A600 AGA Possible?

[Yart]

Hi.

I'm not yet an owner of an Amiga system, but I'm looking to get into it. Of course I want the best system that'll play all the games and run all the programs... but my goodness that Amiga 600 is so small and cute!

So I'm deciding between an A1200 or A600. I'm leaning towards the A1200 because of its AGA and expansion capabilities, but I much prefer the form factor of the A600.

Is there any way to get any AGA out of the A600 and to take it up to the A1200's level of graphical capability? Or should I just go with the A1200?

[NovaCoder]

Hi.

I'm not yet an owner of an Amiga system, but I'm looking to get into it. Of course I want the best system that'll play all the games and run all the programs... but my goodness that Amiga 600 is so small and cute!

So I'm deciding between an A1200 or A600. I'm leaning towards the A1200 because of its AGA and expansion capabilities, but I much prefer the form factor of the A600.

Is there any way to get any AGA out of the A600 and to take it up to the A1200's level of graphical capability? Or should I just go with the A1200?

Easy answer, just go for the A1200 if you want to be able to play OCS, ECS & AGA.

AGA is not possible on an A600.

[ChaosLord]

A600 can never do AGA so it is very limited.

A600 also has very limited CPU upgrade options.  A1200 has many many expansion and upgrade options.

An A1200 is just massively better than an A600.

[psxphill]

Easy answer, just go for the A1200 if you want to be able to play OCS, ECS & AGA.
 
AGA is not possible on an A600.

You might be able to hacksaw an A1200 board into an A600 case, but I wouldn't want to do it. It's mainly the joystick ports need relocating, but as they are attached to the pcb it becomes a bit tricky. You wouldn't be able to fit in an accelerator afterwards either.

[Mrs Beanbag]

You might be able to hacksaw an A1200 board into an A600 case, but I wouldn't want to do it. It's mainly the joystick ports need relocating, but as they are attached to the pcb it becomes a bit tricky. You wouldn't be able to fit in an accelerator afterwards either.

Someone did it, accelerator and all. See this thread on Amibay:
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=570

[psxphill]

Someone did it, accelerator and all. See this thread on Amibay:
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=570

Extending the joystick ports is fine, they are designed to be on a long cord.
 
Putting the computers bus on the end of some slightly different length cables which could affect slew timing and picking up interference a long the way, is slightly pushing it for me.
 
If they'd made a pcb with a male and female connector that allowed the accelerator slot to double back on itself then I might go for it. Trapped heat will be a problem though.
 
At the end of it you still have an a1200, but now you're missing the numeric keypad.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Putting the computers bus on the end of some slightly different length cables which could affect slew timing and picking up interference a long the way, is slightly pushing it for me.

That's what I thought, but it seems to work. Not that I'd recommend it.

Indivision flicker fixers available for A600 fit over one of the custom chips and give additional screen modes, I wonder if in theory an AGA card could be developed.

[ElPolloDiabl]

I'm pretty sure the unfinished bits of the BoXer were the AGA. I imagine it has taken several years to do the AGA for FPGAArcade.

Short answer: No

  Buy an A600 and an FPGAArcade later. Like others have said there is very little AGA software worth having.
 The best points of an A1200 would be installing a faster CPU. Or not having to hunt down the rare 030 upgrade for the A600.
  The A1200 might have more upgrades, but they are not easy to get.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

To disagree with the above, the A1200 also has a much faster (comparatively) bus and chipset.  If you're going to be using Workbench a lot, you'll appreciate the improved performance and higher color modes.  It's no video card, but AGA is definitely faster than ECS.  Also A1200 upgrades are very cheap and easy to find, compared to just about any other model.  

Which ever model you get, I recommend looking at an Indivision (ECS or AGA mk2 are available new from AmigaKit), which will allow you to hook up modern LCD monitors & TV's.

Good luck!  

[lionstorm]

if the form factor is the problem, then get the fpgaarcade ! it even supports modern (LCD) screens.

[Yart]

Someone did it, accelerator and all. See this thread on Amibay:
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=570

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! Someone provide instructions and I'll do it!

But realistically, yea I'll most likely just go with the A1200. However...

Can the FPGAArcade support all the original Amiga floppy drives, PCMCIA, external hardware and peripherals? (Not accelerators though. Pretty sure that's built in) I might find a broken A600 and slap one of those in the case or somethin' and use the original ports. I'd want it as authentic and backwards compatible with original junk as possible.


Thanks for your input everyone!

[rvo_nl]

believe me, go for the a1200. easy to start with, easy to expand (adding harddrive + cdrom isnt complicated), easy to find good accelerators for, and eventually you can even decide to put it into a tower and add proper videocards and even ppc+os4.

[ElPolloDiabl]

Floppy drive yes. PCMCIA no. Scroll through the FPGA thread that keeps popping up.

[psxphill]

Floppy drive yes. PCMCIA no. Scroll through the FPGA thread that keeps popping up.

It would be possible to add PCMCIA and IDE to the daughterboard, I'm not sure it will happen though.

[bbond007]

Someone did it, accelerator and all. See this thread on Amibay:
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=570

When I first saw that I thought it was a hoax and not real.

I guess it probably is real

The original Lorraine was all sprawled out with wires connecting it all together...

Also, Amibay people probably would not tolerate a hoax.