Old dog, new tech - possible?

[Rob]

Hi all,

I am new to the forums, so please excuse me if this question has been answered to death already.

Much of my childhood was spent in front of my Amiga 500 and later the 1200 playing Superstardust, Alien Breed 3D, Cannon Fodder, Chaos Engine, Monkey Island and all the other classics. I would like to relive some of these memories, but don't fancy emulation as I find WinUAE a bit clunky at times. Is there a way I can do this without buying original kit i.e. can the new AmigaOne boards, X5000 etc..., be stuck in a regular ATX tower and be loaded with Amiga OS 4 or something to play games natively? Also can this theoretical setup use TCP/IP and access modern Internet routers via wi-fi etc...?  And do basic USB peripherals work like a wired mouse etc...?  I'm after that native experience but using modern kit for a modern Amiga flavour. Can this be done?

Thanks,

Liam

If it's just the old games then the best option is to get an A1200 and a trapdoor memory/accelerator card.  The cheapest option is the the ACA1221ec.

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=18&products_id=1296

The reason for adding one of these cards is that you can run the old games direct from hard drive using a tool called WHDload which works best if you have some more RAM of the A1200's standard 2MB.

http://whdload.de/

An cheaper alternative would be to use a Gotex USB floppy emulator which won't require extra RAM to make use of but I presume it will only load games at the same speed as floppies while WHDload installed games load really fast.

Many people use a compact flash card as a hard drive using readily available adapters.  Amigakit can supply the cable, adapters and a CF card pre-loaded with workbench 3.1 although it also needs a kickstart 3.1 roms installed in the machine.  Many A1200s still have 3.0 so you may prefer to install Workbench 3.0 on a blank CF yourself if you get an Amiga with that version ROM although 3.1 are available from most dealers.

There's a number of options for transferring files to the Amiga including the PCMCIA network card, CD-ROM drives (these require an IDE 4way splitter), an additional CF adapter (I think it requires a splitter too) or a USB cards such as the Rapid Road.  The ACA1221ec has a dedicated port for the Rapid Road USB which is faster than the standard A1200 clock port.

Regarding OS4.x.

All OS4.x hardware will fit in standard cases and the motherboards from Acube and A-EON have plenty of USB ports and ethernet built in.  You can run the old games but it requires emulation although RunInUAE comes with the OS and allow you to run games simply but double clicking on an ADF file so it is a little more integrated compared to emulation on other platforms.

I recommend that you have a good read Espsilon's X1000 blogs.  Over the last few years he's covered a lot of the features of OS4.x and the software available to run on it.  I should help you determine if it is something you'll enjoy using or if you're better off with an A1200 based system which will be much less expensive to build than something like an X5000.

http://amigax1000.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00%2B10:30&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00%2B10:30&max-results=41

[Rob]

i think wdhload doesnt work with os4, but i may be wrong.

You just need to have RunInUAE (comes with the OS) running.  WHDload games can then be run from OS4 by clicking on the game icon in Workbench while RunInUAE automatically takes care of loading the EUAE and launching the game.
From a user perspective it is almost identical to using it on a native 68k Amiga.  The WHDload installed games can be stored anywhere you like on your HD and don't need to be kept in a dedicated UAE partition or drawer.

[Rob]

Hmm...I quite like the look of AOS4.1 final edition as it looks like a modern take on workbench which can realistically be used in the 21st century for basic tasks - mail, browsing, media playback etc...Is this a fair assessment?

Pretty much but with some limitations.  There's no Flash support although you can watch HTML5 Video so it can be used with Youtube and some other video sites but you'll be limited in terms of resolution you can play video at since there is no support for the video decoding hardware built into modern video cards.
The X1000 can play some 1080p content from disk depending on what format the video was encoded in.

Also can AOS4.1 definitely play any original Amiga game using WHDload?

See my post above.

Can anyone recommend the best cost effective hardware for AOS4.1 and where to buy?

Thanks,

Liam

Either wait for the A1222 to be released or look for second hand hardware.  The Sam460 is probably the best hardware to go for since while some AmigaONE XE and Pegasos 2 systems have faster processor the Sam460 has a PCIe x16 sot so you can use video cards support by A-EON's latest drivers.

[Rob]

Thanks for all the info guys, it's been invaluable.  So a quick update, I purchased Amiga Forever and AOS 4.1 FE and it works brilliantly through AF - I have a spare Microsoft Surface with a nackered screen and keyboard interface so that is being repurposed as an emulated Amiga 4000 whilst I play test (emulation on this seems flawless so far).
 
 Whilst AF seems to run ADFs nicely, I would like to install them into AOS4.1 and am at a loss as to how to do this.  I gather I need to get WHDLoad installed inside of my AOS 4.1 virtual disk somehow and then install the ADFs which thus far appear as uninitialized disks under AOS 4.1.  Any ideas guys?  I have the WHDLoad lha file as it stands.
 
 Also, can AF auto run a system when Windows 10 boots up?  Surprisingly my knackered Surface is proving to be decent emulation hardware with no lag whatsoever.  If I can get Windows to load straight into AOS 4.1 full screen then I could be on to a winner.
 
 Cheers,
 
 Liam.

Did you install RunInUAE when you installed OS4.1?  WHDload is included on the CD and RunInUAE handles the installation.  Don't try and install it directly because it will break RunInUAE's ability to load WHDL installed games.

When you install RunInUAE an icon should be added to your main icon dock .  If not I can tell you how to add it manually.

To run it you simply click on the icon.  Now you can double click on .ADF files and they will be loaded up in EUAE automatically.

Most games disks appear on Workbench as uninitialised, NDOS or whateverdue to copy protection schemes.  Don't worry about mounting ADFs on Workbench because there's no need.  You can find pre-installed WHDload games online.  Try starting with the links section of
Lemon Amiga. I can't guarantee the legality of all the files but nobody seem to be actively enforcing the copyright.

For full documentation for RunInUAE you can refer the ChrisH's online manual.

http://cshandley.co.uk/runinuae/

[Rob]

I have managed to claw my way forwards a bit more with AmigaOS 4.1 FE.  Whenever I mount any Windows directories etc... from the Media tab when configuring the system, the system subsequently fails to boot and stops at an Amiga DOS screen - even putting the CyberStorm PPC into parallel mode does not allow the system to boot.  I did, however, manage to get RuninUAE installed along with WHDLoad from the original AmigaOS 4.1 FE ISO and have downloaded some WHDLoad games for testing to Windows.  The last remaining piece of the puzzle is trying to find a way of getting the games from Windows into AmigaOS 4.1 FE.  Any advice anyone?

You could download the games directly in OS4 but I think that you should be able to mount Windows directory.  Maybe post a grab of the media tab and anything else related to drives might offer some clues as to whether or not something is configured incorrectly.

[Rob]

If you mainly want to use all the classic games from a500 and a1200 days I would steer clear of any OS4 hardware. Its extortionately priced and you'll gain nothing (in fact you'll lose things like performance and compatibility) vs a 10 year old junk PC).
OS4 euae is based on the very, very old version of uae called euae.
The double click an adf icon thing is very, very easy to implement on any other system.

I think the reason why he's experimenting with running O4.1 under emulation is to determine whether the hardware is suitable for his purposes before committing his money.  It's a better strategy than blindly believing that it either will or won't be suitable.

All the options have been explained so if it doesn't fit his needs there is still plenty of other systems to choose from that will.