Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: AlanN on January 06, 2006, 01:04:11 PM
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Hello everyone. I'm new to the site, but thankfully not the 'miggy. I've been feeling guilty recently about neglecting the old girl*, so i'm looking to give her a new cage and some friends to play with.
A friend of mine mentioned the Power Tower, but it looks like Power Computing are either out of stock, or have discontinued them. Where can I find one? Is there an alternative? What upgrades would you recommend, and where can I purchase them from?
Ta!
Alan
*Stock 2MB A1200, 320MB(hah!) HDD retrofitted
Edit: I should really mention that i'm in the UK.
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The Power Tower was made by Elbox.
The model is discontinued now but they have replaced it with other models.
check www.elbox.com
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Wonderful! That'd explain why I couldn't find it, then :P Any other suggestions for upgrades?
Thanks again, Amigaz.
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AlanN wrote:
Wonderful! That'd explain why I couldn't find it, then :P Any other suggestions for upgrades?
Thanks again, Amigaz.
Depends on what you want to use your Amiga for...games? websurfing etc? :-)
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Well, if I had to break it down:
65% - Games
25% - Trackers
5% - Aminet :D
5% - Coding
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Guess you don't need any PCI busboard then.
I would try and get my hands on a Blizzard 1230 MKIV turbocard and put at least 32mb fast ram on it.
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?dir=a1200proc#blizzard1230mk4
Does your Amiga have 3.1 roms?
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Unless they're stock, then nope. It was one of the first A1200 releases in the UK if that's any help...
How can I check?
Edit: I've found somewhere with that board in stock. Would it be worth upgrading with the 1260 instead? Or is that going to kill a lot of games?
Would you still recommend putting this in a tower (I'd guess so, after seeing the fan on the 1240!)
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The version number is on the insert disk boot screen when you turn the machine on.
I would recommend installing 3.1 roms in your machine
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Thanks - i've just found them on the same site.
So to clarify, I need:
-The Kickstart 3.1 ROM chips
-Some sort of A1200 tower
-An accelerator/Fast RAM card, min. 32MB
-An ATA/IDE interface to add a CD-ROM drive/large 2nd hard drive
Does that look about right? How about a soundcard upgrade - I guess the Busboard would come in handy there; would a PCI soundcard help with any of the tracker (protracker, OctaMED) software?
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Well, in the U.K. don't forget to check;
Amigakit (http://www.amigakit.com)
They do towers, USB, Accelerators for A1200.
Hopefully there are exciting times coming soon for the old A1200!
The Elbox Dragon accelerator (OS3.9) and the ACK PowerVixxen (OS4.0) are meant to be shipping very soon! :-D
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Aye, i'm currently putting together a basket on there to save for later :-D
Think I should hang on for the OS4 board, then?
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If you run OS4 you'll have to run games and such in UAE since you cannot use the AGA chipset.
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Edit: I've found somewhere with that board in stock. Would it be worth upgrading with the 1260 instead? Or is that going to kill a lot of games?
Really... if you're going for the games, I'd NOT go for the 060.
There are some few newer games that are programmed to run fast on the 060, but many of them... (Napalm, Quake and some others) are way too demading to play well even on the 060. And, concerning the older games, they all (but moste of the 3D ones) will play just as fine on a 030.
Unless you are about to play MP3's, run some of the more demanding demos and toy around in Workbench (using a GFX-card) together with some GFX apps and other a bit power demanding applications, I can't not say that the huge difference in price between, say, a Blizzard 1230 and a Blizzard 1260 is worth it. Really.
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@AlanN
Welcome to Amiga.org
The Power Tower is discontinued, Elbox have replaced it with the D-Box 1200 MK-II (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=307)
The Blizzard 1260 (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=161) is the fastest 68K accelerator for the Amiga, however it is not as compatible with *old* games, so for legacy gaming, a Blizzard 1230 (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=117) is better.
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LOL I must own one of the stupidest Amiga setups of all time, my specs Amiga1200 in power tower,60 gig hdd, bppc 060@50mhz/PPC@240mhz 144meg, mediator c/w voodoo3 2000,sb128, ps2 Cocolino adaptor,nec 4x4 changer and LiteOn cdr/DVD burner,17inch PC monitor and a 14 inch 1084s monitor(due to scan doubler breaking on Xmas) I call this setup stupid as I mostly play treasure island dizzy which i could of saved myself hundred of £'s by buying an a500 with half a meg to play dizzy. but i have to admit I like upgrading my Amiga and it has been fun and I've meet alot of good people thru upgrading. so unless your like me and are a complete upgrade nut I'd just get an dbox and 040 or an 030 and as much memory as possible as its all you seem to need.
well yet again thats my 2 Penny's :-D
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Cheers, Legerdemain - I remember even back in the day, some people had problems with accelerators; i'll steer well clear, then. It's the 030 for me.
What's the most widely-used version of WB for gaming? I'm running MagicWB on 3.0 (I think - I haven't booted it up in a while) at the moment.
Amigakit, would you mind if I mailed you to sort out exactly what I need? Looks like i'll be ordering through your site :)
Edit: Nasty, that's an insane looking setup :D I'd like to get a CD-ROM and larger hard drive in there for the Aminet CDs, and all of the hard drive loaders around these days, I could pretty much wave bye-bye to my floppy swapping. Some kind of link between my PC and Amiga would be good too, as I want to download->convert->send samples from the PC to the Amiga for use in OctaMED etc. What boards do I need for that?
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No problem, get in contact by email at http://contact.amigakit.com - please include a list of what you have at the moment. Thanks!
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nasty wrote:
LOL I must own one of the stupidest Amiga setups of all time, my specs
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I call this setup stupid as I mostly play treasure island dizzy which i could of saved myself hundred of £'s by buying an a500 with half a meg
Hahaha, yeah I'm exactly the same. An A1200 with an 030+RAM and a small 2.5" hard drive would have done everything I needed, but I got carried away with a D-BOX, Mediator, Voodoo, etc etc etc :lol:
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moto
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LOL Thanks Moto that makes me happy since I'm not the only one who got carried away with upgrading. I'm sure we gonna need some addict support soon. :banana:
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I'm alread a member of AA...
...Amigaholics Anonymous :lol:
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moto
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AlanN wrote:
Think I should hang on for the OS4 board, then?
When it's to do with the Amiga, it's not worth hanging on for anything. Unless you don't mind hanging on for 5 or 6 years at which point the product is usually abandoned and another one appears 'for release soon' and the cycle begins again.
SharkPPC, AmiJoe, BoXer, Walker, AmigaMMC, Cyberstorm G4/G3 etc etc...
Just buy what's available now and enjoy using your Amiga :-)
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Hah, sound advice! Thanks - I will!
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Ehh..have to confess I'm in the same "gang" as you guys...started off buying an A600 6 years ago just play some games I hadn't played since I sold my Amiga 500 in 1993.
But then I discovered the other Amiga models I heard about back in the old days which I couldn't afford back then...my signature shows what I ended up with.
I also started liking the idea of being able to use an Amiga for websurfing and such.
So spedning alot of dough on Amiga stuff is nothing to be ashamed of..we have other people on this forum which have spent alot and I mean ALOT...no names mentioned :-D
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LOL I must own one of the stupidest Amiga setups of all time, my specs Amiga1200 in power tower,60 gig hdd, bppc 060@50mhz/PPC@240mhz 144meg, mediator c/w voodoo3 2000,sb128, ps2 Cocolino adaptor,nec 4x4 changer and LiteOn cdr/DVD burner,17inch PC monitor and a 14 inch 1084s monitor(due to scan doubler breaking on Xmas) I call this setup stupid as I mostly play treasure island dizzy which i could of saved myself hundred of £'s by buying an a500 with half a meg to play dizzy. but i have to admit I like upgrading my Amiga and it has been fun and I've meet alot of good people thru upgrading.
No, not stupid at all. In the end you can do what you just did. Drop the specifications of what you have, say something like "I only play DIzzy", and make the jaws drop on EVERYONE that reads it, wishing they had the same setup, almost considering offering you some money to buy what you have and "don't use" that much.
Oh, well.
;-)
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I would say you should get a 060! You can use WHDload for all your old games (and even quit back to wb!). Makes your machine as fast as possible and more responsive IMHO
www.whdload.de - check it out and reg it :)
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As said in another A1200 accelerator thread..the '030 CPU has better compability with both whdload installed games and standard games.
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I have a A4000 Power Tower 060 that I will be selling as soon as I replace the PSU.
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If you need a quality A1200 tower, try this......
Revanche (http://revanchellc.com/cgi-bin/mivavm?Merchant2/merchant.mvc+Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=REV&Category_Code=CLASC)
:-o :-D OMG..nice huh! :-D :-o