WTB: My first Amiga

[mltv]

Hi everyone, this is my first post, and I signed up just for this want ad. I am looking to buy my first Amiga. Just to use as a hobby, so I don't need anything maxed out nor expensive I am from the USA, so shipping would definitely be a factor if you aren't in the US.

Anyway, I am looking for something cheap, and which has enough features or expandability that it can be something I will use for awhile. Doing my research, it looks like an a1200 is my best bet. But, I am open to any - the only requirements I have are that it is cheap and working.

Feel free to PM me with what you have, your location, and price.

[whiteb]

Hi everyone, this is my first post, and I signed up just for this want ad. I am looking to buy my first Amiga. Just to use as a hobby, so I don't need anything maxed out nor expensive I am from the USA, so shipping would definitely be a factor if you aren't in the US.

Anyway, I am looking for something cheap, and which has enough features or expandability that it can be something I will use for awhile. Doing my research, it looks like an a1200 is my best bet. But, I am open to any - the only requirements I have are that it is cheap and working.

Feel free to PM me with what you have, your location, and price.

A1200 is a good start, when you look at what offers you get, try to look for one with an Accelerator and some memory on the accelerator.  Speeds the A1200 up something chronic.

(As opposed to plain A1200).

[Gulliver]

Hi and welcome! The A1200 is a very good choice according to what you mentioned.

I suggest that besides this forum you also take a peek at Amibay http://www.amibay.com/ which is a specialized buy and sell forum for retrogear.

[dougal]

Hi everyone, this is my first post, and I signed up just for this want ad.QUOTE]

Welcome to Amiga.org.

Once you have your Amiga, i am sure you will be coming here more often. You will really enjoy the forums and find that everyone is very friendly and willing to help out where they can.

You can also check out the latest Amiga news on the front page. :

Good luck. I am sure you will find something

[tone007]

If you're only going to buy one, A1200 is probably a good one.

I started with an A500 though, it's nice to start at the "bottom" and work up, end up learning more that way.

[pan1k]

I'd also recommend the 1200. Has more expansion capabilities. IDE is already built in. Plus you can play all games on it, with a A500 you are limited to OCS and ECS games. Keep an eye out, sometimes they can be had for >$100!

[kvasir]

Yeah, the 1200 is definately a good choice. Relativly cheap for a basic unit, can use the same hard drive that can be gutted out of most dead laptops (Like the IBM Thinkpad I got sick of and ran over with a lawnmower. Ripped the HDD out first...), and the PCMCIA port can use ethernet/wireless cards. (16-bit only, but still better than dial-up. Though most DSL services are just starting get get WAN access that fast out where I am).
Granted most, if not all, of this has already been mentioned, as well as Amibay and Ebay, Craigslist sometimes has Amigas as well. I was lucky enough to find one for free, that some guy didn't want to throw away and felt someone might still enjoy. (That sort of thing is usually around spring-cleaning, and most of the time involves a spouse who is sick of old electronics cluttering up the place. Probably me in a year or 2) Also, Amigakit has been really good to me when I've needed stuff I could never find stateside. Though if anything you get needs drivers from a floppy, you might want to as for an ADF image e-mailed too. Customs seems to have hired some idiots that don't know what "Do not x-ray" means....
Anyway, good luck getting ahold of a miggy, it'll be worth whatever effort is needed!

[persia]

Have to agree with the crowd, if you are going to have just one Amiga it should be a 1200...

[TomJ]

if your still looking I have a 500 with the rev5 board have to make sure the a501 ram expansion works and the floppy drive will still read its been sitting a while I don't have an extra monitor or a 520 adapter for tv.

[kvasir]

The 500 has at least composite output, and I believe it has RF modulated output as well. So even without a monitor, you can hook it to a TV (either through the aux/game inputs or straight into the cable jack, with an RCA->Coaxial adapter), but the quality won't be the greatest. Plus, unless you have a TV that can switch between PAL and NTSC modes, alot of software won't run right (running PAL stuff in NTSC can cause everything from timing problems and the bottom part of the screen getting chopped, to outright crashes). I think some newer LCD TV's might do both, though.
The mouse might be an issue, all the Amiga ones are ball-based (the only optical Amiga mouse that I used is the Boing mouse, though there were a few others as well, just none made by Commodore that I can recall), and get hard to move after awhile. Granted, I've always had cats/dogs/birds/etc..., which tend to jam ball-based mice quickly. But for the mice, a ps/2 or usb adapter would probably work great (on any model of amiga, not just the 500. My 1200 uses a USB wireless mouse via a usb -> ps2 adapter, and usb -> amiga adapter), and allow any $10 special from Walmart to work (possibly with a usb -> ps2 adapter as well).
There's no HDD interface, but there are some side-car adapters that have SCSI interfaces. The A501 TomJ was talking about hooks into the trapdoor slot, should give a bit of a speed boost if its FAST ram, not sure if expanding CHIP ram is even possible via the trap door. Plus the real-time clock is on it, though you might want to check the battery. (I think there's an Agnus replacement for more CHIP ram, but requires swapping chips off the mobo) If you dig up an A500 accelerator card that doesn't cost more than selling a kidney, it would use that port.
Also, its an OCS (possible ECS) machine, wouldn't have AGA capabilities, and has a 68000 CPU. Though a graffiti card would give 256 colors, but only on apps that support it.
Also, the 500 came with AOS 1.3, and needs a kickstart-rom upgrade to go to 2.x. Not sure if there's any 3.x roms for it, though.

[pampers]

Hi everyone, this is my first post, and I signed up just for this want ad. I am looking to buy my first Amiga. Just to use as a hobby, so I don't need anything maxed out nor expensive I am from the USA, so shipping would definitely be a factor if you aren't in the US.

Anyway, I am looking for something cheap, and which has enough features or expandability that it can be something I will use for awhile. Doing my research, it looks like an a1200 is my best bet. But, I am open to any - the only requirements I have are that it is cheap and working.

Feel free to PM me with what you have, your location, and price.

Hi Mate

I'm just selling one in here:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110534795795&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:GB:1123

But that's the Europe version of power supply.

[runequester]

Definately recommend a 1200. A UK model isn't too big a deal, as amigakit sells a power supply you can use with it in the US

[KThunder]

I'd like to recommend a 3000, if you can't find a 1200 easily. 3000's have a built in VGA adapter, and can use most a4000 accelerators/ video cards etc. etc.
They can be found for roughly the same price as 1200's many times.  
I really liked my 1200 when I had it, but my 3000 was really nice too.