English Amiga Board - View Single Post - What Makes The Amiga CD32 The Best Amiga?

PortuguesePilot · 01 December 2020, 14:53

I never owned a CD32. I say that upfront because it IS important. People become fanboys (let's not kid ourselves, that's all we are these days about these machines we love) when they owned or played with the machine back in the glory days...

Much of what I had to say has already been said. I agree with the guys that say that the CD32 is little more than a crippled A1200 (no keyboard, no mouse, needs the SX-1 to be what the A1200 was out of the box). A much talked about but actually meagre Akiko chiphe, the ability to read CDs (at a Whopping! 300k/s, haha) and decode CDDA tracks wasn't enough to make it better than the A1200. In my personal opinion - I, being a fan of retro COMPUTERS - the CD32 isn't even better than the A500 on the final average. That's why I own 3 A500 and 0 CD32 (that and nostalgia, as I said above).

I also remember the CD32 launch and, as another member has mentioned here, I remember feeling underwhelmed. The CD32 stood no chance whatsoever. The SEGA Saturn was much, much better (and still got massacred by the eventually ubiquitous PlayStation a few meters down the road...) The CD32 was still hung on the old paradigm of games and didn't offer - I argue that it couldn't offer - the true possibility of next-gen gaming. As I said myself on another thread ("is AGA real Amiga spirit", or something like that), the CD32 was Commodore's last ditch effort to still be in the market and make a few bucks. It was never a true contender at anything.

When I came to the Amiga World - in 1989, before owning one and 1990 with my own - The Amiga ruled supreme as the absolute best of two worlds - computing and gaming. It was on par with many overpriced, overpowered but underperfoming PCs of the time on what came to computing and was better than the consoles (with the best available being the NES and the MasterSystem) for gaming. The MegaDrive was the first console to really challenge the Amiga as the king of gaming and that only reached Europe in late 1990. And even with all the better features it had, the MegaDrive still lacked compared to the Amiga in some key areas (resolution, sound & music, inputting [no keyboard, no mice], etc). Only the SNES (for gaming) and a bit later the cheapening of the 486DX2+VESA SVGA+CD-ROM PCs (as a true multimedia machine) killed the Amiga.

Comparatively, the CD32 was a stillborn. During a few years of my life, I didn't even consider it an Amiga at all. It was just the CD32. Later, already on the 21st century, I did concede and went "ah, it does say Amiga in it, it is based off the A1200... OK, you can be an Amiga, then". But even in being so magnanimous, never - EVER - would I dare to say that CD32 is the best Amiga. It never was, it isn't and it will NEVER be.

01 December 2020, 14:53	#54
PortuguesePilot Global Moderator Join Date: May 2013 Location: Setúbal, Portugal Posts: 609	I never owned a CD32. I say that upfront because it IS important. People become fanboys (let's not kid ourselves, that's all we are these days about these machines we love) when they owned or played with the machine back in the glory days... Much of what I had to say has already been said. I agree with the guys that say that the CD32 is little more than a crippled A1200 (no keyboard, no mouse, needs the SX-1 to be what the A1200 was out of the box). A much talked about but actually meagre Akiko chiphe, the ability to read CDs (at a Whopping! 300k/s, haha) and decode CDDA tracks wasn't enough to make it better than the A1200. In my personal opinion - I, being a fan of retro COMPUTERS - the CD32 isn't even better than the A500 on the final average. That's why I own 3 A500 and 0 CD32 (that and nostalgia, as I said above). I also remember the CD32 launch and, as another member has mentioned here, I remember feeling underwhelmed. The CD32 stood no chance whatsoever. The SEGA Saturn was much, much better (and still got massacred by the eventually ubiquitous PlayStation a few meters down the road...) The CD32 was still hung on the old paradigm of games and didn't offer - I argue that it couldn't offer - the true possibility of next-gen gaming. As I said myself on another thread ("is AGA real Amiga spirit", or something like that), the CD32 was Commodore's last ditch effort to still be in the market and make a few bucks. It was never a true contender at anything. When I came to the Amiga World - in 1989, before owning one and 1990 with my own - The Amiga ruled supreme as the absolute best of two worlds - computing and gaming. It was on par with many overpriced, overpowered but underperfoming PCs of the time on what came to computing and was better than the consoles (with the best available being the NES and the MasterSystem) for gaming. The MegaDrive was the first console to really challenge the Amiga as the king of gaming and that only reached Europe in late 1990. And even with all the better features it had, the MegaDrive still lacked compared to the Amiga in some key areas (resolution, sound & music, inputting [no keyboard, no mice], etc). Only the SNES (for gaming) and a bit later the cheapening of the 486DX2+VESA SVGA+CD-ROM PCs (as a true multimedia machine) killed the Amiga. Comparatively, the CD32 was a stillborn. During a few years of my life, I didn't even consider it an Amiga at all. It was just the CD32. Later, already on the 21st century, I did concede and went "ah, it does say Amiga in it, it is based off the A1200... OK, you can be an Amiga, then". But even in being so magnanimous, never - EVER - would I dare to say that CD32 is the best Amiga. It never was, it isn't and it will NEVER be.