Free: A1200HD/40 w/monitor, software

[bendavis22]

Being a "computer guy," people tend to give me old stuff they don't want anymore. One of those things is an Amiga 1200. I had a C64 back in the day and then next computer was an Amstrad PC and now I just use Windows and Unix based stuff. I never used an Amiga, so I'm not sure how to use this thing. I have turned it on and verified it does come to an OS, however, I don't know how to do anything in that OS. This Amiga was used as a home business computer for a friend of my parents. It has a lot of business software with it. I see titles like Pro Write, Brilliance, Opus, Quarterback Tools, Final Copy II, Deluxepaint IV AGA, and Professional Calc. I at least know there exists this enthusiast community who would hate for me to put this out at the curb, so if you pay for shipping and packaging of the monitor, it's yours. I am located in Danville, IL. I have some pics which I can post here if someone shows interest.

[bendavis22]

Sorry I haven't responded to anyone's posts or private messages. I expected I would get email notification from this forum for all of that, but apparently I don't have that feature turned on.

I've got 7 PMs with people wanting this! I had no idea a 20 year old computer could be this popular! What can you do with this thing that so many people would want it?!?! I thought it was going to be hard to get rid of this thing, but I guess not! With all this interest, I might have to start taking bids since I don't know who to choose.

[bendavis22]

I'll need to get a box for the monitor and packing material, so that will be part of the cost of shipping as I said before.

The first person who responded and is willing to cover the shipping cost should get it, unless someone decides to offer a bid.

I find no moral problem taking offers for those who may want to pay a little for it. Imagine being in a crowd of people and offering an item for free. 10 people come up and really want it. One of the people REALLY wants it, so he offers a dollar amount to take it. Someone else also REALLY wants it, so they make another bid. If someone really wants it that wants to offer dollars for an item marked as free, then fine. Unless this it is some sort of charity event where someone who really needs the item should get it for free, I see no problem with it.

And in reality, I am going probably to make a couple of dollars because when I estimate shipping, I am going to be conservative and add a few dollars to make sure I cover my costs in case the shipping amount is a little higher than my guestimation. It probably won't amount to more than $5, but I doubt it will exactly cover the shipping costs.

[bendavis22]

I don't know how I got this thing to bootup before, but I can't get anything to show up on the screen. I try to let it bootup via the hard drive by not putting any floppies in it. That does not work. I try several floppies marked as boot floppies that seem to load for a minute, but then stop. It stops at this state where it seems to look for a floppy disk in one of the drives (it has two external - I've tried with them and without them connected) every 2 seconds. If I put another one in one of the drives, it seems again to work on loading something, but nothing ever shows on screen and it goes back to checking the floppy drives every 2 seconds. I even tried the Commodore Install Disk Version 3.0 and it also does the same thing, seems to try to boot and then fails.

I have NO experience with Amigas. I am a systems engineer at a company with Windows systems and have experience with *nix, DOS, and my first computer was a Commodore 64, but zero Amiga experience.

Sorry to turn this into a support thread.  :cry:

[bendavis22]

Thanks for the info. This is a Magnavox RGB Display 80. I didn't take the opportunity to look down far enough under the front panel to find this button. It was on the wrong mode. However, I still cannot get it to work. If I switch it from CVBS to RGB, for a couple of seconds I can make out some screen while the monitor is failing at syncing with the vertical hold. I had played with the horizontal and veritcal controls on the back to no avail. I will try a TV.

[bendavis22]

I felt really dirty doing this, but it plugged into my 32" widescreen LCD HDTV and voila - it works! Looks like the monitor may be toast or there is a monkey trying to operate it.

I forgot to mention I have the original box and styrofoam for the unit. Even the pink plastic the unit was covered with inside the box.

Thanks for the advice!

[bendavis22]

This is just wrong  :-D

 

[bendavis22]

Pictures I just took are here:

http://bendavis22.home.insightbb.com/100_1949.JPG

To see the others, just increment the picture number in the URL. The pics end at 1962.

[bendavis22]

Yes, the other drive does say 1.76MB on it. It will boot to that drive (as well as all the drives) so it does work. Not sure how to verify the functioning of the hard drive though.

[bendavis22]

Amiga is sold! Thanks to everyone for their advice on testing it!