Returning Amiga User. Bunch of questions.

[HardStep]

Hi guys,
have been away from Amiga scene since 1999. Life has been busy and stuff.
Now feeling urge to have an Amiga on my desk again.
Remember good old days, playing Worms 2 days in a row with my friends or watching AGA demos and so on.
Recently bought brand new CD32 from ebay and lot of games and soft and magazines.
Next step is going to find an A1200, preferably new in a box. Where should i look (Pal version)?
Would like to get also 060 accelerator, but 030 will work. Bet 060 is hard to find.
Is it going to make sense using IDE buffer and can i use 10G 2.5" hard disks with it?
What can be max resolution using scandoubler/flickerfixer(with 030)?
Remember seeing an external mp3 player for Amiga, is it possible to make someithing like that on your own? Will it use its own player only or will Amplifier or AmigaAmp support it?
Is there someting like Daemon Tools available for Amiga, to mount adf files?
What are critical/essential software patches and hacks every A1200 with WB3.1 or 3.9 should have?

Long list, heh.
Thanks.

[leirbag28]

@Hardstep

WELCOME BAck!!!

If you live in USA....DO NOT get a PAL 1200...........trust me.

Get an NTSC version.........especially if you find yourself one day wanting to show off stuff to friends on a Big TV or Projector.you want it to be NTSC, otherwise you will get a Black and White image in PAL.

Yes AMPlifier and AmigaAMP support that hardware MP3 decoder.I have one!  its called the MAS Player.

I have a CD32 with an SX32 Pro @50Mhz and 128MB RAM and a 40 Gigabyte Harddrive......so Yes! you can use any Size HD you want. Get OS 3.9 to use them....or upgrade OS3.1 to use a newer file system that supports HD greater than 4gb.


I have tons of MP3's on my CD32, all playing in 18bit Quality sound!

I also can now use MP3's within SCALA MM300 (Amiga's PowerPoint)

Get:
1. WHDLoad  (HD installable games galore!)
2. JST (similar to WHDLoad)
3. SCALA MM300 or MM400 (I dont get why every Amigan doesnt have this???)
4. Slimline DVD RW (you will only have one space for this......so get the best)
5. Brilliance 2.0 and PPaint 7.1 (Best 2D paint packages)
6. Image Studio 2.3 (Free and excellent Image processor)
7. Tools Daemon (Start Menu for Amiga, but on the top)
8. Magic Menu (Makes Tools Daemon look good!)
9. Visual Prefs and Birdie (Makes Workbench look its best)
10. PCMCIA Wireless Card for your A1200 (Wireless internet! with Cable or Braodband internet)
11. AmigAIM ( AOL Instant Messenger for Amiga)
12. AmIRC  (A must for chatting on IRC)
13. JabberWockey (AIM, YIM, MSN, and IRC all in one!)


Using an 030 with 128mb and a 40gig HD will give you excellent results. but get an 060 if you can.

[SamuraiCrow]

HardStep wrote:
Next step is going to find an A1200, preferably new in a box. Where should i look (Pal version)?

EBay is a good start although to get a NEW A1200 will be hard.

Would like to get also 060 accelerator, but 030 will work. Bet 060 is hard to find.

They aren't so hard to find but they are expensive and they don't always work with some of the older games.

Is it going to make sense using IDE buffer and can i use 10G 2.5" hard disks with it?

To use a hard drive bigger than 4 GBytes will need version 3.5 or newer of AmigaOS.  Also, don't make the boot partition bigger than 4 GBytes (1 GByte is more than sufficient to boot from.)

What can be max resolution using scandoubler/flickerfixer (with 030)?

800x600 but it's really slow since it uses up all of the bandwidth on the CHIP memory.

Is there someting like Daemon Tools available for Amiga, to mount adf files?

There is but I can't find the name of it right now...  but you'd really be better off with WHD-Load.

[Fats]

You can have a look at the Vesalia site. They claim to receive new A1200's in May and they also list Viper 1260 accelerator cards. The problem seems to be that sometimes communication with Vesalia is difficult. Not always responding to email and the like.

Staf.

[HardStep]

Checked Vesalia site.
Thanks guys, a lot of help.