New amigan

[quenthal]

Hi and welcome!

Getting a real Amiga working from ground up may be quite confusing, if you're doing it for the first time. So it probably ain't any easier on real machine.

A1200 is a good choice, but you can consider A4000 if good deal presents itself. Expanding your Amiga is a whole new adventure, so use play around with Amiga Forever, try out other Amiga emulation packages, like AmiKit (http://amikit.amiga.sk/), AIAB (http://aiab.emuunlim.com/) etc.

[quenthal]

A2000 is quite expandable - it lacks AGA, so native graphics ain't that good as with A1200/A4000 and the expansion slots and bus (Zorro II) is slower than in newer big box machines (Zorro III). You can't get PCI-slots to A2000, with those other machines you mentioned it is possible. To see possible expansions and otherwise nice reading check this website:
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/