Getting an Amiga 1000 Online | Hacker News Reader

Getting an Amiga 1000 Online

amigalove.com

127 pointserickhill41 comments

Anything involving an Amiga gets my vote. Apart from someone taking their old Amiga to the recycling centre, like I did :(

Bummer.

I bought an Amiga 3000 for $1200. Three years later, I sold it for $1200.

It was only an A500 (with 512Mb expansion!) but I still regret it.

512 KB

My company paid $4800 for an Amiga 4000 with Video Toaster in 1996. As far as I know, that thing lasted another 10 years!

Incredible. I can imagine that in 1996 there was some sort of utility for such a device; for it to remain so until 2006 or so is quite something!

How it is in the corporate world. Anything bought is expected to be in use for decades and decades. Something i feel the FOSS world really need to internalize rather than think that bling is what will bring the users.

Not always true. I think most places start to get nervous when their hardware is out of support.

Kinda.
I ran into a company selling floppy drive emulators some years ago.
Their main market were computerized looms and such. Basically an automatic loom with a desktop PC bolted to it.
We are talking 286 or even older generation CPUs and such.
What these emulators did was take some sort of input in the front (be it from floppy images stored on USB, a serial cable, or even wired or wireless networks on their newest models), and pretend to be a floppy in the back. Basically they were embedded computers that could fit in a 5.25 bay.
Similarly you will find old DOS installs running experiments in university labs the world over, because the sensors software etc only properly work when it has direct access to the serial port hardware or some such.
It is a crazy world out there once you get out of the valley.

Sure, ok, but I've worked in companies large and small that are ruthless about their hardware landscape, and this wasn't tech or SV.

I feel your pain. I did the same thing back in 2002. Regretted it many, many times since then. I've even thought of buying another one to replace it but it would feel a bit like cheating.

Still have my 500 in the basement somewhere, but the battery is probably leaking, and the floppies demagnetized...

I've been getting my Amiga 2000 online just this week but I suspect it was easier for me as I've got 20MB RAM and a 68030 CPU.
I used a null modem cable connected to an RS232 to USB adaptor plugged into a Raspberry PI running pppd. I can't really justify the cost of a network card just now. I'm saving for a Vampire.
I was hoping to post this comment using the Amiga but the only browsers that will run on it don't support the required SSL version :)

Author here: I use the same WIFI modem in the post on my 1000 as I do my 2000 (I have 4 different Amiga models). I have to remove the gender-changer but other than that it's super easy.
On the 2000 I just have to put the 64Door term disk in df0: and flip on the power. Within ~30-45 seconds I'm on the 64 BBSes. But the null-modem cable is an awesome way to go as it literally costs nothing... besides the cost of the cable. I find the modem approach, though, is more seamless of an experience with most term software.

I've also got a 500, 1000 and 1200, all pretty much stock. I made a pretty rough looking plipbox that worked ok with the 1200 but I haven't been able to get it to work with the 2000. Some of my dodgy soldering probably failed.
I bought the 1200 new when I was a teenager and had a 4000 in the late nineties but didn't know about the dangers of leaking batteries and it died. I've got interested in Amigas again in the last couple of years after a 15 year break.
I'm going to have to check out some BBSes - I do miss them, not that I got heavily into them before the Internet came along and didn't really get a chance to join the community.

Hah! You and I have the exact same disease - I mean gear. I also have a 500, 1000, 2000 and 1200 (all of mine are NTSC). My 2000 is beefed up with an 030 GeForce card and 18MB of RAM. My 1200 is bananas with an ACA1221 set to 21Mhz and maxed out RAM of (I think) 63MB. It's about 10X more than it really needs to be, to be honest. I really spend most of my time these days on the 2000 or 1000, and prefer OS 1.3. It just feels right to me. But to each his/her own.
The BBS scene - when you find the right boards - can be a ton of fun. I really enjoy it. The sad truth is, there are a ton out there that are just being ignored and are like digital ghost towns. If more people popped back in there it's be even more fun. Hope to see you around! (I go by 'intric8' or 'amigalove'
Cheers

Anything involving classic computers is crazy expensive on Ebay. I regret I threw it all away many years ago.

I had an Entex Adventure Vision. Units sold 50,757. Regrets.

2017 documentary, https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/01/...
"Viva Amiga is a wonderful look at the the history of the platform, the people who built it, and the users who loved it. The opening title says it all: "One Amazing Computer. One chance to save the company. One chance to win the PC wars."

IIRC the Amiga 500 was much preferred to the 1000 because the 1000 cost a lot more to upgrade to 1M? of memory which many games required. I had both, but bought an Amiga 1000 first not knowing this issue.
Good days. Back then, it was just us nerds.

The A1000 shipped with 256 K of RAM. The A500 shipped with 512. Other than that, the A1000 was a nicer form factor, but a substantially larger price for much the same computing ability.

The 500 and 1000 had the same external expansion port, but it was on opposite sides of the machine, so some devices might look funny when installed.
The A500 had also a trapdoor port under the keyboard to double the 512KB of RAM that was on the motherboard already. The A1000 had a clumsy daughterboard you'd have to install inside the case to double the onboard 256KB. Its Agnus controller also had a different packaging from the one on the A500, so it couldn't accomodate the newer Fat Agnus and Super Agnus (1MB or 2MB of audio/video RAM). Without expensive hacks, that is.
The A1000 cost more to upgrade because the daughterboards had lower volume than on the A500. The external expansions cost more, for both computers, because they need a case, plus might need more logic. If 1MB was your target (and not just doubling what came with the machine), then on the A1000 the external port was the easiest. That, surprisingly enough, was also the solution with faster memory speeds. A silver lining. :-)

My first self-owned computer was an Amiga 500[0], and I played this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgkf6wooDmw
(To be fair, I played Commando on the C64 before, but, goddamn, Another World[1] showed me what was possible.)
[0] I'd played with an Amstrad "Something", playing with mates who had a Vic20, and a C64.
[1] ... and Shadow of The Beast. Awful game, but what amazing sound and graphics!
EDIT: Oh, crap, didn't mention: I, along with a friend, programmed that Amstrad to play a basic Roulette game in some sort of BASIC variant -- Trust me, the ASCII graphics were amazing! On the Amiga, I started with a little draw-a-chart-type-thing based on reprogramming the on-screen characters (or was that actually the C64? Hard to remember at this point). Maybe I'm an absolute liar and I actually started out with a C64? I definitely remember programming my first ray-tracer in Turbo Pascal on a xNNN (N=digit) PC with a VGA card + grey-scale monitor. Memories are hard in both senses of the word :(.

Ah, those rotoscoped vector graphics were fantastic! Flashback was great as well.

You may enjoy this Re: another world:
http://fabiensanglard.net/anotherWorld_code_review/

I had an Amstrad CPC-464 and then an Amiga 500. So many youthful memories! Still have the 500 but haven't fired it up forever. Then yup Turbo Pascal at school.

My favourite Amiga game was Gods followed by Flashback

Gods was awesome but Speedball 2 from the same devs was a brutally fun game especially with 2 players.

Man, that brings back some memories.
Dialling in to the local BBS on my mates Amiga 1000 (or was it 500?) back in 1991 was a total revolution. We used to cycle to the BBS owners house to give him cash for access credits.

This was a good article. Never had an Amiga but certainly got more interested on the BBS access that is still possible today.

I keep meaning to do something like this with my Amiga 1000. When I do get around to it, I think I'll do the Serial->PC[1]->Ethernet route as it's easier.
Not mentioned, that I saw, in the article, is the A1000 serial port carries 12v on Pin 23 - which if you are not careful can completely fry anything you connect to it!
---
[1] Running some sort of Serial<->Ethernet proxy/bridge software.

tcpser[0] is popular
[0]: https://github.com/FozzTexx/tcpser

The Keep! I'm having BBS flashbacks and giggling like a nut.

<><><> The SYSOP would like to chat <><><>

Give me more file credits.

I still have my 1000... in pieces :(. and I hacked up the front in an abortive case mod project from a long time ago now. Don't remember what happened to my Dad's. I had a 1200 for a while too.
Looking forward to the VampireV4 Standalone (Or a MiST, it makes a nice 1200).

Connecting to a BBS over WiFi? But you're missing out on the sqleulchy screechy modem sounds! :)
I remember using SLIP and PPP to get my Amiga 1200 onto the web with the Mosaic browser. Fun times!

For those that prefer to consume content in video form; LGR did an episode on the same WiFi modem from Paul Rickards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsS0E4G310Y
I feel like a dial-up sound simulator is strongly required

Time to listen to mods by Jester/Sanity and Uncle Tom for a few hours!

I have a working Amiga 1200. How much does it worth?

I would say, between $200-$350, if you are lucky. :)

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