The Amiga Scene: I'd like to come back but don't know how!

[jupitercore]

About 13-15 years ago, I played on my middle school's Amiga 500S. When I "graduated", the school's Tech Ed teacher was given permission to "donate" the system to me, as I was the only one who had actually turned it on and learned how to use it (after school) during his career at the school. It was great. Then came high school where x86/Win was crammed down my throat - and the same with work (though Linux was there too) and my playfulness with my Amiga went to 0 - eventually being a poor college student, I sold my Amiga.

I've now been a heavy hobbyist supporting Mac, Linux, and BeOS whenever and whereever I could, but it always felt empty, not supporting the Amiga.

So I've decided to start looking around at the groups again, and now I'm finally starting to ask questions. I've found so much on established users, groups, etc. But here's my questions:

1. What's the best way to "jump right in", as many would say? I've used Amiga (I don't remember OS version), so I don't think software is an issue.

2. Is there a decent and cheap platform to run Amiga systems on that would make it a viable solution for everyday use? I like to be the odd-child out there, running Linux in Win-only environments and things like that.

3. I know I still need to go through the FAQs more, but AmigaONE, AmigaDE, WorkBench, GlowIcons, etc are confusing the living heck out of me. Some very basic explanations, or pointing to FAQs, would be appreciated.

I simply ask that there's no "st00pid n00b, read the faq" or flames. I'd like to start back into using an Amiga, and some of these very basic questions of that should be in a "HOW-TO Start..." are somewhat difficult to find. Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

[Kronos]

Options:

a) Get a real Amiga 2nd hand.
Slow, old, buggy, hardto repair and costs a fortune ....

b) Install UAE (the Windows-version is the best). It's a complete emulator that
will run anything from old games to power-apps (those will often be faster than on
any real Amiga).
You would still need an AmigaOS for that, and if you don't have that, you could buy
AmigaForever from cloanto, which is UAE bundled with AOS3.1 ready to start.
UAE itself is free and opensource.

b) Get a copy of Amithlon (sold in the AmigaOS-XL-package), probraly the fastes
"Amiga"  forever (since it runs on the fastest x86-CPU). This will require a PC with
a limited choice of GFX/net/sound-cards,is somewhat harder to setup. It does not
need a full OS underneath as it is based on a hacked-into-place linux-kernel.
It also comes with AmigaOS3.9 and some basic apps.
Downside is that it is entangled into some ugly infighting between those
who conrtibuted to it,which makes further development unlikely. It will
only run "clean" 68k-Amiga-apps which don't do any direct HW-accesses.

c) Pegasos/MorphOS will run all that Amithlon runs, plus 68k+PPC-SW and
some native pure PPC_SW. The orginal Pegasos1 has been discontinued due to
probs with the Northbridge(vendor), and the 2nd revision has just reached
(pre)production, featuring Gigabit Ethernet and DDR-RAM. These will cost
299 for a G3/600 and 499 for a G4/1000.
The Peg1 with G3/600 is (in my experience) faster than Amithlon on an AthlonXP1600,
which is mostly due to the PPC being better suited for 68k-emu,and the fact that the
Pegs run MorphOS instead of an emulated 68k-copy of AOS.

MorphOS is a 100% PPC-native reimplementation of AmigaOS3.1,pluse
the most important features of 3.5/9 and some MorphOS-specific extension.

It is all you could expect from an Amiga, except for the name.

d) AROS, a reimplementation of AmigaOS3.1, without support for any old SW,
still lacking some importantfeatures,but completly free and opensource. It does
(in theory) run on all kinds of CPUs, but the most advanced versions are
the native x86 and the x86-linux-hosted.

e)AmigaOne/OS4, the "official" solution, costs even more than a)  :-o , isn't
available (no release-date set) and well .....
(maybe I'm not the perfect choice to explain that option  :-D )

[lempkee]

go to amibench.com , grab an a1200 system there , with the bits and pieces you need, or get one from ebay , email me and i would happily let u know which and what yyou should get.

as for UAE and such , thats not a happy place unless u really want to use it for some wondering about , get the real hw and the real stuff for the real pleasure, i still only USE amiga , nothing else...

and as a note if you want to do programming and such, use is ok for that but uae doesnt have ppc support which is the future of amiga os and morphos, and uae is still lame when it comes to hardware bashing tools/games/demos etc.

nothing beats the real thing.!

and WElcome to amiga.org!

cheers

[FiEND]

hi lempkee

not to steal a thread but i am similar to buddy up top.

just curious what makes the 1200 a good choice over the higher models?

[Tomas]

You could get the very new system: AmigaONE, which runs the very new AmigaOS4.0.
AmigaOS4 is not yet fully completed though, but should be finished in a few months i believe.

[ajk]

While A1200's are quite cheap,  they are pretty much as modern as Classic Amigas go, and offer reasonable expandability. Expanding one with all the available gear will be hideously expensive though, but for nostalgic purposes that isn't necessary. A hard drive, some extra memory and maybe an accelerator and a scandoubler and it's a fine system.

For an up-to-date system there are newer options, which have already been mentioned in this thread.

[TjLaZer]

I was heavy into the Amiga since 1986 and stopped around 1993.

I got the itch a few years ago and started with a Amiga 2000
that I found NEW at a store.  I then got a A3000 and A4000
and recently started a collection!  I added a A1200 and a A500
and was given a A1000!

Now all I need is a A600, CDTV and CD32.

As a hobby I have upgraded my 3000 and 4000 with 060's
and Ethernet cards, and they are happily on my home LAN
with Cable modem.

The best thing to do is get any Amiga you can.  Then
as time allows get one that you feel is best suited
to you.  I think a A1200 would be best as it has AGA
and is very expandable, and fairly on the cheap side.
You can check eBay that is where I got mine.

Good luck!

[NeRP]

Kronos "failed" to let you know that the only reason OS4.0 is not available is because Hyperion, the makers of OS4, have decided that Amiga users are *not* going to be their guinea pigs.

I'm a betatester running OS4.0 on my CyberStormPPC A3000 tower, and on my AmigaOne G4 machine.  It rocks!

There are videos and screenshots available that show OS4 in action - it's very near completion.

[Argo]

I suggest looking at the Events and Announcements news items to get caught up on the latest happenings.

[elendil]

Hi and welcome,

As some people said, get yourself a cheap, used a1200 computer. It is quite powerful  (compared to other amigas) as standard and can be rather cheaply expanded, though the ultimate expansions with PCI slots and what not makes it somewhat expensive.

You can pick up dirt cheap stock a1200's. I suggest you start out with that, find out how you like it, eventually buying some cheap expansions for it (accelerators, harddrive, NIC, etc), and then deciding if you want to be a part of the "future" as well, and go with either the official AmigaOne/AmigaOS4 solution or the similar Pegasos/MorphOS system.

One thing you will notice, is that people will try to drag you into either the amigaos or the morphos camp. Get that stock a1200 and decide for yourself where you want to be.

IMO

Sincerely,

-Kenneth Straarup.

[doctorq]

I found a couple of A1200 motherboards on eBay for cheap, only 5 EUR.

If you have an old PC tower you don't use anymore, then you can build a A1200T, the only thing you need is to get a diskdrive to work with the Amiga. If you then take that harddrive from the same tower, you only need a 2,5" -> 3.5" cable, and of course the motherboard.

Mail me if you need more info on how to do it, but as I see it it's the cheapest way. Actually I just saw a mobo to 2,49 EUR, so the most expensive would be your hdd cable!

[jupitercore]

Wow! Thank you all for your helpful and detailed responses! After reading everyone's posts, I think I will definately be looking at A1200's or AimgaONE's.

As Argo mentioned, I'll still have to be hopping into Events and Announcements to further get caught up-to-date, but, depending on how my cash flow is looking, but I think I'll be getting an A1200 for now and an AmigaONE after OS4.0 is released. Amiga/Hyperion hasn't set a release date yet, have they? Aside from OS4.0, which is the best all-around 3.x series? I've seen 3.0, 3.1, 3.5, and 3.9 come up a lot.

I still need to do a lot of catching up, but now I have 2 hardware platforms to actually look at.

Thank you again for all of the feedback. It is greatly appreciated!

[cockney_dave]

Kronos wrote...

a) Get a real Amiga 2nd hand. Slow, old, buggy, hardto repair and costs a fortune ....

Option 'a' for me personally, definately the most fun :-D

[ajk]

Aside from OS4.0, which is the best all-around 3.x series? I've seen 3.0, 3.1, 3.5, and 3.9 come up a lot.

3.5 and 3.9 both come with 3.1, so either one is quite ok. You will need to update a basic A1200 a little to run 3.5 or 3.9 well (extra mem, hard drive and such), but 3.1 is ok with a basic system and is still reasonably well supported. Anything older than that isn't really useful with an A1200 anyway, since it has either 3.0 or 3.1 kickstart ROM's inside it (update to 3.1 if you happen to get an old model, the new OS's require it). There is really no reason to use 3.0.

There is of course the thing that 3.5 and 3.9 arrive on a CD, 3.1 was still floppy based. A CD drive will be quite useful though, for transferring stuff from a PC in the initial install phases (a lot of stuff can and need to be downloaded from the net). Naturally a hard drive is a practical must-have for anything else than nostalgic gaming.

For really old games it's better to get an A500, but that's a different discussion.

[Darth_X]

NeRP wrote:
Kronos "failed" to let you know that the only reason OS4.0 is not available is because Hyperion, the makers of OS4, have decided that Amiga users are *not* going to be their guinea pigs.

SQUEEK SQUEEK!!!

I'm a betatester running OS4.0 on my CyberStormPPC A3000 tower, and on my AmigaOne G4 machine.  It rocks!

NeRP is a guinea pig then? :-D

LOL! !