I've been thinking about getting an Aimga to relive my youth for a long time now. I found on ebay a good A1200 with a Commadore Monitor and won it!

What does day one of owner ship look like?

I heard I need to remove a battery ASAP else it could leak on to the motherboard and destroy it! :s

How do I determine what ROM I have? I heard I need Rom3.1 so I can install Amiga OS3.9, is that true?

How do I install everything to an internal SD card?


Sorry for so many dumb questions. I don't really know where to start...

@craptakular

The A1200 doesn't have an onboard battery and if you're lucky enough to have bagged one with a memory card or accelerator they tend to come with a coin type battery that shouldn't leak.

If you have no drive connected and no disc in the floppy drive the Amiga will go to the start up screen on power up and will clearly say that it is either 3.0 or 3.1.

I haven't heard of anyone connecting an SD card to their Amiga IDE port, although adapters are available most people go for CF to IDE.

@craptakular

Quote:

How do I determine what ROM I have? I heard I need Rom3.1 so I can install Amiga OS3.9, is that true?

If HDD is not installed you will see Kickstart version 39 (OS3.0) or V40 (OS3.1) on screen. In WB you will find OS version in menu Workbench--About.

OS3.9 requires at least 4 MB Fast RAM - memory expansion or CPU card are needed.


And of course...

Welcome!

@pavlor

Ah thank you, so if you install to CF card can you pre-load Workbench onto the CF so it autoboots into the OS like a modern linux PC?

I assume the disk entry screen is the purpole one with the colourful tick and the floody drive image?

@craptakular

Yep the CF card works just like any hard disk. As long as you have a full set of Workbench disks including the install disk it should be a doddle to format the CF card and install the OS.

Yes this screen.

@Rob

Sorry to be a pain but is there a guide to explain how to do this?

What hardware do I need? Baring in mind my PC doesn't have a floppy drive.

@craptakular

No need to touch the PC since the install can all be done on the Amiga. Alternatively you can use ADF disk images do the install via WinUAE. A PC can't read Amiga floppies without special hardware anyway.

This guide should be suitable for either method.

http://www.lemonamiga.com/help/tutorial_1/7.php

@Rob

AmigaKit can supply a suitable CF card and IDE adapter for guaranteed compatibility.

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

They also do an accelerator with extra ram which will allow you to make the most use of the A1200. If it's a bit too expensive have a word with them since the manufacturer has made lower spec cards in the past and they'll know if he's planning further runs of the cheaper cards in the future.

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=43&products_id=1207

@craptakular

22 years?
And I thought I'd been out of the loop for ages.



Anyway, welcome back and have fun.

_________________
Robert
--
A1XE G4, OS4.1. Peg1 G3, MOS 1.4.
Abel Soul - Check out our tunes on Spotify

May that machine give you some joy!

@craptakular

I hope you have fun!

A lot of articles recently about people cracking open their classic systems or playing with their first Amiga and its giving me the itch to try get my system back up and running again and sourcing some of my old fav games.

_________________
Live Long and keep Amigaing!

A1200, Power Tower, TF1260 128MB RAM, 68060 Rev 6, OS3.9 BB2, HD-Floppy, Mediator TX+ PCI, Voodoo 3 3000, Soundblaster 4.1, TV Card, Spider USB, 100MBit Ethernet, 16GB CF HD, 52xCDRom.

OK thanks guys, I think the first thing I need to do is install WB3.1 to CF, once ive done that how do I upgrade it to 3.9.

Sorry for my questions is there tutorials for the common basics tasks and mods?

@craptakular
Welcome to Amiga land.

_________________
John 3:16

@craptakular

Quote:

craptakular wrote: OK thanks guys, I think the first thing I need to do is install WB3.1 to CF, once ive done that how do I upgrade it to 3.9. Sorry for my questions is there tutorials for the common basics tasks and mods?

I went through this 'learning curve' myself a few years back

My first thought was, where the hell is the shutdown option

My advice would be to muck around with a basic (vanilla) 3.1 install first to get up to speed with the OS. After that you can look into upgrading to 3.9 (which is far more complicated to install compared to 3.1).

The best way to install 3.9 is to use WinUAE (loads of guides on the Net about this)

Last edited by NovaCoder on 04-Feb-2015 at 02:52 AM.

@NovaCoder

ok, I'll do that first.

Im not sure if this is allowed to be answered on the forums; where does one get "roms" of amiga games? or do you have to buy through ebay?

@craptakular

Congrat! I recently started playing around with my Amiga gear in the last couple of weeks. Mostly to mess around with video. I had a live! Card for my a1000, but then incredibly saw a live!2000 on eBay and snagged it right away. I'm hosting that card in an a2000 and using the Invision software from élan. My a4000 has a vlab motion card. Finally found the movie shop software for that card and getting that running soon.

My plan is to feed all of this retro video into a MacBook pro running final cut. The combination of all these machines and software is really amazing. The Amiga side is incredibly fun to work with.

Hope you enjoy your new baby!

John

_________________
X5000, X1000, A4000/040 (x2), a3000, a2000/040, a1200, a1000(x3), a500, Live!2000, Live! 1000, vlab motion, Toaster 2000, Toaster 4000

@craptakular

There are a few sites with full legal permission for the files hosted there.

http://back2roots.abime.net/News/

http://www.dream17.info/downloads.php?cat=1

http://www.exotica.org.uk/mirrors/ami_sector_one/

http://www.factor5.de/downloads.shtml

and assuming you have the original copies;

http://www.factor5.de/downloads_backups.shtml

@craptakular

Quote:

Im not sure if this is allowed to be answered on the forums; where does one get "roms" of amiga games? or do you have to buy through ebay?

Your best bet for the ROMs is probably AmigaKit (physical ROMs) if your 1200 doesn't have 3.1 ROMs already.

For "soft" ROMs, your best option might be the Amiga Forever distribution from Cloanto, and it comes with a lot of games too but they only run in the emulator IIRC as they are in a custom format.

_________________
AlexC's free OS4 software collection

AmigaOne XE/X1000/X5000/UAE-PPC OS4 laptop/X-10 Home Automation

Rob wrote:
Quote:

I haven't heard of anyone connecting an SD card to their Amiga IDE port, although adapters are available most people go for CF to IDE.

And there are SD-to-CF adapters, too.

FCUG celebrating 33 years,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm