30 seconds to go......

Just be patient....

YEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS !

Jim is back in the Amiga hardware scene* ! He is about to experence his first AGA Amiga

*OK - I still own 2 A500's but haven't used them for years.

I think I paid a honest price, I mean I've been looking specifically for a 3.1 Kickstart 1200 with 3.1 Manuals. I don't care about HD's or anything as I'll put my own in. I don't care about case colour as it will eventually go in a tower. Maybe the price was a little bit too much but who cares - I could've waited weeks for a cheaper 3.1 1200.

I was a bit concerned bidding against a 0-bidder towards the end, but I sniped in the last few seconds with my max bid (£30.01) and beat him. It's always good adding an extra penny !

And the good thing is I can now go on a drive down south and pick this lil beauty up today hopefully

Oh yeah, here's my new equipment:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...050458204&rd=1

(Sorry "erebos_the_lord_of_darkness" if you are browsing )

Any ideas on a try-once method of getting the HD working? Software/tools to use? It would be nice to feel I've got something extra out of this, and it'll be a few days until I get my HD conversion cable.

According to the seller he gets this message: I have noticed that when formatting HD:0 - an error occurs "cannot proceed on cylinder 2" (this is after I had already decided to bid when I didn't even know a HD was thrown in).

The HD might have bad sectors but the price is just. Have fun with your new AGA machine

[Amiga1992]

So you bought it

you can exclude bad sectors with HDToolbox, so you still might be able to use that HD if you want to.

Congrats

IT'S HERE !

I have my new Miggy in my arms. I am cuddling it like a baby. Soon I will prepare her a bottle

I have just driven 240 miles (386km) to Portsmouth and back as I do not trust and cannot wait for the post !

Two traffic jams on the way home But me & My Miggy have arrived here safetly.

It is KS3.1, it has all the WB3.1 manuals. He's thrown in some original boxed/manualed games plus a load of coverdisks (some which I don't have and non-TOSEC). Also some unboxed originals and the usual copies.

The only downside is I think it's a Amiga Inc machine as the label on the left says "Amiga". Commodore is not written anywhere on the machine. I see this because apparently the floppy drives from these machines have problems. The floppy drive sounds/seems fine to me.

The guy thinks the HD is 540 meg The warranty sticker is still on the case intact It's cleaner than it looks on the picture - he washed it. But I told him I didn't care about the case as soon it would be towered. I think he was reluctant to let it go once I explained my ambitions for the machine - he didn't know an Amiga could still be upgraded like this.

I had a lovely cup of tea and a big chat about PC's, Miggy's, C64's, Ebay etc.... First time I've ever picked something up I've bought of ebay, and it's nice to meet the seller. I've even given him a account on my FTP server !

OK. Enough talk. C'mon Miggy, now it's time to play

[Djay]

its like the first day all over again

[Amiga1992]

Originally posted by Jim
The only downside is I think it's a Amiga Inc machine as the label on the left says "Amiga". Commodore is not written anywhere on the machine. I see this because apparently the floppy drives from these machines have problems. The floppy drive sounds/seems fine to me.

Oh man what a bummer... Start looking for an A1200 diskdrive on ebay if you can, this one wont load lots of things methinks.

But if you get a fat HD in it, and some extra mem, you are in WHDLoad heaven

Originally posted by Akira
Oh man what a bummer... Start looking for an A1200 diskdrive on ebay if you can, this one wont load lots of things methinks.

Can I swap it over with one of the drives from a A500 ?

Will they both work in the different machines ?

[Amiga1992]

The A500 drive won't fit inside the A1200 case, methinks. The buttons are different.

Try it out anyways, perhaps it works.

I'm well excited.

The first disk I booted was the game I wrote in 1991 (age 13).

It was actually really embarassing looking at the crappy copyright statement I did, as I nicked all the music !!

Still - I had a good fun game, and it bought a tear to my eye.

It's actually cooler than I thought (I seem to remember it being unfinished, but this is actually complete) It's obviously lame by most game standards but the music is still kickin'

I think I will release it to you guys as long as you promise not to analyse the source (it is very dodgy from what I remember). You never know the TOSEC guys might take pity and NOT put it in their sets for the world to see !

Next stop.....Xenon II

[Daz]

I Thought The Amiga Inc. Boards were the good un's, where they've fixed all the problems with different revisions?

I heard the drives are rather crap though - modified pc drive?

There's a foreign body in that thier miggy aw yars...... (Eeek I sound like mi nan )

Cannot get HD working Corrupt sectors/blocks etc...

Never mind, soon my adaptor will arrive and I can put a old 3.5"er in there

[Amiga1992]

Err.. be careful with that.. I have an ULTRA SLIM 3.5 incher in there... Anything thicker WONT FIT.

You'll have to leave the HD outside with a cable lying fom inside yoru Amiga.

Or do the right thing and put it in a tower for good

[Miggy2TheMax]

Wow Jim, you almost covered 400km for you miggy, good stuff. I know the feeling when getting amiga hardware .. its great fun, keep us posted on your 1200 adventures!

[Bloodwych]

Originally posted by Akira
Err.. be careful with that.. I have an ULTRA SLIM 3.5 incher in there... Anything thicker WONT FIT.

You'll have to leave the HD outside with a cable lying fom inside yoru Amiga.

Or do the right thing and put it in a tower for good

Akira's right, but there is a way to make standard height 3.5" HD fit but it involves cutting away some of the metal shielding near the power connector.

I've done this mod and it caused no problems while fitting my old 360MB HD.

I've now replaced this however with an ultra slim 3.5" 1.2GB drive. Seagate are the only manufacturers to make these and they can be found occasionally on e-bay.

Another word of warning. Some 3.5" HD's require more power than the shite white brick A1200 power supply can produce. The only way to know for sure is to either test or, like I did, compare the current requirements of the HD (from the manufacturers site) to those printed on the base of the white brick. In most case you should be fine - it's usually setups with power hungry accelerators combined with extra disk drives that need more juice.

If money is no problem then just fit a 2.5" drive to avoid problems.

Originally posted by Bloodwych
There is a way to make standard height 3.5" HD fit but it involves cutting away some of the metal shielding near the power connector.

Yep, I know about this one, and after the problems this Miggy caused me over the last few days I'll enjoy getting my chainsaw out and giving her a good cut Bitch

At the end of the day I couldn't care about the case as sometime this year she will be locked away in a tower.

A link showing which bit to cut would be a great help - does this cause overheating probs or anything ?

I have my old heavy-style A500 power adaptor, plus some strange black looking black power adaptor that came with the A1200. Is this black one the standard A1200 one ? At the moment I'm using my old A500 one.

[Bloodwych]

Don't know of a link, but it's pretty obvious what needs hacking when you open up the A1200. You'll need to remove the entire shield assembly in order to go to work and it's painful seeing the A1200 in several bits. But hey, all fun right?

No problems with the shielding removed. It's been gone for 6+ years now without issues.

Have no idea what that black thing is. The old heavy A500 PSU's are great! They have more current on the rails and I can safely say you'll have no power issues at all with 3.5" drives.

[Daz]

The Black brick's probably a CD32 PSU