Have Amiga but no disks

[joska]

Hi,

I recently rescued a nice little Amiga 600 from a dumpster It cleaned up very nicely and I would really like to play some games on it. I used to have an Amiga 500 for a while in the late 80's, but went back to the Atari ST as the 500 without HD was a real pain...

I have been an Atari guy ever since and has forgotten almost everything about the Amiga. I still remember the superior games though.

The 600 is completely original with no HD (but a cradle) and 1Mb RAM. I don't have any disks for it, and I understand that I can't create one on a PC either. It has the 37.299 kickstart so I need to upgrade before I can use a HD.

1. What is the recommended kickstart for games? Is the 37.300 the right one?
2. I want to run games from a CF-card on the IDE-bus. Do I need more RAM?
3. Can I find complete HD-images with Workbench somewhere?

Thanks

[joska]

OK, this was a frustrating experience but I'm (almost) there now. I used WinUAE to set up a CF-card, and got a Kickstart 37.300 ROM to replace the 299-ROM.

1. It was a bit difficult to get hold of WB 2.x. I finally found a set but the install-disk was corrupted. Piratebay then helped me to find images of 2.1, but also with a corrupt install-disk... Due to this I was unable to install Workbench the proper way.
2. I downloaded some freeware (?) HD-formatter from aminet, this tool (which I can't remember the name of) formatted the card in no time and started to install Workbench from the corrupted install-disk...
3. I manually copied the Workbench-floppy to the now-booting CF-card. I must say that Workbench 2 is not a very good desktop...
4. Downloaded tracktool and some games and copied to the CF-card.
5. Connected the CF-card to the Amiga for the first time. It booted and I could write ADF-files to floppy with no further problems

My biggest problem right now is that the mouse sucks. I have to build myself an optical Amiga mouse, and also a SCART cable for my TV. The 600's composite signal is pretty bad.

Next step: Upgrade to 2Mb chip-RAM and test WHDload.

[joska]

You can get adapters to use a PS2 mouse, as a lot of the old amiga mice are in pretty bad condition.

I know, I've made one myself for my Falcon and Firebee However, I prefer to convert a "real" mouse to optical instead of using a boring PS/2 mouse.

[joska]

Another option that may make more sense if gaming is your real goal, is to get one of these: http://torlus.com/floppy/

This would plug into your floppy controller (replacing the floppy itself) and allow you to use SD cards to boot ADFs directly from the SD. No more floppies. No wasted space. No hard drive needed.

Yes, I have considered this. Maybe I'll buy one if I end up using the Amiga.