My Take:

I was still in Love with My Amiga 500, but was very excited to upgrade to the newer Amiga1200 supporting the AGA Chipset. I had more memory, was faster, had more capability and was also backwards compatible with earlier Amiga Software.

A1200 technical Specifications

• Motorola MC68EC020 14.32 MHz CPU
• 2 megabytes Chip RAM on motherboard
• Maximum 2 megabytes Chip RAM
• Maximum 8 megabytes Fast RAM
• 512k ROM on motherboard
• 3.5 drive bays
• 2.5 drive mountable
• 3.5 880k internal floppy drive
• 2.5 40 megabyte IDE hard drive (optional)
• Integrated keyboard
• 96 keys
• 10 function keys
• Numeric keypad
• Cursor keys (inverted T layout)
• 2 button mouse
• A1200 trapdoor 150 pin local bus expansion
• PCMCIA 2.0 expansion bus
• Compact case
• External power supply port
• External floppy drive port
• RS-232 serial port
• Centronics parallel port
• 2 mouse/joystick ports
• Colour composite video port
• 15kHz colour RGB analogue video port
• 31KHz SVGA video output
• 2 stereo audio output ports
• 32 BIT data path
• 24 BIT address space
• Optional battery backed clock
• Weight: 8 lbs.
• 9.5" deep x 18.5" wide x 3 high
• 110 volt/60Hz 23 watts power supply (external

The Amiga AGA Chipset

The AGA chipset formed the basis of the third generation of Amiga hardware. In the USA it was known as the AA chipset (Advanced Amiga), however the name was changed in Europe to avoid confusion with a certain motoring company.

The AGA chipset was released in August, 1992 as the new graphics processor for the A4000 high-end system, and later, in October, for the entry level A1200. It allowed screens to be opened that had 256 colours on screen from a palette of 16.8 millions (24-bit graphics), or over 640,000 in HAM8 mode. It was quite an advancement over the ECS.

Graphics Resolutions

The AGA chipset could display resolutions varying from 320 x 200 pixels non-interlaced 50 Hz up to:

1280 x 512 pixels interlaced 50 Hz.

640 x 480 pixels non-interlaced 60 Hz.

640 x 400 pixels non-interlaced 70 Hz.

It could also be expanded through a number of programmable modes. These came in the form of Monitor drivers such as VGAOnly, allowing the display of any system friendly program to "sync up" to the 31KHz used by PC monitors.

Amiga Workbench 3.0 Screenshot

Amiga Boot Screen

Installation Floppy Disks

I played games as much on the A1200 as I did the A500 but I was able to do even more multitasking.

I could run a BBS, and play games and do other things at the same time easier with the faster 68020.

Amiga Complete History