From: Aric.Caley@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: A1200 - yay or nay?
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Oct  1 1992
Date: 04 Nov 92  11:04:04

                          The A1200: yay or nay?

Great points:

  #399 in Europe (which directly converted is about $600 American; there is
also  the  fact that prices often have the same numerical amounts - thus it
might sell for $399 American!)

  14Mhz, 32 bit EC020 CPU
  AGA chipset and full 4x bandwidth 32 bit fast CHIP RAM.
  Internal 150 pin slot with the full CPU bus, and a rear access panel.
  PCMCIA slot.
  Built in HD interface - IDE.
  Kickstart/Workbench 3.0

Bad points:

  880K floppy instead of 1.76M.
  One piece design.
  No fast ram standard.
  No improved sound (same as A4000).
  IDE and not SCSI.

___

  I  think  that,  overall,  the A1200 is a *great* machine; and I think it
will  be very successfull.  Even though it "only" has an EC020 CPU, it will
be  faster than the Mac Performa 200, 400/LCII - primarily because it has a
true  32  bit  memory system (including CHIP RAM); while also costing less!
Its  performance  should also beat the Falcon 030, and most 386SX machines.
The  AGA  graphics  out  do  the graphics on the low end Macs and should be
pretty  comparable  to the SVGA graphics of the IBM clones.  Its got a full
expansion  slot,  comparable  to  the  slot  on  the Mac Performa 400/LCII;
actualy  better  since its a 32 bit slot.  The IDE hard drive interface may
not be able to handle multiple drives like SCSI, but its performance should
match  the  SCSI  interfaces on the Macs (and most IBM's use IDE); and most
people  at the low end wont need SCSI.  All this combined with the low cost
should make the A1200 a worthy successor to the A500.

  Problems?  Well yeah, its got problems.  Commodore as usual truly screwed
up  on  some  things.   I  think the dumbest thing they did was put an 880K
drive  in it.  While everyone else now has 1.4M floppies we are still stuck
with  880K.  Come on.  I can't see any reason not to stick the 1.76M floppy
in  there.   Another anoying problem is with the 2.5" hard disk's - there's
no  room  for  a 3.5" drive.  Why?  Certainly they could have made the case
slightly  larger  to accomodate the cheaper and more plentiful 3.5" drives.
And a detachable keyboard would be nice, and shouldn't add much to the cost
either.

  I  don't  see any excuse for not having an HD floppy and space for a 3.5"
hard  disk.  I can see not having a detached keyboard - simply because this
IS  a  low  end  machine  and obviously, people will buy machines like this
(witness all the A500's and C64's sold).

  Final  verdict:  Its a LOW END machine, which makes the built in keyboard
excusable.  If you want lots of expansion, speed, ram and disk storage, you
shouldn't  be  looking  at  a  low end machine such as this.  If you want a
machine  thats  several  times  faster than the previous low end Amiga, and
faster  than  higher priced offerings from Apple, with great graphics and a
built  in  Hard  disk  for  a really great price, the A1200 is really quite
nice.   It  raises  the  Amiga  low end; it means more people than ever are
going  to  have  an  accelerated  machine with at least 2 megs of ram, Hard
disk,  and  enhanced  graphics.   And  this is a good thing.  It also means
Commodore  will  make  lots  of  money,  which means they can spend more on
designing more really cool machines.

 - Dances With Coyotes - World's slowest programer -Given that the universe-
 ---------------------------------------------------is infinate, and god is-
 ------------ And the fat lady sings... ------------all powerful, would you-
 ---------------------------------------------------like some toast?       -


--- Maximus 2.00
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy