4 ms·

I've had a stock A600 for over a decade, it was okay. Sure I had to run a ReloKick for some games but the OS was vastly superior to the awful blue-orange flat s

by krige 2y ago

I've had a stock A600 for over a decade, it was okay. Sure I had to run a ReloKick for some games but the OS was vastly superior to the awful blue-orange flat shading ugly 1.3 topaz font hell of A500. Sure A500+ existed but over here (central europe) it was very rare and it was missing the IDE port anyway. Ironically for me the greatest issue was lack of the numpad, which caused issues with some software, and forced a very lasting aversion to numpad usage on me. From today's perspective, A600 is... annoying, which I've found out a few years ago. The architecture choices are hard to work with: the PCMCIA slot limits the amount of memory you can work with (well, unless you don't want to use it but it's almost indispensable, esp. for data transfer), the internal bus only accepts "slow" RAM - the desired Fast RAM (CPU exclusive) can only be added by expansions put directly over the CPU itself. Sure, there are Vampires and PiStorms but the compatibility of both can be a bit spotty, and if you're dumping that much on the system you must love it specifically, lest you'd just go with an A1200 which is superior in every respect. On that note, currently the easiest no-brainer Amiga to actually have fun with without eating your budget too much is an A1200. Slap an 8MB fast ram expansion, an IDE CF controller, and 3.2.2 OS/ROM it's ready to go. WHDLoad installs exist for every important game and many obscure ones too, data transfer can go either via PCMCIA>CF card, or a Parallel Port contraption that reads microSD cards. And if you want more power (though I can't imagine why, unless you want to run Doom on it), TerribleFire cards aren't too pricey. 128MB RAM + 030/060 CPU is a substantial boost (note: games, especially early 3D, will break with that much power). Just watch for leaky capacitors (thankfully there's a whole industry for fixing this), and for the love of god don't use the stock A1200 PSU, it'll kill your system (thanks Commodore).

renewedrebecca 2y ago
> and for the love of god don't use the stock A1200 PSU, it'll kill your system (thanks Commodore) That is definitely a Commodore tradition. I had a C64 back that had a PSU die in 1985 and took out all of the DRAM chips.
- danby 2y ago
  It isn't true though. C64 PSUs would fail high and fry downstream chips and passives. Amiga PSUs are designed to fail low, and with the exception of some exceptionally rare faults, they won't fry your computer if the capacitors fail
  - krige 2y ago
    It fried mine, twice in a row. Lost the A600, which came with A1200 PSU, and then an A500 to a different PSU. Additionally, the second(ary) issue with A1200 PSU is it's barely strong enough to support the base hardware configuration and will make expanded systems unstable.
    - danby 2y ago
      Your PSU issues aren't actually all that common. The A1200 PSU being trash was a prime example of commodore's decades long costing cutting horrors.

by krige 2y ago

renewedrebecca 2y ago

> and for the love of god don't use the stock A1200 PSU, it'll kill your system (thanks Commodore) That is definitely a Commodore tradition. I had a C64 back that had a PSU die in 1985 and took out all of the DRAM chips.

danby 2y ago
It isn't true though. C64 PSUs would fail high and fry downstream chips and passives. Amiga PSUs are designed to fail low, and with the exception of some exceptionally rare faults, they won't fry your computer if the capacitors fail
- krige 2y ago
  It fried mine, twice in a row. Lost the A600, which came with A1200 PSU, and then an A500 to a different PSU. Additionally, the second(ary) issue with A1200 PSU is it's barely strong enough to support the base hardware configuration and will make expanded systems unstable.
  - danby 2y ago
    Your PSU issues aren't actually all that common. The A1200 PSU being trash was a prime example of commodore's decades long costing cutting horrors.