Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!new
From: new@udel.EDU (Darren New)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: CAN I USE the originial AMIGA for something?
Keywords: amiga1000,upgrade
Message-ID: <24111@estelle.udel.EDU>
Date: 10 Jul 90 12:57:23 GMT
References: <2697404b-25ffcomp.sys.amiga@vpnet.chi.il.us>
Reply-To: new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New)
Organization: University of Delaware
Lines: 38

In article <2697404b-25ffcomp.sys.amiga@vpnet.chi.il.us> topgun@vpnet.chi.il.us (robert white) writes:
>  I went to my local AMIGA store and asked them what I would need to
>do in order to use the computer to communicate with online services
>and so forth. They told me that there is so little memory on this model
>that it's useless. They suggested I dump it since it would cost way
>too much to try and upgrade it.

That's just silly (or, I suspect, an intentional lie).  Of course you
can use the A1000 for minimal applications.  Otherwise, nobody would
have bought the A1000 in the first place.  I'm typing on an A1000 right
now. If you only want to use it as a smart terminal, the minimal amount
of memory that comes with the A1000 (256K) is probably enough.

It's true that it would be almost impossible to upgrade it at this
point, since the hardware has a different edge-connector than the newer
models and companies are not making the old hardware any more. On the
other hand, I think the A590 (memory and hard disk for the A500, which
is a smaller version of the A1000) can be stuck onto an A1000 with the
right setup.  (You have to turn it upside down, or something.) Also,
there are several commercial and home-made "kludges" for making the
A1000 work as well as the newer models; I'm not familiar with them.

I use the VT100 program (which is shareware).  If you have any way of
getting software to your A1000 besides floppy, you can get lots of good
software via FTP or EMail, most of which is free.  If not, you might
want to ask Marco whether his ATermIII will run under the amount of
memory you have; I hear many people sing praises of this program.
You can also probably get somebody to mail disks of software to you;
Fred Fish is a good person to get stuff from this way.

The latest version of the operating system that runs on an A1000 is
called "Workbench 1.3".  You can get it for about $35 in the USA.  You
would probably want this to run the latest terminal software.  If you
have 512K (boot the machine, start the "workbench", and look at the bar
at the top of the screen), you should not have any trouble running lots
of programs. If you only have 256K, you might have some trouble with
modern programs.
                              -- Darren