New Amiga User

[Dan]

for mp3 get the Delfina soundcard or a Mas-player, they have hardware mp3-decoding which means almost zero cpuload.
E-mail is possible todo without upgrades.
"totally stock" does that mean an unexpanded A1200? HD?CD?
Then you need do some serious upgrading, atleast a acceleratorcard and a scandoubler(256colours) or a Zorro or PCIbackplane with graphicscard(24bit). Now it´s getting expensive.

What pc do you have? Have you tried WinUAE(cheapest way to get 24bit amiga graphics if pc exists)?
If you want to get rid of windows, why not consider Cloantos
AmigaForever6.0 which boots a minimal linux to run UAE.

[Dan]

Robert17 wrote:
The A1200 I have is totally stock so obviously my first port of call will be a reasonable size hard disk,

Harddisk hmmm...
Hard to find HDs smaller than the 4GB limit these days so OS3.9 is needed.Do you want an just an internal 2,5" hd or an external with cd-rom?
I have an external with cd-rom, I just installed an IDEfix 4-way splitter interface and have the cables going out on the left side of my A1200. I put the 3,5" 2GB hd and a 170MB 2,5" in the kind of removable HD-bays that fits an 3,5" hd in removable holder in a 5,25" pcdrivebay and used that as external hdcase.
Ofcourse I had a bigger replacment PSU for the A1200, it had extra 5,25" and3,5" powerconnetors. If you are going to upgrade you need a bigger PSU

Can I browse the web on the standard AGA graphics on a tv?

AGA isn´t really that great but 640x256 in 256colours
or 640x512 in 16 colours with a screenhack from aminet called MagicTV2 it reduces much of the flicker in interlace mode, Good enough to run DOpus in but not for reading long texts.

I was thinking as a start point to get a Viper 1260@56mhz with 64mb from Vesalia

Cpu power and fastram is always good to have, especially in high res srceenmodes. I have an apollo060-50Mhz 32MB myself.

and I've read somewhere about a device that can go in a parallel port for hardware mp3 decoding?

That would be the Mas-player.
The Delfina is a whole 16-bit soundcard with DSP(which means hardware decoding for mp3) that fits on the internal clockport.

Later on for better graphics wouldn't it be easier for me to get a mediator with a voodoo?
Cheers

Yes put then you would have to tower it.

PS have you tested
http://www.winuae.net/
?
It supports 24-bit graphics, AHI 16bit sound and is probably faster than a 060 if you have a reasonable pc. My pc is 6 times faster than my 060.

I only use my A1200 for games and occasional odd graphics program.