Greetings and salutations, fellow Amiga owners. I was amazed when I stumbled across this site yesterday to find such a massive community of Amiga devotees - I thought the Amiga was very much a forgotten relic of the pre-Windows era.
Well, I decided to pull my old amiga out of the loft yesterday and fire it up - it was actually growning mould so first I took it apart, put the keyboard keys and chasis through the dishwasher and cleaned the insides and to my great relief it started up straight away. I put Treasure Island Dizzy in the disk drive and made the appropriate "aaahhhh yes! I remember this!" sounds with a nostalgic grin of satisfaction that can only come of being reunited with something you loved when you were younger.
My best friend had an Amiga when I was a kid, and I bought this one off a foolish buddy who wanted some alloy wheels or something equally less worthwhile than an Amiga about 8 or 9 years ago - I used it for about a year and then it found it's way into the loft due to space constraints where it has remained ever since. I don't even know what it is (A500, A600, A1200 etc.) because it doesn't say anywhere on the main unit and I don't have the box.
It has a Quickshot joystick (those were the best ones right?), a mouse and quite the ugliest Philips monitor you've ever seen. It used to have a second disk drive but I think that's vanished into the ether. It also has this metal riser thing that sits on top of the Amiga to hold the monitor. The VGA cable is has a scart connector on the other end so my next point of call is to see if I can connect it to my TV. And of course I have the obligatory three double-width disk boxes filled with an assortment of games, cover disks and utilities variously labled and unsorted.
So then I though, what next? It occurred to me that I have no idea how to use an Amiga any more other than to put a game in the drive and just hope it works. A quick glance around these forums tells me that the majority of this community is rather more up to speed on what you can do with an Amiga than I am. I don't want to use my Amiga as a functioning PC or anything - I have a laptop and an iMac for that - my interest in Amiga is strictly for nostalgic purposes. That said, I would like to supe it up a bit, get some more of the games I loved when I was younger and make it look like less of a museum piece in my Ikea-style living room.
So, questions. I have many but I'll start with the basics. Upgrades...
First off, how do I tell what Amiga I have? If I've got a shoddy old model, should I get a better one?
I know it doesn't have a hard disk because I've opened it. Can I / Should I get a hard disk? What will it do for me if I get one? How big? Can I get an internal one?
Memory upgrades / Other upgrade modules. I think there is some sort of upgrade module alredy in it - the panel on the bottom where you can plug something in has a circuit boad attached of some kind, how can I find out what it is? Can I / Should I get a better one? Is there anything else cool I can buy for it?
Should I be able to run an Amiga through a TV using Scart? How about through a TFT monitor? What's the best screen solution, because I simply have to got rid of my Philips dinosaur monitor and I want something stylish (speaking of which, if anybody wants an old Philips Amiga monitor and can pick it up from London, you're welcome to it).
Can you get any other new-fangled gadgets for an Amiga? How about an optical mouse for example? Is a second disk drive worth having? I seem to remember when I had one before that I never got it working.
What's the deal with Workbench? I've read about there being a version 1.3 and a version 3 - how do I know which one I have, how do I use it and if I have an old version, how do I upgrade?
Please forgive my newbie ignorance, I will pick things up and get to grips with my Amiga again - I just need a little help.
-William
