1. IMHO, it's worth the money if you do buy an old Amiga to buy the Amiga Forever package from Cloanto Software (http://www.amigaforever.com/). This thing contains all of the Amiga emulation packages and whatnot on a CD as well as a pretty nifty "Amiga Explorer" application for Windows that allows you to use a serial cable (and maybe a network connection, I forget) to transfer files between your Amiga and your PC. It also is the only legal way to get Amiga ROM images. Most of the stuff (except Amiga Explorer and the Amiga ROMs) you can cobble together from downloads and what-have-you, but it's still nice to have it all in one place that's easy to install from.
   
   There are tons of sites that have downloadable ADF-format games; you could spend a lifetime just downloading and playing them all. I think it's mostly quasi-legal to do so, as the games are so old that they're not exactly hot intellectual propery anymore, and many of the distributors have just given up rights to them.
   
   It's more convenient to run UAE than it is to actually run a hardware Amiga because of the connectivity issues. It's a problem that many Amigas can't read 1.44MB PC floppy disk format, and your PC definitely can't write 880MB floppy format the Amiga expects, and many games expect to be run from floppy disk. But you're right that Amiga emulation isn't really perfect, some stuff just doesn't run quite right under emulation, and the lack of a joystick is a killer in most situations, so I'd suggest you get a real hardware one, if only for the fun of it! ;-)
   
   I recently bought an old A1200 setup on Ebay with a bunch of games and whatnot that came along with it. I think I spent like.. $400.00 or something (for stuff from 1993, these things hold their value pretty well!). Still works like a champ.
     posted by Chris McDonough at 11:21:42 PM on February 24, 2004  
2. I've got an A1200 w/ 800 meg HD that's looking for a good home. I bought it about a year and a half ago brand new at a warehouse closeout. Email me if you're interested.
   
   As for emulation, check out http://www.total-amiga.com for a great forum. There's another Amiga-specific board as well that covers all aspects of the Amiga, but I can't remember it off the top of my head. And Amiga Forever is awesome. The serial link utility alone is worth it if you have a real Amiga: Windows sees the Amiga in explorer and lets you transfer ADF images to floppies (or HD) on the Amiga. Very cool.
     posted by Shawn Wheatley at 07:34:40 AM on February 25, 2004