Questions for my 1200/600 projects

[James]

Hi!

I've got this project of building myself a nice custom plexiglass desktop (or maybe tower) case to hold the 1200 and 600. I don't know yet if Im gonna build them in seperate cases or if I'm going to put both in the same (dual core amiga?).

The case itself and fitting the stuff inside isn't a problem at all, but I have some questions about certain things related to expanding both computers.

Here's the list of upgrades I had in mind for the 1200, some are very minor while others have more impact:
-Install KS3.1 & WB3.1/5/9
-Fix on Gayle for the PCMCIA reset bug
-Small mod on Paula for better stereo imaging
-PS/2 keyboard interface
-PS/2 mouse interface
-Install CDRom
-Have RGB and VGA connectors on the case
-Pal/NTSC switch
-Reset button
-200w PSU

Now most of these I'm comfortable with but I do have a couple of points I'd like to have more details on:

About the PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard interface... I've seen many homemade-looking ones on the net, is there a way I could get myself the specs to that? As long as it doesn't require PIC programming. I don't wanna buy PCKey+Cocolino, it seems ridiculously pricey.

Pal/NTSC Switch. I've heard.... errr.. I've read that unsoldering pin 41 on the agnus and sending it to the ground defaults to PAL when booting instead of NTSC. I know I had made a similar mod on my A500's where you lifted a pin off from the socket and cut a trace on the motherboard somewhere else. But does anyone have any actual experience in doing this mod on the 1200? An hardware solution is all that works for some games and demos that override the bootmenu. And euhm.. same question, but for the A600?

VGA/RGB... Let's say I open my C= rgb-to-vga adapter and solder a female 25 pin dsub to the pins coming right out of the connector that goes to the amiga... could I connect both a 1084 and vga at the same time? I know resolutions would only work on one monitor at a time and that's ok. I mean, you just close the monitor that falls out of sync as the other ones takes over... but what I want to know is would it  be 'electronically' ok to do that? would I short something up by having the signal go to two different peripherals?

Elbox 4xIDE: It has 4 connectors. One that goes on the amiga obviously, one "Primary port" 2.5" 44pin, one "Primary port" 3'5" 40pin, and finally one "Secondary port" 3.5" 40pin. Are the 44 and 40 pin 'Primary Ports' different or the same? I would think they are the same and that if I put a 2.5" HD on the 44 pin as master i can't also use a 3.5" HD as master on the Primary 40pin?

750mb HD: I've put it in the 1200, booted on WB 3.0 from disk. I ran HDtools and it found the drive's config and I was able to partition the drive. After all the tweaks, closing the application reboots the amiga. After which my HD's are suposedly ready to format. However when I reboot I get the purple insert disk screen... so I boot from the web disk again and meh.... my HD partitions are there if I load HDtoolbox but Install won't see them. If I run HDSetup, another tool on the Install disk, I can choose 'partition drives' and it creates two partitions HD0 at 8mb and the rest of the drive is called HD1. It sorta 'mounts' them or something and the appear on the WB screen in the background. after that the app tells me I can run Install and get on with it. So that's what I do... and it installs to HD. takes about 15 minutes all in all for 6 disks. The thing reboots.... blam.. nothing. asks me for a disk again. So I boot the wb disk yet another time... no HD appear when wb loads....just disks. No matter hoe many times I Toolbox or Setup my HD... it disappears on reboot. furthermore, I don't see it in the a1200's boot menu when I hold down the rat buttons. Any ideas?

Let's say I tower my 1200 and use a pc keyboard on it. If I put the a600 in the old 1200's case (think of the place to add stuff!) can I simply hook on the 1200's keyboard to the 600's port and have the numeric keypad also?

Workbenches.. I'd like to put 2.1 on my A600 but I can't find all wb2.1 disks anywhere. All pages say that Cloanto sued their &*^&*^ because they own the prodcut and sell it.. so I get their product... and it only has the wb disk itself.. not the full set for installation. Dammit.. they sue it out of downloadable existence without offering the whole product? Does anyone know where I can get my hands on them disks without getting demagnetized "as-is" disks from ebay?

PFew... that was long

[Brian]

Elbox 4xIDE, yes Prin 2.5" and 3.5" are one and the same port and only one can be used at a time.

A600 can use external keyboard with numeric keypad.

I've had the same issue with a HDD once. Don't remember too well now if it was due to I had cut the reset line on the IDE cable (Pin1) or not... however I know the solusion was to use a different drive all together.

[amimadman]

About the PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard interface... I've seen many homemade-looking ones on the net, is there a way I could get myself the specs to that? As long as it doesn't require PIC programming. I don't wanna buy PCKey+Cocolino, it seems ridiculously pricey.

I had this problem when I built my A600 laptop. In the end I gave up trying to figure it out and bought one of these.

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=102&osCsid=4d298e345fe78743f07b41f33b430c1c

PS2 to serial conversion is easy,

http://www.hardwarebook.info/PS/2_to_Serial_Mouse

Elbox 4xIDE: It has 4 connectors. One that goes on the amiga obviously, one "Primary port" 2.5" 44pin, one "Primary port" 3'5" 40pin, and finally one "Secondary port" 3.5" 40pin. Are the 44 and 40 pin 'Primary Ports' different or the same? I would think they are the same and that if I put a 2.5" HD on the 44 pin as master i can't also use a 3.5" HD as master on the Primary 40pin?

You can only use one primary port at a time, either 44 pin or 40 pin. If you use the 40 pin then you can have 4 ide devices; Primary master, primary slave, secondary master, secondary slave. If you use the 44 pin master then it is unlikely that you can find a 44 pin hardrive that will allow the use of a secondary device on that port.

750mb HD: I've put it in the 1200, booted on WB 3.0 from disk. I ran HDtools and it found the drive's config and I was able to partition the drive. After all the tweaks, closing the application reboots the amiga. After which my HD's are suposedly ready to format. However when I reboot I get the purple insert disk screen... so I boot from the web disk again and meh.... my HD partitions are there if I load HDtoolbox but Install won't see them. If I run HDSetup, another tool on the Install disk, I can choose 'partition drives' and it creates two partitions HD0 at 8mb and the rest of the drive is called HD1. It sorta 'mounts' them or something and the appear on the WB screen in the background. after that the app tells me I can run Install and get on with it. So that's what I do... and it installs to HD. takes about 15 minutes all in all for 6 disks. The thing reboots.... blam.. nothing. asks me for a disk again. So I boot the wb disk yet another time... no HD appear when wb loads....just disks. No matter hoe many times I Toolbox or Setup my HD... it disappears on reboot. furthermore, I don't see it in the a1200's boot menu when I hold down the rat buttons. Any ideas?

Strange one that, sounds possibly like the hard drive maybe taking a long time to run up. This was a known problem with some older hard drives. If you search aminet you will find a fix for this, if this is the problem. Once powered up and sitting there waiting for a boot floppy, try a soft reset, Ctrl A A. The hard drive is already run up so should be picked up, if this is the problem.

Let's say I tower my 1200 and use a pc keyboard on it. If I put the a600 in the old 1200's case (think of the place to add stuff!) can I simply hook on the 1200's keyboard to the 600's port and have the numeric keypad also?

No, you cant I'm afraid. Wrong size ribbon cable. Best bet is an A600 keyboard converter from Elbox.

Workbenches.. I'd like to put 2.1 on my A600 but I can't find all wb2.1 disks anywhere. All pages say that Cloanto sued their &*^&*^ because they own the prodcut and sell it.. so I get their product... and it only has the wb disk itself.. not the full set for installation. Dammit.. they sue it out of downloadable existence without offering the whole product? Does anyone know where I can get my hands on them disks without getting demagnetized "as-is" disks from ebay?

PFew... that was long

Why 2.1? With the right ROM chip you can run with 3.9, so long as you up your memory.

Hope that helps.

[James]

Thanks for the replies!

For the 750mb HD: I do not think it's the famous delay problem because: 1> physically, you can hear the drive start running much faster than the old Maxtor one. It goes from silent to "vroom" about three times faster. 2> Even after many ctrl-a-a soft reboots, the HD still isn't picked up. I wouldn't mind having the problem on a cold boot, in fact I would actually find that cool. The only differences I can see with the old HD are: the old one didn't have any jumpers on it, the new one has a jumper on two of the four remaining pins next to the 44pin connector. Also, the HD was designed by IBM, for use in Apple computers.

If I boot and run HDSetup, I'll have two partitions show up (HD0 8mb and HD1 76x mb) on the wb screen. I can install to them, I can format them. It really does write to HD as you can see the HD led light up and you hear the HD working. Yet when I reboot... all gone. Doesn't even show up in the early boot menu.
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PS2 mouse/keys: Yep.. the more I look at it, I think I'm gonna have to buy these parts as the specs, simple as they must be, don't seem available anywhere. It's a shame really to have to pay 60$ (what my A600hd was on sale for) to get a little PCB with a couple of resistors and an opto or two on it.
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4xIDE- That's precisely what I thought. So my best bet if I want to put as many devices in the Amiga is to go 3.5" all the way. Although having my 750mb 2.5" as system disk on the primary and having 3.5" 20gbHD + Cdrom on the secondary would most likely be quite enough. 20gb...on amiga...that's enough free space to store the source code to the universe.
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A600 keys: Awwwh! Damn Amiga for this! They were always changing a little this and that between models, never could agree on something standard. I'm pretty sure the 1200 keys can be hooked up to the 600's port with some tweaking. I'll check if I can find info on the pinouts and I'll remove that horrible ribbon and replace it with an HD-style ribbon cable and connectors. Im sure the pinouts are pretty much the same and only size/placement differs between the two. I sure hope so at least.
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My reasons for wanting Wb 2.1 is because I wanna keep the A600 as a retro-compatible machine. I'm a classic amiga fan, and I don't care much for all this new stuff (amithlon, amigaone, os4 etc). I'm going to take the 1200 up to KS3.1, and see which WB between 3.1, 3.5 and 3.9 suit me best. But the 600 I'm leaving in full ECS-compatible config for games, demos and quite a lot of software that won't run properly on an accelerated ks3.x 1200. I'm even considering a ROM switcher with two bootable partitions to have full 1.3 support also.

So far though.. I'm having no luck at all. I'm really trying to avoid ebay as I never had a good experience on disks from ebay, especially disks from 1991.

If any one of you have the disks somewhere.. please let me know!
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Oh also.. one last question.... I know the A1200 PSU is a bit on the flimsy side at 23 watts (compared to 60w on the A500 PSU). How's the A600's PSU? I'm guessing it's the same as the 1200 since it was released at the same time..?

[SamuraiCrow]

The A1200's power supply box is actually an A600 power supply.  It is too flimsy to run more than a stock A1200 on and getting a new power supply is wise.  The A600 can probably run on less power since it is only 16-bit but I'd recommend getting at least an A500 power supply for the A1200 if not a Bigfoot or some other similar ATX-to-A1200 retrofit kit.

[Doobrey]

James wrote:

PS2 mouse/keys: Yep.. the more I look at it, I think I'm gonna have to buy these parts as the specs, simple as they must be, don't seem available anywhere. It's a shame really to have to pay 60$ (what my A600hd was on sale for) to get a little PCB with a couple of resistors and an opto or two on it.

PS2m mouse adapter

MMKeyboard adapter

They're more than 'a few resisters and an opto or two' as it's not just a matter of rewiring the plugs.
Both require a PIC microcontroller to convert the signals, but if you're upto building either of the above projects, then you'll be able to build your own PIC programmer for a few quid

A600 keys: Awwwh! Damn Amiga for this! They were always changing a little this and that between models, never could agree on something standard. I'm pretty sure the 1200 keys can be hooked up to the 600's port with some tweaking. I'll check if I can find info on the pinouts and I'll remove that horrible ribbon and replace it with an HD-style ribbon cable and connectors. Im sure the pinouts are pretty much the same and only size/placement differs between the two. I sure hope so at least.

You could get an A500 keyboard controller PCB, plug the A1200 keyboard into that, and then wire the output of the controller to the A600's keyboard controller.
Or simpler still, use the keyboard off an A2000/A3000 or A4000 (see the MMKeyboard adapter archive for details)

[James]

Thanks for all the replies

So anyone has any solid info on the palswitcher? As I said, I've did it twice on NTSC 500's in which I had fitted a fatter agnus to up the system to a full A500+ ECS PAL machine. I read from Tom's Hacks that it should work on the 1200 too. So I'm just guessing that lifting pin41 on any wedge amiga and sending it to GND should default the machine in pal at boot.

Please if *anyone* has tried that on a 1200 or 600, lemme know! Or if you know any other alternative method of turning my NTSCs into PALs I'd be forever grateful :-)