Retro Games opens pre-orders for THEA1200, a full-size working Amiga replica
(2025/11/14)
- Reference: 1763131294
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/11/14/thea1200_fullsize_amiga_replica/
- Source link:
Retro Games Ltd (RGL), the company behind THESPECTRUM and THEA500 Mini, has started accepting pre-orders for its full-size Amiga 1200 replica, [1]THEA1200 .
It's not quite as snazzy as Valve's upcoming Steam Frame, but under the hood, they're both Arm64 computers running Linux and relying on emulation of a totally different CPU to run existing games.
In July 1985, two much-loved franchises launched. The [2]original Back to the Future movie was first. Later the same month, the [3]original Amiga 1000 was announced. Marty McFly only went 30 years backwards, but now, 40 years after the movie came out, a new Amiga-compatible computer has been announced.
[4]
[5]Youtube Video
[6]
[7]
THEA1200 – the lack of spacing there is intentional, to avoid any old Commodore trademarks – is a new full-size Amiga-compatible device, designed to be the same size and shape as the [8]original hardware that inspired it.
We mentioned this machine when we [9]looked at a new web browser for AmigaKit's comparable but slightly higher-end device, the [10]A1200 NG . The devices don't just share similar names, but also technical similarities. The AmigaKit hardware is a new motherboard which you fit into the case of an old, dead Commodore Amiga 1200, or one of the modern reproductions, and it can control a real physical floppy drive so you can directly load your 1990s Amiga games.
[11]
RGL's device is slightly less ambitious. It's a larger sibling to the company's existing device [12]THEA500 Mini , which is a miniaturized replica with a non-functional keyboard. Like RGL's existing recreation of a classic Sinclair machine, [13]THESPECTRUM , THEA1200 is the same size as the device that inspired it, and has a full-size working keyboard.
Under the hood, rather like THESPECTRUM, it's an Arm SoC running Linux and an emulator. For the older machine, THESPECTRUM, RGL used a special version of the OpenSE BASIC ROM that is, for instance, [14]found in Debian . Author Andrew Owen [15]calls this version TokenSE .
For THEA1200, emulation is performed by a modified version of the [16]Amiberry emulator . On its Facebook page, the company [17]has previously said :
Our friends at Amiga and Cloanto, who have supported us throughout the development of THEC64, THEVIC20, and THEA500 Mini, have been working tirelessly…
Amiga Forever includes an emulator instance with an updated AmigaOS that Cloanto calls AmigaOS 3.X, although there's very little mention of it on the company's website except for [18]one knowledgebase entry . If Cloanto is working with RGL, THEA1200 could include licensed Amiga ROM images and a version of AmigaOS derived from the original code. That's in contrast to AmigaKit's [19]AmiBench OS , which carefully says that it's "AmigaKit's System Release V46 distribution supplemented by some AROS components." AROS is the FOSS Amiga-compatible OS whose new [20]AROS Portable edition we [21]looked at back in May .
The Reg FOSS desk met and spoke with the RGL developer who puts together the software that powers these systems. He's also the genius behind the [22]Spectranet Ethernet interface for the ZX Spectrum, which is available to buy from [23]Byte Delight and [24]Sintech UK .
[25]
He explained that the team has given considerable attention to timing and latency. THEA1200 will come with 25 pre-loaded games, all licensed from their original creators. In another [26]Facebook post , the company listed some of them:
Beneath A Steel Sky, Settlers II, Lure of the Temptress, Ruff n Tumble, Defender of the Crown I & II, and the Turrican trilogy.
The recently released [27]Amiga version of Settlers II needs a rather high-spec Amiga – the minimum requirements are:
Amiga with AGA chipset
68040 with 40 MHz
32 MB Fast RAM
AmigaOS 3.1
AHI 4.18
600 MB free hard disk space
For an Amiga, that's quite formidable, and points to relatively rapid Arm hardware underneath.
[28]AmiBrowser brings 21st century web to 20th century Amigas
[29]Commodore Amiga turns 40, headlines UK exhibition
[30]AROS turns any PC into an Amiga with USB-bootable distro
[31]AmigaOS updated in 2025 for some reason
These days it's quite easy to get hold of an Amiga emulator – such as by buying [32]Cloanto's Amiga Forever – and loading games into it, but you do need some technical skills, and features like saving a game won't work.
RGL carefully disassembles and decompiles the games and then hand-modifies them to disable the built-in save game functionality, which won't work in an emulator, and instead it provides the ability to save and load games directly from its launcher. The company also tweaks the emulation engine to reduce latency and improve responsiveness.
Like its lower-end sibling models, THEA1200 has multiple USB ports and an HDMI display output. It upscales the display as necessary to make 1980s games look good on 2020s flat-screen TVs. It can load games from USB, and as well as the "carousel" style menu, users can drop to the Workbench and use Amiga desktop apps. THEA1200 comes with a USB recreation of both the original Amiga mouse, which is also [33]available separately , as is a [34]wired gamepad .
Today, rival companies own different parts of the Commodore and Amiga intellectual property – logos, trademarks, original code, and so on – and continue to [35]fight over who owns what . The latest development we've seen is that YouTuber [36]Christian "PeriFractic" Simpson raised enough funding to [37]buy the Commodore name . So far, the reborn [38]Commodore is selling an FPGA-based replica Commodore 64, along with other merchandise.
Those of us who enjoy playing with computers for fun know how to find and install an emulator, find games to load into it, and maybe even how to connect a game controller to a laptop, and connect the laptop to a big screen. That's a big ask of the much larger non-technical audience who buy off-the-shelf games consoles. About 40 years ago, some of those same gamers bought devices like the [39]Sinclair ZX Spectrum and [40]the Commodore Amiga 500 .
RGL aims to bring that sort of plug-and-play simplicity to running Amiga games in the 21st century, with the added ability to drop to the desktop and run Deluxe Paint III or Wordworth. At the time of writing, the price from a [41]UK online outlet is £169.99, or [42]in Germany €189 – around $220. ®
Get our [43]Tech Resources
[1] https://retrogames.biz/news/thea1200-announce/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2016/01/28/delorean_dmc_12_coming_back_to_the_future/_
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2015/07/24/amiga_turns_30/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aRdgKD1V_92EvQB8faDMrAAAAZQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4aGhSoP7Rg
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRdgKD1V_92EvQB8faDMrAAAAZQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aRdgKD1V_92EvQB8faDMrAAAAZQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/7798/Commodore-Amiga-1200/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/28/amiga_web_browser_amibrowser/
[10] https://www.a1200.com/index.php/the-a1200-ng/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRdgKD1V_92EvQB8faDMrAAAAZQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://retrogames.biz/products/thea500-mini/
[13] https://retrogames.biz/products/thespectrum/
[14] https://packages.debian.org/sid/opense-basic
[15] https://andrewowen.net/portfolio/the-spectrum/
[16] https://amiberry.com/
[17] https://www.facebook.com/groups/933974228179709/posts/1184938433083286/
[18] https://www.amigaforever.com/kb/16-125
[19] https://wiki.amiga.org/index.php?title=AmiBench
[20] https://arosnews.github.io/aros-portable/
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/22/aros_live/
[22] https://spectrum.alioth.net/doc/index.php/Main_Page
[23] https://www.bytedelight.com/?page_id=3515
[24] https://www.sintech-shop.co.uk/spectranet-ethernet-interface-fuer-zx-spectrum/a-10461
[25] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aRdgKD1V_92EvQB8faDMrAAAAZQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[26] https://www.facebook.com/THEC64andMoreByRetroGamesLtd/posts/the-a1200full-size-full-keyboard-full-nostalgiathe-iconic-90s-home-computer-retu/1262651728999290/
[27] https://lookbehindyou.de/en/product/thesettlers2amiga/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/28/amiga_web_browser_amibrowser/
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/19/getting_handson_with_the_commodore/
[30] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/22/aros_live/
[31] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/10/amigaos_3_2_3/
[32] https://www.amigaforever.com/
[33] https://retrogames.biz/products/themouse/
[34] https://retrogames.biz/products/thegamepad/
[35] https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments
[36] https://www.perifractic.com/
[37] https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2025-06-00123-EN.html
[38] https://www.commodore.net/
[39] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/22/spectrum_at_40/
[40] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/19/getting_handson_with_the_commodore/
[41] https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G1L9Q7WK
[42] https://www.polyplay.xyz/TheA1200_5
[43] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
It's not quite as snazzy as Valve's upcoming Steam Frame, but under the hood, they're both Arm64 computers running Linux and relying on emulation of a totally different CPU to run existing games.
In July 1985, two much-loved franchises launched. The [2]original Back to the Future movie was first. Later the same month, the [3]original Amiga 1000 was announced. Marty McFly only went 30 years backwards, but now, 40 years after the movie came out, a new Amiga-compatible computer has been announced.
[4]
[5]Youtube Video
[6]
[7]
THEA1200 – the lack of spacing there is intentional, to avoid any old Commodore trademarks – is a new full-size Amiga-compatible device, designed to be the same size and shape as the [8]original hardware that inspired it.
We mentioned this machine when we [9]looked at a new web browser for AmigaKit's comparable but slightly higher-end device, the [10]A1200 NG . The devices don't just share similar names, but also technical similarities. The AmigaKit hardware is a new motherboard which you fit into the case of an old, dead Commodore Amiga 1200, or one of the modern reproductions, and it can control a real physical floppy drive so you can directly load your 1990s Amiga games.
[11]
RGL's device is slightly less ambitious. It's a larger sibling to the company's existing device [12]THEA500 Mini , which is a miniaturized replica with a non-functional keyboard. Like RGL's existing recreation of a classic Sinclair machine, [13]THESPECTRUM , THEA1200 is the same size as the device that inspired it, and has a full-size working keyboard.
Under the hood, rather like THESPECTRUM, it's an Arm SoC running Linux and an emulator. For the older machine, THESPECTRUM, RGL used a special version of the OpenSE BASIC ROM that is, for instance, [14]found in Debian . Author Andrew Owen [15]calls this version TokenSE .
For THEA1200, emulation is performed by a modified version of the [16]Amiberry emulator . On its Facebook page, the company [17]has previously said :
Our friends at Amiga and Cloanto, who have supported us throughout the development of THEC64, THEVIC20, and THEA500 Mini, have been working tirelessly…
Amiga Forever includes an emulator instance with an updated AmigaOS that Cloanto calls AmigaOS 3.X, although there's very little mention of it on the company's website except for [18]one knowledgebase entry . If Cloanto is working with RGL, THEA1200 could include licensed Amiga ROM images and a version of AmigaOS derived from the original code. That's in contrast to AmigaKit's [19]AmiBench OS , which carefully says that it's "AmigaKit's System Release V46 distribution supplemented by some AROS components." AROS is the FOSS Amiga-compatible OS whose new [20]AROS Portable edition we [21]looked at back in May .
The Reg FOSS desk met and spoke with the RGL developer who puts together the software that powers these systems. He's also the genius behind the [22]Spectranet Ethernet interface for the ZX Spectrum, which is available to buy from [23]Byte Delight and [24]Sintech UK .
[25]
He explained that the team has given considerable attention to timing and latency. THEA1200 will come with 25 pre-loaded games, all licensed from their original creators. In another [26]Facebook post , the company listed some of them:
Beneath A Steel Sky, Settlers II, Lure of the Temptress, Ruff n Tumble, Defender of the Crown I & II, and the Turrican trilogy.
The recently released [27]Amiga version of Settlers II needs a rather high-spec Amiga – the minimum requirements are:
Amiga with AGA chipset
68040 with 40 MHz
32 MB Fast RAM
AmigaOS 3.1
AHI 4.18
600 MB free hard disk space
For an Amiga, that's quite formidable, and points to relatively rapid Arm hardware underneath.
[28]AmiBrowser brings 21st century web to 20th century Amigas
[29]Commodore Amiga turns 40, headlines UK exhibition
[30]AROS turns any PC into an Amiga with USB-bootable distro
[31]AmigaOS updated in 2025 for some reason
These days it's quite easy to get hold of an Amiga emulator – such as by buying [32]Cloanto's Amiga Forever – and loading games into it, but you do need some technical skills, and features like saving a game won't work.
RGL carefully disassembles and decompiles the games and then hand-modifies them to disable the built-in save game functionality, which won't work in an emulator, and instead it provides the ability to save and load games directly from its launcher. The company also tweaks the emulation engine to reduce latency and improve responsiveness.
Like its lower-end sibling models, THEA1200 has multiple USB ports and an HDMI display output. It upscales the display as necessary to make 1980s games look good on 2020s flat-screen TVs. It can load games from USB, and as well as the "carousel" style menu, users can drop to the Workbench and use Amiga desktop apps. THEA1200 comes with a USB recreation of both the original Amiga mouse, which is also [33]available separately , as is a [34]wired gamepad .
Today, rival companies own different parts of the Commodore and Amiga intellectual property – logos, trademarks, original code, and so on – and continue to [35]fight over who owns what . The latest development we've seen is that YouTuber [36]Christian "PeriFractic" Simpson raised enough funding to [37]buy the Commodore name . So far, the reborn [38]Commodore is selling an FPGA-based replica Commodore 64, along with other merchandise.
Those of us who enjoy playing with computers for fun know how to find and install an emulator, find games to load into it, and maybe even how to connect a game controller to a laptop, and connect the laptop to a big screen. That's a big ask of the much larger non-technical audience who buy off-the-shelf games consoles. About 40 years ago, some of those same gamers bought devices like the [39]Sinclair ZX Spectrum and [40]the Commodore Amiga 500 .
RGL aims to bring that sort of plug-and-play simplicity to running Amiga games in the 21st century, with the added ability to drop to the desktop and run Deluxe Paint III or Wordworth. At the time of writing, the price from a [41]UK online outlet is £169.99, or [42]in Germany €189 – around $220. ®
Get our [43]Tech Resources
[1] https://retrogames.biz/news/thea1200-announce/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2016/01/28/delorean_dmc_12_coming_back_to_the_future/_
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2015/07/24/amiga_turns_30/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aRdgKD1V_92EvQB8faDMrAAAAZQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4aGhSoP7Rg
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRdgKD1V_92EvQB8faDMrAAAAZQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aRdgKD1V_92EvQB8faDMrAAAAZQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/7798/Commodore-Amiga-1200/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/28/amiga_web_browser_amibrowser/
[10] https://www.a1200.com/index.php/the-a1200-ng/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRdgKD1V_92EvQB8faDMrAAAAZQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://retrogames.biz/products/thea500-mini/
[13] https://retrogames.biz/products/thespectrum/
[14] https://packages.debian.org/sid/opense-basic
[15] https://andrewowen.net/portfolio/the-spectrum/
[16] https://amiberry.com/
[17] https://www.facebook.com/groups/933974228179709/posts/1184938433083286/
[18] https://www.amigaforever.com/kb/16-125
[19] https://wiki.amiga.org/index.php?title=AmiBench
[20] https://arosnews.github.io/aros-portable/
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/22/aros_live/
[22] https://spectrum.alioth.net/doc/index.php/Main_Page
[23] https://www.bytedelight.com/?page_id=3515
[24] https://www.sintech-shop.co.uk/spectranet-ethernet-interface-fuer-zx-spectrum/a-10461
[25] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aRdgKD1V_92EvQB8faDMrAAAAZQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[26] https://www.facebook.com/THEC64andMoreByRetroGamesLtd/posts/the-a1200full-size-full-keyboard-full-nostalgiathe-iconic-90s-home-computer-retu/1262651728999290/
[27] https://lookbehindyou.de/en/product/thesettlers2amiga/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/28/amiga_web_browser_amibrowser/
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/19/getting_handson_with_the_commodore/
[30] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/22/aros_live/
[31] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/10/amigaos_3_2_3/
[32] https://www.amigaforever.com/
[33] https://retrogames.biz/products/themouse/
[34] https://retrogames.biz/products/thegamepad/
[35] https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments
[36] https://www.perifractic.com/
[37] https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2025-06-00123-EN.html
[38] https://www.commodore.net/
[39] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/22/spectrum_at_40/
[40] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/19/getting_handson_with_the_commodore/
[41] https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G1L9Q7WK
[42] https://www.polyplay.xyz/TheA1200_5
[43] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
wolfetone
Buy one, wrap it, and wait until December 2026 then?
Want
DarkwavePunk
I so want this, but I know it will just end up in a corner sulking at me like so many of my poor impulse control purchases before.
Re: Want
Blackjack
I bought a SNES Mini and never used it so I know the feeling.
Re: Want
Loudon D'Arcy
"poor impulse control purchases"
I have the opposite problem: several years ago, I sold my Acorn Electron... and now I really bloody regret it.
Humbug
BartyFartsLast
Nah, yet another emulator, I've not seen any of these which were enough of an improvement over any open source effort to be worth a quarter of their price tag.
ABugNamedJune
Very exciting, but having been burned by similar vids on Kickstarter plenty of times, I will not be preordering until they can show me actual video of the physical thing, and not just a 3D render. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that these guys are shady or anything I really hope they'll deliver, but at the same time I know how to use blender reasonably well, and Turbosquid has a higher quality model of the Amiga 1200 than they do just sayin'
Really looking forward to this coming out though, the Amiga and the PDP-11 are two machines I would love to have, but don't want to put in the time, money (and space in the latter's case) to maintaining and cherishing, I would definitely take a replica that I can plug into a standard monitor and play some Monkey Island on.
PiDP maybe?
Uncle Slacky
The PiDP-11 is a bit smaller than the real thing:
https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11
Re: PiDP maybe?
ABugNamedJune
I'd love to get one of those. One of these days!
Re: PiDP maybe?
Liam Proven
> I'd love to get one of those. One of these days!
I have one. Review coming when I can get the thing working...
Re: PiDP maybe?
Loudon D'Arcy
...when I can get the thing working...
Let me guess: the paper tape keeps snapping.
According to the Amazon link not being released until June 2026.
Shame as I wanted one for Christmas.