And so it begins...I unexpectedly and suddenly have an Amiga 1200. Now what?

[Major_Tom_Coming_Home]

This will begin to make things right...

I pray to the yard sale gods every Saturday, and last week they answered my prayers and smiled upon me: I found the geek holy grail of a working Amiga 1200 with monitor, external floppy, power supply, mouse, and a %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@! ton of (mostly pirated) programs, games, magazines, and documentation for $100. The hardware was all stock original with no HDD or accelerator so I did some research about possible upgrades. So far I have ordered from Amigakit a kickstart 3.1 chipset (i had 3.0) and 4GB formatted / bootable Compact Flash Hard drive with IDE adapter that has workbench 3.1 already installed. It will mostly be a games machine at first but if it appeals to me down the road I may want to do more. That being said, I was hoping to get some advice here about a few things. My budget is a few hundred dollars. I could afford more but don't want to spend it until I know I am going to get a lot of enjoyment out of the Amiga. Gotta test drive before I buy.


1) After I have the Amiga HD installed and the machine buttoned up, what would be the best way to copy files between my PC and the Amiga? I've heard a CF card with a PCMCIA adapter for the Amiga is a good way to go, but how do I format the CF to Amiga format and then write files from my pc to the Amiga formatted CF card? My understanding is that PC and Amiga formats are not compatible.

2) Since it is mainly a game machine at first, would there be a benefit to adding an accelerator? Amigakit is selling an ACA 1221 Accelerator that is in my price range, but would it worth getting for me? It would be fine with me if only 90% of the games run well on my Amiga - I happen to have a gaming PC that is very good at emulation and Far Cry 4.  

3) Is there a USB floppy emulator that would work without needed any mods? I have zero interest in soldering or rewiring.

4) Can anyone recommend a basic but serviceable graphics card so I can use the Amiga with a modern LCD?  

5) Is the PCMCIA the slot used for networking? Any suggestions for a basic network adapter.

6) Do all memory upgrades only use the trap door accelerator port? (meaning that I could not install an both an accelerator and a separate ram card at the same time?) I do understand that Amiga accelerators also come with extra ram installed.

7) If I totally pimp out my Amiga with upgrades, would I need to get a better power supply? I've heard the original power supplies aren't very good.

Does anyone have any other upgrade advice or Amiga advice in general? I may not realize that I'm missing something obvious.

9) Last but not least, any game recommendations?

Damn this post is long - sorry.  I'm extremely curious :-)

[utri007]

1) There are many possibilities. I use mostly LAN. I have PCMCIA Wlan card (Orinoco Gold), I download files to my NAS with PC. I have samba configure and I can connect my amiga NAS shares. Using CF / PCMICIA adpater makes me afraid that one day I broke my PCMICIA slot. You can also use serial port. AmigaExplore is cheap and very easy to use. It also support LAN:

2) YES. WHDLoad is what you want. With it you can prety much every game to hard drive. That way games require more memory.

http://whdload.de/

With google you can find tons of preinstalled games.

3) Get normal Gotek floppy emulator and flash it to use amiga disk. There is two firmwares, one will cost you a 10, but is still supported. Second one is free, but not supported.

https://cortexamigafloppydrive.wordpress.com/
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/

4) No Graphics card, it is scandoubler

http://www.amigakit.com/

If you live in europe, you can use normal LCD-TV with SCART cable. Most of TVs also works as a flicker fixer.

5)&6) Trapdoor can only have accelerator OR ram upgrade, not both same time. With ram upgrade you a limited to 4mb ram if you want to have working PCMCIA port and 8mb if you don't mind that ram overlaps PCMCIA.

You can have ram upgrade to PCMCIA port also, but it is slow 16bit memory, so it would degrade you A1200

7) It depends, maybe / maybe not. Easiest way would be get A500 psu.

Accelerator, LAN, usb, PCI slots (mediator), Zorro extender, faster accelerator 040/060 etc. There are tons of possible upgrades.

[Niding]

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=440

One of my most used hardware kits. You need a SD card reader for your PC.

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=116

Very nice to get on internet with this one.Some prefere the Wireless version.

http://www.kipper2k.com/accel600.html

Currently A600 and A500 Vampire accelerators have been produced. A1200 version is planned sometime in 2016.

[Thorham]

3) Is there a USB floppy emulator that would work without needed any mods? I have zero interest in soldering or rewiring.

If you go for an accelerator and a PCMCIA network card, you'll have absolutely no use for floppies what so ever. Old computers are cool, floppies are NOT

[klx300r]

@ Major_Tom_Coming_Home

welcome back to Amiga land

The possibilities of expanding the 1200 is endless as many fellow amigans have already noted! Personally I'd first start off with an accelerator board (min 030@50 if you can find one), CF HD solution, USB or PCMCIA-CF solution & that's a good start...OH and VERY IMP. to replace your capacitors asap! actually open up the case and have a look for leaky caps which could destroy MB traces or worse:rtfm:

[spudje]

0) First of all, if not yet done, get the capacitors on the A1200 replaced! A so called "recap" is essential to make sure your A1200 will live on for many years to come. Hopefully someone in your surroundings can offer you such a service for a friendly price. If not I think you can even ask AmigaKit to do it for you.

1) My personal preferred way of transferring files is via WinUAE on a PC. WinUAE does read Amiga formatted CF cards, just Windows itself doesn't. Only thing additional you need for this, is a USB CF reader for your PC, if you don't have it yet. Look at this tutorial for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd42RsKHm5Y&list=PLtnFAdZ4Ec1BhyWFBHLqFTVEKCJN17CG0&index=2

2) If you're A1200 is really stock with only 2MB chip mem, you need at least more memory to make WHDLoad run well enough. I guess the budget ACA1221, maybe even without all optional extra power unlocked, is very suitable for a WHDLoad machine. However, I don't know how compatible this card is and whether you need the so called "timing fix" mod to have the A1200 run stable enough with this card. You could ask for the timing fix to be done together with the recap job. A safer bet would then be, get a Phase5 Blizzard 1230 MKIV. Runs rock solid even without the timing fix.

3) If you have a decent WHDLoad machine, I don't know why you would want a Gotek as well.

4) Use a TV with SCART, get a scandoubler, or get an LCD monitor that supports Amiga signals, like the great Benq BL912 & BL702A

5) Network access is easy, but not absolutely necessary. You could grab a nice wifi card from this guy over at EAB: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=81915

[klx300r]

@ spudje

excellent point about caps!

I've used Charles at http://maccaps.com/MacCaps/Repair_Service.html recently and happy with the service and fair pricing.

[spudje]

Never underestimate the power of repeating

[rockape]

Hi,

Great news,

See http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/a1200/a1200.html

A1200 Hardware Frequently Asked Questions

For info on what the A1200 can do.

Regards, Michael

aka rockape