X68000 AceHD or XVI Compact

[X-Col]

Hi All,

Just been told by the other half that having 2 X68000's is an extravagance we can't afford, so one of them has to go.
My dilemma is, which one to keep?

I have, as most of you may already know, an AceHD and a XVI Compact (both fully working).
I would like some of your opinions on both models (pros and cons), to help me make a decision.

Which one would you keep, and why?

Cheers! 

[costa]

Don't sell, man. And offer fhe ofher part the door way. 

Now seriously... you do need both. Actually you need at least one more!
Ok, now seriously... seriously!

Keep the one you noticed you have been using more.
I prefer the compacts because it is easy to write floppies for it from scratch, no parafernalia required. And if the floppies die, you still have a functional system be they boot from HD even without disk drives  conected.

Between the Ace and Compact: Compact.

But in the end it is your choice.

[famiac]

Compact for sure. I only bought my Expert because i love the manhattan shape, but a compact can do more, is easier to transport, and now that it's recapped, will be easier to manage.

[BlueBMW]

Definitely the compact if you have to choose.  Pop an external hard drive on that thing and game away.  The extra CPU is nice to have for some games.  The floppy drives are eventually going to be a problem no matter which system you keep so definitely look into a hard drive setup for the long term.

[X-Col]

Thanks chaps, I agree with all of you. And Yes Costa, ideally I want to keep them both really.
Although the Compact is a better 'all rounder', the Ace looks better, is built like a Sherman tank and it's been a labour of love since last September. So I'm more emotionally attached to it.

I wonder if I offer to sell my, now working, MSX Turbo-R instead the missus will agree to let me keep both? Worth a try! 

[famiac]

Is space an issue in your home? I'm wondering why your wife would be bothered by your hobby...

[X-Col]

Space is an issue, I have lots of old computers and consoles.
Also she moans about the money I spend on my hobby.

I will probably end up having to sell one of them to keep the peace, but I'll try selling some other stuff first (either my MSX or one of my Amiga's).

As Costa says, she'll have to go! Trade her for a newer model   

@BlueBMW, I am currently using an externally attached AztecMonster and it works great. The only problem with running games off HD is not all of them work, so you need the floppy drives for them (i.e. Cho-Jin, Hellhound). Although there is always the forthcoming, X68000 supporting, version of HxC. However, attaching it to a Compact is another matter!

How hard is the Compact internal CF mod?  That would be a better solution for me.

[BlueBMW]

I've not personally done it but it looks doable just very tight on space...

[costa]

...

I will probably end up having to sell one of them to keep the peace, but I'll try selling some other stuff first (either my MSX or one of my Amiga's).

Sell the Amigas, man... keep the Turbo R.

[X-Col]

My A1200 will be on Fleabay this weekend   

Completed the internal CF mod on my Compact and it works great 
There is just enough room to fit the AztecMonster inside.....

Here are some pics:

[emerald danjon]

Looks Great!,now you can lost the fear for the Fragile FDD,s of the Compact...,
i have an A1200 too,and one A500 too,what a beatiful machines,pity the U.S.GOLD licenses...,anyway are amazing computers and for me with the most beautiful sound on the history of videogames,
how use this sound is another stuff  .
Greetings.

[X-Col]

Hiya, yeh the A1200 is a great machine. I have 2 of them, and an A500+

The A1200 I'm keeping is accelerated to 80mhz, and it runs Quake, Doom etc at full speed with music

I was keeping the other A1200 just in case the main one died. But I guess it's overkill, so I'm going to sell it. They both have ceramic capacitors instead of the original ones. So zero maintenance 

BTW now that the CF is internal, my CD Rom drive works great attached externally. File transfer is a breeze  However, I don't like it that there is no HD LED on the Compact to let you know when the machine is accessing the drive....

[BlueBMW]

You could add an led and just connect it to that header on the Aztec Monster.  Though yeah not quite as cool as the original models with the front led indicator.

How much for that a1200?

[X-Col]

How much for that a1200?

To you £60, but it's the shipping from the UK that's the killer mate...
Not checked, but I guess it ain't cheap!

[BlueBMW]

I'm used to shipping stuff from Japan anymore so high costs are never a worry lol.  You mind pricing the shipping just in case?

I've got a broken A500 and I'm a little ignorant to Amiga stuff...  A500 vs A1200? what should I know?

[BlueBMW]

I grew up with an Atari 800 and a DOS 386...

[X-Col]

A500 had these chipset revisions;
OCS - Original Chipset (512k max Chipram) -A500
OCS - Original Chipset with Fat Agnus (1mb max Chipram) -A500
ECS - Enhanced Chipset (2mb max Chipram) -A500+ & A600
AGA - Advanced Graphics Architecture (also max 2mb max Chipram, but has a 24bit pallet and allows 256 colours on screen compared with only 32 colours of the OCS & ECS chipsets) -A1200

The sound was great on the original A500 release, but it only has 4 (8-bit PCM) sound channels. This means that many games have either sound effects, or music. If they have both, some of the music may stop when the sound effect plays due to the limited channels. This was never addressed in any of the chipset revisions with Commodore using the original 'Paula' chip in all Amiga's.

The A1200 included an IDE header onboard, so adding a Harddrive is easy  or even better, just get a CF IDE adapter for a few dollars on EBay. All have a 4GB HD limit, but you can increase this with updated drivers (mine is 16GB).

Chipram is the onboard memory that the custom chipset can access directly (Between CPU & Graphics chip Sound chip etc). The more colours on screen the more Chipram is used. 256 colour screen mode on the A1200 eats it for fun and runs a lot slower (so 2mb was never enough really). The next planned revision (AA chipset) would have addressed this and be a gigantic leap ahead. But, as you know, Commodore went bust before this was completed.
Fast ram is only accessible by the CPU and is added via the 'trapdoor' expansion slot. Most accelerators include this onboard.

Compatibility issues were introduced with each revision release where some older games would not run on the newer revisions. These compatibility issues are addressed in a HD installation program called WHDLoad and is the perfect companion for the A1200, allowing it to run just about any game straight from HD. There are literally thousands of games available for the Amiga. A lot of them crap, but hundreds of excellent games among them.

If you wish to run games from floppy buy a A500, as many won't run on the A1200. If you want a much better all round computer that runs the very same games straight from HD, buy an A1200. There are lots of accelerators for both systems, but the better (and faster) ones are for the A1200. I have a (motorola 68060) Apollo 1260 that runs at 80mhz and has 64mb fast ram onboard. There are Amiga community members that are still actively porting PC software to these faster systems and you can run ScummVM, many Doom ports, Quake 1 & 2 etc.

The next step is to towerize the A1200 mobo. This allows you to add various PCI cards, including more modern graphics cards and Ethernet cards etc. but this, for me is wandering away from the classic hardware. So I prefer to keep mine in the original case and just accelerate it.

So, if you do decide on an Amiga, I would go for the A1200. But, like the X68000, that's just the start. You need to buy other hardware to add memory & accelerate etc. the difference is, that hardware is still being made for the Amiga. And it's cheaper than the X68000 stuff (in general). For example, a new sound card is due for release for the A1200, which will allow CD quality music to be played on a relatively slow system. The Amiga was never really any good for midi (that was the Atari ST's selling point) but there are adapters out there that allow connection of a midi unit (I use an MT32), and there is a coder in the Amiga community working an a port of ScummVM that supports midi output. 

Minimum setup:
For WHDLoad
A1200 with mouse
68030 based accelerator + 16mb fast ram (Still being produced brand new with 128mb ram)
Cheap CF IDE adapter
Amiga to Scart cable

Better set up for newer ports and demos:
A1200 with mouse
68060 based accelerator + 64mb fast ram
Cheap CF IDE adapter
VGA card like the Indivision AGA (Not a graphics card, just allows the Amiga's screens to be displayed on a standard VGA monitor)

Loads more to know, so just ask if you need to know anything. Or search the Amiga forums as I'm no expert. Just grew up with them....

Here is an 68030 system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-p4R9WDPNk
and a 68060 system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGBUzfMWVsM

[X-Col]

I'm used to shipping stuff from Japan anymore so high costs are never a worry lol.  You mind pricing the shipping just in case?

No problem, I need to package the stuff up and weigh it etc. when I do, I will also price shipping to the U.S. 

[BlueBMW]

Wow, thanks for all the info!

Not sure why I never got into Commodore stuff but I guess it's never too late.  On a side note I just got my first C64...  so that should be a fun journey.

[emerald danjon]

I play with WHDLOAD in my A1200,and i  have one Blizzard 020 with 4MB,honestly i think all works fine.

[X-Col]

I play with WHDLOAD in my A1200,and i  have one Blizzard 020 with 4MB,honestly i think all works fine.

I agree that's a nice setup, just adding fast ram gets WHDLoad working with WB 3.1
I just like OS 3.9 and it is too slow on a 14mhz machine.

So amended bare minimum spec: A1200 with some fast ram, mouse, HD (or CF) & Scart cable.

@BlueBMW, C64 was the second computer my parents bought me for Christmas (still have it!). 1st was a 16k ZX Spectrum.
C64 kicks the Speccy's butt  (Great SID sound, hardware scroll & sprites)
Still love my Speccy though, some great classic games...

The X68000's hardware was way ahead of the Amiga when it was released. I think of it as the Japanese Amiga.... If it had been available outside of Japan, I think it would have been the machine of choice (assuming it's price was reduced) and this X68000 forum would rival EAB in traffic.

[emerald danjon]

Oaahhh i forget th OS theme...,i think i have an early Workbench...,i think that helps...,is not heavy...,anyway im sure for run ONSCAPE and other more modern games...sure is a great thing get one o30 or more...,
and please forgive the Offtopic 
Greetings.

[X-Col]

Agreed, this has wandered Way off topic...

I blame BlueBMW 

I'm keeping both X68000 AceHD & XVI Compact, for now... 

[emerald danjon]

I dont like Compact,but is just for mi bad experience...,is a cool machine if is work properly...,and the FDD,s 3,5 is something nice,if are Working  .

[costa]

I think the Compact is nicer either way, even when the floppies fails.
My point is, they will boot off of internal or external HD even if their dis drives were removed.

[X-Col]

I think the Compact is nicer either way, even when the floppies fails.
My point is, they will boot off of internal or external HD even if their dis drives were removed.

Maybe the earlier models will too if the IPL replacement ROM ever becomes reality mate 

[emerald danjon]

I think the Compact is nicer either way, even when the floppies fails.
My point is, they will boot off of internal or external HD even if their dis drives were removed.

Good Point.