I second Taucias. Go for an A4000 as frankly that's the dogs knackers in Amiga terms. The computer side / software is pretty easy to get hold of. You will need to find a decent Amiga monitor and that is the difficult part. You can still use the RF out, but that sodding add on RF unit that hangs off the back of things like the A500 sucks and are prone to failure. Just noticed others have mentioned the monitor side too. Actually, not sure in the US, but getting a good, working, reliable and affordable Amiga monitor is actually more difficult that you'd think. You can get convertors though.
What are the resolutions for Amigas output? You could possibly get a card that outputs 15khz (most cards w/ some sort of software help, or the ArcadeVGA w/o any help) and output to some type of RGB capable monitor (Sony PVM for example) and try an Amiga emulator. Yeah, it's an emulator, but it might be easier in this case.
I second using an emulator (at least before the purchase.) Amiga is not for everyone, I really tried but couldn't get into them.
if you do go the Amiga console root, this should come very much in handy - I know I should have posted it in the eBay section, but A) It's not my auction and B) this relates to YOUR particular needs right now! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Amiga-1200-4000-Scandoubler-Flicker-Fixer_W0QQitemZ130091477311QQcategoryZ98928QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
if you want all around great Amiga system, there are two solutions: 1st solution ~ get Amiga 1200, it's extremely small, it's a desktop system, so it's as compact as you'll ever get. it has AGA chipsets which allows for 256 colors on the screen at the same time + has some really nice effects. many games won't work with it, but you can always turn it off, it's very compatible with pretty much all games. so what would you have to get: Amiga 1200 NTSC(these are much tougher to find than PAL units), 1084s monitor(RGB all the way), or scandoubler but these will probably cost you more than 1084s monitor(!), good flicker fixers are usually hitting around $100 or so(you can connect your amiga to your VGA monitor so it's quite handy to own one of those). good accellerator - I would go with Phase 5 Blizzard, 1230 @ 50mhz with 32 mb ram(around $200) would be great, Blizzard 1260 would be best but it can run you $400+, it's the fastest accellerator for desktop Amiga 1200. workbench 3.1 + recommended, nice hard drive(at least 500mb), your CD-32 joypad will work with your A1200, so no problem there. cd-rom would be nice, but it's not necessary. you're pretty much set. 2nd solution ~ since you already have CD-32, you can get SX-1 or Promodule(either of these are extremely hard to find nowadays and will cost you probably $200 + each), they will transform your Amiga CD-32 into full blown Amiga 1200 computer with cd-rom, they're pretty good. Princess^^
I have a fully functional Amiga up in the attic. I think it's an A500 with a 1/2 meg expansion board. Boxed and in remarkably good condition. Are you in the UK or US? If the UK then I am sure we could come to some trade plus shipping. I never use it! It requires a new RF adaptor (broken) but that is fine as the actual computer is working flawlessly and the monitor out has been tested about 4mths ago. PM me if you (or anyone else wants this unit as it is currently in my way!)
