Worst Amiga?

[mjnurney]

i agree the A1000 cannot possibly be the worst , yes the upgrades are limited but we are talking a 1984 / 85 machine .... people didn't upgrade then!

the very fact it has a zorro port on the side allows tons of stuff, ram ,ECS, kickstart , hard drives , scsi and even IDE from the 68000. You have even blot a 68030 at 40mhz on the side and have HDD and SCSi in one go!

As time goes on its hard to pick a BAD amiga as most upgrades filter through to the lesser loved machines. The A500+ was not a loved machine but now its the best A500 to buy and will only appreciate in value as this is a simple machine to get 2mb chip ram and run WHDload.

The the horrible A600 is now a good WHDload machine and as the horrible scsi drives become less reliable and scarce we can move from it to IDE via various hacks / mods and upgrades.

The Amiga scene is looking good now days thanks to a handful of hardware guys. Its a pity we can't get some cheap 30 or 040 / 060 accelerator made.

mike.

 

[Hell_Labs]

AGA was slow as hell. I expected 256 colour AGA Workbench screen to be as fast as a 4 colour ECS Workbench screen.

That's daft. ECS was 16 workbench colour max vs AGA's 256, why don't you moan that ECS 16 colour was slow as hell too?

ECS 16 colour is actually worse in terms of usability too. All your bandwidth goes poof.

 

[Buzzfuzz]

AGA was slow as hell. I expected 256 colour AGA Workbench screen to be as fast as a 4 colour ECS Workbench screen.

That's daft. ECS was 16 workbench colour max vs AGA's 256, why don't you moan that ECS 16 colour was slow as hell too?

ECS 16 colour is actually worse in terms of usability too. All your bandwidth goes poof.

Yep, and a simple S3 videochip or anything bigger will run circles around it.
It's about time Jens or somebody else makes a good autosensing Z2/3 card with loads of memory that can also be added as chipram.
And maybe something for the A500/600/2000/1200 as well.

 

[ShambleS1980]

stop saying my a500+ is the worst :crying:veractor:

im now Voting A1200 for spite!
and b4 that i was going to vote cd32.

take that unfair poll to my a500+!

 

[Buzzfuzz]

stop saying my a500+ is the worst :crying:veractor:

im now Voting A1200 for spite!
and b4 that i was going to vote cd32.

take that unfair poll to my a500+!

Well in all fairness the A500+ isn't the best, leaky batteries, too late to the party and not much better than the A500.
Certainly not if you compair it to Amiga-Digital's project.

 

[WhoShotMrWhite]

Yeah, the A500+ must have been the most pointless machine ever. Least The A600 had something unique about it. Even if it was to small.

Personally I voted for the CDTV... just POINTLESS! I remember back in the day they had a shed load in Dixons what with a spinning CD logo an all, looking all sleek, sexy and like a high end top spec CD player, oooooohhh I thought, then... I saw the games, that controller... then that price, 'oh dear' I thought to myself. I even got a t-shirt in the mail from Commodore, nice to use whilst painting my dad thought!

But I also remember rushing to sell my Miggy 500 in the Liverpool Echo in order to get my grrrrreasy hands on this new and improved version of the flawless Amiga 500 was released, suffice to say, you can only imagine the joy when about 60%/70% of my beloved games or my fave demo's including Budbrain wouldn't boot. I always did hate that + sticker and that woeful purple 'animated diskette' screen.

 

[Tajmaster]

I must be the only person who has rarely had compatibility issues with "newer" Amigas I think that the compatibility thing is blown way out of proportion.

I think the only games I remember not working right without assistance were Lotus 2 on the A1200 (and I was GUTTED when I found that out!) and Wacky Darts, which gave me garbled graphics unless I loaded KS 1.3.

 

[WhoShotMrWhite]

TAJmaster, might have possibly been because the vast (and I'm not proud to admit it) majority of my games where errr *cough* evaluation versions :dry:

 

[Tajmaster]

TAJmaster, might have possibly been because the vast (and I'm not proud to admit it) majority of my games where errr *cough* evaluation versions :dry:

:rofl3

 

[mjnurney]

It depends On the era..

When the 500+ was released , no one knew about and lots of things didn't work because of the lack of slow ram or kickstart 2

Within a few months , everything worked on the plus if it was a new release or patched re release. So if you bought games just after the 500+ appeared you would not of had many problems.

I have no end of problems because my games collection for the Amiga started in the 80s and lots did not boot or had messed up graphics on the plus. Some gave memory errors too.

Mike.

 

[khephren]

The A1200 was the biggest disappointment for me, but also my favourite. weird but true!

 

[WhoShotMrWhite]

Also wish i'd stayed around and not left the scene for the SNES, I missed out on lots of cool games and all the A1200 fun although I have one now Although the amount of games and unaccelerated demo's released were in low numbers, but suppose when piracy was that bad the cart based consoles with the profits to be made were far too much temptation for developers. Always thought the A600 got a hard time too, expansion wise (PC/Laptop slot) and the mini size, I thought it was well sexy!

 

[moora]

The 600 seems to be getting pretty much slated and back in the early 90s I really didn't see the point of it. But having got back into the Amiga, and having bought a 600 to replace my knackered 500, I personally think it's one of the better Amigas...

First, I think the form design is pretty good- it's got a nice footprint plus it was quite ahead of its time with its laptop style keyboard (i.e. no number pad). It really does remind me of the C64 with it being nice and compact and if Commodore had actually got it out at the originally intended price point then I think it could have been a winner. At around the £200 mark, it could have extended the ECS lifespan a bit longer. But when it was released at the ridiculous price it was, shortly to be replaced by the 1200... well, it maybe showed just how poor Commodore were at actually taking a pretty good design, and concept of a lower priced Amiga, and completely missing the point by the time it was built.

But using it now, it means that it doesn't take up too much room on my desk plus with the HD and PCMCIA capabilities- it makes it a nice, compact Amiga! Job done...

 

[BrooksterMax]

I voted the A500+, my parents bought an A500+ back in 1991 as a family computer to replace the Spectrum.

Problem was compatibility for the first couple of years with existing games and applications. We expected an A500 in the box but were surprised to see something with "Plus" on the badge.

It seemed rather pointless as 6-12 months later the A600 arrived, so why the effort into updating the A500 model?

Still great machine for me personally, many happy memories but definitely up there with the worst amigas in terms of marketing and usefulness.

 

[AndyLandy]

It depends On the era..

When the 500+ was released , no one knew about and lots of things didn't work because of the lack of slow ram or kickstart 2

Within a few months , everything worked on the plus if it was a new release or patched re release. So if you bought games just after the 500+ appeared you would not of had many problems.

Quoted for truth!

I only had one game that didn't run on my A500+ and that was Populous. When relokick came along, that problem went away.

I joined the ranks of Amigans in December 1991 with my shiny new A500+, so I never knew anything before Kickstart 2. To this day, Kickstart 1 still looks hideous to me because I don't have any "fond memories" of it.

 

[Phipscube]

In terms of when things started to go wrong development wise, i'd say A500+ as the worst, it wasn't enough of a leap in technology. That's the point when they should have gone 020. From that point Commodore seemed to be a step backwards technically than they should have been. A1200 should have been 030 and possibly would have been given a higher spec A500 Plus and no A600.

A600 comes a close 2nd because it was a mistake too, it shouldn't really have been released, poor thing. I do remember a couple of friends buying one though, just because it was "cool" looking.

CDTV comes 3rd, The idea was fantastic, but it should have had an A3000 spec. Infact, an A3000 mainboard in a CDTV case would have been most awesome.... hmmm... now there's a future hack idea!