Getting Back into Amiga - Advice Needed

[rmlug]

Hi all - 1st post on here.

I'm thinking about getting back into the Amiga scene after 30 years away.   Good though WinUAE is - I'd like the hardware - but I can't (and never will - long story) be able to solder so something that "just works" is preferable.

Back in the day (1990), I had:
*  A500
* the 512Mb trapdoor upgrade - can't remember what its code was.
* GVP Impact series 120Mb HDD with 2Mb RAM installed in it.
* Some sort of switch I bought to switch between KickStart 1.3 and 2.04 - with a keyboard combination as I recall.

I'd like to get all this - but I'm wary about things like connecting to modern TV, non-mechanical mouse, refurbed PSU or something modern, gotek instead of floppies and probably a BlueSCSI instead of the GVP HDD.

And when I get all this - what am I going to do with it?   While I did love certain games (Swiv, Stunt Car amongst others) - I was heavily into the WB - especially the shell - hence the need for a dh0:.   I'd also quite like to get it on my LAN so as not to have much faffing around with sd cards.   There's some sort of WiFi to serial port thing IIRC.

Is there a guide anywhere for getting back into Amiga after a long absence?   My main concern is it breaking down - because I can't fix it myself.   I've heard about the new Amiga500Maxi - is it worth waiting for that?

Thx
R

[Boing-ball]

First off welcome to Amiga.org 👍🏻

Okay. My take on this. I also started my Amiga experience with an A500 back in 1989. Then later moved to the A1200 in 1993.

My advice is to NOT to go A500. But go for a A1200. Why? This was one of the last Amiga’s made plus it’s 32-bit (A500 16-bit).
Also the A1200 already has a built in IDE header, PCMCIA port for easy file swapping with CF cards or using a CF to SD adapter. A better expansion compatibility. The PCMCIA port can also be used for PCMCIA network cards.
If you do decide to play games, this system also has the AGA chipset (A500 has OCS and A500+ has the OCS/ECS).

Buying advice:

- Buy a system that has been recapped (A lot of the original caps will be starting to leak and fail)
- Don’t be too worried about original PSU’s but for piece of mind maybe look for a system with an after market new one.

Remember once you buy an Amiga, there are plenty of places to buy new stuff for these systems. Such as Amigakit 👍🏻

Also Amigas, even though great machines will come with some need to gain knowledge on them. They can still be problematic with guru errors which is normally down to software or possibly hardware. This ain’t NO PC system where everything is plug and play. For example. You will need to get hold of an IP stack software and configure this manually with a driver etc.. to get a network running. Then get hold of a web browser to surf the web. Useful for getting hold of software from Aminet.net.

[lionstorm]

Welcome back to Amiga !

You could start by reading this very informative guide for fans returning to the platform and looking for hardware : https://www.datagubbe.se/amhw/

[AmigaOldskooler]

Welcome back to Amiga !

You could start by reading this very informative guide for fans returning to the platform and looking for hardware : https://www.datagubbe.se/amhw/

Wow, that is an excellent guide! Thanks for the link!

[Boing-ball]

Excellent read… 👍🏻