Classic Amigas - Still Useful?

[Kernel]

So how many people here actually still have their classic Amiga setup and use it on a regular basis - i.e. not just sitting there sucking up electricity?

I used to love the Amiga and was a die hard user up until about 1998 when I finally got a job in the IT field and then my system went neglected and I sold it.  It was an Amiga 3000 decked out with 16MB SC Zips, a Picasso IV, and pregnant mouse, a Bernouli Box 20MB cartridge system, 32X CD-ROM, and no battery damage at all.  I kick myself every time I think about having let it go.

So I got the itch again a few years ago, as  I periodically do, and ended up getting Amiga Forever and that of course manifested into purchasing a few A500's and another Amiga 3000.  It has very slight battery damage (system appears to work fine but has an occasional crash... but that may be software related), has 16MB Fast Page Mode, a DENEB, a Samsung USB DVD-RW, and NetGear 10/100 USB dongle attached to a Buffalo AirStation wireless adapter.

However, I have a hard time justifying setting it up because of a) space and b) I'm not sure I'd actually use it other than a feel-good tie back to the good-ole days.  What makes it worse is that I have a line on another A3K for parts which has 16MB Fast (possibly SC ZIPS) but I'm unsure as to the battery status (the guy has had it stored for years) and he said the system only boots to a black screen.  It also has a (apparently) non working Picasso II card and a Emplant board so I'm willing to throw a little green at least to say I had a chance to gaze upon some of this classic hardware.

So what advise can people here provide, if any?

[LoadWB]

My 4000D has 1152x864 24-bit Workbench via Picasso IV, Deneb USB with card reader and 10/100 networking, 18GB hard drive (to be 60GB SSD sometime soon,) CyberStorm MKIII 50MHz 68060 with 144MB RAM (128MB on the accelerator and 16MB on the motherboard) which will be replaced as soon as I get my CyberStorm PPC repaired.  I have been able to configure Miami Deluxe to VPN into my managed networks.  I use RDesktop to work on servers and remote workstations, an ssh2 client to run my Solaris servers, and YAM for my personal email.  I don't browse the web on this machine due to the lack of a modern web browser, though IBrowse is often good enough for basic stuff.  Using smbfs I have a shares on my Windows workstation and NAS mounted to provide protected file storage where necessary.  It has an IDE DVD R/W drive attached to the SCSI controller, though I don't use it that often.

I use this as much as I can.  I don't often sit at my desk, so I use my laptop more frequently, but it's there and usable.  I cannot really answer whether your investment opportunity is worth it as I'd prefer a working system to start for cash.  YMMV.

[rvo_nl]

Well, if you invest enough time and money, it can still be a very usable system! In my case I can even run the fairly modern OS4.1, a very slow 'version' of Firefox, some great PPC games and things like Dosbox. But, only a very select few use their Classic Amiga as their main machine, I'm quite sure.
 
Advise? I dont think you should upgrade your machine with the purpose of it becoming your main machine. Just invest what you want to spend time/cost-wise and make sure you have fun doing so.

[ChaosLord]

So how many people here actually still have their classic Amiga setup and use it on a regular basis - i.e. not just sitting there sucking up electricity?

Me me me me me !

But my classic Amiga is massively more powerful than yours so you may not feel the same as me.

[NovaCoder]

So how many people here actually still have their classic Amiga setup and use it on a regular basis - i.e. not just sitting there sucking up electricity?

So what advise can people here provide, if any?

Yep I still use mine more than my PC and XBOX 360.

Apart from playing lots of demos (which are still being made).  I also love to play old PC games on it like Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle using ScummVM AGA.

I also enjoy a quick game of Quake 2 AGA and playing through the hundreds of freely available classic games using the brilliant WHDLOAD.

[commodorejohn]

Man, I've been meaning to put my 1200 to more use, I just haven't quite gotten around to it...I've got a MIDI adapter, a serial tablet, and ethernet, so there's no reason I couldn't use it for a bunch of things, but I've gotten kinda distracted by other projects (and by waiting for the keygen for MIDI Tracker to be built...)

[slaapliedje]

Now that I've managed to figure out why it was randomly crashing (had all the caps replaced by Amigakit!  Thanks guys!), I've been using it a lot more, though I'm still working on getting just the right set up (been through ClassicWB, AmigaSYS4, and Amikit for Real Amigas) and for one reason or another, I have decided that I'm just going to build my own setup from scratch with OS3.9.  

I have everything in my system I want, except for perhaps a USB card and an Accelerator, but I'm running with an A4000D, Mediator 4000Di, ZorRAM 128mb, Radeon 256mb (only have half the ram working, will fix it later), 10/100 ethernet and an 80gb hard drive.

I've got a second fan that I'm going to try out in the PSU to see if I can get it to be a bit more quiet, but other than that, it's quite usable for a lot of things.

@LoadWB  Any chance you'd be willing to not rape me on a price for that CyberStorm MKIII 50MHz 68060 when you are able to get the PPC fixed?  

slaapliedje

[Motormouth]

I have two setup, but alas I barely use them anymore.....sniff sniff..too many children....

[mikrucio]

YES! Amiga 500 very useful for Amiga 500 stuff

[Drummerboy]

Yuuuuuup!

[LoadWB]

@LoadWB  Any chance you'd be willing to not rape me on a price for that CyberStorm MKIII 50MHz 68060 when you are able to get the PPC fixed?  

hehehe I'm generally very good with my Amiga prices for stuff that doesn't go up on eBay.  But, as for the CS MKIII, I'm planning to use that in my 3000D.  Things may change in the next year, but no promises.  If I do decide to get rid of it I'll make sure you're first on my list.

[magnetic]

I have two setup, but alas I barely use them anymore.....sniff sniff..too many children....

Kids love amigas. Every kid I put in front of one cant get enough. Especially with a real joystick and games like Superfrog or something. Use the amigas with your kids then you both have fun!


@OP

Classic Amigas can be very useful if you are into music and/or graphics and video.

[LoadWB]

Kids love amigas. Every kid I put in front of one cant get enough. Especially with a real joystick and games like Superfrog or something. Use the amigas with your kids then you both have fun!

I've found that when I put a kid in front of an Amiga, Commodore 64, or even my old TI they love it.  One of them navigated Workbench like a pro -- was really cool!

[Rob]

I used my A1200 every day until late 2004 when OS4 on the AmigaONE started to become usable for an everyday system.  I never had a Windows PC until about 2006 when I was required to use one for a college course.  
Now I use mixture Of OS4.1 and Windows, mainly because OS4 has no convenient way to watch Youtube and I also sometimes like to watch programmes on BBC iPlayer.

If youtube worked in OS4 web browsers I could probably ditch windows altogether, any creative work I do is always carried out on Amiga OS.

I do still have a CD32 and also have Minimig but they don't get used very often.  I think maybe 5-6 years for the CD32 and perhaps late last year for the Minimig.

[Ami_GFX]

The classic Amiga personality when I boot it up is: Lets do something fun and creative. I can't say the same for my laptop. I can easily be distracted by an email, even if I am having some fun and mostly what I do is business. It's stimulating, yes, but not pure fun in any sense. My classic Amigas are sheer joy and fun. I wouldn't never contaminate them with the distractions of web browsing and email. That's business. I turn my Amiga's on to do some art and have some fun.