Classic : Amiga A1200

Introduction

Launched on October 21st, 1992, the Amiga A1200 computer was Commodore's third Amiga aimed at the home computer market after the A500 and A600. It was rushed forward to hit the critical Christmas period in 1992. Unlike the previous machines, this was a much bigger upgrade; it was a 32-bit Amiga, featuring the new AGA chipset—a much-needed upgrade from the OCS/ECS chipset.

It featured over 16 million colours and allowed 256 colours to be displayed at a time, enabling the Amiga to compete with the rising PC VGA graphics platform. It came with a Single Dens Floppy Disk Drive, a PCMCIA slot, 2MB of Chip RAM and the Motorola 68EC020 CPU at 14.1MHz, likely the machine's biggest compromise to hit the price point of just £399.99 in the UK.

AmigaOS 3.0 was the OS that came with the system. Like the A500, a number of bundles were released with games and software to help sell the system. Ironically, it was believed that the A1200 really hurt sales of the A600, which had launched only seven months earlier at the same price of £399.99. As soon as the A1200 hit the shelves, the A600 dropped in price by £100 to £299.99 (the price it really should have been at launch). This annoyed users and retailers who had just bought the A600.

The reactions by the press were generally very positive. There were some concerns that old Amiga software would not run on the machine, but it turned out this affected less than 25% of the software library. Programs like relokick quickly fixed many of the issues. It’s estimated that the system sold a million units worldwide. However, this was not enough to save Commodore, who filed for bankruptcy in 1994. It would be another year before Escom brought back the A1200 just in time for Christmas '95 with the Magic Pack. However by then, the system was a little overpriced and underpowered, 3D gaming is one example the Amiga struggled to do and the PC and console markets were now really starting to be dominated by them Games.

However the A1200 went on to become a favourite among the Amiga community due to its price of entry and expandability. Thanks to the 80-pin expansion slot, many users have expanded their system with RTG cards and PPC accelerator cards. Modders have further expanded the machine far beyond what Commodore ever thought possible.

This was my first Amiga and remains my favourite machine of the Amiga platform.