CompuServe Messages

Hi, I drove over to my computer dealer this afternoon and picked up my A1200. It's one of the HD models, containing a 40 meg (Seagate) IDE drive with AmigaOS 3.0 pre-installed. Here are some of my initial impressions…. The keyboard is pretty good, a little mushier than my A3000's but quite acceptable. I hate the mouse, though. 8^) It's a nice-looking mouse, similar to MicroSoft's in appearance, but the buttons are mushy and too stiff. I much prefer my ugly 3000 mouse…I think I'll try to get an identical one for the 1200. Another thing about the keyboard: it has the smaller European-style Return and Left-Shift keys, with blank keys taking up the added space…I don't much like the smaller keys either. I have an extra A2000 keyboard lying around…wonder if I could pop off the Return and Shift keys and fit them on the 1200's keyboard? Can't really say much about AmigaOS 3.0 at this point. I've noticed a couple minor cosmetic changes to Workbench, and the Preferences palette wheel is very cool…. Most AIBB 5.5 benchmarks run on the 1200 between 35 and 50 percent as fast as on my 3000. The benchmarks that measure graphics performance, however, run significantly faster on the 1200. Once I get some Fast RAM installed (not to mention an FPU), overall performance should improve a fair bit. Even on my crummy old 1080 monitor, the 1200's graphics are great! I've been using ViewTek to view various GIF and JPEG files; AGA's 8-bit and HAM8 modes compare very favorably to my FireCracker24. If the comparison holds up after I connect a better monitor to the 1200, the FC24's days may be numbered. 😉 The 1200 package is missing the AmigaDOS and ARexx manuals that come with the A4000. I hope C= corrects this mistake soon. Other 1200 owners have reported that their machines came without Hard Drive manuals and Install disks…mine, being an HD model, came with both. Since a hard drive can be so easily installed in the 1200, I think C= ought to include the HD