A600 - what to do with her?

Bonno Estiente comrades, I'm noew to this Amoga lark so give us a bit of leeway if I sound like a bit of a dunce.

I have acquired an Amiga 600 with no mouse or PSU. I seriously expected it to be dead but hanging it on a PC AT PSU (via some serious wire hacking yesterday) I powere dit up. Works as far as it loads the boot screen. Dunno if it gets any further, haven't got any Amiga OS disks! Still I have ecery conifenc in the little dear, lets face it if it doesn't work I'll just chuck it and buy an A1200

I need info specific to the A600, on upgrades and stuff. I alread plan onn getting a 2.5" laptop IDE drive for it (250 or 512MB most likely) via my Apple connections (which are considerable) and a new moose and copy od Amiga OS 3.1. Where does one go from here though? I know I can attach a CD rive to it via a Squirrel interface (I have an external knocking about the shop I use on my various older Macs) in the PCMCIA slot. That's about as far as I can disifer. My immediate thought is it needs a CPU upgrade, an 040 would be ideal although an 060 would be great (but exensive i bet). I have seen one with an 030 latched over the 000 socket. Is this the way forward?

Oh it's all too confusing!  :-o :-x

[whabang]

If you plan on upgrading, make sure you keep the modified PSU, as the A600 PSU is really weak.
The fastest CPU for the 600 is a 030.

[anarchic_teapot]

I need info specific to the A600, on upgrades and stuff.

Ah, stuff. Yes , very important facet that  :-D
You can get an accelerator card to get it up to an 030 at 25 or 40 MHz. They're a bit rare these days, but still findable. I got mine from PowerC in the UK. An accelerator card will also let you add more FastRAM (EDO SIMM), but since it's a hack that sits over the CPU, you will probably have trouble fitting the HD in the case afterwards, or if it does fit the chip + HD will overheat and crash very quickly. I should think a Blue Peter-type case mod, involving  a cardboard box cut to size, plaster of paris and some sticky-backed plastic (or whatever) to make a little external housing for the HD would be a good idea.

You can also get extra Chip RAM, to bring the machine up to 2 meg. This sits in the expansion bay. Mine came ready equipped, so I don't know if you can still buy them.

OS: even if you have the 3.1 ROM already installed (a Good Idea, since I doubt you'll find fully working copies of WB3.0 very easily these days), don't bother with OS3.9, as the graphic capabilities of an A600  frankly can't cut it here. Even OS3.5 is overkill. WB3.1 is best, preferably teamed up with Scalos or DOpus.

After that, you can always go for the fancy stuff, such as a scandoubler so's you can use a cheap VGA monitor. Beware the Squirrel SCSI interface: it's handy to have, but I find it makes the system more unstable.

Pity we're not in the same country: I could have supplied you with a PSU and mouse. I am not parting with my A600, though. :-D

[whabang]

NOTE: With a squirrel you could add both a HD and a CD-ROM, and fit them in an external housing with their own power supply.

[Nick]

Louth? thats not far from me :-D

Anyhoo

I have an A600 with 2mb RAM + 20mb HD, but I would only take it further if I had loads of money and
time. I plan to eventually just because. No real reason too. Your best bet is to either get an A1200
and upgrade that, as it sounds like you want more power than a silly little 030, or get an AmigaOne.
Believe me thats the best option. You will not be able to push your A600 to be anything powerful
enough to run serious applications and most certainly you won`t run anything like Quake or Quake 2.

PS Oh yes I have an A1200 PPC as well as my main computer--> www.NOLIN.net/computer.htm

PPS Whabang whats with the new avatar? Its disturbing!