ScuzzBlog: Diaries September 2022
Entry 20th September 2022: Post 1: Amiga CD1200 - The capacity to fail.
Amiga CD1200 - The capacity to fail.
A few basic facts about the Amiga CD1200 and then I'll make my
comment for today.
The CD1200 was intended to give the Amiga 1200 CD32 capability.
It made its debut in the UK on April 10th 1994 at the European
Computer Trade Show. Sadly the unit was a prototype and never saw
the light of day. I have only ever seen one in existence.
The team at UK Commodore didn't appear too pleased about the unit
particularly as there was no Full Motion Video capability.
What particularly troubled me was that the unit connected via the
trapdoor under the computer to an interface. My assumption was
that this meant the loss of the accelerator and also it conflicted
with the PCMCIA slot. It did not neatly plug into the left side of
the A1200 as had all sidecars of previous.
That all said it looked like a move in the right direction but
sadly it was a) never realised and b) inferior to everything else
that was happening in the gaming world. It gave the A1200 CD32
functionality but at the cost of downgrading the computer with
the loss it seemed of the trapdoor slot. I could be wrong in my
interpretation of matters but that is how I read it.
To my comment:
On 3rd December 1994 SONY released the PlayStation and pretty much
everything else is history.
I read such a lot of nonsense on various forums of the superiority
of gaming on the A1200 and the magical way it brought games to
life. Sadly I sense not many of these forum posters actually did
struggle with the A1200 in the early to mid nineties or they would
appreciate just what deficiencies the Amiga was having to tolerate.
The biggest problem was the basic development capability of the kit.
The primary issue being capacity. The Amiga was and continued to
its ultimate demise to be a disk based system. And developers for
the platform knew that to reach the full Amiga user base you were
going to be strapped into a disk based version of the game. Sure
you could embellish the game with extra video and the like but the
fundamentals of the game needed to work on disk and disc. I think
that in the end there were around only 25 games made exclusively
for CD32 with a number of those not compatible with the CDTV
making true CD exclusives even less.
The Amiga 1200 desperately needed the CD32 to give it any chance
of a future, but with no trapdoor hogging. Sadly Escom who took
over the control of the Amiga in 1995 had no plans to develop any
peripherals for the A1200, let alone the CD1200.
And why do I say after the PS1 the rest was history. Well I visited
my local GAME shop each week day and just watched as the Amiga
shelves became less and less and the modern console games just
mopped the floor and filled the store. The world had moved on in
1994 and capacity became the biggest issue. Developers wanted the
freedom of relatively unlimited space to create video and sound.
And so unless a serious owner was to return with an updated
Amiga with the 'capacity' to provide what modern games developers
craved then the writing was double underlined on the wall.
Certainly from around Sept 1995 the Amiga days were truly over as
a modern gaming platform. No developer in their right mind was
going to commit time and resources to such a narrow and small
market. A simple Google search for new Amiga games in 1996 compared
to the games of 1995 show the numbers drop off the cliff.
The age of the Amiga deserved a better end than the long drawn out
painful saga that dragged on for decades. Those of us that lived
through the drama know too well how our hopes had been dashed so
many times. We all knew what we wanted from our Amiga post 1994.
We had been on the wave of new technology and just wanted to keep
soldiering on at the sharp end of the stick. The loss of Commodore
was the true end of the platform in honesty, but nobody wanted to
admit to it. Those that struggled on deserve a medal, each and
every one of them. I applaud all the efforts to give new life to
the kit. I really do, but you can have the fastest Amiga on the
planet and the craziest back store of pilfered old games available,
BUT [ big but ], your just fooling yourself if you believe you
have something special. A base A500 can play those games, as
can an A1200. The games were designed for that platform without
the bells and whistles. But give me a new Amiga that can play a
modern video game out of the box, then stand me at the front of
the queue to get one.
I will live the remainder of my life with head in my hands at the
sadness of years waiting for my beloved Amiga to return. It can
only happen if the developers see a worthwhile payback for their
efforts. That is never going to happen. What we have is nostalgia
for a time gone by. And you can pimp your systems up as much as
you like, but the best you will be able to play is a first gen
game of DOOM. Thing is I have that title on the PlayStation 1.
Interestingly, although I have like 125 Amigas and pretty much
every home computer ever made, I never bought a computer to live
in the past. For me it has always been about the next best thing.
But then that is the case of every computer user from the very
beginning of the home computer revolution. It's great to dabble
in the past, but please don't offer it up as something it never
was. Most games were mediocre at best, with just a handful each
year making a good fist of it. But the stuff is so dated now and
truly should be viewed for its historical worth only.
Anyhoo if anyone has a CD1200 and wants to give it to me then
I would be more than happy to take it off your hands.
Syndicate was on the cover disk. It's not like I ever gave up
weeks of my life playing the game, to the point of needing a
very detailed Playing Guide. [ yur ruyt !! ]. I'm such a
hypocrite.
Amiga CD1200 - The capacity to fail.
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Last updated 20th September 2022
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