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Author Topic: A1200 into an A500 case  (Read 4107 times)

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Offline Dazxy2001Topic starter

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A1200 into an A500 case
« on: December 19, 2011, 09:06:21 PM »
I have come across this mentioned before, but how feasible is it ?
I have a very yellow A1200 and a reasonable looking A500+ which has a bit of battery damage to the motherboard and some surrounding components unfortunately. The A500+ itself is unexpanded except for a SupraRam 2MB side cart, I was thinking about putting the A1200 motherboard along with a new A1200 keyboard into the case.
The ribbon cable on the keyboard, is this long enough to reach the interface on the motherboard once rehoused ? what with the case being a bit wider.
I will be looking to install a slimline DVD along with a 4 Way buffered interface, most likely an accelerator of sorts and CF adapter or hard drive.
Also due to my non usage of the serial port for anything other than a midi interface I am thinking about integrating it into the case also ala Atari as it connects using a ribbon cable so will be reasonably descreet at the rear.
Rediscovered that Amiga companionship :)
A1200 Rev 1D4, 030 40mhz, 16MB +2chip
A1200 Rev 1D4, 030 28mhz, 8MB +2chip
A1200 Rev 1A, 2MB
A1200 Rev 2B, 2MB
A1200 Rev 1D1, 2MB
A500 Rev 6A 512K +A501 512K
A500+ Rev 8 2MB & Supraram 2MB sidecart
Lombard G3 Powerbook 333Mhz, 384MB, 12GB HD, FreeBSD 8.2-Release
Acer Aspire One 1.5GB Ram 8GB SSD, Aros
 

Offline Jope

Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2011, 09:08:36 PM »
 

Offline Dazxy2001Topic starter

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Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2011, 09:10:56 PM »
Thanks for the links, I will have a read through :D
Rediscovered that Amiga companionship :)
A1200 Rev 1D4, 030 40mhz, 16MB +2chip
A1200 Rev 1D4, 030 28mhz, 8MB +2chip
A1200 Rev 1A, 2MB
A1200 Rev 2B, 2MB
A1200 Rev 1D1, 2MB
A500 Rev 6A 512K +A501 512K
A500+ Rev 8 2MB & Supraram 2MB sidecart
Lombard G3 Powerbook 333Mhz, 384MB, 12GB HD, FreeBSD 8.2-Release
Acer Aspire One 1.5GB Ram 8GB SSD, Aros
 

Offline Dazxy2001Topic starter

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Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2011, 09:20:13 PM »
So Im guessing that the original A500 keyboard would need to be reused and wired into the A1200 motherboard..
Rediscovered that Amiga companionship :)
A1200 Rev 1D4, 030 40mhz, 16MB +2chip
A1200 Rev 1D4, 030 28mhz, 8MB +2chip
A1200 Rev 1A, 2MB
A1200 Rev 2B, 2MB
A1200 Rev 1D1, 2MB
A500 Rev 6A 512K +A501 512K
A500+ Rev 8 2MB & Supraram 2MB sidecart
Lombard G3 Powerbook 333Mhz, 384MB, 12GB HD, FreeBSD 8.2-Release
Acer Aspire One 1.5GB Ram 8GB SSD, Aros
 

Offline Jope

Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #4 on: December 19, 2011, 09:37:09 PM »
Yeah, real easy to do too. The 2B motherboard has solder pads for the signals (the signals are not in the same order as on the a500 mobo), older boards require you to solder to the legs of the CIA and keyboard MCU.

http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=697675&postcount=7
« Last Edit: December 20, 2011, 02:17:01 PM by Jope »
 

Offline Dazxy2001Topic starter

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Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2011, 10:38:33 PM »
Quote from: Jope;671965
Yeah, real easy to do too. The 2B motherboard has solder pads for the signals (the signals are not in the same order as on the a500 mobo), older boards require you to solder to the legs of the CIA and keyboard MCU.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=54550
http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=697675&postcount=7


Cheers :) The first URL was invalid but the second one Ive bookmarked
Rediscovered that Amiga companionship :)
A1200 Rev 1D4, 030 40mhz, 16MB +2chip
A1200 Rev 1D4, 030 28mhz, 8MB +2chip
A1200 Rev 1A, 2MB
A1200 Rev 2B, 2MB
A1200 Rev 1D1, 2MB
A500 Rev 6A 512K +A501 512K
A500+ Rev 8 2MB & Supraram 2MB sidecart
Lombard G3 Powerbook 333Mhz, 384MB, 12GB HD, FreeBSD 8.2-Release
Acer Aspire One 1.5GB Ram 8GB SSD, Aros
 

Offline Dazxy2001Topic starter

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Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2011, 11:07:17 PM »
I was reading another post with regarding to repairing a ribbon... what do you reckon to splicing two ribbons together to give an extension and using silver conductive paint to complete the join ?
Rediscovered that Amiga companionship :)
A1200 Rev 1D4, 030 40mhz, 16MB +2chip
A1200 Rev 1D4, 030 28mhz, 8MB +2chip
A1200 Rev 1A, 2MB
A1200 Rev 2B, 2MB
A1200 Rev 1D1, 2MB
A500 Rev 6A 512K +A501 512K
A500+ Rev 8 2MB & Supraram 2MB sidecart
Lombard G3 Powerbook 333Mhz, 384MB, 12GB HD, FreeBSD 8.2-Release
Acer Aspire One 1.5GB Ram 8GB SSD, Aros
 

Offline Jope

Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #7 on: December 20, 2011, 02:18:04 PM »
Quote from: Dazxy2001;671968
Cheers :) The first URL was invalid but the second one Ive bookmarked

I revised the posting behind the second URL. Seems the first link actually went to an old post of mine that I had deleted as redundant. Ah well, all the info has been copied to the sticky post now.

Quote from: Dazxy2001;671970
I was reading another post with regarding to repairing a ribbon... what do you reckon to splicing two ribbons together to give an extension and using silver conductive paint to complete the join ?

You will get an unreliable keyboard.
 

Offline Photon

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Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #8 on: June 09, 2013, 09:35:16 PM »
Agree with Jope. Or at least, I gave conductive paint a try on my A600 keyboard, and it was unreliable. In that case, I solved the problem (chafed off copper strip ends) by cutting 1cm off the ribbon and removing 1cm plastic.

It's not so hard to do Jope's keyboard circuit mod, that's essentially why I gave this A1700 idea a go in the first place!

And if you have a soldering station, it's pretty easy to get some thin wires on the keyboard chip and connect them to an 8 pin connector which just plugs into the A500 keyboard connector.

For me, the only problems were

1) case bottom sagging after dremeling it (RF shield risers etc) flush. Solution: an extra rubber foot on the underside.

2) I wanted my Apollo 1260 to have the full 64MB of RAM, which made its tilted 32MB SIMM hit the keyboard. It must not touch the SIMM. Impossible to solve. My "solution" was to put spacers to lift the keyboard, and pretend there isn't a tiny gap between case halves on the side.

Eternal truth: "All hardware mods are smooth sailing until you try to close the case." :p
« Last Edit: June 09, 2013, 09:38:11 PM by Photon »
 

Offline royalcrown

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Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #9 on: June 09, 2013, 10:52:01 PM »
Wouldn't "retr0brite" be less trouble vs. all the modding (unless more than the yellowing is the problem) ?
I gots me a Video Toaster...where do I put the bread in ?!?! :confused:
 

Offline Photon

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Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #10 on: June 10, 2013, 10:17:17 PM »
Hardly. A500 cases are almost always more yellowed than A1200 cases, and both A1200 mobos and cases can be bought in as-new condition on amigakit.com. So :)

In my case, I could finally fit the full 64MB of my 68060 card and put it inside a case. Part of the decision was also to get rid of the n-key rollover limitation/bug of the A1200 keyboard/controller. (I type very fast, so it irritated me all the time.)

You can fit more, like a bigger, quieter fan if you have an accelerator. It's mainly a novelty mod, but for me it allowed me to put everything I wanted inside an all-in-one demoparty computer.
 

Offline AmiDude

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Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #11 on: June 11, 2013, 08:17:28 AM »
Quote from: Photon;737445
...and both A1200 mobos and cases can be bought in as-new condition on amigakit.com. So :)

"As-new" A1200 cases + mobo's from Amigakit?! I couldn't find it on their site. Can you profide me with a link, please?
« Last Edit: June 11, 2013, 08:20:15 AM by AmiDude »
 

Offline AmiDude

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Re: A1200 into an A500 case
« Reply #12 on: June 22, 2013, 10:28:32 AM »
@ Photon

No? I thought so, because they haven't any! Do your homework better next time! :rtfm: