Amigaos 4.1 - Intel i5 Mac

[Trev]

Hi I have what maybe a stupid question, what can I run Amigaos 4.1 on? I have a Intel i5 27" iMac, can I use Bootcamp and install on that? Or I have an AMD Athlon in the loft somewhere........

I've got a standard A1200 with internal hard drive with Workbench 3.1, which I did think about putting in a tower and upgrading - is it worth it?

Cheers

If you decide to upgrade your A1200, even slightly, be prepared. Your trip down the rabbit hole will require patience, coping skills, and an inordinate amount of disposable income.

AROS, on the other hand, is free, easy to test in a virtual machine, and will give you some idea of what a "real" modern Amiga will be like. AROS and AmigaOS 4.x are different, of course, but their Amiga-like annoyances are generally the same. If you still like the idea of using an Amiga-like operating system regularly after using AROS, and you want an "official" product, then AmigaOS 4.x and its pricey hardware may be right for you.

I'm not saying of this to be sarcastic. The nostalgia you probably feel for classic Amiga systems most likely won't hold up when using a modern Amiga-like system alongside current Mac and Windows offerings. Again, be prepared.

[Trev]

Thanks for all your advice, I do long for my many years and late nights working on my Amiga's. I like the ideal of helping and supporting Amiga and keeping that dream alive, I think I'll have to go for a Amiga-like OS that I can run on my Mac/PC, and upgrade my A1200 a bit. Is there a limit on the 2.5" HDD I can use? And is it still PCMICA CD-Rom drives? I would like to be able to look at and print my old documents and programs, is networking possible also? Thanks again

Under a vanilla OS 3.1 configuration, the limitations on storage are similar to MS-DOS: 2 GB partitions. The most popular storage solution for A600/A1200 systems today is a 44-pin IDE-CF adapter, allowing you use to use PIO mode CompactFlash cards instead of a 2.5" HDD. Unless you plan to store video or install every Amiga game ever produced, a 2 GB CF card will serve you well.

I'd suggest a combination of Phase5/DCE Blizzard 1230 Mk-IV accelerator and SCSI-IV adapter. The SCSI-IV adapter will allow you to connect a simple IDC26 to DB25 cable that's compatible with the 25-pin SCSI de facto standard introduced by Apple. You can then attach an external SCSI CD-ROM drive. Everyone wants a 1230 Mk-IV w/ SCSI-IV, however, so this is where that disposable income will come in handy. With these in hand, you can install AmigaOS 3.9, and the combination of accelerator and SCSI adapter will allow you to install up to 256 MB RAM. Like disk storage, however, you probably won't need that much.

Getting your A1200 physically connected to a network is simple. Most NE2000 compatible 16-bit PCMCIA Ethernet cards will work with cnet.device, a popular SANA-II device driver. Getting an IP stack running is not so simple. You'll need more than 2 MB RAM to be effective. See above.

Printing to most parallel port PostScript compatible printers should be pretty straightforward. Anything else could require extra software or hardware support.

Cammy and others have written much about building reasonably powerful and stable classic systems. Search the board for lots of good info.