Which to buy - A500, A500+, A600 or A1200?

[Fuzzball]

I have been looking to get a A500 as it is the only Amiga I ever owned. Strictly speaking, many years ago I bought a broken A600 with the intention of getting it fixed but never did and (ashamed to admit) I eventually threw it out. So the A500 is the only working Amiga I ever owned.

However, for various reasons, I am now considering expanding my search to the A500+, A600 and A1200 partly because they tend to be in slightly better condition from what I have seen so far. I had also wanted a A1200 back in the day but could never afford one. Alas, I suspect that is still true as they seem to go for silly prices. I was considering a A600 because they are slightly cheaper, also support IDE hard drives and also have the benefit of taking up less desk space.

What are the pros and cons of each these days?

For me, the biggest pro of the A600 and A1200 is that there is less modding that I would want to do to them. I have no skills in any of that so the thought of getting a A500 and adding various internal bits was a bit daunting. The A600 and A1200 already supporting IDE is one less thing for me to worry about.

[Dunny]

Get the A1200, a large HDD and WHDLoad for all those A500 games and never look back.

If you do want to expand it, then a simple FastRAM board works wonders. You don't need to go all the way up to a PiStorm (though obviously that's the pinnacle of Amiga expansions) as FastRAM usually will get things moving nicely. If you do want to use WHDLoad then FastRAM (at least 4MB) is a must.

All depends on what you want to do with it.

[Fuzzball]

The A1200 is just very expensive especially for one in good condition. Why not the A600?

As for what I want to do with it? Definitely play all A500 games and demos. Protracker (or whatever tracker I used to use on the A500). Deluxe Paint 3. To be able to take a look at AGA games would be nice but as I have never played one has no nostalgia value to me so is far from essential.

[Jope]

In my opinion, skip the fast ram board with the A1200, because you'll be wanting to use the PCMCIA slot eventually and then you have to start messing around with the machine's configuration.

030 turbos with a 32 bit RAM address bus are relatively easy to obtain and then you don't have to necessarily think about expanding the machine for most WHDLoad games. Sure, they are more expensive than a 8MB board, but less of a dead end.

[alexh]

You can get an A1200 if you have patience and are willing to travel a bit further to pick it up? Might take 1-2 years but you will get one.

Camp on eBay, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace, Vinted etc. and search for every A1200 auction. Find one that is "collection only", these tend to sell for 1/2 - 2/3rds normal price. Even if you see one that is "collection only" but is outside the area you can travel, msg the vendor and ask if they would box it up for courier collection?

You will get one sooner or later.

This was mine from a few years ago.



I was considering buying this a month or so ago

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266793548686

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by alexh

I was considering buying this a month or so ago

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266793548686

This A1200 is broken, and OP has said he has no electronics skills. And yet it still costs 250 pounds. That says it all about the state of the market.

Sure, if you wait 1-2 years and dilligently scour all the assorted sites you just might get lucky and get one cheaper than the average. But this market is shrinking and there are plenty of others looking out too, so this chance is getting smaller all the time.

As for OP, I think you really need to stick to A500, given what you say about the budget and lack of modding skills Either sort out the one you bought recently, or get an already modded one, something like that: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235650422041

[aeberbach]

A1200 is probably the most versatile but also the most wanted and expensive. Expect the value to go even higher when Framethrower + PiStorm makes it the one that is not only the fastest but also the only one to have all native video modes + RTG through HDMI. You also don't need to worry about PCMCIA or Gotek Floppy because of the shared partitions through WiFi/Ethernet.

A600 is the most compact and could easily become my favorite, PiStorm works, Framethrower might one day.

These are the two I make keyboards for - Big-box would be nice but too bulky, too costly. Never had an A500 and don't see any advantages (though a chicken lips would be nice).

[Konrad]

I suggest go for an option where I can use WHDLoad hasslefree.

A1200 is IMO the obvious first choice, as it is easy expendable, put an HD in it an play all games via WHDLoad, including AGA titles. But it's expensive

If you just have little (or no) interest in AGA titles, then I think the A600 would be my next choice. Give it HD and RAM extension and you're good to go. Don't know the today's price range of those.

[fxgogo]

Considering what you want to do with your Amiga, stick with your A500.

There is no need to jump into the A1200 pool, considering the prices. Accelerators or memory expansions are nice, but another cost to just do what you can do now, but with a little bit of convenience in WHDLoad. Rather just emulate the few AGA titles you want to experience.

The A600 is an option if you can find one in your price range. Just remember there will be a fair amount of work you are likely to need to do to it, if it has not been done like recapping. The same goes for the A1200

Get yourself one of the floppy replacements like a gotek and you are ready to do what you need to do with your A500

[Fuzzball]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

This A1200 is broken, and OP has said he has no electronics skills. And yet it still costs 250 pounds. That says it all about the state of the market.

Sure, if you wait 1-2 years and dilligently scour all the assorted sites you just might get lucky and get one cheaper than the average. But this market is shrinking and there are plenty of others looking out too, so this chance is getting smaller all the time.

As for OP, I think you really need to stick to A500, given what you say about the budget and lack of modding skills Either sort out the one you bought recently, or get an already modded one, something like that: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235650422041

I've seen that one on Ebay. Personally, I think it feels a bit crazy buying 30+ year old hardware (especially at these prices) that could fail any day but it seems even crazier to me to buy one that is already showing error messages at boot up.

[Fuzzball]

Originally Posted by alexh

You can get an A1200 if you have patience and are willing to travel a bit further to pick it up? Might take 1-2 years but you will get one.

Camp on eBay, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace, Vinted etc. and search for every A1200 auction. Find one that is "collection only", these tend to sell for 1/2 - 2/3rds normal price. Even if you see one that is "collection only" but is outside the area you can travel, msg the vendor and ask if they would box it up for courier collection?

You will get one sooner or later.

This was mine from a few years ago.



I was considering buying this a month or so ago

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266793548686

All the more power to you, but personally, at my age, I don't have the time or energy to waste on such endeavors. Spend a year or two scouring every marketplace looking for an Amiga - no thanks. I have too many other things to do. These are great replies to the topic though as it makes me feel I should just knock the idea on the head once and for all. I do genuinely appreciate it.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

I've seen that one on Ebay. Personally, I think it feels a bit crazy buying 30+ year old hardware (especially at these prices) that could fail any day but it seems even crazier to me to buy one that is already showing error messages at boot up.

It was just an example, but overall...maybe you are better off sticking with MiSTer after all


If you want cheap/infallible/hassle free then in this hobby you can usually pick one, at best two of these parameters, never all.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

This A1200 is broken

Almost certainly just a broken disk drive. Fit a gotek, job done. (Maybe send to RetroPassion for a Recap ~£40)

Originally Posted by dreadnought

And yet it still costs 250 pounds.

That is the going rate these days.

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

Spend a year or two scouring every marketplace looking for an Amiga - no thanks. I have too many other things to do.

I understand but it really is just 5 minutes to set up the initial search notifications per platform. 5 minutes each day to review the 1-2 notifications you'll get and program up the snipe-bids (that's a program to bid in the last few seconds of an auction with your maximum acceptable bid).

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by alexh

It has a broken disk drive

Maybe, but you don't know that 100%. Could be something with the motherboard. And OP has mentioned numerous times that they don't have any modding/fixing skills.

Originally Posted by alexh

I understand but it really is just 5 minutes to set up the initial search notifications per platform. 5 minutes each day to review the 1-2 notifications you'll get and program up the snipe-bids (that's a program to bid in the last few seconds of an auction with your maximum acceptable bid).

This is a good avice for a collector who already has some hardware. For somebody who wants something now,or thereabouts, not so much.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

This is a good advice for a collector who already has some hardware. For somebody who wants something now,or thereabouts, not so much.

You want something cheap you pay with time, you want something quick you pay with money. Theres a sweet spot somewhere in between.

Maybe the OP could consider something like a software emulation platform, UAE running on an ARM, you could assemble something new, that works well for under £50. If you want to spend a little more for it to be all set up maybe A600GS or Amiga500 Mini

Perhaps ask your friends / old skool mates who had Amiga's back in the day if they kept theirs in their parents lofts?

[Photon]

PiStorm is FPGA emulation, and you can't switch to the original CPU.

I second the suggestions that A1200 would be the easiest for you to expand. Well, you will need some transfer solution for initial installation. The typical solution is to order a preinstalled CF card which includes the transfer solution. (E.g. PCMCIA CF or SD card adapter.)

Some FastRAM will already accelerate your A1200 and ACA products (except ACA1211) include flash ROM which will save you the cost of buying Kickstart 3.1 ROMs. I would say it's fine to stay on 3.0 on the A1200.

Its competitor is the A500 with ACA500Plus. It has licensed ROM and Workbench images and will install a CF card with few key presses, so it solves this transfer solution problem. You will get up to 8MB fast RAM, part of which will be the chipmem expansion to make it an A500+.

You can also order WB disks and choose any Amiga model.

A600 has some of the benefits of A1200 (PCMCIA and IDE port), but installing an accelerator is a harder operation, and piggybacking surface mounted CPUs tends to be unstable - as in, once a year or so you may have to open the case and re-seat it.

The Amiga 500+ is like a bigger A600 without PCMCIA and IDE. Just like the A500 many accelerators come in the expansion port and for internal ones I recommend to replace the original CPU socket with one with round pins. Make sure to get an accelerator with fastRAM and IDE/CF, as the internal expansion port will only expand chipmem.

For all of these, make sure to buy a tested working and inspected Amiga. Caps and batteries can leak. It's rarer to find an A500 with acid damage, it's rather common to find A500+ with acid damage.

And for all the models you can order Kickstart 3.1 and preinstalled CF cards. This wasn't always the case, it's rather nice that you can now.

I would say you can get an A500 lot for 100 EUR or less, and a working stock A1200 for 200 EUR or less. Maybe in the next country over for that price, so 30 EUR more shipping or so.

Lowest cost A1200 that can still do lots of stuff I see as
A1200 180 EUR
FastRAM/accel 80 EUR
Installed CF+adapter 22 EUR

So 282 EUR.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Photon

PiStorm is FPGA emulation

No it isn't. It is software emulation.

Originally Posted by Photon

and you can't switch to the original CPU.

Not true. You can switch back to the original 68020@14MHz CPU on PiStorm32 lite (A1200).

You can't switch back to the original CPU on normal 16-bit PiStorm (A500) because it replaces the 68000 CPU completely.

[Photon]

Haha, sry I blame being up late last night. Emulation, then. Anyway, if you got the other benefits and could still use real HW for CPU+chipset, then CPU/graphics emulation would be optional.

[Kin Hell]

The PiStorm & variants of are a combination of Real Hardware, built to run on several Amiga models using EMU68 Software to function like a real Amiga & utilise the Amiga's Custom Chipset....

FPGA is purely an Emulation at Hardware level on a one chip package & does not include the Amiga Chipset. (eg, Vampire)

Based on the Original launch configurations:

A500 - 512K Chip ram, harder to accelerate, old chipset/intuition, no hard drive interface.

A600 - Not much choice for acceleration but has IDE for storage & less footprint on the desk. Still the old chipset/intuition arrangement with 1Mb Chip ram over the A500's 512K

A1200 - Best for acceleration choice & sensible prices for the 030 cpu's. Newer Chipset & greater intuition, 2Mb chip Ram.

Both the A600 & the A1200 give you PCMCIA which can be used for a variety of interfaces, the most advantageous being Networking.

As with most hobbies, we scrimp & save where we can to expand, making our collection better.
But as alexh & others have tried pointing out, your best bang for buck would be an A1200, thereby giving you more headroom. - Your investment will let you do everything your A500 did with a huge pile more to aim for in the future.
I would think all you need to do is allocate a set amount of money you're happy to spend to start out with & go from there.

@ alexh

Wish I'd seen that A1200 myself. I would definitely have bought it for a floppy drive clean. The unit was immaculately clean, albeit an Escom badged A1200.