Modding Amiga - advice please

[Jope]

Originally Posted by hitm4n

Is this a sought after card?

Well, not so sought after, since it is 25MHz and the RAM is in the Z2 space, so max RAM is 8MB and going over 4MB will clash with the PCMCIA slot.

This doesn't mean it's worthless, but just that it is not among the most desirable A1200 030 boards.

[lilwshu]

For the broken key, take the back off the keyboard to reveal the membrane and clean (carefully and lightly) the relevant contact point and the graphite strip on the bottom of the plunger. If it still doesn't work swap another key plunger in and see if that makes a difference, you can then isolate the membrane or the graphite under the plunger as the issue (I had a similar problem with one key and the strip on the plunger had snapped).

[hitm4n]

Thanks guys, i've sort of figured out the keyboard issue but its got me scratching my head a bit... The CTRL key is fine if i unplug the mouse. What's that all about?

Mouse was really rubbish too, little to no movement and stuttery when it did move. So i've stripped that down, cleaned the rollers and done a bit of straightening up of the 8 sensors. Apart from a soft feeling right mouse button, it now runs silky smooth with both buttons working fine. Its not a true Amiga mouse though, this CTRL issue may have existed forever but i always also had a joystick plugged in too and i don't know if that was detected and stopping the mouse from interfering somehow.

So, working keyboard, working mouse, but CTRL will not function when mouse is plugged in. Weird eh.

Bonus video. Taken this eveing. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yWt...ew?usp=sharing When Goex drive arrives i will be making more vids of other demos. This Hit Fido demo is the only one i have left on a floppy. Crank up the volume and enjoy.

[hitm4n]

The Squik mouse on the right is mine. It has a switch on the bottom to select Amiga or ST mode. I wonder if its stuck in ST mode even though its switched to Amiga? Any ideas anyone on this weird CTRL key issue?

[hitm4n]

Originally Posted by Jope

Well, not so sought after, since it is 25MHz and the RAM is in the Z2 space, so max RAM is 8MB and going over 4MB will clash with the PCMCIA slot.

This doesn't mean it's worthless, but just that it is not among the most desirable A1200 030 boards.

So the fact it has 4mb is probably a good thing. And it does perform like an Amiga3000, and it has the FPU.


I think the best thing about it is its in seriously superb condition. I think Edgar Vigdal sent me this card (he was so generous to me). He bought it for his 1200 and i think never used it. He sent it to me as a gift and i only turned my A1200 on once with it installed, that was 15 years ago. Since then its been packed away. I think its safe to say its like brand new.


I'll try to get some close up pics. I'm thinking £195 and free postage in UK (Certainly not the £301 BIN one on ebay that has only 3mb and looks grubby.)


So... who wants it

[hitm4n]

Parcel arrived, first of many over next few days i hope. Exciting.

Its the SD Card. Neat. But whats this? I'm not too impressed by its presentation (see pics below)

Description from Amiga-Kit says...

"Includes a insulated protection layer on the bottom of the adapter to prevent it shorting with other components or the Amiga 1200/600's metal RF shielding."

I've removed my top shielding, so this was kinda important for me. I also chose Amiga-Kits because the card looked very neat and branded.

But i get a line of hotglue each side. What about the rest of the protection, at least on the underside?

Its giving me issues as well. 4th pic shows after installation, it will not boot and work right. Intuition reset cannot do its thing while workbench window is open, but i can't close that. Why is it trying to load atapi.device? And why does HDD2 have a checksum error, its empty (or seems to be)? Dopus tells me other drives are okay, files all installed etc.

My first thought was, its copied and corrupted a file from my backup set of workbench3.0 disks. So i booted my own workbench installer disk to install my original set of workbench3.0 disks over the top. This worked flawlessly and workbench loaded from SD card without issue. I still got the Atapi window though and until i aborted that the intuition one wouldn't finish. Soon as i did do that all the icons gained some colour and i could even load dopus and check round the disks

So i scrabbled around the OS to find the original installer that was on the SD card. Amiga-Kits version. I rather liked that installer as it let me control some other things like mouse speed, double click speed. So i wanted to re-run that but use my presumably working set of discs.

So i did, and then got all the same errors as before.

Seems the Amiga-Kit installer is doing something regards HDD2 that it doesn't like and i'm a bit lost at this point. I have a fallback, i can get it working, but why am i even having these issues, its supposedly semi-plug and play right?

With the OS problems and the hotglue, not too happy right now.
Sad Times. LOL.

Do i just need to reformat HDD2? I do have access to QB Tools, HDInstTools and some others.
I'm wondering, is there some WB3.1 image with things like Magic Workbench, a few tools and things pre-installed that i can dump to the microsd card via pc and just make it work without all these headaches.

Any help appreciated.

[hitm4n]

Just to add, on the plus side, my weird mouse issue seems to have gone away. I think i flicked the ST/Amiga switch a couple of times and its processing CTRL key for a reboot without issue now. Hurrah. One win, one fail.

[hitm4n]

So i find it interesting that QBTools identifies the volume size as 1,708.5
And the checksum error is at 1708560.

QBTools also reports no issues.

Why would a new install of Workbench not read this partition?

Hmmm, is is the failure to load that atapi.device unit 1 error (pic in previous post)

What do i do guys?

[hitm4n]

Sorry to keep posting guys. But its all about my Amiga for me right now and i'm constantly working on it and trying to sort it out and play... I'm going to keep posting progress and questions, anyone wants to chime in, please do so. Theres unanswered questions in previous posts here.

I think the SD Card adpater i've received is one of retroready.ones cards with a cable and sdcard added and 2 stickers slapped on. This is not what i ordered.

https://retroready.one/products/bran...iga-a600-a1200

I could have got RetroReadys version for £11.99 and saved myself these headaches and a few quid. I have spare cables i could have hooked it up with so i think i'm sending it back.

Found HstWB today, looking into that. Reformat SDCard to a single 4gb parition and start over with it. Amiga-Kits installer obviously has issues. Again, i could have used my own SDCard at this point and saved a few quid.

[hitm4n]

RDPrep 3.91 tells me this (image)

Its flashing an error on cylinder blocks and mincyl

I have no idea what i'm doing !

[lilwshu]

I would suggest (on a different SD card):

Don't use RDPrep, use HDToolbox from the 3.1 install disk (remember to set the Maxtransfer size appropriately)
Wipe all existing partitions
Install Workbench from the disks into a 100MB partition
Create two further partitions of less than 2GB in size, change block size to 4096 on these

[hitm4n]

Update. Got some feedback from AmigaKits technician about the SD harddrive issues. He thinks (and i agree) that i must have made some changes to my original set of WB disks and added the CDFS stuff to it. Thats entirely possible as i had a CD drive back then (still do, although no longer using it). Once i receive my Goex drive and i can use some perfectly clean WB3.1 ADFs, i will reinstall and i think all the issues will go away. I emailed Centurion about the Goex and they've said up to 2 more weeks to deliver

While waiting, i've stripped, cleaned resoldered and rebuilt my old Spectrum Cambridge Computing programmable joystick to use on Amiga and its working perfectly. This thing hasn't worked for over 25 years (wires came off the fire buttons and i just got other joysticks at the time). That was a fun evening, actually being able to play some games on the real Amiga again. Ruff N Tumble, Deluxe Galaga and Tetron were played. I love that old joystick, reason i held onto it for close to 40 years.

Also stripped and cleaned the external floppy drive. This is one of those ones built like a tank and its in amazing condition (heavy steel case). I need to clean the front door and add new rubber feet then i think its worth about £15.

And a picture of the Amiga as it currently sits on my coffee table awaiting its Goex drive and final set up. Its all going on ebay for £800BIN or offers. I know thats a lot but theres a lot with it and it is all in great working condition and i'm in no rush to sell so it can sit until someone is willing to pay up or make a close offer

Really enjoying this whole process, the nostalgia of using the real deal again but also up on a 65" Tv is awesome. It has to go though, and the MiSTer i'm building will hopefully be a very worthy replacement.

[hitm4n]

Still waiting on the Goex drive to arrive from Centurion, once i have it i can install WB3.1 to the new HD and play some games on a real Amiga again. Patiently waiting...

But while i wait for that, i do now have my working new build MiSTer to play on. Had a very quick go at level one of Mean Arenas (still love that game) and been playing some arcade and Atari800XL stuff. Tried a bit of ZX81 too as that was my first personal machine, but theres so many cores to try. Just finished putting some romsets together and now need to dump them to the MiSTer to try em out.

[Jolabandola]

Originally Posted by hitm4n

8 images of my cleaning so far...

Tested keyboard fully now, space bar, both shifts, all keypad, every key is fine. Used CygnusEd to test, tested all alts, tab and special keys, Fn keys too by activating editor shortcuts. All god bar 1. CTRL. Are there any tips/tricks to get a single key back to working? Anything i can try with the membrane or spring/key itself? Is the CTRL key on a line of its own in the membrane, so maybe the membrane is still the issue? I'm happy to tinker a little, maybe find a break and bridge it?

Anyway, got some sysinfo pics too about the accelerator card, so they are in next post.

I have a A600 that i thought the membrane was shot on. I got a new membrane but still couldnt get some keys to work. It turned out being the little rubber feet under the plunger that had lost its conductivity. I bought a thin copper tape and cut and glued some of that under the rubber foot and now it works. Tricky but doable.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Jolabandola

It turned out being the little rubber feet under the plunger that had lost its conductivity. I bought a thin copper tape and cut and glued some of that under the rubber foot and now it works. Tricky but doable.

Easiest is to just wipe the rubber with a piece of normal A4 paper from your printer until it starts conducting again.

[hitm4n]

I got it fixed, it was a very strange issue. It worked when i unplugged my mouse, so i switched it back and forth a bit from Amiag to Atari, and then keyboard was fine again. Got stuck in some partial ST mode i guess and was interrupting the keyboard with some weird signal.

Good for others to see some alternative tips though. Cheers.