Amiga.org
Amiga.org specific forums => New User Introductions => Topic started by: kiniki on March 23, 2006, 12:38:29 PM
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Hi all.
I have just bought my first Amiga. A 1200 that arrived yesterday. I have never owned one in the past but now being 23 and looking back to my younger days I remember how badly I wanted one.
With a fairly well paid job, I am now in a position to have an amiga thats better than all my friends used to have. Shame im a good few years late.
I will probably be asking a lot of questions, although I will search for the answers first.
I look forward to being a part of this community
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Hi kiniki and welcome to A.Org, If you have any question ask away. theres alot of great knowledge on this boards :-D
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welcome kiniki
have a :pancake: and :pint:
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Welcome!
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Wow... I didn't expect replies! Fantastic start!
I really will need to ask questions as I know nothing about Amiga's at all.
To be honest I have been reading from this site for a fair while but am still a little confused.
I'm on a mission to have a hard drive in my 1200 and then load my games onto it. But I have been reading that I need to know what my kickroms are and also to move some abandonware games from the PC I need crossdos.. but it might not be on my version of workbench.... :-o
So much to learn already!
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Hi Kiniki
If you have an A1200 then it will have Kickstart 3.0 or 3.1. The Workbench versions which correspond to these Kickstart versions both include CrossDOS, so you can use that to transfer files from your PC to your Amiga.
Welcome btw :-)
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moto
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CrossDOS is an integrated part of AmigaOS/Workbench 3.0. Your A1200 should have OS 3.1 or 3.0 so you're safe.
If the Amiga you bought came with manuals, check for the manual covering "Workbench". I know it's boring to read manuals but if you've never used an Amiga before, this is actually a good start. Among other things, it tells you how to use CrossDOS.
Regarding the hard drive, the A1200 has an internal 2.5" IDE connector so if you can get your hands on an 2.5" drive (normally these are used in laptops) this would be a good start. It really doesn't need to be bigger than a couple of gigabytes so if you're lucky you can get an old PC laptop really cheap and just use that hard drive.
If the hard drive is bigger than 4GB you will have to use some third-party software to utilize the extra space unless you just decide to keep the total size of all the partitions below 4GB.
You can also use 3.5" IDE hard drives but then you need to do some (pretty simple) hardware modifications.
You can also pick up a few pointers here:
http://wonkity.com/~wblock/a1200/a1200.html (http://wonkity.com/~wblock/a1200/a1200.html)
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Welcome! Put your feet up and grab your favorite beverage, stay a while. :-)
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Thanks so much of all the info guys. I'm really excited about this. My friend found well over 100 old amiga disks in his attic a few months back when he moved into his new house. There looks to be some great stuff on there and he has no use for them so he is letting me have them.
There is something very satisifying about looking through old disks to see whats there.
Regarding the HD.. if I get a laptop one, will I need to make internal modifications to the case to get it to fit? Or is there a cradle for it already inside the 1200?
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There is a mounting bracket inside the A1200 to fit a hard drive inside.
And I agree, boxes of old floppies rock :-D
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moto
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If you are in need of hard disk, we have pre-formatted Amiga hard drives (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=100)
A good way of transporting data between your Amiga and a PC is a PCMCIA Compact Flash adapter (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=440) or even a network card with EasyNet (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=116) for the A1200!
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If you get a 2.5" (laptop) drive it should fit perfectly. I've actually never bought an A1200 without a hard drive so I don't know if the cradle was shipped with non-HD models as well. Just open the computer and check for it, it should be located to the upper left of the MoBo, partly covered by the keyboard.
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Superb. This is going to be great.
Managed to get Wing Commander and Elite 2 running last night.
So excited being at the beginning of a new (yet old) adventure.
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amigakit wrote:
If you are in need of hard disk, we have pre-formatted Amiga hard drives (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=100)
This is pure genious.
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Is it a case of unscrewing it to get at all the insides? Or is there something that pops open.
I had a look at it last night an opened a door at the bottom, but it revealed an empty space
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kiniki wrote:
Superb. This is going to be great.
Managed to get Wing Commander and Elite 2 running last night.
So excited being at the beginning of a new (yet old) adventure.
Some older games may not work so well on the A1200 but you can make most of them work by using the Early Startup Control.
By pressing both mouse buttons while booting the computer you should be presented with this screen:
http://www.gregdonner.org/workbench/images/wb_30_1.gif
In Boot Options, you can then disable the CPU Caches (this slows down the computer somewhat to make older games run at a better speed):
http://www.gregdonner.org/workbench/images/wb_30_2.gif
In Display Options you can turn off AGA by selecting "Original" (A500) or "Enhanced" (A500+/600/3000) graphics:
http://www.gregdonner.org/workbench/images/wb_30_3.gif
These settings will be restored to normal the next time you reboot your computer.
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Just undo the screws and the top will come off. Remove the keyboard (you don't need to disconnect it just move it) and you will see the hard drive bracket. It was included in all releases of the A1200.
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moto
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Welcome aboard!
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kiniki wrote:
Is it a case of unscrewing it to get at all the insides? Or is there something that pops open.
I had a look at it last night an opened a door at the bottom, but it revealed an empty space
To fit a hard drive you have to unscrew the case. The little trapdoor on the bottom of the case is for fitting accelerator cards or memory expansions.
Actually, I'd strongly recommend you to get at least a memory expansion because just adding some extra memory (fastmem) makes the computer about two times as fast and you'll have more sound and graphics memory (chipmem) available.
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I will have to look for one on ebay I guess... or Amigakit! ;-)
I ran Lemmings last night and it said something about "Using expansion" just before the game went to the menu screen.
Any idea what this could be?
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kiniki wrote:
I will have to look for one on ebay I guess... or Amigakit! ;-)
I ran Lemmings last night and it said something about "Using expansion" just before the game went to the menu screen.
Any idea what this could be?
Lemmings is a rather old game, from the A500 time. The A500 came with 0.5 megabytes of memory but most people expanded it to a full 1MB. Since your A1200 has 2MB of memory Lemmings just thinks it's a memory expansion and lets you know that it's making use of that whopping extra 0.5MB! :)
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Hi,
Welcome from me, too.
How are you enjoying those old games? IMO, Lemmings is a classic. Just a good game, no matter how old. I mostly like the simple and creative games for Amiga.
btw, is your interest in Amiga mostly just for games?
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It sounds like a Memory expansion is a good plan.
What other expansions can I fit to make the machine run better?
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Hi Oliver,
To be fair I know very little about the Amiga apart from the games. But I really would like to find out more about what it can do.
I have heard of people using them for the internet and all sorts. Sounds interesting...
As for Lemmings, I played it a lot on the PC but want to play it again on the Amiga.
However I have a problem with the mouse that came with the machine. I have to press stupidly hard to get the buttons to work. So until I have sorted that out I might not be playing it too much!
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Hi an welcome, if there ia anything I can help with, let me know.
Mike. ;-) ;-)
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May be worth opening the amiga mouse (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=174) and checking the two mouse button contacts, they may be worn out though.
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kiniki:
I hadn't hard of AmigaKit.com until I saw it in this thread, but you can probably buy a new mouse from there. Another option might be to get a PS/2 adapter which lets you use cheap PC mice on the Amiga.
Regarding expansions which makes the computer go faster, I'd recommend you to try to get ahold of a Blizzard accellerator. If you'd like to surf the web, fool around with image processing and even play MP3 music or emulate a classic Macintosh I'd recommend you to get an accellerator with either an 040 or 060 CPU. The 060 CPU is the fastest processor available for "classic" Amigas and a Blizzard 1260 card will fit in your A1200 without any modifications. With an 060 CPU you'll even be able to play MP3 music on your Amiga.
Until then, I'd recommend you to get a copy of Personal Paint (from Aminet), or even better Deluxe Paint AGA if you can find it. They are both classic graphics programs of the kind that were used to create graphics for all the old Amiga games. They're very fun to play around with.
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The PS/2 adapter is made by Elbox and is called the Cocolino (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=cocolino). Its a good way of using your favorite PS/2 mouse with the A1200. Also supports scroll wheel as opposed to the official Amiga mouse (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=174) that is two-button (no scrollwheel)
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I was looking at the mouse adapter. Especially as I have about 7 pc mice at home!
As for the 060 CPU is that part of the Blizzard 1260 or something that plugs into it?
Is this it? (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=161&osCsid=daecb85464db37c3d738ab0f42e60d14) If so its pretty expensive! But maybe something for the future.
I think I have paint on one of the disks... will have to have a look at it.
Can I tell which Kickroms I have just by opening it up?
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Lemmings is a rather old game, from the A500 time. The A500 came with 0.5 megabytes of memory but most people expanded it to a full 1MB. Since your A1200 has 2MB of memory Lemmings just thinks it's a memory expansion and lets you know that it's making use of that whopping extra 0.5MB! :)
But on the other hand, you can see that Lemmings was well programmed, since a lot of ancient games require the second 512KB to be slow mem, because of bad/short-minded programming
EDIT: I'm was too slow :crazy:
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As for Lemmings, I played it a lot on the PC but want to play it again on the Amiga.
better isnt it !
I've played loads of versions, the oddest was probably the ZX Spectrum version, and the worst was the Mac version...
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nearly forgot - welcome !
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The Cocolino is something you only have to invest in once though as opposed to mouse has a shorter life span.
You can tell what Kickstart ROMs you have by looking at the disk animation when you switch on the Amiga. It should say something like Kickstart 3.0
The latest ROMs are Kickstart 3.1 (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=62) - useful if you want to use bigger than 4GB hard disks or want to upgrade to AmigaOS 3.5 (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=190) or 3.9 (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=153)
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If games are your nr1 priority I would get the slower Blizzard 1230 card. It is much more compatible with older games. And it's plenty of speed(and mem) for all old games.
You should also get whdload( www.whdload.de ). It lets you install most games to your hd. No more disk swapping and extremly fast loading.
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kiniki wrote:
Is this it? (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=161&osCsid=daecb85464db37c3d738ab0f42e60d14) If so its pretty expensive! But maybe something for the future.
I don't know what you want to do with your Amiga, but for games, the best accelerator would be a 1230 50MHz (There are various brands of them), since then you can play 3D-games at average speeds as well, for an average price. And the 68040-based boards give problems within the original desktop case and the standard PSU. Ofcourse 68060's are also good, but just as you said, a bit expensive...
Can I tell which Kickroms I have just by opening it up?
You don't even HAVE to open it up, just boot Workbench or the Install-disk, and it will report both the Workbench and Kickstart revision. In the latter it will be 40.68 for KS3.1 or 39.106 for KS 3.0
EDIT:
amigakit wrote:
You can tell what Kickstart ROMs you have by looking at the disk animation when you switch on the Amiga. It should say something like Kickstart 3.0
Hehe well I didn't even know that, It's been a long time since I've seen that screen :lol:
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To be honest, I want to upgrade as much as I can without having to make case modifications or move it to a tower.
I want to keep it looking normal. :-)
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Hi Kiniki, (i'm a little late in saying this)
But Welcome to A.O. Once you have an Amiga you never want to go back. Its very addictive :-D
For playing games you won't need to update too much on the 1200 as it was built just for that purpouse a hard drive and eccelorator for starters is all you will need and you will have an awesome machine.
Have fun :-P
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kiniki wrote:
To be honest, I want to upgrade as much as I can without having to make case modifications or move it to a tower.
I want to keep it looking normal. :-)
In that case a 2.5" hard drive is almost a must, and as was said earlier go for the affordable Blizzard 1230 accellerator if you don't need the power offered by a 1260. Apparently AmigaKit has a Blizzard 1230s as well, complete with memory fitted.
If you get an accellerator, make sure it has memory fitted or that you can get a 72-pin EDO SIMM (memory module) for it. Without the extra memory an accellerator is pretty useless.
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Welcome to the Amiga world! Where are you from? There may be an Amiga usergroup, or just some local Amiga users, who can help you out with your Amiga, and lend their expertise in person.
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Agafaster wrote:
As for Lemmings, I played it a lot on the PC but want to play it again on the Amiga.
better isnt it !
I've played loads of versions, the oddest was probably the ZX Spectrum version, and the worst was the Mac version...
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nearly forgot - welcome !
The C64 version was pretty weird also, with the deformed heads :-D
Oh yeah, and a welcome to the topicposter!
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Hi Xeron..
I'm actually not that far from you.
I'm in not so sunny Bristol!
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Quote:
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Agafaster wrote:
Quote:
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As for Lemmings, I played it a lot on the PC but want to play it again on the Amiga.
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better isnt it !
I've played loads of versions, the oddest was probably the ZX Spectrum version, and the worst was the Mac version...
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nearly forgot - welcome !
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The C64 version was pretty weird also, with the deformed heads
Oh yeah, and a welcome to the topicposter!
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The only thing about the amiga Lemmings is that it seems to be sitting up the screen... everything else fills the screen, but the play area on lemmings seems to start a quarter up..
Odd
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I've actually never bought an A1200 without a hard drive so I don't know if the cradle was shipped with non-HD models as well.
unless it had one in there at one time i wouldn't epect the cradle. i believe they were sold seperately for non-hd units.
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Does it go into NTSC mode (about a 7% smaller screen) than PAL
You can test this: hold down both mouse buttons while resetting to go into the Early StartUp Menu - you can toggle between NTSC and PAL by hitting the Space bar. Watch how the screen is affected by the different modes
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amigakit wrote:
Does it go into NTSC mode (about a 1/5th smaller screen)
Ah that could be it!
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Lemmings never did fill the screen on PAL systems... it left the lower 56 lines blank. Same for quite a few games, like Weird Dreams for example.
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xeron wrote:
Lemmings never did fill the screen on PAL systems... it left the lower 56 lines blank. Same for quite a few games, like Weird Dreams for example.
Its not too much of a problem, I guess I am just used to slightly bigger sprites.
It will add to the challenge!
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Hi Kiniki,
Thats cool. If you get stuck at all, you're welcome to bring your Amiga round and i'll help you fix it or upgrade it (PM me to arrange that).
There was an Amiga usergroup, called SWAG, but it sort of died. There are still people on the mailinglist, though:
http://www.swag.org.uk
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/SWAG/
(edit: I actually live in Bristol, I hadn't noticed that my location still said Bath on Amiga.org ;-) )
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Wow... I live in Whitchurch.... seriously not that far away!
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Another quick question... if anyone is still here..
If I get one of the USB cards to put in the amiga, is it something that is external or is it fitted? Could I use a External HD with it?
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Welcome kiniki
Yes, the usb (subway) card for the 1200 fits internally. You will need to mount the usb ports somewhere on the case though. And, yes you can use an external usb disk/stick whatever.
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Note, though, that I don't think you can boot from a USB hard disk (unless you install kickstart modules with Blizzkick, which requires an accelerator card like the Blizzard 1260 or 1230). It also would be quite a lot slower than fitting a hard disk to the internal IDE port.
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afaik the usb is internal the case must be slightly modded to use the jacks externally.
don't have the slightest idea about the external hd tho.
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xeron wrote:
Note, though, that I don't think you can boot from a USB hard disk (unless you install kickstart modules with Blizzkick, which requires an accelerator card like the Blizzard 1260 or 1230). It also would be quite a lot slower than fitting a hard disk to the internal IDE port.
To be fair I am just thinking as a backup for when I get an Internal HD for it.
Plus I will be able to use a usb mouse.
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Note that a USB mouse won't work in most games since they read the mouse port directly.
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xeron wrote:
Note that a USB mouse won't work in most games since they read the mouse port directly.
Fair enough...
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Only games that support the lowlevel.library can be used with a USB mouse (basically modern games)
USB on the Amiga is very useful (USB printers, Flash Drives, USB hard disks and scanners). The Subway USB controller (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=137) is probably the best way to add USB to your machine.
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Kiniki, welcome to the forum :-) You will find all the advice you need here :idea:
I must point out though, an A1200 with an accelerator and hard drive will not work reliably for long if it has the original power supply. If you look at the brick you have, can you see the power rating in Watts on it ? You may be able to use an A500 psu as it is slightly higher rated.
Enjoy your Amiga :-D
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Welcome kiniki!
amigakit wrote:
USB on the Amiga is very useful (USB printers, Flash Drives, USB hard disks and scanners).
Definitely! The Subway is an extremely useful thing - I've got a CompactFlash / SD card reader plus a USB CD drive hooked up to mine. It's only USB 1.1 but it's fast enough for most uses and fits neatly inside the A1200's case. The USB connectors can be threaded through the spare blanking plate at the rear of the Amiga.
- Ali
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Homer wrote:
Kiniki, welcome to the forum :-) You will find all the advice you need here :idea:
I must point out though, an A1200 with an accelerator and hard drive will not work reliably for long if it has the original power supply. If you look at the brick you have, can you see the power rating in Watts on it ? You may be able to use an A500 psu as it is slightly higher rated.
Enjoy your Amiga :-D
Or perform minor surgery on a PC-AT Power Supply, connect the Amiga-lead of it's PSU to it, and you'll have more than enough power ;)
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Yeah, I power my A1200 from an AT power supply. Works great.
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Works like a charm indeed :-D
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LOL @ AMIGAKIT.
hehehehehehe
Thats a very good marketing strategy.
hahahaha :lol:
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Well why not! It's unusual enough to find an Amiga dealer, let alone one who's responsive and active on these forums, so a little bit of advertising doesn't hurt!!!
- Ali
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Hi from the biggest Newbie ever
Are you sure you're the BIGGEST newbie ever?? What weight and height are you? ;-)
And welcome!
Just got my replacement A1200 today!! he he! :lol:
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i'm not sure yet, but if you use WHDload, the USB mice should work (i hope so), because the subway install puts in a loadmodule that patches the input.device.
multibutton scolly wheel mouse fest!
but i imagine most games will only be programed to understand two buttons. :-)
i havn't tested this yet, so we'll see
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@milkrucio
At the end of the day, all of the advice given by Amigakit has been accurate. Whats wrong with giving advice, just because you run an Amiga online store, if the advice you give is actually pretty good? Sure, they added links to their own shop, but its not like they forced anyone to buy their stuff.
Besides, AmigaKit do have a lot of products that make upgrading Amigas easier than ever, like the pre-formatted hard disks that boot straight into an installer, or the network cards that come with an Amiga specific printed manual, drivers and their own networking GUI to make life easier.
(no, I don't work for them, just a happy customer ;-) ).
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darksun9210 wrote:
i'm not sure yet, but if you use WHDload, the USB mice should work (i hope so), because the subway install puts in a loadmodule that patches the input.device.
Hmm... I'd be VERY surprised... WHDLoad games still access the hardware directly.
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Hi kiniki
I see you've made several posts already. I hope you enjoy your stay here.
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redfox
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i never said it was wrong.
i said it was funny. amiga kit is good bloke.