Hey there, from Sheffield, UK

[Hiddenevil]

Hi there

Been an Amiga user since 1993 when my dad bought the A500+, then later the A1200. Which now resides in our loft, towered with it's Blizzard 060 unloved..which brings me to my questions.

I registered with Amiga.org some time back and keep popping back every now and then. Was just wondering how easy it is to get an Amiga on the net..We have both Ethernet and wireless in the house..The A1200 is a custom build, the board sites propped up inside a full tower, with various bits of kit attatched to it. I'm guessing the PCMCIA port is the only real option..

But what OS can be run on an A1200/065 with 64mb of ram?
Btw before any ask's the i upgraded the Accelerators crystal ages ago to 65mhz. It actually did improve benchmarks..

Well thanks for reading, hope you all had a lovely christmas

[McVenco]

Was just wondering how easy it is to get an Amiga on the net..

It's not too difficult, providing you have the correct networking hard- and software.

But what OS can be run on an A1200/065 with 64mb of ram?

AmigaOS :-)

No, seriously - with a classic Amiga you would only want to run AmigaOS. Unix is an option, but AmigaOS is just LOTS easier.

Install AmigaOS 3.9, get a PCMCIA network card (not every card works, but there are lots that do) and a driver for it and you're (almost) ready to go.

[Oli_hd]

Hi,

Was just wondering how easy it is to get an Amiga on the net..We have both Ethernet and wireless in the house..

Well dial-up internet is easy, Ethernet is a bit harder as the Amiga doesnt do DHCP so you have to manually give the Amiga an address, tell it the naming server etc, but we can help you with that if you have trouble. OS3.9 comes with Genesis which is what I use on my miggy to connect and its great.

Hardware wise, well you say your A1200 is towered, does it have Zorro or PCI slots? PCI is easy (Specially with the Mediator PCI bus boards), Zorro is costly but easy.

If you have a bare motherboard with CPU card then PCMCIA is your only option, Amigakit sell wireless cards and you can get wired cards easy enough, all those cards must be PCMCIA (Not cardbus, which lots of ones advertised as PCMCIA actually are) If you go for wifi there are drives for wifi cards but I would say go for the Amikit package as it comes with software to make setting up easier.

But what OS can be run on an A1200/065 with 64mb of ram?

You could run 3.9 (as you are lacking a PPC) and it will run nice and fast on an 060 with 64meg of ram.

Btw before any ask's the i upgraded the Accelerators crystal ages ago to 65mhz. It actually did improve benchmarks..

Then you should put what CPU it is, when people put /060 its not running at 60Mhz its a 68060 CPU. If you are running a 68040 at 65Mhz then thats going to be slower than an 060 at 50Mhz but will still run OS3.9 dead fast

[Hiddenevil]

Hi there

It's been a while since i played around with the system. But what wifi cards work? I have a few already which are for the laptops and how do i go about sourcing the drivers?

At the moment i think it's running WB 3.1 with lots of little hacks ect..

Can they handle the net ok? i have a couple of old mac's and they struggle on java..How does the Amiga fare?

[Oli_hd]

But what wifi cards work?

The Amiga supports (with extra software) any card using the Prism2 chipset, the software for the card is available here

Firstly look at the cards and any with a gold strip on the end wont work (They are cardbus) then you should search the net to see what chipset the remaining cards you have use. (I think there is a list somewhere of what cards use the prism2 chipset but I cant find it at the moment)

At the moment i think it's running WB 3.1 with lots of little hacks ect..    Can they handle the net ok?

3.1 does not come with any internet software so you can either download demo programs from aminet.net or buy OS3.9 (Make sure you have kickstart 3.1 and not 3.0 installed as 3.9 needs kickstart 3.1) as that comes with the net software.
If you are happy with demo's Miami will get you on the net and Aweb is a free internet browser. YAM is a great free e-mail program and there are a few IRC and other chat programs to pick.

i have a couple of old mac's and they struggle on java..How does the Amiga fare?

The Amiga can not do Java (even OS4.0) and cant do flash (below 4.0, but even 4.0 isnt as smooth as on any other platform) and struggles with javascript (throws up errors), The browsers cant do CSS either so sites may look a little different. Also install AmiSSL for secure web surfing on HTTPS: sites.

Basically the Amiga doesnt do websites well, e-mail and IRC its happy with though.

[Hiddenevil]

Hey thanks for the replies everyone!

This is really helpful input

The mig, does have 3.1 roms as i remember upgrading them around 1996-7. At present it sits inside a full tower case with an
IDEfix97
VGAflicker fixer
Blizzard 060 64mb ram
3.5gb Fujistu. 2.4Gb Samsung
WB 3.1 and 3.1 Roms

OOps i've just realised something..i used a PC keyboard hack on the board..Which requires and old 5 Pin din keyboard..hmm i hope i've still got that hanging round in the loft..

Since posting i've been searching the boards. I've noticed a trend, where alot of new users are being advised to keep their Amiga's in their cases. It's making me wonder myself..buy an A1200 off ebay, stick my accelerator, VGAfix inside it and fit a laptop size 6gb hard drive. Back when i was using my system, 2.5" drives wheren't really afforable in the 1+ gig range.

The one thing thats been putting me off using the Amiga is how bulky it is..It weighs a ton in that full tower lol

Soo have there been any good programs/games come out in the last few years while i've been away? I saw heratic in an Amiga Active mag and Freespace..but they need PPC i think.

Thanks again!

[Oli_hd]

Nice setup, the scan doubler makes using the miggy so much easier.

The one thing thats been putting me off using the Amiga is how bulky it is..It weighs a ton in that full tower lol

The one thing I would say is you are going to need a CD-Rom drive, adding one to a wedge Amiga is a pain in the arse where as with a tower and the IDEfix97 its a piece of cake.
And a CD-Rom is a must have Im afraid.
(OS3.9 comes on CD for example, as does 3.5)

It all depends on how good a tower case you have is, if the motherboard is held in place with plastic ties then yeah its time for a new case and you can get external CD-Roms for the miggy, its just not cheap. (SCSI card + SCSI CD-Rom)

Soo have there been any good programs/games come out in the last few years while i've been away? I saw heratic in an Amiga Active mag and Freespace..but they need PPC i think.

Ok, if you are late enough to remember Freespace then no, no games have come out full stop. It sucks but anyone who can code have been put to use doing drivers/video players/internet programs and there just havent been any good games.

One thing you have to try though is some of the demoscene stuff, you missed The Black Lotus do an amazing demo that would run great on your machine. go here and download TBL's Starstruck.
As for games there is Quake 2 but it would hurt like hell to play it on a none PPC miggy (I do think there is a 68060 binary but it needs a 3D card to even get 10fps)

Back when i was using my system, 2.5" drives wheren't really afforable in the 1+ gig range.

Hehe, dont sound so old! I remember wanting the CDTV harddrive, that was 60meg and cost more than the CDTV did!

[Hiddenevil]

Oops i forget to add that to the list..The Mig does have a x16  LG CDRom drive :-D

A towered Amiga without a CDRom???! I'm sure there's a law against that sort of thing.

My last Amiga news was from the Amiga Active magazines..not sure if they are still going..

All i remember is that Amiga had been bought off Gateway and there was hopes for a future..As it had been bought buy people interested in developing a computer platform.

I always wanted a Mediator board, but it meant taking the machine apart and buying a proper Amiga tower case.

As for the external CDRom drive..you dont need to go SCSI to do that..A friend of my dads, who worked for Commodore came up with a clever idea around that.

He towered his A1200 around 1994 (i think) and designed an IDE switcher. He had two hard drives and a CDRom connected to his A1200 motherboard. How it worked was he could switch between the second drive. Making it either the HDD or the CDRom. All he had to do was power down the machine flick the switch on the back of the tower case and reboot.

Technically there was only ever two devices connected to the machine. But the design at the time was awesome, as nobody was even talking about custom towers 1200's back then.

Anyways, he designed one for our A1200, but before we had the machine in a tower. My stock 1200 was sitting on my desk with a 1gb 3.5" hdd inside and a IDE ribbon cable coming out of the rear of the case.

It only came out about an inch and on the end of it was a blue IDE lockable connector. I had another length of IDE cable for the CDRom drive with a matching blue connector on the end. This meant i could disconnect the Amiga and take it round to my mates to play link up games if i wanted.

The only downside to all this was the fact i needed a PC PSU on my desk to power the Amiga and the CDRom.

Eventally when the IDEFix came out, the whole switcher wiring became obsolete.

Crikey when i think about the things i've done with my Amiga...I remember it took my dads mate ages to make me that switcher cable..I was only 13-14 and i desperately wanted it..

Thanks all for replying, it's really kewl to be talking about this stuff. I've not talked Amiga in AGEEES!!

[chiark]

Nice setup :-D , and welcome.

Good to see another Northerner around here: I'm in Leeds.

I think we should have a sweepstake for when you post, "OK, I'm connected, now what's the best browser solution for my setup?" - I personally give it 5 days :-D

[meega]

And the answer is Firefox... :-P

[tokyoracer]

You cam get a DIN to PS/2 converter cheaply on the Bay.

[Oli_hd]

Oops i forget to add that to the list..The Mig does have a x16 LG CDRom drive

Ahh thats ok then

My last Amiga news was from the Amiga Active magazines..not sure if they are still going..

No, they turned into a mobile phone magazine and were shocked and angered when everyone pulled their subscriptions. (I did and they tried to explain that its still an Amiga mag cause it covers DE, lol)
After that Total Amiga picked up (It was Clubbed, a news letter for the SEAL user group) and became a great great magazine but then closed when members needed some time. Subscriptions from that were transfered to the new English Amiga Future which is still going strong.

All i remember is that Amiga had been bought off Gateway and there was hopes for a future..As it had been bought buy people interested in developing a computer platform.

Yeah, the MMC, that was a sweet time to be an Amiga user but when they dropped that a crash started that hasnt really stopped yet.

As for the external CDRom drive..you dont need to go SCSI to do that..A friend of my dads, who worked for Commodore came up with a clever idea around that.

Yeah, as you say though, an external PSU is needed, the CD-Rom isnt in a case so looks funny and you have an IDE ribbon leading out the back, that is like towing a caravan using a load of string, ick.

And yeah EIDE97 made the IDE switching thing out of date but mehh SCSI is a cooler interface anyway, you can connect scanners to it. ;-)

I've not talked Amiga in AGEEES!!

Remember a.org runs an IRC chat room where we all hang out, you can chat for as long as you want on it.
(eu.synirc.net #amiga.org)

[Hiddenevil]

*shocked* Firefox??? Firefox???!! on an Amiga!!?

Since when?

[chiark]

I think it's a cruel and unusual punishment for the new boy, very much like sending the apprentice to the stores for a long weight, or skyhooks, or tartan paint...

Cruel, says I :-D

[Hiddenevil]

It tell you what, it's almost as bad as the garlic bread conversation i had over christmas... hehehe

 :-D

What else lerks around the corners?? Firefox is 2008! i dont know how i'll cope with that..i'm used to using software on my machine that dates pre 2000 lol