My new years resolution. Amiga only for as long as I can

[giZmo350]

I'm performing the same experiment with an AmigaKit A1200 (Escom). If I may suggest, an optical drive is just impractical when used with USB. I installed the internal USB controller and I LOVE it for any thing other than CD-DVD (I simply couldn't find any USB optical drive that would work - plus, most people report that it is just WAY TOO SLOW). So, I'm in the process of installing a SATA laptop cd-dvd drive using a 4 way IDE buffer with a SATA interface. I bought a SATA laptop drive which should work very well. I also bought an accelerator and an Indivision AGA. The Indivision is giving me fits when used with an Escom A1200. Lots of color jitter after it warms up. Now, apparently, I have to completely tear down everything an perform this... http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=41376 before I can get the IDE buffer and CD-DVD installed. I do have the unit operating on the internet with no problem but the browser I'm using has lots of page formatting issues. My goal is pretty much the same as your - use as a practical computer. I did buy Word Perfect some time back which I hope will work as a WP. The easiest way to print it seems is with an IP addressed network printer. There's a good program on Aminet. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to following your blog! Cheers!

[giZmo350]

gizmo, before you go hacking away at a perfectly good A1200, try and see if you can avoid or fix the problem in software. A palette with 0,0,0 black and 255,255,255 white will cause an A1200 to have all sorts of graphical corruption and glitches in some modes, like DBLPAL and HighGFX. If you experience the same corruption in PAL or NTSC modes it may be a hardware problem though. Also, do you have AmiCDFS installed? If you don't have a CD Filesystem, Poseidon won't be able to access a CD/DVD drive that's connected even if it detects it.

Thx Cammy, to tell you the truth, I havn't patched anything in software after installing the Indivision (just went searching for the obvious problem I was having immediately after installing the Indivision). I connected the machine up to an LCD right after getting the Indivision installed and have the exact same symtoms described in the link I posted (Escom Unit). I did read your previous software suggestions in prior posts regarding this and that's exactly why I didn't just go tearing into it. I havn't even got it to work in 1024 x 768 - (easiest way to do that? Software patch?) - so that I can view WB in full screen on the LCD. You know what happens? I search, find the answers, run out of time, forget where I found the answer, and so on...  I have a million bookmars in my Amiga tab! hahahaha! This is why we need an A to Z! BTW, yes Cammy... I have AmiCDFS installed. Now that I remember I did get the CD working but there was now way to hook into MakeCD burning siftware.

@Runequester
Yea, comparing and sharing notes is a great idea...  I'll also start a blog. I would like to start a "How to do" list from A to Z. Another thing I've learned along the way... when starting WB install from WB3.1 and progressing to WB3.9, there are a lot of software patches that are taken care of withing WB3.9. Plus, AmigaKit showed me a great shortcut to getting a USB flash drive working right after you install your USB adapter that makes it much easier to get software installed that doesn't fit on a floppy disk. Get the flash drive working and simply transfer software to Amiga. I really need to (keep my current installed HDD - Unless I want to go with super duper cool desktop icons - Radioactive Workbench) pop in another HDD and start the whole process over again with documentation on a blog from "A to where I am now in the process). I hope Cammy and Rebel-CD32 get a blog going for Radioactive WB! I want to get to this point too http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?p=580336 . I'll have to work that into the whole install process. Sometimes I wish I could save each stage of the install process to a virtual machine so that I could go back to any preferred build. Hmmm, I probably can with a flash drive - just don't know how to save a machine brick build. Anyway....  this will be fun! Ciao!

[giZmo350]

The main need would be for installing 3.9 I guess

You are correct sir!