English Amiga Board - View Single Post - What was wrong with the Amiga 1000/500/2000?

litwr · 24 January 2021, 17:52

I have upgraded my list of the A1000/500/2000 drawbacks. I have removed 3 items and add one:
1) a minor problem with a timer, you can't normally use it for more than 21 minute interval on the A500, but on the A1200 there is no such limit;
2) no system functions for working with wildcards - these functions was provided only on ROMs available since 1990;
3) misguiding information about trap door RAM expansion cards, no information that the fast RAM only slightly faster than Chip RAM;
4) the mess with "standard" return codes: only 0, 5, 10, 20 are actually allowed;
5) standard utility `ask' provides only two return codes and there is no any other standard way to get information from a user;
6) Basic has only 25 KB free, even the Commodore 128 has 120K, Commodore +4 has 60K, and Commodore 64 has 38K for Basic;
7) iconx doesn't allow SKIP, IF, LAB, ...;
8) no normal variables in CLI like variables in Unix or even DOS shells.

Indeed the Amiga had a lot of advantages. Generally the Amiga in 1986 was better than any other personal computer of that time. But nothing is perfect. The first Amigas had some drawbacks. Why do not try to count them?

24 January 2021, 17:52	#13
litwr Registered User Join Date: Mar 2016 Location: Ozherele Posts: 229	I have upgraded my list of the A1000/500/2000 drawbacks. I have removed 3 items and add one: 1) a minor problem with a timer, you can't normally use it for more than 21 minute interval on the A500, but on the A1200 there is no such limit; 2) no system functions for working with wildcards - these functions was provided only on ROMs available since 1990; 3) misguiding information about trap door RAM expansion cards, no information that the fast RAM only slightly faster than Chip RAM; 4) the mess with "standard" return codes: only 0, 5, 10, 20 are actually allowed; 5) standard utility `ask' provides only two return codes and there is no any other standard way to get information from a user; 6) Basic has only 25 KB free, even the Commodore 128 has 120K, Commodore +4 has 60K, and Commodore 64 has 38K for Basic; 7) iconx doesn't allow SKIP, IF, LAB, ...; 8) no normal variables in CLI like variables in Unix or even DOS shells. Indeed the Amiga had a lot of advantages. Generally the Amiga in 1986 was better than any other personal computer of that time. But nothing is perfect. The first Amigas had some drawbacks. Why do not try to count them?