Newbie with an A1200

[desiv]

WHDLoad, but of course you can't charge as much for that as a 128M expansion, that's why there won't be any of those.
.

My guess is making a new board nowadays, it might cost more to try to get an 8M chip.
I'm guessing, the design of the board lent itself to the 128M chip being cost effective, and that's why Jens used it.

desiv

[desiv]

It's not available right now. I was looking for something that's more well-established in the community.

Jens' hardware is about as "well established" in the community as you can get.  Although this particular card isn't quite out yet.

As for well thought of accelerators of old, the Blizzards have the best reputation overall...

I had a Microbotics (sp?) MBX1200z 8M RAM card (with a software toggle to go 4 or 8 for PCMCIA compatibility) that was a GREAT RAM card.

desiv

[desiv]

I'm noticing a lot of '030 accelerators out there. Any reason they seem to be more prevalent than '060 based stuff? It seems in 2012 we'd be more likely to use the faster CPU, no?

Cost and time/quantity.
(And some compatibility)

060's are expensive..  Really really really expensive.  ;-)
They are awesome, but.. did I mention that they are expensive?  ;-)

But mostly I think it's time/quantity..
030's were around longer and MANY more of them were made.

Also, the 030 is very compatible.  
You lose a bit of compatibility when you move up..
(Although whdload helps that a lot, too bad is wasn't available when the Amiga was in it's prime)

desiv

[desiv]

It all depends on what you want to spend.
That's a good card.  It will do all you need for WHDLoad and even let you play some of the low end FPS games OK...

But that's a lot of money.

The FPU isn't (in my opinion) a big deal. Unless you ray trace, you won't notice it.
I had an FPU in my 8M RAM card, and I don't remember finding an app that needed it. (They are out there, but not many)

If you're just looking at WHDLoad, I don't know I'd want to spend that much myself.

One thing that could be important, and I haven't heard an answer yet, about the ACA1220 is PCMCIA compatibility.
The Bliz is PCMCIA compatible.
I'm not sure about the 1220.  If not, that could be a hassle...
Not sure about that..

desiv

[desiv]

@stuntmachine - I was looking at the one on e-bay.

I've been extremely happy with my ACA, though it does work more smoothly with 3.1 ROM's.
 

I've also been REALLY happy with my ACA (1230/28).  Great card.  I know some people have had "timing fix" issues with some of their 1200's, but mine didn't need any.
(It's not specific to the ACAs, and related to the inconsistencies of Commodore's quality control, but some 1200's need a "timing fix" (removing a few resistors), and a lot don't.  Just something to be aware of...)

As for 3.1, one of the nice features of the ACAs is that it lets you "softkick" a ROM.  So you can off of a 3.1 ROM.  You do need a copy of the ROM and a line in your startup-sequence.  Also, you need to set a jumper on the ACA to tell it you are running 3.0 originally.

Of course, a actual 3.1 rom in your machine is a bit nicer, but the option for the softkick is nice to have...

desiv