My A1200D Project

[phipscube]

So i've been busy beavering away for the last 4 months gathering parts for my A1200 Desktop and now i've decided to share what i've been doing and what I plan to do in time.

To start with I wanted to try and hack a slimline slot loading DVD drive into my A1200 and mount a 2.5" HDD underneath it, Its taken a fair bit of effort to accomplish but i've finally managed, and today I was happily pushing a CD into the back of my A1200 (AGA Experience Vol 3 if you must know) and it went in and was detected fine... I ejected... it came out.. and didn't scratch! Mission accomplished!








Here's my list of bits to put into my A1200D (and somehow make it all fit):-

DVD/HDD - Installed, finished! I made a custom IDE cable by hand that curls around nicely, it also powers the DVD drive through a FDD power connector wired to the +5V and Ground wires of the 44 pin IDE cable.



Blizzard PPC - From Stachu100, I bought one of his modded units with 060 @ 66Mhz (or 60 if the BVPPC doesn't play well) and PPC @ 330Mhz - Currently on its way, should be with me within the next week or so (Rubbing hands vigorously and cackling!)



BVision PPC - I've had this a while but can't do much with it yet Not tested either so hope it works when I plug it into my BPPC!! Will eventually have output to an auto switcher. I will mount a fan to the top of the case above the BVPPC to cool it down.



2 X 128MB SIMM's - For BPPC. Marked as 60ns but was told they may run ok at 50ns... lets see...



Indivision AGA 1200 - Installed and working fine, will eventually have the output going to an automatic video switcher along with BVPPC. For now the VGA connector is hanging out the rear and flopping around.



IDE Fix Express - Installed and mounted on top of the Indivision. My DVD and HDD are connected to it on Primary channel as Master and Slave. The Express adapter had been modified so that the DVD drive fit ok over the top. I moved the express jumpers underneath and removed the 10 pin header and soldered the ribbon cable underneath too.



4 Way clock port expander (thanks DJBase!) - I need to get my BVision mounted first before I install this properly, but I have soldered the ROM link directly to my mainboard to avoid rising my ROM chips.



Subway USB - hanging out the back at the moment, will at some point mount inside and connect to the expander.



Delfina Soundcard - Haven't got this working yet as it seems to be incomaptible with my temporary Accelerator (An M-Tec 1230/28 RTC). My machine simply doesn't boot at all when plugged in. If I take out the accelerator it boots but of course then my system fails with lack of RAM. I'm waiting for my BPPC to arrive from Stachu100 and hope it works better with that (Update: - It does work fine with it). I eventually plan to have this mounted inside under the keyboard and connected to the clock port expander.



USB to CF adapter - Will mount this above my PCMCIA and cut a slot, will connect to one of the subway ports.

USB to Ethernet - small cheapo Ethernet adapter that will connect to one of the subway ports - Plan to have it next to VGA port out the rear expansion port.



2 x USB ports - coming straight from the subway to the exterior of the case, possibly right hand side with hole cut (A600 Joystick port style)



2 X PSX joypad adapters - Plug into the 9 pin D at rear and allow playing with standard PSX pads, Playing Project X has hit a new level of awesome!



All this is powered by 360W ATX PSU (converted). But I do also plan at some point to hack a mATX psu into an A600 or 1200 PSU casing. I had ideas to put a Pico PSU in the Amiga, but I don't think it will fit, and possibly wont have enough juice to power all this - Hence I gave up with that idea

Lots of other little tweaks - For example, I have replaced all caps, and made a power extension from power connector to Floppy connector and floppy drive.

Software wise I have AmigaSYS4 AGA currently installed with OS3.9, but I recently bought OS 4 from Coze and plan to install that too. The first game I will run is of course Wipeout 2097, and make a video! (cheers ddni) My HDD is partitioned thus: -

900MB OS 3.9 - SFS
3.1 GB - ready for OS 4 - SFS
75GB - Programs - SFS. Plenty of space for whatever!

Anyway, enough of my babble! I will start by providing a link to my DVD hack project.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/106929...tLoadDVDDrive#

And my ongoing mods page is here: -

http://picasaweb.google.com/lrailton75/A1200Mods#

I will update as I progress,

Thanks for looking!

[Peter]

Bl**dy Hell - that slot DVD drive looks absolutely fantastic!!!

[fitzsteve]

Awsome work phipscube

[Allen1]

Very nice M8, the slot and button in the case is excellent, I would end up with half the casing missing if I attempted to cut out such a neat slot

[Djay]

i remember the first time i opened my first A1200, then overscrewed the casing back on and my A1200 ended up with nipples...

i have no problem ripping apart and building PCs... but i hold my breath opening up Amiga hardware... lol

awesome build btw... what are you doing with it once its completed?

[mfilos]

Outstanding work mate! Very professional way of putting the slot-in drive.
Cut seems like industrial - Nice handling of Dremel!

Keep us posted

[alexh]

Nice work.

Just make sure you get the cooling spot on with all this stuff. It is very expensive and not really intended for use in A1200D. If you cook it (which is very likely) you'll kick yourself.

[phipscube]

Thanks for the good words guys It has taken me many hours just to do this mod, and yesterday when I put in that CD, the satisfaction was through the roof. I've never felt so much joy in putting a CD in a drive HAHA!

Djay, Once (if) I do manage to finish this as I want, I mainly enjoy all sorts of random things with my Miggy. I like mega demos, so will probably watch a fair few of the PCC ones out there. I like emulation so will load MAME PPC up on it. Would like to try and get it online in OS4 especially, and maybe tinker with some of the programs that run in OS4. Try and play some games here and there (if they run ok) not sure if WHD load will run on such a machine... I dunno...Just generally mess around really The main thing for me is the hacking

mfilos - Seeing your custom A1200 was what inspired me to try, yours is uber awesome! Actually the dremel thing was messy, I was bricking it at one point because the blade kept jamming. In the end I cut well away from the line and decided to spend time with the file (much better control), some time and patience later and I had it how I wanted

Alexh - Yeah the cooling is something i'm thinking about alot, its puzzling thats for sure. I'm already facing a quite hot Indivision... I think I need a small fan near the HDD and Indi. I also think I need to split the IDE cable wires from the mainboard and try and run it in a bunch around the back end of the machine so the indi isnt covered. It gets hotter than I thought. I will be taking cooling a stage at a time. Will probably end up with a machine that sounds like a vaccum cleaner!

[phipscube]

Here's a few more random pics of things i've been tweaking: -

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/106929...552/A1200Mods#

And a video of my DVD drive in action: -

[ Show youtube player ]

[rkauer]

Again: ditch the f-word RF modulator and use the space for something more useful, like a small laptop fan (or for the USB sockets).

You'll not regret it.

[phipscube]

HAHA! you really hate that RF modulator rkauer... I will, and as soon as I do I'll video it going in the bin

Originally Posted by rkauer

Again: ditch the f-word RF modulator and use the space for something more useful, like a small laptop fan (or for the USB sockets).

You'll not regret it.

[Hewitson]

Wow. Where'd you get the DVD drive?

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Where'd you get the DVD drive?

Eh?? It looks just a standard laptop slot-loading IDE drive with an adapter on the back.

[phipscube]

The model is TEAC DV-W28SL. I got it off ebay, there are plenty on there, it costs about £40. You need a JAE to IDE adapter of course too

Also, i'm not sure if its my JAE adapter or the drive itself internally, but its set as a slave. At some point I may try and change it to a master and run it off the second IDE channel (If I ever decide to try burning discs for example).

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Wow. Where'd you get the DVD drive?

[rkauer]

Originally Posted by phipscube

HAHA! you really hate that RF modulator rkauer... I will, and as soon as I do I'll video it going in the bin

I don't hate it, but that bloody thing is anachronic and with no use at all nowadays, as all TV sets have at least composite video in (composhite?).

So that fugly thing becomes a waste of premium space inside the Amiga.

[Paul_s]

wow, love the cd mod, looks factory spec to me

RF modulator - off with its head!

[ck1200]

Again nice work there i've been doing some upgrades to my 1200 since joining will write about it soon

keep us updated

[kipper2k]

i got something that will take the place of the RF module quite nicely, pictures later

[phipscube]

Cheers Paul_s and ck1200, i'm looking forward to seeing what you've been up to with your Amiga ck1200

I just saw your SVideo adapter kipper2k it looks great but I don't really need SVideo Good luck with it though, I bet there are a few folks out there that will need it very much

The modulator is going to come out, and I think I need an exhaust fan in there. After about 30 mins of idling with the case on, the HDD and Indi are getting pretty darn hot. Problem now is I have lots of little things I want to do, but they rely on me fitting the BPPC so really looking forward to that getting here

Its the BVPPC's exact sitting position i'm needing, then I know how thick the top mount case fan can be over the heat sinks I have on the BVPPC, I can also mount the clock port expander, thus allowing me to see if I have enough room for the IDE fix to sit on the indi then I can see about slotting the Delfina under my keyboard and if it will boot with the BPPC.. and finally how the top mount fan works in tandem with an exhaust fan.. phew complicated!

some other niggles i'm seeing are that from cold boot, the indi screen comes up, but then on reset (to boot kickstart 3.9) it doesn't appear and the screen stays blank, my monitor isn't picking up the signal as its power led goes yellow. Once I do a soft reset everything is ok, and subsequent hard power off and on see it boot then reset and boot with the screen ok.. so its only a problem on the very first cold boot... weird.

Also, I get a yellow screen on power on at times (so the Amiga resets twice before finally booting) and also after some use and a soft reset the yellow screen pops up randomly. I think its my old crusty MTEC 1230 because when I take it out I don't get any yellow screen, I was wondering if the timing fix I did to my 1D4 could cause any issues with accelerators that don't necessarily need it. I know Apollo cards are bad and need the fix, but could doing the fix make others NOT work so well?

[phipscube]

No way! guess what already arrived!? Super WOOT!

Awesome service Stachu100!

Heres some pics: -