Quote:
Originally Posted by amigafan33
Hi, I'm new here. I just wanted to know why the amiga had a power button on the power brick but no power button on the machine itself or on keyboard, while the c64 had its power switch on the side of the machine, and PCs have both a power supply switch AND a power button on the machine?
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The C-64's power switch only has two voltages to toggle. The wedge cased Amiga has three. Big box Amigas have even more wires that the switch should affect. The standard at the time for power supplies that have that many voltages is to have a mains power switch that cuts all power to the PSU.
Big box Amigas have the power supply in the computer's case, thus the mains switch is also on the case within reach.
PCs also used to have a mains switch before the ATX standard came along. But again, PSU in the computer case so the switch could be located within easy reach.
With ATX, someone invented a software power switch for the PC, but most power supplies still opted to have a mains switch too for those times when you need to have the computer totally powerless. Now less conveniently located on the PSU itself at the back of the machine.
But really, it's because of the amount of wires the switch would have to disconnect and as a happy coincidence you also improve PSU lifetime by totally disconnecting it from the mains power when you flick the switch.