Every day is a lesson; for decades I erroneously thought the A600 had the AGA chipset. I was already an A1200 owner from when it was first released so I didn't really pay its smaller cousin much attention, but learning that the A600 was only ECS/68000 goes some way towards explaining its lack of popularity back in the day. The compact form factor is lovely though, and I can understand why so many modern accelerators have been designed around it. Also I remain committed to the belief that, as a GUI, Intuition/Workbench 2.0-3.1 was the perfect blend of aesthetics and usability. The limitations of four colours and the introduction of design guidelines led to an interface that is simple but effective, rendering information in an intuitive (heh) way that doesn't overwhelm the user with unnecessary complexity. Obviously we've moved on a lot in 30 years across multiple platforms, and the Amiga itself had various visual upgrades that provided better eye candy if that's your sort of thing. But I still feel as though I could happily get through my working day using a Workbench 2/3-style GUI. Everything since has just been bells and whistles.
When the 600 and 1200 were released, I had unfortunately moved to Intel and the dark side of computing. I remember reading about them, but at the time needed to be able to run AutoCAD as part of my career path. The switch to Windows 3 was horrible. I remember wondering how in the world this "won" the OS battle. Not sure if you've seen yesterday's Livestream (th-cam.com/users/liveYBrD9mydaYs?si=89HHcaTyBqc-X1vR), but PiMiga 3 really shows off what a modern AmigaOS looks like. It's an amazing look at "what if."
I've got a Pi400 and I'd had a quick play with PiMiga but I found the whole experience a little overwhelming, which is I guess what happens when you haven't touched an Amiga since the late 1990s. I need to give it another try to be fair. I do like that PiDock thing though. Part of the problem with the Pi400 was finding the desk space to hook it up to a spare monitor, but with a PiDock it would effectively become a portable emulation station. The only off-putting thing is the price.
@@KevReillyUK Agree on price. I took a look at the PiDock in another video and my biggest complaint was the cost. They did provide me with a discount code for viewers, but it is still a little high. Hoping for a better, cost reduced version 2.
I think its unpopularity was mostly because the A1200 was already out there as the new baseline and then Commodore releases this other things which was a clear step backwards, complicated their marketing and just cannibalized sales of the A1200.
I seem to remember our A1200 mouse looked very similar, might have been the same one. It was decent, but I actually missed the classic tank mouse shape because to me that was the Amiga mouse!
The A600 was the first model I bought again, pretty much because of the Vampire card back then. It got new caps (highly recommended) and an internal SD card drive. I also got a PCMCIA network card for it so I can download stuff from aminet with it and another card that can be used as storage. Great little machine. Never installed the Vampire, but got a 68020 for it which makes it fast enough to have fun on the workbench, got plenty of RAM as well for those WDHLoad games. 👍 There's a VGA adapter cable for video output. However, not every monitor will be able to sync to it since has weird refresh rates. Back then, with my A500, I only had an RF modulator so the Amiga was connected to a standard TV. Couldn't afford a monitor back then. That's probably what ruined my eyes 😂 The Amiga is still my most favorite machine. I learned so much on it back then (BBSes, then the internet, software Development in GFA-Basic, then in C)... Without it I wouldn't be a software developer today.
Pinned! Great comments and thanks for sharing. I'm interested in the Raspberry Pi device that adds memory and Vampire line performance. That might be first on my list but I have SEVERAL other projects ahead of that one.
@@retroCombs A Gotek is also nice to have if you don't want to deal with physical floppy disks anymore. That was my first upgrade. And really get those SMD caps replaced fast, they are prone to leaking in the A600, A1200, CD32 and A4000 and can damage the board. The older models still had through-hole components and should be fine. I got a PiStorm in my A500, bought one for the 1200 as well. There are 2 different CPU emulators out there. Emu68 is barebone and runs on the Pi without requiring any OS on it. It boots much faster than Musashi and also runs a lot faster. There are compatibility issues though, probably thanks to the JIT which causes inconsistent timing since it has to compile code on the first run. So some demos run pretty sluggish. I wished it could be disabled so that it only runs as an interpreter. That would probably be still fast enough. Sadly it's not possible. They do more than just CPU as well. You get extra storage, better audio and graphics. There's also a video add-on board that offers RTG graphics and has HDMI out. So there's really much you can do with that old machine. It's a biiiiiiiiiiig community :)
I remember back in the day the A600 came out and was reviewed it was too expensive and didn't bring much new to the platform and lived under the A1200s shadow. Yes there was ecs, which had some conpatibility issues, the pcmcia port, was a good idea but to few devices were available and too expensive. The internal hdd controller was a gamechanger though. I really liked this mouse better than the tank mouse back then, but I guess with optical internals there's no contest, no more cleaning required.
I really hope the capacitors were more than "checked". All of the surface mount caps in A600 units need to be replaced. When you smell that fish smell you will know. That is one of the major reasons I have steered away from the A600. They all need to be recapped at this point. That and I never liked the cheapness of the shell. Opening it you are almost guaranteed to break some of the plastic clips...unless you are ridiculously careful. And even then.. But, I wish you the best with it. I was an A500 owner and user back in the late 80's and that wedge computer will always be my favorite. Subbed!
@@retroCombs Certainly. The last one I had purchased came from AmigaKit (years ago when they still had them in stock) and it was a brand new machine. Shortly after I had purchased something else to install that required me opening the machine. I had no idea why the inside smelled like sardines initially. The caps used on that machine were during the bad cap era.
I love my A600, but I love my A500 more for nostalgic reasons. The A600 gives me the same vibe as a C64c. The PCMCIA port is occasionally handy, but I dearly wish they had put it at the back. Anyway, you'll have a lot of fun exploring the options and creating your ideal setup. I certainly did 🙂.
Yeah, it would have made more sense at the back. The first and one of very few products that made use of the PCMCIA slot was a RAM expansion card, and it did jut out a little bit, not something you really want in case you accidentally knocked it or put a hand down upon it while getting up from the desk. At the back it's still easily accessible on this small case, and not nearly as vulnerable to accidents.
Glad she arrived okay and you're happy! As always, let us know if you have any problems, and thanks for the business and the great videos. You can open it if you want. For you, we'll honor the warranty anyway. Just be careful -- the case clips on 600's tend to break easily. So open slowly and carefully. One of yours was broken (the right one). We have a clever bodge that works better and a bit more permanently than 3D printed replacements. All the same, care is advised.
Thanks, Scott. It's a beauty for sure. Appreciate the tips on the clips. No real reason to open but considering a PiStorm upgrade down the road when Raspberry Pi Zeros are back in stock at reasonable prices.
If you do open it, look out for the very short led cable. You need to unplug this before you can open the case more than an inch or two. It is easy to break a connection if you forget and try to pull open the case without disconnecting the led cable. A longer led cable would be a good mod!
You should get the Amiga os 3.2 with new roms. It supports big hdds and many new stuff. Other things are rgb to hdmi adapter based on rusbery pi. Also use the pcmcia for wifi or ethernet card. The accelerator with 030 or 020 cpu. And external gotek drive to load adf floppy images from pendrives.😊
A600 is a nicer specced A500, the IDE and PCMCIA ports are really nice to have, never had an A600 until the Vampire 2 accelerator card came out. Currently my A1200 with PiStorm32+CM4 expansion is my main Amiga, accelerates the Amiga to insane speeds!
I really need to grab the PiStorm32 and using it with the +CM4 sounds perfect. I can only imagine what the speed increase will be when the CM5 is released.
@@retroCombs Seems the CM5 will use same PCI-e southbridge as the current Pi5, unfortunately this makes it not usable for PiStorm (too much latency), Michal talked about that on Amiga38, if it was usable the speed increase would be about 2,5 times faster than cm4/pi4, what a bummer! But cm4 @2.2Ghz is already VERY fast and will not disappoint you compared to pi3.
The A1200 ended up being the Amiga of choice for most people late in the 90s I think; the A4000 never became appreciably cheaper and by moving the A1200 into a tower you could get most of the performance at a lower price (though I think there were limits to the level of Zorro slots that you could acquire for the A1200 in that sort of arrangement, I don't think you could use Zorro III). Certainly a great Amiga, and the one we upgraded to from the A500.
My Amiga was a 500, with 20MB SCSI harddisk, clock, ram extension, and I think a unofficial OS 3 or 3.1 later. I ruined it with "Settlers" because of overheating through 24/7 running the game. A pity.
The 500 was my first Amiga. You literally burned yours to the ground. That's the first time I've heard of that happening. You could now run Settlers in emulation and not worry about overheating. 😄
And with a Raspberry Pi you can almost get Vampire level performance. As soon as Raspberry Pis are back in the wild, I plan to slap one on my A600. Thanks for commenting.
@@retroCombs in some regards it is even faster, it gives you RTG, but in others vampire is more complete, as it can bring you AGA and send both RTG and Amiga through one output
If I remember correctly, that Early Boot Menu has the option to switch between NTSC and PAL video modes, as well as selecting which drive to boot from.
1- accelerator board-68030 min 2- the more Fast Ram the better 3- AmigaOS3.2 roms 3- WHDLoad 4- Directory Opus is our friend 5- PiStorm ? This is the way 👍🍻
I like my Amiga 500 better because it has 1MB of Chip ram and a Derringer 68030 CPU board 16MB RAM onboard that runs at 50mhz and a GVP HD+8 Hard Drive Controller 4gb SD Card to boot from and Rom Switcher and a Gotek
Me too. I also have one of those rounded Commodore mice with my A600, but it's not loud. I once replaced the microswitches in a tank mouse and it became very loud and clicky. Maybe the commonly supplied replacements are loud.
looks like your Amiga is from the "dark ages" of Amiga, when it was sold to German company Escom, and Escom branded a bunch of things with Commodore labels. Its still an Amiga, and a lovely one too. enjoy!
@@retroCombs Not much to tell really. Commodore went bankrupt, sold the IP, Escom bought it plus most of the remaining inventory of Amiga hardware. Escom went bust in 1996, then Commodore became Tulip computers property, then Gateway Computers property. Very sad for such an amazing range of machines with great potential.
The only games that might have an issue is if they rely on the numeric keypad for controls. This was evidently an issue with "some" flight simulators. But other than that, this is basically the same hardware as the A500.
Never had a 600, although back in the day I did have a 500 and later a 4000, but with my mindset now, I just love the design and form factor of the 600 and wouldn’t mind no numeric keypad… must be one of the least used bits of IT equipment through the decades, just wasting space on the desk. The form factor also reminds me of my much beloved (and sadly also long gone) Plus/4.
That's it! You nailed it. I wondered why I loved the 600 form factor and it's definitely as you say, a wonderful throw back to the Plus/4, one of my favs. Not sure if that was intentional by Commodore. Good catch.
That is 250 USD more than what it is actually worth. I say you got cheated. That aside. The best Amiga depends on how you want to use your Amiga. And it is not the 600. If you want to go the floppy way, then it is the 500 that are the best. You can use it with gotek or real floppy. The other is the 1200. But that is if you have the money and wish to go the WHD Loader way. This however is only if games are the only focus point. If you wish to use Amiga for more than just games, you need to go the Big Box route. For that I would say that if AGA is not your wish, and you focus strictly on pre-1990 software, then the best is the Amiga 2000. If you want to use software post-1990, then the best Amiga is the 4000. It all depends on what your main focus point is. But the best Amiga is not the Amiga600. You can get an 500 PAL for 150 to 250 USD if you know were to look. And that is checked, restored, tested and even comes with accessories like disks and joysticks.
Great feedback. Thanks for the thoughts. I think I'm going to pop in a pi and see if I can upgrade this one. Should allow me to play with applications other than games.
@@retroCombs PiStorm will give you headaches. I have one for Amiga500, but the software is not ready for games yet. But productivity software it is awesomme now. RGBtoHDMI is almost a must though....
It was also shipped with the Amiga 600 (came out at the same time). I got one with my A600 back in the day. Think it's much nicer than the tank mouse (and probably much rarer too)
@@retroCombs Yeah, it also shipped with the A1200. (As far as i remember i've seen in some video on youtube, that some very very early A600/A1200's actually shipped with the tank - something about commodore wanting to empty their tank stock or something. Never seen an A600/1200 with a tank myself, tho, so i'm not sure this is true)
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 80 | คู่เอก "รักษ์ vs ยอดนำชัย"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ckLMRorsMeY/mqdefault.jpg)
Every day is a lesson; for decades I erroneously thought the A600 had the AGA chipset. I was already an A1200 owner from when it was first released so I didn't really pay its smaller cousin much attention, but learning that the A600 was only ECS/68000 goes some way towards explaining its lack of popularity back in the day. The compact form factor is lovely though, and I can understand why so many modern accelerators have been designed around it.
Also I remain committed to the belief that, as a GUI, Intuition/Workbench 2.0-3.1 was the perfect blend of aesthetics and usability. The limitations of four colours and the introduction of design guidelines led to an interface that is simple but effective, rendering information in an intuitive (heh) way that doesn't overwhelm the user with unnecessary complexity. Obviously we've moved on a lot in 30 years across multiple platforms, and the Amiga itself had various visual upgrades that provided better eye candy if that's your sort of thing. But I still feel as though I could happily get through my working day using a Workbench 2/3-style GUI. Everything since has just been bells and whistles.
When the 600 and 1200 were released, I had unfortunately moved to Intel and the dark side of computing. I remember reading about them, but at the time needed to be able to run AutoCAD as part of my career path. The switch to Windows 3 was horrible. I remember wondering how in the world this "won" the OS battle.
Not sure if you've seen yesterday's Livestream (th-cam.com/users/liveYBrD9mydaYs?si=89HHcaTyBqc-X1vR), but PiMiga 3 really shows off what a modern AmigaOS looks like. It's an amazing look at "what if."
I've got a Pi400 and I'd had a quick play with PiMiga but I found the whole experience a little overwhelming, which is I guess what happens when you haven't touched an Amiga since the late 1990s. I need to give it another try to be fair.
I do like that PiDock thing though. Part of the problem with the Pi400 was finding the desk space to hook it up to a spare monitor, but with a PiDock it would effectively become a portable emulation station. The only off-putting thing is the price.
@@KevReillyUK Agree on price. I took a look at the PiDock in another video and my biggest complaint was the cost. They did provide me with a discount code for viewers, but it is still a little high. Hoping for a better, cost reduced version 2.
I think its unpopularity was mostly because the A1200 was already out there as the new baseline and then Commodore releases this other things which was a clear step backwards, complicated their marketing and just cannibalized sales of the A1200.
@drxym Good old Commodore marketing stikes again.
That mouse is the same mouse I used with my A1200. It's a good make. Never failed me.
It's been solid. New switches in this one I'm sure make a difference.
I seem to remember our A1200 mouse looked very similar, might have been the same one. It was decent, but I actually missed the classic tank mouse shape because to me that was the Amiga mouse!
@@danyoutube7491 the Tank Mouse is a classic. I use the new one with PiMiga3 and it's awesome too. Check out my last livestream to see that setup.
I also got the same mouse with my A1200.
@BertGrink Seems this was the standard mouse for 600 and 1200. Who knew? I guess everyone but me. 😂
The A600 was the first model I bought again, pretty much because of the Vampire card back then. It got new caps (highly recommended) and an internal SD card drive. I also got a PCMCIA network card for it so I can download stuff from aminet with it and another card that can be used as storage. Great little machine. Never installed the Vampire, but got a 68020 for it which makes it fast enough to have fun on the workbench, got plenty of RAM as well for those WDHLoad games. 👍
There's a VGA adapter cable for video output. However, not every monitor will be able to sync to it since has weird refresh rates. Back then, with my A500, I only had an RF modulator so the Amiga was connected to a standard TV. Couldn't afford a monitor back then. That's probably what ruined my eyes 😂
The Amiga is still my most favorite machine. I learned so much on it back then (BBSes, then the internet, software Development in GFA-Basic, then in C)... Without it I wouldn't be a software developer today.
Pinned! Great comments and thanks for sharing. I'm interested in the Raspberry Pi device that adds memory and Vampire line performance. That might be first on my list but I have SEVERAL other projects ahead of that one.
@@retroCombs A Gotek is also nice to have if you don't want to deal with physical floppy disks anymore. That was my first upgrade.
And really get those SMD caps replaced fast, they are prone to leaking in the A600, A1200, CD32 and A4000 and can damage the board. The older models still had through-hole components and should be fine.
I got a PiStorm in my A500, bought one for the 1200 as well. There are 2 different CPU emulators out there. Emu68 is barebone and runs on the Pi without requiring any OS on it. It boots much faster than Musashi and also runs a lot faster. There are compatibility issues though, probably thanks to the JIT which causes inconsistent timing since it has to compile code on the first run. So some demos run pretty sluggish. I wished it could be disabled so that it only runs as an interpreter. That would probably be still fast enough. Sadly it's not possible. They do more than just CPU as well. You get extra storage, better audio and graphics.
There's also a video add-on board that offers RTG graphics and has HDMI out. So there's really much you can do with that old machine. It's a biiiiiiiiiiig community :)
The A600 form factor is very nice
I agree. I really like it. Rumor is the Retro Games next retro recreation might be a full size Amiga based on the 600.
I had an Amiga 500 and 1200 and both were the hay day of gaming for me. They were both such awesome machines!
Be sure to check out the replay of my livestream today. Since you had those machines, I think you'll enjoy it. th-cam.com/users/liveYBrD9mydaYs
I remember back in the day the A600 came out and was reviewed it was too expensive and didn't bring much new to the platform and lived under the A1200s shadow. Yes there was ecs, which had some conpatibility issues, the pcmcia port, was a good idea but to few devices were available and too expensive. The internal hdd controller was a gamechanger though.
I really liked this mouse better than the tank mouse back then, but I guess with optical internals there's no contest, no more cleaning required.
Agree. The mouse keeps growing on me. Sadly, I've not spent much time with my new 600. Might need to fire it up for a livestream.
Thanks for the teaser, now switching on my MEGA65 😊
Yep. The MEGA65 is such a great computer and similar, but in so many more ways, not. Looking forward to bring back my Amiga muscle memory.
I really hope the capacitors were more than "checked". All of the surface mount caps in A600 units need to be replaced. When you smell that fish smell you will know. That is one of the major reasons I have steered away from the A600. They all need to be recapped at this point. That and I never liked the cheapness of the shell. Opening it you are almost guaranteed to break some of the plastic clips...unless you are ridiculously careful. And even then..
But, I wish you the best with it. I was an A500 owner and user back in the late 80's and that wedge computer will always be my favorite. Subbed!
They seem to be in good shape but definitely something to keep an eye on.
@@retroCombs Certainly. The last one I had purchased came from AmigaKit (years ago when they still had them in stock) and it was a brand new machine. Shortly after I had purchased something else to install that required me opening the machine. I had no idea why the inside smelled like sardines initially. The caps used on that machine were during the bad cap era.
@eightbit1975 Thanks for the heads up. I'll keep my desolder gun at the ready. 😂
I love my A600, but I love my A500 more for nostalgic reasons. The A600 gives me the same vibe as a C64c.
The PCMCIA port is occasionally handy, but I dearly wish they had put it at the back. Anyway, you'll have a lot of fun exploring the options and creating your ideal setup. I certainly did 🙂.
Thanks. I am looking forward to digging in more. Need to find a PCMCIA SD card reader.
Yeah, it would have made more sense at the back. The first and one of very few products that made use of the PCMCIA slot was a RAM expansion card, and it did jut out a little bit, not something you really want in case you accidentally knocked it or put a hand down upon it while getting up from the desk. At the back it's still easily accessible on this small case, and not nearly as vulnerable to accidents.
@danyoutube7491 I still need to grab a PCMCIA card for this one.
Glad she arrived okay and you're happy! As always, let us know if you have any problems, and thanks for the business and the great videos.
You can open it if you want. For you, we'll honor the warranty anyway. Just be careful -- the case clips on 600's tend to break easily. So open slowly and carefully. One of yours was broken (the right one). We have a clever bodge that works better and a bit more permanently than 3D printed replacements. All the same, care is advised.
Thanks, Scott. It's a beauty for sure. Appreciate the tips on the clips. No real reason to open but considering a PiStorm upgrade down the road when Raspberry Pi Zeros are back in stock at reasonable prices.
If you do open it, look out for the very short led cable. You need to unplug this before you can open the case more than an inch or two. It is easy to break a connection if you forget and try to pull open the case without disconnecting the led cable. A longer led cable would be a good mod!
Thanks for the tip. Maybe I'll rewire with longer connectors.
I did not watch your video before answering the question inthe thumbnail.
The answer is yes.
I do like it more than I did my original Amiga 500. Size is perfect. Thanks for the comment!
You should get the Amiga os 3.2 with new roms. It supports big hdds and many new stuff. Other things are rgb to hdmi adapter based on rusbery pi. Also use the pcmcia for wifi or ethernet card. The accelerator with 030 or 020 cpu. And external gotek drive to load adf floppy images from pendrives.😊
Whoa. That's a lot and you didn't mention the PiMIGA. I think that's the route I'm headed if I can ever find time.
A600 is a nicer specced A500, the IDE and PCMCIA ports are really nice to have, never had an A600 until the Vampire 2 accelerator card came out.
Currently my A1200 with PiStorm32+CM4 expansion is my main Amiga, accelerates the Amiga to insane speeds!
I really need to grab the PiStorm32 and using it with the +CM4 sounds perfect. I can only imagine what the speed increase will be when the CM5 is released.
@@retroCombs Seems the CM5 will use same PCI-e southbridge as the current Pi5, unfortunately this makes it not usable for PiStorm (too much latency), Michal talked about that on Amiga38, if it was usable the speed increase would be about 2,5 times faster than cm4/pi4, what a bummer!
But cm4 @2.2Ghz is already VERY fast and will not disappoint you compared to pi3.
@@EdgeOfPanic Thanks for the additional info. I'll start looking into the PiStorm and see if they are available.
I had the A600 for a while then upgraded to the A1200 because for the AGA chipset ...It was one of the best amiga's around
The 1200 is still on my radar, but prices keep jumping and stock in U.S. is low.
The A1200 ended up being the Amiga of choice for most people late in the 90s I think; the A4000 never became appreciably cheaper and by moving the A1200 into a tower you could get most of the performance at a lower price (though I think there were limits to the level of Zorro slots that you could acquire for the A1200 in that sort of arrangement, I don't think you could use Zorro III). Certainly a great Amiga, and the one we upgraded to from the A500.
I love the A600, and there are lots of upgrade options for it, so something for you to explore ..when you warranty runs out :)
Bonus Life saw the video and Scott was kind enough to say he would honor the warranty even if I opened it up.
My Amiga was a 500, with 20MB SCSI harddisk, clock, ram extension, and I think a unofficial OS 3 or 3.1 later. I ruined it with "Settlers" because of overheating through 24/7 running the game. A pity.
The 500 was my first Amiga. You literally burned yours to the ground. That's the first time I've heard of that happening. You could now run Settlers in emulation and not worry about overheating. 😄
I'm told the Amiga 600 is about the same physical size as the plus/4. I'd be interested to see.
Time for me to break out the ruler.
you should get a turbo card with fast memory for it ... will make it way more responsive
PiStorm seems to be the way to go. That will also get me HDMI out.
had A600 had AGA from day one it would be a cousy little machine! Now it can be upgraded with vampirem which is quite cool!
And with a Raspberry Pi you can almost get Vampire level performance. As soon as Raspberry Pis are back in the wild, I plan to slap one on my A600. Thanks for commenting.
@@retroCombs in some regards it is even faster, it gives you RTG, but in others vampire is more complete, as it can bring you AGA and send both RTG and Amiga through one output
I look forward to giving it a go! Thanks for clarifying.
It's like letting a cat jump on your video mixer.
😹
Also when you hit the reset and rightaway press both mouse buttons you get a boot menu and more stuff
I need to give that a try!
If I remember correctly, that Early Boot Menu has the option to switch between NTSC and PAL video modes, as well as selecting which drive to boot from.
@BertGrink That's interesting and worth exploring.
1- accelerator board-68030 min
2- the more Fast Ram the better
3- AmigaOS3.2 roms
3- WHDLoad
4- Directory Opus is our friend
5- PiStorm ?
This is the way 👍🍻
👍💾
Awesome. Thanks for the recommendations!
Forget PiStorm at this moment. Give it two years more to mature, at least.
i still have my a500 and still working. say that to apple. NEXT year 2x better full price upgrade
Wish I'd kept mine but I really enjoy this 600.
The 600 is better because it’s small, has ide and pcmcia. 500 is huge. But i would get the 1200 if they werent so expensive
I agree. I love the form factor and additional features.
I like my Amiga 500 better because it has 1MB of Chip ram and a Derringer 68030 CPU board 16MB RAM onboard that runs at 50mhz
and a GVP HD+8 Hard Drive Controller 4gb SD Card to boot from and Rom Switcher
and a Gotek
That's one souped up Amiga 500.
I had one of those mice, came with my 4000T.
Was it as loud as the clicks on this one?
@@retroCombs Heh, no way I'd remember that far back. 🙂
😂
Me too. I also have one of those rounded Commodore mice with my A600, but it's not loud. I once replaced the microswitches in a tank mouse and it became very loud and clicky. Maybe the commonly supplied replacements are loud.
That's my guess too. It's not a bad mouse.
looks like your Amiga is from the "dark ages" of Amiga, when it was sold to German company Escom, and Escom branded a bunch of things with Commodore labels. Its still an Amiga, and a lovely one too. enjoy!
I need to research Escom. Really not familiar with them.
@@retroCombs Not much to tell really. Commodore went bankrupt, sold the IP, Escom bought it plus most of the remaining inventory of Amiga hardware. Escom went bust in 1996, then Commodore became Tulip computers property, then Gateway Computers property. Very sad for such an amazing range of machines with great potential.
Very sad, indeed.
As far as I know, Escom only sold 1200 and 4000 T.
Bonus Life may have had a spare.
500+ was the best
Good choice!
I heard that games between A500 and A600 were incompatible. Is that true?
The only games that might have an issue is if they rely on the numeric keypad for controls. This was evidently an issue with "some" flight simulators. But other than that, this is basically the same hardware as the A500.
Never had a 600, although back in the day I did have a 500 and later a 4000, but with my mindset now, I just love the design and form factor of the 600 and wouldn’t mind no numeric keypad… must be one of the least used bits of IT equipment through the decades, just wasting space on the desk.
The form factor also reminds me of my much beloved (and sadly also long gone) Plus/4.
That's it! You nailed it. I wondered why I loved the 600 form factor and it's definitely as you say, a wonderful throw back to the Plus/4, one of my favs. Not sure if that was intentional by Commodore. Good catch.
welcome to the Rabbit Hole😉
THIS is the way🤟👍
Oh, yea! For sure. 🐇🕳️
Yup... Amiga is a rabbit hole..... 😁
Absolutely but a fun one.
That is 250 USD more than what it is actually worth. I say you got cheated.
That aside.
The best Amiga depends on how you want to use your Amiga. And it is not the 600. If you want to go the floppy way, then it is the 500 that are the best. You can use it with gotek or real floppy.
The other is the 1200. But that is if you have the money and wish to go the WHD Loader way.
This however is only if games are the only focus point. If you wish to use Amiga for more than just games, you need to go the Big Box route.
For that I would say that if AGA is not your wish, and you focus strictly on pre-1990 software, then the best is the Amiga 2000. If you want to use software post-1990, then the best Amiga is the 4000.
It all depends on what your main focus point is. But the best Amiga is not the Amiga600. You can get an 500 PAL for 150 to 250 USD if you know were to look. And that is checked, restored, tested and even comes with accessories like disks and joysticks.
Great feedback. Thanks for the thoughts. I think I'm going to pop in a pi and see if I can upgrade this one. Should allow me to play with applications other than games.
@@retroCombs PiStorm will give you headaches. I have one for Amiga500, but the software is not ready for games yet. But productivity software it is awesomme now.
RGBtoHDMI is almost a must though....
Roger!
This mouse is originally for the A1200. So it's a Commodore original.🖱
Thanks for the clarification. Seems to be a unique design as Commodore was shifting leadership/ownership during the later years.
It was also shipped with the Amiga 600 (came out at the same time). I got one with my A600 back in the day. Think it's much nicer than the tank mouse (and probably much rarer too)
Wonder if it also shipped with the 1200?
@@retroCombs Yeah, it also shipped with the A1200.
(As far as i remember i've seen in some video on youtube, that some very very early A600/A1200's actually shipped with the tank - something about commodore wanting to empty their tank stock or something. Never seen an A600/1200 with a tank myself, tho, so i'm not sure this is true)
@zaitarh It's a pretty good mouse and with new switches in mine, even better.