A1200 - Desktop or Tower?

[maffoo]

After lurking around these forums for a while I've started to feel a bit nostalgic, and I'm considering getting an Amiga again. I'm planning on getting an A1200 plus '030 accelerator from Amigakit, but I can't decide whether to get a desktop or a D-Box tower.

I plan to use the Amiga mainly for WHDLoad games (I want the accelerator just to make sure the Amiga has enough power to run the games.) For most other things I'll stick to my iMac.

As I see it, a tower would give me freedom to expand by adding hard disks if necessary (can't see it being that much of an issue though.) I might also want to add an IDE CDROM, which would be far neater in a tower case than having it hang out the back of an A1200D! It would also offer better cooling than a desktop case (many years ago I had an A1200 with '030, nd I recall the '030 getting quite warm.)

The big disadvantage is cost. The tower system works out about £100 more than the desktop system. Bearing in mind that I don't plan on using it for much "serious" work, so I'm not likely to want a Mediator or '060/PPC upgrade, is there any reason to go for the tower?

On another note, I'm considering installing a compact flash card instead of a hard disk. I've read that running computers off CF cards isn't a good idea because the cards only have a limited number of write cycles, is this likely to cause a problem? Or is it just modern systems like Windows (with virtual memory etc. that constantly write to the hard disk) that have problems?

Thanks

Matthew

[doctorq]

Go with the A1200D with the accelerator. A 030 can run without problems in a desktop system, even though it get's slightly warm.

As for the CD drive; is it really needed? If you only want to transfer files, you can get a ethernet card and mount your shares, and transfer files that way. Alternatively, you can buy a PCMCIA to CF adaptor, and transfer the files using a 512 MB CF card.

[keropi]

for whload use, get a desktop a1200, + a 4x IDE adapter and put on that a 4+GB 2.5" HDD (forget cf), 3.1 roms, an accelerator with a full 030 (meaning it has a working MMU) and 8+ MB fastmem, a ps2 mouse converter to use an optical mouse, a cd32 pad to have 4 buttons, a pcmcia network adapter to transfer with amiga explorer the files to your a1200, and finally a scandoubler/flickerfixer to use a normal monitor... that would be a killer whdload 1200, anything above would be good but not that crucial...

The only thing you could use a towered system for whdload would be to have a zorroII gfx card, that would make os3.9 usage way faster and more cool with 16bit+ colors... one that has a built-in sd/ff <-> rtg auto-swith , like the picassoII, piccoloSD64...

[Brian]

For your neads a standard desktop A1200 is what you want. It's easy to add an Squirel SCSI interface to the PCMCIA port and have an external little SCSI tower for the hardware not fitting in the A1200 if needed. And if you need a tower later on there's nothing that stops you from uppgrading later if your needs change is there?

For 030 CPU's getting hot, yes they do get hot but not so hot so they can't handle it so extra cooling for those cards are not realy nessesary (ny B1230/50 Rev3 with an older version 030 ran in my A1200 prity much 24/7 for years with the expansion lid on and even on hot summerdays there wasn't any heat issues.

For the CF question I'm recalling someone estimate about 10 years worth of "normal opperation" what the hell that now might be. They do have a limit in writes but it's nothing to worry too much about.

[Wayne]

maffoo,

sometimes I feel nostalgia like u,but I use my pc and winuae and is the best way to play amiga games nowdays( if you have a fast PC  and a descent 3d graphics card)

anyways the best way to play amiga games is using common adf files  on winuae instead whdload installers....cause you play the games like were designed ,even using adf files on winuae you can make save states...yes this is the best reason to use adf files
also the best intros and mods and trainers are available only for common floopys or adf files

btw,
you can't use save states on a real amiga or using whdload on winuae or on a real amiga




bye, Laser

 

[Lando]

I might also want to add an IDE CDROM, which would be far neater in a tower case than having it hang out the back of an A1200D!

If you search through the images here you will find some photos of a mod someone did where he fitted a slimline laptop CD drive inside a desktop A1200.  Just needs some prowess with a dremel and looks very neat.

[Alma96]

Hello,
If you intend not to upgrade your A1200 with a busboard or a 68040+ accelerator, you should stay with the original desktop that has a small footprint and will give you a real Amiga feeling. I have an Apollo card with a 68030 at 40Mhz in my A1200D and I  have never experienced heating problems. As suggested, you should consider upgrading your 1200 with a flickerfixer (internal or external) in order to be able to hook up a standard SVGA monitor and play native display games on it. Otherwise, you would have to bother with an old 15kHz monitor...

[Tomas]

If you want a machine just for whdload, then i am sure you will be just fine with a desktop. You will need to get a better psu for it though. And a CF card work just fine in an Amiga, as AmigaOS dosent write stuff to the HD every other second. A windows pc will constantly write to the disk, which is why CF is not recommended on a pc.

If costs are the reason for not getting a towerized box, then i think you are kinda wrong as i have seen quite a few cheap towerized amigas here in EU on auction sites. I myself bought one for around $90. It came in a RBM case and had a cdrom, 4gig hd and a blizzard 1220/4mB so the specs are not too great, but it works fine with nearly all whdload games and makes great machine for those purposes.
Building your own might be quite a bit more expensive though.

But still, if i could get one in a orginal desktop with similar specs for same price, then i would have gone for that.

[Tomas]

sometimes I feel nostalgia like u,but I use my pc and winuae and is the best way to play amiga games nowdays( if you have a fast PC and a descent 3d graphics card)

I disagree... My experience is that it still aint emulated good enough to play like the real thing. It is hard to emulate it perfectly even on a modern windows pc. The main problem is getting gfx to scroll smothly and the audio will not be in 100% sync due to need for buffering for the audio to play smoothly.

anyways the best way to play amiga games is using common adf files on winuae instead whdload installers....cause you play the games like were designed

I disagree there also.. Most WHDload games play exactly like the floppy versions with two exceptions and that is: No need to swap floppies and way less loading time. Both of those exceptions is a very positive thing in my opinion.

[justthatgood]

Bleh all of you and your elite Amiga 1200's. I would stick with the desktop, since is has that distinct look. Back when I actually had money I tried getting ahold of a NTSC Amiga 1200, but I would always get beat out. I guess that's why I have a Amiga 2000, two Amiga 4000's and parts for a third one when I get around to it.

[maffoo]

Laser wrote:

sometimes I feel nostalgia like u,but I use my pc and winuae and is the best way to play amiga games nowdays( if you have a fast PC  and a descent 3d graphics card)

As good as WinUAE is, I can never get into an Amiga game using it. It just doesn't "feel" right somehow. (Besides, I use an iMac, and it feels so wrong to boot it into Windows!) A real Amiga is definitely better.

Thanks everyone for your advice. I'll probably get an A1200D with accelerator from Amigakit at the end of the month (when I'll hopefully have worked enough overtime to pay for it  :-) ), unless a good deal appears on Ebay in the meantime!

Matthew