New owner of an A1200

banedon · 29 April 2015, 23:34

Hi guys

I'm the proud new owner of an Amiga 1200 (which I got off of ebay).

I've already added a 4GB CF hard drive. However, I'd like some advice on further upgrades.

Would anyone mind answering a few questions?

1) Is it practical and desirable to add a SATA SSD?
2) Is there an easy way of upgrading the RAM from the inbuilt 2MB without adding an accelerator card? If so how can you do ths cheaply?
3) How easy is it interface to HDMI without going though a SCART to HDMI converter
4) Does adding a kickstart ROM switcher so that I can use Kickstart 1.3 offer any real benefit for running older amiga games designed for the A500?
5) Can you use a commodore 64 joystick with an Amiga 1200?
6) Any other advice welcome!

Michael Sykes · 29 April 2015, 23:52

1) A SD-card to IDE adapter is just fine imho.
2) Yes - but I would get a ACA 1220/16 128 MB for ~90$.
3) DVI supports VGA so you could solder an adapter but Indivision AGA MK2 has DVI out.
4) I would use WHDLoad once I have a HDD(sata or not) but you will still need a kick1.3 image.
5) YES
6) Have fun ... :-D

fitzsteve · 30 April 2015, 00:14

Michael Sykes pretty much has you covered here.

There's really no need to use a SATA SSD though, you wont gain any of the speed benefits, Amiga IDE is capable of up to about 2.5mb/sec and even then cheapest CF cards can do this speed no problems.

There are some IDE SSD's if you're worried about the life of a CF card used as a Hard Drive, Kingspec make a selection and I've used and found them to work well on Amiga's. However personally just stick with the CF card, if you find 4gb to be too small you could opt for an 8gb or even 16gb CF or explore the SSD at that stage.

The ACA's are great cards but you might need to have timing fixes done to your A1200, just som,ething to bare in mind. You wont need this for the Blizzard 020/030 cards or bog standard Ram upgrades, I'd agree though that by the time you pay £60-70 for a Ram card you might as well put the extra towards an ACA or similar.

You can use Relokick to run older floppy based games but I doubt you'll ever want to once you get WHDLoad up and running which includes fixes for all the old classic's to run on your A1200 (extra memory needed)

Oh and have Fun

NovaCoder · 30 April 2015, 01:57

First off...congrats!

The A1200 makes a great little retro computer

The other guys have covered everything so I'll just add that you have two basic choices to make either

A) An HD + WHDLOAD + some additional memory (even 4 MB FASTRAM is enough for most games)
B) A Floppy emulator like the Gotek

If you are going for a HD then I can also recommend those little Kingspec HD modules, they just clip straight onto your motherboard pins without the need of any kind of adapter (neat).

I personally wouldn't bother with a ROM switcher. My A1200 doesn't use the 3.1 ROMS it has installed, instead I soft kick (patched) 3.1 ROMS

For the best picture quality with games, you are better off trying to find a TV that supports SCART.

Using a SCART to HDMI generic converter gives mixed results....I brought a couple as an experiment and couldn't even get a picture to display!

The other option (as already mentioned) is an Indy AGA Mrk2 which has native DVI/HDMI output which is very impressive but in some ways a TV/Monitor with built in SCART is still the best choice.

nogginthenog · 30 April 2015, 20:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

There's really no need to use a SATA SSD though, you wont gain any of the speed benefits, Amiga IDE is capable of up to about 2.5mb/sec and even then cheapest CF cards can do this speed no problems.

I recently bought a CF<>IDE adapter for my A4000 and I am getting pretty much 2.5mb/sec. The nice thing is that it's *silent*. After I replaced the fan in the power supply my Amiga is quieter than my PC.

Here's what I have. Cost £11.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0026OYEEQ

I have a '060 CyberStorm with SCSI which gets around double the speed but I'm really impressed with the CF adapter.

Jope · 01 May 2015, 10:27

CyberSCSI + SCSIDE + a fast cf card = mmm.

Paul_s · 01 May 2015, 15:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by banedon

1) Is it practical and desirable to add a SATA SSD?

Overkill. A cheap 2.5" HDD is fine (prefer that over a CF or SD card personally)

Quote:

Originally Posted by banedon

2) Is there an easy way of upgrading the RAM from the inbuilt 2MB without adding an accelerator card? If so how can you do ths cheaply?

You could add more RAM via the PCMCIA port (2MB or 4MB cards come up quite often on eBay) although a RAM card via the trapdoor slot will offer better performance.

banedon · 01 May 2015, 21:12

Thanks for the responses, guys - very helpful

.

I'll stick the CF card for now and have a think on whether to replace it with a standard HDD. One think I like about the CF card is that you don't have to worry about trashing the drive if you move it while access is taking place.

Ideally, I'd love to go for an accelerator card, but at the moment I'm destitute... at least until pay day! So I've been having a look around to see if there is a cheaper trap door upgrade available, but cannot seem to find one (at least on ebay).

BTW, if my understanding is correct I should be able to install WHDload with a Kickstart 1.3 ROM image and I should be able to play Amiga 500 games?

Paul_s · 07 May 2015, 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by banedon

Thanks for the responses, guys - very helpful

.

I'll stick the CF card for now and have a think on whether to replace it with a standard HDD. One think I like about the CF card is that you don't have to worry about trashing the drive if you move it while access is taking place.

Ideally, I'd love to go for an accelerator card, but at the moment I'm destitute... at least until pay day! So I've been having a look around to see if there is a cheaper trap door upgrade available, but cannot seem to find one (at least on ebay).

BTW, if my understanding is correct I should be able to install WHDload with a Kickstart 1.3 ROM image and I should be able to play Amiga 500 games?

I've never used WHDload but they are 'fixed' to work with any version of KS I believe... give it a try

There can be a plethora of causes why some games may or may not work on various models of Amiga's (it's usually caused by the original coding).

Jope · 08 May 2015, 12:09

WHDLoad has requirements for itself.. 1.3 is not supported.

http://whdload.de/docs/en/need.html

banedon · 12 May 2015, 23:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jope

WHDLoad has requirements for itself.. 1.3 is not supported.

http://whdload.de/docs/en/need.html

What I intended to say was that : can I play games whch require kick start 1.3

Michael Sykes · 13 May 2015, 00:34

Yes! WHDLoad itself does not work on KS1.3(e.g. A500) but games that need kick1.3 work fine if you run them in WHDLoad on an A1200.

Jope · 13 May 2015, 08:24

Indeed, that is one of the whole reasons why WHDLoad exists. You will need an image of the 1.3 ROM as a file in devs:kickstarts for some slaves. Read the manuals + readmes, it'll help. :-)

banedon · 13 May 2015, 20:06

Thought as much. Thanks for confirming that for me

.
I just need to purchase an accelerator card for my A1200 and I'm good to go (got WHDload and CF drive already

)

[edit] Just purchased a 40MHZ accelarator with 128MB RAM: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...oducts_id=1207
Just got to wait for it to arrive!

Zooup1972 · 13 May 2015, 20:45

Have a look at these workbench packs
Highly recommend these http://classicwb.abime.net

banedon · 13 May 2015, 21:33

Thanks Zooup. I've grabbed a copy of the lite version of WB Classic already. Although once the acc.card arrives I'll be able to download the full version hopefully. Looking forward to playing some classic games such as Champions fo Krynn, Silkworm, etc.!

Michael Sykes · 14 May 2015, 00:13

This card is a good choice. It will feel like a new system once you plug it in.
The good old Workbench will feel so much more responsive. The maprom feature and the fastes fastram ever will make anything fly.And thanks to WHDLoad you will have practicaly no loading time. Wich sucks if you have to pee and the game has no pause key.

banedon · 15 May 2015, 20:50

The card has arrived and been fitted. Looking good so far: I've played a number of games and they run fine apart from a lemmings locking up once (the amiga was ok - just the game locked up).

I've got the real time clock module and kickstart 3.1 roms on their way. Hopefully they'll arrive tomorrow

.

Retrofan · 15 May 2015, 20:58

We also like to see photos of the setups... your man's cave

banedon · 15 May 2015, 23:51

I'll take a few photos tomorrow, although I haven't got any space on my desk to fit the A1200 at the moment (serious clear up needed!

).

29 April 2015, 23:34	#1
banedon Registered User Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Portsmouth / UK Posts: 25	New owner of an A1200 Hi guys I'm the proud new owner of an Amiga 1200 (which I got off of ebay). I've already added a 4GB CF hard drive. However, I'd like some advice on further upgrades. Would anyone mind answering a few questions? 1) Is it practical and desirable to add a SATA SSD? 2) Is there an easy way of upgrading the RAM from the inbuilt 2MB without adding an accelerator card? If so how can you do ths cheaply? 3) How easy is it interface to HDMI without going though a SCART to HDMI converter 4) Does adding a kickstart ROM switcher so that I can use Kickstart 1.3 offer any real benefit for running older amiga games designed for the A500? 5) Can you use a commodore 64 joystick with an Amiga 1200? 6) Any other advice welcome!

29 April 2015, 23:52	#2
Michael Sykes WinUAE end user Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Bremen Age: 44 Posts: 649	1) A SD-card to IDE adapter is just fine imho. 2) Yes - but I would get a ACA 1220/16 128 MB for ~90$. 3) DVI supports VGA so you could solder an adapter but Indivision AGA MK2 has DVI out. 4) I would use WHDLoad once I have a HDD(sata or not) but you will still need a kick1.3 image. 5) YES 6) Have fun ... :-D Last edited by Michael Sykes; 30 April 2015 at 00:21.

30 April 2015, 01:57	#4
NovaCoder Registered User Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Melbourne/Australia Posts: 4,418	First off...congrats! The A1200 makes a great little retro computer The other guys have covered everything so I'll just add that you have two basic choices to make either A) An HD + WHDLOAD + some additional memory (even 4 MB FASTRAM is enough for most games) B) A Floppy emulator like the Gotek If you are going for a HD then I can also recommend those little Kingspec HD modules, they just clip straight onto your motherboard pins without the need of any kind of adapter (neat). I personally wouldn't bother with a ROM switcher. My A1200 doesn't use the 3.1 ROMS it has installed, instead I soft kick (patched) 3.1 ROMS For the best picture quality with games, you are better off trying to find a TV that supports SCART. Using a SCART to HDMI generic converter gives mixed results....I brought a couple as an experiment and couldn't even get a picture to display! The other option (as already mentioned) is an Indy AGA Mrk2 which has native DVI/HDMI output which is very impressive but in some ways a TV/Monitor with built in SCART is still the best choice. Last edited by NovaCoder; 30 April 2015 at 03:24.

13 May 2015, 20:06	#14
banedon Registered User Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Portsmouth / UK Posts: 25	Thought as much. Thanks for confirming that for me . I just need to purchase an accelerator card for my A1200 and I'm good to go (got WHDload and CF drive already ) [edit] Just purchased a 40MHZ accelarator with 128MB RAM: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...oducts_id=1207 Just got to wait for it to arrive! Last edited by banedon; 13 May 2015 at 20:26. Reason: additional information

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30 April 2015, 00:14	#3
fitzsteve Professional slacker! Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Kent, UK Age: 44 Posts: 6,685	Michael Sykes pretty much has you covered here. There's really no need to use a SATA SSD though, you wont gain any of the speed benefits, Amiga IDE is capable of up to about 2.5mb/sec and even then cheapest CF cards can do this speed no problems. There are some IDE SSD's if you're worried about the life of a CF card used as a Hard Drive, Kingspec make a selection and I've used and found them to work well on Amiga's. However personally just stick with the CF card, if you find 4gb to be too small you could opt for an 8gb or even 16gb CF or explore the SSD at that stage. The ACA's are great cards but you might need to have timing fixes done to your A1200, just som,ething to bare in mind. You wont need this for the Blizzard 020/030 cards or bog standard Ram upgrades, I'd agree though that by the time you pay £60-70 for a Ram card you might as well put the extra towards an ACA or similar. You can use Relokick to run older floppy based games but I doubt you'll ever want to once you get WHDLoad up and running which includes fixes for all the old classic's to run on your A1200 (extra memory needed) Oh and have Fun

01 May 2015, 10:27	#6
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,915	CyberSCSI + SCSIDE + a fast cf card = mmm.

01 May 2015, 21:12	#8
banedon Registered User Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Portsmouth / UK Posts: 25	Thanks for the responses, guys - very helpful . I'll stick the CF card for now and have a think on whether to replace it with a standard HDD. One think I like about the CF card is that you don't have to worry about trashing the drive if you move it while access is taking place. Ideally, I'd love to go for an accelerator card, but at the moment I'm destitute... at least until pay day! So I've been having a look around to see if there is a cheaper trap door upgrade available, but cannot seem to find one (at least on ebay). BTW, if my understanding is correct I should be able to install WHDload with a Kickstart 1.3 ROM image and I should be able to play Amiga 500 games?

08 May 2015, 12:09	#10
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,915	WHDLoad has requirements for itself.. 1.3 is not supported. http://whdload.de/docs/en/need.html

13 May 2015, 00:34	#12
Michael Sykes WinUAE end user Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Bremen Age: 44 Posts: 649	Yes! WHDLoad itself does not work on KS1.3(e.g. A500) but games that need kick1.3 work fine if you run them in WHDLoad on an A1200.

13 May 2015, 08:24	#13
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,915	Indeed, that is one of the whole reasons why WHDLoad exists. You will need an image of the 1.3 ROM as a file in devs:kickstarts for some slaves. Read the manuals + readmes, it'll help. :-)

13 May 2015, 20:45	#15
Zooup1972 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2014 Location: Doncaster Posts: 22	Have a look at these workbench packs Highly recommend these http://classicwb.abime.net

13 May 2015, 21:33	#16
banedon Registered User Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Portsmouth / UK Posts: 25	Thanks Zooup. I've grabbed a copy of the lite version of WB Classic already. Although once the acc.card arrives I'll be able to download the full version hopefully. Looking forward to playing some classic games such as Champions fo Krynn, Silkworm, etc.!

14 May 2015, 00:13	#17
Michael Sykes WinUAE end user Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Bremen Age: 44 Posts: 649	This card is a good choice. It will feel like a new system once you plug it in. The good old Workbench will feel so much more responsive. The maprom feature and the fastes fastram ever will make anything fly.And thanks to WHDLoad you will have practicaly no loading time. Wich sucks if you have to pee and the game has no pause key.

15 May 2015, 20:50	#18
banedon Registered User Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Portsmouth / UK Posts: 25	The card has arrived and been fitted. Looking good so far: I've played a number of games and they run fine apart from a lemmings locking up once (the amiga was ok - just the game locked up). I've got the real time clock module and kickstart 3.1 roms on their way. Hopefully they'll arrive tomorrow .

15 May 2015, 20:58	#19
Retrofan Ruler of the Universe Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Lanzarote/Spain Posts: 6,195	We also like to see photos of the setups... your man's cave

15 May 2015, 23:51	#20
banedon Registered User Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Portsmouth / UK Posts: 25	I'll take a few photos tomorrow, although I haven't got any space on my desk to fit the A1200 at the moment (serious clear up needed! ).

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