Amiga - most robust machine ever? - Page 2

Mick_AKA · 19 April 2006, 00:19

Never be afraid of a loud floppy drive, they seem to last longer than the quiet ones!

Magno Boots · 19 April 2006, 00:59

Thanks for the responses guys..
This really was a thread to express my 'May the Amiga live forever' thoughts.
But it's great to see that you haven't experienced that many serious problems (apart from Bippy's knife incident)

- I don't know how I managed to get away with it myself for so long!
As for Unknown K's overheating statement; I can only put that down to too much hot air in Ohio.
Seriously though, I'm really glad I registered to become a member of this great forum with good humoured, accurarate and helpful replies.
Cheers.

alkis21 · 19 April 2006, 08:24

Is nobody in EAB superstitious? I don't want to tempt fate, so I'll never say I haven't had any hardware problems with my Amiga.
Oops, I just did!

cooldude · 19 April 2006, 09:07

Hmmm...Can't count the number of floppy drives that have died on me!
My current one is also stuffing up. Still got a few more in the shed ;^)

Fortunately, I don't use floppies much anymore.

I've thrown everything at my A1200T over the years & it's still
going strong. Just added USB!!! One word..Getit :^)))

All my home theatre stuff works fine, so I can't complain, although
every VCR I owned was crap.

Dizzy · 20 April 2006, 23:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unknown_K

Old machines last because they were simpler machines that ran much slower and generated much less heat. How can you compare a A500 that ran at 8Mhz to a new 4Ghz machine where the CPU itslef puts out more heat then the whole A500 did.

Also just because you have an A500 that works doesn't mean millions of others have not died out and have been trashed long ago.

SilentBob · 20 April 2006, 23:55

My Amiga 1200 is 12.5 years old. At one point the internal floppy drive started acting up , but I fixed it after a while and it hasn't given me trouble since. So at least my 1200 is a damn sturdy piece of technology.

Same goes for the A4000/040 I have, it's about 12 years old (though it's only been in my possession for 3 years), and it's still working fine.

Rick Dangerous · 21 April 2006, 08:51

I remember two serious troubles with my A500 in the past 20 years.
The first one was my fault, because I stuck the Joystick in while the Amiga was running. One 16pin chip was wrecked (don't remember exactly which one it was) but I replaced it with a new one and the Amiga worked again.

The other trouble was, that one day in early 1990ies the Amiga did not recognize any Floppy-Disk. I looked for the cause and found, that a little magnet had fallen of the DD-Hole-Checker. I fixed the magnet with some glue back to it's place and it worked!

Cheers,
Rick

quahappy · 29 April 2006, 14:24

Uh-oh... I think my 12 year old A1200 is playing up.... the graphics has started doing a "Blue Rinse" (ala Phylis Pearce of Coronation Street), mainly in the top left of the screen, but apart from that everything else is, thankfully, ok. In the past, i've taking the casing off to find endless biscuit crumbs, spilt tea stains and gawd knows what else! Maybe this has contributed to the graphics chip starting to act up?!

I had a Cumana External Floppy drive which I once dropped, (probably cos I'd just had a mega chip butty and my hands were just a tiny bit greasy) whilst moving my setup to another area of the bedroom.... and it still worked!!

Out af all the computers i've had, the Amiga certainly gets my vote for being the most robust. I think I just got unlucky with previous A1200's I had before the one I have now. I avoided the A600 because of rumoured compatability problems.

BippyM · 29 April 2006, 14:27

I dropped a cumana drive 12 yrs ago and it died

Anyway have you tested your 1200 on another tv/monitor? could be the tv/monitor that is faulty

quahappy · 29 April 2006, 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by bippym

Anyway have you tested your 1200 on another tv/monitor? could be the tv/monitor that is faulty

Yep, tested on three tv's (14" to 28" screen) with same result.

Aral · 02 May 2006, 13:10

I brought my old 2000 out of the cupboard yesterday and suprisingly it still worked except for the date of 1987. It has been in the cupboard at my oldies since 1991...LOL

I got a Dell Optiplex GX270 here that has had 3 motherboards replaced in 5 weeks...

Felix · 05 May 2006, 23:21

My First Amiga 500 was brought for me in 1990's on my birthday, unfortunatly it falied within 1 day, in total I had to have it replaced under warrenty 9 times because they failed within a week of getting the replacement

But since then my exsiting one A500 hasn't had a single problem in 15 years

and as a plus the last replacement had the 1Mb chip ram fat agnus in it which put me ahead of my friends who only had 512K chip ram so it was'nt all bad news

andyr · 06 May 2006, 00:58

I got my A500 in 1989 and from day one I hammered it - hard!

That old girl is still going strong - it still has the original internal drive still working perfectly (noisy though!)

All I did to it was install a mega-chip to give it an updated agnus and 2 meg chip ram along with install a kickstart 2.04 chip.

adgloride · 06 May 2006, 02:06

I sent an amiga 600 recently through the post. The postman must have dropped the parcel as the disk drive cable and keyboard cable had been disconnected. Nothing was wrong with the amiga case and luckly everything was fixed.

blade002 · 06 May 2006, 11:13

A friend of mine back in the A500 days ( about 1991 ) knocked over his bottle of beer with at least half its contents ending up inside the computer!.. it automatically shut off, and we ripped the power cord out of the wall. We thought!. oh no... its dead!!..

So we took it apart, dried all the beer off inside.. lol. and waiting a couple of hours.. we plugged it all back in and what happened?... it WORKED!!!... i could not believe it!.

So are Amiga's robust?.. YES they are!!!!..

quahappy · 06 May 2006, 11:35

I almost forgot about the time my sisters kitten had a habit of jumping on my Amiga, chasing the bloody "pointer" on my monitor, and then one day it pissed all over the keyboard. It still worked but the stench was unbearable! Took a week for it to go....

DDNI · 06 May 2006, 12:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by blade002

A friend of mine back in the A500 days ( about 1991 ) knocked over his bottle of beer with at least half its contents ending up inside the computer!.. it automatically shut off, and we ripped the power cord out of the wall. We thought!. oh no... its dead!!..

So we took it apart, dried all the beer off inside.. lol. and waiting a couple of hours.. we plugged it all back in and what happened?... it WORKED!!!... i could not believe it!.

So are Amiga's robust?.. YES they are!!!!..

Thats nothing! I remember once drinking 12 pints of Stella and I still worked several hours later!

mr_a500 · 06 May 2006, 17:19

Quote:

...and then one day it pissed all over the keyboard. It still worked but the stench was unbearable! Took a week for it to go....

Last year I got a couple free Amigas that the owner didn't want after clearing out an old storage area - an A1000 and A500. When it arrived in the mail, I opened the box and nearly puked - it reeked of cat piss. It seems some cats had gotten into the storage area and marked the Amiga as their territory.

I cleaned it up and it works perfectly, but nothing I do can get rid of the stench. I'm going to have to open the 20-year old never-opened keyboard just to try get the stench out. I then opened my free A500 and it smelled of cat piss too!

I hate cats!

Rick Dangerous · 06 May 2006, 20:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr_a500

I hate cats!

There are GOOD cats and there are BAD cats.

My two cats (Puntila and Matti) don't piss on the Amiga, but Puntila lies on the A2000-keyboard in wintertime, because it is standing near the heating element of my room. It's obviously a comfortable place for him.
If ever Puntila thinks, he has to piss on the Keyboard, it surely would be the PC standing beside.

Cheers,
Rick

gotmashed · 15 May 2006, 00:53

i got my a500 in 1989 and its sat here now with all the same bits on it

and its been in the loft for a few years pulled it out pluged it in bingo only thing wrong is a few games have given up the will to play still the ones in there boxes are top notch

and no sign of yellowing

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
My Amiga Arcade Machine	KevG	Retrogaming General Discussion	5	20 December 2010 15:52
If a new Amiga (machine) was released ...	Ravenwoods	Amiga scene	65	20 March 2009 22:21
Your favourite 'non-Amiga' machine of the 80's and 90's : Round 2!	P-J	Retrogaming General Discussion	86	14 December 2007 20:18
Amiga Format video - Upgrading your machine	Firthy2002	MarketPlace	0	22 February 2005 13:19
Amiga-inspired Coldfire machine	Methanoid	Amiga scene	16	28 January 2004 20:14

19 April 2006, 00:19	#21
Mick_AKA crusader of light Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Stone, Staffordshire. Posts: 1,151	Never be afraid of a loud floppy drive, they seem to last longer than the quiet ones!

19 April 2006, 00:59	#22
Magno Boots Zone Friend Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Hertfordshire Posts: 688	Thanks for the responses guys.. This really was a thread to express my 'May the Amiga live forever' thoughts. But it's great to see that you haven't experienced that many serious problems (apart from Bippy's knife incident) - I don't know how I managed to get away with it myself for so long! As for Unknown K's overheating statement; I can only put that down to too much hot air in Ohio. Seriously though, I'm really glad I registered to become a member of this great forum with good humoured, accurarate and helpful replies. Cheers.

19 April 2006, 08:24	#23
alkis21 Zone Friend Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Athens, Greece Age: 49 Posts: 1,408	Is nobody in EAB superstitious? I don't want to tempt fate, so I'll never say I haven't had any hardware problems with my Amiga. Oops, I just did!

19 April 2006, 09:07	#24
cooldude Registered User Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Australia Posts: 112	Hmmm...Can't count the number of floppy drives that have died on me! My current one is also stuffing up. Still got a few more in the shed ;^) Fortunately, I don't use floppies much anymore. I've thrown everything at my A1200T over the years & it's still going strong. Just added USB!!! One word..Getit :^))) All my home theatre stuff works fine, so I can't complain, although every VCR I owned was crap.

20 April 2006, 23:55	#26
SilentBob Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Norway Age: 49 Posts: 246	My Amiga 1200 is 12.5 years old. At one point the internal floppy drive started acting up , but I fixed it after a while and it hasn't given me trouble since. So at least my 1200 is a damn sturdy piece of technology. Same goes for the A4000/040 I have, it's about 12 years old (though it's only been in my possession for 3 years), and it's still working fine.

21 April 2006, 08:51	#27
Rick Dangerous Registered Playmate Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: OZ Age: 54 Posts: 156	I remember two serious troubles with my A500 in the past 20 years. The first one was my fault, because I stuck the Joystick in while the Amiga was running. One 16pin chip was wrecked (don't remember exactly which one it was) but I replaced it with a new one and the Amiga worked again. The other trouble was, that one day in early 1990ies the Amiga did not recognize any Floppy-Disk. I looked for the cause and found, that a little magnet had fallen of the DD-Hole-Checker. I fixed the magnet with some glue back to it's place and it worked! Cheers, Rick

29 April 2006, 14:24	#28
quahappy Born again WinUAE user Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: South Yorkshire, UK Age: 55 Posts: 1,667	Uh-oh... I think my 12 year old A1200 is playing up.... the graphics has started doing a "Blue Rinse" (ala Phylis Pearce of Coronation Street), mainly in the top left of the screen, but apart from that everything else is, thankfully, ok. In the past, i've taking the casing off to find endless biscuit crumbs, spilt tea stains and gawd knows what else! Maybe this has contributed to the graphics chip starting to act up?! I had a Cumana External Floppy drive which I once dropped, (probably cos I'd just had a mega chip butty and my hands were just a tiny bit greasy) whilst moving my setup to another area of the bedroom.... and it still worked!! Out af all the computers i've had, the Amiga certainly gets my vote for being the most robust. I think I just got unlucky with previous A1200's I had before the one I have now. I avoided the A600 because of rumoured compatability problems.

29 April 2006, 14:27	#29
BippyM Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 48 Posts: 9,355	I dropped a cumana drive 12 yrs ago and it died Anyway have you tested your 1200 on another tv/monitor? could be the tv/monitor that is faulty

02 May 2006, 13:10	#31
Aral TOSEC-PIX Curator Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Australia Posts: 104	I brought my old 2000 out of the cupboard yesterday and suprisingly it still worked except for the date of 1987. It has been in the cupboard at my oldies since 1991...LOL I got a Dell Optiplex GX270 here that has had 3 motherboards replaced in 5 weeks...

05 May 2006, 23:21	#32
Felix Music at its Best Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: UK Posts: 42	My First Amiga 500 was brought for me in 1990's on my birthday, unfortunatly it falied within 1 day, in total I had to have it replaced under warrenty 9 times because they failed within a week of getting the replacement But since then my exsiting one A500 hasn't had a single problem in 15 years and as a plus the last replacement had the 1Mb chip ram fat agnus in it which put me ahead of my friends who only had 512K chip ram so it was'nt all bad news

06 May 2006, 00:58	#33
andyr Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 97	I got my A500 in 1989 and from day one I hammered it - hard! That old girl is still going strong - it still has the original internal drive still working perfectly (noisy though!) All I did to it was install a mega-chip to give it an updated agnus and 2 meg chip ram along with install a kickstart 2.04 chip.

06 May 2006, 02:06	#34
adgloride Amiga Mod Chipper Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: UK Age: 51 Posts: 229	I sent an amiga 600 recently through the post. The postman must have dropped the parcel as the disk drive cable and keyboard cable had been disconnected. Nothing was wrong with the amiga case and luckly everything was fixed.

06 May 2006, 11:13	#35
blade002 Zone Friend Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Australia Age: 50 Posts: 2,616	A friend of mine back in the A500 days ( about 1991 ) knocked over his bottle of beer with at least half its contents ending up inside the computer!.. it automatically shut off, and we ripped the power cord out of the wall. We thought!. oh no... its dead!!.. So we took it apart, dried all the beer off inside.. lol. and waiting a couple of hours.. we plugged it all back in and what happened?... it WORKED!!!... i could not believe it!. So are Amiga's robust?.. YES they are!!!!..

06 May 2006, 11:35	#36
quahappy Born again WinUAE user Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: South Yorkshire, UK Age: 55 Posts: 1,667	I almost forgot about the time my sisters kitten had a habit of jumping on my Amiga, chasing the bloody "pointer" on my monitor, and then one day it pissed all over the keyboard. It still worked but the stench was unbearable! Took a week for it to go....

15 May 2006, 00:53	#40
gotmashed Registered User Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: isle of wight Age: 45 Posts: 83	i got my a500 in 1989 and its sat here now with all the same bits on it and its been in the loft for a few years pulled it out pluged it in bingo only thing wrong is a few games have given up the will to play still the ones in there boxes are top notch and no sign of yellowing

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)