Hi returning to the amiga after a 10 year absence and need some advice.

Hi all first i have to say wow i cant beleive there is such a vibrant amiga comunity going i had no idea any one was even interested in them anymore.

Guess i should say a bit about my amiga background. In 1992 or 93 (not sure) my family got our fist computr when i was about seven an amiga 600!. I loved the computer and as my best friend had one as well we spent about 6 or seven years growing up playing games on them and sometimes fiddling with workbench. At the time neither of us had hard drives so it was always the eternal wait for discs to load.

The other day me and the same friend were taliking and decided we would set an amiga up in my front room to replay some of our old faves. My planis to get the following

An Amiga 1200
Instal a 4gb hard drive i have into it.
Get a scart lead from amiga kit to plug it into my tv.

Then i am going to get one of the pre made instal packs that included whd load and set it up.

My main questions are what do i need extra i am not completley up to speed with all the expansion options for the 1200. I will only be playing games that would have been playable on the 600 or 500 so it does not need to be super quick. Will a simple memory upgrade be enough.

Also how to i set this all up i have a 2.5 inch hard drive usb adapter so can i use that to set the hard disc up then copy the adf files over.

One last thing will a the rgb scart lead be enough to get a half decent picture through my scart enabled tv.

Advice much appreciated.

[Zetr0]

@clarkey

Hello there,

Welcome to the EAB, i am sure you will like it here, theres plenty of mischief to get up to


Sounds like a good plan, you have most of the necessary ingredients for major retr0-gaming action!

have a look at KG's WHDLoad packs

indeed.... i know what your thinking.... so many games.... so little time..... but hey its all good...

there is also the Lemon Amiga / EAB Super Games League... if you think you can bring it... have a look in the Games league forum

so lets look at your hardware questions.

SCART

there are many types of scart, namely we have Composite and RGB, now composite scart uses a composite signal carried on the scart lead (kinda sucky as your a1200 will already have composite out) what you need to get your mits on is an RGB scart cable. This will give you the best visual quality.

There is a project here, on the EAB, to develop SVideo adapter's so watch that space

MEMORY

now the basic A1200 would be okay for 99% of disk games, but if you want it all to be nice an usable for WHDLoad then some more memory really would be recommended as WHDLoad like to cache to RAM a lot... so even a 4MB would seriously help out.

While we mention this .... have a look around for Relo-Kick and install that this will prove very useful

HD INSTALLING

okay, this is going to be a little tricky,..... but not to hard.... there are some guides here, have a look here http://wiki.abime.net/



anyway... kick back relax, and catchup, theres plenty going on

[Pyromania]

Welcome back, enjoy the show!

[fc.studio]

Read my #4 post in this thread:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=31687

I remember you that an excellent cheap add-on is to add a PCMCIA adapter to read compact flash.

I sorry took awile to reply have not been nusy with work.

Cheers for the replys i think ill just go with a 1200 and extra memory as it should do what i need could somebody provide me with a link either ebay or a shop where i can get the right memory for thew 1200 as i am not sure what to buy.

One other thing i am going to get a hd ready i have a 4327mb one here most things state 4gigs or less will this be ok to use without having to hastle about to much?

Cheers

[smoorke]

http://shop.amigakit.com/

[Zetr0]

@clarkey

welcome back.

okay so if all you want is memory upgrade then something like the following is needed

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...MEWA:IT&ih=011

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...MEWA:IT&ih=009

now these particular memory cards can come in two flavour's which will decided their worth somewhat

some have an FPU (around the 33mhz) this is good if you use a lot of FPU needing aps like say Imagine Ray-tracing or Vista landscape generation but there are only a couple of games that use an FPU and in truth you would need a CPU upgrade to make it playable.

now with an FPU you should be looking around £35 (including postage) without say £25 . (all including 4-8MB ram)


NOW... there is a problem that you should be made aware of, these cards a NOT pcmcia friendly, so if you use more than 4MB of ram then you cannot use the PCMCIA port without serious problems... but most are selectable with jjumpers so its more of an inconvienence than a REAL problem...

NOW.... lets briefly talk REAL acceleration

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...MEWA:IT&ih=007

that is an Blizzard 030 upgrade, and depending on the revision will accept 32MB upto 128MB (and if you get the SCSI upgrade for it a further 128MB can be installed for a total of 256MB ram... wich is ... OMG )

the above sells for arround the £80 but you can play DOOM on your amiga... for that alone its worth hocking your grandma...

now heres the Daddy

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...MEWA:IT&ih=007

this is an 060 upgrade, and indeed its one of the best. upto 128MB of ram and again if the SCSI module is installed then that can be taken upto 256MB of ram.

however that kind of power is going to cost the better part of £200 if not more...

obviously there is more than just a financial price, there maybe and sometimes there will be incompatibility issues with some but very few software.. WHDLoad will negate some of these issues...

so there you go

happy shopping...

Ok thanks ill take a look over it. I think i will just go with memory but i may get an expansion card ill keep an eye on the auctions and see how high the prices go.

(one thing one of the memory options has two cards one has just one is there a difference?)

I will be able setting up a harddrive ready for the amiga in the next few days i have got win uae classic work bench lite and a set of 3.0 kickstart roms, the hd i am going to use is through a usb adapter so all i should need nopw is a copy of the workbench 3.0 adf files and im good to go yes?

Cheers for all the help i work in IT but working with old technology again can be confusing the archetecture of the amiga boards is strange when you dont understand it.

Cheers

[Adropac2]

I never really left the Amiga scene as i always had one setup for music.I would very occasionally jump back into a game but with my N64 hogging most of my time, my fun was always in Super Mario64 or Goldeneye at that point.

If it came down to a choice of owning just the one machine though, i would probably plump for the Amiga because i have such a fond regard for it.

I think it's safe to say that the Amiga touched a lot of hearts and will continue to have a healthy community.

I have just been looking at the classic wb lite instaler and noticed it does not include whd load.

Is it possible to instal whd load on a hd when it is being used through winuae how is whd load instaled as i cant seem to find a instalation guide do you mount it as a floppy and then instal it or is it simply copied to the hard drive ??

Thanks

[Zetr0]

@clarkey

either method would do to get it to the hard disk...

you may need to update the installer to installer 433 i think its called you can get it from http://www.guildserver.co.uk/kgwhd/ then lump it in c: directory.

you could mount the adf and then just copy it to a directory on the hard disk and then install it all back on the a1200

Ok cheers i will have a go at all this i just need to find a workbench adf as i dont have a floppy drive in my pc to put my originals in, then ill give it alll a go and see how i get on.

One more thing how does a hdd drive need to be formated before i can use it in winuae (it has been used by windows before)

[Zetr0]

okay,

before you get yourself into a pickle lets see if i can help a smidge...

firstly, Amiga disks cannot be read or written to by PC floppy drives, unless you have a catweasle pci card or some other fangled method. (believe me its fangled!)

now, lets assume you have all the things you need to install onto a hard drive using WinUAE..

Kickstart Rom (preferably 3.1)
Workbench ADF (again 3.1 is good)

now attache your harddrive to the IDE chain of your PC and then boot your computer....

now as its a PC formated disk we need to do the following...

in command line... (this is from memory so bare with me) change directory to the WinUAE directory in "c:\program files\winuae"

then type "winuae.exe -disablehaddrivesafetycheck"

WinUAE will boot and then complain a couple of times warning you about the fact the safety check is disable,...

NOW....

simpley put setup a simple AGA based machine with say 040+ JIT with say 8MB Fast ram 2 MB chip that should do...

now... in the floppy disk section add you workbench install adf to df0... then in the hard disk section add hard drive... you will likely get a warning again about the safety check...

now when the selector comes up SELECT the appropriate hard disk, there should be some label on it.... dont choose you PC's boot or other needed disk... this would be bad....

now when the selector asks, set this disk as Device HD0, VName: Work.

next thing to do is mount a directory on your PC as a hard disk... this allows you to run things like Classic workbench install ... so mount a directoy in a similar way above, call it HD1: store if you want

once you have selected you can save the setup config then click start...

WB install should boot

DH1(store) would be present.

from here, you need to run the program, HDInstall Tools, that is present on either the Workbench disk or the Install disk... once you have done this and all is good it will discover (hd0:Work) with luck it will populate all the information you need to continue....

anyway, there more on the wiki link i sent you about this so read up there, its simple as long as you dont rush it...

now once you have got the hard disk sorted you will need to reboot the Virtual Amiga... the hey-presto you have a Work Disk available... from here you can access the Classic Workbench installl from Store and when it asks, mount the appropriate workbench ADF disks (press F12)

okay that was a quick guide. the wiki would be more informative

[Bloodwych]

ClassicWB LITE does include WHDload and the latest installer.

It's just not guaranteed to run all WHDload games if you only have 2MB RAM.

[pbareges]

@zetro :

you don'T need 030 to play doom! i play it on my 1200 8mb fast with lot of fun! (not full screen for sure but medium size is really smooth enough with 8mb fast!)

@our new friend :

go at least for the 8mb fastram expansion...whdload preload option needs it for game with more than 3 disks! and also do not forget to register whdload because it'S WORTH IT and also it will improve your retro experience!

good luck!

Wow thanks zetro that is exactly the kind of guide i needed all kinda makes sense now (i think). Ill have a go at it this evening after work or tommoro ill let you know how i get on just need to sort out the amiga and memory now (the 1200 i had coming fell through) guess i better head over to ebay.

PS

Bloodwych thats great to know i didnt realise it did cheers!

[Merlin]

Hiya Clarkey

Welcome to EAB... there are loads of us on here who are only too glad to help you out.

Ebay prices for Amigas can be a little silly at times, it's also worth checking out your local Gumtree or Loot site, prices tend to be cheaper there

Also, keep an eye open for PCMCIA RAM cards, on the A600 and A1200 they are an easy way to add fast RAM, Zetr0 can advise on the right specs to look for.

A CF-PCMCIA adaptor is a must for transferring disk images, unless you plan to send ADF files to the Amiga via the serial port. The CF method is soooo much easier and 1Gb CF cards are cheap enough from 7DayShop or similar. Bear in mind that some larger accelerator upgrade boards that go in the trapdoor can disable the PCMCIA slot though.

Merlin

Also, check out Zetr0's Project A600, this shows what can be done and it works for A1200s too!!

[Zetr0]

@Merlin

thanks for the kudos my friend. and the A600+ project plug too...

I so need to update this... very bad me!!!! and definitely a good mention of PCMCIA memory cards I had forgot to mention them.. so great catch

one thing though... on the A1200 PCMCIA memory cards slowdown the processor a fair bit, in fact its quite noticeable but if you need memory and thats all that is available then there you go.. on the A600 PCMCIA memory cards wont slow down the CPU so its all a gain!

on a side note I am hoping to redesign the PAK68 / LUCAS 020@20/28mhz cpu upgrade projects for fitting inside an A600 / A500 and then with that a fast ram controller

[Graham Humphrey]

Also Zetr0 I must give you a (belated) thank you for the plug for the Games League. Again

(Tenner's in the post...)

[Zetr0]

@GH

its all for a good cause my friend... as will your tenner be.... mmm imma thinking... curry night....