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Sledge Hammer 11 (English)
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Sledge Hammer 11E.adf
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a1200.txt
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a1200.txt
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2020-05-02
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309 lines
THE A1200
The A1200 is the most significant
product Commodore has released since
we introduced the Amiga 500. The
A1200 is seen as the A500 of the 1990s
We should view the A600 as the entry
home computer, and the A1200 as a
power machine for all home hobbyists.
Positioning
The A1200 is much more powerful than
the A500 or A600. It is the first
keyboard-integrated machine with the
AA Chip set and a 32-bit processor.
This will permit 6 colors from a
palette of .8 million, compared to
the A500 and A600's 32 colors from a
palette of 4096. This new Chip set
also supports an enhanced HAM mode
allowing near photo-realistic images
in all resolutions with up to 256,000
colors. The new AA Chip set will
support VGA productivity screens
(640 x 480, 256 colors) at refresh
rates up to 72Hz. 600 x 800, 256 color
screens are also supported at 72Hz
interlaced. Sprite sizes have been
increased from 16 bits to 32 and 64
bits wide. Also, sprites can be
displayed in screen borders and have
resolutions independent of play fields
The A1200 will come with 2 megabytes
of chip RAM, this chip RAM expansion
is not needed.
The A1200 is a true 32-bit system with
32-bit RAM and ROM using the 14 MHz
clock speed (2x A500/A600) 32bit
68E020 processor. This processor not
only runs at twice the speed of the
A500/A600, but also has a 256 byte
instruction cache. These capabilities
enable the A1200 to achieve
performance that is up to times that
of the A500/A600.
The A1200 is packaged in the new
A600-style case, but is slightly
larger to include the addition of a
numeric keypad, as in the A500+. This
package also supports the addition of
an internal 2.5" IDE hard drive, as in
the A600.
The A1200 retains the PCMCIA card port
for memory and I/O expansion, but also
adds a 32-bit processor bus expansion
port accessible via a door on the
bottom of the unit. This port is
similar to the A500 expansion port,
but is not compatible. This port is
enhanced to 32 bits and 14MHz
operation. Cards/Adapters can have
access to the port allowing:
* Accelerator processors
* DSP processors
* SCSI adapters
* Fast RAM expansion
* Bridge cards
Boards added to the expansion bus can
have external cable connector access
via a rear panel knock out. With the
new package, AA chip set, better
expansion and high speed 32-bit
processor, the A1200 is a very
exciting and competitive product.
The new A1200s are shipped with Amiga
OS Release 3, a backward compatible
extension to the industry standard
Release 2, which provides full support
for new Chip set enhanced graphics,
and is "localized" or over 14
languages and countries.
Features
14.32 MHz 68EC020 NTSC
14.18 MHz 68EC020 PAL
24 bit Address space
32 bit Data path
Mem & Expansion
MB chip memory standard on
motherboard organized as 512k x 32bit
150 Pin internal CPU slot-type
expansion card-edge
512KB, 120ns, Release 3 Kickstart Mask
ROM (V39.106) organized as 128K x 32
bit
The A1200 ROM includes PCMCIA code
This code is absent from the A4000
ROM, and is the only content
difference between the ROMs.
@IPshteamC
Mass Storage
Internal slim 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive
(880k capacity)
Capacity for 2.5" IDE Hard Disk Drive
with 20MB or 40MB+ formatted drive.
Op. System
Release 3, Workbench 39.29,
Kickstart 39.106
Video Output
Standard Amiga 23 pin analog RGB,
Digital RGBI Color composite video
output (PAL or NTSC) RF output for
standard TV (PAL or NTSC)
The PCB can accomodate either PAL or
NTSC. The actual components placed on
the board determine which of these two
video standards is supported.
System I/O
External System I/O
External Floppy
Serial
Parallel
Mouse
Joystick
Stereo Audio ports
Internal
System I/O
Internal Floppy Signal and Power
IDE Signal and Power
Keyboard membrane is 31 pins
Expansion
PCMCIA PC Card
Follows PCMCIA Standard 2.0. Memory
and I/O cards are supported.
CPU Slot
Additional technical information on
the 150-pin CPU Slot Card Edge will be
available shortly.
AA Custom Chips
The A1200 uses the same AA chip set as
the A4000 (Alice, Lisa and Paula). The
AA chips are software compatible with
the original and ECS chipsets, with
the exception of the ECS "super-hires"
mode palette. A brief summary of
functionality of the chips follows.
Alice
Alice is based on the 2MB ECS Agnus
chip, and continues to act as the main
Amiga Chip bus controller. Although
Alice retains the same 16 bit data bus
as the ECS Agnus, it can now direct 32
bit and/or double CAS page mode
transactions on the Chip bus, and has
a stripped down interface to a 32-bit
Chip memory bus. External logic is
used for memory selection and decode.
Lisa
Lisa is a new full custom design
replacement for Denise implemented in
CMOS technology. In addition to a
32-bit Chip interface, Lisa improves
video output to 24 bits of digtal RGB
video. Coupled with 80ns DRAM, Lisa
can use double fetch cycles to obtain
64 bits of data in a single Chip bus
cycle resulting in an overall four
fold increase in Chip memory bandwidth
for video.
Paula
The same Paula chip continues to
perform the same functions such as 8
bit audio with four voices configured
as two stereo channels, floppy disk
I/O, RS-232 serial I/O, potentiometer
inputs, and interrupt control.
AA Chip Set Feature Summary
The 32-bit wide data bus supports
input of 32-bit bitplane data and
allows the doubling of \s\smemory
bandwidth. Additional doubling of
bandwidth is achieved by using Fast
Page Mode RAM. The same bandwidth
enchancements are available for
sprites. Also, the maximum number of
bitplanes usable in all modes has
increased to eight.
The Color Palette has been expanded to
6 colors deep and 25 bits wide
(8 Red, 8 Green, 8 blue, 1 Genlock).
This permits the display of 256
simultaneous colors in all resolutions
A palette of 16,777,216 colors is
available in all resolutions.
@IPamigaC
A new register bit allows sprites to
appear in the screen border regions.
A bitplane mask field of 8 bits allows
an address offset into the color
palette. Two 4-bit mask fields do the
same for odd and even sprites.
In dual playfield modes, two
4-bitplane playfields are now possible
in all resolutions.
Two extra high-order playfield scroll
bits allow seamless scrolling of up to
64 bit wide bitplanes in all
resolutions. Resolution of bitplane
scroll, display window, and horizontal
sprite position has been improved to
35ns in all resolutions.
A new 8 bitplane HAM mode has been
created, 6 for colors and 2 for
control bits. All HAM modes are
available in all resolutions.
Sprite resolution can be set to LORES,
HIRES, and SHRES independent of
bitplane resolution.
Attached sprites are now available in
all resolutions.
Hardware scan doubling support has
been added for bitplanes and sprites.
This is intended to allow 15KHz
screens to be intelligently displayed
on a 31 Khz monitor, sharing the
display with 31 KHZ screens.
To be continued...
@IPshtimC