Hello,
I am new to Amiga. Well I'm actually contemplating getting into the Amiga hobby. Have had friends years ago that had them. I am old school Apple II user so I'm much more familiar with that line. I was hoping some of you can provide some info regarding what I should be looking for like a common setup.
First off, Welcome
- What model Amiga should I be looking for to play the games and such. I saw on Amigakit they have the 1200 or should I look for a 500. Is the 1200 completely backward compatible?
I would suggest you get an A1200 with an internal HD plus 1 external floppy drive. This then will cover you for virtually all games out there including the WHDLoad software (
http://www.whdload.de). The A1200 is 95%'ish compatibile with the A500 and there are ways around the games that refuse to work on it.
- I contacted Amigakit and they mentioned they have PAL models as I was hoping to hook it up to a tv with composite connection. They said they may have some NTSC models and mentioned most of the games are for PAL. Isn't there a large selection for NTSC models? I remember my friends having pretty large game collections.
If funds are not in limited supply, it doesn't matter if the A1200 is PAL or NTSC as you can have the Indivision VGA board fitted which will allow you to hook the Amiga up to a PC monitor thus negating the issue of PAL/NTSC compatibility plus you get a much better picture.
- Is it relatively easy to get the images and transfer them to the Amiga and then to floppy? With the apple it's pretty easy and requires a serial cable and using software to convert it to floppy. What would be required for Amiga? Is there a specific OS required that would be able to run all or most of the software?
You can download specific games/ultils and place the images onto a PC formatted 720kb floppy disk and then using the Amiga's built-in CrossDOS software, write them back to proper Amiga format OR (if they are WHDLoad compatible) run them from your internal HD. Of course, you can bypass the CrossDOS part entirely if you have a DVD drive attached - simply burn a DVD or a CD with the images on and extract them direct to the Amiga HD. Amiga OS3.0 or 3.1 is sufficient for your gaming needs.
As the system expands over time, you can add extra's to it and even perhaps put your A1200 into a tower case as many have already done.
One BIG recommendation is the addition of an accelerator board with extra RAM on it. This should be one of the first upgrades to consider for the system.
Thank you all for your time.
Thank you
