Finally, I own an Amiga 1200!

This is a big deal for me. When I was growing up, I always wanted an Amiga, I think I was intoxicated by the wonderful graphics from the games I watched being played on Gamesmaster. Compared to my Sega Master System, this thing was the mutts nuts. So, when I saw the opportunity to grab an almost mint Amiga 1200 on eBay, I jumped.

I had been after an Amiga 4000, but this was such a good deal I couldnt leave it alone. It even arrived with the original box and manuals. Things like this always make be happy. After some quick research on the Internet, I discovered that there were numerous upgrades available for this computer, including an acellerator board, a PCMCIA networking card and a SCSI interface for a CD ROM. The device I got came with an additional floppy disk drive, which was nice, especially if the internal one decided to give up the ghost.

With the Blizzard board fitted, I have now almost doubled the power of the computer. All I need to do now is fit some form of hard drive and upgrade the ROM's to KickStart 3.1. Once that is done, I will hook it up to the network and see what I can do on the Internet with it, probably some very self-congratulatory posts on FaceBook to announce its arrival on the Internet.

I dont think there are many 1200 specific games available, I think Beneath A Steel Sky is one of them. Hopefully I will be able to track down a copy and give it a whirl.

The Commodore CDTV

My latest purchase, a Commodore CDTV has arrived and has been set up for use. Essentially, this is just a tarted up Amiga 600 with a nice, sleek black case and some different input methods.

This purchase was quite a steal, the example I got came complete with a matching black floppy drive as well as a matching black HDD, keyboard and mouse. The CDTV was primarily a CD based console that was designed to fit in with your stereo equipment under the telly. I remember this being advertised by Special Reserve back in the day, but never really knew much about it. Never saw an ad on TV for it, which was kind of odd for a Commodore product. Being one of the earliest CD based systems, it didnt have a motorised CD tray, instead you had to place your CD Rom into a caddy and plug that into the machine. This will seem very odd for people nowadays, especially as we dont really have that many motorised trays about any more. I am not sure as to why Commodore went for this configuration, to keep costs down perhaps?

The joypad that comes with the console is way before its time. It is wireless, something that is the norm now, but in the old days was not. It is kind of similar to the Jaguar joypad, in so far that it has so many buttons, this was primarily down to the fact that the device was pitched as a hybrid console/entertainment device (in a similar way to the CDTV). I haven't been able to find any decent titles for it yet to test out the joypad, but I have been able to boot it up into its computer mode. Apparently, there is a jumper on the main-board that will convert the device into an Amiga 600. I plan to install a switch so that I can try this out. I have a copy of Street Fighter 2 for the Amiga 600 that I am anxious to try out.

Unfortunately though, there doesn't seem to be any way I can hook this device up to the Internet, which I think is a bit of a shame.