I left the Amiga scene over two years ago now and whilst I have tinkered with a copy of Elate I guess this is not real Amiga work.
It seems to me that the Amiga is coming back as a decent computer with good specs, good expansion boards and more than its fair share of interested third parties.
Thing is, that opinion is based on the hype. What I really want to know is given a cool $4000 to spend on computer hardware this year for the home what should I buy?
I see second hand A1200s out there going for about $40 - but what do they run these days? I totalled up the costs for getting them up to scratch and it came to over $900. What is putting me off is the thought that if I buy all that hardware and expansion and stuff the machine will be unexpandable beyond that point and I will have to throw most of it away.
AmigaOne, the board sounds promising but I need a 4000/1200 board to go with it if I am to have a chance of the applications I write being used by the large portion of the Amiga users out there. Also - it was supposed to be available this month or next and the site doesnt seem to explicit at Eyetech - should I wait for that?
A4000 - second hand - these look good - I was also told you could buy them new although god knows where. Why do they look good compared to the 1200? Well much better architecture for one thing. Less tweaking needed. I think.
PC running Linux, well Ive got one. Big deal, Im bored with Linux its become growthware in my eyes - I enjoy parts of it but it doesnt have the appeal in my mind any more. Sure I can run beta versions of AmigaDE but the UAE emulation is a bit shoddy. Well a lot shoddy really and it breaks at the strangest points.
PC running Windows. Got one ( different boot partition ). I keep this partition lying around because I run Forever on it it and the emulation seems to be superior.
This is the extent of my knowledge after quite a few weeks reading up. I am guessing that others interested in rejoining the Amiga community with the new developments will be asking the same questions.
When it comes down to it I just want to buy one box, off the shelf containing most of what I need.
It even would be nice to have a section on Amiga.org headed "BUY" detailing what you can purchase and a list of pros and cons about each one.
