Is the A1200 really that cool of a computer???

[mechy]

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

[mechy]

Um, Softhut sells brand new gvp4060 060 accelerators still for the A4000...

[mechy]

>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

[mechy]

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

[mechy]

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.