VOGONS

Common searches


Why wasn't the Amiga popular in North America?

Topic actions

Reply 60 of 85, by Unknown_K

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

The original Playstation was what got me to buy a console again (last one was a Atari 2600). The amount of quality games was crazy, but it couldn't touch PC games. Its not all about graphics but fun games.

Collector of old computers, hardware, and software

Reply 61 of 85, by fillosaurus

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Having a PC background I played PS1 games later; much later. About when I started to collect consoles too, sometime in the last decade. I can say, I was amazed of its gaming power compared to PCs. You need a 4-5 times faster CPU and a lot more RAM to achieve the same graphic quality on a PC.

Y2K box: AMD Athlon K75 (second generation slot A)@700, ASUS K7M motherboard, 256 MB SDRAM, ATI Radeon 7500+2xVoodoo2 in SLI, SB Live! 5.1, VIA USB 2.0 PCI card, 40 GB Seagate HDD.
WIP: external midi module based on NEC wavetable (Yamaha clone)

Reply 62 of 85, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I honestly didn't really start playing PS1 games much until after I got a PS2. One of my best friends was having a garage sale because he was moving, and they had a copy of Final Fantasy VII for $20 with a memory card and a printed-off strategy guide. After being disappointed with Final Fantasy X and hearing all of the great things about VII, I just knew I had to get it.

I played it for a while and I thought it was one of the greatest things ever, but when another friend of mine's Xbox broke down and he was stuck with just a PS1, I took some sympathy on him and let him borrow my copy. I told him just to give it back when he was finished playing it, and this ended up being one of the biggest mistakes I had ever made. He got stuck somewhere near the end of the first disc (which could've been prevented if I had remembered to give him the strategy guide! 🤣), then one of his cousins stole it, and last I heard, the discs were run over by a truck. Needless to say, I quit being friends with this person a loooong time ago. 😜

Reply 63 of 85, by sliderider

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Unknown_K wrote:

The original Playstation was what got me to buy a console again (last one was a Atari 2600). The amount of quality games was crazy, but it couldn't touch PC games. Its not all about graphics but fun games.

In the beginning, I actually didn't think the Playstation was going to make it. The Toys R Us near me had a whole wall of Sega Saturn games but only a small section of Playstation games. Saturn had all the support initially but then something happened at some point that caused the third party devs to change sides and from there it was all Sony.

Reply 64 of 85, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Back on topic, would it be worth getting a PAL Amiga even though I'm located in Canada? I'm aware that I would probably either need to dedicate a display to it, or get some sort of a PAL to NTSC converter box. As well, I would probably need to get some sort of a power adapter so that I can have a 220v/50hz outlet to use with it.

Reply 65 of 85, by fillosaurus

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

There are some Amigas to find on US ebay. Then you would not have to worry about PAL to NTSC convertor and 110/220v.

Y2K box: AMD Athlon K75 (second generation slot A)@700, ASUS K7M motherboard, 256 MB SDRAM, ATI Radeon 7500+2xVoodoo2 in SLI, SB Live! 5.1, VIA USB 2.0 PCI card, 40 GB Seagate HDD.
WIP: external midi module based on NEC wavetable (Yamaha clone)

Reply 66 of 85, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
fillosaurus wrote:

There are some Amigas to find on US ebay. Then you would not have to worry about PAL to NTSC convertor and 110/220v.

But will an NTSC Amiga run all of the games I want to play without issues? From what I've heard, a lot of the best games were only released in Europe, and if I decide to buy an Amiga I may end up buying some of these games as well.

Reply 67 of 85, by idspispopd

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

A modern flatscreen TV should display both PAL and NTSC. (My Panasonic 32" does.)
If you have a physical DVD player as a potential PAL source you could try. A good on-topic example would be the native PAL version of
MindCandy Volume 2: Amiga Demos (free)

Reply 68 of 85, by FeedingDragon

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Not sure about the 500/600 or the 1200/4000 systems, but with the 2000 systems, PAL/NTSC were completely switchable. I've played PAL games on my NTSC Amiga without any issue. I've also talked with people who own PAL Amigas that say the same is true for playing NTSC games. So your only real issue will be the input voltage, and you might have to get an adapter or maybe just buy a power supply separately.

As far as I know, there is only one game that ever gave a problem between PAL and NTSC. A European "Ultima VI" will not install on a NTSC Amiga (and vice-verse I imageine,) and U6 was a game that only played from HDD. I haven't tried it (don't have Ultima VI any more,) but setting your OS to the correct standard before installing (maybe even playing,) may fix that. There could be other games out there that are limited in this way, but I don't know of any.

Feeding Dragon

Reply 70 of 85, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
SarahWalker wrote:

A500+, 600 and 1200 (ECS and AGA chipsets) are switchable between 50/60 Hz. A500 (OCS) is fixed.

That sounds good. I was thinking of going for a 600 or 1200 myself, even though the 500 is the "classic" model.

Reply 71 of 85, by FeedingDragon

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:
SarahWalker wrote:

A500+, 600 and 1200 (ECS and AGA chipsets) are switchable between 50/60 Hz. A500 (OCS) is fixed.

That sounds good. I was thinking of going for a 600 or 1200 myself, even though the 500 is the "classic" model.

Personally, I have an A500 (KS 1.2) for all those games that take advantage of the bugs (er... features,) of the earlier OCS & KS1.2 model. I have an A2000 with dual kickstart 1.3 & 2.0 for the ECS games and such. The 1.3 is the earliest that supported HDD boot, and there were quite a few games that came out for 2.0. Also, most of the really good utilities & such just work so much better under 2.0. Finally I have an A4000 for the AGA support and the latest OS (KS 3.1 & WB 3.9.)

The A500 is currently packed away because I just don't have room right now to set it up. Also, I'm trying to get a hold of a flicker fixer (scan doubler,) for it, but those are extremely expensive 🙁 I'm also planning to get a mouse adapter for it. The Individual Computers one (don't remember the name,) is the best I've found so far. Thinking about getting one for my C128 and Atari ST (if I ever get one,) as well.

The A4000 is still in pieces. I got a hold of a used tower case for it, and a battery replacement that I prefer (the previous owner had already moved the leak susceptible one off the board.) I just have to put it all together, and re-solder the battery connection (that will need some help, though.)

The A2000 is the only one I currently have connected up and running. I still plan to get an accelerator for it, preferably one that can be switched off with Icon controls. Just like with the PC, some older games have problems with faster systems.

If you are not wanting to get so many different systems, then the A1200 may be the route for you. It is generally more available than the A4000, but if you want desktop/tower conversion, be prepared for a lot of work. You can get a system degrader disk (free from many sources, though you will have to pay for the KS images,) to allow you to play most everything. You "may" run into a problem with OCS/ECS games and the AGA chipset. I just don't know if the degrader will actually allow that or not. I do know that some games choke on the wrong chipsets. Since my A4000 is in pieces, I cannot test it out. At worst, you might want to go with an A600 and A1200. Personally, I prefer the A2000 & A4000, but that's just me.

Feeding Dragon

Reply 72 of 85, by fillosaurus

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I own a 500 and a 1200; I found out several games, even if they have the HDD install option, would not work correctly with OS 3.1. So I booted the 1200 with a Workbench 1.3 boot floppy, and most of the games work ok.
The 500 is unexpanded, basic 512 Kb RAM. I have a 512 Kb+RTC expansion, but is not working. ECS, have both kickstart 1.3 and 2.0, can't remember which one is plugged right now.
The 1200 has an 8 Mb expansion board; had a 170 Mb HDD, upgraded to 1 Gb CF connected to a CF-IDE adapter, and now a 4 Gb SD card on a SD-IDE.

Y2K box: AMD Athlon K75 (second generation slot A)@700, ASUS K7M motherboard, 256 MB SDRAM, ATI Radeon 7500+2xVoodoo2 in SLI, SB Live! 5.1, VIA USB 2.0 PCI card, 40 GB Seagate HDD.
WIP: external midi module based on NEC wavetable (Yamaha clone)

Reply 73 of 85, by ncmark

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

You know...I used a C64 for a long time... that thing taught me SO much about computer. Never had an Amiga. But I *have* read up on them lately. it's fun to go back and think about what might have been....if Commodore had played their cards better they (and the Amiga) might still be around today. Ore perhaps not.

Reply 74 of 85, by sliderider

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
ncmark wrote:

You know...I used a C64 for a long time... that thing taught me SO much about computer. Never had an Amiga. But I *have* read up on them lately. it's fun to go back and think about what might have been....if Commodore had played their cards better they (and the Amiga) might still be around today. Ore perhaps not.

No, once other computer makers started flooding the market with PC clones that were cheaper than IBM that was the end for all other proprietary systems except for Mac. No other company that was in the computer business had the resources to be able to fight off the tidal wave of cheap PC clones and once it became obvious the future belonged to PC, all third party support went that way as well and no computer platform can survive without strong third party support.

Reply 75 of 85, by Anonymous Coward

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Great. If it weren't for free trade we could have stopped the clones, and maybe the other platforms could have survived.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 76 of 85, by ncmark

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
sliderider wrote:
ncmark wrote:

You know...I used a C64 for a long time... that thing taught me SO much about computer. Never had an Amiga. But I *have* read up on them lately. it's fun to go back and think about what might have been....if Commodore had played their cards better they (and the Amiga) might still be around today. Ore perhaps not.

No, once other computer makers started flooding the market with PC clones that were cheaper than IBM that was the end for all other proprietary systems except for Mac. No other company that was in the computer business had the resources to be able to fight off the tidal wave of cheap PC clones and once it became obvious the future belonged to PC, all third party support went that way as well and no computer platform can survive without strong third party support.

yep...I found a thread on this on another side and the general consensus seems to be that what killed Amiga was the 386 processor, VGA graphics. and Sound Blaster

But it is fun to go back and look at computer history and think about what could have been

Reply 77 of 85, by NJRoadfan

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Taking apart my Amiga 4000, it was quite obvious why Commodore couldn't compete in the 90s. Jack Tremiel's tactic in the early 80s to buy out MOS Technologies and build everything in-house was working against the company. Tons of custom logic is expensive to build and update vs. commodity stuff. The AGA chipset could match SVGA, but it was dog slow even doing 640x480x256 colors. The motherboard design was just nuts. Tons of discrete logic that was long integrated in PC motherboard is all over the place.

Reply 78 of 85, by ncmark

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

In the beginning that philosophy delivered products that could do a lot more for a lot less.... but as the PC began to pick up speed they could not compete with the dozens if not hundreds of companies producing PC hardware....just the way it seems to me

Reply 79 of 85, by Cyberdyne

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

One thing was verry common with Commodore Amiga and 3Dfx Voodoo, they came out with groundbreaking and cool technology, way ahead of its time, upgraded it a bit over the years, and then faded away. Both shame, but if you think about it, they both stalled in some key points over the years. Now the same thing is happening with AMD, because i really love their new APU units, but if you want raw speed, you will buy Intel.

I am aroused about any X86 motherboard that has full functional ISA slot. I think i have problem. Not really into that original (Turbo) XT,286,386 and CGA/EGA stuff. So just a DOS nut.