Thinking about getting an Amiga...

[Animan]

I have been eyeing one of these for a long time, and now I think I want it to be my next major addition to my collection.

 

What is the price range for the Amiga models, and which ones do you recommend? It's hard to tell which one is the best to get these days.

Edited January 26, 2011 by Animan

[98PaceCar]

Depends on what you want to do with it. For basic games on floppy, a 1mb 500 will do you nicely. If you want to step up into the AGA games, you'll want a 1200. To run games from a hard drive, you're looking at a 1200 with an 030 or greater cpu. If you want to be a "power user", you'll want to step up into a big box model (2000, 3000, or 4000).

 

There's a lot of options, so let us know what your plans are for it and I'm sure myself and others can steer you in the best direction.

[Animan]

Depends on what you want to do with it. For basic games on floppy, a 1mb 500 will do you nicely. If you want to step up into the AGA games, you'll want a 1200. To run games from a hard drive, you're looking at a 1200 with an 030 or greater cpu. If you want to be a "power user", you'll want to step up into a big box model (2000, 3000, or 4000).

 

There's a lot of options, so let us know what your plans are for it and I'm sure myself and others can steer you in the best direction.

 

Are there any models that are incompatible with previous models, game wise?

 

If that isn't a problem, and the price is decent, I would probably get a big box model.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Each newer model pretty much ran previous software, what incompatibilities there were could usually be overcome using either a boot floppy called Relokick or as in the case of Amiga's with the AGA chipset (A1200 / A4000) selecting different boot option by holding down both mouse buttons.

However titles that used the AGA chipset for better graphics etc ARE NOT backwards compatible on older machines but those are few and most of them have versions for the older chipset.

[The_Laird]

Depends what you plan to do with it, if you are buying it as a games machine you are better off getting a console. I think that alot of Amiga games have aged really badly and most of the best ones have better versions on the consoles. Plus those old disks are very unreliable these days . . .

[Mirage]

 

Plus those old disks are very unreliable these days . . .

 

 

Who uses disks anymore though? SD or floppy emulator.

[The_Laird]

Oh right illegal roms

[Mirage]

Oh right illegal roms

 

Who said anything about that? You're making some pretty big assumptions there. I have hundreds of real Amiga floppies, but they're all on the SD for ease of use. Like I said, there's very little reason for a modern Amiga user to use real floppies.

[The_Laird]

I didn't make any assumptions or did you miss the smiley ( ) at the end

[Mirage]

I didn't make any assumptions or did you miss the smiley ( ) at the end

 

I didn't miss it, but it gives the wrong impression and not a complete story of the possibilities or reasons. That's only one possibility.

[+wood_jl]

I'm not looking to get one, but if I were, I think I'd want Amiga 500, 1MB RAM, and Floppy Emulator. Someone should sell it in bundles.

 

One day a nice clean boxed low-mileage A500 may tempt me, if the price is right.

[Mirage]

I have a beautiful (looks like new) 500 with 3MB RAM (1 chip 2 fast), 3.1 Kickstart ROMs, attached to a CF card reader with all the WHDLoad games on it, plus everything else I've collected and put there from floppies myself. It's tons of fun. That config will run a surprising number of Amiga games/programs, even PAL ones with a little software tweak. The Amiga's are definitely good computers, and many of the games did hold up well to today, IMO.

[+remowilliams]

I didn't miss it, but it gives the wrong impression and not a complete story of the possibilities or reasons. That's only one possibility.

 

Chalk it up to Jaguar Community Syndrome.

 

The nice thing about Amigas for retro gaming is that there's a good number of options depending on what you want to do and how far you want to go money wise. An 500 with an HxC floppy emulator makes a great lower end setup, and an expanded 1200 or big box machine offers all kinds of other options. Myself I've got a minimig for the minimalist floppy experience (just much handier ) and a loaded up 1200 for the WHDload end of the spectrum.

[Animan]

What's the price range on the Amiga's, anyway?

 

The A500 seems fine to me, but it would still be nice to have a higher end model.

[98PaceCar]

The nice thing about Amigas for retro gaming is that there's a good number of options depending on what you want to do and how far you want to go money wise. An 500 with an HxC floppy emulator makes a great lower end setup, and an expanded 1200 or big box machine offers all kinds of other options. Myself I've got a minimig for the minimalist floppy experience (just much handier ) and a loaded up 1200 for the WHDload end of the spectrum.

 

There's a lot of truth in this post..

 

A brief run down on the models:

 

1000 - Sort of a big box, but not really desirable for gaming needs. There are upgrades out there for it, but it's a bit tougher to get up to a usable spec.

 

500 - A great gamer's platform. All you need is a ram expansion, 1 mb Agnus chip, and an HxC to have a solid system to cover most of the games out there. The only things you won't be able to play are the AGA games, but most of them have OCS versions. You can add a hard drive, but it usually requires a side car add on. For a clean, loose system with a ram expansion I'd suspect you'd pay about $50 - $75.

 

2000 - Same as the 500, but in a big box format. The only real difference here is the addition of expansion slots and a ton of nice boards you can add on for various things (ram, processor upgrades, scsi controllers, etc). Not sure of price, mine was stupid cheap!

 

2500 - I've never had one, but I believe it's basically a 2000 with a built in hard drive.

 

3000 - This is a weird one. It's a big box system with Zorro slots like the 2000, has a built in scan line doubler so you can use a standard VGA monitor, and has a built in SCSI interface. It is ECS, an intermediate step between OCS and AGA. So it can run all the same software as the 500/2000, but not the same as the 1200/4000. They come in either 16mhz or 25mhz. They use zip ram for internal ram, which can be hard to find anymore. These seem to bring some decent money. I think around $150 - $200 or so for a nice clean example.

 

1200 - The second non big box system. Has a built in hard drive, but it's IDE this time. Easy to replace with an IDE to CF adaptor for solid state. There are a number of good accelerators available, but an 030 is pretty much required for best compatibility with WHDLOAD (THE solution for running floppy games from an HD). Supports AGA, so it will cover you on most of what the 500 will run and most of the AGA stuff. There are some OCS games that have problems on the 1200, but software solutions exist to help with that (degrader, relokick, etc). There are also a few AGA games that require faster processors and/or CD ROM interfaces. I bought one with an 040 card for $250. I think that was a bit cheap with the processor card, but not out of line.

 

4000 - Same as the 1200, but in a big box format. Depends on the system, but probably no less than $200 - $250 and likely more. My Toaster 4000 was $300.

 

600 - Hard to find and I honestly don't know much about them. It's the smallest form factor and pretty cool, but I rarely see them in NTSC.

 

It's been a while since I've really priced any out, so I could be out of line on my listed prices. Figure out what you want to play and work from there. There's not really a magic bullet system that will cover you for 100% of what you could want, but my gut is either a 500 or a 1200 is the best bet.

[Arkhan]

Get an A1200, a IDE to CF adapter w/ a CF card...

 

put WB on it, WHDLoad, and get a PCMCIA wifi card.

 

It's your cheapest, fastest and easiest solution if you want to play games.

 

You can browse the net to the WHDLoad site and get the games and run them.

 

If you don't want networking, you can always transfer via crossdos (if its a small enough game), or use a null modem cable and transfer that way (slow).

 

There are nice new 120$ accelerators.

 

Don't buy an A500. You will have a bitch of a time getting it set, and once you're done you could've just got an A1200.

 

A2000,2500 and 3000s are too bulky and not worth it. A4000s are too pricey and are probably overkill.

 

The A1200 is sleek, easy to get a Wifi card, easy to add an HDD to, has AGA, and can be accelerated and ram upgraded all easily. It's the most popular choice of Amigas to buy really.

 

get one!

 

Also, I have had an A500, A1200, A2000, A2500 and A4000.

 

Of all of them, I vote A1200. I sold mine cause it was dodgy/broken (damaged in shipping). I enjoyed it the most while i had it. The A500 needed ram upgrades that are pricey, and had no hard drive, so it was limited in its use. The other Amigas were all big bulky desktops. The A1200 performs as good, and is a nice wedgeboard. Can't go wrong really.

[desiv]

I agree on the 1200 right now..

I have an A1000. Great for history (first Amiga), but adding a HD and more memory is tricky... Doable, but not as easy.

 

I also have an A500. This is a great basic machine, if you want to play games from floppies. But adding a HD or getting a floppy emulator can be spendy, and if you want to run games from an added hard disk, you'll need more RAM.

If you're OK with floppies tho, this is a good option...

 

I also have an A1200. It has an IDE controller built in. Mine came with a 2.5" HD, but I spent $5 on an IDE to CF adapter and $10 on a 4G CF card and I'm using that as my HD now.. It comes with 2M ram, which is enough for a lot of games. If you try to run multi-disk games from the hard drive tho (what are called WHDLOAD), you'll want more RAM.

You can get a plain RAM card for $60-$80. (I wasn't patient, so I paid $80ish for an 8M card.) That's plenty.

However, since then, they started making new accelerator/RAM cards and I now have a 28Mhz 68030 with 64M of RAM. It was about $130 shipped I think (xmas gift). You can also use a PCMCIA SRAM (not FLASH) card, but those are usually almost as much as plain RAM cards, and actually slow down the 1200 (but do allow you to play more WHDLOAD games).

 

The 1200 is the most flexible and expandable of them.

 

Now, WHDLOAD doesn't just put floppy games on to your HD. It also handles incompatibilities from different versions.

So, floppy original versions of some of the older games might not work on an A1200, but the WHDLOAD version will work.

 

If you want a BOX Amiga, the A3000 is tempting because of the built in flicker fixer so you can use a VGA monitor.

The other models work composite (A500 built in composite is monochrome, but you can get an adapter to composite and/or s-video for $30) or 15Khz RGB, which means Amiga monitor. Most new monitors (and even most older ones) don't sync down that low..

 

Just a note for the A500 tho, the guy who made the new accelerators for the A1200 has said that an A500 version is likely, and he's working on it. He's not a hobbiest. It's Individual Computers sold through several shops and they make high quality products...

(They also make flicker fixers to allow non-A3000's to use VGA monitors and even USB cards and more..)

 

My favorite it my A1000, although it needs more TLC.

My most used is definitely my A1200...

With the accelerator and a PCMCIA ethernet card, I can even browse the web, although slowly and sites with a lot of javascript and any CSS don't work. But it's a nice option for transferring files.

 

So, the A500 is the least expensive (usually) and great for floppy games.

But the A1200 is generally your best best.. IMHO..

 

desiv

[+wood_jl]

Don't buy an A500. You will have a bitch of a time getting it set, and once you're done you could've just got an A1200.

 

I defer to your Amiga expertise (I have pretty much none) but what do you mean, a bitch of a time getting it set? It seems it's not hard to find one with 1MB upgrade in them already. Plug in a HxC Floppy Emulator and you're done, right? At least, I hope so. For just gaming floppy images, why bother with a hard drive?

 

I had a bitch of a time with leaked-out capacitor electrolyte ruining my motherboard on the 1200 I had. I wish like hell I would have gone with a 500 and an HxC, and be gaming today. Gathering RAM, accelerators, and HD for a full-blown 1200 sounds like an expensive and time-consuming operation, for newbie. I didn't get that far, unfortunately.

 

I admire those with bitchin' WHDload setups, but that's just too much for me to try, and I'm not buying another 1200 after my experience.

 

The A500 needed ram upgrades that are pricey, and had no hard drive, so it was limited in its use. The other Amigas were all big bulky desktops. The A1200 performs as good, and is a nice wedgeboard. Can't go wrong really.

 

I haven't been looking lately, but last year when I was, it seemed I saw loads of A500s that were already upgraded to 1MB, and relatively the same price as a 512K A500 - peeking at Ebay listings. I don't suppose I'd buy one that wasn't upgraded, then it wouldn't be an expensive upgrade. If you're just wanting to game on the cheap, no hard drive wouldn't be a big deal with floppy images, would it?

[98PaceCar]

I defer to your Amiga expertise (I have pretty much none) but what do you mean, a bitch of a time getting it set? It seems it's not hard to find one with 1MB upgrade in them already. Plug in a HxC Floppy Emulator and you're done, right? At least, I hope so. For just gaming floppy images, why bother with a hard drive?

 

Putting a hard drive on a 500 is a largely useless exercise. Certainly if all you are doing is gaming, there is no reason at all. I think in all my years of using an HD equipped 500, I only ran across 10 or so games that supported it. To run WHDLOAD effectively on the 500, you'd need a very expensive accelerator, at which point it would be a better move to go to a big box or 1200.

 

For the 500 be a solid gaming platform, you need a 512k ram expansion (most 500's sold have it or it's a cheap card to buy) and the upgrade to 1mb chip ram (it's a simple hardware mod and one chip replacement, the Fat Agnus). Once you have a monitor solution of some sort, that's all you need. The HxC is a sweet replacement for the floppy and gets you very close to having an HD like solution, but it's not required. I wouldn't even bother with swapping to a newer Kickstart or anything like that if gaming is your goal. Your compatibility will go down a bit and unless you spend a lot of time in Workbench, you won't gain anything.

 

I had a bitch of a time with leaked-out capacitor electrolyte ruining my motherboard on the 1200 I had. I wish like hell I would have gone with a 500 and an HxC, and be gaming today. Gathering RAM, accelerators, and HD for a full-blown 1200 sounds like an expensive and time-consuming operation, for newbie. I didn't get that far, unfortunately.

 

I admire those with bitchin' WHDload setups, but that's just too much for me to try, and I'm not buying another 1200 after my experience.

 

The 1200 boards do seem a bit twichy. My spare unit has a heat related problem that I've never been able to nail down. I think they got cheap on the manufacturing by the time the 1200 was out. When it works, it can be a nice system though.

 

The A500 needed ram upgrades that are pricey, and had no hard drive, so it was limited in its use. The other Amigas were all big bulky desktops. The A1200 performs as good, and is a nice wedgeboard. Can't go wrong really.

 

I haven't been looking lately, but last year when I was, it seemed I saw loads of A500s that were already upgraded to 1MB, and relatively the same price as a 512K A500 - peeking at Ebay listings. I don't suppose I'd buy one that wasn't upgraded, then it wouldn't be an expensive upgrade. If you're just wanting to game on the cheap, no hard drive wouldn't be a big deal with floppy images, would it?

 

If you can find a 500 that already has the 512k ram expansion, you're pretty much good to go. You don't need a hard drive and even if you get one, you won't get much out of it. Certainly not enough to justify the cost.

[BydoEmpire]

Who uses disks anymore though?

I do! I have a huge box of Amiga games on floppies and maybe it's just good luck, but I have yet to find one that doesn't still run. My 5 1/4" c64 games are pretty hit-and-miss (mostly miss), but I've had good luck w/ my Amiga games on 3 1/2". I'm still using my old A500 with the 1meg expansion and haven't had any problems. I certainly wouldn't mind a 1200 for AGA stuff, but the A500 still runs the vast majority of games.

[FastRobPlus]

I pretty much agree with everything on the thread. An Amiga 1200 is the best all around retro gaming computer for someone who just wants to play Amiga games on the real hardware.

I didn't notice it stated explicitly here, but the 1200 has composite color video output, which the 500 lacks. So that saves on buying an adapter.

 

I disagree that a hard disk drive has no value on the 500. There are dozens of games that will install to one. I just completed a trade last night with someone. About a dozen RPG games, and at least half had an HD install function, and that's without hackign them in any way. Hall of Light (the Amiga version) of Atarimania list over 1000 games that are natively HD installable.

That said, I do agree that after the cost of getting an HD can brin a nice cheap eBay Amiga 500 past the going price of an A1200, and that's without the accelerator. A good A500 accelerator can easily fetch $300.

 

I also agree with everyone that the A1000 is the "Amigaiest" of the Amigas. This is the one to own if you really want to experience Amiga nostalgia, but this is also the oldest Amiga, the hardest to get replacements components (try finding just a spare keyboard) and the hardest to upgrade by a huge margin.

[desiv]

That said, I do agree that after the cost of getting an HD can brin a nice cheap eBay Amiga 500 past the going price of an A1200, and that's without the accelerator. A good A500 accelerator can easily fetch $300.

 

I look at it this way. If you want to use a TV on an A500, you need way to get that in color.

You can usually get an A500 for about $50 (I got mine for that) with the 512k expansion). Then I needed to add color output. An A520 (not great quality) is about $20, or a good amigamaniac adapter (with s-video) is $30. So, you're at $80 or so....

Amiga 1200's start around $100 (I got mine a year ago for $100 shipped, but it was a bit beat up, but works great).

With the small extra, you get PCMCIA (which is NICE for transferring files using CF adapters) and an extra 1M of RAM. (Chip (Graphics) RAM at that). You also get an IDE controller (and frequently an IDE drive already).

And you get AGA...

And currently, it costs less to add RAM/HD's to an A1200 than an A500...

 

However, if you're OK with floppies (and I like floppies and used them happily until I got my A1200), the base A500 (with 512K expansion) is a workhorse.. It just runs. (Note, there's not usually a CAP issue with the A500's, but the 512k RAM cards frequently have batteries (clock) that have leaked, so that's the thing to watch on those..) They are very compatible..

(I have several hundred blank floppies still sealed in plastic and have only had a few of my older floppies go bad..)

 

I'm not sure about the floppy SD cards. They are nice, but for the price you could have gotten an A1200 with a HD and the WHDLOAD versions are even easier to use than the Floppy Emulators... They are nice, but I'm not sure for me...

 

So, if I were you, I wouldn't say no to a good deal on an A500, but I'd lean towards an A1200..

 

(Note: a WHOLE different discussion is PAL/NTSC. An A1200 with an RGB monitor handles PAL easily... Just something else to consider...)

 

Good luck...

 

desiv

[98PaceCar]

I pretty much agree with everything on the thread. An Amiga 1200 is the best all around retro gaming computer for someone who just wants to play Amiga games on the real hardware.

I didn't notice it stated explicitly here, but the 1200 has composite color video output, which the 500 lacks. So that saves on buying an adapter.

 

Good point, the A520 can be tough to find at times. Not expensive, but also not the best solution. Though I really prefer a 1084 on the Amiga for PAL use as well as just being a nice monitor overall.

 

I disagree that a hard disk drive has no value on the 500. There are dozens of games that will install to one. I just completed a trade last night with someone. About a dozen RPG games, and at least half had an HD install function, and that's without hackign them in any way. Hall of Light (the Amiga version) of Atarimania list over 1000 games that are natively HD installable.

That said, I do agree that after the cost of getting an HD can brin a nice cheap eBay Amiga 500 past the going price of an A1200, and that's without the accelerator. A good A500 accelerator can easily fetch $300.

 

I also agree with everyone that the A1000 is the "Amigaiest" of the Amigas. This is the one to own if you really want to experience Amiga nostalgia, but this is also the oldest Amiga, the hardest to get replacements components (try finding just a spare keyboard) and the hardest to upgrade by a huge margin.

 

Do you have a link for the Hall of Light? I've never heard of that site before. I'm shocked if there are really that many games that support HD installs outside of WHDLOAD. I never thought that the HD expansions for the OCS models were common enough that so many games would have added support. I was the only 500 user I ever knew that had an HD back when the 500 was still commercially available (and viable).

[desiv]

Do you have a link for the Hall of Light? I've never heard of that site before.

 

http://hol.abime.net/

 

desiv

[Mirage]

I use WHDLoad just fine off SD on my non-accellerated A500 (I have 3mb though, and upgraded ROMs, maybe that is the key... it's not a stock 500). Sure, not everything runs, but most things do. But that said, I agree that it seems like it would be a lot better to just get a 1200 to begin with, assuming someone didn't already have a 500 solution.