What should i buy as my christmas present?

[Gulliver]

@persia
It was a simple and innocent joke aimed at @smerf, not related to mocking farmers, only meant for what he said previously. I am sorry you missunderstood it, and got hurt in the process.

@platon42
I dont like the subwayUSB interface, but i would have bought a deneb without hesitating. The problem is that  it only works on zorro amigas. And a zorro A1200 busboard, as cheap as it may seem, due to the excesive shipping charges i witnessed generally from european postal services, means like 140 USD and then i would have to buy/hack an ATX psu(more $) and then buy the deneb (even more $)!.
I totally agree a deneb is a cool buy, but then it comes to much more $$$ than its price, as i have explained (I wish i had an A4000!).

[platon42]

@platon42
I dont like the subwayUSB interface, but i would have bought a deneb without hesitating. The problem is that  it only works on zorro amigas. And a zorro A1200 busboard, as cheap as it may seem, due to the excesive shipping charges i witnessed generally from european postal services, means like 140 USD and then i would have to buy/hack an ATX psu(more $) and then buy the deneb (even more $)!.
I totally agree a deneb is a cool buy, but then it comes to much more $$$ than its price, as i have explained (I wish i had an A4000!).

I agree completely -- this doesn't sound too reasonable in this case. Anyway, I hope you'll find something joyful to spend your money on. I'd probably go for the MacMini with MorphOS, if didn't already have one and would still be interested in that field.

[platon42]

Yes, sure they exist, but unfortunately not for classic Amigas

A friend of mine and I did some reverse engineering last xmas (and were able to get some picture even on the Amiga Classic running a Deneb):

http://floe.butterbrot.org/displaylink/doku.php

However, writing a full graphics driver is much more work that I'm not able to spend on.

[zylesea]

I'd go for a Mac with MorphOS. The mini is a really cute and powerful maschine. But if you want to keep the expense at a minimum the Power Macs seems a smart choice. There's also the option for very cheap eMacs G4 (their disadvanate of course is the inbuild CRT).  
The 1.25 GHz Power Macs are good to get for around $/EUR100. The minis are a bit more expensive, but I like the small form factor very much. MorphOS on the mini works pretty well and having OS X seems to be not a disadvantage to me, too (but haven't booted into OS X for weeks now).

[smerf]

Everybody around here used to speak with a nasal accent, but that's changing now, people who live in the city are slowly becoming less nasal.  There are various explanations for it.  Some say the nasal accent was really just a way of talking that kept the flies out of the mouth and now that we are mainly urbanites there's no longer need for that.  if you look at the third and fourth generation farmers, you'll notice the nasal accent also corresponds to the complete lack of lip movement, so I think there's likely a relationship.

At any rate I'm not sure why Gulliver thought that the Mac would appear to country folk more, as most of the Mac stores seems to be in bigger cities or whether he was just a snob trying to make fun of rural people (We Amigans are by definition elitists), but the comment really made no sense.

I have friends who run a farm to the west of Dubbo, hot dry country bordering on the outback.  It's hard, backbreaking work, if Gulliver spent a few days working with them maybe he's be less disdaining of people who live in rural areas.  My guess is he wouldn't last half a day trying to keep up with these "nasal speakers" he thinks are funny.

Hi,

@persia,

I didn't expect you to take the nasal thing so hard. It is just that in America most MAC users talk nasally, especially about other types of computers. There was no insult meant to you or your friends out in the outback and besides ya all have a cute accent.  Have you ever watched croc. dundee. (Why do I feel I am digging a bigger hole here).

Actually no offense meant even to apple users (although ya all talk funny).

Well gotta go before the flames come back on.

smerf

By the way Gulliver didn't make any bad remarks, he just said that he would have to pick up a nasal tone if he bought a Mac.

[smerf]

2 - Buy a mac mini (Maybe install Morphos) -THIS IS YOUR WINNER

Do not do 5 !

Hi,
@TheGoose,

If you got your winner, your Goose would be cooked

smerf

[kvasir]

I pretty much agree with amigadave, though the mediator might be pricy if you don't already have a tower for your 1200. I've upped my 060 1200 to a mediator+tower, and haven't been happier with her! Though she does lose a bit of the console/wedge "charm" in the process. (A guy nearby my house craigslisted an A1200 that he wanted to save from the dumpster during spring cleaning, so I really lucked out on that)
Unfortunately, aside from a passing tinkering with AROS, I can only speak for the mediator, which has allowed me to use old PCI cards that I've gutted out of computers I found on the curb. (I'm not kidding here, when Vista first came out you would find old AMD Athlon/P IV grade computers all over the place on trash pick-up) I'm using a 24-bit card that I gutted out of the one on 2nd st., a sound card I found one Monroe St, and I'm not sure where I got the 100mbps card from.. Still have one slot to fill, not sure what to put in there yet....
Anyway, the performance boost was about the same (emotionally) as when I first installed my 1260 card and ran Frontier Elite II on it. MP3's take alot less CPU time, though I'm still considering getting a delfina for that. (Unless there's a PCI sound card w/ mpeg decoding that mpega.library/Amplifier supports) And the switch from a 10mbps PCMCIA to 100mbps PCI card is incredible! (Though deceptive in part due to Ibrowse/AWEB/etc... not needing to fight FBLIT for CPU time anymore, however straight downloads go faster too.) If you do get a Mediator and use GFX with it, I'd recommend a monitor with 2 inputs on it. (If you use AGA for games and stuff, keeping in mind the NTSC/PAL VGA difference, might still need a scandoubler if the monitor won't take 15khz hsync. A flatscreen TV with a VGA port would be about ideal if a scandoubler is too much, also keeping in mind the Mediator mailing list just announced HDMI/DVI drivers for GFX cards) A VGA switch+scandoubler would work (which is what i have now), but results in desktop clutter.
Sound cards are OK, though I can't really tell the difference between the AHI output when switching between the SB128 drivers and 14bPaula drivers. (Though I'm half deaf according to my wife, there may be more truth there than her being annoyed at me nodding and agreeing with her whenever I'm busy with something. :-D)
With the 100mbps cards, they're nice, but the drivers are REALLY picky. I have 7 or 8 of 'em lying about, and tried all of them. None worked. I ripped the one out of my fileserver (Basically one of the forementioned "curbside specials" loaded with hard drives, a VGA card, an NIC, and an NAS Lite boot floppy) and it worked. (I then had to swap NIC cards in/out of the NAS Lite server until I found one that worked with that....)

I've looked at the Morphos screenshots, they look nice, but I really don't know enough about Morphos to make any recommendations. Looks like it could be fun to play with, though.

What expansions would you need for AROS capability? (I've managed to install it on an old Thinkpad 390E laptop, works pretty well there. Though not the latest version for want of a DVD rom in the thing) Aros is alot of fun, has most of the more recent browsers ported to it (I believe, OWB, netsurf, etc..), and seems to combine the lightweight nature of AmigaOS with the horsepower X86 stuff can crank out, while eliminating the emulation "middle-man". (Though has UAE available I believe) I've not played with it beyone tinkering with the included demos and OS itself, though.

Personally, I wouldn't mind having a SAM, but I wouldn't be willing to hock my classics for one. :-D

Another thing to consider though, especially if your Amiga is still in a console case, would be a SubWay card, at least allowing access to USB devices. My wife especially appreciated me doing this, because she can still play Mahjong while I download pics from my camera. (And yes, she knows of the Amiga Mahjong clones.. I had to download every one I could get my hands on when her computer decided to fry her memory. Luckily it ONLY fried her memory....) Though this would only be useful if you use alot of USB stuff. (Like myself) I've gotten this to work with my wireless mouse (though I still prefer to use a mr. mysza ps/2 to Amiga + ps/2 to usb mouse adapter for this), a keyboard, SanDisk Cruzer 8GB thumbdrive, Sony Clie PDA, Kodak LCD picture frame, Netxtar (generic) portable MP3 player, and a SAMSUNG Digimax A503 digital camera to work. (though the clockport that SubWay plugs into is a bit slow, some patience is required).
Anyway, it is your money, and it really depends on where your interests lie. You have a rather fun lineup of ideas there, at any rate. :-D (And my wife isn't talking to me now, because after reading your post I asked if there were any Mac Mini's in craigslist.. hehehe...)

[TheGoose]

@smerf

Yeah, you gotta use one of these suckers ::flame:

[jj]

I pretty much agree with amigadave, though the mediator might be pricy if you don't already have a tower for your 1200. I've upped my 060 1200 to a mediator+tower, and haven't been happier with her! Though she does lose a bit of the console/wedge "charm" in the process. (A guy nearby my house craigslisted an A1200 that he wanted to save from the dumpster during spring cleaning, so I really lucked out on that)
Unfortunately, aside from a passing tinkering with AROS, I can only speak for the mediator, which has allowed me to use old PCI cards that I've gutted out of computers I found on the curb. (I'm not kidding here, when Vista first came out you would find old AMD Athlon/P IV grade computers all over the place on trash pick-up) I'm using a 24-bit card that I gutted out of the one on 2nd st., a sound card I found one Monroe St, and I'm not sure where I got the 100mbps card from.. Still have one slot to fill, not sure what to put in there yet....
Anyway, the performance boost was about the same (emotionally) as when I first installed my 1260 card and ran Frontier Elite II on it. MP3's take alot less CPU time, though I'm still considering getting a delfina for that. (Unless there's a PCI sound card w/ mpeg decoding that mpega.library/Amplifier supports) And the switch from a 10mbps PCMCIA to 100mbps PCI card is incredible! (Though deceptive in part due to Ibrowse/AWEB/etc... not needing to fight FBLIT for CPU time anymore, however straight downloads go faster too.) If you do get a Mediator and use GFX with it, I'd recommend a monitor with 2 inputs on it. (If you use AGA for games and stuff, keeping in mind the NTSC/PAL VGA difference, might still need a scandoubler if the monitor won't take 15khz hsync. A flatscreen TV with a VGA port would be about ideal if a scandoubler is too much, also keeping in mind the Mediator mailing list just announced HDMI/DVI drivers for GFX cards) A VGA switch+scandoubler would work (which is what i have now), but results in desktop clutter.
Sound cards are OK, though I can't really tell the difference between the AHI output when switching between the SB128 drivers and 14bPaula drivers. (Though I'm half deaf according to my wife, there may be more truth there than her being annoyed at me nodding and agreeing with her whenever I'm busy with something. :-D)
With the 100mbps cards, they're nice, but the drivers are REALLY picky. I have 7 or 8 of 'em lying about, and tried all of them. None worked. I ripped the one out of my fileserver (Basically one of the forementioned "curbside specials" loaded with hard drives, a VGA card, an NIC, and an NAS Lite boot floppy) and it worked. (I then had to swap NIC cards in/out of the NAS Lite server until I found one that worked with that....)
 
I've looked at the Morphos screenshots, they look nice, but I really don't know enough about Morphos to make any recommendations. Looks like it could be fun to play with, though.
 
What expansions would you need for AROS capability? (I've managed to install it on an old Thinkpad 390E laptop, works pretty well there. Though not the latest version for want of a DVD rom in the thing) Aros is alot of fun, has most of the more recent browsers ported to it (I believe, OWB, netsurf, etc..), and seems to combine the lightweight nature of AmigaOS with the horsepower X86 stuff can crank out, while eliminating the emulation "middle-man". (Though has UAE available I believe) I've not played with it beyone tinkering with the included demos and OS itself, though.
 
Personally, I wouldn't mind having a SAM, but I wouldn't be willing to hock my classics for one. :-D
 
Another thing to consider though, especially if your Amiga is still in a console case, would be a SubWay card, at least allowing access to USB devices. My wife especially appreciated me doing this, because she can still play Mahjong while I download pics from my camera. (And yes, she knows of the Amiga Mahjong clones.. I had to download every one I could get my hands on when her computer decided to fry her memory. Luckily it ONLY fried her memory....) Though this would only be useful if you use alot of USB stuff. (Like myself) I've gotten this to work with my wireless mouse (though I still prefer to use a mr. mysza ps/2 to Amiga + ps/2 to usb mouse adapter for this), a keyboard, SanDisk Cruzer 8GB thumbdrive, Sony Clie PDA, Kodak LCD picture frame, Netxtar (generic) portable MP3 player, and a SAMSUNG Digimax A503 digital camera to work. (though the clockport that SubWay plugs into is a bit slow, some patience is required).
Anyway, it is your money, and it really depends on where your interests lie. You have a rather fun lineup of ideas there, at any rate. :-D (And my wife isn't talking to me now, because after reading your post I asked if there were any Mac Mini's in craigslist.. hehehe...)

 
Or you can get a tv card and run the native output from amiga into that and play games on the wokbench.

[Vlabguy1]

buy a 27" iMac ..lol..

Rich
ny