Hello all.
25 yrs ago I sold my stock Amiga 1200 for a Windows 3.1 PC and miss those Amiga days greatly. I remember fondly all those games like Wings, Dungeon Master and Red Storm Rising. I am in Phoenix Az and finally scored an Amiga 1200 from the UK and it is on its way. I am seeking advice what to buy next to upgrade this Amiga 1200 to be everything I would want it to be on the best quality display I can get.

My use for the Amiga is to play original Amiga games on the 8GB CF harddrive. Use Deluxe Paint, write and receive email, surf the web. Word processor to write blogs. I don't create animations or videos so no need for a Video Toaster.

The Amiga 1200 I won off UK Ebay is the following:

Professionally Recapped using HQ Capacitors
Fully tested and includes a 8gb cf card fully loaded (Whdload etc) Latest Version
Please note you will need a Ram expansion of 4mb and above to use Whdload
Floppy drive fully serviced and working correctlyWill come with power supply & Mouse
AmigaDOS 3.1 preloaded on CD card
3.0 ROM chips

What should I buy?

1. Do I need a new power supply or should I just use my Transformer that will convert power types? I do have a Philmore ST500 which handles 110V AC to 220V AC or 220V AC to 110V AC
Philmore ST-500

2. Ram Expansion? As the Ebay Ad says, I need RAM.

3. Accelerator? Best Accelerator card with RAM?
After reading all those guides from this website it seems that the "ACA 1233n 40Mhz Accelerator with 128MB RAM" from AmigaKit is the best one to get?

4. Ethernet card or wifi card? Which is the best card to get and how will it connect in the 1200? Will I be able to keep using my 8gb cf card and Floppy drive?

5. I guess I do not need USB ports. Should I keep that Floppy drive installed or why would I need to remove it?

6. Best way to display Amiga Workbench and games on a CRT monitor? Ive been watching so many youtube video's and reading the guides. The best advice I have seen so far is to buy a vintage 15hz PVM/BVM sony monitor for video games and a LCD monitor for the workbench and productivity...Is that good advice?

@StylinLP38

Quote:

surf the web

Quite painful experience with 640x480 8 bit screen and browser lacking CSS support...

Quote:

AmigaDOS 3.1 preloaded on CD card

Quote:

3.0 ROM chips

Older ROM, newer disk component (shouldn´t be real problem).

Quote:

Ram Expansion? As the Ebay Ad says, I need RAM.

Most WHDLoad installed games need some Fast RAM (plain A1200 has only 2 MB Chip RAM). Fast RAM also speeds up entire computer as it is not shared between custom chips and CPU. You may add up to 8 MB via trap door expansion (enough for most games), but there may be some problems with PCMCIA cards when using memory expansion bigger 4 MB. Using CPU card with RAM should solve such issue.

Quote:

Accelerator? Best Accelerator card with RAM?

Depends on your needs. Even some Fast RAM is sufficient for most WHDLoad installed games. Boards like ACA 1233n 40Mhz will give you decent speed (relative speaking...) and plenty RAM for preload feature of WHDLoad (all game files/disks loaded to RAM).

Quote:

Ethernet card or wifi card? Which is the best card to get and how will it connect in the 1200? Will I be able to keep using my 8gb cf card and Floppy drive?

A1200 has PCMCIA port for such expansion. I think AmigaKit offers all-in-one solution with drivers. However, browsing net even on 68030 is not pleasant experience, you may use PCMCIA eg. for file transfer (I have PCMCIA2CF adapter as sort of big floppy). CF is probably on the internal IDE and FDD is independent on both PCMCIA and IDE, no problems expected there.

Quote:

I guess I do not need USB ports. Should I keep that Floppy drive installed or why would I need to remove it?

There are USB solutions for A1200, USB may be nice for file transfer, but (as I wrote above), PCMCIA2CF may serve well in this regard. Floppy drive is internal, only reason to remove is hardware error.

Quote:

Best way to display Amiga Workbench and games on a CRT monitor? Ive been watching so many youtube video's and reading the guides. The best advice I have seen so far is to buy a vintage 15hz PVM/BVM sony monitor for video games and a LCD monitor for the workbench and productivity...Is that good advice?

I was never fan of CRT displays... You need monitor (or TV) with support for 15 kHz video (PAL/NTSC Amiga native display). Modern monitors support only above 30 kHz (which is nice for 640x480 Workbench, but most games require 15 kHz display). There are also scan-doubler devices doubling native Amiga signal, but these are costly. My advice: stick with 640x256 (or similar) resolution and use TV of your choice with RGB (or compatible) input.


And of course...

Welcome!

@StylinLP38

I'm no longer the Amiga expert I once was, but I can share some thoughts on some of the points:

2. I'd go with an accelerator with RAM, which brings us to the next point.
3. The 1233 looks like a fine spec. I used to run a Blizzard 1230@50MHz back in the day, which is fine for the vast majority of games and software. Of course, the most exciting accelerator to get would be the upcoming Vampire 1200, but that's probably going to be a long wait, and we're talking about an entirely different level of power and functionality.
4. I'd go with WiFi to save myself the cabling. I think these things still usually connect to the PCMCIA interface on the side of your computer, and I think AmigaKit has one. It shouldn't interfere with the CF harddrive, as that is probably connected to the internal IDE connector (that seems to be the common solution these days).
5. USB wouldn't be a high priority for me. I would consider replacing the floppy drive with a Gotek floppy simulator, though. My experience with old floppies, is that very few of them still work today. The Gotek would allow you to put a large number of disk images on a USB stick, which would still appear to the Amiga as real floppies, but without the errors. Check out Dan Woods video on the Gotek on Youtube. It's rather awesome, and not too expensive. Amigakit's got it.
6. I would try to get a single monitor setup running. Possibly you could get something like this:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=918

Please note what I said at the beginning: I have been out of things for a while, and am no longer an expert. Others may be able to make better suggestions.

@StylinLP38

No sense with just ram but any accelerator with ram. Even the indivision budget 1221ec would be good unless faster and better is what you will want.
No ram makes these almost unusable in 3.1 workbench.

If you like 640 by 480 then find an lcd that syncs up to it, otherwise a scandoubler that will go to any vga output. It's always about the money.

With my 1200 I have a 25mhz and 128 mb ram. Running Deluxe paint in high gfx mode is slow and eats up chipram fast.

Thank you Pavlor, Kay and Signman your advice is very much appreciated.

I have been doing my homework and watching hours and hourse of YouTube and reading the guides offered on this website. Like the

Big Book of Amiga Hardware
A1200 accelerator cards: A buyer's guide on AMiBay
A1200UsersGuide

Quote:

Pavlor I was never fan of CRT displays... You need monitor (or TV) with support for 15 kHz video (PAL/NTSC Amiga native display). Modern monitors support only above 30 kHz (which is nice for 640x480 Workbench, but most games require 15 kHz display). There are also scan-doubler devices doubling native Amiga signal, but these are costly. My advice: stick with 640x256 (or similar) resolution and use TV of your choice with RGB (or compatible) input..

Is CRT The Best Display For Retro Gaming? by Dan Wood
https://youtu.be/v3SZkjF1RDI

Amiga Computer - CRT v LCD Monitor by Graham B
https://youtu.be/ZsNKu4umHq4

Quote:

Kay 4. I'd go with WiFi to save myself the cabling. I think these things still usually connect to the PCMCIA interface on the side of your computer, and I think AmigaKit has one. It shouldn't interfere with the CF harddrive, as that is probably connected to the internal IDE connector (that seems to be the common solution these days)..

EASYNET PCMCIA WIRELESS CARD (A1200/A600)
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=32&products_id=121

Quote:

Kay 6. I would try to get a single monitor setup running. Possibly you could get something like this: Indivision ECS Scandoubler / Flicker Fixer (Internal) http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=918) .

Well, based on all the youtube video's and more I see that to enjoy vintage Amiga games is best on a 15hz monitor. I saw the before and after video's to see the difference. I can see how much Workbench and other productivity software would be better on an LCD at higher res. One monitor that does it all is the Sony PVM/BVM series but they cost ana amazing amount of money. All the regular triple sync monitors only go down to 30hz at the most. Most only go down to 50hz. Like this brand new on one ebay:

NEW NEC 17" Accusync 700 AS700-BK LCD Monitor
http://www.ebay.com/itm/201830634667?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

NEW SONY HD COLOR MONITOR VINTAGE COMPUTER COMMODORE IBM VGA CGA EGA RGB S-VIDEO
http://www.ebay.com/itm/191856836607?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

That scan double would be nice for those. But lousy to play games on. The A1200UsersGuide does go over this a little bit but in broken english. Raised a few questions.

The Big Book of Amiga Hardware guide has mini reviews of many monitors. At first I thought it would be a great idea to get a Commodore Monitor but after reading the negetives in those reviews I think I may stay clear of them. A lot of those monitors I never heard of.

Quote:

Common Problems The door covering the front-panel controls is typically broken off.     The attached cables or connectors on some models tended to fail, causing loss of color or other problems. Resolder the pins. You can glue connectors in place to provide support. Failed or insufficient insulation may cause arcing. The power switch may partially fail, causing separate parts of the monitor to power down. A phone caller suggested that internal connectors could tarnish with age, and disconnecting and cleaning them may help clear up some problems. Repeatedly blown fuses can indicate a bad power supply. A loud whistling noise indicates a bad flyback transformer (also known as an LOPT). Some 1084 monitors also have digital RGB (PC clone CGA) inputs, and there was such a profusion of minor or major variations that any 1084 might have any combination of analog RGB, digital RGB, and composite inputs.

But what confused me is the choice between that built in line double from AmigaKit and the external box sold on Ebay. It seems to me that it would be much more versatile to have an external box to mess around with. The box recommended by GuruMeditation guys isnt available anymore on Ebay.

Amiga Scandoubler Flickerfixer + Audio A500/600/1200
http://www.ebay.com/itm/262766930308?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Last edited by StylinLP38 on 22-Mar-2017 at 11:05 PM.

@StylinLP38

I recently purchased the NEC monitor you show. It's reasonably well for a monitor, depends on the rgb to vga connector you get. The one on amibay sold by a.mi.goun works well but the one purchased on amikit wouldn't.

It still flickers in interlaced mode, so only good in hires, 640 by 200(?)

One with a scandoubler is better as well as crt if that is to your liking.

One thing that confused me about this Amiga 1200 I am being shipped from the UK is the video format. Isn't this Amiga 1200 a PAL machine? I am in the US which uses NTSC. Is there something I don't know about the Amiga 1200 that makes the point mute? Is there a setting or an application I have to run? Or a mod I have to do?

@StylinLP38

Congrats Stylin, enjoy your new A1200.

I regret giving mine up now, which included a juicy Blizzard 060 accelerator with 128mb of RAM.

Post some pics of it once its fully upgraded :)

Q!

"it's not always what it seems to be"

Last edited by QuBe on 23-Mar-2017 at 06:31 AM.

@StylinLP38

There are other forums you may ask your questions, if you don´t find right answers there:

http://www.amiga.org (more classic oriented than AW, but more or less similar demographics)
http://eab.abime.net (centered on classic and emulation)

Last edited by pavlor on 23-Mar-2017 at 08:24 PM.

@pavlor
Oh, I wasn't sure which Amiga forums focus was on and demographics. I guess I will try them as well. Thank you

@StylinLP38

Quote:

My use for the Amiga is to play original Amiga games on the 8GB CF harddrive. Use Deluxe Paint, write and receive email, surf the web. Word processor to write blogs.

As great as the classic machines are, i took the view of what i wanted to do with my A1200 a few years back, as I too wanted to clean it up, upgrade it with a good powerful accelerator and also see what i could do surfing the web etc.....

I went out and bought an ACA1231/42 accelerator which is a great card but it isnt fast enough to cope with the demands of modern day web browsing even with Netsturf. Fantastic for my WHDload game collection though!

I then looked at wanting to get a 2nd hand PPC accelerator as I was interested in OS4.1, but the prices being as they are are exorbitant as would the cost of towering up my Amiga 1200 and adding a good video card, sound card , rapid road USB ports and then the Indivision DVI port.

Adding up the total cost of the potential outlay and bearing in mind my Amiga itself is over 23 years old now along with running a potential accelerator that is also around 20 years old and liable to any more possible faults further down the line, I went and bought a NG Amiga machine in a Sam460 set up.

The AmigaoneX5000 is out (well unless you are in the UK...... lol ) but by the time you add up sourcing the A1200 on Ebay, adding all the extras mentioned above, a brand new machine which is 100 times more powerful than a souped up A1200 on OS4.1 works out better value despite what people like to moan about its cost.

And we have Tabor around the corner which will be much cheaper overall probably 400-500 euro from what we hear..... Having moved to a NG Amiga a few years ago from the A1200 and if you want to upgrade your current set up but can't stretch to the X5000, i'd say wait for the new Tabor board to come out.


And believe me you may want to stick to the classic games like i did a few years ago but once you do upgrade to a NG Machine that is capable, you will discover some great games on OS4 like Return to Castle Wolfenstein or the fantastic range of emulators like Snes9X and NeoGeo

_________________
Amigaone X5000/20 4GB Radeon RX 550 Polaris 12 AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition Update 1
Amiga 1200 Workbench 3.1.4
Amiga CD32

@outrun1978

Yeah, I'm going to start just playing vintage games but I need to figure out how the best way to play them on a 15hz monitor. Ive been searching EBay for days trying to find a monitor. They are super rare. Even local Craigslist has none. Most monitors only go down to 30hz. Like the brand new in box local NEC 17" crt monitor on craigslist. sigh

@StylinLP38

That's about another €200 outlay on an Individual Computers Scandoubler/Flickerfixer for the A1200 then to output to a modern montior then

You can now see the logic and appeal of thinking stuff it and stop upgrading my classic and get a next gen machine.


Saying that if you want your a A1200 setup for classic gaming that has no problems with modern USB Keyboards, monitors and joysticks plus has 9-pin and Midi ports have you had a look at a MIST FPGA box.....

I have one and the €200 i spent on it was one of the best things ever. The machine can recreate so many fantastic systems and saves space too. Check out www.Lotharek.pl

_________________
Amigaone X5000/20 4GB Radeon RX 550 Polaris 12 AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition Update 1
Amiga 1200 Workbench 3.1.4
Amiga CD32

@StylinLP38

All AGA Amigas (and all ECS with a 1 or 2MB Agnus) will do both PAL and NTSC just fine.

CPU is clocked minimal lower on Amigas that will default to PAL.

Switching between the modes can be done in the earl startup menu (press both mousebutton on startup), but you will want a monitor TV that can do 15kHZ/50Hz to get there.

Plenty games were coded for PAL and just won't look right on NTSC (256 vs 200 lines) so again 50Hz is a must have for gaming (or an Indivison).

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@Kronos

Is this a great monitor to use for all things on my AMiga 1200? Desktop, vintage games and other productivity apps? What kind of cable would I need?

SONY TRINITRON PVM-14M2U 14" CRT VIDEO MONITOR
Sony Trinitron PVM-14M2U 14" CRT Monitor

@StylinLP38

1st problem : may not do 50Hz (PAL)
2nd problem : won't do 31kHz for AGA modes (not a problem if you pnly want to play games)
3rd problem : seller is clueless (as he claims 16:9 while it's clearly 4.3)
4th problem : way to pricey, for that money you could buy an LCD TV with some sort of FBAS input or start thinking about buying an Indivision.

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@Kronos

Im not sure why not being able to display in PAL would be an issue since I am in Phoenix AZ. We are NTSC here.

I assumed this professional broadcast monitor that the 15hz console fans are recommending would be able to display all resolutions. Its used by TV stations. I found a few excellent 15hz monitor websites that might be of help to me.

15hz WIKI

ST Compadiable Monitors

@StylinLP38

Well your UK-A1200 will default to PAL at startup and your planning to use it for games, some of which might expect 256 lines.

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@StylinLP38

I guess I have never missed an Amiga day cus whilst I have upgraded computers and always maintained a modern machine I have never given up on the Amiga. For me I just never use the Amiga for anything other than it originally was designed for. I have spent a long time acquiring kit and items that I know work fine without any modding, or hacking. I use the Amiga every day... or should I say Amigas, I have so many. Just this last two days I have set two 1200s here with accelerators, hard drives, monitors, HD disk drives, ZIPS, etc and not a CF card or cap to be seen. All functioning and working. BUT, and here is the big but.. whilst I do have one of my 1200s with ethernet and broadband and networked to PCs using my own scripted samba files, I do not use the machine for surfing. If you want a machine to do that just use a PC. The Amiga is more comfortable idling away enjoying its own retro world. I just leave it there... and joy in the world that once was.

Just as a small taste of my Amiga 1200 world here is what I posted on my own group today. And this happened today...

Hi

Not content with setting up my new super doooooper A1200 with all the bells and whistles behind me I decided to clear out an XP machine and monitor on the right of the desk and set up yet another A1200. The machine would primarily be used for games and more frivolous sturff.

First up I had to choose a 1200 and I went for a larger hd machine but with a MagicWB, which I don’t like. I plugged in a dodgy 1084 with the odd flicker now and then and decided to try and hook up the GVP SCSI Kit to the SCSI II on the Typhoon 1230. Failed. The small card runs in under the floppy through the small removable flap in the back of the 1200 and should connect into the receiving small black slot box in the side of the Typhoon. Thing was, as I pushed the SCSI into the Typhoon it simply dislodged the Typhoon. The two cards physical architecture was not in sync with the 1200 case. Had I been minded I would have hacked the plastic but unlike me I gave up.

I really do not like MW and the desktop so I junked the 1200... er placed it in store and swung in the A1200 I mended a month ago with a busted mouse port. This machine has a massive 150mb hard drive which threw up the first problem. The Workbench had only 56K free and that was going to cause real issue. So I set up a Parnet and started to copy the SYS and Work to the newly set-up 1200.

Sadly the drive file transfer kept bombing out and at first I thought it was a dodgy hard drive. Turned out to be an old Power Computing RAM card. So I removed and continued copying. To the library and recovered my OS3 disks in their little Dynamite booklet folder and set out with HDTools on the Install 3.0 disk to repartition the drive. 25mb should do for Workbench. Having done this I did a fresh install. I have CED and Parnet on a single DD so having done that I simply copied the necessary back onto the drives, fired up Parnet and then set about copying Work and Workbench back.

All worked fine. By now I was thinking about a card and so I banged in the GVP Jaws II with just 4mb of memory on a single GVP SIMM. There was space for another. Instead I went back to my trusty Amitek RAM card that slots into the PCMCIA . 4mb and slower but perfectly OK for gaming. And so with 8mb memory and an 030 SysInfo gave me the old ‘ Smell the rubber !!! ‘ and I was away.

And so Banshee, Valhalla, Hired Guns, Ishar, Settlers, Sensi, SimCity, Timekeepers, Chess and Arcade Snooker on your standard grey Workbench and I still have 57mb to play with. I’m in Amiga heaven. So whilst the little footy players do their stuff playing as I do as coach, hands free, I am left to continue with Flight of the Amazon Queen and man is that crazy complicated. Just got kidnapped by these Amazon chicks and they locked me in a cell. ... Joe King ... great name.

Going. Gotta date with a ghost.

scuzz


and thyat post followed this post .... for the first of the two 1200s

Hi

Have moved an A1200 onto the desk behind me and the project has just grown and grown. Hasn’t been without issue. First up the HD floppy drive flipped out had to bring in another. Next the keyboard space bar of all things was stuck. So strange, kinda warped. Swapped out for another but failed to see a note on the keyboard about a busted C key. Anyway that got resolved. Next I started to transfer all my files and just got so frustrated with the low capacity of the drives so hooked up a Squirrel, second hard drive and ZIP which helped a bundle. Finally started putting on my favourite games. I have disk boxes labelled A to D, E to J, K to N etc and load from my Alien Breed to Valhalla. Valhalla is cute cus you simply copy the icons over and make the words ‘Valhalla and the Lord of Infinity’. They did the same with Before the War but not with the words of the game.

Having installed my favourite software like DPaint, ImageEngineer, MainActor, VidiAmiga, PPaint, WordWorth, Softwood, AMOSPro, DICE, Blitz, ProTracker, TechnoSound etc plus the multitide of useful tools like IconCopy, Iconian, DiskSalv, ADFBlitzer, DecrunchDface and on and on it was time to load up some of my anims and images and stories etc.

Last thing I did was back up onto ZIP. Excluding the second drive which has a lot of stuff on it this new A1200 has the three volumes, partitions Work, Workbench and Projects. Having spent the whole day building the volumes up to the way I like them I was able to put the contents of all three onto two 100MB ZIP disks. That includes the games and trust me 15 disks of Beneath a Steel Sky isn’t a small game in Amiga terms. But now I have everything locked way on a backup that I literally could replace on the existing and still leave the machine running. Could anything be more simple. And yet Winblows couldn’t even get close to something that easy.

... followed up with this

Ok

Two parnets, five Amiga 1200s, three external SCSI hds, two CDs, and three
SCSI ZIPS later and a full day transferring and copying files I think I
finally have my new A1200 setup the way I like it. Just mucking around with
icons at the moment. Thing is having designed all my own and having
literally thousands I could never really use any of the later OSs beyond
3.0/3.1. I just love the feel of 3.0 and it works perfectly.

One niggle is that I chose the Apollo accelerator which I am regretting. I
may replace with a Blizzard. Games like Banshee and SimCity2000 will just
not work. Everything else is generally fine. It has quite a healthy level of
memory and is **cking fast... I mean very fast. So we will see.

Interesting that last night with just the 1200 and the Microvitec on this
room got a bit chilly early in the morning. Normally I only need the Win7
machine to keep me warm.

Ar hum.... Cuppa tea me thinks.

On that ZIP front.. great little tool cus it just transfers to PC so easy.
100MB is a ton of information for the Amiga but a drop in the ocean for the
PC. And when you have PCs networked as I do getting software quickly around
the place is just one ZIP away. Fingers crossed, I have never has a ZIP disk
bomb out on me and I have a lot of ZIPs... shelves full of them. I much
prefer the ZIP to CD. Just watch out where you place them on a daisy with
SCSI cus they have a habit of winding down and I had one kill a hard drive
once.

... that was third post in as many days

Retro fun and the Amiga is a bit of a scavenger hunt. This week I have been buying SCSI adaptors, power sipplies for ZIP drives and still tracking down software and install files off the internet. In addition I mended an Amstrad DD1, 2 No 6128 and a PCW9512 this week. All from the eighties and all still totally repairable with items off the Bay or retro sellers. But I get the computers back to their original best and thats the fun.

Great fun.

No help sorry. Just enjoy what you do, but please don't destroy the 1200 trying to make it into something its not. There are so few of these machines about. Saying that at the last count I have 26 Amiga 1200s... and they all work. I even have one in an Amiga 2000 case.

scuzz
http://www.scuzzscink.com/amiga/a_amiga_inframe.htm

@scuzz

Great journal you got there. Nice to read. I see your reason for keeping AmigaOS 3.1. My Amiga has AmigaOS 3.1 with 3.0 ROM chips. I was considering buying 3.1 Rom chips so I can run AmigaOS 3.5 or 3.9. What little I have read is that they are perfectly compadiable with Amiga software and games. I wasn't sure. What are your thoughts about doing that?