Hello everyone. I've never used an Amiga before, although I used a Commodore 64 from 1984 (and still do to present day). I was a stubborn C64er for the longest time until I finally broke down and got a Windows 95 Packard Bell PC in 1996. I've never been a Mac person, and I sort of see the PC as kind of generic, not a system to fall in love with. I used to get free laptops from my job until they stopped doing that, so I'm going to actually have to buy my next computer. That's when I decided to check out what was going on with the Amiga. I didn't expect to find such a vibrant community. I am, however, confused about how best to make my foray into the world of Amiga. I feel like if I started with OS4, I would deprive myself of learning about the computer from its beginnings and wouldn't be able to appreciate the root of its features or understand what the improvements were.
I've done quite a bit of reading. I don't know if I should buy a used original classic Amiga, a Minimig, use emulation, or wait for the Natami to become available for total compatibility. My budget isn't huge, so I'm leaning toward a Minimig for classic and then get the OS4 Netbook that is apparently due for release soon. I feel like Minimig will give me classic compatibility on reliable new hardware at a reasonable price and the OS4 Netbook will give me current Amiga OS4 experience once I've gotten my feet wet with the classic OS.
Maybe someone has better suggestions. I wish I hadn't been such a 64 loyalist to the point of missing out on the Amiga experience. hopefully it's not too late to get into it though. I am a bit confused with all the different options. I see there are all different OSs that seem to be different branches of Amiga OS, and different hardware platforms so I'm also not sure what the community sees as the official Amiga OS (OS4? AROS? 3.9?) Hopefully I'll learn and get it all sorted out.
Other background: I used to love reading Zzap! as we had this great news/magazine store back then that carried imported magazines. Favorite game is Turrican. I was always jealous of the European 64 games, although I managed to obtain some of them at the time. they had a lot more shooters like Armalyte and platformers like Flimbo's Quest (a close second to Turrican). In the US, most of these games were never commercially released (I was so happy when Turrican was after reading about it in Zzap!). Here it was mostly RPGs and sports sims, which are fine, but we could never find the good shooters and platform games like Myth or Katakis or X-Out commercially released here.
In any event, I've asked my wife to get me a Minimig for Christmas (which means I'll probably be ordering it) unless anyone would advise differently. I hope to be playing Turrican Amiga soon!
