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[StevenJGore]

Hello,

I have been completely out of touch with the Amiga since about 1996. In the last few months I have been getting back into the world of the Amiga through WinUAE on my PC, having just spent a week imaging my Amiga 1200's hard disk partitions into HDF files. I have also just bough Amiga OS 3.5 from PowerC for a tenner!

Anyway, I was hoping you guys could answer some questions for me...

1. I am starting my catch-up by installing Amiga OS 3.5 (a good place to start hopefully!). I was almost tempted to buy 3.9, but it was over three times the price. In a nutshell, what are the main differences?

2. Any simple advice (ie. from your experiences) for a newbie to 3.5?

3. I have read that internet and e-mail support only just made it into the release of 3.5, and is only very basic anyway. Which third-party browsers and e-mail clients are considered to be the best?

4. Does the Amiga support the playing of high-quality (ie. 192kbps+) MP3 files?

5. Can the Amiga play DivX video?

(in WinUAE I am emulating an A1200 with 060 CPU + FPU, 40MB of RAM, 16MB RTG, 1GB hard disk, and a 3.1 ROM)

Any answers would be appreciated.
Over time I hope to become a useful contributor to these boards and hopefully get to know you all better.

Steve.

[Herewegoagain]

Hey Bro,

3.5 should provide a good start. I've heard people say that 3.9 is better.

The Amiga can play back MP3's but I'm not sure what rate that would be. Maybe someone else can chime in. And it does have the ability to play Divx, however, I think the player requires a PPC, which will not be an option under emulation. Once again, if anyone else knows different, speak up.

As far as web browers go, my favorite Amiga browser is Ibrowse 2.3. It does a pretty good job for most sites, unless they contain flash.

BTW, if that is your real name, then we share the same last name.

[DaveP]

His real name is Steven J Goagain!

[Thomas]

Mp3 and DivX are no problems on WinUAE. WinUAE is much faster than any real Amiga (assuming a 1000+ MHz machine). There currently is no free player for AVI movies. The DivX codec of course is free, but you need to buy a player. Frogger is a good choice here. http://frogger.rules.pl/

IMHO OS3.9 would be a much better choice over 3.5. Now that both exist, 3.5 can be considered a beta version of 3.9. The 3.5 improvements are mostly internal, not visible to the user. Most functionality can be achieved by freeware from Aminet, too.

This is true for OS3.9, too, but OS3.9 is a quiete nice overall package. It contains internet programs, multimedia players and it can be installed in one go.

As a hint for OS3.5, you should first (before the actual installation), create an Emergency-Disk. This is not documented but heavily recommended. Then boot from the Emergency-Disk and install 3.1, 3.5pre and 3.5 from scatch. This is the best way to get a running system. There are some changes to the startup process and some obsolete programs that makes it difficult to upgrade a highly patched OS3.1.

With WinUAE it is very easy to maintain several configurations with different startup volumes, so you should leave your current (working) setup alone and create a new one for 3.5 at first. When familar with the installation process, you can still try to upgrade your existing setup.

And of course you do not emulate a 060 but a 040. UAE does not offer 060 emulation. There are some hacks that make programs *think* they run on a 060 but the actual processor is still a 040.

Bye,
Thomas

[Quixote]

;-) One of the important differances between OS 3.5 and OS 3.9 is that version 3.9 includes the full version of Genesis, a TCP/IP stack. That was the selling point for me.

[StevenJGore]

Cheers guys! Your advice has been very helpful. Is there a cheaper upgrade from 3.5 to 3.9, rather than having to buy 3.9? Haven't seen one anywhere.

[Herewegoagain]

His real name is Steven J Goagain!

[lempkee]

mp3: ANY quality, but paula sounds is limited and rather cpu needy, u should get a mediator with vodoo3 and sb128.....atleast thats a good advice if u plan to use it alot for desktop usage.

if u have a 060 on the a1200, then u should be able to view divx, there is no prob for that but it will be slow!!!! , but mp3 it does fine on that cpu...infact better than ifu have a a1200ppc card with 040/ppc.

but i seriously recomend u to get os3.9bb2 and a gfx card if u plan on sticking around and using it seriously, as AGA is dated and well tbh even i think its not very good anymore in wb mode...but sure its fast and all, but not in 256 col..

rtg and ucan have 32 bit if u like....

if u have any more questions feel free to ask more, i have used amiga since 1985 and i still do..., i dont use pc's or macs etc...only AMIGA!!!.

also let us know how much money if any ...that u wanna use on it.... so that we can give some sort of advice what the best way to go is..

cheers

[Nick]

I can`t be bothered to read the rest of whats been said. I`m too tired.

OS3.9 is easier to install and has more compatability, basically. I never really liked 3.5 cause it felt wrong, with the way it was installed. It felt messy or something, but its better than the previous ones.

Oh yeah...welcome back. :-D

[Jose]

Welcome back. Personally I've started saving for OS4 and a PPC machine. The dream is about to come true, hopeffully, finally!

[BADHead]

after 3.5 was released there was two upgrades (boing bag 1 & 2) i do not know if the cd was upgraded ?