Amiga - most robust machine ever?

Magno Boots · 18 April 2006, 00:06

Having read lots of old posts, I've noted that many users have encountered problems with their Amigas over the years.

I find this hard to believe!

I've owned many of these machines (500 / 600 / 1200) and have never had a problem with any of them apart from the odd drive failing.

Infact they have been taken apart, dropped, stood on in anger and one was even mistaken for a urinal once after a very heavy drinking session.

I cannot imagine a modern machine being plugged, unplugged, reset fifty times every hour, turned off whilst loading disks, having a knife with superglue on it thrust into it's drive every other day, thrown in a damp shed for two tears, and still found to be working perfectly.

Remarkable machines which will stand the test of time!

I'll wait for the day when Timeteam unearth an Amiga and plug it straight into the mains and hear it clicking away.

So if you've got an Amiga which doesn't work, then you've been fiddling with it tooo much!

DDNI · 18 April 2006, 00:34

I used to think that, then my floppy chip died.... Time gets us all

BippyM · 18 April 2006, 00:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magno Boots

having a knife with superglue on it thrust into it's drive every other day

I did that with my a500... it died

Blew a CIA chip and killed drive heads

mr_a500 · 18 April 2006, 00:36

I find it hard to believe that somebody would piss on an Amiga. "So if you've got an Amiga which doesn't work, then you've been pissing on it tooo much!"

But seriously, all old computers (uh, except maybe the Spectrum) were built with much higher quality than computers today. Computers these days are not built to last and are expected to be replaced in a year or two. Maybe they design them to fail so people will buy again (lessons from the auto industry). Obviously profit margins also have something to do with it. Old keyboards were solid and cost about $200 - new ones are flimsy cheapo-plastic and cost less than $40.

Unknown_K · 18 April 2006, 01:08

Old machines last because they were simpler machines that ran much slower and generated much less heat. How can you compare a A500 that ran at 8Mhz to a new 4Ghz machine where the CPU itslef puts out more heat then the whole A500 did.

Also just because you have an A500 that works doesn't mean millions of others have not died out and have been trashed long ago.

Mick_AKA · 18 April 2006, 01:11

My current black A1200 had a pint of beer spilled over it, after a night in the airing cupboard and a quick clean she was back again! although I have to say shes now on her 3rd internal drive, funny dont you think that ive yet to have any external amiga drives die on me, even my really old cumana one thats probarbly seen more use than any other drive I have!

As for the quality of modern computers, well yes, it generally sucks!
You would'nt believe how many times the machines at work die resulting in me raiding the display case in the main office and finishing letters or memos on an osbourne or a Mac SE

redblade · 18 April 2006, 09:26

I've gone thru about 4-5 screens

dreamkatcha · 18 April 2006, 10:14

Have any of you bought a 'new' Amiga? I mean the ones that have been sitting in the original box since day one. How do they stand the test of time?

StarEye · 18 April 2006, 11:06

Thing is, nowadays computer parts are made for the consume and dispose mentality. They're not meant to last. There's no computers in the sense that Amiga was a computer these days, they are mainly a mix of upgradable parts put together as an momentarily solution.

Strings · 18 April 2006, 12:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by dreamkatcha

Have any of you bought a 'new' Amiga? I mean the ones that have been sitting in the original box since day one. How do they stand the test of time?

I've got myself an unused Amiga500 Cartoon Classics boxset. The one that came with Deluxe Paint, Lemmings, Simpsons and all that jazz.

It looks like its stood the test of time pretty well. Can't vouch for whether it works or not.. but its not been used so I can't see why not.

Parsec · 18 April 2006, 12:12

Coming from an age of C64 and Amiga computers I always thought that electronic stuff lasted pretty much forever.

It's certainly true that modern electronics are far worse in this respect. I've had to replace the house alarm box which wasn't old but suddenly started going off on it's own, and more recently I've had to replace a broadband router which seemed to be working fine but made it look like there was a fault with the connection as it kept dropping.

A lot of it is to do with the cheap components that are used these days to cut costs. So you end up with things like the capacitor problem on PC motherboards.

I really hope CBM hardware continues to last as it's starting to get old. I'm dreading getting the A1200 out and firing it up again, mind you it is an Escom jobbie so it's not as old as some.

Doc Mindie · 18 April 2006, 13:06

I've got a gool ol' C= amde A1200....... still working, despite my best attempts to poke it with new HD's and junk

Galaxy · 18 April 2006, 13:34

The floppy drives used in 1200s certainly seem to have been of lower quality than the ones used in other amigas. I've had several drives that have reached their end of life and they have all been 1200 ones, despite the fact that my A600 got hammered as much as the 1200 (as did our 500)

mr_a500 · 18 April 2006, 14:17

Quote:

Have any of you bought a 'new' Amiga? I mean the ones that have been sitting in the original box since day one. How do they stand the test of time?

My Amiga 500 was bought new in 1989 and I'm using it to type this post. The only thing that has ever gone wrong is a broken floppy eject button.

About 9 years ago I worked in a computer factory doing "repairs" (actually testing & replacing parts) and I got to see the crap quality of the parts. It was unbelievable how defective everything was. After testing and finding a bad drive, I would get a new one, find out that it was defective too, get a new one - another defect! In many cases, new computers had multiple failures. It's hard to isolate a problem when there's a bad motherboard, bad harddrive, bad ports and a screwed up Windows image. (and this is on a brand new computer!) I pitied the people who bought the computers and I vowed never to buy a PC.

alkis21 · 18 April 2006, 14:26

Everybody can own an Amiga that's still alive and well after all those years.. but I still have my Commodore 1081 monitor which I had bought on 1987! Can you beat that?

If that monitor ever dies, I think I will have a little ceremony.

Mick_AKA · 18 April 2006, 15:55

My CUB monitor I use with my BBC and some of my editing equipment must well be over 20 years old by now and still going strong, the picture on it is excellent!

scifi · 18 April 2006, 18:58

My first A500 was bought in 1987, during Christmas season...
Unfortunately, the computer was faulty from the beggining. After a few hours (2h) trying to get acquainted with Workbench and Amiga Extras suddenly the monitor turns to red.

Everything I've tried ended to nothing. I was hopeless because the shops had closed for Christmas and I was the only (perhaps..) boy in Athens with such an incredible machine in my grasp and I couldn't get it to work.

When I got it back to MEMOX (the exclusive dealer in Greece) they said that they will replace it with a new one, because they don't know what had happened! They had never encountered a similar problem before!

After the replacement, the new floppy was a bit more rough when was working but the same unit with the same monitor lasts till now, 19 years later

Overdoc · 18 April 2006, 19:31

@scifi:

That was probably one colour connection going off on the cable or a loose solder joint.

I have had tons of Amigas going thru my hands for repair and also about equally as many Commodore C64.
So, comparing these two, the Amiga (mostly A-500) electronically is much more durable than the C64. Many C64 die with a black screen syndrom, but almost no A-500 die like that ! I have seen A-500 boards which were spilt over with Coca Cola or similar, or have been lying in some moisty area for years, everything rusted and deteriorated, but...the board was still working !!!
But as good as the A-500 electronics are, as bad are the drives

From 10 A-500 I see about half of them have a dirty, misalingned or simply electronically dead drive !

So, comparing the C64 and A-500, the A-500 is definitely the better ( = more durable) designed machine.

On the other hand, I still have a Pentium 200MMX board running since '97, every day for several hours, and it still works fine

So, modern electronics ( at least those from '97) seem to last for long as well

scifi · 18 April 2006, 19:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Overdoc

@scifi:

That was probably one colour connection going off on the cable or a loose solder joint.

Well, I don't think that there was a problem with the cable because they used their own leads to connect it! I don't know if the broblem was on the connection port on the main unit, though... These machines were pretty new for them (the technicians I mean) and they didn't want to spent so much time on them to crack their heads to fix them!

Bloodwych · 18 April 2006, 23:48

Wow, quite a few issues in this thread!

I've been quite lucky really - never had many electronic device failures. In fact, the only ones I can think that gave me issues were old VCRs when they started chewing up tapes.

None of my Amigas have ever shown any issues - and my floppy collection believe it or not still seems to work fine! All my old PCs and consoles still work also, tested them last week. Even my Grandstand electronic scramble game fires up like a good un!

Must have a good stable electricity supply or something!

18 April 2006, 00:06	#1
Magno Boots Zone Friend Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Hertfordshire Posts: 688	Amiga - most robust machine ever? Having read lots of old posts, I've noted that many users have encountered problems with their Amigas over the years. I find this hard to believe! I've owned many of these machines (500 / 600 / 1200) and have never had a problem with any of them apart from the odd drive failing. Infact they have been taken apart, dropped, stood on in anger and one was even mistaken for a urinal once after a very heavy drinking session. I cannot imagine a modern machine being plugged, unplugged, reset fifty times every hour, turned off whilst loading disks, having a knife with superglue on it thrust into it's drive every other day, thrown in a damp shed for two tears, and still found to be working perfectly. Remarkable machines which will stand the test of time! I'll wait for the day when Timeteam unearth an Amiga and plug it straight into the mains and hear it clicking away. So if you've got an Amiga which doesn't work, then you've been fiddling with it tooo much!

18 April 2006, 18:58	#17
scifi Resurrected... Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Athens/Greece Age: 50 Posts: 290	Owner of a brand new Amiga 500... My first A500 was bought in 1987, during Christmas season... Unfortunately, the computer was faulty from the beggining. After a few hours (2h) trying to get acquainted with Workbench and Amiga Extras suddenly the monitor turns to red. Everything I've tried ended to nothing. I was hopeless because the shops had closed for Christmas and I was the only (perhaps..) boy in Athens with such an incredible machine in my grasp and I couldn't get it to work. When I got it back to MEMOX (the exclusive dealer in Greece) they said that they will replace it with a new one, because they don't know what had happened! They had never encountered a similar problem before! After the replacement, the new floppy was a bit more rough when was working but the same unit with the same monitor lasts till now, 19 years later

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18 April 2006, 00:34	#2
DDNI Targ Explorer Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Northern Ireland Posts: 5,433	I used to think that, then my floppy chip died.... Time gets us all

18 April 2006, 00:36	#4
mr_a500 Amiga-based Cyborg Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 808	I find it hard to believe that somebody would piss on an Amiga. "So if you've got an Amiga which doesn't work, then you've been pissing on it tooo much!" But seriously, all old computers (uh, except maybe the Spectrum) were built with much higher quality than computers today. Computers these days are not built to last and are expected to be replaced in a year or two. Maybe they design them to fail so people will buy again (lessons from the auto industry). Obviously profit margins also have something to do with it. Old keyboards were solid and cost about $200 - new ones are flimsy cheapo-plastic and cost less than $40.

18 April 2006, 01:08	#5
Unknown_K Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio/USA Age: 55 Posts: 1,380	Old machines last because they were simpler machines that ran much slower and generated much less heat. How can you compare a A500 that ran at 8Mhz to a new 4Ghz machine where the CPU itslef puts out more heat then the whole A500 did. Also just because you have an A500 that works doesn't mean millions of others have not died out and have been trashed long ago.

18 April 2006, 01:11	#6
Mick_AKA crusader of light Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Stone, Staffordshire. Posts: 1,151	My current black A1200 had a pint of beer spilled over it, after a night in the airing cupboard and a quick clean she was back again! although I have to say shes now on her 3rd internal drive, funny dont you think that ive yet to have any external amiga drives die on me, even my really old cumana one thats probarbly seen more use than any other drive I have! As for the quality of modern computers, well yes, it generally sucks! You would'nt believe how many times the machines at work die resulting in me raiding the display case in the main office and finishing letters or memos on an osbourne or a Mac SE

18 April 2006, 09:26	#7
redblade Zone Friend Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Middle Earth Age: 40 Posts: 2,127	I've gone thru about 4-5 screens

18 April 2006, 10:14	#8
dreamkatcha I've got a new byline Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 1,219	Have any of you bought a 'new' Amiga? I mean the ones that have been sitting in the original box since day one. How do they stand the test of time?

18 April 2006, 11:06	#9
StarEye Zone Friend Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Norway Age: 46 Posts: 987	Thing is, nowadays computer parts are made for the consume and dispose mentality. They're not meant to last. There's no computers in the sense that Amiga was a computer these days, they are mainly a mix of upgradable parts put together as an momentarily solution.

18 April 2006, 12:12	#11
Parsec Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Lancashire Age: 49 Posts: 434	Coming from an age of C64 and Amiga computers I always thought that electronic stuff lasted pretty much forever. It's certainly true that modern electronics are far worse in this respect. I've had to replace the house alarm box which wasn't old but suddenly started going off on it's own, and more recently I've had to replace a broadband router which seemed to be working fine but made it look like there was a fault with the connection as it kept dropping. A lot of it is to do with the cheap components that are used these days to cut costs. So you end up with things like the capacitor problem on PC motherboards. I really hope CBM hardware continues to last as it's starting to get old. I'm dreading getting the A1200 out and firing it up again, mind you it is an Escom jobbie so it's not as old as some.

18 April 2006, 13:06	#12
Doc Mindie In deep Trouble Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Manchester, Made in Norway Age: 51 Posts: 841	I've got a gool ol' C= amde A1200....... still working, despite my best attempts to poke it with new HD's and junk

18 April 2006, 13:34	#13
Galaxy Registered User Join Date: May 2004 Location: Canberra, Australia Age: 46 Posts: 1,417	The floppy drives used in 1200s certainly seem to have been of lower quality than the ones used in other amigas. I've had several drives that have reached their end of life and they have all been 1200 ones, despite the fact that my A600 got hammered as much as the 1200 (as did our 500)

18 April 2006, 14:26	#15
alkis21 Zone Friend Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Athens, Greece Age: 49 Posts: 1,409	Everybody can own an Amiga that's still alive and well after all those years.. but I still have my Commodore 1081 monitor which I had bought on 1987! Can you beat that? If that monitor ever dies, I think I will have a little ceremony.

18 April 2006, 15:55	#16
Mick_AKA crusader of light Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Stone, Staffordshire. Posts: 1,151	My CUB monitor I use with my BBC and some of my editing equipment must well be over 20 years old by now and still going strong, the picture on it is excellent!

18 April 2006, 19:31	#18
Overdoc Commodore Collector Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Austria Age: 53 Posts: 944	@scifi: That was probably one colour connection going off on the cable or a loose solder joint. I have had tons of Amigas going thru my hands for repair and also about equally as many Commodore C64. So, comparing these two, the Amiga (mostly A-500) electronically is much more durable than the C64. Many C64 die with a black screen syndrom, but almost no A-500 die like that ! I have seen A-500 boards which were spilt over with Coca Cola or similar, or have been lying in some moisty area for years, everything rusted and deteriorated, but...the board was still working !!! But as good as the A-500 electronics are, as bad are the drives From 10 A-500 I see about half of them have a dirty, misalingned or simply electronically dead drive ! So, comparing the C64 and A-500, the A-500 is definitely the better ( = more durable) designed machine. On the other hand, I still have a Pentium 200MMX board running since '97, every day for several hours, and it still works fine So, modern electronics ( at least those from '97) seem to last for long as well

18 April 2006, 23:48	#20
Bloodwych Moderator Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: I'm behind you! Posts: 3,763	Wow, quite a few issues in this thread! I've been quite lucky really - never had many electronic device failures. In fact, the only ones I can think that gave me issues were old VCRs when they started chewing up tapes. None of my Amigas have ever shown any issues - and my floppy collection believe it or not still seems to work fine! All my old PCs and consoles still work also, tested them last week. Even my Grandstand electronic scramble game fires up like a good un! Must have a good stable electricity supply or something!

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