Which Amiga?

[flashman]

 :crazy: G'day, I've just joined! I was using a great PC emulator on my Mac when I remembered that I had a heap of Amiga stuff in my tardis! And I remembered how buzzy the games were and ra, ra, ra. So I'm looking for an Amiga to get going again. Can someone advise me, please? Should I try to get an A500, A1200, A2000 or what? Here in New Zealand, I think I can get just about any. I figure one with a hard drive with the ability to hook up to a regular TV for a screen, and of course the bigger and faster the better. So what is the best Amiga? Can anyone advise, please? Many thanks, God bless, Flashman

[bloodline]

An A1200 I guess.

Don't forget to checkout UAE.

[Daedalus]

For a casual hobby-type computer, I reckon the ultra-hackable A1200 is the business. Buy it cheap as you like, and start building onto it... It'll be expensive to add some stuff, and sometimes tricky to get working and reliable, but that's all part of the fun. If that doesn't sound like your cuppa tea, maybe an A3000 or A4000, which are also quite expandable, but for the more serious user/budget. It all depends on what you want use it for I suppose...

[Nestor]

Back in my Tardis I keep an A4000.   68040 25MGHZ :-D

[flashman]

Thanks for the info. Can you tell me if all Amiga and the older Commodore stuff will run on the 1200,please? Thanks,Ian

[flashman]

Thanks for the info. Can you tell me if all Amiga and the older Commodore stuff will run on the A4000,please? Thanks,Ian

[Brian]

It's not so much the amiga model as it is what Kickstart, CPU and Graphicchip it have. I reccon you look for compability for gaming and then it's no problem... both A1200 and A4000 although they have Kickstart3.x can be downgraded to 1.3 with software and degraders usually fix problems with graphic chips also. the Graphic chip you want is ofcause AGA as there's plenty of games only running on that and A1200 and A4000 is the only machines with this. Then there's the CPU... for the A1200 it's no problem... it comes with 020 and can be uppgrade to 030 for best speed for compability wise. For the A4000, though it does have it's 030 CPU cards, is probably not gonna cut it without at least a 040 or better CPU but that is quite bad on the compability front and you might wanna aim higher at a 060 CPU that's more compatible and realy speedy. The A4000 doesn't have a RF mod built in either so you can't hook it up to the TV as easily as the A1200.

My suggestion is: A1200, 030 CPU, 8MB Fastram (or more) and a 4GB HD for it. That'll be pleanty enough if it's hobby/gaming you're after... and it'll be nice to your wallet.

[Doppie1200]

I agree! An A1200 is the business!

I have two of them. One is hacked nicely with a scandoubler/FF for use with a PC SVGA monitor.

The other I'm upgrading for use as a simple gaming machine to connect to my TV. I'm currently in the process of getting my hands on a nice 4MB fastram expantion for the trapdoor. No CPU upgrade just plain fastram. Costs total... For the A1200 I payed 30 euro (it is badly yellowed) the 4MB fastram 10 euro. The 350MB harddisk was for free at work :-) but I'm looking for a 4Gig one.
And I had to solder a SCART cable to connect the lot to my TV.

All in all you can have a simple game A1200 for around 50 euro.:-D

I don't think any other amiga model will be able to beat this. The availability of A1200 expantions is just too good  :-)  

[Daedalus]

flashman wrote:
Thanks for the info. Can you tell me if all Amiga and the older Commodore stuff will run on the 1200,please? Thanks,Ian

Older Commodore Stuff? As in pre-Amiga? Very little C64 and similar hardware can be made to work with any Amiga, and all pre-amiga software will need an emulator to run. There are some pretty good emulators though, MagiC64 and Frodo spring to mind...