Hey all,

I haven't owned an Amiga 1200 since 92-93, so forgive me if my questions seem obvious or easy to you.

1 - Is it true that I can use my 110V Amiga 500 PSU with an Amiga 1200?
2 - What is the typical or most used CD-ROM made for the A1200 and does anyone have a link to where you can buy it?
3 - I could have sworn you can boot up in Kickstart 1.3 if you neded to, from Kickstart 3.1. Is that true or do you need to do something special?
4 - Amiga CD32 Games will work with an A1200 right?

and last but not least -

If you are/were an Amiga 1200 owner, what would be your MUST have item for this computer, and why?

Thanks all.

Ed

_________________
Amiga 1200 - ACA 1233 68030 128MB Ram
8GB CF With tons of Classics

AmigaOne X5000

Raspberry PI 400 - PiMiga 1.5
"That which doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger" - Someone important, but I forgot who

@edponpon

1) A500 psus are better than the one provided with A1200s. But if you have an expanded Amiga, it's usually better to use a newer PSU.

2) I have never seen a CDROM made specifically for A1200. I only used standard IDE cdroms (that are also used on PCs) and writers on my A1200's over the years.

3) You need the rom file and a utility to softkick into the ROM you want to. There are some utilities for this purpose like Relokick and Blizkick.

4) CD32 games usually work with A1200s. If not there are some CD32 emulators but I'm not sure about games that require AKIKO. Emulators probably provide a software solution to that.


You must have "at least" an 8mb ram card and that would be the absolute minimum. I also think having a wireless or wired PCMCIA network card is very important. Other than these, you of course need a harddrive but that's for granted.

Last edited by Ancalimon on 28-Jul-2014 at 10:00 PM.

@edponpon

Quote:

1 - Is it true that I can use my 110V Amiga 500 PSU with an Amiga 1200?

Many people use an A500 PSU with an A1200 because they provide more power.

Quote:

2 - What is the typical or most used CD-ROM made for the A1200 and does anyone have a link to where you can buy it?

Any IDE drive will work but you'll need an IDE splitter of some sort.

Quote:

3 - I could have sworn you can boot up in Kickstart 1.3 if you neded to, from Kickstart 3.1. Is that true or do you need to do something special?

You can use tools such a relokick to boot into 1.3.

Quote:

4 - Amiga CD32 Games will work with an A1200 right?

Most will work. There are WHDload installers for many.

If you are/were an Amiga 1200 owner, what would be your MUST have item for this computer, and why?

An accelerator or fast ram are especially useful if you already have a hard drive.

Feel free to ask any more questions.

@edponpon

Hi Ed,

The A500 PSU works fine on the A1200 and generally delivers more current, great for modest upgrades where the standard A1200 PSU hasn't much scope for much beyond the standard machine.

You can try and find a PCMCIA CD drive for the Amiga, such as the Q drive, or you can get a four way buffered IDE adaptor and either modify the desktop case with a slimline laptop CD drive or put the A1200 into a tower, making such upgrades easier. Amigakit, Amibay and eBay are your best bet to begin with.

For Kickstart 1.3 you can do it in software with Relokick or similar or using a hardware ROM switcher.

A great deal of games in the CD32 will work on the A1200 but the CD32 had one custom chip the A1200 didn't, AKIKO which handled chunky graphics. If Akiko is a prerequisite for a particular title,then it won't run.

I would say 1st upgrade, a CF or DoM hard drive (silent and consumes less power than a standard HDD ), quickly followed by some extra RAM or if your budget can stretch to it a CPU/RAM board known as an Accelerator. I would also recommend a PCMCIA network adaptor or PCMCIA CF adaptor (both available from Amigakit) to transfer files from the Internet.

Have fun!

Mike

_________________
Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@Rob

You beat me sir. Serves me right for typing my post from a mobile phone, but at least we support each other's suggestions, makes the lies sound more believable .

_________________
Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@Ancalimon

Damn my mobile phone! Not only I am late to parade, I was beaten twice and didn't even notice this post. Ahh! Better get my A1200 back online (or use my PC hehe).

_________________
Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@edponpon

Quote:

edponpon wrote: Hey all, I haven't owned an Amiga 1200 since 92-93, so forgive me if my questions seem obvious or easy to you. 1 - Is it true that I can use my 110V Amiga 500 PSU with an Amiga 1200?

Depends on the country where you want to use your 110 v PSU, I'd say.
USA has 110 V mains voltage, while e.g. here in Germany we have 220 V. Here you would fry your 110 V PSU. Here you can find a map where you can see which country has which mains voltage:
Countries vs. mains voltage

Quote:

edponpon wrote: 2 - What is the typical or most used CD-ROM made for the A1200 and does anyone have a link to where you can buy it?

I don't know of an "CD-ROM made for the A1200" - I have a standard IDE CD-ROM connected to the IDE port in my towered A1.2k.

Quote:

edponpon wrote: 3 - I could have sworn you can boot up in Kickstart 1.3 if you neded to, from Kickstart 3.1. Is that true or do you need to do something special?

Nope.
Only way would be to softkick KS 1.3, like someone else already mentioned.

Quote:

edponpon wrote: 4 - Amiga CD32 Games will work with an A1200 right?

I have just one CD32 title, but this one ran flawlessly on the A1.2k using the CD32 emulator from the AsimCD filesystem disk.

Quote:

edponpon wrote: and last but not least - If you are/were an Amiga 1200 owner, what would be your MUST have item for this computer, and why? Thanks all. Ed

Well, although I still have my A1.2k, I rarely use it today. I mainly use my A4k PPC instead.
I boosted my A4k PPC's overall responsiveness by switching from the internal IDE port to the UW-SCSI host adapter on the CSPPC and disabling the internal IDE port with a self-soldered hardware dongle (according to the schematics available on Aminet - can't find the link a.t.m. - look here (sorry - German only - use an online translator): Hardware-Dongle - possibly there is a similar solution for the A1.2k) - but it appears that there also was a manufactured version available at some point:
noIDE A4000.
So (UW-)SCSI is a 'must have' on any Amiga, IMHO, as it does not put so much load on the CPU as IDE does for reading from/writing to the harddrive/cd-rom/cd-rw/dvd-ro/dvd-rw/tape streamer/scanner/etc. And you can connect up to 15 devices...

Furthermore I think a graphics card is a must nowadays. Instead of buying an expensive Amiga Zorro graca I bought the Mediator PCI busboard from Elbox and put a Voodoo4 PCI in it (bought for 10 € second hand).

I also don't want to miss my 10/100 mBit PCI network interface card (10 €) and my Terratec 512i digital PCI soundcard (with optical SPDIF output).

Another 'must have' today is - from my POV - an USB card. Initially I had a Spider II USB 2.0 PCI (Elbox), but switched to a Deneb USB 2.0 (E3B) in a Zorro III slot for speed reasons later on.

EDIT:
Oh - I forgot to mention the accelerator board. I have a 030@40mHz with 32 mB RAM fitted...

EDIT II:
Just found a brief English instruction how to solder the hardware dongle to disable the internal IDE of an A4000:
"Get a 40-pin female IDE header and wire a 5K resistor between pins 3 and 39,
and between pins 5 and 39.

Pins 3 and 5 are the high-order IDE data bits. Pin 39 is the IDE LED
connection, which is tied high. This hack ties the two high-order IDE
data bits high, making the ROM immediately skip looking for a drive.

Plug the header onto the A4000 motherboard IDE connector, making sure it
is in correctly."

Last edited by Dandy on 13-Aug-2014 at 08:02 AM.
Last edited by Dandy on 13-Aug-2014 at 06:58 AM.
Last edited by Dandy on 12-Aug-2014 at 01:15 PM.
Last edited by Dandy on 12-Aug-2014 at 01:12 PM.

_________________
Ciao

Dandy
__________________________________________
If someone enjoys marching to military music, then I already despise him.
He got his brain accidently - the bone marrow in his back would have been sufficient for him!
(Albert Einstein)

All,

Ok, thanks for the answers. Let me further complicate the Amiga 1200 questions;

I have an Amiga 500 PSU - NTSC. I want to use it on a Amiga 1200 PAL, from the UK. Is it possible?

If above is possible, what will I need to do to make the games work in either PAL/NTSC on my monitor/computer?

Has anyone use the PCMIA Card to transfer .ADF files from the PC to the Amiga? If so, how difficult is it and do all the games have to have something special done to them, before you can play it on your Amiga?

Thanks again.

Ed

_________________
Amiga 1200 - ACA 1233 68030 128MB Ram
8GB CF With tons of Classics

AmigaOne X5000

Raspberry PI 400 - PiMiga 1.5
"That which doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger" - Someone important, but I forgot who

@edponpon

look at this tread!


Amiga.org

_________________
nox's in the house!

@noXLar

Thanks that did help. I got the Amiga 1200 on Friday and started messing around with it to see if it would power up, the way I mentioned, and if the RCA to HDMI adapter would work as well; it does and quite well.

Here's the next issue I'm trying to sort out. I know people have mentioned the IDE way to attach CD-roms. How about the SCSI way? I've noticed two ways to do it - either via the PCMCIA way or, I'm assuming, the Parallel port way. While this is fine too, would any old SCSI enabled CD-ROM player work, or does that have to have some standard as well? Also, does the Amiga auto recognize the CD-Rom or do you need special software as well? I've included some I saw on ebay below;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Panasonic-Portable-External-20x-PCMCIA-SCSI-CD-ROM-w-Cable-Kit-KXL-810a-/231172761868?pt=US_CD_DVD_Blu_Ray_Drives&hash=item35d2f8690c

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-External-SCSI-CD-ROM-Drive-CD-300e-Plus-Boots-Macintosh-and-NeXT-Computer-/201154874134?pt=US_Vintage_Computing_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2ed5c3cb16

_________________
Amiga 1200 - ACA 1233 68030 128MB Ram
8GB CF With tons of Classics

AmigaOne X5000

Raspberry PI 400 - PiMiga 1.5
"That which doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger" - Someone important, but I forgot who

@edponpon

None of those wount work, there is no driver for them. SCSI would require this http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/squirrel

So IDE is only way to you get components easy way.

Amiga doesn't auto use CD-rom, it would require cd capable device driver and cd filesystem.

There is a :

atapi.device http://aminet.net/search?query=atapi and OS3.5 and 3.9 has a scsi.device capable to use cd roms and required cd filesystem (cachecdfs)

there are several cdfilesystems like

cachecdfs
asimcdfs
babelcdfs
amicdfs

etc.

Last edited by utri007 on 24-Aug-2014 at 09:25 PM.

@utri007

Thanks very much for the helpful links and info. I'll have to wait till I get my stuff in from AmigaKit first, to see what I can do as far as the IDE connection for the CD-ROM. I got the compact flash 4GB drive and Kickstart 3.1 ROMS from them. I'm not sure if I can add the CD-ROM to that as well or if I'll have to get the 4-way IDE. The other main problem I might have is the power supply. I'm using an Amiga 500 PSU, but all these things I keep adding might overwhelm the PSU.

Ed

_________________
Amiga 1200 - ACA 1233 68030 128MB Ram
8GB CF With tons of Classics

AmigaOne X5000

Raspberry PI 400 - PiMiga 1.5
"That which doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger" - Someone important, but I forgot who

@utri007

Quote:

utri007 wrote: @edponpon ... SCSI would require this http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/squirrel

Not necessarily.
There are also some accelerator boards that come with SCSI or even UW-SCSI like e.g. theBlizzardPPC.

I also heard that someone had a PCI SCSCI card working in a Mediator PCI busboard...

Quote:

utri007 wrote: So IDE is only way to you get components easy way.

Right.
Aside from one 4 gB UW-SCSI harddrive, all my other drives are IDE connected to the (UW-)SCSI via Acard bridges.

Quote:

utri007 wrote: Amiga doesn't auto use CD-rom, it would require cd capable device driver and cd filesystem. There is a : atapi.device http://aminet.net/search?query=atapi and OS3.5 and 3.9 has a scsi.device capable to use cd roms and required cd filesystem (cachecdfs) there are several cdfilesystems like cachecdfs asimcdfs babelcdfs amicdfs etc.

Exactly.
I use the scsi software that came with my CSPPC and AsimCDFS. The latter is quite useful, as it comes with CDTV emu and CD32 emu. This should also answer edponpon's 4th question:

4 - Amiga CD32 Games will work with an A1200 right?

With the CD32emu from the AsimCDFS disk - yes.

Last edited by Dandy on 03-Sep-2014 at 07:05 AM.

_________________
Ciao

Dandy
__________________________________________
If someone enjoys marching to military music, then I already despise him.
He got his brain accidently - the bone marrow in his back would have been sufficient for him!
(Albert Einstein)

Ok guys, here's some more A1200, or Amiga in general, questions;

1 - Wasn't there a shortcut way to reset the computer, instead of always turning the power off? Like Amiga keys plus something. . . .

2 - I started to pre-load Workbench 3.1 onto my Flash HD that I got from AmigaKit. All was working fine until I got to the Fonts disk, it gave me error 1330 and wouldn't let me load anything else. When I left the program, and rebooted, the computer came up with Workbench 3.1 and some other things loaded. Question - Do I have to re-load it all over again, or should I simply try to repair what might be missing?

3 - Is there a specific way to use WHDloader or is there a guide somewhere? I imagine this is used to load any and all disks to the HD.

4 - I remember a program like X-Copy was able to help repair disks/sectors. Is this the case or is there something better?

As always, thanks in advanced for your helpful answers. Always good to get back into these classic machines; brings back fond memories.

Ed

_________________
Amiga 1200 - ACA 1233 68030 128MB Ram
8GB CF With tons of Classics

AmigaOne X5000

Raspberry PI 400 - PiMiga 1.5
"That which doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger" - Someone important, but I forgot who

@edponpon

Quote:

edponpon wrote: Ok guys, here's some more A1200, or Amiga in general, questions; 1 - Wasn't there a shortcut way to reset the computer, instead of always turning the power off? Like Amiga keys plus something. . . .

Close!

Control + both Amiga keys

_________________
Best way to enjoy Amiga is without the community

@edponpon

Quote:

3 - Is there a specific way to use WHDloader or is there a guide somewhere? I imagine this is used to load any and all disks to the HD.

There is documantation included with WHDLoad, or you can read it on www.whdload.de:
http://www.whdload.de/docs/en/index.html

If I remember correctly, WHDLoad package has installer script. Then, you can use WHDLoad installers for your games (you will find these installers on the above mentioned page). Some sites even offer pre-installed WHDLoad games (note: not all these packages are legal).