A1200 Boards and Floppy Questions.

[Carrot007]

Hi Peeps,

I am finally getting around to resurecting my amiga's.

The A1200 is first.

I have two boards, both bought at the same time (one was a freinds purchase he later donated to me).

They are a 1D3 and a 1D4 board.

Which should I use? I am planning on a CF HD, and a Gotek drive. With an external drive to rip some of my old disks (which I guess are getting in urgent need of doing!)

Expansion wise I have a couple of ram boards and an 040 or some description which was also my friend and was in the 1D4 board. The fan failed and I have replaced it with a stick on small fan with flashy lights (Not that I wanted them it was just cheap!). Not sure which I want to use.

They are both 3.0 roms currently. Though one chip on the 1D4 board looks different! (same version though).

I plan to use a 20 inch first gen-ish lcd tv (4:3) with a scart lead.

So anyway first question is which board? Neither has upper sheilding anymore as back in the day we abandoned it to fit 3.5 inch drives!
Mine also has a slight filing of the rear case as I had an external drive box or CD drive. I can swap the bottom casing though.

I also only have 1 upper keyboard holder plastic thingy! Only recently found it. Any good (cheap?) usb keyboard solutions? (Also a usb mouse solution? (I hate ball mice!)).

Interestingly I think I always used a (light) A500 PSU on my 1200, because back in the day (when I bought it -OCT 1994) I got a dead a500 psu with it and currys refused to replace it so my mate gave me his old one. (I am still bitter!, all a1200's were whatever was around boxes at the time)

Right next question. Floppys! Ok I have a lot of amiga's and I suspect most floppy's are dead (one from a A500 might work). BNut if I want tio rip disks and have the gotek in an external seems the best idea. I have a external 1.76 drive. If the drive is dead can I repalce it with a PC drive? I'm sure it is just one with hardware after the cable. With no front and a special flap! Anyone know for sure?

Not sure what else I have but 2018 is going to be amiga year for me. I have found 3 A500's (one is a plus). And also an a500 case with a bad a1200 keyboard in it (dead and missing keys) and nothing else!

All adivse greatly recieved!

[mechy]

I would use the 1D3,there are arguments the 1D4 need timing fixes,but its hit and miss.Either will likely work. in any case recap it, the capacitors are way past due.

i would use the 040 board for sure, but if just gaming, ram board is good enough for most games though.

3.1 roms are readily available at amiga kit etc, and are not too much.

tv with scart lead should do well.

shielding doesnt matter.

I prefer amiga kbds on my amigas so i cant recommend any adapters really.

Pc drives can be converted to work as amiga 880K drives pretty easily. there are many threads on the forums about it. PC drives will not work straight away w/o mods.
Most amiga floppys just need a good head cleaning and the stepper shaft re-greased. the grease gets hard and it quits working sometimes.

Sounds like you have cool projects. be sure to remove any leaking batteries now from A500+ and or some ram/clock boards with NiCD/NiMH batteries.
good luck!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Check this out if you want to use a different keyboard (pic attached).  I've never used one personally but seems like a neat idea.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Wireless-favourite-USB-keyboard-replacement-for-AMIGA-1200-/172642765068?hash=item28324f890c

3.1 ROM's can be had for under $20 USD from sites like AmigaKit and ebay.  Definitely worth it (IMHO) as they contain various bugfixes and may work better with certain accelerators.

https://amigakit.amiga.store/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=40_99&products_id=62

Good luck, have fun!  

[Carrot007]

Pc drives can be converted to work as amiga 880K drives pretty easily. there are many threads on the forums about it. PC drives will not work straight away w/o mods.
Most amiga floppys just need a good head cleaning and the stepper shaft re-greased. the grease gets hard and it quits working sometimes.

I will certainly try with the cleaning. I do remember having one that worked (from the 500+ I think), But that was a few years ago!

My question regarding the conversion though was regarding an external drive. And specifically a HD one, the drive clearly is a PC one as the eject button even had 1.44 on it and the amiga bezel 1.76 (IIRC). AS I does the drive in there need any modding if I need to change it. Still I guess I can always try when I locate all the bits!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

AFAIR there's no conversion process to take a PC high density drive  (1.44MB) and use it as an Amiga 1.76MB drive.  Most of the instructions  out there detail converting standard double density (720K) drives to  Amiga (880K).  Making a HD drive that can natively read & write  Amiga HD format is going to be pretty tricky, but good luck!  

[scuzzb494]

Hi

First thing to do is get a base A1200 functioning without problem. If you start adding stuff from the getgo it will become problematic to identify issues. Just start with an unexpanded machine.

You need to identify the accelerator given that there maybe software issues.

As to the other stuff I only run classic so couldn't comment. But I am always nervious that users becaome over ambitious when they first return and finish up destroying another Amiga. Just go steady, record all your activities and ask here as you have done when in doubt. They are very special computers and need that extra special TLC.

Have fun.

[mechy]

I will certainly try with the cleaning. I do remember having one that worked (from the 500+ I think), But that was a few years ago!

My question regarding the conversion though was regarding an external drive. And specifically a HD one, the drive clearly is a PC one as the eject button even had 1.44 on it and the amiga bezel 1.76 (IIRC). AS I does the drive in there need any modding if I need to change it. Still I guess I can always try when I locate all the bits!

It sounds like you have a power computing xl drive, the external one needed a driver installed to work as hd. it is a pc mechanism,but some were modded with a small gal on the pcb, can u give more info and pics?
if it is that drive it should operate as 880K as is with no driver.
AIR also made some aftermarket hd drives.Clean the heads before u toss it, check the stepper motor grease. all it takes is one bad floppy to dirty the heads to where they wont read.

[Carrot007]

I shall be carefull!

Anyway. I now have enough bit's to start.

TV with PSU and Scart Leads. TV turns on good.

A1200 motherboard with keyboard and a floppy drive (which I doubt works).

Amiga standard mouse.

5 PSU's to try.

No LED panel on the top half though. But I have found one though only 1 wire still attached so I am going to have to find the info on the connections and my soldering iron!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

You can buy replacement LED's on Ebay.  Or, as you mentioned, you could repair your own.

[Carrot007]

Ok Status update!

First PSU tried = fail.

Second one tried works (my only a1200 one).

Boots to enter disk as expected (sure it was never this slow!) and drive clicks as expected.

Problem One. No floppys handy.

OK so change floppy for gotek.

Work's fine and boot's advanced amiga analyser or workbench (3.1, which I'm sure I always used with 3.0 roms before)

Sorted!

Problem Two. Keyboard is not working. (shell on wb3.1 confirms for sure!)

Ctrl + amiga +amiga does nothing (that's right yeah, it's been a while!)
And more obviously caps lock led not doing anything.

Mouse work's fine, so that's good.

2 more mice and 3 psu's to test. I am going to need some sticker's to label things!

Also located my in theory working A500 and A500+, so that and the other A1200 board as well. Also found a A1200 Ram expansiopn with 8mb sim and fpu. No sign of crystal for FPU though, are these available and how do I know which I need? Also an A500 action replay (2?).

Any thought's on the keyboard? Clean the end and port with cotton stick and nail polish remover (was always my go to!), then try again?

To locate. CF adaptor and card and 040 card.

Might also try and locate my megadrive joypad or arcade stick and try a game! Though I guess I will need a working keyboard to start most!

Also I notice on workbench while the picture is great over scart (sound test not as much, might check the soldering on the lead though I guess it could also be the ports) it does have some flicker. I assume this is just the LCD TV scaler being poor! As I said it's a 20 inch old SD LCD TV in 4:3.

I do remember how bad RF cable's looked though and it is miles better! Though back in the day I have a freebe monitor than my friend gave me that his work were chucking out. Was standard PC thing that lost it's 15 pin PC connector in a botched robbery. So I got it and played around with an amiga conenctor and the wires until I got a pciture from it. Double PAL etc (or whatever they were called).

This is certainly good enough and I am scared to use modern LCD's at 16:9 after seeing sooo many horrible stretched video's on yourtube etc. And people calling them out claimed the TV could not alter the stretch which scared me the most! (Though I suspect they just did not know how to!).

[Carrot007]

BTW: If my drivel it not welcome or in the wrong forum please say! I was just keeping a log of my amiga revival attempts!.

OK, so I looked at the keyboards and the bit that plug in seems worn and missing bits. So probably explains the non working and partially working keyboard.

So the choice seems to be new membranes (no keyboards, only expensive second hand ones). and a clip. Or the usb adaptor....

I am thinking I will try the adaptor since a membrane and clip is going to cost more! Hopefully It support a nice clicky keyboard!

I shall wait for the OH to leave tomorrow and use her ebay to order one! (I ain't used it in ages and it all comesa out hte joint account anyway!).

Though the sort of working keyboard seems to work good enough to maybe start some games and maybe even pinball dreams/fantasies etc. SO maybe I shall find my adf's of those and try. (I did a few of mine back in the day but have lot's of boxes of stuff in the loft somewhere!).

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Also found a A1200 Ram expansiopn with 8mb sim and fpu. No sign of crystal for FPU though, are these available and how do I know which I need?

With most trapdoor expansions if there's no separate crystal then the FPU will run at the same clock speed as the CPU.

Any thought's on the keyboard?

Clean, tighten, try again.

Also I notice on workbench while the picture is great over scart (sound test not as much, might check the soldering on the lead though I guess it could also be the ports)

Bad sound = a sign of failing caps.

This is certainly good enough and I am scared to use modern LCD's at 16:9 after seeing sooo many horrible stretched video's on yourtube etc. And people calling them out claimed the TV could not alter the stretch which scared me the most! (Though I suspect they just did not know how to!).

A good TV, properly connected, can be set to display proper 4:3 aspect ratio screens (not stretched).  Just you'll have black bars on the left and right sides of the display.

[Carrot007]

With most trapdoor expansions if there's  no separate crystal then the FPU will run at the same clock speed as the  CPU.

Good to note.

Clean, tighten, try again.

I have tried a few times but the metal on the cable seems worn off at the ends so I think I have to make other arangements!

Bad sound = a sign of failing caps.

Noted, though in this case i do think it's the scart cable as moving the plugs/cables a bit fixed it. I will see if I can find a cable to plug in seperately and try that to confirm.

A good TV, properly connected, can be set to display proper 4:3 aspect  ratio screens (not stretched).  Just you'll have black bars on the left  and right sides of the display.

As I would expect! (And as it should be!)


Another random query! One of the PSU's has a sticker over the specs. It's an A500 PSU with the sticker spec's of an A1200 one. (Changing the made in Germany to Made in China as well!) Any idea why? I guess it could be the one I got with my A1200 back in the day, though I don't know why I would keep a dead PSU for 24 years! I guess I shall see if it is dead why I get around to testing more (am waiting till I find some stickers to put on things to identify things so I can start a spreasdsheet!).

Update:

I looked at the completely non working kayboard again and decided the traces rubbed off must be where the contact is made and that there was plenty above (without having to resort to remove the green strip), so I trimmed off a few mills of the bottom and I now have a working keyboard again. Well as far as I can tell without having a tester program for all the keys!

On the other one (partially working) there is not so much leway, though the top of the green plastic has come of for about a centimetre, so I can try removing the under green stuff to get the second board working independantly.

Think I still need a USB adaptor in the long run though it makes it less urgent!

Update, the 4 on the keypad does not work, nothing else seems bad yet though so I guess that must be the key or membrane under.

Update 2:
OK I have found a second ram board in a box, without ram or FPU. With the box though I can see they are amitek hawk's.
Try the one with ram and fpu. Yellow screen.
Clean ram contacts.
Now boots but a red screen comes up with a add on boards being bad notice.
Nothing handy to extract FPU so move ram into other board. (ram clips bend and need to be moved a bit!)
Boots in second board ok but I turned my back and then saw a yellow screen and constant reboots.
Re-seat and try advanced amiga analyser as it's handy and the ram test shows bad expansion memory.
So it's either the board or the chip (let's not think about both). Will find something to full the FPU and try again, as unlikely both boards are bad.
Ram I am fine with as I hoard stuff and I have a PC motherboard box full of 72 pin simms somewhere (and who knows maybe 30 pin simms still though I may have given them up!). Anyone know how the board might react to over 8mb simms? I would guess it would work but not see the ram and maybe only 4mb depending on the simm.
Yes I know change the 2032's I need to get a pack as I have many to change in various things. (Even a remote I use for some lamps!)

Update 3:
Keyboard keeps losing keys and geting them back depending on hoe is put it so is still not great!

Updates as I look at things.