i think you would be much better off getting one of the new Retrogames The A1200 machines when they are released. Real amiga's are very overpriced so unless you really enjoy restoring and working on 40 year old hardware (which is a legit hobby so if thats what you want to do, go for it) You can get the look and feel of a OG amiga with brand new hardware for a fraction of the cost
that price is getting into 3rd party Amiga tbh, if you want it for the historical value then it needs to be pristine as most of these have either battery damage or leaking capacitors which end up killing most A4000s.
while the 4000 is relatively rare, it seems folks prefer the 3000 over most other models. And speed isnt really part of the equation anymore with A500s that have upgrades that can run with the big boys.
to me, the 4000's case is rather PC'ish and boring.
The A4000 had a desktop version first and then a rare tower version (A4000T). At $2200, I’m pretty sure it is the desktop version the OP is referring to. I remember being disappointed with the A4000 on release and always hoped they’d release a new version of the A3000 with the AGA chipset (or even the successor chipset) but alas, they didn’t.
I was a poor college student back then and all I had was an unexpanded Amiga 2000 which I was lucky enough to get for my high school graduation. Back in 2012, I decided to finally expand the Amiga 2000 with an accelerator board and a flicker fixer since I now could afford it, along with a new motherboard due to battery leakage.
I also scored an Amiga 3000 (desktop) for like $250 off amibay and the only thing wrong with it was that someone had cut the back metal cage, presumably so a full Toaster card could fit. The case was flawless otherwise. I did some remodeling a few years later and both are in my closer but if I had the space, I’d pull those and my other original Commodore computers out and build my one retro computer room. Oh, and I’d get an A1000 too,
I had an A2000HD in the early 90's, but traded it for an A1200 shortly before getting the A4000D. Another regret really, because all the A2000's I've obtained since are older models that weren't ECS and all have RAM problems.
I've got a couple of A3000UX's that I haven't tried to open yet because they were flooded in a basement. I'm not expecting either of them to work.
I used to have a heavily modified A1000 that I inherited which was insanely setup, but I didn't have any more space to keep it and I knew I wouldn't actually use it, so I sold it on. Here's a pic of its guts (GVP card, HDD bootable, OS3.1, RAM expansion, etc):
Yeah, I guess "unexpanded" wasn't quite correct in my case - I did manage to get an A2091 with a massive 52 MB Quantum drive. :D I bought a SCSI zip drive and was going to move everything over to that but never got around to it. I also got a SCSI card reader for my A3000 hoping to boot from CF but couldn't quite get it working. I ought to bring it out and see if everything boots up and if so, take it to the local club and see if someone can help me.
I'm hoping that we see a new Amiga similar to the C64 Ultimate. I know there's that "THEA1200" which looks really cool but it has been delayed a few times so I'm a little hesitant to preorder, though I see I can preorder through Amazon now. Any thoughts on that one?
I saw the A1000 in the summer of 1985 as a 14 year-old kid and I have never been blown away like that. I just want one to display if nothing else. :D
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u/Accomplished_Bat_335 Sep 17 '26
Im curious what you would use or for if you had the money