An idiot writes

[DomN76]

Hello, can you help?

I owned an A500 in the early 90's as a teenager and I want to get back to basics! Bored of low quality ports, I want the real thing again.

Simply put, I want to buy a machine that I can play Sensible Soccer, etc, from floppy, which will:

Display on a modern PAL TV (I'm in the UK)
Display through a data projector, possibly
Not require me to understand anything about hardware or coding...

What do you suggest? The purist in me wants to buy an A500 or A500+, but is there a better option?

Thanks! :-?

[leirbag28]

Yes.there is a better Option

Get an Amiga 1200....its the A500's succesor and it has AGA graphics so you can play the newer 256 color games..it is backwards compatible with the A500.....especially if you use relokick (A program that makes your A1200 think it has the Workbench/Kickstart 1.3 of the A500)

But to go even further, if you got a harddrive from  a laptop and put it in your A1200 and downloaded a Program called WHDLoad..then you can install all your games to Harddrive and never have to use Floppy disk again!! trust me its worth it bigtime.  And you can download thousands of free games from Back2Roots.org

[DomN76]

Cheers Leirbag!

[DomN76]

What about monitors? If I don't want to use my TV, can I connect the Amiga to a modern PC monitor?

Thanks in advance!  :-)

[MarkAshley]

Yes, but not cheaply. There are several options:

1. Scandoubler/Flickerfixer: Connects to the RGB Monitor output of any Amiga and effectively gives you a VGA output to connect directly to a monitor.

2. Get a composite -> VGA adapter and connect to VGA monitor

3. Build the A1200 in to a tower case, add a Mediator PCI bus and use a PCI graphics card. However, this is expensive and won't work with older games. Options 1 and 2 will both work with all of your software.

[InTheSand]

The A1200 can be connected to a modern PC monitor, but the screen modes used by games won't be compatible with it.

Where abouts are you? If you're in Europe somewhere, your best bet is to get a cheap-ish telly with a SCART socket, then get an Amiga to SCART lead. You'll then get a pretty reasonable display quality.

Or you can look out for a second-hand multi-sync monitor, though due to their age, the reliability might be questionable.

Or you can still buy the Microvitec Desk-Scan 1402 brand new, which will display all of the A1200's screen modes (as well as PC display modes up to 800x600).

 - Ali

[Matt_H]

I got a quote from Microvitec on that monitor. It runs in the $800+ area, so that's probably out of the question.

[DomN76]

My idea is to buy an A1200 already in a tower and put it next to my PC, with it plugged in to my sony SDM-HS95P. I don't really want another tv or monitor around the house

So, 3 q's:

1. Is the picture really that bad through a modern PAL TV, using scart or a composite connection?

2. How much is a scan doubler/ flicker fixer thingy?

3. Mark mentions "Get a composite -> VGA adapter and connect to VGA monitor" but I'm guessing I'll get flicker that needs fixing this way?

Thanks for all your time guys!

 :roll:

[InTheSand]

@MattH:
[color=ff0000]OUCH![/color][/b]  :-o

Stuff that! I guess there's now a very small market for such monitors...

Oh well, a telly is probably your cheapest option then! Though I see you've quoted a dollar price, and am guessing you're in the US or Canada - so SCART is out of the question, meaning you'll have to use good ol' composite video if you go the TV route...

 - Ali

[InTheSand]

@DomN76:
1. The picture on a modern PAL TV via an RGB SCART connection is pretty good, and IMHO usually better than an old Commodore 1081 monitor.

Composite video is a different thing entirely - it's OK for games but if you're planning to do anything other than that, e.g. spend any amount of time where you need to read small text and icons such as in Workbench, you really won't want to be using it for any length of time. Composite works by combining the red/green/blue, brightness and h-sync/v-sync components down a single lead, resulting in a picture with a "mushy" appearance...

2. Flicker fixers / scan doublers are stupidly priced - take a look on eBay from time to time as that's the only semi-reliable source. Again, due to age, hardware reliability may be an issue.

3. Composite to VGA converters are OK in their own way (and won't require a separate flicker fixer) but as you're using composite as the source, you'll have the same problems with a poor display for anything other than game use.

 - Ali

[DomN76]

Ali,

You said

3. Composite to VGA converters are OK in their own way (and won't require a separate flicker fixer) but as you're using composite as the source, you'll have the same problems with a poor display for anything other than game use.

So if I understand you correctly

A1200 > Composite to VGA converter > VGA switch > My Monitor

and this will let me use a decent 19" monitor with both the a1200 and my PC

I doubt very much if the wife will let me have a separate TV you see!

I only want to play games, but I'd like them to look as good as possible

[InTheSand]

DomN76 wrote:
So if I understand you correctly

A1200 > Composite to VGA converter > VGA switch > My Monitor

and this will let me use a decent 19" monitor with both the a1200 and my PC

Yep, it should work fine. The picture quality from the VGA converter will be adequate for game use. For more information, you might be interested in this review as it contains some screenshots of some A1200 games through such a converter.

Alternatively, see this thread for discussions on higher quality (and much more expensive) RGB to VGA converters.

 - Ali

[DomN76]

Thanks Ali

That XGA converter looks like it'll do the job nicely :-)

[Legerdemain]

1. Is the picture really that bad through a modern PAL TV, using scart or a composite connection?

Running the AMiGA on a modern PAL TV together with a scart (connected to the RGB-port on the back of the A1200) produces SUPERB quality of the picture. You will not remove the flicker from the interlaced modes, but the picture will still be sharp. In non-interlaced modes it will be perfect.

2. How much is a scan doubler/ flicker fixer thingy?

You will find them priced somehwere between $80 - $150 ...but I would say that the higher range is more probable. Though, you should be aware that you can not find any AMiGA specific scandoubler to use with your A1200 that can handle AGA (256 colours on screen)... while green looks good (all 256 variations), you will have only 16 shades of blue and red to toy around with (or is it green and blue? I can't recall this very minute). This is due to the sd/ff:s being only 16-bit, not 24-bit. So... if you want perfect AGA shown on your VGA monitor an AMiGA specific sd/ff is NOT the way to go.

3. Mark mentions "Get a composite -> VGA adapter and connect to VGA monitor" but I'm guessing I'll get flicker that needs fixing this way?

Composite -> VGA adapter? That way you will loose rather some amount of quality of the picture since you are no longer working with  a pure RGB signal. If one is talking about an RGB -> VGA adapter, on the other hand, you wouldn't lose quality but it wouldn't work well with games (only the ones that supports being promoted into different screenmodes, which is very very few).

[InTheSand]

DomN76 wrote:
Thanks Ali

That XGA converter looks like it'll do the job nicely :-)

No worries! It's as cheap as chips once you convert that $40 to £!

 - Ali