Crazy Idea to get a A1200?

[darkage]

Hi All,

Im a long term lurker here.

I was an active amiga user between 1988 to around 1999/2000 with my old trusty Amiga 500.

Since then I have collected 3 other Amiga 500's for free but havent tinkered with them for ages.

I still love these machines, enough so that it influenced me to take IT as a career path thats going back 15 years now.   haha Whenever I feel lost in my career I always turn on my amiga which seems to inspire me always (:  and gives me kicks & heaps of super memories.   honestly my prime Amiga years were by far the happiest time of my live..

Lately I've been looking at the A1200 new-old stock at Amigakit.  I've always wanted a A1200 since I first saw my friends one in 1994 I would guess and I still got a slight itch to buy one.

My question is, is that a crazy idea to grab a A1200? I keep on thinking if its worth spending the money or if I would be still as happy with my A500 but from the perspective of building hardware for it.   (As a hobby I put together PIC/Atmel projects along with etching own PCB's).  

Another question I believe 030 & 060 accelerators are probably a must for the A1200 or else the experience might be a bit laggy.  Whats the speed difference between these two?  ie. 030 can satisfy you enough? 060 can you actually notice a speed improvement compared to the 030 or only when doing heavy number crunching tasks?

[klx300r]

hi, I was in the excat same boat as you and finally got my 1200 a few years back and let me tell you it was worth it!
I would highly recommend getting at least an 030 card (preferrably Blizzard as its rock solid)..my Blizzard 030@50 lets me run lightwave 3.5, doom, barsn pipes and many kickass aga demos with no problems at all
..of course, as many here will tell you, once you get a 1200 you will feel compelled to do many upgrades such as: 4GB or> CF card as main DH0, get a Indivision AGA crad to use modern LCD or VGA monitors etc etc etc :-)

anyhow start with the 1200 and 030 and go from there and have fun!

[save2600]

Great idea! If you've got the cash, inclination, like to tinker and are patient - can't think of a better hobby-computing experience than an A1200 (or any Miggy really). Advantage of the 1200 is the readily available processor upgrades (and yes, an 060 is THAT much better all around for an ultimate Amiga experience), but for games only and some other minor utility type stuff - a high end 030 (50mhz) might be plenty. I'll admit, I had more fun upgrading and enjoy my big box Amiga than I ever did my A1200, but either way - you'll be happy tinkering with a 1200 if you're just used to a 500.

BTW: plan on spending a small fortune no matter what you do Amiga wise and Jens' Indivison AGA (native VGA out) is also highly recommended. OS3.9 on an 030 equipped A1200 *is* going to seem a little sluggish today - FYI, but it is what it is. Tons of patches to get the most out of your system on Aminet and here. If I were to go back to a 1200, the Boing Bag 3 patches would be a must for me, now that I'm used to an 060 machine.

Enjoy!

[ZeBeeDee]

I would highly recommend getting at least an 030 card (preferrably Blizzard as its rock solid)..my Blizzard 030@50 lets me run lightwave 3.5, doom, barsn pipes and many kickass aga demos with no problems at all
..of course, as many here will tell you, once you get a 1200 you will feel compelled to do many upgrades such as: 4GB or> CF card as main DH0, get a Indivision AGA crad to use modern LCD or VGA monitors etc etc etc :-)

anyhow start with the 1200 and 030 and go from there and have fun!

Seconded!

And welcome to the nuthouse! :roflmao:

[Pete_Noir]

I don't think it's crazy - I'm in the exact same situation, have returned to the Amiga after quite a few dull PC/linux years.

I'm looking at getting another A1200 too, as I gave away all my Amigas years ago and reeally wish I hadn't. A1200s are fun to tinker with if you like that kind of thing. IMO a 030 with some extra RAM is a must, it's a vast improvement over the 000/020 and things like NewIcons (if you want a fancy WB) will be much more enjoyable, as well as general operations and games.

Couldn't say regarding noticable speed difference between 030/060 though, never had a 060, but 030s seem far more common than 060s on ebay. I've seen A1200s with 030s go for around 120 GBP or so on there, so it might be worth hanging on until you see a good deal if you're unsure.

Edit: 3 other people replied while my connection was lagging, so sorry for repetition

[koaftder]

I'd wait to see whats up with this a-eon thing first.

[Tension]

Get the A1200.

But get an 040 rather than an 030.

Trust me, i'm a doctor.

[darkage]

I thought 040's ran hot and didnt really have that much more performance increase?

[Crom00]

Picked up an A1200 for $40.

Best $40 ever spent.
Got the following add ons
Got a 030 50mhtz CPU and FPU
128 megs
CFcard adapter
Winuae and one of those WB distributions so I can switch back and forth to Amiga and PC
PCMCIA CF card adapter
BLACK Plasticote paint for killer paintjob
Indivision
Black mouse

This thing sits in a box, becuase I honestly tinker with it endlessly, play games, MP3's Mods, etc. I had to take UAE of my laptop. At one point I had an Amiga Project as an excuse now I just can't waste time with the thing.

You run into other Amiga folks like this. Sold an A500 to a financial industry businessman in NYC who was orginally from the UK and wanted a spare as his A500's drive was getting "dodgy" as he said.

[darkage]

From memory,  I get the feeling alot of OCS games may not work on the A1200?

Would this be correct, Im just trying to remember back to 1994 now

[Crom00]

IT aint 199FO any MO...

If you get the WHDload versions the whole compatibility issue is usually patched. WHDLoad is a must if you're going to game... you're gonna love it! See that's the whole beauty of the CF enabled A1200, you can have an identical Amiga setup on an external USB drive and setup the workbench in UAE on your pc and drop the CF card into the Amiga...

Of just use the PCMCIA CF card reader as a go between. With this setup a CD-rom drive is not required in my experience.

[save2600]

I thought 040's ran hot and didnt really have that much more performance increase?

Yeah, I'm not sure why you'd want to go that route. Maybe Tension meant to say 060? 040's run at 5vcc whilst the 060 runs at 3vcc. Then you're gonna to have to raise the desktop case, install a fan, etc., etc. Unless of course, you get a Blizzard 1240, remove the 040 and install an 060 you got for dirt cheap somewhere    

That would make sense methinks... lol

I had an 040 25mhz card in my A2500 for a very short stint and feel it did not give me that much more improvement speed wise than my 030 @ 40mhz. But I'm talking general desktop usage. Perhaps somebody rendering or using their machines a little more professionally would disagree. But then I'd think they'd want to invest in an 060 anyway.

And yeah, like Crom00 said, no need to worry about compatibility any longer. Everything is patched with WHDLoad AND there are Degrader programs as well as Kickstart disks/programs that force a Kickstart 1.3 environment. Kickstart ROMS are dirt cheap if you want to stay on the "up and up" of things.

[Tension]

Yeah, I'm not sure why you'd want to go that route. Maybe Tension meant to say 060? 040's run at 5vcc whilst the 060 runs at 3vcc. Then you're gonna to have to raise the desktop case, install a fan, etc., etc. Unless of course, you get a Blizzard 1240, remove the 040 and install an 060 you got for dirt cheap somewhere    

That would make sense methinks... lol

I had an 040 25mhz card in my A2500 for a very short stint and feel it did not give me that much more improvement speed wise than my 030 @ 40mhz. But I'm talking general desktop usage. Perhaps somebody rendering or using their machines a little more professionally would disagree. But then I'd think they'd want to invest in an 060 anyway.

I never had a problem with my Apollo 1240 040 28Mhz.  Although I did upgrade the fan to a bigger unit when i put the A1200 in a tower, just because I could  

I was always led to believe that if given a choice,always go for the 040, even if it's a 28Mhz 040 rather than a 50Mhz 030.

Of course this was all before the Internet.  All I was using was my monthly editions of CU Amiga (Or Amiga Format if CU Amiga wasn't in.)

P.S.  The 060 cards for any Amiga are so prohibitively expensive that I can't imagine anyone ever owning one.  It's like they don't even exist.

[Cammy]

Hi Darkage, welcome back into the Amiga world. I use my A1200 with 8MB Fast RAM/FPU with internal CF card and PCMCIA ethernet adapter every day. I browse the web, chat on MSN and IRC, use plenty of productivity software, code, and play games. As the others mentioned, WHDLoad fixes nearly all those old floppy and incompatibility problems, so just about every game runs from my hard drive (CF card) now. If these are the sorts of things you'd like to do, you may not even need to shell out for an expensive 030 card. The 020 in the A1200 is fine for general use and games provided you have some extra Fast RAM. Of course, if you want to browse multiple sites in tabs while having all your chat programs, email, Twitter, online games and things open at the same time, you might want the 030.

There's also the option of a CD32 with a SX-1 or SX32 module, which adds 8MB RAM to the CD32, as well as all the standard Amiga ports so you can turn it into a full computer. DOOM runs smoother on a CD32 with 8MB Fast RAM than it does on an A1200 with 8MB Fast RAM, I've run benchmark tests that confirm it! The Akiko chip in the CD32 really helps out with Chunky to Planar conversion for 3D games.

Where abouts are you from? Maybe if you live close to someone with an A1200 they can give you a demonstration. I wanted one ever since the first time I used one, and I already had the CD32 :p

[NovaCoder]

Hi All,

Im a long term lurker here.

Lately I've been looking at the A1200 new-old stock at Amigakit.  I've always wanted a A1200 since I first saw my friends one in 1994 I would guess and I still got a slight itch to buy one.

My question is, is that a crazy idea to grab a A1200? I keep on thinking if its worth spending the money or if I would be still as happy with my A500 but from the perspective of building hardware for it.   (As a hobby I put together PIC/Atmel projects along with etching own PCB's).  

Another question I believe 030 & 060 accelerators are probably a must for the A1200 or else the experience might be a bit laggy.  Whats the speed difference between these two?  ie. 030 can satisfy you enough? 060 can you actually notice a speed improvement compared to the 030 or only when doing heavy number crunching tasks?

If you have an itch, the best thing to do is give it a scratch