The Link 10 Review

              A1200 REVIEW
             ---------------

this is MEGAZZAP/PARALAX here to give
you a review on the new amiga 1200 on
just what this machine can exactly do
and what you are likely to need to get
the most out of it.

for those of you who are unlucky enough
not to have an A1200, this can serve as
an appetite-wetter before you rush out
and delight cbm by coughing up some cash
for an upgraded machine.

now first off it might be a good idea
to take a quick guided tour around the
hardware. i'm sure many users will be
curious about the differences between
the older amiga 500 and 600 machines
and the new scene machine on the market,
the A1200.

lets start:

for the previous amigas have been
largely based on 16-bit technology,
although the A3000 is slightly more
advanced than this as its internals
were of the 32-bit, which variety found
in the A1200 and A4000.

in moving from 16 to 32-bit technology,
commodore were able to make a number of
significant advances in the amiga's
overall performance. the cost of 32-bit
components has dropped sufficiently for
the A1200 to even think about existing
and this is one of the reasons for seven
years delay in releasing a really major
hardware upgrade. you can look on the
older amigas as being years before their
time with other manufacturers being slow
to catch up - the A1200 and A4000 are
another leap forward, particularly the
former when one considers its amazing
price. makers of other low end computers
such as atari, nintendo and sega and
last but not least IBM, (hehehe!) are
still languishing with the 16-bit gear
of the lat decade, while COMMODORE
owners are going to enjoy the benefits
of an entirely new set of chips.

CUSTOM CHIPS:

the custom chips which make the amiga
so special are worth examining in a bit
more detail.

at the heart of the computer is the
processor - a rather old, but in the
case of the 1200, still effective,
68020, and a state of the art 68040
inside the A4000. this takes care of the
day to day business of running programs
and tells the specialist chips what to
do.

on lesser machines such as the pc's,
apple macs and ataris, the processor is
also expected to draw the display, make
the sound and handle the various input/
output gizmos like disk drives too.

this also puts alot more strain on the
system and so the amiga appears to have
more time to do things or do more at the
same time, which ever way you want to
look out it. because it has special
chips to do the graphix and the like.the
new AGA CHIP SET is the main advances.
the chips have been given pet names like
alice, lisa, buster and paula and the de
tails of what each of them does in the
overall piture is beyond the scope of
this article. however, suffice it to
say that it is these lumps of silicon
which gives the amiga incredible graphix
and sound, making it without doubt the
most awesome games machine around.
this isn't to say that you can't do much
else with it.(far from it.)

GAMES AND DEMO:

this is the most obvious arena in which
the amiga can perform.
there is a veritable for the A500 and
much of it will work on the A1200
(commodore reckon 65%, but that's just
contemporary stuff - the older games are
less likly to work for various reasons,
but mainly lame coding).

loading games and demos is about the
easiest thing to do with an amiga, and
the operating system is much more fun.

OPERATING SYSTEM:

the amiga's operating system ( the
programs that make it tick) is divided
up into handy chunks which are spread
across those five disks.

say for instance, you are running a word
processor and you decide to print your
doc. the computer then has to decide
which printer you have connected and the
best way to talk to it.
to this end there is a pile of available
files called "drivers" and the
appropriate one is loaded from the disk
at the right time.
the only alternative to this is to have
everthing stored on ROM memory inside
the computer and available at all times.

not only is this wasteful of resources,
but the only way to update a rom is to
wrench it out and replace it, so it's
inflexible.


the solution to this problem is to go
for a hard drive. this is a small device
(for the A1200 about the size of a
packet of cigarettes that fits inside
the machine and so requires a bit of
technical knowledge to install).

well in my opinon what else would you
want for the price of around $1600
with a trade in on your current A500.
this is a good buy for this AMAZING
A1200.



so i think you dudes out there should
start saving for this scene machine of
the 20th century.

see ya on the AMIGA scene!!!


        - REVIEWED BY MEGAZZAP -



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