Commodore Amiga owners thread!

SupraWez · 15 Mar 2022 at 15:27

Guest2 said:
Has anyone ever had a stab at getting this running on their Amiga? PC Task 4.4. Its now freeware - http://aminet.net/package/misc/emu/PC-Task44

https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comments/t8g4cm/another_amiga_coverdisk_magazine_with_disks/

I used an Bodega Bay on my A500 setup when I was a kid, gives you similar expansion to A2000 internally.

Then used a bridge board inside and an x86 processor card and a memory card, I think I still have the cards but not the Bodega bay, it was huge and was dumped many many years ago.

Mint8 · 24 Mar 2022 at 17:57

I have a large collection of old Amiga games from back in the day.

Any idea the best place to sell them as they are just taking up space in the loft ?

Guest2 · 24 Mar 2022 at 21:42

Mint8 said:
I have a large collection of old Amiga games from back in the day.

Any idea the best place to sell them as they are just taking up space in the loft ?

Here (Ocuk members market) or eBay is your best bet. Do you have pics of the big boxed games? Love seeing the old big boxes, instructions, anymti piracy and other big box game items from the 90s

Mint8 · 28 Mar 2022 at 13:32

Well they are all boxed up in the loft. Will summon the energy to clamber up there when I get round to selling.

Trick · 28 Mar 2022 at 23:22

I'd definitely be keen to see what you have, Mint8!

Trick · 28 Mar 2022 at 23:28

Here’s my Amiga hardware collection:

Guest2 · 29 Mar 2022 at 17:21

Wow @Trick that's an awesome Commadore collection! What does an good condition A4000 PPC go for now a days on eBay? I bet 3-5k.
Are there any upgrades on the A1200? It would be interesting to know if an upgraded A1200 with something like a Warp 1260 outperforms the A4000 PPC

Trick · 29 Mar 2022 at 21:20

Hi @Guest2

Yeah, they're all upgraded to the hilt. Specs are:

A4000
WarpEngine 060 96Mhz
Mediator PCI busboard
Radeon 9200 128MB
Indivision AGA Scandoubler/flickerfixer
G3 750 1Ghz PPC PCI
SB128
Deneb Zorro USB/flashrom
Prisma Megamix mp3/flac decoder
ICY V2 I2C controller
RTL NIC

A3000
WarpEngine 060 80Mhz
CyberVision 64 4MB
Deneb
GoldenGate 486SLC2 PC Bridgeboard with TI486SXLC 50mhz upgrade
Tseng ET4000AX ISA VGA
ESS1868F ISA soundcard

AA3000+
WarpEngine 060 80Mhz
Prometheus PCI busboard
G4 7410 450Mhz PPC PCI
DSP3210 DSP
Voodoo 3 3000 PCI
ZZ9000 RTG
Delfina Flipper 16bit soundcard
Prisma Megamix
Freeway Pro USB

A1200
TF1260 060 100Mhz
Indivision AGA 2 Scandoubler/flickerfixer
IDEFix Express IDE upgrade
Solas clockport board

A500
ACA500Plus
Blizzard 1260 060 80Mhz

in terms of 68k performance, the Warp1260 at it's max 105mhz would be slightly faster than the 100mhz TF1260 in my machine, however the TF has faster ram access speed, so they're probably very very similar. The WarpEngine's in all the other machines are a little slower, but they're still one of the fastest examples of a 'classic' accelerator from the 90s.

The PPC PCI cards in the 4000 and AA3000+ will blow anything Amiga out of the water - they're later P3 in terms of processing power. The busboards in these machines are a bit of a bottle neck compared to the PCI bus in a PC, so the Voodoo3 and the Radeon 9200 are slowed somewhat. That said, you're looking at 70+fps for GLQuake at 640x480, and around 35-40fps for Quake 3.

Price-wise... well, it'd be hard to sell any of these machines in a one-er as we'd be talking thousands each. If all the individual bits were parted out, and the base machines sold off, we're talking maybe five figures in total, not four!

Guest2 · 30 Mar 2022 at 09:52

Trick said:
Hi @Guest2

Yeah, they're all upgraded to the hilt. Specs are:

A4000
WarpEngine 060 96Mhz
Mediator PCI busboard
Radeon 9200 128MB
Indivision AGA Scandoubler/flickerfixer
G3 750 1Ghz PPC PCI
SB128
Deneb Zorro USB/flashrom
Prisma Megamix mp3/flac decoder
ICY V2 I2C controller
RTL NIC

A3000
WarpEngine 060 80Mhz
CyberVision 64 4MB
Deneb
GoldenGate 486SLC2 PC Bridgeboard with TI486SXLC 50mhz upgrade
Tseng ET4000AX ISA VGA
ESS1868F ISA soundcard

AA3000+
WarpEngine 060 80Mhz
Prometheus PCI busboard
G4 7410 450Mhz PPC PCI
DSP3210 DSP
Voodoo 3 3000 PCI
ZZ9000 RTG
Delfina Flipper 16bit soundcard
Prisma Megamix
Freeway Pro USB

A1200
TF1260 060 100Mhz
Indivision AGA 2 Scandoubler/flickerfixer
IDEFix Express IDE upgrade
Solas clockport board

A500
ACA500Plus
Blizzard 1260 060 80Mhz

in terms of 68k performance, the Warp1260 at it's max 105mhz would be slightly faster than the 100mhz TF1260 in my machine, however the TF has faster ram access speed, so they're probably very very similar. The WarpEngine's in all the other machines are a little slower, but they're still one of the fastest examples of a 'classic' accelerator from the 90s.

The PPC PCI cards in the 4000 and AA3000+ will blow anything Amiga out of the water - they're later P3 in terms of processing power. The busboards in these machines are a bit of a bottle neck compared to the PCI bus in a PC, so the Voodoo3 and the Radeon 9200 are slowed somewhat. That said, you're looking at 70+fps for GLQuake at 640x480, and around 35-40fps for Quake 3.

Price-wise... well, it'd be hard to sell any of these machines in a one-er as we'd be talking thousands each. If all the individual bits were parted out, and the base machines sold off, we're talking maybe five figures in total, not four!

That's some incredible hardware upgrades. 100k of Amiga hardware. You could have kept Commadore a float by yourself

joey1211 · 30 Mar 2022 at 10:07

Guest2 said:
That's some incredible hardware upgrades. 100k of Amiga hardware. You could have kept Commadore a float by yourself

£10,000 isn't it?

Guest2 · 30 Mar 2022 at 10:20

joey1211 said:
£10,000 isn't it?

I presumed a single machine like the heavily upgraded A4000 could be close to 10k alone. Good condition base unit will be somewhere in the region of 3-5k, then all those upgrades. Some of the upgrade cards fetch £500 - £1000. They are very rare and hardly ever come up on auction sites

I can imagine an A4000 in a Christie's auction instead of peasant eBay!

Trick · 30 Mar 2022 at 19:05

Yeah, maybe towards 10k

if it were 100k I’d have retired a long time ago

lakitu · 30 Mar 2022 at 19:08

Absolutely amazing Amiga hardware Trick. Today I upgraded my A1200 with 8mb fast ram and am so impressed by the speed performance

Nemiyen · 30 Mar 2022 at 20:05

Trick said:
Yeah, maybe towards 10k if it were 100k I’d have retired a long time ago

That's a great Amiga collection there!

I remember years ago (20+) going round the car boot in Doncaster asking to see if they would open up the trap door slot on the A1200s hoping to find a nice 68060 in there but... Nope! I think I got a 60830 quite cheap but never the top model. I really wish I bought some on ebay when things like that were cheap(er!)

Ravenger · 30 Mar 2022 at 21:59

I've got an Amiga 1000 in my attic, sadly without a monitor though.

I was quite a few years ago given a 1200, but then gave it to someone else. Wish I'd kept it now!

Trick · 31 Mar 2022 at 12:20

Ravenger said:
I've got an Amiga 1000 in my attic, sadly without a monitor though.

I was quite a few years ago given a 1200, but then gave it to someone else. Wish I'd kept it now!

Oh wow! a 1000 is one I’ve always wanted but never managed to get hold of!

Dust it off and give it a whirl - no batteries in those and it’s one where there’s a good chance caps won’t have leaked. You can use a cheap scandoubler like a gbs8200 to get a picture out of it, or an OSSC, or even a cheap scart cable

Trick · 31 Mar 2022 at 12:21

Nemiyen said:
That's a great Amiga collection there!

I remember years ago (20+) going round the car boot in Doncaster asking to see if they would open up the trap door slot on the A1200s hoping to find a nice 68060 in there but... Nope! I think I got a 60830 quite cheap but never the top model. I really wish I bought some on ebay when things like that were cheap(er!)

there are some amazing stories of ppl picking up ppc equipped amigas back in the early 2000s for pocket change. Those sorts of finds are now worth 1000s!

Trick · 31 Mar 2022 at 12:23

lakitu said:
Absolutely amazing Amiga hardware Trick. Today I upgraded my A1200 with 8mb fast ram and am so impressed by the speed performance

C= really should have equipped the 1200 with 1MB of fast ram, it would’ve doubled the performance.

But they wanted to save money and shout about 2MB chip ram instead. 1MB chip and 1MB fast ram out of the box would’ve worked better, with a cheap 1MB chip upgrade available through the clockport maybe, keeping the trapdoor free?

Ravenger · 31 Mar 2022 at 12:31

Trick said:
Oh wow! a 1000 is one I’ve always wanted but never managed to get hold of!

Dust it off and give it a whirl - no batteries in those and it’s one where there’s a good chance caps won’t have leaked. You can use a cheap scandoubler like a gbs8200 to get a picture out of it, or an OSSC, or even a cheap scart cable

I've still got the original scart cable. It'd hook right up to my portable CRT I use my other retro computers on.
Last time I looked the Amiga was in good condition, though I think one of the numpad keys was a bit dodgy and the mouse cable was worn. I also have an external floppy drive and 2MB RAM expansion.
I gave the monitor away as part of the phosphor had flecked off (a dead pixel on a CRT, no less!) and the scart socket was loose. In retrospect I wish I'd kept it as the socket would have been fixable, and the dead pixel wasn't that noticable.

Ravenger · 31 Mar 2022 at 12:33

The original Amiga monitor was amazing. Deep, deep glossy black screen colour, not grey like later models. Very vibrant colours.