What do I need to towerize my a1200

CrazyC

Damn these amiga bills keep adding up
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Well, historically I have never been interested in putting my a1200 in a tower, however I have taken my main a1200 as far as it will realistically go and randomly bid on a case over on the other bay. Much to my surprise my bid actually won (it seems i was the only bidder) and so I go to pick up the case tomorrow night hopefully.
This is very likely to turn into a 'because I can' project for me......

Anyway, fingers crossed I will tomorrow pick up a good condition Eyetech EZ Tower Z4-506 - With power supply and CD Drive

Soooooo... I presume I should aim to fit a graphics card, which probably means a mediator? I have no experience with towered amigas or RTG graphics.

I will come back with pics etc when I have it, but interested in any advice.

Cheers
C
 
Usually need:

A keyboard adaptor so that you can use an external keyboard such as an A2000/4000 keyboard, or a PC keyboard.
Some power feeds and wiring bits to link the tower LEDs up.
The power adaptor wire from the AT supply for the A1200 if it doesn't already come with it.

All of the above come with the Eyetech kit when it was originally bought, but they might be missing now. If they are missing, then the Lyra Keyboard adaptor was pretty good, and there are workaround for the other bits.

In terms of "need", that's it, you can have a vanilla A1200 towered if you wish.

Anything else is a bonus!
 
Cheers. I think in the pics it does look like it comes with at least the keyboard adapter, although what is a good external keyboard for use with this?
I did see an adapter on Ebay that allegedly let's you use wireless keyboards? I am probably more interested in something with an original look and feel.
Seems little point in just a vanilla a1200 in there. I kinda feel I should put my bad boy 060 in there. Or I could leave that untouched and put my spare in there with the aca card.

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Most prefer the A2000/4000 keyboard, as it has the correct input keys and is authentic Amiga hardware.

yes nowadays you can get all sorts of adaptors for USB and wireless keyboards and mice.

i agree, id put the system that needs the best air cooling and space in there
 
Yeah that's why I have kept clear in the past, however as the case has almost fallen into my hands it seems rude not to try.

I have no knowledge about these things but from what I can see the big cost will be the mediator pci board?
Then I would probably want to add graphics card, sound card and network card?
What else could I add? I am not fussed about USB although I suppose I could, and not interested in gotek etc.

Never having had a tower before, how will the b1260 with scsi kit fit in? The ram is angled so it is allegedly better for a tower than where I have it but am struggling to picture how it fits in, and not sure how the 060 will get cooled.
Or do I need to remove the scsi adapter and work that via some kind of pci option so I can cool the b1260 directly?

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depending on the keyboard adapter probably you will be able to use an old AT keyboard or PS2 keyboard with adapter.

Mediator is the way to go if you want Graphics as it will fit in the case and align with the expansion slots. They can be quite pricey but go give you a wealth of upgrade options.

You will want a 1260/PPC ideally to make the most of the mediator although it's pretty usable with an 030/040

I don't recommend the Zorro options for A1200 Tower's as they are limited mostly to Zorro II only the Elbox Zorro board works with ZIII if you have an A4000 accelerator in which case you might as well build an A4000

- - - Updated - - -

Your 1260 and SCSI Kit will fit fine, you can mount a fan if you want extra cooling, my BPPC was fine with stock cooling.

Really old thread now, but will give you a good idea what to expect:

https://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?5643-Fitzsteve-s-A1200-Tower-Project-)

Sound Card is nice to add as well as Network Card of course.
 
Cheers Steve,

I have just picked it up and it still has box, polys, and plastic bag round it, although open.
Have stuff to do but will post pics later.
I think my blizzard 1260 will go in here which should be a good start.

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I'm about to sell a towered Amiga 1200, will take some pics of the internals for you so you know what you need to get it running as a basic 1200 in a tower :)
 
Just a few more noobie thoughts/ questions:

I am sure I read about how using RTG the workbench comes through from that but AGA games still show via the RGB output? So on the monitor does it show on different inputs?
How does the Indy Mk2 fit in with this? Will it physically fit in with a Mediator? Can I get some kind of autoswitcher (Ratte?)
Sorry - load of questions.

Other than that I have pretty much concluded I will need to purchase Mediator, graphics card (Steve, I saw you had a Radeon 2950 was it - there are various versions, are any specific ones preferred? What is this whole Warp3D thing about?)
Soundblaster card (128??)
Network card

I dont suppose we have an equivalent to the excellent guide to accelerators that is on here that I could look at? :)

If the SCSI kit and my B1260 will work fine then that takes care of the hard drive (CF) at least, and possibly the CD drive.

Other than that I guess I will want a right angled PCMCIA adapter just in case (might want to avoid Network cables initially)


Maybe its time to mothball my IDE-FIX express (or put it in my spare a1200)

So much to think about......
 
Hi bud what case did you get, my main Amiga is towered with mediator voodoo 3/radeon 9250, sb128, network card, usb card, 1260/scsikit, scsi cd rom and drives and fast ata for ide stuff.
lol all in my sig
 
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Sorry will post pics and details when I can. Parents ill health means that is taking priority right now.
Am posting and viewing via tapatalk so not seeing signatures...
That setup looks very much like what I am aiming for though!

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I'm about to sell a towered Amiga 1200, will take some pics of the internals for you so you know what you need to get it running as a basic 1200 in a tower :)
Cool, can you post or link in this thread so I dont miss it?
Cheers

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So, reading around a bit, which Graphics card should I be looking for? People seem to have either Voodoo 3 or Radeon 9250. I read somewhere that to use Warp3D (still not sure what that is) I would need a Voodoo card. The Radeon however will allow memory its memory to be used?. If I am using both my Blizzard and SCSI Kit I am not expecting RAM to be in short supply on this system. If I am going to go to all the effort of getting this stuff together I would like to enjoy some of the old FPS games like the Quake ones etc and I saw that they make use of Warp3D?
 
Here is what I have got! I can see the keyboard adapter, not sure what the blue wire is? Or quite what else is there?
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Does the blue wire have a single pin? If so it's used to power the center of the motherboard power input and then further motherboard power is taken from the floppy port, here's the link to the cable:

http://www.amigakit.co.uk/support/atx-a1200.php

This is what Amigakit sold to go with the EZ Tower. You don't need this if you use a Mediator as the power is delivered by the ATX power connector.

By the way, your tower is in lovely shape. Nice find.
 
That's great Steve, that link answers a number of questions for me. [emoji16]

Yeah apart from a couple of tiny marks here and there it's basically new and for pretty much the cost of driving to Crawley and back to get it!

Although the mediator will set me back a pretty penny I am sure. [emoji857][emoji857]



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So, next step I think for the weekend is to order the mediator and a network card from Amigakit. I will look at the CD drive and see if I need a longer cable as well, and also if it is SCSI or IDE.
Also, does anyone know where I can get either a CF back panel or suitable front panel for my CF hard drive to be accessible?

After that and if I can get that all re-established then I guess it will be graphics and sound cards and possibly USB
 
Hello,

I fitted my a1200 in one of these cases about 6 months ago. They are great cases and very sturdy. I think they were designed primarily for ZIV zorro bus board by winner/elbox. The ZIV board allowed Zorro II boards to be fitted along with proprietary ZIV boards. They also had 4 clockports and could fit on a special ZIV mediator PCI board. It would possibly be worth asking around for one of looking on ebay as they do come up from time to time. The ATX power also fits on the ZIV board. The ZIV board works really well- I have used a cybervision 64 a buddha and a prelude in mine with no problems.

NB I meant p8/p9 power connector, not ATX.
 
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