help me pick an amiga

[rednova]

Dear Friends:

I have only room in my house for one amiga.
I currently have an amiga 2000 (68000, 1 mb chip 2 mb ram, 40 mb HD).
Even though is very simple, is perfect for all my needs (dpaint art, moviesetter anims,
and amospro programming).
This Christmas I have the chance to buy a good amiga 4000 (from someone I know).
I have enough money to buy it. Even though I do not know specs on the a4000
I believe is a superb system.
I have 2 choices : keep my amiga 2000, or buy an amiga 4000.
Money do not matter, I can afford the new amiga.
If I buy the amiga 4000, later I can upgrade the system and even get lightwave.
But I already have a super PC with the latest lightwave and aladdin 4d in emulation,
so I do not need the amiga 4000 for animation. And the a2000 is good enough for
2d animation.
What do you suggest ?
Get an amiga 4000, or keep my amiga 2000 ?
Please help me !!!

Thank you !!!

[amigappc]

I suggest A1200. It is most used, easily upgraded, you have new accelerators and scandoublers for it, can play ocs, ecs and aga games.

[spirantho]

Amiga 4000, easily. It's the most stable, expandable and useful classic Amiga there is IMHO. The only problem is it's a little more expensive to upgrade, but it's worth it for the Zorro cards you can get (Graphics, USB, Ethernet, PCI, all that...)

[Mrs Beanbag]

I'd love an A4000 myself but I can't justify paying that much for old hardware...

I'd second the A1200 suggestion, you can do all the things your 2000 can do and more, especially if you like to use DPaint, you can get DPaint IV and draw with AGA graphics. It also takes up so much less space. But if someone you know is offering you an A4000 at a good price, well I'd be sorely tempted put it that way.

[Rob]

I wouldn't bother unless you want to spend a lot of time and money potching about with old hardware.

[ElPolloDiabl]

Graphics cards and CPU upgrades for the A2000 are very expensive/rare.
Unless you want to play a lot of OCS games I would go with the A4000.
Advantages:
Onboard simm slots.
Inline video slot.
Has AGA so you can skip the graphics card upgrade.

[mikrucio]

Keepp the 2000 mate

there is little point "upgrading"

hell iv got a 500, for what I do with it its perfect.
Iv had a 1200, but I found myself trying to "botch" it up constantly.
getting this and that trying to "fix" this and that to make it more modern when really its all completely pointless.

Infact, apart from AGA there is really nothing of an upgrade.
AGA is pretty crud, its slow, and you can do 256 colors with OCS.
The IDE slot is ok, but its not really needed.

[nicholas]

AGA is pretty crud, its slow, and you can do 256 colors with OCS.

:-?

[nicholas]

@rednova

Sell the A2000 and use the money to buy a Picasso IV for the A4000.

You won't regret the combination.

[ElPolloDiabl]

@above

He must mean HAM mode.

[fishy_fiz]

A4000 all the way.
More chipram, faster chipram, faster cpu, better color depth, more onscreen color, inbuilt harddrive controller, etc, etc.

If you have an interest in 2d graphics/animation then any aga machine is a better option, let alone the other advantages of the a4k (zorro3, etc.).

[mikrucio]

@above

He must mean HAM mode.

no.. I didnt mean HAM mode.

You can do 256 colors with OCS.

Blitter tricks.

[NovaCoder]

Infact, apart from AGA there is really nothing of an upgrade.
AGA is pretty crud, its slow, and you can do 256 colors with OCS.

I think AGA is fast enough

[youtube]WrSQPqtNPNA[/youtube]



I agree with you though, keep the A2000, you've only got it for nostalgic reason so if you're happy with it then you don't need to change it.  
If you buy this A4000 it might turn out to have faults which will be a hassle, better to stick with what you know.

[Mrs Beanbag]

no.. I didnt mean HAM mode.

You can do 256 colors with OCS.

Blitter tricks.

Wha

I hope you mean Copper.

Well you can do that, if you're a coder and you know what you're doing. You can't do that in DPaint though. Is there any graphics software that allows you to do it? Besides, there are limitations to this technique.

AGA also has 24-bit colours to choose from. OCS is only 12 bit.

[ElPolloDiabl]

@ above
You must explain this blitter trick for us. Is there a mod we can download to activated it.

I know that you can 256 color lo-res screen in VGA, but I thought Amiga used the bits differently and squeezed in HAM mode for 4096 colors.