What can I do with my old Amiga?
It really depends what you classify as an "old Amiga." As I
can't go into every single situation that you may be interested in
I will give a general upgrade option to get the best out of your
machine.
A1000 - If you have an A1000 you are a very
lucky person. It was the first Amiga out and could be worth alot of
money. However, it is no good for modern computing. Unless you have
specific software that will run on it, it should only be used as a
museum piece.
A500/+ -This machine is good for playing alot
of classic games. It can also use older technical software, such as
WordWorth 2, Mini Office etc. There are accelerators that can give
you more memory, a faster processor (up to a 68040), and IDE ports
for standard IDE hard drives and ATAPI CD-ROM.
A2000 - This is quite a good machine. It has a
large amount of Zorro II slots available to add 16-bit sound cards,
graphic cards for 24-bit display and accelerators. I would
recommend that you buy the latest version of the operating system,
Workbench 3.1. This will come with a set of disks and a ROM chip
that will make your machine more usable. You should also buy at
least a 68030 accelerator card. Otherwise your machine will be just
too slow to run much software. For those who want the latest stuff,
a PowerPC accelerator is also available allowing you to emulate a
PowerMac with the right software and run lightning fast software,
useful for 3D rendering. You can also buy cheap PC ATAPI-compatible
CD-ROM drives if you have an IDE expansion card.
A600 - The A600 is not really useful for much.
It's useful for some classic games but not really much else. It
also cannot be expanded easily either. However, with a little bit
of DIY it can be turned into a laptop computer, such as the
Suzanne.
A3000 - These machines are very difficult to
find and are quite expensive. A large number of TV programs have
been created on one of these machines, such as Babylon 5 and Star
Trek. Many of these came with a version of Unix. If you are a
professional and want possibly the greatest tool to film makers
(apart from a Silicon Graphics machine)buy a Video Toaster. They
cost about £2,000.
A1200 - The A1200 is quite probably the best
Amiga ever (I own one of a start). The standard model can run AGA
games using up to 256 colours very fast. It can also display
256,000 colours from a palette of 16.8 million. To get the best
from the machine you really need to add a CD-ROM drive (any ATAPI
IDE model). These are the same as the type used in the PC and so
can cost as little as £15. An accelerator with some memory is
also useful for running the latest applications and games as well
as a hard drive. Due to the demand made by PC owners to have bigger
hard drive sizes, the smaller units (500Mb-1Gb) can be bought for
£50-90. It can also be expanded up to an A4000 with a Zorro
breakout board and can be placed into a tower.
A4000 - Almost anything can be added to the
A4000. It is probably the most expandable unit. A CD drive is the
most important add-on with more memory and a PowerPC accelerator
becoming more useful for running software faster.
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