Worst Amiga?

[AndyLandy]

In the UK, the wedge Amigas are the most common by a large margin. A500/A500+/A600/A1200. I think the A500 is the most common of the bunch and the Plus is probably the least common, due to its battery-related fail.

After that, the A2000 is probably the commonest big-box Amiga, followed by the A4000. Then finally the A1000s and A3000s, which are both reasonably uncommon over here.

The tower models are both rare, but A4000Ts are far more common than A3000Ts. CDTVs are probably less-common than the A4000 but more than the A1k/A3k. CD32s are probably up with the 'wedge' Amigas, they're not too hard to track down.

 

[cosmicfrog]

both them observations seem true to me .....


BUT I still can`t vote, will someone add Broken Amiga to the list PLZ, this fence is starting to hurt

 

[ChrisUnionNJ]

Ok after some more thinking I picked the odd number since there was
not any great change's in those model's..

 

[abraXXious]

The question needs to be better defined. For example, when I think of the WORST Amiga ever released I have two answers. The first answer is the worst Amiga ever released AT THE TIME. The second answer is the worst Amiga available NOW.

The worst Amiga released at the time was definitely the A600. It simply reinforced the idea that Commodore was released low powered toys/gaming machines and did little to help the Amiga brand look professional/modern. I believe the A600 was the worst mistake Commodore made with regards the Amiga (shipping the CDTV with KS 1.3 is probably a close second, dropping the scan doubler on the A4000 would have to be third). However, the A600 NOW is an attractive Amiga due to its physical size and the fact it has a minimum of KS 2 and built in IDE and pcmcia. So times have changed.

The worst Amiga available to purchase now is DEFINITELY the humble A500. It is ugly, large, has no built in IDE/Scsi, so needs an addon, usually external which makes it even uglier and larger, usually only has KS 1.x, no pcmcia, no ECS (usually), no zorro slots etc etc etc. It has no redeeming features against other models. For instance, the A1000 is even more limited than the A500, but at least it has the prestige of being the very first Amiga, has a nice case design, detachible keyboard and has become somewhat collectable. The A600 is small, cute, has built in IDE, pcmcia etc. The A1200 has aga, is compact with pcmcia and ide etc, the A2000 has heaps of zorro slots, is very expandible (INTERNALLY, no ugly pieces of hardware hanging off the sides) and is built like a tank, the A3000 has a nice case design, zorro 3 slots, scan doubler etc. The A4000 has zorro 3 and aga etc. The CDTV has novelty value, nice design and cdrom, the CD32 is an AGA game console and has the Akiko (novelty value) etc etc etc.

The A500 has a diskdrive and little else. It is now the most pointless Amiga to purchase. Fortunately they are as common as dog S*&T and worth about half as much.

 

[TheCorfiot]

Time to be a bit controversial,

As much as I love my A4000D, I think it's the worst machine produced by C+...

Firstly, that awful onboard battery which has seen so many to an early grave..

Secondly, Commodores scrimping & penny pinching went too far.
When compared to An A3000 which it was supposed to succeed, they omitted the SCSI controller & more importantly failed to invest in a new Amber Chip with 24bit capability for the AGA chipset, ie no onboard SD/FF
For a high end desktop these were both serious omission's.

Also the Case is so flimsy cheap looking when compared to previous desktops.

It saddens me that my 68K A500 with GVP HD8 loads files like lightning whilst my A4000's paltry onboard IDE chuggs along.
Now that's a downgrade.

TC :shhh:

 

[Misser]

Hmmm not an amiga but a c64. That there C65 did sound like a nice 8bit migi killer, If only AAA made it and C= didn't make those stupid pc focused related choises.

 

[salaxi54]

Most hardcore Amigans would answer that there's no such thing as a 'Worst Amiga' (me included). But that's a personal taste kinda thing. If you had an Amiga experience at the time, you usually won't blame what you had.
In our retro scene, specs are usually not the most important factor!
I strongly believe it's more of an emotional thing. Take the humble A500 for example; if it weren't as cheap when it came out, most of our fellow readers here would have delayed their Amiga relationship. Not saying that it cost zilch, but way less than its predecessors. I think that the A500 was every neighbour's Amiga for a while. Never had one, but i remember all my friends having one..
It was a joy to have lived the rising of the Amiga while living in the States, and the A1000 was seen from the East to the West coast, in most every computer shop i visited at the time. From New York NY, to San Diego CA, and from Detroit MI down to Corpus Christi TX. In the meantime, back home, it was a forbidden fruit.. All i know is that after 25 years she's still ticking here and i love it Today, locally, you can find plenty of Amiga owners (not necessarily users) with any possible model made. And oh, does that feel good. Ahhh, the variety lol
Sorry for babbling so much, it's just the 'after-midnight-miggie-dreaming' thing. :roll:

 

[AndyLandy]

Most hardcore Amigans would answer that there's no such thing as a 'Worst Amiga' (me included). But that's a personal taste kinda thing.

Never a truer word spoken!

They're all awesome, they really are. The humble A500 to the almighty A4000T. "Worst" is such a negative term. Perhaps "Least awesome" or somesuch.

 

[TheCorfiot]

Oh I agree in that they are all special, but then I think all retr0 systems are. The PC age gave us the tasteless beige box look with no character.

My A4000D reminds me of the Spinal Tap film where Nigel say's "Don't even look at it" during exhibiting his guitar collection.

I feel every time I look at my A4000 I am tempting fate in that it will go wrong, again.....

TC

 

[AndyLandy]

Oh I agree in that they are all special, but then I think all retr0 systems are. The PC age gave us the tasteless beige box look with no character.

My A4000D reminds me of the Spinal Tap film where Nigel say's "Don't even look at it" during exhibiting his guitar collection.

I feel every time I look at my A4000 I am tempting fate in that it will go wrong, again.....

TC

I get that same sensation whenever I power on my A3000. I look at and think "There's no way it'll work this time, something will have gone wrong. There's no way I've managed to repair this thing, it's just biding its time!"

 

[Misser]

Most hardcore Amigans would answer that there's no such thing as a 'Worst Amiga' (me included). But that's a personal taste kinda thing.

Never a truer word spoken!

They're all awesome, they really are. The humble A500 to the almighty A4000T. "Worst" is such a negative term. Perhaps "Least awesome" or somesuch.

I stand corrected:
The worst Amiga is the A4000T, I could get my hands on a sweet 3000T-040 and the A4000D was easy to get also. But those A4000T in black and white.. they are the worst to get!!

---------- Post added at 00:56 ---------- Previous post was at 00:53 ----------

I get that same sensation whenever I power on my A3000. I look at and think "There's no way it'll work this time, something will have gone wrong. There's no way I've managed to repair this thing, it's just biding its time!"

Ah the famous A3000T scsi timeout that made it boot after scanning all devices, just a little program would make it go from 1 minute to 10 seconds

*In sweet memory of my USA A3000T-040

 

[Merlin]

I'd vote for the Walker, but it's not on the list....:roll:

All other Miggies are most righteous, non-heinous and the most Awesomest of eVar.....:nod:

 

[Harrison]

Every Amiga has its place and are all were great in their own right. Therefore it wouldn't be possible for me to say any were a worst model.

But looking at them today in the current retro world I would vote for the A1000 as it is the least useful and expandable model today compared to what you can do with a lot of the other models that still get a lot of support from developers. These days the A1000 is more of a collectors item to know you own the original version, rather than as a useful hobby machine.

 

[Archangel_UK]

A600, it was designed for girls Real men had an A500 or A1200/A3000/A4000

I agree , deffo Commodore`s fault especially the 600 , shortsighted management

 

[mjnurney]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/200083/inside_the_amiga_1000.html

The legendary A1000

---------- Post added at 19:27 ---------- Previous post was at 18:51 ----------

no i agree the A1000 is limited in the expansion stakes , low chip mem and little in the ways of ram expansion but im on that mission now with my A1000

but imagine the price of ram or hard drives for it in 1985-1987

 

[portarinos]

To me the most pointless miggy is indeed the 500+. Even the A600 had something to offer such as "portability" ( in an era that nobody talked seriously about) and of course PCMCIA and internal IDE. if only it came with a more powerful processor. Last but not least comes CD32 cause it simply came too late and most of the games were poor conversions. The killer Amiga around 1992, would have been an a600 with AGA, PCMCIA, IDE and 030 at least. If CBM could have cramped inside the case a slim cdrom, then i think we would still buy commodore machines until today.

 

[Quagliarulo]

The worst one is the A1200. When it was launched, it was not the time for 24 bit address buses anymore. The AGA chipset was lame: it was slow and had poor resolutions and colour depths; furthermore, it introduced some compatibility issues with old software. When software houses saw the A1200, they started to leave the Amiga market.
The best one is the A3000: it had Zorro3 slots and a scandoubler. If it only had a fast DMA-driven IDE interface, it would have been perfect. They had to produce Amigas with newer processors and stop making the previous models, eventually adopting PPC like Apple did. Then, graphics cards, sound cards and other stuff would have had more market and would have become cheap.

 

[desiv]

These days the A1000 is more of a collectors item to know you own the original version, rather than as a useful hobby machine.

I suppose that all depends..

My hobby involves having fun with old computers..
My Amiga 1000 is very useful for that.

And I know about the price of RAM and HDs at the time, but seriously you didn't need it back then..
An Amiga 1000 with the full 512K (everyone got the front panel 256K) and a few disk drives WAS good enough.
The whole OS ran nicely from 1 floppy and you could resident enough to be OK.
(And I used a Mac with 512K and 1 floppy.. you could NOT be happy with that!!!)
If you had 2 floppies, you were set. 3 floppies and you were THE MAN...
And 512K, back then, was quite a bit...
It was an AWESOME machine in the day.

desiv

 

[mjnurney]

nah i cant include the Walker me Merlin...it was never released..a fate that one or two of the released amigas should of shared by the look of our poll.

http://www.blachford.info/computer/walker/walker.html

 

[cosmicfrog]

yep I guess theres no real suprise the A500+ and the A600 are the lead containders, Arguable the A600 was money wasted at the time, but the old thing has matured with time, takes up little room and with the right upgrades can hang it out with the AGA machines most days