A1200 Black Box Tower Project

fitzsteve

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AmiBayer
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Hi All,

Been a long time since I shared a project, almost going full circle here with this one!

I recently bought Johnim's Blizzard 1260 and thought it deserved a little more than a Wedge A1200. Looking around for A1200 Towers used at first brought up the usual suspects such as the Elbox and EZ Z4 Towers however I found that Elbox now sell a brand new Tower, the Black Box 1200, I bought this along with a Mediator TX Black and a Radeon 9250.

Here's the Hardware that will be going in the Tower:

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A1200 + Blizzard 1260 + FastATA

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I have a few gripes with the build quality, it feels like a £50 tower and I'm sure that's what it would sell for if it wasn't adapted for an A1200, it does however come with all the bits you need such as keyboard adaptor, PSU and all connectors.

Fitting all inside was a bit tricky to get all lined up, I had to experiment quite a bit with the spacers to get a square fit with the PCI card in place furthermore I'm not 100% pleased with the pressure put on the Blizzard by the case, they didn't think that through (it's pushed over a tad - this would make fitting a GREX difficult.)

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The other small issue is the PSU doesn't fit back in very well however it was all functional on first power on so they (or I) must have done something right!

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Next up - Setting the software
 
I was a bit lost at first as it's been a while since I setup an RTG Graphics Card, I had forgotten how back to front the Mediator drivers are, but after a bit of fiddling I was able to setup a basic 640x480 RTG screen:

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I was pleased to see the Radeon added some extra Fast Memory too, that's a nice touch. I just need to remember how to get the higher resolution modes working, I've got 800x600 32bit now so making progress...
 
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Cool! It's good to see you back in the game Steve!
 
Is that 1200 MB the one you got from me?

Seen you declare interest on a M1 Killer but decided against it, I'm looking to use my M1 Killer with my 1200 Mediator TX Green Edition and Blizzard 1260 Just need someone to build this custom desk I want in my Man Cave first.
 
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Is that 1200 MB the one you got from me?

Seen you declare interest on a M1 Killer but decided against it, I'm looking to use my M1 Killer with my 1200 Mediator TX Green Edition and Blizzard 1260 Just need someone to build this custom desk I want in my Man Cave first.

yeah it's your old mobo, all re-cappped now. Solid as a rock, done full 8hr days at shows. Only thing I've not dared try is the clockport! I will try and get a fake spider for my tower. The M1 didn't seem like a cost effective solution coupled with the lack of official support from the guy who done the drivers, some people have it working though. I'll definitely revisit if something cheaper comes up as it was a lot to gamble on might work, might not. Let me know how you get on with yours.

Cool! It's good to see you back in the game Steve!

Cheers mate, got a nice 720p screen rocking now so looking good over here :)
 
Looks great Steve! �� :)
 
Top work there, Steve, as always :)

Thanks mate. Hoping to add sound, USB and network in due course and need to tidy the cables. Blizzard doesn't seem to need any cooling I noticed today it wasn't too hot to touch even after a couple of hours.
 
Yeah I am currently not cooling my 1260 either. If I cant get warp3d running I might drop the voodoo 3 and go for a cooler running radeon so i can lose the noisy pci exhaust fan.
 
Yeah I am currently not cooling my 1260 either. If I cant get warp3d running I might drop the voodoo 3 and go for a cooler running radeon so i can lose the noisy pci exhaust fan.

If you want to loan me the Voodoo I can see if Warp3D works on my setup. I'm surprised they haven't redone 3D drivers for classics though, OS4 has 3D on the radeon so it's a bit annoying but with the mediator they're 3rd party drivers. I need to get myself USB, sound and LAN at some point.

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Lol I just search for some PCI cards and realise the Radeon I bought is actually 256mb. Sweet, I'll adjust my envarc settings for some more Ramz :D
 
Well I might get a radeon anyway and then let you play with the voodoo [emoji16]
As I have the older mediator I dont have a spare slot to run both and need a 5v card I think. Might put a thread up.
 
If it’s 256mb then it’s a 128bit Radeon, which is a good thing
 
I think dvi should work with the elbox driver.

I’m guessing that card is configured as 1x256mb rather than 2x128mb which means that from a ppc point of view (if you go that route) you’ve only got 256mb of the 512mb zorro window left to play with. Not an issue if your ppc board has less than 256mb ram but if you get a ragnarok then you’re missing out on ppc ram.
 
I think dvi should work with the elbox driver.

I’m guessing that card is configured as 1x256mb rather than 2x128mb which means that from a ppc point of view (if you go that route) you’ve only got 256mb of the 512mb zorro window left to play with. Not an issue if your ppc board has less than 256mb ram but if you get a ragnarok then you’re missing out on ppc ram.

Cheers, I'll try with a DVI screen at some point. If I got a PPC card I would go for Voodoo anyway for the Warp3D.

I setup the Tower in my spare room for some more tests today:

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Getting Sound Card, Voodoo and Networking soon hopefully (y)
 
Some updates to this project, I have now installed Sound (FM801) Spider 2 USB and a Network Card, all setup and working now. Has taken me some time over Christmas to get everything how I want it and working but all working great, I have a Card reader mounted at the front hooked up to the internal USB port on the Spider with a small adapter I got from Amigakit. I managed to find a cable for the CD audio and confirmed working today all mixing with Paula & 16bit Audio, CD is hooked up to the internal AUX port and CD tracks were playing on T-Zer0 :D (After some fiddling around!)

Very pleased with this build overall. Would be nice to have a Sonnet PPC card or Warp3D on the Radeon. I do have a Voodoo 3 2000 here but I like the Radeon setup, I don't think I'll mess with it.

A few more pics, case closed for now:

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My Killer Networks K1 arrived today, took a bit of messing around but managed to get it up and running!

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Took a short Video running QuakeWOS, more tests tomorrow as it took all evening just to get it running!

[m]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPb8B8Z2kgE[/m]
 
Happy Days Steve, I'll be asking you a few question when i sort out my build

- - - Updated - - -

I've added your achievement on EAB's Sonnet programming thread
 
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Happy Days Steve, I'll be asking you a few question when i sort out my build

- - - Updated - - -

I've added your achievement on EAB's Sonnet programming thread

Cheers bud - I'll pop over and say Hi. It seems to be running fine even with sound through the FM801 the only issue I have is that I can't run the USB and PPC at the same time or it hard locks up, this means I have to run the PPC Innit from script when I want to use it and/or disable USB first.

Next job will be to install a Voodoo 3 and see if I can get Warp3D going...
 
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