Worst Amiga model ever

[diablothe2nd]

Why isn't the A1500 on that list?

worst rebadging attempt ever. simply remove a floppy drive and replace with hard drive and bang, you had an A2000.

worst still, you could actually pull off the A1500 label to reveal the A2000 label!!!

shocking!!

although, I have to admit, I hated my Amiga 600 for it's lack of upgrade options. It's only very recently had a decent 030 produced and ofc the indi. so big thanks to Schoenfeld for that one

if the A1500 was on the list, i'd have said that... as it's not, the 600.

[magnetic]

Originally Posted by xpect

There are no worst Amiga models. They are all beige and awesome!

Well some are beige, some are black, and the best ones WHITE!

Originally Posted by diablothe2nd

worst still, you could actually pull off the A1500 label to reveal the A2000 label!!!

I think that the 1500 label is the coolest for a2000 series. Never had the 1500 in usa..

[carls]

Tough call...
Basically, the only perfect Amiga models to me are the A500 and the A3000. The 500 was the ultimate home and games computer, it was basically THE computer for anty kid to own. The 3000 was a powerful professional model with SCSI, scandoubler, Zorro III etc.

All the others were flawed in some way. The A1000 was really far ahead of the competition, but not exactly in the price range of most people.

The A500+ and A600 should have been combined into one computer - Kickstart 2.0, ECS, on-board realtime clock, built-in RF modulator and IDE interface in the A500 case with the normal sidecar expansion slot.

The A2000 lacked a faster CPU - even a 14 MHz 68000 would have made it into more of a professional machine and less of a big, bulky A500.

The CDTV and CD32 were basically glorified games consoles based on existing Amiga technology. Commodore could have put more R&D money into building better computers instead of trying to fight Nintendo and SEGA, a war that anyone even back in the 90s could see they wouldn't win.

The 4000 was basically a step down from the 3000. It should have had a SCSI option, proper on-board scandoubler, etc.

Now, the 1200... This is where it gets interesting!

For starters, it should've had a real-time clock.

It could have been placed in a slightly bigger A500-style case with room for proper cheap 3.5" hard drives. In fact, it shouldn't have been sold without a HDD! The 2.5" IDE drives quite expensive and I guess that's why they were made optional.

Although I sometimes feel that the A1200 should have had 1 meg chip + 1 meg fast in the default configuration, I also understand the decision of the default 2 megs of chipmem.

However, with a slightly bigger case, a ZIP/SIMM socket could have been fitted on the motherboard. With at least a 20 MB HDD fitted per default, the option when buying could then be 0 or 2 megs of fastmem instead of HDD or no HDD.

Now, don't get me wrong. I really did - and do - love the A1200. But I believe a lot of bad decisions were piled up and put into this computer, so I present to you THE WORST AMIGA MODEL EVER:

The Amiga 1200!

[Old Fool]

What A1000 had that A500 didn't?

[fryguy]

The A2000 was the worst Amiga model imo. big and ugly as hell and wasn't that much better than an A500.

[mikele]

A2000 was the fugliest, you couldn't really distinct one from big, beige PC, while A600 seemed the cutest.

[EnglishRob]

I went for the A1000, I chose this going on the memories of a friends Amiga... just seemed like extra hassle to boot Kickstart 1.2 and then a game or whatever. Thinking back though it probably wasn't as bad as I remember.

I would have also chosen the A600 too as I remember at the time I thought it looked a bit cheap and crappy compared to my A500 but again in hindsight with it's IDE interface maybe it's not actually as bad as I remembered :-P

Rob

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by fryguy

The A2000 was the worst Amiga model imo. big and ugly as hell and wasn't that much better than an A500.

I'd have to agree with this comment

The main problems with the 1000 were due to the fact that it was meant to be a games console, you can't blame them for sticking the same MB in the A500 to make some money back (and of course this made the 500 a really good games machine).

But do also stick basically the same MB in the 2000 was a bit of a strange one.

[Pyromania]

Here it is?

http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_AMIGAmini.aspx

[DisposableHero]

A600, easily. Designed as the A300, a budget version of the A500+ (a bad idea anyway in my mind - the Amiga wasn't just about games, and even then not just action games for kids) - but ended up costing MORE to manufacture than the A500+. Instead of dumping the idea, they released it - immediately alienating flight sim fans and developers (virtually none didn't use the keypad), hardware companies who had to redesign their add-ons for the 600 just after doing so for the 500+ - and just before doing so for the 1200), and shops which had big stocks of A500+s that were now being presented as a white elephant. Perhaps this pressured them into releasing the A1200 before the full AAA hardware was ready?

[TheBilgeRat]

Originally Posted by abraXXious

I personally dislike the a500 and can see no reason to own one (although I have several ).

As amigas get older and older, I'm looking more and more to the older classics (a500, A2000, A1000) as better, simply because of the ease of repair on the older models - Easier to recap, re-resistor, etc. It seems as time goes on that the only encumbrance they have is lack of AGA. Gotek + indivision ECS + that arduino ethernet adapter + kipper2k or jens expansion = very capable early amiga.

[Sandro]

Originally Posted by DisposableHero

A600, easily. Designed as the A300, a budget version of the A500+ (a bad idea anyway in my mind - the Amiga wasn't just about games, and even then not just action games for kids) - but ended up costing MORE to manufacture than the A500+. Instead of dumping the idea, they released it - immediately alienating flight sim fans and developers (virtually none didn't use the keypad), hardware companies who had to redesign their add-ons for the 600 just after doing so for the 500+ - and just before doing so for the 1200), and shops which had big stocks of A500+s that were now being presented as a white elephant. Perhaps this pressured them into releasing the A1200 before the full AAA hardware was ready?

THe A600 is not the budget version of the A500+,is an upgrade: please note it adds ide controller and PCMCIA and a modulator built in (composite video + RF)

however I agree the A600 is the worst Amiga ever done, it looks cheap and horrible

[DisposableHero]

Misunderstanding there. The A600 was intended to be a budget version of the A500+, but it ended up costing more to produce so they released it as a replacement. Those few changes you mention were small improvements, but not worth the hassles.

[FOL]

Apart from missing a numeric, the A600 was an awesome machine.
Small, compact and cute, . I loved it, still do.

My favorite Amiga's have to be A600 and CD32 (closely followed by CDTV).

[Leffmann]

Originally Posted by Leffmann

I'm gonna go with the A1000 and its 256K RAM and Kickstart 1.2.

Runner up will be the A600 due poor expandability, can't even put some fastmem in it, though I like its case size and design more than any other Amiga. I wish the A1200 looked like that.

I've changed my mind on this since, and I think the A1200 is the worst machine. It's mainly because of its buggy keyboard, but also because of its wedge case being too bulky with the useless numerical keyboard, and the poor effort put into AGA.

And I actually think the A600 is one of the better machines now, right after the A3000 and A4000. It's the only machine that can really pull off the wedge case after shedding the numerical keyboard, and it's amazingly expandable for such a small machine.

[clebin]

CD32 for me. I could never get behind an Amiga that you couldn't do anything productive with. The CDTV had greater aspirations than than the CD32 and it wasn't even branded as an Amiga.

Every Amiga model after the A500 should've been better than it was, but they were still useful machines that were great to use. I liked my A500+ and loved Workbench 2.0, even though my mates took the piss at the time because some games wouldn't load.

The CD32 felt like a last desperate throw of the dice back then and it still has a whiff of sadness about it.

Chris

[Gzegzolka]

If You ask me - CD32 was great idea, but poor execution. In my opinion worse was A500+ and A600, they shouldn't be made in first place and A1200 with AGA should be made few years earlier.

[nobody]

Amiga 600, Amiga 500+ and CDTV were the worst, i voted for A600.

Very little difference with original A500 except the A3000 rom although it was easier to expand. It takes my vote for missing the numeric keypad (i think they were trying to make an ECS game console, smaller motherboard-no keys, and ended up in this).

[Decker]

A600 is great today, A500+ really is not. Therefore I'd have to say A500+ takes the prize.

Hurts to say, because that was my original Amiga back in the day and I still have it.

[Sandro]

Originally Posted by DisposableHero

Those few changes you mention were small improvements, but not worth the hassles.

the ide controller added to the A600 yes was important