New pc base unit

[scotty73]

My main pc has gone tits up so have been scouting about for an upgraded model, all i really want to do with it is talk bollox on here, facebook check my emails and most importantly surf porn.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Amiga-3000-ba ... 4846b92e03

Do you think this will withstand a jolly good whacking?

[steve_earwig]

This is some kind of antique, yes?

[dummysock]

These were released in the early 1990's, you might find it particularly slow compared to today's models !!

[scotty73]

These were released in the early 1990's, you might find it particularly slow compared to today's models !!

machine has 2 meg of ram fitted

That sounds super fast.

[steve_earwig]

I reckon the best use for that would be to stop a door blowing closed...

[highlander]

It won't run Windows, of any variety

That said, the Amiga was a cracking machine - way ahead of its time. From its most basic model (the Amiga 1000, released in 1985) it could stream full-motion broadcast-quality video through its custom graphics chipsets, and was often used (and probably still is) used in the TV industry for that reason. The operating system was capable of pre-emptive round-robin multitasking long before Windows had that as a feature.

Alas, the parent company, Commodore, were horribly inept at management, and despite all the technical wizardry these machines possessed, it tanked in the early 90s. The rights to the machines went to Gateway Computers, then to Escom, then pretty much disappeared. The operating system is still being developed, but not with much success. And finally the name Commodore itself has become a bastardized shadow of what it once was - it's being used as a brand for selling horribly overpriced Windows boxes in Amiga-like and Commodore 64-like cases for those with a sense of nostalgia and no sense for value-for-money.

By all means, buy the machine - but you won't find getting on the internet easy - the Amiga 3000 was released in mid-1990, several months before Sir Tim Berners-Lee put the world's first World Wide Web site online. No Amiga ever shipped with a built-in RJ-45 Ethernet port, and so your best bet for getting it online would be by connecting it to a 56 kbps dial-up modem with an RS.232 serial port. You could buy an ethernet-based network card for it - but there is no PCI compatibility; you'd need to use the proprietary "Zorro III" slot instead. The best network card for it was the X-Surf, which came out in 2000, and provides you with a single 10 Mbit/sec RJ-45 port. As the operating system never came with a TCP/IP stack, you'd need to buy one (no company still exists that produces one) - the best one available was called Miami and you can probably download it for free - but you'd need to burn it to CD on a Windows box and load it up that way because there's no USB on an Amiga 3000 (again, unless you buy an expansion card) as USB 1.0 didn't come out until 1996. The Amiga's floppy disc drive was also incompatible with IBM PC-format High Density (1.44 MB) disks; the standard drive only read Amiga-format 880 KB low-density disks or PC-format Low Density (720 KB) disks.

Even then! the internet experience isn't great - there's no flash, HTML5, or CSS support.

It sounds like I'm on a proper downer about the Amiga, saying it's rubbish - no. It was a great machine, and the operating system was fast, efficient, intuitive, and fully-supportive of multitasking, but it just wasn't internet ready - because by the time the internet was gaining popularity, the platform had all but disappeared from the mainstream. Some of the best-known game series started life out on the Amiga. Lemmings, Worms, Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder, and Secret of Monkey Island, to name just a few.

Best way to enjoy the Amiga (because it was a great machine) is via emulation. WinUAE will give your emulated Amiga full internet access by way of an emulated network card and TCP/IP stack, so no need to load additional software for it. Just grab the emulator, find a copy of the Amiga ROM images (kickstart 1.3, kickstart 2.0, kickstart 3.1) and some games. I can give you some pointers for some good games to play.

[highlander]

machine has 2 meg of ram fitted

That sounds super fast.

It was, actually, though it doesn't sound it! Today's operating systems and software are bloated to high heaven.

The original Amiga came with just 256 KB of RAM, and a 7 MHz 16-bit processor (Motorola 68000) that didn't even have a built-in floating-point maths co-processor.

The Amiga 3000 was a much faster machine - it came with a 25 MHz 32-bit processor (Motorola 68030) with built-in floating-point unit. The 2 MB of RAM it shipped with, plus the SCSI-II hard disk drive, meant that with the small operating system footprint, you could switch it on and it would boot into the AmigaOS Workbench environment in just a couple of seconds flat.

The last traditional Amiga machines came with a 60 MHz 32-bit processor (Motorola 68060) and an expansion card that provided a PowerPC processor (the sort that was found in the high-end Macintosh machines of the day) which gave it some real grunt.

Even the final versions of the OS came on just 5 floppy disks and required only about 10 - 15 MB of space on your hard drive in order to work.

When you install Windows on a PC nowadays, a huge amount of space is taken up by a bunch of libraries, drivers, and associated files for hardware that you don't have. Language files that you don't ever use. System services that run in the background that you will never need. The Windows folder on my work laptop occupies 22.2 GB! The biggest hard drive I ever had on my Amiga was a 1 GB drive, and I never filled it (despite having loads of games and applications and many thousands of data files (I used it for music editing and graphics work) stored on it)

[steve_earwig]

...won't ...was...was...was...were...was...was...was...was...wasn't...

A machine from the dawn of personal computing but best leave it to Sheldon Cooper (and he wouldn't buy it because of all the grammatical errors in the ad...)

[highlander]

Actually, the Amiga 500 my parents got for my brother and I back in 1989 came with 512 KB of RAM and no hard drive / CD-ROM - it only had a floppy disk drive.

We spent £50 (quite a lot back in 1989!) on a 512 KB memory upgrade, taking it to a full 1 MB of chip RAM.

This was a gargantuan amount for a home computer back then - especially given that our previous computer (a Commodore 64) had just 64 KB of RAM built-in.

[highlander]

...won't ...was...was...was...were...was...was...was...was...wasn't...

Dammit Steve, now I sound negative!

A machine from the dawn of personal computing but best leave it to Sheldon Cooper (and he wouldn't buy it because of all the grammatical errors in the ad...)

Dammit Steve, now I feel old!

(I am about to turn 32)

[steve_earwig]

It makes you wonder how lame the computers we're using now will seem in 20 year's time.

Hmm, I'm already ahead of the game with my 10 year old P4 machine

[highlander]

Hmm, I'm already ahead of the game with my 10 year old P4 machine

As it happens, I do have an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, motherboard, and memory bundle sat in my house doing nothing. If you can send me the postage (no idea how much) then I would be happy to send this to you at no cost.

I do have to warn you that it is an ECS motherboard, meaning that it is made of of some cheap components, and suffers from some stupid port/USB header placements, etc, but it is fully functional and will run XP, Vista, or Win7 without too much of a headache. It isn't a performance system, but it works.

I think it even has a built-in nVidia GeForce graphics card of some sort, but it wasn't even a brilliant one when the board was new - but it's definitely better than the Intel Graphics sh*t that some budget motherboards ship with.

[steve_earwig]

Cheap board with exploding capacitors? Thanks for the offer but don't worry, it would be nice to have but I don't rate its chances getting through the postal system here. I'm quite happy to keep this one going, it's taught me a lot about computers too. I realise it'll go pop one day but I'll cross that bridge etc. Also, I keep acquiring old machines, there's always a chance one will be better than this one...

Asrock P4Dual-880Pro (bought here when the original board died)
P4 3.0Gig HT (John) Prescott (ebay special)
256MB GeForce 6600 (ASUS) (ebay not so special)
4.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR @ 133MH (yeah, I know)

[highlander]

Cheap board with exploding capacitors?

Being fair to it, none of its capacitors have even thought of blowing yet!

Fair enough, it really isn't the best of boards, but it is available if anyone wants it.

[scotty73]

This was intended as a joke post but really it wasn't if you get me drift, i had a feeling highlander would have lots to say and it was my way of not sounding computer thick.

My old desktop has given up on life i cant load win7 back up on there as it's not recognising the hard drive, i do have a 80gig hd in the wifes caddy but dont want to cock that up for her...especially as it's got all her tv on it so i have some peace and quiet now and then when she watches it upstairs with my youngest.

It's old and out dated anyway but i just dont know what to buy and dont have much to spend anyway we been looking at base units up to about £100 but i dont even know wtf dual or quad core means... well i have a rough idea but i'd rather someone explain it.