t20l011@ucscl.UCSC.EDU (10024011) (02/17/91)
Hello Amiganoids out there. I have an A500 with a meg and would like to upgrade to something bigger, better and more expensive. :-) I have about $1700 (US) and would like to get the Bodega Bay and either the BridgeBoard or ATonce. I need your advice on which to get. I want to find out about compatibility, if it is possible to connect a high density disk drive to it, how fast they are. The usual stuff. I want to know which hard drive is the best to use. Speed is very important as is memory that can be added. The best one I have seen is the GVP series II. Would it be worth it to try to sell my A500 and buy a new A2000? This would have the ECS in it right? Then I wouldn't have to buy Bodega Bay, but what other advantages would I have in doing that? I'm sure that there are lots of other A500 owners so you may want to post a reply instead of mailing me. I really need some advice because I want an Amiga that won't be obsolete in 2 months. Thanks in advance, Josh
pk1s+@andrew.cmu.edu (Paul A. Karlin) (05/11/91)
You may want to consider the A3000 power-up program. I think the lowest configuration is about $1800-$1900 for the A3000-16/50 (16MHz, 50MB HD, 2MB(?) RAM). All you have to do is prove you own a Commodore product. It's not a trade-in, so you can sell your A500 to pay for the $100-$200 difference and whatever a new monitor will cost. The 1950 is OK (and there's an educational discount available), but I have heard that there are a lot of problems with it. You may want to try third-party; I heard that the NEC 4D MultiSync is excellent (but possibly very expensive). As for hard drives and BridgeBoards and such, the A3000 comes with the A2091 controller, which is a perfectly functional (and pretty fast) autobooting controller. I assure you, though, that ANY working hard drive is a drastic improvement over floppies only. I have heard mixed opinions of BridgeBoard and ATonce; the BridgeBoards are slow and expensive but offer software AND hardware IBM-compatibility, and I believe ATonce only works with a 68000 (the A3000 is 68030). There is a public-domain (or shareware?) program called "IBeM" (available via anonymous FTP) which is a software-only IBM emulator that works on the 68020 or '030 Amigas. I haven't tried it (I also have "only" an A500), but from what I've heard it's decent. The A3000 has the ECS and Workbench/Kickstart 2.0 (which may or may not be good -- if you play a lot of games you may have some problems), so it sure won't be obsolete in 2 months. From what I hear, Workbench 2.03 (the latest release of 2.0) is about 90% compatible with 1.3, and I believe that number includes games. I do know that someone is maintaining a list of 2.0-compatible software, and it is periodically posted to one of the Amiga newsgroups. I personally feel that the A500 will not be obsolete for quite a while (most Amigas are A500s), but I understand why you want to upgrade. I plan to just get a HD+controller (hopefully GVP+Quantum if I can afford it) for my machine. I hope this helps... please keep in mind I'm not sure if my info is 100% accurate. P.S. Please note I have directed follow-ups to .hardware only. --Paul Karlin ******************************************************************************* Carnegie Mellon University -- Pittsburgh, PA -- Undergraduate Class of 1994 ******************************************************************************* Carnegie Mellon University -- Pittsburgh, PA -- Undergraduate Class of 1994