Top 3 worst ideas in Amiga history?

[runequester]

So what are your contenders for the worst 3 ideas in the history of the amiga?

Lets limit it to the Commodore era, and keep it at hardware/software as much as possible.

[fishy_fiz]

Most of the really bad stuf has come post Commodore days, but in no particular order I'd have to say:
AGA being rushed. Most of the enhanced functionality it offers isnt even usable, or if it is compromises to the point of redundancy are in place. 32 and/or 64 pixel wide sprites are available for example, couldve been quite useful, but to use those modes screen must be shrunk and only 1 or 2 (no absolute rule, but as a general rule of thumb) are placable on the screen, the rest can only be used outside of the physical display... significant arcade gameing power, you just cant see it. The Amiga was for the most part so far behind by this time that getting AGA right was more important than having a system that on paper was on par with the graphics of other systems at the time, even if it took a while longer.

Akiko: I strongly believe that akiko shouldve been substituted for a small amount of fast ram (if trying to maintain a certain price point, but ideally both). The speed increase the system wouldve seen as a result wouldve been similar to what akiko could generate, but it also could be used for things other than chunky to planar conversions, and the speed wouldve been system wide. Would have resulted in a more balanced, and in the majority of cases, more powerful system.
And no.3 is a personal one.... me letting my friends try out the Settlers demo that came on one of the CU Amiga cover disks...... never before had my Amiga been so thoroughly hijacked

[Ancalimon]

1. worst idea: Not having a harddrive as standard like the PC. As games became bigger, they were required to be installed on the hard drive. Amiga's had superior games, thus a hard drive would have been even more suitable for Amiga than a PC. Games were not harddrive installable and it made Amiga look unprofessional. At the time, people using computers wanted their computers to look professional. For example, they wanted to use DOS commands to install their games to harddrives. Today it's the opposite.

2. worst idea: Using a Double Density floppy drive instead of a High Density drive like the PC. Games became bigger but Amiga's had no harddrives as standard and the double density drive made it even worse.

3. worst idea: AGA. It left something to be desired. The first thing I tried was to set the Workbench resolution to 256 colours and 640-512 screen resolution. As if the flickering was not enough, everything became extremely slow. They should have made it much faster, flicker free and it should have "killed" the A500 so everone started buying AGA Amigas.

4. worst idea: They should have made Workbench 3.1 with built-in functionalities for networking, Dopus Magellan 2, 256 colour icons and built-in fonts for different countries. Datatypes for jpg, wav, etc and later made mp3, avi, etc as downloadable updates.

[ElPolloDiabl]

1. Butchering the A1200 to reduce cost
2. CDTV
3. Not marketing the CD32

[dammy]

So what are your contenders for the worst 3 ideas in the history of the amiga?

Lets limit it to the Commodore era, and keep it at hardware/software as much as possible.

1. Failed to continue to develope CAOS.
2. AGA implementation (should have been on a card for Amiga big boxes and x86s).
3. Stayed with 68K.

[Matt_H]

Hmm. I'll go with...

1. Delays on AGA - Sure, AGA wasn't a game changer in late 1992 when the underwhelming A4000 appeared, but the A3000+ in early-mid 1991 could have made a difference, especially with the 3000+'s DSP.
2. Repurposing the A300 as the more expensive A600. A product line with an A300, A1200, and A3000+ at the low-, mid-, and high-end market segments, respectively, could have been very competitive
3. No PAL Video Toaster. Imagine if the already-strong Amiga market in Europe were given a shot in the arm with a catalyst for a whole new productivity market.

[Hell Labs]

in no particular order:

the a600, cdtv, cd32.

aga being nerfed, the lack of chunky pixels and the performance hit was awful at a good screenmode/colour depth. Interlacing is the worst idea. Ideally there should have been some 3d support to maintain an edge over pc.

the 68020 failchip in aga machines, and the mysterious lack of fastram.

[save2600]

Good stuff here, but I'd add the fact they didn't do anything to upgrade Paula. Clearly by the A3000's time, that should have morphed into a 16-bit or higher Hi-Fi chip that was backwards compatible.

And the fact that since the A3000, they were still confused about how to market AND didn't really have a pulse on who wanted to purchase what Amiga model. Too many Amiga's competing with each other and all were severely crippled hardware wise by the lack of Fast Ram, better processors, 15khz video, etc.

No affordable AGA upgrade path for old Amiga's too, "forced" us to re-purchase inferior products in order to 'keep up'.

Zip chip implementation in A3000.

Constantly rushed products which always forced us to purchase more and more accessories, peripherals, Kickstarts, Busters, Agnus's, RAM, etc. The Amiga really has always been somewhat of a money pit/experimental hobbyists type of computer - hasn't it? lol

[AeroMan]

- A600.
- They never made a upgrade for Paula
- No chunky modes in AGA. Bitplanes are nice if you are playng with up to 64 colors. A 7 bit mode is nonsense and 8 bit modes are better handled in bytes than bits
- No built in support for MMU. Check on the eternal "memory protection" discussions that we always find here
- Lack of a Memory slot for the A1200. By the time it hit the market a RAM expansion board was nonsense

[dannyp1]

1.  Butchering the A4000 to reduce costs
2.  AGA
3.  Only one video slot in all big boxes except for the A4000T (If you want to use a video toaster, forget using a graphics card.


I was thinking of the PIV on number 3 above.  Some people with toasters would maybe like to do more than just toast?  Peggy Plus is another to play MPEG's?  If it was fine with one slot as some may think, why did they put 2 in the 4000T?  There may be some workarounds but should we always have to?

[tone007]

3.  Only one video slot in all big boxes except for the A4000T (If you want to use a video toaster, forget using a graphics card.

Why wouldn't you be able to use a graphics card with a video toaster installed?  There are other Zorro slots available.  Video slot scandoubler, however, could be a problem but most likely VT users are using 15khz output for at least some of their work anyway.

[save2600]

Weren't there workarounds in the form of slot adapters w/ necessary video lines to address the multiple video card issue?

[Karlos]

Scrapping the A3000+.

[tokyoracer]

1: More modern looking Workbench (to attract Mac suckers).
2: Not looking into PPC support early enough.
3: CDTV.

Scrapping the A3000+.

So true...

[tone007]

3: CDTV.

You've gotta admit the black CDTV keyboard is pretty awesome, though.