New (old) Amigan Here

[r06ue1]

Hello all.  
 
I just received my Amiga 1200 (PAL/Euro version) and just wanted to introduce myself as I'll probably be reading these boards frequently now that I have the greatest computer ever made again.  
 
My first Amiga experience was when I purchased an Amiga 500 way back in 1988.  I loved it so much and hated the day when I finally sold it in 1992 and and bought my first PC.  I never forgot my experiences with my Amiga and always wanted a Amiga 1200 but couldn't afford it on my military pay and my 500 seemed to be doing what I asked it to.  I have much hatred toward PC's now after working with them and supporting them over the years and just wanted to get back to a nice computer without all the bloat that current PC operating systems have (and play some of those old classic games too!).  
 
So if you have any recommendations on what I can do to get the best possible experience from my Amiga 1200 I am all ears!  
 
See you all on the boards!  
 
 
JD
Amiga 1200, 3.1 ROM, OS 3.1, 120 MB Hard Drive, 2 MB RAM

[Karlos]

Welcome aboard

My advice would be to expand the A1200 a bit, at the very least, some extra RAM on a trapdoor expansion and an internal hard disk. That would allow you to install the operating system and, using the excellent WHDLoad package (available on aminet), lots of games.

A fairly minimal list of what I'd consider essential (some of which you may already have)

1) Hard disk
2) Kickstart 3.1 ROMs / Workbench 3.1
3) PCMCIA friendly 4MB trapdoor ram expansion or (preferably) a 68030 class accelerator board with as much RAM as it will take.
4) PCMCIA network card and TCP/IP stack (AmiTCP, or if using 3.9 genesis)
5) Beefier power supply (if you are going to use an accelerator card and HD, this is basically a must).

If you already have a LAN, (3) is very useful since you can essentially forget all that tedious transferring of files to floppies to get them installed.

Nice to have, but less than essential IMHO
68040/68060 class accelerator board. Much more grunt than an 030, but there can be a backwards-compatibility trade-off.
Flickerfixer/scandoubler
OS3.5 or 3.9

If money is no object, then a tower conversion and PCI expansion system is a nice way to go.

[mechy]

Welcome aboard

My advice would be to expand the A1200 a bit, at the very least, some extra RAM on a trapdoor expansion and an internal hard disk. That would allow you to install the operating system and, using the excellent WHDLoad package (available on aminet), lots of games.

A fairly minimal list of what I'd consider essential (some of which you may already have)

1) Hard disk
2) Kickstart 3.1 ROMs / Workbench 3.1
3) PCMCIA friendly 4MB trapdoor ram expansion or (preferably) a 68030 class accelerator board with as much RAM as it will take.
4) PCMCIA network card and TCP/IP stack (AmiTCP, or if using 3.9 genesis)
5) Beefier power supply (if you are going to use an accelerator card and HD, this is basically a must).

If you already have a LAN, (3) is very useful since you can essentially forget all that tedious transferring of files to floppies to get them installed.

Nice to have, but less than essential IMHO
68040/68060 class accelerator board. Much more grunt than an 030, but there can be a backwards-compatibility trade-off.
Flickerfixer/scandoubler
OS3.5 or 3.9

If money is no object, then a tower conversion and PCI expansion system is a nice way to go.

What karlos said,but buy a CF adapter and add a 4GB compact flash and plug it into the ide for use as a hard drive.its low power and quiet!
There are some new 030 accelerators coming out soon from individual computers, you might want to grab one.find a used blizzard 060 if you really want to make it nice.

[runequester]

Compact flash hard drive, some sort of method to transfer files (internet connection or a compact flash PCMCIA kit from amigakit). An accelerator of some sort, even a modest one. A scan doubler or adapter to use a VGA monitor.

THen you'll be rolling pretty well.

[paolone]

So if you have any recommendations on what I can do to get the best possible experience from my Amiga 1200 I am all ears!  
 

If you bought an A1200 you surely know already what it can and it can't do, what I guess is if you've correctly evaluated how much you would spend on a computer that - after all - will just be your "nice toy" for spare time. Providing you won't do on that much more than you did - or you could do - 15-20 years ago, it's only matter to spend money to add rare hardware for the curiosity to see it running. Here you will find many people ready to suggest rare, costy and barely-findable technology gadgets that in the outside world don't worth a cup of coffee, and also some people like me, who will friendly try to demotivate you (you know, money are difficult to earn...).

[runequester]

If you bought an A1200 you surely know already what it can and it can't do, what I guess is if you've correctly evaluated how much you would spend on a computer that - after all - will just be your "nice toy" for spare time. Providing you won't do on that much more than you did - or you could do - 15-20 years ago, it's only matter to spend money to add rare hardware for the curiosity to see it running. Here you will find many people ready to suggest rare, costy and barely-findable technology gadgets that in the outside world don't worth a cup of coffee, and also some people like me, who will friendly try to demotivate you (you know, money are difficult to earn...).

It doesn't have to be monster expensive though there are some expenses involved.
 
Hard drive, CF transfer kit, a pair of PC speakers and an adapter cord, external scan doubler, and a cheapie accelerator, you can sneak for under 400 bucks.
 
I'd stay away from the crazy powerPC cards and whatnot, where you are going to be shelling out over 500 dollars likely for very little real benefit.
 
 
edit: For my setup, the biggest cost has honestly been peripherals like speakers and an LCD monitor to use with it (Since I can't fit a CRT at my desk)

[spirantho]

I'm one of those people like Paolone warned you about.

Seriously, many of us use the current Amiga-like OSes (AmigaOS 4.1, AROS, MorphOS) every day as their main machine. A quick rundown:

AmigaOS 4.1: Most expensive, but the only one based on AmigaOS 3.x. Very advanced under the hood, and my personal favourite... but it costs. Very expensive new hardware coming very soon (Sam 460ex, AmigaOne X1000).
AROS: Completely free! Runs on PCs so you don't need new hardware unless yours isn't supported, but if you don't have supported hardware it's still very cheap. Very fast development as it's open source.
MorphOS: No new hardware - you need a second hand PowerMac preferably.  Cheaper than OS 4.1 (but still costs for the MOS license)  and very fast; very similar to AmigaOS but not directly based on it.

If you just want to run games, though, don't bother with any of them. They all can browse the web quite well (OWB is the browser), and they're all pretty fun to mess with. Personally though I wouldn't let my AmigaOS 4 machine go. And I own all the above.

[r06ue1]

Thanks all for the great advice.  
 
I do have a hard drive but waiting on a converter for the video as I am planning to use the Amiga on my flat panel TV.  I did look into hooking it up using the VGA port but the only scan doubler I could find was the Indivision AGA for the Amiga 1200 but it seems no one has them.  I'll use it on the composite for now until I can find one.  
 
I was thinking of expanding it with the CPU/RAM board but is it needed with OS 3.1?  Also, is OS 3.9 a worthwhile upgrade?  Will my system still run some of those old Amiga 500 games made in the mid to late 80's if I add a 040/060 expansion card and upgrade the OS to 3.9?  Games aren't all I'll do it on but that is part of the reason I bought my Amiga.
 
Thanks again!

[Karlos]

Thanks all for the great advice.  
 
I do have a hard drive but waiting on a converter for the video as I am planning to use the Amiga on my flat panel TV.  I did look into hooking it up using the VGA port but the only scan doubler I could find was the Indivision AGA for the Amiga 1200 but it seems no one has them.  I'll use it on the composite for now until I can find one.

AmigaKit not got any in stock?  
 

I was thinking of expanding it with the CPU/RAM board but is it needed with OS 3.1?

Your basic, unexpanded A1200 will benefit regardless of which OS version you have. At the absolute minimum, I would recommend a trapdoor ram expansion, which will roughly double the performance of the machine. The reason being that the 68020, unlike the 68000, is capable of accessing RAM every bus cycle and when running from Chip RAM only is typically forced to miss every second one at least (which was never a big problem for the 68000 as it was only capable of accessing the RAM once in every 2 cycles). Adding Fast RAM to the system allows the CPU to run unimpeded.

You can fit a maximum of 4MB to the trapdoor without affecting PCMCIA, or 8MB but you then lose access to the PCMCIA address region.

A faster CPU board has it's own local memory arrangement and capacities tend to be limited by the number of memory slots more than anything.

Also, is OS 3.9 a worthwhile upgrade?  Will my system still run some of those old Amiga 500 games made in the mid to late 80's if I add a 040/060 expansion card and upgrade the OS to 3.9?  Games aren't all I'll do it on but that is part of the reason I bought my Amiga.
 
Thanks again!

It depends, really. If you do get a faster CPU board, compatibility is a bit of an issue but there is an installer suite called WHDLoad. This uses "clients" to install floppy based (and even HD installable) games that are also able to patch the game and adjust CPU options for improved compatibility. They usually allow you to quit back to the OS too. Even without going for a CPU board, WHDLoad is a must for classic gaming

[A1260]

heres what you should get, the minimum..

1. ide/compact flash card as hard drive (1-4GB)
2. the pcmcia kit from amigakit (so you can transfer files from the pc to the amiga easly).
3. blizzard 1230(or other 50mhz alternatives) accelerator with 16-32mb of ram
4. indivison 1200 (so you can use pc monitors)

if you want a better sound option, and can find a working melody1200 card, go for it. its great solution if you want to play mp3's on your amiga1200..

there is also an option for usb if you want that, but i dont see much use of it. there aint no short supply of amiga mouses and file transfer you can do with your pcmcia kit...

enjoy your amiga1200, ikts one of the greatest amiga to have fun with...

[A1260]

Thanks all for the great advice.  
 
I do have a hard drive but waiting on a converter for the video as I am planning to use the Amiga on my flat panel TV.  I did look into hooking it up using the VGA port but the only scan doubler I could find was the Indivision AGA for the Amiga 1200 but it seems no one has them.  I'll use it on the composite for now until I can find one.  
 
I was thinking of expanding it with the CPU/RAM board but is it needed with OS 3.1?  Also, is OS 3.9 a worthwhile upgrade?  Will my system still run some of those old Amiga 500 games made in the mid to late 80's if I add a 040/060 expansion card and upgrade the OS to 3.9?  Games aren't all I'll do it on but that is part of the reason I bought my Amiga.
 
Thanks again!

if you want WHDLoad all you need is aos3.1 but you need at least an accelerator to get things to run pretty smooth.. i am using aos3.1 and blizzard1230(50mhz) with 32mb ram and it runs very well with it. the 040 is to hot to be in a a1200 case... the 1260 is ok but you need alot of tweeking with the WHDLoad games to work.. the 1230 work great with WHDLoad out of the box...

i am also waiting for new indivision1200 cards to be produced.. this have been announced and we just have to wait until they are finished...

[runequester]

For accelerator, if games are the main thing, I'd stick with an 030. You can get them way cheaper and they have the best compatibiliity. Some cards will allow the PCMCIA slot to work even over 4 megs of RAM.

An 030 also wont melt your case and wont destroy your wallet

For a scan doubler, I use this
http://www.ambery.com/rgbcgatovgac.html
Not perfect but its pretty good and lets you use a normal PC monitor without too much trouble.