Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

A year before that (mid-1993) a few people had 386, many had Amiga 500 and a lot more had ZX Spectrums.

That's quite different to how it was here in Germany indeed. By 1993 almost everyone had moved on from the 8 bit machines (the C64 here) and most people that didn't get a 16 bit console to game on would get a PC. In my neck of the woods I knew nobody that got a A1200 in 1993, but in 1991 at least half of my friends owned an Amiga 500.

[Promilus]

The problem is ... PC wasn't nearly as widely used as "home computer" back in late 80s. It was too expensive to be that and had to be equipped with yet another expensive add-ons to play half a decent games. A500 for a fraction of that price already did that. But by '92 PC already did catch up, new PCs in 93 (because A1200 came at the end of 92) already did offer more. Sure, they were still much more expensive but the bar did raise a lot since initial Amiga release. And A1200 did not reach the bar. AGA was incapable of handling number of sprites like consoles of the same era. Had a hard time catching up to transformations done by '91 SNES. So was behind consoles even if initially was way ahead of them.

What about computing power and mass storage? 93 - PC CD ROM comes en masse, nearly every PC comes with HDD and every has SIMM slots for fairly cheap, standardized memory expansion. What Amiga has? Trapdoor slot for A500 (slow by default), trapdoor slot for A600 (chip), trapdoor slot for A1200 with fixed amount of ram and if it did have option to add more later it was usually ZIP memory which you could hardly find in a computer store around the corner. HDD was optional. CPU was hardly up to the task especially when severely limited in stock configuration.

Big Amigas? Sure, but with those chipset is getting in a way (ZIII issues, limited Ramsay performance, handling ECS/AGA and RTG screens and switching between them). And it took quite a while to develop 3rd party solution for graphic cards. A1200 was just cheap gaming machine with limited non-gaming performance. Just because due to stubbornness of some ppl it did receive number of upgrades (and still does!) doesn't mean it was revolutionary architecture. There's nothing in there which couldn't be done on any other computer of that era. Why nobody did upgrade their 486 past Overdrive? That's quite simple - because it was cheaper to go with new platform (and there were many to choose from). So could you mount accelerator in 486 socket which "emulates" 486 signals but provide much higher x86 performance + allows more modern graphic, sound, networking and mass storage? Sure! That's just making new effinix board like pistorm32lite and developing emu86 ... so much for "amiga was so far ahead that '87 machine can run quake in ham6 and decent framerate". Or I'd have to say - it took 3 decades to give Amiga so powerful CPU it could actually utilize HAM modes in games. Late 80s PCs have hardly such option even if paired up with extremely fast CPUs. VGAs@ISA just can't suddenly provide anything quite like that.

So yeah, the only real advantage which came 30 years later and by pairing with a piece of electronics order of magnitude faster than Pentium II machines of late 90s (and - by extension - PPC powered classic Amigas).

[sandruzzo]

Back then there were some affordable PPC to add to Amiga? Commodore should had drop 68k and use PPC, but with time

[oscar_ates]

Lack of enough CPU power, missing HDD, fast ram, HD floppy etc, we talked already. Commodore also released A1200 too late to build up high user base numbers. That's why some games still released for OCS/ECS even in 1994 and all the one man wonder games (doom clones, etc) for AGA did not make any money to encourage further development after 1995. A few 100 thousand A1200 means a few thousands of accelerated versions.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Back then there were some affordable PPC to add to Amiga?

Not desktop class. Only embedded class. (No MMU, No FPU)

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

Lack of enough CPU power, missing HDD, fast ram, HD floppy etc, we talked already. Commodore also released A1200 too late to build up high user base numbers. That's why some games still released for OCS/ECS even in 1994 and all the one man wonder games (doom clones, etc) for AGA did not make any money to encourage further development after 1995. A few 100 thousand A1200 means a few thousands of accelerated versions.

You could buy an A4000/030 or an A4000/040 if you wanted more CPU power, fast ram and an HDD in standard.
The A1200 was priced lower than its equivalent PC counterparts.

[PortuguesePilot]

Saw this and it kinda made sense...

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Back then there were some affordable PPC to add to Amiga? Commodore should had drop 68k and use PPC, but with time

May 30th, 1994
https://websrv.cecs.uci.edu/~papers/...SB/0807msb.pdf

PowerPC 603 Aggressively Priced
Motorola rolled out surprisingly low prices for the Power-
PC 603 processor, sampling now and due to ship next
quarter. The company will sell the 66-MHz 603 for $160
in quantities of 20,000, while the 80-MHz version lists
for $199 in similar quantities. Applying our normal 25%
adjustment, we estimate that 1,000-piece pricing will be
$200 and $250, respectively. IBM has not yet announced
603 pricing but expects to have “similar” prices.
Motorola is motivated to offer low prices on the 603
to shift buyers away from the 601, as the company builds
the 603 itself but must purchase 601 chips from IBM for
resale. The new prices are below that of Intel’s 486DX-
33, a chip with one-third the performance of the 80-MHz
603 and a list price of $260 in 1,000-unit quantities. In
fact, Intel does not have a single processor with a float-
ing-point unit at a lower list price than the 603’s.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

May 30th, 1994
https://websrv.cecs.uci.edu/~papers/...SB/0807msb.pdf

The new prices are below that of Intel’s 486DX-33, a chip with one-third the performance of the 80-MHz 603 and a list price of $260 in 1,000-unit quantities. In fact, Intel does not have a single processor with a floating-point unit at a lower list price than the 603’s.

That puts things in perspective. $260 in manufacturing quantities for a 486DX-33 CPU alone, while an entire A1200 is selling for $299 retail!

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

Factor in the timeline and end-user product offerings during 1995 and 1996 intervals.

This thread is discussing the A1200, which was relased in 1992. Anyone looking at one in 1995/6 knew it was 'old' technology. If they were disappointed by it that was their own fault.

Considering that Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 and nobody else rushed in to carry the torch, it's surprising how long the scene lasted afterwards. I received a few Amiga Technologies A1200s in 1996 and had no trouble selling them despite a significant price increase. I kicked myself for being too cautious and not ordering more!

But Commodore certainly would have been better off taking a different path. From Commodore the Amiga Years by Brian Bagnall:-

Gould and Rattigan needed funds to continue development on the Amiga... With no need for LCD technology... Gould and his board of directors authorized Rattigan to dispose of the LCD division.... in the latter half of 1985...

"That always pissed off every engineering person in the company,", says Bob Russell...

Blaraf believes Commodore could have survived for decades if it had invested in LCD's instead. "...they could have done laptop computers, ...IBM compatible computers... Instead they took the proprietary route to develop the Amiga and it just was not the right route."

So there you have it - PC laptops were what Commodore should have been making, not some proprietary thing with a 68000 CPU that wasn't IBM compatible!

They would face competition though. The Toshiba T1100, released in 1985, is recognized as the World's first mass-market laptop computer. This was followed by the T1100 Plus in 1986, with an 80C86 running at 7.16MHz, 256k RAM expandable to 640k, and two internal 720k 3.5" floppy drives. The LCD display had 80x25 monochrome text and 640x200 graphics (CGA compatible). This is what Commodore's new 16 bit computer should have had in it, not a silly gaming chip with 4096 colors, sprites, blitter, copper, dual playfields and 4 channel PCM sound.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

That puts things in perspective. $260 in manufacturing quantities for a 486DX-33 CPU alone, while an entire A1200 is selling for $299 retail!

Yeah, but how much does a whole system cost?



From 14 March 1994
https://tidbits.com/1994/03/14/power-macintosh-prices/
I don't vouch for the accuracy of any of this, but this sounds about right from what I remember.

Power Macintosh Prices

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Here are the official prices, straight from the Apple propaganda distributed at today’s presentation. All of these prices are "Apple prices," which means that they are probably relatively close to what you’ll pay at a normal dealer. Obviously, academic discounts will make a difference. Prices for the Power Macs include only the CPU, no keyboard or monitor. The first number is the amount of RAM, the second is the hard drive size, CD indicates an internal AppleCD 300+, AV indicates additional AV technologies included, and SoftWindows indicates that the program is included in the bundle.
Power Macintosh 6100/60

8/160 $1,819
8/250/CD $2,289
8/250/CD/AV/2 MB VRAM $2,599
16/250/SoftWindows $2,519

Power Macintosh 7100/66

8/250/1 MB VRAM $2,899
8/250/CD/1 MB VRAM $3,179
8/500/CD/AV/2 MB VRAM $3,989
16/250/SoftWindows/1 MB VRAM $3,379

Power Macintosh 8100/80

8/250/2 MB VRAM $4,249
8/250/CD/2 MB VRAM $4,519
16/500/CD/AV/2 MB VRAM $5,659
16/1000/CD/2 MB VRAM $6,159
16/500/SoftWindows/2 MB VRAM $5,309

Upgrades

Power Macintosh Upgrade Card $699
6100/60 Logic Board Upgrade
w/8 MB DRAM $999
6100/60AV Logic Board Upgrade
w/8 MB DRAM/2 MB VRAM $1,399
7100/66 Logic Board Upgrade
w/8 MB DRAM/1 MB VRAM $1,499
7100/66AV Logic Board Upgrade
w/8 MB DRAM/2 MB VRAM $1,699
8100/80 Logic Board Upgrade
w/8 MB DRAM/2 MB VRAM/256K cache $1,899
8100/80AV Logic Board Upgrade
w/8 MB DRAM/2 MB VRAM/256K cache $1,999

Accessories

Power Macintosh 6100/60 NuBus Adapter Card $99
Power Macintosh 256K Cache Card (6100/7100) $299
Power Macintosh Display Adapter $29

— Information from:
Apple propaganda

Which aside from crazy Apple taxes on whole systems, it's funny that a PowerPC upgrade card cost about what an 060 accelerator did for an A4000/A1200.
Power Macintosh Upgrade Card $699


If you consider a CyberstormPPC or a BlizzardPPC cost another $300 on top of that, and by these rough prices they are selling you two CPUs, it all kind of makes sense in the end.

[sandruzzo]

68k was near to the end, and PowerPC was the future there...

[Pyromania]

Originally Posted by Gorf

But what if the monster was blue instead?

The monster should be red white and boing!

[emiespo]

Originally Posted by hammer

Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

Saw this huge thread... don't have useful time to read through it all, will try to add my 2 cents.

Did anyone mention that, apart from the AGA machines not being the huge quantum leap everyone expected by 1992, Commodore was also already advertising AAA in 1993?

I remember a lot of articles where they openly said that AGA was just a stop-gap, and the best was soon to come... (delivery date: 1994). I believe this further restrained a lot of A500 people from upgrading and waiting for the "real Amiga NG" to come soon.

[daxb]

Originally Posted by emiespo

AGA machines not being the huge quantum leap everyone expected by 1992

https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...postcount=3287

[oscar_ates]

Originally Posted by daxb

https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...postcount=3287

Quantum mechanics created a huge leap in science, probably they refer to the quantum physics revolution in 1900. Quantum computing is also a huge leap at the moment

[daxb]

Yes, "that" is the "reason" why people use it the wrong way. They mean the opposite of what they say.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

Quantum mechanics created a huge leap in science, probably they refer to the quantum physics revolution in 1900. Quantum computing is also a huge leap at the moment

Quantum can also mean "required amount" so the phrase Quantum Leap means the amount required to be considered a "leap".

[emiespo]

Originally Posted by daxb

https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...postcount=3287

I would get this if we were talking in "English Antiparticle Board", but most people use quantum-leap to mean a radical change, a transition to a completely different thing, from A to B without a smooth step in between...

Now, language troubles aside, my point was that Commodore further accelerated their adverse fate by "promoting" AAA in advance... the only sensible reason to do so IMO was because they already knew (in 1993) their doom was inevitable, so tried to keep some hype around Amiga in an attempt to make the company look valuable to a buyer.

Same thing happened with the CD32 and the uncanny advertising to Akiko in all magazines "CD32 has chunky to planar in hardware!", just to make it look more attractive than it really was. Akiko was a cost-saving chip to integrate discrete components, given they had some space tried to put something (poorly) somewhat useful, a real chunky mode and fast-ram would've had (a lot) more value.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by daxb

https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...postcount=3287

If you add a 80MB Harddrive to the spec you can add starship Enterprise to that pic.
But worry not, this guy is on it. Soon we can change the poor design decisions ;-)

https://bgr.com/science/an-astrophys...t-time-travel/