Was the Amiga 600 ever released in the USA?

[dave4shmups]

I've never seen an NTSC A600, so I'm very curious about this.

[Photon]

Never cared until you asked, since I know Americans strangely dismissed the Amiga very early. (Except for a select few who had intelligence to match their taste and computer knowledge.)

For those who didn't have immediate use for the PCMCIA and harddisk option, the A600 cost more than previous home user models and didn't do more. So it didn't sell well initially, and even less so in the USA who had already looked the other way as I said.

The A1200 and the A3000 before that fared better there.

The A600 isn't region specific, so it can be used with NTSC or PAL, but actual users of A600s in the USA seem extremely rare.

I type too much The direct answer is: it was made in Scotland, released internationally and did both NTSC and PAL out of the box. So there isn't an "NTSC" A600 model, only software made to run well on both or "made for PAL" since the greatness of Amiga was more or less discovered by the more cultured Europe. OK I'll have to stop typing and start ducking

[adolescent]

There were definitely NTSC A600. My NTSC A600HD came from Canadia so maybe they were more popular there.

[amiman99]

I have a NTSC model, but for some reason it has Spanish keyboard (I got it used from Goodwill)

[Pyromania]

@Photon

Not all Americans dismissed the Amiga. I'm American and I always loved it.

[dave4shmups]

Originally Posted by adolescent

There were definitely NTSC A600. My NTSC A600HD came from Canadia so maybe they were more popular there.

Both the Amiga and the Atari ST were both more popular in Canada. We we didn't necessarily dismiss the Amiga, it was poorly marketed here. I'm almost 39, and the only advertisement that I ever saw for an Amiga computer was that commercial with music from "The Goonies". Commodore did a terrible job marketing Amiga products here.

Can the A600 run all the same games as the A500?

[lantus360]

yes - i have an NTSC A600

[matthey]

Originally Posted by dave4shmups

Commodore did a terrible job marketing Amiga products here.

Same down here in the States.

Originally Posted by dave4shmups

Can the A600 run all the same games as the A500?

No. There are a few differences which can cause compatibility problems. Also, some games require the numeric keypad. The 1200 always seemed like a better value to me with AGA and a numeric keypad. The 600 was an attempt to make a C64 version of the Amiga but C= didn't reduce the price enough below the 1200.

[Toni Wilen]

A600 NTSC and PAL can't be identical:

- PAL and NTSC Amigas have different main crystal frequency.
- Different internal RF modulator.
- Internal PAL composite encoder needs extra components that are most likely not installed in NTSC version to reduce cost.
- 8375 Agnus used in A600 does not have external PAL/NTSC pin, default boot up display mode is internally hardwired. 8375 has PAL and NTSC variants. (Only 8372 has PAL/NTSC pin)
EDIT: - A600 schematics shows NTSC/PAL differences

[desiv]

Originally Posted by matthey

No. There are a few differences which can cause compatibility problems.

Are there any? I know that the Kickstart (The A600 came with 2.x?) can cause some issues but that would be the same for 2.x on an A500.. I wasn't aware of any issues related to the A600 itself.. except for...

Originally Posted by matthey

Also, some games require the numeric keypad.

..this.. However the trade-off of the few games you needed a keypad for against a much less expensive hard disk would have been worth it...
If the A600 didn't cost more than the A500 at the time..
Now, yes, you'd be willing to pay more, but for....

Originally Posted by matthey

The 1200 always seemed like a better value to me with AGA and a numeric keypad. The 600 was an attempt to make a C64 version of the Amiga but C= didn't reduce the price enough below the 1200.

...this... ;-)
If you're going to spend a bit more, you spend just a bit more and get an A1200..
I do wonder if there were ever any A600's shipped to the US, other than maybe some special orders or something...

Were there shops in the US that had A600's?
I don't remember seeing them.. I saw the 1200's (and got one), but not the 600.. I know the 600 was in Canada, so some would have made it down. And combine that with some special orders..
But was it ever shipped to retailers/computer stores as a US product??

desiv

[Photon]

<--

I assumed the A600 came in PAL/NTSC like the others, then misread a thread on Amiga.org badly to write the nonsense above. Corrected.

[Acill]

I had a friend in the early days of the Amiga that I spent most of my time at his place. His younger brother bought the A600 when it was first released and it was here in the US, NTSC new from the Amiga shop we had in the area.

[matthey]

Originally Posted by desiv

Are there any? I know that the Kickstart (The A600 came with 2.x?) can cause some issues but that would be the same for 2.x on an A500.. I wasn't aware of any issues related to the A600 itself.. except for...

Yes, the kickstart change was one of the problems. I believe the address location and type of memory was another. Even the HD, PCMCIA slot, and newer custom chips could cause problems in rare cases. Some games made very poor assumptions about the hardware they ran on. C= should have upgraded the Amiga 500 to the newer kickstart and added IDE much earlier which would have sold more 500s and made the jump to newer hardware easier.

Originally Posted by desiv

I do wonder if there were ever any A600's shipped to the US, other than maybe some special orders or something...

Were there shops in the US that had A600's?
I don't remember seeing them.. I saw the 1200's (and got one), but not the 600.. I know the 600 was in Canada, so some would have made it down. And combine that with some special orders..
But was it ever shipped to retailers/computer stores as a US product??

I don't remember seeing any Amiga 600s in shops (not many shops in the Midwest) but there weren't many shops here that had Amigas. I remember seeing the 500, 1000, 2000, 3000 and 1200 only (and not all were for sale). The only 600 I have seen was at an Amiga show but that doesn't mean they weren't available. Lantus360 lives not far from me and I expect his was not brought from Australia/Europe since it is NTSC. I ended up with a NTSC CD32 from a friend's connections without ever seeing one before. C= had some weird marketing channels.

[Photon]

Originally Posted by matthey

Some games made very poor assumptions about the hardware they ran on.

Surely games made after mid 1992 work well though? I mean, it's impossible to be future-compatible. Compatibility means going the other way, backwards in time.

[matthey]

Originally Posted by Photon

Surely games made after mid 1992 work well though? I mean, it's impossible to be future-compatible. Compatibility means going the other way, backwards in time.

Yea, newer games were significantly better about problems. Failure to work on new hardware meant even fewer sales. The Amiga Hardware Reference Manual gave recommendations and programmers who followed it were generally fine until AGA. A platform that is free to sell games is going to have amateur game creation attempts. Some Amiga users don't want to lose any games but most of the ones that are worthwhile get WHDLoad treatment.

[TjLaZer]

I have three NTSC A600's. Definitely rarer than the EU PAL models.

[dave4shmups]

Are the compatibility issues worse on the A600 then they are on the A1200?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[matthey]

Originally Posted by dave4shmups

Are the compatibility issues worse on the A600 then they are on the A1200?

No. Not only was AGA significantly different at the hardware level, but it had limitations which adversely affected compatibility and required an updated AmigaOS with major changes. The limitations of AGA could be largely done away with today using newer hardware. An FPGA AGA implementation can be more compatible than the original AGA hardware and much faster. The FPGA CPU can also be more compatible and faster using writethru caches than the 68040 and 68060 Motorola CPU caches which caused incompatibility with self modifying code. Of course we can change the FPGA configuration for multiple hardware simulations but it is still impossible to have one setup which works with all games. WHDLoad is still needed to use the most games possible.

[spannernick]

I am not from the US but I love my A600,it was the first real Amiga I got,I don't use it anymore,I have A1200 now.I did get A500 before the A600 but had that for like 5 minutes before swapping it for a Atari ST 520 big mistake. My A600 had a option when you boot up and press and hold the mouse buttons you can pick PAL or NTSC.

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by spannernick

My A600 had a option when you boot up and press and hold the mouse buttons you can pick PAL or NTSC.

Any Amiga with Kickstart 3.x has that option. It's called the Early Startup menu.