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[Amiga_Nut]

What it says on the tin really, some of us old enough had a C64 before an Amiga and it was brand loyalty to Commodore not the compatibility of the machine that led us to Amiga. The two are totally incompatible and have nothing technically in common but at the same time spiritually are successors to each other. After all C64 compatibility didn't make the C128 anywhere near a viable purchase....they were clinging on to the old technology too much.

So my question is this.....it's 1992....Commodore launch a radical new machine for the 4th time in their history totally incompatible with Amiga BUT absolutely a new paradigm in price performance that put it on par with Amiga 1000 vs PC-AT & original Macintosh.

Would you have bought it if it meant you could play Doom on a £300 machine as well as a Pentium 75mhz PC costing £1500 in 1994 OR would you have not bought it because you can't run your Amiga games on it?

Me personally, no offence, I wouldn't give a crap. If it was as revolutionary as the A1000 I couldn't have cared less if it was Amiga compatible or not, and better that than the luke warm upgrade that was AGA in 4000/1200/CD32.

The A1200 is to the A500 what the C128 is to the C64.

See what I am getting at?

[bloodline]

My software investment was too large to simply dump, plus I would have struggled to afford anything more than £300 when I was 13...

[Pentad]

It would have been a disaster for Commodore to release a computer that was completely incompatible with the Amiga by that time. Users were beginning to jump ship to IBM by that point so if they were going to loose their software investment anyway, I don't think they would have stuck with Commodore.

Having said all of that, pondering how disastrous that would have been, I find myself forced to say that I'm sure if Commodore would have been better off financially they would have tried something like this...

Plus/4
C65
C16

Empirical evidence my friends...

Cheers!
-P

[dammy]

Originally Posted by bloodline

My software investment was too large to simply dump, plus I would have struggled to afford anything more than £300 when I was 13...

There is no reason to have thrown out your Amiga just because you bought a second system.

I left Apple to Amiga because the Amiga was amazing. I don't see a reason why I wouldn't have done the same had C= went to a next generation. I will point out the differences and the wake it caused when C= went AGA. Say C= went dual Sparc CPU system with a SMP/MP OS which broke 3.1 API to hell and back, I'd buy it without question because it would be a major evolutionary step by C=. TBH, I would have expected C= to take massive jumps like the Vic20/C64 to Amiga on a semi-regular basis, technology permitting and not be chained to the grave.

One of the reasons why C= failed is because C= failed to take those evolutionary steps. Even if C= went with Intel based Amigas, they could have gotten away with forcing the slightly slower 486s they had sitting in warehouses to the Amiga (called it Amiga 1486 for AIO design) while they bought the next slightly faster 486s for their Window and big Amiga boxes to maintain competitive sales. Add in the next generation Amiga gfx was going to be PCI, just produce a Windows driver for it, instant money maker in both computer worlds.

[bloodline]

@dammy

I would have to have sold my Amiga to help fund the purchase of the new machine. Don't forget I was 13 in '93!

I am also trying to put my mind into te frameset that I ha back then... I think I would have struggled to justify jumping to a new platform with all my games and applications, plus most evenings I spent writing little programs... I was too invested in the Amiga platform to jump... I didn't jump until 2000!!!

[Amiga_Nut]

I kept my C64 for years after I blagged an A1000 so made no difference to me. The point is half the reason AGA was luke warm was because it was a limited project with hands tied behind their backs forced to keep Amiga compatibility.

Point is if you had a super powerful machine it would have prevented you from going to 3DO/Jaguar/Sega/Nintendo etc. IBM was not the rival to the A1200/CD32 low end of the market no way. C64 wasn't rivalled by IBM PC in the CGA XT days either. OK A4000/030 yes but there simply wasn't a PC cheap enough in most of 93, we are talking A1200 vs games console for games playing mass market.

If you want to draw/write/program things keep your Amiga sure.

[stevenlcroucher]

Almost certainly. The Amiga was the wonder non-compatible upgrade path for my C128 at the time. Our C128 at the time had a 512k REU, pair of 1571s, 1581, mouse, monitor that was semi-Amiga compatible and lots of expensive Geos software.

[jlariv8957]

Surely not, there was no need to have a bang new machine.The amiga was enough expandable to support revolutions as a proof all actual devices that exist (pci adapters , usb ...) , unlike the c-64. Image the same question with PC or MAC, nonsense

[dammy]

Originally Posted by bloodline

@dammy

I would have to have sold my Amiga to help fund the purchase of the new machine. Don't forget I was 13 in '93!

The poll said "would" and not "could." Therefore you can ignore the financial aspect of buying a new system. I had my Apple for awhile after I got the A500, I see no reason why I would have dumped it immediately after buying a new Uber Amiga if it wasn't backward compatible.

[persia]

1993 had me pretty much in the MS camp. I would have loved an alternative, but for me that was 7 years away with OS X....

[Franko]

For me it wasn't a question of brand loyalty, it was simply the fact the Commodore produced the best & most innovative machines for their time...

Way back end of 81 start of 82 what were the main choices a ZX80/81 which was nothing more than a big calculator or the VIC20 with full size keyboard, slightly better graphics & far superior sound... no brainer that one...

Then came the C64, but by this time you had all sorts of other computers to choose from , Spectrum, Dragon, Oric Atom & Amstrad to name but a few, but the C64 won out again 64K RAM, superior gfx, sprites and the SID chip that made all the others sound like some old fashioned alarm on the first digital clocks... again a no brainer...

Then of course for me in 86 came the most advanced and elegant (OS wise) home computer ever conceived the Amiga, no need to explain that one...

Never parted with either the VIC20 or C64 because by then i had bought literally thousands of tapes for them and there was no way I was ever going to sell them even though they couldn't be used on the Amiga. So I just hung on to them so that I could still play those thousands of games while I began building up my new Amiga software collection...

By 92 and the A1200, for me there was no need for another computer (still never understand why people always bring doom into the equation) and from that day to this it's always been the Amiga and nothing else...

If CBM had ever brought out a new machine it would have to have been something as radical and as special as the C64 & A1000 were for their time. I certainly wouldn't have bought it just to play Doom and if that's all it was really capable of doing then I'd have passed on that one...

Still more than happy after 30 years of using these brilliant machines and will be until I kick the bucket, no PCs or latest consoles for me, the VIC20, C64 & Amiga cover everything I need from computers...

As for the Doom question... WHY...

(PS:Couldn't answer the poll as nothing in it applies to me.... )

[commodorejohn]

In 1993 I was a kid playing around with BASIC on a Mac IIcx - as long as the UI was as nice as System 7's I probably would never have known the difference

[runequester]

At the tender age of 13, thatd have depended on my parents,but given I kept my A1200 until 98 or 99, I am guessing no.

[pwermonger]

They did release machines around that time frame that were incompatible with Amiga, PC clones including laptops. I didn't buy any of them and as long as there were decent Amigas I wouldn't have bought anything that wasn't Amiga compatible at the time.

I moved from C64 to 128 when it died to Amiga 500 to 2000 to 1200 then to Windows PC when the Pentium 3 made it at least start to work as well and games to play decently.

[tone007]

Originally Posted by Franko

For me it wasn't a question of brand loyalty, it was simply the fact the Commodore produced the best & most innovative machines for their time...

Way back end of 81 start of 82 what were the main choices a ZX80/81 which was nothing more than a big calculator or the VIC20 with full size keyboard, slightly better graphics & far superior sound... no brainer that one...

I've considered a Commodore tattoo, but Franko is more entitled to one than I. I didn't get my first Commodore until at least '86 or '87!

...one day I'll pin down the exact date..