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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: trekiej on February 22, 2008, 04:29:59 AM
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Who all here owns an Amiga 600?
What do you like and dislike about it?
What is the difference between the US and UK keyboards?
That probably is a weird question.
Good day. :-D
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I have 2,
What I like:
The cute size.
Simple to work on.
PCMCIA Port.
HD Support (.350+ / 3.1 ROMs).
A bit rarer then the 500 & 1200.
What I Dislike:
Lack of hardware upgrades avalible (and the price they fetch).
Heat issues.
Fussy with HD due to ROMs.
Slow even with and extra 1Mb fast RAM.
LED's design is bad.
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I have an A600 with 2 MB of RAM and Kickstart 3.1.
The HD I replaced it with a 2,5" IDE2CF reader. I fitted a Kingston 1 GB Compact Flash Card. I use it to play HD games with WHDLOAD.
I like the A600:
- Compact Design
- Mounting of the keyboard
- Some of the programs or Games working fast then I expected.
I dislike my A600:
- Slow with loading WHDLOAD Games
- Most of the time I can't Quit the WHDLOAD games
- Sometimes it doesn't find the Compact Flash
- Sometimes has disk reading errors using the diskdrive
- Everytime when the disk in the diskdrive has been accessed the Workbench screen will dimmed.
- No numeric keypad.
I think some of the disklikes of my A600 can be sorted out with a replacement Mainboard. :roll:
The difference between A UK and US keyboard is that the $ is replaced with a Pound Sign. I don't have experience wih UK keyboards.
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trekiej wrote:
Who all here owns an Amiga 600?
What do you like and dislike about it?
What is the difference between the US and UK keyboards?
That probably is a weird question.
Good day. :-D
I picked one up last year, and I have to say it's mainly the "cute" and "novelty" factors. It can be a nice little WHDLoad machine for OCS/ECS stuff, IDE and PCMCIA make storage and transferring files real simple.
As far as dislikes... the only annoyance for me was its inability to load some of my old A500 floppy things, most of which is easily rectified by Degrader or Relokick (or a WHDLoad install).
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amiga1260 wrote:
- Most of the time I can't Quit the WHDLOAD games
You should consider buying a 68010 off ebay if this annoys you so much.
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Only real dislike i have is that they should have given you 2mb of ram and an 020 cpu and on the 1200 it should have been 4mb of ram and an 040. Other than that the machine is very sound.
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trekiej wrote:
> Who all here owns an Amiga 600?
I do.
> What do you like and dislike about it?
I like its PCMCIA port and its compact size; on the other hand, I dislike not having a 10-key pad. :-)
Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
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Braddo wrote:
You should consider buying a 68010 off ebay if this annoys you so much.
Yeah right and just WTF is he going to put it?
The A600 has a surface mount PLCC 68000. It's not like the A500 where he can just swap socketed DIL chips.
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RobertB wrote:
I dislike not having a 10-key pad. :-)
Why?
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I got a free A600 about half a year ago, the previous owner told me it was defective and I could have it for just the costs of postage. Since, then it has been sitting in a box somewhere - I haven't even tested it yet :-D
I like the way it looks - it's a cute little machine and for general purposes I don't think I would miss the numeric keypad. I can't think of any downsizes since I haven't used it yet....
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I have A600. It's cute, but useless. Compatibility for a500 games isn't that good and a1200 is much more better for more serious use and expanding.
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I bought my first A600 last year, now I have 4 of them. :-D
It has really become one of my favorite Amiga models because of its compact design and great connectivity.
The only thing I dislike about it is the (IMHO) misdesigned trapdoor expansion slot, which is the reason why there aren't many CPU upgrade options around. This leaves you with the extremely overpriced and flaky piggyback 620/630 boards.
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alexh wrote:
RobertB wrote:
I dislike not having a 10-key pad. :-)
Why?
Because it means you can't use the camera keys and change the view when playing Armour-Geddon :madashell:
Other than that it's a fine little machine :-D Needs more ram and a faster cpu though. When I bought the parts for my MiniMigs I picked up an extra 68k so that I can build the 14Mhz clip over accelerator from the EAB forums. (can't find link right now, at work).
Andy
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Attention dead A600 owners:
Don't throw away a black screen A600 because you think it's completly dead. I sent one such 'dead' m/b to JJ at Amiga Center and even he said it wasn't repairable...maybe couldn't be bothered with it (who knows). 'Hmmm' I thought; let me have a go at it. Low and behold I replaced one of those nefarious leaking silver capacitors near the floppy drive port, plugged the board in to test and 'poof' I was staring at the animated floppy disk insert screen.
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Pictures and diagrams as to which ones you mean would be appreciated.
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If it had a numeric keypad it wouldn't be so small. THINK WHAT YOUR SAYING! :roll:
@pVC, Iv never had compatibility issues.
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Argus wrote:
Attention dead A600 owners:
Don't throw away a black screen A600 because you think it's completly dead. I sent one such 'dead' m/b to JJ at Amiga Center and even he said it wasn't repairable...maybe couldn't be bothered with it (who knows). 'Hmmm' I thought; let me have a go at it. Low and behold I replaced one of those nefarious leaking silver capacitors near the floppy drive port, plugged the board in to test and 'poof' I was staring at the animated floppy disk insert screen.
Wonder, if that's causing the black screen on my A500... :idea:
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As you know, I have one............First Amiga I personally payed Money For, so it felt like it was really mine....prior to that My brother and I had an A1000 for years.
I love the Compact Desing and simplicity...........all my PC owning friends were attracted to this Amiga.
The Numeric Keypad problem could have easily been solved and I believe still can be....if some sort of FUNTION key was added so that the normal Numbers on the A600 become numeric counterparts, just like on the Laptops.
The WHDLOAD not Exiting from games can also be solved..........just change the QUITKEY ToolTypes and choose a different key as the QUITKEY.
I wonder if someopne can create a Hardhack that will give the A600 a numeric Keypad with a FUNCTION key of choice?
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I have an A600 case if that counts. :-)
I've been looking for a tiny, modern motherboard to put in it, but I have yet to find anything that will fit. I wanted to put an Efika in it, but I think it may be too big. A Pico ITX board should fit, but they're pretty expensive for what's essentially a project that I'm only doing because it would be cool.
I expect I'll find something eventually. Heh, I'll probably end up using an A600 board at this rate!
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It's a love(small)/hate(lack of numpad) relationship :-D
Andy
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leirbag28 wrote:
The WHDLOAD not Exiting from games can also be solved..........just change the QUITKEY ToolTypes and choose a different key as the QUITKEY.
No. Some games still won't quit (general problem of all plain 68000 machines).
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amiga1260 wrote:
I have an A600 with 2 MB of RAM and Kickstart 3.1.
The HD I replaced it with a 2,5" IDE2CF reader. I fitted a Kingston 1 GB Compact Flash Card. I use it to play HD games with WHDLOAD.
Exactly the same configuration here :-D
But.. I use other Amiga's for WHDLoad.
It's nice for playing DuneII and some other HD installable games.
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I have a PAL unit in a NTSC land, but it is cute, small and now we have plenty of options to expand it a little. Look for the 8Mb RAM expansion, here on this board. Also my hack to build a 1Mb chip RAM expansion (aka Tabajara on Aminet).
For the keyboard problem: if you don't mind to destroy the portability, hack the mobo inside an A500 case (or a mini tower) and use the 500 keyboard.
Problem solved!
I don't want to do that with mine, obviously. I'm plenty of Amigas with numeric keyboard here. :-D
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alexh wrote:
Pictures and diagrams as to which ones you mean would be appreciated.
Erm was that directed at me?
If so then the 14Mhz clip over accelerator for the A600 on EAB is mentioned in this thread by Zetr0 (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=31563). I thought I'd give the revised schematic posted later on a go since I've got an A600. Obviously it precludes using the 8MB upgrade.
Andy
EDIT: fixed the link I used, forgot it wasn't standard html... again :-D
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I also had (and have acquired again) an A600, I swapped an A500Plus for it because:
1) The composite video out was built in, no more wiggling an A520 adaptor to get a decent TV picture, I am surprised that no-one else mentioned that, a small but significant change. Not all TVs back then had scart leads.....
2) The IDE port allowed me to fit a 40Mb laptop drive into my original A600, and my current one has a 4Gb drive. Booting into Workbench from a hard drive was a major plus and Directory Opus made the machine a dream to work with.
3) With a 1Mb expansion and 4Mb fastram card in, it's quite quick, compared to an A500 or a 500Plus.
4) Going to computer clubs was easier, as it was smaller and lighter than an A500. Remember, most of us had to lug a portable TV around as well.
WTF
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WotTheFook wrote:
The composite video out was built in, no more wiggling an A520 adaptor to get a decent TV picture, I am surprised that no-one else mentioned that, a small but significant change.
I had that in mind when I said "great connectivity" :-)
With a 1Mb expansion and 4Mb fastram card
May I ask which one? Is it this one? (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=33290)
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i have 2 and they have no use from me so i sold the 1mb ram i found in the trapdoor. i nearly got the same price as a new one from amigakit! it would have been a huge upgrade from a 48k spectrum if just for the keyboard! but i had an st.
as far as whdload... if i look at the "quit key" dialogue when it boots up it tells you that the key can be f10, printscreen and there was one other. have you seen this? there maybe others you need to press to quit? keep an eye at the bottom of the blue start up screen of whdload!
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@ Colani1200
Nope, my fastram is a PCMCIA card I found in the computer scrap bin at work, it was in a parallel port interface for a temperature probe device (long since gone). It's a plain silver card, no markings.
My laptop wouldn't recognise it, it just said PCMCIA_CARD_UNKNOWN_MANUFACTURER and wouldn't install any drivers for XP.
I stuck it in my A600 and booted it, hoping it would'nt kill my Miggy. To my amazement it said I had 4Mb fastram!! It may be bigger than 4Mb, however that's the maximum the PCMCIA port on A600s and A1200s can handle, so I am not complaining.
:-D :-D
WTF
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The compact size definately is a plus, but the thing I like best about my A600, it was free from Commodore. I got the machine as a review unit and they up and went bankrupt before I could return it! :-D
Bob
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WotTheFook wrote:
@ Colani1200
Nope, my fastram is a PCMCIA card I found in the computer scrap bin at work, it was in a parallel port interface for a temperature probe device (long since gone). It's a plain silver card, no markings.
My laptop wouldn't recognise it, it just said PCMCIA_CARD_UNKNOWN_MANUFACTURER and wouldn't install any drivers for XP.
I stuck it in my A600 and booted it, hoping it would'nt kill my Miggy. To my amazement it said I had 4Mb fastram!! It may be bigger than 4Mb, however that's the maximum the PCMCIA port on A600s and A1200s can handle, so I am not complaining.
:-D :-D
WTF
Yep, sometimes great things can be found for free :-D
I hopy someone let me find suck a card for my A600.. I like it because it's portable, and completly silent because my harddisk is a cf card :-P
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I think it would be cool to add a wireless Keypad, Joystick, and Mouse.
Hooking up a Wireless Logitech Keyboard may be a way to put the Amiga near the monitor and away from the desk abit.
The A600 could sit in a bay under the LCD monitor possibly.
What do you think?