Amiga 1000 Turned Into A PC!

[amigadave]

Why?  Why Not!  If the A1000 is dead or dying from part failures, why not turn it into something that can run all those old games via Amiga Forever or WinUAE?  I have just such a project to complete when I can find the time.  I already have almost all of the parts except the motherboard.  My only concern is that the newer Shuttle motherboards are going to probably need more power than the PS that this article mentions and I have bought.

[amigadave]

JimS wrote:
I've thought about doing one of these conversions myself. I've got a couple spare 1000s around, although one is missing the lid.  :roll:  
I'd probably use one of the mini-itx boards. I believe some have floppy support now if you need it. It would also be cool if you could mount the cd/dvd facing forward, hingeing the ram expansion cover as a door... assuming things would fit.

If there were enough interest, we should get a group from here to colaborate on updating the original design shown in that website (which I believe was done by Kermit Woodal of Nova Design), to the best solution for the components available today.  I have one A1000 that I will always keep in it's original form, but the other is not working anyway so I plan on doing the conversion sometime in the near future.  I like your idea about the CD/DVD facing the front with the old RAM expansion acting as a door to conceal it, but don't know if that will work due to space problems inside.   :-D

[amigadave]

CatHerder wrote:
Actually, why not just go with a MiniITX board?

I mean, have you seen what people put those tiny boards in? Be sure to view all the user casemods etc on the right column! :-)

You can go as powerful as you want to spend, and you can get a board with everything onboard (video, audio, etc). Have fewer heating issues, even fewer power issues (most of these things run with 30-60 WATT power supplies) and plug in any PS2/USB/FireWire expansions you want or desire. If you wanted, you could basically build a "micro Amiga iside a joystick"; just shove WinAUE on it, all the games from BackToRoots and you have one of the fastest Amigas ever. :lol:

Yes, that is my plan, but I did not realise that the more powerful versions would run on such low wattage as you state.  I have the 125 Watt PSU that Kermit used in his design and was afraid that it would not be enough.  Looking at the site you provided a link for, I see the "Nano" ITX MoBo's and start thinking that I might be able to go even smaller and make an Amiga Forever PC inside an old Commodore 1010 external Floppy Drive case.  :-o

[amigadave]

CatHerder wrote:
Yeah, that would be a really slick little computer. A 1010 with a 2500-3000MHz computer inside it. :-)

If you wanted to be even fancier, and you aren't scared to cut your 1010 case a bit, you could mount a notebook floppy drive in there with the motherboard underneath it and have a complete system all in one small case. You can also get small (dimensional) powersupplies in the 80-120 watt range that would possibly fit into the case as well. When you think about it, a "giant" notebook motherboard runs off 6 tiny batteries for up to 3 or 4 hours. So it's not at all surprising that you can get a 2GHz-3GHz motherboard that requires such small wattage and uses little power. But then that's the nature of portable electronics.

I think it (putting a whole computer into a 1010) is a great idea, but then I like to tinker and build stuff.

The 1010 case is almost the same size as a Mac Mini, it would probably be a perfect fit to slip one inside the 1010.  That would be the easiest way to convert the 1010 to a complete computer, but I like WinUAE's ease of use and setup so much better than trying to setup EUAE on the Mac.  It would be great to be able to fit a Nano ITX MoBo, Catweasle, floppy drive in the original position, slot loading slim DVDRW just under the floppy where there is the indent that could be cut to accept CD's/DVD's, a 2.5" HD, all inside the 1010.  I would settle for an external PSU if one could not fit inside.  

It would be a novelty that would be great to take traveling to shows or user group meetings to show off.

[amigadave]

Managarm wrote:
I don't undrestand the logic of assimilating an A1000. Given the fact it's the original Amiga and therefore a piece of computing history, why destroy a potentially irreplacable piece of hardware. It's like taping over the first series of the Simpsons with a new series of say, Family Guy. Both great, but surely not the latter at the expense of the former?

Well, in my case, I already have one working A1000 to preserve, my 2nd A1000 does not work, and replacement A1000's are still pretty easy to find at very low prices, so I don't consider it being close to "potentially irreplacable" hardware yet.  That plus the whole point for me is to replace old, broken hardware that was limited in what it could run and replace it with new hardware to run the same old Amiga software, plus lots of newer Amiga software, while also trying to duplicate the experience as invisibly as possible so most people could not tell it was not still a real (but much faster) Amiga 1000.

I prefer Amiga computers over any others, but don't feel the need to bash everyone that uses anything other than an Amiga.  Can't we all just get along?   :-?

[amigadave]

@Noster,  Can you post some pictures of your converted A1000, both inside and outside pictures would be helpful for those of us that want to do our own projects.  Also please provide a complete parts list of what you used and who did the custom logic work so you could use the original A1000 mouse?  If you were to make any changes to what you did, what would you change now?

Thanks for any info and pictures.

David

[amigadave]

Thanks for posting those pictures Noster, I hope you can leave them up there for a little while.  I am working on a couple of other projects and won't be able to start my own A1000 conversion for several weeks.  I'll try to download the whole photo album, but if that is not an option, perhaps you can send them to me with your comments.

Thanks again for your time and effort.