Amiga models

[tesla]

I have a question for you European Amiga Lovers.

I am in the USA. Although at one time I owned a 500, (Never saw a 600, 1200, CDTV, etc), I never took those models seriously. Why? Well, at least at that time, those cheaper models had limited expandability, plus, I liked the "big box" design more.

I mean, why should I have to hang a bunch of stuff off of an Amiga that obviously was a "cost reduced" design, and never designed to be used like a 2000, etc, when I could have a 2000, 2500, 3000 or 4000 and have the best?

Now, I understand that when Amiga's were new, the big box versions were very expensive, and the 500 was much cheaper. That is why I bought my 500, but now that Amiga's are all used, are you throwing good money after bad expanding a computer that takes expensive custom electronics to make it more like a big box design? Why not just sell that 500, 600, etc, and purchase a better Amiga?

The only thing I can figure is that the European market wasn't getting the big box designs. They cost more in Europe? Help me guys, I'm confused!

To this day, when Commodore is long since gone, couldn't you Europeans get a big-box cheap, and have better expandibility?


Thx for your comments/education!

[jimbob]

Big boxes are just rarer over here. At least in the UK I think so. 5/6/1200 were very common and pretty easy to come by although the price seems to be going up lately probably because of all the great new options. The 600 and 1200 in particular benefit a lot from the having easy file tranfer from PC via PCMCIA and cheap mass storage via built in IDE.

1000s are pretty rare and mostly of collectable interest, 2000s only really offer Zorro over a wedge model which isn't that important since realistically most people aren't using an Amiga as their real work computer. 3000 and 4000 are still highly prized and highly priced. Probably they are a bit more complex to maintain as well. If everyone who wanted to could just sell the 500 or 600 and grab a big box on the cheap they probably would.

[demolition]

Most people bought the 500 for gaming, and that just required a cheap 512kB RAM expansion and you could play 99% of games out there for the Amiga as they were intended.

With the 1200 you could get a decent choice of various expansions at acceptable prices, whereas with the 4000 everything was just expensive, which is why the 1200 was a big hit despite being a low-cost version. Many people used them with HDDs and CDROM drives and since you could use cheap IDE stuff you could get a versatile computer for low money. It seemed like a good balance between a simple gaming machine and a serious computer.

I knew many people with 500s, 600s and 1200s (both teenagers like myself and adults), but never knew anyone with a big box Amiga.

[tesla]

Yes, I guess Commodore had different marketing strategies over in Europe. It seems to be the opposite over here, the 500 being popular, but the rest of them were the big box models.

[Loedown]

Here in Australia it was common for people to have the A500 but far rarer for people to have the big box Amiga models mostly because of the cost, Commodore wasn't really seen as a 'business' machine and with the rapid increases in technology from 286 to 386 and 486 then that really was the death of the big box Amiga except for people who were heavily into graphics, even the music capability was the same between the classic wedge and the big box units.

When I began doing my apprenticeship with NEC they were still doing 8086 / 8088 things and had a type of unit there that was being serviced, although phased out, with an 8" drive. Their chips the V20 and V30 were faster than the Intel chips but Intel successfully sued them for Copyright. They also later had a PC unit that was basically a 486 with some capability issues relating to software, I don't recall the name.

Commodore could have had a better run in Australia but they just missed the mark and were more seen as a specialist machine and if they had come up with a design that not only was Amiga compatible but also PC compatible that would have been a real winner, the XT Bridgeboard was good but not a complete idea, just a hash in my opinion.

Most of my friends who grew up with C64 made the switch to Amiga including myself because people saw the Amiga as the upgraded C64, same games, better graphics, better sound.

[T_hairy_bootson]

I dont know if I agree 100% Loedown, I do remember seeing quite a few A2000s back in the day during the a500 era. What I didnt see a lot of of was AGA machines, A1200s and A4000s. By that stage the PC was well and trully king. Wolfenstein3D, Links386 and VGA slideshow screensavers were wowing people even before windows 95 and full 3D acceleration came to the party.

Only place I saw AGA amigas for sale was at maxwells, whereas the OCS machines could be bought at regular department stores.

[tesla]

Loedown, I think you hit the nail on the head.

Unfortunately, I do see the logic of the C-64 and the Amiga, (especially the 500 wedge-type designs) as being brothers. In retrospect, I wonder if that kinship hurt Commodore in the long run. I remember at the time, I wanted a "real" computer, and the 500 wasn't it, that is why I sold my 500 and got a 2000 and then 3000T.

I also remember the uninformed sneering at Commodore computers, back when I had my C=64/B-128. Again, at least some of it was the perceived value of a computer that wasn't a "business computer", but a "toy", unlike an IBM, or clone, like a Kaypro.

Yes, there wasn't much business software available for the Commodore computers, (at least in the US), but I did know of at least two people who ran their business off of a C=64, so it was possible. However, this was the exception for the general public.

Since I am technically oriented, I was also very impressed at the time with the architecture of the Amiga, especially the multiple dedicated processors, and sneered at the lowly b/w of the PC's and Macintosh.

Here, the one thing that saved the big-box Amiga's, (I believe) was the Toaster. The TV stations bought LOTS of them to use to create graphics on the cheap, leaving the dedicated boxes far-behind. That is probably a huge reason why it is so easy to get a 2000/3000/4000 here, and why the price of a Toaster has come down, since they must have finally replaced the Toaster/Amiga design with something else. I suspect the death knell of the Amiga in Pro applications was Hi-definition tv, which over here has taken over from low-def TV which is now well on it's way to going the way of the VCR and Laserdisc.

Just imagine if Commodore was brought back, and again, came up with a high-def version of the Amiga?

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by T_hairy_bootson

I dont know if I agree 100% Loedown, I do remember seeing quite a few A2000s back in the day during the a500 era. What I didnt see a lot of of was AGA machines, A1200s and A4000s. By that stage the PC was well and trully king. Wolfenstein3D, Links386 and VGA slideshow screensavers were wowing people even before windows 95 and full 3D acceleration came to the party.

Only place I saw AGA amigas for sale was at maxwells, whereas the OCS machines could be bought at regular department stores.

My introduction to A4000 machines was when my friend, who is now deceased, purchased the above machine with the 24 bit Opal Vision card. I was blown away by what it and he could do, I don't come from a graphics background but I could certainly appreciate the work he did.

@Tesla

The C64 has some good benefits for smaller business and while there were some commercial releases, thing GEOS and alike that could be used for business you would be better off writing a nice tidy Assembler code with all the Kernal calls and direct disk commands. It was like a forerunner to C and Commodore took the idea and made it good for the time, just PC has now made it far better and worse in relation to Windows. Linux is a tech head option and Apple is for people with excess money and lowly skill set + egomania. Anyone who owns an Apple and can't have a laugh well consider I cannot program in anything higher than BASIC.

[jimbob]

Interesting what you say about the toaster Tesla. I might be talking out of my ass here but my impression is that in the UK TV business at that time, if your weren't huge, (BBC or ITV basically), you didn't exist. No local cable stations, etc. Therefore no niche for affordable professional video gear. I would be interested to know exactly how many toaster systems were sold here compared to US.

Like others have said, I knew loads of people with wedge amigas but nobody with a big box. To this day, I've never even seen a big box amiga in person.

[Jope]

Not very many toasters were sold outside USA, since it was NTSC only and Newtek never produced a PAL version.

[tesla]

Jimbob,

Just like I have never seen another Amiga wedge-design that isn't a 500.
I can't accept that Europeans couldn't afford the Big Box designs.

Could it be, as some here have suggested, that the Amiga was never accepted in Europe as anything but a game machine?

Originally Posted by jimbob

Like others have said, I knew loads of people with wedge amigas but nobody with a big box. To this day, I've never even seen a big box amiga in person.

[tesla]

There must be a good reason why Newtek never made a Pal version of the Toaster, Jope. (and I always had the impression they did, seems like it could have been engineered to use a couple of jumpers to switch).

I realize that the BBC and ITV had/has? a stranglehold on the UK market, but what about the rest of Europe?

Originally Posted by Jope

Not very many toasters were sold outside USA, since it was NTSC only and Newtek never produced a PAL version.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by tesla

Just like I have never seen another Amiga wedge-design that isn't a 500.
I can't accept that Europeans couldn't afford the Big Box designs.

Here in Finland an A500 set was around 3500-5000 FIM, and the big box machines were around 10000-14000 FIM. A survivable salary for your average "working class" man was around 10000 a month back then before taxes (so you got to keep three quarters of that 10k maybe?).

And especially since most Amigas were bought as games machines, that double expense for a big box machine wasn't really justified.

[Hewitson]

It always upsets me when I think that Amiga was mainly used as a games machine. Workbench 1.x did suck, but 2.x/3.x is the fastest, easiest to use, and most efficient operating system ever made. It's a real shame that most Amiga users did not even get to experience it.

[tesla]

hewitson, I find this difficult to fantom, but your avatar *looks* like a famous tv personality here, "Judge Judy"

Could I be right?

If so, tell us more

[alenppc]

I lived in Europe at the time, and the reason why the 600/1200 did so well was not that they were necessarily seen as games machines but sort of destined to the teenager market, since they allowed you to play games and do your school work on.

Basically the concept of the "home computer" established by C64/ZX Spectrum and others.

Big box amigas were priced way out of range for most families and were only widely used by TV stations. Even without a toaster, professional genlocks were all you needed back in the analogue days.

So the vast majority of teens in the 90s had Amigas, PCs were seen as unfit for this purpose (although this notion will vary slightly country by country), plus they were too expensive for this purpose: same as big box Amigas.

Hence, most of us grew up with the Amigas and learned to love them.

Now, the reason why toaster wasn't available for PAL is of a technical nature. It simply wasn't technically possible to adapt one to PAL due to the nature of the signal.

[hansel75]

Regarding Commodore computers here in Australia in my younger days, i had my C64 and A600 while my amiga friends had an A500, A1500, 2xA2000's, an A3000 and an A1200 in which i had used most of them on an occasional basis!

Most of the big box Amigas were used a lot for genlocking home movie titles etc, while the guys with the A500 and A1200 were more gamers like myself.

Before the Amiga came out the C64 was the most popular amongst my mates here in Australia, with a few rare users on the Amstrad Cpc, Apple2 and C16/+4.