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.
