The Amiga 1200, or A1200 (called "Channel Z" during development), is a personal computer in the Amiga family made by Commodore International. It was introduced on October 21, 1992. The base price was £399 in the United Kingdom, which is about £880 in 2025. In the United States, the price was $599, which is about $1,370 in 2025.

History

The A1200 was released a few months after the Amiga 600. It used a thin and compact design, replacing the earlier Amiga 500 Plus and Amiga 500. Unlike the A600, which used the 16-bit Motorola 68000 processor from older Amigas, the A1200 was built around the 32-bit Motorola 68EC020 processor. The A1200 combined the CPU, keyboard, and disk drives (including the option of an internal 2.5" hard disk drive) into one single unit. Its hardware design later became the foundation for Commodore's Amiga CD32 game console in 1993.

At first, only 30,000 A1200 units were available when it launched in the UK. During its first year, the system sold well, but Commodore faced money problems and went bankrupt. Worldwide sales numbers are unknown, but 95,000 units were sold in Germany before Commodore's bankruptcy.

After Commodore went out of business in 1994, the A1200 became hard to find. However, it was relaunched in 1995 by Escom. The new Escom A1200 cost £399 and included two games, seven applications, and AmigaOS 3.1. It was criticized for being £150 more expensive than the earlier Commodore version sold two years before. It also had a modified PC floppy disk drive that did not work with some Amiga software. The A1200 was finally stopped from being sold in 1996 when its parent company closed down.

Design improvements

The A1200 has several improvements over older, less expensive Amiga models. It uses a 32-bit design. The 68EC020 computer chip is faster than the 68000 and comes with 2 MB of RAM as standard. The AGA chipset in the A1200 is a major upgrade. AGA expands the color range from 4,096 colors to 16.8 million colors. Normally, it can display up to 256 colors on the screen. The improved HAM mode allows up to 262,144 colors on the screen. The graphics hardware can handle more moving images and has faster performance because of quicker video memory. Compared to the A600, the A1200 has more options for adding extra parts.

Popularity and criticism

The A1200 was a major improvement over the Amiga 500, but it did not sell as well. It was Commodore’s last affordable computer before the company went bankrupt in 1994. This happened because the A1200 did not keep the same technological edge over competitors like the first Amiga systems. The AGA chipset, used in the A1200 and other models, was disappointing. Commodore had planned a much better version of the original Amiga chipset, called "AAA," but development delays forced them to release the less improved AGA instead. While AGA was not much worse than other chipsets, it could not match the power of newer technologies like VGA. Also, the custom chips in the Amiga cost more to make than the common chips used in personal computers, making the A1200 more expensive. Some experts said the A1200 should have used a newer 68030 microprocessor instead of the older 68020 to stay competitive. Another problem was that the A1200 could not use high-density floppy disks without special external drives or unreliable workarounds, even though some models had a less advanced PC hard drive.

The gaming market, which helped the Amiga 500’s success, became more competitive with newer, cheaper video game consoles and multimedia-enabled IBM-compatible computers. This led to fewer stores selling the A1200, especially in North America. The A1200 also faced criticism for not working with many Amiga 500 games. Its power supply was often too weak for upgraded systems, limiting the ability to improve the computer, which had been popular in earlier Amiga models. Fewer games were made for the A1200 compared to older Amiga computers. However, in the demoscene, the A1200 (often with upgraded processors) became a popular choice for creating computer demonstrations throughout the 1990s and beyond.

The Amiga 1200 was released during a time when the home computer market was shrinking, a market Commodore had once dominated. Although no official sales numbers were given, Commodore Frankfurt reported that 95,000 A1200 systems were sold in Germany.

Technical information

The A1200 uses a Motorola 68EC020 CPU. This CPU, like the 68000, has a 24-bit address space, which allows for a maximum of 16 MB of memory. A standard A1200 includes 2 MB of built-in "chip RAM." (Chip RAM cannot be increased beyond 2 MB.) Up to 8 MB of "fast RAM" can be added using the "trap-door" expansion slot, which increases the speed of the machine by about 2.26 times. Third-party developers offered upgrades with CPUs such as the 68020, 68030, 68040, 68060, and PowerPC processors. These upgrades often use faster and larger memory (up to 256 MB).

The A1200 includes Commodore's third-generation Amiga chipset, called the Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA). This chipset improves graphics compared to earlier versions.

The sound hardware is the same as in the Amiga 1000. However, the AGA chipset allows higher sound sampling rates by using a video mode with a faster horizontal scan or by using the CPU to control audio directly.

Like earlier models, the A1200 has Amiga-specific connectors, including two DE9M ports for joysticks, mice, and light pens, a standard 25-pin RS-232 serial port, and a 25-pin Centronics parallel port. These features make the A1200 compatible with many Amiga peripherals, such as external floppy disk drives, MIDI devices, sound samplers, and video capture devices.

The A1200 includes a PCMCIA Type II slot and an internal 44-pin ATA interface, both commonly found on laptops. It has space for one 2.5-inch internal hard disk drive connected to the ATA controller. Slim 3.5-inch drives can also be added with proper cabling. The 16-bit PCMCIA Type II slot supports 16-bit 5V-capable cards but not newer 32-bit PC Card (CardBus) or 16-bit 3.3V-only cards. Only Type I and Type II cards fit in the slot. The PCMCIA design is similar to the A600. Third-party developers created peripherals for this slot, including SRAM cards, CD-ROM controllers, SCSI controllers, network cards, sound samplers, and video capture devices. Later, laptop peripherals like serial modems, network cards, and CompactFlash adapters were also made compatible.

The A1200 includes a 32-bit CPU/RAM expansion slot and a "clock port," originally intended for adding internal RAM and a real-time clock. Third-party developers later used the clock port for expansions like I/O cards, audio cards, and USB controllers. Some CPU boards also include SCSI controllers or support adding graphics cards.

A challenge for expanding the A1200 is its limited 23-watt power supply. Hard drives and external floppy drives can cause instability. This issue can be fixed by replacing the power supply with a higher-rated one, such as the one used in the A500.

The A1200 became popular for "modding." Users can replace its original case with alternative casings to allow more expansion. Third-party kits let users convert the A1200 into a "big-box" Amiga, enabling use of PC/AT keyboards, hard-disk bays, CD-ROM drives, and Zorro II, Zorro III, and PCI expansion slots. These slots allow use of devices not originally designed for the A1200, such as graphics, sound, and network cards.

A 3.5-inch hard drive can be installed inside the A1200 by carefully modifying the metal frame and isolating the drive from the board. The best location for this is the leftmost side of the machine near the back.

The Escom version of the A1200 used PC-based "high-density" floppy drives that were downgraded to double-density. This caused some software incompatibility because PC-style drives do not provide a "ready" signal. Escom released a free circuit upgrade to fix this issue.

The first A1200 models included Workbench 3.0 and Kickstart 3.0 (revision 39.106), which provided standard operating system functionality and support for built-in hardware. Later models from Escom and Amiga Technologies included Workbench 3.1 and Kickstart 3.1 (AmigaOS 3.1). Earlier models can be upgraded with compatible Kickstart 3.1 ROM chips. Later software updates like AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9 require Kickstart 3.1.

AmigaOS 4, a PowerPC-native version of the operating system, can be used on the A1200 with a Blizzard PPC PowerPC board. MorphOS, an alternative Amiga-compatible operating system, can also be used on this hardware.

Operating systems like Linux, BSD, and AROS, which are not specific to the Amiga platform, can also be used on the A1200.

Bundled software

The A1200 computer came with certain software, including Deluxe Paint IV AGA (a tool for creating 2D images and animations) and Final Copy (a program for writing text). The Amiga Technologies /Escom version included software such as Scala (a program for creating multimedia content) and Wordworth (a word processor), as well as games like Pinball Mania and Whizz.

In the United Kingdom, the Amiga 1200 was sold in a bundle called Desktop Dynamite, which included Workbench 3.0, Deluxe Paint IV AGA, Wordworth, and two games: Oscar and Dennis. Another version, called Comic relief, included the game Sleepwalker and Workbench 3.0. Later bundles included a simpler version of the graphics software Photogenics.