Oh, the MSDOS logo. Well, it's as easy on the eye as it ever was lol.
Due to the nature of Commodore's sales in the US and it's success in Europe, specifically England, I heard that most of the software and scene releases (sorry if that kinda thing is no-no, wondering because of cracktros) are in the PAL region. Because of this, would it be a better idea to look for a PAL C64 and Amiga? How much more would that drive up cost percentage wise?
Modding an ntsc c64 to pal can be pricey unless you're friendly with a soldering c64 hardware fanatic as the VICII, the cystal and jumper require changes.
I'm being careful, because discussions of cost on this forum is generally a no-no. Specifically when it comes to the value of an item. Please bare this in mind when you realise how evasive people become when it comes to price discussion. (make sure you've fully read and understood Amibay's rules)
It might be worth buying a pal c64, but this will be heavy. You might be able to save money by leaving the uk psu and sourcing an american one, which will still be compatible with the c64.
As for an Amiga, just get whichever model you can. They all support ntsc and pal screenmodes.
Would I need anything special (other than a voltage converter) to get it to work with an NTSC monitor?
Your amiga should be fine, but the C64 will need a monitor that supports the PAL screenmode. You can get a unit that takes in a PAL scart and it converts to NTSC s video, but they are generally expensive, and the image is poor quality and the sound is out of sync with the video. A PAL monitor is the way to go. Much of south america use PAL so I wouldn't be surprised if your NTSC monitor supports it.
As far as Amiga models go, which would be the better buy if you wanted something that worked with the largest amount of games and imaging/movie software? Would the A500 still work?
You answered your own question there. For disc games the A500 is the machine of choice. However, the discs might not work, and if they do they might not last very long. There is software called WHDLOAD which makes amiga games installable to hard drive and also improves the compatibility across the entire range of macines.
You'd be well advised to get an A1200 with 4mb or more fast ram and a hard drive fitted. Most of us here have compact flash cards like the ones you get in cameras for harddrives. The way WHDLoad works is that the discs are copied to ram as RAM discs. This is why it's good to have some extra fast ram to fit all the discs in. Each disc is approximately 880kb, so if you wish to run a 3 disc game then you'll require 3 x 880kb on top of the game's original resource requirements.
Generally, software comes in three flavours of resource requirment: OCS 512kb, OCS 1mb and AGA 2mb versions. OCS games are generally 32 colour and AGA games are 256 colour.
There is also ECS, but since it wasn't much of an improvement over OCS and there were so many A500 users out there, games producers chose to support OCS.
AGA amigas are the A1200 and A4000. The rest are either OCS or ECS.
Most games support OCS because the A500 had the largest user base of all the amigas.
Some games are AGA and look amazing.
The amiga has two types of memory: chip ram and fast ram. chip ram is comparable to the IBM's base memory and fast ram is comparable to the IBM's upper memory.
The A1200 can support up to 2mb chip ram and 256mb fast ram, which I think is the most memory of all amigas. The A4000 supports 128mb fast ram, but it supports faster memory.
What are some of the must have peripherals for the systems besides the tape drive and floppy drive?
You will definitely require an awesome stereo to pump your Amiga's MIND BLOWING stereo sound through.
A great joypad is the honeybee/Competition pro CD32 joypad. If you prefer a stick then The competition pros and zipsticks are very good. There are many other makes of pad and stick, but you may find that the membranes need replacing after a few months of good hard play.
My favourite mouse is the wizard 3 button mouse, but any amiga compatible mouse will do.
A hard drive and fast ram to make your amiga seriously usable is a wise first move and then printers, genlock (overlay amiga graphics over a video source), midi, sound samplers, accelerator cards, SCSi, USB, ethernet, CDROMs. The sky is the limit (although you might discover that the sky is considerably closer to earth than with a PC when it comes to modern PC peripherals)
If you find that you're getting some serious use out of your amiga then I'd recommend at least an 030 accelerator. Motorola cpus come in as 000, 020, 030, 040 and 060.
The A4000 came with 030, 040 and 060 cpus. The A1200 came with an EC020 (the EC is a cost reduced version of the 020 processor). The other amigas came with 000s except forthe A3000 which I can't remember what chip it came with. It can be upgraded to an 060 though.
I wouldn't recommend any 040 chip due to the heat they generate. The 030 runs cool and gives you a nice zippy amiga. The 040 and 060 are the fastest chips. The MC68060 chips run cool enough to install inside a standard A1200. When the 040 and 060 boards were available, it was common for the A1200 to be rehoused in a tower case which helped with the heat issues of the XC and 040 chips.
If you ask me, I would only consider either an MC68030RC50 with MC68882RC50 fpu in a bliazzard 030 MkIV or if you fancied spending all your money in one go then hunt down a blizzard 060 fitted with an MC68060RC50. No FPU is required for the 060 as the 68882 is part of the chip!
When purchasing, try to get the MC versions of the chips e.g. MC68030RC50 (means an MC 030 running at 50Mhz) and avoid the XC versions e.g. (XC68030RC50). The XC versions are pre main release chips that generate a lot of heat. When your amiga heats up, it won't last very long. Also avoid chips where the name contains LC or EC in the name e.g. MCLC68060RC50, because these are feature reduced chips.
With your accelerator, I'd recommend maxing out the memory. The blizzard cards hold 128mb as standard, and then you can get a SCSI kit for them which allows you to upgrade by another 128mb. SCSI kit also allows you to connect SCSI CDROMS and hard drives.
You'll probably never actually need one, but an FPU can be installed with an 030. There are two, the 68881 and 68882. The 68882 is the most up to date so best to get that, and make sure it ends in the same RC number as your cpu.
What is some of the must have software that isn't games? Looking to get into developing cracktros/demos?
Jesus on e's is what most would advise. However, there are so many good ones. I'd type "amiga demo" into youtube and see which ones you like personally. There are loads. I'll do my best to revisit this thread and post up some good ones I find.
My favourite software is:
graphics and animation - Deluxe Paint IV
word processor - Final Writer
music - Octamed soundstudio
samples -audiomaster
Basic - Amos pro
Assembler - Devpac
run n jump game creator - backbone
My recommended games list is: IK+, Sensible world of soccer, Marvins marvellous adventure, Hunter, Dynablaster, Brian the Lion (AGA), Lemmings, Ruff n tumble, Kid chaos, Turrican 2, Super Stardust (AGA), Pinball Illusions (AGA), Super cars 2, Monkey Island, Xenon 2, Beneath a steel sky (CD), Syndicate, Dreamweb (AGA), Guardian, Civilisation, Dune 2, Lionheart, All terrain racing, Breathless, BC Kid, Jimmy Whites Whirlwind snooker, Gloom Deluxe(030), Another world (out of this world), Bubble and Squeak, Swiv, Toki, Eye of the beholder, Alien breed 3D (AGA/030), Zeewolf 2, Populus 2, Colonization, Shadow Fighter (AGA), Myst (CD), Elfmania, Lotus turbo challenge 2, Banshee (AGA), Road rash, Aladdin (AGA), Player manager, Dungeon master, Stunt car racer, Flashback, Rainbow Islands, Indiana Jones Fate of Atlantis, Superfrog, Sim city 2000, Roadkill (AGA), Monkey Island 2, Alien Breed Tower Assault (AGA), Liberation Captive 2 (CD), Benefactor, Frontier Elite 2, Speedball 2, UFO Enemy unknown, Settlers, Virocop (AGA), Worms Directors cut (AGA), Desert Strike, Cannon fodder, Shadow of the Beast, Agony, Gods
There's also a brilliant magazine available called Amiga Future. Its actually a german magazine, but they have so many english subscribers that they translate it to english too! It's available at vesalia.de
What are some of the best mods to have and where can I get them done (can do almost anything myself unless it involves soldering)?
There are loads of guys here. I don't know many american ones, but I distinctly remember
SkydivinGirland
TheMaster boasting about their american soldering skills. Whether or not they provide a service is unknown to me. I'm sure you will find some here on amibay though.
What is the best monitor (other than the 1702) or CRT TV resolution/size to use with the systems?
Personally, my favourite is the Microvitec line as they had built in flicker fixers. I also have a soft spot for the Philips CM8833 Mk 2, and flicker fixers are available as external modules.
Also, the indivision from individual computers allows PC monitors to be used with the amiga. Beware though, for these take some setting up.
Do I need any special type of floppy or will any correctly sized IBM-PC compatible work (probably need a data tape also other than any plain old casette, right)?
HD discs can be formatted to DD without issue. You can even purchase a HD disc drive so that you can use all the available space on an HD floppy. Amigas come with DD drives as standard. DD means double density and can store 880kb. HD means High density and can store 1.7mb. All amiga games were supplied on DD discs because that's what Amigas came with.
What type of software and hardware modifications would I need to take it online (can I use ethernet or will I need to dig up a 56K modem)? Not expecting much other than to use it for IRC and maybe the rare, still existing BBS.
On a PCMCIA equipped amiga there are inexpensive solutions available from online shops such as vesalia.de, and more expensive versions are available for zorro equipped amigas
Big box amigas e.g. a3000 have zorro slots similar to PCI slots on a pc.
You can even get a converter for zorro to enable pci cards to be used on the amiga. Some people have those old Voodoos hooked up to give a nice fast high resolution display, and of course PCI ethernet cards are ten for a penny or thereabouts.
You might even consider a PCMCIA compact flash drive which allows you to transfer files from your PC to your Amiga with relative ease. They're not hot swappable, so you'll be switching the amiga on and off a lot, but the boot up time is almost instant.
In fact, the boot time is so quick that you might get used to it and find your modern PC a bit sluggish in comparison.
I really hope this has helped and that you enjoy your journey with commodore. Especially if you take the plunge and have a go at soldering yourself.
