old timer returns to the A1200 and is now a NEWBIE

[Voyager74]

Greetings PZ, and congratz on an interesting piece of hardware!
Calling yourself a "Newbie", I`ll treat your Q`s in a n00b-manner.

"i wont lie and say i understand everything you told me - but i have registered a copy of
WHDLOAD and will soon down load it. i will also order amiga forever - what is it?"

First off, WHDLoad is an excellent way of making the A1200
play all those old games without switching off AGA-gfx etc.
It does so by emulation.
Some AGA-shoot`em-ups work better without WHDLoad though.

As you may, or may not, recall, the Amiga came in different
shapes and sizes, culminating in the A1200 and A4000T?
Those came with a tad bit faster CPU`s and better gfx,
making some old games harder to get to play ball.

Now, AmigaForever is a complete package for emulating an
Amiga-environment (Workbench, different hardware, gfx-card)
on a fairly modern pc.
Like the one I`m using right now.
It`s a windows-program package complete with Kickstart-ROM`s etc.

All I use is WinUAE atm.
That`s basically what you need to emulate Amiga.
(Together with Workbench and a copy of your A1200 KS-ROM.)

Beside me is a desktop C=Amiga1200 though, pretty much like
yours.
You could go 2 ways in expanding your A1200 (which I believe was your
initial question).

1. You could build it into a tower-model.
Some companies sells ready-made custom models, I`m not well
traversed in that area though.
This would give you access to some modern hardware among other perks.

2. My solution was to expand on the current desktop design.
I added an acceleratorboard (trapdoor under A1200).
It`s a Blizzard with a 030cpu, 68882 maths co-processor,
and most importantly 64Mb RAM.
I upgraded the Kickstart3.0 ROM to 3.1.
I added a larger hard-drive together with an IDE-splitter
to which i could connect an external CD-RW.
I bought AmigaOS3.9.
I then got a *compatible* PCMCIA-networkcard getting www etc.
Some PCMCIA memory cards could be used as fast harddrive solutions
as mentioned somewhere in the thread.

Now there`s hardly more room to expand on without fitting
it into a tower


"so i dug out my old commodore 64 "
Gee, I wish I still had mine, all my girlfriend do is
use my Amiga for gfx-apps and games.

The best of 2009 to you!

[Voyager74]

Np PZ!

If you only went with a RAM-board upgrade, You might regret it later.
Expanding the A1200 as-is, is a bit limited.
You'd be better of with, as u mentioned, 030+FPU board.
Like the BlizzardIV or such.
I believe it takes up to 128Mb, I only use 64Mb though.

Since you have no HDD, you should be presented with a boot-up
screen that tells you which version of the KS_ROM's u have.
And no, there's no flashing option.
You open the casing and pluck out the ROM's by hand, and insert the new ones.
Upgrading your OS is not imperative, but with a CD-/DVD-ROM, a faster Miggy, and internet, getting OS3.9 would treat you with some cool stuff as part of the OS.

[Voyager74]

Hi again PZ...

No, a maths-coprocessor is *not* required to play vintage
games, not in any way.
With perhaps the exception for Doom/Hexen/Heretic (?).
An FPU usually is needed for heavier gfx/3D-apps.
Or nice to have when there are specially written versions
of an application that makes use of it.

Basically, some games would plain work if u boot the Amiga,
and hold down both mousebuttons, and disable AGA-gfx etc.
There are programs that allow you to boot up in Kickstart1.3 (Amiga500).
Many games would work with that...

But WHD-load is the safest bet to get any of those old games
to work no matter what.