Files
website/content/museum/commodore-amiga-1200.md
T

28 KiB
Raw Blame History

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params
title categories types origins years cpus params
Commodore Amiga 1200
Computers
Home Computer
U.S.A.
1992
Motorola MC68EC020
name image company company_name specs tabs photos hardware connectors emulators links videos comments related oc_id source
Amiga 1200 /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1200_system_1.jpg /companies/commodore Commodore
label value
NAME Amiga 1200
label value
MANUFACTURER Commodore
label value
TYPE Home Computer
label value
ORIGIN U.S.A.
label value
YEAR October 1992
label value
END OF PRODUCTION 1996
label value
KEYBOARD built-in keyboard, 96 keys
label value
CPU Motorola MC68EC020 + MC68881 FPU
label value
SPEED 14.18758 MHz (PAL)\ 14.31818 MHz (NTSC)
label value
CO-PROCESSOR AGA based chipset: 8374 Alice (memory controller and blitter), 4203 Lisa (video control chip), 8364 Paula (sound & I/O), Gayle (I/O, IDE interface), 391425 Budgie (bus controller)
label value
RAM 2 MB Chip RAM, expandable to 10 MB max (2 MB Chip RAM + 8 MB Fast Ram)
label value
ROM Kickstart 3.1: 512 KB
label value
GRAPHIC MODES 320x200 to 1280x512 max
label value
COLORS Palette: 16.7 million\ On screen: 256 in normal modes, 262144 in HAM-8
label value
SOUND 4 channel 8 bit PCM, stereo output
label value
SIZE / WEIGHT 9.5" deep × 18.5" wide × 3" high / 8 lbs\ 25cm deep x 49cm wide x 7cm high / 3.1 Kg
label value
I/O PORTS RS-232 serial port, Centronics parallel port, external disk interface, 150 pin local expansion port, Clockport, 2x RCA audio, PCMCIA/JEIDA card interface, IDE hard drive interface, composite video out, RF out, 2x Atari joystick/mouse ports
label value
BUILT IN MEDIA 3.5'' floppy disk drive
label value
OS Workbench 3.1
label value
POWER SUPPLY External 23 watts PSU, 220-240V/50Hz (PAL), 110 volt/60Hz (NTSC)
label value
PRICE £399 (UK, 1992)\ £329 (UK, 1995)
photos
hardware
connectors
emulators
links
videos
title subtitle text image
LEFT SIDE Note the PCMCIA cards slot /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1200_leftside_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
RIGHT SIDE /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1200_rightside_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
KEYBOARD CLOSE-UP #1 /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1200_keyboard_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
KEYBOARD CLOSE-UP #2 /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1200_keyboard_2.jpg
title subtitle text image
REAR CONNECTORS **(1)** Expansions trap door\ **(2)** Mouse or Joystick-1 DB9 connector\ **(3)** Joystick-2 DB9 connector\ **(4)** External disk drive DB23 connector\ **(5)** Serial DB25 connector\ **(6)** Parallel DB 25 connector\ **(7)** Stereo sound output RCA plugs\ **(8)** RGB video output DB23 connector\ **(9)** Composite video output RCA plug\ **(10)** RF/TV modulator output\ **(11)** External power supply unit plug /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1200_back_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
INSIDE A1200 **(1)** A metallic shield prevents magnetic field from being emitted by the computer\ **(2)** 170 MB 2.5" hard disk drive\ **(3)** 512 KB ROM chips holding Kickstart 3.0\ **(4)** 68030 accelerator card\ **(5)** 3.5" internal floppy disc drive /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1200_inside_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
A1200 MOTHERBOARD /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1200_motherboard_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
MOTHERBOARD CLOSE-UP Hard disk connector area.\ All the passive components are miniaturized versions\ The Sony chip is a video RGB encoder /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1200_mboardcloseup_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
LAPTOP PROTOTYPE One of the numerous attempts in designing a portable version of the Amiga system. Same design was applied to the Amiga 600 version. Thanks to **Moshe Elmashali** /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1200_laptopproto_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
3.5" HDD 3 1/2" drives did also fit into an A1200 case.\ **Steve Green** who sent us this photo specifies:\ The harddrive is a 3 1/2" 1.6 GB Samsung drive. It is attached to the main board via a 3 1/2 inch vide cable connected to a 2 1/2 inch ide cable via a convertor. /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1200_fdd35_s1.jpg
title subtitle text image
GVP ACCELERATOR CARD This card is connected to the internal expansion connector of the Amiga 1200. It features: - A Motorola 50 Mhz 68030 microprocessor\ - Up to 16 MB of additional RAM\ - An internal clock with battery back-up\ - A fast SCSI port /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1200_68030board_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
VIPER ACCELERATOR CARD **Steve Green** who sent us this photo says:\ The Viper card is an 68030 expansion card. This particular model was a 28mhz 68030 with FPU. Also added was a 16 MB dimm (which I bought from the states for 115 dollars in early 96!). Together these quadrupled the speed of a standard A1200. You could also get a 50 mhz 030 card, but this was one of the earliest. /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1200_vipercard_s1.jpg
title subtitle text image
MIDI GOLD 500 by Golden Hawk Technology This is a MIDI interface for the Amiga 500, 2000, or 3000... It features :\ - one MIDI In\ - two MIDI Out\ - one switchable Out/Thru\ - one MIDI/Serial Switch\ - one Out/Thru Switch /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga_golden-hawk-midi-interface.jpg
title subtitle text image
AMIGA 1300 Genlock /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1000_1300-genlock.jpg
title subtitle text image
MEMORY EXPANSION BOARD 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 MB expansion card here fitted with 2 MB. /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1500_memboard_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
VIDEO BOARD This board featured 2 MB of RAM and allowed the Amiga to be connected to a standard VGA monitor. All the video modes could be displayed, including the interlace one. /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1500_videoboard_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
A570 CD-ROM Thanks to David Griffith for this picture /media/museum/hardware/amiga_cdrom_a570_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
HARD DISK CARD 40 MB SCSI card from SUPRA CORP. Additional SCSI devices could be connected in chain trough the back connector /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1500_hdboard_1.jpg
title subtitle text image
PARALLEL PORT CONNECTOR 25 pin D-SUB female 1 - /STROBE OUT : Strobe\ 2 - D0 : Data Bit 0\ 3 - D1 : Data Bit 1\ 4 - D2 : Data Bit 2\ 5 - D3 : Data Bit 3\ 6 - D4 : Data Bit 4\ 7 - D5 : Data Bit 5\ 8 - D6 : Data Bit 6\ 9 - D7 : Data Bit 7\ 10 - /ACK IN : Acknowledge\ 11 - BUSY : Busy\ 12 - POUT : Paper Out\ 13 - SEL : Select (Shared with RS232 RING-indicator)\ 14 - +5V PULLUP OUT : +5 Volts DC (10 mA max)\ 15 - n/c - Not connected.\ 16 - /RESET OUT : Reset\ 17 - GND : Signal Ground\ 18 - GND : Signal Ground\ 19 - GND : Signal Ground\ 20 - GND : Signal Ground\ 21 - GND : Signal Ground\ 22 - GND : Signal Ground\ 23 - GND : Signal Ground\ 24 - GND : Signal Ground\ 25 - GND : Signal Ground /media/museum/connectors/commodore_amiga1200_parallel-db25.jpg
title subtitle text image
DISK DRIVE PORT CONNECTOR 23 pin D-SUB female (at the Amiga) 1 - /RDY : Disk Ready\ 2 - /DKRD IN : Disk Read Data\ 3 - GND : Ground\ 4 - GND : Ground\ 5 - GND : Ground\ 6 - GND : Ground\ 7 - GND : Ground\ 8 - /MTRXD OC : Disk Motor Control\ 9 - /SEL2 OC : Select Drive 2\ 10 - /DRES OC : Disk Reset\ 11 - /CHNG IN/OUT : Disk Removed From Drive-Latched Low\ 12 - +5V OUT : +5 Volts DC (250 mA max)\ 13 - /SIDE OUT : Select Disk Side (0=Upper, 1=Lower)\ 14 - /WPRO IN/OUT : Disk is Write Protected\ 15 - /TKO IN/OUT : Drive Head position over Track 0\ 16 - /DKWE OC : Disk Write Enable\ 17 - /DKWD OC : Disk Write Data\ 18 - /STEP OC : Step the Head-Pulse, First low, then high\ 19 - DIR OC : Select Head Direction (0=Inner, 1=Outer)\ 20 - /SEL3 OC : Select Drive 3\ 21 - /SEL1 OC : Select Drive 1\ 22 - /INDEX OC : Disk Index Pulse\ 23 - +12V OUT : +12 Volts DC (160 mA max, 540 mA surge /media/museum/connectors/commodore_amiga1200_dd-port.jpg
title subtitle text image
JOYSTICK / MOUSE PORT 9 pin D-SUB male (at the computer) **MOUSE :**\ 1 - V-Pulse\ 2 - H-Pulse\ 3 - VQ-Pulse\ 4 - HQ-Pulse\ 5 - Button 3(M)\ 6 - Button 1(L)\ 7 - +5v\ 8 - GND\ 9 - Button 2(R) **DIGITAL JOYSTICK :**\ 1 - /FORWARD\ 2 - /BACK\ 3 - /LEFT\ 4 - /RIGHT\ 5 - n/c\ 6 - Button 1\ 7 - +5v\ 8 - GND\ 9 - Button 2 /media/museum/connectors/commodore_amiga1200_db9.jpg
title subtitle text image
SERIAL I/O PORT CONNECTOR 25 pin D-SUB Male (at the computer) 1 - SHIELD : Shield Ground\ 2 - TXD OUT : Transmit Data\ 3 - RXD IN : Receive Data\ 4 - RTS OUT : Request to Send\ 5 - CTS IN : Clear to Send\ 6 - DSR IN : Data Set Ready\ 7 - GND : System Ground\ 8 - CD IN : Carrier Detect\ 9 - +12V OUT : +12 Volts DC (20 mA max)\ 10 - -12V OUT : -12 Volts DC (20 mA max)\ 11 - AUDO OUT : Amiga Audio Out (Left)\ 12 - n/c : Speed Indicate\ 13 - n/c\ 14 - n/c\ 15 - n/c\ 16 - n/c\ 17 - n/c\ 18 - AUDI IN : Amiga Audio In (Right)\ 19 - n/c\ 20 - DTR OUT : Data Terminal Ready\ 21 - n/c\ 22 - RI IN : Ring Indicator\ 23 - n/c\ 24 - n/c\ 25 - n/c /media/museum/connectors/commodore_amiga1200_serial-connector.jpg
title subtitle text image
VIDEO PORT 23 pin D-SUB male (at the Amiga) 1 - /XCLK IN : Extern Clock\ 2 - /XCLKEN IN : Extern Clock Enable (47 Ohm)\ 3 - RED OUT : Analog Red (75 Ohm)\ 4 - GREEN OUT : Analog Green (75 Ohm)\ 5 - BLUE OUT : Analog Blue (75 Ohm)\ 6 - DI OUT : Digital Intensity (47 Ohm)\ 7 - DR OUT : Digital Red (47 Ohm)\ 8 - DG OUT : Digital Green (47 Ohm)\ 9 - DB OUT : Digital Blue (47 Ohm)\ 10 - /CSYNC OUT : Composite Sync (47 Ohm)\ 11 - /HSYNC OUT : Horizontal Sync (47 Ohm)\ 12 - /VSYNC OUT : Vertical Sync (47 Ohm)\ 13 - GNDRTN : Digital Ground (for /XCLKEN) Don't connect with pin 16-20.\ 14 - /PIXELSW OUT : Genlock overlay (47 Ohm)\ 15 - /C1 OUT : Clock out (47 Ohm)\ 16 - GND : Video Ground\ 17 - GND : Video Ground\ 18 - GND : Video Ground\ 19 - GND : Video Ground\ 20 - GND : Video Ground\ 21 - -12V OUT : -12 Volts DC (10 mA max) (A500/A600/A1200),\ -5V OUT : -5 Volts DC (10 mA max) (A1000/A2000/A3000/A4000)\ 22 - +12V OUT : +12 Volts DC (100 mA max)\ 23 - +5V OUT : +5 Volts DC (100 mA max) /media/museum/connectors/commodore_amiga1200_videoport.jpg
title url platform text
Amiga Forever http://www.amigaforever.com/ Windows Complete but commercial Amiga emulator
title url platform text
AMIthlon & AmigaXL http://amigaosxl.haage-partner.de/index-e.html Windows Powerful commercial emulators
title url platform text
WinFellow HTTP://FELLOW.SOURCEFORGE.NET Windows Probably better at some games than UAE, but not as versatile.
title url platform text
WinUAE http://www.winuae.net/ Windows The best Amiga emulator ? :-)
title url platform text
Max UAE http://maxuae.de/ Apple UAE for Mac OS X
title url platform text
AmigaSYS http://amigasys.fw.hu/ Unix / Linux AmigaSYS is a pre-installed full Amiga OS for WinUAE
title url platform text
Pocket UAE http://pocketinsanity.sourceforge.net/ Other platform Amiga Emulator for Pocket PC
title url platform text
Experimental UAE http://www.rcdrummond.net/uae/ Multiplatform Standard UAE enhanced with features from WinUAE.
title url platform text
MESS http://www.mess.org Multiplatform MESS now emulates the Commodore Amiga
title url platform text
UAE http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~uae/ Multiplatform (Ubiquitous Amiga Emulator) for BeOS, Mac OS, Linux, NextStep, MSDOS, OS/2 and Win95/NT : Homepage.
title url text
Amiga animations http://www.randelshofer.ch/animations/ A collection of Amiga Animations. This is the only site where you can see them online!
title url text
Amiga Interactive Guide http://amiga.emugaming.com/ Excellent site ! A lot of very interesting infos there.
title url text
Amiga Island http://www.virtualpast.de/ Excellent site with ROMs to download!
title url text
Amiga Web Directory http://www.cucug.org/amiga.html
title url text
AMIGART.COM http://www.amigart.com Nice site with Amiga news
title url text
Back to the Roots HTTP://WWW.BACK2ROOTS.ORG/ Amiga culture, guides, huge collection of legally downloadable software, and much more.
title url text
Lex Site - Amiga Hardware Database http://amiga.multigraph.com/ The website title says it all!
title url text
NetBSD-Amiga http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/amiga/index.html
title url text
Old Computer Mags http://www.old-computer-mags.com/ Scans of old computer and videogames magazine
title url text
Recorded Amiga Games http://www.recordedamigagames.org Speedrun, longplay and misc videos of Amiga games and more.
title url text
RetroPack http://www.retropack.co.uk/ Website dedicated to selling original Amigas, CD32s and Amiga/CD32 Games.
title url text
The Amiga Monitor http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/MikeWebb/amhome.html
title url text
The Big Book of Amiga Hardware http://www.amiga-hardware.com/ Pics & info (pinouts, jumpers etc.) for just about every piece of Amiga related hardware there is
title url text
The English Amiga Board http://eab.abime.net/ Community site for Amiga fans
title url text
World-Wide Amiga - Online!! http://www.amiga.org/
title url text
Web Wiz CAPTCHA http://www.webwizcaptcha.com Reviews of Amiga software, hardware
title url text
Commodore Amiga commercial - EXIT http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8721405286052618769&hl=fr Length: 41 s
title url text
Commodore Amiga 500 commercial http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5737538578208665725&hl=fr Length: 29 s
title url text
Commodore Amiga 1000 commercial http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5356507595228759374&hl=fr Length: 32 s
title url text
Commodore Amiga 600 italian commercial http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-768109352967297990&hl=fr Length: 19 s
title url text
Commodore Amiga packs commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdaMq8JLyHA Length: 21 s
title url text
Commodore Amiga TV Ad - Celebrities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEFoj6sbDjU Length: 29 s
title url text
Commodore Amiga 500 promotional video http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=9038863557655975739&hl=fr Length: 15 min 06 s
title url text
Computer Chronicles: Amiga & Atari (1985) http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8978343825632445107&hl=fr Length: 29 min 18 s
author date text
Andrew Wallace (Bo''ness Scotland) Wednesday 25th August 2010 I had an A1200 on the week it launched. When they first launched hundreds of them had to be returned as the internal modulator (Commodore replaced the A520 external modulator) did not provide a clear picture or sound of any quality. I also remember most games not working on the machine probably due to the 68020, Rom v3 and the AGA chipset. I got shot of mine, bought a second hand A500+ (That I had sold to get the A1200) and saved up for a PC. A friend of mine remained faitful to the A1200 and even had the 060 card in his (that bulged out of the expansion slot) by this time there was some software for the machine. To be honest the machine was never well supported, you were far better off with a A500+ for games and a A3000 for the more serious stuff. Interestingly the A1200 was built at SCI in Irvine in Scotland, about 3 miles from my house. 2 of my cousins worked on it and they told me of the majour problems they had with the machine, especially with mdulators.
author date text
Harald Hansen Tuesday 28th May 2013 Andrew Wallace: Sorry to hear your bad experience with the 1200, but to move ahead in the world, some compatibility has to be sacrificed. There were ways to diminish this problem though, using software Kickstart replacements or the compatibility settings at boot. As for your other comments, I must really beg to differ. This computer was -very- well supported and continues to be many years after it''s supposed demise. You can still get CPU upgrades, graphics cards and even 16 bit sound cards with a DSP for it. You can stick it in a full tower if you so wish and use cheap PCI graphics cards instead of using the relatively more expensive Amiga graphics cards if you so wish. Software was also written for it long after Commodore went bankrupt in ''94 and Escom went belly up in ''96. So you can''t say it was never supported well, because it really was. Just as well as any of the other Amigas.
author date text
Azhrei (Cork, Ireland) Sunday 1st April 2012 The Magic Pack was definitely released - I worked at a computer store (that did not sell second-hand gear) in Cork back in the mid-90''s and I remember talking to a manager about the Escom-released Amiga 1200, and it was a Magic Pack bundle. Just fyi.
author date text
LethalDose Thursday 15th September 2011 The A1200 was far the best computer i ever own. i was for a wile in a small demoscene in my country, used it for grafic design and even on my own little video and audio event company.\ Sad that such a great machine was backup by moron decisions by the manufactures\ My A1200 was tricked out with a wooping 128mb ram, 060/PPC Blizzard with a Blizzardvision graphics card, 240mb HDD and a 4x CDrom at the end of its life\ ...i still own it, but its literaly stripped apart in a box right now...one day might take a travel back in time and reassemble it
author date text
Diicc Tuesday 23rd August 2011 You could actually use 3.5" HDD mounted inside the case. You had to remove the HDD holder/clips and botch together your own stabilizer but it sure worked. Saved moeny and got you more Megs.
author date text
catalin (Italy) Friday 11th February 2011 hi..the amiga 1200 works without the hard disk
author date text
rednight Monday 24th January 2011 Yes the Amiga has been re-implemented in an FPGA. The Minimig is complete and available for purchase - it re-impliments an A600 using a real 68000 and the custom chip set in FPGA. The Natami project is nearing release it is a fully Amiga compatible machine with several modern enhancments.
author date text
Lez Anderson (England) Thursday 2nd December 2010 Does anyone know if the Amiga has been put onto a FPGA (field Programmable Gate Array) or CPLD ..?? It would be nice to get a hardware single chip Amiga.
author date text
Andres Serrano (Spain) Wednesday 20th October 2010 Many people see the Amigas as a games machine only. I had a friend with an A2000 ( two floppies), who moved to PCs. He never experienced what the Amiga''s hardware could do with just some extra memory!! I remember installing Civilization I (4 disks) onto RAM: and thus saving disk swapping. And with an internal hard drive and a 030 with 8MB, that was efficient. I met a group of people, programming for both the Amiga and PC, and the scrolls in the Amiga just couldn''t be matched on the much faster Pcs!!
author date text
Lord Banter (UK) Saturday 29th May 2010 The A1200 was a great computer, I still have it at home, unfortunately is not working. But the platform is not lost, there is new Amiga-compatible computer called NatAmi on the way:) Check out YouTube video of the prototype in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v$rydE7wa_5d0
author date text
David (UK) Saturday 15th May 2010 You can still buy "New old" stock Amiga a1200''s on amigakits.com. I just bought one and cannot wait! There''s cheapr one''s on ebay but they are yellowed and grubby. Check it out!
author date text
Kevin (England) Monday 12th April 2010 I still hve my A1200, with an 030 card, 18 MB RAM and a 500MB HD, still has the best version ever made of UFO on it. I still use it quite a bit, particularly or Cinema 3D and Dpaint. It was a shame the platform died.
author date text
User Wednesday 8th April 2009 Weak side of A1200 was low-power power supply, complicating to connect additional devices and expansion boards, wich may result overload and instability in work.
author date text
Niels Haedecke Tuesday 26th August 2008 I have re-discovered the Amiga Computer series and have set up a nice Amiga 1200 with a dual-boot option for OS 3.5 or NetBSD 3.1. This system also makes use of a FibreLine 10MBit Ethernet NIC (PCMCIA) adapter, a 68030 Turbo board and will soo be equipped with the new Indivision FlickerFixer (to be released in late 2008). I use it for gaming and as Email client. And it still does a very good job. It is such a pity that the Amiga and especially the A1200 did not survive the "DOS PC invasion". Good to know that there still are a lot of people who take care of these old machines.
author date text
Gwion Mainwaring (Wales/Aberporth) Wednesday 10th January 2007 I bought my thre amiga's for thee pound each I have the amiga a1200 a500 and cd32 and i'm only 12yrs old i see great potential in my a1200 but i need the workbench disks os 3.0 or 3.1 could anyone please make me a copy of them??Email me if you can BIGEST 12yr old AMIGA fan!!!!!!! hehe lovin Amiga
author date text
Blake Patterson (Alexandria, VA (USA)) Monday 15th August 2005 I recently built my 2nd Amiga 1200 tower, providing the unit with an (overclocked) 66MHz 68060 accelerator and high capacity fast SCSI. The story of this machine can be read in the 'www' link above. (Be sure to click into the gallery of photos of the setup from within the story linked above.) I use the machine mainly for watching hacker demos.
author date text
Darren Forster (UK) Monday 27th June 2005 The A1200 was a fine machine. I have got one (and an A600 and CD32). I saw an A500 working once and was very glad that my first Amiga was the A600 or else I probably would never have bought an A1200. I got my A1200 from a car boot sale, prior to that I'd had a CD32 with an SX1 box which turned the CD32 into a full A1200. I can't seem to find the CD32 though.
author date text
Alex (UK) Sunday 11th May 2003 Yep, the trapdoor expansion is definitely easy to use. Only problem is that some cards (mainly 68040's I think) could overheat. Do you think it's possible to put a Blizzard PPC into it with the original case?
author date text
Hubert (Poland) Wednesday 16th April 2003 My Amiga 1200 had 420MB Seagate 3.5 inch HD installed internally (well, I coudn't fit it, so there was small, 3mm gap between lower and upper part of case, clearly visible on left side of computer - hard drive was simply to high). It was running internal acceleration card with 50MHz Motorola 68030 overclocked to 66MHz and math coprocessor running at 50MHz an asynchronous mode, and with 16 MB of 'real-fast' memory. It was very fast, I don't remember the name of this card - my friend bought it for me in USA... It was quite rare in Europe, most of my friends with Amigas 1200 had different acc. cards in their machines. Besides the clear superiority in terms of speed my card had some compatibility problems with its memory controller - most of so called 'demos' coudn't utilize 'fast' on-board memory resulting in speed loss (such programs could only use 2MB of 'chip' type memory, with access slowed down by DMA channels).
author date text
Peter Gordon (UK) Wednesday 12th June 2002 Also, almost none of the cards in the card section work with the A1200 :)
author date text
Peter Gordon (UK) Thursday 6th June 2002 The Magic Pack definately was released. The modification to the disk drive was not for compatibility with the Amiga filesystem at all (All disk drives can read and write Amiga filesystem disks, but standard PC floppy CONTROLLERS can't read/write Amiga 880/1760k disks. As AROS proves, PC floppy controllers can write FFS disks with only 720/1440k). The incompatability was due to a missing signal (DSKRDY) which indicates when the motor has spun up and is ready.
author date text
Gary Byrne (UK) Wednesday 5th June 2002 The Amiga 1200 did have up to 200Mb Hard Disk Drive internally. I should know as I have one! Also the expansion underneath the Amiga 1200 not only held extra RAM but you could add an additional faster CPU which would override the orignal - not sure how this was done.
/museum/commodore-amiga-1000
/museum/commodore-amiga-1500
/museum/commodore-amiga-2000
/museum/commodore-amiga-2500
/museum/commodore-amiga-3000
/museum/commodore-amiga-4000
/museum/commodore-amiga-500
/museum/commodore-amiga-500-plus
/museum/commodore-amiga-600
/museum/commodore-amiga-600hd
/museum/commodore-cdtv
628
url date
https://web.archive.org/web/20230329001433/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=628 2023-03-29

In October 1992 the Amiga 1200 was launched. This machine took the A500 approach to computing with the "distinct" Commodore case, but including the AGA chipset present in the A4000, 2 MB RAM, and the PCMCIA slot from the A600.

At the price of £399 it sold like hot cakes and is seen as one of the best Amigas to date. It appears to have been rushed to launch for the Christmas period with manuals claiming to give you the opportunity to upgrade from 1mb to 2mb chip ram with FPU. It is, however, a darn fine machine that can be easily upgraded for most of your needs.

After Escom bought the Amiga during 1995 it was relaunched to mass outrage. The machine still cost £399, £150 more than it had done a year previously and was not enhanced in any dramatic fashion. It was released in two versions- the Amiga Magic pack and the Amiga Surfer bundle. Unfortunately, the former was never released due to Escoms financial situation. The Escom Amigas were also struck by incompatibility problems due to a different disk drive being used, it was actually a PC high-density drive mechanism that had been altered to allow compatibility with the Amiga file system. Unfortunately, some games that hit the hardware directly would not run. A circuit upgrade was released free of charge that allowed users to fix the drive problem.

Source: Amiga Interactive Guide


More information from Chris Green:
We got our A1200 in about 1995.It was part of a part exchange deal I think from Escom. You had to bring in an old A500 and then you got the A1200 for £199. I think it was the Magic pack (it had a spaceman on the box). The hard drives you could add were internal 2.5" drives as the 3.5" were too big for the case. You could also add any amount of external floppy drives, we had 2. We had a Reno 2X cd rom which fitted onto an SCSI adapter. You could also have an ATAPI-IDE drive if you threaded the IDE cable out the back of the case.