my first Amiga is on the way!

[ruthven]

Hello everyone,

I never owned an Amiga back in the day.  I was like 4 or 5 when the Amiga 1000 came out.  A friend of mine had a couple Amigas and tons of games.  I always wanted one.  I've always had a special interest for "retro computing" beginning with my very first computer, the Texas Instrument TI-99/4a--yeah, this was an extremely outdated machine for the time bracket I'm talking about--like 1991, but my parents were slow to get a PC for the house.  Anyway, it was cool and sparked my general interest in classic "home computers"--the ones that are built into a keyboard all as one piece and connect to a TV.

Eventually I got a Commodore 64.  Recently I found that the SID chip in it was dead so I replaced it with a C128...  and very soon after I got to thinking it was time to add the classic A500 to my collection.  Definitely the summit of home computer technology--a computer that could connect to a TV that was probably better (and definitely cooler) then any "personal computer" of the time.  I mean, VGA-like graphics on mid 80s hardware--got to respect that!  

So I just won my first ever Amiga (an A500) a couple days ago on eBay.  I haven't even gotten it yet and I'm posting here so obviously I'm excited.  I have a few questions as this is a new world to me:

The A500 I ordered is said to have been tested to load up with Workbench 1.2.  My understanding is that beginning with the A500 model, Kickstart was encoded directly in a ROM chip.  Does this mean that I'll need to upgrade the physical chip to load later versions of Workbench?  I heard that the original Amiga 1000 had Kickstart on disk, so I guess I'm wondering if later versions of Kickstart can also be booted from disk?  Also, I need a video adapter as I don't have an Amiga monitor (my Commodore monitor only has composite inputs).  There are some A520 video modulators on eBay right now but they're from England--the guy believes they're PAL but says he's sold a bunch to the US without any complaints... if they are PAL, would they still work with an NTSC A500?--probably a stupid question, my guess is "no".

[ruthven]

Thanks for the welcome and info guys.  And thank you Weirdami for the link to that auction!  It has about 2 hours left from the time I'm writing this and the current price is a great deal--I'll have to wait and see what it will go for...  Anyway, I realize that I'm starting completely bare bones with this system and that I won't be able to do anything with it yet except boot Workbench 1.2--actually, I might not even be able to do that as I don't know if the disk is included and I don't yet even have a mouse!  Despite all this, I don't exactly consider myself "fukced"--I thought the unit I won was a decent deal at $20 considering it was tested working and most I've watched on eBay for the past couple years usually go between $40 and $60 before shipping.  Granted most of these systems went with a fair amount of software, but like Save2600 says, software seems to be pretty cheap on eBay, even in big lots.

And also, like Tenacious has pointed out, I was actually aware of the possibilities of transferring downloaded software from PC to the Amiga.  I didn't mention this initially because I didn't want to "open that piracy can of worms"  But just the idea of this is cool--converting a rom image of a disk to the actual Amiga disk structure so that it can be accessed by the real thing--I'm definitely going to try it! (I'm not advocating piracy--consider it for Science!!)

Anyway, while it's on my mind, I have another question: do I need an Amiga specific mouse or can I use a generic 2 button serial mouse?  I read somewhere that not only will a non-Amiga mouse not work, it might actually harm the system, which seemed a little far fetched to me.  I do have an old Tandy 2 button serial mouse that is probably from about 1985...

[ruthven]

Thanks again guys!  There's an old "tank" style Amiga mouse on eBay now that I'll keep my eye on... that is if I'm not too stupid to miss the bid like I did last night on that deal Weirdami brought to my attention.  It had like a half hour left and I had to go shovel snow out of my driveway thinking I would remember to check back in 20 minutes.  Well, needless to say I checked back just 2 minutes too late, and the whole lot sold for less than 17 bucks!--the video modulator I need, an external floppy drive, some misc connectors, and--get this--an entire a500 computer system with power supply that the guy stated he would not charge additional shipping on because he was adding it to the lot after the fact!  Somebody got a DEAL and it was not me--I'm such an idiot for being aware of this auction and yet still missing it!

So... I'm hanging my head in shame and respectfully bowing off now.  It may be awhile before I check back as I may be stuck without a video connection for awhile.  Incidentally, if anyone has a spare A520 video modulator they wouldn't mind parting with, send me a PM.  Thanks!