Classic Amiga Design Pet Hates

[danwood]

make the damn floppy drive stop clicking!

I might be weird, but I like the floppy drive click!  Makes you know it's alive!

[KThunder]

@haywirepc

Scandoubler... you're absolutely right. I had two a1000's a 3000 and a 1200 and one of the reasons I chose the 3000 and 1200 and liked the 1000's is that the 1000, and 1200 could output composite video and the 3000 output vga.

We have discussions all the time here on Amiga.org about scandoublers, lcd tvs and other display related headaches.

[marcfrick2112]

I agree with mpiva; I don't mind the number of prefs programs.. but the naming and organisation could be confusing to a new user.
Not like Window$ is much better in this regard... I'd been trying to get a WiFi adapter to work on my WinXP machine... had endless trouble remembering if I had to check 'network connections' 'Wireless connections', the software that came with the adapter, or whatever....

About the floppy click... OK, I use 'anticlick' or similar on all my machines... But it serves one purpose for me.... I freak out when patches slow down the boot... If I hear the click (before MCP runs) I know at least the machine is trying to boot...

Kerning.... As mentioned, if you use any decent WP or DTP program, the issue should be minimal.... But, I would have loved some advice/FAQs on setting up kerning tables... Wordworth alludes to this, but helps little...

Only 2MB chip RAM.... Bummer... But, in defense of the Amiga designers, they prob. never imagined how memory needs would increase, or the types of progs. we'd be running years from that point... Man, if only the 'Free Beer' jumper actually worked

Printing system... yup, it sucks... I confess I've not printed under 3.5/3.9 directly.... I was already using TurboPrint then....   Related... scalable fonts should have been available the second an '020 accel. was available for any Amiga... And programs adapted for said fonts.


I'll think of other things later..... Regardless, I still love my miggies :hammer:

[coldfish]

I had no gripes with my A500 during the first few years except maybe the annoying controller ports and lack of 2nd joystick button support as standard.
Later on in it's life the integrated motherboard and the proprietary nature of the Amiga's architecture was its Achilles heel when it came to trying to upgrade.  It was cheaper to buy a whole new PC, so I did.

[motrucker]

There were some things that could have been better done - But there's nothing I "hate" about the Amiga, with the possible exception of a guy named Irving...

[scuzzb494]

I like the clicking too.  It reminds me that I'm using an Amiga.

No matter how many times I put a floppy in a PC I still expected it to autodetect and stick an icon on the desktop. Having the floppy clicking made me always think the Amiga was ready and waiting and wanting of those floppies. Where as the PC almost was saying ' What you put that in there for ' :-)

scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com

[persia]

@scuzzb494

You have a PC with a floppy drive???  I haven't seen one of those in years.  Windows happily detects and open all modern media (USB sticks, DVDs, CDs) but old technology was left to die...

[scuzzb494]

@scuzzb494

You have a PC with a floppy drive???  I haven't seen one of those in years.  Windows happily detects and open all modern media (USB sticks, DVDs, CDs) but old technology was left to die...

I have many PCs with floppy drives and ZIP disks even 5.25" disks. I like to be able to read most media.

Only time I take the floppy out is if I need the space in these tiny units for say another drive.

I thought there was an issue with Microsoft and the copyright on auto opening disks. I'm sure I read that somewhere....

scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com

[runequester]

having the controller ports on the front was a great idea on the A2000.

As far as design mistakes...

why no fast ram on the 1200 ?

Why no push for cd roms after the cdtv ? Might as well as used the technology for something, and I'd have liked Beneath a steel sky on a CD instead of 15 floppies

[hayashi]

The 1200 trapdoor.

The amount of physical effort it's taken me to shove my Apollo 1240 in that is beyond belief. Even then, the trapdoor is so shallow that the 68040 fan doesn't fit in the keyboard slant - causing the whole card to poke of the trapdoor - and I've had to mount the Amiga on legs so that the card doesn't touch the desk.

[PanterHZ]

1. The A520 tv modulator. It is bad enough that the modulator wasn't included internally in the A500 (just like ALL Commodore 8-bits), but having this big ugly thing sticking out from the back of the Amiga was a bit annoying. The worst thing is that because of it's size it put some strain on the motherboard connector, and I often had to wiggle it a bit just to get a somewhat decent display. Sadly, this was a solution often used on other devices too (like parallel sound samplers), and I can't figure out why it was so hard to have a wire with plug that went from these devices to the Amiga. It would have made it easier to place the tv/monitor behind the Amiga as well.

2. The power switch. All Commodore 8-bits had one included on the computer, and this meant that their PSU's could easily be hidden under the table. But this was not the case with the A500, A600 & 1200, because here the user had to have this ugly box in plain sight just for being able to easily swith the Amiga on/off. Why on earth couldn't a power switch been present on these Amigas as well? Even the Ataris had this functionality (afaik).

3. The A1200 keyboard adapters. Why on earth have they this large DIN connector instead of a smaller PS/2 one? As far as I know, only the A2000 keyboard uses a DIN plug, and I can understand that it makes it easier for those who want to use this keyboard with the A1200, but what about the people who wants to use PS/2 instead? I would like to think that they were in majority, so why on earth did they have to use an adapter on the adapter?

Hope I'm not sounding too harsh here, because this is in reality only minor issues when thinking about the many hours of enjoyment my Amigas have given me over the years :-)

Oh and by the way, I see people mentioning the annoying floppy drive clicking here. Well the easiest solution for getting rid of this has always been to simply insert a floppy into the drive :-)

[tone007]

1. The A520 tv modulator

No disagreement from me here.

2. The power switch. All Commodore 8-bits had one included on the computer, and this meant that their PSU's could easily be hidden under the table.

This was also something that took a bit of getting used to.  C64s only had 2 voltages to cut, whereas you've got 5V/12V/-12V on the Amigas you'd need to cut, maybe it was just cheaper/easier for them to put it on the supply.

3. The A1200 keyboard adapters. Why on earth have they this large DIN connector instead of a smaller PS/2 one? As far as I know, only the A2000 keyboard uses a DIN plug

The same large DIN connector was used on PC, A2000 and A3000 keyboards, and were far more widespread when those adapters were new. (It is getting tough to find PC keyboards with the old AT connector around here these days, though.)  The ones that could use both old PC keyboards and A2000/A3000 keyboards were pretty flexible.

[lauri.lotvonen]

The controller ports are on the front of the A2000.  But you refused to buy an A2000 so they tried switching them over to the side on the A3000.  But you refused to buy an A3000 also.  So Commodore concluded that easy access controller ports didn't really affect sales. =)

Oh, cool! I didnt realise that =). Maybe I'm just too "low-end" user with my A1200/500.

[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).

[gertsy]

I think my biggest pet peeve is that every time an A3000(T) or A4000(T) comes up for sale I'm short on funds :lol:.

Honestly I think the biggest peeve is that my LED cluster on the A2000 doesn't sit flush with the front panel.

When you put the A2000 top on don't do up the side screws first. Check that the tab on the underside back of the cover isnt bent (common problem) straighten it out and fasten the back screw first.  That should make the led mount flush.  Then do the side screws.

[gertsy]

The 1200 trapdoor.

The amount of physical effort it's taken me to shove my Apollo 1240 in that is beyond belief. Even then, the trapdoor is so shallow that the 68040 fan doesn't fit in the keyboard slant - causing the whole card to poke of the trapdoor - and I've had to mount the Amiga on legs so that the card doesn't touch the desk.

Hmmm, Not a CBM problem I would hazard..
Other accelerators fit snug, but I supose the 040 & 060 chips take up much more space than CBM would have imagined.