Switching to Amiga

[Sparky]

SamuraiCrow wrote:
@sparky

If you look closely at my post I said "when and if" it comes out.  ;-)

hehehe .. good choice of words, but I missed them in the first pass at reading  :-D

[Agafaster]

with a bit of care you should be able to surf on that: choose your screen mode carefully (I suggest Super72 if you can bear it, or productivity), better to use 64 colours, and have lots of RAM !

I used to surf with a similar setup on dialup until I got my A1XE - its still dialup, but much more fun !

my old setup:

A1200 with Apollo 1230 lite (25 MHz 030 + FPU) and 8MB of Fast RAM, and a 2.5" HDD. you might be better advised getting a SCSI board for the Blizzard, that should speed things up.

OS3.9 was intended to run on an 020 with 6MB RAM minimum, but was good on my machine - should be good on yours too !

If you want GFX, you can get a PCI busboard* that goes between your blizzard and the Amiga - but you will need a tower to put it in !

go for it, and let us know how you get on !!

(* not sure if these are still made, but Elbox is a good bet)

[amigakit]

Yes the Mediator PCI busboards for the A1200 are still made:

MEDIATOR 1200LT4 PCI BUSBOARD & MMCD (4x slot version)


MEDIATOR 1200SX PCI BUSBOARD & MMCD (6x PCI slot version)

[steve30]

I got my A1200 today!

Unfortunately it has a German keyboard, but that is easily replaced.

The Blizard card has 128MB Fast RAM on it! Now thats a lot. I am currently only able to run Workbench 2.04 as I don't have any later versions, but running it without the blizzard card was nice. After putting the blizzard card in, running WB2 was nice.

Now I just need an HD, CD and network card, and of course OS 3.9

[CHR_ZD]

stick to pc.

[Hyperspeed]

Whilst I agree that the web is a difficult area for the Amiga I would say IBrowse2.3 is still fighting fit and very capable for most things.

A GFX card has always been out of the reach of most desktop Amiga owners and I find this a little daft.

I wonder how many people run their PPC + BVision in the desktop case - I for one would like to try that. I don't like the idea of throwing away the custom A1200 'wedge' for an identity-less OEM case with badly colour-coordinated front panels and fluroescent, glow in the dark fan lights.

:-)

[Oliver]

Hmm, you got a 1200 with OS 2.04?  That's a bit odd, as it shipped with 3.0.  Were you sold 2.04 with the system?  Have you got 3.1 ROMs?

[Aminux]

 
    I still use the Amiga as my first computer,everyday it´s online,always downloading and uploading stuff!
    It is still a very good computer!

[steve30]

No, The A1200 has 3.0 roms.

It didn't come with Workbench. I already had 2.04 from my A500+. I had no choice but to use this as I don't have any other versions.

I'm bidding on some 3.1 roms on ebay.

What resolutions can I get out of the RGB port? I think PAL might be abit too low for web browsing.

[Hyperspeed]

For some strange reason my A1200 could display Super Hi-Res Laced (1280x512) on my SCART TV.

Yes, it was interlaced and flickery but all the pixels were displayed. I can't get this to run on my Scandoubler/FF on a SVGA monitor!

For normal use though I would reccomend NTSC if your TV can take 60Hz vertical refresh. PAL, particularly with games is 17.5% slower and this may be noticed on the web too.

[Tripitaka]

CHR_ZD wrote:
stick to pc.

I think someone might be trolling :evil:

[PPC]

Browsing the Net with the Amiga is indeed bad these days, for everything else (ftp/irc/mail etc)it works fine.

The solution i use for it is to make a remote desktop connection to my PC put it in window mode (640*480*16 so it fits nicely on my 1152*900*16 wb screen) set browser (firefox) to max screen size and there you go firefox on your miggy, well not really :-D ,

this works fine on a blizzard ppc with 68040/25Mhz+603e 204Mhz ppc and 128MB ram.
The speed is good even on full screen, you will need a gfx card though (i have a Bvision ppc gfx card)


For file transfer between PC<=>Amiga i use ftp mount wich let you use every ftp server as a drive mapping and you can stream mpeg/mp3 etc file's on your Amiga trough ftp

I also ran my heavy os3.9 config on a csppc with 060/60Mhz+233 604e ppc+cvision ppc+scsi (and i used every hack&patch known and all together and working suprisingly)
and worked superb fast!
And i never had the intention to sit behind my PC directly since that time :-D

But to get the most out of your Amiga experience these days
something faster then a 030 (040/40 or 060/50 are way faster) or a ppc card+gfx card would most certeinly give you much,much more speed and everyday use for your miggy.
also so scsi will do a LOT together with a file system like SFS or PFS (young 40 GB scsi 3 uw 10k rpm drives are cheap 2nd hand these days, bought mine for 50 euro's 1 year old)

The disadvantage is that you have to tower your miggy....

[Tripitaka]

steve30 wrote:

would like to keep it all in the desktop case.

RU sure? This is very restricting. Revanche make some lovely Amiga cases.  :-D

[Tripitaka]

PPC wrote:
The solution i use for it is to make a remote desktop connection to my PC put it in window mode (640*480*16 so it fits nicely on my 1152*900*16 wb screen) set browser (firefox) to max screen size and there you go firefox on your miggy, well not really :-D ,

He he, I like it. :-D  If only the Siamese system had continued development.  :-(

[Hyperspeed]

The wedge case is sacred!

A PC style case is not elegant or space efficient, it's just full of fresh air!

Damn have I seen some ugly Amiga 1200s in PC cases, even ones designed specifically for the Amiga.

[Tripitaka]

A towered Amiga can look very nice, as I posted earlier check out Revanche.
I like the idea of a tower machine for expansion and a wedge for potability, if you don't mind being a bit brave you can get a lot of stuff in a wedgey, including a PSU, look at a few PC modding sites for diddy little ones and with a bit of hacking it'll fit. Add a wireless PCMCIA card for Ami joy...
..but a tower still gives you more expansion however much you squeeze into a wedge.

Hyperspeed wrote:

Damn have I seen some ugly Amiga 1200s in PC cases, even ones designed specifically for the Amiga.

So true...but I've seen even more ugly PCs. :-)