Should I buy an Amiga 600?

[One1]

Hi,

I used to have an Amiga 500... but sold it :(

Now I'm thinking about buying a new one. So I would like to know if I should try & get an Amiga 600 instead? If I remember correctly you needed somthing for the Amiga 500 to play certain games, something like 1MB RAM or somthing? Is that it? (Not a computer expert ;) ) & I think I remember hearing that's in the Amiga 600 already?

& I've got another question. If I buy one where can I find games? Is it possible to download them off the net using a PC & then save them in some format so they will work on my Amiga?

Hope someone can help me.

Thanks!

[Akira]

If you want to play really old games and want no problems, get an A500... Lots of old games will need a bit of tinkering to run on A600s

As for yoru second question, yes it is possible. Read our FAQs :)

[One1]

Hey Thanks.
Do you know what that upgrade thing I was talking about is? the name?

Because if I buy an Amiga 500, I'll probably need it to play certain games. I think you needed it to play Moonstone.. but not 100% sure.

Thanks again.

[Akira]

I'd say any A500 you buy has a one meg RAM expansion already :) If not, there you go, that's the name :D

[CPC464]

I would say YES YES YES buy an Amiga 600

They are nice and you can relive all those classics :)

[Ash]

And you'll need some software to fake the non-existent keypad, not sure what its called
If its cheap then get it and hang out for a 500/1200

[Akira]

Even with a softkicker some games wont work.

And the keypad is useless. I dont have a single game that requires it, and if it does, there's a workaround without any prograM (ctrl+numbers or something)

[Shatterhand]

Epic needs the numpad, also some RPGs uses it.

If you have the money, get an A1200 , I think it's the best amiga for gaming.

Or get both an A500 and an A1200. :D

[Akira]

Originally posted by Shatterhand
If you have the money, get an A1200 , I think it's the best amiga for gaming.
ONLY if it has extra mem and an HD! Without WHDLoad, it's a pain in the arse.

BTW, as I said, you can fake a numpad pressing CTRL+something+ the top number keys :D I did it with Indy 4, I mentioned that in another thread!

[spannernick]

Well i got a 600 last week for £3 quid and its great,if i have any probs loading a game i just use relokick...:D

[Unknown_K]

A 500/2000 (1.3 roms) and a 1200(3.0 roms) pretty much will run any game made for the Amiga without tinkering.

[DoomMaster]

Hi,

I used to have an Amiga 500... but sold it :(

Now I'm thinking about buying a new one. So I would like to know if I should try & get an Amiga 600 instead? If I remember correctly you needed somthing for the Amiga 500 to play certain games, something like 1MB RAM or somthing? Is that it? (Not a computer expert ;) ) & I think I remember hearing that's in the Amiga 600 already?

& I've got another question. If I buy one where can I find games? Is it possible to download them off the net using a PC & then save them in some format so they will work on my Amiga?

Hope someone can help me.

Thanks!

I would have to say NO! Get yourself another Amiga 500 or better yet an Amiga 2000. The Amiga 500 is higher quality and is built better then the Amiga 600. In fact, according to Amiga CU magazine, the Amiga 600 is the worst Amiga model that you can buy. I put my Amiga 500 into a nice vintage deluxe PC tower case. :D

[edited by akira: attachment deleted, no need to post the same shit twice]

[Akira]

In fact, according to Amiga CU magazine, the Amiga 600 is the worst Amiga model that you can buy. CU Amiga is a long defunct mag that surely based this on who knows what interest of their own, and what they thought back then means nothing I say. An A600 is FAR from being the worse Amiga you can buy, I think the A500 Plus is the worst you could have ever bought, actually. Not an A500, not an A600, full tosh.

I suppose you never owned an A600, therefore you base your opinions on what a biased magazine said more than 10 years ago?

[oldpx]

A600 was nice... but still the worst :D

[DoomMaster]

CU Amiga is a long defunct mag that surely based this on who knows what interest of their own, and what they thought back then means nothing I say. An A600 is FAR from being the worse Amiga you can buy, I think the A500 Plus is the worst you could have ever bought, actually. Not an A500, not an A600, full tosh.

I suppose you never owned an A600, therefore you base your opinions on what a biased magazine said more than 10 years ago?

I have owned EVERY type of Amiga computer ever made including the A600. I have found out from my own personal experience that the following Amiga models are the lowest quality and worst ones to own: Amiga 600, 1200, 4000, and 4000T. Did you know that the Amiga 500 is the best selling and most popular Amiga model of all time? More Amiga 500s were sold then any other Amiga model, including the Amiga 2000 series in America and the Amiga 1200 in Europe. The Amiga 500 was Commodore's second best selling computer, the famous Commodore 64 was their best selling computer.

It would be wise for you to read those old, 10 year old magazines. You would be surprised at how much you can learn from them. :D

[Akira]

I have found out from my own personal experience that the following Amiga models are the lowest quality and worst ones to own: Amiga 600, 1200, 4000, and 4000T. Would be good if you supported your words with actual FACTS that came out of your "personal experience".Did you know that the Amiga 500 is the best selling and most popular Amiga model of all time? What does that have to mean to the QUALITY of a product? Moreso when you are comparing machines of different timeframes? Is not like one had the choice to purchase an A500 or an A4000. Is not like the financial situation of Commodore was the same in the A500 and A4000 times.

Is Britney Spears the best thing that happened to music, because she sells shitloads of records?

[Eny-]

A1200 + HD + Bliz 1230/IV

Best Choice! :)

[Galaxy]

A500 was the best selling Amiga because bloody Commodore sold it pretty much unchanged for so long (5 years or something - a long time in computer terms). And it's because of this complacency that the Amiga lost it's technical advantages and has been relegated to history.

The newer machines (ie. the ones that were listed) are are much more reliable because of their surface mount boards (this does make them harder to repair though...)

[ant512]

Personally, from a modern perspective, I think the A1200 is the best model. It is the easiest Amiga to upgrade to a reasonable state, as it is compatible with off-the-shelf parts. All A1200 trapdoor upgrades use 72-pin SIMMs, as opposed to those weird ZIP things in the big-box machines and custom memory boards for the A500; it also has a standard 2.5" IDE connector and an approximation of a standard PCMCIA interface.

The best A1200 setup is the one Eny- describes (don't forget a 16MB SIMM, though). It's not too expensive to buy, it's easy to put together, and it's capable of running pretty much anything you can throw at it.

It may have sold the most units, but the A500 is far too large, is nearly impossible to upgrade (unless you're prepared to pay over the odds for flaky hardware on eBay), and is hampered by its 512K/1MB of chip RAM and OCS/ECS chipset (depending on whether you've got an A500 or an A500+).

For the average retro gamer, the A500 is useless. You can't use WHDLoad if you haven't got a bucket of RAM and a hard drive, and you can't build up a library of games unless you put your trust in slowly degrading floppy disks. For serious users (who, for reasons best known to themselves, insist on using 20 year old hardware instead of investing in a decent PC/Mac), the A500 is again limited because of its abysmal speed and memory limitations.

As for the A600, I had two (and sold them, as I ran out of space). I prefer it to the A500 - again, the IDE interface and PCMCIA adaptor weigh in its favour, plus its small size makes it extremely useful as a machine you can carry around.

[Akira]

The best A1200 setup is the one Eny- describes (don't forget a 16MB SIMM, though). It's not too expensive to buy, it's easy to put together, and it's capable of running pretty much anything you can throw at it.Yes yes yes. The right choice it is ;)
For serious users (who, for reasons best known to themselves, insist on using 20 year old hardware instead of investing in a decent PC/Mac),hey I have them all ;) But the Amiga still serves its purpose for my work, and I can't exchange it for other platform.

So I've got amiga, mac and pc :P Slowly trying to get rid of the PC scumm, though.

[T_hairy_bootson]

For the average retro gamer, the A500 is useless. You can't use WHDLoad if you haven't got a bucket of RAM and a hard drive, and you can't build up a library of games unless you put your trust in slowly degrading floppy disks.

Steady on... plenty of us "average retro gamers" do not have anything over an A500 and I would regard it as far from "useless". Just because you can find any amiga you want for a dime a dozen in England it seems you have become spoilt for choice...

By that reasoning any commodore64 owner without a HDD solution should visit the dump...

[Unknown_K]

Steady on... plenty of us "average retro gamers" do not have anything over an A500 and I would regard it as far from "useless". Just because you can find any amiga you want for a dime a dozen in England it seems you have become spoilt for choice...

By that reasoning any commodore64 owner without a HDD solution should visit the dump...

I agree 100%

An A500 (usually found with A501 memory expansion installed) is dirt cheap and plays the vast majority of Amiga games with no problems.

While an A1200 is a nice machine and very upgradable you also have to sink bucketloads of money into it to get it where you want it.

[Akira]

Just because you can find any amiga you want for a dime a dozen in England it seems you have become spoilt for choice...I don't live in England, and finding my A1200 wasn't that easy, but it was possible and I did it in the end, for quite a nice price too (only 150 us dollars for an almost new a1200 030@50 system, with a 1GB HD, 32MB of fast RAM and loads of other things!).

I think the ammount of money you invest in an A1200 is automatically "refunded" when you forget about disk drives that don't work, floppy discs that lose their data, games that are incompatible with your machine, relokicks, degraders and shit. An A500 is far from being "worthless" but in the end it will be a bigger time and money investment, I think (time is money folks). I was an advocate of diskswapping, but after I tried WHDload I never wanted to go back. With the life I have, wasting time loading and discswapping and relokicking,etc, would render my Amiga entertainment to non-existance!

It is well known that buying a stock A1200 and expanding it is much more expensive than finding an already expanded system and buy it like that. This is the choice to go. It takes more time to find such a thing but it's worthwhile to wait.

[DoomMaster]

Personally, from a modern perspective, I think the A1200 is the best model. It is the easiest Amiga to upgrade to a reasonable state, as it is compatible with off-the-shelf parts. All A1200 trapdoor upgrades use 72-pin SIMMs, as opposed to those weird ZIP things in the big-box machines and custom memory boards for the A500; it also has a standard 2.5" IDE connector and an approximation of a standard PCMCIA interface.

The best A1200 setup is the one Eny- describes (don't forget a 16MB SIMM, though). It's not too expensive to buy, it's easy to put together, and it's capable of running pretty much anything you can throw at it.

It may have sold the most units, but the A500 is far too large, is nearly impossible to upgrade (unless you're prepared to pay over the odds for flaky hardware on eBay), and is hampered by its 512K/1MB of chip RAM and OCS/ECS chipset (depending on whether you've got an A500 or an A500+).

For the average retro gamer, the A500 is useless. You can't use WHDLoad if you haven't got a bucket of RAM and a hard drive, and you can't build up a library of games unless you put your trust in slowly degrading floppy disks. For serious users (who, for reasons best known to themselves, insist on using 20 year old hardware instead of investing in a decent PC/Mac), the A500 is again limited because of its abysmal speed and memory limitations.

As for the A600, I had two (and sold them, as I ran out of space). I prefer it to the A500 - again, the IDE interface and PCMCIA adaptor weigh in its favour, plus its small size makes it extremely useful as a machine you can carry around.

Tell all of this crap to my mighty Amiga 500 Tower of Power. I installed a custom made Zorro II and CPU slots board. I plugged into the CPU slot a Blizzard 060 board with 128 megs of 32-bit memory. The on-board SCSI controller has a 4 GB hard drive plugged into it. I am running the Kickstart 3.1 ROM and Workbench 3.9. My Amiga 500 Tower of Power also has two Teac High-Density disk drives installed. I also installed a FF/SD so that I can hook up a SVGA monitor. I have a Picasso IV plugged into the Zorro II slot. Below is a picture of my Mighty Amiga 500 Tower of Power. :D

[Unknown_K]

I don't live in England, and finding my A1200 wasn't that easy, but it was possible and I did it in the end, for quite a nice price too (only 150 us dollars for an almost new a1200 030@50 system, with a 1GB HD, 32MB of fast RAM and loads of other things!).

I think the ammount of money you invest in an A1200 is automatically "refunded" when you forget about disk drives that don't work, floppy discs that lose their data, games that are incompatible with your machine, relokicks, degraders and shit. An A500 is far from being "worthless" but in the end it will be a bigger time and money investment, I think (time is money folks). I was an advocate of diskswapping, but after I tried WHDload I never wanted to go back. With the life I have, wasting time loading and discswapping and relokicking,etc, would render my Amiga entertainment to non-existance!

It is well known that buying a stock A1200 and expanding it is much more expensive than finding an already expanded system and buy it like that. This is the choice to go. It takes more time to find such a thing but it's worthwhile to wait.

Well an A2000 with SCSI controller is also a good bet, quite a few of the multiple floppy games can be HD installed.

There is some fun in finding addon hardware for the A1200 and doing the installs yourself, compared to just buying the hardware all done up.

Quite a few retro gamersd are into hardware also and collect boxed software, which is why I have a 500,2000HD,1200 and a few bookshleves full of boxed games.

In the end time is money if your at work, this is a hobby you know so have fun with it!

[ant512]

Tell all of this crap to my mighty Amiga 500 Tower of Power. I installed a custom made Zorro II and CPU slots board. I plugged into the CPU slot a Blizzard 060 board with 128 megs of 32-bit memory. The on-board SCSI controller has a 4 GB hard drive plugged into it. I am running the Kickstart 3.1 ROM and Workbench 3.9. My Amiga 500 Tower of Power also has two Teac High-Density disk drives installed. I also installed a FF/SD so that I can hook up a SVGA monitor. I have a Picasso IV plugged into the Zorro II slot. Below is a picture of my Mighty Amiga 500 Tower of Power. :D

If you're really going to upgrade, the A500 still isn't a very good choice. Here are the specs for my A1200 tower:

- Blizzard 1260 @ 50MHz
- 96MB fast RAM
- SCSI-II kit
- 20GB IDE hard disk
- 48x24x48x ID CDRW
- IDE ZIP-100 drive
- EIDE'99 buffered IDE interface
- ZIV busboard
- X-Surf network card
- CV64/3D
- SD/FF
- Prelude1200 clockport soundcard
- A4000 keyboard
- Multiface 3 I/O expander (2x high-speed serial, 1x high-speed parallel)
- Two floppy drives (one with Cyclone hardware)
- Kickstart 3.1
- Standard 15" SVGA monitor

There might be some other stuff in there that I've missed (I had three hard drives at one point, but pulled at least one of them out because it was getting silly, and I never used Debian anyway).

In terms of expansion options, the A1200 beats the A500. In terms of ease-of-upgrade, the A1200 again beats the A500 (one Power Computing-modified tower case and one standard ZIV busboard gives me a system that's essentially an A4000T, sans Zorro III). It also has the advantage of 2MB chip RAM as standard and more advanced native graphics modes.

So, the unexpanded A1200 is a better machine for gamers than the unexpanded A500 (faster CPU, more memory, AGA graphics). The expanded A1200 is also a better machine than a massively-upgraded A500.

In fact, your only real problem with the A1200 seems to be that it uses SMT instead of socketed chips; whilst this may be a problem if you want to replace individual components, it really doesn't make any difference to the majority of people who just want a quick game of Alien Breed. In fact, socketed chips have an annoying habit of coming loose, and it's probably cheaper to buy another Amiga than find an individual chip these days anyway.

[Akira]

Tell all of this crap to my mighty Amiga 500 Tower of Power. Tower of Power, ha haha.

As I guessed, since you have failed to reply to my post with any ACTUAL facts that deem the A600, A1200 and A4000s as "inferior hardware", or explaining how more sold means better hardware, you are just one of those guys who think are "hardcore" for "maxing out" an Amiga 500 and pretending it's the best hardware ever conceived. Retroman's A2000 system is eons better than what you have there, and he's not putting funny "power" names on it and boasting around saying it's better than a maxed out A1200.


I think your real problem with these machines is that somehow you got stuck with an A500, and feeling jealous of those with newer machines, you decided to grab a nice A500, stick it in an ugly arse PC-style case, and put some expansions in it (which are nothing to call home for, actually), and pretend to be mega hardcore and so super cool.

Welcome to the real world. The Amiga 1200 is a much better platform than your "Tower of Power"... hahaha, the name gives it up isn't it?

[Galaxy]

Tell all of this crap to my mighty Amiga 500 Tower of Power. I installed a custom made Zorro II and CPU slots board. I plugged into the CPU slot a Blizzard 060 board with 128 megs of 32-bit memory. The on-board SCSI controller has a 4 GB hard drive plugged into it. I am running the Kickstart 3.1 ROM and Workbench 3.9. My Amiga 500 Tower of Power also has two Teac High-Density disk drives installed. I also installed a FF/SD so that I can hook up a SVGA monitor. I have a Picasso IV plugged into the Zorro II slot. Below is a picture of my Mighty Amiga 500 Tower of Power.

You machine could hardly be called an A500 - it does not sound like you are using much of it anymore.

I've got several A500s, but they only get used to get real stubborn games to work.

[Unknown_K]

What the hell ever happened to the beauty and simplicity of an A500? You guys like throwing specs out without even saying what you do on those rigs. I can cram 256MB on my A1200 but exactly what would be the point of that except bragging rights (mine has 16mb and thats plenty for games)?

Oh and another thing, if you have invested $1000+ (my guess) on a tricked out towered A500 with a flicker fixer/scan doubler why are you using a crappy old 15" monitor?

[Akira]

You guys like throwing specs out without even saying what you do on those rigs.Not me, besides my spec is rather modest. I use my A1200 for Deluxe Paint IV AGA, PPaint, AHX, MusicLine, Eagleplayer, Videotracker, MNU3 and other proggies. Also WHDLoad gaming from time to time! even 128MB of RAM would be a waste on me, though I could really use them for some mad things with Videotracker and realtime video. Hmmm.. but those SIMMs are so expensive.

Oh and another thing, if you have invested $1000+ (my guess) on a tricked out towered A500 with a flicker fixer/scan doubler why are you using a crappy old 15" monitor? Ha ha ha ha ha! Take THAT and Party! :bowdown :bowdown :bowdown

Apparently, all that power is NEEDED to play Battle Squadron on a 1084 (not even S!) monitor. No wonder it didn't run in my Amiga *snicker* :lol

[Unknown_K]

The 1084S os a bit overrated, my machines have seperate speakers (My 1084 is mono). I do have a NEC 3ds connected to my A1200 since it can do alll the commodore screen modes and has a nice dot pitch (for the time anyway). But If I had a flicker fixer/scan doubler I would use a 19" monitor on my 1200.

[Akira]

The flickerfixer is useless with a 1084, since it cannot display anything above 15Khz.

The NEC is indeed a fine multiscan monitor.

[DoomMaster]

If you're really going to upgrade, the A500 still isn't a very good choice. Here are the specs for my A1200 tower:

- Blizzard 1260 @ 50MHz
- 96MB fast RAM
- SCSI-II kit
- 20GB IDE hard disk
- 48x24x48x ID CDRW
- IDE ZIP-100 drive
- EIDE'99 buffered IDE interface
- ZIV busboard
- X-Surf network card
- CV64/3D
- SD/FF
- Prelude1200 clockport soundcard
- A4000 keyboard
- Multiface 3 I/O expander (2x high-speed serial, 1x high-speed parallel)
- Two floppy drives (one with Cyclone hardware)
- Kickstart 3.1
- Standard 15" SVGA monitor

There might be some other stuff in there that I've missed (I had three hard drives at one point, but pulled at least one of them out because it was getting silly, and I never used Debian anyway).

In terms of expansion options, the A1200 beats the A500. In terms of ease-of-upgrade, the A1200 again beats the A500 (one Power Computing-modified tower case and one standard ZIV busboard gives me a system that's essentially an A4000T, sans Zorro III). It also has the advantage of 2MB chip RAM as standard and more advanced native graphics modes.

So, the unexpanded A1200 is a better machine for gamers than the unexpanded A500 (faster CPU, more memory, AGA graphics). The expanded A1200 is also a better machine than a massively-upgraded A500.

In fact, your only real problem with the A1200 seems to be that it uses SMT instead of socketed chips; whilst this may be a problem if you want to replace individual components, it really doesn't make any difference to the majority of people who just want a quick game of Alien Breed. In fact, socketed chips have an annoying habit of coming loose, and it's probably cheaper to buy another Amiga than find an individual chip these days anyway.

I had an Amiga 1200 computer. I did not like it and I was smart enough to observe that the Amiga 1200 is a low quality piece of crap. The Amiga 500 is a much higher quality and better built machine. Anyway, why would I want another Amiga 1200 when I have 4 - Amiga 2500s, 1 - Amiga 500 Tower, 1 - rare Premier Amiga 500, 1 - rare Amiga 2200, and a rare Amiga 3000 Tower in brand new condition with a mint box? The only other Amiga computers that I want is an Amiga 1000 new in mint box and an Amiga 1500 new in mint box. I sold my AmigaOne G4 computer because it is a low quality piece of crap and because it is NOT a true Amiga computer. I own a computer shop and I work on Amiga and Atari ST computers all the time. So, I tell you that the Amiga 1200, 600, 4000, and 4000T are junk and I refuse to work on them. I only repair and upgrade the higher quality Amiga computers. When my customers walk into my shop the first thing they notice is the Flagship Amiga which is proudly displayed in a glass case with a spot light shining on it- The Amiga 2000. :D

I also work on Atari ST computers, PC computers, Commodore and Atari computers, and Macintosh computers. I am a Class 4 Electronics Assembler and a Class 4 Mechanical Assembler by trade. I also actually worked for Commodore themselves, so I do know what I am talking about when it comes to these kinds of matters. You guys would be wise to listen to what I have to say. :agree

[Akira]

Behold, my KELLOG'S FROSTIES BOX OF ALMIGHTY 9 VITAMIN POWER!

I have modified it with all sorts of cool mega hardcore mods so it can accept any sort of cereal inside not just frosted cornflakes! And I have also modified the case with an extension to allow 200 more grams to be fit inside! One just has to notice Tony's biggest smile ever to know I am grrrrrrright!!. Notice how I use a foreign box, because I'm so super hardcore and everybody knows japanese stuff is better.
(What do you mean saying that's not japanese? I know japanese when I see it! TRUST ME)

It also has a shimmer-fixer/sugardoubler that will reduce the glare on the sugar while doubling its sugary taste, so I can get fatter faster, but with no harm to my eyes if I happen to eat my cereal under a merciless sun.

It's got a ziplock bag inside instead of that cack it comes bundled in with the cereal, this increases the protein-performance and crunchyfactor about 10568.78 percent!

I'm so glad I upgraded this box of Kellog's Frosties, for it is the best quality box out there. It's the best selling cereal box isn't it? Besides, I am smart enough to know that the box of Capt'n Crunch is nothing but a load of recycled rubbish. I know I worked for kellog's so you would be wise to hear to what I have to say (that is, if you could hear me, I'm writing).

[Unknown_K]

I had an Amiga 1200 computer. I did not like it and I was smart enough to observe that the Amiga 1200 is a low quality piece of crap. The Amiga 500 is a much higher quality and better built machine. Anyway, why would I want another Amiga 1200 when I have 4 - Amiga 2500s, 1 - Amiga 500 Tower, 1 - rare Premier Amiga 500, 1 - rare Amiga 2200, and a rare Amiga 3000 Tower in brand new condition with a mint box? The only other Amiga computers that I want is an Amiga 1000 new in mint box and an Amiga 1500 new in mint box. I sold my AmigaOne G4 computer because it is a low quality piece of crap and because it is NOT a true Amiga computer. I own a computer shop and I work on Amiga and Atari ST computers all the time. So, I tell you that the Amiga 1200, 600, 4000, and 4000T are junk and I refuse to work on them. I only repair and upgrade the higher quality Amiga computers. When my customers walk into my shop the first thing they notice is the Flagship Amiga which is proudly displayed in a glass case with a spot light shining on it- The Amiga 2000. :D

I also work on Atari ST computers, PC computers, Commodore and Atari computers, and Macintosh computers. I am a Class 4 Electronics Assembler and a Class 4 Mechanical Assembler by trade. I also actually worked for Commodore themselves, so I do know what I am talking about when it comes to these kinds of matters. You guys would be wise to listen to what I have to say. :agree

People might listen to you if you actual made a comment about why you think a piece of equipment is crap instead of spouting off some trade certificates you have followed by "trust me I know". In my profession (engineering) I have worked with quite a few people who didn't know what they were talking about followed by the "trust me" statement. Either back your statements up with some facts or don't make them at all.

[DoomMaster]

I CAN back up my statements with "facts", but are you sure that you want to go there? Afterall, I am The DoomMaster! Just what kind of "facts" are you looking for, because believe me when I tell you, that by the time I finish stating all of the facts about the Amiga 1200 computer people here will finally realize just what a piece of low quality crap it really is. And when I finish stating all of the facts about the Amiga 2000 Series people will finally realize that it is THE best Amiga model to own. Now, do you really want to go there?! :rolleyes

[Akira]

Ok I'll set this up for you, I want to read the outcome:

"OH YES PLEASE DOOMMASTER, PLEASE TELL US! TELL US THE TRUTH ABOUT AMIGA COMPUTERS! After all, you are the DoomMaster!"

[Pyromania]

my Mighty Amiga 500 Tower of Power. :D

Can your mighty A500 run a Video Toaster 4000 with color real-time effects?

[DoomMaster]

Can your mighty A500 run a Video Toaster 4000 with color real-time effects?

I do have a Video Toaster 4000 installed in one of my Amiga 2500 computers, but whenever I need to do any serious video work I just use my Pentium 4 PC. Now guys, I am not trying to start any flame wars here and maybe I have gotten off to a bad start here. Please forgive me for that. I am actually a very nice guy and I am always willing to help people with my knowledge. :D

[Akira]

So where are the earth-shaking facts?

(I don't like premade phrases, but... "I knew it")

[Pyromania]

See thats the thing DoomMaster, if you want to do any serious video editing on the Amiga you will have to use an Amiga 4000 or 4000T, the A2000 & 500 can't do color video effects and ToasterPaint and ToasterCG are not as nice on none AGA machines. I have even seen some Amiga die-hards convert their A1200 so it can use the Toaster/Flyer. Depending what your using on your P4, the Amiga solution for editing might still be faster and easier if you have a Flyer card with your Amiga Video Toaster. The PC also has a version of the Video Toaster now though.

[EternalAmiga]

DoomMaster where abouts is your store and what is it called? I would like to visit it.

Also, what did you do at Commodore?

[ant512]

You guys like throwing specs out without even saying what you do on those rigs.

My post was meant as a repost to this A500-expansion nonsense rather than a boast. I used to use the A1200T as my main computer, and thus needed to keep it upgraded. I used it for OctaMED work, MP3 playback, graphics work, word processing and the occasional game. When I started designing websites, it became plainly obvious that no matter how much extra hardware I threw in, the Amiga just didn't cut it. I briefly used it as a web server, hence the high-speed I/O ports and X-Surf, but now I rarely use it at all.

Anyway, I'm off before people start boasting about the ceramic coating on their m68k chips.

[StevenJGore]

Guys, you might want to read this (http://www.amiga.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=19841&forum=19&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&start=0).
(Akira, I know you already have!)

[bippym]

I would like to hear these facts too?

I am just curious because I am thinking of buying a 1200 and don't want to waste my money!!!

[fiath]

For a low quality piece of kit, my A1200 has done pretty damn well for 11/12-ish(?) years I have had it, without any repairs needed (apart from disk drive cleaning needed occasionally, but that doesn't count because of what it is now mainly used for). The same cannot be said for my A500, which has needed me to source spare parts on several (I think 3 at least) occasions, two of which before I even got the A1200.

[killergorilla]

What the hell is all this yapping about...

I personally wouldn't buy an a500 or a600, or in fact anything less than an a1200. The reason? Because floppies suck. They are absolute tripe and have the reliability of a diseased monkey who's trying to sew up your vietnam war wound up with an etchasketch and a water bottle.

I know an a500 can play almost any amiga game but I can't stand the need for diskswapping and having to search through hundreds of floppies so that I can wait ages for a game to load.

I'd grab hold of an a1200, get a 2.5" hdd and whack in an accelerator board with at least 16mb, I have 32mb just to be on the safe side. It's just sweet, I have bucket loads of whdload games on my hard drive (plus a few JST and DOS installs) all run nicely from a menu and I plan never to use a floppy disk again.

DEATH TO THE FLOPPY DISK :evilgrin

[oldpx]

I think I'll print this thread.

Killer, I think you can use whdload with an a500 too but I can't be arsed to use a non AGA machine after all these years.

[oldpx]

Tell all of this crap to my mighty Amiga 500 Tower of Power. I installed a custom made Zorro II and CPU slots board. I plugged into the CPU slot a Blizzard 060 board with 128 megs of 32-bit memory. The on-board SCSI controller has a 4 GB hard drive plugged into it. I am running the Kickstart 3.1 ROM and Workbench 3.9. My Amiga 500 Tower of Power also has two Teac High-Density disk drives installed. I also installed a FF/SD so that I can hook up a SVGA monitor. I have a Picasso IV plugged into the Zorro II slot. Below is a picture of my Mighty Amiga 500 Tower of Power. :DOk done reading the thread :p

Apart from all that is already said, can you prove the image you posted is the photograph of the computer you're mentioning? After all that bullshit I don't believe you have such an a500 at all. Take a photo and show us inside of your case, come on. Means nothing even if you're telling the truth though.

[killergorilla]

Killer, I think you can use whdload with an a500 too but I can't be arsed to use a non AGA machine after all these years.

The thing about using an a500 is that it has to be upgraded, yes it will work with the stock 68000 but with only 1mb of ram you are going to struggle to get many games working at all. And I do believe you need kickstart 2.0 which was only with a500+ and a600 (feel free to correct me on this). Then you have the trouble of trying to get a big enough HDD for an a500...

In the end it's just not worth it!

You'll have a lot better luck with an a600 but then it's still gonna need a ram expansion of some sort. An a1200 really is the way to go with whdload, IMO it's the minimum requirement to run whdload well :)

[oldpx]

In fact many hard drive solutions for a500 also have ram slots but their ram is expensive and hard to come by.

[spannernick]

Love to get one of these..
The price was not bad in 96..:D

[Galaxy]

The thing about using an a500 is that it has to be upgraded, yes it will work with the stock 68000 but with only 1mb of ram you are going to struggle to get many games working at all. And I do believe you need kickstart 2.0 which was only with a500+ and a600 (feel free to correct me on this). Then you have the trouble of trying to get a big enough HDD for an a500...

In the end it's just not worth it!

You'll have a lot better luck with an a600 but then it's still gonna need a ram expansion of some sort. An a1200 really is the way to go with whdload, IMO it's the minimum requirement to run whdload well :)

No, you're wrong. You'll find most Amiga games work fine on an A500 with a 512kB RAM expansion. Give the A500 credit where credit's due. It is definitely more compatible with the bulk of Amiga software than either the A600 (or A500+) or A1200 (this is not to denigrate either of the machines (A1200 is still king as far a I'm concerned) - it's just a fact of how the games were written back then, and a fact that there were so many A500s around.) In fact you will find more games work when the machine is not upgraded - a 68000 and 1MB is what most games want. Granted, the WHDload patched games have solved a lot of problems, but there are still only a small no. of these compared with the games that are available for the Amiga.

These machines are not machines of today, and so many people think/want them to compare with today's modern computers. Don't forget that these machines ruled in a time where floppies ruled and HDs were rare and expensive. A lot of the machine upgrading that has been bounced about in this thread is a total waste of money if all you are interested in is playing the games.

[Akira]

No, you're wrong. You'll find most Amiga games work fine on an A500 with a 512kB RAM expansion. Sorry, but he was talking about the requirements needed to run WHDload games in an A500, therefore he IS right.

My A600 with 2MB of Chip can do happily lots of WHDLoad installs, of course disablibg the PRELOAD tooltype. But with 1MB of Chip, you just wouldn't cut it.

[oldpx]

Hmm my A500 with 512chip 2.5 fast ownz your 600 and will probably survive longer thanks to it's stronger build. :) In fact, if you're adding a HD to your 500, it means you're getting "serious" and you must have more ram than a mb!

I am even afraid to turn my 600 on, in case it decides to blow itself up for no reason.

Ram isn't the point I'm proud of my 500, it's the keyboard :) I found a "clicky" keyboard with harder keys from a dead kick 1.3 machine. It feels almost like a typewriter. :laughing

[Akira]

The worst thing about the 600 is the keyboard cable. It's driving me mad on mine.

[oldpx]

The worst thing about the 600 is the keyboard cable. It's driving me mad on mine.
A friend of mine replaced it with a floppy cable for me. It's now longer and surprisingly stable. I'll post a photo whenever he returns it to me :p

[redblade]

BTW, as I said, you can fake a numpad pressing CTRL+something+ the top number keys :D I did it with Indy 4, I mentioned that in another thread!

Hi can I please have some more informatioin about his please. I brought my amiga 600HD second hand, and received no manual.

So it will be very interesting to see if the keypad can still be accessible.

[Akira]

A friend of mine replaced it with a floppy cable for me. It's now longer and surprisingly stable. I'll post a photo whenever he returns it to me :pThat sounds terrific! More info wanted.

About the keypad, I will try and investigate later. Why do you need the keypad? :P

[Galaxy]

Hi can I please have some more informatioin about his please. I brought my amiga 600HD second hand, and received no manual.

So it will be very interesting to see if the keypad can still be accessible.

I remember dealing with this problem when I wanted to use the perspective modes of DPaint on my 600HD.

I know that there is a program (called numpad or something like that available on aminet) that you can run from your wb startup that emulates the keypad through some keyboard combination. I don't think that there is a hardware emulation of the keypad though.

[Akira]

What a tit I am, posted a pic of my almighty CEREAL BOX OF 9VITAMIN POWER, but I didn't post it in its almighty FLAGSHIP BREAKFAST ROOM OF LUXURY!

So here it is:

[DoomMaster]

DoomMaster where abouts is your store and what is it called? I would like to visit it.

Also, what did you do at Commodore?

I was a Class 4 Assembler and an Engineers Assistant. :)

[Akira]

Hello.

I am a Class 7 "I select what I want from posts and reply to what it is to my convenience" Forum Member and Head of Bollock Operations. :)

[killergorilla]

Akira was right, I was talking about whdload here, not about a500 gaming in general. Floppy disks are still the spawn of satan so I think that spending money on an a1200 and a few upgrades is well the worth the money just because it get's rid of soooo much of the hassle.

No, you're wrong. You'll find most Amiga games work fine on an A500 with a 512kB RAM expansion. Give the A500 credit where credit's due. It is definitely more compatible with the bulk of Amiga software than either the A600 (or A500+) or A1200 (this is not to denigrate either of the machines (A1200 is still king as far a I'm concerned) - it's just a fact of how the games were written back then, and a fact that there were so many A500s around.) In fact you will find more games work when the machine is not upgraded - a 68000 and 1MB is what most games want. Granted, the WHDload patched games have solved a lot of problems, but there are still only a small no. of these compared with the games that are available for the Amiga.

These machines are not machines of today, and so many people think/want them to compare with today's modern computers. Don't forget that these machines ruled in a time where floppies ruled and HDs were rare and expensive. A lot of the machine upgrading that has been bounced about in this thread is a total waste of money if all you are interested in is playing the games.

[Dr. Dude]

@ silly doommaster :blased

Now why shut an 500 be better then a 1200?
The 1200 is faster, more mem. And is easy upgrade

Personal i am a GREAT :bowdown 1200 :bowdown fan

And where are those facts about being the 500 the best?

[redblade]

About the keypad, I will try and investigate later. Why do you need the keypad? :P

h0h0, well let's just say that some of the software I have collected, enables touch tone dialing or MF dialing on the keypad, and they mention on the docs.

* sorry a600 owners: NEVER BUY A CONSOLE *.

=].

As for what Amiga is best, I guess it depends on what you want to use the computer for and who is using it =].

A Fast computer will be needed for Mame, because some Amiga conversions just plain suck ie Double Dragon. But then again, hey he did a better job then I ever could =].

But I can't see the point of having a A500 Maxxed up more then a bog std A4000. Unless it's a ego thing.

[redblade]

Akira was right, I was talking about whdload here, not about a500 gaming in general. Floppy disks are still the spawn of satan so I think that spending money on an a1200 and a few upgrades is well the worth the money just because it get's rid of soooo much of the hassle.

should of posted this one in the previous but I do like the disk accessing routine, ie Hybris =]

[spannernick]

Hers some specs for you all and you can see the differents..;)

changed it...hope this is better..

[Dr. Dude]

er....unread able :(
maybe saving it as PNG or so might help?

[blackcornflake]

Amiga, yadda yak. I wanna hear more about Akira's cereal box. I could probably use an upgrade myself. Mmmm. :)

[Akira]

Blackcornflake, it would be a PERFECT upgrade for you.

[Ironman]

I haven't read all the replys in this thread, but:
There is no way a SMT board can be better than the "old fashioned" through plated circuit board with leaded components, ask anyone involved in electronics production.
The only reason why almost everything is produced with Surface Mounted Technology, is to save money. It is easier for a mashine to mount a smd component than a leaded one. The boards themselves has also gone through changes over the last 20 years. Cheaper materials are being used in order to reduce costs, and thus we have gotten lower quality mainboards and so forth. That goes for the Amiga as well.
The Rock Lobster edition is propably one of the best circuit boards I've had my hands on, you can solder on it time and again without risking to ruin the pads. I'd say maximum 3 times on a pad in a 600, 1200 or newer. Actually logic dictates it has to be this way: When a technology is new, you can get a lot of money for your products, but as time goes by, you have to reduce the production costs AND improve on your product, this means that the further you get, the closer to the limit will you take your materials. And this applies to basically every production you could think of.
With this said, I'd say that my favourite is the A2000, it is built like a tank, and you can upgrade almost anythin in it:)

[ant512]

The Rock Lobster edition is propably one of the best circuit boards I've had my hands on, you can solder on it time and again without risking to ruin the pads. I'd say maximum 3 times on a pad in a 600, 1200 or newer.

I still fail to see how the type of chip mounting used on a computer's motherboard affects my enjoyment of Alien Breed 3D.

[Ironman]

It doesn't! I was simply commenting on the fysical quality of the boards, as I read some posts stating that surface mounted boards was better, and that is simply not true.

I am quite sure that the A1200 is faster, has better grafix and so on, but the quality of the hardware is not better.

[Calen]

I was a Class 4 Assembler and an Engineers Assistant. :)
:guru


Oh Doomy aka Boingboss, you have come to poison another forum ?
:nuts

Fellow EAB members: abit of advice, Take most of what he says with a wheelbarrow of salt, and if he's selling anything, don't buy it!
there has been lots of reports from Amiga.org of him ripping people of via ebay.

He's a funny guy, but also a Class A troll. It's Just a matter of time before he pushes his luck here like everywhere else.

[Mangar]

How did this guy work at commodore when he is only 19?

[Akira]

he changed his information recently with fake data.

[oldpx]

That sounds terrific! More info wanted.

About the keypad, I will try and investigate later. Why do you need the keypad? :P
here r teh photoz!

[Photon]

Either buy an original A500 with a half meg fake fast expansion and an extra drive, to run the really old classics. Or an A1200 with extras like a CPU upgrade and a harddisk, to be able to run newer multidisk stuff on WHDload easily.

[Unknown_K]

Either buy an original A500 with a half meg fake fast expansion and an extra drive, to run the really old classics. Or an A1200 with extras like a CPU upgrade and a harddisk, to be able to run newer multidisk stuff on WHDload easily.

Or both!

[HCF]

Either buy an original A500 with a half meg fake fast expansion and an extra drive, to run the really old classics. Or an A1200 with extras like a CPU upgrade and a harddisk, to be able to run newer multidisk stuff on WHDload easily.
I agree...Or maybe a 2000 with KS 1.3 and HDD instead of the 500 (if you got the space) since it has a better power supply for upgrades..Would not buy a 600 for anything other than converting it into a laptop !

[alexh]

I would recommend an A600 over an A500.

A600 Advantages
-----------------

PCMCIA Networking capability.
PCMCIA Flash Disk (Hard Drive) capability.
2Mbyte Chip RAM capability.
Size.

If you want to buy a hard drive for your A500 you need to buy a SCSI drive which makes the thing EVEN bigger and not easily tidied away in a hurry. The A600 just is smaller and more useable, use either old Laptop IDE drives, or even a PCMCIA flash disk.

You can get a 128Mbyte camera Flash card and PCMCIA to flash adapter for next to nothing, it's silent and works great as a hard drive replacement.

Networking is a bonus, supports even Wireless ethernet (albeit slowly). However you need the 1Mbyte Trapdoor RAM expansion.

Almost all OCS/ECS games for WHDload work fine on a 2mbyte A600

A600 Disadvantages
-------------------

Get a cheap knock off Trapdoor RAM expansion and it will come loose all the time and give you a Yellow screen... you'll have to fiddle with it all the time to make it work.

Accellerators are difficult to find, expensive and hard to fit.

No Keypad (althought it is absolutely NO BIG DEAL).

Fast RAM upgrades are like accelerators. You can use upto 4Mbyte SRAM PCMCIA cards as FASTRAM, but then you cannot connect a Flash drive or a Network card at the same time.

I would recommend an A1200 over either an A500 or A600, but if size is important (the A600 is easily the most handy Amiga to "put away") and usability I would recommend an A600 over an A500(+).