Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Which one is it? The case had to be larger, or a 3.5 inch HDD already fits?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Which one is it? The case had to be larger, or a 3.5 inch HDD already fits?

It doesn't fit unless you give up the internal floppy drive, or can get a very slimline drive that fits over the keyboard ribbon. In both cases the drive's warranty is voided due to being mounted at an angle. A properly engineered solution would require a larger case.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

$20 DSP3210 is just a quick fix for A1200's weak 3D capability.

Texture-mapped 3D wasn't really on the radar in 1991. Flat-shaded 3D (which IMO looks better in flight simulators etc. in low-res) could easily be implemented with the blitter and/or CPU.

PCs used faster CPUs instead of DSP for doing texture-mapped 3D for one simple reason - a faster CPU makes everything faster using normal application code, and that code works on any machine - not just those with special DSP hardware. There were use cases where DSP made sense, eg. in a modem or sound card, but not as a general purpose processor.

[Promilus]

And here I did open Seagate ST225 manual. Drive can be mounted spindle down if horizontal, can be vertical on sides but cannot be tilted front to back more than 5 degrees. Front to back...

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by babsimov

The 600 case is the worst Amiga case ever and this model was Commodore's worst mistake. For the AA500, Commodore should have simply reused the 500 case (like Atari for the Falcon).

Apart from the color, the Falcon was crap. Same horrible keyboard, same stupid angled function keys. Overly large and heavy just like its predecessors. Being the same was not good!

Commodore did reuse the A500 case in the A500+. IMO this should have been the last of that line. The introduction of AGA was the right time to bring out something new and different - instantly recognizable as the 'next generation'.

The A600 failed because it was perceived as just being an A500 in a different case that missed out the numeric keypad and Zorro slot. This is why you hear people saying that it offered less than the A500. But an A600 with AGA (ie. A1200 in A600 case) would been a different story. Now you have more in a smaller package. With a faster CPU and 32 bit trapdoor slot you have something worth buying, in a package not much larger than a Sega Mega Drive.

The biggest mistake Commodore made was stopping production of the A500 before demand waned. They had a reason for doing that - AGA machines were supposed to be imminent. But they didn't arrive on time, forcing Commodore to plug the gap with the A500+ before even announcing it (was quite a shock to open your 'A500' box to find this new model inside!).

But even after introducing AGA machines they should have continued to make the A500 until sales dropped way off - just like they did with the C64. The A600 was supposed to fill that role, but met with buyer resistance because it was different without being 'better'. There wasn't anything wrong with the case design except that it didn't look like the A500 - and so should not have been one. The time to introduce that case style was with the A1200.

Reusing the 500 case would above all have made it possible to have a 3.5 inch hard drive internally and in addition the expansion hatch would have been larger, which would have made it possible to have better expansion cards. The DSP should also have been included as standard. And all this for the summer of 1991, it would have been perfect.

In 1987 I had a choice between an A1000 and the new A500. I didn't like the A500 case design at all. Why did it have to be so big? My Amstrad CPC664 managed to get everything in under the keyboard and still had heaps of room inside. When the A600 came out I thought "Finally, an A500 class machine that I can love!". I'm sure I wasn't alone.

An A500 with AGA and built in hard drive would look like just any other A500, practically indistinguishable from the standard model. Just having a different nameplate would not be enough - it had to look radically different too! PC clone makers eventually figured this out. Why would customers be attracted to your machine, when it looks identical to all the other beige boxes out there?

Of course Amiga fans will say it doesn't matter what it looks like on the outside, it's the inside that matters. But most customers are swayed by looks. Slapping new hardware in an old box doesn't work as well as giving it a new look to go with the new hardware. What would you have thought of the Amiga if they had put it inside a C64 'bread bin' case?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Promilus

And here I did open Seagate ST225 manual. Drive can be mounted spindle down if horizontal, can be vertical on sides but cannot be tilted front to back more than 5 degrees. Front to back...

Just in case you think this is a 'gotcha' - tilting it in any direction is bad for the mechanism, but in a normal installation (mounted between side plates) the only way you can tilt it is front to back.

From Hitachi Travelstar E7K100 manual:-

Mounting orientation

The drive will operate in all axes (six directions) and will stay within the specified error rates when tilted ±5 degrees from these positions.

Does orientation affect hard drive lifespan?

You can use a drive horizontally or vertically, it is made to be used that way.

However, we* found that using a drive at a non-90°C degree (like with an angle of 30°), it wears faster, probably because it puts a bit more strain on the head when moving around.

*at the data recovery company I was working at

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The biggest mistake Commodore made was stopping production of the A500 before demand waned. They had a reason for doing that - AGA machines were supposed to be imminent. But they didn't arrive on time, forcing Commodore to plug the gap with the A500+ before even announcing it (was quite a shock to open your 'A500' box to find this new model inside!).

Nope. The IDE mandate from Commodore Germany.

A300 project creeps into A500's replacement by Commodore Germany's demand for hard disk capable mass-produced Amiga. Pro-PC camp in Commodore wanted a PCMCIA slot which impacted Budgie (Buster/Ramsey).

Gary was modified for PC's PCMCIA and IDE functions, hence creating Gayle. Gayle has a 16-bit buffered link with Budgie.

A500's Gray could be replaced with Gayle, hence gaining IDE support.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But even after introducing AGA machines they should have continued to make the A500 until sales dropped way off - just like they did with the C64. The A600 was supposed to fill that role, but met with buyer resistance because it was different without being 'better'. There wasn't anything wrong with the case design except that it didn't look like the A500 - and so should not have been one. The time to introduce that case style was with the A1200.

AGA would be operational with Fat Gary in place of Gayle and Ramsey in place of Budgie.

Without Super Buster or Budgie's Buster function, no Zorro II/III expansion bus. The local bus slot doesn't need Buster.

DMAC is not needed due to missing SCSI.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

In 1987 I had a choice between an A1000 and the new A500. I didn't like the A500 case design at all. Why did it have to be so big? My Amstrad CPC664 managed to get everything in under the keyboard and still had heaps of room inside. When the A600 came out I thought "Finally, an A500 class machine that I can love!". I'm sure I wasn't alone.

A600 was a sales flop that wreaked Commodore's revenues into an unsustainable loss.

Amstrad CPC664 has crap hardware specs.

Amstrad CPC664's forward-facing 3.5-inch FDD made the machine's appearance to be unbalanced.

Amstrad CPC664 looks like a toy with no resemblance of the PC Model M keyboard layout. A500 and A1200 looks better in this regard.

For 1986, I prefer the Atari ST over the Amstrad CPC664. Atari Mega ST's Bitter was useless for most Atari ST games.
For 1987, I prefer the Amiga 500 over the Atari ST.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

An A500 with AGA and built in hard drive would look like just any other A500, practically indistinguishable from the standard model. Just having a different nameplate would not be enough - it had to look radically different too! PC clone makers eventually figured this out. Why would customers be attracted to your machine, when it looks identical to all the other beige boxes out there?

Commodore can change AA500+'s case color to white.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Of course Amiga fans will say it doesn't matter what it looks like on the outside, it's the inside that matters. But most customers are swayed by looks. Slapping new hardware in an old box doesn't work as well as giving it a new look to go with the new hardware. What would you have thought of the Amiga if they had put it inside a C64 'bread bin' case?

C64 'bread bin' case was replaced by C64c in 1986. https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/C64C

A500's case design was influenced by the 1985 era C128. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commod...modore-128.jpg

[hammer]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Quick fix arent' good fix

It's better than nothing or a 24-bit fix point DSP56K.

The ASIC 3D in 3DO was a quadrilateral 3D acceleration mistake. 3DO M2 switched to the triangle-based 3D acceleration.



http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/c...tion_Guide.pdf
From page 19 of 140, AT&T marketed multiple DSP3210 as a 3D graphics workstation co-processor array. AA3000+ only has a single DSP3210.

From page 20 of 140, "DSP32C, 32-bit CMOS DSP (3-D Graphics Floating-Point Accelerator with Graphics Application Library)"

From page 25 of 140, "DSP3210, Floating-Point, 32-bit, Multimedia DSP"

AT&T tried to enter the 3D acceleration market.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Texture-mapped 3D wasn't really on the radar in 1991. Flat-shaded 3D (which IMO looks better in flight simulators etc. in low-res) could easily be implemented with the blitter and/or CPU.

Your argument departed from Jay Miner's delivering workstation graphics for the masses.

Amiga OCS's 12-bit palette was inspired by higher-priced 12-bit color workstations.

SNES was released in 1990 with packed pixel Mode 7 and Mode 7 Direct Color and math power is enhanced with various DSP add-ons.

PC's Catacomb 3D was released in 1991.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima..._Stygian_Abyss
Paul Neurath's textured mapped 3D engine was demonstrated at the June 1990 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and impressed Origin Systems.

1990 Wing Commander was optimal with packed pixels, hence CD32 version has an Akiko use case.

Meanwhile,
Namco released System 21 in 1988 focused on 3D games. 1990 released Galaxian 3 on Namco System 21.

The founders of NVIDIA decided to bring SUN GX workstation graphics to the masses.

The founders of 3DFX decided to bring SGI workstation graphics to the masses.

The founders of ArtX decided to bring SGI workstation graphics to the masses.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

PCs used faster CPUs instead of DSP for doing texture-mapped 3D for one simple reason - a faster CPU makes everything faster using normal application code, and that code works on any machine - not just those with special DSP hardware.

There's a limit to pure CPU power, hence GPU acceleration which evolved from DSPs and RISC co-processors e.g. Intel i860 and AMD 29K.

FPU was added to the CPU package.
Vector units were added to the CPU package.
GPU was added to the CPU package.
NPU was added to the CPU package.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

There were use cases where DSP made sense, eg. in a modem or sound card, but not as a general purpose processor.

DSP3210 is the $20 budget job for a specific use case. Similar economic limitations applied to SNES, hence various DSP add-ons.

http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahistory/mikesinz.html
For DSP3210, Mike Sinz: It would also so really good speech and sound and math (talk about fast rendering times!)

AMD has a ~15 percent margin for its gaming APUs for PlayStation and Xbox One.

Motorola's profit margin for 68060 is beyond 15%. Hint: 68EC060's price is different from the premium priced 68060. The BOM costs for 68EC060 and 68060 are the same since they are the same chips. You can figure out Motorola's BOM cost + profit tolerance with 68EC020/68EC030/68EC040/68EC060 vs non-EC 68020/68030/68040/68060 price differences.

The main reason for DSP and GPUs' existence is to maximize math power per dollar. For the Blender 3D use case, GeForce RTX 4090 is cheaper than buying 128-cores Eypc.

[grelbfarlk]

My friend was using a 3.5" HDD to cover the background noise of his stupid brother when he'd call somebody on the phone he'd hold the receiver up to it and you could just hear those bearings grinding.
Well there was an incident where I got these shuriken and was showing him how accurate I was with them and flung one at the beer he was holding and it dropped out of his hand and fell on top of the drive perched on top of his A1200. With a loud thunk it hit the drive and it went *CLICK**WHIRRRRRRRR* Like it was spinning back up.
Just as soon as I registered it might be ok the beer foamed up and doused it. Which then it started a click of death and a few attempts at spinning up just went silent.
Turned it off and cleaned it up and I said well that sure was a shame.
Jerry said it was no big deal he'd just RMA it and all that was on it was Workbench a couple Sierra games and a 20MB slideshow of tasteful nudes in HAM8 format that he'd play with Viewtek. But it was ok, that was all backed up on floppies.
I called Conner and said my friend Jerry was trying to get a warranty replacement of a drive that was perched at an angle on top of his A1200. Since they wouldn't know otherwise, it was set at an angle and had a power brick holding up the corner, greatly reducing the lifespan of the drive.
So that's when I said so his name is Jerry ********** and gave his address, in case he calls and wants a replacement.
They thanked me for my care and concern for this 40MB IDE drive.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

It doesn't fit unless you give up the internal floppy drive, or can get a very slimline drive that fits over the keyboard ribbon. In both cases the drive's warranty is voided due to being mounted at an angle. A properly engineered solution would require a larger case.

https://www.lemonamiga.com/forum/vie...=4594&start=15
A1200's metal shield needs to be modified or removed entirely.

A1200's 2.5-inch HDD design assumptions were carried over from the A600 mistake.

A1200 with 3.5-inch HDD design assumptions would have a different case and metal shield design i.e. two 3.5-inch (FDD and HDD) devices at both ends of the case.

[Promilus]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Just in case you think this is a 'gotcha' - tilting it in any direction is bad for the mechanism, but in a normal installation (mounted between side plates) the only way you can tilt it is front to back.

1st - those suggestions weren't about tilting when drive ain't operational... and generally once it is installed you do NOT tilt the drive when it is spinning (that is obviously bad due to conservation of angular momentum)
2nd - Care to explain HOW it is bad for mechanism and doing spindle motor vertically is not? Head is handled through VCA (or VCM - voice coil motor). Orientation does not matter here. It's kept in place just over platter by creating air cushion which is generally independent on orientation. The only real issue was with spindle being up because weight of platters would pull down the shaft which MIGHT get bad at some point.

From Hitachi Travelstar E7K100 manual:-

Yes, yes... but your first claim was it cannot be tilted at all
And the other issue is the "failure rate" - I'd like to see how they matched failures with actual mounting position rather than mishandling drive (e.g. resonance, improper fastening, actually tilting during operation)

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Promilus

2nd - Care to explain HOW it is bad for mechanism and doing spindle motor vertically is not? Head is handled through VCA (or VCM - voice coil motor).

Essentially, as it is a rotating mass, you are creating a force on the ballbearing of the drive that is perpendicular to the graviation that pushes it to the side, and you are creating a force on the heads, too. I had here a Quantum drive that, by accident, was tilted in the computer, and as a result, it created bad sectors on its surface. Long story short - don't do that.

Originally Posted by Promilus

Orientation does not matter here. It's kept in place just over platter by creating air cushion which is generally independent on orientation.

This is not quite true, not in my experience. Laptop drives might have been more robust in this sense, but not the desktop drive I had.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

in my experience

One thing I love about these threads is that a singular occurence = HL3 confirmed!

Meanwhile,

According to several manufacturers, mounting a 3/5" hard drive horizontally, vertically, or sideways doesn't affect the hard drive life significantly.
These are statements taken from the hard drive literature at each manufacturer's website; it's four years old but things probably haven't changed much.
Hitachi:

The drive will operate in all axes (6 directions). Performance and error rate will stay within specification limits if the drive is operated in the other orientations from which it was formatted.

Western Digital:

Physical mounting of the drive: WD drives will function normally whether they are mounted sideways or upside down (any X, Y, Z orientation).

Maxtor:

The hard drive can be mounted in any orientation.

Samsung:

As long as it is securely attached to the chassis, hard disk drives may be mounted either horizontally or vertically depending on how your computer's case is constructed.

When asked if the drive could be mounted at askew angles, their official positions were:
Manufacturer Contact method Response ------- --------------------- --------------------- WD Tech support, email 90 degrees. Hitachi Hitachi documentation 90 degrees. Samsung Tech support, phone 90 degrees. Fujitsu Tech support, chat 90 degrees +-5. Seagate Tech support, email 90 degrees preferred, but diagonal OK. Maxtor Tech support, phone 90 degrees preferred, but in real world, whatever.

https://superuser.com/questions/5041...f-a-hard-drive

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

One thing I love about these threads is that a singular occurence = HL3 confirmed!

What else do you want to hear? I am not mass-testing harddrives against incorrect mouting, obviously. I'm only telling you what physics have to say about it, and that my experience matches physics. Drives are typically prepared for mounting in lying or standing positions (90 degrees angles), but if you mount them slanted, expect issues. This is what happened here.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

What else do you want to hear? I am not mass-testing harddrives against incorrect mouting, obviously. I'm only telling you what physics have to say about it, and that my experience matches physics. Drives are typically prepared for mounting in lying or standing positions (90 degrees angles), but if you mount them slanted, expect issues. This is what happened here.

There are many reasons why a drive might develop bad sectors and it might've been a coincidence in your case. And as you can see from the manufacturer replies the 90 deg is preferred, but some slants can be tolerated (and they probably also rely on physics but also do mass testing).

[TEG]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

There are many reasons why a drive might develop bad sectors and it might've been a coincidence in your case. And as you can see from the manufacturer replies the 90 deg is preferred, but some slants can be tolerated (and they probably also rely on physics but also do mass testing).

Clearly if you are the manufacturer of the computer you cannot take the risk of a such experience. 99,999% of hard drives are mounted at 90 deg angle, there is no data to backup you if you do otherwise on the long run on a lot of drives. You have to think industrial, ie mass production and so minimized all risks.

If you do otherwise your are simply not competent as a product designer as you put your company in potentially big troubles.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

There are many reasons why a drive might develop bad sectors and it might've been a coincidence in your case. And as you can see from the manufacturer replies the 90 deg is preferred, but some slants can be tolerated (and they probably also rely on physics but also do mass testing).

Again, there was a correlation between the bad sectors and the tilting angle. The mounting became loose, the drive accumulated bad sectors. I fixed it, the bad sectors stayed constant. Somewhat later, the same issue appeared again - opened the case, same problem again. Of course, that does not mean that this is "always the case" or "the reason", but there was certainly an observable correlation. Correlation does not mean causality, sure, but there is also some general physics that can predict such correlations, and thus the conclusion that the bad mounting was responsible for the issue seems to be quite plausible.

[babsimov]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Apart from the color, the Falcon was crap. Same horrible keyboard, same stupid angled function keys. Overly large and heavy just like its predecessors. Being the same was not good!

The st case design is better than the Amiga. Moreover, this is the case for the majority of boxes in the Atari ST range. The Falcon is in no way the same as the ST. It was a much better evolution of the line than the AGA was for the Amiga.

Commodore did reuse the A500 case in the A500+. IMO this should have been the last of that line. The introduction of AGA was the right time to bring out something new and different - instantly recognizable as the 'next generation'.

Reusing the 500 case (or that of the ST) was, on the contrary, a great way to save money for Commodore (and they needed it). The VIC 20 case was reused twice (C64 and C16). Was the C64 a failure because it used the same case as the VIC 20? Not at all, because inside the material was better. And it would have worked very well for an AA500 especially if the disk was standard (and even more so if the DSP was standard).


As for having a new box for the new generation, that was what was planned with the Amiga 1000+ (the first entry-level AGA). And, strangely, they had not at all chosen a ridiculous miniature case like that of the 600, but a desktop case with a detached keyboard like that of the 1000. Of course the 1000+ case would have been a better option than reusing the 500 case and an infinitely better option than something like the AA600.

The A600 failed because it was perceived as just being an A500 in a different case that missed out the numeric keypad and Zorro slot. This is why you hear people saying that it offered less than the A500. But an A600 with AGA (ie. A1200 in A600 case) would been a different story. Now you have more in a smaller package. With a faster CPU and 32 bit trapdoor slot you have something worth buying, in a package not much larger than a Sega Mega Drive.

The Amiga was a computer, not a console. You are the first one I have read who claims that having a case without a numeric keypad, without an external expansion port, without an internal expansion port, but with the AGA would have been better than the AGA in a case of Amiga 500 (or like the A1000+).

Because this hypothetical AA600 would have accumulated all the possible errors, no numeric keypad, no external expansion port (the 16-bit PCMCIA on a 32-bit machine was an error), no internal expansion port spacious enough to have the less usefulness. In short, it would have been a flop and discredited the AGA generation.

The non-expandable design of the 600 comes from Medhi Ali's instruction that the next Amiga should not be expandable because he couldn't stand the fact that GVP made more money with Amiga 500 expansions than Commodore did with its own!!!

Some time later he changed his mind seeing that his reaction created a panic among third party manufacturers who feared suffering the same fate as GVP. He again allowed the entry-level Amiga to be expandable.

And that's why the 1200 will be an enlarged version of the 600. But it will keep the 16 bit PCMCIA port useless !!! And as the case was not big enough it will be a 2.5" hard drive internally. Whereas by keeping the 500 case (as for the C64) all these problems were solved inexpensively. And Commodore need to save money everywhere.

The biggest mistake Commodore made was stopping production of the A500 before demand waned. They had a reason for doing that - AGA machines were supposed to be imminent. But they didn't arrive on time, forcing Commodore to plug the gap with the A500+ before even announcing it (was quite a shock to open your 'A500' box to find this new model inside!).

But even after introducing AGA machines they should have continued to make the A500 until sales dropped way off - just like they did with the C64.

Yes, the 500+ should have remained in the catalog as a non-AGA entry level to the Amiga. Above either an AGA model in the 500 case (if Commodore wanted to save money), or the 1000+ (to make it truly new generation).

The A600 was supposed to fill that role, but met with buyer resistance because it was different without being 'better'. There wasn't anything wrong with the case design except that it didn't look like the A500 - and so should not have been one. The time to introduce that case style was with the A1200.

No, the 600 is an aberration. Originally the 600 case was designed for an entry-level model to replace the C64. The goal was to sell it for $300. It was when they realized that this model cost more to produce than the 500 that they chose to rename it 600 and sell it instead of the 500.
If the 300 had been sold at its original price alongside the 500, I would have definitely understood the design of the case. It would have made it possible to expand the Amiga market with a really cheap model for those who couldn't buy a 500. But the 600 as we knew it was the worst of the worst ideas.

In 1987 I had a choice between an A1000 and the new A500. I didn't like the A500 case design at all. Why did it have to be so big? My Amstrad CPC664 managed to get everything in under the keyboard and still had heaps of room inside.

Tastes and colors...

Otherwise, inside the 500's case, there were still a lot more things than in that of the CPC, this surely explains it.

Because, if we go that way, the C64 was also smaller than the case of the 500 or the ST. And who complained at the time about the "excessive" size of the ST or Amiga boxes compared to the previous 8 bit ?

When the A600 came out I thought "Finally, an A500 class machine that I can love!". I'm sure I wasn't alone.

From my point of view, you are rather an exception. Because it would seem that History says the opposite, as you pointed out a little above. I quote you.

"The A600 failed because it was perceived as just being an A500 in a different case that missed out the numeric keypad and Zorro slot. This is why you hear people saying that it offered less than the A500."


The 600 was not a resounding flop, nor was it the machine that sent Commodore into bankruptcy by chance. Maybe many years later the 600 found an audience in retrogaming, but at the time, no one wanted it.

An A500 with AGA and built in hard drive would look like just any other A500, practically indistinguishable from the standard model. Just having a different nameplate would not be enough - it had to look radically different too! PC clone makers eventually figured this out. Why would customers be attracted to your machine, when it looks identical to all the other beige boxes out there?

Of course, i agree a new case would have been better, as was planned with the 1000+. But my goal was to save Commodore money by keeping a case that had been profitable for a long time. They did it with the C64 and no one complained. Even for the Falcon they did the same and who cared if it was the same case as the ST ?

Of course Amiga fans will say it doesn't matter what it looks like on the outside, it's the inside that matters.

Exactly, if the 500 case had been reused but I had had the AGA, an EC20 and a 40 MB 3.5" hard drive inside as standard, I would have skipped the case. Above all that compared to the 1200 we would have had a larger expansion hatch and especially a 32-bit side expansion port which would surely have seen great things happen.

But most customers are swayed by looks. Slapping new hardware in an old box doesn't work as well as giving it a new look to go with the new hardware

Of course, as already said, a new box would have been better for the general public outside the Amiga community, it is more easily recognizable as new generation. And that was planned with the 1000+. My perspective was to save money on the design of a new case. Commodore wasted quite a bit on the boxes (that of the 300/600, that of the 1200, that of the 1000+).

. What would you have thought of the Amiga if they had put it inside a C64 'bread bin' case?

Aside from the fact that using the C64 case to fit an Amiga motherboard isn't very realistic, the 300/600 case was precisely an attempt to do something like that. Well even with this “new” box, the public did not adhere to this model.
But, as I said, reusing the 500 case for the AGA wouldn't have bothered me that much at the time. Especially if it had made it possible to have the AGA at the entry level in 1990. And it's the same for case of the 2000, it would have been better to keep it for the 3000. It was enough to change the plastic facade with a facade modernized in the style of the 3000. This way Commodore avoided the obligation to continue producing 2500s for the videotoaster market, because the 3000 case was not compatible.
https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/b...ct.aspx?id=166

" Some time after the Amiga 3000 had been shipping, we discovered that Commdore was still shipping many, many Amiga 2500/30 systems. Why? People liked the larger box, especially for Video Toaster applications"

A way for Dave Haynie to say, half-heartedly, that the design of the 3000 case was not that good.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by babsimov

The st case design is better than the Amiga.

Am I the only one that found the slanted F-key design of the ST rather silly? It didn't look horrible, but for me certainly not better than the Amiga.