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Amiga Buying Guide: A500, A600 or A1200
Quick version: The A500 is the classic and the toughest. The A600 is small and easy to add a memory card to. The A1200 is the most powerful and the easiest to upgrade. Whatever you buy, check the battery, the capacitors and the power supply first.
Fun fact: The A600 and A1200 have the same kind of hard drive socket as a 1990s laptop, which is why a modern memory card can stand in for the old hard drive.
Which model?
- Amiga 500 (1987): the best-selling Amiga and the one most people remember. Its capacitors age better than later models', but most upgrades are external or cost more.
- Amiga 500 Plus: looks the same, but it has a clock battery on the main board, and its newer system software breaks some older games. For older games, the plain A500 is the safer pick.
- Amiga 600 (1992): smaller, with no number pad, so it fits a modern desk. It has a built-in hard drive socket. Some older A500 games don't run on it.
- Amiga 1200 (1992): faster processor, 2 MB of memory as standard and better graphics (AGA). Most upgrades fit through the trapdoor underneath.
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Check before you switch on
- Clock batteries leak. The A500 has no battery on its main board, but the popular A501 memory add-on under the trapdoor has one. So do the A500 Plus main board and the A600's A604 memory add-on. Over time they leak and eat into the board. Remove the battery even if it looks fine; the Amiga works without it.
- Capacitors: the A600 and A1200 use small surface-mounted capacitors that are known to swell and leak. Ask whether the machine has been "recapped" (had them replaced). If not, budget for it. Amiga groups and repairers do this work.
- Ask for proof: a good listing shows the machine switched on and working.
Power supply
Failed power supplies are a common Amiga fault, and the capacitors inside them can leak. Don't open a power supply: it runs from the mains. If the original is tired or missing, a modern replacement made for the Amiga is the simple fix.
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Upgrades
- Memory: on an A500, a trapdoor add-on gives an extra 512 KB. On an A600, a trapdoor add-on gives an extra 1 MB. Many later games need more than a stock A500 has.
- Accelerators: these speed the machine up. On the A1200 they fit in the trapdoor slot. On the A500, one type replaces the main processor.
- Gotek: replaces the floppy drive and loads disk images from a USB stick. Use images of software you own.
- Memory card instead of a hard drive (A600, A1200): a CompactFlash card on the built-in hard drive socket is silent and holds far more than the old drives. Running games from it with WHDLoad needs at least 2 MB of memory.
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Connecting to a modern TV
- SCART: on a TV with a SCART socket, an RGB SCART cable gives a much sharper picture than the old RF lead.
- HDMI: with no SCART socket, use an RGB-to-HDMI adapter or a video converter such as the OSSC.
- The A600 and A1200 also have a composite video socket, so they can plug into a TV's video input without the RF lead.
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