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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: RobPotts on October 19, 2006, 09:28:41 AM
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Hi,
Can a A1200 be put in a desk top (Approx 40 x 40cm), if so what would I need to do this?
Rob
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If the mainboard fits in the desktop (don't know the exact dimension) it can be done. You will need a lot of imagination though for you will have to drill a lot of holes and do a lot of modifying and hacking.
Why not try a ready-made A1200 tower?
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w0rd. It's a lot of work. I like the Power Tower or the Noblesse case. I've seen an Amiga 1200 fitted into a sparc case tho, looked cool!
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IIRC the a1200 mobo is 39 or 40cm wide and then pretty much any accelerator card would stick out another couple of cm. So it's going to be a tight squeeze if it fits at all!
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Unless you want to put it in a desktop case purely for the joy of testing your metalworking skills, it's probably easier to just leave it in its original case, or lay an "official" tower on its side.
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Hi
My A1200 used to be in a desktop case (IBM PS/2 one I think...) before I managed to get hold of of a decent tower case. I mounted it with the PCMCIA slot sticking out the back and the connectors in the middle of the case, ergo running extenstion cables of required ports to the outside case. It did fit fairly well with just a slight problem as I had a RAM board which did squeeze the front cover off a bit but it was good enough if you 'aint a perfectionist!
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Check the linky (http://www.jaruzel.com/data/Rebuilding_an_Amiga_1200_into_a_Sun_Sparc_20.pdf) for more info. Cool case!!!
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Spot the odd one out:
(http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/EHSRM/photos/img1033.gif)
(http://www.paramountzone.com/images/june06/bg/WIN30.jpg)
(http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/AGF/6501_a.jpg)
(http://home.samfundet.no/~olegil/a1200.jpg)
(http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/7/7e/180px-Chisel.jpeg)
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You really need a desktop who have 40 x 44 cm (40x40)! And create some extension cables to make the A1200 ports reach outside. :rtfm:
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@RobPotts
If you have to ask that question then I'm afraid you might not be up for all the challanges leing ahead of you to complete such a project.
Imagination is a big part of custom designs. ;)
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Why there must be an extension cables ? This A1200 in Sparc case could be easily done with motherboard on back wall. Cool solution for PCMCIA :-)
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The reason I was asking is I've acquired (for free) 2 old IMB P3's. I think I'll keep one and was thinking of puting my A1200 in the other, then I could add a CD-rom and other stuff, but if its a bit of a pig for a novice I might just leave it as it is.
Thanks guys
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The main issue is to get things to look good, I've seen too many conversions that looks to be done with a hacksaw and with a timelimit of about 5 minutes.
Some of the imediat issues and ideas on how to solve them.
External keyboard, it's not as easy as with the A500 with just some soldering of a port with wires to the MB, but in fact needs some hardware such as the EZ key.
Room/cooling for a turboboard, can easily be solved with extra long mb distances... especialy if you calculate with this from the beginning of the project.
PCMCIA port. Do you want it sticking out of your tower or do you want it internaly only. If you want it sticking out I suggest giving 2-3 cm clearens between the mb and the chassi side so the card doesn't have to stick out as much (also make the hole a bit bigger as some amiga pcmcia devices doesn't follow the size standard), if you want it internaly it can be closer to the MB side if u use an pcmcia angle. Internaly will be great if you only intend to use it for a NIC. Have you intensions of using more things with it (PCMCIA2CF converter, SquirrelSCSI etc) then external is the only way.
Power supply. The A1200 powersupply is very weak so a nice PC PSU is recomended. How do you want to add this power to the MB, easiest is to hack on the A1200 MB connector to the PSU and have it connect to the mb. If you have the mb right up next to the back of the chassi this meens the cable need to go outside the chassi (not cool). Then it's better to solder on a MB connector from a PC right onto the Amiga MB. That way the powercable can be cept inside and the PSU doesn't need to be hacked. Also you don't have to make a hole on the back for he power connector (looks better).
Buttons and leds. Power button can go stright to the PSU. Reset button can be connected to pin 9 and 10 on TP1 (suggest soldering a jumper header on the MB). Leds goes to the mb jumpers for leds, make a little trint with 2 jumper headers and make room for a resistor to each led or they will pop within weeks. :)
The rest is pritty stright forward, all you realy need apart from this is longer cables for IDE and floppy.
Ow and with a desktop you now realy have room for all those nice internal hardware addons and room for fans to cool things down propperly. :)