Best Amiga to "Modernize"?

[Zac67]

Best Amiga to start with?

Very easy: A4000T
- AGA
- Zorro III expandability
- large number of slots

Add a PCI busboard, Voodoo3 & an '060 and you're pretty set. Come on, no penny-pinching here...  :crazy:

[TheGoose]

I didn't think there would be a day where the answer to:

"I guess, if you had it all to do over, what would be the best starting point? What has the most "Available" upgrades?"

Would be A1200. Today, you have more 'new-ish' upgrades for the A1200 than just about any big box Amiga. You'll still have some difficulty finding an accelerator, but better chances than working with your A2000.

AGA may be important if you want to play old games like you say. There really are not that many RTG games anyways.

[cv643d]

Forget A2000, slow graphics (Z2). 060 is going to be very expensive, and then you are stuck with slow Zorro2 graphics.

I say go for A1200, it is trusted, reliable and well known hardware. You can do almost anything with it, basic 020 machine to the extreme PPC 256 MB, Z3/PCI slots, Bvision. Your budget decides how extreme you can go with the A1200 but there is really no limit in Amiga hardware terms.

[x56h34]

When expanding an A1200 or an A3000/A4000 to the max, here are the major bottlenecks/differences:

- BlizzardPPC (the most powerful A1200 accelerator) uses 32-bit memory addressing, can address up to 256MB of ram
- CyberstormPPC and MKIII (the most powerful A3000/A4000 accelerators) use 64-bit memory addressing, can address up to 128MB of ram
- BlizzardPPC uses 8-bit Fast-SCSI-II protocol (theoretical 10MB per sec speed)
- CyberstormPPC and MKIII use 16-bit Ultra-Wide-SCSI3 protocol (theoretical 40MB per sec speed)
- Mediator 1200 (all flavors) is hurt by the 8MB Zorro II memory space limitation which cripples Warp3D memory usage to about 4MB of video ram (very sucky when playing 3D games)
- Mediator 3000/4000 does not have any immediate memory addressing limitations
- Grex1200 while a good product is tricky to get working with a BlizzardPPC due to requirement of a rare rev. 2 BlizzardPPC board, does not suffer from any ZII addressing limits as it communicates with the Blizzard PPC expansion bus directly, is not as solid as the Grex4000D version
- Grex4000D is rare, expensive, however when matched with a CyberstormPPC or a MKIII card makes your A4000D an ultimate classic amiga, in my opinion.

[Nostalgiac]

my A2000 + exp (see sig.) is all I need.

But face it.... an A1200 seems to be the system for which not only the most past expansions are available, but it's also the system people like Jens are still developing for (the new flickerfixer)

Tom UK

[BuzzBrain]

Hi :-)


If you are after best speed and durability go for A4000.
but it will cost money.
You can go for a light upgrade.
Upgrade it with a 040, mem, netcard and RTG card. And you will have a good usable system.
If you choose to go all the way you will have the fastest classic Amiga today.

A A1200 is fast enough but are often not that stable system as the A4000.
You have too add more bit's and pice's into tight place. If you go for ppc and stuff you often have to convert to tower due too heat and space problem.
And for RTG gfx system you need a zorro or pci busboard upgrade.
And in total this will often be more expensive then upgrade a a4000.

But if you not need AGA. just go for the A2000 you have today.

a RTG card like picasso II is not that expensive. and you get easy a 030/040 prossesor board. Same with ethernet card.

But due to Zorro II bus you will have a slow system.
But is not that slow.

I have a A2000 today with 060 and RTG card and stuff, no problem to use internet, irc, ftp, and other apps.


Buzz
 

[Terse]

I defense of the 2000, it has a lot more internal slots/room for expansion, so you can fit it with a 486sx bridgeboard and 16-bit ISA video card and lan and sound card, which gives you two retro computers that are still capable of going online.  3 if you add Mac compatiabiity and and a classic Mac browser.

[arnljot]

I have to agree with the a1200 promoters. It has more upgrades available.
 
Also whdload is good advice.
 
For net and etc a 040 is okay, but 060 is of corse better. Ppc is cool, but not paramount. That is unless you want mp3 and video decoding too.
 
Memory is though. 4 to 8 for whd is enough. For a fully loaded 3.9 for surfing, i would at least go with 32. A lot of Amiga purist will dissagree, and some expansionists will say that 128 is minimum. These are my personal experiences.
 
So think about how much memory and cpu you need. And then see which box is cheaper to expand. If aga games are important to you, go for  expanding the a1200. The nos 2000 is a gem which you should guard well:)
 
Also when you decide what to go for, ask for parts at amibay, it has served me well. Ppc can be very expensive on ebay, but prices are predictable at the amibay.