Who here agrees this is the worst technology...

[Linde]

Considering the amount of data used for internet, I think serial port on Amiga (max 19 200 bit/s) is simple not good enough. A side effect is higher CPU demand.

Do you think that the serial port speed would usually have been an internet connectivity bottleneck in the early 90s? 19200 bps is not the limit, by the way. I guess it depends on the CPU/DMA load, but I can for example use stable MIDI (38400 bps) on my 8 MB fast RAM A1200. I'm sure you can on a stock 500 too.

[Tripitaka]

@Darrin

+1. Nearly exactly what I was thinking.

+2

I remember well weighing up the choice between a sidecar drive and an internal 2.5 inch with a third of the capacity (or three times the price). Then I read a magazine article in which some clever bugger had squeezed a 3.5 inch drive into his A1200 internals (maybe hacked would be more accurate than squeezed XD ). Great idea, thought I..... If only I could do that without voiding my warranty.

In the end the choice was made for me by someone giving me a 20Mb 2.5" drive.

[freqmax]

Asfair 19 200 bit/s was max on the A500 (if not 9600 bit/s) and there were modems above that quite soon. Then there were people with university network access via (C)SLIP etc.

[ungatonipon]

Then I read a magazine article in which some clever bugger had squeezed a 3.5 inch drive into his A1200 internals (maybe hacked would be more accurate than squeezed XD ). Great idea, thought I..... If only I could do that without voiding my warranty.

I actually did that. I had a 250 MB drive sitting in a drawer because I could not find a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter back then. Tired of waiting I decided to solder the 40 pin cable directly to the motherboard. Then plugged it into the drive and miraculously it worked fine. Then closed the A1200 with the drive inside, including the metal shield. It was a little bit forced, but just a little bit - actually the keyboard pressure helped to keep the drive fixed inside the computer.

It still works 19 years later. Some of this days I have to un-solder all those cables and change that drive with a CF card, it's one of my pending Amiga projects... but yes, it is possible to fit a 3.5" drive without much hassle into a A1200, I wouldn't call that hacking at all

[Amiga_Nut]

This was on sale when new A1200s from C= were being sold so people who didn't want to void the warranty had no choice as shops were not allowed to open them up and upgrade them. You had to buy an overpriced 1200HD from day one or one of these so if you remember that then it obviously is not useless.

Today it is redundant given that you can pick up 2.5 inch IDE drives of 4gb capacity for pennies I agree.

Not having SIMM slots or a slot with a caddy for users to install their own hard drives was very short sighted of Commodore and only made it look like a toy to people who were considering an A1200 vs a low end 286. CPU/VIDEO/ZORRO slots we could all do without but not making the HD and memory easily (ie same cost as a PC) user upgradeable with cheap off the shelf PC/notebook parts was a terrible design idea.

[amiga1260]

Back in the days I almost bought this Overdrive HD, but I liked the Squirrel SCSI controller better, because you could connect up to 7 SCSI devices.

My first HD I bought is an IBM 2,5" 360 MB HD. It still working.

[AmigaClassicRule]

It looks no more silly than the A1000 Sidecar or all the other external HD and memory  enclosures for the A500 and A1000.

And it's no more silly than all the external CD-ROMs that were connected to most Amigas.  It seems that no one here thinks external CD drives are ridiculous but they want to point fingers at external hard drives.  It doesn't make sense.

Yeah it makes sense.

[ferrellsl]

Yeah it makes sense.

That was my point.  I think the enclosure is just fine and it served a valuable purpose in its day.  When this was introduced there were very few if any PCMCIA cards available for use in an A1200, and with the price of RAM and hard drives at the time, no one was very worried about PCMCIA cards causing memory location problems.  It looks no better or worse than the countless other HD/RAM enclosures for other Amigas.    

Knowing what we do today and having so many other expansion options available at low cost, at first it does appear impractical, but in the proper historical context, it makes/made perfect sense.

[freqmax]

In the Amiga haydays. Hardware in any form was expensive and thus you made the effort to save bucks.

[darksun9210]

yup yup. ever the cash strapped amiga users looking to get more for their money.

mate of mine had one of these, 470Mb IIRC. managed a stonking 2.7Mb/s! so cheaper and faster than the 2.5" drives of the time.

then someone else managed to shoehorn a slimline 1Gb 3.5" drive into their blizz030 powered 1200... like a mini arms race those days

[Iggy]

Worst technology?
Nope, that either has to be the original IBM PC or any CDi player.

[Tripitaka]

I actually did that. I wouldn't call that hacking at all

That's the attitude I like. I salute you sir.

[Tripitaka]

Worst technology?
Nope, that either has to be the original IBM PC or any CDi player.

I think you have a point but honestly, how about this?

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/geekstuff4u-microsd-ssd-converter,24512.html

Now if it was half the price it may be worthwhile.

[Iggy]

I think you have a point but honestly, how about this?

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/geekstuff4u-microsd-ssd-converter,24512.html

Now if it was half the price it may be worthwhile.

What a strange idea. I can understand Compact Flash being used for that, but SD cards?
Hey, if I didn't know that the intense use writing and re-writing to these would result in early failure...I might be dumb enough to buy one.

[freqmax]

Worst technology?
Nope, that either has to be the original IBM PC or any CDi player.

Th IBM PC is a prime example of "suits" being unable to proper technical decisions. Beep-beep, monochrome graphics, no hardware acceleration, ISA bus in comparision to the Amiga.. even the C64 would make a dent....

But it had the IBM logo, the most valuable item for people without a clue at the time.