Magnetic Pages Article | 1992-09-02 | 5KB | 46 lines
MPARTICLE
AMIGA 1200- AT LAST!
#I suggest before you read this that"you read my article "a cautionary
tale"
Done that? Good. Read on." It's now the 5/7/94, and my long"awaited A1200 has finally arrived.$Not from WTS, mind, but from Special"Reserve, whence we ordered it from#because it was obvious that WTS had
undergone a case of selective
amnesia." So, what's it like? A lot of you%will only ever have had an A1200, and#so may not appreciate the fact that%it's bloody incredible. When you have$been using a battered up old 500 for!the last four years, a 1200 feels like heaven. ("And it feels like%heaven, and it feels like heaven. Ohh
ohh ohh ohh and it feels like!heave-n." -ed) This is especially%novel for me, since I actually get to use a computer that doesn't flag%keyboard ROM/RAM errors all the time.
(My keyboard is dead. It is an
X-keyboard. It is no more.)%Scandalously, many of you may well be
simply games junkies who have$absolutely no idea of what the light"labelled "H-disk" refers to. (Hard%disk, in case you're interested) Such$a powerful machine, yet often wasted$on those who may well be more suited%to a SNES. Sniff. Oh well, this one's$going to a good home, mark my words.!Letters in Amiga format along the"lines of, "Are the workbench disks$blank or is there something on them?"What about the deluxe paint ones?"%And, "I bought a 1200 recently but am%having some trouble putting the disks%in the drive." really make me cry for%the poor 1200. I should have put that#in "Amigas and lamers." Couldn't be
bothered. Never mind.
$Here are some of the things that are new to me about my new machine.
Good things first.
%* Loads of WB2 or above software that#I could never use before now works.
Some of it is definitely worth
waiting for! * Graphics. Smoother transitions%between colours than you can shake a !stick at. No, hang on, that's not
right...!* More graphics. No HAM fringing.
YES!#* Internal disk drive as quiet as a
very quiet thing.%* VROOOOM! Things all happen at break neck speed. Take TextEngine V4.0 that I am using now, whereas the$cursor would previously crawl across"the screen when asked to move this!thing pelts across the screen at vast speed. Perhaps a little too#fast, but is certainly better than $being too slow. Haven't had a chance
to test out something really
processor intensive yet. Spellchecking a document through
TextEngine would be an ideal#challenge, since it often resembles
watching paint dry underwater. * All that lovely chip ram means music modules can have loads of
instruments in."* You are told what is going on in
the title bar now, such as
"Attempting to load program%'Editor'", which is quite useful. All%errors are now reported back exactly,!no error numbers that you have to"look up in the manual only to find!they aren't documented. Will also"tell you which file didn't load or#couldn't be found, rather than just%some or other file couldn't be found.
Improved GURU. (error trapping$software) Will now try to freeze the$rouge program rather than just reset#the machine to get rid of it. Still
has to reset sometimes though.
Bad things:
"* My favourite disk copier from my A500 doesn't work properly. (As #expected; it takes over the system)"Disks always seem to come out with!little red error markers all over!them when they are in fact fine. %Seems to argue with my external drive when I take disks out. Luckily I have a copier that only works on"Kickstart 2+, just to get revenge!
* My "Workstation" disk (Amiga%Computing) crashes the system. To be %expected. It's ancient and uses a few
dodgy programming methods.#* The module at the beginning of my""Quick Systems" disk catalogue has#a lot of timing problems. Obviously"the player times itself using the
processor, which is unwise. Is!strangely slower. Actually sounds better played like this. I never liked it.#* Buckets of other software doesn't"work, such as Odyssey (the version$I own at least. There is another one
which works on higher systems) !and Puggs in Space, which was the$first demo I ever saw. Still pretty
cool.
# The best thing of all though that!it is MY Amiga and nobody elses. #And it's in MY room so I can use it
when I want. (It's now about %quarter past midnight.) All my end of operations on this magazine will"now go through this machine. Sorry!Amy, (my old Amiga) but your day
has been and gone. Let a newer%machine take over the job now. Rest, #and only stir when you need to play
some old game or demo.$ Gosh, I'm getting all sentimental.
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