Upgrading A1200 for OS3.9

[Cloudane]

Hi!

I'm basically new to the whole thing - I had an Amiga 500 when I was 8 or so, OS 1.3, played around a little with 2.0 beta and then moved to the PC. I then spent the next 20 years missing it (and keeping an eye on developments, occasionally messing with emulation etc)

Now I have an A500 again (actually two 500+'s and a plain 500.. I got a little over enthusiastic on eBay "spares or repairs" and ended up fixing 2, the third only needs a new floppy) and am reliving the days.

I also have an A1200 ready for living the days that I didn't get to see last time It has Kick 3.1, although I've put 3.0 in until I get a HDD for faster power up. That should be arriving shortly - until then I will 'experience' 3.0 off floppies

~~~~ anyway ~~~~~

I'm going to be working my way through the OS versions, because I'm weird like that, if anything I'm more interested in the OS than the games... and so the long term plan is to upgrade all the way to 3.9. I'll not be disregarding games though there's some great stuff (much of which I've already been playing on the 500+) and I guess once the A1200 is my primary Miggy I'll switch to WHDload.

(In the more distant future I will also get a 4.1 box to play with, but I have plenty to be getting on with for now!)

I understand that 3.5 onwards doesn't run on a stock 1200 due to low RAM, and that a lot of the benefit is graphical so I'd be best off with a VGA output of some sort to enable the better resolutions and colours. And also that it'd be painful without an accelerator.

Sure I could just emulate and it'd be way cheaper and easier, but where's the fun in that...

Question is what's a relatively cost effective way (aside from emulation) of experiencing 3.5 and 3.9 on an A1200... from a little reading around my thoughts so far are:

Add an 030 accelerator and RAM - a popular one seems to be Blizzard 1230 Mk4, whilst sites like amigakit seem to sell E-Matrix 1230/50 when they're in stock. Are these all much the same, e.g. would the E-Matrix one do? Cost for that looks to be around £175

Add a VGA output - ideally a video card but that would involve a tower build probably running well into £1k - yikes. So a good desktop solution seems to be Indivision AGA, which may be coming back into stock soon (yay!) and going for about £130.

Even that seems like a lot to pump into it, but then again they are parts that can be easily re-sold if I got bored of it (as if). If cheaper second-hand gear is good enough, even better.

Does that seem to be the way to go? Would that 'simple' flickerfixer be enough to have a reasonable experience of the graphical advances of OS 3.9? And also would I need a custom PSU, or can the A500 brick handle those two additions? Anything else I'm missing that would empty my wallet?

[alexh]

If you have A500+'s then you need to remove their batteries as soon as possible otherwise they will self destruct.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=47185

I'd hold off buying a flicker fixer for the time being. Especially as in the UK your LCD TV will have RGB SCART and a built in flicker fixer.

Spend your money on the best accelerator you can afford. An Apollo 1240 upgraded to an 80MHz 1260 will set you back about £280

You probably want to buy a PCMCIA->CF adapter + CF card (~£10) to make it easy to get data between your PC and your Amiga.

I wouldn't recommend buying a CD. Just put your hard drive in your PC and install OS3.x using WinUAE.

[fitzsteve]

Hi Cloudane,

You can't got wrong with a Blizzard 1230 MkIV, great 030 card and will run OS3.9 very well indeed. Unless you want to empty you wallet a lot more then you could look at an 040 or 060 card Again the Blizzards are nice cards to go for however you might find the Apollo's a little cheaper but they are limited to 32mb (64mb with 2nd Simm socket but then wont fit in a desktop A1200) Ram whereas the Blizzards will take 128mb (256mb with SCSI optional Kit)

Unless you use UAE you'll needa CDROM to install OS3.9, you can drive this off a Blizzard SCSI or Squirrell SCSI in the PCMCIA port. Other 68030 accelerator options like some models the Typhoon Mk2 have built in SCSI and can be a cheaper option then the Blizzards.

You'll need those 3.1 Roms to Run OS3.X as the 3.0 Roms do not support them.

You don't always need an Indivision AGA or indeed any flicker fixer, it depends on what screen you want to use, I have a nice little JVC LCD TV that will run the High Res Laced screens (640x512) without any flicker by RGB scart and this TV only cost me £30 so is a much cheaper option

Beware though that it can be a bit of a gamble with some makes of TV.

If you want to use a VGA monitor then you will need the Indivision as most do not support the standard Amiga RGB output.

Good luck with your project, keep us posted along the way

Steve.

[Cloudane]

Cool, thanks for the advices!

One of the dead 500+'s I bought was indeed because of the battery, luckily I managed to find the dead copper track with a multimeter and soldered a wire on the flip side of the board to revive her, she's working great now. Though I haven't done the vinegar treatment yet.. that is my next priority. The other just needed a new drive which I took from the plain 500 and then desoldered the battery *before* it did any damage - bingo, 2 working 500+'s, hopefully for a while

I'm running from an RGB scart plugged into a Panasonic Viera .. only tested it on my 500+ running WB2.0 but the results are:
- The normal modes work great, although I had to go into the service mode and shift the picture as far right as it'll go
- SuperHires works (bit skinny though)
- Hires-interlaced (640x512) works but definitely 'flickers' or shimmers, particularly around the pointer if I move it around. When moving a window it sort of 'wobbles' into place.
- SuperHires-Interlaced works (1280x512 over SCART, nice!!) - s.l.o.w.l.y - but again has that flicker/shimmer/wobble type effect.
- The productivity modes, when I add the necessary monitor file, are out of sync. The first one is just about usable enough to set it back!

Don't know if it's just an ECS vs AGA thing though, will hook up the A1200 and see if there's any difference. If it's not an interlace issue it could be an upscaling problem as I don't think the Vieras are perfect at it on the video inputs.
Edit: Same thing on the A1200 under WB3.0

I think I'd quite like a 'useful' resolution like 1024x768 especially if I decide to try and get networking going and mess around with web browsing in the later versions. That's where I thought the flicker fixer might be necessary. Will see - indeed, it's a lot of money!

Considering it's just really messing around I'd be drifting towards the 030 accelerators with the thought in mind that I could always sell it easy enough if I decided to tweak it further.

Pretty sure I have a PCMCIA network card that works with Amigas somewhere, I remember looking into it once before and being pleasantly surprised that it was a compatible chip in it. If so, that could be an option for transferring things.

I won't be bothering with a CD - not with CF technology nowadays.

[Antti]

Originally Posted by Cloudane

I'm running from an RGB scart plugged into a Panasonic Viera .. only tested it on my 500+ running WB2.0 but the results are:
- The normal modes work great, although I had to go into the service mode and shift the picture as far right as it'll go

Turn on your tv and select the AV channel where A500+ is connected. Don't turn on your Amiga. Go to Menu - Setup - Other Settings - AV Colour System, and change from Auto to PAL. That fixed the picture in my Viera

[Cloudane]

Originally Posted by Antti

Turn on your tv and select the AV channel where A500+ is connected. Don't turn on your Amiga. Go to Menu - Setup - Other Settings - AV Colour System, and change from Auto to PAL. That fixed the picture in my Viera

That sounds like a great suggestion, sadly mine doesn't seem to have the AV Colour System menu option (tx-l26x10b). Thanks though, worth a try!

[Zetr0]

@Cloudane

Hey, Welcome to EAB, =)

of all the OS's to choose I would recommend all the Classic Workbench packs, they truly are great.

I had no interest at all in OS3.9 and only a passing intreuge in 3.5, but ClassicWorkbench Changed all that, so much so, ALL my amiga now run a Classic Workbench implementation.

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

ALL my amiga now run a Classic Workbench implementation.

Classic Workbench FTW

[Cloudane]

Haha yes I've seen all the fanaticism over CWB

I'll call that one 3.99 or something. Looking to go through the vanilla ones first, for the exact same reason as going through the 500&floppies instead of just using WHDload from day 1, for the exact same reason as not just emulating the Miggies from day 1. It's the journey for me, not the destination

P.S. @Zetr0 fancy seeing you here

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Cloudane

Haha yes I've seen all the fanaticism over CWB

I'll call that one 3.99 or something. Looking to go through the vanilla ones first, for the exact same reason as going through the 500&floppies instead of just using WHDload from day 1, for the exact same reason as not just emulating the Miggies from day 1. It's the journey for me, not the destination

I know exactly what you mean, I've got all the WHDLoad setup on my power Miggy's but sometimes its nice to go upstairs to the old A600 with a big box of old Floppy's and just go through them

Have fun on your journey