Amiga Stuff

Purity

The Oracle
vacBacker
Feedback
17 (100%)
Credits
2,999CR
Anyone doing any Amiga stuff?

I'm just getting back into it after digging my A1200 out of the loft. Just trying to sort a Gotek drive out.

What are other peeps doing and what's your setup?
 

K1ngarth3r

Active member
Feedback
21 (100%)
Credits
820CR
Nothing for sale but my setup consists of:

Amiga 600 (The Wild, The Weird & The Wicked Pack)

Kickstart 2.05

ACA620 Accelerator (CPU MC68EC020 clocked at 16.67 MHz)
10.8MB Fast Ram

1MB RAM Expansion

16GB CF Internal HDD running Workbench / WHDLoad

4GB in the PCMCIA

External Floppy Drive

Philips CM8833-II monitor

Amiga 1200

DKB1202 40 MHz FPU with 8MB RAM

Kickstart 3.1 upgrade

16GB CF internal HDD running ClassicWB 3.1 / WHDLoad

Amiga 500 (Screen Gems Pack)

0.5mb RAM Expansion

Kickstart 1.3

A570 CD-ROM Add-On

Amiga 500+ (Cartoon Classics Pack)

Kickstart 2.00

K1ngarth3r2019-04-30 20:17:10
 

chadsarcade

Lord of Vectors (tm)
Feedback
11 (100%)
Credits
443CR
I've got:

Amiga 1200
120gb HDD
Apollo 030/40 32Mb RAM
Custom kickstart
External Gotek as DF1
4Gb CF card for file transfers
ParNet cable

Amiga 500 rev5
0.5mb ram card
Kickstart 1.3/3.1 keyboard selectable via my own design switcher

Amiga 1200
80Gb HDD
KS3.1
ACA1221ec 020/42MHz/16Mb ram

CDTV
External black Gotek
Savyna 68k IDE/8Mb ram
8Gb CF card as an HDD
KS1.3/3.1 selectable via a switch
Boots from the CF card under 3.1 or the CD/floppy under 1.3
I have a SCSI card for it but it's unbuilt at present.

chadsarcade2019-04-26 06:13:30
 

grobda

"Look at the size of that thing!"
vacBacker
Feedback
7 (100%)
Credits
1,060CR
gotek floppy is fine for an a500 but the a1200 is capable of much better, although will need some extra memory to run a lot of whdload games.

I went with an individual computers aca1221 accelerator (28mhz, 63mb ram iirc) and use cf cards and a pcmcia adaptor to transfer files to the hard disk.

Previously just used an 8mb trapdoor ram upgrade but became hungry for more power.

sadly prices seem to have gone up a lot for accelerators and many are no longer available :(

i've still got the 8mb upgrade somewhere, though it was a bit flaky at times - needed seating just so to work reliably.
 

chadsarcade

Lord of Vectors (tm)
Feedback
11 (100%)
Credits
443CR
swisstoni said:
Sorry to jump on this thread, could anyone recommend a good cheap accelerator for the 1200.

Accelerators from back in the day fetch silly money on eBay.

The ACA series are good value if you can find one, they provide good performance given they often just use 020 processors. They're over clockable via software so if you get lucky you can run them pretty fast, my 1221ec runs fine at 42mhz and workbench is as snappy as with my Apollo 030/40. Drive access speed is a bottleneck to bear in mind.
 

keropi

User
Feedback
8 (100%)
Credits
89CR
like other said before me WHDLOAD is the way to go with an A1200. Forget the gotek and loading cracked images on A1200 - a recipe for disaster . WHDLOAD takes care of all patching and compatibility issues - not to mention no time wasted on loading.
As a bare minimum you will want a 4~8MB fastram expansion.An accelerator is ofcourse better.

Then all you need to do is get a CF card to use as hard drive, load some classicWB variant in it , transfer the whdload game packs and play.

http://classicwb.abime.net

edit: this looks like to be a perfect whdload card for an A1200 :

https://vintagecomputerssociety.blogspot.com/2019/04/a1200-turbo-card-ec1220-is-coming-soon.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR2idDtIHLZK48G6mKW4C3qxHZrCp0ecifq25UuCYUaU7v432WAshlZpF_U

keropi2019-04-26 18:30:25
 

Purity

The Oracle
vacBacker
Feedback
17 (100%)
Credits
2,999CR
Yea I definately need a memory expansion in mine.

I've got:

Amiga 1200 (2MB Chip)

Philips CM8833-II monitor

1GB PCMCIA Card for file transfers

256MB CF Internal HDD running Workbench

Gotek in Amitek External Case as DF1:

Amiga 500

Ram expansion
 

t-m

Active member
vacBacker
Feedback
2 (100%)
Credits
333CR
I recently got back into my Amigas

I fixed the battery acid damage on a A500+ and fitted an internal gotek on a 3d printed frame.

Then i dug out a yellowed non functioning A500, got that up and running and fitted another internal gotek and a 2Mb upgrade (1mb chip, 1.5mb slow now), I was using that for a while for games.

I wanted to try WHDload so dug out my Amiga 1200 (i still have the receipt from when it cost me £18!), needed a recap. The discovered what most people do that WHDload is disappointing on stock 1200

so fitted a ACA 1233n-40 and the thing flies now!
 

Purity

The Oracle
vacBacker
Feedback
17 (100%)
Credits
2,999CR
Sorry it was the ACA1233n-26. It's an 030. Got direct from individual computers. Paid altogether about £160

There site says they are out of stock. But if you flick between the options they become available.
 

K1ngarth3r

Active member
Feedback
21 (100%)
Credits
820CR
Thanks, yeah just saw they had it in stock too! Please let me know what you think of the card.

I just ordered a card for my 1200, it's running 020 but at 40MHz and come with 8MB RAM, it was about half the price though. If it's not up to much, I will sell it and order the same as you.
 

t-m

Active member
vacBacker
Feedback
2 (100%)
Credits
333CR
I got mine from Amiga Kit but they seem to be out of stock. It's certainly a great improvement over stock machine but you might consider 128Mb RAM overkill for all but a few things.
 

Monstermug

Active member
Feedback
23 (100%)
Credits
1,804CR
NOS A1200 with Phase 5 Blizzard 1230 IV, WHDload as well as floppy drive for originals coupled with a Microvitec 1438.

Got a A500 in storage with Hard drive attachment that's almost as big as the machine and tons of external floppy drives.

No Gotek in sight.
 

tin

Active member
vacBacker
Feedback
3 (100%)
Credits
649CR
I have a boatload of Amigas but they've all been pretty dormant for some time.

Current projects however are....

- a reasonably pimped A600 - Gotek, Furia 020, SD-card HD, 2MB ChipRam. This in the immediate term is going to run the software for a Miracle keyboard which I now also have a couple of, but I'm aware that's a bit of a waste of the extra hardware (although the Miracle software really needs a HD and some extra RAM, it's totally painful without).

- an emulated, followed by a real A2000 capable of running the Sneak Prevue and/or the Prevue Guide channel from the states. At the moment I have the LV-8000 and genlock, and now a couple of A2232 serial cards on the way from Canada. Looking for a way to emulate the data coming through the serial port. Will need to recap a PSU then the intention is to leave it on 24/7 streaming on YouTube or somesuch.

I have a 500+ also that I tried to neutralise the battery leak and got pretty far but it still didn't work, need to go back to that, and have a general look at what state the rest of them are in. They've been kind of neglected and it's time to get back to them to see what's what....
 

chadsarcade

Lord of Vectors (tm)
Feedback
11 (100%)
Credits
443CR
t-m said:
I got mine from Amiga Kit but they seem to be out of stock.  It's certainly a great improvement over stock machine but you might consider 128Mb RAM overkill for all but a few things.

Yeah 8mb should be fine for whdload. 99% of games will also ignore/not take advantage of accelerators and FPUs. They do make workbench more snappy though.
 

new666uk

Newbie
Feedback
2 (100%)
Credits
5CR
chadsarcade said:
t-m said:
I got mine from Amiga Kit but they seem to be out of stock.  It's certainly a great improvement over stock machine but you might consider 128Mb RAM overkill for all but a few things.

Yeah 8mb should be fine for whdload. 99% of games will also ignore/not take advantage of accelerators and FPUs. They do make workbench more snappy though.

I was pretty disappointed witg my WHDLoad on my 1200 as I hadn't known it needed more RAM to run adequately.

Ive seen 8mb upgrades for about £60, does that seem about right? Just want to be able to play Frontier and DotC and a few other games.
 

guddler

Busting vectors like it's 1982!
vacBacker
Feedback
10 (100%)
Credits
4,055CR
Just spotted this thread
smiley1.gif


I got back into Amiga around 2011 when I bought an A600 at one of the shows UKVAC was at. That particular machine was a bust as it had a corroded motherboard, broken keyboard and faulty floppy drive but obviously things didn't stop there (fortunately I only paid £30 for that).

My main machine is a "GB A-1000" (info: https://www.amigawiki.org/doku.php?id=de:models:gb_a1000) It is a machine that I built from a bare PCB myself. Originally it was the "basic" 68030 @ 50Mhz with 8MB RAM and ECS chipset but I later also added 68060 turbo card running at 100Mhz, 128MB RAM and a Picasso II RTG graphics card. I must confess to not building the latter two expansions myself as I had had enough by then so I paid someone else to build them for me a couple of years ago. It also has an on board Okatgon IDE expansion to which I have added a 128GB drive and I have a clock port on the front Zorro slot, all housed in an original A1000 machine. I didn't butcher an A1000 to do this, the A1K was empty when I got it. The machine is connected to the internet by a "PlipBox" which I built.

I also have two A1200's. My main one of these is in a black Scoopex case and has currently got an old 8MB card that also has 6881 FPU and RTC. I'm running 16GB CF in this machine along with Rapid Road USB. Unfortunately it doesn't work too well. I need to get it looked at. I also have an ACA1233@40Mhz but again, there's stuff that doesn't work properly with it so it's not currently in use.

The second A1200 is an original machine that a work colleague used to use to crack games back in the 90's and he passed on to me. That was quite cool. Unfortunately I've never been able to get an image of his hard drive out of him. That's actually the machine that the 8MB expansion came out of.

I also have Indivision Mk2 CR for the A1200's but I don't use it as I prefer a 14" Microvitec 1438 CRT.

Also got a FastATA mk. IV but yet again, don't use it because it ran hot as hell.

As a general rule of thumb I've found that modern add-ons are an expensive waste of money, but maybe it's both of my A1200's and they need fixing or something?!?

Hot on the heals of the fact my A1200's give me nothing but grief I just last week was given a "MiSTer" as a birthday present and honestly, it's pretty damn good. It's basically an A1200 with 68EC020 (so no MMU) running at around 80Mhz and has 2MB chip, 24MB fast ram. But being FPGA based it also has the advantage of being a Spectrum, an Amstrad, a C64, etc., etc. It really is pretty cool. Especially when connected to the CRT monitor running at the original video modes.

Nothing is perfect and the core needs a bit more maturing yet but I can easily see the MiSTer replacing the A1200's before long. I'm reaching the point that the old hardware is just not worth the grief.

The A12's and the MiSTer are running AOS3.1.4, the A1K is running 3.9 with BB3&4. I've been working on a bit of C programming for which I am building in either Mac or Windows cross compiling to Amiga binary with VBCC and then testing in Win-UAE / FS-UAE with the occasional test on the real hardware. The MiSTer has the advantage of also running a small linux kernel alongside the 68020 FPGA core so it has a Samba share exposed where I can dump ADFs and I'm expecting to slot this into the cross-development chain so basically compile / build / deploy to "real" hardware all in one go.

Basically a lot of fun !!
 

guddler

Busting vectors like it's 1982!
vacBacker
Feedback
10 (100%)
Credits
4,055CR
Bloody hell - just after I took this photo the CRT died
smiley19.gif
smiley19.gif


I bought a second BenQ at the weekend to keep as a spare but I didn't intend to have to actually use the thing just yet. As good as they are a CRT is still better!!

Amigas.png
 
Top