Advice for a new Amiga 1000 owner?

[Magma0520]

Hi, all. I recently picked up an Amiga 1000 from a local seller on Craigslist. I've long been fascinated with the Amiga, even though for a long time my sole exposure to it was seeing the occasional guru meditation error on the Prevue Channel, since it's a branch of computing history I missed out on (although I'm only slightly older than the Amiga itself, so it's not as if I would have gotten much out of it other than games when it was contemporary)--my family went straight from Commodore 8-bit machines to PC clones, and though I had friends with Macs, I never knew anyone with an Amiga. So I've wanted to add an Amiga to my retro computer collection since roughly forever (I've played around with both WinUAE and the Minimig core on the MiSTer, but of course, it's not the same) and you can imagine my excitement when my Craigslist saved search for "amiga" pinged...

...but I didn't come here to tell you my life story, nor did you come here to read it. Like the subject line says, I'm looking for advice.

I'd like to bridge my new acquisition to the modern world while still keeping at least one of its feet in the past, as I've done with my other retro computers (like my C64 with its Ultimate-II, or my Apple IIGS which has a Floppy Emu, a MicroDrive/Turbo, and an Uthernet II card). Specifically my goals are:
(1) reduce the need for floppies, since neither the drives nor the disks are gonna last forever (and I also don't super want to get a Greaseweazle, a floppy drive, and a supply of floppies to write images to disks)
(2) add some form of mass storage so I don't have to run everything off of floppies (emulated or otherwise)
(3) have a way to easily transfer files between the Amiga and my PC
(4) potentially accelerate it
which probably dovetails somewhat with (5) being able to run newer Kickstart/Workbench versions than 1.3...which would be nice, but I don't know if it's actually necessary (not knowing what kinds of things have hard requirements for newer Kickstart or Workbench versions), or how achievable it is on the 1000.

I've done some research towards these ends, but ultimately I'd rather draw on the wisdom of active members of the community because some things have proven beyond my ability to google and I've found myself going in circles. The questions here are mostly implicit.

As far as (1) goes, this is actually the one I have the fewest questions/least confusion about; it seems that the Gotek is the...go-to...(I swear that pun was absolutely unintentional) solution for the Amiga, so seems like that's my decision made there. But I don't want to remove the existing internal drive, at least not as long as it works, but I would like to be able to boot from the Gotek as needed. In my googlings I have become aware of DF0/DF1 selectors, but it seems like all the ones I can find either disable the internal drive when switched to the external, or are not known to be compatible with the 1000. Or both. I did find this switchless one that does what I want (keeps both drives active and just switches their position) and is compatible with the 500 and 500 Plus -- would it also work with the 1000? If not, is the issue purely mechanical (i.e. not enough clearance around the relevant chip(s) but otherwise would work if it fit) or electronic/electrical?

For (2), there don't seem to be many mass storage add-ons, or at least not many readily-available ones, for the 1000, which I guess, given its limited expandability and relatively short lifespan compared to the 500, is not particularly a surprise. The only one I've seen that explicitly states that it is compatible with the 1000 is the IDE68K + GottaGoFastRAM 8MB. I've also considered getting a PiStorm since those also emulate hard drives, but though I'm not at all opposed to accelerating my 1000, I think I'd prefer not to brain-slug it by replacing its CPU with a software-emulated one. Where mass storage on the 1000 is concerned, is there a better option than the IDE68K+GGFRAM that I should be aware of?

For (3), I suppose with a Gotek I can just toss files on a disk image, but that seems like it'd be clunky; ideally I'd like to be able to hook the Amiga up to my network and just FTP files back and forth or something along those lines, as I'm able to do with my C64's Ultimate-II, and my Apple IIGS via its Uthernet II card. Before I buy a Plipbox for my Amiga, is there a better option? (I'm guessing not given the limited expandability of the 1000, but...) And actually, for that matter, will I run into any issues trying to use one on a 1000 with KS/WB 1.3?

For (4) and (5), I've seen a couple of accelerators that would let me use different Kickstart ROMs (and eliminate the need for the Kickstart disk) but they appear to be either unobtainium (the Classic 520) or questionably compatible with the 1000 (the ACA500plus; I've seen mixed reports of people whether it works with the 1000 and it's not officially supported even if it does). I've also seen here on this very forum mentions of the Parceiro II but there were a lot of posts to sift through so it's not clear to me exactly what its capabilities are, whether I could actually exchange money for one and receive it in a reasonable span of time, and whether it would require hardware modifications to function (I swear I saw something about having to add some bodge wires to the motherboard for the Parceiro to work in certain variants of the 1000). Either way, I'm not really interested in something like the Apollo V4 Firebird or the PiStorm despite the fact that it would kill most of these birds with one stone. Like I said, I'm not interested in bypassing most of the machine; I'd prefer something more in the spirit of contemporary accelerators.

Another issue I'm running into is that, as I sort of alluded to above, a lot of the sites that sell various Amiga addons and accessories are silent on the matter of whether some of them are compatible with the 1000. It's not clear to me whether that's because they are known to be incompatible, or because they aren't known to be compatible...and I'm reluctant to gamble because in most cases the sellers are overseas (I'm in the US) so returns would be quite inconvenient and in some cases possibly not even worth the expense. I know the 500 is basically (but not exactly!) a 1000 in a keyboard wedge form factor...I realize that there are going to be major differences between the PCBs in the 500 and 1000, but AIUI the chipsets and overall architecture are more or less identical, so if something (like a DF0/1 switcher) says it's compatible with the 500 but not the 1000, would it be worth the risk?

If you made it this far, thanks for reading through my wall of text, and for any input you can provide.

[intric8]

My opinion (and everyone is different so this is just my take).

If you're on a glorious A1000, I'd get an external Gotek and leave your internal floppy original. You can load ADFs externally this way. If you need to load a game from bootup, that's what the internal is for.

When you need to move ADFs to a physical floppy, you can always go the null-modem route in a pinch.

Most importantly, I'd get the Parceiro 2. Frankly this single device is going to solve literally all of your problems/questions and more you didn't even know you had. You can leave the machine on OS 1.3 and run most everything right off the SD card, which also has a "folder/drive" you can use for moving files off modern machines over to the SD. In all honesty, the Parceiro II combined with Disk Mimic make the Gotek hacking seem virtually unnecessary in 2023.

[Magma0520]

My opinion (and everyone is different so this is just my take).

If you're on a glorious A1000, I'd get an external Gotek and leave your internal floppy original. You can load ADFs externally this way. If you need to load a game from bootup, that's what the internal is for.

When you need to move ADFs to a physical floppy, you can always go the null-modem route in a pinch.

Most importantly, I'd get the Parceiro 2. Frankly this single device is going to solve literally all of your problems/questions and more you didn't even know you had. You can leave the machine on OS 1.3 and run most everything right off the SD card, which also has a "folder/drive" you can use for moving files off modern machines over to the SD. In all honesty, the Parceiro II combined with Disk Mimic make the Gotek hacking seem virtually unnecessary in 2023.

Thanks for the pointers. I emailed David about buying a Parceiro Tuesday evening, and I just got it today. I've basically only just plugged it in to make sure it works (it does--and the latest revisions don't even require any mods to the Amiga itself!), and installed Disk Mimic in the WB1.3 partition of the SD card. I'm thrilled with the Parceiro from what little I've seen so far.

I ended up ordering a Gotek, too, though I suspect that between the Parceiro, WHDLoad, and Disk Mimic, I may not have much need for it. I didn't bother with a DF0/1 switcher, mainly for that reason.

I've also got an RGB-to-SCART cable on the way so I can plug the Amiga into my OSSC or RetroTINK--the composite out is surprisingly decent, but...it's still composite.

About transferring ADFs to real floppies--can the Amiga's drive read/write high density disks formatted as double density, or do I need to see about getting some double density 3.5" disks? I know with 5.25" disks, HD floppies can't be used in DD drives (even if formatted for the lower capacity), and I thought the same was true of 3.5" drives, but then I remembered that I have read, written, and formatted 3.5" HD disks with my Apple IIGS's double density 3.5" drive, so I'm not sure if that's just that drive or what.

[intric8]

If you want to keep things pure (i.e. buy games off Ebay, or download ADFs and write them to physical floppies) you're going to want legitimate DSDD disks, yes, not HD disks. I think the Amiga 4000 could read HD disks but most Amiga programs were distributed on double-density floppy disks back in the day.

[jamesyoung]

In my Amiga 1000, I have a PiStorm which is a rapsberry pi based accelerator. It provides a faster cpu, up to 512m fastram, emulated hard drive, rtg and networking

It's obviously not fully original, but it's way cheaper than any other accelerator on the market

[SteveE671]

I second the PiStorm option. It completely made my A1000 a modern machine with all the fun of retro.

Also, pickup a GreaseWeasle. If you do run across a disk based game or disks that you want to adf. A GreaseWeasle is a must and it’s very easy to use.

[G8rduc]

@magma0520, curious how it's been running since it's been a couple of months since your post?

[miraco]

Instead of Disk Mimic, the latest Parceiro II+ includes virtual disk feature from the WB menu.