A1200 with Blizzard PPC + Bvision, HDD dead ...

[Markone_1999]

Hi to all, i need help for the following situation :

I just recovered from the basement my A1200 with Blizzard PPC 603e + Bvision (photo in attachment) after 8 years from the last time I used it, everything is in mint condition but mechanical HDD is dead, so I need to reinstall everything from the scratch.

Problem is that I discovered that the carton box containing most of my Amiga's original Software and some accessories went lost during the last move, including Blizzard PPC / Bvision board original boxes... :'(

My current target is to rebuild the system in order to test everything, play with it just a bit and then put it on sale, at least Blizzard PPC and Bvision, so i'm looking for some directions / suggestions about how to proceed.

Of course first step would be to prepare a new HDD / IDE CF card with the workbench and everything else that is needed to install Blizzard PPC, but being that WB disks went lost ... damn.

In addition i do not have anymore TV or display capable to show interlaced PAL signal, only an old NEC LCD monitor with analog VGA input and if I remember well during WB install process A1200 does not produce a standard VGA output. Maybe I have still around some analog USB video capture device that could come in handy to manage this step. 

Here is my first question : is it possible to find on the web a bootable HDD image compatible with A1200 ?

Second question : being the original box lost, there is a way to discover the exact Blizzard PPC board model from PCB markings / serial number ? (the 68K CPU is an XC68040RC25B)

Thanks in advance for any response.

[AndyFC]

Welcome back to the Amiga!

There are a number of options to get you started. Do you have a PC? If so you can get an emulator called WinUAE and use it to set up a real disk which you can then use in your Amiga.

There are loads of tutorials, one I found is https://www.everythingamiga.com/2018/03/how-to-setup-an-amiga-compact-flash-drive-using-winuae.html

Alternatively you can get preconfigured kits e.g. https://amigakit.amiga.store/a1200-hard-drive-p-12645.html.

The challenging part is how to get files transferred to your Amiga, or even written to a floppy disk. Does your Amiga have networking capability?

For premade images, you could try https://hstwb.firstrealize.com/ to build an image

[Markone_1999]

Hi Andy,

I just finished reading the Winuae method guide that you linked, thank you very much for the suggestion.

> Do you have a PC? If so you can get an emulator called WinUAE and use it to set up a real disk which you can then use in your Amiga.

luckily in the mean time I also found out an old DVD (at the bottom of a box in the basement ...) containing backup images of original A1200's WB FDDs and OS 3.9, tomorrow I will purchase a CF card and I will follow the procedure described in the article.

I hope to be able to prepare the CF card with a configuration that at least enable standard VGA signal from the A1200 output (31Khz) at first boot, dunno if it's possible to configure BVISION board in advance with WINUAE.

I also found out a couple of useful links :

https://amiga.resource.cx/exp/blizzardppc
https://amiga.resource.cx/exp/blizzardvision
https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=154

understanding from the latter that my board is the 160MHz PPC model (from the serial number).

I still have to study the other link you posted, https://hstwb.firstrealize.com/, it seems promising, but also complex.

[Markone_1999]

I purchased a CF card and I did some progress installing on it OS 3.9 with Winuae and Blizzard PPC emulation, now I have to gather updated installation disks for PowerUp board and Bvision RTG.

I found this : https://aminet.net/package/driver/video/BlizzardVision_install for the latter, but I wonder if there is some updated guide for software installation of Blizzard PPC + Bvision expansion.

[AndyFC]

Great progress.

This site might be if use: http://phase5.a1k.org/

I don't have the cards myself so my suggestions are untested by me. I hope the link is useful.

[Thomas]

In addition i do not have anymore TV or display capable to show interlaced PAL signal

If the Blizzard has the latest firmware, the BVision should show the native Amiga screen.

However, it's rather difficult to install RTG drivers with only that because once the drivers are activated, the native display disappears from the BVision, but you still have to run Prefs/Screenmode to choose an RTG mode for Workbench. I once wrote a program for that which you can put into Startup-Sequence before you install drivers. It activates an RTG screen mode once it finds RTG drivers.

http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/downloads/SetCgxScrMode.lha

[Markone_1999]

Great progress.

This site might be if use: http://phase5.a1k.org/

I don't have the cards myself so my suggestions are untested by me. I hope the link is useful.

Hi Andy,

thank you very much for the link, I never saw that site despite having searched a bit on the web.

[Markone_1999]

If the Blizzard has the latest firmware, the BVision should show the native Amiga screen.

However, it's rather difficult to install RTG drivers with only that because once the drivers are activated, the native display disappears from the BVision, but you still have to run Prefs/Screenmode to choose an RTG mode for Workbench. I once wrote a program for that which you can put into Startup-Sequence before you install drivers. It activates an RTG screen mode once it finds RTG drivers.

http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/downloads/SetCgxScrMode.lha

Hi Thomas,

Last time I fired-up the system before the HDD crash was around year 2015 and I remember updating something with a newer FW, but I do not recall exactly what.

If I look at the site posted by Andy, I can see 3 FlashUpdates for BlizzardPPC, the last one is version 44.71, I guess I will be able to verify the actual release present on board by mean of the utility that shows the board Info.

I cannot find FW update for Bvision board, I wonder if it actually carries one.

Anyway, I got an Eizo LCD Monitor that is capable to display a 15Khz VGA signal even if with a blinking out of frequency warning and a small image shift, so things seem simpler than expected.

Talkin about the power supply matter, my A1200 is an Escom product purchased in 1999 and it still has original polarized capacitors, but I can't spot any signs of leakage, I wonder if this could be a problem for a light usage.

Right now I'm using an ATX 300W SMPS connect to the rear A1200 supply connector by mean the original brick power supply output cable, modded to match with the ATX 24pin connector, of course I also connect a floppy disk power supply cable to the mainboard floppy disk connector to avoid the voltage drop on CPU expansion connector.

In my A1200 the voltage drop on 5v line seems quite high without the floppy supply aid, I can measure a mere 4.7V at mainboard unpopuled floppy connector even without the Blizzard board attached, where the ATX supply provides 4.95V at its connectors, so about 250mV drop with about 1.2A of current absorption (measured with a current clump).

Dunno if it's a problem of connectors contacts oxidation and / or the cable is too long (I have already cleaned the male pins with some alcohol), what's your opinion about that ?

[Markone_1999]

Shortening the power supply cable from 180cm to about 40cm lowered a lot the whole voltage drop (0.25v to 0.1V), anyway i finally managed to configure the OS to make work BVision board :



I will proceed with some more testing before to put it up for sale.