753 replies to this topic

[Ayreon]

Ok enough postivity about the amiga.. let's flame it

Disk drive.. slow and made noises as if it was a disk perforating device.

Mouse.. even worse than the ST tank

Power supply.. bulky and ugly so you wouldn't want it in sight. Wich
meant you had to crawl under your desk to use the bloody on/off switch.

memory expansion.. 1 or 2 MB chip memory and 1 or 2 MB of fast memory (1 or 2 cos i forgot if the Amiga supported 4 MB or 2 MB in totall) Fast memory has it's uses, but i doubt if it is as usefull as real memory.

Why having guru's meditating if you can have bombs?

Don't like to have a Disk stuffed into my face when i boot my puter without a disk.

ok enough crap for now

[Inky]

Ayreon said:

Ok enough postivity about the amiga.. let's flame it

Disk drive.. slow and made noises as if it was a disk perforating device.

Mouse.. even worse than the ST tank

Power supply.. bulky and ugly so you wouldn't want it in sight. Wich  
meant you had to crawl under your desk to use the bloody on/off switch.

memory expansion.. 1 or 2 MB chip memory and 1 or 2 MB of fast memory (1 or 2 cos i forgot if the Amiga supported 4 MB or 2 MB in totall) Fast memory has it's uses, but i doubt if it is as usefull as real memory.

Why having guru's meditating if you can have bombs?

Don't like to have a Disk stuffed into my face when i boot my puter without a disk.

ok enough crap for now

Heh..  There was a sysop of a local ST BBS called Sac Base who had at the bottom of each of his posts 'By the light of the flickering Amiga'

Heh.

[Gunstar]

Atari_Owl said:

Because they're MUCH more fun      
And more friendly to use also

And because we're nostalgic for the glory days of ...(insert childhood/adolesence here) and not the soulless PC dominance of today where apart from games everybody has a computer 10 times to powerful for everything they need to do, filled to the brim with Terabytes of bloatware and utterly without character or heart  

AMEN! It's funny how I can load up 1st word on my ST, which works every bit as good as the latest Microsoft Word as far as I'm concerned, and print out my Resume or other paper (upto about 5 pages) and be done and the ST shut off long before my PC even finishes booting up, then I still have to load the Word and print out my work! Bloated and soulless was never used more appropriately. I've aquired a Mac PPC, an Amiga and an ST, and my PC is about a week away from the basement and oblivion. I just need to iron out a few things with getting the other computers all online, and I won't need the PC ever again (although I still have a laptop to use as a file server for my 8-bit Atari and ST, but soon I'll have A.P.E for windows running on my Mac PPC and then I won't even need the laptop!).

[marcfrick2112]

Well, I'll get flamed for this one, but...
I am an Amiga NUT. Own 2 A1200's (one tower), A4000, couple of poor A500's, and a CD32. OK, maybe few of you out there have KEPT your Amiga's, but the machine is certainly not dead. As for the audio, yeah the 'paula' chip stayed the same all those years, but with dedicated sound cards available for maybe 7 years, it's not a big deal anymore. (I know the first cards were very expensive) The original chipset and ECS may have had only 'flickery' high res modes, but any A1200 can do 640 * 400, or 800 * 600 modes with no flicker. (you need a multisync monitor, tho.)

Yes, the Amiga 500 was more expensive than the Atari ST

Yes, the Amiga was and still is, a pain to program...

As for games specifically, the early games for Amiga and the ST seemed quite comparable to me. (This was comparing the two side-by-side years ago) The ST frankly looked AMAZING to me. (only game I remember was 'Gold Runner") The ST impressed me with the speech, and even singing in 'Starglider' But, truth be told, the Amiga's sound was a little crisper, less mushy. (Even more so, if you turn off the audio filter)

By the way, I am also an Atari fan, sadly I don't have an ST yet. Maybe soon. I may feel that the Amiga is better technically, but I have equal fondness for both machines.

[Sauron]

I've been getting into the Amiga lately, as I always wanted to back in the day but could never afford one. I have an A1200 now myself, and my Falcon should be arriving sometime before AGE (hopefully   ) so I plan on doing a nice little comparison between the two. I've been impressed so far with the A1200, though, although a few other things about it (clunk OS, anyone?) annoy me to no end.

[desiv]

Ayreon said:

Ok enough postivity about the amiga.. let's flame it

Disk drive.. slow and made noises as if it was a disk perforating device.

Mouse.. even worse than the ST tank

Power supply.. bulky and ugly so you wouldn't want it in sight. Wich  
meant you had to crawl under your desk to use the bloody on/off switch.

memory expansion.. 1 or 2 MB chip memory and 1 or 2 MB of fast memory (1 or 2 cos i forgot if the Amiga supported 4 MB or 2 MB in totall) Fast memory has it's uses, but i doubt if it is as usefull as real memory.

Why having guru's meditating if you can have bombs?

Don't like to have a Disk stuffed into my face when i boot my puter without a disk.

ok enough crap for now

Disk Drive?  Better than the 1541!!  (Most of us Amiga owners came from.)  Although, that's not saying much.. :-)  I'll give this one to the ST..

Mouse??  I don't know, I don't remember any trouble, but I'll take your word for it that the ST's was better???

Power Supply?  OK, I'll give you this one too..  (Uh Oh..  hmmm..)

Memory?  Never had any problem with my A1200 and it's memory expander..  Ran everything I needed, but again, not familiar with the ST.  I'll give you that one..

Disk on the screen if you have no disk in the drive?  Better then the "Non system disk" PC message.. :-)  But I'll give you this one too...

Guru vs Bomb???  NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!  GURU MEDITATION WAS SOOOOO MUCH KUALER!!!!  That's you guys (ST users) problem right there!!  Too tense!!!

Relax!!  Easy!!  Mellow out!!!  It's not a big scary bomb!  It's just a cause to stop and meditate.....

desiv

(Honestly, I think the attitude that allowed that error message was part of the attitude that kept the Amiga fans feeling we were part of something special...  A computer with a sense of humor?  MUCH BETTER!!!)

Of course, Apple had a sense of humor, but no one got it, and people actually bought the Mac!!  Go figure..  ;^>

[Vigo]

I noticed that most people here are bashing the Amiga operating system for being user-unfriendly and slow. This gives me the impression that most of you guys only worked with an Amiga equipped with the obsolete 1.2/1.3 operating system, claiming that these are the standard OSes for Amigas. Fortunately this is not the case.

For those who didnt know, from v36 on, Commodore did a huge major rewrite of the complete Operating system, making it much more stable, expandable and user-friendly. It also fixes the slow disk access from 1.x which some claim here. Do you know any OS from the late 80´s/early 90´s which supports: Autoconfig, Multitasking, a CLI, draggable Screens (which no OS except the Amiga OS has), Datatypes, DOSDrivers for mounting ANY mass storage device you like,a native filesystem with no shitty 8.3 convention, capability of reading both MFM and GCR coded disks (MFM: ST/PC, GCR: Amiga) ?

A few facts to clarify:

ECS equipped Amigas (A500+, A600, A3000) can display flicker free 640x480 screens in 4 colours.

A stock Amiga 1000 (the oldest model) is able to address 8.5MB ram out of the box.

For those who claim Amiga OS must be booted: the whole OS is in the ROM, the only thing which is loaded from disk is the workbench. Btw, which Amiga user uses disks only?

ECS/AGA equipped Amigas can play-back samples with 56khz.

The Guru meditation, unlike the ST Bomb, gives detailed information about the cause of the crash (the number).

FAST memory is real memory, but it cant be accessed by the custom chips, making it (like the name says) faster. From OS2.1 on, the AmigaOS supports over 1GB of fast ram(!).

The Atari ST is a nice machine, which was much better than any PC at that time, but both OS and hardware were inferior to the Amiga. Most Amiga games from 1987 to 1990 were really badly done ST conversions, which only featured a better sound. When Programmers started to actually use the Amiga custom chips, Games were made that were simply not possible on the ST (Jim Power for example).

[Inky]

I'm surprised Dauber hasn't posted on this thread  yet...

What was the easter eggg that was hidden in the Amiga OS?

[Vigo]

InkyAtari said:

I'm surprised Dauber hasn't posted on this thread  yet...

What was the easter eggg that was hidden in the Amiga OS?

Check this out:

http://www.gregdonne...ench/index.html

Every revision has its own easter eggs.

[Ayreon]

Sorry i was only ranting about the standard Amiga 500 compared to the 1040ST of ruffly the same time.  And i wasn't really flaming it , just making some fun..  maybe i should have added a   .

I know the Amiga has a built in OS, but built in OS or not, it still didn't do anything without a disc apart from showing that rather ugly pic.

The Amiga OS sure had/has nice and advanced features. I wouldn't argue about that.

I was aware that Fast memory  is "real" memory, but only usable by the CPU. But wouldn't it be more usable if it could have been used by the costum chips as well?

I think The Acorn RISC OS comes very close to the Amiga OS. Don't know from wich year it was though. I must admit i haven't been using my Amiga and A3000 much.
My Amiga has a V1.0 or 1.1 OS. And from the info i found on the i-net it's rather impossible to port files from pc to Amiga with that version. So i gave up and only played the games that came with it. Maybe one day i'll update it to a better OS.

Guru's might have nice numbers. But when i get them.. and thats a lot with the old discs i got with the thing.. i must look them up in some reference manual to see what actually is wrong. That's the same as with the bombs.  So to me as a simple user it just tells me the same as Bombs.. Reboot and try again.


I never discussed the Amiga chipset, It simply is better than anything else at the time. Even now it is still very good.

[Atari_Owl]

Vigo said:

I noticed that most people here are bashing the Amiga operating system for being user-unfriendly and slow. This gives me the impression that most of you guys only worked with an Amiga equipped with the obsolete 1.2/1.3 operating system, claiming that these are the standard OSes for Amigas. Fortunately this is not the case.

I'm just talking about the OS on the machines i used for develeopment at the time '88-'92, which was in every way inferior to TOS.

Quote

For those who didnt know, from v36 on, Commodore did a huge major rewrite of the complete Operating system, making it much more stable, expandable and user-friendly. It also fixes the slow disk access from 1.x which some claim here. Do you know any OS from the late 80´s/early 90´s which supports: Autoconfig, Multitasking, a CLI, draggable Screens (which no OS except the Amiga OS has), Datatypes, DOSDrivers for mounting ANY mass storage device you like,a native filesystem with no shitty 8.3 convention, capability of reading both MFM and GCR coded disks (MFM: ST/PC, GCR: Amiga) ?

When was this v36 re-write as i guess it wasn't in any of the machines we used.

Quote

The Guru meditation, unlike the ST Bomb, gives detailed information about the cause of the crash (the number).

HUH?? Thats EXACTLY what the number of bombs represents, its connected with the 68000 error codes. To say that it gives information "UNLIKE" the ST is entirely false.

Quote

FAST memory is real memory, but it cant be accessed by the custom chips, making it (like the name says) faster. From OS2.1 on, the AmigaOS supports over 1GB of fast ram(!).

So its just like the Marpet Xtra RAM (up to 12Mb) or the TT RAM right (CT60 on the falcon is using 512Mb now)?

Quote

The Atari ST is a nice machine, which was much better than any PC at that time, but both OS and hardware were inferior to the Amiga. Most Amiga games from 1987 to 1990 were really badly done ST conversions, which only featured a better sound. When Programmers started to actually use the Amiga custom chips, Games were made that were simply not possible on the ST (Jim Power for example).

At the time a developing on stock machines i still disagree, the OS on the Amiga was significantly inferior and thats why when it started failing too, both Chris and i gave our Amigas away, rather than ever look at them again.

[Sauron]

Vigo said:

I noticed that most people here are bashing the Amiga operating system for being user-unfriendly and slow. This gives me the impression that most of you guys only worked with an Amiga equipped with the obsolete 1.2/1.3 operating system, claiming that these are the standard OSes for Amigas. Fortunately this is not the case.

My critiques span every AmigaOS revision from 1.0 to 3.1. I haven't used 3.5 or 3.9 yet, but those don't count as they came along YEARS after Commodore went kaput.

Vigo said:

For those who didnt know, from v36 on, Commodore did a huge major rewrite of the complete Operating system, making it much more stable, expandable and user-friendly. It also fixes the slow disk access from 1.x which some claim here. Do you know any OS from the late 80´s/early 90´s which supports: Autoconfig, Multitasking, a CLI, draggable Screens (which no OS except the Amiga OS has), Datatypes, DOSDrivers for mounting ANY mass storage device you like,a native filesystem with no shitty 8.3 convention, capability of reading both MFM and GCR coded disks (MFM: ST/PC, GCR: Amiga) ?

No one is arguing the strong points of WorkBench/AmigaOS, except the clunky interface which was prevalent up to at least 3.1. You forgot to mention memory protection...oh wait, that's because AmigaOS never offered it (and 4.0 STILL won't).  

Vigo said:

A few facts to clarify:  

ECS equipped Amigas (A500+, A600, A3000) can display flicker free 640x480 screens in 4 colours.

A stock 520ST can support flicker free 640x400 screens in monochrome (with luminance).

Vigo said:

A stock Amiga 1000 (the oldest model) is able to address 8.5MB ram out of the box.

How many A1000s have you seen with 8.5MB?

Vigo said:

For those who claim Amiga OS must be booted: the whole OS is in the ROM, the only thing which is loaded from disk is the workbench. Btw, which Amiga user uses disks only?

Semantics. Most people consider WB part of the OS, in a similar vein to TOS/GEM.

Vigo said:

ECS/AGA equipped Amigas can play-back samples with 56khz.

I've never heard an ECS/AGA equipped Amiga play-back samples at any higher than the 25khz supported by the hardware. My A1200 sure doesn't.

Vigo said:

The Guru meditation, unlike the ST Bomb, gives detailed information about the cause of the crash (the number).

By the time you see either, it's too late.

Vigo said:

FAST memory is real memory, but it cant be accessed by the custom chips, making it (like the name says) faster. From OS2.1 on, the AmigaOS supports over 1GB of fast ram(!).

You mean like TT-RAM? And how many stock Amigas do you see addressing even 1/10th of that?

Vigo said:

The Atari ST is a nice machine, which was much better than any PC at that time, but both OS and hardware were inferior to the Amiga. Most Amiga games from 1987 to 1990 were really badly done ST conversions, which only featured a better sound. When Programmers started to actually use the Amiga custom chips, Games were made that were simply not possible on the ST (Jim Power for example).

By the time that happened, the Atari STE series and up were still keeping up with the Amiga hardware-wise, but for a fraction of the cost. I'll definitely agree that both systems were great for their time, but the Amiga wasn't nearly as far ahead of the ST series as most Amiga fanatics would like to believe. The AmigaOS was slow and clunky, despite what anyone says. Run WB 3.0 and up on a stock A1200 or A4000 in any more than 32 colors and count how many seconds it takes to redraw a window. For maximum amusement, try running more than one application at a time (and I mean at least one decent app, like DirectoryOPUS or DPaint) with 256 colors onscreen and watch your machine grind to a halt. Amiga users like to continuously tout how their OS could multitask, but basically the multitasking was useless when your system ran like it just halved it's clockspeed. The ST may not have supported real multitasking until MultiTOS/MiNT, but it worked quite well for what it could do. The OS was fast and quite responsive, was easier to use than a Mac (IMO), and always had a very clean interface.

Despite all of that, I still think the Amiga was a killer machine. I've been having fun with my A1200, and can't wait to upgrade it to get it running some more modern apps. I have a Falcon on the way now, too, so I'll be having double the fun!

[Heaven/TQA]

640x400x2 resolution...come on... i loved my monochrome monitor with 70hz flickerfree highress... but a pain was that you need definitly 2 montiors/tv for using all 3 gfx modes of ST...

so... it lacks in terms that out of the box ST can do that... yes... but you would have to buy the monitor... and what about if i want to play games? yes... you can... then you have to by the color monitor... just older "M" models had built in RF modulator or the STE models...

i loved my STe but amiga1200 rocks a lot more... sorry...

hve

[Atari_Owl]

Quote

i loved my STe but amiga1200 rocks a lot more... sorry...  

Again, not a true comparison. Its apples and oranges.

Amiga1200 should be compared to the Falcon, not the STE, as they're 68020/30 machines (Odd (x10) numbers 68010, 68030 were minor updates of evens), and there is no comparison, the Falcon is superior to the A1200, its a simple as that.

I could just as easily say I loved my Sega Master System, but the SNES rocked a lot more, but it would still be as false a comparison.

[emkay]

It seems the thread is going crazy?

There are too many wrong argues used....

So: Everybody please inform yourself before going ahead in this thread ... thanks

[jon-paul]

well at the time these were new i was unable to afford either

A lot a friends at the end of the 80's had ST's, compared to my 800XL very impressive machines.

Alas the needs of university and my contacts ment i went to PCs in the early-mid 90's

getting back into older machines in the last 3-4 years i decided i wanted a monitor for my 130XE, saw one for £10, so trapsed up north london to collect it. I should have read the advert more closely as it came with an Amiga 500 with 1 meg memory lots of disks and a printer (just as well i took 2 large bags with me).

needless to say, impressed, collection has grown (carboot pick-ups mainly).

So my preference now is for the Amiga. 600's and 1200 amiga's have IDE for hard-drives (and pilliaging old laptops is a bit easier than i first thought!), I have access to accelorators via trapdoor expansions on the 1200 which give me more speed and more memory, squirrel interfaces and the like give me CD-roms which is about the only thing that sticks out of the box. and untill recenlt via work and social contacts i've known a lot of people who were Amiga nuts and have started clearing this sort ofstuff out!

Alas all i can bolt onto to the ST is more 30 pin memory (up to 4mb), No accelorators (untill the falcon) or IDE leaving the ST not so easy to expand. Which is a pity and i can't help but feel an oversight (one of the few) in its original spec as it is a good and competent workhorse. And i know many less ST owners having a clear out of still owning their kit.

Thats said the Amiga market remains somewhat overpriced, but new stuff is out there, but i can't help but feel that going beyond a certain point simply creates more issues than it solves.

still will proberbly fiddle with my Amiga again this weekend!

[Atari_Owl]

Hmmmm

To me it looks like it was all going fairly amicably until about halfway down this page when it got a little harsher.

I think we can all see around about when.

Lets just agree that this was a bad argument 15 years ago and an even lamer one today, when they both lost to the worst possible option. As i type at that option now (Damn you IBM/Microsoft - Damn you to hell!)  

[Atari_Owl]

jon-paul said:

Alas all i can bolt onto to the ST is more 30 pin memory (up to 4mb), No accelorators (untill the falcon) or IDE leaving the ST not so easy to expand. Which is a pity and i can't help but feel an oversight (one of the few) in its original spec as it is a good and competent workhorse. And i know many less ST owners having a clear out of still owning their kit.

Again, not entirely correct.

Many memory upgrades were available, including the Marpet Xtra RAM with an additional 8MB to take you up to 12Mb

In addition, the T28/36 and PAK accelerators (which are still advertised at Atari Workshop) allowed speeds up to 36MHz on the 68000 and the addition of a 68030 CPU.

Admittedly the Amiga accelerators are more easily avilable, but to say that there were no accelerators prior to the Falcon is again, simply incorrect.

[jon-paul]

Atari_Owl said:

jon-paul said:

Alas all i can bolt onto to the ST is more 30 pin memory (up to 4mb), No accelorators (untill the falcon) or IDE leaving the ST not so easy to expand. Which is a pity and i can't help but feel an oversight (one of the few) in its original spec as it is a good and competent workhorse. And i know many less ST owners having a clear out of still owning their kit.

Again, not entirely correct.

Many memory upgrades were available, including the Marpet Xtra RAM with an additional 8MB to take you up to 12Mb

In addition, the T28/36 and PAK accelerators (which are still advertised at Atari Workshop) allowed speeds up to 36MHz on the 68000 and the addition of a 68030 CPU.

Admittedly the Amiga accelerators are more easily avilable, but to say that there were no accelerators prior to the Falcon is again, simply incorrect.

Ta for that correction

So are these small boards that sit on top of the M68000 or soldering requierd?

I did enquier at Analogic (they are a local retailer that still sells, services and repairs ST's and Amiga's) but they didn't know of anything that was as easy to 'slot in' as the Amiga Accelorators for the ST untill the Falcon. And certainly they had no stock!

Extra memory? does that work like those pc 72pin to 30 pin adaptors from many years ago, or by some other method?

[Atari_Owl]

Hello Jon Paul

Sorry if i seemed a bit snippy earlier.
It wasn't you i was frustrated with.

The matter is not a simple one, as the upgrades sometimes need soldering and sometimes are socketed. It depends what the machine is and what the add-on is. The Xtra Ram solution is an additional board on the MMU which takes an additional set of 72pin chips, but is accessed as FAST RAM.

I have the information around somewhere. I'll root it out.
Regarding VME add-ons, i'm a bit behind on my info about that but i'm fairly sure that the Mega STE's had them in addition to TTs.

I also need to check on the accelerators there, there's a guy swears blind he has a 76MHz TT.

Certainly though, the upgrades are not as easy to fit or as readily available as for the Amiga.

But the ST upgrades DO exist, and a 36MHz ST is pretty darn nifty.  

Cheers

[jon-paul]

No Problems with the snappy,

either way with add ons i don't trust myself with a soldering iron  

Still nice to know stuff is outhere.

fast TTs/Falcons, I've heard of/delt with a couple when working for CIX in support. In almost every case they got a 'specialist' to tweek their machines

[Atari_Owl]

Yes the speed ups for the Falcon have tended to be a bit awkward.

Very Glad i didn't get the BlowUp FX card (came VERY close at onme point)

Anyway i now have a CT60.
Which admittedly isn't working yet (need to make a cable to update two of the Flash Chips). I got an early developer card so it needs the update.

Its solder free (but with solders can boost the main board to 20 or 25MHz) but does need an ATX power supply.

Its really easy to fit though, just take out the PSU, slot in the CT60,m connect a few wires to jumpers and (theoretically) you're away.

A 68060 at 66MHz, with 64 to 512MB RAM. FAST!!

GREAT        

[Ayreon]

Whats wrong with 30 pins Simms? At the time of the STE they made sense and when 72 pins became the new standard they started to be very cheap. So imo it was an advantage at that time

It's a shame they gave the Falcon a rather  no standard memory module and it took a while before people created a board wich used simms. But it uses IDE and SCSI 2 . Since the Falcon is roughly from the same time as the A600/1200 i don't see their IDE as an advantage over the Atari. It sure was a good idea to add IDE on either machines

[Sauron]

The ST series certainly lagged well behind the Amiga market when it came to accelerators and other upgrades, and still does. I've been looking at upgrade options for my A1200, and I can only dream at the possibilities of what I can do with it. Plenty of accelerators abound for it, whereas you're stuck with less than a handful of options for the Falcon. Not to mention the PPC accelerator boards which will allow you to run AmigaOS 4.0 when it comes out (soon, I hope). It's too bad no one decided to go that route with the Falcon or TT. I guess it helps when the "parent" company is still around in some fashion and offering some kind of support for their old machines. That's something us Atari fans will sadly never see.  

[jon-paul]

Ayreon said:

Whats wrong with 30 pins Simms? At the time of the STE they made sense and when 72 pins became the new standard they started to be very cheap. So imo it was an advantage at that time

Absolutely nothing wrong with 30pin simms in the ST. I wish earlier Amiga's were as expandable (they are not). the standard 30 pin simm memory and the floppy disk format are two major advantages to someone who today wants to play with an ST. Alas, your stuck there unless you want to start soldering. OK with a regular ST, which are easy to replace, not so OK with a falcon which are not. Certainly if you want the conveniance of a hard drive, your usualy looking for an old 3rd party add on again which may again prove expensive.

Remeber i'm not comparing what was, but what is for the retro computer collector/user now. Those of us who have hard drives certainly appreciate them, and they save wear and tear on our precious floppy disks.

Quote

It's a shame they gave the Falcon a rather  no standard memory module and it took a while before people created a board wich used simms. But it uses IDE and SCSI 2 . Since the Falcon is roughly from the same time as the A600/1200 i don't see their IDE as an advantage over the Atari. It sure was a good idea to add IDE on either machines

That is a pity, even a step backwards not to have a standard memory module.

The 1200 has a cut down version of the 68020, Pcmcia 2 slot, 2.5 inch IDE and a trapdoor expansion slot.  Accelorators often make use of a single 72 pin simm for extra memory (try explaining that at a compurter fair! I want only one!). All of this just needs a screwdriver at most to get at, and just slots in. This makes it very easy to upgrade, and you not left with the horrible feeling that "I'm likely to frell this up if i get it wrong" that you do with a machine where soldering is needed.

The 600 has the PCMCIA slot, a memory slot (only up to a total of 2 meg, needs a proprioty board) and that it. A much harder machine to expand. Also at its heart is but a 68000 at approx 8mhz Its effectivly not much more than a 500+ thats shrunk in the wash. Its IDE also is a problem, early verions of the 600 have the ide socket, but no drivers in the OS at all. The cure is a replacement kickstart chip (which tahnkfully IS socketed)! The few accelorators for it are push fit ones that sit on top of the 68000 on the mother board.

IIRC the Falcon had a 68030 at its heart, I remember IDE being a feature (Is that the 2.5 inch laptop size or a full 3.5 inch?) and it had an accelorator slot of some sort. However, i have seen only 3 in life, ever! 1200's seem almost soo common to be almost a bore.

Certainly its also easier to get a 1200 dirt cheep (they are cheep and common) at a car boot fair, pick up an old laptop to pillage its hard drive and buy an accelorator (say an 030 25 or 50mhz) and snap one of those old 72 pin simms we usualy have lurking around at home and you have a convenient machine to fiddle with. Proberbly all in under 100£ even if you had to buy the accelorator and hard drive via the retro trade/from a shop. I'm not even sure i could get a Falcon on its own for that price unless i really luck out.

After all that however, lets face it, we want these machines for resons of nostalga, be it the machines them selves or the games on them. You can't replace that gut feeling of "I want a (insert machine of choice here)". I suppose we should just accept that we are the computing equivelent of MGB/Triumph spitfire owners