Completed the A1200 restoration, upgrade & multiple interfaces incl. m.2 SSD!

[Malakie]

I just completed the A1200 restore and full upgrade and build out. It has been a long few months and a LOT of head scratching trying to troubleshoot things down to the component level as well as at the OS level.  Hope some of it might help others.

Note I ended up having to use IDEFix to get everything to play nice EVEN ON this OS 3.2 clean install build but more about that later.  Per the other thread I am in, none of the other suggested CD rom tools worked right, from not opening or closing the door properly to not drawing the icons for the disc on the WB screen. For some reason, IDEFix worked perfectly fine when I finally tried it even though I was told it was not needed.

I also was able to get multiple types of hardware working flawless together and have listed them here.. *NOTE I also got m.2 SSD's AND full wireless keyboard and mouse functional!

also see the screenshots below

Here is the layout and design of this system:

1)  A1200 Rev 1D board
2)  Full functional WIRELESS mouse & keyboard (Electronics4U hardware with wireless ONN Keyboard and Mouse.  Plug and play)
3)  Setup to use PCMCIA with a 128gb CF card interface OR a Wireless Internet adapter (still configuring internet stuff), interchangeable of course and can use any other size card or type.
4)  Boot drive and secondary drive are 32 GB CF cards each using the built in IDE controller and nothing else BOTH drives are unpartitioned and remain 32 gb.  I found a dual sided CF card adapter, master on one side, slave on the other.  Plugged it in and the A1200 recognized it without anything else needed.   NOTE and per this thread, I tested UP to a 256gb SD and MicroSD card and they both worked flawlessly.  *Caveat - HD Toolbox does not like setting up partitions over the default of two (2) on cards this big.  It is a bug in HD Toolbox, but the machine and OS seem perfectly fine if you set things up manually for more than the default partitions)
5)  ** this is no shit, IDE connected 128 GB m.2 SSD!  I was able to not only get the interface recognized but fully able to configure the drive as well. I used an IDE to PCI Express m.2 interface and a standard B key m.2 SSD of 128gb, one partition.  I have this one partitioned into two equal partitions equaling 125gb or so total.  Note they are named DH0 and DH1 because I intend on this become the master drive for this machine and using the CF cards more for storing programs and data etc.

6)  Phase 5 Blizzard PPC 68040 /w128 meg ram w/SCSI connect
7)  Bvision PPC Video daughter board to a Sony hi res standard CRT Monitor OR a 1920x1080 HP LED monitor, HDMI interface button selectable.
8} 1 SCSI2SD with SCSI interface (5.2 version but can use a V6 also) using either a 32 GB SD card or a micro 64 GB Sd card. I swap between both with the micro 64gb being my backup of final installed everything plus archives of all stuff I used to set this up.
9)  1  SCSI CD Rom drive.  I have two different drives I can use, an internal 50 pin or an external portable battery powered 25 pin (it also has an AC power adapter)
10  1 Orb 2.2 and 1 JAZ 2.0 gb external drives (backing up for now BUT I also have one of the SCSI DAT Tape drives and software with drivers that my company designed back in the day for high speed data backups. I have not yet connected the DAT drive to this machine but I see no reason or issue doing so at this time).  Note I WOULD also love to find a working Floptical 120 drive with disks because we are also the ones that designed and wrote the code for the device drivers for that as well.  If anyone has or hears of one available....
10)  Retains 2meg chip ram and other default chips other than upgrading to KS 47, retains standard Amiga Floppy drive after repair/cleaning
11)  upgraded with RTC and Temp Sensor Module
12)  Checkmate 1500 case w/power supply

Installed software includes:  CLEAN install WB 3.2 CD-Rom version official, KS version 47 latest version I could find commercial, IDEFix, CyberSCSI, BlizzardPPC/Cyberstorm graphics, DOPUS 4, .

*As a side note and only because it is shown (screenshots below) and installed.. the software you see on the workbench, is the software I wrote after leaving Commodore Amiga called the Workbench Management System v2.0 (latest is v3.0 but I like v2.0 as it is much more simplistic in design, not as many bells and whistles.. note v3.0 works better with multiple monitor setups however depending on the video card display you are using).  It was my small companies best seller until I was medically recovered enough to go back on full active military duty during that period of time.  I did authorize its free release publicly if anyone wants to use any of the versions although note I retain trademark and copyright.*

About the Configuration and choices: 

I wanted swappable drives if at all possible, with the primary reason being portability and ease of use when I need to use something else.   For example, this thing has a Bvision PPC in it therefore, I intend on adding 4.1 on this system too.  The easiest method to do that is to simply pull out one CF card for the boot drive and plug a different one in and reboot.  PLUS all the other drives I can do the same.  I can unplug those, plug in the other cards that would go with the 4.1 install. and so forth.  While I currently have enough machines I have now restored from non working to working and could just keep them all with their own OS version and software installs, I decided I wanted one machine that was easily useable and bootable into ALL of them just by swapping CF or SD cards, CD's and Orb archive disks in and out and rebooting.

The decision to try and see if I could get an m.2 SSD working came from the fact that PC's today enjoy that speed and small form factor and so I thought, why not Amiga!  Well it works flawless!  I have only done a 128gb size but intend on testing high capacity in the near term once I can afford to buy them (will take some months being I now am reliant on Veteran's Disability as my sole income so it will be a wait for anything bigger I can report on)

Repairs on this specific unit:

This unit required some main board fixes as this is a restoration as well.  First was replacing the IDE connector on the main board. It was destroyed by whomever had this thing.  Likewise for the floppy drive connector.  The mouse port #1 had a broken pin.  That was replaced. And finally it looked like someone had dropped something on this board and one of the chips literally had two pins touching that had been bent by what looks to be some form of impact.  Luckily, I was able to bend those pins out and back to what they should be on that chip.  When I still could not get it to boot, I pulled everything removeable, started with a new power supply then keyboard, and then a kickstart... .which finally got the thing to boot.   The keyboard had to be completely cleaned out, pulled apart, and de-rusted and those areas carefully repainted (I think it was cat pee from the smell) and of course whatever it was ate the membrane thus that had to be replaced as well.  But amazingly the original keyboard works like new.

It was during that I decided to see if I could find an interface to hook up a wireless keyboard AND mouse.  My initial searching found ONLY wireless mice interfaces.  No keyboard.  I finally ran across ONE possibility put out by Electronics4U claiming it works with wireless keyboards and a very short list at that. As usual, I bought ONE unit (I buy more if I need them once I have found them to be good solid and do work as intended).. I got the thing... and could not for the life of me find a single wireless keyboard that worked in the list, probably due to age.  Not even used ones on EBay were around.  Until a few weeks ago I found ONE ONN that was on the list.. it arrived .... without a dongle. LOL

So back to the drawing board.  I then found out that ONN is a walmart sold brand.  I figured what the hell. Having been trained in all this stuff, I reasoned that for their simple wireless $14.95 keyboard, my bet was that ONN used the SAME transmit/receive function to save money.  I was right!  So I found another model that works COMPLETELY with the Amiga that is fully wireless.  I actually expected the keypad to not work but it works great too!

Now for the uh oh news..  I recently went back to where I found the Electronics4U adapter... and no more are available and I cannot find any listings anywhere to buy more of these.  I have sent messages to them but to date, have not heard anything back.  I don't know where they are based so that might be the issue with the war going on. I don't know.  But now I found a solution that works beautifully for full wireless keyboard and mouse... and I only have this one unit I bought originally.

Moving on, finally, I a was able to recover the original floppy disk drive. I tore it down as far as was safe and cleaned the shit out of it - literally as it smelled of what I think is cat pee too.  And it has worked flawless since although I swear that damn empty drive click is now louder than it was.. LOL

Oh of course had to replace all the cables and wire harnesses too.  The case screw holes were toast and that's also when I decided this would become not just a restoration but full upgrade to the max build out as I worked to relearn 20+ years of things I forgot while on active military duty when I left CBM.  That's when I chose to go with a CheckMate 1500 case, which is beautiful and easy to setup! 

BTW, their customer support, CheckMate, is superb!  The case came in but the power button was broken and for some reason the small board power connector that converts the A1200 power supply plug to the internal power supply for the case, was missing.  They sent me both parts immediately and that let me continue work on the project without much of a delay!  And yes, I bought it I did not get it for free.  In fact, everything in this build I had to buy over many many months one piece at a time, due to the reason I mentioned above.

Problems encounter in this specific project (and appear possibly related to the previous A2000 project some here know I was working on):

Anyhow, back to this project, all drives are formatted using the default FFS including in 3.2 for my restorations (and in this case for upgrading) I chose to use the basic standard everyone would have access to use quickly and easily. (eventually once I start the other A1200 restoration, I plan to try numerous other options in this regard)

While I can change to other file systems and such, my point was to see if it was super hard to do this using the default straight outta the box, so to speak, items.    As some know, I have posted other threads with questions because I have run across a myriad of issues ALL pertaining to drive problems.  As it turns out, all in WB 3.2 and the latest KS 47 revision.   Those first attempts were on a A2000 rev 4 board AND a second A2000 rev 6 board with an A2091, Rev 7 and 8 roms.  I finally gave up on either unit trying to get them running with WB 3.2 and multiple drives.  Lockups, not validating properly and filling the entire drive and not seeing drives properly was a major headache on the two A2000 systems I tried to do this on.  I just finally called it, installed 1.3 on one and 2.04 on the other (the third uses 3.9 without any issues as well). Both of those machines, now run flawless but with other OS revisions.  So I then decided to move to the A1200 and see what I could do, giving 3.2 another shot because I now know it is still being supported thus I want to do my part in support for it. 

*NOTE I am NOT trying to dis or speak ill of 3.2 but something is not right.. the common thing is 3.2 in all of this, including THIS project.  I want whatever it is resolved even if it is on my end (and other users having these issues I see posting too) so that we can all better support the company keeping 3.2 current and viable for the Amiga Community.  Regardless of which end the problem is on, there is a problem and I really want to figure it out.

And this thread and another couple threads from the A2000 work show this second attempt was not without issues and still is.  Again I was unable to get CD's and other devices to play nice under the same 3.2 and ks revisions using ANY software, drivers or file systems.  They would NOT show ICONS on the Workbench even though the tools reported the drives were actively attached to the machine.  One drive, ok.  Two drives, boom.  ANYTHING more than the one default drive, it failed completely to bring up icons on WB. I also had a problem just today where 2 of the CD drives would not open their doors to eject CD's.  The third CD unit is the portable with a flip top lid and that reported loss of connection once I opened it and removed the CD.  Putting it back in and it would not work until reboot of the machine. 

Finally, I was about to just say screw it again and then I decided to try something I was told I did not need under 3.2. My instincts told me to just try it anyway so I installed IDEFix and wouldn't you know it, everything started working right. 

I have compared mountlists, drivers, compared files, you name it.  Under other filesystems, other driver setups, I was unable to get past that problem of using 2 drives or more. Again, until I installed IDEFix and set it up.  I have started to dig into why but have not figured out yet, what is so different that everything works beautifully under IDEFix but none of the other suggested tools and drivers I tried, will bring up those icons for the drives attached. 

And I mean NO ICONS, NO menus.  Nothing.  Just a blank Workbench. (NOTE I have an HD and a CF card that have a fully CLEAN install of WB3.2 I use during this). I either swap the clean drive or the backup floppy I made of 3.2 workbench with HD Toolbox on it and a couple other tools, I can see all the devices are there and recognized.  They show the proper ID and device # settings etc. This issue has stumped me for months now.  At least on the A1200 there are a few issues I had on the A2000 systems I am NOT seeing on the A1200 though.. mainly validation, file bloating filling an entire drive and drive lock ups.  But I am seeing this inability to show anything past one drive or two drives but NO ICONS just like on the A2000's as well as the OS and mouse hang every so often.

Whatever this issue is, I have seen others having it but not really pressing it in much or assuming it is some kind of configuration issue on their part.  After doing this for months on this project, it is clear something else is either badly configured on theirs and my systems or there is some other problem that I have yet to figure out and isolate... but I can only do so much when it comes to tracking this down.  For now, it works with IDEFix and I ain't touching it again on this machine.

I have included a couple screenshots, including the workbench.

Screen #1 -  Interface, SCSI2SD w/32gb CF card, portable 25 Pin SCSI CD Rom, and 2gb SCSI Orb drive - all used for data, not system stuff.. i.e. games, archive files etc









Image 2 - checkmate 1500 case, rev 1D board, rom upgrade, DUAL CF Card reader *(Note second CF card is on the flip side of that adapter), m.2 SSD 128gb and PCI Express Adapter, RTC and Temp Sensor,
Blizzard PPC and Bvision PPC 68040/Cybergraphix upgrade w/128 meg ram, ** NOTE GREEN LED GLOW under that card with a piece of paper sticking out.. THAT is the USB interface under it for full wireless keyboard and mouse!


note 2 orange lights are one each for master and slave, 3rd light is activity, red light is power.  Splitter is branch to the m.2 ssd ... and I just realized out of view UNDER the case.. lol  You can see its icons on the next screenshot though







Image #3 - Desktop screen shot as follows:   Boot and second drive, CF cards on IDE, DH2/3 partitions for m.2 PCIExpress interface SSD 128gb, Sixth Sense Game for CDROM, SCSI2SD is sdDH0, PCMCIA is 32 gb in this shot but I also have a 128 gb card that works as well although more testing needed before I trust it.  And WMS 2.0 installed.  *Note for now my other screen connected via the BVision PPC, it is in the same resolution and displays this identical picture but it will normally be at max once I get final installs of software done on this unit now.

[Malakie]

UPDATE to the build:   

With the A1200, if the keyboard is bad or membrane is causing issues and your A1200 board will not post when you turn it on (i.e. show the kickstart screen), pull out the keyboard even if it does not look bad.  As I explained above this one had been cat pee destroyed apparently and only the smell was the clue.  Once I pulled the keyboard, I was able to get it to post to kickstart finally.

For those that want to try to add some of the same hardware or upgrade their systems to some of the stuff I did, feel free to ask and I can help you through how I got things setup, the parts I used and software used to do so.  I spent days trying every combination of things you can imagine.   While some worked, they did not work at a level of stability that I personally am willing to accept.   I am one of those that wants it to be rock solid to the point when I hit that power switch, I don't want to sit there wondering if this time it will boot or blow up.   So a lot of time was spent getting this system to that point.

Some may wonder why I did not install a gotek drive.  In a sense I have, but I chose to use a portable external version instead of internal.  I wanted a stock Amiga floppy drive because sometimes it is just nice to put in a floppy disk and let is grind away as it loads some old game or program.

One last point.  I also ran into another issue that many others have talked about.  And I still do not understand the cause.   CF cards and the PCMCIA slot.   I bought 6 cards of one kind/brand.  I bought 6 cards of a completely different kind/brand.  Both sets are the same size cards.   When I first started, I was not sure what I need or what would work.   The thing is, for both sets, some of the card work and some of them don't.   It makes absolutely no sense at all that I can plug in 3 cards from the first brand and they work fine but the other three from that same exact brand, will not function at all in any manner on the A1200 PCMCIA slot.  They DO work fine as an IDE drive but not in the PCMCIA slot.   And the same goes for the other brand set.  out of that one I got 2 that work, and 4 that won't.

If anyone has any idea on why this might be, I am all ears because I know of no reason this should be the case.  It makes absolutely no sense at all unless tolerances are that strict that they have to be absolutely right on the money for whatever they need to function.

If I think of anything else, I will post here and update. 

[danbeaver]

A brand name company may not produce everything they put their label on. It depends on if the company that "branded" the card versus the factory that actually made it; the Branding Company usually put out a list of specs, take bids and take the lowest cost items that meets their specs. Then they stick a label on it. If the specs don't list the internal circuitry of the CF card [or fill in the blank here] then the factory producing it are free to make it anyway they want. Hence the moniker, "TruIDE" from icomp.de

[Malakie]

A brand name company may not produce everything they put their label on. It depends on if the company that "branded" the card versus the factory that actually made it; the Branding Company usually put out a list of specs, take bids and take the lowest cost items that meets their specs. Then they stick a label on it. If the specs don't list the internal circuitry of the CF card [or fill in the blank here] then the factory producing it are free to make it anyway they want. Hence the moniker, "TruIDE" from icomp.de

Was not familiar with that company or anything about them so not sure what you are referencing with the "TruIDE" but assume it is one of their products?   As for branding, am very familiar with the concept.  After all in the military, we see the same thing for everything.    I just did not expect that the same lot of CF cards would not produce the same results.   And of every brand I have tried to date, none of them I bought have had all of those I bought work.  So it does have to be a spec thing with manufacturing and tolerance allowance.   Just odd that the A1200 would also be that precise in its requirement, likely it being power for the port and CF card being my first guess.

[StanMoonie]

 What SSD are you using?

[Malakie]

What SSD are you using?

SanDisk X400 M.2 128 GB, It is an M and B key SSD although it is likely only using the B key lanes for the Amiga interface.  Oddly the interface for the PCI Express does not have a name on it.  But it is a SATA to 44 pin IDE and that connects to the m.2 interface SATA card.