Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: yester64 on July 04, 2012, 03:06:19 AM
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Hi, i used to be an Amiga fanatic, but sold my Amiga stuff way back in 95. Now i am at the point, maybe its nostalgia (it mostly is), i want to buy my again an Amiga and do two things. Play games and run a private bbs system on it.
Used to run actually Cnet and AmiX. Well also way back.
Anyway, i was thinking just to buy off an older 1200 which had at least some newer chips than the 500 i had.
What i am mainly puzzled what the value of that machine is and what to expect. These newer amigas used to have newer boards, if i recall it right versus the A500 which was the old style of boarddesign. I soldered on mine.
Also on a different note. I checked two sides and both offer 'new' Amigas. One from Commodore and the other one i forgot already but it was a X1000.
The first look like Linux driven Computers.. mm..
Does anyone have any of them or perhaps the X1000? Haven't checked the forum so i will do that in case there is a review.
Thanks already.
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Hi, i used to be an Amiga fanatic, but sold my Amiga stuff way back in 95. Now i am at the point, maybe its nostalgia (it mostly is), i want to buy my again an Amiga and do two things. Play games and run a private bbs system on it.
Used to run actually Cnet and AmiX. Well also way back.
Anyway, i was thinking just to buy off an older 1200 which had at least some newer chips than the 500 i had.
What i am mainly puzzled what the value of that machine is and what to expect. These newer amigas used to have newer boards, if i recall it right versus the A500 which was the old style of boarddesign. I soldered on mine.
You are on the right track with the A1200 idea. It will run most A500 games (if not directly, through WHDLoad), and offers a smaller collection of games enhanced to take advantage of the upgraded chipset. You'll also have internal IDE by default, and a (16-bit) PCMCIA slot for easy networking and file transfer. With a 68030 accelerator and a scandoubler, you'll be all set for retro games and BBS'ing.
Also on a different note. I checked two sides and both offer 'new' Amigas. One from Commodore and the other one i forgot already but it was a X1000.
The first look like Linux driven Computers.. mm..
Can't really comment here, but essentially these are completely different, incompatible products from what you left behind in '95.
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The 1200 will be far easier to work with:
PCMCIA makes files transfers a snap.
It has IDE interface already.
It already has 2 meg's of chip ram.
It is far easier to find expansions.
It let's you play AGA games.
Incompatibilities with old games can be solved with WHDload.
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Also on a different note. I checked two sides and both offer 'new' Amigas. One from Commodore and the other one i forgot already but it was a X1000.
Don't bother with the new 'Commodore' crap, and don't bother with the X1000, because it's not an Amiga at all and costs more than 1000 dollars (no, really). Get yourself a nice A1200 :)
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"new commodore crap "
:p
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Don't bother with the new 'Commodore' crap,
Agreed...
and don't bother with the X1000, because it's not an Amiga at all and costs more than 1000 dollars (no, really).
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Hmmm - here I cannot agree (supposing that you are referring to the AmigaOne X1000 with "X1000").
If there is something interesting about a piece of hardware then there is something interesting about it - no matter if it is a Commodore Amiga, CUSA Amiga, AT Amiga, Eyetech Amiga, ACube Amiga, A-Eon Amiga, Pegasos, Playstation or what do I know.
In case of CUSA products I have to agree, as I cannot see anything interesting there - others might see this different.
But in case of the A1 X1k I can see a lot of things that I'm interested in. Be it the dual cores, the 64 bit architecture or exploring the possibilities of XENA / XORRO...
Anyhow - I have registered my interest in an AmigaOne X1000 at x1000@leamancomputing.com ...
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Anyway, i was thinking just to buy off an older 1200 which had at least some newer chips than the 500 i had.
What i am mainly puzzled what the value of that machine is and what to expect.
Standard Amiga 1200 costs around 20-40 EUR. I recommend getting it with a harddisk (4GB is enough) and small (2-4MB) memory expansion.
AGA games are relatively rare, though.
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Hi, i used to be an Amiga fanatic, but sold my Amiga stuff way back in 95. Now i am at the point, maybe its nostalgia (it mostly is), i want to buy my again an Amiga and do two things. Play games and run a private bbs system on it.
Used to run actually Cnet and AmiX. Well also way back.
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Welcome back!
I think for the things you listed an A 1200 - preferably with a 68030 accelerator card - is enough.
B.T.W. - with "AmiX" you mean the Amiga Unix - a full port of AT&T Unix System V Release 4 for the Amiga computer family?
Isn't an Amiga 3000 UX required for that?
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A1200 is good choise, debending how much money you are ready to invest. Harddisk and accelerator are almost mandatory.
About next generation amigas, don't bother ask about them here, people here are OS4 haters and some MorphOS hardcore fans. http://amigaworld.net would be better.
Here about OS
http://www.amigaos.net/
Here about hardware
http://www.acube-systems.biz/
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Yes, forget the "Commodore" machines -they're just bog standard PCs with a blue wallpaper and a doubled price tag. They are nothing to do with Commodore from the 1990s, they just bought the name.
An A1200 is good, but beware as they're all getting older and they're expensive to upgrade to a good standard.
A cheap AmigaOS 4 machine is also good - look for second hand SAM440 machines if you want a cheap intro to AmigaOS 4.
You may also want to look at MorphOS, which isn't AmigaOS but is API and mostly binary compatible so is very close. It runs on old PowerMacs so it's not too expensive to get into, but you need to pay for the OS on top.
Neither AmigaOS4 or MorphOS will run original Amiga software that uses the hardware directly. Software which runs under the OS will often be fine, but you can always ask and we can try it on our AmigaOS4/MorphOS machines.
Also beware this site does tend to be rather anti-OS4, so Utri007's advice is pretty good.
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there are other sites that tend to be a little too "ProOS4" either. F.e. Amigaworld is crowded with OS4 fans (I think the majority that is there, at least the visible majority). There are other sites that are more 68k orientated. And whomever you ask has a good advice that you should use his preferred OS/choice and knows exactly why the other choices are wrong even though he obviously has (or never) used the other choices. And the less experiences persons have the stronger are the opinions :-). So do not expect neutral advices (with some exceptions that use several systems).
There are different choices:
68k with old used classic computers and the FPGA Arcade as a new option
PPC based machines with either MorphOS (running on used Macs) or AOS running on new systems (but of course more costly)
Aros being opensource and running on different hardware including X86, ARM, 68k and PPC
Inform yourself on different sites, look in Youtube and then ask questions. And if someone tells you you should use "XYZ" then ask him if he knows the other OSs and when he last used them.
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For what you described the use the 1200 would be a really nice machine.
I would also recommend thinking about a big box amiga, if you want AGA a 4000D might be a better choice if you want it to evolve into more productivity and performance. If you want to keep your options open for video cards and faster processors the 4000 will be a better choice.
If the games you wish to play are all ECS, than you can look into a 2000 or 3000.
If you decide you want an Amiga experience with the best bang for buck ratio and best modern browser etc. Morphos will be the choice. Classic Games that hit hardware will be done via emulation, which is a pain and not the best imho, but rtg games work very well.
I have never used or seen OS4 in action in person so I can't give an opinion on it.
All that being said I still enjoy my Amiga 3000 the most and use it every few days and I still enjoy tinkering with it. The classic Amigas are like classic cars and are really fun to take apart and tweek. My Powerbook with MOS is used as my daily commuter, I use if for productivity and it feels like what Amiga OS should have evolved into.
Enjoy and welcome back...
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Where abouts are you located? You could stop into a local user group to see what the various models have to offer then decide. For games and general tinkering an A1200 with a ram board is a nice setup, add an accelerator if you want a little more speed.
Robert.
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Hi mate!
The A1200 is definitly a very good choice. You should be able to get a really nice "entry" set for about 300€ (~400$ i'd assume), with an A1200 in near-mint condition, a 68030 acceleration board and 4MB extra RAM, as well as some (original) AGA/ECS games and a PCMCIA kit for file transfer. Oh, and a CF-Card + Adapter for the IDE port; 4GB is plenty, tho i've been fooling around with 16GB disks lately ...
If you want to hook the whole thing up to a modern TFT/LED/Monitor instead of a TV or an original Amiga capable monitor, a Indivision Mk2 appears to be *the* thing - i yet have to acquire one of those, tho.
Right now there also is a chance to buy a original packed A1200 Magic Pack (still sealed) as Petro somehow akquired a LOT of those from some forgotten storage or something like this. He takes 150 Euros + 19% VAT + Shipping per piece, which i consider a very fair price for original sealed A1200 magic packs O.o
So, i'd say get started with a magic pack and buy the other stuff and put it in (accelerator, CF-Disk, PCMCIA Disk Transfer kit); Or get one of the complete packs from ebay that usually come with everthing.
When you want to expand, you can always buy a better acceleration card that supports a lot more RAM, an indivision MK2, an IDEFix and a CDROM Drive, ... :)
Good luck,
- G
@Itix:
Working A1200's in good condition with the necessary stuff like mouse, PSU, ... for under 50 €/$? Guess there is a huge price difference between where you live and middle europe :) Granted, you can have a lucky strike on some flea-market sites (or real flea markets) because some people dont know what stuff is worth, tho.
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Right now there also is a chance to buy a original packed A1200 Magic Pack (still sealed) as Petro somehow akquired a LOT of those from some forgotten storage or something like this. He takes 150 Euros + 19% VAT + Shipping per piece, which i consider a very fair price for original sealed A1200 magic packs O.
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Where can I purchase one of these please? Is he shipping these now? Do you have a link? THX!
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Right now there also is a chance to buy a original packed A1200 Magic Pack (still sealed) as Petro somehow akquired a LOT of those from some forgotten storage or something like this. He takes 150 Euros + 19% VAT + Shipping per piece, which i consider a very fair price for original sealed A1200 magic packs O.
QUOTE]
Where can I purchase one of these please? Is he shipping these now? Do you have a link? THX!
Hi mate,
theres a thread in the forum about it... basically you have to use facebook and add Petro as friend to get in queue for them. He is still waiting for them to get shipped to his place, which should happen in about 6 or so weeks, and will then start sending them out. Thats the information i got, i can't guarantuee that its all correct.
- G
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I have to say that I've been entirely pleased with my 1200 since I got it. PCMCIA networking's incredibly cheap and quite simple to set up, built-in support for a hard drive or CF adapter is very convenient, and having a 16MHz 68020 stock is a big improvement over a 7MHz 68000. Accelerators tend to be quite a bit cheaper and easier to get, too, and even a basic one makes a significant further improvement.
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I have to say that I've been entirely pleased with my 1200 since I got it. PCMCIA networking's incredibly cheap and quite simple to set up, built-in support for a hard drive or CF adapter is very convenient, and having a 16MHz 68020 stock is a big improvement over a 7MHz 68000. Accelerators tend to be quite a bit cheaper and easier to get, too, and even a basic one makes a significant further improvement.
Ditto! I have used emulation every which way you can think of on every OS imaginable. It sucks! (Don't even get me stareted with emu on my SAM460! - but haven't spent much time on it either) Just get an A1200! It's the best! I am hoping to get another Magic Pak so bad! I'm at home only one day a week and I keep my A1200 at the shop with no time for Amiga love. Just want another WHDLOAD A1200 for home & Scala is much fun!
Just get an A1200, Accelerator, Scan Doubler, PCMCIA & CF Card and you're in business! Yea, not cheap for all new parts but you can get deals on ebay.
Oh, but FPGA machine might be OK too! :razz:
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If you want to play games and run a BBS, then get a memory expansion (mostly for being able to play games from HD with WHDLoad), a CF card for transferring files and an HD (and perhaps a PCMCIA network card if you don't want to use dial-up).
Did I leave anything out?
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Agreed...
Hmmm - here I cannot agree (supposing that you are referring to the AmigaOne X1000 with "X1000").
If there is something interesting about a piece of hardware then there is something interesting about it - no matter if it is a Commodore Amiga, CUSA Amiga, AT Amiga, Eyetech Amiga, ACube Amiga, A-Eon Amiga, Pegasos, Playstation or what do I know.
In case of CUSA products I have to agree, as I cannot see anything interesting there - others might see this different.
But in case of the A1 X1k I can see a lot of things that I'm interested in. Be it the dual cores, the 64 bit architecture or exploring the possibilities of XENA / XORRO...
Anyhow - I have registered my interest in an AmigaOne X1000 at x1000@leamancomputing.com ...
I think thats the X1000 i had seen. Personally i really hoped that it would be the new Amiga we were all waiting for.
And yes, the Cusa computers looks more or less like standard pc's with the name on. I don't think they run Amiga OS and rather Linux.
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Welcome back!
I think for the things you listed an A 1200 - preferably with a 68030 accelerator card - is enough.
B.T.W. - with "AmiX" you mean the Amiga Unix - a full port of AT&T Unix System V Release 4 for the Amiga computer family?
Isn't an Amiga 3000 UX required for that?
No AmiX was an BBS program. It was really great. At the time i wasn't thinking about Unix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiexpress
I think i wrote the short wrong.
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Hi mate!
The A1200 is definitly a very good choice. You should be able to get a really nice "entry" set for about 300€ (~400$ i'd assume), with an A1200 in near-mint condition, a 68030 acceleration board and 4MB extra RAM, as well as some (original) AGA/ECS games and a PCMCIA kit for file transfer. Oh, and a CF-Card + Adapter for the IDE port; 4GB is plenty, tho i've been fooling around with 16GB disks lately ...
If you want to hook the whole thing up to a modern TFT/LED/Monitor instead of a TV or an original Amiga capable monitor, a Indivision Mk2 appears to be *the* thing - i yet have to acquire one of those, tho.
Right now there also is a chance to buy a original packed A1200 Magic Pack (still sealed) as Petro somehow akquired a LOT of those from some forgotten storage or something like this. He takes 150 Euros + 19% VAT + Shipping per piece, which i consider a very fair price for original sealed A1200 magic packs O.o
So, i'd say get started with a magic pack and buy the other stuff and put it in (accelerator, CF-Disk, PCMCIA Disk Transfer kit); Or get one of the complete packs from ebay that usually come with everthing.
When you want to expand, you can always buy a better acceleration card that supports a lot more RAM, an indivision MK2, an IDEFix and a CDROM Drive, ... :)
Good luck,
- G
@Itix:
Working A1200's in good condition with the necessary stuff like mouse, PSU, ... for under 50 €/$? Guess there is a huge price difference between where you live and middle europe :) Granted, you can have a lucky strike on some flea-market sites (or real flea markets) because some people dont know what stuff is worth, tho.
That was another question that came up. Where to buy. I checked Ebay and it looks pretty empty. I remember there was a store in the UK that sold Amigas. Maybe thats what you meant.
Btw. did the A1200 did not had the flickerfixer build in? I remember on my A500 i had to buy a flixerfixer so i would be able to hook it up to a monitor. What joy that was. :)
I hold the A500 dear, but i think to have a more broad library choice the A1200 should be better. It was the last technological leap from C= after all.
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Another option for trying out a Next-Gen Amiga besides OS4 and MorphOS is AROS. There are 3 great distributions of it, Icaros Desktop, Broadway and AspireOS. Downloads of the distribution are free, and it can be installed on most generic PC's.They can't run old Amiga software directly, but can through emulation via Janus UAE.
I know CommodoreUSA has got a bit of bad press here, but you could also check out the new CommodoreOS. It is a free download from their site. I downloaded and installed it on a spare machine recently, and it actually looks very nice. It is Linux-based, but has a nice Next-Gen Amiga feel. Also, it can run the large library of Linux software.
However, like a lot of the folks here, I still have a soft spot in my heart for the classic machines which I've still managed to hold onto over the years, including my first, the A1000.
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One thing to consider too is a display. The 1200 hooks up to a TV, but if you have NTSC tv you are rather limited as most PAL software won't work properly (or at all).
There's various dell monitors that will work, or you can get scan doublers (internal and external)
In PAL land, it's much easier. Get a scart adapter and away you go.
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I have seen that there will be a release of the MK board from Individual Computers available soon. Its about 120 pounds.
http://www.jschoenfeld.com/news/news130_e.htm
I think i will order that as well with the machine. The only thing i can not find is a processor board. But thats not the important right now.
One other thing i am interested in is how i can hook up the amiga to telnet, like for a bbs system.
And of course, where to get some of the game treasures. Ebay seems not a great source, at least i don't see titles i am looking for.
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So you are from UK? It possible to connect A1200 to LCD-TV through SCART and get good flicker free picture. IF you buy second hand LCD-TV it is possible to get correct aspect ratio very very cheap price. 99,99% for new LCD monitors/tvs are with wrong aspect ratio.
http://www.amigakit.com/ is good start, you can get indivision from there and ofcourse correctly wired scar cable, if you choose use LCD-TV
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For accelerators, I'd post a want thread on AmiBay (http://www.amibay.com) and maybe the Vintage Computer Forum. (http://vintage-computer.com/vcforum/forum.php) On eBay they're almost always twice the price or more that you'd find them from a forum member.
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What ever you do, don't settle for WinUAE. It's spiritually damaging. :)
For the note, I love my 1200's! :)
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For accelerators, I'd post a want thread on AmiBay (http://www.amibay.com) and maybe the Vintage Computer Forum. (http://vintage-computer.com/vcforum/forum.php) On eBay they're almost always twice the price or more that you'd find them from a forum member.
Good tip. I wasn't aware of that.
Sadly, Amigakit has nothing in stock. I wrote them an email. Oh and no, i am from the US. Since i don't connect it to a TV it shouldn't matter what tv norm it has, or does it?
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What ever you do, don't settle for WinUAE. It's spiritually damaging. :)
For the note, I love my 1200's! :)
Well, i think an Emulator can be ok if you don't want to deal with the actual hardware or you can not buy it.
I never liked all these emulators. As a matter of fact, i tried a little while ago to play wasteland on Vice and its ok but i guarantee that it is much more fun to play it on a C64.
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@yester64
What if you didn't know it was emulation? The only complaints I've see about UAE is that people see the equipment it's hosted on and it spoils the illusion of the past. Maybe putting the monitor in a box that looks like an old style tube TV would help. Or perhaps just a smaller monitor that's in the old SD dimensions, to cut down on the jaggies,...
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@yester64
What if you didn't know it was emulation? The only complaints I've see about UAE is that people see the equipment it's hosted on and it spoils the illusion of the past. Maybe putting the monitor in a box that looks like an old style tube TV would help. Or perhaps just a smaller monitor that's in the old SD dimensions, to cut down on the jaggies,...
Of course its nostalgia. On the other hand, original equipment gives you the feel of how it was done.
I bought UAE a long time ago and yes, it does work too. But its just different.
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Thanks to everyone who replied to my question. I have to say its a very vibrant community and i am happy to be part of it.
Now i just have to find a nice a1200 and then i will rock too. :D