Hardware : The A1200

Introduction

Retro Games Ltd has been teasing an Amiga Maxi/full-size Amiga ever since the release of their A500 Mini system. Speculation initially was that the system would be a full-size A500, but at GamesCom 2025 (August 2025) it was finally announced that the system would actually be based on the Amiga A1200. Like the A500 Mini, the system is missing Commodore and Amiga branding, which is likely to reduce legal issues and the cost of licensing these brands. Indeed, for a short while it seemed like the system had been delayed and would not come out due to the continued legal dispute over AmigaOS ownership between Amiga parties and Hyperion.

The system will be the same size and design as the A1200 and feature a full-size working Amiga-style keyboard. It looks from the photos like the disk drive will be filled in (it was very unrealistic that a disk drive would be shipped with the device anyway). It would be cool, however, if the disk drive button were a working button, which could be either the power button or a reset-to-menu button. But all this is speculative at the moment. In the photos and video of the concept A1200, the system features an extra button on the right-hand side, which is now confirmed to be a Home button that will exit games/Workbench mode to the main menu.

On October 24th, Retro Games announced that THE A1200 would be available to pre-order from 10th November 2025, and released in June 2026, with an RRP of £169 / $189 / €189. It seems that the rollout of pre-orders from shops and suppliers is happening slowly, but it has been revealed that from Friday the 14th, Retro Games Ltd will take pre-orders directly: https://retrogames.biz/products/thea1200/. Amazon UK is now also taking pre-orders: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Retro-Games-THEA1200/dp/B0G1L9Q7WK

On May 6th, Retro Games Ltd announced a delay to the release of the system, due to the worldwide chip shortage and to allow more work on the OS/software of the system. The launch has been moved to December 4th 2026. A FAQ answering the most-asked questions was released; view it here.

On July 10th, Retro Games posted a video giving an update on THE A1200 and answering more of users’ most-asked questions about the system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atZFmK9aOCI. In the video, the company confirmed that Workbench 3.1 would be included, as well as WHDLoad to allow you to play games simply. You will be able to boot directly into Workbench without having to go through their interface. It also appears you will be able to access more features of the emulator than you could on the A500 Mini, with them confirming ADF image support, Amiga hard drive image support, and the ability to change the system’s configuration to an A500, A1200, CD32, etc. The video also confirmed that the system/prototype has gone gold and production has started, so a further delay seems very unlikely.

It also seems that the box artwork has changed on Amazon to a simpler design. I’d say it’s a step back, but maybe they didn’t get the rights to the game artwork to put on the box. A shame.

At GamesCom 2026, Retro Games showed off the final production model of THE A1200. It was confirmed that it can be called an Amiga, thanks to the legal issues between Amiga and Hyperion being cleared up. Indeed, the new box does feature Amiga Inc.’s updated Amiga logo. However, the system will still ship with the A1200 logo on the case.

This video shows a very close-up look at the case and manual: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQq5RXzp8mE. Interestingly, the manual says Workbench mode requires a USB stick. I don’t know if this is 100% confirmed, but I will try to find out.

Also, a special collector’s issue of ZZap Amiga will be included in the first production run of THE A1200 in the UK.

Photos of the system and box art are below.

Ports ( 4 USB, 1 HDMI, 1 USBC for power)

25 software titles are to be included:

Workbench OS 3.1
Beneath a Steel Sky
Lure of the Temptress,
Ruff ’n’ Tumble,
Defender of the Crown I & II
Turrican trilogy
The Settlers II Gold Edition
TV Sports Games (Baseball, Basketball, Boxing & Football)
Wings

Alien Breed : Tower Assault
It Came from the Desert I & II
The King of Chicago
Lord of the Rising Sun
Mercenary: Escape from Targ
Reshoot Proxima 3
Rocket Ranger
S.D.I (Strategic Defence Initiative)
Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon

The Settlers 2 Gold Edition, (which can be order here ) shows that this machine should be able to emulate a higher spec system than what an A1200 base system could do. The minium requirement for the Settlers 2 is 68040, with 64mb ram and highly recommends RTG. It likely the system will be much faster than this, indeed the A500 mini could emulate a top end Amiga system with ease. It is not known if any previous A500 mini title will be included, or whether any Serious software or Demo scene titles will be represented on the system.

It's been confirmed that Amiga Workbench OS will be available on the system, version 3.1 has also been confirmed, unlike A500 Mini where no OS was included.It looks like also PPaint 7.1 a popular Amiga paint program will also be included.

WHDload will again be part of the system. You will also be able to boot directly into the Workbench, to make the system feel even more Amiga like. More emulation features will also be accessible, and it will be easier to add your own distro on the system than it was for the A500mini.

Specs

ARM based
4 USB ports
HDMI Port
USB-C ( For Power )
Full size working Keyboard
RRP £169.99 / $189 / 189Euros

In the Box (likly)

The A1200 Computer
USB Mouse (Tank Mouse)
USB GamePad (CD32 pad)
HDMI Cable
USB-C Power Cable
Quick Start Guide
Due: Dec 2026

Unlike the A500 mini, this is meant to be a one to one replica of the A1200 system and is same size of that system. It features a working keyboard. The system features an HDMI port and outputs at 720p 50/60Hz with multiple scaling options and CRT filters.

It also to come with the same 8 button controller as the A500 mini, similar in style to the CD32 controller and an optical mouse in design like the one that came with an Amiga, sometimes referred to as the “Tank Mouse”.

Pictures below (Note Branding will be different, it likely will be The A1200, and in colour White, rather than The GamePad / A500 branding.)

The accessories are also available to buy separately, in the UK the price of the Mouse is £19.99 and the GamePad £19.99, currently the GamePad is only available in black, (it has previously been available in Beige colour (same as A500) and Grey (matching the Cd32 colour).

The system will also likely support third party controllers (PlayStation / Xbox), joysticks, mouses and usb keyboards.

Below is the Announcement Video, My First look of the system, Updated Trailer, July FAQ, Dispatch of final system, and my first hands on and final details

The Product is very likely to be ARM based system

The A500 mini, featured an All Winner H6 chip which is a CPU ARM Cortex A53, this is the same chip that powers Raspberry Pi 3 and Pi Zero 2. It's unknown the clock speed, but it's also stated that the system is faster than a Pi 3B+ which was clocked at 1.4ghz. A53 chips can run up to 2Ghz.

The GPU on the A500mini was an ARM Mali-T720 MP2 which complies with OpenGL ES 3.1, OpenCL 1.1. This should easily emulate all classic Amiga titles. Thanks to druzil28 we now have the SysInfo for the system ( a popular Amiga benchmark tool ), left shows default settings, with JIT off, the right side picture show the effect of JIT on.

For context the Raspberry Pi3B with JIT on ran Mips at 159.86 and Dhrystone 153148, but take these setting and benchmark with a pitch of salt as different version of Amiberry and emulation settings can easily effect these numbers. (pi3 benchmark)

THIS IS ALL UNKNOWN, Retro Games Ltd have yet to confirm Specs of the system.

Workbench 3.1

Its been confirmed that unlike the A500 mini, The A1200 system will be getting Workbench 3.1 support. They remember that this is a computer and not just a console this time. It not fully known what or if any other software is installed on the OS. On one of the video it shows that the WB system is set up with a 720p desktop and has 8mb Chip Ram and 32mb Fast Ram. This is a much higher spec than the A1200 which just featured 2mb of Ram. It also says on Plaion website that the system features the new RTG system, quote "Newly engineered RTG (ReTargetable Graphics) support enables compatible software to use higher-resolution display modes." this was something that Amiga Inc said was work on at the Kickstart 3 show in the uk. More details on what the system features to follow.

on this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQq5RXzp8mE Show a very up close look at the case and manual, interesting in the manual it says Workbench mode requires a USB stick, I dont know if this is 100% confirmed, will try and find out. ( here )

System Manager & All the Roms!

Exploring the setting of The A1200 system it seem it come with all the key Amiga Kickstart Roms, 1.2, 1.3, 2.4, 3.0, 3.1. the system also has pre-configs for the main Amiga models, A500, A1200, A4000 and even CD32, which is nice.

On workbench setup it seem you also get PPaint 7.1, and a app called System Manager, this program has a Media, CPU and Display settings. Media allows you select files for virtual floppy disk drive, DF0 to 3. A Virual Cd rom file, and allows you to safety eject a USB stick. CPU has speed of 7mhz, 14Mhz, 25Mhz, Max, and a JIT toggle. Finally, the Display allows you to turn on and off CRT effects, Image Smoothing and Scaling settings.

WHDLoad

Its likely at the very least the system will come with support for WHDload again. WHDload, which put very simple turns Amiga disk based games into a simple "slave" file that can run more reliable on different Amiga setups and on hard drive based systems.

Basically old games like adventures games could come on as many as 8 disks or more, and you would have to change disks during game play, you might have had to have the original manuals to enter passwords protection stuff, it might be only reliable run on OCS A500 original hardware and not run on the later ECS/AGA based Amiga like the A1200, and it might not of ran from the Amiga desktop, or different versions of AmigaOS etc WHDLoad aim is to fix all this and makes it much easier to deal with games like this.

There are plenty of tutorials on how to use WHDLoad on the internet, but Retro Games ltd wanting this to be a simple experiences as possible you will be able to simple just download a .lha file (which is basically Amiga version of zip files) of your fav game and drag the lha over to a USB stick and load into the game. (NOTE: THIS IS HOW THE A500 mini does it and could be different for the new system)

You will need a USB stick that is formatted to FAT32 MBR filesystem and then visit this site https://retrogames.biz/support/thea500-mini/whdload/ this has instructions and files you will need to place on the stick. Then simple visit these great websites listed below, It should go without saying that you should only download games you own or legally allowed to be shared.

WHDLoad Website

https://www.whdownload.com/ - Loads of Amiga games and goodies ready to go.

http://whdload.de/ - Official WHDLoad website

https://mega.nz/folder/gdozjZxL#uI5SheetsAd-NYKMeRjf2A - Retroplays WHDload

https://archive.org/details/Amiga_WHD_Games - Achive.org collection

http://www.whdownload.com/demos.php - WHDLoad Amiga Demoscene

https://archive.org/details/super-skidmarks-v-2.2-cd - WHDload 2Gb A500 mini collection

Hacks / Mods / Distros for the A1200

Its highly likely previous mods and distros developed for the A500 mini will work for THE A1200.

https://www.aminimiga.com/ - AMiNlMiga was the first of many Pre-Config Workbench setup designed for the A500mini, by Jimmy Johansson, join the discord group (https://discord.gg/rFv8a2CB) for more details.

https://github.com/emuchicken/pandory-a500/releases - Pandory500 is the ultimate mod tool and basically opens up the system so you can run many emulators and consoles from the 80s and 90s.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1144009169831106 - Amiga Game Selector, a 32Gb file of a lot of Amiga games, demos that likely been the most well-developed for the system (also this Distro is available on Raspberry Pi and WinUAE systems, to find out on AmigaOS Distro Page.)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/992594308047121 - A Facebook group setup just to highlight and cover hacks.

If you hack the system to have full access to Amiberry however, I see no reason why any Pre-Config Workbench config won't work. For different systems / setup, visit here.