Classic Amigas - Still Useful?

[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.

[fishy_fiz]

Yep, I still use mine quite a bit, although to be honest I cant really articulate why. There's just something about the system, and perhaps its software that appeals to me in a way other systems dont. I dont just mean pcs, macs, etc. either. I used to own an A1, also had a 1.42ghz mac mini running (unregged) MOS, and have an AROS machine orders of magnitude faster that either of the aforementioned systems, yet my a1200 still reigns surpreme as far as Im concerned.

It just does what I ask of it without fuss and can give great results.

This of course depends on what a person wants to do. It's hardly going to be my 1st choice for browsing for example, or watching video (both are tasks I predominantly do under Windows or AROS (depending on which OS my netbook has running at any given time)), but despite what Amiga forum sites try to suggest in NG vs. classic discussions, theyre far from the be all/end all of computing.

[aggro_mix]

I still use my towerized A3000 fairly regularly. I prefer ImageFX when I need to do some photo editing/manipulation and I still use Bars&Pipes for making music. If I need to edit textfiles there's nothing like CED and YAM is till used for some of my personal email.

But there is nothing I can't do on other platforms. All of these programs run well on UAE and there are of course modern applications for whatever OS is your choice.

I think I still use my Amiga because it's fun and I know my way around the programs and the OS. For me it's quicker to do something in ImageFX than to figure out the same operation in Photoshop or Gimp.

[Hattig]

It seems that modern systems are all for consumption, especially Windows systems. I was always productive and creative on my old Amiga. Can't wait to get an FPGA Arcade and run DPaint again*.



* as a homage to DPaint, GrafX2 somehow comes up horrendously short. It does have some useful features however for pixel work, albeit a nasty user interface.

[TheBilgeRat]

I still use my systems daily.  Right now, its just my 68010 A2000 with a 40Mb SCSI hard drive and CDROM and indiECS.  I use it to code C, play WHD Load, and just generally have fun learning all about amigaOS 3.1.  I have an A4000d, but I have no display for it at the moment.

I do often bemoan the cost of the equipment, and sure a WinUAE setup is pretty freaking awesome in terms of raw speed.  BUT - there is a sort of je ne sais quoi about the real deal that I enjoy.  I'm going to soup this A2000 up as much as I can, and once the recap is done on the 4000 it will get some love as well.

I like seeing what I can accomplish with what I have.

[Kernel]

I've read a few about re-capping... is that recommended for specific models or all models?  I was under the impression that unless there is bulging or leaking, caps are fine?

As to the mention of something about having a real machine to do this on rather than an emulator... yeah, I feel the same way.  I guess it all just comes down to time availability... ever since I got the "real" job and had kids, all the tinkering and game playing seemed to go to the wayside...

[Kernel]

OK so the itch is getting stronger.  I plugged it all in... had to of course tear it apart and reseat everything first though.

[Tripitaka]

Looks pretty clean too.

As for how useful Amigas are in modern day, I guess it all depends on what you do with them. An A1200 with a CF Card as a hard drive, 030 and some extra RAM plus a wireless PCMCIA card is an ideal set-up for many retro gamers and doesn't cost the earth. Adding a scan doubler/ flicker fixer puts the cost up a bit. Something I am sadly missing, I mostly use an RGB SCART lead on my projector and play my games on a six foot screen. Benefactor sprites never looked so big.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Yes!  I use my A500 almost daily, mostly for hardware hacking and seeing what other tweaks I can do on it to squeeze an extra ounce of performance out of it.  I love the customizable and open nature of the system.  Also there's just something that feels "right" about doing Amiga stuff on an actual Amiga.  Always hated emulators, even when I didn't have an Amiga for years I refused to run one, and just kept all my software in storage until I picked up another one.  Bit of a purist, I suppose.  

[paul1981]

I've read a few about re-capping... is that recommended for specific models or all models?  I was under the impression that unless there is bulging or leaking, caps are fine?

SMD Electrolytic caps in A600/A1200/A4000/CD32 are the problem unfortunately. They leak, you can spot the leak by the dull finish on their solder joints. I suppose they could just dry out as well. In any case, those types of capacitors should be changed now if not already done so (they're not supposed to last above a few years anyway).
Lot's of Amiga's are still working fine with the original caps still in place (after 20 years) but it's very wise to check for leakage as any leakage can quite easily damage your board and even write the board off.

[Kernel]

Go figure... the Quantum ProDrive LPS 240 in this A3K is apparently going flakey and it will not boot anymore.  HDToolBox will recognize it but it cannot properly read the driver geometry nor can it save the geometry information (Error 4 on write!) is what I get.  to top that off, it appears to have a random lockup here and there when booted to the 3.1 install  floppy and I don't know if it's related to the HD issue or not.

I have some U320 SCSI drives and am waiting for an active terminatior (already have the 80 pin to 68  & 50 adapters) but then I found a thread that IBM drives are a crapshoot and low and behold these are IBM drives that I have sitting around.

The deck seems to be stacked against me... I'm seriously considering parting with this thing.  I'll wait until I try the active terminator to see if perhaps it's all related to an outgoing drive but I'm not going to hold my breath.

[haywirepc]

Welcome back to amiga, now you start the spending...

Isn't the hd controller in the 3k scsi? I have always hated and never had ANY luck with scsi systems.
I have never owned a 3k or 4k, (But have owned all others) so sorry can't help much with your probs.



Its kinda fun bringing the old girl back to working like it did back in the day
condition. If your not careful though, you'll go off on a tear upgrading it
to crazy levels also.

Just remember, once you go down the rabbit hole, there is no going back. hahaha

I dk, me I gave up on classic hardware but I still occasionally look for a cheap system to start a restore on again. (anyone got a cheap system needing restore? let me know)

[commodorejohn]

I've had good luck with SCSI controllers for A500/2000 and SCSI in Macs, but when I owned an A3000 it gave me nothing but trouble, so much that I eventually just gave up on it and traded it for my current A1200 setup...

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Go figure... the Quantum ProDrive LPS 240 in this A3K is apparently going flakey and it will not boot anymore.  HDToolBox will recognize it but it cannot properly read the driver geometry nor can it save the geometry information (Error 4 on write!) is what I get.  to top that off, it appears to have a random lockup here and there when booted to the 3.1 install  floppy and I don't know if it's related to the HD issue or not.

I have some U320 SCSI drives and am waiting for an active terminatior (already have the 80 pin to 68  & 50 adapters) but then I found a thread that IBM drives are a crapshoot and low and behold these are IBM drives that I have sitting around.

The deck seems to be stacked against me... I'm seriously considering parting with this thing.  I'll wait until I try the active terminator to see if perhaps it's all related to an outgoing drive but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Have you checked the battery??

[Ami_GFX]

Go figure... the Quantum ProDrive LPS 240 in this A3K is apparently going flakey and it will not boot anymore.  HDToolBox will recognize it but it cannot properly read the driver geometry nor can it save the geometry information (Error 4 on write!) is what I get.  to top that off, it appears to have a random lockup here and there when booted to the 3.1 install  floppy and I don't know if it's related to the HD issue or not.

I have some U320 SCSI drives and am waiting for an active terminatior (already have the 80 pin to 68  & 50 adapters) but then I found a thread that IBM drives are a crapshoot and low and behold these are IBM drives that I have sitting around.

The deck seems to be stacked against me... I'm seriously considering parting with this thing.  I'll wait until I try the active terminator to see if perhaps it's all related to an outgoing drive but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I wouldn't try a U320 in an A3000. A 1-4gb 50 pin SCSI II drive will work better in such an old system.
And it might not be the drive, it could be the controller on the MB.

It might not be so much money but it will be time and effort. I almost parted with my A2500 a few years ago but instead rebuilt it. The main part was a new MB. And a better SCSI card than the 2091 it came with. It cost some money but it was fun and satisfying to do.

[nicholas]

As to the mention of something about having a real machine to do this on rather than an emulator... yeah, I feel the same way.  I guess it all just comes down to time availability... ever since I got the "real" job and had kids, all the tinkering and game playing seemed to go to the wayside...

I only ever use UAE to prep hard drives and get everything I need installed before putting them into real miggies.