Info needed on A1200 expansion
 

Hi

I have bought an A1200 from Ebay, it has a 4M expansion board in the trapdoor which is marked Power Computing - 4M RAM/CLK FPU - PC525 Issue 1A.

Where can I get information or a manual for this expansion board, it doesn't seem to be in the Big Amiga Hardware guide.

Thanks

Merlin

Short answer : You cannot. It is a rebranded card from someone else.

Long answer : Provide a decent (in focus) photograph and I'll match it.


Question: Why do you need a manual for a RAM card. Not exactly much required. Add 4Meg SIMM then Plug n Play?

Alex,

It has a PGA socket on it (maybe for a 68882?) and a jumper, I am not sure what the jumper does and I don't want to break the A1200 to find out...sorry it's a phone camera pic as I am at work.

The A1200 cost me £20 including postage from Ebay, it arrived at work today and I have just found out it has a 170Mb hard drive in it as well, what a result for 20 notes ;)

Merlin

have you got an underside to that pic Merlin ?

bah no harm if u try the jumper...
it propably disables or enables fast-ram _or_ it allows the fpu to run synchronous / asynchronous...
and this is a socket to add a FPU, mostly useless....

@ Zetro

The underside is just tracks, no hardware mounted on that side, with the information as per my first post screen printed onto the PCB near the connector.

I have directly spoken to Power Computing since, the guy there remembers these boards and offered me a 68882 40Mhz FPU for £20, not sure if that's a bargain or not, since the A1200 as it is now cost that...

Merlin

Yes it's for a 68882 or 68881 FPU. Be careful with the orientation when fitting. Your socket doesnt look keyed.

Only one jumper? How many pins? 2? Get me a better photo in focus so I can clearly read the silk screen.

Good value for money as things go. But an FPU is next to useless on the Amiga. Especially as your card can only run the FPU at 14MHz

The Jumper cannot be for that. There is no socket for a separate FPU clock crystal oscillator anywhere on the board. The FPU must be run synchronous at the same speed as the A1200 motherboard at 14MHz

correct, no crystal...

Thanks guys,

I'll leave the FPU then if it's going to be a chocolate fireguard, 4Mb is enough memory for what I am going to be using it for, I'll just "Pimp my A1200" with an internal laptop DVD-ROM/CD-RW (as Dambuster and Zetro have done) and a larger hard drive, so that I can easily access ADF images.

I think this board is the Power Computing PC1204 that the Big Amiga Hardware Guide refers to but has no picture of, I've e-mailed the pic to them.

Merlin

heys Merlin, do you have an FCC id for or on that board anywhere?

Nope, just the above info and a sticker with a serial number...

Merlin

If it is then they have their specification wrong as your board definitely only has a 12MHz FPU.

The good thing is that even though its only a ram card rather than an accelerator it will pretty much double the speed of your 1200 for a lot of stuff.

@ Alex,

If it's not the PC1204, then the Guide doesn't have this one at all. Oh well....

Merlin

Maybe you have the only one in the world and it'll be a collectors item and worth pots of money.

Or maybe it's worthless? :)

Dunno, but as long as it's in the A1200 and works that will do.

Merlin

Good luck with the modding, and being only 4mb you'll not have any conflicts if/when you use the pcmcia slot. It would be worth reading the post re. cf cards instead of the hdd as you dont need a lot of harddrive space and using bloodwiches classic amiga images work great.

The A1200 has a 170Mb hard drive in it already, I have a spare 1.4 gig hard drive, it would be a shame not to use it :D

I may go the CF route with my A600 modding as it is more cramped inside than the A1200.

Go for a DVDrom rather than a writer, as there about a third of the price, and ive never used mine for writing dvd's - I normally use a cf and transfer to a PC and write the dvd from there - I always knew the PC would be good for something :)