A600 - The black sheep of the Amiga Family?

Big-Byte · 11 January 2002, 10:27

I thought this thread would make a change from all that Amiga Vs PC Vs ST threads out there...

I remember a long time ago how we laughed when the A600 came out. What was the point of releasing a cut down (literaly) A1200? Getting rid of the Numeric keypad was a disaster from the start!! Then it appeared to be the most imcompatible Amiga of the lot.

We had more respect for ST owners than A600 owners..

Discuss ...

Chris · 11 January 2002, 10:35

Very true!

It didn't look right, feel right or play right!
It didn't play half the classic games I knew and loved. Luckily, it wasn't me that had one, it was my mate. I still had my A500 with 1meg upgrade, so I could still play Super Cars 2!

Paul · 11 January 2002, 15:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Chris
Very true!

It didn't look right, feel right or play right!
It didn't play half the classic games I knew and loved. Luckily, it wasn't me that had one, it was my mate. I still had my A500 with 1meg upgrade, so I could still play Super Cars 2!

Unluckily, I owened an A600

Noooooo, the A600 was not that bad, was it?:eek

11 January 2002, 15:53

But before A600, there was A500+ with the same level of incompatibility since both had kick 2.0. Hmm I'm not sure about if they have the same chips or not but they are probably similar.

With my 500+ I failed to run a lot of old games normally but with a degrader program like relokick most old games would work. There were only a few exclusions like final fight and some others that I can't recall but I was never upset because something didn't run on my machine.1MB chipmem felt a lot better than a 512k machine even though all I did was playing games. Also there were kick2.0 only games like ishar 3 that I loved (Can anyone confirm it does not work with 1.3? I have doubts about this)

Workbench 2.0 was much professional than 1.3 and I learned many things about computers with my A500+. I doubt I could familiarize myself with 1.3 if I hadn't seen 2.0 before.

A600 lacked the keypad and that's really annoying. I wouldn't want to use such a machine but you get used to everything in time !

Akira is an A600 guy I think he has lots to add.

Andrew · 11 January 2002, 20:06

I never knew about all these compatibiity problems with the 500+ and 600. I used to own a 500+ and own a 600 now and have never had any problems with either of them. You got to admit tho, the 600 looks cute

Amiga1992 · 11 January 2002, 20:35

Sorry, but the A500+ is the black turd in the vanilla lineage of Commodore/Amiga. The A600 is a slick compact machine, the best non-AGA one IMO. I never needed the bloody keypad, to date, I never use it. It was loveably small, it had an IDE interface, it was like an ECS A1200. One great machine. if you bash it, you never owned one.

And the incompatibility problems were not bigger than thoe of an A500+, an A3000, or whatever machine you had upgraded. If you softkicked it onto 1.3 most stuff would run. If it never ran in your machine, it was because you were too lazy to make it run

An A600 problem I admit: temperature. It's so compact, that it likes to run a bit hot.

So nyaaah! to you A600 haters!

RetroMan · 11 January 2002, 20:39

Sorry but I don´t get it

I own two A500+ and I never ever had any problems in getting older games to work properly, only thing is that I build in a Kick 1.3 but that´s a matter of the ROM, not the MACHINE !!!

nuff´said you dirty old A500+ haters

TikTok · 11 January 2002, 20:47

Ah, I wrote a long reply to this thread and then IE went kaboom

. Akira is right, the A600 is a great little machine. The only time I ever missed the keypad was in DPaint 3 (needed for perspective effects). Apart from that, I never experienced problems, even in flight sims.

It was the first Amiga to include features such as the IDE and PCMCIA interfaces, which were included in later machines. The IDE interface also made adding HDs fairly cheap, and of course the A600 was the first machine to feature "official" HD bundles, something which I think Commodore should have pushed more heavily IMHO.

I never experienced any compatibility problems either, and my A600 is certainly far more compatible than my A1200. Definitely a loveable little machine

.

DrBong · 11 January 2002, 22:01

A600 is the next best thing to an Amiga laptop. Mine has a 3Gb laptop HD and 030 card that fits snuggly underneath the bonnet. I can bring it from one room to another in my house and plug it in without getting a hernia. Can't do that with my A500 with the heavy GVP A530 sidecar hanging off the left-hand end. The big hoo-ha about the A600 lacking expandability of the A500/+ may have been true for a few years after its release, but Amiga hardware manufacturers proved to be smart cookies by producing accelerators that piggy-backed the CPU and sound, serial and ethernet cards that attached to the internal clockport or slid into the PCMCIA slot. Even the lack of a keypad was largely solved on the A600 by Aminet software for the few utilities that needed it. A600- the black sheep of the Amiga family? I think not! IMHO, the A1200 deserves that title because it has more design faults and potential hardware conflicts in expansion than you can poke a stick at!

11 January 2002, 23:50

Is the 1200 the black sheep of the Amiga family? -> Oh yes.

Is the A600 the best Amiga ever? -> Oh yes.

Overdoc · 11 January 2002, 23:57

Ok, my opinion about the A-600:

pros:

Nice little computer
Already 1MB chipram inside
HD connector
Kick 2.0 makes WB 2.0 possible which is a lot nicer than WB 1.3

cons:

Keypad missing ( not a big problem since only few people use it )
Some software doesn't run with Kick 2.0
Some very old software doesn't like more than 512k. So no chance to get them running on the A-600 since you cannot switch down to 512k.
Those damn SMD chips !!!
That's the biggest disadvantage of the A-600 imho. If one chip gets fried you can trash the board ( or spend hours desoldering chips ). On the A-500 you can just exchange every chip easily since they are all socketed

That's a big advantage in troubleshooting, too !

Ian · 12 January 2002, 00:21

Black sheep, how can anyone talk about black sheep and not even mention the dang CD32, it was a complete joke (I should know I used to have one).

As far as I remember there was only one game written specifically for CD32 and that was Microcosm and what a stinking pile of crap that was.

You wanna talk about black sheep, look no further, it's been found. CD32 be it's name. Case closed

Thank god I never paid for it otherwise I'd be really p'd off, instead of slightly annoyed

stainy · 12 January 2002, 01:21

Talk about black sheep, then look no further than the CDTV

Although the second version was better than the first one that came out....

12 January 2002, 01:47

But with keyboard and mouse expansion wasn't it as good as an A500? Obviously not as expandable as an A500 but the problem wasn't with the machine itself, it was all about marketing

MethodGit · 12 January 2002, 01:48

I guess I missed out on a lot then.

To date I have only ever played with an little 'ol A500 - my own.

I do remember playing around with an A1200 for a very short time at some Amiga show, but I can't remember which one it was. I'm sure it was running PGA European Tour Golf at that time.

That was the closest I would ever get to using an A1200.

Yup, back then, during the mid 90's at least, I was so desperate to get one of these babies. Just so I could play more games which relied on that type of machine.

What a shame then that my own family was a) fucking tight, and b) completely ignorant of how much I liked the Amiga and wanted to try other pieces of hardware. All we did was just buy games for the Amiga during the years of its popularity. That was it.

I actually remember having this almost-realistic dream once around that time where I actually had an A1200 in my possession, as a present, and I was playing what looked like..... Zak McKracken??!!!

And I seem to remember the background as being in a park, similarly drawn to the real locations in the game.

Well, looks like all of you on here had better luck. But then maybe you had more of a choice back then, and wasn't an 11-year old kid like me back then.

@stainy: there were two different CDTVs? Please explain.

stainy · 12 January 2002, 02:07

THe first one that came out, had a cd caddy, and was a bit aweful looking ( front wise ) but the CDTV CW I think? the front was more pleasing to look at, had a proper tray type cd...... but they took off the clock

thats all I remember
Here`s the CDTV

here`s the front of the newer version

hmm how do I make it so the pics are in the message?? as apposed to links?

Ian: by doing this [ IMG ] http:// [ /IMG ] (only without the intentional spaces)

I have fixed your pictures for you anyway.
You can also click on the IMG button in the VB code section (Just above where you type in your message) and cut and paste the url into there.

12 January 2002, 02:38

And here is an expanded CDTV:

check these for more information:
http://amiga.emugaming.com/cdtv.html
http://www.amiga-society.de/ahwbook/cdtv.html
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/cdtvii.html

12 January 2002, 03:33

Today I learned something new.

Ian · 12 January 2002, 03:38

What was that??

Was it that the CDTV (with accessories) is the best looking computer you've ever seen.

That's what I've learned

stainy · 12 January 2002, 06:01

Yeah, it`s just an A500 in drag !!

11 January 2002, 10:27	#1
Big-Byte Long time member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: UK Posts: 754	A600 - The black sheep of the Amiga Family? I thought this thread would make a change from all that Amiga Vs PC Vs ST threads out there... I remember a long time ago how we laughed when the A600 came out. What was the point of releasing a cut down (literaly) A1200? Getting rid of the Numeric keypad was a disaster from the start!! Then it appeared to be the most imcompatible Amiga of the lot. We had more respect for ST owners than A600 owners.. Discuss ...

11 January 2002, 20:06	#5
Andrew Registered User Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Leicester UK Age: 39 Posts: 167	Amiga 600 I never knew about all these compatibiity problems with the 500+ and 600. I used to own a 500+ and own a 600 now and have never had any problems with either of them. You got to admit tho, the 600 looks cute

11 January 2002, 22:01	#9
DrBong HOL / AMR Team Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 2,632	A600- a worthy addition to the Amiga family! A600 is the next best thing to an Amiga laptop. Mine has a 3Gb laptop HD and 030 card that fits snuggly underneath the bonnet. I can bring it from one room to another in my house and plug it in without getting a hernia. Can't do that with my A500 with the heavy GVP A530 sidecar hanging off the left-hand end. The big hoo-ha about the A600 lacking expandability of the A500/+ may have been true for a few years after its release, but Amiga hardware manufacturers proved to be smart cookies by producing accelerators that piggy-backed the CPU and sound, serial and ethernet cards that attached to the internal clockport or slid into the PCMCIA slot. Even the lack of a keypad was largely solved on the A600 by Aminet software for the few utilities that needed it. A600- the black sheep of the Amiga family? I think not! IMHO, the A1200 deserves that title because it has more design faults and potential hardware conflicts in expansion than you can poke a stick at!

12 January 2002, 01:21	#13
stainy Zone Friend Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Concord, NC, USA Age: 52 Posts: 1,712	And if you wanna really... Talk about black sheep, then look no further than the CDTV Although the second version was better than the first one that came out....

12 January 2002, 02:07	#16
stainy Zone Friend Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Concord, NC, USA Age: 52 Posts: 1,712	Well... THe first one that came out, had a cd caddy, and was a bit aweful looking ( front wise ) but the CDTV CW I think? the front was more pleasing to look at, had a proper tray type cd...... but they took off the clock thats all I remember Here`s the CDTV here`s the front of the newer version hmm how do I make it so the pics are in the message?? as apposed to links? Ian: by doing this [ IMG ] http:// [ /IMG ] (only without the intentional spaces) I have fixed your pictures for you anyway. You can also click on the IMG button in the VB code section (Just above where you type in your message) and cut and paste the url into there. Last edited by Ian; 12 January 2002 at 02:31.

11 January 2002, 10:35	#2
Chris Registered User Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Merseyside Posts: 37	Very true! It didn't look right, feel right or play right! It didn't play half the classic games I knew and loved. Luckily, it wasn't me that had one, it was my mate. I still had my A500 with 1meg upgrade, so I could still play Super Cars 2!

11 January 2002, 15:53	#4
oldpx Posts: n/a	But before A600, there was A500+ with the same level of incompatibility since both had kick 2.0. Hmm I'm not sure about if they have the same chips or not but they are probably similar. With my 500+ I failed to run a lot of old games normally but with a degrader program like relokick most old games would work. There were only a few exclusions like final fight and some others that I can't recall but I was never upset because something didn't run on my machine.1MB chipmem felt a lot better than a 512k machine even though all I did was playing games. Also there were kick2.0 only games like ishar 3 that I loved (Can anyone confirm it does not work with 1.3? I have doubts about this) Workbench 2.0 was much professional than 1.3 and I learned many things about computers with my A500+. I doubt I could familiarize myself with 1.3 if I hadn't seen 2.0 before. A600 lacked the keypad and that's really annoying. I wouldn't want to use such a machine but you get used to everything in time ! Akira is an A600 guy I think he has lots to add.

11 January 2002, 20:35	#6
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,645	Sorry, but the A500+ is the black turd in the vanilla lineage of Commodore/Amiga. The A600 is a slick compact machine, the best non-AGA one IMO. I never needed the bloody keypad, to date, I never use it. It was loveably small, it had an IDE interface, it was like an ECS A1200. One great machine. if you bash it, you never owned one. And the incompatibility problems were not bigger than thoe of an A500+, an A3000, or whatever machine you had upgraded. If you softkicked it onto 1.3 most stuff would run. If it never ran in your machine, it was because you were too lazy to make it run An A600 problem I admit: temperature. It's so compact, that it likes to run a bit hot. So nyaaah! to you A600 haters!

11 January 2002, 20:39	#7
RetroMan Registered User Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Germany Age: 51 Posts: 3,704	Sorry but I don´t get it I own two A500+ and I never ever had any problems in getting older games to work properly, only thing is that I build in a Kick 1.3 but that´s a matter of the ROM, not the MACHINE !!! nuff´said you dirty old A500+ haters

11 January 2002, 20:47	#8
TikTok Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Malayasia Age: 43 Posts: 657	Ah, I wrote a long reply to this thread and then IE went kaboom . Akira is right, the A600 is a great little machine. The only time I ever missed the keypad was in DPaint 3 (needed for perspective effects). Apart from that, I never experienced problems, even in flight sims. It was the first Amiga to include features such as the IDE and PCMCIA interfaces, which were included in later machines. The IDE interface also made adding HDs fairly cheap, and of course the A600 was the first machine to feature "official" HD bundles, something which I think Commodore should have pushed more heavily IMHO. I never experienced any compatibility problems either, and my A600 is certainly far more compatible than my A1200. Definitely a loveable little machine .

11 January 2002, 23:50	#10
Uukrul Posts: n/a	Is the 1200 the black sheep of the Amiga family? -> Oh yes. Is the A600 the best Amiga ever? -> Oh yes.

11 January 2002, 23:57	#11
Overdoc Commodore Collector Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Austria Age: 53 Posts: 944	Ok, my opinion about the A-600: pros: Nice little computer Already 1MB chipram inside HD connector Kick 2.0 makes WB 2.0 possible which is a lot nicer than WB 1.3 cons: Keypad missing ( not a big problem since only few people use it ) Some software doesn't run with Kick 2.0 Some very old software doesn't like more than 512k. So no chance to get them running on the A-600 since you cannot switch down to 512k. Those damn SMD chips !!! That's the biggest disadvantage of the A-600 imho. If one chip gets fried you can trash the board ( or spend hours desoldering chips ). On the A-500 you can just exchange every chip easily since they are all socketed That's a big advantage in troubleshooting, too !

12 January 2002, 00:21	#12
Ian Global Moderator Join Date: May 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 46 Posts: 2,287	Black sheep, how can anyone talk about black sheep and not even mention the dang CD32, it was a complete joke (I should know I used to have one). As far as I remember there was only one game written specifically for CD32 and that was Microcosm and what a stinking pile of crap that was. You wanna talk about black sheep, look no further, it's been found. CD32 be it's name. Case closed Thank god I never paid for it otherwise I'd be really p'd off, instead of slightly annoyed

12 January 2002, 01:47	#14
oldpx Posts: n/a	But with keyboard and mouse expansion wasn't it as good as an A500? Obviously not as expandable as an A500 but the problem wasn't with the machine itself, it was all about marketing

12 January 2002, 01:48	#15
MethodGit Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: The Streets Age: 39 Posts: 2,731	I guess I missed out on a lot then. To date I have only ever played with an little 'ol A500 - my own. I do remember playing around with an A1200 for a very short time at some Amiga show, but I can't remember which one it was. I'm sure it was running PGA European Tour Golf at that time. That was the closest I would ever get to using an A1200. Yup, back then, during the mid 90's at least, I was so desperate to get one of these babies. Just so I could play more games which relied on that type of machine. What a shame then that my own family was a) fucking tight, and b) completely ignorant of how much I liked the Amiga and wanted to try other pieces of hardware. All we did was just buy games for the Amiga during the years of its popularity. That was it. I actually remember having this almost-realistic dream once around that time where I actually had an A1200 in my possession, as a present, and I was playing what looked like..... Zak McKracken??!!! And I seem to remember the background as being in a park, similarly drawn to the real locations in the game. Well, looks like all of you on here had better luck. But then maybe you had more of a choice back then, and wasn't an 11-year old kid like me back then. @stainy: there were two different CDTVs? Please explain.

12 January 2002, 02:38	#17
oldpx Posts: n/a	And here is an expanded CDTV: check these for more information: http://amiga.emugaming.com/cdtv.html http://www.amiga-society.de/ahwbook/cdtv.html http://www.amiga-hardware.com/cdtvii.html Last edited by Burseg; 12 January 2002 at 02:46.

12 January 2002, 03:33	#18
guest Posts: n/a	Today I learned something new.

12 January 2002, 03:38	#19
Ian Global Moderator Join Date: May 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 46 Posts: 2,287	What was that?? Was it that the CDTV (with accessories) is the best looking computer you've ever seen. That's what I've learned

12 January 2002, 06:01	#20
stainy Zone Friend Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Concord, NC, USA Age: 52 Posts: 1,712	hehehe Yeah, it`s just an A500 in drag !!

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