Within a week of hearing the spec list for the new A1200 from a mate who works in a computer shop, I had sold my A500 and bought one. Ever since I opened the box, I am still trying to come to terms with the fact that Commodore seem to have actually listened to ideas and complaints from users and acted upon them. Almost every single facet of the Workbench 3.0 has been extremely well thought of and designed to be user-friendly. The manuals are actually useful and fully describe everything you need to know.
The main bone of contention since the 2.0 came out has been compatibility with older software. CBM have tried their hardest this time out to make it as compatible as possible by including fallback modes in the new AGA chipset that not only emulates the 2.0 setup but also the 1.2/1.3 graphics setup. Whilst the different memory address system is still causing stuff to fall down, the addition of these fall back modes has helped a lot, even some games that didn't work on the Plus will work on the A1200.
At the end of this article I've done a list of the software which has been tried on it with an indication of what steps were necessary to get it to work if any were needed. i.e. remove intro, use original chipset and disable CPU cache.
Unfortunately the only source for this next paragraph is Amiga Format, but surely it can be right some of the time. The word from the software houses is allegedly that development will be done for the A1200 and the resulting game will be modified downwards for the lower machines. This will be good news especially for US software houses as they don't like converting 256 colour VGA graphics down to 16 colours for the Amiga. With the new chipset a 256 colour mode is obtainable so graphics can be directly ported over.
One other thing mentioned in that article is the release of some A1200 versions of games currently available. Civilisation is apparently going to receive the treatment and I am almost slavering at the news. I actually bought the original for this, I thought it was that good! Zool was another one mentioned but it's only an arcade game so it doesn't really matter.
The best example so far of the A1200's extra power in games has to be Formula One Grand Prix from Microprose. The speed on the highest detail level has to be seen to be believed, it flies along! Another good example is Indy 500, yet another fast paced race game. Another of Microprose's products is enhanced by the speed no end, that being Knights of the Sky. I didn't play it that much as it was too slow, but now it plays as if its jet! The screen update is enormously improved and now makes a lot more playable.
As I have only had the machine two weeks I can't make a complete judgement on it but future prospects are very bright. The number of people I know already talking about selling up their current Amiga's and getting one is incredible.
Everyone is seeing it as the machine that will keep CBM in pole position in Britain sales wise. With the A1200 priced at four hundred pounds who's going to buy an A600 at three hundred pounds? Can a price cut to two hundred for the A600 be that far away? If the A600 does come down to two hundred what will happen to the console market? Rumours abound that the Megadrive is going up in price next year and also possibly the Super Nintendo. If they end up within fifty odd pounds off the A600 it could kick the shit out of the console sales!
The following is a list of the software I have, and what does and does not work on the A1200. Where necessary it details what you have to do to get some software to work.