My new years resolution. Amiga only for as long as I can

[runequester]

So I am giving myself til January to get this done, as we're a bit cash strapped right now, and there's quite a few trinkets Id need.


When the new year comes around, I want to see how long I can go with my 1200 as my main computer. Not out of religious reverence or anything. Just a fun experiment to do, and to learn as much as possible about my machine.

Might make for an interesting blog or something. We'll see.


The list of stuff to acquire as opportunity and cost permits:

USB interface, mainly for CD rom but itd be nice to have in general. Seems subway is the way to go there.

Wireless PCMCIA internet card. Pretty cheap.

Faster accelerator card. It seems that you can get 030's in the 40/50 mhz range with 16 or 32 megs of ram for not an arm and a leg, through softhut or amigakit.
An 060 would be nice but cost might be prohibitive.

Some sort of printer. Can source an old one so probably wont be too expensive.

I am imagining that a copy of the 3.9 workbench / OS might be a good idea as well.


What are my computing needs?

Web browsing
I've been messing around with ibrowse in UAE and it seems most of my internet needs would be fine as far as that goes. Its mostly message forums really.
Im prepared for it to be pretty slow, and things to look funny. Figure thats part of the experience.

IM
What are the best options for instant messaging ? I am particularly looking for things that are aim and msn compatible. IRC is obviously well covered.

Gaming
Most of my gaming is old amiga games anyways, so no fuss there.

Word processing and other "office" stuff
I rarely need to do work stuff from home, so not too fussed. My main needs here are basic handouts for some of the tabletop gaming I do, maybe some data base stuff. Should be well served by the old amiga apps here.

Creative stuff
Plenty of fun old graphics and music apps here, that I want to do dig into again.

[runequester]

So putting my thoughts together a bit, before starting any sort of blog.

Instant messaging: Looks like MSN and ICQ won't be an issue. Still poking around to see if there's a client for AIM or Yahoo out there.

I imagine gmail chat will be nogo, which is too bad, but I have my phone for that, if all else fails.


For games, there's tons in a multitude of genres, so I should be able to keep entertained there. Particularly want to play through some of the great old adventure games and RPGs again, as well as play some that I never got around to.
A lot of great strategy games which is my preferred genre of games, too.


Booted up Final Writer and spent some time getting used to it. Its pretty slick, though the lack of a high resolution will take some time getting used to.

[runequester]

I think you can do it!

Thanks!

Don't forget streaming audio and Mp3s. MasPlayer or equiv.

Until I can get some more RAM, I imagine MP3s might be rough. Any experience there ?

IIRC, Final Writer and Final Data will promote to higher resolution including RTG.

I assume Final Data is a spreadsheet app ? Is that what you'd recommend ?

Certainly the details of your blog with be an interesting read in terms of Amiga compatibility with modern computing.

Thanks! I imagine over the next week, I'll get it started as an actual blog. FOr now, this thread will do as a place to gather ideas and seek information.

[runequester]

Excuse me, but why bother? Use it as a games machine, there is hardly any development on classic Amiga.
Load it up as a backup computer.

Because it'll be a fun experiment.

[runequester]

as far as emulation, I just wanted to test out the apps first before goign through the trouble of installing on my real 'miggy.

As to why Im doing it? Because it'll be fun. Im not selling my linux PC or getting rid of it or anything. It'll be there for whenever I decide the experiment has gone long enough.

[runequester]

My wife does most of our banking either on her powerbook laptop or my desktop, so I'll be able to cheat there

[runequester]

Sounds like an interesting experiment.

Don't forget to update your amiga.org blog

yeah, going to try and get started on the formal blog tonight.

[runequester]

Really looking forward to the blog on this!

Also, I notice a lot of demo's are using ADPCM for their tracks, which apparently has a lot less processor overhead to play than mp3, but similar sound quality. File sizes are about double. You might want to convert some of your music to this for the experiment.

eg: Lightshaft soundrack (by elude) zips down to 7,890K (16 bit, 230 kbps).

I'll look into that. THank you for the heads up!


Unfortunately, it'll probably be another month or so before I can get the internet set up, and I am sure configuring the TCP/IP stuff will be an adventure in itself

Going to start the process small though as we go along.

[runequester]

I'm performing the same experiment with an AmigaKit A1200 (Escom). If I may suggest, an optical drive is just impractical when used with USB. I installed the internal USB controller and I LOVE it for any thing other than CD-DVD (I simply couldn't find any USB optical drive that would work - plus, most people report that it is just WAY TOO SLOW). So, I'm in the process of installing a SATA laptop cd-dvd drive using a 4 way IDE buffer with a SATA interface. I bought a SATA laptop drive which should work very well. I also bought an accelerator and an Indivision AGA. The Indivision is giving me fits when used with an Escom A1200. Lots of color jitter after it warms up. Now, apparently, I have to completely tear down everything an perform this... http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=41376 before I can get the IDE buffer and CD-DVD installed. I do have the unit operating on the internet with no problem but the browser I'm using has lots of page formatting issues. My goal is pretty much the same as your - use as a practical computer. I did buy Word Perfect some time back which I hope will work as a WP. The easiest way to print it seems is with an IP addressed network printer. There's a good program on Aminet. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to following your blog! Cheers!

Maybe we can share some experiences

Someone else suggested a IDE buffer as well for CD ROM, so maybe that'll be the way to go. Honestly, the CD ROM will be fairly limited use, its more of a nice thing to have.

Obviously if I go with 3.9, it'd be required.

[runequester]

runequester, I use my A1200 online every single day so if you need any advice join one of the Amiga IRC channels and have a look for me. For those websites that IBrowse can't view, there's always iCab under ShapeShifter. I'm going to try getting this all set up nicely today and see if it's a viable option for web browsing on a 030/AGA machine.

hey awesome

I am prepared for things to be pretty slow. My main web needs will be some web forums (this one being one of them) and a few others.
I imagine if images aren't loaded, the text bits shouldn't be too bad.

An indirect benefit of the experiment will be to hopefully cut down the amount of time fapping around on the internet.

Instant Messaging will be more of a "must" for me, but I imagine that wont be too resource intensive.

[runequester]

@runequester
Great idea and I'll read your blog with interest. I have no choice but to use Windoze, my University software only runs on MS bloatware, what a shame.
Anyway, good luck with it and I hope you have a lot of fun.
BTW, is your forum tag a reference to the tabletop RPG "Runequest" by any chance?

Yes, yes it is
Runequest to me was always like the amiga. Far superior to the mainstream but just didn't make it the same way. At least its still being published.

[runequester]

aaand, first blog post is up.
Not a ton of stuff yet but you gotta start somewhere right?

http://www.amiga.org/forums/blog.php?b=213

[runequester]

I'll be following this with interest too - as I'm in the process of doing exactly the same.

I can't see any need for a CDROM though;  once you're networked, what's the point?


Steve
(using A1200 68030 50Mhz 16Mb RAM, NE20000 PCMCIA and AmiTCP as daily machine)

The main need would be for installing 3.9 I guess

[runequester]

That sounds like a great idea. A repository of knowledge for the amiga

In the path to getting set up with every bit of software I need, I installed FinalCalc which looks simple enough to use.

I think I got FBlit set up too, though Im not sure if the difference is all that great. Things are a bit snappier I guess.

[runequester]

I thought about the tower option, but it seems like it'll be far too much trouble and cost for the result.
It'd almost end up cheaper just looking for a 4000 Tower at that rate, and that'd come with an 040 already