I just bought this on a whim off eBay - now what do I need?? :) It's an Amiga 1200 motherboard, NTSC, Rev. B with 3.0 ROM...

I'm assuming I can use the A1200 tower with power supply for sale on AmigaKit, and will need a keyboard and mouse of course, and I think I have an old external floppy drive, but maybe I need a new one of those too... I'd like to either hook up a hard drive, or maybe a CF flash card somehow. WIll I need RAM? And what about hooking it up to an LCD monitor? Thanks in advance for any advice!

@jabeck

That is not NTSC: it is a PAL motherboard.

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@amigakit

Ah- good to know - auction was mislabeled then - Not a big deal really...

@jabeck

First of all you should decide what to use it for,

if your only interested in games:

you should get a Accelerator whit memory socket a 030 should do fine,
then you should buy a Indivision AGA, so you can connect it to LCD monitor, you need it because whit out, you can only connect to old multisync monitors, 8mb fast ram or more.
http://www.jschoenfeld.com/news/news130_e.htm

If your interested using it as a multimedia machine, then you should max it out, get a ELBox PCI expectation, Radion graphic card, a sheep scan doubler, lots of RAM, accelerator whit a 68060, run AmigaOS3.9.
Works fine on 16mb or recommended 128mb ram.

If you interested in AmigaOS4, and use it on the internet you should sell it get a Sam440/Sam460, it will be costly to maxing out the A1200 when you do not have anything, and result not so great compered to completely new system.
Works fine on 256mb or recommended 512mb ram.

Some people sell computers in parts to get better price, I hope you did not pay more then its worth, I also hope you have a working motherboard.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 21-May-2012 at 11:11 PM.
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@NutsAboutAmiga

Thanks - Yeah, I knew it might be a bit of a risky purchase, but the price seemed right... I am primarily interested in this as a classic gaming machine, to relive the glory days...

Also - I'm really not even looking to play AGA games necessarily - is the accelerator card necessary?

Last edited by jabeck on 21-May-2012 at 07:24 PM.

@jabeck

For a basic games system a tower is not really necessary and it will probably be cheaper to get the case, keyboard and PSU for a dektop system. A tower system will need a keyboard adapter wich adds to the price. I believe an A500 PSU is more powerfull than an A1200 item.

There are a variety of CF to IDE adapters on Ebay for very little money you will need a 44 pin one since the A1200 has 44 pin IDE interface. You can get them with either male or female connectors.

You should be able get away without a floppy drive if setup the CF and install Workbench from within WinUAE another cheap CF adapter for either 40 pin IDE or SATA will be useful for this.

Ideally you should set the machine up with WHDload so that you can run all the classic games CF. WHDload requires more than the standard 2MB to be able to play all the games.
An accelerator card will have the additional memory you need but you may be able to find a basic RAM board for less money. Both are pricey.

As already mentioned, an Indivision is probably the best option for connecting to an LCD monitor or TV unless you have access to a PAL TV with a scart socket.

Hello,

Here is our prepped/formatted 4GB CF IDE hard drive with our own OS-Install software pre-installed:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=883

Floppy Disk Drive for A1200:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=294

Original Kickstart 3.1 ROMs:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=62

Amiga mouse:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=946

Last edited by amigakit on 21-May-2012 at 08:41 PM.
Last edited by amigakit on 21-May-2012 at 08:40 PM.

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@Rob

Great info - I have already bought a WHDLoad license some time ago for use through WinUAE - Using it on a real Amiga has been a dream for a long time...

Just to clarify, what exactly do you mean by a case and PSU for a desktop system, rather than the tower?

@AmigaKit - thanks for the links!

Last edited by jabeck on 21-May-2012 at 09:23 PM.
Last edited by jabeck on 21-May-2012 at 09:23 PM.

@jabeck

We include WHDLOAD with our CF hard disk. You just need to copy over your Keyfile to the drive.

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@jabeck

The original PSU is bit of a problem, but you can get this one:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=866

The problem her is getting the original plastic cabinet, and if you get PC cabinet you need to modify it heavily because of length of the motherboard, and remember not to block the PCMCIA slot, it can be useful.

I see AmiKit has the original keyboard, but there are also ps2 adapters.

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Please check out my software:
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You can go the tower but it's probably cheaper (and you'll get more of a retro experience) if you stick to the standard desktop case.

Just buy one off eBay along with a standard PSU, then grab a new keyboard and floppy drive from AmigaKit and you'll be good to go.

If you want to use WHDLOAD (and you will) then some kind of memory expansion card is a must, I would recommend either an eBay/AmiBay 8MB card or a new ACA 030.

Last edited by NovaCoder on 22-May-2012 at 12:48 AM.
Last edited by NovaCoder on 22-May-2012 at 12:47 AM.

@jabeck

Even if your just going it use it for games I'd recommend adding at least an 030 board with extra RAM, an HD of at least 10GB and putting it in a Tower case of some type...

Keyboard wise it's easy to pick up an old A2000/ 3000 or 4000 Amiga keyboard on eBay and add that too via a small DIY adapter...

The extra ram is definitely preferable even if your only going to use it for games, especially with WHDLoad as even with only 4MB of extra RAM you can have over 90% of your games load into RAM using the "PreLoad" option in WHDLoad, which removes any screen blanking or HD access multi disk games normally need...

The benefits of going with the tower case are, if you ever get the urge later on to add more hardware and use it for things other than just games it's a lot easier to add extra hardware in a tower than trying to cram it into an A1200 standard wedge case...

The only problem I've found with tower cases was getting one that was just the right size for the Amiga, even the smallest of PC tower cases are so ruddy big and clumsy you practically need an extension on your desk to fit the ruddy things in...

Only solution I found was to make my own tower from scratch out of MDF, a lot of work I know but worth it in the end to have a neat case that's just the right size and will fit under any desk without having to knock a hole in the wall into the neighbours house to accommodate it...



A1200 Blizzard060/PPC 60Mhz/240Mhz / 256Mb Ram / 2x 500GB HDs / 2x DVD RWs / FASTATA MKIII / Subway USB / Coclino Wireless mouse/ 400W PSU/ Custom built Audio Amp/Fader

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@amigakit

Are there anymore NOS A1200s in the market these days?

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