Indentifying my old system!

[mod83]

Here's a challenge - I've just dug out my old Amiga 1200 after years of being on the darkside (PC!) and have totally forgotten how to use it... As a teenager, I was writing PD programmes for it, now it's totally foriegn to me!

I was hoping you guys might be able to help me identify what I have here...

As I recall I should/might have a *Battery Pack/Clock *Accellerator (whatever that is!) *Extra memory and *2 hard drives.

[img=http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/5196/dscf0054yq6.th.jpg]

[img=http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/7143/dscf0058gg1.th.jpg]

[img=http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/8952/dscf0061qm5.th.jpg]

- I took some photos - am I correct?
- If so, is there any way I can find out how big the HDs are (when I boot, I see DFO and DF1 HDs, does this mean I have 2 HDs or are they partitions?!)
- Any way of telling how much memory I have on the system?
- Finally, I have hundreds of cracked disks (9 disk boxes!) with the Amiga, can I sell these with the Amiga on ebay or should I throw them all out? i.e. Is it taken for granted most software is pirated?

Thanks for this - I know it's a pain, can't believe how it's a total mystery to me after 10 years. If these are dumb questions, can someone tell me how I might find out this info thru some software?

many many thanks!
tom, midlands! =o)  :-)  :-?

[Flashlab]

Welcome back? Or are you just here to find out how much money you can make on your setup and go back to the "Dark side"?

Anyway you have a 1200 with 3.0 Roms and with a memory expansion of 8Mb with FPU and clock. This is not considered an accelerator by most.

You should have 10 Mb RAM (2 Chip and 8 Fast).
Df0: and Df1: are diskdrive names not HD names!

Waht happens if you boot? Do you have to use a disk or does it boot to Workbench automatically?

And hey I've been away from Amigas for a few years but how can you forget everything? It's like riding a bike, you never forget! No premature memory loss I hope ;-)

[motorollin]

The expansion you have is a RAM expansion. No CPU acceleration. Though the RAM will make the system a bit faster. It also has an FPU and a battery backed-up clock.

DF0: and DF1: are floppy drives, not hard drives. If you have DHx or HDx, then they are hard drives. You have 2MB of chip RAM and 8MB of fast RAM on the expansion card.

If you want to sell the disks you can sell them as "blanks, but might have some software on" if you want to remain moral :-)

--
moto

--EDIT
Beat me to it :-)

[maffoo]

If you only have DF0 and DF1, you only have floppy drives. However, if you boot into Workbench and open a shell (or select Execute Command from the Workbench menu at the top of the screen) you can type "info" which will give you a list of the drives/partitions you have mounted and the capacity of each.

You can also find out the total memory you have by typing "avail" and pressing return, this will tell you ow much Chip and Fast RAM you have. (From the pictures, it looks like you have an 8MB expansion, so you should have a total of 10MB.)

As for the games, you shouldn't really sell them on Ebay if they're pirated. Format the disks and sell them as blanks, if they still work.

[mod83]

You guys are ridiculously fast! Thanks - I was expecting to wait a coupla days. And, yes, this I probably wil lbe returning to my shiny Dell laptop, I've been living abroad and want to throw out lots of stuff now I'm back... :roll:

You were right, it does actually list DH0 and DH1 - I guess this means I have a built-in HD, as I have another one literally sticking out the back in an anti-static bag...

Any ideas about the model or size of this bad boy?

[img=http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/5395/dscf0073oy1.th.jpg]

Workbench indeed boots automatically.

I notice upgrade A1200s with HDs tend to fetch over £100 on ebay, is mine decent enough to fetch 3-figures or do these things not go for much now... seems a shame, I must admit it was cool booting the thing up again! Ah, Superfrog, fannying around with deluxe paint, Theme Park - brilliant =o)

Cheers again =o)
t  :-D

[maffoo]

mod83 wrote:
I notice upgrade A1200s with HDs tend to fetch over £100 on ebay, is mine decent enough to fetch 3-figures or do these things not go for much now... seems a shame, I must admit it was cool booting the thing up again! Ah, Superfrog, fannying around with deluxe paint, Theme Park - brilliant =o)

Cheers again =o)
t  :-D

I bought my A1200 recently with a hard disk (340MB) and a 50MHz accelerator with 20MB memory for £81 including postage. I don't think you'll get that much for yours unfortunately.

Does the hard disk have a sticker on the other side? That should tell you the make and model of the drive, and probably the capacity. Failing that, try the "avail" command.

[mod83]

The back says 'Seagate Model ST3144A', nothing else -- I'll try that command later today, cheers for the tip!! =o)

[maffoo]

It's a 130MB drive (see here.)

It's strange to think that it those days that was a fairly decent capacity. These days I'm downloading files that more than fill that in less than an hour  :crazy:

[pierre]

dude how can you "FORGET" what you put in your system.  If you where writing PD software on it you must have some memory or what you where doing.... scarry.

[reddwarfer]

Just to be picky the RAM expansion doesn't have an FPU installed - notice the empty socket.
I have an identical board in one of my Amigas, of which is only 4Mb after I swapped the stick of EDO ram - 'cause of PCMCIA incompatibility. Just check using the command that has already been said just to be sure.

[mod83]

I typed in 'avail' and it listed the following
Maximum Chip = 2096128
Maximum Fast = 1048576
Total = 3144704
I guess 'chip' memory is on-board memory - does 'Fast' memory mean I have extra memory installed?

I wonder if someone could translate the above so I can complete the below...

*Commodore Amiga 1200
*Extra external disk drive
*Extra 130MB HD ('Seagate Model ST3144A')
*On board HD
*Clock/Battery pack
*Chip Memory:
*Fast Memory:
*Memory expansion:

You guys have been invaluble today, thanx so much! =o)
T  :-)  :-)  :-)
reddwarfer wrote:
Just to be picky the RAM expansion doesn't have an FPU installed - notice the empty socket.
I have an identical board in one of my Amigas, of which is only 4Mb after I swapped the stick of EDO ram - 'cause of PCMCIA incompatibility. Just check using the command that has already been said just to be sure.[/quote]

[zipper]

Those x4256 chips make just 1 MB SIMM I think, like your Avail command shows.

[TjLaZer]

I've just dug out my old Amiga 1200 after years of being on the darkside (PC!) and have totally forgotten how to use it... As a teenager, I was writing PD programmes for it, now it's totally foriegn to me!

You know I keep hearing people say that, that after so many years of not using an Amiga they forgot how to.  This puzzles me as the Amiga is so easy to use!  I can understand if it was the Commodore Plus 4 or something but come on guys!  Amiga has a GUI (like Winblows) and the CLI is a lot like DOS.  Hardware is a piece of cake too.  LOL  Just wondering...

[mod83]

"Those x4256 chips make just 1 MB SIMM I think"

Sorry, I'm a bit rusty, how much built-in and extra memory do this mean I have?  :-?

Yeah, operating the GUI came back to me easy enough, but some of the lingo is now a mystery to me and, for some reason, I can't remember what's in my system or how to find out.

I looked at some disks I made and wouldn't have a clue where to start now. I'm only 23 so a lot as happened since I reluctantly banished the Amiga to the loft. I've had 3-4 PCs break on me in this time, yet the A1200 just won't die - even the clock is working!

Also, finally, do I have 2 HDs? Because I see DH1 and DH2 when I boot up. :-D

[maffoo]

If you're going to try to sell it, I'd list it as:

*Commodore Amiga 1200
*Extra external disk drive
*Extra 130MB HD ('Seagate Model ST3144A')
(Explaining that this is external, and not in a case - I wouldn't be happy if I bought a computer and found a hard disk hanging out the back in an anti-static bag!)

*Internal HD
(Double-check this first. Just because you have DH1 and DH2 it doesn't mean you have 2 hard disks - it could just be partitioned. There's probably a command that identifies how many devices you have attached to the internal IDE interface.)

*Clock/Battery pack
*Chip Memory: 2MB
*Fast Memory: 1MB via trapdoor slot
*Fast memory can be expanded to 8MB.

I've think I've found your memory expansion here, you might want to confirm if adding more than 4MB will cause problems with the PCMCIA slot (as reddwarfer has indicated.) Google should help there. If it will cause problems, remember to mention it if you advertise it  :-)