Newly received A1200

[zerohour1974]

Hi.

As the title says and I also said in my Member Introduction. It's a 1MB machine with Workbench 3.1 roms. I am waiting for my 4Mb CF card and and EasyADF device to arrive.

Question time...

Beyond installing Workbench what would people recommend I install?

Is MUI worth installing?

If I get a Amiga Monitor port to VGA adapter would I need extra software (Picasso96)?

Any help appreciated ...

[Superman]

Only 1mb? A1200's came with 2mb standard.

[zerohour1974]

Sorry you are correct ... I am a noob

[Mrs Beanbag]

1Mb machine? A1200 always comes with 2Mb Chip RAM

software-wise it depends what you want to do with it i suppose.

You would need a Picasso graphics card for Picasso96 to be of any use. A lot of new LCD panels support lower frequencies though so it depends on your monitor whether it will work.

[zerohour1974]

I stand corrected

I am not really a huge games player so it would be the odd game now and again which I believe the 4GB card comes with WHDLoad installed so I think that covers that. I just have no basic knowledge of software beyond Wordworth and Octamed with I think I played with using WinUAE.

[HardStep]

Welcome Zerohour1974,
real (not just emulated) Amiga is a fun addictive machine and it is just too easy to start spending way too much money on expanding it and too much time exploring it

Software wise, I just did a quick search with a term 'essential' and got this thread:
Essential "must-have" Amiga programs - http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=9310

[fitzsteve]

Take a look at Classic Workbench:

http://classicwb.abime.net/

The 'Lite' version is the one for a standard A1200, the pack has lots of useful updates and utilities that makes brings Workbench into the 21st century, MUI is already installed along with support for Fat95 (PCMCIA CF/SD adapters) and much more besides.

To get the most out of your A1200 I recommend at least a trapdoor memory upgrade, 2mb really doesn't go that far these days.

If these packs are too heavy for you then you could try better workbench:

http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/BetterWB.htm

Good luck & enjoy

[zerohour1974]

Thanks HardStep, handy thread. Yeah I gather if you head into the "tower" side of the A1200 you are can spend rather a lot of cash

[zerohour1974]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

Take a look at Classic Workbench:

http://classicwb.abime.net/

The 'Lite' version is the one for a standard A1200, the pack has lots of useful updates and utilities that makes brings Workbench into the 21st century, MUI is already installed along with support for Fat95 (PCMCIA CF/SD adapters) and much more besides.

To get the most out of your A1200 I recommend at least a trapdoor memory upgrade, 2mb really doesn't go that far these days.

If these packs are too heavy for you then you could try better workbench:

http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/BetterWB.htm

Good luck & enjoy

Cool will have an investigation... Would like to upgrade memory but have not seen many options that don't cost an arm and a leg

[crazyc]

You don't need to tower it to spend lots of cash. Trust me.....

[zerohour1974]

So what is the cheapest route to upgrade RAM ?

[crazyc]

I think you need to decide what you actually want to do with the A1200. there are many paths you could take if you want to go down the 'I'm doing just to see if I can' route (CD/DVD drives, USB ports, etc).

Usually people are looking at general gaming so an a1200, CF HD, and some extra RAM will do, and then it depends on what you have it plugged into as a display - you may need an Indivision etc to show it on a flat screen, you may get lucky with SCART and various monitors, you may have an old school commodore monitor.

For games, try and get away without the Indy if you can, but if you want a higher res workbench, then thats the way you need to go.

Read this re RAM/Accelerators: http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php...-buyer-s-guide

Personally I would go for a MK 4 Blizzard 1230, but they are quite expensive these days, and technically overkill for just games.

Anyway, good luck with it all!

Cheapest route is a simple ram expansion, but these are sometimes not easy to find or actually not much cheaper than a basic accelerator (especially these days)

[B14ck W01f]

Is this the same A1200 that was manufactured by Escom? If it is, you might want to change the floppy drives over to the ones similar to Commodore's. Some games do not work with Escom's A1200 due to the fact that Escom has installed PC floppy drives instead that are incompatible with the old Amiga disks.

If you are really going to buy an Amiga monitor, a word of advice: I brought an A500 last month and I decided not to use a monitor with it due to 2 reasons. Mainly that it emits a high level of radiation and it could break down at any time if it is in use often enough. Plus, you need to find someone who is happy to repair old monitors or failing that, just waste a lot of money on another one. Not worth the effort.

[zerohour1974]

As for is the A1200 an Escom one no idea it was bought from Power Computing and was the Magic Pack (I think ?) so probably so. The drive we had I broke so it was replaced with one from Amigakit so hopefully should be fine.

Next question is what has the TOSEC archive got in it?
At 31.5 Gb it's a big download is it worth it ?
Also how do you update it as the version to download is the 2012 edition and the most recent update was Dec 2014?