amiga news raptor 1200

A new low-cost accelerator “Raptor 1200” accelerator is coming it is way to the Amiga 1200 is announced on Facebook and on Discord. If you love your Amiga 1200 and just want AGA with speed and RAM. Then this news about Raptor 1200 is a very interesting one.

Raptor 1200 will offer 68080 FPGA and MEM only. You can however use the internal IDE and PCMCIA slot. The price isn’t set yet, but the availability of the card is sooner than later.

Raptor 1200 is a stripped V1200 accelerator

Raptor 1200 is a newly announced Amiga 1200 accelerator that gives the Commodore computer from 1992 an accelerator solution with the raw power of 68080 core and MEM. No RTG, No mem card slot, and no IDE connector. You connect it to the Amiga 1200 like any other accelerator beneath the machine.

If you want is a super-fast low-cost 68080 performance accelerator for your Amiga 1200, then Raptor 1200 is a piece of news that many have been waiting for. To just run AGA on steroids, is a perfect solution for those of you that don’t need RTG out. All of the video signals goes out through the Amiga Video port or through composite out.

With Raptor 1200 you can do the same things as on a Vampire V1200 but without RTG out. A pure 68080 core accelerator for those that only need extra boost in power.

AGA Support for OCS and ECS Amiga?

The release of Raptor 1200 shows that there is a market for an accelerator with just CPU and MEM. And that’s it. I just hope that the AGA support for OCS and ECS Amigas will one day be released for the V2 accelerators for OCS and ECS Amigas.

GOLD 3 is Approaching 68080 Vampire Amiga Accelerator Cards Users
GOLD 3 was Approaching 68080 Vampire Amiga Accelerator Cards Users

I know from many Vampire V2 owners and myself the reason for getting a Vampire for OCS and ECS Amiga was the promised AGA compatibility. RTG is not a must thing for everyone. So, by having a bigger FPGA in Raptor 500 etc. Gold 3 Alpha could be done.

Back in August 2020, the Apollo Team announced that Gold 3.x is on hold. But with Raptor release. Think of all the AGA Amiga games that would be played? You would give many AGA Amiga developers a big help and also show that you are true to keeping the Classic Amiga spirit alive as Gunnar is talking about in the video.

It would be a dream come true to be able to play Reshoot R, MYST, or even VirtuaGP. Or how about Boss Machine?…

VirtuaGP as shown in the video above is one of the most advanced 3D textured racing games on the Amiga. It is also one of the AGA games that support better PAL screenmodes that require more horsepower. The 68080 FPGA core got the needed power for fluid framerate when racing. The RTG games are nice, but what about the AGA Amiga games?

My final dream thinking goes to the Apollo Team. I ask. Will I be able to see great AGA compatibility for OCS or ECS Amigas? I hope so. Because that was one of my reasons for getting a Vampire. RTG is nice, but with AGA it will be way more fun.