Essential software?

[Holley]

A near stock '040 isn't going to blow your socks off, and to get on the internet you're really looking at getting a modem and the netconnect 2 or 3 software bundle.

There's other ways, but they involve spending cash, and it ends up being a money pit.  You can use a serial cable to move stuff to / from PCs, due to the file sizes involved it's not a horribly long winded thing to do.

So what do you want to get out of your Amiga? Games, internet, programming?

[Holley]

For graphics I use ArtEffect4, web browsing AWeb 3.5 beta through Genesis (comes in OS 3.9), games with WHDLoad (bung old floppy games on the harddisk), MakeCD to record CDs and Amiga Writer of writing.  Thats about all I do really, on an A3000 with A3640, 16Mb of fast mem, Cybervision graphics card, XSurf network card.

I've built a fake Amiga using a PC that boots straight into UAE, and to be honest I use it more now.