have my A3000 looking for a second

[irishmike]

Hello all:

Just bought an A3000 from ebay and I am working on upgrading it a bit.

The reason I had purchased the AMI 3K was for a project I am working on for preservation, running a BBS from it.  I have since decided to dive into it to play classic games and to look for another AMI for the project.

The thing is, I may not need a 3000 model for the project, so I might be able to spend a bit less... does anyone know if a A1200 would work... what I like about the 3k is the vga port making it compatible with a regular old monitor and of course the hard drive.   Does the 1200 model have the VGA port?  If so I might be VERY interested in finding one.

Opinions on what model I should seek would be helpful... not that I am against another A3K, but would like to not spend that much money again on this.

Thanks,

Mike

[TjLaZer]

A A1200 may cost you more than other low end Amiga (unless you are in Europe)  I would get a A2000 for the BBS, great workhorse and cheaper than a A3000.

No the A1200 does not have a VGA port.  Actually no other Amiga has that built in!  You can use a VGA monitor for limited WB support with the DblNTSC and Productivity modes but not for games.  You will need the Amiga to VGA adaptor, they sell on ebay all the time.

[drewz21]

Is there any way to make a PAL 1200 useful here in the US?

[InTheSand]

Depends on what you want to do with it - for non-games and non-demo use, a VGA adaptor as mentioned above would be adequate and you could use the 31KHz screenmodes.

Or you could perhaps connect it into a PC's TV card...

Or get a composite to VGA adaptor as these are multi-standard (but often poor quality, OK for games/demos though).

 - Ali

[omnicron]

I have a couple of 3000D's I might part with for cheap. I also have a 3000T I might sell if it makes sense. I have a lot of different amiga models. Got a decent A1200 you might like for cheap as well.

[Ilwrath]

I think the 1200 would probably be about the worst choice for a BBS (at least if you keep it in the desktop case).  They seem to have the most heat issues of any Amiga.  2000s and 3000s are good.  If you don't need much expansion, an A500 would be a workhorse, as well.  (If you DO need something more than the 7mhz 68000, the A500's desktop case can start holding some heat, much like the A1200.)

The biggest problem with using any Amiga as a BBS is getting reasonable I/O speeds out of it.  The built-in serial ports were quite painful, even back in the day.  I had to run a multi-serial board just to get reasonably stable 38k connections...  Of course, a much better solution nowadays is an ethernet card and a bunch of virtual connections.