classic amiga 1200 into a tower

[Teast]

Hi!

I'm pretty new to the amiga scene (bought the a1200 about 6 month back)

Before that we haved an amiga 500, but the only thing I did on that was playing games (like the most people do I guess)

Well anyway.. I am thinking about trying to put the a1200 into a tower and I got some question about it that I hope you guys could help me solve...

First of is the problem I will get with the keyboard, is there a nice "converter" that I can look for to be able to use an extern keyboard, or do I have to do one myself??

And then we have the video port, is there a flicker bla bla bla converter that i can use that is extern? (Curious if I wont go throu with the tower building I can still use the amiga on my computer monitor)
And I have read alot about problems playing old games with an vga converter is there a way to bypass that?

Another problem (at least i think so..) is the pcmcia port, If I try to put the a1200 into a tower wont the pcmcia be blocked by the bottom??

Is there anything else I should know, or get, before trying to build a tower?

I have been searching the web for more information and most of the pages that I have found is about upgrading the a1200 alot and I am currently not intrested in that (cause of money problems)


And sorry about my bad english! =)

/Teast

[MrZammler]

Hi Teast, welcome to a.org

1) Keyboard: Yes, there are keyboard converters out there (see amiga shops, eyetech, etc), that do the job.

2) Flicker fixer: Get one (scan doubler). It will allow you to use the old (i.e. 15khz) modes on a vga monitor, so you can still enjoy all the games.

3) PCMCIA: Yeap again. There are some adaptors that will change the port orientation (90 deg angle), so that when the port faces the bottom, it will instead face the side of the tower.

Do a search on google, there are numerous sites about tower conversion of A1200's so you'll get an idea of the sport ;-)

[Brian]

EzKey from Elbox is a nice hardware that lets you attach a keyboard port on the internal keyboard connector. There are several others too... some that takes Amiga keyboards, some takes PC keyboards... some take both as the EzKey.

The scanmagic is a scandoubler flicker fixer that exist both in an external and internal version. I suggest you go for the internal version... it will fit inside a standard desctop also so don't worry about that.

Depending on how you place the motherboard and how big a tower you get (bigger is almost always better) the PCMCIA port can be blocket but there are hardware that turn the PCMCIA 90 degrees.

There's an obvious problem being how to power the Amiga. In my A1200 tower, to avoid external power whires, I soldered whires directly on the motherboard to a connector that the PSU power connector for motherboards then went into. AT PSU are easiest to convert but ATX will also work.

Another thing to consider is to make sure there's room for possible uppgrades further down the road such as a MediatorPCI or other bussboard solusion and a turboboard.

[Teast]

Thank you for the fast response =)
I will check with GGS-Data in sweden and see if they got anything of the stuff that I need

Another question: When I have been reading this forum I have stumbled over message about 020, 030 etc cards, what the heck is that??

I bought the amiga for two main purpose; learn programming asm with it and play old nice games with it =)
And the asm is going pretty well, except that it would go little faster to code if I haved an keyboard that I'm used with (like the pc) and if I could plug the amiga into my monitor and have it on my "working place" and not on my "relaxing place" (the old nice tv room)

Thanks again.

/Teast

[MAD]

Hoya!

Welcome aboard!

Well, if you want a nice and easy tower to use, go for the Elbox Mirage. It is a bit pricey but it is fine.
I will buy one soon to tower my A1200 ;-)

Be funky

M A D

[Madgun68]

Another question: When I have been reading this forum I have stumbled over message about 020, 030 etc cards, what the heck is that??

Those are accelerator cards. The 1200 has a 68020EC (I believe). 020 refers to the 68020 processor (and likewise) 030 refers to a 68030 cpu.

Accelerators provide a fast cpu and fastram. They vary wildly in cost and speed.

[PMC]

Teast wrote:
Hi!

I'm pretty new to the amiga scene (bought the a1200 about 6 month back)

Welcome!

First of is the problem I will get with the keyboard, is there a nice "converter" that I can look for to be able to use an extern keyboard, or do I have to do one myself??

There are several keyboard converters available.  If you buy an A1200 specific tower from Elbox, they'll supply you with an interface to use PC AT keyboards.  Eyetech produce the EZ-KEY converter which clips onto the A1200's keyboard chip.  The EZ-Key recognises AT, Windows 98 and Amiga 4k keyboards.  I have one fitted to my tower and swear by it.

And then we have the video port, is there a flicker bla bla bla converter that i can use that is extern? (Curious if I wont go throu with the tower building I can still use the amiga on my computer monitor)

Yes, there are external scandoublers / flicker fixers.  A scandoubler doubles the frequency of the video port so an SVGA monitor will display it.  A flicker fixer increases the frequency of the horizontal scan so interlaced modes are rock steady and don't flicker.

And I have read alot about problems playing old games with an vga converter is there a way to bypass that?

There shouldn't be a problem with the scandoubler and old games, unless you've added a graphics card to your Amiga and you're trying to play games through that.  Anything that calls the Amiga's hardware directly will only work via the Amiga's RGB output.

Another problem (at least i think so..) is the pcmcia port, If I try to put the a1200 into a tower wont the pcmcia be blocked by the bottom??

You can purchase a 'V' shaped adaptor which will get around this problem.

Is there anything else I should know, or get, before trying to build a tower?

I have been searching the web for more information and most of the pages that I have found is about upgrading the a1200 alot and I am currently not intrested in that (cause of money problems)

It's best to get a pre-built Amiga-specific tower.  You'll save yourself a lot of headaches along the way.  Try www.amibench.org for some reasonably priced preowned tower cases.