Commodore Amiga 600 - Why do I hate this computer? (Amiga Therapy Pt1)

[@SAMoorehouse]

It was my dad who repaired it, BM was for Bob Moorehouse & he had a computer shop in Keighley where he did the repairs

[@8BitRetroReFix]

Lol I came to say that phone numbers keighley .. I remember Bob too :) 😃

[@sammymcfone8281]

He did bad repairs and was always drunk on the job. Lol just kidding. Never met the man... Isnt the Internet awesome?

[@sammymcfone8281]

Bob moorehouse sounds like bob monkhouse. Remember him.. He had a like a permanent s eating grin. Member? Member? I member.

[@bigredracingteam9642]

@@sammymcfone8281 You don't sound quite right in the head, boy!

[@tet5ujin]

Your dad is a legend Sam. I'm sure given his actual ownership of a professional repair shop in that time period, he wasn't responsible for the cosmetic damage to this model. As a consumer/amateur enthusiast I have encountered numerous laptops and consoles with similar and much worse damage from modern shops which i believe operate to a much lower standard. It's all or nothing really, modern repair shoos either no very little or or true electronics engineers capable of a full MB rebolling and full resolder of all chips. I've seen 360s and laptops pried apart without unfastening the clips in very amateur efforts. I don't believe shops were with poor in the early 90s.

[@hbarcellos76]

AMIGA = local craftsman & global delivery ! Bought my first A500, back in 1989, in Brazil, smuggled through Paraguay

[@hbarcellos76]

@securitycountercheck indeed. I would say that, theoretically enlightened absolutism would be better. But, simply put, it's impossible. Leaving us with democracy, as said by Churchill, the worst form of Government except for all others.

[@bobbastian760]

Did you hide it in 100 kilos of colombia white or what? 😂

[@hbarcellos76]

@@bobbastian760 unfortunately not. Maybe it could have helped to pay for the A500 as it costed a small fortune here. Having said that Paraguay is far away from Colombia and South Brazil is not actually Brazil! ;)

[@herdarkshadow834]

I ran 600s and 1200s but always preferred the footprint of the 600 on my desk. It was such a cute little thing. I still have it in my office along with a 1200 on display. I’ve owned hundreds of computers, repaired thousands, but have only loved four and the 600 and 1200 were two of those.

[@Viperante]

Aww, nice to see my old Amiga getting some love and a great new home. :) I can tell you it was only ever repaired one time (I never opened it up myself), and that was to replace the disk drive. That repair shop no longer exists. And yeah, it was in Keighley. :D

[@RMCRetro]

Oh hey! Great to see you here! Do you have any idea about where the screw bulge came from? Also what did you use it for/play on it most?

[@Viperante]

@@RMCRetro Hey - I have no idea about the bulge. I don't remember ever even noticing it. :D Must be like you said - they put in the wrong screw and realised too late. Sticker was still intact so it didn't happen afterwards. :) I used to play all kinds of games, but mostly Monkey Island and other adventure games, and Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2. Still got 'em all actually. :D

[@AlbinL80]

It was my first and only Amiga! How can you not love it for that! :) I loved it!

[@moarif9139]

mine too, i still have mine and still love it like i did the day i received it on my 12th birthday back in '92

[@patchso]

And me! Later upgraded to an A1200. Luved em both.

[@cypherian2]

For me the AMIGA was always an aspirational machine. They were so sleek, cool, and ahead of their time! I never got the chance to own one, but I’m glad I can watch channels like this one and catch up on what I missed! Looking forward to Part 2!

[@root42]

Imagine if Commodore would have put at least an 68020 into the A600, and MAYBE even the AGA chipset, if not at least a variant of the ECS, with less compatibility issues and/or a regular VGA output, do get higher resolutions, and leverage the cheap PC monitors. But they were "too little, too late" with so many things. Well, I never had an Amiga as a kid, we started off with the PC, but now I own a 1987 German A500 and I will never let go of it. So much amazing games, and even more: the homebrew and demo scene is very much alive and kicking!

[@SeeJayPlayGames]

13:02 not EXACTLY the same Motorola 68000 CPU - this one is the PQFP version as opposed to the DIP version. So that makes it so in order to be able to use accelerators, they need to clamp over it, rather than drop into the socket.

[@spinbizzy8421]

I recently DIY'ed the caps for the A1200 - really hoping you won't brutalize your pads by twisting them off with pliers, hot-air is difficult for the components around the area (plastic keyboard connector). I hope, upon reading this, you and others will consider doing what worked for me: *use TWO soldering irons!* It is by far the best way to go! Add a bit of solder and flux to each existing solder joint to loosen it up, then two soldering irons with conical tips on both sides of the cap, and they come clean off in 5-10 seconds. Life changer for me, was very nervous about breaking the A1200, huge relief to have tried this method, no risk at all of damaging anything, great piece of mind.. went from maximum stress to moment of zen. Hope I'm not too late.

[@DavePoo2]

I've recapped 2 A600's now and reapped my own 90's Amiga 600 this week. I did a video on the recapping. I'm using hot air (and i've recapped 2 A600's with zero damage now) . I did a video and i went through all the other techniques that are going about, I mentioned the 2 soldering iron technique but i didn't see anyone doing a video on that. My video is here kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJOaaImFfc9jjbM

[@mc0burn]

People are so angry about cap twisting 😂

[@spinbizzy8421]

@@DavePoo2 Thanks I am enjoying your video right now. While I have hot air as an option (and use it for my some surface mounted components on my own (humble) designs) I decided against it due to the caps behind the keyboard connector, and the square delay line boxes on the left of the A1200; looking at your video, the A600 is similarly challenged when it comes to the caps near the audio. Glad you found something that works, hope you'll find an opportunity to give the twin iron approach a try, see if it works for you. Now I'll go hit play and continue watching your video.

[@FernandoelChachi]

@@DavePoo2 I haven't tried, but I don't like the idea about cap twisting. I desoldered the caps with the suction pump or copper braid and that worked fine. Flux is always very important. I know that the hot air as it seems avoids some problems that the soldering iron can produce if you are not so good with it.

[@chriscrossan8034]

Why not use soldering tweezers?

[@scottgamedev]

Bit of trivia for you: without revealing my *exact* location, about 200,000 Amiga 600 units were built literally over the hill from my house: at a plant in Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotland. Prior to the pandemic, a friend and I drove by the industrial estate all the time, and would try to guess which building might have contained the SCI Systems plant. (That said: my actual Amiga growing up was a Desktop Dynamite-era A1200, a model I've reacquired, had Polymer recapped, and fitted with both an ACA 1221 (for RAM/slight acceleration) and a 16GB CF card for WHDLoad fun)

[@raminybhatti5740]

Sounds like a slightly less whimsical Charlie and Chocolate Factory, minus the chocolate and Charlie.

[@bobbobson4069]

Another great video documentary from rmc! Enjoyed every second of it. I used to be the proud owner of an A600. I loved it way more than the a500. Compact, beautiful and functional.

[@andrewwoodmore6724]

Love the channel, always a pleasure to watch. I picked up a refurbished A600 recently and it's laptop size form factor is useful when including it on a desk with other computers. A Gotek drive with external LED display is also useful. The frustrating thing I have found, but this is common to other computers of this age is the keyboard. Getting the keyboard to function consistently is difficult. The Amiga community is great for obtaining updated keyboard springs and keyboard membranes but the plungers with the rubber contacts deteriorate with age. I have improved the conductive nature of the plungers using KeyPad fix but still find 3 keys only work when pressed at certain angles. Repeatedly removing and reassembling the keyboard will also drive you nuts!

[@laserwave6012]

There is a new solid replacement membrane with replaceable ribbon and connector. It's great! I had the same problem as you. Now fixed. Google around.

[@andrewwoodmore6724]

@@laserwave6012 I do have one and I agree they are very good. I think the issue is with the plungers themselves, unfortunately they are the only part of the keyboard you cannot buy new :-)

[@DavePoo]

The Love/Hate. Yeah, it's unusual, i've got 2 A600's now (one was mine from back in the day). The hate comes from the fact that the A600 was supposed to be a cost-reduced A500 and in the end was a little more expensive and only a tiny upgrade. So wasn't worth it. But if you didn't have an A500, it was a perfectly good and useable machine, and i loved the small form factor. The software incompatibilities (mentioned in the video for the A500+ and would have applied to the A600 as well) would have happened because developers were incorrectly calling directly into the kernal rom without going through the jump table, this meant that when the rom was changed, that old software didn't work. This wasn't commodore's fault, but just bad programming on the part of developers. And in a day when games didn't get patched, you were then just stuck with a game that would never work (I'm also not sure how many people were playing cracked games, and the cracked versions didn't work but the legit version would). So financially and strategically for Commodore, the A600 was a total massive miserable failture, from the point of view of looking at is as a computer, it's an amazing machine. Think of it this way, if the A500 never existed and the A600 had been the first wedge shaped Amiga, everyone would love it dearly to their heart. I do however think that adding an RF modulator was a step backwards, they could have cost reduced it by not adding that. Modulators were always going to go the way of the Dodo, so the A500 not having one was a good idea, you could add one if you needed it but eventually you would throw it away or the A500 could ship without it. The A600 could have shipped without and and users could have optinally bought an A520 get get TV support if they needed it. I seem to remember using composite and scart in the 90's on mine, the modulator looked like crap. I heard an interview with Dave Haynie, and he mentioned that the A600 started life as the A300 which was going to be some sort of video editing machine, maybe with the built in genlock, it would have stood alone as a new computer solving a specific problem. I think Commodore blunderingly repurposed it as an A500 replacement which nobody requested or needed, and hence more of the hate, i think they were just trying to prop the cashflow with a quick computer release instead of researching and creating new stuff, the sign of a company that is going down the toilet due to lack of innovation. So take it for what it is, the A600 is a great computer, but a computer that should have never existed, so unless you worked at Commodore at the time it was made, i don't think there is any reason to hate what it is.

[@DavePoo]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4u5XpVuqtyaarM - Here is the link with the quote from Dave Haynie about the A300 with the genlock.

[@DavePoo]

So Dave Haynie also mentions in that video that the A1200 was supposed to come out before the A600, which would have made that magazine article shown here a different story. If that article had been about the new generation A1200, instead of "Oh, i've already got an Amiga that does all that", it would have been "Shut up and take my money" instead when read. What i had also forgotten util i re-listened to that interview, shortly after the release of the A500+, it was taken off sale in favour of the A600, which was bad, as the A600 (although a great computer), wasn't really a replacement for the A500+ at all (no numpad, no fast ram, and Dave mentions that there were no PCMCIA addon cards available at time of release). So another bad move on Commodore's part.

[@SomePotato]

I do blame Commodore for Kickstart incompatibilities. It's not like Commodore didn't know that tons of programs were out there (ab)using the API the way they did. Telling your users "blame the devs, sucks to be you" is a terrible business decision. You will not sustain a large user base if you treat your users like that. Once something is widely used, it's a feature, whether you planned it or not. There's a reason why Microsoft and Linux are pretty anal about backwards compatibility.

[@dairedarcy1130]

Yaaaaay! Thursday, it’s an RMC Amiga vid! What a lovely intro to the pre-weekend

[@SmoothEmJay]

I always loved the A600. It was portable, it could fit in any bag and be taken to your relatives or friends homes. MOST of the games I had worked fine either out of the box OR with Relokick and I never once assumed it was a "lower end" Amiga. I went from this to the A1200.

[@danyoutube7491]

I went from an A500 to the A1200. A couple of friends bought the A600, but I was always a bit puzzled about the release of it as it was obviously not a real advancement from the A500, which was already quite old (though still a very popular computer in 1992). That said, I recognised its compact charm and smart bright finish which it shared with the A1200. Great that you could take it to your friend's houses, I doubt many people would have done that with an A500!

[@MrJohniemj]

Ohh, the hours i spent playing sensible soccer on this one!!!!

[@Wildernessoutside]

and cannon fodder

[@Wildernessoutside]

@Rooflesoft Games I always used to play as Utd or benfica

[@OtreblaMaslab]

I was kind of hoping there was a Micro SD card inside that SD card... Memory Matryoshka!

[@mrbagitos]

If your only using the A600 for games it’s a great machine (unless you want to play certain flight sims 😀). The small form factor allows you to slide it into your setup with ease. Back in the day I would pop it in my back pack and take it round my mates house to play Lotus 2 with a null modem cable which we went halves on from Tandy.

[@laserwave6012]

Fits perfectly in a 15" laptop slim backpack with a modern psu :)

[@wakefieldoutlaw]

As the 600 was my first, and only Amiga, I may love it more than most! There was some kind of work around for the numeric keypad, as one of my favourite PD games used it...however I have no idea what it was now!

[@stevemann6082]

i love the a600, the issue back then was price, but i think it was worth it for the form factor. :) the amiga sure held its price over the decades. love the video's and all things amiga. i added a furia but the it didn't work on the june bug, but did work on the older model. not sure why because they both work fine.

[@RMCRetro]

Amiga 600, like it or loathe it? Vote now! And if you enjoyed this and would like to watch part 2 right now then head over the patreon.com/rmcretro where the Official Cave Dwellers enjoy 1 week of early access to all videos, ad-free. We're so close to the goal of 1000 patrons! Thank you for supporting the channel. Neil - RMC

[@ianhrp]

What a trip down memory lane, I loved my A600 can’t wait for part two - subscribed 👍🏻😁

[@ChristinaGXL]

Oh my gosh that was repaired the day I was born!

[@RMCRetro]

How are your capacitors holding out?

[@ChristinaGXL]

@@RMCRetro I think I should see my doctor about a recap if I'm honest

[@londongaz2]

And now all of us 'Thatcher generation' feel old!

[@MOS6582]

@@RMCRetro This is an excellent joke and I don't want to diminish it in any way. However this being a nerd channel, I was just about to comment a correction about the capacitor plague. The plague was a late-90's phenomenon and hadn't started when Amigas were being made. The caps in the Amiga era were mostly well made and if they're failing now it's from graceful old age rather than stolen (and broken) electrolyte recipes.

[@Njazmo]

I think my caps are leaking. Hmm.

[@lazarous123]

Oh man i loved this episode, when i saw the Amiga Format a genuine tear formed m8, thanks for that :D

[@FuseyUK]

I miss the days when I would wait all month for my Amiga Format to hit the door mat. I'd pour over those pages and read it over and over... until next month's issue arrived.

[@aeiouxs]

It's healthy to take a step back and reassess our dislike for the A600! As an original A500 owner back in 89, I can now seen the benefits of the 600 having that pesky, long A520 Modulator integrated, pretty good if you ask me. Also, I've just realised the A600 had 1mb Chip Ram total, right? So that's an upgrade from the 500's stock 512k (I spent a fortune - iirc around 1/3 the price of the A500 - adding the additional 512k RAM into the trapdoor). Also you didn't mention the relocated Joystick ports, which look more practical for hotswapping! I think we'd all be far more cool with it, if it had been called the A300 and come in at 249 gbp, at the same time/after the A1200. Keen to see the results on this project though Neil!

[@GrackAlaciN]

I have been considering getting myself an A600, simply because of the size. I'll be following along, because I also want to keep mine as stock as possible, maybe with the addition of a scandoubler, to be able to use other monitors for it.

[@MOS6582]

Consider the GBS Control system: www.retrorgb.com/gbs-control-installation-overview.html

[@CCfiftyeight]

I Loved my 600 from the first day! It, ehm, she was my first own computer and I she stay with me till today! 😁

[@Evert850]

Same here! :)

[@MOS6582]

Another original A600 owner joining in. I will never let it go :)

[@Teppic11]

Thankfully the A1200 was out at more or less the same time which did of course offer significant upgrades over the A500. Shame it didn't come out a year or so earlier though as it was just really catching up with PCs instead of overtaking.

[@JimmiG84]

True, though by coming on the market so soon after the A600, the A1200 made the A600 look even worse. It launched for roughly the same price as the A600, with twice the amount of RAM, AGA chipset, numeric keypad and easier expandability via the trapdoor slot.

[@Teppic11]

@@JimmiG84 Yep, I'm sure just about anyone who bought an A600 would have been very pissed off seeing the A1200 launch soon after.

[@TheThirdFall]

I wrote about this elsewhere, but Commodore made such a mess with that product launch. A A1200 launch in May 1992 (to allow time for any revisions needed before the Christmas rush) combined with a low-profile cheap A300 (not A600!) a couple of months later would have given Amiga an incredibly powerful range for Christmas 92. They then would have had around 2 years from the launch of the A1200 to get a Hombre-based product onto the market. A Hombre-based console would have been a huge winner at Christmas 94, and they could have created a backwards-compatible A-something to sell to people who wanted a proper computer a few months later. At that point, Commodore would have had a very strong lineup - a bargain basement A300 for those wanting a cheap home computer, the A1200 for those wanting something tried, tested and functional, the Hombre Console for those wanting state-of-the-art gaming, and the Hombre Computer for those wanting the best of both worlds, and all this before the PS1 launched in North America/Europe. There was still demand in 1994-5 for cheap home computers, and the A300/A1200 would have done nicely. The PC would have fought back with Windows 95, but the profits from Hombre alone would have probably been enough to position Commodore in a move towards console gaming. In their place, I would have ditched the home computer stuff (support it, but don't bother releasing something new) and focused on a Hombre Console II to come out by Christmas 1998. Commodore were always going to lose the home computer war once Windows 95 came out, but they had the console market with their technology if they wanted it.

[@davidherron3136]

One thing I think killed these Amigas 500plus and 600 was that compatible issue. I had a nice second hand German A500 with the memory and clock expansion. It came with about 1000 copied games. My mates got A500plus and 600,s later. I'd say about 20% of the games worked on them ,much to our dismay and annoyance.

[@myownalias]

It seems that all these years I was under in the wrong impression that the A600 was a cut down version of the A1200. I never owned a A600, I had a A1200, which was gifted to me for my 18th birthday, and I had not been into the Amiga scene before that, later seeing the A600, assuming in was a cut down version of the A1200, given it looked almost the same, just without the 10 key pad.

[@stevescutt2865]

yes, I think it was wasnt it ?

[@jupo42]

I also hated the concept of the A600 when it was new. A pokey 68000 with 1MB RAM in 1992? Slow IDE instead of SCSI? No numpad? An incompatible PCMCIA slot instead of Zorro? And all of this for the same price as a full A500? No thanks! ...and yet, today, the ease of throwing an absurdly huge CF card on the IDE bus, adding a dirt cheap PCMCIA network card, and having a space saving design is extremely appealing compared to kitting out an A500 or A2000. Time has definitely changed my mind, and now I'm jealous of A600 owners...

[@stbagn]

The A600 has always been the ugly duckling of the Amiga range. The Vampire was its sweet revenge. It’s so tiny and cute nowadays and that built in IDE port in hindsight is quite handy.

[@Colin_Ames]

Another great video, thanks Neil. I have never owned an Amiga, and probably never will due to the cost, but still really enjoy watching the restoration and upgrade videos.

[@mrfoameruk]

Finally found a video worth watching.. just watched someone try and sell me a small oled monitor for £650 and another video for a video camera that £6000......I am so grateful for this video.

[@ms-dosman7722]

When you put that pipe there my mind went: "C'est ne pas un Amiga A600"

[@apdewis]

Glad I'm not the only one that made that connection lol

[@newkfromrotterdam]

probably set the mind from Andy Warhol's "Banana"

[@fernandocollazo8705]

I love my A600, she has indivision ECS, 8Gb CF card, 4Mb fast ram and 2 MB chip ram. Running on 3.1.4 AmigaOS

[@reneberthold334]

i hope that you swap the capacitors too ;-)

[@10MARC]

Excellent introduction to the A600. Back in the day, they were pretty worthless, especially to us in America who had probably already expanded the daylights out of our A2000's and A500's, or were eyeing the A3000. In 2020 I would love to have one though, as the compact size makes them very adorable. They are still pretty limited as far as expandability due to the PCMCA slot not really working well with more than four megabytes of RAM, but you can overcome that by sticking a vampire in there.

[@owenrichards1418]

I worked for Packard Bell support in the late 90's. It taught me that it's OK to loathe a particular computer. Let the hate flow through you - do it!

[@PixelsAtDawn]

I loved my A600 back in the day - for someone purchasing a new Amiga in 1993, it looks sleeker and sexier than the old lump A500, and wasn't as expensive as the A1200. In retrospect I should have upgraded it with a hard drive though, but those weren't cheap in 1993 and opening up a machine was an alien world for me back then - getting one from the store would have bumped the price up by 50% for a 64Mb drive! The upgrades you've gone for pretty much reflect what I have for my modern day A600, although I substituted the Wicher for a static RAM PCMCIA card, which gives me an extra 2Mb. I'd heard a few stories of the over-chip upgrades popping off unceremoniously, so I decided to steer clear at the time. 4Mb total RAM runs most WHDLoad stuff. I also upgraded the mouse and joystick but I suspect you might have one or two Monster Joysticks sitting around :) The only other consideration is connecting to a monitor. I picked up an RGB to SCART lead, and then upscaled it into the VGA socket on a 15Hz compliant monitor. There are options for RGB to VGA I believe, but I have the option to go straight into a TV too with this setup. Looking forward to the next video! You treat that A600 right! :D

[@Nick_R_]

I just bought a 17 inch Benq multi-scan monitor for this purpose. Surprisingly good specs and image quality. GBP94 from CPC.

[@foxhoundGR28]

Nice! I purchased an Amiga 600 1 year ago and I have the same upgrades except for the fast RAM I have 4mb. I'm in the middle of recap now :X

[@dazkenney6154]

I never had an A600 back in the day but I have one now and it's an awesome machine. A1200 prices are crazy and getting crazier by the minute. The A600 is a nice compromise and looks sweet in a Plexilaser case if that's your bag. Another top vid Neil. 👍

[@arttu76]

I added an extra usb keyboard adapter to my A600. That way I can use a usb numpad with games that require a numpad. The keyboard controller in A600 automatically supports numpad, so all software works with external numpad without any modifications.

[@CommodoreGreg]

THIS is great information and changes my attitude towards the 600.

[@dparks256]

Just wanted to say great job with this video, I really enjoyed it, thanks for taking the time to make it!

[@RMCRetro]

My pleasure David, thank you for watching!

[@retrojb101]

The A600 was my first and only Amiga until I bought a CD32 last year. I thought it was a cracking little machine and it was the Another World advert that sold it to me. I’m glad I still have it but it’s at my parents house. Definitely on the list for a refurb and will be looking forward to the next set of videos. Currently recapping the CD32 and SMD caps are not my favourite right now. Great video Neil. Keep them coming!

[@AdiSneakerFreak]

Loved the A600 growing up . Perfect form factor for a kids bedroom.

[@MrMatte1983]

Can’t wait to see the finished product!

[@DS-pk4eh]

I fell in love on the first look. And never stopped loving. Unfortunately, never got to have her. :-(

[@epicon6]

I got her second hand in 1991. I was 7yo so i didn't care that she had been touched before. Just happy to get some

[@patriziovolpes7237]

I found one in great conditions among the garbage..

[@benjaminnice]

So, things that I like about the A600 for modern use over an A500. It’s more portable with a vga to 23 pin adaptor plug in, memory exp for chip and fast ram installed and wireless networking PCMCIA card (more on that in a moment) in the slot and everything you want is in the unit. So it is lug around or pull out of cupboard as the case maybe. You can even add a pretty decent accelerator if you want to. Networking isn’t so easy and cheep on other Amigas other than A600 and A1200, I have brought a couple of networking PCMCIA cards an ethernet card and wireless card 802.11 card. So that is why I like the A600 more now than I did in the day. Ben

[@nilz23]

Just got my book and I must say it is really nice, thanks!

[@RMCRetro]

Thank YOU!

[@neilthomas6042]

I look forward to watching the next video to see how it turns out.

[@GoWstingray]

Love this channel! Nostalgia overload every time I watch. Love these build videos, there like trash to treasure, thanks Neil!

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks Iain, yeah this series is basically T2T except the A600 isn't really in bad enough condition to consider it trash cosmetically. Glad you're enjoying it!

[@wafaiamar9435]

I used to have all of the Camodor family and Amiga in 80 and 90 were the best days

[@sffpv9671]

Great video Neil, I really hope you start to fall in love with the mini miggy over the following episodes! I use an A600 as my "daily" and I absolutely love its upgrade-ability and compact size. I run a Furia with PCMCIA card, Plipbox and Null modem transfer cable (because you can never have enough ways to send stuff to your Amiga!) One simple upgrade you didn't mention but have probably already considered is a video/scart lead. Approx £15 of ebay. Thanks for the PSU link BTW. Will take a look. Good luck with the upgrades, those surface mounted caps can be an arse! Cheers

[@dmnsonic]

This is the content I like to watch on your channel! Back to the origins!

[@marcusmayfield9499]

I think I would also have gotten a copy of 3.1.4 to make more efficient use of that 16GB drive.

[@BertGrink]

I second that.

[@travistaylor3186]

I always enjoy watching your Amiga content. I was the odd kid in the US that had a video toaster equipped Amiga 2500 while everyone else had IBM PC compatibles. When I switched to a PC in the 90s my parents donated my Amiga. I was sad then and years later I still am.

[@bambionice]

I got my Amiga 600 out of my parents loft a couple of months ago in preparation for a future episode like this. 😊

[@amigacoverdisk]

Great vid thanks, and nice idea for a series. My first Amiga was a 600. Loved the form factor, but as a flight sim fan it did cause some frustration, with the lack of keypad :). It was a nice stop gap on the path from C64 to A1200 though!

[@abooogeek]

I remember buying out an A600 from a friend in HS for cheap back in 1996, but back then my Sega Saturn was eating it for breakfast (and did not have a dedicated monitor for it, so playing it on the TV was also killing it). I still remember buying some Amiga magazine (one called Dream, that was then consolidating an audience from Amiga-only to every non-Windows bringing BeOS and other OSes) for it. I ended boxing it and ship to a cousin in Syria so he could enjoy a computer as it was beyond affordable there (through PCs started to implement slowly but surely, thanks to the huge counterfeit market of bootleg copies and the cost of burning CDs going down).

[@pdaguytom]

Kitted my 600 out similar to what you described and thoroughly enjoy it. Enjoyed the video.

[@craigmacdonald4987]

Oh eck, you brave or foolish man! I was so disappointed when it came out, but bought and loved the A1200 😊

[@geezerbigfoot]

it looked toy like being small compaired to my 1.2 romed a 500 was superia same o story when the e c s a0500 came out problem's with compatability not again ithought but when i saw the 1200 i got that then later a cd unit

[@morphshag]

My A600 has a vampire in it, BUT before I bought that I ran it at stock speeds with 1mb Trapdoor and 9.5mb CPU piggy back expansion and honestly for "most" WHDload games it was fine. Running a pre-built Workbench install I used it for playing games, listening to mods and just faffing around with and loved every minute of it.

[@TerribleFire]

I have a box of shields in my loft.. they were just for FCC compliance

[@mikipank]

I miss this kind of project on RMC video, bild a "new" of old tech, and I like it, of course! Can't wait to see 2nd part. Cheers! 🍻⌨️🔧

[@canispeaktodave]

I bought my A600 from my first pay cheque from ASDA in 1996. I was an Atari STe user before that. I never knew it was that old! All my friends had the A500. My A600 crashed all the time. It was only when I got a new kickstart disk and tried that out that it stopped crashing. Loved the machine (apart from the crashing)

[@fasih_rehman]

I got an A600 recently, getting recapped. I have 3.1.4 ROM, 4MB expansion, 1MB CHIPRAM, IDE-SD Card adaptor, PCMCIA wireless card.

[@8ightbytes186]

Great Video as always. I do also have to admit the same as the comment below however... - Myself, as well the majority of the people who I knew with Amigas back in the day, were genuinely under the impression that the A600 was a new machine and the lessor, cut down machine version of the A1200 - given that 600 is half of 1200, same colour and design, albeit smaller etc. A clever play by whoever decided on the A600 name to make a lot of people think this

[@telemedic2000]

Another super video, and fair play for giving the a600 a chance. I too totally agree with your thoughts, and have tried to do the same. The a500 needs the gotek solution, but this machine has ide. So I thought “yep, modern ide is a better solution than gotek.” However!! There are many caveats! My a600 had the earlier rom that did not support the booting from either pcmcia OR ide... I then purchased Amiga os from Hyperion, and found that unmanageable. I got a 1mb trapdoor expansion that had a dodgy ram chip.. (that the kind fellas at amigakit donated a new ic for me) he machine was unstable until it was recapped, and I needed a fast ram upgrade which I purchased. After all this, I still failed to get a usable system, until finally I managed to obtain an a1200. This was far simpler to deal with, and the unloved a600 went back into the pile. HOWEVER I thought I might ad som positive comments over the 500... Composite out on an a600 is colour! (The a500 was monochrome) The audio sockets on the a600 are wired in a way that if you only plug one phono connector, it will give you mono! This is a blessing, as so many a500 owners I have seen have only been listening to the left or right channel only! As said the a600 is easier to take a hdd route than previous models, but do check rom versions, and as far as I can see I recommend staying with commodore releases of Amiga os.

[@SomePotato]

Cloanto's ROM 3.X works really well in my A500 with a Wicher.

[@telemedic2000]

@@SomePotato as I said, my experience wasn’t that good, That doesn’t necessarily make it a bad product. It was my findings. I am glad it worked for you :) maybe you could help with a little video to show how you did it so I can see where I failed :)

[@NostalgiaRetrogamer]

Thank you Neil. Awesome as always

[@ClayMann]

I can't resist these Amiga videos. The memories flood back and I learn something from every video I watch on this and other channels. Its funny how I really disliked this model but today I can't help but see how charming it is.

[@prockrog5219]

Great video! I bought my first PC in 1991 after being a die hard Amiga fan for years. The Amiga 500 was such a revolution when it came out. All my friends had Commodore 64, 128 or ZX Spectrums, but I never understood the appeal. I thought they sucked and I spend my money at the local arcade instead where sound and graphics were in a different league. Then the A500 came and I instantly became a computer enthusiast. But it was slow, and when it couldn't keep up with Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon I upgraded to a 386 PC and haven't used an Amiga ever since. I do look forward to the A500 mini though to play some classics and hopefully it will be able to play some demos which was the coolest thing about the Amiga scene if you aske me.

[@little_fluffy_clouds]

I’ve converted an old, empty Amiga 600 case into a MiSTer machine using a guide I found online and some 3D printed parts from eBay. It works brilliantly with the Minimig FPGA core and looks really neat, using the integrated keyboard through a Keyrah adapter card.

[@zxkim8136]

i have a furia in mine neil and those dry caps are brilliant mate. if the witcher is above 4mb ram you will have to install a switch so you can use the pcmcia socket mate ....nice vid seeya on the next one Neil

[@RMCRetro]

Ah I have been trying to figure that out thank you Kim, you may have just solved a problem for me

[@rymixxx]

I'd love to see a detailed recap video. I've got loads of retro gear that I want to be brave enough to recap, but I need a lot of encouragement first.

[@philsheppard532]

At this time I worked in a computer store specialising in Amigas , and I wrote to Comodore sugesting an Amiga 600 special release was made in pink and having software asociated with "Barbie" and sugested a simple wardrobe matching game with a list of the "Barbie" clothings. I thought t6his a masterstroke but they replied with a no thank you. What do you think ?

[@steviebboy69]

When I saw June Bug on the board and the Rev # what were the other letters for?, I did see the name Fish, was that Fred Fish I remember the PD disks that he had and I have quite a few laying around and including a CD with them.

[@TzOk]

Many A600s didn't have the top shielding installed from the factory. I had 2 A600s and both had leaked capacitors. In one, this led to the complete breakdown of the PCB paths around the audio filters. Nevertheless, I still like the A600, for its compact form factor (it is about the same size as Atari 65XE, and it fits into my laptop bag, together with a laptop). My upgrades consist of a CF-IDE adapter, Kickstart 3.1, 1MB Chip RAM expansion + RTC, and a 4MB Fast RAM expansion. I really regret, choosing another expansion than Wicher 608 :( I have SukkoPera's Open Amiga 600 Fast Ram Expansion, which is more expensive, and only 4MB. The PCMCIA card won't work with 8MB Fast RAM board. I have 4MB, but had no luck with finding a working adapter/card combination. P.S. "Wicher" is supposed to be spelled as "vi-her", and its name means "a gale".

[@stevescutt2865]

I had an A500+ with the HD8 hard disk with 8Mb of RAM. I LOVED that machine. I also had an A600 with 60Mb HDD. I think I've still got them both round my partners folks mouldering away in a shed somewhere. Neil, you've inspired me to try and dig them out. :)

[@Murrlin27]

"And a banana for scale." Me: Disappointed that it wasn't a chihuahua.

[@BertGrink]

I like your maintenance/upgrade plans, Neil, but i have one question: are you planning to keep the AmigaOS 2.05 or will you upgrade that too? The reason i ask about that is because when i got my Amiga A1200 back in 1993(ish) and added a hard disk, i ran into problems with partitions bigger than 2GB. It turned out that this was caused by the low-level disk access routines being written in BCPL, which resulted in 2GB partitions being the largest it could reliably handle. It wasn't until somoe years later when i upgraded to AmigaOS 3.9 that this limit was removed. But i'm not sure if v3.9 is able to run on the A600. The new v3.1.4 on the other hand, that will run on the A600, and it too does away with such paltry limitations. Having said that, i might add that this new OS is a bone of contention among the community, so i won't make any recommendations. In any case, I'm looking forward to the next part in this series. Stay safe and healthy, Neil. :)

[@BoomBox02]

Really enjoying your videos. Ahhh the Amiga 600. My most hated machine in the Amiga line of computers. Back in the 90's i had an Amiga 500. When the time came to upgrade to a better Amiga, i had 2 options in my price range when i visited an Amiga dealer. There was a used A2500 in top condition. It had an 030 card, hard drive and some extra fast ram inside. The other option was a brand new A600 without a hard drive. I went with the A600 and dreaded the decision pretty much the first day i got it home. I was a huge demo fan so thats the first thing i tried. I was disappointed that a lot of the demos i enjoyed watching on me A500 did not work on the A600. I spoke to the guys at the Amiga store and they suggested that i needed a rom swapper with Kickstart 1.3 as thats what my A500 had, so i bought the rom swapper and a kickstart 1.3 chip. I also bought 1mb extra ram for the trap door as i needed it for some of the larger animations i wanted to watch. As soon as i got home, i began fitting the rom swapper and extra ram. I eagerly boot the A600 with kickstart 1.3 and insert one the demo that would not run. To my surprise, after forking out extra money i really could have used on other things, the demo still did not run. I founf out later that some of the demos needed slow ram. I only kept the A600 for a few months before trading the whole lot for just $120au at cash converters cause i was so disappointed with the machine. I ended up getting another A500 and later moved to an A1200. Since then up to a few years ago, i have revisited the A600 on 3 occasions thinking my experience with it will be different. On all 3 occasions i ended up selling the thing in disappointment. A lot of people tell me, "you should have kept it and used it as whdload machine" but if you where a big fan of Amiga demo's and used your Amiga as a main computer for all of the 90's like myself, you would know that what is available on whdload is probably only a quarter (if that) of the Amiga software available. Not sure if i read correct a while ago, not sure if whdload software will run on a 68000 CPU. I read it needs a 68010 or above. I could be wrong though?? Hope the A600 does you well in the end of all this. Cheers

[@tcrime]

I still have my original A600, bought as a Christmas present in 1992. One interesting thing I noticed compared to the one you featured is that my Amiga had no RF shielding inside, despite me also being in the UK and owning the thing from brand new. Seems this was only a requirement on computers sold into the US market... but that makes me wonder where yours was intended for.

[@stevenwaite1063]

Must admit having a Amiga 500 and then a 1200 I guess I looked down upon a A600. No idea why though. Also a great video and looking forward to part 2.

[@MorganJustGames]

This will have a happy end, im sure your gonna love the A600 once your finished. I don't own an A600, and to be honest, I've only seen a few in person. Looking forward to part 2, put the Hammer away, you won't need it.

[@dj_paultuk7052]

A bit unrelated, but ive just realised that SAAB's Trionic 5 engine management system released in early 1993 was more powerful than the A600. It had a Motorola 6800 running at 20Mhz, and 2MB of RAM. And 512kb of Storage. It was at the time, the most powerful and advanced engine management system in the world.

[@benbaselet2026]

6800 or 68000? Makes several bits of a difference :) Anyways, in 1993 the 68k was already tremendously old news (introduced in 1979!). I mean the 68030 was already out in 1987, 68040 in 1991. back then those were very long years too as tech went forward rapidly. I guess Motorola never got their manufacturing process up to speed to make the chips cheaply enough. Or some government military program ate up all the production capacity. Who knows.

[@8BitRetroJournal]

I really like the form factor of the A600. Of course I never owned an Amiga before so I never had the opportunity to dislike that particular model due to its history. Ironically I'm also a big fan of the Sinclair QL so perhaps I love computers that helped the demise of their respective companies :-/ Great video, excited for part 2.

[@Anaerin]

I believe with some software you can get a PCMCIA network or Wifi card working with the A600, just as a thought.

[@briebelbus1524]

I’m looking forward to the repair video of replacing those smd capacitors. I own annAmiga 600HD since 1996 (picked it up for pennies on a fleeemarket backthen) and maxed it out with an Appolo 020 acceleratorcard. It costed me tons of money. And them I didn’t start to use the machine. I just could like it. I loved my A500 with A590HDD and my later A1200 & A4000, but the A600 wasn’t my favorite machine. I hope the recap video inspires me to tackle the same job. Nice video and love your channel Greetings from the Netherlands Marcel

[@TechnologyJunkie]

Is three such a beast as an IDE to SATA adaptor for the A600? Then I could put in a small SSD.

[@oscarmarsh29]

Like yours, my 1993 A600 has a bump under the spacebar. Unlike you however I know who did it: it was me. It's the only thing I'm unsatisfied with in my refurb so far. Just waiting on the repairman to send the board back to me after he's replaced one of the CIAs. Really looking forward to the next parts to see if you have a tip for bump removal.

[@edtheluck]

I always loved the look of the A600, a friend got one and I did often admire it sat there in his room all sleek and compact but yeah, likewise I’d had my A500+ a year by then so there was never any need to actually own one. I too drifted away to the glamour of a PC.. because you know, Doom.

[@cbmeeks]

Not sure why the A600 has so much hate. I love mine.

[@cbmeeks]

@Daniel Johnson I just mean in general. Many people are quick to trash the A600. Even back in the day, smaller form factor with built in IDE controller...win win for me.

[@Cthulhu1970]

@@cbmeeks Exactly! Personally, it was the A500 I didn't like. If anything, the A600 should have been £120 cheaper though.

[@DrGarfink]

For me, I can't play Dungeon Master with the keyboard making A600 rubbish. I installed a keyrah in mine too use a ps2 keyboard, but then it's bigger than an A500, defeating the purpose of its size.

[@flekkzo]

@@cbmeeks In the five years between 87 and 92 the PC market has leaped forward, and the A600 was more expensive and had an IDE. As much of an Amiga fan I’ve been over the years, it didn’t progress nearly fast enough to have been able to survive in term:(

[@akkudakkupl]

Because it had no slow ram and broke compatibility with games

[@ToddsNerdCave]

Amiga 600 is love. Amiga 600 is life! 😍

[@Njazmo]

A500 was my love, installed some (1Mb fast) memory on the actual motherboard, had a huge 8MB in the expansion slot, 28MHz accelerator, plus a 100Mb hard drive, which had a 2Mb of memory expansion. And of course the kickstar switcher, 1.3 or 2.04, and perhaps there was ECS also. Good times.

[@jasonlee7816]

@BigLBA1 why is (was) the Amiga 600 released 7 or 8 years too late?

[@kcolbinyar]

I had one of those GVP HD8+ units. It transformed my miggy into such a great machine. Brilliant bit of kit. I saw one in Oz last year on ebay for about £500! The A600 was a poor step for C=, but I've two of them now, one with a Vampire and I NOW love them.

[@MikeyGRetro]

Great video Neil. My first Amiga was an A600 and never had the A500 so I have fond memories of mine which I sadly don't have the original but do have one again. I did similar videos covering it but went with Furia card. Will you be upgrading the kickstart roms?

[@lancebukkake]

ahhhh yes - the good ol Amiga Format mags, this was when we had no internet and had to wait for the latest and greatest...and when the mags came out it was worth the wait. Sometimes waiting just makes things so much better.

[@JohnHeritage]

This is an excellent quality video (as always) - thanks RMC! I do think the PCMCIA and onboard storage helps a ton with the modern era on the 600. It's unfortunate that Wicher doesn't also make an accelerator for the 600 like the 508i. A faster 68000 (speed selectable) on top of what you've built would be perfect for those games (3D or later ECS) where you want just a little more performance without losing any compatibility..

[@johnwiesen4440]

For any one who gets a Amiga A500, A600 and A1200 a modern PSU is a must, and recaping as well if you are not sure of the age of them.

[@SiGoesRetro]

I Love the A600, ultimate bang for buck WHDLoad machine

[@CompuforceWally]

I was surprised by the fact that this is the rev 2D [the last] and not the early rev 1.0 or 1.1 [Aka A300]. This is because the PCMCIA slot vent edges in your case are of a tighter size-fit compared to other revisions. If you check other A600 cases, you will see that PCMCIA slots vents are of equal rectangular size [exact like those found on the A1200s]. Another thing to be aware of and to take note for those who are gonna disassemble for the first time is that the A600 case has the fragile clips on the back, where in this video it clearly shows that you had not struggle to detach the bottom part from the upper part of the case, that should mean they are already broken from the previous repairer[s]. My A600 upgrades include the ACA620EC accelerator board and an inbuilt GoTek drive, great for WHDload and also is the Amiga which I use for many events due to portability :) Keep it up Neil, eagerly waiting for part 2 :)