Bought an A1200 again... but struggling..

[ukbill]

Hi, I'm new to this site and have spent a couple of days browsing trying to find clues to solve the problem I have to no avail.

Me and my son bought an Amiga 1200 with about 50 boxed games from a car boot sale on Sunday thinking I could show him what old gaming was all about!  I previously owned a 1200 just after they came out but like a prat sold it years ago.

However on getting the machine home and setting it up only about 50% of the games load.  This has left me confused completely - if it had been 100% I'd know I'd bought a dud.

eg. I can load Frontier Elite II (thank god!), Trivial Pursuit,Syndicate and Bart vs The Space Mutants (much to my sons delight) but other games like SWOS, Sim City 2000, Total Recall, Lure Of The Temptress and The Chaos Engine won't load.  I mostly get the Error code 8000 000B although with SWOS get 8000 0004.  

Can anybody give me any clues as to what the problem might be?  Disc drive?  Discs faulty?  Chip unseated or loose floppy cable?  I'm quite happy to open the machine up but wouldn't mind some guidance into where to look once open.

Another problem I have is that I can only use the RF lead not the yellow video and white and red audio out sockets - I would have preffered to use them but they don't appear to give out a signal - do I have to do anything to switch the output to these?

Driving home on Sunday I had visions of setting up a nice games corner and maybe trying to upgrade it with a hard drive but at the moment I'm just getting frustrated !!

Any help would be greatfully received.

many thanks

Bill

[InTheSand]

Hi,

Does the A1200 have an accelerator in the trapdoor slot underneath?

The composite video output is usually active all the time (e.g. the same with the RF out). And the audio outputs should also be active (when there's sound playing).

 - Ali

[Amiduffer]

Its a good chance that the disks have gone bad. I've opened up the metal sliding door and spun the disk and you can usually see dust or stuff on it, that has helped a couple of times. Plus, its always a good idea to swab the read heads on the drive with Isapropyl alcohol. Used computers are pretty filthy inside a lot of the time.

[4pLaY]

I doubt there is something wrong with the machine! its most likely just faulty disks (they dont last for ever) but you could check for a Accelerator card under the machine (they could stop some games from loading) or try and clean the floppy.

[Hyperspeed]

I bought some 'as new' disk games from eBay lately... one of them had rusted beyond movement!

Best thing to do is give everything a good clean (buy a floppy drive head cleaner from a computer shop) and use an aerosol duster to get bits out from the drive, top vents and PCMCIA slot.

Keep your machine in an environment below 50% humidity.

[ukbill]

Thanks for the responses.  I checked the expansion slot and there is nothing in there.

First thing I did when we started getting loading problems was get the air duster out! (I also collect vinyl records so one is always handy!).  Then I bought a floppy disc cleaner off ebay and tried that last night before posting!  Seems I was at least on the right track anyway....

It would appear that we've got a whole lot of dodgy disks here then - maybe the last owner had them stuck away in a loft for years.  Not sure what the humidity down here in South Wales but its always bloody raining!!

I think I'm gonna try buying another copy of a game that's failing and try that then take it from there!

many thanks again for the help....

Bill

[keropi]

floppies give trouble, that's a fact. Perhaps u should consider registering WHDLOAD (www.whdload.de) as it allows to play all these games via the HD while in workbench. but u need to install a HD to the amiga , but once u done that, gaming will be so easy...!

[Argus]

You should definitely install a 2.5" notebook ide harddisk in that puppy, it will be so much better with, as he said, WHDLoad.  You can use the program to install and run most of your old games from harddisk.  They'll load a lot faster and your son may also then take the opportunity hopefully to start playing around with the OS, maybe learn a thing or two about real computing (not just web surfing or irc on a Windoze machine).

[ukbill]

First up, thanks to all for the responses - very impressive to see people willing to help a newbie!

I hope to fit a hard drive at some point however reading the docs for WHDload has left me a little confused.  I presume this is a program for the amiga however how do I get that program onto the amiga?  I thought that pc formatted discs were incompatible to amiga floppies due to size.  Is winuae of use here or do I need to set up a network link between the pc and amiga?  

Maybe there is a step by step guide somewhere on the net to both adding a HDD and setting up WHDload??

My overwhelming feeling at the moment is one of disappointment tho that a lot of those old games we bought, nearly all boxed with manuals btw no longer work probably due to someone leaving them in the attic for years.....

Bill

[Kronos]

AmigaOS3.0 (as standard with the A1200) comes with drivers for 720k (1440 if you'd have a HD-drive) PC floppies.

It's named "PC0:" and should be on the "Storage" disk of the 3.0 (or 3.1) floppy-set..

If you don't have these disk, you'll need to get them for installing an HD anyway.

[ukbill]

Thanks for that - I do have the OS discs - what I'm missing is the manuals - I think they will be my next purchase followed by a hdd and cable and then a lead to put it through a spare monitor rather than the old portable telly!

We tried a few more of the games we got with the machine tonight with a better yield.  We're now at about 15 working, 20 not working and 15 to try!

Bill

[Akiko]

"how do I get that program onto the amiga?"

Well there is lots of different ways but the simplest and easiest method is by obtaining yourself a compact flash adapter available from Amigakit.

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=440&osCsid=3f6020793d0b2cfcc4d8646dee44b2a5

Most games may also require some extra ram, 4-8 meg memory card is enough.

Anyway it's all worth the effort, Whdload is one of the coolest programs ever written for the Amiga!  

[ukbill]

So if I take the earlier option of the PC formatted floppy or this option plus install a hard drive with WHDload then I still have to buy an accelorator card and extra memory to get the games to work?

And to think I told the wife to just lend me a few quid to get the stuff at the car boot!!   I just bought the manuals off ebay - with this extra stuff it could get expensive  :lol:

[Hyperspeed]

An external floppy drive or two would be nice but ideally a hard drive would be best.

I'm just wondering... if a floppy is rusted and won't move whether it would be possible to transplant the black plastic disc inside. This disc is merely glued onto the spindle and it's easy enough to crack open a diskette.

I wonder if moisture affects the magnetic coating... worth a try - if just to get the data onto the hard drive (and thus WHDLoad).

Bare in mind that a lot of games can be put onto hard drive if they appear on Workbench okay.

[Plaz]

The floppy drives in Amigas that have many miles on them go bad regularly. I've had to replace them in 2 1200's a 4000 2 3000's and a 2000. If your good disk read consistantly, then maybe you did just get unluck with a stack of bad disks. If on the other hand even the "good" disk don't load all the time, then it may be time look for a good replacement floppy drive. Someone or some shop over the internet is probably going to be your source for a replacement if needed.

And welcome aboard!

Plaz