The Amiga: Why did it fail so hard in the United States?

[MrMaddog]

18 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Whatever the case, there were MANY factors in neither the Amiga nor ST being sustainable. At least we got to enjoy them for as long as we did and it certainly allowed time for PCs to get really good for the things a platform like the Amiga excelled at years before. 

 

In North America, the most simple answer is that people only use what was used in the offices and only bought PC clones to take their work home.

 

PC's are used for the "processing" of data while Macs were given a pass for graphical stuff like desktop publishing.

 

Most people in the mid-80's didn't want home computers because they promised so much and delievered so little.  Sadly, the sprunning of 8-bit micros also affected the more powerful 16-bit computers made by Atari & Commodore (whose brand names didn't help much in being taken seriously).  And when home computers were used primary for gaming, they were quickly replaced by Nintendos which didn't have any disk loading times.

 

Home computers, both 8 & 16 bit, were primary used by computer hobbyist who invest their spare time into getting the most of of their machines and yes use them for word processing.  It's one thing to type a letter and print it out, but when your boss wants you to make a report using WordPerfect & Lotus...well that's what your stuck with.  Of course there were versions of WordPerfect for the Amiga & ST, but to use any other DOS based application you'd need a PC emulator.  And with the janky nature of said emulators, you might as well buy a cheap clone anyway which would take up even more room in the home office.

 

Once the multimedia PCs came out for the home, it was over anyway.  Not only you could take your work home but "play" with games, CD-ROMs and the World Wide Web.  Both Atari & Commodore ended up in bad finacial condition in spite of only selling to the European market, which also choose multimedia PC's and 16/32-bit game consoles over the old home computers.

 

BTW, I still think the Amigas & STs were better suited for home use at the time as long as you didn't need to use any DOS program.  But times & technology change...

 

[Bill Loguidice]

2 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

BTW, I still think the Amigas & STs were better suited for home use at the time as long as you didn't need to use any DOS program.  But times & technology change...

 

Yep, but again, lots of factors. For instance, it took way too long for Amigas to incorporate hard drives and then CD-ROMs, so I'd say it wasn't necessarily better-suited to home use by the early 90s. I also found a lot of productivity software far less stable on the Amiga than on PC. The Amiga primarily excelled at gaming and artistic endeavors (including video, rendering, etc.), at least until VGA and SoundBlaster became standards. 

[+Gemintronic]

From what I remember it seemed people were left to find what an Amiga was about for themselves.  It also cost more than a PC clone to do PC things. 

 

If you didn't "get it" you didn't get it.  The first sin was: Commodore didn't get their own product.

[Hwlngmad]

48 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

It's an oversimplification, but the Macintosh survived in part because it had the most relevant niche for the era, desktop publishing. The Amiga was too far ahead of its time to take advantage of widespread home video production use and the ST being musician-centric was never going to amount to much of anything other than some cool name drops, i.e., such-and-such-musician is using an ST to produce/perform their music.

Whatever the case, there were MANY factors in neither the Amiga nor ST being sustainable. At least we got to enjoy them for as long as we did and it certainly allowed time for PCs to get really good for the things a platform like the Amiga excelled at years before. 

 

 

All of this is very true Bill.  I would also say that Apple was able to muscle in on what the Amiga did video wise and what the ST did music wise as well, not to mention the inroads made by the PC in the niches occupied by the Amiga and ST too.

[ColecoGamer]

According to people I knew who owned and operated Commodore Amiga stores, they claimed it was from a lack of aggressive advertising by Commodore.
 

They said Commodore believed word of mouth was the best form of advertising. I always felt Commodore was being cheap.

 

The Amiga was (and still is) a fantastic computer that should have taken the US by storm.

[Bill Loguidice]

Just now, ColecoGamer said:

According to people I knew who owned and operated Commodore Amiga stores, they claimed it was from a lack of aggressive advertising by Commodore.
 

They said Commodore believed word of mouth was the best form of advertising. I always felt Commodore was being cheap.

 

The Amiga was (and still is) a fantastic computer that should have taken the US by storm.

It's possible, but there were plenty of magazine ads and coverage, as well as television commercials. Now, it can definitely be argued that the ads weren't the best (I myself have argued against how they marketed the features), but I feel like they at least TRIED. 

I also argue that even if the Amiga took the US by (relative) storm, it still wouldn't have mattered in the long-term. There simply was no practical answer from anyone for low-cost PC compatibles heading into Windows 95 (barely enough room for ONE niche platform in the Macintosh). For a time, post Amiga 500, it was effectively the number two mass market computer platform in the US in terms of store presence and software availability at retailers.

[mickster]

After reading the backstory of both Commodore and Atari, I don't think it really mattered what they released, marketed or advertised.  Both companies were too small and too fragile to be successful long term.  Sorta like 3do trying to compete with Sony and Nintendo.  They just didn't have the cash to make the long term investment.  Those companies really were living from product to product.  IF a company has to hit a home run every time, they will lose eventually.

[ColecoGamer]

16 minutes ago, mickster said:

After reading the backstory of both Commodore and Atari, I don't think it really mattered what they released, marketed or advertised.  Both companies were too small and too fragile to be successful long term.  Sorta like 3do trying to compete with Sony and Nintendo.  They just didn't have the cash to make the long term investment.  Those companies really were living from product to product.  IF a company has to hit a home run every time, they will lose eventually.

Regardless of how fragile both companies were, Commodore and Atari both gave us many years of incredible 16-bit computing. I miss the excitement of those days very, very much. It’s an excitement that modern day PCs can’t replicate today.

[Keatah]

1 hour ago, ColecoGamer said:

Regardless of how fragile both companies were, Commodore and Atari both gave us many years of incredible 16-bit computing.

Both companies were at their best when 8-bit machines were in vogue. Neither could handle 16-bits. And 16-bits were their last gasp.

 

1 hour ago, ColecoGamer said:

I miss the excitement of those days very, very much. It’s an excitement that modern day PCs can’t replicate today.

Modern PCs are basically utilitarian platforms to run software and conduct e-commerce. 8/16 bits was about discovering the entire information age. Discovering the mind extensions that were so highly touted in the 1970's.

[Gentlegamer]

28 minutes ago, Keatah said:

Modern PCs are basically utilitarian platforms to run software and conduct e-commerce.

I like how my modestly decent gaming PC can play Elden Ring (granted, it's a "last gen" game graphically) and also Morrowind, StarCraft, Half-Life series, and the King's Quest series (etc) without much trouble.

 

The flexibility is a great boon to me for gaming, along with other functions. My next frontier is transitioning off Windows to Linux.

[ColecoGamer]

18 hours ago, Keatah said:

Both companies were at their best when 8-bit machines were in vogue. Neither could handle 16-bits. And 16-bits were their last gasp.

 

Modern PCs are basically utilitarian platforms to run software and conduct e-commerce. 8/16 bits was about discovering the entire information age. Discovering the mind extensions that were so highly touted in the 1970's.

I don’t know. As much as I loved my 8-bit micro, I have fond memories of the Atari ST and Amiga that are more impactful. Maybe its due to the advanced graphics they offered and how imaginative the games became, as developers worked hard to push the capabilities of each machine.

 

It was literally a new frontier of computing for those willing to experience it. Game developer Psygnosis played a big part in releasing many iconic games (i.e. Blood Money, Lemmings, etc) that have inspired and stuck with me throughout the years.

 

What I’m saying is that there was a  renaissance of hardware and software that we haven’t seen since then. Everything has become so cookie-cutter in its execution. While innovation today is mostly seen in graphics, FPS and CPU speeds, there really isn’t any ‘firsts’ like we used to see back then. Everything has become so vanilla, and the magic that once existed in home computing is gone. 
 

It’s now about $800+ GPUs, CPUs that need liquid cooling, and bragging about how much you spent to have a ‘kick-ass’ gaming computer with a shelf life of less than 6-8 months before something else comes along.

 

When you bought an Amiga or ST back then, you knew that computer would be used for the long haul. Sure, new machines appeared, but as a rule of thumb, they were typically more advanced technologically than your current computer, and Commodore and Atari didn’t force these changes down our throats every 6 months like they do today.

 

This is my 2 cents on the topic. 

Edited July 6, 2022 by ColecoGamer

[Keatah]

6 hours ago, ColecoGamer said:

I don’t know. As much as I loved my 8-bit micro, I have fond memories of the Atari ST and Amiga that are more impactful. Maybe its due to the advanced graphics they offered and how imaginative the games became, as developers worked hard to push the capabilities of each machine.

I didn't do too much 16-bit gaming. Was more into the DeluxePaint & PhotonPaint thing of things. Wanted to do the much vaunted animation programs, but a base A1000 or A500 was quite inadequate. So those experiences were less than ideal if they happened at all.

 

Quote

It was literally a new frontier of computing for those willing to experience it. Game developer Psygnosis played a big part in releasing many iconic games (i.e. Blood Money, Lemmings, etc) that have inspired and stuck with me throughout the years.

Psygnosis, Ocean, Sub-Logic, ElectronicArts, all good companies making worthwhile stuff. I particularly liked the atmospheric F/A-18 Interceptor by Bob Dinnerman. And I also liked Marble Madness, too bad there wasn't more of the game. 6 levels is rather short. And I could blow through the first 3 or 4 instantly it seemed.

 

Quote

What I’m saying is that there was a  renaissance of hardware and software that we haven’t seen since then. Everything has become so cookie-cutter in its execution. While innovation today is mostly seen in graphics, FPS and CPU speeds, there really isn’t any ‘firsts’ like we used to see back then. Everything has become so vanilla, and the magic that once existed in home computing is gone.

Yes this is true for the most part. There are a few franchises or software packages that still exude the fresh air of discovery. I particularly dig X-Plane and DigitalCombatSimulator. Stuff that is way off the beaten path. Every major upgrade of X-Plane, about one every 3 or 4 years, always brings significant newness to the table. New physics, new graphics, new models. You almost buy the software then build the machine around the requirements. Even though a standard PC is good for 6-8 years, 4-years worth of change is enough to trigger a replacement (not an upgrade, a replacement) when it comes to specialty software.

 

Quote

 It’s now about $800+ GPUs, CPUs that need liquid cooling, and bragging about how much you spent to have a ‘kick-ass’ gaming computer with a shelf life of less than 6-8 months before something else comes along.

I did the bragging rights and overclocking thing. It was a rather expensive and shallow experience. The parts industry and "professional" overclockers seemed to do things that made you feel lame about whatever hardware you had. And this is still true of today. All that RGB bling and flashing fan lights - your computer is nothing unless it has that. Bullshit!

 

In the middle of the dotcom epoch I was into upgrading graphics cards and processor speeds. Getting new stuff every 6 months. I discovered it was a waste not long after the GeForce 4 became dated. It was right around when Nvidia fucked up their numbering scheme and tried to sell 8 series in place of 9 series parts and lie about it. Essentially I went from the Geforce 4 -to- GTX 1080. That long. Yes. But at the time I wasn't doing graphically intensive stuff. Now when the 20xx and 30xx prices drop a little more I'll pick some up. I'll also enjoy watching the bugs get worked out of the 40xx series too!

 

And you know what? Replacing everything every 6 months doesn't leave time to enjoy anything you just got. It's up to the end user to slow the pace and enjoy the flowers.

 

Quote

When you bought an Amiga or ST back then, you knew that computer would be used for the long haul. Sure, new machines appeared, but as a rule of thumb, they were typically more advanced technologically than your current computer, and Commodore and Atari didn’t force these changes down our throats every 6 months like they do today. This is my 2 cents on the topic. 

That's true. I never thought much to upgrade the Amiga's CPU & speed. I tried it once with some "parts list" home kit, it failed. And I never bothered again, but continued to enjoy graphic arts with DP & PP.

 

And anyways my interest was shifting into PC's. Began reading brochures for 286 & 386 class machines. Soon got into collecting literature for 486 machines, both hardware and software. And finally got one in late 1992.

 

I never felt I entered any new realms with 16-bit machines. That would only happen again once I got into PC. Now I had a serious contender to supplement and eventually replace the old Apple II+ & IIe I had been usings since the 70's.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Keatah

[zzip]

On 7/5/2022 at 11:38 AM, MrMaddog said:

Once the multimedia PCs came out for the home, it was over anyway.  Not only you could take your work home but "play" with games, CD-ROMs and the World Wide Web.  Both Atari & Commodore ended up in bad finacial condition in spite of only selling to the European market, which also choose multimedia PC's and 16/32-bit game consoles over the old home computers.

 

BTW, I still think the Amigas & STs were better suited for home use at the time as long as you didn't need to use any DOS program.  But times & technology change...

I always found the apps I needed on ST and it served me well from 1987-1994ish.    I think the Internet was the first thing I encountered that the ST really struggled with.   Yeah there was thinks like KA9Q that could get you a PPP connection to the internet, but you were very limited to what you could do with it.     So Internet and games like Doom & Co are what caused me to finally jump to PC

 

I think Internet and email in particular drove people to PCs, even for people who never owned a computer before.   That was the time when I suddenly had lots of people ask me to build them PCs

[Daedalus2097]

I was using my Amiga into the '00s, though I also had a PC and PowerMac at that point to start taking up the slack with certain applications and websites that couldn't be used on the Amiga. Granted, I had greatly expanded the A1200 at that point too (hard drives, Zip drives, CD burners, graphics cards, sound cards, network cards etc.), so it could hold its own - it even acted as the internet gateway for the other machines during the dial-up era. It was only when CSS and heavy Javascript became commonplace that the web started to move out of the Amiga's reach, and even then it was still great for email, IRC and so on.

 

Still have that machine here, still going strong...

 

Edit: I guess part of the point I was making was that with the Amiga and the ST, users tended not to upgrade, whereas the PC was a different story. Amigas and STs were treated more like games consoles for pirated games than fully fledged computers, and people generally weren't interested in upgrading RAM or CPUs because most of the (probably pirated) games they played worked just fine on the base level machine. In the PC world, there was already a culture of upgrading from before - they didn't start out all-singing and all-dancing, so people were more likely to upgrade their hardware to play new games. As a result, the Amiga and ST dropped from being the lead platforms, and instead received cut-down versions of PC games because the market for upgraded machines was so small. A vicious circle for the Amiga and ST. I upgraded my Amiga instead and got to play Doom and Quake on it in the '90s, but that was already too late...

Edited July 8, 2022 by Daedalus2097

[Hwlngmad]

22 hours ago, zzip said:

I think Internet and email in particular drove people to PCs, even for people who never owned a computer before.

That is exactly what happened when my family got its first PC compatible in December 1992.  My father's work was offering a $1,000 (if memory serves me right, might have been half that) on certain IBM PCs so its managers could have access to the internet and email at home. 

[Keatah]

E-Mail was likely the most forward-facing factor for ordinary people (non-techies) wanting to get a computer. I loved the circus atmosphere of those bigbox stores. So colorful and happy! Advertising full of buzzwords like America Online, Windows 95, Pentium, Hard Drive, Virtual Reality, Information Superhighway (Series of Tubes!). And more.

 

Clearly recall playing amateur salesman by helping folks purchase, or put together their first system. Hemming and hawing over whether 64MB vs 128MB was better than 28.8 vs 56K. Or max that out but drop the CPU speed 25MHz. All those tedious tradeoffs. All those back'n'forths trying to save $200 while one-upping the Joneses.

[MrMaddog]

Wow, there must have been two different Internets in the 90's.  One had experienced computer users dial into UNIX servers and use their computers (including ST's *) as VT100 terminals, and the other was the AOL type primary for newbies who bought expensive PC's.

 

Anyway I had to "upgrade" to a whole new PC when I went back to school during the late 90's because they went from using UNIX servers & VAX machines to all Windows...

 

(Also for the recent PC games & emulation so that made the pill easier to swallow)

Edited July 8, 2022 by MrMaddog
* I assume that Amigas also has terminal emulators for dial-up BBS & ISPs, I never used any sorry to say...

[Keatah]

6 hours ago, Daedalus2097 said:

I was using my Amiga into the '00s, though I also had a PC and PowerMac at that point to start taking up the slack with certain applications and websites that couldn't be used on the Amiga. Granted, I had greatly expanded the A1200 at that point too (hard drives, Zip drives, CD burners, graphics cards, sound cards, network cards etc.), so it could hold its own - it even acted as the internet gateway for the other machines during the dial-up era. It was only when CSS and heavy Javascript became commonplace that the web started to move out of the Amiga's reach, and even then it was still great for email, IRC and so on.

By '00 I had already shifted well into the PC ecosphere, having run the 486 into the proverbial ground, built a 266MHz Pentium II, upgraded that, plowed through a few early 3D graphics boards.. I put the Amiga in storage around 1997 and eventually got rid of it some 10 years later.

 

As early as 1994-1995 I knew PC was the way forward for the internet, what with 800x600 & 1024x768 resolution (high resolution back then), and parts and systems and software being sold at corner stores.. Writing was on the wall.

 

6 hours ago, Daedalus2097 said:

Still have that machine here, still going strong...

Very good..

 

6 hours ago, Daedalus2097 said:

Edit: I guess part of the point I was making was that with the Amiga and the ST, users tended not to upgrade, whereas the PC was a different story.

I suppose that's partly because of the ease of getting inside. The PC was easy. Apple II even easier. With those rigs you could even swap out the whole machine and still retain tons of backward compatibility. And there were options being sold like newspapers on a street corner.

 

Early on in my tale of Amiga ownership I wanted to upgrade. More memory, 2nd floppy, HDD, and more, but the stuff was rather hard to find and seemingly somehow more expensive than its PC equivalent. This in 1987 even. There was no pirate scene in my part of town, and that made it 2x hard because I had to shell out $$$ for software. Whereas with Apple II (and later PC), everything was cheap and plentiful, cheap enough that I could even buy my own software even.

 

Then there was the console aspect. These were machines screwed together in a consumer-unfriendly way. Not that they're hard for a hobbyist. The cases said "don't open me - no user serviceable parts inside" to the casual buyer. With a PC, the cases said "open me with tools, I'm meant to be serviced and updated".

 

6 hours ago, Daedalus2097 said:

Amigas and STs were treated more like games consoles for pirated games than fully fledged computers, and people generally weren't interested in upgrading RAM or CPUs because most of the (probably pirated) games they played worked just fine on the base level machine.

Yes. And 16-bit software tended to improve over time as devs learned how to optimize things. There was optimization on the Apple II also. But not so on the PC. Devs were (and still are) lazy, they continually rely on bigger and faster and better hardware.

 

6 hours ago, Daedalus2097 said:

In the PC world, there was already a culture of upgrading from before - they didn't start out all-singing and all-dancing, so people were more likely to upgrade their hardware to play new games. As a result, the Amiga and ST dropped from being the lead platforms, and instead received cut-down versions of PC games because the market for upgraded machines was so small. A vicious circle for the Amiga and ST. I upgraded my Amiga instead and got to play Doom and Quake on it in the '90s, but that was already too late...

Yes.

 

I don't believe Doom/Quake would have saved the Amiga had it premiered on the platform. In fact it might have sunk the franchises altogether. For me it was a revelation, going from stodgy & stuffy Windows 3.1 productivity like Word 2.0 to Doom's level of gaming. There were PC games before, but few captured my attention like the realtime 3D environment the guys at id created. And all of this on very basic 486 hardware. No real custom graphics chips. Basic sound DACs & FM Synthesis. Talking less-than-console hardware here.

 

I also believe Doom is best experienced on PC. Whether it be Original Doom and Doom II from floppies or the modern ZDoom port - running it on other console hardware introduces too many restrictions.

[Hwlngmad]

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

E-Mail was likely the most forward-facing factor for ordinary people (non-techies) wanting to get a computer. I loved the circus atmosphere of those bigbox stores. So colorful and happy! Advertising full of buzzwords like America Online, Windows 95, Pentium, Hard Drive, Virtual Reality, Information Superhighway (Series of Tubes!). And more.

 

Clearly recall playing amateur salesman by helping folks purchase, or put together their first system. Hemming and hawing over whether 64MB vs 128MB was better than 28.8 vs 56K. Or max that out but drop the CPU speed 25MHz. All those tedious tradeoffs. All those back'n'forths trying to save $200 while one-upping the Joneses.

What a time it was!

[Keatah]

26 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

Wow, there must have been two different Internets in the 90's.  One had experienced computer users dial into UNIX servers and use their computers (including ST's *) as VT100 terminals, and the other was the AOL type primary for newbies who bought expensive PC's.

There were. And they hated each other. I was in the America Online camp, and every question I asked was met with disdain by those UNIX assholes. IRC was 2x worse. The attitude is still prevalent today but buried under the noise of social medial and everything else going on.

 

I don't know if it was uber expensive PCs they bought, but most all were turnkey packages like from RadioShack, BestBuy, or CircuitCity. Appliances - plug'em in turn'em on.

 

AOL was awesome, taught me everything I know about being online in the post BBS age.

 

26 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

Anyway I had to "upgrade" to a whole new PC when I went back to school during the late 90's because they went from using UNIX servers & VAX machines to all Windows... (Also for the recent PC games & emulation so that made the pill easier to swallow)

I was never sour on upgrading PC hardware. Not till the Pentium IV. That was *T*H*E* biggest moneysink ever in my entire history of computing. Negative ROI written all over it. In fact I'm still cautious. One good thing is it kicked me out of the overclocking habit and "Maximum PC" Dream Machine building. Also tempered my nostalgic enthusiasm - because now every build/purchase is about getting the right environment for the software I'm using. And that means making sure the CPU/GPU/OS support the right APIs and instruction sets. I don't really care about MHz anymore. Hadn't cared since 2017-2018. It's all about the software. The hardware is disposable.

 

When we upgrade now we simply resell or donate the old stuff.

 

And believe it or not, emulators have never been a driving factor in hardware performance. But, rather, a driving force in form factors! I like all my emulator rigs to be quiet and simple SFFPC, not these sprawling hulking RGB messes. Even the mid-range priced ones have ample power for emulators.

[zzip]

7 hours ago, Daedalus2097 said:

Edit: I guess part of the point I was making was that with the Amiga and the ST, users tended not to upgrade, whereas the PC was a different story. Amigas and STs were treated more like games consoles for pirated games than fully fledged computers, and people generally weren't interested in upgrading RAM or CPUs because most of the (probably pirated) games they played worked just fine on the base level machine.

I think there was definitely an interest in upgrading, it just wasn't always easy.   I can speak more from the ST side.   Upgrading memory on the early models required soldering, or add on-boards that may not fit the case.   Not for everyone.   When I got an STe with SIMM slots for memory, I upgraded and maxed it out because it was a simple and relatively inexpensive upgrade and it was awesome to not have to worry about running out of memory anymore while keeping a bunch of TSRs, desk accessories, and other add-on goodies loaded all the time.

 

Hard drives-  PCs had cheap IDE drives,  ST you generally needed SCSI or native ACSI (much less common).   If you went SCSI, you also needed a ACSI<-> SCSI board, adding an extra expense.  And since most models didn't have internal space,  you were looking at external and probably wanted a nice enclosure to keep it all tidy.    So it was a lot more expensive to add a drive to ST.   I eventually did but went with a second-hand one to reduce cost.

 

CPU upgrades- you couldn't just drop-in a replacement in the slot, you again had to buy add-on boards where you weren't sure what kind of  performance or compatibility you would get.  

[Keatah]

56 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

Edited 1 minute ago by MrMaddog
* I assume that Amigas also has terminal emulators for dial-up BBS & ISPs, I never used any sorry to say...

They indeed did. I never used any because my setup was rather lame, a stock 500 + 1MB. Handling the files BBS usage generates was a tedious pain. Too much disk swapping between the terminal package, the OS, the utilities to work with the downloaded file, and the files themselves. I needed a 2nd memory manager for my head to keep track of it all!

 

Moving into the PC was a relief. The pressure of waiting just dissipated The HDD and OS combined handled all that swappage for me. I could enjoy all the D'L pics and games and text files and other documents with ease. Whereas on the Amiga it may have taken me a good 5 or 6 disk swaps to view a GIF that was located on some random disk!

 

That kind of experience can really bring on the hate. It also makes Windows 3.1 & DOS look like a heaven sent sunbeam!

[zzip]

1 hour ago, MrMaddog said:

Wow, there must have been two different Internets in the 90's.  One had experienced computer users dial into UNIX servers and use their computers (including ST's *) as VT100 terminals, and the other was the AOL type primary for newbies who bought expensive PC's.

I think they had a phrase "Eternal September".   It used to be that every September new college freshmen would come in and get on the Internet for the first time, they didn't understand what they called "netiquette", and flood of people asked very newbie questions and so-on.     But then AOL and other providers started adding Internet meaning you had these people showing up constantly.

 

And I remember netiquette was pretty awful.   For instance, I used to hang out in the emulator usenet groups at a time when the first arcade emulators started appearing.  It was amazing.  But there were a bunch of these entitled brats hanging around and it was never good enough.  They spread rumors that the emulator author wrote emulators for other games too and hadn't released them.  How dare he not release them!   They were really angry about this. This was only days or a couple of weeks after the previous release mind you.   I thought it was embarrassing and wouldn't have been shocked if the emulator authors would give up over the lack of gratitude./

[Keatah]

1 minute ago, zzip said:

I think there was definitely an interest in upgrading, it just wasn't always easy.   I can speak more from the ST side.   Upgrading memory on the early models required soldering, or add on-boards that may not fit the case.   Not for everyone.   When I got an STe with SIMM slots for memory, I upgraded and maxed it out because it was a simple and relatively inexpensive upgrade and it was awesome to not have to worry about running out of memory anymore while keeping a bunch of TSRs, desk accessories, and other add-on goodies loaded all the time.

There was. I was technically inclined so opening an ST or Amiga was no trouble. Unscrewing the typical 6 screws on a PC was no trouble.

 

I remember one of my first upgrades to the Apple II and that was the 16K RamCard in slot 0. It was an involved operation! I had to remove the cover. Pull out a chip. Insert a ribbon cable. And insert a card. Then put the cover back on. Hoping I didn't fuck anything up. I wasn't even in middle-school yet.

 

This was huge. Gained something like 10 or 11 KBytes by moving DOS to the card. Suddenly my BBS gained more functionality.

 

3 minutes ago, zzip said:

Hard drives-  PCs had cheap IDE drives,  ST you generally needed SCSI or native ACSI (much less common).   If you went SCSI, you also needed a ACSI<-> SCSI board, adding an extra expense.  And since most models didn't have internal space,  you were looking at external and probably wanted a nice enclosure to keep it all tidy.    So it was a lot more expensive to add a drive to ST.   I eventually did but went with a second-hand one to reduce cost.

I could understand IDE drives and how the electronics were divvied up between the drive and the interface card. Very easy. But not for SCSI/SASI - that was one confusing mess to me. All the signaling types, cable connectors, differing protocols, and partial compatibility between it all. Not to mention drivers and various kinds of interface cards.. All of it.. All of it was headache-inducing and something I didn't wanna fuck with.

 

Incidentally the FirstClassPeripherals Sider 10MB I have for the Apple II is a type of SASI. But mercifully I didn't know that. And it was all glossed-over by good documentation that came with the whole subsystem.

 

Heaven help me had I tried to do a SCSI drive on the Amiga through mail-order. Ugh..

 

3 minutes ago, zzip said:

CPU upgrades- you couldn't just drop-in a replacement in the slot, you again had to buy add-on boards where you weren't sure what kind of  performance or compatibility you would get.

Well I thought you could!

 

I got some sort of "kit" consisting of a few higher-speed generic glu logic parts and a 14MHz 68000 and a crystal. Must have spent $180 on this "double your speed" enhancement. Boy oh boy was I green. I discovered to my dismay I had to unsolder 4 chips from the "full of ground planes" motherboard, unsolder the crystal, but thankfully just swap the 68K.

 

None of it worked. And I hadn't had any digital troubleshooting training yet, so I just put everything back to the way it was, shak'n in ma'boots hoping I didn't blow anything out or anything. I didn't. And it continued working at 7MHz. What a lousy experience. And not only that, it would have been stuck at 14MHz had it worked. Games would be messed up for'shur. And I hadn't even though how the Amiga's custom chippery would've handled 2x speed.

 

So totally imagine the impression Intel's clock-doubling DX2 had on me. Hot on the heels of the failed upgrade I read about those parts. Just! WOW! Here you have a standard motherboard, but a CPU that can haul ass at 2x speed!??!! Professionally built. And speed switchable. Ohh yes. Gotta get me one of these!

 

Not only that but I had been hearing stories how people were upgrading from 8086 - 286 - 386. And keeping their expensive software. Or getting it upgraded.

 

That was another thing. A software package could've been introduced in the 386 era, and have received several upgrades to keep it relevant and working on 486 and Pentium machines. I never noticed this about 16-bit Amiga/ST software. Stuff wasn't patched or revised often. You made a one-time purchase and that was that.

 

There is a software package I got in the 386/486 times that I still use today natively on Windows 10 with a 12th gen chip. If you guess what it is you win a internetz.

[Daedalus2097]

To be fair I was never a fan of Doom or bought into the hype, though I understand very well those who did. I found (and still find) graphics like that ugly, and 3D only really started to make sense for me in the late '90s (though I appreciate the evolution that went into getting it to that level). Like I said, it was already too late then, so absolutely, they wouldn't have saved the Amiga. If enough people had upgraded their Amigas for it to have been a legitimate target platform for a mainline release, it wouldn't have needed saving, it would have been a healthy ecosystem in its own right.

 

I get the point about upgradability with the small Amigas, but there were the big-box Amigas which where made to be upgraded the very same way as a PC, only easier: instead of ISA there was Zorro. Finding upgrades was a different story of course - I generally mail ordered for mine, though there were a few computer shops in the bigger cities that carried Amiga stuff. Upgrading the "console" Amigas is a little trickier (beyond the chip RAM etc.), but you're into the realm of buying a new machine then anyway, in the same way as upgrading a console. The A500 could be upgraded without opening the case but it was an expensive business involving sidecar modules. They were available with significant CPU and RAM steps up over the internal CPU. The A600 didn't even have that option (though it did include a very convenient internal IDE port), but the A1200 was much better, allowing CPU and RAM expansions to be easily fitted internally as well as a laptop IDE hard drive. Of course, none of that was a problem for the big-box Amigas, which all had dedicated internal slots for CPU and RAM upgrades.

 

In the '90s I was also using Telnet for various services on my Amiga. I wouldn't have even bothered trying on an Amiga without a hard drive, just as I wouldn't have bothered on a PC without a hard drive. While the A500 was a decent machine as a home computer in the '80s, it really needed to be expanded for the more serious business. A 1MB floppy-only setup with OS 1.3 is always going to be painful for everyday use. And of course, likewise for a PC - you won't try anything like that on a 512kB 8080 with two floppy drives and MS-DOS 2. And this is the thing really, stepping up from a near-stock A500 to a PC was a massive leap in comfort, performance and capability, but it was also a massive leap in cost so the big gulf in experience was to be expected. If someone was to drop that money on upgrades for the Amiga, there would be a huge difference in experience too. Not that that was a particularly viable route for everyone- in the latter part of the Amiga's commercial life, equivalent spec upgrades for the PC were much cheaper, but it was certainly possible and without any soldering.