best Amiga setup/version

[Soviet Conscript]

whats everyones opinion on the best Amiga computer in overall terms? i've only had experence with the 500A but latey i've been thinking of a better setup. i know the 1200 seems to have some compatability issues. i also know that there were some versions only released in europe and also alot of EU only games. so whats the best setup for overall compatability, expandability and performance?

[Joe West]

if my memory serves me rite, Amiga 2000 is the best

[tom]

or a 1200 with HDD and extra RAM, second FDD also, Philips 8833 or Commodore equivalent (only ever had very little compatability problems, unlike the 500+)

[robotriot]

Well, if you're going for playing games from HD via WHDLoad, a 1200 w/ accelerator card (030 at least) and a couple of MB of extra RAM is probably the best solution. No need to juggle all those disks anymore.

Otherwise I'd stay with the A500, since most of the games were made for it.

[icbrkr]

Agreed with the above, an A1200 with an '030 and some extra RAM will play anything you want via WHDLOAD.

If the A600's FastRAM expansion comes out soon for as cheap as it's planned (20 GBP, 8MB), that might be my setup of choice if it works well

[zektor]

Well, I have never had anything but an A500 (with 1MB expansion) so I obviously prefer this classic as it is where all of my Amiga memories are. I have played thousands of games and demos with this setup, so I have no issue with it. Good to get an extra floppy drive and not have to swap disks so much tho....on games that support it that is.

[Ze_ro]

It depends on what you want to do I suppose. For the sake of this thread, I'm assuming we just want to play games.

If you want to actually collect disks, then go for a regular Amiga 500 (not a 500+) with at least 1MB of RAM. This is probably the cheapest of the Amiga systems, and the most compatible, though lacks AGA compatibility. It's also super easy to use, as you just stick the disk in and turn the computer on. Might as well be a console. The Amiga 500 came with 512k of RAM by default, though RAM expansion is cheap, and relatively easy to install (though you may have to replace the Agnus chip with a more recent version).

If you prefer to play stuff from hard drive, then your best bet is an Amiga 1200. Stick a 4GB hard drive in there, get at least some sort of accelerator card (even a cheap '030 with 8MB RAM is good enough), and install WHDLoad. This takes a lot more know-how to put together, as you'll actually need to know how to use Workbench and some basic AmigaDOS... but once you have it all together, it's pretty slick, and you'll never need to bother with disks. You can also use this setup to do some real computer work with the Amiga too, if you feel so inclined. WHDLoad handles pretty much all the compatibility issues too.

If you can get your hands on one, the 3000 and 4000 are nice machines... but they're much harder to find, expensive to expand, and they take up a lot more room. I've never owned a 600, but as far as I can tell, it's basically little more than a 500 with a hard drive, PCMCIA slot, and no numeric keypad.

Personally, I use an Amiga 3000 for most of my Amigaing, though I recently got an SX32 Pro for my CD32, which now easily outperforms the 3000.

--Zero

[icbrkr]

The 600 is the same thing as a 500 with up to 2MB chip and WB 2.1. The plus is that you can grab Amigakit's EasyADF kit and move files over via compact flash card and make real disks out of them. You can do that too with the A1200, but if playing off of disks, the A1200 is semi-incompatible with Amiga 500/1000/2000 games.

[zektor]

I spoke earlier of my Amiga 500, but I no longer have it. Years have passed and it was traded away back in the early/mid 90's....probably for a 486 or something. I missed it so much and have been trying for the past few months to get a good deal on another.

Seems the Amiga (and most other vintage computers) are having some sort of modern day resurgence. It was not easy for me to score an A500 for a decent price until today actually. Found one with a 1MB expansion, A520 video adapter, Amiga 3 1/2 external, mouse, some disks (including workbench luckily), and about a dozen original game disks....for $41.

This thread reminded me of how much I enjoy the games, and how much the A500 really means to me.

Not to get TOO off topic, but I reiterate, the A500 is just fine for playing most games. I have owned Amiga Forever for some time now, and it does include Amiga Explorer....which from my understanding will allow me to transfer ADF files back to the Amiga on disks providing I have a null modem serial cable (on the way) and some DD disks of course. If all works the way I am hoping it will, it'll be freakin' great.

I would recommend a visit to the Amiga Forever site and to check out their software:

http://www.amigaforever.com/

[Emuaust]

I have been using Winaue for the past month and its excellent, you can get anything amiga running on it.

[Blanka789]

I use a CDTV, but that's basically just an A500 in a different case from what I understand. I always thought that the 4000T was supposed to be the ultimate amiga...

[Ze_ro]

Well, sure, if you can get a 4000T, then by all means go for it! The problem is that it's very rare and expensive. It's also a giant beast, so good luck shipping it around. It has some great features, but if all you want to do is play Amiga games, it's overkill. The Amiga 1200 will play all the same games, and is much smaller and easier to find at the same time.

--Zero

[icbrkr]

Well, sure, if you can get a 4000T, then by all means go for it! The problem is that it's very rare and expensive. It's also a giant beast, so good luck shipping it around. It has some great features, but if all you want to do is play Amiga games, it's overkill. The Amiga 1200 will play all the same games, and is much smaller and easier to find at the same time.

--Zero

Hey, Zero is giving me a reason to brag.

My 4000T is equipped with:

68060/50Mhz
144MB of FAST Ram, 2MB Chip
20GB of HD space (only because I'm too lazy to upgrade it)
Cybervision64 video (VGA compatible)
Xsurf Ethernet card
External scandoubler
Lyra keyboard adapter (for using standard keyboards)
PS/2-USB adapter for standard mice
Workbench 3.9 and wayyy too much goodness onboard.

Is it overkill for playing games? Oh yeah.

It also looks a lot like this (an old pic)

[zektor]

Very nice 4000T. The 68060/50Mhz tells me that this was probably the Escom release of the computer. Wish I had one of these

[Ze_ro]

Alright, well if we're going to be posting pictures, then here's my Amiga 3000. It's hooked up to a nice VGA monitor alongside my old DOS machine (Ha, ice and I both have 1571's hooked up in our pictures!). VGA support being one of the best features of the Amiga 3000. You can also see my SCSI CD changer, an external floppy, and a CD32 controller tucked away. What you can't see is the 8MB RAM expansion, IDE controller with drive (in addition to the 3000's built-in SCSI controller), and X-Surf ethernet card. Unfortunately, while most 3000's ran at 25MHz, mine is one of the earlier ones that is only clocked at 16MHz.

I do want to get an accelerator for it, but processor cards for the 3000 are a huge pain in the ass. I've already done the INT2 modification, but depending on the processor card, I might have to replace the DMAC and Ramsey chips (and getting the newer versions won't be cheap). The case design also doesn't provide much in the way of air circulation, not to mention the usual power issues, since Commodore tended to use the bare minimum in power supplies. If I could get an '040 running, I'd be very happy.



--Zero

[icbrkr]

Heh. The 1571 is hooked up to the C-One I have it in a different case now, that picture was taken a few years ago.

The 4000T is an Amiga Technologies one, the 060 is a Cyberstorm MK2 add-on card that I paid my right nut for.

More pics!



This is my Amiga 600 - PAL model hooked up through a scandoubler, with all of 2MB on board (soon to be 8MB fast), 4GB HD and a compact flash adapter for moving files easily over. Also, there's a nullmodem cable hooked into the back so I can IRC through a shell on my OS X box.



This is my pretty standard CDTV, no expansions, no nothing. I need to spray paint the drive black to match, and get a real mouse for it. The gamepad mice are just awful.

[Blanka789]

Heh. The 1571 is hooked up to the C-One I have it in a different case now, that picture was taken a few years ago.

The 4000T is an Amiga Technologies one, the 060 is a Cyberstorm MK2 add-on card that I paid my right nut for.

More pics!



This is my Amiga 600 - PAL model hooked up through a scandoubler, with all of 2MB on board (soon to be 8MB fast), 4GB HD and a compact flash adapter for moving files easily over. Also, there's a nullmodem cable hooked into the back so I can IRC through a shell on my OS X box.



This is my pretty standard CDTV, no expansions, no nothing. I need to spray paint the drive black to match, and get a real mouse for it. The gamepad mice are just awful.

I'm so jealous of that black CDTV keyboard!!!! Wish i had one...and yes, the mice are difficult to find, but I keep looking!

[tom]

Hey I like pictures.
Rare(ish) Amiga 500+ on 8833-II, and a CD 32 on my old Sanyo monitor:

[theMot]

If the A600's FastRAM expansion comes out soon for as cheap as it's planned (20 GBP, 8MB), that might be my setup of choice if it works well

Where can i get my hands on that?

Nice set up btw.

[icbrkr]

Where can i get my hands on that?

Nice set up btw.

Thanks!

Check out here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=42262

It's been produced in Russia, but they were having a hard time sending out of country for some reason....

There's a group buy for a new run.