What is the most difficult thing on the Amiga?

[marcfrick2112]

The most difficult thing.... getting everything to work

What I would love is some type of 'automatic update' option for AOS 3.1-3.9 (and beyond?) But with full user control. Something that would check a knowledge base to make sure libs, handlers, commands, etc. are OK and up-to-date... It's rough to set up a 'new' Amiga system.....

[A1260]

The flicker...
I think the flickering screen is the single biggest wrecking ball to hit the Amiga. Why? well I remember seeing the A4000 setup next to a PC and Mac display in NYC years ago. It was sad and funny to watch folks using the A4000 and saying thing's like "what the f*ck is up with this flicker" lol... 4 folks said the same thing...

How are you going to attract new users with a flickering display like that. Shows how out of touch Commodore were. Hey Let's remove the flicker fixer chip to validate to the outdated technological claims our competitors are making.

i have to go with the flickering to, it was the worse shit ever... had an a500 everything was fine then bought the a1200. the screen got to small needed bigger resolution but noway, flicker from hell was all you got. what was the idiots at commodore thinking??..

[Franko]

It was all part of a money making deal that Commodore had with a pharmaceutical company that manufactured epilepsy piils... :biglaugh:

[sledge]

The biggest problem of them all is to stop going for that one more upgrade goal. The Amiga totally poisons you with a feeling that you *NEED* to have a faster CPU, or more RAM, or better harddrive, or to patch everything to get it faster or buying a flicker fixer or a RTG-card...

But the next most difficult thing is to get out of this whole Amiga thing... tried it so many times....

[scuzzb494]

Why are you talking about problems with hardware... That's not about difficulty. Sure the screen flicker was a problem but not a great issue when you had a multisync monitor and worked in certain resolutions. The battery is a fact of life for all similar types of components. But not difficult...

Difficult for me, which on the Amiga usually means challenging, was setting up my home network on the A1200 using Samba and writing smb files and finally getting the machine to be seen by all flavours of PC taking into account password challenges and the like. Sounds easy but seriously was quite a challenge and I have to thank the good people of the Samba user group for all that help. Works without fault now.

Not sure I found anything on the Amiga really difficult. Some things stretch the limitations of the hardware, but that's not the computers fault.

The fun parts mostly involved scripts for your own tools, coding buttons in DOpus to undertake applications, defining icons to do certain tasks, AMOS - wonderful AMOS and AWNpipe all of which I gotta say still are more fun than anything on the PC. The list is pretty endless. Difficult only to start with but very enjoyable to master.

As to games... MicroMachines... Dunno why. I just couldn't keep the things on the table.

[jsixis]

Printing a business letter, with no kerning the letter looks like it was printed on a hasbro game machine

[spirantho]

Amigas don't flicker any more than PCs do! If you put a PC through a TV then it flickers too!

Anyone saying the Amiga is worse than the PC because of screen flicker isn't giving the Amiga a fair shot. Stick the PC monitor on the Amiga and - surprise, surprise - the flicker disappears.

[Cammy]

The most difficult thing to do on an Amiga? Switch it off and go to bed! I just can't bring myself to do it, there's too much to do!

[persia]

@spirantho

I've got a Mac Mini attached to the back of my main TV, there's no flicker and I'm running 1080p video through it, so I'm not sure what you are talking about.

[B00tDisk]

The flicker...
I think the flickering screen is the single biggest wrecking ball to hit the Amiga. Why? well I remember seeing the A4000 setup next to a PC and Mac display in NYC years ago. It was sad and funny to watch folks using the A4000 and saying thing's like "what the f*ck is up with this flicker" lol... 4 folks said the same thing...

How are you going to attract new users with a flickering display like that. Shows how out of touch Commodore were. Hey Let's remove the flicker fixer chip to validate to the outdated technological claims our competitors are making.

I remember when I was headed to see an A1200 on display at an Amiga store (probably the last or second to last one here in Orlando); from across the rather large and empty strip mall parking lot ('twas late at night; I just wanted a glimpse at whatever rolling demo it had going thru the store window) I could see that mo-fo strobe.

Bluh.

'course C= and the Amiga were dead by the time the 1200 hit anyway, so...

[rvo_nl]

definately setting up a fully working ppc system. especially in the early days this was very hard to do. what with all the patches, cgx revisions, flash updates, warp3d and powerup vs warpup. Not to mention the problems with cooling, motherboard revisions, extra power to the motherboard, compatible memory etc etc. it was and still is a major pain..
 
but then, when you finally got it working........

[amigadave]

The most difficult thing to do on an Amiga? Switch it off and go to bed! I just can't bring myself to do it, there's too much to do!

I like this answer the most (but I have always been a "Cammy" fan).  Are you going to organize the Winter Holiday Amiga Game creation competition again this year Cammy?  It is a great idea and something that I wish more people would participate in and help sponsor prizes for.  Anything that gets people coding for the Amiga is a great idea.

[ElPolloDiabl]

I like this answer the most (but I have always been a "Cammy" fan).  Are you going to organize the Winter Holiday Amiga Game creation competition again this year Cammy?  It is a great idea and something that I wish more people would participate in and help sponsor prizes for.  Anything that gets people coding for the Amiga is a great idea.

I hope there is room for Christmas down under with an outback theme.

[pulppure]

Trying to set up an Apache server was a real pain, I only managed to make it work once.

Also tried Samba but failed. I guess you must have some good knowledge about linux and networks (or at least a good book) before you try.

Coding and design of demos in Karate was also pretty hard.

Learning to code well designed HTML pages for the first time with IBrowse with a 1084 monitor took me an afternoon, then later I realised it looked crap on IE or Mozilla.

Creating my own MUI style also got me crazy with all the little options plus you don't see the result instantly, but I managed.

[spirantho]

@spirantho

I've got a Mac Mini attached to the back of my main TV, there's no flicker and I'm running 1080p video through it, so I'm not sure what you are talking about.

Well.. yes... if you're running it in 1080p there won't be. But if the Amiga was flickering then it was told to output an SD signal, not an HD one, and won't have been connected to an HDTV.

The Amiga doesn't flicker - the display does. Saying the Amiga is bad because it flickers is like saying the PC is bad because it displays 16 colours. Just because it supports that doesn't mean that that is it's limitation!

If you set the Amiga to 1080p (and yes, you can do it), then it won't flicker. If you connect it to an SD TV then it will flicker because all SD TVs flicker at full resolution. And yes, if you connect your Mac Mini to the same TV that the Amiga was on, then it will flicker.

[stefcep2]

They could have just got a 14 inch VGA monitor, selected productivity mode and most people would have been happy...unless they wanted to play a game.