Amiga Modding Help

[Cerberus73]

Hi folks, nice wee site, was looking around on the net for info on the amiga. i hope i can possibly have a few questions answered by the more amiga literate than myself (im a general retro system collector) for my sins i have ST's and pretty much every major console made from the 70's onwards.

Now to the point, in my possession i have a large collection of amiga related goodies, approx 5 A1200's (3 standard as left factory, 2 with 1230 IV's, FPU and non FPU 16mb, 4mb) 1084S Monitor, 3X A500, 1 A500+, 2X A600, silly ammount (1000s) of original games and utilities, applications etc. ive also a large collection of spares, motherboards, floppys, cases etc.

I may be asking some newbie stuff here, but im planning on doing a a1200 project, and im sure some of this has been covered elsewhere on net, but id like to try and get the info all in one place, where i can ask stuff if it seems a little unclear or confusing.... RIGHT enough of the waffle, time to get down to business, my plan is to modify my accelerated a1200 with a 20GB HDD, One of those PSone Mini Portable screens (i am led to believe they can be made to hook up to amiga video port or to do a composite mod to amiga?) i also have a virtually new slot loader DVD burner 8x dual layer which i hauled out of my now dead mac mini. i know ill need to buy a buffered ide adapter for inside my miggy, but is it possible to do a neat factory look mod to allow me to hook up the dvd ejecting from the rear, (remember no eject button on mac drive, so can it be ejected from within workbench v3.0 via a key combo or command?) and to blend the mini screen onto the back of my miggy, i dont mind modding the case, as long as no major soldering required internally on mobo, as i want to keep this stock if possible, ive a couple spare good nick casings. so can return to standard if i want later.

And finally, is it possible to get original a1200 mouse in new or good as new condition on the net (not the amiga tech ones on amigakit, but the original cbm style that my miggys came with) im ordering a new a1200 unyellowed keyboard from amigakit for this project along with the ide adapter, repraying casings to white (there all a bit yellow to one degree or another).

by the way if anybody has any items they may be looking for feel free to leave a post, ill see what i have in my collection, i know ive got a lot of amiga, as well as c64 stuff, some weird items like c64 plotters, ad ons etc and to be honest its about time i thinned some of it out, im planning on doing this mod and keeping ones a1200, one a600 and possibly the 500 plus, the rest really should go to a good home, instead of languishing in cupboards.

Thanks for any help / suggestions

[Zetr0]

@Cerberus73

wow m8 thats what i call collecting!

Firstly, let me welcome you to the EAB, theres plenty of mischief to get up to around here, so please take some time, kick back / relax and enjoy the retr0-coated yummyness that this fair board provides

now modding and hacking eh?... well... i think you have certainly come to the right place so lets look at what you can do, and what you want to do with an a1200.

PSOne Screen...

yep, you could do that OR got for a better cheaper one ;D
there are plenty of 8" LCD screen that sell for around £30's that could be added to the a1200 or any Amiga infact. most connect via composite (which the a600/1200 have), some LCD screens also have RGB input or SVideo. These with little more effort can be utilized with the Amiga.

Slot Loader Optical Drive

You have my envy, these are not cheap to find on fleabay . firstly yes you can have a button (and or set to a key(s) stroke) that allows you to eject the disk from this device in workbench . there are a few slot loading mods done very well. you can find them on www.amiga.org

if you want to see how far you can modify the a1200 case then have a look at my Fantasy Amiga x86 project

Newish Amiga Mouse

firstly for collecting purposes i would suggest that one scourer ebay or you could join www.amibay.com and have a look there

If however you are looking for practical use (games / productivity) then, for the love of anything that is holy, buy a PS2 to Amiga mouse converter... you will never EVER look back again!

If you ever need to find a home for an A1000, or other big box amiga... then i can offer undying love and lost forum souls... to wich the latter can be used as currency in the underworld.

anyway

welcome to the EAB, have fun.

Z

[TheCorfiot]

Welcome Cereberus.

As my dear friend Zetro has already said, this is the place for all sorts of Amiga Hacking / mods, and we are always here to help you reach your goal with success

There a few threads regarding internal CDROMS on an A1200 and more people are taking the plunge, have a look & get inspired, Good basic handskills & you will be proud with the results.

As for the A1000, I had one years ago (1987) & am sorry I let it go, I would be more than happy to take one off your hands if you ever need to downsize.

Ah re-reading your post I think you were referring to 1000's of games not a silly number of A1000's ...........Zetro......

Welcome & enjoy

[Zetr0]

@TC

sorry m8.... i got a little excited..... i have always wanted a big box amiga....

[Cerberus73]

Sorry Zetr0 one thing i dont have is a big box miggy, i wish!

Now onto another note, im thinking Intel atom mini itx board into a empty a1200 or even better a600 casing (smaller ) , dvd where floppy goes, keyrah so i can use original miggy keyboard, fibreglass up the backplane, and cut a slot so the mobo backplane fits neatly, respray, refurb keys, and try that new mini linux that boots into e-uae so i can config and run os 3.9 and dual boot into win xp or suchlike... what do you guys think? should make for a relativly speedy authentic looking, speedyish cool running miggy.

oh one thing i could do with is either a wiring diagram for zappo dual speed cd cable (my one is a bit frayed looking near the pcmcia card was gonna open card and resolder connections of busted cable) or a actual replacement pcmcia card to drive plug cable, if someone has one going spare at a reasonable price.

[TheCorfiot]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@TC

sorry m8.... i got a little excited..... i have always wanted a big box amiga....

No mate please don't apologise, I got excited too....I want an A1000 & an A600, they are the 2 I don't have. and as you know I need an A600 for our super project.....

If I ever take a trip down to your neck of the woods I maybe persuaded to drop off my spare A2000. It doesn't get much use but my main A2000 is always running these days so I kept it for spare parts.

[amigakit.com]

We have some A600s here that came in last week.

[TheCorfiot]

Originally Posted by amigakit.com

We have some A600s here that came in last week.

Pls tell me more, Condition, Cost,, I need to order a Buffered IDE interface from you too.

Thx

[amigakit.com]

Visit our office and we you can choose one. They are used - varying in condition.

[Cerberus73]

Im seriously toying with the idea of an Mini or even better pico ITX based Mod in order to give myself a "modern" amiga at a reasonable cost, that will run at least as fast as a PPC based 1200 or 4000. (i cant find nor afford the silly prices for an amigaone board or a PCI Busboard) for the same money as a bare busboard, without all the other gubbins required to tower an A1200. besides i want it all in a standard A1200 casing, no towers!

Im thinking pearlesant or ice white A1200 Casing, new white keyboard from amigakit, keyrah to use the A1200 keyboard with ITX Mobo, i have a Slot loader Dual Layer DVD burner that came from my now dead Mac Mini, Normal PC Floppy modded to fit with original Miggy floppy eject button (hope this will be possible!) i know i may have to look into alternative heatsinks etc due to height issues, im also gonna have to check that ports on new mobo are not to high as to fit under 1200 casing, either via breakout cables to backplate or even better, just to fit against miggys backplate space. (i plan to fibreglass this and fill till its blanked off and smoothed flush) before i cut space for breakout cables or mobo backplate. 1 or 2 gb ram and a small 20 - 40 gb 2.5 HDD, i have a 15 inch older biege LCD from circa 2002 here i plan to haul appart and spray to same shade as A1200 casing (was tempted to try black or carbon grey, but damm those Black CDTV keyboards are expensive to just get some keytops, and a shame to rip appart just to get black keys, wish someone would remake amiga keys in black or a range of colours ) lol if anyone has a "dead" black CDTV keyboard with black keytops there willing to sell or trade for feel free to drop me a line!! (uk layout and keytops in good undamaged condition)

for the OS i was thinking http://www.xamiga.net/ to boot straight into Amiga OS via E-UAE. and perhaps dual boot into a minimal Win XP setup as well to allow basic web browsing etc from Windows (epia boards aint exactly powerhouses) i have a OS 3.9 CD and rom images from my amiga forever CD i can use with the X-Amiga setup, im a bit of a Unix geek so twiddling with the X-Amiga setup to get all the hardware playing nice should not be a major issue.

Im wondering if any of the guys have tried something like this in the past, how successful it was, or any other thoughts on the project, in parralel im gonna continue to do my "real" a1220 and 600 projects. im getting quite excited about these, lol all i need to do now i raise the funding!

[Charlie]

Hello Cerberus73,
Welcome to the EAB.

I quite agree that if you want to build a 'power Amiga' using cheap PC components with an 'emulation layer' over the top is the way to go.
Gut an A1200, in with suitable mobo + software & away you go - easy! (ah, hem)

The most ambitious version of this idea I know of is Zetr0's Fantasy Amiga x86. I've done similar stuff with other systems/ os's but not really relevent to this forum...

I guess the question is how ambitious do you want to be?

The emulation's got to be pretty good to maintain the illusion that it's a real, if fast, Amiga.

Mini-ITX (or probably smaller) + X-Amiga should do a very good job. There's also a thing called a keyrah that will convert an A1200 keyboard in to a USB one so making that job quite a bit easier...
...There's also for want of a better term a very good hardware abstraction layer proggie called Amithlon - there may even be a guide for setting it up somewhere on this board. Hint, hint.

Pro's & con's:
-(Win)UAE is great but the underlaying OS will be intrusive enough to spoil the effect.
-X-Amiga should be easy to set up & with such a stripped-out Linux underneath should give you a pretty good 'Amiga-feel'.
-Amithlon will give you something that is genuinely indistinguishable from an Amiga with an RTG (graphics) card - apart from being quite quick. But selecting hardware on which it will run that will also fit in an A1200 case could be tricky. Zetro probably came up with the best solution of using a SBC as a basis for his project.

All the best.

[Zetr0]

@Charlie

thanks for the kinds words my friend.

[Charlie]

Credit where it's due.

[Cerberus73]

Sure is a nice mod there Zetr0... im guessing with the spec of the rocky board you used that it was done some time ago? only thing i wasnt sure about was adding in a new section at bottom of the A1200 casing. i know with the then current solutions available it was the best route to go down. but in the ideal world i want to keep my mod stealth, so from the outside the a1200 appears as stock as possible, hense use of such items as slot load DVD drive (means just cutting a slot barely wide and high enough to slip a disk in) and i maybe able to hide this in case seam (i will need to check mobo height, keyboard placment etc) and to Charlie.. yeah i intended to use a keyrah with internal hookup to usb header on the Mobo, again to keep it stealthy, i am trying to gather as much info on the height of these mini itx board backplates, so to figure out as to whether to fit it flush against back of miggy casing, or to use breakout leads to backplate, like Zetr0 did in his mod, im even wondering if there is some way to mod a external psu to fit into original commodore unit yet supply enough grunt, meanwhile keeping it looking stock. the other option is build my own Casing, hunt down an external miggy beyboard, and interface it to keyrah then mobo.

these mini itx boards are great, low cost (under £100 with a Via, Intel Atom or Celeron CPU, hell theres even full core 2 duo jobs available if you wanna pony up the cash, these are pretty expensive, still not bad compared to a amigaone! with a lot more raw grunt) and im sure that in conjunction with Xamiga minimal linux to boot into os 3.9 it will leave most amigaone and expanded "classic" amigas for dust)

just a personal thought... would it not have been easier for amiga inc to port os4 to x86 with a good m68xxx emulation layer, and PPC emulation like pear pc. so as to run classic and more modern miggy apps, even apple gave up on power pc, the boards that are available (when the companys producing them aint going to the wall overnight, or trying to sell vapourware) are extortionate, who in there right mind would pay 4 - 500 for a board with a 6yr old cpu on it? i built this full media center core 2 pc with 22" hd screen for less. now if the os was available for commodity hardware, was modern, efficient and looked pretty (hey looks sell! as much as we may hate it, folks like bells and whistles with nice eye candy) would it not be easier then for a enterprising company to come up with a nice "amiga" casing, based on the look of the old ones, but with updated styling, available in small form factor for the micro itx, normal tower for ATX boards, and a proper amiga keyboard (with the proper layout!) as this is what puts me off emulation on a standard pc... they keys! it just aint... right somehow, thats the whole reason im wanting to do this miggy project... fast amiga, with dual boot functionality, and a proper amiga keyboard with easy to update gubbins

[Charlie]

Hi,
Dare I say it, all very good points.

Zetro's choice of SBC was dictated by a couple of things:
-Amithlon will give you the most authentic 'amiga-feel' on x86 hardware, but as development ceased years ago it's a b*gger to get it to run on hardware more modern than Athlon-XP ish stuff. That's no biggie - my Athlon-Amiga has an Athlon-XP-M clocked @ 2.5ghz which results in an emulated '040 of about 1.2 ghz-ish!
Um, that's quite a lot for Amiga-OS & blows the socks off AOS4 + A-One.
The hardware can be found in skips these days, too.
-The SBC Zetr0 went for is pretty close to 'top-spec' for such systems - even now! I guess there's no demand for high-end industrial computers.
-X-Amiga is great, b-t-w.

Stealthed PSU?
One of the forum members posted a how-to on that very subject:
Gut an A1200 brick, insert matx PSU, etc...
...as it happens I can't seem to find it, but it's about here somewhere. (Made to be a beefed-up A1200 brick, but I'm sure you could adapt for a more ambitious project)

AOS4 for x86?
Shhhh - we don't want to start a flame-war!
Safe to say that's not likey on the EAB, but some other forums...
For myself I think it's madness that it's not available on x86 in pretty-much the form you suggest. It's probably for reasons of politics and 'market domination' - not that there is a market these days.
Oh, and rumor has it that our 'glorious leader(s)' in A(hole).inc may be (a) dishonest, money-grabbing f*ck-whit(s)...

[Zetr0]

@Charlie

here here!

[rave]

LOL!!! @ Charlie

Couldn't agree more