What have I done.....

[roskoff]

I just purchased a working A1200 motherboard, NTSC on E-Bay.  Now my dilemma is where to go from here?  I have no keyboard, no disk drive, no accelerator card, no RAM.  Should I try to acquire an A1200 shell and keyboard and recreate an original A1200 or do I get a tower case?  Any opinions?  

[coldfish]

I'd track down the remaining A1200 bits just to test it.

-Floppy & Cable
-HD & Cable (not essential)
-PSU (A500 or PC with Amiga Cable)
-Keyboard
-An Amiga disk for testing.

You have RAM (onboard) ;o)

Good luck!

[orange]

I have the same problem with one of my A1200s.
You dont need anything (besides PSU, of course) to test baaic functionality. So get PSU somewhere (from A500 or better, modify AT/ATX) and connect RCA composite out to TV.
(dont forget to wait a bit because it takes long without HDD to boot)
As I understand you got no case, so towering will be best option. If you know a bit about soldering and stuff, make AT (PS2 keyboard) keyboard adapter, there are instructions on aminet for pic16f84 or buy one, its not expensive. The problem might be soldering wires to chip that controls keyb. (its easier in A500). You can do the same for mouse if you don't
have one (and its reccomended even if you do). Second thing would be getting 2,5"->3,5" IDE adapter.
PC FDD can VERY easily be modified to work as Amiga especially if you dont need NDOS games right now, again look at aminet hard/hack

Those are basics. After that you could start thinking about turbo/graphicscards, vga adapters...

 :-)

[doctorq]

Start by testing the motherboard. You can do so by connecting a floppy power connector of a PSU to the one on the Amiga motherboard. Connect the composite out of the Amiga motherboard to a TV card in a PC to get picture, or use the build in TV modulator to connect it to a TV if you have the cable.

Turn the power on, and let it be so for about 30-45 seconds. If you get picture the board works (at least boots) but if you don't get a picture it is most likely dead.

[orange]

Hmmm, that's interesting. Are you sure he won't damage anything by using floppy power connector? it does have +5 and +12, but what about -12?

IIRC somebody told me -12 was needed for RF modulator, right?

[Effy]

Get a pc keyboard adapter to connect any pc keyboard ! Look on Aminet how to modify a pc disc drive to use on the A1200 !! And try to connect or solder the correct wires of a pc power supply to the A1200 !! But that does include to know something of soldering, something that is beyond my leval of intelligence  :lol:

[doctorq]

@orange

I used it for over a year without damaging my motherboard (B1230, HDD and CD), so I see no problem by using this method as for testing purpose. In fact, I used it not more than two weeks ago for testing a Blizzard PPC 060/240/SCSI, and it was the only power source the computer got.

The -12V is used in order to not have a interupted sound. If -12V isn't connected there will be a noisy every x seconds. If -12V is supplied through a Mediator or G-Rex busboard for instance, the -12V connection isn't needed anymore, as the computer gets -12V through this.

In the end, if the original power connector is at hand, it would be the best to use this for every day usage. In a tower extra power can be supplied at the floppy power connector at the motherboard.