A1200 upgrade suggestions sought.

[fishyfish]

I've never been the most decisive person. Coupled with it being a rare thing for me to have a little money to spend I can drive myself crazy trying to work out what to treat myself to.

I currently have an a1200+40mhz apollo '040 card, 32gig CF card (running off a1200 internal ide controller+cf adaptor card), and a pcmcia network card. Pretty basic/clean/simple type setup, and to be honest that's how I like it. I used to have a bppc+grex1200 system, and although I enjoyed it, the "frankenmiga" thing isnt really for me these days. I have a nice amithlon box for when Im chasing raw speed,rtg/rta, etc.

That said and done, what "simple" upgrades would people recommend for someone who wants a nice clean and tidy system, but (by 68k amiga standards) a little bit of kick to it?
Ive already got an 80mhz '060 card lined up, but apart from that I have maybe $300aud to spend.

Also, does anyone know if its possible to fit an apollo card that has had the extra simm socket fitted into an a1200 desktop case? I know people typically say no, but my a1200 has the trapdoor removed and its elevated about 3/4 inch (its sitting on a wooden board with a square cut out where the tradpoor is (and a few holes/tunnels drilled to allow air in/out)).

Thanks in advance.

[orange]

nice setup.
if you can't upgrade RAM anymore, I'd go for USB thingy or, perhaps better, Indivision.

[roy bates]

the question about the extra simm socket on a apollo card and fitting it in a desktop is simple,the snswer is no it wont fit with a simm in place,but...it will without a simm in the socket if that helps.

basicly if you dont mind losing 32mb of memory then your fine(the max it can have in one socket)

[fishyfish]

Ah, ok, great, and thanks.
Obviously Id prefer to be able to use the extra 32meg, but if not I can live without it. Gigamem usually works nicely for when I need more ram, and my amithlon box gets used pretty often for heavier stuff anyway.

USB, and some way to speed up drive access seem the most likely candidates for me to add, but I must admit to being a little lost when it comes to that sort of stuff. My old system had a pci bus, so my only experience with it isnt an option nowadays (used to use scsi card/drive for example).
I considered Indivision AGA mk2, but it seems so hit and miss that Im not willing to take the gamble. Cant say Im a big fan of Individual Computing's policy of, "release now, *maybe* fix/update later" either. Dont get me wrong, I think its great that theyre making new hardware for classic Amiga's, and a lot of their gear seems to be quite nice. I just dont have the money to be comfortable gambling on an Indivision.
Again though, anything I add I want to be able to fit and and cleanly inside my a1200 case.
Thanks.

[bbond007]

Originally Posted by fishyfish

I currently have an a1200+40mhz apollo '040 card, 32gig CF card (running off a1200 internal ide controller+cf adaptor card), and a pcmcia network card. Pretty basic/clean/simple type setup, and to be honest that's how I like it. I used to have a bppc+grex1200 system, and although I enjoyed it, the "frankenmiga" thing isnt really for me these days. I have a nice amithlon box for when Im chasing raw speed,rtg/rta, etc..

You said it, I had the same thing..."frankenmiga" , 603e240/060 first with ZIV anf CV64/3D then Bvision then later with grexx + voodoo III. The whole PowerUP vs WarpOS was turmoil, then later the no FusionPPC was a big fat disappointment.

This time around I have decided to keep it Desktop.I'm not really into big box PCs anymore. I'm all about external expansions. I bought a PAL NOS 1200 from Amigakit about 3 years ago. I have done some work with the dremel tool on the case, to add a lot of connectivity options. I also replaced UK the KB with a USA KB...

Right now I have it set up with:

4 USB ports via Subway
2 eSATA ports via a FastATA combined with dual SATA converter.
1 PS2 KB port via lyra
1 port HDMI via Kipper2K and Indivision AGA MK2

Inside for storage I have a 4GB Transcend Disk on Module.

For now, I'm going to unhook one of my external eSATA ports so I can put a 1.8" 32GB SSD internally. If I can find one of those IDE-> SATA things with a SLAVE setting, perhaps I could leave that port hot

For me the eSATA is the best upgrade you can do... I have an SATA SD card reader and its mad fast compared to subway. Same thing with the CD-ROM.