Hi community!

[Franko]

Hi Gilthanaz...

Welcome to the happy place called Amigaland AKA the Nuthouse...

Sigh... I'd love to feel a 30 year old (but the neighbours would talk and I'd get arrested) and anywhoo I can't really remember that far back in time (think when I was that age we still had dinosaurs roaming about)...

Well hopefully on Friday when you get your nice new Amiga (good choice the A1200 by the way) we'll be hearing a lot more from you as you discover both the joys and frustration that only Amiga can bring...

I'm sure all your questions will be answered by the natives here, you may not like all of the answers but they will get answered none the less...

[Franko]

grammar

grandad...

[Franko]

So far i could not find out yet if the A1200 IDE Bus allows for two IDE devices to be connected per Master/Slave, as known from PC compatible.

It can but you'd have to keep the cable very short indeed to try and avoid problems...

Much better (and advisable) to get a buffered interface board for your A1200. I use both the 4xEIDE & FastATA MKIII boards in my various A1200's and they make adding CD/DVD ReWriters and HD's a breeze. The FastATA MKIII is the best and really speeds up HD/CD/DVD read/write access, but it's more expensive and I believe you can still buy it new from AmigaKit...

Love the Solar Panels by the way... neat... (just wish we had enough sunlight here in Scotland to make them cost effective)...

[Franko]

Pure gold
 
Anyway, welcome Gilthanaz (boy is this hard to type right...), and enjoy your Amiga resurrection
My money's on UFO Enemy unknown You'll lose weeks with that one.

Sad thing is, it's true...

Guess I'm on another "ignore list", only one to give Githa.. Gilthza... (you're right it is hard to type) the new guy some advice on his IDE question and not a dicky bird in response...

Oh well, it means I can still talk about him anyway and he wont get upset...

[Franko]

Hehe Franko

I have to google a lot of the long, complicated words you used for different pieces of Amiga hardware that I'am not familiar with. Need some easy words explaining

However, I'am pretty confident I can fit in two of those CF-HDDs into the trapdoor slot, and I know of at least one IDE cable (of the hundreds I store in plastic bags) that is only like 4 inches (~10 cm) with 3 IDE connectors that might be perfect for the job. However, so far I'am not sure if I ever need more than 4GB of storage on the A1200

Even google won't help much trying to understand me (heck I can't even understand half the things I say)...

The problems you'll have with fitting 2 devices to the Amigas built in IDE header is all to do with the fact it's not buffered & not designed to cope with anything more than 1 device at a time and only on a very short cable (generally no more than 5 to 6cm Max to be reliable)...

From the method you describe you are going to try then 10cm may be just too much and cause errors in reading and writing, you can give it a try but from experience somewhere along the line you will most likely start having read/write errors...

If you do and it works fine with 2 devices connected then at least that will save you having to buy a buffered interface board and if 4GB is enough for you then those CF devices should suit you just fine (prefer HDs myself and use 2 500GB drives in my main A1200)...

Any problems just ask, as folk here will only be more than willing to help out.  It's always nice to watch someone discover the Amiga and help out where possible and see how they advance with this great machine over time...

[Franko]

Ah, cannonballs ! I was hoping to use a longie cable (about as an A1200) with two cards. Can I use it with at least one card without problems ? Or will the length be an issue here also ?

If you mean connecting it directly to the IDE header on the motherboard then long cable are a big no no...

It may not be as much of a problem for those CF card thingies (I don't use them personally) but for proper HDs and especially adding two, then you really have to use the shortest cables possible to prevent read/write errors (even then this is not guaranteed to work with 2 drives)...

If your going to use just one CF Card adapter try and keep the cable length to the minimum possible you can, it may seem to be working fine but you will most likely notice sooner or later read/write errors or worse creeping in...

Like I said earlier, it's best to get hold of a buffered interface board from either ebay or Amigkit as these will allow you to add up to 4 devices, eliminate read/write errors, allow you to use much longer cables and best of all speed up reading and writing times...

[Franko]

@Franko:
and in fact I'am one of the very rare people in this country that have a letter from a psychatrist, explaining that I'am sane :p
Ohhh insane people! Me likey!

- Gil

I'm the opposite I've got a certificate from my psychiatrist explaining that I am insane...

I met some of the sanest people ever back in 2002-03 when I was in me nice institution...(best holiday I ever had was that place, they even let me have one of me miggies to keep me amused, well that's when the doctors and nurses weren't playing with it, they loved Lemmigs)...

[Franko]

Well... I already have a long cable, and a CF card. I guess I'll just try it when I get hold of the IDE/CF adapter, and if it acts up I'll just have to get me a shorter cable
 
I know that the buffered boards are great stuff, but too expensive to justify right now

If you need a short cable just let me know and I'll send you one...

[Franko]

Also, why would you not want to use CF-HDDs? After all they are more reliable than old-school-platter-rotating-mechanically-fast-dying 2.5" HDDs

Also i've heard that Amiga supports SFS, which should be capable to also allow way bigger partitions (given that the boot partition is on the first 200-or-so sectors of the HDD, if its anything like LILO was in earlier linux days), so having 32/64GB CF Disks running als HDD shouldn't be much of an issue, mmmmh?

Impatient and in agony of not-knowing the answer already, I await thine post, full of sparkling wisdom in these dark ages of lost knowledge, Franko!

- Gil

I need lots more storage space than CF cards can offer that why I use HDs. My main A1200 has two 500GB HD's attached and I've only got about 180MB of free space left on them...

I've been using SFS for quite a number of years now and found it to be the best and only files system for me as it's the only one that can cope with single files sizes of greater than 4GB which I need for storing and burning DVDs...

[Franko]

@ Lord AGA

If your going to be adding extra HDs or want to add a CD/DVD ReWriter then a buffered interface is a must have...

I can't speak for the 4 way one Amigit is selling at £19.90 as I've never used that one...

The FastATA MKIV that they are selling is the best money can buy when it comes to IDE boards for the A1200 (I use the MKIII version myself) but if your not bothered about CD/DVD burning at the best speed possible on an Amiga and fast HD access on your Amiga then the cheaper ones would be much better suited for you...

FastATA MKIV @ AmigaKit

Even on eBay you'll pay around £70 for an old second hand FastATA MKIII (If you can find one) and at least £25 for an old second hand 4xEIDE Elbox board (these show up more often)...

The cheaper boards wont give you 6.5MB/s speed like the FastATA boards do  (more like 2.3MB/s) but I don't suppose most users will notice this unless your handling big files like me of greater than 4GBs and you can still burn CD/DVDS with the cheaper boards all be it at lower speeds...

The reason I use the Elbox 4xEIDE boards in my other Amiga's is I don't really use them for burning CDs or DVDs (just reading them) and it's design is far better, it stands up right and doesn't sit on the metal shielding like other boards do. I have an old EyeTech 4 way buffered interface lying about somewhere but I don't use it cos you have to stick it to the sheilding with double sided velcro sticky pads and unless you insulate it properly it can be quite dodgy....

I guess it's down to your budget and just what you need to be able to do, if you want the best and need speed/ big HDs and are willing to pay for it then the FastATA is the one to go for. If you simply want to access & use HDs & CD/DVD drives reliably then the cheaper boards are the way to go...

[Franko]

Here's a couple of pics of one of my A1200's that I modified using just the 4xEIDE board to allow me to easily add an external CD/DVD Writer (or HD) along with of course an internal 2.5" HD...






This is my main A1200 in a custom built (MDF) tower...

A1200 Blizzard060/PPC 60Mhz/240Mhz / 256Mb Ram / 2 x 500GB HDs / 2 x DVD Burners / FASTATA MKIII / SubWay USB / Cocolino Wireless Mouse / Custom Built Audio Amp/Fader

[Franko]

I can say slut and s**t in German. Both very useful words to know. Admittedly it make meeting new Germans somewhat awkward...

I also know thankyou and left.

DON'T GO ON HOLIDAY TO GERMANY KESA... :eek: You'll start bloody World War III... :nervous:

German Native: Da Hello, Howz arze zyou dooinks...

Kesa:G'day mate, I've just left Australia and I'm here for a holiday thank you, is that slut you're with your grannie, my she is as lovely as s**t...

3 Minute Warning Sounds... :eek:

[Franko]

Hey Franko, it's nice to finally see some photos of your A1200s. I didn't know you used a towered one as well. I love your external IDE solution, I've been trying to work out the best way to go about it on my A1200 myself.

The towered one is my pride and joy, I've posted the pics before & they've always been in my alum in my user profile with a few more...

I like to add the 4xEIDE and an external connector like that to all my spare A1200's as it come in handy for testing new HD's or CD/DVD drives first without having to open up the tower to install one...

It's very easy to do as it only requires a small cut out on the side of the Amiga or the back if you prefer and all the cables can be bought ready made from Amigakit...

That reminds me someone asked a while back for me to post some pictures of all my A1200s after I had given them the RetroBright treatment, they all came up like brand new, I'd better do that today...

PS:I've always meant to ask, I notice you use a lot of FlatsScreen LCD monitors in your vast collection, do you notice a lot of blurring with scrolling games on them, as every flatscreen I've tried have been unusable due to the blurring on them and I've never found one that I was happy with...

[Franko]

@ Gilthanaz

I've tried just about every brand and I aint found one yet that I was happy with (they seem to get worse on the more expensive models especially Sony & Panasonic)...

The last one I tested just before christmas was a Samsung model (supposedly 2ms response time) but was blurry as hell when I tried Alien Breed on it (Alien Breed's one of the simplest ways to test for blurring during scrolling)...

Some people say I'm just too fussy, but it's the one reason why I still haven't bought a flatscreen for my living room nor for use with my Amiga's, the blurring just drives me mental. Think I'll have to stick with CRTs until someone finally fixes this problem or invents a better technology..