I used to have a spectrum 128k then one day I was walking around a shopping center saw the amiga 500 and bought it and my mind was blow one of the most amazing things was the disk drive it was so quick to load a game taking mins instead of the 20+ mins on a spectrum plus the sound and colours it was a different level I actually remember saying to my friend "gaming will never get better than this, how will anyone make anything with better sound or graphics " only in the year 1995 when I bought my first pc then my mind was blown again but early days of home computing where great, every time you got a new computer their actually was a massive difference i went from a zx81 spectrum128k amiga 500 pc pc with voodoo graphics every single step it was huge difference but these days going from one pc to another while they are better because they are slightly quicker and have crisper graphics I do miss the massive jumps we had in the early days
Thanks for taking the time to comment. You raise a really good point, going from generation machine to machine, there was a huge noticeable jump and especially going to the Amiga 500 with it's graphics and sound performance. The games that I found amazing were the backgrounds that scrolled at different times to the foreground, Zool 2, Another World, graphically incredible games.
Massive jumps are still happening. What is the next leap from the amazing photorealistic graphics on PCs? It's VR gaming. VR gaming makes what I think a bigger leap from 2d graphics of the16 bits age to the 3d graphics of the 32 bits. generation. So if you're into gaming, VR is the next leap for sure!
@@darksword1 I dont think the leaps they are doing today are as big for example in 15 years I went from 2 colors to 8 colors to 256 colors and finally thousands the same with music and loading it wasnt just oh a tiny bit better you felt when you bought a new system the difference was amazing it really slowed down around 2005 thats not to say that it never got better it was just more small improvements every year i remember buying a pc around 2010 and thinking it didnt feel like i really got much for my money and yet on paper every component was way better than my previous pc i currently have a 7 year old pc with gtx 1080 when my son bought his new pc i went to look at it and it has a gtx 4070 super and i still think it didnt look much better than i have
@darkzim3872 if you haven't yet,u got to try vr games. I've been gaming since atari 2600 vcs. Vr is as big of a leap as any before it. I play most racing simulation and flying simulation games on vr. It's so real and super fun.
I had an A500, and until a hardware problem caused it to stop working, I had what I consider a great A500/ECS games system. I added a 1MB Agnes chip to my system, and added the trapdoor 512K expander for 1MB of Chip RAM. I added a Kickstart switcher with both 1.3 and 2.0 ROMs. I had a GVP hard drive, a Supra 8MB RAM expander, and a Supra turbo 28 accelerator. Here's why I think it was a great ECS games system; The 1MB Agnes chip gave me the ability to switch to PAL mode for European games. It defaulted to Kickstart 2.0, but you could switch to 1.3 by holding down the reset keys for 10+ seconds, and 1.3 would stay active until you either switched back, or powered off the machine. The Supra RAM exapnder gave me a full 8MB of Fast, which was very important for the next item. The Supra Turbo 28 accelerator used a 28Mhz 68000 to speed up processing. This gave a significant speed increase for games like flight sims, but since it was still a 68000 ship, it was completely compatible, unlike higher processor models. It could be toggled on the fly, and it was fun to see people's reactions when the Wing Commander intro went from choppy and sluggish to smooth and fast. The GVP hard drive not only gave me a hard drive, but the interface itself was better than Commodore's. I plugged my Zip drive into the port on the back and it automatically sensed disk changes just like a floppy drive. Unfortunately, I had bought the RAM expander used and it was already slightly damaged, and like an idiot, I didn't remove the case when i used it. I say this because everything that plugged into the left side of the A500 have a plate that was meant to side under the computer, however none of the manufacturers of these devices ever considered the possibility that you would stack multiple such devices. So plugging them in with the cases on, would put stress on the connectors as the plates forced them to bend slightly. Eventually the connector on the RAM expander cracked and stopped working. And without Fast RAM, the accelerator didn't have any noticeable effect. I would have put RAM in the GVP as it had slots for it, but those memory modules were VERY expensive and I couldn't afford it. I got an A2000 from a friend, and while I was greatful to have it, I considered it a downgrade for most games. It had a Kickstart switcher, but you had to use a mouse button at boot to switch, and it was only switched until the next boot. It had a 68020 accelerator which caused problems with a bunch of games. You could disable it, but you had to hold down a mouse button at boot, and it only stayed off until the next boot. It had a 1MB Agnes chip, but to use PAL, you had to reboot, so you could only use PAL with Kickstart 2.0 and the 68020 enabled, since holding any of the mouse buttons would interfere with the PAL boot. You also couldn't boot into Kickstart 1.3 with the 68020 disabled as the boot options were exclusive. I know I could have put my Kickstart switcher in it, but I had hopes of eventually going back to my A500. Also, it had a Commodore brand hard drive card, and while I could plug my Zip drive into it, it didn't sense disk changes. In fact, I needed a third party program called SCSI Mounter just to be able to format a disk!
Thanks for sharing your detailed experience! It sounds like you had an amazing setup with your A500/ECS system. Switching to PAL mode with the 1MB Agnus chip must have been fantastic for playing European games, giving you access to a broader range of titles without any compatibility issues. Having both Kickstart 1.3 and 2.0 ROMs easily accessible was a big advantage, and the long reset hold to switch between them was a clever solution for running both old and new games smoothly. Expanding to 8MB of Fast RAM was crucial for more demanding applications and games, significantly boosting your A500's performance. The 28MHz 68000 accelerator was a smart choice, offering a noticeable speed boost while maintaining full compatibility with all software. I can imagine how impressive it was to toggle it on the fly and see games like Wing Commander run smoothly. The GVP hard drive with its superior interface provided a reliable and efficient storage solution, and the automatic disk change sensing for the Zip drive was a great feature, making it feel just like using a floppy drive. It's a shame that stacking multiple expansions without removing the cases led to the cracked RAM expander, limiting your system's performance. It's a valuable lesson in managing hardware expansions. While the A2000 offered some benefits, it did have its drawbacks compared to your optimized A500 setup. The Kickstart switcher requiring a mouse button press at boot and only staying active until the next boot was less convenient. The 68020 accelerator introduced compatibility issues with some games, and the need to reboot for PAL mode added complexity. The Commodore hard drive card lacking automatic disk change sensing and requiring SCSI Mounter for disk formatting was also less user-friendly. Your story really highlights the balance between hardware upgrades and maintaining compatibility, which was a common challenge for Amiga enthusiasts. If you enjoyed this discussion and want to dive into more retro computing stories and insights, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered! Cheers, RustyIngles
I never modded my A500 and I could always switch to pal mode, which was supported by my 1084s monitor. I'd have missed out on many of my favorite games if that weren't possible. Either the boot sector switched for me or I had a piece of software that would switch to 50hz on the rare occasion it didn't happen automatically. It was one of the few things I learned to do when I tried to learn assembly, just being a single instruction. Maybe some of the Canadian A500s came with this capability as stock? I got my 500 around 89 so perhaps they switched out the Agnus chip by then
I owned nearly the same setup... Only differences were, I did not have hardware ROM switch (upgraded to 2.0 and kept it that way), and my GVP hard disk housing only had 4MB RAM. The disk itself was a whopping (for the time) 240MB. I owned the drive for about 3 years... Never filled it up. LOL. I loved that machine to death. Still own it... Hasn't been turned on in like 15 years though... Not sure if it even still works. :(
I had an A600, and though I absolutely loved it and spent countless hours playing games on it, there was always one problem. Finding the expansions and upgrades was near-impossible. This was an era where yo couldn't find a discount online retailer, and even mail order vendors were a novelty. This meant you were at the mercy of the local market. As the A600 was far less popular than the A500, I found most local retailers simply didn't stock them, and those that did charged a lot more than the equivalent A500 upgrades. So much so that it was prohibitively expensive, so I never upgraded mine. This meant I had to play Monkey Island 2 with only 1 disk drive, and I could not get enough RAM to support SimCity 2K and had to stick with SimCity Classic. I always felt quite resentful about that as a kid.
Thanks for sharing your experience! The challenges of finding expansions and upgrades for the A600 back in the day must have been frustrating. It's true that the local market's limitations and the relative rarity of A600 parts made upgrading difficult and expensive. Playing Monkey Island 2 with just one disk drive and not being able to upgrade the RAM for SimCity 2K must have been tough. It's understandable to feel resentful about those limitations as a kid. If you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
I used to have an A500 plus, trapdoor memory expansion, extra floppy drive and a harddrive expansion with a full 8 meg of extea ram, upgraded to 2.0 kickrom, it was a beast.
I always liked the compact, elegant appearance, such a neat little package. It's a shame that it was poorly timed, over priced, lacking the NUMPAD (small disadvantage, but still...), no compatability with A500 expansions (which seems like an obvious thing Commodore should have aimed to achieve) and the PCMCIA slot which didn't ultimately have any useful applications (the only ones I am aware of are as a slow connection for CD-ROM drives and for small RAM expansions - 4mb limit and again, slower access than from the traditional expansion slots, so not very good at all), at least back then. I do think that the internal hard disk option was a great idea though.
I had a 500 plus and a 1200 in the 90s. A few months ago, I couldn't resist and bought a 600, updated it with a vampire 2 card, 2mb chip ram, CF card with 3.2 WB. It's good to remember the past. :D
Thanks for your comment, I bet that brought back some great memories. There's great resources online to get ADFs which you'll be able to play. Have fun! Subscribe to stay updated with future Amiga goodness
As a teenager, I remember when the A600 came out and judged it purely by its lack of numeric keypad. I just didn't think it looked like a serious computer. I have since learned that it was considered my Amiga users of the time as too little too late. But I would happily have this as my only Amiga now if the price was right. It's nice and compact and has a Workbench that isn't bright blue.
Thanks for sharing your memories! The lack of a numeric keypad on the A600 did make it seem less serious to many at the time. It's interesting how perspectives change, and now the A600's compact size and updated Workbench are appreciated. If the price is right, it would indeed be a great addition to any collection. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
I had an A500, we bought the half-meg upgrade when it came out, then an external floppy drive. When the A600 came out and some of my schoolfriends, late to the party, bought into it I sneered and turned my nose at it knowing it was a "stunted" version of my beloved 500. Happy days
Thanks for sharing those memories! The A500 with the half-meg upgrade and an external floppy drive was an incredible setup back in the day. It's understandable that the A600, seen as a "stunted" version of the A500, might not have impressed you then. Those school days with classic computers sure bring back some happy memories! If you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
Well... The Amiga 500 was never limited to 2 MB of RAM. Not sure where that number came from. The original A500 could go up to 1 MB using a 512k expansion in the belly slot, and easily handle 9 MB total using the side slot - those expansions were available back in '87 and 88. Mighty expensive, but doable. It was VASTLY more expandable than the A600 but the A600 had a few more features "out of the box". It made no sense at all to us Amiga 500 users. It was not an upgrade. By the time it came out we could have bought a fairly inexpensive upgrade that cost less than the a600, slap it on the side and have lots of RAM and hard drive controller, and for just a little bit more a nice 68030 or 68040 accelerator. And those allowed RAM of 32 MB or even more
maybe they were thinking more of selling it to people who had bought c64's few years earlier rather than as an upgrade to a500 owners. computer shelf life's just didn't work at all like they had before that and the segments that used to be went out of the window.
@@lasskinn474 This. They were aiming for low-budget consumers (up to $250) that had C64, NES, ZX Spectrum, Sega Master System and similar 8-bit machines. Now it was time for them to upgrade to 16-bit, while mid-range consumers moved to 32-bit and 3D. Remember that 2D 16-bit games were being produced until 1996-97, so there was still market for them. However, Commodore bungled with both of these market segments , A300 became A600, A1200 and CD32 were mostly flops that could not do 3D and there you go .
Thanks for the detailed insights! You're right-the Amiga 500 was indeed highly expandable. It could handle up to 9 MB with side slot expansions, which were available early on, albeit at a high cost. The A600 had more built-in features, but it wasn't seen as an upgrade by many A500 users due to the extensive and affordable upgrades available for the A500, including RAM and accelerator options. If you enjoy these in-depth discussions, consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing content! Cheers, RustyIngles
@@RetroGamesRediscovered Only if you compare the A600HD with the old A500. If you compare the A600 (without HD) with the A500+ the A500+ wins. The PCMCIA Slot was only to thwart GVP. 😅
This is the RAM limit on Amiga 500. 138 MB - 2 MB Chip RAM, 8 MB 16-bit Fast RAM, and 128 MB 32-bit Fast RAM. Remember you can insert several Zorro slots on A500+ if you connect a 20A Bigfoot PSU.
@@V3ntilator Indeed, but this video is for unexpanded machines. Even a std A600 can have 10MBs if you disable PCMCIA. 24bit address bus gives you a 16MB limit. Then there is the kickstart etc etc and lets you with a 10MB total RAM.
My A500 served me very well back in the day. I bought it in 1989 and it was the best choice at the time. But things moved on and everyone switched to 486 and Pentium PC's once they caught up with graphics and sound cards. PC graphics and sound were terrible comparatively at the time the Amiga was popular. It seemed to me that people that got the A600 were those that came very late to the game (1992 onwards) - I figured they just didn't have the funds to get the A500, but later they were able to acquire a Commodore. But between 1994 and 96 MSDOS & Windows PC's became much more affordable and seriously outperformed the Amiga's. Commodore went out of business in 94 as well - so that year seemed to be a turning point for the next generation of computing. I gave my Amiga away after I moved to Windows PC's. It just looked very dated by that time. After playing Need For Speed on a PC, you wouldn't want to go back to Test Drive II on the Amiga.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It's true that the Amiga 500 was a powerhouse in its prime, but as PC graphics and sound improved, many users transitioned to 486 and Pentium PCs. The A600 did attract latecomers, and by the mid-90s, PCs became more affordable and outperformed Amigas. Commodore's closure in 1994 was indeed a significant turning point. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
Never had a Amiga, but my best friend when I was a kid had a 500+. Lemmings, Lotus Esprit Challenge (?) and drawing obscene pictures in the Paint program kept us entertained on the weekends in winter. Kinda want one again.
Thanks for watching the video and taking the time to comment, yes Lemmings and Lotus Esprit Challenge were fantastic games. Ah, yes obscene pictures in Deluxe Paint 🤣
My cousin used to have an Amiga 500, when I still had a ZX Spectrum +2A (my cousin previously having had a 48K ZX Spectrum), then when I wanted an Amiga, we ended up getting an Atari 1040STe, because my father heard that the Primary School I was at was getting them (They got Acorn Archimedes A3000's to replace their older BBC's*). Later we got a Packard Bell PC, but a couple of my friends had Amiga 500's, (who both later got PC's). *One computer per classroom (possibly less) I remember staying behind after school was finished (with some other kids) , playing Lemmings and James Pond on the A3000. Also LANDER.
@@lmcgregoruk Our primary school also had BBCs before buying a single Acorn A3000 during my last year there, I think they were rather expensive compared to the BBCs!
I bought a raspberry Pi 4+ in the case and just turned it into an Amiga. It boots straight into an Amiga with a 256Gb hard drive. Can run any software (at least I've never found an Amiga game or app it won't run) at whatever speed. 68000, 68010, 68020, 68030, 68040, with a maths co-processor (or not) 16 mb ram. I had an A500 and A500+ later back int he early 90's. I was gutted when X:Com UFO Defence came out and was terrible to run even with 2 disk drives and expanded trapdoor RAM. Now it runs from hard drive and I can see why everyone loved it. :)
This was so very well covered. Great work. Back in the day, as I already had an A500, the 600 held zero appeal. And the missing numeric keypad, as a flight sim fan, was not a good move in my book. Fast forward 30 years, and if I didn't have an A1200, I would most certainly snap up an A600, and throw a CF card inside it. Even now watching this, I'm thinking "Hmmm....an A600 with CF-HDD inside, a Gotek, and one of those new USB-C PSU replacements, and that would be an awesome machine to take with me travelling.". I need help lol.
Thanks for your kind words and for taking the time to comment. I know what you mean, back in the 90s a friend had an A600 and it never really appealed to me (I owned a A500+ with 1mb upgrade in the trapdoor) but the A1200, well that's another story. My cousin had one and I really wanted an A1200. Fast forward 30+ years and I'm grateful to have one now! Future video coming soon, also!
My friend had A600 and I bought A1200 later. I love both machines. From my point of view, A500 was weaker than A600 and A1200. Choosing from these 3, I prefer A1200 as a powerful machine or A600 as a compact one. A500 got 3rd place in my personal charts.
Compared to the A500, the A600 had a few compatability issues and had fewer expansion options. It is true that if you didn't mind not being able to play a few older games and didn't have any interest in expanding the computer whatsoever, the A600 was a very nice looking and compact computer, but it would cost you a bit more than the A500. The A500 and A500+ were discontinued when the A600 was released, but the remaining A500s stocked by retailers were quickly snapped up by people.
I didn’t have an Amiga as a child, because I was born in the USSR, and similar computers were not sold there. Only in the early 90th did numerous locally produced clones of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer appear and people could buy it. Those this happened 10 years later than the release of the original ZX Spectrum. And a little later, inexpensive clones of the Nintendo Famicom appeared, but even they were too expensive and people could not afford to buy them. I knew about Amiga three years ago. I was impressed by its capabilities and definitely wanted to buy one of them to review. As a result, it so happened that I now have: Amiga A500+, A600, A1200, A2000 and many other retro computers. The A600 is a nice compact computer for me, but I have it like a museum exhibit. I'm not sure I turned it on after the first test after purchase. And the A500+ is a serious workhorse, easy to upgrade and a pleasure to use. For me it works with a Vampire turbo card, which opens up many possibilities.
Thanks for your comment and that's fascinating that there were clones of machines, presumably built in the USSR? I love the fact that you didn't have any Amiga's when you were younger but now you have an entire set! You're right about the A600 being a museum piece, I bought mine over a year ago and only turned it on when I made this video!
@@RetroGamesRediscovered Among those computers that were developed in the USSR, although there were very interesting models, they were mostly poorly suited for computer games and therefore were not suitable for home use. In a computer, not only hardware is important, but also software. There was no such industry where someone could quickly write software, and this platform became attractive for potential cloning. Of the Soviet developments, I would call the most interesting home computer “Вектро 06Ц”. But I do not know the facts of his cloning.
I been a Service Tech For 38 years now I am part semi-retired, those A600's are pain to repair, no sockatable chips, all custom and everythig is integrated. I worked on over 40 of those machines trying to detect the tricky faults and unfortunatley presenting the customer with a hefty service bill. No idea why commodore would customise such an atrotious machine in the first place. If you decide to get one be prepared that it is with iron clad will fail one day.
I guess they integrated all the sockets simply down to cost. But yes, a real pain to repair anything on the board of an A600. The 500 was so much better in that respect . What's your preferred machine to repair? Just out of curiosity. Thanks for taking the time to comment and for watching the video.
@@RetroGamesRediscovered YW, All up commodore/Amiga incorporated made around 26 Varietys of the Amiga including a A1000 Service Prototype Pre 1000 launch before the Commercial (the most reliable which used first grade Electronic Japanese components) out of the Commodores the A500 and A500 Plus had far less complicated problems or issues on the mainboard, even still today it stands as the most reliable out of all the cost reduced Amigas. Followed by the A1000, A2000, A2500, A1200/HD, A3000 were easy to service. CDTV, A4000 or anything to do with T,HD,CR or Zorro were prone to failure. Not all machines had entirely manufacturing faults but mostly came with 12 months warranty back up just to cover defects on the motherboard or hardware. Cost reducing came at a hefty price for the down user along the road. Amigas made after 1990 were significantly cost reduced due to the manufacture dividing up and went to the slaughter house. Amiga started to fall After David Haney, Carl Sassenrath and Rob Mical left Amiga Inc. The head of the development Team which was Lead by Project Manager J.Miner. Sad Ending from a Good Name in the begining.
I read in magazines from the 90s (and I think I've heard ex-Commodore staff in TH-cam videos say) that the idea behind the surface mounted components on the A600 and A1200 was to cut production costs and/or to reduce the number of faulty units reaching shops. Presumably with socketed chips workers were manually putting them into the boards and there was a chance that a sloppy or rushed worker would not be putting them in quite right and perhaps damaging chips.
I remember when I unplugged the keyboard cable from mine.. Even though I did everything correctly the awful quailty traces on the cable just wore off. And now if you still have one around then caps are probably going to be all bad. Meanwhile all of my a500s still work just fine.
A600 with the A630, 030/50 accelerator is a great little machine, this why the A600s are now going for high prices because of the hardware now available for it, but the A500 will always be one the best loved of the Amiga models
The a1200 was generally the better options, but there was something cool about fitting a 600 in a bag and taking it round to a mate's, like a console / laptop version of the Amiga.
Thanks for sharing! It's amazing how these memories bring us back, isn't it? The A600 was such a cool machine. And hey, you're never too old to enjoy some retro gaming! If you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more nostalgic content! Cheers, RustyIngles
Story of Amiga 600 is easily understandable if you consider market segments (tiers). At that time there were four: 1. low budget computers/consoles up to $250 2. mid range up to $ 500 3. affluent home semi-professional machines up to $1000 4. professional/wealthy equipment north of $1000 . While Commodore had contenders in higher brackets (Amiga 2000, 3000, 4000 ...) , most of the money came from first two segments (up to $250 and up to $500) . In 1990 in the first tier contender was C64, while in second Amiga 500. However, as tech progressed, they wanted to retire C64 and put A500 into first segment, while new machine (Amiga 1200, later CD32) would take second segment. However, A500 was too costly to produce to be in first segment, thus came idea of Amiga 300 which trough Commodore management incompetence bloated to A600 being more expensive than A500. A500 still filled the first segment , only these were used machines, and A1200 and CD32 failed due to lack of support for early 3D ... and rest is history .
Thanks for sharing that insightful breakdown of the Amiga 600's story! It's fascinating to see how market segmentation and management decisions shaped the fate of these iconic machines. Commodore's strategy to replace the C64 with the Amiga 500 in the lower tier and introduce the Amiga 1200/CD32 for the mid-range makes a lot of sense. It's a shame the execution fell short, with the A600's production costs and lack of support for early 3D impacting their success. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro gaming insights and history. Your support means a lot! Cheers, RustyIngles
I’m torn. Ask my 10 year old self, and the A500 was unbeatable, and for many years. It wasn’t until the mid 00s, were I picked up a mint condition A600, that I started to realize it’s technical advantages over the A500. Today, I have both. A beast of an A600, and I love it. My A500 is more classic and is great, but is stored away due to lack of space. For me, the A600 ages better, but A500 holds some of my fondest childhood memories.
I completely agree with you. I had an A500 in my childhood so it will always be a special machine to me. Having recently bought an A600 the smaller case seems to be much more practical! Thanks for taking the time to comment and for watching the video
I had a 1.2 A500 so no hard disk for me due to the lack of HD libraries in the ROM but the numeric pad was an essential part of working professionally on amiga, due to Deluxe Paint and Protracker using it for commands else not reachable
Didn't the A600 also have an internal IDE interface allowing you to put a 2.5" internal hard drive in there of the sort that would also work on a PC? I know the A1200 did although I sadly never had the chance to use it. Although I do remember you had to snip out parts of the internal shielding to actually fit the hard drive in there when you'd think Commodore would have included space to officially mount a 2.5" hard drive in there!
Great point! Yes, the A600 did have an internal IDE interface, allowing for a 2.5" hard drive similar to the ones used in PCs. It was a handy feature that set it apart from earlier models. However, you're right about the need to snip parts of the internal shielding to fit the drive, which does seem like an oversight from Commodore. The A1200 also had this feature, but it's a shame you didn't get to experience it. If you enjoy these retro computing discussions, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more insights and nostalgia! Cheers, RustyIngles
I had to badger my dad to let me buy (or him buy for us all, because I didn't have a credit card!) a hard disk in about 1996 for our A1200; it was well worth it. No disk swapping for installed games, much, much faster loading and no need to worry about having a spare disk to save games on. For games like UFO Enemy Unknown and Champ Manager it was a godsend. I remember it being very easy for us to install despite none of us having had any experience with installing internal computer components before; I think cutting the internal shielding issue must have been confined to the A600.
Thanks for sharing! The A600HD with a 40MB HDD and RAM upgrade sounds like an amazing setup. Dune and Frontier: Elite are absolute classics-bet you had a blast with them! If you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro gaming content and discussions! Cheers, RustyIngles
I have both, and an Amiga 1200, Cleary the latter is my favourite. However I prefer the A500 over the A600 the keypad was needed for most flight sims, and I do like a keypad. However I could see an A600 taking up a lot less space on a desk.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It's great to hear you have all three models. The A1200 is a favorite for many due to its advanced capabilities. The A500's keypad is definitely handy for flight sims, which makes it a strong contender. The A600, with its compact size, does save a lot of desk space, making it convenient for smaller setups. If you enjoy these discussions, consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro gaming insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
Amiga 500 RAM limit is 138 MB. 2 MB Chip RAM, 8 MB 16-bit Fast RAM, and 128 MB 32-bit Fast RAM. I have 3 x Zorro slots on my A500+ with a 20A Bigfoot Power Supply. I remember i paid 120$ for 4.MB RAM in early 1990's. Imagine how much it would cost to get 138.MB on A500 as you also needed Accelerator card, Zorro slots and RAM cards for those slots. HD Controllers for Zorro on A500 usually came with RAM Slots.
Thanks for the detailed comment! It's amazing how much you could expand the Amiga 500 with the right hardware. Your setup with 3 Zorro slots and a 20A Bigfoot Power Supply sounds impressive! The costs for RAM and the necessary expansions in the early '90s were indeed substantial. It's incredible to think about the lengths enthusiasts would go to push their Amigas to the limit. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro gaming insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
I bought the A1000 right after it came out (with my mom's help co-signing on the loan...). That 256k RAM module that plugs into the front cost $300 back then! That is insanely expensive compared to the dirt-cheap (comparatively) cost of RAM today. A 40MB (not GB!) hard drive for it was almost $700, if I remember correctly, but it sure made life easier not having to constantly swap discs!
I had an A500 back on the day and i still own it. I have an A600 with a ide/cf card as a harddisk and such things. Its the better machine for getting back to some old games though some incompatibilities make it harder (i use the 1.3 rom with a switch board) and the bad capacitors need replacing which is a little trickier because it's not a classic through hole Board, but SMD. The A600 has no AGA graphics and is basically the same as a A500+ and even some later A500 already had the ECS/ Fat Agnus and were prepared for 1M of RAM.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It's great to hear you still have your A500 and A600. The A600's IDE/CF card setup is excellent for revisiting old games, despite some compatibility issues. The SMD capacitors do make repairs trickier, but the A600's compact size and features can make it worth the effort. You're right, it's essentially similar to an A500+ and many later A500s had similar upgrades. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
Still have CDTV. Purchased years ago because installed midi interface. But real shock for me at '90 was CD32. Games full of colours and complete audio soudtrack with dialogues. When pc computers had the same abilities i wasnt surprised. I know that CD32 is in fact keyboardless A1200, but this cdrom drive makes so big difference.
cd32 is 93. anyway the cdrom drive makes a big difference if you don't have a hard drive. and well for something like rebel assault you have to have it, but wing commander 2 and a bunch of other pc games had speech packs before cd releases. the games were already really painful for a while if you were playing from floppies but on pc's the default had been since latter half of 80's to have a hdd. doing a 10 disk floppy install isn't nearly as bad as swapping them while playing.
@@lasskinn474 in late '90 i had also pc. Sound was crap, because some yamaha opl soundcard. Graphic was damn slow and almost impossible to play some complex games. Ram... Dont remember there was 16Mb because my little brother made still mods. And comparing to this cd32 console, which was years before - what a huge difference (cd32 was more advanced). Of course we replace later processor, soundcard, hdd (i belive was 850Gb). At the end entire computer, then second etc. Later i had few pcs because i started making music in '90. So i needed sth different than my brother. Cubase was working correctly only on Intel chipset. Replaced soundcard to Maxi Sound Studio (or somehow). There was sampler chip onboard, it was from French manufacturer Dream Sound or sth like that. But at this time cd32 was sold years ago. At the end i started to have big troubles with pc computers. Constant crashes, blach screens, incompatibility... I do not make music anymore, but i think to come back again. Just because i think now i could be much more succesful. I have friends i different important places... So. Anyway, pc computers killed musician inside me, just because so much troubles. Cheers
@@lasskinn474 i remember games on floppies for pc. Even for Amiga they were pain in ass. Win 3,11 was installed from 10-13 fdd. Later 95 was on cd +1 fdd with hdd tools and cdrom driver.
That's awesome you still have a CDTV! The CD32 was indeed a game-changer in the '90s with its full-color games and complete audio soundtracks. It really set the bar high before PCs caught up. Even though it was essentially a keyboardless A1200, that CD-ROM drive made a huge difference in the gaming experience. If you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro gaming content and discussions! Cheers, RustyIngles
I just recently got my 500 and 600 out of the attic and trying to decide on which one to work with and the points taised on the video and in the comments are exactly why i keep going around in circles. The 600bis technically the better machine for modern use and forthe gaming which is the only thing ill be using it for, but the 500s more reliable components make it closer to plug and play and its the machine i used most as a teenage so holds the nostalgia. Its a tough choice
Thanks for your comment and welcome back to the Amiga world! I guess it's the machine that gives you the best nostalgia. Did you have them both as a teenager or just the 500? If so, that would be the machine. I had a 500 in my early teens and that will always be my favourite machine.
@RetroGamesRediscovered - both played with in my teens but mostly my 500. My 500s power supply and modulator unit died late 94 at that point it was possible to pick up a 600 for the same price as replacements. I'm leaning towards the 500 and keeping that stock while adding mods to the 600 depending on how much I use them.
@Drunken_Horse it's crazy how the prices have risen lately. I think you're doing right keeping the 500 stock. Hope you enjoy your journey back into the Amiga world, and thanks for joining me on mine!
It really depends on what you will use it for. The A500 Mini while.it isn't an original Amiga it does have the ability to play all Amiga games from the past and is a great solution to play those games without a huge cost. If it's an original Amiga you're after, then I'd say the Amiga 500
That sounds like a very suitable size for an A600, not too big and not too small. Hard disk prices began getting more affordable by the mid 90s; I think we got ours in about 1995 or 1996 and it was something like £100-£140 for a 120mb drive.
Thanks for your comment! You're right, the missing numeric keypad on the A600 is a notable drawback, especially since some games used those keys. It’s one of the trade-offs that came with the smaller form factor. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more insights and retro gaming content! Cheers, RustyIngles
Hi, i am using WinUAE, and i wonder how much memory the A500 can have? I always tought that 512Kb extra memory was the max, but i just learned that i was 2MB.
@@ZanikMuts While playing games it will be used to load graphic and music into memory so you don't have to wait on it to be loaded during playing. Some earlier games however won't work with additional fast memory {that's why it can be disabled} More memory in general, especially CHIP memory, is good when you are working with graphics {if you would use higher resolutions or have tuned Workbench icons etc.) Such things are eating CHIP memory {there are tools existing to push that to fast RAM} By using a Turbo-Card you can add even more memory to your system than just 10MB in total. And then, even normal fast memory can accelerate your system. Conclusion: Amiga is cool I bought my first Amiga 500 with 1084 screen, STAR LC-10C Printer, for 999,00 Swiss Francs and had to literally search the whole Switzerland to find Turbo Print Professional 2 to be able to use the printer properly.... You could see that already back then Amiga was slowly 'dying' {in CH}... But i am happy to say that it just won't go 'Unfortunately', my first Computer was C128, so that's why i am mostly using that now, instead of Amiga... {not saying, i am not using Amiga at all}
At the time the A500/+ was the machine to have or if you were lucky a A1200 when they arrived but the A600 was not a good deal at he time, fast forward to now and to anyone looking to buy an original machine I would say try the A600 as it is more upgradeable with modern parts and its compact too. But my machine was the A500 I was not going to even consider swapping for an A600 at the time. Still own that A500 and it still works.
Thanks for sharing your perspective! You're right, the A500 and later the A1200 were the top choices back then. The A600 wasn't as popular initially, but it's now appreciated for its upgradeability and compact size. It's great to hear you still have your A500 and that it’s still working! Those machines were built to last. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
So glad I jumped ship from the PET, Vic, and 64, and went Mac instead of Amiga. The Amiga turned out to be a dead end. Way better hardware for cheaper, but the Mac software was the future. I wish I had had the 128... I got a pile of them decades later but never yet fired up a single one. Just want to see that built in monitor and Sprite editor in ROM. Back in the day we had to write those by hand and load from disk. TinyMon and I think I wrote my own sprite editor. I had a chance to get a free Amiga 500 in a pile of obsolete computers, and I totally passed on it. Some computer tech had put it on the top of the mount of the pile of obsolete computers like it was the king of a dead era. I guess it was. King of a mountain on a tree branch of tech that died and was left behind in the dust.
Thanks for sharing your journey through various classic systems! It's fascinating to hear about your transition from PET, Vic, and 64 to Mac, and your perspective on the Amiga. The Amiga's hardware was indeed impressive for its time, but the software ecosystem did fall behind compared to Macs. It's a shame you didn't fire up one of those 128s yet-they have some interesting features. Your story about passing on the Amiga 500 and seeing it as a "king of a dead era" is quite poetic. While the Amiga may have been left behind, it still holds a special place in many hearts for its pioneering technology and games. If you enjoy these nostalgic discussions, consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing and gaming content! Cheers, RustyIngles
I still have my A1200 in the cupboard with a 68020 ram expansion in it, doubling the speed to 14mhz and gave me 6mb ram. Always wanted to go to an A4000 but they were out of my affordability range. Had 2 A500’s before that, was really glad to get rid of the old clunky hard drive though, the A1200 one was like gold after that device.
Thanks for sharing! It's great to hear you still have your A1200 with a 68020 RAM expansion. Doubling the speed to 14MHz and adding 6MB of RAM must have been fantastic. The A4000 was a dream for many but definitely on the pricier side. Upgrading from the old clunky hard drives of the A500 to the A1200's hard drive must have felt like a significant improvement. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
Perhaps you meant doubling the clock speed to 28Mhz? The stock CPU of the A1200 was an '020 @14MHz :) Certainly the extra RAM was a huge boon to the A1200's performance.
A500 (and A2000) with 1.2 or 1.3 kickrom is superior for old games compatibility, also later models of A500 were also partially ECS, not that it matter much. I had in total 9MB of RAM (1 or 2MB chip RAM, selecable for compatibility) on my A500 with a disk controller expansion. The main drawback with the A600 is that it has leaky capacitors, so I would still recommend an A500 over the A600 unless you are good with a solder iron and surface mount components. What the A600 has going for it is the IDE controller without an expansion card which make it cheaper to add harddrive/CF storage. All that said, The A500 mini and emulation in general makes this old hardware obsolete. What I have found hard to replace is the CRT experience as on modern LCD TV's. It will just not look or feel right. The games were engineered to look a certain way on CRT's, it was not meant to be shown on a pixel or color perfect screen. Interlaced mode is even worse, you can get sick from that on a modern large LCD TV.
Thanks for taking the time to comment and I agree with you on the CRT vs modern display. Amiga's look so much better on an old CRT but sadly they're so expensive nowadays! Thanks for watching the video, I hope you enjoyed it
Looking at how they cost-reduced the A600 over the A500, the Amiga A1000 now seems ridiculously over-engineered with its multitude of expansion options and separated main case and keyboard. No doubt this was so that it "looked" more like a computer that could compete in the business world. Unfortunately, this made it expensive to produce and when they came out with the A500 they moved the expansion bus to the left side, making it incompatible with expansion products for the A1000. Great computer, no doubt, but some head-scratching decisions along the way. (Another question mark is why the Amiga's audio was never improved over its entire lifetime.)
The A1000 was intended to be a business/productivity computer as you say, and the keyboard was of a higher quality than those in the 'wedge' Amigas. I think that was the main reason. Also though it was not a very refined design by that point and it was a bit of a learning curve for Commodore; the A1000 was not quite one thing or the other, and the A2000 was more popular because it had a very spacious case with loads of internal slots whereas the A500 was more affordable if slightly lower quality and less easily expandable compared to the A1000. In that sense the two 1987 machines were the evolution of the A1000, moving in different directions. The reason why the Amiga's audio was not improved in later models (though in my opinion it remained very effective and pleasant in the 90s) is simply down to Commodore having muddled management decisions and consequently a lack of time and money. From 1992 onward they were just rushing out what they could in a bid to stay afloat.
@@danyoutube7491 Yeah, don't get me started on Commodore's management and their numerous blunders! It's too bad that none of them were engineers so they could actually understand what they were selling.
Back in 1992 the A600 was not well received by the Amiga community. Being essentially the same hardware as the A500+, with no keypad and no side expansion slot and the same price as an A500+ many found it confusing at the time. I actually liked the A600, my opinion is that Commodore messed up by firstly releasing the A500+, had they not done so the A600 would have made allot more sense and would actually have been seen as a nice update to the by then ageing A500. Commodore also messed up in the price, releasing at £399 was pure greed and stupidity. Had C= released the A600 at an initial £299 they would have given consumers a a clear sign that this was a refreshed and slightly enhanced A500 with cheaper price point, and would not have alienated consumers when the A1200 arrived months later at £399.
Thanks for your insightful comment! You're right, the A600 had a tough reception initially due to its similarities with the A500+ and the loss of the keypad and side expansion slot. The pricing and timing of its release definitely added to the confusion. It’s interesting to think how the A600 might have been better received if Commodore had positioned it differently and priced it more competitively. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing content and insights! Cheers, RustyIngles
The A600 was about two years late to market, and probably could have used a faster CPU. Instead it was on the market just months before the more powerful A1200 launched.
Thanks for your comment! I agree, the A600 had great potential, and a lower price point could have made a big difference in its success and possibly even helped Commodore's fortunes. It's always interesting to think about what might have been with different pricing strategies. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
As an st owner who has long wanted to buy an Amiga (and got scammed twice on FB marketplace), all this is confusing to me. I think I want an a500, because that's the one that was used to "shame" me in the playground, but at the same time I don't want to limit myself with available games. As I understand it, there are games which only the a600 chipset can play, but on the flip side, there are games which the a600 is not backwards compatible with. Any advice please?
There's nothing the A600 can play that the A500 can't, in fact it'll play less games due to the different roms and chips. You're confusing it with the A1200 which is the Falcon equiv.
@@Tossphate Kind of enhanced as it has the ECS chipset but the real enhanced chips are AGA (1200 & 4000), can't think of anything written purely for ECS and it just makes it less compatible.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It can be confusing with so many Amiga models to choose from. Here's a bit of advice: The Amiga 500 is a great choice for the classic experience and has a vast library of games. It's the iconic model many remember fondly. The Amiga 600 offers some additional features like a built-in IDE interface for hard drives and is more compact. However, it lacks a numeric keypad and isn't fully backward compatible with some Amiga 500 games. If game compatibility is your main concern, the Amiga 500 might be your best bet. It has excellent support for the majority of classic games. To avoid scams, consider buying from reputable retro computing stores or communities. If you enjoyed this video, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro gaming insights and advice! Cheers, RustyIngles
I was doing some research into Microsoft and rumours Microsoft were secretly involved in the demise of Commodore, and I managed to call an ex-Commodore Engineer from the UK, and, hang me, if I cannot remember the guy's name! He worked on the Amiga 600 and the C128 and he wanted to tell me the story of the Amiga 600. He told me the engineering team were begging management to allow them to replace the aging C64 which just kept on selling... somehow but this could not carry on and there had to be an lower cost entry point for new Amiga users. The idea presented was to have a cut down Amiga, stripped back, to replace the C64 but could then be built up to a full machine in stages though add ons making an cheap entry point for Amiga technology and to have a machine cheaper to build than the A500 From this the Amiga 600 was born. The engineers only called this new low cost machine the A600 but I did read online it was originally called the Amiga 300 to show it was a cut cut, minimal Amiga But then, the story as was told to me, the Germans demanded a hard drive. No HDD, they would not sell it. So the A300/600 had to be raised up as a 'new and improved' Amiga 500+ replacement to placate the Germans. The result was a half baked machine that cost MORE than the A500 to produce, completely wrecking the engineer's entry level plan for Commodore technology and requiring everyone to make out the A600 was some kind of upgrade over the A500(+). The guy lamented Commodore's management saying, "They only ever reacted. They never planned." Regarding Microsoft, I was assured that was pure revisionism. Ali was the name throughout the call. The engineer - it's been so long, this was about 1996 or so and I cannot remember - spat on Ali and made clear Commodore's demise was all Medhi Ali's fault due to his utter incompetence; a man who could not sell ice in the Sahara desert. "But, in America, once a VP, always a VP and he is one now," I was told. Nice guy on the phone. And I owned a C128D at the time. Loved that machine and I told the guy that and thanked him for his work. BTW, my first personal computer, in that it was mine and mine alone, was a MK1 8K Commodore PET given to me on the grounds it was worthless. Loved that machine and got it upgraded to a 32K, MK2 ROM 4040 dual disk drive machine for University... in 1989. I got the C128D for a pizza later. Then spent 15 years in IT before jumping East.
Wow, what an amazing story, thank you for sharing the details. I was aware of the potential A300 name but hadn't realised it was down to a distributor the reason for the HDD, interesting. It wouldn't surprise me if Commodore's downfall was down to a competitor, although the management of Commodore played a major role in the mismanagement of that company, sadly. Thanks for your interesting comment and for watching the video, I really appreciate it
@@RetroGamesRediscovered My 15 seconds of fame there!!! I wish could remember the guy's name. He was really cool and helpful and he REALLY wanted to tell the story of Ali.
@@RetroGamesRediscovered th-cam.com/video/uVv6TOhMt4Y/w-d-xo.html the story from Commdore UK's Side Regarding the A600. It was supose to be a low cost replacment for the c64
I think A500+ & A1200 were the best in their era. A600 was the intermediate , and the big mistake. Also they spent valuable years while engineering of new AAA chip but never finished unfortunately. so Aga chips never replaced for new models and Amiga lost technology racing.
The 1200 made far more sense than the Amiga 600. Still the 600 wasn't a bad computer but the 1200 was much Better. I had an Amiga 500 and a 1200 and I loved both of them. But initially I was annoyed when my 1200 couldn't run everything I had on the 500. But for the sake of this video I'd stick with the 500 because of software compatibility issues.But the 1200 really should have came with a 68030
For me the A500 plus was the better machine between the two. Short-lived but a very good step up from the A500. The A3000T was probably the best expandable big box Amiga. The A4000 was a bit of a downgrade from the A3000 except for the AGA chipset. They should have released the A3000 plus as a machine with improved sound hardware. I had the mid-range A4000/030. There was far too much cost-cutting on that system.
Yes the 500+ was a great machine. Have you still got the A4000? I was never lucky enough to see one "in the wild". Thanks for watching the video and taking the time to comment
A600 is the better machine out of the box, newer generation: 512k rom vs 256k, 1mb ram vs 512k, ecs chipset vs ocs (use vga monitor and flicker free 736x566), built in IDE adapter (hdd was expensive on a500)...
Thanks for the comment! You make a great point-the A600 does have some advantages right out of the box with its newer generation specs, like the 1MB of RAM, ECS chipset, and built-in IDE adapter. The ability to use a VGA monitor and enjoy flicker-free higher resolutions definitely gives it an edge over the A500 in some areas. That said, both machines have their charm, but the A600 was definitely a step up in terms of hardware! Thanks again for watching! If you haven’t already, feel free to subscribe for more retro gaming insights. Cheers, RustyIngles
Thanks for your comment! The Amiga 1200 is indeed a fantastic machine with its advanced features and capabilities. If you're interested in a detailed comparison, I recommend checking out my video "500 vs 1200" where I dive deeper into the differences. You can watch it [here](th-cam.com/video/EFh4zuNUyMg/w-d-xo.html). If you enjoyed this content, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and discussions! Cheers, RustyIngles
Thanks for sharing your experience! It's always interesting to hear personal stories with these classic machines. The Amiga 600 was a beloved model for many, and it's a shame your upgrade to the 1200 didn't go as expected. Each model had its strengths and quirks, but the nostalgia they bring is priceless. If you enjoy reminiscing about retro gaming, consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more content on these iconic systems! Cheers, RustyIngles
I'm in the UK and yes we had the A500+ (I've compared the 500 and 500+ in this video: th-cam.com/video/dhpwraLAI4E/w-d-xo.htmlsi=CHM9HSor_-jwQ8RA) The Amiga wasn't very successful in the US, but very popular in Europe
Thanks for sharing! The Amiga 500 Plus is a solid choice with its enhanced features and expanded memory. It really stands out as a great machine for many enthusiasts. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
You ignored the A500 plus. I think the 600 then was a pretty awful decision. I mean.... why? Now though, with more widely and cheaper PCMCIA interfaces available and it's IDE interface it makes a lot more sense than it did then - as a retro option. Still a bloody upstart though. :-)
Thanks for sharing! It's great to hear about your A500 with ECS and the upgrades you made. It's interesting how many variations and configurations were out there, making each setup unique. Upgrading to Kickstart 2.04, adding memory expansions, and a hard drive must have significantly enhanced your experience. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
Thanks for your comment! You're right-when comparing the 500+ to the 600, you lose the numpad but gain the IDE interface. It's a trade-off that depends on what features you prioritize. If you enjoyed this video, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro gaming content and insights! Cheers, RustyIngles
@FurQ69 late 1.3 ecs Amiga a500's came with 1 meg chip ram as standard, and A500+ continued with that. A500 1.2 and early 1.3 A500's were just 512k and needed the trapdoor expansion which obviously most a500 owners opted for.
@@Galahadfairlight I got mine in 1990, my friend always wanted one and much later his dad bought him a 600, to our dismay it wouldn't play half my games, I didn't find out until years later that there were disks you could put in beforehand to fix compatibility issues.
Thanks for your comment! You're correct, many later models of the A500 came with 1MB of RAM as standard before the A600 was released. This made the A500 a powerful machine for its time, even before considering the A600's additional features. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
The problem was it's operating system, which was nowhere even close to Macintosh System and Finder.... but just looked like a terrible blue and orange knock off. The Macintosh II and IIFX were the real hotness at the time. Instead of an Amiga 500, I did everything I could to get my hands on a Macintosh SE.... with a hard drive... and a Stylewriter printer. A Lasarwriter at that point was just a dream. Having a Mac Desktop running off a hard drive with that perfectly square pixel was the holy grail. The difference between a 3000 dollar computer and a 700 dollar one was astounding. Yes, the Amiga had better hardware... but the Macintosh had leap years ahead in software... the Macintosh was the future. I was spot on with that one.
Actually, no, I stopped using Macintosh around 7.5.3, before they jumped to PowerPC. Decades ago. My ocean of Macs are out in the barn. I currently run an AMD 7950x with 128gb RAM Nvidia 3070 and Win10 beat into looking and functioning like Windows 7 with third party tools.
Thanks for sharing your perspective! It's true that the Macintosh had a more advanced operating system and a great software ecosystem at the time. The Amiga's hardware was impressive, but the Mac's polished interface and robust software made it a strong contender for many users. The allure of a Mac SE with a hard drive and a Stylewriter printer must have been incredible back then. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing insights and content! Cheers, RustyIngles
The 600 has surface mount technology which makes it far more reliable. I purchased my 600 just over 30 years ago in April 1994. I absolutely love my 600 and use it regularly. Best computer in the world.
Thanks for sharing your experience! The Amiga 600's use of surface mount technology definitely contributes to its reliability. It's fantastic to hear that your A600 has served you well for over 30 years and that you still enjoy using it regularly. It's a testament to the enduring quality and charm of these classic machines. If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing content and insights! Cheers, RustyIngles
Thanks for your comment! If you're interested in a comparison involving the AGA chipset, you might enjoy my video on the Amiga 500 vs. Amiga 1200. Check it out [here](th-cam.com/video/EFh4zuNUyMg/w-d-xo.html) for more insights! If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro computing content! Cheers, RustyIngles
The difference? The Amiga 500 was the most successful Amiga model, retired inexplicably while still selling well, the Amiga 600 is the most useless Amiga model already outdated when presented and marks the beginning of the end of Commodore.😢
@@RetroGamesRediscovered For me it was because the A600 was just an A500+ with no numeric keypad. Yes it had newer expansion ports (if not many of them), but for people who only wanted to play games and who wouldn't be expanding the hardware (the majority of buyers) they paid 399 quid in 1992 for a computer that had the same memory, same chipset, and same kickstart as the A500+ that was launched 2 years earlier and which in 1992 could be snapped up second-hand for 100 quid with a dozen games. My first Amiga was an A600, and I adore it, but from whichever angle you look at it it was a staggeringly bad decision that put Commodore on a downward spiral. I heard years later that a new manager at Commodore wanted more success in the US market so the A600 was dreamt up to attract the huge American C64 crowd over to Amiga, they just royally fucked up at every level while going about it - and ended up with a machine Americans still wouldn't buy and Europeans never needed because we already had the A500+ with the exact same specs and the next gen A1200 was just around the corner. The only market for the A600 was people like myself wanting to buy their first Amiga and not knowing that the A600 was just an A500+ designed with a C64 in mind.
Thanks for the laugh! The Amiga 100 would definitely be a unique choice! If you enjoyed this bit of humor, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more fun and insightful retro computing content! Cheers, RustyIngles
There's no bad hardware, only bad prices
Very wise words!
That's especially true for the A600. It should have been a cheaper version than A500(+).
I used to have a spectrum 128k then one day I was walking around a shopping center saw the amiga 500 and bought it and my mind was blow
one of the most amazing things was the disk drive it was so quick to load a game taking mins instead of the 20+ mins on a spectrum
plus the sound and colours it was a different level
I actually remember saying to my friend "gaming will never get better than this, how will anyone make anything with better sound or graphics "
only in the year 1995 when I bought my first pc then my mind was blown again
but early days of home computing where great, every time you got a new computer their actually was a massive difference
i went from a
zx81
spectrum128k
amiga 500
pc
pc with voodoo graphics
every single step it was huge difference
but these days going from one pc to another while they are better because they are slightly quicker and have crisper graphics I do miss the massive jumps we had in the early days
Thanks for taking the time to comment. You raise a really good point, going from generation machine to machine, there was a huge noticeable jump and especially going to the Amiga 500 with it's graphics and sound performance. The games that I found amazing were the backgrounds that scrolled at different times to the foreground, Zool 2, Another World, graphically incredible games.
Massive jumps are still happening. What is the next leap from the amazing photorealistic graphics on PCs? It's VR gaming. VR gaming makes what I think a bigger leap from 2d graphics of the16 bits age to the 3d graphics of the 32 bits. generation. So if you're into gaming, VR is the next leap for sure!
@@darksword1 I dont think the leaps they are doing today are as big
for example in 15 years I went from 2 colors to 8 colors to 256 colors and finally thousands the same with music and loading it wasnt just oh a tiny bit better
you felt when you bought a new system the difference was amazing
it really slowed down around 2005
thats not to say that it never got better it was just more small improvements every year
i remember buying a pc around 2010 and thinking it didnt feel like i really got much for my money and yet on paper every component was way better than my previous pc
i currently have a 7 year old pc with gtx 1080 when my son bought his new pc i went to look at it and it has a gtx 4070 super and i still think it didnt look much better than i have
@darkzim3872 if you haven't yet,u got to try vr games. I've been gaming since atari 2600 vcs. Vr is as big of a leap as any before it. I play most racing simulation and flying simulation games on vr. It's so real and super fun.
I had an A500, and until a hardware problem caused it to stop working, I had what I consider a great A500/ECS games system. I added a 1MB Agnes chip to my system, and added the trapdoor 512K expander for 1MB of Chip RAM. I added a Kickstart switcher with both 1.3 and 2.0 ROMs. I had a GVP hard drive, a Supra 8MB RAM expander, and a Supra turbo 28 accelerator. Here's why I think it was a great ECS games system;
The 1MB Agnes chip gave me the ability to switch to PAL mode for European games.
It defaulted to Kickstart 2.0, but you could switch to 1.3 by holding down the reset keys for 10+ seconds, and 1.3 would stay active until you either switched back, or powered off the machine.
The Supra RAM exapnder gave me a full 8MB of Fast, which was very important for the next item.
The Supra Turbo 28 accelerator used a 28Mhz 68000 to speed up processing. This gave a significant speed increase for games like flight sims, but since it was still a 68000 ship, it was completely compatible, unlike higher processor models. It could be toggled on the fly, and it was fun to see people's reactions when the Wing Commander intro went from choppy and sluggish to smooth and fast.
The GVP hard drive not only gave me a hard drive, but the interface itself was better than Commodore's. I plugged my Zip drive into the port on the back and it automatically sensed disk changes just like a floppy drive.
Unfortunately, I had bought the RAM expander used and it was already slightly damaged, and like an idiot, I didn't remove the case when i used it. I say this because everything that plugged into the left side of the A500 have a plate that was meant to side under the computer, however none of the manufacturers of these devices ever considered the possibility that you would stack multiple such devices. So plugging them in with the cases on, would put stress on the connectors as the plates forced them to bend slightly. Eventually the connector on the RAM expander cracked and stopped working. And without Fast RAM, the accelerator didn't have any noticeable effect. I would have put RAM in the GVP as it had slots for it, but those memory modules were VERY expensive and I couldn't afford it.
I got an A2000 from a friend, and while I was greatful to have it, I considered it a downgrade for most games. It had a Kickstart switcher, but you had to use a mouse button at boot to switch, and it was only switched until the next boot. It had a 68020 accelerator which caused problems with a bunch of games. You could disable it, but you had to hold down a mouse button at boot, and it only stayed off until the next boot. It had a 1MB Agnes chip, but to use PAL, you had to reboot, so you could only use PAL with Kickstart 2.0 and the 68020 enabled, since holding any of the mouse buttons would interfere with the PAL boot. You also couldn't boot into Kickstart 1.3 with the 68020 disabled as the boot options were exclusive. I know I could have put my Kickstart switcher in it, but I had hopes of eventually going back to my A500.
Also, it had a Commodore brand hard drive card, and while I could plug my Zip drive into it, it didn't sense disk changes. In fact, I needed a third party program called SCSI Mounter just to be able to format a disk!
Thanks for sharing your detailed experience! It sounds like you had an amazing setup with your A500/ECS system.
Switching to PAL mode with the 1MB Agnus chip must have been fantastic for playing European games, giving you access to a broader range of titles without any compatibility issues. Having both Kickstart 1.3 and 2.0 ROMs easily accessible was a big advantage, and the long reset hold to switch between them was a clever solution for running both old and new games smoothly.
Expanding to 8MB of Fast RAM was crucial for more demanding applications and games, significantly boosting your A500's performance. The 28MHz 68000 accelerator was a smart choice, offering a noticeable speed boost while maintaining full compatibility with all software. I can imagine how impressive it was to toggle it on the fly and see games like Wing Commander run smoothly.
The GVP hard drive with its superior interface provided a reliable and efficient storage solution, and the automatic disk change sensing for the Zip drive was a great feature, making it feel just like using a floppy drive. It's a shame that stacking multiple expansions without removing the cases led to the cracked RAM expander, limiting your system's performance. It's a valuable lesson in managing hardware expansions.
While the A2000 offered some benefits, it did have its drawbacks compared to your optimized A500 setup. The Kickstart switcher requiring a mouse button press at boot and only staying active until the next boot was less convenient. The 68020 accelerator introduced compatibility issues with some games, and the need to reboot for PAL mode added complexity. The Commodore hard drive card lacking automatic disk change sensing and requiring SCSI Mounter for disk formatting was also less user-friendly.
Your story really highlights the balance between hardware upgrades and maintaining compatibility, which was a common challenge for Amiga enthusiasts. If you enjoyed this discussion and want to dive into more retro computing stories and insights, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered!
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RustyIngles
I never modded my A500 and I could always switch to pal mode, which was supported by my 1084s monitor. I'd have missed out on many of my favorite games if that weren't possible.
Either the boot sector switched for me or I had a piece of software that would switch to 50hz on the rare occasion it didn't happen automatically.
It was one of the few things I learned to do when I tried to learn assembly, just being a single instruction. Maybe some of the Canadian A500s came with this capability as stock? I got my 500 around 89 so perhaps they switched out the Agnus chip by then
I owned nearly the same setup... Only differences were, I did not have hardware ROM switch (upgraded to 2.0 and kept it that way), and my GVP hard disk housing only had 4MB RAM. The disk itself was a whopping (for the time) 240MB. I owned the drive for about 3 years... Never filled it up. LOL. I loved that machine to death. Still own it... Hasn't been turned on in like 15 years though... Not sure if it even still works. :(
I had an A600, and though I absolutely loved it and spent countless hours playing games on it, there was always one problem. Finding the expansions and upgrades was near-impossible. This was an era where yo couldn't find a discount online retailer, and even mail order vendors were a novelty. This meant you were at the mercy of the local market. As the A600 was far less popular than the A500, I found most local retailers simply didn't stock them, and those that did charged a lot more than the equivalent A500 upgrades. So much so that it was prohibitively expensive, so I never upgraded mine.
This meant I had to play Monkey Island 2 with only 1 disk drive, and I could not get enough RAM to support SimCity 2K and had to stick with SimCity Classic. I always felt quite resentful about that as a kid.
Thanks for sharing your experience! The challenges of finding expansions and upgrades for the A600 back in the day must have been frustrating. It's true that the local market's limitations and the relative rarity of A600 parts made upgrading difficult and expensive. Playing Monkey Island 2 with just one disk drive and not being able to upgrade the RAM for SimCity 2K must have been tough. It's understandable to feel resentful about those limitations as a kid.
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RustyIngles
I used to have an A500 plus, trapdoor memory expansion, extra floppy drive and a harddrive expansion with a full 8 meg of extea ram, upgraded to 2.0 kickrom, it was a beast.
I bet that thing flew. Have you still got it?
The 600 has grown on me over the years
Yeah me too, I was always amazed at the size of it compared to the 500. Thanks for watching the video and taking the time to comment
I always liked the compact, elegant appearance, such a neat little package. It's a shame that it was poorly timed, over priced, lacking the NUMPAD (small disadvantage, but still...), no compatability with A500 expansions (which seems like an obvious thing Commodore should have aimed to achieve) and the PCMCIA slot which didn't ultimately have any useful applications (the only ones I am aware of are as a slow connection for CD-ROM drives and for small RAM expansions - 4mb limit and again, slower access than from the traditional expansion slots, so not very good at all), at least back then. I do think that the internal hard disk option was a great idea though.
I had a 500 plus and a 1200 in the 90s. A few months ago, I couldn't resist and bought a 600, updated it with a vampire 2 card, 2mb chip ram, CF card with 3.2 WB. It's good to remember the past. :D
Thanks for your comment, I bet that brought back some great memories. There's great resources online to get ADFs which you'll be able to play. Have fun! Subscribe to stay updated with future Amiga goodness
As a teenager, I remember when the A600 came out and judged it purely by its lack of numeric keypad. I just didn't think it looked like a serious computer. I have since learned that it was considered my Amiga users of the time as too little too late. But I would happily have this as my only Amiga now if the price was right. It's nice and compact and has a Workbench that isn't bright blue.
Thanks for sharing your memories! The lack of a numeric keypad on the A600 did make it seem less serious to many at the time. It's interesting how perspectives change, and now the A600's compact size and updated Workbench are appreciated. If the price is right, it would indeed be a great addition to any collection.
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RustyIngles
I had an A500, we bought the half-meg upgrade when it came out, then an external floppy drive. When the A600 came out and some of my schoolfriends, late to the party, bought into it I sneered and turned my nose at it knowing it was a "stunted" version of my beloved 500. Happy days
Thanks for sharing those memories! The A500 with the half-meg upgrade and an external floppy drive was an incredible setup back in the day. It's understandable that the A600, seen as a "stunted" version of the A500, might not have impressed you then. Those school days with classic computers sure bring back some happy memories!
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RustyIngles
Well... The Amiga 500 was never limited to 2 MB of RAM. Not sure where that number came from. The original A500 could go up to 1 MB using a 512k expansion in the belly slot, and easily handle 9 MB total using the side slot - those expansions were available back in '87 and 88. Mighty expensive, but doable. It was VASTLY more expandable than the A600 but the A600 had a few more features "out of the box".
It made no sense at all to us Amiga 500 users. It was not an upgrade. By the time it came out we could have bought a fairly inexpensive upgrade that cost less than the a600, slap it on the side and have lots of RAM and hard drive controller, and for just a little bit more a nice 68030 or 68040 accelerator. And those allowed RAM of 32 MB or even more
maybe they were thinking more of selling it to people who had bought c64's few years earlier rather than as an upgrade to a500 owners.
computer shelf life's just didn't work at all like they had before that and the segments that used to be went out of the window.
I think there may be some confusion and they were referring to chip ram.
@@lasskinn474 This. They were aiming for low-budget consumers (up to $250) that had C64, NES, ZX Spectrum, Sega Master System and similar 8-bit machines. Now it was time for them to upgrade to 16-bit, while mid-range consumers moved to 32-bit and 3D. Remember that 2D 16-bit games were being produced until 1996-97, so there was still market for them. However, Commodore bungled with both of these market segments , A300 became A600, A1200 and CD32 were mostly flops that could not do 3D and there you go .
Thanks for the detailed insights! You're right-the Amiga 500 was indeed highly expandable. It could handle up to 9 MB with side slot expansions, which were available early on, albeit at a high cost. The A600 had more built-in features, but it wasn't seen as an upgrade by many A500 users due to the extensive and affordable upgrades available for the A500, including RAM and accelerator options.
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RustyIngles
@@RetroGamesRediscovered Only if you compare the A600HD with the old A500. If you compare the A600 (without HD) with the A500+ the A500+ wins. The PCMCIA Slot was only to thwart GVP. 😅
Both machines can go up to 8MB. Depends on the cards, can reach 10.8.
Ah sorry, I missed that off the 500. Thanks for your comment and for watching the video
Yes, up to 1MB Chip + 1MB Slow RAM + 6MB Fast RAM
Or up to 2MB Chip + 6MB Fast RAM
@@jensschroder8214 Actually, I have 1+1 Chip and 8 fast on my A500+
This is the RAM limit on Amiga 500. 138 MB - 2 MB Chip RAM, 8 MB 16-bit Fast RAM, and 128 MB 32-bit Fast RAM.
Remember you can insert several Zorro slots on A500+ if you connect a 20A Bigfoot PSU.
@@V3ntilator Indeed, but this video is for unexpanded machines. Even a std A600 can have 10MBs if you disable PCMCIA. 24bit address bus gives you a 16MB limit. Then there is the kickstart etc etc and lets you with a 10MB total RAM.
My A500 served me very well back in the day. I bought it in 1989 and it was the best choice at the time. But things moved on and everyone switched to 486 and Pentium PC's once they caught up with graphics and sound cards. PC graphics and sound were terrible comparatively at the time the Amiga was popular. It seemed to me that people that got the A600 were those that came very late to the game (1992 onwards) - I figured they just didn't have the funds to get the A500, but later they were able to acquire a Commodore. But between 1994 and 96 MSDOS & Windows PC's became much more affordable and seriously outperformed the Amiga's. Commodore went out of business in 94 as well - so that year seemed to be a turning point for the next generation of computing. I gave my Amiga away after I moved to Windows PC's. It just looked very dated by that time. After playing Need For Speed on a PC, you wouldn't want to go back to Test Drive II on the Amiga.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It's true that the Amiga 500 was a powerhouse in its prime, but as PC graphics and sound improved, many users transitioned to 486 and Pentium PCs. The A600 did attract latecomers, and by the mid-90s, PCs became more affordable and outperformed Amigas. Commodore's closure in 1994 was indeed a significant turning point.
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RustyIngles
Never had a Amiga, but my best friend when I was a kid had a 500+. Lemmings, Lotus Esprit Challenge (?) and drawing obscene pictures in the Paint program kept us entertained on the weekends in winter. Kinda want one again.
Thanks for watching the video and taking the time to comment, yes Lemmings and Lotus Esprit Challenge were fantastic games. Ah, yes obscene pictures in Deluxe Paint 🤣
Likely Deluxe Paint II or III, we've all drawn pixelated tits with it.
My cousin used to have an Amiga 500, when I still had a ZX Spectrum +2A (my cousin previously having had a 48K ZX Spectrum), then when I wanted an Amiga, we ended up getting an Atari 1040STe, because my father heard that the Primary School I was at was getting them (They got Acorn Archimedes A3000's to replace their older BBC's*). Later we got a Packard Bell PC, but a couple of my friends had Amiga 500's, (who both later got PC's).
*One computer per classroom (possibly less)
I remember staying behind after school was finished (with some other kids) , playing Lemmings and James Pond on the A3000. Also LANDER.
@@lmcgregoruk Our primary school also had BBCs before buying a single Acorn A3000 during my last year there, I think they were rather expensive compared to the BBCs!
Holy shit, that TV advert is so hardcore lol. Amazing scenes!
I had an A600 with HD. I loved it because it was so compact in my room at uni with a portable TV.
Great little machine and perfect size like you say! Thanks for the comment and for watching the video
I bought a raspberry Pi 4+ in the case and just turned it into an Amiga. It boots straight into an Amiga with a 256Gb hard drive. Can run any software (at least I've never found an Amiga game or app it won't run) at whatever speed. 68000, 68010, 68020, 68030, 68040, with a maths co-processor (or not) 16 mb ram.
I had an A500 and A500+ later back int he early 90's. I was gutted when X:Com UFO Defence came out and was terrible to run even with 2 disk drives and expanded trapdoor RAM.
Now it runs from hard drive and I can see why everyone loved it. :)
I have fond memories of my A600. It worked well with dual floppy drives.
This was so very well covered. Great work. Back in the day, as I already had an A500, the 600 held zero appeal. And the missing numeric keypad, as a flight sim fan, was not a good move in my book. Fast forward 30 years, and if I didn't have an A1200, I would most certainly snap up an A600, and throw a CF card inside it. Even now watching this, I'm thinking "Hmmm....an A600 with CF-HDD inside, a Gotek, and one of those new USB-C PSU replacements, and that would be an awesome machine to take with me travelling.". I need help lol.
Thanks for your kind words and for taking the time to comment. I know what you mean, back in the 90s a friend had an A600 and it never really appealed to me (I owned a A500+ with 1mb upgrade in the trapdoor) but the A1200, well that's another story. My cousin had one and I really wanted an A1200. Fast forward 30+ years and I'm grateful to have one now! Future video coming soon, also!
My friend had A600 and I bought A1200 later. I love both machines. From my point of view, A500 was weaker than A600 and A1200. Choosing from these 3, I prefer A1200 as a powerful machine or A600 as a compact one. A500 got 3rd place in my personal charts.
Compared to the A500, the A600 had a few compatability issues and had fewer expansion options. It is true that if you didn't mind not being able to play a few older games and didn't have any interest in expanding the computer whatsoever, the A600 was a very nice looking and compact computer, but it would cost you a bit more than the A500. The A500 and A500+ were discontinued when the A600 was released, but the remaining A500s stocked by retailers were quickly snapped up by people.
A500 case is gorgeous, still looks modern to my vintage eyes..
I didn’t have an Amiga as a child, because I was born in the USSR, and similar computers were not sold there. Only in the early 90th did numerous locally produced clones of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer appear and people could buy it. Those this happened 10 years later than the release of the original ZX Spectrum. And a little later, inexpensive clones of the Nintendo Famicom appeared, but even they were too expensive and people could not afford to buy them.
I knew about Amiga three years ago. I was impressed by its capabilities and definitely wanted to buy one of them to review. As a result, it so happened that I now have: Amiga A500+, A600, A1200, A2000 and many other retro computers.
The A600 is a nice compact computer for me, but I have it like a museum exhibit. I'm not sure I turned it on after the first test after purchase. And the A500+ is a serious workhorse, easy to upgrade and a pleasure to use. For me it works with a Vampire turbo card, which opens up many possibilities.
Thanks for your comment and that's fascinating that there were clones of machines, presumably built in the USSR? I love the fact that you didn't have any Amiga's when you were younger but now you have an entire set! You're right about the A600 being a museum piece, I bought mine over a year ago and only turned it on when I made this video!
@@RetroGamesRediscovered Among those computers that were developed in the USSR, although there were very interesting models, they were mostly poorly suited for computer games and therefore were not suitable for home use. In a computer, not only hardware is important, but also software. There was no such industry where someone could quickly write software, and this platform became attractive for potential cloning. Of the Soviet developments, I would call the most interesting home computer “Вектро 06Ц”. But I do not know the facts of his cloning.
Interesting, I'll look into it for a future video. Thanks again for your comment
I been a Service Tech For 38 years now I am part semi-retired, those A600's are pain to repair, no sockatable chips, all custom and everythig is integrated. I worked on over 40 of those machines trying to detect the tricky faults and unfortunatley presenting the customer with a hefty service bill. No idea why commodore would customise such an atrotious machine in the first place. If you decide to get one be prepared that it is with iron clad will fail one day.
I guess they integrated all the sockets simply down to cost. But yes, a real pain to repair anything on the board of an A600. The 500 was so much better in that respect . What's your preferred machine to repair? Just out of curiosity. Thanks for taking the time to comment and for watching the video.
@@RetroGamesRediscovered YW, All up commodore/Amiga incorporated made around 26 Varietys of the Amiga including a A1000 Service Prototype Pre 1000 launch before the Commercial (the most reliable which used first grade Electronic Japanese components)
out of the Commodores the A500 and A500 Plus had far less complicated problems or issues on the mainboard, even still today it stands as the most reliable out of all the cost reduced Amigas. Followed by the A1000, A2000, A2500, A1200/HD, A3000 were easy to service. CDTV, A4000 or anything to do with T,HD,CR or Zorro were prone to failure. Not all machines had entirely manufacturing faults but mostly came with 12 months warranty back up just to cover defects on the motherboard or hardware. Cost reducing came at a hefty price for the down user along the road. Amigas made after 1990 were significantly cost reduced due to the manufacture dividing up and went to the slaughter house. Amiga started to fall After David Haney, Carl Sassenrath and Rob Mical left Amiga Inc. The head of the development Team which was Lead by Project Manager J.Miner. Sad Ending from a Good Name in the begining.
I read in magazines from the 90s (and I think I've heard ex-Commodore staff in TH-cam videos say) that the idea behind the surface mounted components on the A600 and A1200 was to cut production costs and/or to reduce the number of faulty units reaching shops. Presumably with socketed chips workers were manually putting them into the boards and there was a chance that a sloppy or rushed worker would not be putting them in quite right and perhaps damaging chips.
I remember when I unplugged the keyboard cable from mine.. Even though I did everything correctly the awful quailty traces on the cable just wore off. And now if you still have one around then caps are probably going to be all bad. Meanwhile all of my a500s still work just fine.
@@RetroGamesRediscovered That was the idea by Jeff Porter. But SMT was new and he miscalculated the investment to gain the experience.
Would really like to have a 600 today, so many possibilities, really regret having sold my 500 and 1200...
Well that was inconclusive.
"It comes down to personal preference". Great, thanks for that.
The question posed in the title is "what are the differences", and he covered those, not "which is the best".
A600 with the A630, 030/50 accelerator is a great little machine, this why the A600s are now going for high prices because of the hardware now available for it, but the A500 will always be one the best loved of the Amiga models
The A630 adds a serious punch to the A600 with it's 64Mb of RAM! Thanks for commenting and watching the video, I hope you enjoyed it.
I like the A1200 more. :)
The big daddy to the A600
I had the a500plus with an extra floppy drive, then went for a 1200 with hdd. Great machine :).
I bet you noticed the jump between the two. Favourite game? Thanks for watching the video
The a1200 was generally the better options, but there was something cool about fitting a 600 in a bag and taking it round to a mate's, like a console / laptop version of the Amiga.
I had a 600 back in the days… damn, I’m getting old …
Thanks for sharing! It's amazing how these memories bring us back, isn't it? The A600 was such a cool machine. And hey, you're never too old to enjoy some retro gaming!
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RustyIngles
I had an A600. Still love that machine.
A600 was a great little machine, perfect to take around to friends houses. Thanks for watching the video
Story of Amiga 600 is easily understandable if you consider market segments (tiers). At that time there were four: 1. low budget computers/consoles up to $250 2. mid range up to $ 500 3. affluent home semi-professional machines up to $1000 4. professional/wealthy equipment north of $1000 . While Commodore had contenders in higher brackets (Amiga 2000, 3000, 4000 ...) , most of the money came from first two segments (up to $250 and up to $500) . In 1990 in the first tier contender was C64, while in second Amiga 500. However, as tech progressed, they wanted to retire C64 and put A500 into first segment, while new machine (Amiga 1200, later CD32) would take second segment. However, A500 was too costly to produce to be in first segment, thus came idea of Amiga 300 which trough Commodore management incompetence bloated to A600 being more expensive than A500. A500 still filled the first segment , only these were used machines, and A1200 and CD32 failed due to lack of support for early 3D ... and rest is history .
Thanks for sharing that insightful breakdown of the Amiga 600's story! It's fascinating to see how market segmentation and management decisions shaped the fate of these iconic machines. Commodore's strategy to replace the C64 with the Amiga 500 in the lower tier and introduce the Amiga 1200/CD32 for the mid-range makes a lot of sense. It's a shame the execution fell short, with the A600's production costs and lack of support for early 3D impacting their success.
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I’m torn. Ask my 10 year old self, and the A500 was unbeatable, and for many years. It wasn’t until the mid 00s, were I picked up a mint condition A600, that I started to realize it’s technical advantages over the A500. Today, I have both. A beast of an A600, and I love it. My A500 is more classic and is great, but is stored away due to lack of space. For me, the A600 ages better, but A500 holds some of my fondest childhood memories.
I completely agree with you. I had an A500 in my childhood so it will always be a special machine to me. Having recently bought an A600 the smaller case seems to be much more practical! Thanks for taking the time to comment and for watching the video
I had a 1.2 A500 so no hard disk for me due to the lack of HD libraries in the ROM but the numeric pad was an essential part of working professionally on amiga, due to Deluxe Paint and Protracker using it for commands else not reachable
Didn't the A600 also have an internal IDE interface allowing you to put a 2.5" internal hard drive in there of the sort that would also work on a PC? I know the A1200 did although I sadly never had the chance to use it.
Although I do remember you had to snip out parts of the internal shielding to actually fit the hard drive in there when you'd think Commodore would have included space to officially mount a 2.5" hard drive in there!
Great point! Yes, the A600 did have an internal IDE interface, allowing for a 2.5" hard drive similar to the ones used in PCs. It was a handy feature that set it apart from earlier models. However, you're right about the need to snip parts of the internal shielding to fit the drive, which does seem like an oversight from Commodore. The A1200 also had this feature, but it's a shame you didn't get to experience it.
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RustyIngles
I had to badger my dad to let me buy (or him buy for us all, because I didn't have a credit card!) a hard disk in about 1996 for our A1200; it was well worth it. No disk swapping for installed games, much, much faster loading and no need to worry about having a spare disk to save games on. For games like UFO Enemy Unknown and Champ Manager it was a godsend. I remember it being very easy for us to install despite none of us having had any experience with installing internal computer components before; I think cutting the internal shielding issue must have been confined to the A600.
I had the (in Australia) A600HD, 40MB HDD, RAM upgrade, played the shit out of the Dune games, and Frontier Elite!
Thanks for sharing! The A600HD with a 40MB HDD and RAM upgrade sounds like an amazing setup. Dune and Frontier: Elite are absolute classics-bet you had a blast with them!
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I have both, and an Amiga 1200, Cleary the latter is my favourite. However I prefer the A500 over the A600 the keypad was needed for most flight sims, and I do like a keypad. However I could see an A600 taking up a lot less space on a desk.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It's great to hear you have all three models. The A1200 is a favorite for many due to its advanced capabilities. The A500's keypad is definitely handy for flight sims, which makes it a strong contender. The A600, with its compact size, does save a lot of desk space, making it convenient for smaller setups.
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RustyIngles
Amiga 500 RAM limit is 138 MB. 2 MB Chip RAM, 8 MB 16-bit Fast RAM, and 128 MB 32-bit Fast RAM.
I have 3 x Zorro slots on my A500+ with a 20A Bigfoot Power Supply.
I remember i paid 120$ for 4.MB RAM in early 1990's. Imagine how much it would cost to get 138.MB on A500 as you also needed Accelerator card, Zorro slots and RAM cards for those slots. HD Controllers for Zorro on A500 usually came with RAM Slots.
Thanks for the detailed comment! It's amazing how much you could expand the Amiga 500 with the right hardware. Your setup with 3 Zorro slots and a 20A Bigfoot Power Supply sounds impressive! The costs for RAM and the necessary expansions in the early '90s were indeed substantial. It's incredible to think about the lengths enthusiasts would go to push their Amigas to the limit.
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I bought the A1000 right after it came out (with my mom's help co-signing on the loan...). That 256k RAM module that plugs into the front cost $300 back then! That is insanely expensive compared to the dirt-cheap (comparatively) cost of RAM today. A 40MB (not GB!) hard drive for it was almost $700, if I remember correctly, but it sure made life easier not having to constantly swap discs!
I had an A500 back on the day and i still own it. I have an A600 with a ide/cf card as a harddisk and such things. Its the better machine for getting back to some old games though some incompatibilities make it harder (i use the 1.3 rom with a switch board) and the bad capacitors need replacing which is a little trickier because it's not a classic through hole Board, but SMD. The A600 has no AGA graphics and is basically the same as a A500+ and even some later A500 already had the ECS/ Fat Agnus and were prepared for 1M of RAM.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It's great to hear you still have your A500 and A600. The A600's IDE/CF card setup is excellent for revisiting old games, despite some compatibility issues. The SMD capacitors do make repairs trickier, but the A600's compact size and features can make it worth the effort. You're right, it's essentially similar to an A500+ and many later A500s had similar upgrades.
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Still have CDTV. Purchased years ago because installed midi interface. But real shock for me at '90 was CD32. Games full of colours and complete audio soudtrack with dialogues. When pc computers had the same abilities i wasnt surprised. I know that CD32 is in fact keyboardless A1200, but this cdrom drive makes so big difference.
cd32 is 93. anyway the cdrom drive makes a big difference if you don't have a hard drive. and well for something like rebel assault you have to have it, but wing commander 2 and a bunch of other pc games had speech packs before cd releases.
the games were already really painful for a while if you were playing from floppies but on pc's the default had been since latter half of 80's to have a hdd. doing a 10 disk floppy install isn't nearly as bad as swapping them while playing.
@@lasskinn474 in late '90 i had also pc. Sound was crap, because some yamaha opl soundcard. Graphic was damn slow and almost impossible to play some complex games. Ram... Dont remember there was 16Mb because my little brother made still mods. And comparing to this cd32 console, which was years before - what a huge difference (cd32 was more advanced). Of course we replace later processor, soundcard, hdd (i belive was 850Gb). At the end entire computer, then second etc. Later i had few pcs because i started making music in '90. So i needed sth different than my brother. Cubase was working correctly only on Intel chipset. Replaced soundcard to Maxi Sound Studio (or somehow). There was sampler chip onboard, it was from French manufacturer Dream Sound or sth like that. But at this time cd32 was sold years ago. At the end i started to have big troubles with pc computers. Constant crashes, blach screens, incompatibility... I do not make music anymore, but i think to come back again. Just because i think now i could be much more succesful. I have friends i different important places... So.
Anyway, pc computers killed musician inside me, just because so much troubles.
Cheers
@@lasskinn474 i remember games on floppies for pc. Even for Amiga they were pain in ass. Win 3,11 was installed from 10-13 fdd. Later 95 was on cd +1 fdd with hdd tools and cdrom driver.
@@lasskinn474 anyway, my secod comment was lost and i dont write it again.
That's awesome you still have a CDTV! The CD32 was indeed a game-changer in the '90s with its full-color games and complete audio soundtracks. It really set the bar high before PCs caught up. Even though it was essentially a keyboardless A1200, that CD-ROM drive made a huge difference in the gaming experience.
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RustyIngles
I just recently got my 500 and 600 out of the attic and trying to decide on which one to work with and the points taised on the video and in the comments are exactly why i keep going around in circles. The 600bis technically the better machine for modern use and forthe gaming which is the only thing ill be using it for, but the 500s more reliable components make it closer to plug and play and its the machine i used most as a teenage so holds the nostalgia. Its a tough choice
Thanks for your comment and welcome back to the Amiga world! I guess it's the machine that gives you the best nostalgia. Did you have them both as a teenager or just the 500? If so, that would be the machine. I had a 500 in my early teens and that will always be my favourite machine.
@RetroGamesRediscovered - both played with in my teens but mostly my 500. My 500s power supply and modulator unit died late 94 at that point it was possible to pick up a 600 for the same price as replacements. I'm leaning towards the 500 and keeping that stock while adding mods to the 600 depending on how much I use them.
@Drunken_Horse it's crazy how the prices have risen lately. I think you're doing right keeping the 500 stock. Hope you enjoy your journey back into the Amiga world, and thanks for joining me on mine!
i have 2 A500s...im tempted by the A600 as it seems to have a more sensible keyboard layout.....
The 600 is much better from a compact perspective, thanks for taking the time to comment
When the Amiga 500 came out it was a revolution
The a500 is my favourite but these days i am liking the a600 its compact size is great
I want to buy my 1st Amiga. So which one should I choose?
It really depends on what you will use it for. The A500 Mini while.it isn't an original Amiga it does have the ability to play all Amiga games from the past and is a great solution to play those games without a huge cost. If it's an original Amiga you're after, then I'd say the Amiga 500
Had a A600 where i added 80MB harddrive and 1MB ekstra memory via PCMCIA slot. Paid a fortune for the 80MB disk.
Yeah I bet, 80mb back in the 90s was a lot too!! Thanks for watching the video and taking the time to comment
That sounds like a very suitable size for an A600, not too big and not too small. Hard disk prices began getting more affordable by the mid 90s; I think we got ours in about 1995 or 1996 and it was something like £100-£140 for a 120mb drive.
The biggest thing about the 600 is the missing numeric keys since some games used them.
Thanks for your comment! You're right, the missing numeric keypad on the A600 is a notable drawback, especially since some games used those keys. It’s one of the trade-offs that came with the smaller form factor.
If you enjoyed this discussion, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more insights and retro gaming content!
Cheers,
RustyIngles
never seen a game that required numpad @@RetroGamesRediscovered
Hi, i am using WinUAE, and i wonder how much memory the A500 can have? I always tought that 512Kb extra memory was the max, but i just learned that i was 2MB.
Hi, thanks for your comment. An Amiga 500 can have a maximum of 2MB chip ram and 8MB fast ram. Hope this helps!
@@RetroGamesRediscovered Thank you. So slow ram is always 512K? what does more memory actually do?
@@ZanikMuts
While playing games it will be used to load graphic and music into memory so you don't have to wait on it to be loaded during playing.
Some earlier games however won't work with additional fast memory {that's why it can be disabled}
More memory in general, especially CHIP memory, is good when you are working with graphics {if you would use higher resolutions or have tuned Workbench icons etc.) Such things are eating CHIP memory {there are tools existing to push that to fast RAM}
By using a Turbo-Card you can add even more memory to your system than just 10MB in total.
And then, even normal fast memory can accelerate your system.
Conclusion: Amiga is cool
I bought my first Amiga 500 with 1084 screen, STAR LC-10C Printer, for 999,00 Swiss Francs and had to literally search the whole Switzerland to find Turbo Print Professional 2 to be able to use the printer properly.... You could see that already back then Amiga was slowly 'dying' {in CH}...
But i am happy to say that it just won't go
'Unfortunately', my first Computer was C128, so that's why i am mostly using that now, instead of Amiga... {not saying, i am not using Amiga at all}
At the time the A500/+ was the machine to have or if you were lucky a A1200 when they arrived but the A600 was not a good deal at he time, fast forward to now and to anyone looking to buy an original machine I would say try the A600 as it is more upgradeable with modern parts and its compact too. But my machine was the A500 I was not going to even consider swapping for an A600 at the time. Still own that A500 and it still works.
Thanks for sharing your perspective! You're right, the A500 and later the A1200 were the top choices back then. The A600 wasn't as popular initially, but it's now appreciated for its upgradeability and compact size. It's great to hear you still have your A500 and that it’s still working! Those machines were built to last.
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Cheers,
RustyIngles
So glad I jumped ship from the PET, Vic, and 64, and went Mac instead of Amiga.
The Amiga turned out to be a dead end. Way better hardware for cheaper, but the Mac software was the future.
I wish I had had the 128... I got a pile of them decades later but never yet fired up a single one. Just want to see that built in monitor and Sprite editor in ROM. Back in the day we had to write those by hand and load from disk. TinyMon and I think I wrote my own sprite editor.
I had a chance to get a free Amiga 500 in a pile of obsolete computers, and I totally passed on it. Some computer tech had put it on the top of the mount of the pile of obsolete computers like it was the king of a dead era. I guess it was. King of a mountain on a tree branch of tech that died and was left behind in the dust.
Thanks for sharing your journey through various classic systems! It's fascinating to hear about your transition from PET, Vic, and 64 to Mac, and your perspective on the Amiga. The Amiga's hardware was indeed impressive for its time, but the software ecosystem did fall behind compared to Macs.
It's a shame you didn't fire up one of those 128s yet-they have some interesting features. Your story about passing on the Amiga 500 and seeing it as a "king of a dead era" is quite poetic. While the Amiga may have been left behind, it still holds a special place in many hearts for its pioneering technology and games.
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Cheers,
RustyIngles
I still have my A1200 in the cupboard with a 68020 ram expansion in it, doubling the speed to 14mhz and gave me 6mb ram. Always wanted to go to an A4000 but they were out of my affordability range. Had 2 A500’s before that, was really glad to get rid of the old clunky hard drive though, the A1200 one was like gold after that device.
Thanks for sharing! It's great to hear you still have your A1200 with a 68020 RAM expansion. Doubling the speed to 14MHz and adding 6MB of RAM must have been fantastic. The A4000 was a dream for many but definitely on the pricier side. Upgrading from the old clunky hard drives of the A500 to the A1200's hard drive must have felt like a significant improvement.
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Cheers,
RustyIngles
Perhaps you meant doubling the clock speed to 28Mhz? The stock CPU of the A1200 was an '020 @14MHz :) Certainly the extra RAM was a huge boon to the A1200's performance.
A500 (and A2000) with 1.2 or 1.3 kickrom is superior for old games compatibility, also later models of A500 were also partially ECS, not that it matter much. I had in total 9MB of RAM (1 or 2MB chip RAM, selecable for compatibility) on my A500 with a disk controller expansion. The main drawback with the A600 is that it has leaky capacitors, so I would still recommend an A500 over the A600 unless you are good with a solder iron and surface mount components. What the A600 has going for it is the IDE controller without an expansion card which make it cheaper to add harddrive/CF storage. All that said, The A500 mini and emulation in general makes this old hardware obsolete. What I have found hard to replace is the CRT experience as on modern LCD TV's. It will just not look or feel right. The games were engineered to look a certain way on CRT's, it was not meant to be shown on a pixel or color perfect screen. Interlaced mode is even worse, you can get sick from that on a modern large LCD TV.
Thanks for taking the time to comment and I agree with you on the CRT vs modern display. Amiga's look so much better on an old CRT but sadly they're so expensive nowadays! Thanks for watching the video, I hope you enjoyed it
Which is better the A500 or the A600?
The A1200. 😁
Looking at how they cost-reduced the A600 over the A500, the Amiga A1000 now seems ridiculously over-engineered with its multitude of expansion options and separated main case and keyboard. No doubt this was so that it "looked" more like a computer that could compete in the business world. Unfortunately, this made it expensive to produce and when they came out with the A500 they moved the expansion bus to the left side, making it incompatible with expansion products for the A1000. Great computer, no doubt, but some head-scratching decisions along the way. (Another question mark is why the Amiga's audio was never improved over its entire lifetime.)
The A1000 was intended to be a business/productivity computer as you say, and the keyboard was of a higher quality than those in the 'wedge' Amigas. I think that was the main reason. Also though it was not a very refined design by that point and it was a bit of a learning curve for Commodore; the A1000 was not quite one thing or the other, and the A2000 was more popular because it had a very spacious case with loads of internal slots whereas the A500 was more affordable if slightly lower quality and less easily expandable compared to the A1000. In that sense the two 1987 machines were the evolution of the A1000, moving in different directions. The reason why the Amiga's audio was not improved in later models (though in my opinion it remained very effective and pleasant in the 90s) is simply down to Commodore having muddled management decisions and consequently a lack of time and money. From 1992 onward they were just rushing out what they could in a bid to stay afloat.
@@danyoutube7491 Yeah, don't get me started on Commodore's management and their numerous blunders! It's too bad that none of them were engineers so they could actually understand what they were selling.
Back in 1992 the A600 was not well received by the Amiga community. Being essentially the same hardware as the A500+, with no keypad and no side expansion slot and the same price as an A500+ many found it confusing at the time.
I actually liked the A600, my opinion is that Commodore messed up by firstly releasing the A500+, had they not done so the A600 would have made allot more sense and would actually have been seen as a nice update to the by then ageing A500. Commodore also messed up in the price, releasing at £399 was pure greed and stupidity. Had C= released the A600 at an initial £299 they would have given consumers a a clear sign that this was a refreshed and slightly enhanced A500 with cheaper price point, and would not have alienated consumers when the A1200 arrived months later at £399.
Thanks for your insightful comment! You're right, the A600 had a tough reception initially due to its similarities with the A500+ and the loss of the keypad and side expansion slot. The pricing and timing of its release definitely added to the confusion. It’s interesting to think how the A600 might have been better received if Commodore had positioned it differently and priced it more competitively.
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Cheers,
RustyIngles
The A600 was about two years late to market, and probably could have used a faster CPU. Instead it was on the market just months before the more powerful A1200 launched.
Yes, I always saw it as the baby brother to the 1200, lacking serious punch compared to it's bigger sibling
600 was a better machine but it shouldve been sold cheaper like it was supposed to be and maybe commodore would have survived.
Thanks for your comment! I agree, the A600 had great potential, and a lower price point could have made a big difference in its success and possibly even helped Commodore's fortunes. It's always interesting to think about what might have been with different pricing strategies.
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Cheers,
RustyIngles
As an st owner who has long wanted to buy an Amiga (and got scammed twice on FB marketplace), all this is confusing to me. I think I want an a500, because that's the one that was used to "shame" me in the playground, but at the same time I don't want to limit myself with available games. As I understand it, there are games which only the a600 chipset can play, but on the flip side, there are games which the a600 is not backwards compatible with.
Any advice please?
There's nothing the A600 can play that the A500 can't, in fact it'll play less games due to the different roms and chips. You're confusing it with the A1200 which is the Falcon equiv.
@@Hex___666ah ok thanks. Yeh I was confused, I thought the a600 had some enhanced chips or something. Cheers
@@Tossphate Kind of enhanced as it has the ECS chipset but the real enhanced chips are AGA (1200 & 4000), can't think of anything written purely for ECS and it just makes it less compatible.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It can be confusing with so many Amiga models to choose from. Here's a bit of advice:
The Amiga 500 is a great choice for the classic experience and has a vast library of games. It's the iconic model many remember fondly.
The Amiga 600 offers some additional features like a built-in IDE interface for hard drives and is more compact. However, it lacks a numeric keypad and isn't fully backward compatible with some Amiga 500 games.
If game compatibility is your main concern, the Amiga 500 might be your best bet. It has excellent support for the majority of classic games. To avoid scams, consider buying from reputable retro computing stores or communities.
If you enjoyed this video, please consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more retro gaming insights and advice!
Cheers,
RustyIngles
500 every day and twice on Sundays. If not the 500 then the 1200
A500 for me any day out of the two . Although I am more a1200 based .
Thanks for your comment and for watching the video, yes A500 for me anyday.
I was doing some research into Microsoft and rumours Microsoft were secretly involved in the demise of Commodore, and I managed to call an ex-Commodore Engineer from the UK, and, hang me, if I cannot remember the guy's name! He worked on the Amiga 600 and the C128 and he wanted to tell me the story of the Amiga 600.
He told me the engineering team were begging management to allow them to replace the aging C64 which just kept on selling... somehow but this could not carry on and there had to be an lower cost entry point for new Amiga users. The idea presented was to have a cut down Amiga, stripped back, to replace the C64 but could then be built up to a full machine in stages though add ons making an cheap entry point for Amiga technology and to have a machine cheaper to build than the A500
From this the Amiga 600 was born. The engineers only called this new low cost machine the A600 but I did read online it was originally called the Amiga 300 to show it was a cut cut, minimal Amiga
But then, the story as was told to me, the Germans demanded a hard drive. No HDD, they would not sell it. So the A300/600 had to be raised up as a 'new and improved' Amiga 500+ replacement to placate the Germans. The result was a half baked machine that cost MORE than the A500 to produce, completely wrecking the engineer's entry level plan for Commodore technology and requiring everyone to make out the A600 was some kind of upgrade over the A500(+). The guy lamented Commodore's management saying, "They only ever reacted. They never planned."
Regarding Microsoft, I was assured that was pure revisionism. Ali was the name throughout the call. The engineer - it's been so long, this was about 1996 or so and I cannot remember - spat on Ali and made clear Commodore's demise was all Medhi Ali's fault due to his utter incompetence; a man who could not sell ice in the Sahara desert.
"But, in America, once a VP, always a VP and he is one now," I was told.
Nice guy on the phone. And I owned a C128D at the time. Loved that machine and I told the guy that and thanked him for his work.
BTW, my first personal computer, in that it was mine and mine alone, was a MK1 8K Commodore PET given to me on the grounds it was worthless. Loved that machine and got it upgraded to a 32K, MK2 ROM 4040 dual disk drive machine for University... in 1989. I got the C128D for a pizza later.
Then spent 15 years in IT before jumping East.
Wow, what an amazing story, thank you for sharing the details. I was aware of the potential A300 name but hadn't realised it was down to a distributor the reason for the HDD, interesting. It wouldn't surprise me if Commodore's downfall was down to a competitor, although the management of Commodore played a major role in the mismanagement of that company, sadly. Thanks for your interesting comment and for watching the video, I really appreciate it
@@RetroGamesRediscovered My 15 seconds of fame there!!! I wish could remember the guy's name. He was really cool and helpful and he REALLY wanted to tell the story of Ali.
Sounds like it would make a perfect future video too!!
@@RetroGamesRediscovered th-cam.com/video/uVv6TOhMt4Y/w-d-xo.html the story from Commdore UK's Side Regarding the A600. It was supose to be a low cost replacment for the c64
I think A500+ & A1200 were the best in their era. A600 was the intermediate , and the big mistake. Also they spent valuable years while engineering of new AAA chip but never finished unfortunately. so Aga chips never replaced for new models and Amiga lost technology racing.
The 1200 made far more sense than the Amiga 600. Still the 600 wasn't a bad computer but the 1200 was much Better. I had an Amiga 500 and a 1200 and I loved both of them. But initially I was annoyed when my 1200 couldn't run everything I had on the 500. But for the sake of this video I'd stick with the 500 because of software compatibility issues.But the 1200 really should have came with a 68030
For me the A500 plus was the better machine between the two. Short-lived but a very good step up from the A500. The A3000T was probably the best expandable big box Amiga.
The A4000 was a bit of a downgrade from the A3000 except for the AGA chipset. They should have released the A3000 plus as a machine with improved sound hardware.
I had the mid-range A4000/030. There was far too much cost-cutting on that system.
Yes the 500+ was a great machine. Have you still got the A4000? I was never lucky enough to see one "in the wild". Thanks for watching the video and taking the time to comment
@@RetroGamesRediscovered Yes, it is stored in an attic. It will definitely need a recap and fettle to get it working reliably.
A600 is the better machine out of the box, newer generation: 512k rom vs 256k, 1mb ram vs 512k, ecs chipset vs ocs (use vga monitor and flicker free 736x566), built in IDE adapter (hdd was expensive on a500)...
Thanks for the comment! You make a great point-the A600 does have some advantages right out of the box with its newer generation specs, like the 1MB of RAM, ECS chipset, and built-in IDE adapter. The ability to use a VGA monitor and enjoy flicker-free higher resolutions definitely gives it an edge over the A500 in some areas.
That said, both machines have their charm, but the A600 was definitely a step up in terms of hardware!
Thanks again for watching! If you haven’t already, feel free to subscribe for more retro gaming insights.
Cheers,
RustyIngles
which is the better machine? The Amiga 1200
Thanks for your comment! The Amiga 1200 is indeed a fantastic machine with its advanced features and capabilities. If you're interested in a detailed comparison, I recommend checking out my video "500 vs 1200" where I dive deeper into the differences. You can watch it [here](th-cam.com/video/EFh4zuNUyMg/w-d-xo.html).
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RustyIngles
I had the 600 and loved it, then upgraded to the 1200, biggest mistake ever.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It's always interesting to hear personal stories with these classic machines. The Amiga 600 was a beloved model for many, and it's a shame your upgrade to the 1200 didn't go as expected. Each model had its strengths and quirks, but the nostalgia they bring is priceless.
If you enjoy reminiscing about retro gaming, consider subscribing to my channel, Retro Games Rediscovered, for more content on these iconic systems!
Cheers,
RustyIngles
Did you not have the amiga plus in america?
I'm in the UK and yes we had the A500+ (I've compared the 500 and 500+ in this video: th-cam.com/video/dhpwraLAI4E/w-d-xo.htmlsi=CHM9HSor_-jwQ8RA)
The Amiga wasn't very successful in the US, but very popular in Europe
A600 was the cutest Amiga.
Yes it was, despite it's flaws it was a great looking machine
Amiga 500 PLUS for me :)
Thanks for sharing! The Amiga 500 Plus is a solid choice with its enhanced features and expanded memory. It really stands out as a great machine for many enthusiasts.
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Cheers,
RustyIngles
You ignored the A500 plus.
I think the 600 then was a pretty awful decision. I mean.... why?
Now though, with more widely and cheaper PCMCIA interfaces available and it's IDE interface it makes a lot more sense than it did then - as a retro option.
Still a bloody upstart though. :-)
How about the 1200?
That's in progress currently for a future video, subscribe and stayed tuned!
A600 =A500plus compact
I had an a500 1.3 with ECS, so not quite accurate.... later upgraded to 2.04, mem exp and HD
Thanks for sharing! It's great to hear about your A500 with ECS and the upgrades you made. It's interesting how many variations and configurations were out there, making each setup unique. Upgrading to Kickstart 2.04, adding memory expansions, and a hard drive must have significantly enhanced your experience.
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RustyIngles
If you compare 500plus not much, lose the numpad get IDE
Thanks for your comment! You're right-when comparing the 500+ to the 600, you lose the numpad but gain the IDE interface. It's a trade-off that depends on what features you prioritize.
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RustyIngles
A500 Plus!
I've compared 500 Vs 500+ in this video th-cam.com/video/dhpwraLAI4E/w-d-xo.html
what about the 500+
Thanks for your comment, here's that showdown
th-cam.com/video/dhpwraLAI4E/w-d-xo.html
@@RetroGamesRediscovered thank you
@blackhatter1980 you're welcome! Hope you enjoy the video and would appreciate a like and subscribe if possible
@@RetroGamesRediscovered already done my friend keep up the great content
@blackhatter1980 thank you! ❤️
A500 was standard 1meg before the A600 was released.
Mine was 512mb upgraded to 1meg a year later.
@FurQ69 late 1.3 ecs Amiga a500's came with 1 meg chip ram as standard, and A500+ continued with that. A500 1.2 and early 1.3 A500's were just 512k and needed the trapdoor expansion which obviously most a500 owners opted for.
@@Galahadfairlight I got mine in 1990, my friend always wanted one and much later his dad bought him a 600, to our dismay it wouldn't play half my games, I didn't find out until years later that there were disks you could put in beforehand to fix compatibility issues.
Thanks for your comment! You're correct, many later models of the A500 came with 1MB of RAM as standard before the A600 was released. This made the A500 a powerful machine for its time, even before considering the A600's additional features.
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Cheers,
RustyIngles
I thought the difference between the Amiga 500 and 600 was neither are an Atari ST.... ZING.
🤣 I'm not sure whether to like this comment or not 🤣👏🏻👏🏻
The problem was it's operating system, which was nowhere even close to Macintosh System and Finder.... but just looked like a terrible blue and orange knock off.
The Macintosh II and IIFX were the real hotness at the time. Instead of an Amiga 500, I did everything I could to get my hands on a Macintosh SE.... with a hard drive... and a Stylewriter printer. A Lasarwriter at that point was just a dream. Having a Mac Desktop running off a hard drive with that perfectly square pixel was the holy grail. The difference between a 3000 dollar computer and a 700 dollar one was astounding. Yes, the Amiga had better hardware... but the Macintosh had leap years ahead in software... the Macintosh was the future. I was spot on with that one.
Actually, no, I stopped using Macintosh around 7.5.3, before they jumped to PowerPC. Decades ago. My ocean of Macs are out in the barn.
I currently run an AMD 7950x with 128gb RAM Nvidia 3070 and Win10 beat into looking and functioning like Windows 7 with third party tools.
Thanks for sharing your perspective! It's true that the Macintosh had a more advanced operating system and a great software ecosystem at the time. The Amiga's hardware was impressive, but the Mac's polished interface and robust software made it a strong contender for many users. The allure of a Mac SE with a hard drive and a Stylewriter printer must have been incredible back then.
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RustyIngles
...and no keypad
Amiga 300? 3:19
Thanks for your comment, yes that's the name it was originally going to be given when it was released, meaning the affordable version of the A500
A600
100.
very clever
The 600 has surface mount technology which makes it far more reliable. I purchased my 600 just over 30 years ago in April 1994. I absolutely love my 600 and use it regularly. Best computer in the world.
Thanks for sharing your experience! The Amiga 600's use of surface mount technology definitely contributes to its reliability. It's fantastic to hear that your A600 has served you well for over 30 years and that you still enjoy using it regularly. It's a testament to the enduring quality and charm of these classic machines.
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Cheers,
RustyIngles
the 500 plus is closer too 600
yes I agree, they're virtually the same machine. Thanks for your comment and for watching the video
@@RetroGamesRediscovered thank u xx
neither win. AGA chipset or nothing!
Thanks for your comment! If you're interested in a comparison involving the AGA chipset, you might enjoy my video on the Amiga 500 vs. Amiga 1200. Check it out [here](th-cam.com/video/EFh4zuNUyMg/w-d-xo.html) for more insights!
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Cheers,
RustyIngles
That the 500 was great and the 600 was cheap-ass shite
ha ha ha, short and sweet!
The difference? The Amiga 500 was the most successful Amiga model, retired inexplicably while still selling well, the Amiga 600 is the most useless Amiga model already outdated when presented and marks the beginning of the end of Commodore.😢
A600 was a bad idea, but then again Commodore weren't exactly going all out to make good ideas
What makes you say it was a bad idea?
@@RetroGamesRediscovered For me it was because the A600 was just an A500+ with no numeric keypad. Yes it had newer expansion ports (if not many of them), but for people who only wanted to play games and who wouldn't be expanding the hardware (the majority of buyers) they paid 399 quid in 1992 for a computer that had the same memory, same chipset, and same kickstart as the A500+ that was launched 2 years earlier and which in 1992 could be snapped up second-hand for 100 quid with a dozen games.
My first Amiga was an A600, and I adore it, but from whichever angle you look at it it was a staggeringly bad decision that put Commodore on a downward spiral. I heard years later that a new manager at Commodore wanted more success in the US market so the A600 was dreamt up to attract the huge American C64 crowd over to Amiga, they just royally fucked up at every level while going about it - and ended up with a machine Americans still wouldn't buy and Europeans never needed because we already had the A500+ with the exact same specs and the next gen A1200 was just around the corner.
The only market for the A600 was people like myself wanting to buy their first Amiga and not knowing that the A600 was just an A500+ designed with a C64 in mind.
The Amiga 100.
Duh!
Thanks for the laugh! The Amiga 100 would definitely be a unique choice!
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Cheers,
RustyIngles
I love my A500
What's your favourite game?