A1200 Review by Nic Wilson  --------------------------  || 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 || I had an A1200 here for a couple of weeks while I did this review. I found it difficult to do an unbiased review when I am so used to working on 68040 based Amigas. I found myself having to get other peoples opinions on the speed of a certain programs or functions, so we knew if they were running any better or worse. AA or AGA --------- Probably the most talked about addition to the new Amiga range is the AA or AGA chipset. The difference in the names here and the United Kingdom, is due to the name "AGA" already being used in the U.K. by Atari, so they changed it to AA. The letters stand for "Advanced Graphic Architecture". This new chipset is the next logical step in the advancement in Amiga graphics. Personally however I feel it may be a little too late. When I bought my first Amiga back in 1987, the graphics were far in advance of anything else on the market. IBM and compatibles were just getting into EGA and it was very expensive and very slow. Apple and other firms were far behind and then did not have the co-processors that the Amiga had. Since that time five years have passed and the Amiga has stood still in this area except for a slight improvement with productivity, resolution and colours remained the same, and even to this date we have seen no improvement in sound capabilities at all. The sound in the A4000 is identical to that in the A1000 with the exception of the switchable sound filter that was added in the A500. During this time all other computers have advanced their graphics and 256 colours is commonplace in all games on other computers except the Amiga, and I'm sorry to say that most other computers are better than the Amiga in their graphics and sound capabilities and there are thousands of software titles supporting their modes, whereas the Amiga has brand new graphics, old sound and no titles available at all yet. I get really annoyed at the fact that my 386 PC has better games than any Amiga and there seem to be fewer compatibility problems with the PC.  Chip memory In Amiga terms though, the "AGA" chipset is an advancement. Contrary to popular belief, CHIP memory remains and is not any faster. The new custom chip, "ALICE", however has faster access to it, twice the bandwidth in the A1200 (four times in the A4000). ALICE is the new version of the older style AGNUS chip. The limit to CHIP memory is still two megabytes. Contrary to some rumours I have heard, ALICE cannot access FAST memory, not even in the new modes.  Colours What about the colours? I hear you ask. This has been improved by increasing the number of colours available on screen at once and extending this so that every mode is available in all resolutions. This means that modes such as HAM, or the newer HAM8, are available not only in LOW RES, but in HIGH RES, HIGH RES INTERLACE, SUPER HIGH RES, SUPER HIGH RES INTERLACE etc. This goes for all modes, they are all available in all resolutions. This is a large improvement over the older chipset. Link this fact with the increase in access to chip memory and you get the older modes much faster, new modes in usable speeds and many modes not available before, not even on a PC with SVGA. In theory with SUPER HIGH RES INTERLACE in HAM8, you could have around 640,000 colours on screen at once, from a palette of 16.7 million, but it is better to consider the new chip set as having 256,000 colours at once from a palette of 16.7 million. When I compared HAM8 to real 24 bit output I really could not tell the difference, HAM8 is extremely good and does not suffer from the fringeing problems of the older HAM6 mode. With some programs that are already available on fish disks such as "Viewtek" (see MDExtras disk this issue) you can even view 24 bit pictures directly without having to convert them first. Other programs already working with the new modes are programs such as Art Department Professional, Imagemaster, Viewtek, my own "IFF" program, Rend24, UChess to name a few, this list is growing as software houses jump on the AGA bandwagon. I hope that this explodes at a tremendous pace when the A1200 is in plentiful supply. The new modes really make a lot of the 24 bit cards rather obsolete for displaying 24 bit pictures when HAM8 on a standard A1200 does just as good a job.  Interlace modes The interlace modes, have a down side compared to the A3000 but as far as the A1200 is concerned any improvement is worthwhile, especially when previous models in this price range has no de-interlacer of any kind. The de-interlacer is a software based design that is handled by new custom chips and a multiscan is required as some modes are not SVGA compatible as they were on the A3000. This means that where a $300+ monitor did a good job on the A3000 you cannot use such a monitor very successfully on an A1200 as some modes will switch down to frequencies that SVGA monitors cannot handle. One amazing fact too, is that most new multiscan monitors no longer handle these frequencies either, so one must pay $800 - $900 for a Commodore monitor or try to get an older multiscan such as an NEC 3D for it to work successfully on the A1200 or A4000. AmigaDOS V3.0 does have a "VGA ONLY" monitor icon to allow SVGA monitors to be used but this severely affects your choice of resolution modes and affects scrolling ability. Since my A4000 review however (see MD32) I have found myself using the "VGA ONLY" icon more and more as I prefer the way screens improve the border.  Still impressive but lousy mouse If we forget all this and look at the A1200 for what it is, it is a very impressive Amiga and performs better than expected, although I have spoken to many dealers who have stated the failure rate of new A1200s is huge, I have not confirmed this however. Local dealers in and around Toowoomba have had a failures, but most were in the first batch and then mostly hard disk drives failing. (Ed: for an explanation of this, see Megabites this issue.) The mouse is very smart looking, but probably the worst one Commodore has ever shipped. Failure of the mouse occurred within two days of use and the replacement failed to work at all. Third attempt lasted only a day and so I gave up. Personally I prefer the "pregnant" style mouse from the A3000. It may be wise for users to consider purchasing another mouse instead of using the one supplied. The A1200 comes fitted with 2 megs of memory configured as all CHIP. FAST memory is expandable by fitting a card to the 150 expansion slot underneath similar to how it was on the A500. Memory has the ability to be expanded to a total of 8 megs of FAST memory but third party companies will most likely stretch that boundary further.  Disks The hard disk is a 40 megabyte IDE drive, While I believe this to be a cost cutting decision and a foolish decision for the A4000, it is probably wise for the A1200. After all any hard drive is better than none at the price of the A1200. It would have been better if they had have given the user the option of either SCSI, SCSI-2, IDE and set different price structures accordingly. This could have been done by leaving the controller off the mother board entirely and fitted another slot somewhere to fit a controller. The A1200 comes fitted with a single 3.5 inch Double Density floppy drive that can be formatted to 880K only. There are supposed to be plans for an external high density drive at a later stage. These drives must not be confused with IBM 1.44 meg high density drives as they are not the same and not interchangeable.  The CPU The A1200 is fitted with the Motorola 68EC020, which is essentially a full 68020 with limited addressing capabilites - it can only address the standard 16 megabyte memory map as the 68000 cpu can. There is an optional 68881 or 68882 floating point unit available only if factory fitted, otherwise third party companies such as Microbotics are already suppling memory cards with a 68881 fitted to it. I hope at a later time supply all the info needed to fit your own. Below is a listing of the resolution modes available in the A1200 and the corresponding vertical and horizontal frequencies, and minimum size with no overscan. Display mode Size Horiz Vert ------------ ---- ----- ---- DBLNTSC High Res 640 x 200 29.02 kHz 59Hz DBLNTSC High Res Laced 640 x 800 29.02 kHz 59Hz DBLNTSC High Res No Flicker 640 x 400 29.02 kHz 59Hz DBLNTSC Low Res 320 x 200 29.02 kHz 59Hz DBLNTSC Low Res Laced 320 x 800 29.02 kHz 59Hz DBLNTSC Low Res No Flicker 320 x 400 29.02 kHz 59Hz DBLPAL High Res 640 x 256 29.45 kHz 50Hz DBLPAL High Res Laced 640 x 1024 29.45 kHz 50Hz DBLPAL High Res No Flicker 640 x 512 29.45 kHz 50Hz DBLPAL Low Res 320 x 256 29.45 kHz 50Hz DBLPAL Low Res Laced 320 x 1024 29.45 kHz 50Hz DBLPAL Low Res No Flicker 320 x 512 29.45 kHz 50Hz EURO72 640 x 200 31.43 kHz 70Hz EURO36Hz High Res 640 x 200 15.76 kHz 73Hz EURO36Hz High Res Laced 640 x 400 15.76 kHz 73Hz EURO36Hz Low Res 320 x 200 15.76 kHz 73Hz EURO36Hz Low Res Laced 320 x 400 15.76 kHz 73Hz EURO36Hz Super-High Res 1280 x 200 15.76 kHz 73Hz EURO36Hz Super-High Res Laced 1280 x 400 15.76 kHz 73Hz EURO72 Productivity 640 x 400 31.43 kHz 70Hz EURO72 Productivity Laced 640 x 800 31.43 kHz 70Hz MULTISCAN 640 x 240 31.44 kHz 60Hz MULTISCAN Productivity 640 x 480 31.44 kHz 60Hz MULTISCAN Productivity Laced 640 x 960 31.44 kHz 60Hz NTSC High Res 640 x 200 15.72 kHz 60Hz NTSC High Res Laced 640 x 400 15.72 kHz 60Hz NTSC Low Res 320 x 200 15.72 kHz 60Hz NTSC Low Res Laced 320 x 400 15.72 kHz 60Hz NTSC Super-High Res 1280 x 200 15.72 kHz 60Hz NTSC Super-High Res Laced 1280 x 400 15.72 kHz 60Hz PAL High Res 640 x 200 15.60 kHz 50Hz PAL High Res Laced 640 x 400 15.60 kHz 50Hz PAL Low Res 320 x 200 15.60 kHz 50Hz PAL Low Res Laced 320 x 400 15.60 kHz 50Hz PAL Super-High Res 1280 x 200 15.60 kHz 50Hz PAL Super-High Res Laced 1280 x 400 15.60 kHz 50Hz SUPER72 400 x 150 24.24 kHz 72Hz SUPER72 800 x 150 24.24 kHz 72Hz SUPER72 High Res 400 x 300 24.24 kHz 72Hz SUPER72 High Res Laced 400 x 600 24.24 kHz 72Hz SUPER72 Super-High Res 800 x 300 24.24 kHz 72Hz SUPER72 Super-High Res Laced 800 x 600 24.24 kHz 72Hz All the above modes support 256 colours when used on the Workbench Screen. Colours can be chosen in groups of 2,4,8,16,32,64,128, or 256 colours.  The manuals The A1200 like the A4000 comes supplied with AmigaDOS V3.0. This new version is a better version than V2.04 or 2.05 were. The main differences are full support for the AGA chipset, the addition of LOCALE and CROSSDOS, and the improvement of many workbench and DOS programs. I had forgotten just how primitive V2.04 still is when you have been using V3.0 for such a long time. The books supplied are now split into several manuals and are A5 in size, much easier to handle and read than the cumbersome ones supplied with V2.05.  Mouse resolution The mouse resolution is much better, and the Pointer preferences allows you to use a high definition mouse pointer if you prefer. I think that this is about time and personally I believe this to be the best addition to the hardware/software of all improvements. The resolution of the mouse if four times better, so that the mouse has pixel for pixel resolution in super high res. This is, of course, the same for the wait pointer image, although I have seen the odd occasion when the old size wait pointer has been displayed.  Locale Locale is not of much use to English speaking countries but does make the Amiga much more professional and brings it more into line with systems like the Macintosh or IBM PC. Briefly Locale localises your set up for the particular area of the world you live in, giving the user the language, special characters and string formats etc, he or she is used to. The Amiga now has full support for postscript printers, allowing you to output directly to postscript without having to go through a program such as PageStream. Other programs such as Palette have changed to include the ability to customise the use of colour within windows and menu text and backgrounds, although I still believe that other systems have much nicer looking windows interfaces than Intuition does, and we really need a whole new looking workbench, not just a re-vamped old one. Fountain has gone and has been replaced with a similar program called Intellifont. Format has been extended with the ability to recognise and format high density disks. The addition of CROSSDOS means the user can directly interchange files between MS-DOS and AMIGA-DOS and format the former as well. There are many more changes, in AmigaDOS V3.0, but the ones listed would be the most outstanding. CONCLUSION ---------- The new A1200 is faster than the A500, A600 and A2000. It is slower than the A2500 as supplied as it not shipped with any fast ram. With a fast memory board by Microbotics it performed faster than the A2500 by about 25%. This is a very worthwile increase and can be put down to the speed of the memory on the Microbotics board as compared to the slow 100ns memory on a A2620 card. Without such a memory card, it is quite slow and performs about double the speed of a standard A600 which is hardly noticeable. You really need to spend the extra 500 or so dollars to get a good fast ram card. It sports enhanced graphic capabilities, a brand new kickstart - Workbench, all considered it compares very well with earlier machines but not with an average IBM PC compatible. It is lacking in software to take advantage of the new modes, it is much more expensive than a similar IBM PC compatible system and it requires a special and expensive multiscan monitor and special 32 bit memory cards. The average Amiga enthusiast will probably rush out and buy one, but we need to pull users away from other brands to increase the popularity of the Amiga. To do this the price must come down, and a de-interlacer card to make all modes SVGA compatible and a load of AGA software must arrive on the scene very soon. Regards to all my readers and users Nic Wilson P.O Box 1164 Toowoomba Queensland 4350 Australia Phone (076) 358539 ---------  || 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||| 33 ||