Upgrade an A1200

[alx]

At the moment I don't have an actual Amiga (emulation only) and will not have the cash to get an A1 for ages, so I've found a friend who will give away an original A1200 (not expanded).

What would be the best things to upgrade?  I don't want to spend much on it (no towering!)  I'd like to get a more modern OS like 3.5 or even 3.9 onto it - how can I plug a CD-ROM drive into it?  And would I need to upgrade memory?

RTG would also be nice - is there a way to get a cheap card in an A1200?

If I'm thinking over the top, please say - I just want to get an Amiga - any Amiga - for as cheap as possible.  Thanks :-)

[Ami603]

The best approach is to get a second hand ppc accelerator
it has some advantages:
1-.You can easily turn into RTG with Blizzardvision PPC
graphics card without towering.Also be aware of the cooling.
2-.it can be upgraded to up to 128Mb with 2 simm modules on it.
3-.it also have SCSI controller so you can use
(expensive ones) external SCSI CD- CDRW units also without towering.
the internal controller can be used with two IDE devices
you can connect one ide Hardisk and one ATAPI CD-Rom.
Of course Atapi CDROM not fits into the keyboard.
For that you need a special 2,5" to 3,5" 40 pin ide cable.
All of this can be power hungry and sure you need to modify an
PC power supply to fit your needs.
another option may be (towering is a must in this)
a cheap 030 accelerator with 16 or 32 Mb ram and a mediator PCI
busboard
that enables you the possibility to add such an Video card as
Voodoo 3 3000 up to Voodoo 5 55000 pci,Soundblaster 128 card
ethernet card and Video capture card.Towering in this option is
a must and, unless you are willing to do some cutting/modding
Amiga towers are very expensive.Note that with towering
option you also need an Keyboard adaptor.
Not sure about how expensive/cheap are each option,
maybe someone can explain it better.
Hope this helps

[Ami603]

[edit,sorry for the double-post...]
Maybe it`s cheaper and funnier to get one AmigaOne G3 than
upgrading such a machine,even though that when AmigaOne
arrives,second hand of old machines will be cheaper.

[alx]

Thanks for the advice, but looking around at prices, I think I would probably be better holding out with the undexpanded A1200 untill I can afford the A1.  If I can stand the wait, that is :-)

[BADHead]

if you do change you mind get a 030 accelerator with at least 16mb this will give you a  decent
turn of speed and run most apps and will not hurt
your pocket too much as for the ppc there is
very little software out there to justify buying
one you will need a scan doubler and flicker
fixer to use it with a standard monitor and  a
2.5" hard drive if it hasent allready got one
in :-D

[Jose]

One advice I could give you is, keep an eye on second hand market.
I've seen real bargains.
There was once a Blizzard 060/ppc240 going for around 70£!!!!! SCSI was reported to not work, but hey talk about a real bargain! :-o
Don't hold your breath for one of those though, that's the biggest one I've seen ever.
So what BIG bargains have you guys seen?