Commodore Amiga CD1200 - Rare Amiga Prototype (Oddware)
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- čas přidán 1. 12. 2017
- The story of the super rare unreleased Commodore Amiga CD1200 CD-ROM Drive and its surprising rediscovery over 20 years later.
Retro Computer Museum: www.retrocomputermuseum.co.uk/
My retro gaming podcast: theretrohour.com
My Facebook: / kookytech.net
My Twitter: / danwood_uk
My Website: kookytech.net
Dave Haynie's Deathbed Vigil: • The Deathbed Vigil and...
Ravi Abbott CD1200 video: • Amiga HolyGrail CD1200...
Music: BrvtVs - Commonplace & Longzijun - Dreams
All trailers & gameplay footage belong to their respective owners. - Věda a technologie
A video about a long lost obscure piece of hardware has 17k views in under a week.. I think there are more people following the Amiga than many realize!
Now up to over 20k .. I think David Pleasance must be working his magic by now :)
There will never be anything as special as the Amiga again. Suche wonderful years...
Amazing story and video Dan!
Dan you've made one of the most intriguing Amiga vids here - back to your best, thank you! 👏🏻
Man, coming from a fellow Amiga kid (age 35), I am blown away with how friggin amazing the internet is! The fact you make these awesome videos and The Retro Hour Podcast, the fact David Pleasance is writing a book and can get funded by crowd funding technology , the miracle that is CZcams, discoveries like these and the fact you can take a computer out of your pocket nowadays, snap a photo with it, share it to the world straightaway and have Beth from Commodore contact you.... Wow, we're living in an Amiga kid's future paradise!.. and the technology that's coming is even more exciting (AI, the blockchain revolution. singularity, autonomous transport, biotech marvels)... I love it! Thanks Dan for everything you contribute. Joe Betro (aka "pc joe")
Fantastic video! Thank you all so much for sharing this information and I hope to see more of it!
Very cool. Great to see how interested David is in engaging with and talking to the fans. Thanks for the vid.
Absolutely! He seemed like a very nice fellow, and with his connections it could hopefully happen that a recreation of the CD1200 might come into being.
What an amazing video, Dan! Thank you so much for sharing this!
Cheers!
Damn, it's amazing what could have been, really hope you guys get it working, will be a marvel to see!
I need to hear the follow up from Malcolm on how he got this treasure and see it working. Please get a follow up video for this.
What a pleasant surprise to see this video on this Saturday night. Awesome. Glad to see a piece of history. Great to hear from David again.
GREAT video! Nice detective work! I really enjoyed this!
What an great video! As an long time Amiga fan I thoroughly enjoyed this :)
I have a tear in my eye, I miss Amiga and I miss the form factor for this type of computer
Reaaly cool. Its always amazing to me how rare things like these survive being tossed out in the end.
Fantastic video, I never knew this existed! It looks really slick as well.
A weird bit of trivia about the Amiga 4000T:
Months after commodore went bankrupt and the court battle was going on a shipment of about 7 Amiga 4000T's just mysteriously showed up at the doorstep of NewTek.
They had been on a shipping dock for many months just being held up for reasons nobody found out. They all had very low serial numbers and were quite the beasts to use.
I always find it tragic to hear from David Pleasance - how frustrating they had a such a good manager and they had to mess up his plans. That Mehdi Ali should have been dethroned. Grew up with a Vic 20 then Amiga. Always had a love for commodore products. Such a loyal fan base.
A very exciting video I discover. Thank you Dan for your investigation journalistic work!
What a great story, fantastic to see devoted people still going with Amiga. Me my self got my hand on a A4000 /030 and it has been laying in a garage for 20 years or so, Varta Death and all that stuff, but i did meet the right guy for the job. Very passionate about Amiga hardware. he actually pulled it off. Last night i got a powerup and yes, it did boot to workbench. Sound works. So, we saved an 4000 this year :)
Awesome... Wish Commodore was still around today
What an awesome video! Thanks Dan.
I was one of those proud owners of an A1200. My best friend at the time had a CD32 for the same Christmas as I received my 1200. When I heard about this it was an awesome thought to have the HD and floppy of the A1200 along with CD32 support. Later in 2004 I spent my first ever wage packet on a clone of this drive (I can’t remember the name, could have been Archos?) which emulated the Akiko in the supplied connector on the left PCMCIA port of the A1200 and was very clever. It had about 70% compatibility with booting CD32 games and I loved it! However it was so disappointing about the timing of the demise of Commodore meaning no release for the CD1200 and I always wanted one.
Unfortunately we were broken into and the A1200 along with drive were stolen 😥
So even though I don’t have an A1200 any longer I intend sometime to get one again somehow so would probably pay around £150 for one of these drives just in case and to support the effort for others to enjoy 100% CD32 compatibility on the A1200
I love this.. couple of old blokes talking about their heritage and they are just so fond of the Amiga brand.. this is gold guyz
Super find and loved the video and interview. I had forgotten Commodore had died in 1994 and I was certainly using my A1200 with a squirrel scsi to PC box which was my PSU, HDD and CD-ROM. Also an 030 accelerator. After finding and subscribing to your channel, I have found my A500, A590 and I am sure I had the add on HDD in the loft. Also found my A1200 and PC box to power it, my CD32 and 1084s monitor. Used to own a 17” multi sync (if that is the right term) monitor but that died and is now gone. If I can get these running, I would love one of these and would be happy with paying £100 to £150.
Just a note, also found my old Atari 800xl.
Very interesting mate . Awaiting that Xmas video can't wait !!
Jaw on the floor! Bloody amazing and, I was at the RCM, that weekend. I'd love to have one at the side of my A1200, and I'd be up for buying into one, just not sure of the price?
Great video Dan 👍
Having been an Amiga user since 1986 and still having my original working A1000 and A4000 I would love to buy a new Amiga CD1200 CD-ROM/ DVD drive to go along with my recently purchased A1200. I would pay between 300 to 500 US dollars for one of these beauties. I don't see any technical problems with having the card that plugs into the expansion slot having two edge connectors and the logic to support both this card and a accelerator card. It's a technical exercise that more modern components might easily solve. With so many in the Amiga community who have experience in designing additions to our beloved machines along with creating new accelerator cards etc whats holding this project back but the usual naysayers who have always been around. It almost sounds like some are channeling the old dead and gone Commodore management team from West Chester, PA. What a total waste of space those guys where! Dan thank you and Ravi for this great video and also for both of you continuing to host the Retro Hour. Keep up the excellent work.
Dan another amazing interesting video , I saw the first 2 mins before breakfast this morning and couldn't wait to come home from work to watch the rest of it. Also LOVE the retro hour but in my opinion to do it every fortnight would be better as just don't get the time to watch it every week. However the retro hour is amazing and I love it !!! Also do you seek retrohour stuff like t shirts or hats ect. Keep it up dan!!!
Thanks for creating this video! An amazing piece of history =D LOL @ the story of Merlancia industries!
Really great video and interesting to see a prototype from that era. Hopefully it can be brought back to working condition. Even though i was an atari man (ST/Falcon) i always remember the amiga fondly and loved the old bit of rivalry between the two camps. I wonder how many prototypes from that era have been lost in time
I'd have to say the Amiga walker prototype is the holy grail of the Amiga range.
I Would think £150-£200 would be good. What a find. I vaguley remeber these being mentioned back in the day, brings back happy and sad memories.
I so appreciate this video. Very interesting information. If truly love to see a remanufactured CD 1200...! It would be on another level to see the homebrew scene make something amazing!
Great video Dan, I remember seeing this thing pictured in magazines back in the day. I'd definitley be interested in picking one up if a new production run is mooted (£200ish something like that?), would fit in nicely with CD32 themed A1200 case and keycaps.
Very exciting stuff Dan. I have the Archos Overdrive PCMCIA for my A1200 but would buy one of these as if the price was around £150ish.
I held the cd 1200 add on today at the museum i was over the moon and super super happy and even got the copy of the magazine i had as a child and just wow !!! What a day i loved it ❤️ amazing ! ❤
Dan that was a great video, what luck at finding Beth! Personally I'd have one for sure, but I'd place the price ceiling at about £250 max. This is mainly because I've become disenchanted with Amiga projects like the Vampire, that only cater to the rich. Being an Amiga fan shouldn't require selling a kidney.
Fantastic, insightful vid!
Hardware resurrections are always the best sorts of things to see.
Had to re-watch the beginning of the interview I was totally distracted by the excellent Hubbard music!
I love all these "I'll pay x amount for it"
I think the point is preserve what is there in this case.
Dan this was a fantastic video and as usual it's good to see David and of course Andy . I have a lot of time for Andy and David, well he's one of the nicest guys ever. Met him a long time ago when I was 14 and wanted to be just like him. Gave me some kind words that I'll always remember .
Sound bloke ...
This device HAS to be restored as best as we can and allowed to be appreciated as part of Commodores pretty dramatic and epic end.
I just dream of someone just remaking the Amiga computers again with all original hardware and the software on floppy disks and selling in shops. It would be amazing. I was a big Amiga fan in the day would rather play on a Amiga than today's consoles and computers.
Anyway great vid Dan so much amazing Amiga info in all you videos 👍.
what a great story
Great work. Hopefully Beth can get things up and running.
That is flat out Astounding! As is the music.
YOU GUYS MADE THE AWSOME GAMES AND SOFTWARE
€150 but with accelerator support. Great find, great video!
I can see sometime in the future all the missing bits are re-united. Some careful work follows and this baby is fired up and working.
Oh man, if I *did* have an Amiga 1200 back then, the CD1200 would've been the last birthday and/or Xmas gift I'd ever ask for! What a beauty... perfectly matches up with the 1200 and bringing CD32 compatibility right to the table with the Akiko chip!
I sincerely hope to see a Kickstarter to help bring the CD1200 to reality! Even if I don't own an A1200 myself, I'd still support it anyway because Amiga projects deserve love and support!
I remember being so excited seeing the cd1200, I had the A570 cd rom and an upgraded batman pack 500 at the time, always dreamt of that upgrade! Now own an ACA'd 1200 with scsi cd, squirrel etc and a cd32, but its just not the same as my childhood lustings!
I absolutely love this video. What a story!
Great video! There was something very special about the 'miggy in the UK, like it was the home of the last true home computer enthusiasts.
Great video so much goof information! Need to visit this museum next time I am down in Leicester =)
I remember wanting one of the CD Rom Add ons, I think I saw it previewed in Amiga Format
Amazing! Very informative as always. If ever any Kickstarter Amiga 1200 CD project start I'll be very interested. My Two Amiga A1200 (One a NOS) will be waiting :)
I can't wait to see some developments on this.
Amazing video, would definitely pay £200 for it. CD32 prices are currently very high in the UK so this would be an essential purchase for A1200 users.
Lots of stuff went into skips at the back of the Corby plant when it closed, had some good finds
This would definitely sway my decision about getting an A1200, as well as this drive. I've been looking to begin a collection of sorts, and have only started with re-establishing the devices that I had in the 80s and 90s (1000, 500, 2000 so far).
Wow this is cool. when I had my A1200, I had an Archos 'Zappo' PCMCIA interface CD drive that came packaged with some CD32 titles and a controller. I later sold that and got a real CD32.
Great vid!
A museum is definitely the right place for this. But why wasn't the guy in the Atari T-shirt escorted out of the building?
...maybe because the Amiga Lorraine was supposed to have been the basis for the Atari "Mickey" 16-bit gaming console set for a Christmas 1985 release and Commodore stole it from OG Atari Inc and Warner Communications...
@@TheJeremyHolloway it wasn't stolen. The developers turned down an offer from Jack Tramiel and went to Commodore.
Wrong. Amiga Corp was set to become part of Atari Inc since they couldn't repay their $500k development loan. Per the contract, Amiga was prohibited from selling themselves to Apple, Commodore, IBM, or TI. Amiga falsely claimed to Atari Inc that the Lorraine chipset didn't work and provided a $500k check which Commodore had fronted them as part of the $25 million sale which again was prohibited by the existing contract. Hence "stolen". What you are referring to was Jack Tramiel touring Amiga Corp after he had left Commodore and before he purchased the assets of Atari Inc's Consumer Division which later became his "Atari Corporation".
I had an Amiga 1200 and a CD32.
One fun thing that happened to the CD32, my brother was using it and touched the TV, the earth strap had come off inside the TV so a high voltage went through him and up the joypad and blew up the CD32. The interesting part was the CD32 still kinda worked, it would only boot the game it last had in the drive (with the CD in there). not even the CD32 boot screen would load and the game would crash at a certain point.
I ended up using CD32 as a CD drive linked via serial to a old PC to install windows 95 because it didn't have a CD drive... fun times.
Nice Sanxion remix playing in the background :)
Dan, amazing video. I thought there was nothing left to tell about the death of CBM. Wish he talked a bit more about the XOR issue, but no use beating a dead horse
Great story. Thanks for sharing.
I'm really looking forward to the follow up video to this. subbed and belled :)
i would buy that for sure, i`m certain there would be a big following. I would expect to pay around £200 for a full plug and play machine to add to the A1200, it would be amazing.
Mega! Mega! Mega!! Awesome, amazing, wonderful! Thanks guys for this story finally given for such a long awaited white elephant, and we get to see Davids reaction. I remember seeing this in magazines and I even saw third party devices which had a similar design. Yes with just a little bit more money, CBM UK could have a pot of gold on their hands. But they argued this would compete with CD32 sales, and so rather than do that. So this is a bit like the Ben Heck SNES prototype, only this time they could clone a mould of this shell, and sell it to A1200 owners as a Christmas sidecar addon. Maybe someone will build a real CD-Rom into the case, and there you go, its done deal. Or it could make a nice pop-up ashtray or something.
Nice to see that Excellent Video.
still rocking my commodore 750w power supply from 2007 of course ive ripped out the "Ice Cube" cooling component still rock solid!
We had genuine A4000T at collage. It's what a learned to animate on. We also had Draco Amiga clones as well. They were the days.
I'd be interested in one for my 1200 just for the novelty value really, since I already have a couple of CD32s. Up to £250 or so and I'd be in, although probably under £199 would be the sweet spot for a lot of people
Wow I remember seeing this in Amiga Format. Wish it had gone to plan. Sadly we only have the prototype
I had forgotten about this. I had an Archos Overdrive CD drive which connected by pcmcia interface to the a1200. I would like to see this device working though. It was great to see David Pleasance.
That is quite a finding. I'm sure this brings lots of memories (good and bad) to David Pleasance. About the croud funding project, I would go for the range between €100 - €200 for the full product. For the early backers I would go for €100.
YES - would love one, Kickstart this rare gem
I use to sell all this stuff in Oklahoma when I owned a computer store.. I still have one of everything in storage...even the amiga cd computer.. one day I will pull it all out...even have all the commodore vic-20, 64, 64c, plus 16, etc and drives and printers in storage..
Amazing, It would be nice to see this addition for the Amiga 1200, I would try and keep the costs down as far as possible. - Remember technology has changed over the years and you can make things cheaper than the originals, for example If the Prototype drive is far to complicated/complex to mass-produce as-is, I would perhaps make a newer model that would be cheaper to mass-produce - and I would aim to keep it below £400(ish) total cost price.
Hi Dan, in answer to your question at the end, I'd pay NZ$250, maybe more. It would be a mind blowing addition to my Amiga collection. I remember being so very depressed when Commodore folded - even though only my friends had Amigas - I had a ZX81 at that time....
i would back this around 200 as well id love a silver one for my LE 1200 case
Hello, I actually been reverse engineering amiga now for almost 2 years and I do have working prototypes that will use either same chips that you can use on my logic board I have also created clones of the amiga chips after dumping all chips. the plan is to have amiga on a chip solution as a kit that anyone can build without any emulation of anykind and some parts have been improved
I think it's always a good idea to include the same expansion port plus ALL other ports as the original machines even if you have made an FPGA version because it props up the already quite good third party add on market. Do you agree with that ? I'm just thinking that it keeps the Amiga alive far into the future
keep us posted :)
I call shennanigins.
Dazzle Software Yeah, I really enjoyed the video series you have on CZcams about how you have done this. Amazing work dude!
I remember reading about this as a teenager when they reported the prototype: made a mental note in my head that I needed one at any price! Then forgot all about this until I saw this video 👍
I met the "Doctor" in California back in the early 2000's! Lol. He was an arrogant, bizarre character in a white lab coat and he also had a nervous tick. Merlancia gave a presentation at AmiWest with a guy using a sock puppet. I think I have some video of the event somewhere. And also some Merlancia business cards, including one with Dave Haynie's name on it!
I love these Amiga rarities; I actually have an Amiga Technologies joystick that was produced in the early 80's.
I would be happy to buy one. I would go up to £250, perhaps more depending on functionality. It would be fantastic if this could be brought to life. I will definitely support it.
I think all of us that owned an Amiga back in the day, are shocked and sad that it never became the dominant platform. :(
Shapeshifter showed we had a better machine than the Mac back then, PC-Task and various GVP and even the Siamese system proved we could have done so much more .
After my Atari 800XL , (I even bought the 5 1/4 floppy drive from Silica systems in Selfridges! ) the Amiga seemed s advanced, I got the A500 (Rom 1.3) and after a few weeks carefully cut some solder track to covered my "Slow fast Ram" expansion card to 1MB of "Chip Ram."
I then got the A1200 on its release, with a GVP12430+ trapdoor card, and 1MB RAM (Damn that GVP RAM was dear), added a 68882 (The only thing that accelerated was AIBB Beachball raytrace to around 9 seconds)... Then read an article in CU Amiga about the Micronik? Expansion card and tower, (it added 3x Zorro 2 card slots) in an ATX Tower and cost around £400, I ended up with one and loved it, added a CD ROM, then picked up a Cheap A3000, added an 060 and Cybervision 64/3D.
Hell the Amiga is probably my first love, these days I have a few Macs (MacBook Pros, 5,1 and 6,1 Mac Pros) and love them but if I saw a kitted out 040 A4000T I would be tempted.
RIP Amiga, you should have kicked the Mac and PC's But!
Amazing video
It's at times like this I wish I could go back in time and make sure the right people got in charge of Commodore so the company would have survived and flourished. I wonder what cool stuff we would have seen then.
The CD rom will boost the Amiga sales for sure. Stay tuned!
Please do a teardown!!! We now know the Aikiko chip was on the adaptor, but this could be made from a junk CD32. Lusted after this when I saw it in Amiga Format all those years ago. I'd pay 50 quid to play on it for an hour at the museum
Wow! Yep definitely, always wanted one back in the day. Would need to be £200 max though.
Amazing find.
wow fantastic find
PSU connector looks like the CD32 4 pin din Ground and 5 volt and 12 volt, would make sense as the CD32 power supplies were already being manufactured, although as Mr Pleasance jokingly pointed out it could be totally different spec with Commodores erratic design decisions
RetroCable.com I thought that too.
I remember a distinct lack of software for the cd32 when it first came out. It was unfortunately rushed out. If it was released a little later alongside development for the a1200 and more software it could have been great.
Would be amazing to get this bit of kit off the ground I must say. I originally had the Amiga 500 back in the day after having Zx Spectrum for 10 years. The Amiga was a massive improvement in everything and me and my brother loved playing the likes of sensible soccer, pinball dreams etc. I would be interested in see what could happen with this project!!
what a find - Any further updates or videos on this drive
I waited so patiently for this drive to be released, and I'm still waiting really. I'll probably be waiting forever, however if someone could see themselves in a position where considering a kick-starter to make a run of these drives to be an intriguing adventure, with the copyright holder's permission of course, then you have at least one supporter in me. I think a fair price would be £199 if it was a complete package, with a nice Commodore bundle box and a software pack e.g. Super Stardust, Pinball Illusions, Superfrog, Deluxe Paint 5, Digita Office, a Dictionary/Thesaurus CD, Encyclopedia, World Atlas and Recipe Collection CD If an FMV version might be possible then it could be £80 more and include Microcosm, Cannon Fodder and a couple of Video CDs e.g. Explorers, Phantom of the Opera and Babylon 5 Series 1. It should also include two white edition CD32 pads with 3m cables. It'd be great to tie it in with a brand new CD32 game. How about an official release of Doom that utilises the AKIKO? ...and an 030/060 + extra RAM too to encourage people to upgrade. Okay, now I've really gone back to 94 :)
Oh course I would buy one! I bought my A1200 and then the CD32 four months later. I was always frustrated I couldn't hook them up together. I know there was a Network CD or something, but I lost interest and moved to PC soon after.
Nice find!
That's really cool, though if it really blocked the expansion port that would have been a major issue. An accelerator was essential if you used an A1200 in 1995 and later.
I had a PCMCIA CD-ROM drive for my A1200. I did play a couple of CD32 games with it, though I guess they didn't rely on the Akiko chip. The only game I can really remember is Litil Divil.