Amiga.org
Amiga.org specific forums => New User Introductions => Topic started by: pubzombie on January 01, 2009, 08:50:28 PM
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hi guys,
just thought i ought to hi to ya'all. i had an Amiga in the 1990s after my C64 bit the dust. It sort of got waylaid and lost during a couple of house moves and life changes. I got back into playing my old games under emulation on my laptop and GP2x last year. However, my girlfriend brought me an A1200 for Christmas and i haven't been able to sleep right since - cant wait to get it playing all my fave old games.
its a stock A1200 so i will be looking to expand/accelerate and put a HDD in it.
It came from Amigakit.co.uk so a called mat - who was very helpful and patient - and got an adf-pcmcia easy transfer kit. any advice or tips etc. on tweaking my new miggy will be appreciated.
HAPPY NEW YEAR DUDES
pub x
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Wait a minit! Your GF BOUGHT you an Amiga??!??
Wow! My wife gives me grief over mine!!:)
Happy New Year, and welcome to Amiga.org!
You'll have lots of fun with it - I have fun with my machines!!
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Welcome back after all this time! Lots of advancements throughout the 90's and beyond for these machines hardware and software wise. This site is a great resource to be sure. Lots of advise and tips to be found here. Good luck w/ playing and tweaking out your system. It can be as rewarding as it is expense wise.
And yes, sounds as if you have a very special GF indeed. You must have known it was coming or at the very least, had planted a seed... lol
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Dear Friend:
I suggest getting amos professional (for amiga). Is really easy to learn, and then you can create your own video games for amiga. You can use deluxe paint and import your drawings into amos, thus being able to make nice games.
Visit the Amos Factory:
http://amos.condor.serverpro3.com/
A website dedicated to amiga/amos programming. I think you can even download a free version of amospro.
Cheers!!!
rednova
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welcome back, here is what you need....
1.blizzard 1230 accelerator with fpu and 16-32mb ram
buy one used from ebay
2.Indivision AGA Flicker Fixer/Scandoubler
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=821
3.use flashcard as hd
http://alan2.rateliff.us/a1200flash/
[edit by admin : Links to pirate sites removed. Please see Terms of Service]
5.transfering files between amiga and pc.
get a null-modem serial cable and amiga forever-plus edtition that include amiga explorer.. read more here http://www.amigaforever.com/ae/
thats all ;-)
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Hello! :-)
Enjoy a HAPPY NEWBIE YEAR!
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mgerics wrote:
Wait a minit! Your GF BOUGHT you an Amiga??!??
Wow! My wife gives me grief over mine!!:)
Happy New Year, and welcome to Amiga.org!
You'll have lots of fun with it - I have fun with my machines!!
Exactly, just where do you find a mate like that? Consider yourself a lucky man on many levels.
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happy new year! and welcome to amiga dot org... :-)
just to re-itterate, what A1260 said should cover pretty much all bases.
accelerator and fast ram, blizzard's can't go wrong :-D
compact flash card with 44pin IDE drive adapter
registered version of WHDLoad
optional items
scandoubler,
big screen TV,
comfy sofa.
let the good times commence! :-)
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Hi Guys and thanx for your replies,
is it best to go for the flash card option over a HDD and what is the difference between 030 - 040-060 accelerator, and which should i get? also should i also be buying more ram separate to the accelerator?
sorry for dumb questions but this is really new to me , i cant believe how much i have forgot since Intel and Microsoft took over the world.
my girlfriend was spying on my ebay searches (in case i was buying gentleman's viewing material probably )and got me an 1200 from amigakit.co.uk.
give it a few weeks sat upstairs in my office and she will learn to spit the word amiga out. :).
i have just sent a payment for whdload, but i am not sure what it does and i have an easy adf-pcmcia transfer kit.apart from that its an 'old' 'new' stock miggy1200
what is a scandoubler?
thanx again for your help and i am sure i will be moaning about ear ache soon enough
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No need for "outsider" (PCMCIA ) memory when you have a good (PCMCIA-friendly) accelerator. Also save the PCMCIA port for useful things, like the transfer kit you have or a network card.
An old, trusty 030 @40Mhz or even 50MHz with 16Mb or more RAM is good enough to run the vast majority of WHDload games. A 040 or 060 accelerator is only needed for serious applications or for the "because I can" factor.
Notice the 040 and 060 are less compatible with games...
BTW: you need the ROM IMAGES from old Amigas to run the WHDLoad games. Easily sorted on torrent/P2P sites or buying the Amiga Forever CD in a legal manner.
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Dear Friend:
I have a beloved amiga 1200. I have an 030 accelerator ( 030/50mhz + fpu 50mhz + ram 18 mb) I believe is agvp jaws 1230 accelerator. Is not as fast as an 040 or 060, but it runs good, it never overheats (which is the case with higher accelerators) and is good enough to run all the software i want to. Is super for games and applications alike. I even use it for raytracing/3d using 'aladdin 4d' and is good enough for me. I only paid us$ 120 for the 1230 accelerator (ebay) and then like u$ 40 for the fpu and u$ 60 for the 16 mb ram stick (from software hut).
Is not as fast as the 040 and 060, but is stable and reliable, cheaper, and good enough for all unless you want to get into 3d animation, in which case you should get a fast pentium.
Cheers !!!
rednova
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First off treat that woman of yours well. Not many a woman would do such a thing. Most would have us dump the Amigas in the trash. So guess what Amiga I left this year? lol!
$150 for 030/50 (I have the Microbitics one)
$8 for 128mb EDO ram (yes this works just fine)
$150 Indivision Flicker Fixer (promotes Amig video to VGA)
$15 Extra A1200 Case
$15 Extra A1200 Keyboard
$25 4 gb SanDisk CFcard and ide-cf adapter
$8 Plastic Vynil Black Die paint (becuase black A1200's are just frigin cool)
$6 PCMCIA to CF card adapter
Got this stuff here and there but have had most of it for a while. For games just Get WHDLOAD via the previously psoted links, get the games too... BUT and register that whload. You can get most Amiga games online as they're classfied abandonware.
The only other thing I want to add is a CD-ROM drive, but there is a way to mount ISO's from a hard drive or CF card.
The Indivision and the Accelerator are required, If you want to go HOG WILD the next purchase would be a subway usb card that attached to the internal cloclport. This will update your Amiga to near fully modern spec. Well kind of. Today EVERYTHING comes in a USB version... So The ability to plug in an external Keyboard and mouse makes it worth the trouble alone. Not to mention all the USB peripherals that cost nothing next to Amiga equivalents.
The only quibble with the subway is the USB 1 speed but whatcha gonna do.
If you're in europe and have access to a scart connector equipped TV or LCD never mind the indivision, unless you're spending hours on productive tasks.
If you do serious Amiga stuff... Heck a $150 Weekend computer show Pentium 4 from 2003 will do you fine. Just install AmigaKIT on that and you'll have the equivalent of a $2000 EBAY fully loaded 060 amiga... LOL!
Treat your woman well man, she's a rare breed.
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Hi PZ.
The issue of what you want equipment you want to put in the 1200, is what you're going to do with it.
If all you're going to do with it is play the occasional game, then a 68030 accelerator with a little RAM is going to suit you to a T.
Whether you want to get a regular laptop harddrive or use a compact flash adaptor, it doesn't really matter. CF's have the advantage of no noise, no heat, and relative speed advantages. 4 gig harddrives are dirt cheap though, so it doesn't hurt your wallet.
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I am currently using an 8 meg ram card on A1200 and other than Doom-alikes I can play every game ever created for an A1200. And DPaint, PPaint, Brilliance, and Scala work really well. An 030 is nice but if you want to save some money a ram card will do just fine.
Read speed on card flash is fast, write speed is slower than hard drive
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You know I used to think that a FPU card with the 8 megs ram was ok. But they go so high in EBAY (espcially if you're in the USA) that it just made more sense to pay more and get the full speed and ram capabilities of an 030/50. Having 60 meg ram disk is cool..
I've owned most every Amiga, to go beyond the 030, it just doesn't make sense unless your a demo coder, pixel artist, and such.
For ImageFX just use AmigaKIT on a PC with all the old Amiga productivity apps installed, is like having a supercomputer.
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Hi Guys, thanks so much for all the posts and replies. I have told the girlfriend all the kind things you said, and she sent me out to tidy the garage :( and take the decorations down and box them up and clean the car, and put the xmass tree in the garage:(
so i dug out my old commodore 64 :)
i wont lie and say i understand everything you told me - but i have registered a copy of WHDLOAD and will soon down load it.
i will also order amiga forever - what is it?
which is easier to install and set up a flash drive or a HDD, because amigakit.co.uk will set-up a HDD for me before they ship it.
thanx guys
ps - is an 030 accelerator a ram expansion also or do i do that sepereatly?
cheers for your time and patients
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Most, in fact I think all, accelerators are also ram expansions though you might need to find a ram SIMM seperately. Ebay is usually pretty good or amigakit. People on here also usually have a few lying around as spares or "just-in-case" :-D
Flash drive and HDDs are the same for setting up as far as I know. If you're not confident on doing it then get the HDD from amigakit and have him set it up for you so you can just get on with enjoying it!
Welcome back!
Andy
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HI again guys, well its back to work :( but at least i have some more money coming in and its snowing:) so i may have to stay at home and play Amiga.
just a quick question. what is the difference between a 12030 and a 68030.
cheers dudes
pz
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I think you're a little confused. 68030 is just the type of Motorola processor Commodore used, which comes in flavors of 68000, 68020 (which came standard in 1200's), 68030, 68040, & 68060.
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Greetings PZ, and congratz on an interesting piece of hardware!
Calling yourself a "Newbie", I`ll treat your Q`s in a n00b-manner. ;)
"i wont lie and say i understand everything you told me - but i have registered a copy of
WHDLOAD and will soon down load it. i will also order amiga forever - what is it?"
First off, WHDLoad is an excellent way of making the A1200
play all those old games without switching off AGA-gfx etc.
It does so by emulation.
Some AGA-shoot`em-ups work better without WHDLoad though.
As you may, or may not, recall, the Amiga came in different
shapes and sizes, culminating in the A1200 and A4000T?
Those came with a tad bit faster CPU`s and better gfx,
making some old games harder to get to play ball.
Now, AmigaForever is a complete package for emulating an
Amiga-environment (Workbench, different hardware, gfx-card)
on a fairly modern pc.
Like the one I`m using right now.
It`s a windows-program package complete with Kickstart-ROM`s etc.
All I use is WinUAE atm.
That`s basically what you need to emulate Amiga.
(Together with Workbench and a copy of your A1200 KS-ROM.)
Beside me is a desktop C=Amiga1200 though, pretty much like
yours.
You could go 2 ways in expanding your A1200 (which I believe was your
initial question). :)
1. You could build it into a tower-model.
Some companies sells ready-made custom models, I`m not well
traversed in that area though.
This would give you access to some modern hardware among other perks.
2. My solution was to expand on the current desktop design.
I added an acceleratorboard (trapdoor under A1200).
It`s a Blizzard with a 030cpu, 68882 maths co-processor,
and most importantly 64Mb RAM.
I upgraded the Kickstart3.0 ROM to 3.1.
I added a larger hard-drive together with an IDE-splitter
to which i could connect an external CD-RW.
I bought AmigaOS3.9.
I then got a *compatible* PCMCIA-networkcard getting www etc.
Some PCMCIA memory cards could be used as fast harddrive solutions
as mentioned somewhere in the thread.
Now there`s hardly more room to expand on without fitting
it into a tower :)
"so i dug out my old commodore 64 :)"
Gee, I wish I still had mine, all my girlfriend do is
use my Amiga for gfx-apps and games.
The best of 2009 to you!
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Thanx Voyager74 and everybody else who has taken the time to welcome me in, and answer my noob quewz :)
I have been working my butt off this week doing as many hours as I can to get some money to spend on my miggy.
I want an 030/50 accelerator with as much ram as i can get. I take it i then don't need to bother with a standard ram expansion as stefcep2 has, even though this would probably suit my needs - i am getting obsessive :) . I am also going to get cables etc to link to my pc. I would also like to get a HDD with IDE splitter for CD-rom. Oh and a network card :) eventually.
However, i am a little confused when it comes to Kickstart ROMs! is my standard A1200 Kickstart 3.0 ROM?
should I upgrade to 3.1 for gaming? what benefits will it bring?
is it a case of flashing the ROM chip like upgrading my mobo bios on my pc, or is it a hardware modification?
Also should i upgrade my OS?
I am having a lot of fun planning all this and its taken me back a few years, its brought back a lot of happy memories.
I also have you guys to thank for that too
so cheers to you
PZ
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Np PZ! :D
If you only went with a RAM-board upgrade, You might regret it later.
Expanding the A1200 as-is, is a bit limited.
You'd be better of with, as u mentioned, 030+FPU board.
Like the BlizzardIV or such.
I believe it takes up to 128Mb, I only use 64Mb though.
Since you have no HDD, you should be presented with a boot-up
screen that tells you which version of the KS_ROM's u have.
And no, there's no flashing option.
You open the casing and pluck out the ROM's by hand, and insert the new ones.
Upgrading your OS is not imperative, but with a CD-/DVD-ROM, a faster Miggy, and internet, getting OS3.9 would treat you with some cool stuff as part of the OS.
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It's sort of confusing.
OS 3.1 can run from the usual 3.0 rom chips that most 1200s came with.
The os was expanded with lots of extras in version OS3.5 and again in OS3.9. Both came on CDs due to the extended improvements and enhansments. Both require newer 3.1 rom chips. All of the improvements (especially OS3.9) can tax a stock 1200.
AmigaKit sells 1200s with the option of newer roms (a few more dollars) or you can buy the chips and install them yourself.
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cheers guys. I am still at work at the moment but will check things out when I get home. still can't get easy adf tranfer kit to pick up my flash card . will have another experiment laters.
Oh and is an FPU card a requiremnt for retro games?
cheers for the advice chaps
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Hi again PZ...
No, a maths-coprocessor is *not* required to play vintage
games, not in any way.
With perhaps the exception for Doom/Hexen/Heretic (?).
An FPU usually is needed for heavier gfx/3D-apps.
Or nice to have when there are specially written versions
of an application that makes use of it.
Basically, some games would plain work if u boot the Amiga,
and hold down both mousebuttons, and disable AGA-gfx etc.
There are programs that allow you to boot up in Kickstart1.3 (Amiga500).
Many games would work with that...
But WHD-load is the safest bet to get any of those old games
to work no matter what.
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Hi
I'm in a very similar situation - I "discovered" my old A1200 at my mother's house at the weekend and I'm keen to get it up and running again. The analogue video (composite / rf) output died years ago, but it would always work on a VGA monitor or with the modulator from an A500.
I'm in no rush to get it all updated in one go, so I've started off by ordering a flickerfixer and 3.1 ROMS from Vesalia. If the flickerfixer sorts out my display problem, then next thing I want to do is to get a CD/DVD hooked up so I can get OS3.9.
My first question is, can anyone recommend an IDE splitter?
Ultimately I'd be looking to add a compact flash adapter as well as the HD and CD/DVD. I want to keep the PCMCIA slot free for ethernet.
I'm currently running an 030/882 accelerator, 8mb fast ram and a whopping 210mb HD, but I may consider getting an 060 in the future.
James
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@James,
greetings dude. I want a flicker fixer also - think amigakit have new stock in,
I never had a HDD back in the day, still dont have one. next purchase before flickfix.
Pz
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@JimmySage
Welcome! As you are in the UK, feel free to visit our UK Amiga store: www.amigakit.co.uk - we stock a wide range of Amiga products from flicker fixers to IDE splitters. We also offer repairs and technical services. Our UK office can be contacted by phone on 029 2000 6344 if you require and advice or help.
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amigakit wrote:
@JimmySage
Welcome! As you are in the UK, feel free to visit our UK Amiga store: www.amigakit.co.uk - we stock a wide range of Amiga products from flicker fixers to IDE splitters. We also offer repairs and technical services. Our UK office can be contacted by phone on 029 2000 6344 if you require and advice or help.
Yes I've seen this site, and I will probably order as much as I can from you. I'm sorry I didn't see you last week, but I will use you from now on.
James