Which is better ?

[chiark]

I'd personally be very, VERY wary of buying a 4000 from anyone other than a trusted seller on here, or Amibay.

The reason? 4000s have batteries. Which leak. And destroy the RTC circuit, potentially the mouse circuit and potentially the fast memory.

They also have high incidences of leaking capacitors in the audio circuitry, which means knackered sound.

I have 2 4000s, but the 1200 I have is more reliable!

[Kakaboy]

Originally Posted by chiark

I'd personally be very, VERY wary of buying a 4000 from anyone other than a trusted seller on here, or Amibay.

The reason? 4000s have batteries. Which leak. And destroy the RTC circuit, potentially the mouse circuit and potentially the fast memory.

They also have high incidences of leaking capacitors in the audio circuitry, which means knackered sound.

I have 2 4000s, but the 1200 I have is more reliable!

Yeah I noticed some corrosion around the battery in my 512k expansion on A500 . I have cleaned it up and seems to be working fine except the battery no longer holds charge .

Deff seems like the A1200 is a good all round machine .
Appreciate the advice .

[DDNI]

[asm1]

Originally Posted by Kakaboy

So with A1200 new
+120gig Drive
+2gigCF & interface , adapter for PCMCIA slot
+Scan doubler
+Freight

There is no way you will need a 120 Gig Drive on an A1200 Remember workbench will fit in less that 150 Megabytes (this is not winDoze ). I have a Dual IDE----> CF interface for My a1200 and use a 4 Gig CF card, which is More than enough for starters anyways. An 8 gig internal CF would probably be all you'd ever need.

just a thought

Andrew

[Kakaboy]

Originally Posted by asm1

There is no way you will need a 120 Gig Drive on an A1200 Remember workbench will fit in less that 150 Megabytes (this is not winDoze ). I have a Dual IDE----> CF interface for My a1200 and use a 4 Gig CF card, which is More than enough for starters anyways. An 8 gig internal CF would probably be all you'd ever need.

just a thought

Andrew

Nice thanks for the advice asm1 .

Can you clarify for me what the difference between fast and slow ram is ? I why did they bring out an expansion A501 for the A500 ? If it doesnt physically help by increasing the ram to 1mb , whats the point ?

[Leffmann]

Basic 3.1 Workbench installation is a few megabytes. With necessities and enhancements you're looking at 20Mb or so, and most games are less than 5Mb in size, so that 120Gb drive is in my opinion completely superfluous.

Simply, fastmem is fast for retro gaming it doesn't matter if you have fastmem or not. Pretty much all games were made for the stock or lightly expanded machines and will play like they should with or without fastmem. If you will be using WHDLoad for retro gaming you will notice shorter loading times with fastmem though, but it's not a world of difference.

[Kakaboy]

Originally Posted by Leffmann

Basic 3.1 Workbench installation is a few megabytes. With necessities and enhancements you're looking at 20Mb or so, and most games are less than 5Mb in size, so that 120Gb drive is in my opinion completely superfluous.

Simply, fastmem is fast for retro gaming it doesn't matter if you have fastmem or not. Pretty much all games were made for the stock or lightly expanded machines and will play like they should with or without fastmem. If you will be using WHDLoad for retro gaming you will notice shorter loading times with fastmem though, but it's not a world of difference.

Ok so my A500 with 512k expansion and 2mb in the A590 HDD , how does that go as far as WHDload ? Am I going to have issues ?

I also have 2gig SCSI HDD installed for the games and wWHDload .

[Photon]

I will chime in, the A1200 is easy to get going (apart from the scandoubler, which can cost 150 EUR - if you can even find one to buy).

If you use a VGA screen (or flatscreen, since all but a few cannot take a PAL signal at all), you will not like the choppy refreshrate in games. It has to do with the 50Hz refreshrate - a very few flat screen monitors/TVs do 50Hz. If you're connecting to a VGA CRT that goes to 50Hz (many do), then it's fine, of course.

If you can stand running it on a TV that takes PAL, or a normal home computer monitor such as this, then you could basically get away with buying a stock A1200, and spend about 40 EUR on a CF card, an adapter, and a flatcable.

The CF card runs very fast as a harddisk, and if the flatcable is 12 cm or so you could slide it between the case halves and fasten the adapter on the side of the case, so you can update the harddisk contents easily.

I have no harddisk in any of my 4 Amigas, just CF adapter slots and a single CF card which I stick in the one I turn on and use at the time.


I reckon you could get a used A1200 for 60-70 locally. If the condition is good and you can test it before buying, go for it! But otherwise you might end up 'inheriting' its problems.

Amigakit offers brand spanking new and non yellowing ones for around 180 EUR, or refurbished ones for less. If you've given up on your A500, you can use its power supply, so a refurbished one less PSU from Amigakit could fetch less shipping cost and be a good solution.

If you really want high resolution and lots of colors, you need an Indivision, an accelerator or fastram expansion, and OS3.9 or later. You can always buy that stuff later, it's rumored they will make another batch of Indivisions in a few months.

[Kakaboy]

Originally Posted by Photon

I will chime in, the A1200 is easy to get going (apart from the scandoubler, which can cost 150 EUR - if you can even find one to buy).

If you use a VGA screen (or flatscreen, since all but a few cannot take a PAL signal at all), you will not like the choppy refreshrate in games. It has to do with the 50Hz refreshrate - a very few flat screen monitors/TVs do 50Hz. If you're connecting to a VGA CRT that goes to 50Hz (many do), then it's fine, of course.

If you can stand running it on a TV that takes PAL, or a normal home computer monitor such as this, then you could basically get away with buying a stock A1200, and spend about 40 EUR on a CF card, an adapter, and a flatcable.

The CF card runs very fast as a harddisk, and if the flatcable is 12 cm or so you could slide it between the case halves and fasten the adapter on the side of the case, so you can update the harddisk contents easily.

I have no harddisk in any of my 4 Amigas, just CF adapter slots and a single CF card which I stick in the one I turn on and use at the time.


I reckon you could get a used A1200 for 60-70 locally. If the condition is good and you can test it before buying, go for it! But otherwise you might end up 'inheriting' its problems.

Amigakit offers brand spanking new and non yellowing ones for around 180 EUR, or refurbished ones for less. If you've given up on your A500, you can use its power supply, so a refurbished one less PSU from Amigakit could fetch less shipping cost and be a good solution.

If you really want high resolution and lots of colors, you need an Indivision, an accelerator or fastram expansion, and OS3.9 or later. You can always buy that stuff later, it's rumored they will make another batch of Indivisions in a few months.

Thanks for all the info .

I actually do have a phillips monitor thats is a commodore clone but Im not thrilled with the size of the screen 13" and some colours look not quite right . I do have a Hewlett Packard 21" screen which does refresh rates 60 I think I will have to check it may even do 50 . I think the A500 runs at 15k doesnt it ? so I havent even bothered with it .

Would be great if A1200 just plugged straight in and worked . In Australia Amigas still fetch a good penny . e.g. A decent A500 in good condition with box etc can fetch up to $150 . There was a C64 recently in pristine condition (bread box version) still in box etc that went for $220 alone

I would like to get my hands on a 1200 locally , I will have to keep my eyes out , not many of them around . Not like C64 and A500's

EDIT : I just checked the two 21" monitors I have and both have 50 to 60hz so the A1200 I hope will run well with these .