I am sorry to say I have lost my Amiga mo-jo

[Duce]

I lost interest in the legacy Amiga systems when I realized it would cost me damned near 2x *now* to rebuild my old fave A4000 compared to when I had it in the mid 90's.  The prices are just extortionate and old hardware is not getting any more reliable.  I sunk about 1000e into a PPC A1200 with a BVision only to find out it was a jumbled together crashfest trainwreck.  Damned near unusable really, a pile of wires draped over each other, running a cobbled together OS full of crappy patches and apps pulled from shareware and PD (3.9).  Not a fan of 3.9, heh.

Switched to a Mini ITX socket 775 based PC that boots directly into WB 3.1 and runs faster than my fastest real Amiga ever ran, quiet as a churchmouse.  The size of a kleenex box.

[Duce]

I am very happy with my SAM 440/OS 4 machine, tbh.  I've been coding on it lately (concerting old 68k software to native PPC) and it's a real treat to develop for.

As far as being slow developmentally, there's been 5 update packs in the 4 years I've owned it.  None being revolutionary really, just fixes and evolutionary.  Legacy/emulation got a bit shot in the arm a few updates ago, as the OS now comes with fairly seamless 68k emulation and it comes with ROM's.

Main problem with OS4 machines is the high cost of entry.  MOS is the clear winner when it comes to "bang for your buck" with the NG platforms.

[Duce]

You'd be far happier with the 460, Nostromo.  The price difference isn't terribly great between it and the 440's and the 460 performs far better.

I find my 440ep sufficient for what I personally do on it, but if you were to throw multimedia, rendering or gaming at it you'd find it to be terribly anemic.

[Duce]

I'm not slamming on the guys that prefer "the real McCoy".  There's a lot of charm in the old legacy Amiga systems, that's for sure.  Charm you'll never really get from an emulation machine if what you are after is an old timey, full fledged hands on experience with an original Amiga.

I simply got sick of frittering around with 20 year old hardware, hardware that took up too much space, was too cobbled together.  I found it far easier just to throw a Mini ITX machine together, and I picked up a Corsair K90 mechanical keyboard to give me the old time clicky experience.

Lurch, case I used for my Mini ITX build is neat - sort of reminds me of the Walker case in a vague way:

http://www.antec.com/product.php?id=2102&fid=23

My rig has XP installed but I've got it setup so it boots directly into WB 3.1, never see the Windoze side at all unless you need to.  Emulation isn't for everyone, but even the most dedicated Amiga guys have fun on my little M-ITX rig.  It's dead silent, power efficient and absolutely tiny.