I think Amigas are harder to love if you didn’t use them way back when, since they do things like switching between tasks so differently from everything else. And the wow factor is gone, since even the cheapest Android phone can do everything an Amiga did, and fit in your hand.

Once you get an Amiga set up and get a good collection of software on it, it should be likeable. It helps that the A1200 takes a standard IDE 2.5″ hard drive.

In the mid-80s I was enamored with the Amiga, but didn’t end up owning one for another 20 years. I was just getting hot and heavy into the C64 when the 1000 was released in 1985, and my dad had already hopped over to the PC world by the time the 500 and 2000 hit the market.

One of my best friends had one in the late 80s and I was insanely jealous of the machine’s audio and video capabilities, but it was only a few years later that VGA video cards and Soundblaster audio cards surpassed the Amiga’s.

I bought an Amiga 500 (two, actually) in the early 2000’s, and a 1200 shortly after that. I’ve since sold both of the 500’s, and hang on to the 1200 even though I’ve barely used it. Maybe it’s the rose-colored glasses, but I’ve had a really hard time retroactively getting into the Amiga. I was literally heart-broken when I read that the Sega Genesis had comparable graphics to the Amiga. in my mind, the Amiga had a-maz-ing graphics, and the Sega Genesis was just average (good for the time, but not groundbreaking).

In my new house, I plan on dedicated a large desk to retro computers. I’ll have an Apple II and a C64 there for sure, and I’d like to hook that 1200 up as well and give it one more go around. I really want to love that machine.