Shapeshifter and other 'backup' software and cheap parts for a nice price in 1996 ish

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

In 1992/1993 486 cpus were taking off in PC world. Amiga 1200 and CD32 were no match to that performance

i''ll take any time A1200 over 486 (especially with some fast ram).

What 486 offers better, with exception of several 3D low poly. low res textured games?
As an overall experience, A1200 is way better for me, and not only because of the games, but because of the apps too. Lightwave, Octamed, Deluxe Paint, Brilliance... plethora of amazing apps, with OS that loads in few seconds.

PC, at least for me, as an overall experience, was not good before WinXP, and Pentiums 2 and 3.

[Promilus]

What 486 offers better, with exception of several 3D low poly. low res textured games?

Oh, weren't there any adventure and platform games for it? Like newer Monkey Island series? Alone in the Dark? Jazz Jackrabbit? Larry? Strategy games like Settlers 2, Civilization 2, Command and Conquer? Games like Mortal Kombat 3? Need for Speed? And yes, many of those titles came pretty late. Even after Commodore went into bankruptcy. But it's not like A1200 got plentiful AGA titles soon after initial release, right?

[shelter]

Going from Amiga 600 to 1200 i absolutely loved the 1200.
But I liked the 4000/040 even more.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Promilus

Oh, weren't there any adventure and platform games for it? Like newer Monkey Island series? Alone in the Dark? Jazz Jackrabbit? Larry? Strategy games like Settlers 2, Civilization 2, Command and Conquer? Games like Mortal Kombat 3? Need for Speed? And yes, many of those titles came pretty late. Even after Commodore went into bankruptcy. But it's not like A1200 got plentiful AGA titles soon after initial release, right?

Right.
Monkey Island 1 and 2 is on Amiga too... Alone in the Dark had terrible ugly looking graphics... Jazz Jackrabbit was a nice platformer, but even on Amiga 500 you had like millions nice platformers... Larry was on Amiga too... Ok for Settlers 2... Personally, I never got into Civ 2, and Civ 1 and Civ 3 is waaay more immersive for me... Command and Conquer Ok... Mortal KOmbat 3 - Naah.. too much CyberPunk... Always liked 2 much more... Need For Speed is in the category of those first low poly, low res, ugly 3D games... 3D was not nearly advanced to look anywhere acceptable visually... in that period (and now), I always liked much more flat shaded 3D games like Frontier.

All above (I could add Master of Orion 2, Master of Magic, and some others that are not on Amiga) is not near enough reason to abandon comfort that Amiga provide for unpleasant experience With PC trashcan... right?

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Right.
Jazz Jackrabbit was a nice platformer, but even on Amiga 500 you had like millions nice platformers...

Jazz was kind of a niche on the PC too though. It's not just a platformer, it's an action platformer which is designed to make you go fast. Imagine trying to do that in the likes of Turrican, Wolfchild or Abuse. Going Rambo is suicide.

Which is also why I fully understand that people either love it or hate it, it is kind of wonky gameplay being designed to go super fast at such a low resolution and thus visibility. You essentially just have to keep shooting without pause to survive and take every leap of faith that you run into. Jazz 2 is the one with a loyal following to this day and I can imagine it is because it has a higher resolution so you can actually see where you're going.

[Promilus]

Well I didn't compile that list to prove that's the reason to move from A1200 to 486 in the first place. But it's not like A1200 indeed had offered more than that 486 rig. So while A1200 user might not be tempted by games which run on 486 I doubt 486 user missed much by NOT using A1200.

[TCD]

Here we go again... If you were into games by 1992 it was clear that quite a few new titles won't be available for the Amiga. In 1993 it was clear that the A1200 won't get games even if they might be possible (anyone remember Shadow of the Comet or Dark Sun: Shattered Lands?). I got a PC for gaming and I still played games on the Amiga because there were quite a few genres that simply were lacking on PC. I didn't know anyone that had an A500 that got an A1200. Most just got PlayStation a few years later.

[gimbal]

I certainly never looked back. Until nostalgia bit me of course. But even now I don't find myself emulating A1200 games all that often. The magic was in the A500 compatible library for me.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

If only Commodore had produced an Amiga with performance similar to a 486 in 1992/3. Oh wait...

Well they did ... kind of.

Sadly the 68040 did not scale as nice in higher MHz regions:
In spring 1993 you could get a 486PC DX2 @66MHz for $3000
Monitor, 170MB HD and 32-bit SVGA gfx-card included from DELL.

While C= charged still $3000 for the A4000/40 @25 MHz without monitor and smaller HD.

Originally Posted by grond

Yes, exactly. People want A4000/040 power for the price of an A1200/CD32. And yes, that would sure have been a popular computer.

Still: the A4000/40 was massively overpriced.
It used the same <$50 chipset as the CD32 and was even lacking Akiko and had no CD-drive...

So actually Commodore tried to sell a 040-board with 4MB ram for over $2500
(together with a $50-chipset, a 30$-floppy-drive and $300 HD in a cheap case)

[Retro1234]

A 68030 and fast ram could run most of the best Mac games if they were ported properly like Doom, Alone in the Dark etc. But it would still be only borderline a PPC would have given real! Power but could Commodore afford it.....

[Weasel Fierce]

Originally Posted by Karlos

As a student in 92/93, the A4000, no matter how lustworthy it seemed at the time, was completely out of my price range. So was a 486 PC. The relative pros and cons of each were of no consequence to me at the time.

I remember a friend in my first year of university had a reasonably well specced 386 with VGA at the time but was won over by a then unexpanded A1200 on it's screen dragged multitasking of Protracker, deluxe paint and workbench.

We had to penny pinch to buy our first shitty PC which was obsolete as soon as we got it. It was brutal in those days.