Commodore Amiga 1200

Indeed, I got my first Amiga in October 1985 - I believe it was the first Amiga sold in Virginia (U.S.) and one of the first ever sold - period. https://bytecellar.com/2020/10/27/looking-back-on-35-years-a... I remember those extremely early days, which were filled with slow releases, I must say - but it was a singular experience, playing with that hardware. I left and came back with an Amiga 2000 in 1988 and that was a great time - a peak time to be an Amigoid. 1992 does seem late for a first Amiga - and a 500; I had an A1200 in '92. I still have two Amigas that I use often (1000, 2000 '020) and a PowerPC "Amiga," that I rarely power on.

I bought an Amiga 1200 (used) in the mid '90s, invested in a then expensive Blizzard 1260 and SCSI, used the system for years as my primary work computer, then rackmounted it and turned it in to NetBSD server. Sure, it had to be recapped, and it has gone through several drives, but it has run mostly continuously since 1995. It's good hardware, and it's responsible for many of the m68k pkgsrc binary packages available today. Just recently I recapped an Amiga 3000 and started playing with AmigaDOS 3.2.2. I could browse the web, with https, with 16 megs on a 25 MHz m68030. Because of Datatypes, I could even see webp, which my previous Mac couldn't. The OS has had recent updates. AmiSSL is based off of OpenSSL 3.x. Software and browsers are still being updated. It's amazing. It's definitely an excellent candidate for a 50 year computer :)

Later Amigas supported VGA timings. The Amiga 3000 through de-interlacing "scandoubling" "flicker-fixer" hardware, which had been an add-on for Amiga 2000. ECS and AGA chipsets had "Productivity Mode" but only desktop programs used them, and ECS only with up to four colours on screen at once. I used an Amiga 1200 with a VGA monitor for a few years. Because video modes were programmable, I traded a little refresh rate for higher screen resolution: 704×520 @ 50 Hz or thereabouts.

I loved my Amiga 500. All my friends at the time also had one. And then later on my Amiga 1200 with an actual hard drive. With the then excellent Amiga Workbench. Whilst I tinkered with Basic on C64 and the 500 it was with EasyAmos on the 1200 I properly started my programming interest.

Same. I got rid of my Amiga 500 back in 2002 and have regretted it pretty much ever since. I bought an Amiga 1200 before the pandemic but, whilst it's a great machine (and obviously more capable than my old A500), it's not the same because I don't have all my old software, programs I wrote, etc. Absolutely feel your pain.

Well... I recommend you to try an old Amiga 1200 . You will find a big surprise how this 20 Mhz machine it's highly responsive, and boots faster that any current machine with Windows 10/11. However, it would not look fancy to our current eyes.