Green screen of death.

[LordSpunky]

Right , dug an old A1200 out at work , it's got an unidentifiable RAM expansion , with a socket (unpopulated) for I guess an FPU , and a battery , again I'm guessing for a RTC .
With this in place you get a green screen on boot , which checking on the NET is a memory fault.

With the card dropped out it gets to the load WB screen and gets no further .

I'ts got a 4.8G HD , which you can hear spin up , but nothing else happens .

Now forgive me , it's been so long since I used an Amiga that I'm struggling to remember , but you have to get it into WB to check the HD I think ?

Is there any likelyhood the the RAM can be resurrected or is it toast ?

Time to try and locate those old WB discs I guess !

Hi from Somerset! :laughing:

[Merc]

Might be a weak power supply?  Maybe powering the extra RAM is more than the stock unit can handle, I know the A1200 PSUs were pretty weak (I always used mine with an A500 PSU until I went to a tower).

[willbloke]

Hi LordSpunky , I did have a quick Google , do you actually have a museum or a shed load of "old junk" :lol:

I've tried it with the A1200 and A500 PSUs , same result.
I do remember that the A1200 PSU was a bit marginal .

I did the old "twist the A500" trick which sometimes re-seats the chips , but same result , Green Screen .

I'll strip the A500 floppy out and try it on Monday .
In amongst the box of bits there was an external drive , also US , now I see you can still get A1200 internal floppies from a well known Amiga spare parts supplier , would one of these fit the external drive chassis as well ?

If I can get it to format the HD , I will shell out for a new HD , are modern IDE/PATA drives compatible with an A1200 ?

I'm not going to let this beat me !

[OldB0y]

Don't bother with a hard drive, get a 4/8/16Gb CF card, and a CF -> IDE adapter instead.  Uses less power, is silent, and is solid state - oh yeah they're also cheap.  Be careful though, as not all brands of Compact Flash card seem to play ball with the Amiga.  I use both Sandisk and Kingston which work for me.  I think Amigakit sell them, if not search e-bay and you'll find loads.

Some more modern 2.5" IDE HDDs don't seem to work with the Amiga anyway from what I've read, but I haven't tried so couldn't say for sure.

Also, get a PCMCIA CF adapter and CF card, again from Amikit, comes with drivers etc. Then you'll never need worry about your external floppy drive.  As for the internal one, if you haven't already, try cleaning it with an air duster/head cleaner disk etc, its probably just caked in dust.

If the expansion card doesn't work, check the A1200 edge connector for corrosion/dirt etc.  Your RAM expansion is probably this:

http://amiga.resource.cx/photos/pc1204

[Daedalus]

I haven't come across a modern drive that wouldn't work with the A1200, but of course haven't tried them all... But like others have said, a CF card and adaptor are very cheap these days, and probably more than you'd ever need!

If that external floppy drive works, you should be able to connect it to the A1200 and boot from it - the OS doesn't really discriminate between drives, only some games do and require running from the internal drive...

[willbloke]

Yep , that's the one Oldboy .

Is this what I need ?http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=883

It says it comes with an unregistered version of WHDLOAD , how is this limited ?
The A500 came with a few games (Zool , SWIV etc.) how much hassle are these to install onto HD/CF ?

Is this joystick any good ?  http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=52&products_id=610

I used to have a mini version that was ace , but fell apart may moons ago .
Are there any other Amiga joysticks out there ?
Would be good to get 4 player Bomberman going again !

I still need to sort a floppy and hope the WB discs are readable .

What's the service life of compact flash like , don't they have a quite limited read/write life ?

Only other thing worrying me is the A1200 keyboard , the caps lock light flicks on briefly as it starts up , but once running doesn't respond .
Also the CNTRL -A-A reset doesn't seem to work , but then is that only from WB , as I haven't been able to get it to WB yet , it's difficult to know if the keyboard is ok ?

sorry for all the questions , I'm quite excited !!!   :cool:


Oh , one other thing the external drive doesn't work , not sure at this time if it's just the drive or if the whole thing is knackered .
I guess if I get the known working drive out the A500 , I could try it on the interface .

[LordSpunky]

That CF reader from Amigakit is what you need! I do suggest checking your Workbench discs first! I own 2, one in my A1200 and one in my A4000.

The unregistered version of WHDLoad comes up with a slash screen for about 5 seconds as you load a game, unregistered doesn't. I haven't registered mine yet, but I will.

I love Bomberman!

As for the 'shed'! Well it is a virtual museum at the moment, and it will all be moved into my loft conversion very soon. I would love to display to the public but it is affording somewhere and setting it up.

If you require testing of PSU's or use with any other Amiga bits let me know I have 4 x A1200, 3 x A500, 3 x A600, 1 x A1500, 1 x A4000, 1 x CD32, all have original PSU's........although I am still relearning and don't know a lot, can't help with the green screen really

[gertsy]

2 Machines doing the same green screen thing sounds suss?  What monitor are you using ?

[willbloke]

2 Machines doing the same green screen thing sounds suss?  What monitor are you using ?

I'm not that daft !

I'm using an LG TV/Monitor.

I worked fine through the RF Modulator using composite on the A500 , played a game for a bit , THEN it green screened on startup .

The A1200 has now decided to play ball , can get at the early startup screen fine , but it won't read any floppies , even one that worked fine on the A500 before it packed up.

So I'm going to swap the A500 floppy into the A1200 temporarily , just to prove it's behaving , then I guess it's time to order a replacement from Amigakit , and maybe a CF reader .

[lost_loven]

this any use? green means chip ram..

• Green - Chip ram faulty.[3]
  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickstart_%28Amiga%29

and this
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/selftest.html

lost

[willbloke]

YES !
The A1200 lives !
Put the A500 floppy in and it boots WB3.
Some keys of the keyboard don't work and whilst it will recognise the HD it won't format it , but it is a 11 year old HD .

Is there anything to check before ordering a new keyboard ?
(the ribbon is seated properly as far as I can tell)

News just in , the (new/second hand) HD is formatting !

Wooo !

[Daedalus]

The ribbon needs to be fully inserted into its slot, and the "grip" pushed fully down onto the top of the socket. Failing that you could have dirty contacts or a cracked cable...

[OldB0y]

Yep , that's the one Oldboy .

Is this what I need ?http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=883

It says it comes with an unregistered version of WHDLOAD , how is this limited ?
The A500 came with a few games (Zool , SWIV etc.) how much hassle are these to install onto HD/CF ?

yup, thats the kitty:-) Checkout http://www.whdload.de for installers for most (if not all) Amiga games.  Usually download installer -> unpack with lha, run installer, insert disks when requested etc.  There is a site (not sure I'm allowed to mention it) that is a repositry of games that have allready been installed with whdload, all you need to do is download, unzip and run...

Un-registered whdload will run a lot of stuff as mentioned, but some games will quit after 1 level etc check the readme accompanying the game installer - most will fully work though in my experience.  I registered mine though, as its very cheap and well worth it.

Is this joystick any good ?  http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=52&products_id=610

I used to have a mini version that was ace , but fell apart may moons ago .
Are there any other Amiga joysticks out there ?
Would be good to get 4 player Bomberman going again !

I've got a clear, original one of those - they're okay, as are the very similar ZipStick (looks the same but has square yellow buttons).  I mainly use a competition Pro CD32 pad though - pretty good for most stuff

What's the service life of compact flash like , don't they have a quite limited read/write life ?

Dunno, I think if you write loads you may run in to trouble, but I've had mine a couple of years with no bother, and have re-installed the OS/AmigaSYS multiple times etc

Hope that helps a bit:-)

[willbloke]

Thanks Oldboy !

The fun and games continued earlier , I managed to install most of WB , it crapped out on , I think , Locale (CRC error) , but it boots from HD , so hopefully all is not lost .

I should , in theory , have another set of WB 3 discs somewhere , just a case of finding them !

I had a look in the loft earlier , found an A500 case and motherboard , a gutted A600 and a few original Commodore service notes for A500 , A2000 and A590 !

I should , in theory have another A1200 keyboard because i towered an A1200 years back , but I haven't found it yet . (Used an A2000 keyboard)

Did find the A1200 tower and the A2000 keyboard and a Commodore 1084 monitor , but haven't found the cable yet , will have to make another I guess .

Wow , this is more challenging than a role playing game !:lol:

[OldB0y]

Yeah,  I know what you mean.  Thanks to my Dad bringing an A1000 home from work all those years ago,  I've had lots of experience with various Amigas.  Its surprising how stuff moves on though even with 'retro' computers, and how quickly you forget stuff when your not using them.  

I re-setup my A1200+ Blizzard 1230 for the first time in about 5 years back in 2007 having moved house - it took me a while to remember all the cli stuff, editing the startup-sequence and get WB how I wanted it again!  Then I saw lots of people had started replacing their HDs with CF cards etc - more to learn!

Ended up buying a B1260 last year to appreciate all those '060 demos at their best, and have just started resurrecting my towered A1200 - haven't had as much fun with a computer in years! (not having fun with em' comes with working in IT I guess...).  

The wife doesn't mind, as it keeps me quiet (that and the fact they're not cluttering up her lounge) :-)

let me know if you need WB3.0 disks, I'm sure I've got enough working blanks to do a complete set.

[willbloke]

Ha !

I work in IT as well , look after about 35 PCs and about 30 Macs ish , but this is much more fun.

Got a placement student who is slightly underwhelmed with the power of an Amiga , until I point out that it's older than him !

There's some kind of perverse pleasure in breathing new life into an old computer .