Help me decide what to buy next

[runequester]

So got a bit of amiga money to spend.
 
Choices are:
 
Hunt down SCSI kit and CD ROM drive (or IDE buffer and CD ROM, though I am leaning towards teh SCSI option). This might be less immediately usefull, but it will open up some options (backing up stuff, and the wealth of amiga magazine cover CD's out there for download)
 
Hunt down a decent printer (this will, well, let me print, and actually put Final Writer to some use)
 
Wireless card (mainly for basic downloads from aminet, and I imagine I'll end up using it a lot for things like sabreMSN, amirc and a few other things)
 
 
All 3 are items that are on the "amiga only" list of stuff to get, in my ongoing experiment to transition as much computing as I can to my amiga, but right at this moment, I can only afford one of them.
 
So with that in mind... what would you choose in my place?

[Tension]

Please don't go down the SCSI route unless you absolutely have to.

It may have made sense in the 80s, but today you will pay over the odds for hardware that offers no real improvement in performance, whilst at the same time presents a lot of potential problems.

Get some IDE kit instead, and spend the change on a wireless card and a printer  

[runequester]

Please don't go down the SCSI route unless you absolutely have to.
 
It may have made sense in the 80s, but today you will pay over the odds for hardware that offers no real improvement in performance, whilst at the same time presents a lot of potential problems.
 
Get some IDE kit instead, and spend the change on a wireless card and a printer

Question for you:
 
I know IDE stuff is easier to get nowadays, but I am concerned about the practicality.
As far as I can figure out, I'd need an IDE buffer thingie (as I have a hard drive already). Then trail the cable to the CD ROM out the back somehow, to an external drive, which seems like a bit of a mess.
The reason I considered SCSI was mainly since with something like the squirrel, it seems a bit neater and easier.
 
Any easy / practical ways to set it up, without making my poor miggy look like she's on life support?
 
 
Im currently leaning towards getting CD ROM last, but it never hurts to think about it ahead of time.

[SamuraiCrow]

@Runequester

The only reason you'd want to go for SCSI is if you need full DMA and your accelerator card supports it.  Otherwise, stick with the IDE port.  The transfer speed on a CD-ROM is low enough that you shouldn't notice the difference.

[runequester]

@Runequester
 
The only reason you'd want to go for SCSI is if you need full DMA and your accelerator card supports it. Otherwise, stick with the IDE port. The transfer speed on a CD-ROM is low enough that you shouldn't notice the difference.

Gotcha. Thanks!
 
Any suggestions on a reasonably nice looking way to set it up, for a wedge-case 1200 ?

[Tension]

Question for you:
 
I know IDE stuff is easier to get nowadays, but I am concerned about the practicality.
As far as I can figure out, I'd need an IDE buffer thingie (as I have a hard drive already). Then trail the cable to the CD ROM out the back somehow, to an external drive, which seems like a bit of a mess.
The reason I considered SCSI was mainly since with something like the squirrel, it seems a bit neater and easier.
 
Any easy / practical ways to set it up, without making my poor miggy look like she's on life support?
 
 
Im currently leaning towards getting CD ROM last, but it never hurts to think about it ahead of time.

No.  All that stuff about needing a buffered IDE interface is just propaganda that Eyetech deployed so they could flog their 'Buffered interfaces'.

There are some photos on here of Amigas with custom connectors on the side to attach IDE devices, all you need is an adaptor to convert the 44 pin header to a 40 pin header.  You will need a seperate power supply for the drive.  You also have a PCMCIA slot free for a wireless card.

At this point, putting the Amiga in a tower case becomes tempting.

Think Franko had a similar type setup, but I could be wrong about that one.

All the best.

[runequester]

No. All that stuff about needing a buffered IDE interface is just propaganda that Eyetech deployed so they could flog their 'Buffered interfaces'.
 
There are some photos on here of Amigas with custom connectors on the side to attach IDE devices, all you need is an adaptor to convert the 44 pin header to a 40 pin header. You will need a seperate power supply for the drive. You also have a PCMCIA slot free for a wireless card.

Apologies if these are dumb questions but will this work even with a hard drive already in the IDE slot?
 

At this point, putting the Amiga in a tower case becomes tempting.

It does, but I kinda prefer the "wedge" Also, towering sounds like a pretty significant amount of work and money.
 

Think Franko had a similar type setup, but I could be wrong about that one.
 
All the best.

I imagine Franko had one of everything
 
Thanks so much for all your help!

[TheGoose]

Thumbs down on the wireless card. They dont' really work too great on the Amiga.

A wired  Ethernet card, you will have a better time with.

[runequester]

Thumbs down on the wireless card. They dont' really work too great on the Amiga.
 
A wired Ethernet card, you will have a better time with.

The wired ones are way cheaper too, but my amiga is set up quite a ways from where the cable modem is
 
We need a spacier apartment pretty bad

[Tension]

Apologies if these are dumb questions but will this work even with a hard drive already in the IDE slot?
 

 
It does, but I kinda prefer the "wedge" Also, towering sounds like a pretty significant amount of work and money.
 

 
I imagine Franko had one of everything
 
Thanks so much for all your help!

One of these should do the job nicely: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Laptop-44-40-pin-Hard-Drive-HD-IDE-adaptor-converter-/280613974352?pt=UK_Computing_Laptop_Accessories_LaptopCables_Connectors&hash=item4155e57150

You will need to put another 44 pin socket on that cable though for the Hard drive, or else put another 40 pin socket and you could use a 3.5 inch hard drive instead of the 2.5 one...

Pretty cheap solution though!!

Glad to help  

[SamuraiCrow]

The 4-way buffered IDE connection will attach your existing hard drive and other IDE peripherals at once.

[runequester]

One of these should do the job nicely: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Laptop-44-40-pin-Hard-Drive-HD-IDE-adaptor-converter-/280613974352?pt=UK_Computing_Laptop_Accessories_LaptopCables_Connectors&hash=item4155e57150
 
You will need to put another 44 pin socket on that cable though for the Hard drive, or else put another 40 pin socket and you could use a 3.5 inch hard drive instead of the 2.5 one...
 
Pretty cheap solution though!!
 
Glad to help

yeah, that looks pretty economical all things considered.
 

The 4-way buffered IDE connection will attach your existing hard drive and other IDE peripherals at once.

Awesome, another option. I love how there's so many ways to do these things.
 
 
Okay, so definately IDE for the CD ROM option!
 
 
Now, which of the three options should I get first? (CD ROM, Printer, Networking)

[amigadave]

I have a standard case A1200 w/1260 Blizzard 060/50MHz, SCSI controller add-on, 256mb Fast RAM, external CD-ROM & Zip drives and a CF to IDE adapter w/8gb CF card instead of a hard drive.  I have thought about installing a slim CD/DVD Mac SuperDrive inside the A1200 case, instead of using the external CD-ROM drive, but have not yet started any work on that conversion.

I like the fact that I have the Phase5 SCSI controller and can add several devices if needed, but if I were in your place, I would opt for the buffered IDE splitter, switch from an internal hard drive to a cooler running, less power hungry CF to IDE adapter & card, and install an internal CD-ROM, or CDRW, or CDRW/DVD-ROM, or CDRW/DVD-R.  There have been many people that have installed optical drives inside A1200 cases, both slim slot loading drives and standard laptop drives, so there are lots of examples and installation pictures to be found on the net.  The Squirrel SCSI interface adapter is not any less messy looking than any other external optical drive cabling, so I would not use that as a reason to use SCSI instead of IDE.  Plus it is very hard to find SCSI drives anymore, so you are much better off going the IDE route and using new(er) drives.

[SamuraiCrow]

Now, which of the three options should I get first? (CD ROM, Printer, Networking)

Networking would probably be handiest.  Trying to get stuff from the Aminet to a non-networked Amiga often proves to be a pain.

[runequester]

Networking would probably be handiest. Trying to get stuff from the Aminet to a non-networked Amiga often proves to be a pain.

yeah, I have a compact flash adapter for the PCMCIA slot, and a card reader on my PC, which works a charm, but the point is to reduce my use of the PC