Amiga 1200 - What to do with it?

Hey all!

So, I've been sitting on an A1200 for the last 3 years. My general curiosity in Amiga is what led me to purchase it, after being on the opposing side of the Amiga/Atari wars of the late 80s and early 90s. Not that I didn't LIKE Amiga...I was just fully vested in the Atari platform back then (puts up bullet-proof shield). Anyways, I jumped head first into Amiga back when I first picked up the A1200 but wasn't able to do anything with it. Now, however, I'd like to get it upgraded somehow, at least to the point of being able to run a version of AmigaOS a bit more recent than 3.0.

Mind you, I'm not having any delusions of grandeur of running OS4 on it, as I believe any hardware upgrades to allow it to do so will be too expensive for me. Besides, I'd rather run OS4 on a sexy new system. :) I'd like to do a few basic things with it, like jump online, try new software, run a more recent OS, and basically experience the Amiga in the fullest, all while not breaking the bank with my purchases.

So...here's what I have so far. It's basically a stock Amiga 1200 with 2 MB of chip RAM, an 80 MB hard drive, and a bit of software pre-installed. It came with a memory expander with an FPU on it, but it doesn't work (had to remove it just to get the system to boot). How should I go about upgrading the RAM? Is it worth it to do so? What reasonably priced accelerators are available for it, if any? What free and commercial programs should I check out for it? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. :)

@Sauron

Well, you could always try to find a usergroup.

If you want help for your 'classic' you will not find
many here as this site is just to startup. Maybe you
could try amiga.org for the moment.

But stay on this site also, it will be better when more
people are getting in. And, pssst, dont tell anybody
about this site, it is still a secret. Ok?!

Oh, I know this site is brand new and all. I was invited here by someone, so I know it's still a secret and all. This particular forum was looking pretty bare, so I figured why not post this question here? I'll be trying on other sites as well, but anyone who could give me advice, feel free to pipe in here anyway. :)

@Sauron

Also, check out amigakit... They have a good service !

Towerised you A1200 would facilitate further upgrades, but the first thing you need to invest in is an accelerator cards, followed by a flicker/fixer (to use a normal monitor).

Once towerised you will need a KB and mouse adapter, Gfx card, Mediator (for example), but not necessary just yet.
To upgrade to AOS3.9, you will need 3.1 ROMs So it might be better improving your current Env with software "hacks" in the meantime if you don't have 3.1 ROMs... Like MagicMenus...

Jerry

Hi Sauron

I'd recommend getting yourself an 030 accelerator board at the very least, along with some extra memory.

My particular favourite combination is an A1200, with Blizzard or Viper 030/50MHz and some decent RAM, say 32 or 64MB?

I'm also a big fan of the PCMCIA CD-ROMs you can get, like the Q-Drive etc.

I find the towered A1200s a bit too hacky for my liking, particularly if you are transporting to a User group or something like that, since something always seems to get dislodged and you spend half an hour trying to put it all back together again

Anyways, have fun - the A1200 is, in my opinion, the best Amiga ever made and you'll have some good times with it.

If you have a PC, then an easy way to d/l files would be to get yourself an Amiga CD-ROM drive and use Aminet and then burn files to CD and transfer them over - I do this using my AmigaOne (or did until about 3 months ago).

OS recommendation: OS3.5 or 3.9.

Rude!

Get a tower!
Get a PPC-card with 060 processor
Get a PCI-bridge (like Mediator)
Get a gfx-card
Get a Soundcard
Get a network card
Install OS4 when it is released..

And have fun :)

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I think any PPC boards will run a bit outside of my budget. Besides, if I'm going to spend that much money on something, it may as well be put towards an A1.

I do have my eye on a 25Mhz 040 accelerator for the 1200. It's an Apollo 1240 with a 32MB SIMM installed on it. Can these be used in the standard expansion slot with the regular case, or do I need to stick the 1200 in a tower in order to use it? I'd much prefer keeping the A1200 case if at all possible, especially considering that the towers I've seen are all quite expensive.

Normaly you can fit any accelerationcards in the original case. Thats the point to it! BUT .. the 040 is known to be very hot, so you probably need a fan. Some people lift the bottom of the amiga a couple of cm from the table so air can circulate. If you get a 060 lifting is not needed, its not getting that hot.

My opinion is this. Getting a 030 is as good as getting a 040. Or spend some more money and get a 060. Its cooler, faster and you can run the latest scene-productions.

If your purpose is oldschool games, go for the 030. 040 is something between, and not as good as the 030 or 060. (i know I can be beaten for that oppinion).

Concerning different cards.. I would spend my money on a Phase5 card (Blizzard). Apollo migh be cheaper, but they dont last as long and have some compatible problems. Apollo is not as expandable as Phase5.

It all depends on what you want to do with yer A1200..

@Sauron
if the ppc is out of bugets range i recommend an 060 over the 040 heat is one reason but speed is another also try get scsi too its less cpu intrusive

Before you get anytning faster than a 030, please check out which rev. your mobo has.. 1d4 have known problems with accelerators with 040 and 060. There are plenty information on the net about it.

wow. a classic 1200. Remember getting mine off a friend of my brothers in '94 for $50 because he wanted a windows machine. I've upgraded the hell out of this thing, its really easy to do. The only problem I had was Amiga Hardware= Expensive, PC hardware (That can plug into some of the amiga hardware)= cheap. If you're wondering what all you can do with it after upgrage, I'll shamelessy promote my 1200 brag site screenshots. :D It's at http://www2.powercom.net/~watertonian/1200brag/index.html . I might have done such a good job bragging about my miggy you might have seen it b4, though. I run hardware that I would consider overkill for most Ami apps, though. Thats only because I like to play with emulators, though. (A few nice shots of Win95 and macos running simultaneously in windows on there, though that was taken back when I only had 16mb fast ram... I remember it being painful)

@kvasir

Yeah, I remember you bragging about your setup in IRC. :)

Well, I managed to order a few things for my A1200 already, although nothing extremely significant or expensive. I went browsing around on www.amigakit.com and ordered 3.1 ROMS, Workbench 3.1 disks, a PCMCIA CF card adapter, and a spiffy AOS4 mouse pad (gotta keep the priorities straight!). Next up, I'm hoping, is a relatively cheap accelerator!

@Kvasir:
As people noted, with a decent accelerator and more ram wou can get much more of it.
With a pcmcia network adapter you can hook it to broad-band Internet (I found one at EBay, won it for 1 GBP, the seller was so dissapointed by the low price that he threw in another car,without the cable though, both are 3com ). Then to get a decent bandwidth you'll need an accelerator. 68060 probably will require you getting a beefier PSU. One form A500 mught do it (afair it's 25W vs 23W on the original A1200's). 68060 rulez imho (no need for fan and faster).

And if you get clock-port prelude (not a must, but can be handy): you get 16-bit sound.

If you want a CD-rom - you'll need a buffered ide interface (Elbox have these afair), but you'll need a power supply for CD and there will be its data cable coming out of the cases of A1200. It 's not elegant but works (I had case of x386 hosting the 3.5'HD+CDROM left to the A1200 case for couple of years. PC power supply was feeding the A1200 --- there are lot of places you can find how to wire A1200 power connector to AT PSU)
More elegant solution: tower (don't get 2-nd hand Ateo one, in the long term it might prevent you from using Grexxes and Mediators).
But that's an investment (in long term allows to get much more that everything else available ATM)

An alternative to buffered ide interface: power-flyer-type interface (I hope my memory is ok regarding this).It doesn't work with Linux afair.


BTW:
Regarding memory expansion: I have a Microbotics one somewhere here, afair with 4Mb fast ram and fpu. If you intersted: feel free to PM/e-mail.

Jack.

Oops,
The previous os targeted to Sauron and not Kvasir, appologies.

Jack

Am i the last one who has an A1200 with an good old 68030 and 8MB Fast Ram? ;)

I have an Amiga 1200 with 030 .. using it for gaming and demos.

My kids use it alot to play superfrog, zool, hugo etc.

or just save your money and use the psu as a door stop and nail the 1200 to the wall as modern art

I did that with my A500, but my wife wasnt very happy about it ;)

I have been using my A500 recently.

I found my trusty old A1200 in the garage and was shocked to find it had turned a nasty yellow colour.
It looked like it has the Amiga equivilent of Liver schlerosis.

Does anyone know if or how it's possible to get rid of the yellow?

Its not the clothes thats make a man (or woman).. ;).. Nah! I dont know, I guess its the normal thing that happens when the plastic shell gets older..