Amiga 500 or 600? Which one should I get?

[DashProject]

I told my mom I want to get an actual Amiga for Christmas, but can't decide whether to get an A500 or an A600.

I initially wanted to get an Amiga 600. The A600 is smaller, has a newer, prettier OS, and it was made during the early 90s but those are the only real advantages I see it having over the A500. It seems the A500 is where all the games are at, and I'm concerned if I get an A600 then there might be compatibility issues with some of the older games. But it was true that the A600 came bundled with Lemmings (which came out before the A600 came out) so I'm assuming it might work with some of the older games, but maybe not all of them.

However, I am also concerned that the A500 might not be able to run newer Amiga games, like games made after 1991 when it was discontinued. I want to be ideally able to run as many games as possible between 1985 and 1994, as those nine years were when the Amiga was in its prime.

So what do you think I should get? I am currently leaning more towards the A500 but I don't want to make any final decisions yet. I need to let my mom know ASAP so she can find the time to get me an Amiga for Christmas. Thanks beforehand!

[khph_re]

You can fit a hard drive in the A600, which saves you swapping disks all day. You can also fit an accelerator/extra ram quite easily, and fairly affordably. Not so easy to do on the A500/A500+

You will need extra ram if you wish to use WHDload. This piece of software allows you install the hundreds of Amiga games that were not hard drive instalable. But it needs a bit more ram (in most cases).

The A600 will occasionally cause you grief on games that require the numerical keyboard.the A600 & A500 will NOT play the AGA games made for the A1200/A4000

The best bet, in my opinion, is the A1200. It has a numeric keyboard, more ram, a faster processor, a much larger colour palette and will play games made for the A500/600 (OCS/ECS) as well as AGA games. Those few older games that did not run on the A1200/AGA, have generally been fixed in their WHDload installable versions. WHDload works better on a stock A1200, as it has double the RAM of the A600 (though you may want to invest in some more further down the line, to allow you to install the bigger games).

[Cammy]

Oh boy, tough decision! You listed some pretty good pros and cons there for a stock system, but the compatibility problems start to go away with minor expansions. For example, both the A600 and A500 can be upgraded to Kickstart 3.1, which is the last OS revision Commodore released, and which came out on the CD32 and later A1200s and A4000s.

The game incompatibility problems don't only arise from having the wrong Kickstart revision, but can also depend on the amount and type of RAM you have. Most games were programmed with either 512k or 1024k RAM in mind, and most of them won't care if it's all ChipRAM or both ChipRAM and FastRAM, but you do come across the odd game that requires either a full meg of ChipRAM, or the particular combination of half a meg of Chip and half a meg of (Slow)FastRAM that comes on your typical A500 trapdoor expansion.

There are nearly always ways around the incompatibility problems however. With the A600 you can use a "Degrader Disk" which will load in an image of Kickstart 1.3 and pretend your A600 is a 512k A500. This helps with most older games, but won't help with the few that need FastRAM, although there aren't that many. To overcome this you can add either an internal FastRAM expansion, an accelerator like the ACA630 which has 64MB RAM and a fast 68030 CPU, or a simple 1-4MB PCMCIA SRAM card. All these options will both speed up general usage of the A600 as well as give you the memory required to run a lot more software and games.

Where you hit incompatibility problems with the A500 is when you want to play a game that needs 1MB ChipRAM or a later Kickstart revision. ChipRAM expansions for the A500 are very hard to find and tricky to install, but Kickstarts are easy to swap over in all Amigas, you just need a butter knife and careful, steady hands. The one game I can think of that requires a full 1MB ChipRAM is Primal Rage, but I can't think of any others, there may not be many. Some games may just want more than 1MB RAM in general, and those will require you to fit either a sidecar RAM/HDD expansion or an internal RAM/CPU/HDD expansion which replaces the 68000 in the CPU slot. There are currently a few hobby projects that are occasionally sold which can offer your A500 4-8MB FastRAM and either a IDE port or Compact Flash card slot if you're patient enough to wait for it to be built for you, or you can also wait for the upcoming ACA520 which will give your A500 a fast 68EC020 CPU, 8MB FastRAM, IDE, Compact Flash, maybe USB and more.

Another thing you need to consider is how you're going to go with storing and running your games, are you going to buy hundreds of old floppy based games on eBay and risk playing them from the slow original disks, will you try to stock up on rare Double Density floppies to use for backups, or just use unreliable High Density disks formatted in the Amiga's DD format, which means you will certainly experience data retention issues leading to loss of files and the need to constantly re-copy from your original disks (or from ADF source files). Or would you rather safely store thousands of games on a super fast, silent Compact Flash hidden inside your Amiga, presented to you either from a nicely customized Workbench desktop environment or your choice of game launcher menu, which you can easily set up to load instead of Workbench simply by holding a button while you switch on your Amiga?

As oldschool and nostalgic as floppy disks are, they can be a pain, and the beauty of an Amiga with an internal HDD/CF is they can always still be booted from floppy if you want to experience that nostalgia, but offer so much more in the form of mass storage and software availability.

The A600 already has an IDE port and 1MB ChipRAM which is easily upgradeable to 2MB ChipRAM with reasonably priced, brand new expansions like the A604. You can stick a cheap CF adapter and a 4-8GB CF card in there which can store just about every Amiga game that ever came out, and you can make use of the PCMCIA slot for RAM expansions (up to 4MB) as well as Ethernet and Wireless network cards, SCSI adapters, CF/SD card readers and old Amiga-PCMCIA CDROM drives. You can set up the CF card inside a PC from WinUAE so you don't need to worry about using a serial cable to transfer ADFs slowly to disks from a PC like you might have to with the unexpanded A500.

I guess it comes down to how much extra stuffing around do you want to do, and do you intend on upgrading the Amiga at all? They're the ultimate hobby hacking machines and can suck thousands out of you before you know it, but you can plan sensibly and build yourself an ultimate Amiga gaming system without wasting too much, and it's really satisfying to use one that's been carefully modified.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by khph_re

You can fit a hard drive in the A600, which saves you swapping disks all day. You can also fit an accelerator/extra ram quite easily, and fairly affordably. Not so easy to do on the A500/A500+

Very easy to do for the HD + RAM, moderately easy for the accelerator.

AmigaBUS hd controllers are plentiful, you can snap an A590 or GVP unit for the minimum of fuss. The A590 takes 2MB, the GVP 8MB of RAM.

I see 68k socket turbos for sale quite often on Amibay, so they're also definitely obtainable even in this time and age.

[khph_re]

Not as easy as the upgrading the A600. Exactly as I said.

[Jope]

You're making it sound like the A500 is difficult to upgrade. ;-)

Especially for the HD+RAM it's actually even simpler.

[Lord Aga]

Get both. They are dirt cheap. I started with an A600, but have since bought an A1200, an A500 and a CD32.
The good thing is... whatever Amiga part I find, I can put it in one of them
Actually not quite true... I still need a big box Amiga.
Searching, searching...

[LuMan]

I'm with Lord Aga on this one - buy both!

Seriously, though, I'd get an A600 first - you may even find one with a HDD already installed. If not, don't panic - it's a relatively easy job and it's great to have WB boot up if you want to do something other than gaming. Plus there's the benefits of WHDLoad.

Then get an A500 and retr0btite it! They all need loving homes

Remember - nothing is better than playing a game on its original hardware.

[deicidal]

Personally I would say if your going in the a600 direction, get an a1200 instead unless size is that bigger an issue.

I personally find having an old a500 ks1.3 and the a1200 is the perfect combination if you want to run pretty much anything.

[DashProject]

Wow, I'm overwhelmed! Bear in mind I don't really know all that much about putting together computers, but my roommate knows a ton about the subject. Maybe he could help me. I also greatly appreciate all the feedback and assistance, so let me try and review what you are saying.

Here's the gist of what I'm getting from this discussion:

• I can get a newer Amiga (namely an A600 or A1200) to run older games by putting in more RAM and making sure I have the proper version of Kickstart. Now will I need to swap Kickstart versions depending on the game? Because that sounds like a pain.
• The A600 and the A1200 can accept an internal hard drive, which I can save the games to (that's actually a must for me, I can't imagine swapping floppies all the time and also I intend to use other, non-game apps like a word processor in Workbench.)

That's what I've gotten out of it, please correct or clarify where I'm mistaken, but bear in mind I really don't have a whole lot of skill in tinkering with computer hardware, and I'm afraid I might break something by accident. But I suppose my roommate could help me in areas where I need help.


I am now leaning towards the A1200, it is newer than the A600 and was made for longer (discontinued in 1996 as opposed to 1993) and uses Workbench 3x. Now will I be able to install Workbench to the hard drive, and run games from Workbench, or will I need to run games from the floppies?


Again thanks beforehand.

[Predseda]

You should set a poll. I would vote for 600.

[Lord Aga]

Get all three of them ! One is never enough

[LuMan]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

Get all three of them ! One is never enough

Good reply!

TBH, getting an A1200 does open more doors in the future as you'll soon be itching to expand as your knowledge increases - trust me, the bug WILL bite

Once you're up and running you'll have WB on your HDD with a LOAD of WHDLoad games

In answer to your questions, yes you can install Workbench on your HDD, but some games are not OS-friendly, so you'll either be running from floppy or using WHDLoad (there are other solutions, like running an A500 emulator on your A1200, but these are more techy solutions).

Let us know how you get on and please post pictures of your new Amiga when you get it

[clenched]

DashProject - If you already owned a 1084 monitor then by a wide margin the A500 is the better choice. If not, given the current TV's available maybe one of the others is more practical. The more I think about it though, I'd rather have the pride of ownership of an A500 and have it sit idle than the other two.

[DashProject]

Alright I think I've decided on an A1200, I can go over the subtleties of the previous posts at a later date, to find out just what I'll need to do to optimize it. Now I just want to know where can I buy old Amigas? I've seen classifieds for Amigas and Amiga parts here on this site, but I'm not sure, especially since I live in the US, and most of these ads are based in the UK.

How much do you think an A1200, with mouse, monitor and HDD, would retail for now? I don't seem to see a whole lot of them on eBay, and I'm afraid to check eBay for fear of the prices going way up and losing the bid. I am not made of money, and neither is my mom, since she's going to be the one who will get me the Amiga.

Also, suppose she needs to buy it in parts...like, the Amiga itself from one seller, the monitor from another, etc. I mean she is looking on eBay herself right now, and is not seeing a very good selection. At least the prices are reasonable. But anyways, would an A2000 monitor work on an A600, for instance? She wanted to know that.

[cosmicfrog]

join amibay and put a wanted add up

you made a great choice and is worth the little extra it costs gettin the 1200

basicaly all amigas have a 23pin video port so monitor should work, as usual the more info we get the less assumptions we have to make

[khph_re]

Originally Posted by DashProject

Now I just want to know where can I buy old Amigas? I've seen classifieds for Amigas and Amiga parts here on this site, but I'm not sure, especially since I live in the US, and most of these ads are based in the UK.

How much do you think an A1200, with mouse, monitor and HDD, would retail for now?
would an A2000 monitor work on an A600, for instance?

Amibay.com for the A1200 and parts, Sometimes Ebay. THe A1200 should come with a mouse, many come with a HDD installed.

If you want it all from one place with a guarantee:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...roducts_id=305

Monitor wise, you would do well to find a TV/LCD hybrid that supports PAL. There are threads on here and on Amiga.org covering that. I'll try to dig them out for you, Amigas and monitors can be a complicated business!

Games on the Amiga used TV resolutions/scan frequencies. Many games use Euro PAL for more lines. A standard PC monitor will not work with many games. The Amiga A1200 had a special mode for using PC monitors, it was mainly used for productivity.

As for prices, check what prices things go for on Amibay, watch a few auctions end on ebay to see what the average is.

[DashProject]

Originally Posted by khph_re

Monitor wise, you would do well to find a TV/LCD hybrid that supports PAL. There are threads on here and on Amiga.org covering that. I'll try to dig them out for you, Amigas and monitors can be a complicated business!

Thanks for the advice, but I really, really don't want to have to use RF out and hook it up to a TV. The results would be blurry, ugly and thoroughly low-def. Besides the only TVs I currently have in my house are a massive HDTV in the living room and an ancient TV/VCR combo that currently lives in my closet, gathering dust. So are you saying Amiga monitors are rare, expensive, hard to set up or what?

I understand that the Amiga (sadly) does not support standard VGA, which rules out my original plan of using my old Dell Dimension CRT monitor with my A1200, I thought it'd work before I did the research and found out the Amiga used its own proprietary monitor setup.

Games on the Amiga used TV resolutions/scan frequencies. Many games use Euro PAL for more lines. A standard PC monitor will not work with many games. The Amiga A1200 had a special mode for using PC monitors, it was mainly used for productivity.

I know a standard PC monitor won't work, but will an official Amiga monitor work with games? I know that's probably a really, really stupid question but I just want to be sure. Also, why won't a lot of games work with a PC monitor? Is it because only the special mode worked with it?

I really want to get an actual Amiga monitor so I can have the highest picture quality, as opposed to having to resort to a blurry analog TV.

[desiv]

The Amiga monitor will work great for games and it handles the PAL/NTSC issue with an Amiga 1200 no problem...
There is "flicker" in interlace modes (its the way it was designed). I don't think it's that bad and run my WB in interlace (using the magictv to make it look nicer). Other people run their WB in non-interlace.

Most games are designed to run in 15khz screenmodes.
Most PC monitors don't scan that low, which is why you can't use them.

If you find you "need" to run 15khz modes and productivity modes on the same screen, you can get a flickerfixer/scandoubler solution. Those tend to start in the $100+ price range, although there's an interesting thread here about a $40 unit (with some soldering/cable making) that shows promise..
And at the top of the line, Jens' new Indivision MkII (not out quite yet) looks very nice, has great support for modern monitors/LCDs, and will have Grafitti support.

Also, an Aussie called Amigamaniac makes a great Amiga to s-video adapter with incredible quality. I have one and highly recommend it.. The quality rivals RGB. Your TV still has to support PAL tho. None of mine do.. So no PAL modes on the TV for me.

That being said, I use Amiga monitors currently (1084s) for mine and love them.

The only real problem with them is that they eventually die, frequently in a way that isn't fixable.. ;-(


Honestly tho, for games, the composite output of the 1200 isn't too bad. I don't mean it's great.. ;-) But if you have to do that until you find a monitor, it's not bad at all...
(Again, PAL requires a TV that supports PAL frequencies, which is rare here...)

Good luck, and the 1200 is the right choice..

desiv