Not a happy bunny!!

[itix]

:rant: alert!

Well I must say how disappointed I have been with my Amiga 1200.

I  bought it off Ebay just before Christmas 2011 and it came with a 4GB CF  Hard Drive fitted. This is my last Amiga computer EVER!

I have never used such a frustrating OS before and I fail to see why so many owners rave about them.

Admittedly I have been 'spoiled' with easy-peasy PC's for the last 15 years....but that may explain my gripes with the Amiga.

I  cannot for the life of me understand why so many of the fanboys seem to  think it's a great idea to make it such hard work to do such a simple  thing like install a new desktop replacement, such as ClassicWB, etc.  Why not make a straight forward download (or even a zip download) of it,  that can be installed from floppy/CF card direct to an Amiga, without  having to use WinUAE? Not all PC's can run WinUAE and what about if you  have used a modern mobile phone to download ClassicWB?

Why the  need for .adf/hdf files? Most modern PC's have large enough storage  space on them, that they don't need compressed files anymore.

I,  like many people, don't or can't be bothered with faffing about with  emulators, for whatever reason -- and it's not a crime not to want to  use one. If I want to download a certain program on my PC, it comes with  an EXE file that I just click and install.....Simples!!

On the  Amiga?......Oh yes, install WinUAE, find a copy of some ROM's, either  legally, or not. Then use some archaic looking decompression software to  extract the program with. What's wrong with not having to use an  emulator?! Why not not just allow a direct install to real hardware?

Amiga  fanboys remind me so much of Linux fanboys........they seem to think  that there chosen OS is the most superior in the universe and have never  considered moving with the times and making life easy for themselves.  And no, I'm not preaching that they should ditch their Amiga's for PC's.  Just that they acknowledge the Amiga as being old hat and deservedly so  and that if they want to keep the platform alive for the next  generation who fancies a bit of retro action, then at least make life  simple for them when it comes to installing stuff.

I have tried  installing AmigaSYS, ClassicWB (various versions), and MagicWB on mine  and only the latter worked satisfactory enough to use. The rest of them  had such arse about face install routines, that I gave up on them in the  end.

Only hardcore veterans use real Amiga these days. The OS is too outdated for casual user and I am not surprised you are frustrated. I would be if I had to use Amiga 1200 as a desktop again. For gaming experience it is better have vanilla Amiga 1200 or Amiga 500 and leave desktops for those few hardcore users.

[itix]

I quite disagree; the Amiga is easily the simplest computer of its era to get up and running, and hardly any more trouble than modern OSes to install. The only real issues I had were getting large files onto the system (which I could've solved by springing for a CF->PCMCIA adapter, and eventually did) and getting networking setup (which was mostly trouble because I breezed through the settings and missed some important stuff.)

Workbench 3.0/3.1 has no TCP/IP stack, browser, FTP client or anything that even remotely supports networking.

Workbench 3.9 added AWeb and TCP/IP stack but you need a CD-ROM drive to install it. Standard Amiga 1200 case has no room nor connectors for the drive.

To use PCMCIA network card you must download CNET driver from Aminet which you must somehow move to your Amiga. Luckily Amiga can read PC formatted disks but you are limited to 720kB DD disks. Not every user know how to use HD disk as DD or have friends with an old PC.

It is tricky. The hardware is so incompatible with current standards. Hardcore Amigans have Catweasels, parnets, USB extensions and what not... but beginners are struggling with this stuff.

[itix]

Easy, null-modem serial cable. Easy as pie and have been used for ages, build or buy a cable for scraps, plug in to a PC then your Amiga, and nowdays it's as easy as download and install the free version of Amiga explorer.

How do you get Amiga Explorer to your Amiga? And of course serial and parallel ports have been obsolete around 5 years now. Luckily there are USB serial adapters, though.

This is a easy way people tend to forget and requires just a cheep cable and it's not even hard to build yourself and there is no problem to find the pinouts to make one.
Sure not the fastest way but it works. And if I do not remember wrong it's quite well explained on Amigaforever?

And again you have to buy Amiga Forever from a distant online shop... it is tricky if you have to order various pieces to get your Amiga to usable state.

Ill never write MOS instead of MorphOS since MOS for me is Acorn MOS.

I (almost) never write MOS either