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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Garyed40 on March 02, 2005, 06:58:52 PM
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Hi all
Just received a 1200 off ebay in fantastic shape but the expansion slot is empty. What is the best addon board for this slot?
thank you
Gary
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What's your budget? I have 2 for sale... i think 1 is taken but the other isnt.
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Ah... USA person.
Sorry, i ship UK only with stuff like this :-(
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And to answer your question...
Basically anything 030 and higher will give you a big performance boost and allow OS 3.5 / 3.9 to run (with a RAM expansion, but most ACC cards have them built in).
Try looking for a Phase 5 Blizzard 1230IV ... (Ask Ryu, he say's they are the most stable a1200 cards ever! (so do lots of other people here)
More speed? Try maybe an 040 / 060 CPU instead, but they tend to cost more cash. Other makes include Apollo, DCE, etc.
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I guess that would depend on what you were looking to do with your new A1200.
Personally, I'd go for anything with a 68060. I had an A1200 along with a Blizzard 1230 IV (68030@50MHz). Don't get me wrong, it was a great board which added a little speed, and ran games just fine, but it was still too slow for image editing, web surfing, and playing MP3s was definitely out of the question unless you had an additional hardware accelerator for sound. A board with a 68040 will most likely cause overheating issues unless you convert the desktop into a tower case, so that's probably out of the question too. For comparison, I have an A3000/040, and I can at least live with its performance, but would still prefer an 060.
And then there's PPC... :-P
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LinchpiN wrote:
What's your budget? I have 2 for sale... i think 1 is taken but the other isnt.
Any info on the card you are selling, I`m based in the uk.
Trooper
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Low budget:
Anything that adds fastram will do.
I have a stock 1200 loaded with games and 4Megs of fastram added. It runs most whdload games fine. But since the tiny cpu has to the job you can forget about a fancy workbench eyecandy sort of thing. Just basic.
Sensible budget:
Get an accelerator with an 030. There are cheaper acceleratorts with 28Mhz 020's about but it does not give you the kick you need. An 030@28Mhz is very easy to obtain. You can pave the road here with MTec branded boards. Better getting a 030@50Mhz. Vesalia had them listed fo about 90 euro's new! But they are running out of stock I guess since their pricelist doesn't reveil the price anymore. Other advantage off higher end 030 board is PCMCIA friendlyness (read; more than 4Megs won't disable the PCMCIA slot-) and perhaps scsi addons.
Lesser sensible budget:
A board with an 040 cpu. But prepare for spontanious combusting A1200.
Insane budget:
Get a card with an 060 cpu. Prepare to pay big time. In my opinion you should only do this if you really want to do heavy work on your amiga. These cards are just too expensive for hobbyism. (Not stopping me from thinking about getting one :-P )
Or you can go PPC which I know nothing about.
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The Blizzard 1230-IV (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=43&products_id=117) is a good mid-range accelerator for the A1200. It features a 50Mhz 68030 CPU.
The best accelerator is the Blizzard 1260 (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=43&products_id=161) - this has the powerful 68060 in it.
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The '030 is quite cheap, here was my way of "cheap" but not the last One offcourse.
First I got an '040 with a terrible fan noise, then a trade in for little money Apollo (great) '060 with 16mb ram, I changed it to 32mb (should get SCSI mod, and another 32mb+ socket,(anyone)?), then (not telling about All clockpot expansions etc.....:) ZorroII and a tower. Then a Cyberstorm 3d which never worked for me as it was for A3/4000(Sold it goddammnit). Then.. A PicassoIV Graphics Card and finally (huh) A1. (History part 6/12 maybe? for now)
Best luck for Your slot, the extra mem is only for gaming and demos I think? Use it for PPC,BVision and... Veery expensive.
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The best is yet to come. ACK Software Controls has announced a new 400 MHz PPC-based accelerator with Radeon mobility graphics, a 256 meg SODIMM memory expansion, and Silicon Images IDE controller slated to come out soon. (Just a prototype so far running Linux but AmigaOS 4 OEM is promised to be ported to it by the time it comes out.)
See news release here! (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=45781)
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@Garyed40
What is the best addon board for this slot?
If you count actually existing hardware and not vapor products:
Blizzard PPC 603p@240MHz + 68060@50MHz with SCSI. 2 x 128MB SIMMS.
If you need PCI, then GRex or Mediator board + PCI Voodoo card. If no PCI is needed, BlizzardVisionPPC card that plugs to BPPC.
I guess that's the best you can get, and yes, it is very expensive. You probably also need to towerize the A1200 for all that.
If you don't need PPC, PCI, GfxCard or other fancy stuff, Blizzard 1260 is a very good card. It also works nicely in a desktop A1200.
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So everybody has empty A1200T's :) This is too late for this went the A1 way but still curious as I am. There is a dt A1200 lying around if it still works so...
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Well, my ex-A1200-tower isn't empty, it's housing my 2nd Pegasos. :-)
A1200, BPPC, BVisionPPC, 2 x SCSIDE, PCMCIA NIC etc are packed away. No room for 5th machine around here, and it had sat there unused for over a year anyway.
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Thanks Guys
I have a lot to think about
For now I want to get it on the Net and the Web but later I may want to towerize it and add PPC. I just wish there was a good US source to get the accelerator cards the exchange rate between here and the UK is lousy and prevents me from bidding on them in ebay
Gary
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Internet access without PPC is pretty poor remember, an 060 will handle it OK but dont expect anything like what a PC would offer. I always found it best to network the Amiga up simply for getting files back and forth, web-browsing always left better up to a PC or mac imho, but if your prepared to try it out with 16 colours,,, Go for it!
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depends on what you want.
basic workbench functionality, original games, basic demos, get an 030 and some ram (obviously the faster the better ;) . if there was a way of plugging in a GFX card, this would be suitable for basic web browsing
(A4000/EC030 16Mb, Cybervision64/3D - absolutly fine)
but AGA sucks at web surfing really. 256 colour screen looks pretty, but is so slow.
040/060's have problems with older games, but newer games are fine. newer demos, mp3 playback, i loved my 060 A4k :(
PPC for... what exactly?... a few games (that are best with 3d cards), a few demos (that rock), and fast loading of images in your web browser. oh yeah, and OS4. ;)
other than that you can wait for either elbox to produce their vapour Coldfire thing with AGP PCI DDR ram etc. etc. or for Oliver to complete his Coldfire card (Oliver has pictures of prototypes so at least its for real)
personally i have the last revision Blizzard 030/50 suits me fine for now... other things to consider, hard disk, 3.1 roms for OS3.9, and pcmcia NIC card. and you have my setup. i just wish i could plug in this damn BvisionPPC i have for a decent screen! :D
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My previous experience on the net with An Amiga was a 3000T fitted with a Picasso II and a 50Mhz 68030 Accelerator it did pretty good. From what you guys tell me it seems a fast 68030 board is what I need
Gary
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If you're looking for a U.S. supplier you might try Software Hut (http://www.softhut.com). There are others but here's where I do business.
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Here (http://www.softhut.com/cgi-bin/test/Web_store/web_store.cgi?page=catalog/hardware/accelerators/processor_index.html&cart_id=6453048_10860) is a link to the accelerator page. (Sometimes the webpage is hard to navigate.)
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Thank you everyone :)
I know which one to go for now
Gary
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Finaly Got some pics of my 1200 Please excuse the low quality but its the only Digital camera I have.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/garyed40/A1200_2.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/garyed40/A1200.jpg)
Take care all
Gary