Recommended A500(+) purchases?

[hayashi]

(Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, a topic that's been brought up so many times it doesn't warrant a new thread, or whatever)

Since my A500+ is currently pretty much in stock configuration (with the exception of a trapdoor RAM board), and I've got multiple ideas as to what to spend my next money allowance on, I've decided to ask people that know these kind of things for advice.

My ideas so far:

- A hard drive, if I can get one. Definitely definitely definitely. It'd cut down on the disk swapping, speed everything up nicely, and make playing Beneath a Steel Sky (15 floppies) bearable when I get that.

- Second floppy drive, if I can't find a hard drive, to prevent most of the disk swapping.

- Accelerator, again if I can find one.

- A printer would be nice... I already have an Epson Stylus Color 760 with Centronics output... are there any drivers around for modern printers like these?

- An AmigaOS 3.1 upgrade. I'm told it runs faster than 2.x - is this true?

- As for games/software... Cannon Fodder, Beneath A Steel Sky, some sort of music software, DPaint 5 (any improvement from 3?), and either AMOS, Blitz Basic or E. I want to start programming on the Amiga!

[countzero]

- A hard drive, if I can get one. Definitely definitely definitely. It'd cut down on the disk swapping, speed everything up nicely, and make playing Beneath a Steel Sky (15 floppies) bearable when I get that.

Yes.

- Second floppy drive, if I can't find a hard drive, to prevent most of the disk swapping.

forget about it. concentrate on the HDD.

- Accelerator, again if I can find one.

would be good, but not very necessary.

- An AmigaOS 3.1 upgrade. I'm told it runs faster than 2.x - is this true?

no it isn't.

- As for games/software... Cannon Fodder, Beneath A Steel Sky, some sort of music software, DPaint 5 (any improvement from 3?), and either AMOS, Blitz Basic or E. I want to start programming on the Amiga!

once you get the HDD whdload definitely

[marcfrick2112]

hayashi: If you can find/afford it a hard drive is IMHO a near neccesity for any Amiga. A second floppy can be handy, if for example you have to copy disks regularly, or make disks from .ADF's and/or .DMS's regularly, but this should be very low on your list. I have just one external Amiga floppy drive that 'migrates' to whatever Amiga can use it...  :-D
An acellerator would be nice, e.g. for any serious stuff, but be aware A500 accels. can be quite expensive....
Hmm, OS 3.1 vs. 2.1 Well, from personal experience, both versions ran about the same speed, but I can't even remember what it 'felt' like with less than an '030 @ 50MHz.... Game compatability maybe tricky with 3.1, more reason to get / register WHDLoad when you get that HDD !

DPaint5: Not too easy to find, atm. Second, it's a memory and processor hog. IMO, it can do very smooth animation, has AREXX, and actually displays all the fonts on your system, unlike previous versions... TBH, I still use DPaint IV and/or Personal Paint 7.1 (Given away on a cover CD) for most work...

[tone007]

At the very least, a nice side-expansion port RAM unit can sometimes be picked up cheaply (<$50) and makes doing things like transferring ADFs over to the Amiga with a term program and writing floppies from them possible.  Of course, many hard drive units may come with some additional memory for the system installed, but if you're on a budget a simple RAM expansion can give you some room to work.

The 500+ is also nice because you can add a full 1mb to the trapdoor for 2MB of chipram.  Mine came with a 512kb upgrade which I swapped out for a 1MB unit when I found one cheap enough.

[nishtek]

I'd say if i you can afford:
- gvp or other scsi controller

a must have:
- rom 1.3 and 3.1 installed in a rom switcher
u can get it at: http://www.amigamaniac.com/
rom 1.3 is a must for many games.

floppy drive
- i have one if interested.

personal paint 7.1 cd
- have it also.