New amigan

[thedaemon]

Greetings. I am pretty much completely new to Amiga. I was born in 83, so I didn't really have a choice nor an opinion when we got our first computer. We picked up an old pc 486/33 with 4mb ram. I remember trying to get windows 3.1 to display 256color with no luck at all. From that day forward I have always strived to get more color and resolution from my computers. (1920x1200 32bit now ) But, as of lately I have been diving into programming and have had an inclination to get an old computer, when things were much simpler and fun. A few years ago I heard about amiga's and didn't think much of it besides the lovely 0s4 screenshots. I decided a few weeks ago to research them. Now I think I am going to be addicted. Why did no one ever tell me about these lovely machines? I have been racking my brain over which model to get. I assume a 1200 will do me fine. I am not sure what kind of monitor though, as this stuff is perplexing. I am planning on mainly doing graphic work (2d/3d) and programming games and apps. I purchased amiga forever because I am eagerly awaiting getting an amiga, and wanted to try to learn how to use it. Needless to say its a bit confusing on how to install apps on it. I assume it will be easier once I get a real amiga. Anyways, I will try not to bother you guys with silly beginner questions(I will use the search function), and I hope to learn many things from you. Maybe I will convert off of my pc system. Thanks for being a great crowd to join.

BTW Any usergroups close to Alabama? It seems the Atlanta user group's site is down.

[amigakit]

Welcome!

[quenthal]

Hi and welcome!

Getting a real Amiga working from ground up may be quite confusing, if you're doing it for the first time. So it probably ain't any easier on real machine.

A1200 is a good choice, but you can consider A4000 if good deal presents itself. Expanding your Amiga is a whole new adventure, so use play around with Amiga Forever, try out other Amiga emulation packages, like AmiKit (http://amikit.amiga.sk/), AIAB (http://aiab.emuunlim.com/) etc.

[AmiDelf]

Amiga is a wonderfull machine, created and published by Commodore and Escom.

Amiga is something special and thats why its still alive, though it dosent seem so. Amiga is an underestimated computer. It can do lots of things PC and MAC still cant do.

People often remember Amiga as the Guru machine, as AmigaOS dosent have any memprotection or virtualmem. People thinks more and more about getting new, new, new hardware, but what they dont think of, is that the "big" OS`es they use will never be optimized as much as AmigaOS because of what the mass wants.

I lived happy with my Amiga 1200 68030 50MHz 64MB RAM 260MB HD for 5 years from 1994 to 1999. In 1999 I got myself an Amiga 4000 which I upgraded to 060/PPC. It kept alive and I used wordprocessor on it, drawn lots of pictures, did videotitling on it and much, much more.

Next to my friends etc, Amiga is something which I have lived for. Its a passion for something that Jay Miner died from, something that Commodore burned "extra" soul into.

Amiga have allways been something special and its just miracle that its not dead. Because its not! Its fully alive, more than ever. People programming stuff for it, users are happy with either AmigaOS, AmigaOS4 or MorphOS. I can never love Windows or MacOSX the way I love Amiga.

Amiga is more than just the keyboard for me. It is the community, the hardware companies that still supports it (Elbox, Individual Computers, Hyperion, Genesi..), the shows and parties etc. Amiga people is so much more grounded people. Yes they are. And you ask why? Because Amiga people have allways gathered. It started with Amiga User Groups in 1985 allready, it spread to diskcopyparties, demoparties and more.

Your welcome to Amiga. If your used to Windows, Linux or OSX then AmigaOS can be confusing. But all in all,.. after a while you will asks yourself. Why havent this brilliant OS got any more attention? Because allmost every company related to Amiga have destroyed its masspublicity. Now Genesi is talking big, but doing nothing. Amiga Inc. is ignoring its users and dosent care etc.

Amiga have allways stand on its own feet and if Genesi or Amiga Inc. dosent do anything, Amiga will continue beeing the" underground machine.

-.-

Well. Regarding installing things on AmigaOS. Well, you can either install stuff by using the installer, or you could just copy the dir to your destination.

AmigaOS is set up as easy it gets. If you have any problems, just ask the community here and you will get responce.

I hope this post wasnt to long, but I really, really wished that there was more people like you. Which really want to understand Amiga. And yes as you wrote .. "Now I think I am going to be addicted. Why did no one ever tell me about these lovely machines?" ... because the world dosent want you to know about Amiga for some reason. Amiga have been hated by most of the companies since it started even in 1985. Commodore didnt do anything to make Amiga big. Adverts were there, but too few.. and when Medhi Ali stepped into Commodore. That made the flame bigger than ever.

Amiga is the magic machine and I hope that you will enjoy using it! Amiga community needs more people like you to the scene. Welcome


Regards,
Michal

[amigagr]

what else anyone can add to all these :-)
welcome aboard thedaemon.

[stopthegop]

Yep, welcome.  Ask as man y questions as you like.  Years and years worth of accumulated wisdom available on this site.  

[r-tea]

amigacommunity++;

[thedaemon]

Wow, thanks alot for all the encouragement. I wasn't expecting so much so fast. Such a wonderful community here. I think I have figured out how to install things by using DOpus and copying stuff to folders created in my Work drive. I hope this is the right way. DOpus seems really powerful. At first it looked overly complicated, but in fact it seems overly easy. Well, I will ask will a 1080 suffice? Or should I try to find a multiscan? I am not sure what resolution I will be running. Perhaps 640 or so? Thanks guys for being so kind to me. Also is a 2000 as expandable as the 1200? It seems 1200,3000(rare?), or 4000 would be the way to go.

haha I found this!
Big 29" monitor

[quenthal]

A2000 is quite expandable - it lacks AGA, so native graphics ain't that good as with A1200/A4000 and the expansion slots and bus (Zorro II) is slower than in newer big box machines (Zorro III). You can't get PCI-slots to A2000, with those other machines you mentioned it is possible. To see possible expansions and otherwise nice reading check this website:
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/

[Akiko]

Welcome to Amiga.org  :-)

I'd definitely go the 1200 or 4000 route, these are easier to expand and have the AGA chip-set which is bare minimum for alot of software.
If you can afford the 4000 you won't be disappointed! Simply add a zorro graphics card and enjoy beautiful high resolutions on your Amiga. If your feeling adventurous you could add a mediator PCI expansion board which will allow you to use voodoo graphics card and lots other cheap PCI peripherals. In the mean time check out Amikit the best emulation setup   :-)

http://amikit.amiga.sk/
http://www.elbox.com/
 

[AmiDelf]

You should really go for an Amiga 1200 or Amiga 4000 with Kickstart 3.1 as minimum!.. Then, if you want to use more modern forms of AmigaOS like OS4 and MorphOS. You should either get a AmigaONE or a PegasosII.

Please,.. dont buy Amiga 2000. It seems so nice, but its OCS and its the second Amiga which came out in 1986.

Amiga 500, Amiga 1000, Amiga 1500, Amiga 2000, Amiga 2500 and Amiga CDTV is OCS

Amiga 500+, Amiga 600, Amiga 3000 and Amiga 3000T is ECS

Amiga 1200, Amiga 4000, Amiga 4000T and Amiga CD32 is AGA

Choose what you want, but go for AGA machines atleast if you want some fun and AGA can also run other OCS and ECS games etc thru WHDload etc.


 

[stopthegop]

Ditto what Akiko said.  Another nice benefit of Amigas is they don't really go down in value.  This is especially true of the more modern A1200s and A4000s, much more so for Amigas upgraded with PPC accelerators and/or PCI expansion.  Not that you'd ever want to sell it!    I find thats a useful line to use for getting the wife onboard.  

[DaBest]

"We picked up an old pc 486/33 with 4mb ram. I remember trying to get windows 3.1 to display 256color with no luck at all."

Welcome to the Amiga world. I can relate to your above statement. I sold my A2000 for $2500 back in 1988 and bought a PC 486DX33 with 1 meg of ram and could run just about NOTHING. Maybe it was because I was trying to get to work like my Amiga. So I returned it and bought an A4000/030 and it is still very much alive.

Once again "WELCOME". :-D

[DaBest]

BTW we LOOOOOOVE beginner questions....sooooooooooo ask away. :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[leirbag28]

@AmiDelf


Well Said!

Quote:
because the world dosent want you to know about Amiga for some reason. Amiga have been hated by most of the companies since it started even in 1985.
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One reason I think is because many companies that wanted to add 3rd party stuff would not be able to make a Profit on things such as: Gfx cards, Sound cards, Plu and Play cards......etcc..............Why?  because Amigas already had nice sound, Gfx and was Plug and Play.........so its more profitable to make an IBM----a machine that does nothing, and make it do stuff it should do out of the box :-)


@thedaemon

Yep!  get an A1200 for sure...........unless you have alot of time and want to start from the beginning and get an A500 (that would be ok too)

I suggest you start by installing a Plain Workbench 3.1 only and use it ike that for a while to understand how Workbench works...........................soon you wil realise it is th most "correct" OS in the world that is organized most properly.....................then when you begin to install stukk like: ToolsDaemon (essential)  you wil highly appreciate it and configuring it...............its basically a START menu for Amiga...........except its at the top with the rest of the menu's.

Its cool to see dudes like you interested in the Amiga...I think it really displays your realistic honest look on life and that you are intelligent and creative.  

The Amiga is Amazing, but its not because it's actually amazing........I think it's Amazing quite simply because of how stupid other machines are.