This is one of those long standing discussions in the AMIGA community that will never be settled.
A few simple (historical) facts:
A1000
A2000
A500
A3000
Now, around 1990 the first discussions were being held on what should come next. There was a brilliant design that was to become the A3000+ that would have been *THE* revolution of the day. Not only would it have had the famous DSP chip but would have had advanced graphics, etc... Well, as fate has it, C= scraps it but wants something new so in a VERY reduced form, we arrive at the A4000 (desktop). When compared with the ill-fated A3000+ the A4000(D) is a piece of junk (IMO). A great person to ask about the A3000+ (other than Dave Haynie) is one of our very own AO members... Tigger. He actually got to play with a prototype when he worked at a software company in Nashville. Since the A1200 is merely a simplified A4000, many people consider it in the same catagory.
Is this really fair? Who is to say? The A4000 / 1200 did bring AGA to the community but this chipset was already obsolete as the next generation of video chip was being thought of at C= (with no chance of happening) and other computer makers of the day were going to "standards" like NVIDIA or ATI. Had C= survived, they would have gone the same route. Designing your own video chipset is needless in the present. Back in the 80s and early 90s it was a practical alternative.
In any event it's all history and as such can be debated all day long. All we do know is what was planned vs what was released was not fair or balanced. If any of you want to learn more about the A3000+ (other than asking Tigger to write about his experiences) chech out
Amiga History or better still, read some of Dave Haynie's
developer notes presented at the last DevCon. NOTE - You will need a PDF viewer to read Dave's file.
Regards,
Ltstanfo
