MACHINE REFERENCE

Commodore Amiga 1200

Name: Commodore Amiga 1200
Brand: Commodore International; later Amiga Technologies (Escom)

The Commodore Amiga 1200 launched on 21 October 1992 with the AGA chipset, a 68EC020 processor and 2 MB of Chip RAM, in the same keyboard-case shape as the Amiga 500.

Why it matters

The A1200 was Commodore’s main answer to the PC’s VGA graphics, and it held a 256-colour screen and a 262,144-colour HAM-8 mode on a £399 home computer. It also brought an internal IDE drive bay and a PCMCIA slot that the A500 never had. Commodore went bankrupt in April 1994, but Escom revived the machine for a last year and the A1200 went on being sold until 1996.

What to check before you buy

Look closely at the motherboard around the SMD capacitors for brown residue or lifted traces. A recap is a job to budget for.
Check the power supply rating if the machine has a hard drive or accelerator fitted.
Test every key. The membrane wears out, and cleaning it with alcohol can ruin it.
Ask whether the floppy drive works and whether it is the original; Escom-era drives were a downgrade.
Check what’s in the trapdoor slot and whether any expansion is stable at full speed.

Photo: Christo, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Released

1992

RAM

2 MB Chip RAM, not expandable on the board; up to 8 MB Fast RAM through the trapdoor slot

CPU

Motorola 68EC020, 14.18 MHz (PAL) or 14.32 MHz (NTSC)

Launch price

£399 (UK), $599 (US)

Manufacturer

Commodore International; later Amiga Technologies (Escom)

Form factor

All-in-one keyboard computer

CPU

Motorola 68EC020, 14.18 MHz (PAL) or 14.32 MHz (NTSC)

Chipset

Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA)

RAM

2 MB Chip RAM, not expandable on the board; up to 8 MB Fast RAM through the trapdoor slot

ROM

512 KB Kickstart

Graphics

24-bit palette (16.8 million colours); 256 colours on screen as standard and 262,144 in HAM-8 mode; resolutions from 320 x 200 to 1280 x 400 and above

Audio

Four 8-bit PCM channels, DMA sampling from 28 to 56 kHz

Storage

880 KB 3.5-inch floppy; internal 2.5-inch IDE hard drive bay

Ports

Two DE9 joystick and mouse ports, RS-232 serial, Centronics parallel, external floppy, internal IDE, PCMCIA Type II slot

AmigaOS 3.0 (Kickstart and Workbench), later 3.1

PSU

Internal 23-watt supply, short of what a hard drive and expansion card want

Units sold

About 95,500 in Germany; total worldwide figure Unknown

Successors

None; Commodore went bankrupt in April 1994 before a replacement shipped

Leaking SMD electrolytic capacitors

The A1200 board uses surface-mount electrolytic capacitors that leak and can eat traces. Symptoms include distorted sound, a dead floppy drive, instability and Guru errors.
Weak power supply

The 23-watt supply is marginal once you add a hard drive, accelerator or memory expansion. A stronger replacement is the common fix.
Keyboard membrane wear

The conductive rubber pads lose conductivity after decades, so keys or whole rows stop working. Cleaning with alcohol can dissolve the glue on the membrane.
Escom-era floppy drives

Amiga Technologies machines of 1995 and 1996 were fitted with downgraded PC-type floppy drives that cause compatibility problems with some disks.

1992 Commodore launches the Amiga 1200 on 21 October with the AGA chipset
1994 Commodore International files for bankruptcy in April
1995 Escom buys the Amiga assets and Amiga Technologies relaunches the A1200
1996 Production ends