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Author Topic: Tips for Building a better 1200?  (Read 1934 times)

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Offline ckillerh3Topic starter

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Tips for Building a better 1200?
« on: March 08, 2005, 02:36:54 AM »
Hi -

I'm thinking about building-up my Amiga 1200 system
into a tower configuration.  It looks like the ElBox
tower kit is a good way to go, along with their Mediator SX upgrade.  What else will I need to make a machine strong enough to run the new OS 3.9 or better?  Any items to <> ?

Stephen in NJ :-?
Amiga 4000D/040 Warp Engine/SCSI-CD/Cybergraphic64/X-Surf
Amiga 1200T 060/60 PPC603e BVision and more
Amiga 1200 nice white case GVP1230/1291SCSI
Amiga 2500 stock 2630 GVP HC+8(4)CD-ROM
 

Offline neofree

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Re: Tips for Building a better 1200?
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2005, 02:43:39 AM »
I recommend an 030/50 or an 060 or 060/PPC.  An 040 is an option too but be prepared to add cooling to it.  Blizzard boards seem to be accepted as one of the best.  With your mediator, of course get a Vodoo video card, a good NIC, and good sound card too. Just compare the models that are included on the driver CD and get the best ones.  That should be enough.

Technically though a 020 w/ 6 megs of RAM and a CD-ROM drive is enough to load OS3.9.

 

Offline cartmanau

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Re: Tips for Building a better 1200?
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2005, 05:45:50 AM »
If you want to build your A1200 up further, also make sure that you have plenty of $$$. Amiga parts are not cheap.
 

Offline adz

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Re: Tips for Building a better 1200?
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2005, 05:49:28 AM »
What do you want to do with it? No point spending bucket loads of money for no reason.
 

Offline AmiXDel

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Re: Tips for Building a better 1200?
« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2005, 06:12:08 AM »
Here is what I am personally waiting for:

http://www.elbox.com/news_04_12_17.html

Of course a case is going to cost me over $200 which is a RIP OFF FROM HELL!

But hey, I'm am Amiga freak, I'm willing to take it in the butt from our rip off re-sellers.

Oh if only OS 4 ran on Mac hardware. :/
 

Offline ckillerh3Topic starter

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$$ vs Value re: Tips for Building a better 1200?
« Reply #5 on: March 08, 2005, 02:22:28 PM »
Hi -

What do I want to do with my proposed Amiga Tower?
Basically surf the web, download and play
with audio files, maybe connect my digital
camera and edit some pictures.

I'd like to do it with an Amiga based system.  If
I get a processor with PowerPC I guess there is a dual
boot option for running Mac OS also?

Stephen in NJ
Amiga 4000D/040 Warp Engine/SCSI-CD/Cybergraphic64/X-Surf
Amiga 1200T 060/60 PPC603e BVision and more
Amiga 1200 nice white case GVP1230/1291SCSI
Amiga 2500 stock 2630 GVP HC+8(4)CD-ROM
 

Offline samanosuke

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Re: Tips for Building a better 1200?
« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2005, 04:15:05 PM »
Oh no no no no no no no.



You can't just dual boot into Mac OS with a PPC accelerator! Using the same logic you should be able to dual boot into 68k Mac OS and STOS with your current system which I am sure you know is not possible. Emulation is an option however but if you want  to use PPC Mac software and OS 9 then you'll need a PPC card (obviously) which costs a lot, can be unreliable and is difficult to source. You'll also need a copy of iFusion which again is difficult to source and I've heard it's very difficult to get to grips with.

My suggestion would be to go for an '060 accelerator as it will easily cope with your needs. With it you can use Shapeshifter (it's free - simply download it from Aminet), which absolutely flies when using an '060, for 68k Mac emulation. As far as I can recall it is capable of running anything up to Mac OS 8.1 and I currently have Mac OS 8.0 installed on its own partition on my A4000 which runs Netscape very nicely.

You also said you'd like to play music and I'm assuming you're referring to MP3 files. For this an '060 (or better, PPC) is a necessity. I use Songplayer on my A4000 and the sound quality is very good indeed but in order to get the best quality you need to be using a 30khz screenmode. Seeing as you have said you want to buy a Mediator board (and I assume a graphics card to accompany it) this won't be a problem for you.

Lastly I'd like to offer you my tuppence worth if I may; I wouldn't bother going for a PPC card based on what you want your Amiga to do as an '060 will be fine and infinitely cheaper. Maybe if you see a cheap '040/25 with 603e/160 minus the SCSI interface it may be a similar price to an '060 (and if it is then buy it!) but I reckon you'll be waiting a long time in order to pick one up that cheap.
My Amigas: A4000 w/CS Mk II \'060, Picasso IV, 128Mb, OS3.9
Stock A4000 040 w/16Mb, OS3.0
 

Offline Brian Hoskins

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Re: Tips for Building a better 1200?
« Reply #7 on: March 08, 2005, 07:19:54 PM »
You could always bin the idea of upgrading your Amiga and buy mine - it's for sale on Ebay at the moment

It's extremely high spec - probably as high spec as classic Amigas come.  It has the mediatorSX busboard, a Voodoo3 3000 graphics card, a Terratec512i sound card, 10/100 ethernet, 5x USB2.0 slots, a top of the range BPPC accelerator (68060@64Mhz, 603e@256Mhz, on board SCSI) 256MB RAM, 120GB HD, CDRW and it's all housed in a lovely Mirage1200 tower.  It also has a fully loaded OS3.9 install running on it.

Go here for a look:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=8175600043&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT
 

Offline ckillerh3Topic starter

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Re: Tips for Building a better 1200?
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2005, 04:05:51 AM »
WOW !  That is an <> system ! Certainly worth every penny / pence / unit of currency. I'll have to watch the auction and see how high it goes.  You are in the UK I see.  Should the unit ultimately end up going over seas you might consider removing the boards before shipment and wrapping them up separately.  I'm sure the system will fetch a good price.  What is the dollar-to-pound ratio these days anyway?  It is up to &771 right now.  

Amiga 4000D/040 Warp Engine/SCSI-CD/Cybergraphic64/X-Surf
Amiga 1200T 060/60 PPC603e BVision and more
Amiga 1200 nice white case GVP1230/1291SCSI
Amiga 2500 stock 2630 GVP HC+8(4)CD-ROM
 

Offline DILA65

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Re: Tips for Building a better 1200?
« Reply #9 on: March 10, 2005, 05:07:52 AM »
Its about $1500, seems like a lot of money for an Amiga, unless you need something to play your $700 copy of xenon2 :-P