Amiga 1200 - What to do with it?

There was a thread about the yellowing on A.org a while back.

Somebody used some sort of cleaner and left the case to soak (obviously stripped the machine) and it came up as new.

Sorry, don't have a link.

Cheers, Rude!

/me sings..

You got a yellow amiga now you should go and ...

Paint it black !!

No other colours, just go and

Paint it Black.

Sister_Rita wrote:

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No, it definitely wasn't the sun - it was stored in a cool, dark dry box in my garage.

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Most certainly not! The Bible says: "You must love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:39) Love for your neighbors?and your family members are your closest neighbors?is a powerful reason to quit.

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I tried painting it - but it now looks blotchy.

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I think I will follow this advice - can you recommend a particular type and make of paint?

I agree with most of what's been said. I would avoid the 040 if you can, unlike the 030 or 060, its happier being cooled and there are some bugs which make it less likely to work with some WHDLoad patched games.

With OS3.9 you'll get the Genesis TCP stack which I think works better than its competitors using the pcmcia as an ehternet link. With one of those and an ADSL modem (with ethernet link) you should be laughing internet wise.

If you really want to expand, you could do much worse than get a tower, a mediator board and a Voodoo3 which will give a very cool display. You then have to think about how you'll display ECS/AGA games, I use a TV card in the mediator, which I'm very happy with.

It sounds like you don't want to get into all that yet though, very wise :)

Probably the best accelerator you can get is a Blizzard 1230 mark IV, or the Blizzard 1260 and you'll have the option of attaching a scsi connector to it which you could use in conjunction with a scsi CD drive for example.

Anyway, all the very best with it - you ST filth! ;)

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An 030 or 040 card with extra memory will let you run OS3.9 nicely. I've been pretty happy with 3.9 and it probably won't break the bank like a PPC card.

Plaz

Well, despite all of the advice to avoid the 040, I just won one on ebay for $132.50, including shipping:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... A:US:11&Item=270059626645

It sounds like the card can take an 060 if I end up coming across one, so at least it has a bit of an upgrade path still. Anwyays, it looks like I'm coming along nicely so far with upgrading it!

Wow!
It takes a '60 as well.

I think you got a bargain there.

I often hanker after the upgradability of big box Amigas - there is nothing much I can do with my A500 or A600.

I am being talked into buying an A2000 by a guy called Retrogeek I came across on Ebay - I am wavering but he makes his points well and I am now 85% convinced.

The A2000 sure is the most undervalued machine in the Amiga family. The build quality is fantastic. They were over engineered and Commodore lost money making them. By contrast all the other models (even my beloved A500) were starved of resources and were shodily built.

One of the first Amigas that I actually got to use was an A2000. I agree, they were quite a solid machine, and made this Atari 1040ST owner quite a bit jealous. I lusted hardcore after the Amiga after getting to use my friend's (and play a game or two of Agony!), and managed to get C= to send me some propaganda on the upcoming A4000 and A1200. :)

The thing that is going to constrain you more than anything is space.

Memory, hard disk.

Because it is almost impossible to find a memory module for the Amiga that doesn't cost as much as one with an accelerator I'd buy the following off e-bay as a bare minimum to get going:

040/060 accelerator with as much ram as you can get.
360MB hard drive ( 2.5" ) or above.
IDE cable splitter ( 2.5" ) or adapter ( 3.5" )
CD-ROM drive, external or internal doesn't really matter as you are going to mount it outside.

I'd install Workbench on the new hard disk, I'd then get hold of Miami demo, or NetConnect ( if you can get access to it ) or an old OS3.5/3.9 CD. I have one lying around if you need one.

Then if you aren't going the 3.5/9 route start downloading stuff off the web. If connected to a PC monitor or a multisync monitor use DBLNTSC mode with 16 colours at 800x600. Forget DBLPAL - it flickers too much.

Don't use anything above that in terms of colour depth for the workbench as you'll saturate the custom chips and the serial cable starts to cut out ( it does on mine anyhow ).

Connect to the net, enjoy. Download stuff.

If OS3.5/3.9, well just run the network setup and its about the same but much more usable.

Is this the same Retrogeek / AKA Doomy ?

http://www.amiga.org/modules/newbb/vi ... &forum=21#forumpost401926

IMHO a better buy would be a A4000 or A3000 - especially if this is a longer term purchase.

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I wouldn't do that personally it won't do the keyboard any good ;)

You're right, the keyboard is making my rear look like a chess board! :)

Just as an update, I'm still patiently waiting for new parts to make it in. I might end up turning this whole experience into an article of sorts, and if I do, I'll post it here for all of you to gander at and feel jealous about being new to Amiga. ;)

@Amikit:
"IMHO a better buy would be a A4000 or A3000 - especially if this is a longer term purchase."

Hmm, a few days ago i let slipping an cheap A4000/040 running trough my fingers - lack of money AND space

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Retrogeek has informed me that the A4000 and A3000 are not as expandable as the A2000 and were shodily built compared to the A2000.

A2000 was nicely built but has a slow 68000 CPU and OCS/ECS chipset with a maximum of 1MB chip as standard. It comes with the slower Zorro II slots. No IDE or SCSI as standard. Kick 1.x or Kick 2.x

A better option IMHO is:

Amiga A4000

Pros:
+ 68030 CPU or 68040 CPU (two models)
+ AGA capability- 256 colors, 256,000 colors in HAM
+ High Density Floppy Drive - read PC 1.44 and Amiga 1.76MB High Density Disks
+ Zorro III / II slots - use the majority of Zorro expansions out there
+ IDE interface- use readily available IDE CDROM drives and Hard Disks
+ Kickstart 3.x - the later Kick ROM.
+ 2MB Chip Memory
+ Standard 72-Pin SIMM slots for upto 16MB of Fast Memory.

Cons:
- No SCSI (compared with A3000)
- No scandoubler (compared with A3000)

@RomanceClip



Whatever machine, it needs to be "Military Specs" (tm)

Jerry

@Amigakit:

"Cons:
- No SCSI (compared with A3000)"

Thats not fully correct, the A4000T made by Amiga Technologies and Commdore had an SCSI-II Controller.

Damn, if Commodore had made the A4000 with an Scandoubler it would be absolutly perfect

Referring to the A4000 not A4000T - making a comparison with desktop big box Amigas.

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Sorry, i missed this.