Amiga 1200 Compatility..?

[Scatman]

Woohoo!I finally bought an Amiga 1200 and I have some questions:

Will it play A.500 games?
What about the Commodore's 64?
(I dont have games for these systems btw..)

Does it need special config. to do the above?

Thanks

[ferrellsl]

It will play quite a few A500/A1000 games but the newer processor (68020) and the AGA chipset will cause some incompatibilities, especially those games that do a lot of hardware bashing.

Look into WHDLOAD.  It's a software compatibility layer that will allow you to play 99% of A500/A1000 software on your A1200.  The price is reasonable and it's still supported by the author.

I'm not familiar with any C64 emulators out there for the A1200 but they do exist and from what I hear they do an impressive job at emulating the C64/128.

[beller]

Given the cost of a C64 and disk drive, why emulate?  As with the Amiga, you just don't get the same game feel from an emulator.  That's why I've got a few C64s, several Amigas of differnent KS versions, a few PCs and a bunch of Macs.  

The real thing is soo much better, although I do love to run Amiga pinball games on my Toshiba laptop...fun!

Congrats on your new 1200!

[Tomas]

If you get an a1200 with HD, then it will play most a500 titles + the newer a1200 aga games. The only way it will play c64 games is through a emulator and i think you would need a accelerator upgrade for that.

Using whdload with a HD will not only enable you to run most a500 games, but it will also make the games load in seconds! And you can start them just by clicking on the game icon in workbench.

So i would recommend that you get a hd and a cdrom for that a1200. It can play some a500 games even without a hd. You do this by holding down both mouse buttons during start and then select it to emulate ocs graphics.

[Amiduffer]

Sure it'll run older stuff. Just hold the two mouse buttons before booting and you can run it in OCS or ECS, whichever you want.

But, why not support a good program like WHDload, if someone is willing to make stuff for the Miggie?

[ferrellsl]

That's a very good point unless he's running out of desktop space.

He should even consider one of those C64s in a joystick.....I can't remember what they call the thing now.  They're cheap and even come with several built-in games and if you feel like hacking them you can even add a 1541 disk drive.

[marcfrick2112]

@ferrellsl: Are those C-64's in a joystick actually full C-64's? I thought they just had the game ROMs in them, like the ones for Atari 2600, etc.....?

@original poster: If you can find a c-64 system in your area, that's the best way to go. My last find: 2 C-128 systems, with 2 1541 and 1 1571 drives, monitor, software, lightpen, mouse, etc. for $40.00 US at a Slavation Army Thrift Store.....

As for running older A500 software, be aware that the more recent version of Amiga OS you run the more problems you may have with games. (I run OS3.9, had much trouble with certain games) WHDLoad can help much in this regard.

[_ThEcRoW]

Yeah! they are full c64's implemented in an Asic chip. Even it had a flash rom of 2mb(only in pal version i think). also you can attach a keyboard and a 1541 drive for a full c64 experience. Even some users managed to get a second joystick to the unit!.
The unit was designed by Jeri ellsworth, the maker of the C-one and was a device really made thinking about the c64nuts out there because it can be hacked extremely and the pin outs for the hacks are arleady in the pcb only for you to solder it!.
I bought one whet it was available in my country and is one of the best things i bought recently!!!

[Tomas]

The thing i dont like with the c64 sticks, is that you cannot replace the games... It should have come with flash card reader or something, so that you atleast have bought some addon games.

[Juvefan]

Hi, I have just joined amiga.org so hello to everyone.

Wanted to ask Amiduffer if he was 100% sure that holding both mouse buttons down before booting up would allow you to run any game in OCS or ECS on an Amiga 1200?

I ask because I used to own an Amiga 500 years ago and then sold it to a mate. I am now in the process of buying an Amiga 1200 and before buying games wanted to make sure of the compatability.

thanks in advance guys

[maffoo]

Juvefan wrote:
Wanted to ask Amiduffer if he was 100% sure that holding both mouse buttons down before booting up would allow you to run any game in OCS or ECS on an Amiga 1200?

It will run a large percentage of old A500 games by using this method, but some games still won't work. They should be OK with WHDLoad though.

[Juvefan]

Sorry to sound a bit stupid, but what is WHDLoad and how does it work?

Is it a disk that you need to run before hand?

Where can you buy it?

Thanks

[amigakit]

Welcome!

WHDLoad is a small utility that allows older games to be directly run from a hard disk.  It also patches the games to work with more modern Amigas.

see:  http://www.whdload.de

[ZeBeeDee]

@Juvefan

There will be the odd game that still refuses to work using the 2 mouse button routine as described earlier. This problem can be (hopefully) alleviated by getting hold of a 'downgrader' like Relokick which loads a 1.3 ROM to fool the game into thinking the A1200 is an A500  

This solution is not a 100% guarantee though, which again is where WHDload can help.

If it helps any, I've got a list of my games and how I got them working on my A1200 ... PM me with a valid email address and I'll send you it.

[InTheSand]

ZeBeeDee wrote:
There will be the odd game that still refuses to work using the 2 mouse button routine as described earlier. This problem can be (hopefully) alleviated by getting hold of a 'downgrader' like Relokick which loads a 1.3 ROM to fool the game into thinking the A1200 is an A500

Another one to try is TUDE, which does a similar thing with the 1.3 ROM. It also allows certain things to be patched, thereby increasing the chances of an old piece of software being able to run.

I used to use it quite a bit on my A1200, and still use it now to get some pieces of software to run on my A3000/060 (most notably the official BBC Micro emulator - "The Emulator", which makes extensive use of an instruction that became privileged from the 68010 onwards).

 - Ali