Best Route to a Miggy

Righty, i have some newbie questions...

I'm getting an A1200 soon as i can find one that doesnt break the bank, first thing i want to do is get it working with a standard PC monitor (since i work with PC's they're easy to come by compared to an Amiga monitor) but i haven't a clue as to how I go about this, secondly i want to move it all to a tower system. Whats the best way to go about these things?

Also, to tide me over till i get paid, can i install UAE on an MSDOS/Linux partition with nothing else to get the Amiga OS running on PC hardware, and will it be any good?

[Djay]

if you wanna towered A1200, then maybe the best route is to by one second hand off ebay...

although there is some fun to be hand buying the bits and building yourself... sometimes buying someone else's system can work out only a little more than a bog standard A1200...

but do a little research about the add-ons in the tower before bidding

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you can buy a VGA adaptor for Amigas

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check out http://www.aros.org/ if you are thinking about Amiga/PC partitions

[yadster]

I'm looking into getting a 17" monitor myself and from what I can tell by reading previous posts on here is you need a scandoubler as most PC monitors cannot work at the Amigas 15hz (mainly used for games) however using a screenmode like doublepal will work on a PC monitor but as soon as you play a game it will switch back to Pal 15hz and all you'll be left with is a blank screen. I've just tried my Miggy using a 17" monitor working with Wordworth 7 in doublepal and it looks absolutely stunning, is easy on the eyes and much better than my pokey 1940 monitor. But alas no good for games without a scandoubler - oh how I wish I had a scandoubler for Dungeon Master The ones I've seen though are blooming expensive.

Have a look on www.amibench.org as there are a few 1200's for sale.

[Figi]

Hi Cactus,

first thing i want to do is get it working with a standard PC monitor

To get the "native" PAL/NTSC-screenmodes with their low refresh rates (50 Hz) to work with a standard pc monitor, the best solution is to get a scandoubler. Look at your favourite Amiga (Online) store, it should provide it. Most of them come with a built in flickerfixer as well which is useful to display High-Res screenmodes without an Amiga Gfx-Card (like Picasso96).

I use an external scandoubler/flickerfixer that's plugged into the rgb-port of the A1200. It provides an standard VGA port, so you can use any PC vga cable to connect to any PC vga monitor. IIRC I payed about 50 Euro for a brand new one, maybe you get lucky on ebay, though.

secondly i want to move it all to a tower system.

Two solutions, please choose:
[ ] Yeah, I got money, let's buy something!
[ ] Uhm, should be cheap, may look ugly.

If you checked the first, go buy a "ready to use" Amiga tower like the RBM series. They are rather expensive, though.

If you're some DIY-freak, get a Big tower and a metal cutting tool and use your imagination or one of the "how to build an A1200 into a tower case"-Textfiles from Aminet (use the search tool on aminet.de). Much cheaper, much more freaky, more work. The solution I chose.

can i install UAE on an MSDOS/Linux partition

You can even install WinUAE on your current windows system and it will be just like the real thing. Erm, in fact, it may even be better than the real thing because WinUAE emulates the Picasso96 gfx card which let's you use much higher screen resolutions. ;-)

Another way to get Amiga OS running on PC hardware is the commercial software "Amithlon".

Click me

Hope that helps for the moment. ;-)

Which is the best option - SD/FF or VGA Adapter, and would i need to get it all Towered up if i wanted to use the VGA adapter route?

I'm going for a "money no object" view to see whats best, may have to save but im sure it'll be worth it

BTW: What's the difference between the Commodore Amiga A1200's i remember and the Amiga Technologies A1200?

[yadster]

Another way to get Amiga OS running on PC hardware is the commercial software "Amithlon".

Now this does sound interesting, I've heard about this but not taken much notice. The ability to buy a cheap PC and turn it into an Amiga sounds very tempting. However there seem to be some points that put me off which I may or may not be wrong about from what I've read on the 'net.

1) It's not been developed anymore so if there are any problems then it's tough luck.

2) Sound emulation is not good.

3) It doesn't emulate the custom chips making playing games hit and miss. You can use the Amiga version of UAE but this isn't been developed anymore and will only play around 50% of games and then not always correctly.

Apart from the above three points it seems like a very good idea but playing games is just as important to me as using WW7 so it's a maybe at the minute. In fact it seems like a cheaper way of making an Amiga with all the bells and whistles you need - no using a scandoubler or having to pay mucho cash for a decent accelerator, been able to connect to the internet easily, having a CDRW and DVD drive at hand, using a big ass monitor and so on. If anyone does use Amithlon I'd love to hear any comments about it.

[Figi]

Which is the best option - SD/FF or VGA Adapter, and would i need to get it all Towered up if i wanted to use the VGA adapter route?

I don't think so, but this may depend on the type of the adapter. If it plugs into the rgb port, it's external and there is no need to tower. Since I got no experiences with any other method then the scandoubler, I can't tell you much about it - maybe a google research will help?

BTW: What's the difference between the Commodore Amiga A1200's i remember and the Amiga Technologies A1200?

They have a different floppy controller. Some NDOS-disks (games) do not work with the AT-version of the A1200 board. There are fixes around for that, i.e. "The Real Floppy Fix" (Amtrade). It's a little piece of hardware.

Most games, however, are able to boot from DF1:, so an external disk drive can do the trick. ;-)

About Amithlon, I think it aims toward working with the miggy rather than playing. The best solution to play amiga games on pc hardware still is WinUAE IMO.