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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: barney on September 19, 2010, 12:29:50 PM
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I have this question that has really been bothering me for some time now. I used to own every model of the Amiga at one time or another, except for the A4000. I love the A3000, the A2000 and even the A1000. There is just one thing that bothers me....everybody goes nuts over the Amiga 1200. What is it about this computer that drives everybody crazy? I own one and it sits and gathers dust. I do turn it on every once it a while but I just don't get that warm, fuzzy feeling when I do. Here is exactly what happens:
1. I see my A1200 looking lonely in my closet, so I hook it up.
2. I look at the screen and say... "ok, what now?"
3. I play 2 games in WHDLoad then say...."now what do I do?"
4 In the end I turn the thing off and say to myself...."damn, I could have done all this on my A2000 or A3000"....Back in the closet it goes for another 6 months.
Am I missing something? Sombody please tell me what the big hype is over this computer. Some may say, "It has AGA man...it's totally awesome". I have yet to experience anything extrordinary with AGA or maybe I am just clueless on how cool AGA could be. Sombody please bring me up to par on this dillema.
Barney
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Try a few good AGA games like Banshee or Shadow Fighter.Or check how much faster most vector games like flight sims go, strategy games too like Civ. Also, try working with some programs on a 256 colors wb screen and then try them on an ecs machine. You'll see the difference then - that's of course unless you've got a gfx card on your ecs machine. If not, well...then I can't help you much.
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"damn, I could have done all this on my A2000 or A3000"
..and an A1200 user, playing with an A2000 or A3000 could say "damn, I could have done all this on my A1200."
Some people don't want to be bothered with big boxes, and like a machine that'll run any game (AGA included) that they throw at it. Cheap and easy PCMCIA expansion is also nice.
If you miss the big box, you can even put the 1200's motherboard into a tower with Zorro slots. It's just another Amiga.
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A1200 has several advantages over other models these days:
- onboard IDE compatible with cheap huge laptop drives
- PCMCIA port compatible with cheap CF, cheap network cards, cheap WiFi cards
- large numbers of accelerators or RAM expansions available on the second-hand market
- great expansions made for the clockport (clockport is so cool that manufacturers have made clockports for all other miggys too)
- modern reliable electronic design of the mobo
- cool form factor
- nice AGA chipset
- great pieces of hardware still developped such as Indivision AGA, etc
- modularity for towering, etc
The A1200 is then the modern mainstay of the amiga classics.
Some of these advantages are found in the A600, which is nowaydays more interesting than an A500.
Anyway, i still like my A500 Plus (first amiga) but i can't add easely a network card and it cost me a lot of money to buy it a Viper520CD which is less powerful than my A1230.
My A2000 has so much expensive hardware that it can be considered has my best amiga but i haven't the room for it on my desk for now and is unused.
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I have this question that has really been bothering me for some time now. I used to own every model of the Amiga at one time or another, except for the A4000. I love the A3000, the A2000 and even the A1000. There is just one thing that bothers me....everybody goes nuts over the Amiga 1200. What is it about this computer that drives everybody crazy? I own one and it sits and gathers dust. I do turn it on every once it a while but I just don't get that warm, fuzzy feeling when I do. Here is exactly what happens:
1. I see my A1200 looking lonely in my closet, so I hook it up.
2. I look at the screen and say... "ok, what now?"
3. I play 2 games in WHDLoad then say...."now what do I do?"
4 In the end I turn the thing off and say to myself...."damn, I could have done all this on my A2000 or A3000"....Back in the closet it goes for another 6 months.
Am I missing something? Sombody please tell me what the big hype is over this computer. Some may say, "It has AGA man...it's totally awesome". I have yet to experience anything extrordinary with AGA or maybe I am just clueless on how cool AGA could be. Sombody please bring me up to par on this dillema.
Barney
Ease of expansion is the best thing, but you have that. Cost and space is another. An A1200 is cheaper to buy, cheaper to expand, has higher availability, and with WHDload can play almost all Amiga games. Of course, you already own a few others, so many of these points don't count for you.
I bought mine for 3D/2D artwork, the extended colour pallete helped a lot. Generally AGA is not that hot, the base machine had neither the storage/ram or processor to use all it's modes, and AGA was hampered by no chunky modes. The A1200 was not the leap it should have been.
Game wise superstardust, slamtilt, banshee, x-com, liberation, xtreme racing, alienbreed tower assault, star trek 25th are a few that are nice for the base A1200, that OCS machines will miss out on. There are other AGA only games, and lots of others with better AGA and sound effects. 3D games get a speed up, and some had options to turn on more detail.
once you accelerate the A1200 that are more options for games, and the demoscene of course.
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4 In the end I turn the thing off and say to myself...."damn, I could have done all this on my A2000 or A3000".
No. You can't play Total Chaos AGA on your A2000 or A3000.
You need an A1200 or A4000 to do that.
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If you are not using the extra colors then there is no difference. It's probably because they are more common, so therefore the A1200 community is more vocal and gets/wants more expansions.
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And all of the above could also been done with an Amiga 4000 :lol:
The 1200 is a looker, but once you add a Blizzard 1230/1240/1260 or BPPC to it and all other things, it gets hot, really hot :flame:
It's also because it has the most turbo boards availble for this platform.
The 1200 is nice to pack up and take it somehwere to a meeting or game event, that's going to be a bit harder with a heavy A2000/3000/4000 or tower version.
If you do WHDLoad games, take an A500+ and an A530, install a kickswitch in it with 1.3/3.1 and add a bigger harddrive in the A530 and your all set, same as an A1200 with Blizzard 1230 or Ematrix 1230.
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Thanks for the info. I will definitely have to give some AGA games a try. I am not running an accelerator on my A1200, so hopefully WHD load will work without slowdown.
Barney
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The cool thing about the a1200 is its ability to 'grow' with your demands. At first, its just as with the A500: a cheap alternative to the big box machines that can play all those cool new games. And believe me, there are loads of AGA games that you're not able to play on your old ECS machines. Then, after some time, you run some productivity stuff and find out you want a harddrive. After that, you get an accelerator, a tower conversion, graphics card etc etc. Each time it makes the machine even better than before, each time it is able to meet your demands.
Last year I had to decide between a stock a1200 and a stock a4000/040 and in the end I went for the a1200 route, selling the a4000. Its just much more fullfilling to have an entry-level machine expanded to the max, especially when you can keep it all in its original case.
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Simple answer... Yup, it's sure is... :cool:
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The cool thing about the a1200 is its ability to 'grow' with your demands. At first, its just as with the A500: a cheap alternative to the big box machines that can play all those cool new games. And believe me, there are loads of AGA games that you're not able to play on your old ECS machines. Then, after some time, you run some productivity stuff and find out you want a harddrive. After that, you get an accelerator, a tower conversion, graphics card etc etc. Each time it makes the machine even better than before, each time it is able to meet your demands.
Last year I had to decide between a stock a1200 and a stock a4000/040 and in the end I went for the a1200 route, selling the a4000. Its just much more fullfilling to have an entry-level machine expanded to the max, especially when you can keep it all in its original case.
Back in the day, I did all that A1200 upgrading, and eventually realised what I was trying to have was an A4000 with a graphics card. And TBH I still think a souped up and reliable A4000 is the way to go for expansion, with the exception of not having PCMCIA networking if thats important to you.
If you want to do chipset graphics and sound, play games and have a cool-looking Amiga which occupies little desktop space, then get an A1200. But IMO RTG and CDROM is a lot less hassle and neater in an A4000.
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The A1200 is darn near perfect, it's the classic commdore computer.
Low cost but just enough features and modern amenities to make it cool.
rediscovering it in the past few years along with the new CF card reader functionality and CF/SD card to laptop adapters has made it fun.
Things I'd love to have seen in this class machine
A) Faster cpu as standard
B) Simm slot on the MB
C) Dsp
G) Chunk GFX mode with rom support for booting into VGA style display (not a clip on the AGA chip flicker fixer)
With the mediator series you have access to gfx cards.
With current tech it would be cool to see a Turbocard with say an 030-060 DSP slot, and GFX card embedded onto the turbocard. FPGA on the card would be cool too.
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One thing that appeals about the A1200 is the sheer "hackability" of the thing. I'd wager few, if any, of the original C= HW designers envisaged that we'd have soundcards/USB expansions etc. hanging off the clock port and have things like PCI via the trapdoor, never mind CPU expansions with around 17x the clockspeed of the base machine.
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Short answer: Yes, it is that cool :) OK, ok, I'm a bit biased, I have 3 1200's .....
Well, Karlos hit the nail on the head for me... The 'hackability' of the 1200... (though you could say all miggy models have some 'hackability') All the strange things they make for the 'clock port', except that Real Time clocks for this port are somewhat rare... :lol:
The hinderance in making any 'super' Amiga is the availability/affordability of accelerators.... at least A1200 accels. show up on EPay often, not cheaply tho.....
Upgrading any Amiga ain't gonna be cheap..... I'm grateful that I bought the most $$$ upgrades for my 1200T years ago....when I had something resembling 'spending money' :roflmao:
And, this may be total BS, but an Amiga repair guy said to me years ago.... he said that in his experience, A1200 with an '060 and processor-local RAM was just slightly faster with Lightwave renders than a similarly-equipped 4000.....
Can't tell, don't have an '060 A4000, ATM......
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Yeah, the A1200 its a great model becouse many thing said before.. I understand some part about the others Amiga Models.. but the A1200 for me its almost Portable Computer!.. yeah!.. i traveled with any A1200 in my luggage many times on diferents countries trips..
But if you want to see any another diference you will need use real AGA Software to be games or programs that requirethe power of the A1200..
If you run the same ECS Software..obviously you will not see any diference..
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I don't currently own any wedge Amiga's (all big box), but the one thing I miss about 'em is the fact that they are s-i-l-e-n-t. I don't think anyone's mentioned that yet. The A1200/A600/A500 are as quiet as can be. Even with HD's installed in 'em. The A1000 is pretty silent quiet though. There's got to be quieter fans out there that could be swapped out with the other big box Amiga's though...
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@save2600
Didn't your floppy drives tick once a second or did you run NoClick in your WB_Startup?
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I don't currently own any wedge Amiga's (all big box), but the one thing I miss about 'em is the fact that they are s-i-l-e-n-t. I don't think anyone's mentioned that yet. The A1200/A600/A500 are as quiet as can be. Even with HD's installed in 'em. The A1000 is pretty silent quiet though. There's got to be quieter fans out there that could be swapped out with the other big box Amiga's though...
Thats the only thing I don't like about my towered up A1200, all the fans I've had to install to keep everything cool, fans in the power supply, Hard disks, DVD burners and PPC card and I don't think it helps much being in a custom built case made of wood... :(
The best solution I came up with was to build in a custom amp to play cd's or mp3s to drown out the noise of the fans... :)
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If you're a classic lover the 1200 is gold.
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I looked inside my A1200 and noticed that it has a "DKB Clock" connected to it. Does this do anyting else beside keeping time on the system?
I also have the GVP 1208 SCSI/Mem Card installed. I attempted to set up a SCSI CD Rom Drive to the scsi card but it is not detected. Once I get all these problems ironed out, I'm sure I'll have more appreciation for the machine.
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I looked inside my A1200 and noticed that it has a "DKB Clock" connected to it. Does this do anyting else beside keeping time on the system?
Nope - that's all it does. Curious little clockport doo-dad, huh? Most all accelerators came with their own. Nice to have though if you're good with just the 020 and some Fast RAM.
@Samurai... oh yes, I always run NoClick on my systems and before I discovered that in the early 90's, I used to just throw a floppy in the drives to shut them up. The external 3rd party drives though were always quiet enough though.
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Actually, my GVP 1208 SCSI card has one installed. I wonder which one is activ, my DKB or GVP 1208? Should I unhook one of them? Is having two connected at one time cause system problems?
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I don't currently own any wedge Amiga's (all big box), but the one thing I miss about 'em is the fact that they are s-i-l-e-n-t. I don't think anyone's mentioned that yet. The A1200/A600/A500 are as quiet as can be. Even with HD's installed in 'em. The A1000 is pretty silent quiet though. There's got to be quieter fans out there that could be swapped out with the other big box Amiga's though...
Yeah ..you are right.. i forgot that point.. and its a plus over Big Boxes!..
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Actually, my GVP 1208 SCSI card has one installed. I wonder which one is activ, my DKB or GVP 1208? Should I unhook one of them? Is having two connected at one time cause system problems?
If you have a clockport based clock you don't need, take it out. There's way more useful stuff you could put on there. You could have yourself a USB adapter, for example.
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The GVP 1208 doesn't have a realtime clock. When you use a Reatime clock module and put an card for example a Blizzard 1230 IV, then the Realtime clock module will be active.
If you have a real time clock on your card, then it is best to remove the Realtime clock module.
I also have this memory expansion GVP 1208 with SCSI. I connected the external CD-ROM and use an active SCSI terminator.
Most CD-ROM has a inactive teminator when you put the jumper on it, then you should get your CD-ROM working.
The only problem with this SCSI controller is, you need always put a CD in your CD-ROM and turn it on. Or you need to wait for 30 seconds to boot your A1200.
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I don't currently own any wedge Amiga's (all big box), but the one thing I miss about 'em is the fact that they are s-i-l-e-n-t. I don't think anyone's mentioned that yet. The A1200/A600/A500 are as quiet as can be.
Very true. Computers should be seen and not heard.
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Just curious, does anybody know the largest size flash card that can be used in the A1200 PCMCIA slot?
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hi yes l think its is cool computer its small its compact
when first started out with amiga way back l had amiga500 1.3 wb no hd then l got a brand new amiga 1200 hd 40 meg what a diffrence l chould do much more like play
aga games install games to the hard drive . mind you the 4000 was cool machine at the time it had faster cpu out the box 040 add graphics cards .
move forward today
my orginal amiga 1200 still going been put through alot over years reliable as
never once broken down ever.
what whould l do without its a solid workhorse great.
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@Barney
An SD-Card to PCMCIA adapter (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=440) with a 4 gig SD Flash Memory might prove useful to you.
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Just curious, does anybody know the largest size flash card that can be used in the A1200 PCMCIA slot?
If you have a network in your home, I'd recommend a NIC as your PCMCIA expansion of choice. You can mount a flash drive internally on the IDE if you want to go down that route.
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Definitely, network is way cooler than CF storage, why not download those ADFs right from the source with your 1200 rather than ferrying them over from a PC? I skipped right over to WiFi for my 1200, but even that wasn't too bad to set up.
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Dear Friends:
I have the best and latest pc computer coupled with the latest version of lightwave 3d.
Even though lightwave is amazing and costs a small fortune...I still power up my
amiga and play with 'aladdin 4d', I get my kicks messing with aladdin animation.
I use an amiga 1200 with 030 accel 50mhz and 32 mb ram.
I love aladdin 4d on my amiga 1200..it is just as much fun as using lightwave.
The old classic versions of aladdin are amazing for amiga 3d animation.
I love both amiga 1200 and aladdin..they are super in my eyes.
Even though the a1200 is slow to render...it can produce fantastic renders and
animations.
But that is not all !!!
I also use moviesetter (on a1200 ) which can make great cartoon animation ( haven't you
heard of Eric Schwarz ? ) and do not need to render, no great speed is required. I just
started making my own moviesetter movies...and the result is amazing.
But that is not all !!!
I also use DeluxePaint IV aga to make pictures to go along with my amos work.
But that is not all !!!
I use Amospro ( all in amiga 1200 )to code PD amiga games which I've Uploaded to
aminet.
And if this is not enough...I just installed Imagine a few months ago and I am planning
to learn imagine to make new 3d animation on my amiga 1200.
Not only do I do all this on my amiga 1200..but I also have a zillion other things that
I use my amiga 1200 for.
I love my amiga as a hobby animation system.
Love !!!
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Definitely, network is way cooler than CF storage, why not download those ADFs right from the source with your 1200 rather than ferrying them over from a PC? I skipped right over to WiFi for my 1200, but even that wasn't too bad to set up.
I now actually store a lot of amiga data on my linux box and just share it out via smbfs. This was especially handy for doing dev work, as I can use tools I'm more familiar with and use the amigas for binary testing.
I was previously using a CD Rom interface in the PCMCIA slot, but I can honestly say, I haven't missed it at all since going the network route. If I really need to mount a CD, I can assign CD0: to a symlink within the samba share directory.
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obviously all personal preferences but to me:
Form factor. It just looks cool.
PCMCIA slot is handy for connecting all sorts of stuff.
AGA is nice for the games that do support it.
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If you have a network in your home, I'd recommend a NIC as your PCMCIA expansion of choice. You can mount a flash drive internally on the IDE if you want to go down that route.
That is a pretty good idea. In my case, I have an internal 2.5 GB Microdrive on the inside so I need a method of transfering game files for WHD Load. It seems like the easiest way to transfer files to the A1200 is by PCMCIA slot.
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Perhaps the point that's been missed in the replies so far is that the A1200 is ubiquitous - at least in Europe. Like the A500, it sold in millions. For many of us, it's the A1200 that was the computer in every kids bedroom when we were growing up and became many Amiga user's introduction to the platform.
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Hello All,
Why waste you time on toy computers(A500,A600,CD32,A1200) then go head. But If you look around in Australia (don't know any others parts of the world) you can find nice A3000-T or A4000-T for few hundred.But A3000T and A4000T are built like tanks.
Thanks in advance,
Merv Stent
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As nice as the 3000T was, it didn't have AGA and so it couldn't be my only Amiga.
The "toy" 1200 can run more software than the monster 3000T.
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Hello All,
Why waste you time on toy computers(A500,A600,CD32,A1200) then go head. But If you look around in Australia (don't know any others parts of the world) you can find nice A3000-T or A4000-T for few hundred.But A3000T and A4000T are built like tanks.
Thanks in advance,
Merv Stent
Too much of a tank for me. I prefer the looks of a nice & quiet Power Tower'ed a1200 anytime. The 4000D is even worse, I could never fit that on my desk in an elegant way. And fitting stuff inside the case was a pain aswell. There can be only one. And its the a1200!
Oh, and wait, how much memory goes into a PPC'ed a4000 again? What, only 128MB?! ;)
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I prefer the A1200 with a solid state hard disk or compact flash card for a hard disk. Mine sits on the corner of my desk and runs the BBS 24/7. It has been on for over a year non stop, makes absolutely no noise and produces very little heat.
I do miss the 3000T I used to own but when I think about it, it was slower, had less ram, no AGA, was noisy and even with 3 hard disks it had less than half the storage of my current A1200.
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I have pretty much every Amiga model and most flavours of those models. Of all the Amigas in my collection the A1200 takes pride of place, standing head and shoulders above the rest. No machine other than say the 500 ( a poor second ) has had so much created for it. What makes the A1200 even more special is that it was created at almost the very same time as the demise of its creators, and yet the Amiga community continues to support it to this very day. And the acid test is that the computer as with my 1993 machine still functions perfectly. Mine connects through broadband to the internet and runs without fault. Has never failed me.
I have so many A1200s I have lost count, and I wouldn`t part with one of them. They all are named and each is ever so slightly different in set up. I just swap em out when I feel like a change.
You will never see the benefit of an A1200 till you have spent a good time working the OS, expanding the hardware, configuring your software and enjoying many many hours on the computer. This is a love affair and not just a gaming experience. You don`t have to work very hard with the A1200 before you start being rewarded. All you have to do is give her some space, pride of place, a few extra peripheral goodies and some TLC. Then just maybe you will start to understand this marvel.
Trouble is once bitten you will be hooked. So beware. The other computers are fine and work without fault, I mean, they are all Amigas after all. But in the family of the greatest computers ever made the Amiga 1200 is the Queen... She is a marvel.
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz30.htm
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz108.htm
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/car_0406/car_1606_230.jpg
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/my_amiga_large.jpg
My favourite computer The Amiga A1200 Simply the greatest computer ever designed I mean that sincerely. The whole unit is a design marvel. Nothing has been left to chance and unlike modern computers, the design flows through each and every part of the machine from hardware and even through into the OS.
And for those that think this is a kids machine, I would rather stay in the nursery than suffer the glorified mobile phones that modern entertainment systems have become. Its quite insulting to use the term of computer with the crap that gets churned out today. A tin box will always be a tin box, yet an A1200 has style. Always will have.
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The 1200 captures the spirit of the late '80s/early '90s in a way that no other model can. Just the look screams 1990.
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wow imagine a modern 1200 maybe a xeon machine with built in wifi inbuilt keyboard
maybe slid out tray stlye with flash drive networkable to my psx3 streaming
moto gp races and stargate universve omg l am in my happy place
with nice inbuilt grpahics card oh say 1 gig video ram
so you have 1 gig chip ram oh yeah..... l get my bib out .
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@actung_bab
Computers in keyboards basically became irrelevant with the advent of bluetooth for keyboards and mice and the rise of the laptop. It sort of became a neither fish nor fowl, and disappeared.
I'd re-imagine the 1200 today as a sleek cool looking desktop box, and a bluetooth keyboard & mouse. Something you could fit a few full size cards in but still slim enough to rest in back of a monitor or TV. HDMI ports, blue ray drive, lots of USB ports, eSata external connector, firewire ports.
Maybe something like:
(http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Upload/Product/Product/1897/Photos/0234f0d0-dbac-483c-a428-7e94606057fa/B__MG_5639.jpg.jpg) or (http://www.geekologie.com/2008/09/26/wall-computer.jpg)
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Or this:
(http://www.instablogsimages.com/images/2009/07/28/mini-pc_05_6LHCf_25013.jpg)
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well for me the wedge all in one shape of the 1200 is the coolest machine around:afro:....boxes are just boxes with different stickers
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I really think that this is 21st century cool...
(http://www.instablogsimages.com/images/2009/07/28/mini-pc_01_cjauE_25013.jpg)
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Ok,i will get flamed for this but:
The A4000 is full 32bit across the board, the 1200 is not.
The A4000/040 blows the 1200 away stock machine to stock machine and here is why.
Internally a CDRW or DVD-RW,2 hd's and 2 floppies fit the A4000- The A1200 gets 1 HD and 1 floppy (yea,i know,u can hack a laptop dvd-rw internally) but this is hacking.
The A4000 comes with a decent 150W psu. A1200 is a crappy 20~ watt psu.
the 1200 is actually wider than the 4000,but not as deep or tall, so you could call that a draw.
the A4000 is AGA also
You can set a monitor on top the 4000.
The A1200 is 020EC(no mmu/fpu) 14mhz with 2MBram,the A4000 is 040/25 with full mmu/fpu 16MB ram on the motherboard.
comparing stock to stock machine, the A4000 ide is faster(040 helps),the ide in the 4000 is at least buffered.
You can technically make a A4000 quite a bit faster than the 1200 with the csppc. 604/233 blows the 603/240 out of the water.(not withstanding guys hacking bliz boards,i'm talking stock parts here).
CSPPC UWscsi screams,it pushes 20+MB/s on the crappies drives.blizzard is scsi2(10MB/s if your lucky).
The A4000 stock has a proper expansion bus,zorro3, not crappy slow clock ports and 50 dongles hanging off stuff to make it decent.Even the A1200 FastATA and such is a cpu pig,while the csppc scsi cranks along at full speed with low cpu usage(even a CS MKIII).
If you want to compare mediator in both models,the 1200 loses again for speed, its transfer window to the board is smaller i.e. slower..
The A4000 is easy to install a pal/ntsc switch also,so you can permanently switch easily between pal/ntsc-just 2 wires with switch to the jumper.
The A4000 comes with a clock.
A 16MB A4000 with stock 040 card(even the crappy A3640) is a way way way faster machine out of the box than a stock A1200,and still a bit faster than the 030/50mhz boards in the 1200(yes theres 040/060 boards,but dont forget the prices!). and as far as cost, expanding a 1200 these days just to meet the A4000 usually costs as much or more.
The A1200 pcmcia is a winner tho,very handy for cheap ethernet or Pcmcia/cf,i will give it that hands down.
A zorro3 deneb though will out do the subway in a 1200 speed wise by quite a factor.if u want to do this, you could argue a $5.99 ehternet dongle is the way to go in the A4000 and will be faster than 1200 pcmcia ethernet.you also get USB2 and a flashrom to install a ton of stuff in.The deneb would only run on the 1200 with a zorro board/mediator addon in slow z2 mode(2-3MB/s?).
The 1200 also wins portability,but then again the bulky psu is not convienient and should be counted,the A4000 psu is at least self contained in the box.The A4000 comes with a real on/off switch on the machine ;)
There a indivision for the 4000 also.
If u price a expanded 1200 and a used 4000,i bet you the price comes out close(and i dont mean if someone gave u a pile of stuff free).
Basically you can get a 1200 and add a small fortune in slower periphrials to it,and have dongles popping loose half the time,or a box stock a4000/040 you dont have to add 50 things to.
So in conclusion half you people either never owned anything but a 1200 or don't compare specs worth beans ;) the information is out there plain as day.
Mike
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A4000 looks like a Packard Bell 486!
Performance doesn't matter anymore on Amigas, they're all dog slow. Getting them to do what you want does matter.
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Um, Softhut sells brand new gvp4060 060 accelerators still for the A4000...
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>Couldn't resist replying to this....
A1200 has several advantages over other models these days:
>Uh yea,right...not
- onboard IDE compatible with cheap huge laptop drives
>Uh,so is the A4000
- PCMCIA port compatible with cheap CF, cheap network cards, cheap WiFi cards
>^^well u got one thing right at least^^
- large numbers of accelerators or RAM expansions available on the second-hand market
>For A4000: cyberstormppc,warpengine,A3640,Apollo 3040,4040,4060,cyberstom MKI,cyberstom MKII,cyberstorm MK3,A3630,gvp4040,gvp4060,gvp trexI,gvp TrexII,quikpak 4060,PP&S zues and more.. do you look around?
- great expansions made for the clockport (clockport is so cool that manufacturers have made clockports for all other miggys too)
>Clock port is a slow ass piece of crap.cool? waste of time.
- modern reliable electronic design of the mobo
>gee,the A4000 is surface mount also.. with the same bad caps as the 1200.. go figure.
- cool form factor
>Yea real cool and a pita for any serious expansion.
- nice AGA chipset
>same aga chipset as the A4000 you mean?
- great pieces of hardware still developped such as Indivision AGA, etc
>try buying a indivision 1200 NOW.. the A4000 ones are still plentifull.
- modularity for towering, etc
>yea, no ones ever towered a A4000.. Oh wait!they could be had from the FACTORY! WOW
The A1200 is then the modern mainstay of the amiga classics.
Some of these advantages are found in the A600, which is nowaydays more interesting than an A500.
other than a pcmcia port, the 600 has no advantages over a ecs 500.Accelerators are much more rare for it than the 500.
>you dont have a clue do you?
Anyway, i still like my A500 Plus (first amiga) but i can't add easely a network card and it cost me a lot of money to buy it a Viper520CD which is less powerful than my A1230.
My A2000 has so much expensive hardware that it can be considered has my best amiga but i haven't the room for it on my desk for now and is unused.
A2000 is also a neet machine,but why use zorro2 on anything? its way way slower than Z3.and lord knows zorro3 is slow enough.
Mike
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A4000 looks like a Packard Bell 486!
Performance doesn't matter anymore on Amigas, they're all dog slow. Getting them to do what you want does matter.
well, if the price comes out the same ,why build a slower machine?
the 4000 is not pretty,thats for sure, but i've seen packard bells way back and it doesn't look the same iirc.
mike
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I just want to say I do love my A3000, and my A4000. The Amiga 1200 I love also. Each to me does specific things very well for and I gotta say I just love them all. Also I have an Amiga 1000 that I just love. There are games that just won't play on an AGA machine such as some of the Psygnosis games like Agony and SOTB series. But all in all I think that all my miggys are wonderful and all of them to me fulfill certain needs.
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I just want to say I do love my A3000, and my A4000. The Amiga 1200 I love also. Each to me does specific things very well for and I gotta say I just love them all. Also I have an Amiga 1000 that I just love. There are games that just won't play on an AGA machine such as some of the Psygnosis games like Agony and SOTB series. But all in all I think that all my miggys are wonderful and all of them to me fulfill certain needs.
SOTB3 and Agony both run fine on my 1200 but I dont know if its a specific version or whatnot.
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Mechy, you're SOOO unbiased :)
Most of what you say is true, I agree, but don't overdo it.
E.g. expanded A1200 (Blizz 1230, a little slower, but way more RAM) is still (significantly) cheaper thank a stock A4000 on second hand market.
Why should PCMCIA ethernet be slower than ethernet over Deneb?
Or why should the clockport speed matter when you use it to connect a soundcard??
Btw, see my sig? Now that I have a B1260 I'm thinking of completely ditching my A4000...
Anyway as others have said each model is cool in its own way, but A4000 is one of the more generic looking.
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I think its damn cool but right now, I'm only using it for games.
I have no scandoubler, so I'm using it on a 1084. Its okay for games but sucks for anything else I think. Pal high res laced is hard on my eyes....
I also need to get a pcmcia network card or
media card reader, right now I have no way of sharing files...
Sometimes I think an emulator would be better, (easier anyway) but I still love having the real 1200 sitting in my basement.
Steven
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After years of spending crazy amounts of money collecting almost every Amiga computer and related hardware add-on, plus tons of original boxed software and hundreds of Amiga magazines, I am ready to break up the massive collection and hopefully put some of it into the hands of others that will get more use from it. One of the Amiga computers I will NOT be selling though is my A1200 w/060 & 256mb RAM & SCSI controller plus wireless NIC. I don't know if I would consider the A1200 to be the best Amiga computer ever made, but it is certainly a very capable and fun machine to have.
It is hard to let go of any of my Amiga computers, but I just can't justify having 20+ Classic Amiga computers in the house anymore (as if I ever could justify it in the first place). I think I can get my collection down to 4 or 5 classic Amiga computers without going through too much withdrawal symptoms.
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I'm ditching my A4000T because it just takes up to much room, and it's no longer used much for it's intended purpose- graphic artwork.
Now I mainly use my A1200 for games, and some app work, its suits me fine.
The one thing I will miss about my big box, is the graphics card. I wis there was an accelerator/graphics card combo for the trapdoor is that even possible?)
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I wis there was an accelerator/graphics card combo for the trapdoor is that even possible?)
BPPC and BVision.
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BPPC and BVision.
Yes forgot about that one. I meant a single card solution. Whether it is theoreticaly possible.
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Yeah, a graphics card is the one big advantage of big box Amigas...
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a gfx card turbocard combo has got to be possible. With modern tech out nowdays it'd be interesting to see what is possible.
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a gfx card turbocard combo has got to be possible. With modern tech out nowdays it'd be interesting to see what is possible.
A modern GFX and sound chip takes up less space than a m68060.should be amazing a turbo card with a 68k (or a fpga emulating one) and a gpu and sound chip with 256 MB ram and a pass through for Aga modes and paula sound that fit in the trap door
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Koshman,
Its not a matter of being biased,is just the facts ma'am :) understand,i have owned/do own every amiga out there but the rare proto's and such,and i've used them all.Each machine has its good/bad points and quirks.
I agree everyone has thier own specific needs,but i was just pointing out that it makes sense to build off the best foundation. With 1230 cards not going cheap anymore,at least $250usd+with ram most the time and 1260's upwards of $400~!,the 1200 can get pretty darn expensive too.Softhut selling the gvp 060 cards for $450 new for the A4000 makes it comparable imho.I've seen blizzardPPC cards go for as much as cyberstom ppc's.
Its also worth noting the only A1200 trapdoor graphics card solution the bvision,which requires a blizzard ppc,was never meant to be installed in desktop machines due to heat/power requirements(although these can be gotten around).
The 400o case is more generic looking. its definatly a case of function over form there.. lol
Mike
Mechy, you're SOOO unbiased :)
Most of what you say is true, I agree, but don't overdo it.
E.g. expanded A1200 (Blizz 1230, a little slower, but way more RAM) is still (significantly) cheaper thank a stock A4000 on second hand market.
Why should PCMCIA ethernet be slower than ethernet over Deneb?
Or why should the clockport speed matter when you use it to connect a soundcard??
Btw, see my sig? Now that I have a B1260 I'm thinking of completely ditching my A4000...
Anyway as others have said each model is cool in its own way, but A4000 is one of the more generic looking.
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A modern GFX and sound chip takes up less space than a m68060.should be amazing a turbo card with a 68k (or a fpga emulating one) and a gpu and sound chip with 256 MB ram and a pass through for Aga modes and paula sound that fit in the trap door
If those Natami guys were serious they could have made one instead of playing fiddlywinks.
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Sure, Mechy, as I said I mostly agree. It's difficult to compare relative prices anyway when we're speaking about used items.
As tone has said, whichever the model, Amigas are slow anyway compared to anything contemporary so it's mostly the question of what "feels" better. While I like my A4000 I can imagine being without a big box Amiga, but not without an A1200 (though I prefer having both, naturally :) ). To each his own.
Of course, A1200 was an entry level system and A4000 top of the line so there's no argument that out of the box the latter is a far more capable system.
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Ok,i will get flamed for this but:
The A4000 is full 32bit across the board, the 1200 is not.
The A4000/040 blows the 1200 away stock machine to stock machine and here is why.
Internally a CDRW or DVD-RW,2 hd's and 2 floppies fit the A4000- The A1200 gets 1 HD and 1 floppy (yea,i know,u can hack a laptop dvd-rw internally) but this is hacking.
The A4000 comes with a decent 150W psu. A1200 is a crappy 20~ watt psu.
the 1200 is actually wider than the 4000,but not as deep or tall, so you could call that a draw.
the A4000 is AGA also
You can set a monitor on top the 4000.
The A1200 is 020EC(no mmu/fpu) 14mhz with 2MBram,the A4000 is 040/25 with full mmu/fpu 16MB ram on the motherboard.
comparing stock to stock machine, the A4000 ide is faster(040 helps),the ide in the 4000 is at least buffered.
You can technically make a A4000 quite a bit faster than the 1200 with the csppc. 604/233 blows the 603/240 out of the water.(not withstanding guys hacking bliz boards,i'm talking stock parts here).
CSPPC UWscsi screams,it pushes 20+MB/s on the crappies drives.blizzard is scsi2(10MB/s if your lucky).
The A4000 stock has a proper expansion bus,zorro3, not crappy slow clock ports and 50 dongles hanging off stuff to make it decent.Even the A1200 FastATA and such is a cpu pig,while the csppc scsi cranks along at full speed with low cpu usage(even a CS MKIII).
If you want to compare mediator in both models,the 1200 loses again for speed, its transfer window to the board is smaller i.e. slower..
The A4000 is easy to install a pal/ntsc switch also,so you can permanently switch easily between pal/ntsc-just 2 wires with switch to the jumper.
The A4000 comes with a clock.
A 16MB A4000 with stock 040 card(even the crappy A3640) is a way way way faster machine out of the box than a stock A1200,and still a bit faster than the 030/50mhz boards in the 1200(yes theres 040/060 boards,but dont forget the prices!). and as far as cost, expanding a 1200 these days just to meet the A4000 usually costs as much or more.
The A1200 pcmcia is a winner tho,very handy for cheap ethernet or Pcmcia/cf,i will give it that hands down.
A zorro3 deneb though will out do the subway in a 1200 speed wise by quite a factor.if u want to do this, you could argue a $5.99 ehternet dongle is the way to go in the A4000 and will be faster than 1200 pcmcia ethernet.you also get USB2 and a flashrom to install a ton of stuff in.The deneb would only run on the 1200 with a zorro board/mediator addon in slow z2 mode(2-3MB/s?).
The 1200 also wins portability,but then again the bulky psu is not convienient and should be counted,the A4000 psu is at least self contained in the box.The A4000 comes with a real on/off switch on the machine ;)
There a indivision for the 4000 also.
If u price a expanded 1200 and a used 4000,i bet you the price comes out close(and i dont mean if someone gave u a pile of stuff free).
Basically you can get a 1200 and add a small fortune in slower periphrials to it,and have dongles popping loose half the time,or a box stock a4000/040 you dont have to add 50 things to.
So in conclusion half you people either never owned anything but a 1200 or don't compare specs worth beans ;) the information is out there plain as day.
Mike
A1200 was to be sold to people who wanted to mainly play games and maybe play with Dpaint or a music tracker
And the A4000 had the same identical barely adequate chipset called AGA
So in that sense the A4000 was overpriced too, AGA was just a catch up to VGA too it was in no way superior to mid 80s PCs like when A1000 came out Vs EGA + Adlib soundcard + 8086 XT. AGA still had 8bit sound, was still a 16bit chipset really, had a dodgy HD floppy drive controller where the data is slowed down to the speed of an 880k to read it in, hugely expensive with expansion of a PPC card, a proper 24bit card, a 16bit sound card etc etc.
A4000/030 was a real donkey of the range.
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A modern GFX and sound chip takes up less space than a m68060.should be amazing a turbo card with a 68k (or a fpga emulating one) and a gpu and sound chip with 256 MB ram and a pass through for Aga modes and paula sound that fit in the trap door
Nvidia's Netbook/Mobile targetted GPU allowing 720p PS3 type levels of graphic detail are amazing. One of those and a bog standard 16bit stereo output would work a treat as some cool update in a trap door expansion.
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Could you do a PCMCIA grahpics card?
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I have a 1200 with an 040 card. Its fast and brilliance is a wicked paint program for it.
I don't play games, never have the time with my other hobbies.
I will admit it is sitting in storage because my 060 3000T with a picasso II is just nicer but once I get around to ether uograding to an 060 for the 1200 or building a platform so I can have better cooling on the 040 I won't use it much.
Personally I enjoyed my 1200 more when it had a DKB 030 and scsi system.
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The main thing the 4000 will not do is fit on my desk
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Speaking of the price of a cool A1200, here is calculation made on the one i'm using to browse this forum:
A1200 - 70 EUR
3.1 ROM - 20 EUR
IDE 10 GB HD - 5 EUR
Indivision AGA - 150 EUR
Subway - 70 EUR
Blizzard 1230IV - 150 EUR
64 MB SIMM - 10 EUR
PCMCIA NIC - 10 EUR
PCMCIA CF and SD reader - 10 EUR
2 GB SD and 128 MB CF - 10 EUR
USB mouse adapter - 20 EUR
USB mouse - 10 EUR
Bonus:
CD32 competitor pro - 20 EUR
2 external floppy drives DD and HD - 50 EUR
Not directly related:
ASUS lcd screen - 80 EUR
Logitech speakers - 20 EUR
Total:
This computer is worth 535 EUR (705 EUR with all bonus), of course using second-hand prices amibay-like and not ebay-like.
Still way cheaper than expanding any other amiga this far.
I spent so much more money in my A2000 for nothing.
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Speaking of the price of a cool A1200, here is calculation made on the one i'm using to browse this forum:
A1200 - 70 EUR
3.1 ROM - 20 EUR
IDE 10 GB HD - 5 EUR
Indivision AGA - 150 EUR
Subway - 70 EUR
Blizzard 1230IV - 150 EUR
64 MB SIMM - 10 EUR
PCMCIA NIC - 10 EUR
PCMCIA CF and SD reader - 10 EUR
2 GB SD and 128 MB CF - 10 EUR
USB mouse adapter - 20 EUR
USB mouse - 10 EUR
Bonus:
CD32 competitor pro - 20 EUR
2 external floppy drives DD and HD - 50 EUR
Not directly related:
ASUS lcd screen - 80 EUR
Logitech speakers - 20 EUR
Total:
This computer is worth 535 EUR (705 EUR with all bonus), of course using second-hand prices amibay-like and not ebay-like.
Still way cheaper than expanding any other amiga this far.
I spent so much more money in my A2000 for nothing.
And to a casual user, most of that is Unnecessary (although, once they've been sucked in...)
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Can't put a VT/Flyer in to an stock A1200, so I don't believe it to be as cool as my A4000. ;) So for what it is and what could be done with it. Yeah, sorta I guess. Compact, quiet and relatively portable as long as there's not a ton of peripherals hanging off of it.
My A1200 is in the living room wired to the TV. Haven't done much with it lately. Might downgrade to an '030 for game compatability.
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I love my A1200s :D
Steve
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I'm ditching my A4000T because it just takes up to much room, and it's no longer used much for it's intended purpose- graphic artwork.
Now I mainly use my A1200 for games, and some app work, its suits me fine.
The one thing I will miss about my big box, is the graphics card. I wis there was an accelerator/graphics card combo for the trapdoor is that even possible?)
Maybe in the near future from Jens from Individual Computers.
Have you seen these ?
(http://www.amigascene.nl/uploads/photos/895.jpg)
That is how small the current 030 turbo is for the A1200, so a bit more length and the Indivision could be added.
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some more things I like about the a1200:
- rf output for easy connecting to tv
- ability to scale right down to base cpu (020) on the blizzard accelerator boards (maximum compatibility, the big box amiga's cant do that!)