USA order from Vesalie.de ?

[vic20owner]

Hi, I just placed an order for a new A1200 Magic Bundle from www.vesalia.de.  Has anyone here ordered a complete machine from them? I'm wondering what to expect for delivery time, and  what sort of additional fees I will have to pay US customs when it arrives.  They claim to have NTSC/USA Amigas available.  I haven't received the confrimation email for my order yet with final total, but I'm really looking forward to getting a NIB A1200 for my collection.  I'm SICK of ebay snipers.

Opinions?

[x56h34]

You will get a PAL Magic Pack unless you specify in your reply to their "soon to come with totals" e-mail that you want an NTSC machine. Now I'm not sure if they carry both PAL and NTSC genuine unopened units, but if they have only PAL (which I suspect) then they will have to open it up and replace the motherboard with an NTSC one, which they have in stock available separately, and also possibly replace the euro keyboard (German, UK, French, or whatever it is) with one that has US kaps.

This would be a bit of a rape to the genuine new feel of the package, but it will look brand new, nevertheless. You can tell if the warranty sticker has been tampered if they opened it or not, upon receival. :-)

As for customs fees, yes they will be applied when the package is delivered. There is a slight possibility that it slips through undetected, however not likely.

[Morley]

I ordered some stuff from Vesalia a while back, and though it took a while before the confirmation e-mail got to me, it all worked out very well.

Regarding the PAL/NTSC question, it's just a matter of setting a jumper i believe. Or maybe I'm wrong here...

[x56h34]

@Morley

A1200 comes with an RF modulator. In order to produce a specific signal (PAL or NTSC), Commodore created that modulator with parts that generate video signals only for one of these 2 territories as default.

The Alice chip also (via some surface soldered jumpering) is forced to either default to PAL or NTSC options at power up. If you were to tweak this jumpering to force Alice to display NTSC as default on a PAL machine (for example), I would get 60Hz sync needed for NTSC, but I would ALWAYS be stuck with an RF modulator designed for PAL colour sync (and perhaps some additional parts within the RF modulator which I'm unaware of due to lack of technical knowledge) which would then display black and white image on the TV, unless that is if I owned a multi-system TV designed for EVEN these funky combinations of PAL colour signal running at 60Hz or NTSC at 50Hz.

This is what makes a difference (motherboard wise) between PAL and NTSC units when it comes to A1200. The RF modulator hardware is essentially the only difference, plus the jumpers for Alice default display modes (NTSC and PAL).

With A3000 and A4000, all the motherboards are the same (no RF modulator, so it's easy to produce a one for all design) and thus there is a jumper on the motherboard which can provide PAL or NTSC by a simple setting. The only means of display is RGB, which is not affected by the above-mentioned rules of the RF modulator world.

[TjLaZer]

Wasn't there a issue of having to fit a specific Oscillator freq on the MB for proper NTSC or PAL operation?  Or is that only for the RF Modulator equipped Amigas only?  

So esentially a Amiga 4000 motherboard from Germany, should work flawlessly in the US when jumpered to NTSC and installed with a 110V PS hooked up to a NTSC monitor?  Cool.

[x56h34]

Yes. The PSU with A3000 and A4000 is the only difference. The motherboard jumper cap can be moved easily from pins 1-2 to 2-3 and thus choose PAL or NTSC as default Alice selection at boot. :-)

[Acill]

I've ordered from them several times and not once hav eI had to pay any customs fee. I think things comming to the US isnt as bad on customs as other places?

[vic20owner]

Thanks everyone. I'll let you know how it turns out.  Looking forward to the nice new white A1200 with lots of HD space.

-tom