{PB{!0000{!1111{!?0CE{4 Complaints About Progress - My View {? By Typhoid {2A lot of people have been complaining lately about how Commodore decide to bring out a new Amiga, then 6 months later replace it with another one. You might be thinking "Yeah yeah, we heard all this before when the A600 replaced the A500+". Indeed you have, but the argument is far from over. Take the A1200 and A4000. Very attractive Amigas, sporting powerful new processors, greatly improved GFX capabilities, 32BIT architecture, and larger memory capabilities than before. When they came out, everybody thought they were {?THE{2 computers to have. Well, the Amiga owners did, the ST owners simply laughed and ranted on about how, when Atari brought out the Falcon, the new Amigas would bite the dust (perhaps that's a little milder than what they {?REALLY{2 said!), and the PC suits still thought that these state of the art machines could only play games, but suffice to say that anyone who knew their shit with Miggies was excited. Myself, I wasn't quite bowled over. I've had an A500 for 3 years, and whilst the prospect of Workbench 3, High Density floppies, FFS formatting and 8 plane GFX are all very inviting, I'm not yet prepared to relent and get one. For a start, I still don't feel that they're the super computers they've been cracked up to be, where are the DSP chip, the 8 channel (as a {?MINIMUM!{2) 16BIT sound chip, and the SCSI-2 HD controller? I'll tell you - in the next generation of {PB{!0000{!1111{!?0CE{2Amigas...probably. I'm sure you've all heard the rumours about the A5000, with a 68060 and {?TWO {268040 processors, DSP, 8 channel 16BIT sound, Workbench 4, hopefully even the AAA GFX chip set - who knows? My point is simple - {?THAT{2 is the next Amiga I will buy. I won't care if another one is brought out six months later, the only new feature being a slightly upgraded GFX chip set, because so long as all of the rumoured new features get included, I will be satisfied. They can keep upgrading the GFX chip, but a 1,000 X 1,000 non-HAM flicker-free 10 plane resolution will keep me busy for a long time. I don't think Commodore really wanted to bring out the A1200 and A4000, whilst the A1200 is reasonably priced, the A4000 isn't, and the only feature worth getting one for is the GFX modes. FFS and High Density floppies are luxuries, but luxuries I can live without for a long while yet. If it's speed you're after, get an accelerator! I can only assume that the development of the 16BIT sound chip took longer than they expected, so they had to release the A1200 to keep money in their pockets until they could release an Amiga with that sound chip in it. A difficult business decision that is hard to avoid, especially now that they've stopped producing PCs to concentrate on the Amiga. If you're upset when your new computer has been superseded, it's not Commodore's fault, it's yours. You didn't have to buy it, you could have waited till they made one you {?REALLY{2 {PB{!0000{!1111{2wanted, but if nobody had bought the A1200 when it came out, and they'd all waited for the next one, I dread to think what kind of financial fuck up Commodore would be stuck in now... End.