A1200 with 1meg chip ram - WTF?

DC33 · 05 July 2007, 11:21

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone here at EAB knows how many A1200 with 1 meg ram were ever made? I hear thet there weren't too many, and perhaps only about 100 (?) were ever made. I happen to have one of these and I am interested in knowing the following:

a. How many were ever made ?
b. Are they worth the same/less or more than the 2 meg 1200's ?
c. Are they in any way sort after ?
d. Is it possible to upgrade the chip ram ?
e. if I use a mem expansion, is it possible to trick the system in "thinking" there is 2 meg chip ram ? I recall there being a program which did something similar, but I think it was to trick the system to think there was 1 meg "other" ram...?

Thanks all.

Jope · 05 July 2007, 11:42

So.. Have you opened it up? Does it have only two RAM chips or what?

It is probably possible to just solder in the other two RAM chips and capacitors.. Just add all missing components after comparing with a 2MB A1200.

Must be quite rare.

Unfortunately re: "tricking the computer", getting more chip ram is not doable via software.

DC33 · 05 July 2007, 11:46

Thanks Jope.
Yeah I have had it open but have not physically compared it to a 2meg 1200. Will do tho as I have a spare 2 meg one available. I am not quite sure whether the fix you advise of is that straight forward.

If anyone has any hacks, photos etc I would appreciate it.
Cheers

Zetr0 · 05 July 2007, 12:51

@DC33

please take pictures of you a1200 motherboard. unfortutnately it does sound more likely that 2 of your ram chips have blown in your amiga

DC33 · 05 July 2007, 12:59

Zetr0,

If this were the case, would the Ami work at all? I would think that if a ram problem exists, the machine would not work at all ! I have run Sysinfo and all is fine except for the 2 meg ram.... only 1 available.

I will u/l some pics tomorrow after work.... it is late here in Oz and I am knakkered and couldn't be arsed going into the garage as the 1200 is somewhere unknown... sorry mate.

Jope · 05 July 2007, 13:01

Exec checks the amount of chip ram in the early stages of bootup. It will give you less to use RAM if it finds some of it faulty.

If you get less than 256kB available, then the machine will not boot at all.

DC33 · 05 July 2007, 13:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jope

If you get less than 256kB available, then the machine will not boot at all.

Got it. Thanks.

However.... Was there ever a 1200 with 1 MEG ?

musashi5150 · 05 July 2007, 13:43

I doubt it - unless it's some weird prototype or something. We'll know more when you open her up and take some pics and the mobo revision...

DC33 · 05 July 2007, 13:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by musashi5150

We'll know more when you open her up and take some pics and the mobo revision...

Ok.... what exactly should I be looking for then ? is there something obvious that should stand oiut like dogs balls or not ? Will let you all know tomorrow.... off to zzz land as it is getting late .

Zetr0 · 05 July 2007, 14:11

as far as i am aware my friend, no a1200 was ever released with less than 2mb of ram,

the only two a1200 prototypes i know of, An a1200 with an 030 cpu and one with a built in RTC. as far as i know niether of these were released.

thats not to say that there was never a 1mb chip version, but I figure it unlikely my friend...

so hurry up and take lots of motherboard pictures!!!!!

BippyM · 05 July 2007, 14:14

I remember hearing about some very early 12oo's having only 1mb, but they proved to be little use..

alexh · 05 July 2007, 15:25

If it is rare, get hold of a pristine box, ploy inserts, disks, registration card, cable ties etc.

Clean it up and flog it to some nutter on ebay as !@RARE@! @AS NEW@ for £300+

They buy a dirty, but cheap A4k and upgrade it

Charlie · 05 July 2007, 15:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by bippym

I remember hearing about some very early 12oo's having only 1mb, but they proved to be little use..

My understanding too...

A1200 was to be released as a 1meg machine + a header for the extra meg. The engineers wanted more & bean-counters ( J.T. @ that point? ) finally gave in just before release when it was proven that there wouldn't be any real cost saving by skimping on the ram - sadly the '030 got canned because that would have significantly increased the production costs.

From memory - all 1200 mobo's still have the ram expansion header - it looks just like the clock-port header but with no pins attached.
Moving front to back of mobo: KS Roms -> Clock-port -> 4 chips -> Memory expansion header.

There's a good piccie on page 17 AF129 if you are feeling sufficiently anal.

@DC33:
If yours is one of these 1meg machines escaped into the wild that header will have pins - God alone knows where you'll get the expansion card from!
Any that did make it out of C= should have been fitted with one.

NfernalNfluence · 05 July 2007, 19:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexh

If it is rare, get hold of a pristine box, ploy inserts, disks, registration card, cable ties etc.

Clean it up and flog it to some nutter on ebay as !@RARE@! @AS NEW@ for £300+

HAHAHAHAHA

DC33 · 06 July 2007, 10:38

Ok Pilgrims.... (

).. Here are 2 pictures which show what I have.

Any help/comments/whatever, is more than welcome. Anyways, it looks like to me that the 1200 I have is a bit more advanced that a 1 meg version (if it ever existed). Let me know what you think.

Zetr0 · 06 July 2007, 11:38

@DC33

I am sorry to say its not uber rare, infact its one of the better revisions 1d4.

It does appear that your a1200 has indeed some damaged ram chips. these can be replaced quite easly if your okay with a soldering iron (or hot gun

) I think the hardest thing would be to track down those ram chips. but theres plenty of dead a1200's out there

amigakit.com · 06 July 2007, 11:42

Warranty stickers suggest an Escom A1200

Zetr0 · 06 July 2007, 11:49

@AK
thanks for that... hmm the 1d4 from Escom, wasn`t this revision had all those floppy drive hacks ?

if it was then i take it back LOL its not one of the better revisions LOL

[edit]
just chuckling to my self, I just had a thought of trying to claim on the warrenty LOL

DC33 · 06 July 2007, 12:07

Ohh well. you win some and then loose some. !!! I am qualified to do multilayer board repairs so a "hot" gun (actually even a hair drier) will be fine. All I need to know is what to look for and then I am done. Might see if I can pick up a dead 1200 and do a ram swap.

OK blokes, anyone in Australia have a dead 1200 I can have in exchange of a VB ?

Cheers.

Secret Vampire · 08 July 2007, 17:00

rather than trying to find a dead 1200, I'd be tempted to look for old PCI graphics cards with suitable chips on them, they'll be cheaper to ship, and probably cost less altogether, if you're lucky you might even find one with the chips socketed.
The main problem is going to be finding one with the correct parts on, if you can find out exactly what the ones on the A1200 are then you can make a list of equivalents and start peering at photos on ebay, or looking through boxes of junk at computer fairs...
Though, a fully working 1200 might not be much more expensive than the total cost of replacing the broken chips.

05 July 2007, 11:21	#1
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Bathurst Australia Posts: 280	A1200 with 1meg chip ram - WTF? Hi all, Just wondering if anyone here at EAB knows how many A1200 with 1 meg ram were ever made? I hear thet there weren't too many, and perhaps only about 100 (?) were ever made. I happen to have one of these and I am interested in knowing the following: a. How many were ever made ? b. Are they worth the same/less or more than the 2 meg 1200's ? c. Are they in any way sort after ? d. Is it possible to upgrade the chip ram ? e. if I use a mem expansion, is it possible to trick the system in "thinking" there is 2 meg chip ram ? I recall there being a program which did something similar, but I think it was to trick the system to think there was 1 meg "other" ram...? Thanks all.

06 July 2007, 10:38	#15
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Bathurst Australia Posts: 280	Pictures attached Ok Pilgrims.... ( ).. Here are 2 pictures which show what I have. Any help/comments/whatever, is more than welcome. Anyways, it looks like to me that the 1200 I have is a bit more advanced that a 1 meg version (if it ever existed). Let me know what you think. Attached Thumbnails

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05 July 2007, 11:42	#2
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,879	So.. Have you opened it up? Does it have only two RAM chips or what? It is probably possible to just solder in the other two RAM chips and capacitors.. Just add all missing components after comparing with a 2MB A1200. Must be quite rare. Unfortunately re: "tricking the computer", getting more chip ram is not doable via software.

05 July 2007, 11:46	#3
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Bathurst Australia Posts: 280	Thanks Jope. Yeah I have had it open but have not physically compared it to a 2meg 1200. Will do tho as I have a spare 2 meg one available. I am not quite sure whether the fix you advise of is that straight forward. If anyone has any hacks, photos etc I would appreciate it. Cheers

05 July 2007, 12:51	#4
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 49 Posts: 9,768	@DC33 please take pictures of you a1200 motherboard. unfortutnately it does sound more likely that 2 of your ram chips have blown in your amiga

05 July 2007, 12:59	#5
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Bathurst Australia Posts: 280	Zetr0, If this were the case, would the Ami work at all? I would think that if a ram problem exists, the machine would not work at all ! I have run Sysinfo and all is fine except for the 2 meg ram.... only 1 available. I will u/l some pics tomorrow after work.... it is late here in Oz and I am knakkered and couldn't be arsed going into the garage as the 1200 is somewhere unknown... sorry mate.

05 July 2007, 13:01	#6
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,879	Exec checks the amount of chip ram in the early stages of bootup. It will give you less to use RAM if it finds some of it faulty. If you get less than 256kB available, then the machine will not boot at all.

05 July 2007, 13:43	#8
musashi5150 move.w #$4489,$dff07e Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Norfolk, UK Age: 42 Posts: 2,351	I doubt it - unless it's some weird prototype or something. We'll know more when you open her up and take some pics and the mobo revision...

05 July 2007, 14:11	#10
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 49 Posts: 9,768	as far as i am aware my friend, no a1200 was ever released with less than 2mb of ram, the only two a1200 prototypes i know of, An a1200 with an 030 cpu and one with a built in RTC. as far as i know niether of these were released. thats not to say that there was never a 1mb chip version, but I figure it unlikely my friend... so hurry up and take lots of motherboard pictures!!!!!

05 July 2007, 14:14	#11
BippyM Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 48 Posts: 9,355	I remember hearing about some very early 12oo's having only 1mb, but they proved to be little use..

05 July 2007, 15:25	#12
alexh Thalion Webshrine Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Oxford Posts: 14,399	If it is rare, get hold of a pristine box, ploy inserts, disks, registration card, cable ties etc. Clean it up and flog it to some nutter on ebay as !@RARE@! @AS NEW@ for £300+ They buy a dirty, but cheap A4k and upgrade it

06 July 2007, 11:38	#16
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 49 Posts: 9,768	@DC33 I am sorry to say its not uber rare, infact its one of the better revisions 1d4. It does appear that your a1200 has indeed some damaged ram chips. these can be replaced quite easly if your okay with a soldering iron (or hot gun ) I think the hardest thing would be to track down those ram chips. but theres plenty of dead a1200's out there

06 July 2007, 11:42	#17
amigakit.com Registered User Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: www.amigakit.com Posts: 2,029	Warranty stickers suggest an Escom A1200

06 July 2007, 11:49	#18
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 49 Posts: 9,768	@AK thanks for that... hmm the 1d4 from Escom, wasn`t this revision had all those floppy drive hacks ? if it was then i take it back LOL its not one of the better revisions LOL [edit] just chuckling to my self, I just had a thought of trying to claim on the warrenty LOL

06 July 2007, 12:07	#19
DC33 Zone Friend Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Bathurst Australia Posts: 280	Ohh well. you win some and then loose some. !!! I am qualified to do multilayer board repairs so a "hot" gun (actually even a hair drier) will be fine. All I need to know is what to look for and then I am done. Might see if I can pick up a dead 1200 and do a ram swap. OK blokes, anyone in Australia have a dead 1200 I can have in exchange of a VB ? Cheers.

08 July 2007, 17:00	#20
Secret Vampire Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Birmingham UK Age: 43 Posts: 214	rather than trying to find a dead 1200, I'd be tempted to look for old PCI graphics cards with suitable chips on them, they'll be cheaper to ship, and probably cost less altogether, if you're lucky you might even find one with the chips socketed. The main problem is going to be finding one with the correct parts on, if you can find out exactly what the ones on the A1200 are then you can make a list of equivalents and start peering at photos on ebay, or looking through boxes of junk at computer fairs... Though, a fully working 1200 might not be much more expensive than the total cost of replacing the broken chips.

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