Fitzsteve's Amiga Journey (OMG Huge Pics!)

fitzsteve · 19 January 2011, 13:26

Welcome to my Amiga Journey, this story is set over 10 chapters.

It is possible to read back to back these chapters if you follow the link at the end of each chapter as this will skip you onto the next, of you can read the whole thread back to back if you have a lot of time on your hands!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the story of my return to the Amiga Scene.

Fitzsteve's Amiga Journey - Part 1

I’d always longed for an Amiga growing up but alas before I could afford one along came those pesky Consoles like the Snes and I went that route.

But I still longed to play my favourite Speccy games with ‘Amiga graphics’ and like most kids that didn’t get what they wanted as a grown up I started my Amiga collection!

So here’s where it all started! My trusty A1200 that I picked up at a Car boot sale in around 2002

(Click on Thumbnails for full size image)

And for those games that wouldn’t run on the A1200 I had my trusty A500

These were my pride and joy, setup in my office space for years until we moved in about 2005 and they ended up in storage in the loft.

It was a sad day in 2009 that I decided to sell this unused collection so I took them of their boxes to take pics and list them on ebay. In searching for their values I found some awesome Amiga sites (EAB and Amibay!)

Whilst Mrs Fitz talked me into letting go of the A500 and 3 cases of games I soon realised during testing that I could not sell my beloved A1200!

So here started a mad journey that would see me build up a pretty decent Amiga collection!

The first hurdle was to find out why my A1200 which I was sure has 8mb Fast Ram was only showing 2mb and Mr Guru making frequent visits.

Well it was soon clear upon inspecting my Elbox 1200/8 what the problem was, whilst in storage the clock battery had leaked and destroyed the jumpers for selecting memory and probably tracks as well.

I tried to clean it up and restore the card but really had no idea what I was doing and offloaded it as spares/repairs on ebay!

And after a month or two of searching found this awesome little replacement:

Finally I could enjoy the awesome Classic Workbench I’d spent so much time setting up and all those KG WHDload packs! (Thanks KG & Bloodwych)

It wasn’t long before I was seriously bitten by the upgrade bug, and all the awesome activity still very much alive in the community.

So I setup a wanted thread for my very first 030 Accelerator and very much interested in trying out SCSI I asked for a Card with that facilty.

A nice chap called Andrew offered to sell me his Typhoon 030 after seeing pics of the card I had to have it!

I was really pleased with the speed increase and all the new apps and emulators available to me, plus I got to setup a CDROM on the SCSI, all this with the help of my new found friends at EAB and Amibay.

So here it was, my dream A1200 setup:

Read on HERE

Bamiga2002 · 19 January 2011, 13:38

Where can I get that GamesMenu? I'd ike to try it

fitzsteve · 19 January 2011, 13:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bamiga2002

Where can I get that GamesMenu? I'd ike to try it

Hey there!

Its part of Classic Workbench, I don't think you can strip it out.

I think this has been asked before in the CWB section so worth a search though.

Steve.

Bamiga2002 · 19 January 2011, 13:45

Thanks, it rang a bell for me now when you explained it.

Bloodwych · 19 January 2011, 23:57

Epic journey fitzsteve - and you found time to setup a paid server and kill some monsters on UT99 too.

You have been through some serious Amiga gear the last year or so. I just knew you were making up for lost time!

It does feel great perfecting a setup though, doesn't it?

Retrofan · 20 January 2011, 00:11

You (and me) have just started the journey. You should have tittled it "Chapter" 1. I like it. Go on reading the book....

prowler · 20 January 2011, 00:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

I had my trusty A500

Mrs Fitz talked me into letting go of the A500 and 3 cases of games

The A500 and 3 cases of games soon became mine...

...and that A500 is still one of the cleanest I've seen.

Thank Mrs Fitz for me, Steve!

Peter · 20 January 2011, 00:27

Great thread - love it... just don't add it all up as you go along Steve!!

fitzsteve · 20 January 2011, 00:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bloodwych

Epic journey fitzsteve - and you found time to setup a paid server and kill some monsters on UT99 too.

You have been through some serious Amiga gear the last year or so. I just knew you were making up for lost time!

It does feel great perfecting a setup though, doesn't it?

Yep, made up for some serious lost time here! And 'was' the perfect setup

Its come a long way since

Quote:

Originally Posted by Retrofan

You (and me) have just started the journey. You should have tittled it "Chapter" 1. I like it. Go on reading the book....

Chapter 2 will be written whilst I'm bored at work, which will be some time very soon I'm sure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by prowler

The A500 and 3 cases of games soon became mine...

...and that A500 is still one of the cleanest I've seen.

Thank Mrs Fitz for me, Steve!

Just pleased it went to such a good home

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter

Great thread - love it... just don't add it all up as you go along Steve!!

I've my little Receipt Calculator + Till roll here, its not looking good

jbenam · 20 January 2011, 04:33

Great thread mate! I love reading some good ol' Amiga memories, especially when they're good stories where the main character gets bitten by the upgrade bug!

I can't wait to see the rest of this

cosmicfrog · 20 January 2011, 10:52

heheheh the UT99 over xmas was one of the high lights for me too

looking forward to the mediator/pci hurdles you had before you got a working tower, my how long ago that seems now

fitzsteve · 20 January 2011, 11:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

heheheh the UT99 over xmas was one of the high lights for me too

looking forward to the mediator/pci hurdles you had before you got a working tower, my how long ago that seems now

Don't forget the fumblings with the Micronik Zorro Bus before that! Its a long and winding road

And fear not my friends, part 2 is almost done

Vairn · 20 January 2011, 11:19

Thats some Yellow keyboard on the original 1200.
Nice screenies, Sooner or later you will go back to an a1200 with an indivision, and 030.
It is inevitable :P hehe

fitzsteve · 20 January 2011, 11:24

Fitzsteve's Amiga Journey - Part 2

Finally having my dream A1200 setup I turned my attention to its little brother the A600, what I wanted to achieve was a replacement for my A500 with a smaller footprint but with the added bonus of an internal CF-HD solution.

After much searching for the right one I found my very first A600:

I was very pleased being a nice clean example, plus it came with an extra 1mb of Chip ram so this was ideal for my intentions.

I picked up a 1.3-3.1 Rom Switcher kit from evil bay which I installed so that I could roll back to 1.3rom to play my old floppy collection and also have 3.1rom for my Workbench.

I also picked up a 2mb PCMCIA SRAM card for it and with the extra Ram it was ideal for my newly setup Classic Workbench 68k. As you can see I was a little new to setting up these Workbench’s but I don’t think I did a bad job, nice and simple:

So you would think I would be satisfied with this?

Well erm, no… It wasn’t long before I wanted to accelerate my A600, but it was real tough to find an accelerator for it. And as you can imagine at this time before the new ACA630’s they were not the cheapest of upgrades.

However I’d set my sites on having an Apollo 620 or 630 so after a couple of months of searching all the Amiga sites and the bays imaginable I finally bagged myself an Apollo 630!

My first impression was how small the card was, I was expecting bigger, but you soon realise you wont fit much bigger in the A600 and even this was tricky to get in the case with all the other components.

Luckily I was able to get one of Mika’s awesome angled CF-IDE adapters so this made installing much easier.

I was really impressed to see Classic Workbench ADV running on an A600 and it ran very well indeed, a little slow with 16colours but nice and quick if I dropped to 8colour:

So finally I had my dream A600 setup!

Read on HERE

fitzsteve · 20 January 2011, 11:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vairn

Thats some Yellow keyboard on the original 1200.
Nice screenies, Sooner or later you will go back to an a1200 with an indivision, and 030.
It is inevitable :P hehe

You're probably right!

Oh and I still have those yellow key tops

Maybe I should make a shrine to them somewhere, like a Sculpture?

By the way, Part 2 just landed

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=730852#post730852

Vairn · 20 January 2011, 11:40

Every time I see a 600, I am amazed at how small they really are.
Good stuff

Do you smell the rubber?

fitzsteve · 20 January 2011, 11:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vairn

Do you smell the rubber?

After about an hour or so yeah you do with those Apollo's

Predseda · 20 January 2011, 12:12

Sorry, but I really hate that switch.

fitzsteve · 20 January 2011, 12:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Predseda

Sorry, but I really hate that switch.

Thats ok

Its moved now to a more subtle location (under the left side of the Amiga)

cosmicfrog · 20 January 2011, 13:47

indeed the fumblings with the Micronik Zorro Bus where the things I was thinking of

but mainly was think of a great friend that I found and a great asset to the community after all we now have the fitzsteve disease named after you

19 January 2011, 13:26	#1
fitzsteve Professional slacker! Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Kent, UK Age: 44 Posts: 6,683	Fitzsteve's Amiga Journey (OMG Huge Pics!) Welcome to my Amiga Journey, this story is set over 10 chapters. It is possible to read back to back these chapters if you follow the link at the end of each chapter as this will skip you onto the next, of you can read the whole thread back to back if you have a lot of time on your hands! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the story of my return to the Amiga Scene. Fitzsteve's Amiga Journey - Part 1 I’d always longed for an Amiga growing up but alas before I could afford one along came those pesky Consoles like the Snes and I went that route. But I still longed to play my favourite Speccy games with ‘Amiga graphics’ and like most kids that didn’t get what they wanted as a grown up I started my Amiga collection! So here’s where it all started! My trusty A1200 that I picked up at a Car boot sale in around 2002 (Click on Thumbnails for full size image) And for those games that wouldn’t run on the A1200 I had my trusty A500 These were my pride and joy, setup in my office space for years until we moved in about 2005 and they ended up in storage in the loft. It was a sad day in 2009 that I decided to sell this unused collection so I took them of their boxes to take pics and list them on ebay. In searching for their values I found some awesome Amiga sites (EAB and Amibay!) Whilst Mrs Fitz talked me into letting go of the A500 and 3 cases of games I soon realised during testing that I could not sell my beloved A1200! So here started a mad journey that would see me build up a pretty decent Amiga collection! The first hurdle was to find out why my A1200 which I was sure has 8mb Fast Ram was only showing 2mb and Mr Guru making frequent visits. Well it was soon clear upon inspecting my Elbox 1200/8 what the problem was, whilst in storage the clock battery had leaked and destroyed the jumpers for selecting memory and probably tracks as well. I tried to clean it up and restore the card but really had no idea what I was doing and offloaded it as spares/repairs on ebay! And after a month or two of searching found this awesome little replacement: Finally I could enjoy the awesome Classic Workbench I’d spent so much time setting up and all those KG WHDload packs! (Thanks KG & Bloodwych) It wasn’t long before I was seriously bitten by the upgrade bug, and all the awesome activity still very much alive in the community. So I setup a wanted thread for my very first 030 Accelerator and very much interested in trying out SCSI I asked for a Card with that facilty. A nice chap called Andrew offered to sell me his Typhoon 030 after seeing pics of the card I had to have it! I was really pleased with the speed increase and all the new apps and emulators available to me, plus I got to setup a CDROM on the SCSI, all this with the help of my new found friends at EAB and Amibay. So here it was, my dream A1200 setup: Read on HERE Last edited by fitzsteve; 18 March 2011 at 15:23. Reason: added intro

20 January 2011, 11:24	#14
fitzsteve Professional slacker! Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Kent, UK Age: 44 Posts: 6,683	Fitzsteve's Amiga Journey - Part 2 Fitzsteve's Amiga Journey - Part 2 Finally having my dream A1200 setup I turned my attention to its little brother the A600, what I wanted to achieve was a replacement for my A500 with a smaller footprint but with the added bonus of an internal CF-HD solution. After much searching for the right one I found my very first A600: I was very pleased being a nice clean example, plus it came with an extra 1mb of Chip ram so this was ideal for my intentions. I picked up a 1.3-3.1 Rom Switcher kit from evil bay which I installed so that I could roll back to 1.3rom to play my old floppy collection and also have 3.1rom for my Workbench. I also picked up a 2mb PCMCIA SRAM card for it and with the extra Ram it was ideal for my newly setup Classic Workbench 68k. As you can see I was a little new to setting up these Workbench’s but I don’t think I did a bad job, nice and simple: So you would think I would be satisfied with this? Well erm, no… It wasn’t long before I wanted to accelerate my A600, but it was real tough to find an accelerator for it. And as you can imagine at this time before the new ACA630’s they were not the cheapest of upgrades. However I’d set my sites on having an Apollo 620 or 630 so after a couple of months of searching all the Amiga sites and the bays imaginable I finally bagged myself an Apollo 630! My first impression was how small the card was, I was expecting bigger, but you soon realise you wont fit much bigger in the A600 and even this was tricky to get in the case with all the other components. Luckily I was able to get one of Mika’s awesome angled CF-IDE adapters so this made installing much easier. I was really impressed to see Classic Workbench ADV running on an A600 and it ran very well indeed, a little slow with 16colours but nice and quick if I dropped to 8colour: So finally I had my dream A600 setup! Read on HERE Last edited by fitzsteve; 18 March 2011 at 11:52. Reason: added link to part 3

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19 January 2011, 13:38	#2
Bamiga2002 BlizzardPPC'less Join Date: May 2004 Location: Finland Age: 46 Posts: 3,210	Where can I get that GamesMenu? I'd ike to try it

19 January 2011, 13:45	#4
Bamiga2002 BlizzardPPC'less Join Date: May 2004 Location: Finland Age: 46 Posts: 3,210	Thanks, it rang a bell for me now when you explained it.

19 January 2011, 23:57	#5
Bloodwych Moderator Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: I'm behind you! Posts: 3,763	Epic journey fitzsteve - and you found time to setup a paid server and kill some monsters on UT99 too. You have been through some serious Amiga gear the last year or so. I just knew you were making up for lost time! It does feel great perfecting a setup though, doesn't it?

20 January 2011, 00:11	#6
Retrofan Ruler of the Universe Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Lanzarote/Spain Posts: 6,195	You (and me) have just started the journey. You should have tittled it "Chapter" 1. I like it. Go on reading the book....

20 January 2011, 00:27	#8
Peter Still an Amiga user Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Kent Age: 55 Posts: 2,715	Great thread - love it... just don't add it all up as you go along Steve!!

20 January 2011, 04:33	#10
jbenam Italian Amiga Zealot Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Italy Age: 36 Posts: 1,912	Great thread mate! I love reading some good ol' Amiga memories, especially when they're good stories where the main character gets bitten by the upgrade bug! I can't wait to see the rest of this

20 January 2011, 10:52	#11
cosmicfrog The 1 who ribbits Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: leek, Staffs, UK Age: 56 Posts: 3,557	heheheh the UT99 over xmas was one of the high lights for me too looking forward to the mediator/pci hurdles you had before you got a working tower, my how long ago that seems now

20 January 2011, 11:19	#13
Vairn The Grim-Button Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Melbourne Australia Age: 43 Posts: 414	Thats some Yellow keyboard on the original 1200. Nice screenies, Sooner or later you will go back to an a1200 with an indivision, and 030. It is inevitable :P hehe

20 January 2011, 11:40	#16
Vairn The Grim-Button Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Melbourne Australia Age: 43 Posts: 414	Every time I see a 600, I am amazed at how small they really are. Good stuff Do you smell the rubber?

20 January 2011, 12:12	#18
Predseda Puttymoon inhabitant Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Tromaville Age: 46 Posts: 7,553	Sorry, but I really hate that switch.

20 January 2011, 13:47	#20
cosmicfrog The 1 who ribbits Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: leek, Staffs, UK Age: 56 Posts: 3,557	indeed the fumblings with the Micronik Zorro Bus where the things I was thinking of but mainly was think of a great friend that I found and a great asset to the community after all we now have the fitzsteve disease named after you

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