New person here.

[Mercid]

Both my A500 and A4000 were purchased from eBay.  I was really lucky and got my A4000 for $150.00 using by it now, but that was only because I was looking at listings when he put it up.  I took a gamble on it, but except for missing the hard drive bracket it was in excellent shape.

[drewz21]

Not to derail the thread but I love your Avatar Mercid.  LOL!

[Hyperspeed]

CAUTION: This thread contains flashing lights which may cause epileptic seizures in small children.

[amigadave]

justinr12 wrote:
So, now with the intros out of the way, what's the best way for someone in the States to secure an A1200?  Like I said in my intro post one of my instructors would like to see it demonstrated in a presentation at the end of the term.  So far I can't really find anything that comes with a US power supply.

Buy a converted ATX PSU, keep checking eBay and other Amiga sites like Amiga.org and Amigaworld.  I believe you can use a UK A1200 here in the states as they will display NTSC or PAL using the early startup menu (hold down both mouse buttons on startup).

[justthatgood]

Yeah, it's good that we have more people coming in here.  More Amiga people, mean a bigger community.

As for trying to code games. It's all about games.  Games are a lot more fun to program then utilites I guess.

[antonye]

Welcome to A.org my friend  :-D

[justinr12]

Thanks.  But what would an ATX power supply do if I'm using the original slim case A1200?

[Hyperspeed]

An upgraded power supply will give you more juice for an accelerator. The stock A1200 power supply was only 21-watt so wasn't up to powering an accelerator with RAM + SCSI, then a hard disk etc.

You can convert a PC AT/ATX power supply for the Amiga as the voltages are the same. You'll need to keep your original square A1200 plug and get instructions as to the pin lauout.

[justinr12]

Maybe in a few weeks I might see if there's someone here in my area who might be willing to do so for a fee.  I'm NOT very good at soldering. In fact, I have the failed attempt at making the 4-player adapter from some Genesis/MegaDrive extension cables.

[Hyperspeed]

The AT/ATX power supply conversion won't require soldering as you can simply use a connector block. However you will need to use a multimeter to verify the voltages on the wires.

This archive has a picture which shows the voltages required by the desktop Amigas:
ftp://de.aminet.net/pub/aminet/pix/illu/A1200PowerSupp.lha

It might be easier to just buy an Amiga tower like the Power Tower/Micronik or get a PC case so you will have a switch for the PSU. An external case will help for storing CD-ROM drives etc. but you can get heavy duty PSUs such as the Wizard Powerbox and Goliath Power Supply that are self contained, external boxes.

I blew two power supplies (one was a meatier A500 version) when I upgraded to Blizzard 1230-IV/SCSI-IV but this may have had something to do with a power hungry scandoubler/FF competing with an internal hard disk.

:-)

[justinr12]

I understand completely, Hyper.  The problem is that given how my back is currently (scoliosis, NOT fun) I need something that's easy on the back to carry into the classroom.

[Hyperspeed]

For artists there are Genius/Tabby graphics tablets (pen style mice).

For keeping power consumption and weight low maybe an internal ATA flash drive would help.

[justinr12]

By the way, where do I post a want ad for an Amiga?  The person who offered me one that didn't have screws for the case or the KickStart chip never replied to me on shipping, and this one A500 bundle I found on eBay is FAR too prohibitive in costs.

[redfox]

@justinr12

Hello :-D I'm catching up.

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redfox