A600 - love it or hate it? - Page 3

pandy71 · 15 August 2015, 12:54

Don't like A600, never had A600 except two corrupted units and they will be used as a source for parts for new Amiga mobo.
For sure some people hate A600 - it is used as example of the worst Amiga ever made.

Mrs Beanbag · 15 August 2015, 17:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by pandy71

For sure some people hate A600 - it is used as example of the worst Amiga ever made.

well quite! that's why i started the thread, because it keeps being used so...

but there seems to be a lot of love for it, also, now i come to ask about it

dreamkatcha · 15 August 2015, 17:55

The A600 marked my escape from the tyranny of my evil big brother who used to hog the A500 which he wouldn't have had the chance to 'share' in the first place if it wasn't for me. That's the ultimate reason the A600 is manna sent from heaven. Case closed. Good night. :|

Khyron · 15 August 2015, 20:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by DisposableHero

You mean productivity software like Deluxe Paint 3, where you couldn't use some of the main features without the numeric keypad? After all, who ever buys a computer to make full use of the program that comes with it? Or anything that was to slow with the 68000 you were locekd into?

And the A500+ came with Kickstart 2 and (like the A600 and older A500) could easily be expanded to 2Mb or beyond. A standard A500 could be upgraded to Kickstart 2 and ECS, though admittedly that was an added expense. But at least you weren't left with 3/4 of a slow Amiga no matter how much money you threw at it.

You're wrong on almost every point about how ghastly and badly-executed an idea the A600 was.

I made no point on how it was executed, just cost at the time to have both at the same feature set..
Dpad emulators appeared in no-time, on CATSBBS, Genie, compuserve, BBS's etc.. resolving that issue with all OS friendly apps..

AGA/KS3.X probably rendered more apps/games non-working at the time than a lack of dpad, but it doesn't make the A1200/4000 "Ghastly" executed..

Mrs Beanbag · 15 August 2015, 20:58

i remember having enough compatibility problems on the A500+, it was KS 2.0 on that and A600 right? Kick 1.3 helped with most things.

FOL · 15 August 2015, 21:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

i remember having enough compatibility problems on the A500+, it was KS 2.0 on that and A600 right? Kick 1.3 helped with most things.

Aye, I even remember having a game in my A600 pack that didnt work, due to this. Why include a non working game,

.
I remember getting a cover disk with relokick and it was freedom to play all those non working games.

DisposableHero · 15 August 2015, 21:55

From what I've read, the A500+ made about 5-10% of previous games incompatible, the A600 added another 2-3%, whereas the A1200 failed with about a third of previous games. However, A1200 failures were mostly down to the processor (AGA graphics could be disabled from the early startup menu, and ReloKick worked just the same on the A1200), which was down to programmers being short-sighted and not realising that a faster Amiga was needed in future. Short-sightedness can be blamed for newer titles which didn't work on the A500+, as anything which ran on the A3000 would have automatically been fine on the Plus (and most likely the A1200 too). A600 incompatibilities (games, serious software and hardware) could not be predicted by developers (not helped by Commdore's lack of communication, of course). For develoeprs who'd put a lot of hard work in, it was simply the luck of the draw.

The inability to add accelerators (until about 1995 IIRC) is still a big issue to me - I'd've picked an A500+ over it if I needed an Amiga at the time. Red Baron, Links, Wing Commander, 4D Sports Boxing, AV8B Harrier - all a dead loss on an A600 no matter how much money you threw at the machine, at a time when PC games increasingly needed a lot more than the equivalent of the 68000. One way or another, I sincerely believe the launch of the A600 was the beginning of the end.

Predseda · 15 August 2015, 21:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by FOL

Aye, I even remember having a game in my A600 pack that didnt work, due to this. Why include a non working game,

.
I remember getting a cover disk with relokick and it was freedom to play all those non working games.

It is the same with Myth, that was bundled with Amiga 600 HD and was NDOS, so impossible to install. Typical Commodore...

Retro1234 · 15 August 2015, 22:08

Like the CD32 I was seriously disappointed at the time but now with the PCMCIA CF adapter and internal ide - its a nice little machine

Quote:

Originally Posted by Predseda

It is the same with Myth, that was bundled with Amiga 600 HD and was NDOS, so impossible to install.

So true - thank god for JST
but it didnt take much to fill my 20mb HD - HDs for Amiga were overpriced aswell.

FOL · 15 August 2015, 22:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Predseda

It is the same with Myth, that was bundled with Amiga 600 HD and was NDOS, so impossible to install. Typical Commodore...

Thats the pack I had, as I remember playing epic all the time. Strange thing is, I never even bothered trying MYTH, cant even remember what game looked like.
Coming from an A500 with A590, it was nice to have a smaller machine with internal HDD.

alexh · 16 August 2015, 23:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by desiv

I would think Gayle was really for the 1200, so not a huge loss there for this model specifically...

The ECS Gayle and the AA Gayle are different beasts.

desiv · 16 August 2015, 23:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexh

The ECS Gayle and the AA Gayle are different beasts.

True...
I thought they might have some things in common, but makes sense it would be very different..

desiv

dreamkatcha · 16 August 2015, 23:57

David Pleasance covered the reasons the A600 came to be in his recent interview with Dan Wood of Kookytech fame, though it's pretty much the same explanation given in the vid linked above.

Does anyone have one of the motherboards stamped with the A300 moniker?

FOL · 17 August 2015, 15:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by dreamkatcha

David Pleasance covered the reasons the A600 came to be in his recent interview with Dan Wood of Kookytech fame, though it's pretty much the same explanation given in the vid linked above.

Does anyone have one of the motherboards stamped with the A300 moniker?

Ive seen loads of them marked A300.

Predseda · 17 August 2015, 15:29

Early mobo revisions.

LuMan · 17 August 2015, 16:59

Got to say that I loved my A600. I also had the pack with EPIC and Myth - I think it was the massive 20MB hdd as well!!

I can see why folk got a bit p'd off with compatibility, and I was also narked at the unusable keyboard shortcuts for DPaint and Imagine that required a keypad, but the unit was just lovely. It was compact and sexy and I could shove the whole lot - computer, PSU, mouse, joystick and a swathe of games - in my rucksack and bike it to my mate's house to play it through his dad's 52" Panasonic TV and ridiculous Denon Separates HiFi system...

It served me perfectly well, until I got my A1200, that is.

Even now it sits next to me in my home office, always available for some WHDLoad fun.

So, in answer to the original question, A600 - Love it!

SilentBob · 19 August 2015, 00:39

I don't really -hate- it, I think it's a "cute" little Amiga. But I supposed I would have liked it more if it had been launched much earlier at the intended price point instead of costing as much as the A500+ did. But I much more prefer the A1200, since the lack of AGA on the A600 excludes those games that I like to play.

d4rk3lf · 28 August 2015, 20:34

Neither love it, nor hate it.
I agreed with all you, that release date for it was a very late. If it was released I don't know... in 1988... maybe it would been a sold better then A500.

One other thing is surprising me. I've read a tons of: "Amiga 600 is beautiful case, A500 is the worst case ever".
For me, it's totally opposite. I love amiga 500 cases, and I love because they have that long and wide keyboard. I hate that 1200 "extrusions" from the side of the keyboard. A600 is looking to me as a toy.
A500 looks like a bad ass computer.

Well, it's just the question of taste I guess.

PortuguesePilot · 28 August 2015, 20:49

Has pros and cons, naturally. When it came out I distinctly remember that I did not like it. Felt like a step back. Lacked the numeric keypad (which rendered it "incompatible" with some games and programs), had the same 7MHz M68000 as the regular A500, had the same 880kb DD disk drive as the A500 instead of an 1.5MB+ HD one, lacked the AGA chipset, the Kickstart 2.05 made it incompatible with several (far too many) old OCS games, the plastic it was made of felt cheap and flimsy when compared with that of the A500 and, finally, it was too darn expensive to be a "baby miggy".

But, as I said before, the A600 has its strengths too, especially when compared to the bone-stock A500. It was possible to add more memory without hardware tampering, had more (and better) expansion possibilities (the ability to have a bootable ATA harddrive or a CD-Drive, for instance, without much fuss), had "Super Agnes" and had a PCMCIA slot. So, in the long run, the A600 is better for "upgrading" than the old A500 and, when well upgraded, is a far more capable machine.

DisposableHero · 28 August 2015, 22:47

The lack of a keypad (not even an optional add-on) totally outweighs the benefits of the smaller case (even that it did away with the cumbersome modulator). With the Plus, Commodore basically said to game developers "you know those games you developed before our Kickstart 2 guidelines were issued, or which ignored them? They won't work on our new low-end machine, based on hardware that's already there in the high-end machine". Similar story with the A1200 - it's not their fault companies weren't checking their games on faster processors.

However, with the A600 they basically said "you know those flight sims and strategy games you worked so hard on - technical, complex, slavishly converted from much mroe powerful PCs for the European market? Or those games you're developing with faster processors in mind? They won't work on the new machine we gave you no warning of or clue towards. Tough luck". And as for the productivity and business market - they were effectively told to clear off, the Amiga's a games machine now. They weren't even made officially aware that the A1200 was coming soon.

And did the A600 get a CD-ROM drive? My recollection was that only A500s with 1Meg of Chip RAM had one.

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15 August 2015, 12:54	#41
pandy71 Registered User Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: PL? Posts: 2,871	Don't like A600, never had A600 except two corrupted units and they will be used as a source for parts for new Amiga mobo. For sure some people hate A600 - it is used as example of the worst Amiga ever made.

15 August 2015, 17:55	#43
dreamkatcha I've got a new byline Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 1,219	The A600 marked my escape from the tyranny of my evil big brother who used to hog the A500 which he wouldn't have had the chance to 'share' in the first place if it wasn't for me. That's the ultimate reason the A600 is manna sent from heaven. Case closed. Good night. :\|

15 August 2015, 20:58	#45
Mrs Beanbag Glastonbridge Software Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Edinburgh/Scotland Posts: 2,243	i remember having enough compatibility problems on the A500+, it was KS 2.0 on that and A600 right? Kick 1.3 helped with most things.

15 August 2015, 21:55	#47
DisposableHero Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: England Posts: 188	From what I've read, the A500+ made about 5-10% of previous games incompatible, the A600 added another 2-3%, whereas the A1200 failed with about a third of previous games. However, A1200 failures were mostly down to the processor (AGA graphics could be disabled from the early startup menu, and ReloKick worked just the same on the A1200), which was down to programmers being short-sighted and not realising that a faster Amiga was needed in future. Short-sightedness can be blamed for newer titles which didn't work on the A500+, as anything which ran on the A3000 would have automatically been fine on the Plus (and most likely the A1200 too). A600 incompatibilities (games, serious software and hardware) could not be predicted by developers (not helped by Commdore's lack of communication, of course). For develoeprs who'd put a lot of hard work in, it was simply the luck of the draw. The inability to add accelerators (until about 1995 IIRC) is still a big issue to me - I'd've picked an A500+ over it if I needed an Amiga at the time. Red Baron, Links, Wing Commander, 4D Sports Boxing, AV8B Harrier - all a dead loss on an A600 no matter how much money you threw at the machine, at a time when PC games increasingly needed a lot more than the equivalent of the 68000. One way or another, I sincerely believe the launch of the A600 was the beginning of the end.

16 August 2015, 23:57	#53
dreamkatcha I've got a new byline Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 1,219	David Pleasance covered the reasons the A600 came to be in his recent interview with Dan Wood of Kookytech fame, though it's pretty much the same explanation given in the vid linked above. Does anyone have one of the motherboards stamped with the A300 moniker?

17 August 2015, 15:29	#55
Predseda Puttymoon inhabitant Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Tromaville Age: 46 Posts: 7,562	Early mobo revisions.

17 August 2015, 16:59	#56
LuMan Amigan - an' lovin' it!! Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Nottingham, UK Age: 55 Posts: 557	Got to say that I loved my A600. I also had the pack with EPIC and Myth - I think it was the massive 20MB hdd as well!! I can see why folk got a bit p'd off with compatibility, and I was also narked at the unusable keyboard shortcuts for DPaint and Imagine that required a keypad, but the unit was just lovely. It was compact and sexy and I could shove the whole lot - computer, PSU, mouse, joystick and a swathe of games - in my rucksack and bike it to my mate's house to play it through his dad's 52" Panasonic TV and ridiculous Denon Separates HiFi system... It served me perfectly well, until I got my A1200, that is. Even now it sits next to me in my home office, always available for some WHDLoad fun. So, in answer to the original question, A600 - Love it!

19 August 2015, 00:39	#57
SilentBob Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Norway Age: 49 Posts: 246	I don't really -hate- it, I think it's a "cute" little Amiga. But I supposed I would have liked it more if it had been launched much earlier at the intended price point instead of costing as much as the A500+ did. But I much more prefer the A1200, since the lack of AGA on the A600 excludes those games that I like to play.

28 August 2015, 20:34	#58
d4rk3lf Registered User Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Novi Sad, Serbia Posts: 1,683	Neither love it, nor hate it. I agreed with all you, that release date for it was a very late. If it was released I don't know... in 1988... maybe it would been a sold better then A500. One other thing is surprising me. I've read a tons of: "Amiga 600 is beautiful case, A500 is the worst case ever". For me, it's totally opposite. I love amiga 500 cases, and I love because they have that long and wide keyboard. I hate that 1200 "extrusions" from the side of the keyboard. A600 is looking to me as a toy. A500 looks like a bad ass computer. Well, it's just the question of taste I guess.

28 August 2015, 20:49	#59
PortuguesePilot Global Moderator Join Date: May 2013 Location: Setúbal, Portugal Posts: 614	Has pros and cons, naturally. When it came out I distinctly remember that I did not like it. Felt like a step back. Lacked the numeric keypad (which rendered it "incompatible" with some games and programs), had the same 7MHz M68000 as the regular A500, had the same 880kb DD disk drive as the A500 instead of an 1.5MB+ HD one, lacked the AGA chipset, the Kickstart 2.05 made it incompatible with several (far too many) old OCS games, the plastic it was made of felt cheap and flimsy when compared with that of the A500 and, finally, it was too darn expensive to be a "baby miggy". But, as I said before, the A600 has its strengths too, especially when compared to the bone-stock A500. It was possible to add more memory without hardware tampering, had more (and better) expansion possibilities (the ability to have a bootable ATA harddrive or a CD-Drive, for instance, without much fuss), had "Super Agnes" and had a PCMCIA slot. So, in the long run, the A600 is better for "upgrading" than the old A500 and, when well upgraded, is a far more capable machine.

28 August 2015, 22:47	#60
DisposableHero Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: England Posts: 188	The lack of a keypad (not even an optional add-on) totally outweighs the benefits of the smaller case (even that it did away with the cumbersome modulator). With the Plus, Commodore basically said to game developers "you know those games you developed before our Kickstart 2 guidelines were issued, or which ignored them? They won't work on our new low-end machine, based on hardware that's already there in the high-end machine". Similar story with the A1200 - it's not their fault companies weren't checking their games on faster processors. However, with the A600 they basically said "you know those flight sims and strategy games you worked so hard on - technical, complex, slavishly converted from much mroe powerful PCs for the European market? Or those games you're developing with faster processors in mind? They won't work on the new machine we gave you no warning of or clue towards. Tough luck". And as for the productivity and business market - they were effectively told to clear off, the Amiga's a games machine now. They weren't even made officially aware that the A1200 was coming soon. And did the A600 get a CD-ROM drive? My recollection was that only A500s with 1Meg of Chip RAM had one.

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