Worst Amiga's EVER!

[iamaboringperson]

Here is my official list of the worst Amiga's - and why they're so bad.

1. A1000 - Yes, it was the first and all, but imagine loading a Kickstart disk every time you turn it on.
 And, obviously there is crap expansion.
2. A600 - About the upgradability, and crap keyboard. Need I say more?
3. A500 - Better expansion than the A600, but still not good enough.
4. A1200 - Technically better than the A500 (but then, it did come later...), but still crap expansion, and a crap case.

I hope you enjoyed this list.

[Vincent]

I agree with everything except 4.

To me the A1200 was the common person's miggy, with not much money to expand whereas the 4000's were the wealthy people's choice who had the money to expand.

But since the A1200 was the more popular model more people were buying the add-ons too.

I'd like to add one model to that list though to balance out all the pro things said about it recently...

A2000

:-D

[Diezman]

I only agree with you on the A600.  It didn't advance the platform and
in fact, hurt it in some ways.  It was a total waiste of Commodore's
diminishing development resources.

I couldn't disagree with you more on the other three.  When the A1000
came out, no one really minded using the Kickstart disk.  It only
became a pain when the A500 and A2000 came out and eliminated the need
for the Kickstart disk.  Besides, you can't knock a computer with a
keyboard garage.

The A500 put the Amiga in homes.  It was cheaper than PCs and Macs
and the hardware was supported very well with the sidecar expansions.

The A1200 did the same thing for the 32-bit machines.

--Aaron

[gizz72]

Greetings Iama,

I agree with your lists. True they're all limited to that extent. That's why they have the tower power options for A1200. On the A500,1000,600. There were none. Customize like o'l doomy with his A500 tower(though not sure if he really did that). :-P
 
A1200 is just a wee too late when they release it back in the 90's.

Regards,

Gizz

[Argo]

Well, exept for the orignal, these models were not meant to be overly expandable. Basically, these are the economy versions. If you wanted power and alot of exspandability you got the desktop models (A2000, A3000, A4000).

[poweramiga2002]

well i recon the a600 was the only stuff up

and i also towered my a500 and had hard drive cdrom 8 meg fast ram 2meg chipram and 020@25mhz accelerator  used it for many years still got it just hybernating

[kd7ota]

I agree with the list, but the problems I have is that I personally think the Amiga 1200 is great. The very first Amiga I first played and witnessed was the Amiga 600, so tis another favorite..  :-)

Since its almost impossible to upgrade an Amiga 2000 to use, then it might be added to the list of them Amigas.  8-)

[TjLaZer]

Look, when the Amiga 1000 came out, in 1985, nobody cared about having to load a disk to boot the machine!  Maybe when you saw the A1000 is was much later?  Yes after the A500/2000 were out, the loading of the disk was very annoying. And as far as expansion, again think 1985.  The previous machine that commodore released was the Commodore 128D.  Please do not compare later technologies to earlier ones (as far as home computers go)

The A500/1200 were awesome for their time too.   I agree with you on the A600, it was crap.  If it were AGA, and had a viable CPU upgrade path, it would of been really cool (like the 1200), but not the way it was and it being ECS...

[Argus]

The A2000/500 are good machines, to this day.  I'm typing this on an A2000 right now, albeit with an 030 and PicassoII card in it.  I also towerized a Rev.6 a500 with a Bodega Bay busboard and it is quite useful.  Though it has only a 2.04 ROM I can use go online with Miami and use email, ftp, and other clients, though no graphical browser.

[CaptChaos]

I'll go with the A500+ for the worst Amiga... only because its my least wanted amiga... Me and the 500 have some History but the 500+ is like the cousin no one talks about...

The A1000 is not only the first Amiga but its my first Amiga too... and the Kickstart disks werent that bad just once when you switch on... not at every reset... plus you could get cracked kickstarts that had extra goodies.

[adolescent]

Basing the quality of a given computer just on expansion capabilities is pretty lame.  And, the A500/A1200 are probably the most expanded Amigas from their given era.  The number of expansions for the A500 alone would probably outnumber the combined accellerators, memory cards, video cards, and zorro 3 cards available for the A4000.

[Ilwrath]

@iama-

The A600 is the only Amiga off your list that I agree with.  It was worse than the A500 it replaced, while costing more.  A total step backwards, a waste of time and resources, and ultimatly created a bad image releasing a 7mhz machine that late in the game.

My defense of the others follows:
A1000 - Was the first - C'mon, people, there IS a learning curve here.  A spectacular machine.  And remember, it had to go to production before the OS was finished... That had a lot to do with the design of having kickstart in RAM.....

A500 - The best seller - In the hayday, it was a true unmatched powerhouse in it's price catagory.  Had it not been for this machine, I wouldn't have been able to get started with Amiga.  I'm sure lots of other people were in the same situation.

A1200 - The AGA update to the best-seller - It came out a little late for the times, but still, when it was introduced, it was a fairly potent machine in a small package, priced at a point it was appealing.


Now, as for one I feel should have been on your list but wasn't... (And I'm sure I'm going to get roasted for this one, but heck, what's a good broiling between friends) is the CDTV.  

I mean here are some of the highlights...

(1) The thing has the classic styling of a stereo component... one you hide in a cabinet behind tinted glass.

(2) It couldn't decide if it should be a game console (yet it didn't have any games available on CD at launch time) an expensive AudioCD component (that used CD CADDIES!!) or a personal computer (in a very inconvenient and non-matching form factor)

(3) It featured a remote that didn't work well as joystick, yet was a lousy shape for any other purpose.  

The CDTV.  A strange solution left looking for it's problem.

[StormLord]

The Amiga 1000 was THE AMIGA.
Nothing better in its ERA .... except maybe CRAy :-)))
A500 Was THE AMIGA for the masses! again nothing better for the money costs!
A500+ was just a stupid mistake. and it lasted only 3 months exchanged by A600 so no reason to appear.
A600 Was toooo late for the upgrades it offerd, but nevertheless IT WAS an upgrade over 500/500+
Just remember WB2.1 KS2.05 PCMCIA(FABULUS for now! as I have an wireless net card sitting there),
OnBoard IDE and the BEST of ALL (and a record for the amiga line until now: THE SMALLEST!)
A1200 the right direction of upgrading the masses line.
All the other Big Box amigas was machines with higher state of completion against the masses line of their time,
*BUT* was too expensive all of them for what they offered.
so I make 5 categorys :
The WORST: A500+
The Most Completed: A3000
The Most Upgraded: A1200
The Most Powerfull: A4000
The Most Beautifull: A600
The Most Beloved: A500

But all of this started from ONE machine so for a tribute ;-)
The Machine that Changed the Computer World: Alpha One 3xZero .
;-)))




 

[B00tDisk]

Worst Amiga?  The Lorraine!  Ugh, what a beast!  All those wires a...

Hey!  Stop throwing things at me!

Although I would like to make a semi-serious comment and say that I think the worst looking Amiga was that god awful "Walker" thing.  I'd be afraid to have one on my office desk: people would constantly stroll by and stuff bits of garbage into the floppy slot thinking it was a trashcan!

Ultimately it didn't matter, but I'm kind of glad that one was never released.

Also, what was that one concept only (empty case) post-C= Amiga that Ryan "I am a real Doctor, damn you!" Czerwinski wound up with?  Gah, that thing was hideous.  Looked like a Compaq Presario ca. 1997ish or so, with that funky, permanently up-angled monitor...yeesh.

But ultimately, my serious opinion about what the WORST Amiga was would be: the Amiga International A4000T.  RIDICULOUSLY overpriced, woefully underpowered/under-featured; probably what really killed the Amiga as a sellable product here in the 'States.  IIRC for $3000.00USD you got an 040/25 with four megs of RAM and a 250mb HD or something pathetic like that.

[jjans]

I'd have to say the CDTV, as it was not much more than an A500 in a desktop with an integrated CD-ROM. Most of what it can do can be done by expanding an A500.

I think the Fat Agnus - display controller that it came with should have at least been an AGA. Perhaps throwing an A1200 in the same box would have made the CDTV a better hit.

Certainly an interesting machine, but I think it was released a little late (1991).