Looking for advice going back to Amiga.

[drewz21]

Hello all.  I've been reading the boards for a while here but just registered as I'm ready to take the plunge back to the Amiga.  I've also subscribed to Total Amiga on the AmigaKit website.

I've got about $500-$700US to spend getting back into Amiga computing and I have several questions I would like help with.  I've looked at Softhut and AmigaKit websites as well as on Ebay.

What would you buy coming back in today with the budget listed above?  A new 1200 or a new 1200 tower system?  A used 1200?  Is there any benefit to getting a 4000?  Will I be ok without an accelerator right now?  Which accelerator should I get?  680xx or a PPC and which brand?  Can I use some/most/any of my old Amiga software that I've had for years in storage, along with an A500 and an A2000, on the new systems?

And any other advice/suggestions you can give.

Thank you for your time and information.

[TjLaZer]

With that budget I would get a new A1200, they are around $200 shipped.  I would go the Amikit route unless you want to butt heads with stubborn germans at Vesalia.  lol (They canceled my order because I asked a question on here about them!  And I was being nice too!)

Then get a nice Commodore RGB monitor and you will be set!  You can easily expand the A1200 with a large HD, get a cheap accelerator card, and do all kinds of things like play vintage games or even go online!

In my A1200 I have:

Apollo 1240 68040 @ 33MHz card with 32MB Fast
IBM Travelstar 8GB Notebook HD
PCMCIA Network card
AmigaOS 3.9 Boing Bag 2

[amigagr]

TjLaZer wrote:
I would go the Amikit route unless you want to but heads with stubborn germans at Vesalia.  lol

lol! i agree with you, i had a similar conflict recently with them:) i order about 500 euro of stuff for both my amigas last night from amigakit  :-)

@drewz21: welcome home pal and welcome to amiga.org too:)
most of your softwear will work ok in one way or another in all of the amigas except those that need special hardwear that you will not have. as for the amiga it's as in pc world. the best and the faster. both 1200 in tower with pci/zorro slots or 4000 it's quite the same i think and the best choise. phase5 accelarators blizzard/cyberstorm is the best at my opinion if you can find any. from the other hand, i bought a second hand 3000 recently and love her too and i spend money to upgrate her. all this situation is a matter of luck, personal choise and budgged of course. good luck  :-)

[SCabit]

Hi,

  I was in PC land for about 5 years and then heard about
the AmigaOne and OS4. I bought a uA1-c in December 2004 and
its been the most awesome computer ever! I can run a large
number of old Amiga software (mostly apps) natively under
OS4, and of course just about everything works under OS4
UAE.
  Unfortunately, AmigaOnes are not yet avaiable although
they soon shold be at a price within your budget. Check here:

http://www.troikang.com/index.html

  And take a look at OS4 here.

http://os4.hyperion-entertainment.biz

  Just my two cents worth!

Scott

[steve30]

I'm also switching to amiga so I might be able to help you here.

The Escom A1200s (the ones that you can get new) do have some motherboard fixes, but the disk drives aren't very good (i think they're pc ones), but it would be possible to get a proper amiga one from somewhere.

As you have a lot of money to spens, I suggest you get the Escom one, and a 68060 or a PPC, and put it in a tower. Most software was for the 68k so a '060 might be better, but a PPC will be the only option if you want to use OS4.

The '030 is also a nice processor. It runs cool enough to be usable in the desktop case (I think the '060 is cool enough as well), but the '040 (which isn't very compatible with most sofware) and the PPC will need a tower.

There is plenty of room for expansion in a desktop, viathe Expansion slot (underneath), clockport (inside), PCMCIA (on the side), IDE (inside). You can also add PCI cards using an adaptor if you have a tower.

As I have very little money to spens, I bought a used commodore A1200 and a Blizzard 1230 MKIV 50MHz with 128MB Fast RAM. It runs really nicely, even from floppy. I expect it will be nice with OS 3.9 and an HD.

Another advantage of the Esom ones is that you will have Kickstart 3.1. This means you won't have to upgrade the 3.0 roms in the commodore A1200.

I have used AmigaOS 3.9 in Amithlon and it is very nice, so you will have to get a copy. Luckely it is about £40 - a third of the cost of windows.

Hope that was useful.

[amigagr]

SCabit wrote:
Unfortunately, AmigaOnes are not yet avaiable although
they soon shold be at a price within your budget. Check here:

http://www.troikang.com/index.html

  And take a look at OS4 here.

http://os4.hyperion-entertainment.biz

  Just my two cents worth!

Scott

in my country there is a saying: i was young and now i'm old...
all these years i've tired to wait all the promisses to become true, until now i didn't see quite anything, but i did not abandon the amiga and in every chance i upgrade fearther. if the os4-a1 come at full speed i'll bye one for sure but that's not stop me from use the amiga in the present situation/state

[drewz21]

Thanks for all the info.  Can you recommend some good vendors to buy new/almost new from from personal experiences or just word-of-mouth comments?

I'm stil kinda torn between the classic case the the tower I've seen on Softhut too.  Decisions, decisions.

Oh and what makes the web-surfing experience so bad on an Amiga?  And is it just limited to the older machines?

[steve30]

web browsing on the amiga is bad because non of the amiga browsers support the modern standards which most sites use. Hopefully this will change in the near futre though.

It is possible to browse most site OK, but they won't look like they were intended to.

[amigagr]

drewz21 wrote:
Can you recommend some good vendors to buy new/almost new from from personal experiences or just word-of-mouth comments?


give a try to :http://europe.amigakit.com/  they are ok for me


what makes the web-surfing experience so bad on an Amiga?  And is it just limited to the older machines?

have you ever try the amiga browsers?... for irc, ftp, e-mail i prefer amiga softwear, it's better :-)

[x56h34]

Amiga browsing experience would be comparable to using Netscape Navigator or IE v2.0 today on your PC. :-)

[The_Editor]

Surely he would be better off buying A Pegasos 2 ?

or .. Heaven forbid ..When/IF they become available, Amy05?

[x56h34]

@The_Editor:

Which ever way he decides to go, it's important to let him know of what to expect. For simply having fun and toying around with hardware/software, basically any direction that he takes is OK. If he's in it for serious work or something along those lines...he's better off looking in the direction of PCs or Macs.

[drewz21]

Do you think this person's Amiga items would be a good start for me?  He posted this in the Selling Forum.

"I am selling off ALL my Amiga stuff (not on eBay yet), and thought I would mention it on here before I do in case someone is interested. I can't remember everything off the top of my head, but will add to this when I get home.

1 x Amiga 1200 (NOS) - Perfect Condition
Accelerator Board w/ 8MB Ram
Mouse
Joystick
Power Pack
Disks with OS
OS installed on HDD

1 x Amiga 1200 - Good Condition
Mouse
Joystick
Power Pack
Disks with OS
OS installed on HDD

1 x Amiga 500 - Good Condition
Mouse
Extra external FDD
CD-Rom Unit
External Accelerator
Disks with OS

1 x 1084S Monitor - Good Condition
5 x boxes of software - literally 1,0000 Disks!"

I've chatted with him some via e-mail.  Just looking for feedback from the community.  Also what do you think would be a good deal for all of this?

Thanks again.

[tonyvdb]

Well, Looking at the list my choice would be to go with the first one:

"1 x Amiga 1200 (NOS) - Perfect Condition
Accelerator Board w/ 8MB Ram
Mouse
Joystick
Power Pack
Disks with OS
OS installed on HDD"

as far as price I would find out what he wants for it but In my opinoin not more then $500-600 Remember you can get a PC for just a bit more and run Amiga Forever on it so you can play most of the games that way.

[drewz21]

Really?  Is Amiga Forever that good?  If so I'll buy it.  I've never really used emulators other than MAME but if it's that good I'll quit worrying so much about being compatible with my old stuff and just buy me a nice AMIGA for everyday use and use Amiga Forever to play my old games.  I've got several PC's at home already.

How do I get the disks onto my PC then to play the games?

Thank you again.