Rebuilt A1200

Aus1200 · 12 April 2008, 14:08

Got the Amiga bug and brought a second hand (or third, seems to have had a hard life) A1200. Spent the past couple of weekends rebuilding it. Out went the yellowed case, on went the tidier, and Commodore badged case. Out went the original (and still working) Seagate 40MB hard drive, in went a IDE-CF card adapter with 1GB card. Out went the 3.0 ROMs, on went the 3.1 ROMs. Sadly the Workbench 3.1 floppy was crapped out, but got bit of a Workbench 3.1 setup on it.

Anyway, this weekend managed to get a working WB 3.1 disk and do a proper installation of WB 3.1 on it. Then got a PCMCIA CF card adapter working with it (thanks to the sticky thread in the hardware forum) and installed a few things, including Classic WB Lite. Sadly no expansion in it yet, either too expensive or too rare in Australia. Want to get a nice 030 expansion for it.

Photos show in order of work done to it, left to right. Even though the floppy drive looks pretty smashed up, it still works fine. I don't know what the previous owner was doing with it.

Zetr0 · 12 April 2008, 14:19

@AUS1200

good work sir!

I love a good recovery story!!!

other than an 030, have you any more plans for it, like a Optical drive mod?

I have been toying with building a couple of external SATA ports converted over to IDE... it should work, and lookie nice too

Aus1200 · 12 April 2008, 14:24

Now what issues did I have? A few.

Firstly no DD disks. Luckily at work there was a cabinet full of old disk based software. And a ton of old Apple software on DD disks. Thanks Apple

Secondly was having a PC with a floppy disk drive to format the disks in so I could copy basic stuff between the PC and A1200. A really old laptop I had still worked, had USB, so I could copy programs from my main PC to it, then onto floppy.

Next was the lack of CrossDOS on the A1200, due to the incomplete WB 3.1 install. Thankfully I had the original WB3.0 disks, which worked, and grabbed the CrossDOS stuff off it.

After getting the PCMCIA CF card reader stuff on the A1200, I had issues with HDToolbox, which recognised the main 1GB CF card as the old 40MB HDD, but still gave me a gig of space. Updating HDTB with its patch off Aminet finally got the OS to recognise the CF HD as DH0.

Next step will be working out the mysteries of WHDLoader...

Aus1200 · 12 April 2008, 14:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@AUS1200

good work sir!

I love a good recovery story!!!

other than an 030, have you any more plans for it, like a Optical drive mod?

I have been toying with building a couple of external SATA ports converted over to IDE... it should work, and lookie nice too

I don't know about a CD Drive. I think I'll stick with WB 3.1/Classic WB on it, rather than going to 3.5. I prefer to keep the case looking as standard as possible, without hacking holes into it for CD Drives.

I'd love to get an internal scan doubler for it, but who doesn't?

Maybe will get my PCMCIA wireless network card running with it one day as well.

Bloodwych · 12 April 2008, 17:25

Nice work and you said the 030 expansion would be the icing on the cake, but they are getting quite rare.

Those internal flash hard drives are just the best!

mfilos · 12 April 2008, 18:51

I don't know if you can hurry enough...

Check here

Yesterday it had Blizzard 030 on stock... Today only Viper! lol

Aus1200 · 13 April 2008, 05:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bloodwych

Nice work and you said the 030 expansion would be the icing on the cake, but they are getting quite rare.

Those internal flash hard drives are just the best!

Yeah, I have a friend who is a big Amiga fanatic with one heavily upgraded 1200 and a similar upgraded 1200 Tower and loves rubbing it into my face about his 030 and 040(I think) he has.

Love the flash drive, the A1200 is dead quiet. The converter unit has a LED on it whenever there is data access, I must find a way of removing it and tapping the lines from the original HDD LED on the case to it.
Check here

Yesterday it had Blizzard 030 on stock... Today only Viper! lol[/quote]
Yes, saw that, but a wee bit expensive for my tastes. Especially when it comes to shipping huge distances as well.

klx300r · 13 April 2008, 15:27

excellent job

now you just need a Blizzard 030@50 with 32MB ram and we will have the same system

klx300r · 13 April 2008, 15:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aus1200

Love the flash drive, the A1200 is dead quiet. The converter unit has a LED on it whenever there is data access, I must find a way of removing it and tapping the lines from the original HDD LED on the case to it.
Check here
.

let me know if you get this going as I have a 2GB CF HD working great in my machine but it would be awesome if the LED worked

Zetr0 · 13 April 2008, 17:27

@klx300r

theres a Thread by Aminos of how to simply hack the CF cards so that they signal activity

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=35893

its subtle.... I LIKE IT!

klx300r · 13 April 2008, 18:26

@ Zetr0

thanks dude..you the man

Aus1200 · 14 April 2008, 02:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by klx300r

let me know if you get this going as I have a 2GB CF HD working great in my machine but it would be awesome if the LED worked

There is a very small LED on my adapter, one of those really flat ones, so I would need to desolder it and solder the wires from the HD LED to it. I think it would be a bit messy to do, and really don't want to break it

Zetr0 · 14 April 2008, 03:28

@Aus1200,

have a lookie at the link i posted previously... its only a small solder job on the adapter.

very simple, but very effective!

Aus1200 · 15 April 2008, 05:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@Aus1200,

have a lookie at the link i posted previously... its only a small solder job on the adapter.

very simple, but very effective!

Thanks for that

Fingerlickin_B · 15 April 2008, 05:16

Very nice man

Just make sure you put something under that CF adaptor so it doesn't short out on the old HDD cradle!

PZ.

Aus1200 · 16 April 2008, 04:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fingerlickin_B

Very nice man

Just make sure you put something under that CF adaptor so it doesn't short out on the old HDD cradle!

PZ.

I have, it has a heap of thick double sided tape

Fingerlickin_B · 16 April 2008, 09:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aus1200

I have, it has a heap of thick double sided tape

Just like the one in my tower...that stuff rocks man!

OZ.

01 June 2008, 22:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aus1200

Out went the yellowed case, on went the tidier, and Commodore badged case.....

....Even though the floppy drive looks pretty smashed up, it still works fine. I don't know what the previous owner was doing with it.

Judging by the amount of yellowing, I'd say they were a heavy smoker that smashed the thing about alot - gezz!

Cerberus73 · 02 June 2008, 23:44

Very nice, in middle of a rebuild of my uk made 1200 at mo (made in irvine scotland, being a scot this is something im proud of, my other 3 1200's are all philipino made) Aus 1200 im lucky cos i have a couple of 030 Blizzard boards, gonna get a PCMCIA CF Dongle, for sticking the Games on. either that or ive a 20GB 2.5HDD laying around from my old ibook. (my 1200 does have a 172mb hdd in it, but this is way to small) my new keyboard from amigakit just came and im finishing the respray of my case, hell im a perfectionist to detial to point of being anal about it. im gonna recycle the small HDD into my good original nick 600, this should be enough to hold a few games and whatnots.

Next up is to get a IDE64 for my C 64 so i can dump all the games onto a CF card for that, and im looking for a good nick 1541 Mk II disk drive for my little 8 bit baby. if anybody has one in good nick gimme a pm!

03 June 2008, 01:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cerberus73

....in middle of a rebuild of my uk made 1200 at mo (made in irvine scotland, being a scot this is something im proud....

Looking forward to hearing more about your rebuild, post piccys when ready!

UPDATED:
If you go here for a Mk I 1541 Drive:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...ksid=p3907.m29

and here for a Mk II 1541 Drive:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Commodore-C64-...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Commodore-64-1...QQcmdZViewItem

and here for the manual:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Lot-Commodore-...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-Commodore-...QQcmdZViewItem

and more:
http://search.ebay.co.uk/1541-Drive_...dZp1638Q2em120

and then here for something completely different:
[ Show youtube player ]

12 April 2008, 14:08	#1
Aus1200 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Australia Posts: 19	Rebuilt A1200 Got the Amiga bug and brought a second hand (or third, seems to have had a hard life) A1200. Spent the past couple of weekends rebuilding it. Out went the yellowed case, on went the tidier, and Commodore badged case. Out went the original (and still working) Seagate 40MB hard drive, in went a IDE-CF card adapter with 1GB card. Out went the 3.0 ROMs, on went the 3.1 ROMs. Sadly the Workbench 3.1 floppy was crapped out, but got bit of a Workbench 3.1 setup on it. Anyway, this weekend managed to get a working WB 3.1 disk and do a proper installation of WB 3.1 on it. Then got a PCMCIA CF card adapter working with it (thanks to the sticky thread in the hardware forum) and installed a few things, including Classic WB Lite. Sadly no expansion in it yet, either too expensive or too rare in Australia. Want to get a nice 030 expansion for it. Photos show in order of work done to it, left to right. Even though the floppy drive looks pretty smashed up, it still works fine. I don't know what the previous owner was doing with it. Attached Thumbnails

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12 April 2008, 14:19	#2
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 49 Posts: 9,768	@AUS1200 good work sir! I love a good recovery story!!! other than an 030, have you any more plans for it, like a Optical drive mod? I have been toying with building a couple of external SATA ports converted over to IDE... it should work, and lookie nice too

12 April 2008, 14:24	#3
Aus1200 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Australia Posts: 19	Now what issues did I have? A few. Firstly no DD disks. Luckily at work there was a cabinet full of old disk based software. And a ton of old Apple software on DD disks. Thanks Apple Secondly was having a PC with a floppy disk drive to format the disks in so I could copy basic stuff between the PC and A1200. A really old laptop I had still worked, had USB, so I could copy programs from my main PC to it, then onto floppy. Next was the lack of CrossDOS on the A1200, due to the incomplete WB 3.1 install. Thankfully I had the original WB3.0 disks, which worked, and grabbed the CrossDOS stuff off it. After getting the PCMCIA CF card reader stuff on the A1200, I had issues with HDToolbox, which recognised the main 1GB CF card as the old 40MB HDD, but still gave me a gig of space. Updating HDTB with its patch off Aminet finally got the OS to recognise the CF HD as DH0. Next step will be working out the mysteries of WHDLoader...

12 April 2008, 17:25	#5
Bloodwych Moderator Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: I'm behind you! Posts: 3,763	Nice work and you said the 030 expansion would be the icing on the cake, but they are getting quite rare. Those internal flash hard drives are just the best!

12 April 2008, 18:51	#6
mfilos Paranoid Amigoid Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Athens/Greece Age: 45 Posts: 1,978	I don't know if you can hurry enough... Check here Yesterday it had Blizzard 030 on stock... Today only Viper! lol

13 April 2008, 15:27	#8
klx300r Registered User Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,593	excellent job now you just need a Blizzard 030@50 with 32MB ram and we will have the same system

13 April 2008, 17:27	#10
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 49 Posts: 9,768	@klx300r theres a Thread by Aminos of how to simply hack the CF cards so that they signal activity http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=35893 its subtle.... I LIKE IT!

13 April 2008, 18:26	#11
klx300r Registered User Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,593	@ Zetr0 thanks dude..you the man

14 April 2008, 03:28	#13
Zetr0 Ya' like it Retr0? Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: United Kingdom Age: 49 Posts: 9,768	@Aus1200, have a lookie at the link i posted previously... its only a small solder job on the adapter. very simple, but very effective!

15 April 2008, 05:16	#15
Fingerlickin_B Amiga Nut Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Belco, Australia Posts: 2,242	Very nice man Just make sure you put something under that CF adaptor so it doesn't short out on the old HDD cradle! PZ.

02 June 2008, 23:44	#19
Cerberus73 Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Location: Aberdeen / Scotland Posts: 66	Very nice, in middle of a rebuild of my uk made 1200 at mo (made in irvine scotland, being a scot this is something im proud of, my other 3 1200's are all philipino made) Aus 1200 im lucky cos i have a couple of 030 Blizzard boards, gonna get a PCMCIA CF Dongle, for sticking the Games on. either that or ive a 20GB 2.5HDD laying around from my old ibook. (my 1200 does have a 172mb hdd in it, but this is way to small) my new keyboard from amigakit just came and im finishing the respray of my case, hell im a perfectionist to detial to point of being anal about it. im gonna recycle the small HDD into my good original nick 600, this should be enough to hold a few games and whatnots. Next up is to get a IDE64 for my C 64 so i can dump all the games onto a CF card for that, and im looking for a good nick 1541 Mk II disk drive for my little 8 bit baby. if anybody has one in good nick gimme a pm!

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