A1200 Expansion Questions

[pwn3d]

Hullo.  My old A1200 has been dusted off and brought out of the closet, and I'm curious about resuscitating it.  While the motherboard appears to be in good working order and it can boot from floppies just fine, both of my old hard drives are DOA, along with the Cobra accelerator/RAM expansion board *sigh*.  I was wondering if some helpful soul here could give me some advice.

1) Re: IDE hard drives -- what's the max capacity an A1200 can allow?  Looking at the forums, it seems there is a ceiling of 4GB or so.  Could I just get a 20GB drive and partition it into 4GB sections?  Also, will any "modern" 2.5" or 3.5" IDE/ATA drive work (I have an old DataFlyer case, too), or is there a particular type to look for?

2) Re: RAM -- according to the owner's manual, the most fast RAM an A1200 can take is 8MB, yet many posters here seem to have A1200s with much more than that.  What hoops do I need to jump through to go over the 8MB limit (besides moving to a tower box)?

3) Re: networking -- I have a LAN setup with a Power Mac G5 and a *gasp, shudder* wintel box connected to a cable modem, and was wondering if a PCMCIA-based ethernet card would allow me to network to these machines as well as access the 'net.  Will any current PCMCIA card work, and what software would I need for my A1200 to use it?

4) I followed some links to a couple of prominently mentioned Amiga parts dealers, and was floored by the asking prices for accelerators, RAM expansion boards, GPU upgrades, etc.  Why the bloody heck are hardware components that are so obsolete so incredibly expensive?  I can't believe anyone would pay more than US$50 for a '040 expansion board these days, and these vendors want as much as US$300!  I'm seriously expected to pay the same price for this stuff refurbished as I did more than a decade ago new?

*ahem* Um, anyway...


Thanks for any and all help,
Chris

[pwn3d]

Thanks for the info.  It's nice to know I will at least be able to get 3.1 reinstalled on a hard drive with very little trouble.  I should be able to track down an ethernet card, too, now that I know what to look for.  As far as RAM/CPU cards, sheesh, I'm gonna have to wait until I have a spare $150 lying around...

Some follow up questions:

1) Are there any recommendations as far as TCP/IP software (freeware especially)?

2)  I know I'm really pushing my luck asking, but does anybody still make multisync monitors anymore?  If not (as I assume), are there any old models I should keep a look out for other than Commodore's offering?


Thanks,
Chris

[pwn3d]

motrucker wrote:
Are you _sure_ the Cobra is dead? It's odd for these boards to die from just sitting. I had one stored for over five years and it still works fine.
Maybe the contacts of the motherboard and/or accelerator need serious cleaning? This be a big problem if you live close to salt water.
I use a 40Mhz '030 Cobra with a 32Mb SIMM in an A1200 I use. It's been a good setup.
Hope this idea helps...

Yeah, I'm sure (sadly).  

Basically, if the board's plugged in, Amy refuses to boot, but she cooperates if it's removed.  It was the '030/882 model, with a 4MB stick of RAM (IIRC; it's been about 9 years since I last used it, heh).  I tried it with and without the RAM (in case the RAM was bad), and checked the connectors on the board as well as the pins on the PCB.  Salt water wouldn't be an issue, since I'm in San Antonio, TX (i.e., very much inland).  Hopefully, the RAM's still good...

Thanks for the suggestion, though.


Chris

[pwn3d]

CLS2086 wrote:
Hi,
it could be also a bad accumulator !
Check also your PSU, maybe it gets too old and can"t output enought (i had this problem on my 1230).

Hmmm, I hadn't considered the power supply, actually.  Other than getting another A1200 power brick (slim chance, there), how can one run a diagnostic on one of these?


Chris