A1200 upgrading

OCrowley · 27 June 2014, 14:54

Ayup! My first post on EAB!

So here's the thing... I have this box standard '92 A1200 on my desk (along side my C64 which I've made GREAT use of

) which has box standard Kickstart ROM 3.0, no HDD, nor any other mods whatsoever.

At the moment I've ordered some new add-on hardware from Kipper2K (who happens to be on this forum too... nice!

) and now I would like to get it up and running as a usable machine (using AmigaOS 3.9) for the following purposes...

Coding stuff on the A1200... assembly language and C mainly
Cross development for C64 productions.
Basic IRC chat client
Email & basic web browsing

and, if possible, a very simple web server hosting my little own website that I plan to write in the near future.

(not to forget watch Amiga demos, play games and what not

)

Suggestions from you lot would be great!

Cheers!
/Owen (Conrad from C64 scene)

ancalimon · 27 June 2014, 15:04

You need an accelerator and the minimum you should get is an ACA 030. Or you could check Amiga marketplaces in forums or Amibay for faster turbo cards. You would need at least 16mb ram in my opinion but 128mb is good to have.

I advice at least a a basic buffered ide interface and a 3.5" harddrive which you can use next to your Amiga. and/or you can get a cf card slot or an sd slot.

In my opinion a proper power supply (which you can use to also power the 3.5"hdd and a cdrom) that's not older than 5 years is very important because you can not trust old ones. (I did and lost my A4000T. 10 years without it...)

A compatible PCMCIA cabled or wireless network card.

You will need a scan doubler flicker fixer if you plan to use higher resolutions and standard monitors.

You should upgrade to latest kickstart (3.1) and get yourself AmigaOS3.9

These are the most important things.

The rest is getting familiar and fine tuning things and tweaking things to suit your taste.

If you want to have rtg, you can either get (or make) yourself an Amiga tower case and buy a Mediator and a compatible graphics card... or you can get a BlizzardPPC with a BVisionPPC although they are very hard to come by and very expensive.

OCrowley · 27 June 2014, 16:55

Thanks for that fast reply anclimon!

Yes the ACA (hopefully 1220/33Mhz version if I can afford it), 3.1 ROM upgrade and OS 3.9 is on the to-do list already.

Quote:

You will need a scan doubler flicker fixer if you plan to use higher resolutions and standard monitors.

I assume you're talking about this? http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...oducts_id=1148
(also on the todo-list)

ancalimon · 27 June 2014, 18:04

You can skip the 3.1 roms and invest more in a faster cpu. You can always use the mmu to softkick into 3.1 roms (which I did with 3 A1200s over a long time for a little while until I got the 3.1 roms) but in the end you will have to get it

amigakit.com · 27 June 2014, 20:27

The new ACA 1220/33 runs at about 6 MIPS in speed according to Sysinfo. That is faster than some 030 accelerators, so I think it will be a very formidable value to mid range accelerator.

OCrowley · 28 June 2014, 12:59

@amigakit, how would you compare the 1220 towards the 1232 model? Even though the 1220 is clocked at 33mHz compared to 28 on the 1232, it still only uses a 68020 cpu rather than the 68030. ... not that I'm too fussed about getting my A1200 as fast as possible, I'm just curious if the 68030 would be better.

My A1200 is a revision 10 motherboard btw, in case it requires a timing fix.

amigakit.com · 28 June 2014, 14:50

The 1232/33 is 7.89 MIPS speed.

The 1220/33 is 6 MIPS speed so there is very little difference between them.

There is no revision 10 motherboard.

daxb · 28 June 2014, 17:06

You may need 060 + gfx if you want to code "comfortable" and watch demos (since some years most require 060). For web browsing using Netsurf 3.x (for OS3) it is also better to have 060 + gfx. Mailer like YAM are really slow with 030. I use 040/40 (30 mips) AGA and IBrowse/YAM2.9 are useable but slow. Also 32MB isn`t much. Go for 64MB or more. You may try some configs with WinUAE to see how it works for you.

OCrowley · 07 July 2014, 14:23

Late reply, sorry!

@daxb: I'm not really too fussed of having the Amiga super-fast. 060 accels are hard to find anyway, and I can't afford them right now either. I know that is the best solution for every-day use though.

I'm into the old OCS demos as well.

@amigakit... apologies, I didn't read the motherboard right. The revision is "1D4".

27 June 2014, 14:54	#1
OCrowley Conrad from C64 scene Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Teesside, England Posts: 12	A1200 upgrading Ayup! My first post on EAB! So here's the thing... I have this box standard '92 A1200 on my desk (along side my C64 which I've made GREAT use of ) which has box standard Kickstart ROM 3.0, no HDD, nor any other mods whatsoever. At the moment I've ordered some new add-on hardware from Kipper2K (who happens to be on this forum too... nice! ) and now I would like to get it up and running as a usable machine (using AmigaOS 3.9) for the following purposes... Coding stuff on the A1200... assembly language and C mainly Cross development for C64 productions. Basic IRC chat client Email & basic web browsing and, if possible, a very simple web server hosting my little own website that I plan to write in the near future. (not to forget watch Amiga demos, play games and what not ) Suggestions from you lot would be great! Cheers! /Owen (Conrad from C64 scene)

27 June 2014, 15:04	#2
ancalimon Supernormal Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Istanbul / Turkey Age: 43 Posts: 1,411	You need an accelerator and the minimum you should get is an ACA 030. Or you could check Amiga marketplaces in forums or Amibay for faster turbo cards. You would need at least 16mb ram in my opinion but 128mb is good to have. I advice at least a a basic buffered ide interface and a 3.5" harddrive which you can use next to your Amiga. and/or you can get a cf card slot or an sd slot. In my opinion a proper power supply (which you can use to also power the 3.5"hdd and a cdrom) that's not older than 5 years is very important because you can not trust old ones. (I did and lost my A4000T. 10 years without it...) A compatible PCMCIA cabled or wireless network card. You will need a scan doubler flicker fixer if you plan to use higher resolutions and standard monitors. You should upgrade to latest kickstart (3.1) and get yourself AmigaOS3.9 These are the most important things. The rest is getting familiar and fine tuning things and tweaking things to suit your taste. If you want to have rtg, you can either get (or make) yourself an Amiga tower case and buy a Mediator and a compatible graphics card... or you can get a BlizzardPPC with a BVisionPPC although they are very hard to come by and very expensive. Last edited by ancalimon; 27 June 2014 at 15:09.

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27 June 2014, 18:04	#4
ancalimon Supernormal Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Istanbul / Turkey Age: 43 Posts: 1,411	You can skip the 3.1 roms and invest more in a faster cpu. You can always use the mmu to softkick into 3.1 roms (which I did with 3 A1200s over a long time for a little while until I got the 3.1 roms) but in the end you will have to get it

27 June 2014, 20:27	#5
amigakit.com Registered User Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: www.amigakit.com Posts: 2,026	The new ACA 1220/33 runs at about 6 MIPS in speed according to Sysinfo. That is faster than some 030 accelerators, so I think it will be a very formidable value to mid range accelerator.

28 June 2014, 12:59	#6
OCrowley Conrad from C64 scene Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Teesside, England Posts: 12	@amigakit, how would you compare the 1220 towards the 1232 model? Even though the 1220 is clocked at 33mHz compared to 28 on the 1232, it still only uses a 68020 cpu rather than the 68030. ... not that I'm too fussed about getting my A1200 as fast as possible, I'm just curious if the 68030 would be better. My A1200 is a revision 10 motherboard btw, in case it requires a timing fix.

28 June 2014, 14:50	#7
amigakit.com Registered User Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: www.amigakit.com Posts: 2,026	The 1232/33 is 7.89 MIPS speed. The 1220/33 is 6 MIPS speed so there is very little difference between them. There is no revision 10 motherboard.

28 June 2014, 17:06	#8
daxb Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Germany Posts: 3,304	You may need 060 + gfx if you want to code "comfortable" and watch demos (since some years most require 060). For web browsing using Netsurf 3.x (for OS3) it is also better to have 060 + gfx. Mailer like YAM are really slow with 030. I use 040/40 (30 mips) AGA and IBrowse/YAM2.9 are useable but slow. Also 32MB isn`t much. Go for 64MB or more. You may try some configs with WinUAE to see how it works for you.

07 July 2014, 14:23	#9
OCrowley Conrad from C64 scene Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Teesside, England Posts: 12	Late reply, sorry! @daxb: I'm not really too fussed of having the Amiga super-fast. 060 accels are hard to find anyway, and I can't afford them right now either. I know that is the best solution for every-day use though. I'm into the old OCS demos as well. @amigakit... apologies, I didn't read the motherboard right. The revision is "1D4".

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