A1200, Alicia1200, or Retro A1200

[digii3]

I current have an A1200 running Workbench 3.0 that I want to do something with that would make it better…. I noticed that there is the Alicia that I can convert my A1200 to and then there is the Retro A1200. It appears that my options are to upgrade to 3.3 and PiStorm it, convert it to Alicia 1200, or keep it the same and get A1200 from Retro. What are the Pros and Cons of each option? Can I stll install PiStorm the Alicia1200 and what expansions are available for the Alicia1200? Thx

 

[Amiga Forever]

Retro 1200? Are you talking about The A1200(they going have HDMI port back of it I think!)?

 

[digii3]

Yes A1200

 

[Xanxi]

What do you mean convert your A1200 into Alicia?
Alicia or such projects are never meant to destroy working computers but to be built out of salvaged parts or sometimes NOS chipsets. Most of us, including makers of Alicia, generally won't find acceptable to destroy good working Amiga. You can still sell your computer and buy a chipset with the money from a few sources.

 

[dwaco]

You could also add some 68030, 68040 or 68060 - based accelerator to go with 3.3 instead of PiStorm perhaps?

 

[digii3]

What do you mean convert your A1200 into Alicia?
Alicia or such projects are never meant to destroy working computers but to be built out of salvaged parts or sometimes NOS chipsets. Most of us, including makers of Alicia, generally won't find acceptable to destroy good working Amiga. You can still sell your computer and buy a chipset with the money from a few sources.

The main point is to determine if there is actually a substantial upgrade with Alicia1200 vs the stock original A1200 vs the Retro A1200. All stock A1200s are effectively ticking time bombs with will need to be recapped or needing to have other components replaced due to age, so options are being considered. Thanks.

 

[YouKnowWho]

Keep that nice original A1200 going - as-is. Put some extra memory in it and enjoy that work of art.

Why break something that works beautifully to make a new basically same thing from it?

Alicia 1200 is very cool, with a few nice tweaks, but the expense to end up with basically same thing is significant. For me the drawback of these lovely boards is always that an original Commodore board must die. Now there are non-working boards, so that is a noble application of Alicia 1200 or ReAmiga 1200, but often those boards could be fixed or working boards are used to build these new formats. Cost is always significantly higher than original Amiga motherboards and in the end you'll need a keyboard anyway, so why not have it in the original beautiful wedge case.

Retro A1200 is a software emulation and in my view, not Amiga in any way.

If you're itching to build something different, consider a MISTress1200 running a MISTer DE10 Nano in a new Amiga 1200 case. Gives you killer capability, and most importantly, no Amiga motherboards need to be harmed. Overall, much cheaper than ReAmiga1200 or Alicia 1200 and also way way less trouble.