Amiga is alive and well in PORTUGAL

paulo_becas · 02 February 2010, 16:36

My name is Paulo and i´m from Porto, Portugal. I work in the computer bussiness as a technician.
A few days ago i came across with this great site while i was searching the web for some help too make my amigas work again.
So far so good, i have 3 amigas, 1x1200 and 2x500, one Commodore 1084s-P1 RGB Monitor, 2 external floppy drives (Amitek and Cumana) and a lot of determination.
My history with amiga goes back to 1990 when i have my first contact with one. I used to saw them in magazines but that was it.
My brother bought an 1200 in 1994 and we get our hands in two 500 a few years ago.
They were sitting down for over 8 years because my brother left them to be "eaten" by moister.
The result was devastating.
About a month and a half ago i´ve decided to pick them up and restored them. It has been an adventure since then.
None of the floppy drives work, the floppy disks didn´t work, and the 1200 keyboard was destroyed, it was a nightmare.
After tearing the 1200 floppy drive apart and cleaning it up i was able to get it to work, not very reliable but it worked.
I was able to boot with one amiga 500 and a workbench 1.3 disk that was in pretty bad shape.
I´ve made a null modem serial cable and with the superb amiga explorer software from cloanto i was able to made some copies of workbench discs by connecting it to my PC.
I´ve bought one floppy drive on the web, a mouse and the catweasel MK4 Plus for PC(i haven´t had the time to put it to work), now i´m waiting for kick rom 3.1 and an 1200 keyboard replacement from an online shop who still sell this stuff.
This was just to get me started, now i´ve modified with success a few floppy drives with some help from this forum and they work great.
Next step will be to build an hd in my 1200.
I´ll be seeing you soon

Best regards

prowler · 02 February 2010, 22:34

Hi Paulo, and welcome to EAB!

We have more than a few Portuguese members you're sure to meet up with soon.

Good work getting those Amigas back in shape!

JLPedro · 02 February 2010, 23:29

Nice !! Always good to find another Amiga fan restoring this great machines (even better in my own country!).

musojon74 · 03 February 2010, 00:14

welcome

glad you're saving your amigas!

Cammy · 03 February 2010, 06:33

Heya Paulo, welcome back into Amiga land

Last year I restored a few old A500s myself, and found that the floppy drives didn't work either. Also, after testing out some old floppy disks in the A1200's external floppy drive, it stopped working too! So I inspected these old disks and they had small spots of mould in them, which is very common for old floppy disks that are stored for a long time in humid conditions. I ordered a floppy drive cleaning disk on eBay, and after using that in all my Amiga floppy drives, they all work! So, I'm not sure but maybe each time we test out these old floppy disks we're doing damage to the drive heads, or at least coating them in filth that makes them not work. I was lucky to find a place just down the road who were selling boxes of 25 and 10 floppy disks for $1 a box, so I got every box they had left.

paulo_becas · 04 February 2010, 17:01

Hi Cammy,

I share the same opinion when you say that old disks damaged the floppy drives, i think i´ve made mine external drives useless because of that.
The result was that i picked up about 250 Disks and throw them all away.
About two or 3 years ago my older brother filled up his van with old stuff from an computer shop and brought it to me to see if i could save something.
It was great because there was a lot of old stuff that i saved since, including a lot of Double Density disks along with HD disks(About 500) that i´m using now and they are in pretty good shape.
There were a few PC Floppy Drives that included 4 Panasonics, 2 of them i´ve already modified with success and others from the amiga days.
I´ve already modified 2 Panasonics, 2 Samsungs, 2 Nec, 2 Sony's and 1 Mitsumi with success.
I can assist anyone who's starting to try to modify pc drives. For me it was not easy but when the first started to work the others were easy.
It's really cool to start messing around with the amigas again, it's like a journey back in time.

Keep them alive, it's a legacy that the new kids don't understand.

Best regards

02 February 2010, 16:36	#1
paulo_becas Registered User Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Porto, Portugal Posts: 464	Amiga is alive and well in PORTUGAL My name is Paulo and i´m from Porto, Portugal. I work in the computer bussiness as a technician. A few days ago i came across with this great site while i was searching the web for some help too make my amigas work again. So far so good, i have 3 amigas, 1x1200 and 2x500, one Commodore 1084s-P1 RGB Monitor, 2 external floppy drives (Amitek and Cumana) and a lot of determination. My history with amiga goes back to 1990 when i have my first contact with one. I used to saw them in magazines but that was it. My brother bought an 1200 in 1994 and we get our hands in two 500 a few years ago. They were sitting down for over 8 years because my brother left them to be "eaten" by moister. The result was devastating. About a month and a half ago i´ve decided to pick them up and restored them. It has been an adventure since then. None of the floppy drives work, the floppy disks didn´t work, and the 1200 keyboard was destroyed, it was a nightmare. After tearing the 1200 floppy drive apart and cleaning it up i was able to get it to work, not very reliable but it worked. I was able to boot with one amiga 500 and a workbench 1.3 disk that was in pretty bad shape. I´ve made a null modem serial cable and with the superb amiga explorer software from cloanto i was able to made some copies of workbench discs by connecting it to my PC. I´ve bought one floppy drive on the web, a mouse and the catweasel MK4 Plus for PC(i haven´t had the time to put it to work), now i´m waiting for kick rom 3.1 and an 1200 keyboard replacement from an online shop who still sell this stuff. This was just to get me started, now i´ve modified with success a few floppy drives with some help from this forum and they work great. Next step will be to build an hd in my 1200. I´ll be seeing you soon Best regards Last edited by paulo_becas; 02 February 2010 at 16:54. Reason: I´ve read the rules and i was breaking one of them by signing the post, sorry

03 February 2010, 06:33	#5
Cammy Registered User Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Tasmania, Australia Age: 39 Posts: 1,189	Heya Paulo, welcome back into Amiga land Last year I restored a few old A500s myself, and found that the floppy drives didn't work either. Also, after testing out some old floppy disks in the A1200's external floppy drive, it stopped working too! So I inspected these old disks and they had small spots of mould in them, which is very common for old floppy disks that are stored for a long time in humid conditions. I ordered a floppy drive cleaning disk on eBay, and after using that in all my Amiga floppy drives, they all work! So, I'm not sure but maybe each time we test out these old floppy disks we're doing damage to the drive heads, or at least coating them in filth that makes them not work. I was lucky to find a place just down the road who were selling boxes of 25 and 10 floppy disks for $1 a box, so I got every box they had left. Last edited by Cammy; 25 February 2010 at 18:37.

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02 February 2010, 22:34	#2
prowler Global Moderator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Sidcup, England Posts: 10,300	Hi Paulo, and welcome to EAB! We have more than a few Portuguese members you're sure to meet up with soon. Good work getting those Amigas back in shape!

02 February 2010, 23:29	#3
JLPedro JLPedro Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Coimbra, Portugal Age: 47 Posts: 95	Nice !! Always good to find another Amiga fan restoring this great machines (even better in my own country!).

03 February 2010, 00:14	#4
musojon74 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: The World Age: 50 Posts: 476	welcome glad you're saving your amigas!

04 February 2010, 17:01	#6
paulo_becas Registered User Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Porto, Portugal Posts: 464	Hi Cammy, I share the same opinion when you say that old disks damaged the floppy drives, i think i´ve made mine external drives useless because of that. The result was that i picked up about 250 Disks and throw them all away. About two or 3 years ago my older brother filled up his van with old stuff from an computer shop and brought it to me to see if i could save something. It was great because there was a lot of old stuff that i saved since, including a lot of Double Density disks along with HD disks(About 500) that i´m using now and they are in pretty good shape. There were a few PC Floppy Drives that included 4 Panasonics, 2 of them i´ve already modified with success and others from the amiga days. I´ve already modified 2 Panasonics, 2 Samsungs, 2 Nec, 2 Sony's and 1 Mitsumi with success. I can assist anyone who's starting to try to modify pc drives. For me it was not easy but when the first started to work the others were easy. It's really cool to start messing around with the amigas again, it's like a journey back in time. Keep them alive, it's a legacy that the new kids don't understand. Best regards

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