I need some suggestions

[scientist]

Hello everyone,

i am thinking to return back again to the amiga world and the past 6 months i start reading and viewing the internet about Amiga.
I would like to ask your opinion about how to do this and what is the best.
I mean that i have seen in a lot of European Shops selling Amiga 1200 brand new in a very low prices (lets say www.vessalia.de has A1200 magic pack with 810MB Hdd only about 150 Euro). I also check the new Amiga 1 systems but i think they are a bit expensive (a price between 400 and 800 Euro will be the right one for a full system i bielive).

So all of you who already own an Amiga and you know your problems, your thoughts and of course what is going to happend in the future (or at least you can imagine) please advise me what is the correct "path" for me.
Buy an A1200 remember the old times and from time to time start the upgrade to tower and finally to PowerPC processors
or
Buy from the beggining an Amiga 1 system.

Oh if you can please inform me the Amiga 1 system as it is right now can play amiga older games/applications for Workbench until 3.1 lets say or this is going to happend only with AmigaOS 4 ?

Thank you in advance all of you and please try not to confuse me because i am already a lot of confused with all that.  :-)

[Cyberus]

Welcome scientist

Personally, I would not buy a new A1200 from Vesalia for 150 Euros. I would look on ebay, or in newspapers,etc for a used one, which should go for something like 20 pounds (about 30 Euros) or maybe a little more. This would allow you to start playing around with the Amiga again without spending lots of money.

As far as the 'new amiga' goes, well that's a minefield. PERSONALLY, I'd wait and see how the various new Amiga solutions turn out before buying...

 :-?  :-?  :-?

--edit--
Sorry, I didn't see this part:

Buy an A1200 remember the old times and from time to time start the upgrade to tower and finally to PowerPC processors

Well in THAT case, its debatable whether its worth spending lots of money towering an A1200, accelerating etc at this stage... I think I would go for a towerised A1200 with accelerator if I could pick it up cheap, but otherwise its too expensive for an essentially ancient piece of hardware

It might be worth looking at the webpages of the various OS/ hardware solutions, but I'd think hard about which solution, and don't be afraid to wait to another 6 months to see how it all unfolds

www.aros.org
www.morphos.net
www.amiga.com

[alx]

Buy an A1200 remember the old times and from time to time start the upgrade to tower and finally to PowerPC processors or Buy from the beggining an Amiga 1 system.

A1200/PPC advantages:

* The OS is already out
* Fine for hardware hitting games
* You can start cheaply - a base A1200 for retro stuff

A1 advantages:

* Will run newer things faster when OS4 is out
* No wierd I/O bottlenecks
* The "classsic" Amigas are ten years old and starting to fall apart and have custom hard-to-get parts; the A1 should be more reliable
* Will run Linux well
* Comes with PPC/PCI etc out of the box - no major expansion needed

Oh if you can please inform me the Amiga 1 system as it is right now can play amiga older games/applications for Workbench

The A1 currently runs the UAE Amiga emulator, which should be able to run all those.  OS4 will be able to run a lot of older apps, but you will be out of luck for most games - someone will probably port UAE quickly, but it's not quite the same as having native support.

What I'd do first is grab an A1200.  They're cheap, expandable and will let you play older games, as well as getting used to the platform.  If you like OS4 once it's out then you could consider an A1, but there's no point rushing unless you want a Linux box.  I'm following the same route myself (got a slightly expanded A1200 with tons of software monitor etc for £40 (just under 60 Euros).

[scientist]

I am living in Greece.
 Do you know that a used A1200 (without monitor without hdd and nothing else just the A1200) here in Greece costs about 100-150 Euros. I 've already checked that in newspaper and all of them are about the same 100, 120, 160, 130 etc. I think its a lot when you can buy a new one at 150 incl. ROMs 3.1 and a HDD but the used one is ussualy comes with a lot of software and some joysticks maybe.

By the way anyone knows if there still any joysticks availiable for amiga (i mean the old good ones :-) )

[Cyberus]

It might be worth bidding on one on ebay in the UK or Germany or somewhere (these two countries seem to have the most Amiga users in Europe) , that's if it doesn't cost too much to send to Hellas

I have a few joysticks lying around if you're interested...

[Hooligan_DCS]

It could also be worth checking nearest Amiga userclubs sites.. usually they have Buy/Sell sections.

[Desolator]

Or buy Amiga Forever and AmigaOS3.9 so you can try it with speed (like an upgraded amiga) on an x86 and then if you like it, buy the real thing.

In this case, if you don't like it, you haven't thrown away a big pile of money.