decent Amiga Package, offered £££ or Trade

Hello everyone, Its been a few years since I was last here, and I'm still looking for Amiga goodness (cleared at last with the wife) and have de-cluttered an area for a new future Amiga experience.

Ideally would be looking for something in excellent condition and working order, my main port of call will be gaming, so a capable Amiga would most probably suit my needs best.

I can offer cash of course but it will be a limited budget or offer a trade/swap. I can offer my nearly new DJI Phantom pro quadcopter, I've invested circa 1.8k in this item. Aerial photography is not really my thing as I'm too bloody scared to fly it, I've listed it on Gumtree, Dorset so I thought a link to there from here would work best as it contains pretty much all the information I can muster along with some pictures.

Because of the expensive and delicate nature of both pursuits I'd prefer a face to face deal, just to make sure both parties are happy, and I'm willing to travel a little from my location (Poole, Dorset) if this helps of course, here is the Gumtree link for your perusal https://www.gumtree.com/p/swap-shop/dji-phantom-3-professional-quadcopter-/1152040122

thanks for looking, any questions I'll answer as best as possible, regards Ross

Do you have a rough idea on what your are seeking and what budget you have to play with - if so hit me in PM, I may well be able to help.

Budget wise, if I shift the Phantom quadcopter something between 1 to 1.2k otherwise circa £350.

Wow, thats a serious bit of quad-coptering!

what sort of specification of Amiga are you after?

Specification at this stage is purely down to budget depending upon the sale of my quadcopter, if I do shift it then the entire budget is open for the right machine. at this stage I need to do a little research my end for exactly what I'd expect for that sort of money, but A1200 would be my base specification bulding upon that.

A1200's are a delight, while there was a little something with the A4000, even though I had it tuned with

A4k Spec:

I got more enjoyment out of my 040 equipped A1200 and 030 based A3000 - to which, with the exception of the CSMk2, all the adaptor cards are currently hooked up to - to be honest even though it was a serious A4000 compared to even a moderately expanded A500+ it just didn't give me that buzz that I got from *supposed* lesser machines. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it - just not as much

With an A1200 as a base machine, your next consideration would be if you wanted to re home it in a tower or keep the original chassis - that will decide your upgrade path and hence budget.

I have been thinking of thinning the herd of Amiga at Che' Zetr0's so I will have a look and see what I can put together for your current budget (if anything lol - I like to cuddle hardware... its a issue I know...) - have a look on these fair boards there some great A1200 starting bases for some serious Amiga A1200 fun listed on AmiBay at present so have a look about =)

Well given at little thought this afternoon down the pub I'll have a maximum budget of around 1.1k from the quad sale.

With regards to tower or classic chassis, I'd prefer the classic look as it reflects the timeframe when I last owned one. My limited research over the years mainly from the stuff found upon eBay suggests that A1200 tower configuration, whilst the most expandable look like a really dated cheap x86 pc, usually very expensive with that fresh out of skip look which would be something I'd like to avoid because general aesthetics of the classic Amiga look are important to me, especially when it will sit within my current AV setup.

In terms of spec I would like something running greater than stock configuration to have the opportunity to run those very late in life titles that I missed out upon 1st time around, I'm sure they've aged badly but it is more of a curiosity than anything, obviously to be able to utilise compact flash memory as the main storage source along with the indivision ECS, the ability to hook up to a modern panel via DVI to HDMI would be a massive draw considering I've not owned a CRT dedicated monitor or TV for years in the house, none of my current sets support legacy formats in any great way which is a shame.
I'll certainly keep my eyes peeled with these boards in the mean time.

If I maybe so bold that is a very serious budget and really only one build would be what you are looking for - here is a synopsis -

Primary Hardware

So this comprises of perhaps one of the most sought after Amiga accelerators and at the moment the most powerful for the A1200, there are some proposals (Vampire V2) that may see some light this year for the A1200, but there is no "definite" at the moment and may creep close to or even into 2017 before production.

Mass Storage Options 1 (SCSI)

Since the Blizzard PPC 603e+ has FAST DMA SCSI 2 which nets about 8MB per second transfer with less than 50% CPU Cycle Time used. to put that in perspective - the native IDE of the A1200 can get about 2.1MB per second transfer with a 50Mhz 68030 accelerator pushing it (100% CPU Cycle Time) - so not only 4x faster its greater than half the processing bottleneck.

Mass Storage Option 2 (SCSI)

However SCSI can be a bit of a bugger to set up - especially if you are new to it - and sadly I have seen people eat their hats to try and get it to work... I am sure I have seen some prepare a goat for sacrificing too. But if you KNOW SCSI well its not that hard to configure, however there is another option and that is through the use of SCSI to IDE bridges - so one can use inexpensive IDE devices on a SCSI equipped host - I suggested a 32GB SanDisk Compact Flash Card - alternatively a 2.5" drive and 40 to 44 pin adaptor would suffice - or even 2.5" SSD.

SCSI-IDE bridges can be expensive - quite a bit so I have noted lately - so there is another option altogether -

Mass Storage Option 3 (Fast IDE)

So this solution provides *upto* 14MB per second according to Elbox the manufactures of the Fast ATA, I have yet to see it stable past 9MB with an 060 CPU pulling data from it, but I have seen screen shots of over 12MB so it would of been likely my setup.

However, this will use a lot of CPU time since it is all done by the CPU so it has to fetch the data before it can modify it. Combining a FAST ATA and BPPC 603 can be tricky in a desktop A1200 but it is possible with a bit of effort and forethought. This particular adaptor is the fastest mass storage adaptor that is compatible with OS4.0 PPC Operating System, which might sway your thoughts... personally I prefer the Fast DMA SCSI 2 and Classic Workbench 3.9 for my OS.

Additional Storage Option (Native / Fast IDE)

So contrary to popular belief an optical drive is a nice thing to have on the Amiga, especially one this powerfull, a DVDROM of MP3's or Video is fun to play with on this system, but more so for Amiga CD's and specific PPC games like WipEout 2097, Nightlong, Quake 1 and 2, Heretic 2 and Shogo to name a couple -

Sundry Equipment (Optional / Recommended)

IMHO a PS2 / USB mouse adaptor is a must, especially when dealing with hi-resolution screens - either that or a lot wrist straining lol. A Playstation controller adaptor is also a must for gaming and ease of use. An uprated power supply (personally I would look at an 80watt solution or higher to ensure good quality power, and if there is one thing I know of BPPC's they are really fussy about thier power.

A monitor switcher is needed to switch between RTG modes and Native Screen modes - while the Indivision AGA / AGA Mk2 will do all the magic to get it to work on your display panel - you will either need dual inputs or a switcher to change from the Blizzard Vision RTG card and Indivision AGA card.

So let me show you what a fellow AmiBayer did as a project - this will blow your mind

Looks like I may have sold the quad come this Saturday, Budget confirmed up to £1100

Sending PM

Bah! looks like the cash buyer for the quad has pulled out, typical.

Still very interested though in the few Amiga's that I've discussed in PM, It is just going to take longer than expected to rise the funds.

Quad now listed on the Bay of evil http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111911096181?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649 I reckon It'll sell quicker here than Gumtree.

So still open to Amiga offers, let me see what your prepared to part with, many thanks in advance.