1200 Laptop Project
 

I started this some while ago but had to put it away for a while but now it's back and is almost finished.

A few years ago I built an A600 as a sort of laptop albeit very heavy in a homemade sheet steel case. It worked but was a bit flaky and rattly.

This time I decide to go for a 1200 but use a brief case as a case to make it a little more portable.

The specs of the machine are:

1D4 motherboard
Apollo 040/40 accelerator with 32Mb RAM
Eyetech SD/FF
Eyetech 4way bufferred IDE
Eyetch EZKEY keyboard adapter
Slimline CDROM with ATAPI/IDE adapter
Slimline PC(laptop) floppy with adapter with just pins 2 and 34 crossed on the cable
4Gb CF card with CF/IDE adapter for the hard drive
PCMCIA CF adapter for file transfers
PCMCIA wireless card
PCMCIA ethernet card
Shuttle PSU
Slimline PS2 keyboard
Synaptics PS2 trackpad from a dead laptop
Cocolino PS2 mouse adapter
Switchable external amiga mouse port
12" desktop LCD screen stripped out for the display with inbuilt speakers and amp
CU Amiga CDDA mixer to mix CD audio with the native audio
The mother board has been modified with the PCMCIA reset fix from aminet and the PCMCIA LED fix found here on EAB courtesy of doobreynet and the modulator has been removed.

Here are a few pics, as requested.

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8184.jpg

This is the PSU cabling. All it has now is a standard MOLEX connector to feed to the motherboard, a floppy connector which feeds a power distribution board, a connection to the ON?OFF switch and an earth connection.

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8182.jpg

This is the mouse connection. The external and internal connections on the cable have the power and gnd lines switched to select either the internal track pad or the external mouse/joystick.

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8175.jpg

PCMCIA LED mod

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8185.jpg

CF card harddrive

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8187.jpg

Fully fitted lower case.


Watch this space! More photos to come!

Hi!

Thats a really intersting project, thanks for sharing :great

Hope you got a big Lap though :D

Only kidding, I look foward to the finished project and the updates :cool

One question, I guess you'll mount a keyboard on top? Have you thought about cooling/venting?

Steve.

I can recommend you using an A500 keyboard with the LED sacked out. Wiring +5, GND, kb_clock, kb_data & reset lines will be a breeze for one with your soldering skills.

Just swapping the key tops with the one from A1200 and all will be perfect.

Or go nuts and paint the keycaps black and add black Amiga stickers over.

Oh, I concur with Steve on the cooling matter: better grab a proper cooler as the 040 is a hot monster.

If I kept my PPC Desktop project the plan was to use a Voodoo Exhaust Fan near BVsion/Rear of case, somthing like similar might help on a project such as this :)

I've had it fully closed up and running for over 4 hours without any over heating problems. The fan on the 040 is bigger than the original and there is draw through ventilation from the front of the case near the carry handle and out through the PSU at the rear.

The keyboard is a slim line desktop PC thing, PS2 converted to amiga with the EZKey.

Awesome!

Moar pr0n! Moar!

It's finished!! More pics tomorrow!

cant wait to see the finished project mate

<Sits tapping fingers> :D

Finished the laptop yesterday, well, finished for now, there are still some improvements I want to make, USB support for one and change the PSU for a battery and Pico PSU and charger cct, but that will come in due course.

Here you are then, a few piccies of the "finished" thing.

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8337.jpg
Overall shot

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8338.jpg
View of the keyboard and track pad. The 4 screws allow easy access to the guts of the machine.

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8340.jpg
Screen view. I used Bloodwych's ClassicWB OS3.9 as a starting point and then tweaked it the way I wanted it. The backdrop is a MAC backdrop which I used to create a pattern for the dock. Only problem I have is I have not found a way or removing the border from the dock. Anybody got any thoughts on whether it is possible?

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8342.jpg
CD and PCMCIA slot

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8343.jpg
Floppy and power

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8345.jpg
Rear connections with the external mouse / internal trackpad switch next to the mouse port

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8348.jpg
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8349.jpg
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...a/DSCF8350.jpg
Some benchmarking screen shots.

Hope you like it! I do!!

Thats a nice mod! I wonder how slim you can go. Nice way of making the A1200 portable, gives me many ideas.. .hmmm :-)

very nice mate

The Mac OS X type background is hilarious :D

Glad you like it! :lol