New user, interested in amiga switch :3

[macbunny]

Hey! My name's Dowell, i'm a student at boarding school in England. I've allways been interested in computers, but have never really got into programming as much as I'd want to. I'm currently running on a iBook 700 on 10.3, and I hate it (as much as I love it). It's a prototype model, and after about 3 hours of standard use the GPU fan kicks in, clicking against something and annoying the hell out of everyone nearby.

I first got into computing on my grandfather's Atari ST back in the early 90's (i'm 16 now, and i realise that must sound like blasphamy around here :\ plz forgive!). When my sis broke that I was computerless until 1996 when as a family we got a hideous Compaq P1 266, and I first witnessed quake. After about 2 years that thing fell apart and I got my own 486 pos, which I ran win 98 on to start with, playing doom, and quake (at 1 frame a second). I then remembered there were other systems out there, and a friend introduced me to Linux, I became a opensource cowboy, through this computer and a celeron 488 (which i dual booted to run quake 2/3). Until 2002 when I got my iBook.

After 4 expensive repairs to this machine supposedly made out of bullet proof glass I've had enough. I've been interested in the 'retro' neiche for a long time now (I have a NES, an Atari ST (which never worked, i got it off a skip :\), 2 super nintendo's for some reason, and a sega master system) and now I realise I don't need fancy, shiny, white, sexy *shakes head around* modern computers, and all i want is a machine i can develop for, play quake 1 on, do my homework on, read news and email, do irc, web, do graphics, and telnet to MUCK/MUDS, which is reliable and most importantly has a small neiche fanbase of commited fanatics ^.^.

Soooo, I want an Amiga :3. I considered going back to the ST, but after emulating it for a while I realised that it was nothing in comparison. I was wondering... where to start?

As I said, I'd like a machine with a fast enough GPU/CPU to run Quake, an ethernet card, CD/Floppy drives and something i've lost since my 486, a scanner and printer, and software to do sprite based graphics (i'm starting to do games dev for the Nintendo DS :3) like a photoshop clone or something, a word processor, Quake, a newsreader/mail client, a web browser, an irc client, a telnet client and a simple text editor for coding etc.. (oh and is there Java on the amega?).

How much would this set me back (I may consider selling my iBook if it's too much)? Where would I get it from? And sorry for asking so many questions... I hope I made them specific enough ^.^;;;;.

Thank you very much if you've read this far, I'm going to do some more research now (I wanted to get my queries in first, so I get the information faster :3). And I can't wait to get involved in the community.

-Peaceout-macbunny-Dowell-xx

(EDIT: And I think I am looking for classic amiga kit rather than the AmigaOne stuff, but convince me if you feel like it, I have no clue).

[Noster]

Hi,

welcome at Amiga.org and the Amiga community :-)

So you want to use an Amiga as your main computer? This won't be cheap.
Do you have any experiences with the Amiga (UAE perhaps)?

I use my Amiga as main computer for nearly all the purposes you want to (except that I've never played Doom or Quake). But I'm using this machine since 1992 and have spended money for improvements all the time. If you start by zero, you will have to pay upto 1000,- EUR for a complete, fast, and well equiped Amiga with all software you need. :-(
If you have much luck, you may get a complete machine with graphics card, accelerator card, and a network card for 500,- EUR or less at a garage sell, but if you have to buy the parts via eBay or an Amiga dealer it will be very expensive.

At first you need an Amiga :-) You could get a new (!) A1200 from Vesalia for 99,- EUR, but you should spend some money more so you already get one with harddisk and OS 3.9 preinstalled. Then you could look at Elbox for a tower case and a PCI-bus board and add a PCI network card, a Vodoo graphics card and a fast accelerator card (if you want to play Quake you should look at least for a 68060-processor).
A web browser is part of the AmigaOS 3.9: AWeb. The newest version is free available in the internet. I use YAM as mail client (freeware) and XiPaint 4.0 for graphics (freeware). A telnet client is part of the Genesis TCP/IP stack found in AmigaOS 3.9 and a good text editor is either CygnusEd or GoldEd (no there is no Java available for Amiga :-().
As a word processor you could either try AmigaWriter or look out for Papyrus-office, but this might be slow even on a 68060.

Maybe you should look out for an AmigaOne. This machine will also cost about 1000,- EUR and up, but has an G4/800MHz and the newest AmigaOS release: 4.0. But not every old software runs on this machine and I don't know if Quake is available for it.

Noster

[Coolit]

I think you should try to buy a fully built A1200 tower from eBay as this would be the cheapest route to getting a capable classic Amiga, this will cost around £300 and would get you a good system.

You should be aiming for something like an A1200, 1260 accelerator, 64mb ram, Mediator PCI board, voodoo(3/4/5), network card and maybe a soundcard, CD Drive, FAST ATA, scandoubler(if your lucky).

There are other routes to go, you could build a tower from scratch which although far more expensive lets you pick exactly what you want and if you buy the components from a dealer will come with some form of warranty even if the parts are second hand. If you do this you'll need to ask yourself if buying an A4000 is a better option.

[Tomas]

You could also get the new amigaone with AmigaOS4. OS4 really needs more programmers, as there is not so much native software for OS4 yet.

[alx]

I don't know if Quake is available for it.

Quake 1 and 2 will run on the AmigaOne and souped up classic Amigas.  There isn't a port of Quake 3 or anything more recent yet, though (although with the imminent release of the sources that could change).

[macbunny]

Ekk.. my budget at the moment is more like €176.624 (£120). But this is something I really set my sights on, and that I really want to go for, so I guess I could earn enough to bring my budget to something more €300... but in this recession? Humph. From what I had gathered, Amiga's were built into the keyboard in the old personal computing style, I diddn't realise they were towers. The most important question I need to ask is. If I bought a system costing me between 176 and 300, could I upgrade it later to a system that _would_ run quake etc. I don't know what I expected, but I guess I was just being naieve (I can't even spell it). I still really want to go through with this, but it looks like it's becoming another one of my childish dreams.

What would be perfect is a second hand system with a cd drive, a printer, an ethernet card, some simple graphics software, telnet/mail/irc/news/web, a simple text editor (maybe even an implementation of tex) and a development system (even if i have to learn entrirely new syntax), which I could then upgrade it slowly to catch up to the ideas i had to start with (like, a soundcard/quake like graphics). In all honesty what would that set me back? (I allready have a PC/Mac compatable monitor if that's compatible). > €300?

PS thank you very much for the quick responses and great help! And in response to your question, I have very little past breif emulated experience of the Amiga, however I do adjust well to new software)... Back to research :3.

[Argo]

A Classic setup look like what would fit what you listed. Though it may cost more or as much as a new AmigaOne/OS4.0 system.
If you have access to a PC, you could check out AROS. Also AROS-EXEC for the community website.
It won't do everything you want yet, but it is getting there. I believe they have a hosted Mac version you could try.

[dandelion]

Hello there...nice to hear from you.

Um...these are my thoughts. So, you've got 120 quid. You should be able to track down an a1200 without much in the way of expansion for a portion of that, so 40 quid maybe? It's be a while but anyway. So - you've got yourself the miggy. Now, you can start having fun with it and upgrade as you go. This is what I recommend as you can a) have fun straight away, b) learn from a simple system, less to understand straight away, less to go wrong and get frustrated with and c) you can buy when you can afford and bargains come along and you know exactly what it is you need! Simple.

Ok...so, buy a 1200, off EBay or Amibench, which is very UK centric and cheaper than EBay. Now, play a few games, all good fun in a retro kind of way.

Now you need a HD. Why not pick up a 2.5" HD for it, twenty quid should sort you out, don't go over 4.3 gig, becomes problematic. We'll help you out with the installation on here, no probs.

Then you'll need memory, an accelerator, ethernet is cheap these days with PCMCIA...whack it all in a tower, bigger accelerator, more memory, 3.5" CD-ROM, Mediator, Voodoo, Soundcard. MMmmmmmmm. Such fun!!!

But yeah, I suppose my message is buy a cheap bog standard a1200 and learn how you go, upgrade when you can afford to, ask lots of questions, have lots of fun.

[SamuraiCrow]

Adding to what Dandelion said:

Your PC monitor won't help you unless you want to get an expensive scandoubler.  Running all of the classic games will likely run better on a PAL TV set.

You'll be able to upgrade your 1200 to run AmigaOS 4 with a PowerPC accelerator card so don't worry too much about the AmigaOne.  I have a MicroA1C with some problems hence I never use mine.  The only disadvantages to the A1200 accelerator is speed and cost.  There are additional PowerPC accelerator cards in the works, however, so cost should not be a problem.  As long as the A1200 lasts you'll be in good shape.

I have an A1200 with a Blizzard 1230 accelerator and 8 megs of RAM.  It runs most of the old Amiga software and what doesn't run on it I can run on my MicroA1C or emulate on the PC/Mac/MicroA1C using WinUAE on the PC or EUAE on the other systems respectively.

If you want a portable Amiga you're out of luck unless you buy AmigaForever and install EUAE on your PowerBook.  It won't run native PowerPC applications but the rest will be fine.

Park your browser here or AmigaWorld.net and we'll fix you up just fine.  (AmigaWorld.net is more AmigaOne oriented so you'll probably be better off here for the emulation and Classic Amiga questions.)

[macbunny]

Awesome, this is more what I expected. Thanks everyone you've all been real a real help. Lolz, here's the message my ICT teacher / mentor gave me after I said I'd be dropping from mac.

Mr Conning

how very dare you send such a message?

I assume it was a very ill conceived joke. Well it's not funny!

"I'm dropping out of the Mac/Apple scene"

I've never heard such nonsense, how very, very dare you. You'll try some other gizmo, then come to realise that it's the OS that sits on the tin that counts. Only in Apple's case, they do make very, very attractive tin.

Lolz, I'll definitivly stick arround here, you guys have been great and thanks for the warm welcome too :3.

Peaceout-macbunny-Dowell

(PS. Is a PAL TV suitable for programming/development?)

[leofoe]

macbunny wrote:
(PS. Is a PAL TV suitable for programming/development?)

I believe with a VGA-monitor, using with one of the AGA modes (like Productivity), you'll get a sharper display. And you can pick up those monitors form the side of the street these days. :-P

[_ThEcRoW]

@noster "no there is no Java available for Amiga "

And, what is Jamiga for???.

[macbunny]

Jamiga? So there is java support?

[x56h34]

@macbunny:

I'd just like to clarify that whether you go for the high-end classic or next generation Amiga hardware, you should definitely make a realistic decision and not expect anything more than an overall fun hobby experience. There's simply too much stuff missing as far as software side goes, which makes both classic and next gen Amiga and Amiga-like OSes pale in comparison to today's standards.

[Noster]

Hi,

@_ThEcRoW
> And, what is Jamiga for???

Sorry, I havn't heart of it until now, but version 0.0.5 isn't very far...

Noster