Classic Amiga Design Pet Hates

[Hattig]

The A520 modulator gets my vote.

Nothing really was a pet hate hardware wise, I thought it was pretty good overall (I didn't have a big box Amiga). There are some things that I think would have been nice...

1) A500+ and A600 to use 14MHz 68000. A relatively simple improvement that would have encouraged more people to get these systems, and existing A500 owners to upgrade, which might have made Commodore some money (and increased the market via second hand Amigas). It would also have been good for 3D games as CPU speed had a direct impact on performance.

2) In addition the old A1000 should have been retained and kept the same specs as the premium consumer machine of the day (A1000+). The A2000 looked terrible.

3) A1200 IDE connector. Not-quite standard PCMCIA connector. Never-used FPU area. Tiny trapdoor. Lack of fast-ram SIMM slot.

4) Brick-like external PSUs with thick cables (A500, A1200).

5) CD32 should have been 1MB chip + 1MB fast. Never mind AGA missing out an 8-bit chunky mode, but that's an entire different argument (AGA deficiencies / dream Amiga chipset / etc).

[Hattig]

But I agree, there should have been an A1300 or something with internal CD, 28mhz 020, and 2mb+1mb Chip + Fast ram as a standard machine. This would have helped a lot as games programmers then had a target machine intended for home buyers to aspire towards.

Yeah, I agree that Commodore could have done a dual launch of the A1200, and an A1400 at a higher price (£200 more?) with 4MB (2+2), 28MHz 68020/30, and HD floppy.

Data CD drives were very young still, and expensive - don't forget these. I don't think the lack of a CD drive at launch or thereabouts was a major problem for the A1200. HD floppies would have saved some pain for larger AGA games though.