A1200 going online

[Cammy]

Hey guys, I use my A1200 with a 28Mhz 030 (an old DKB Cobra, slower than the ACA1230/28) with 64MB RAM as my main computer system every day. I own several PCs and other computers but my A1200 is the one I use the most, and I'm online all day! So have no fear, it's perfectly up to the task if you don't have your expectations too high. You should definitely try using your A1200 to chat with, the keyboard is a dream to use compared to any modern keyboards which use cheap rubber components instead of coiled, metal springs like the A1200. You can also play some online games, the best would have to be Dynamite. It's like Bomberman but you can play against a whole heap of friends (and enemies) online. I recommend MiamiDX for TCP, it's the best there is until Roadshow comes out. You can even get free keyfiles for it.

I have recently been setting up a new A1200 and made a backup of the customised Workbench 3.1 setup I have put together so far and uploaded it online for other Amiga owners (who legally own Workbench, since they own the hardware) to download and try on their A1200s. It already has both AmiTCP 3.2b and MiamiDX installed as well as a bunch of updates, patches and better datatypes and things. It also has the IBrowse 2.4 demo installed as well as the unrestricted IBrowse 1.2 which was given away free with Aminet CD 24.

If anyone would like to try it, send me a private message and I'll send you the link. It's an uncompressed LHA file inside a Zip file. You unzip it first to produce the uncompressed LHA, which you would transfer to the A1200 somehow (through a PCMCIA card reader or by putting your drive in a PC and using WinUAE), then extract it to a bootable partition. It's actually the beginning of a new Workbench pack a few of us are working on, so we need some testers if anyone would like to try it and help us perfect it for release. I made a demonstration comparing Composite and S-Video recently, and to demonstrate I used Workbench and some programs, including Doom and Shapeshifter. Everything you see in the video is included. This was running on a plain 14Mhz 68EC020 A1200 with only a 8MB RAM card, no CPU upgrade so expect better performance on your 030s.

Some good internet software:

WookieChat (Internet Relay Chat) - http://wookiechat.amigarevolution.com/wookiechat/
SabreMSN (MSN Instant Messenger) - http://wookiechat.amigarevolution.com/sabremsn/
AmIRC (Internet Relay Chat) - http://www.amirc.org/
AmiMSN (MSN Instant Messenger) - http://members.iinet.net.au/~trebs/AmiMSN/
Dynamite (Online Game) - http://amisource.de/dynamite/
AmiTwitter (Twitter) - http://amitwitter.sourceforge.net/
AmiGift (P2P File Sharing) - http://amigift.sourceforge.net/
IBrowse (Web Browser) - http://www.ibrowse-dev.net/
AmiNetRadio (Music Collection & Online Radio) - http://amigazeux.net/anr/
TwinVNC (Virtual Network Computer Client) - http://aminet.net/package/comm/tcp/TwinVNC0.8beta
MiamiDX (TCP/IP) - http://aminet.net/package/comm/tcp/MiamiDx10cmain
MiamiDX GUI - http://aminet.net/package/comm/tcp/MiamiDx10c-MUI
MiamiDX Keyfile - http://www.fatcat.vispa.com/keyring/

Here are some useful files that you can copy to your Amiga on a 720kb DOS-formatted disk (remember to cover the second hole on a HD floppy disk with tape) so you can begin using some PCMCIA cards.

If you're using your PCMCIA port you might experience lockups when the card doesn't reset itself and the Amiga tries to access it. If this happens, you can usually unlock the computer by pulling the card out and re-inserting it. In any case, you should either perform a simple hardware fix or install these patches which will reset your PCMCIA port each time you boot up:

CardPatch - http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/CardPatch
CardReset - http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/CardReset

If you use a cheap PCMCIA CF or SD card reader, you will need the driver and a filesystem that recognises FAT-formatted drives:

CompactFlash Device - http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/cfd
Fat95 - http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/fat95

When using a PCMCIA network card you will need one of two drivers, depending on the chipset your card uses:

CNet Device - http://aminet.net/package/driver/net/cnetdevice
3c589 Device - http://aminet.net/package/driver/net/3c589

Also you might want to try a lighter, but harder to configure TCP stack, AmiTCP 3.2b is free and there is a very useful setup guide here:

AmiTCP - http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/~andreas/amitcp/index.htm

And of course the most useful file of them all, which you will need before you can extract anything, LhA:

LhA 2.12 (Run this first) - http://aminet.net/package/util/arc/lha
LhA 2.15 (Then extract this) - http://aminet.net/package/util/arc/lha_68k

What else?

[Cammy]

A1200 keyboards use a membrane and rubber contacts. Apparently you haven't seen one of these on the inside... A1200 keyboards are just as crappy as any cheap keyboard. Buckling spring switches in an A1200 keyboard, if only!

Did you completely misread my post? Read it again, take note of what I said "coiled metal springs". How you misinterpreted this as "buckling spring switches" I have no idea. I have seen inside all the Amiga keyboards, and guess what pops out if you pull a key off an A1200? A spring! Not some little rubber notch. The coiled spring provides the only resistance between the key and the membrane, allowing your fingers to glide down and back up without having to apply extra pressure to register a keystroke. Typing for several hours on a keyboard with rubber notches (the same you find inside control pad buttons) puts a lot of stress on your fingers. The A1200's keys don't. So therefore when I say the A1200 is a dream to use compared to "any modern keyboards which use cheap rubber components" I mean exactly that, it's better than any keyboard which uses rubber notches to add resistance to the keys because it puts a lot less stress on your fingers than those ones do.

[Cammy]

My advice is to use Miami Deluxe, it has a simple Wizard that walks you through the setup the first time you run it after installing. It is also better and more powerful than AmiTCP 3.2b which is included with EasyNet.

MiamiDX (TCP/IP) - http://aminet.net/package/comm/tcp/MiamiDx10cmain
MiamiDX GUI - http://aminet.net/package/comm/tcp/MiamiDx10c-MUI
MiamiDX Keyfile - http://www.fatcat.vispa.com/keyring/

Dynamite (Online Game) - http://amisource.de/dynamite/

Grunch (Package manager) - http://www.geit.de/eng_grunch.html

Once you get online, run Grunch and it will give you a list of available software, libraries and updates that you can install to make your system more up-to-date.

[Cammy]

You might be better off not using MiamiInit (or whatever it's called). Just start Miami, go to the Interface settings, and make sure 3c589.device is used there.

That's really unhelpful, can't you elaborate? Why is he better off not using MiamiInit? How is he supposed to figure out the rest of the settings just by running Miami and making sure the right device is in there? Where does he look to find it?

My advice is just to keep trying with MiamiInit and re-read the documentation. I would walk you through it myself but if I keep repeating myself on forums and IRC instead of letting people work it out for themselves as I originally had to, I'll never get time to finish coding all the new Amiga programs I'm working on. I'm not trying to be rude but I never have any time to myself when everyone is always begging me to solve their problems for them.