Amiga A1200 Upgrade Project

Well I recently acquired an Amiga 1200! :)

It originally had:

• Apollo 1240 with 32mb of memory
• 823mb HDD (Possibly dying)
• Kickstart 3.0
• Workbench 3.0

My goal is to upgrade and retrofit it into the ultimate WHDLoad machine with Internet.

Tasks

• Replace HDD with Compact Flash Card - Complete
  
• Replace Kickstart with 3.1 to facilitate future upgrades - Complete
• Update Workbench to 3.1 - Complete (ClassicWB)
• Purchase proper serial joystick for gaming - Complete
  
• Install ClassicWB in UAE and move it over to the Compact Flash Card - Complete
• Purchase license for WHDLoad - Complete
  
• Install and Connect 3c589D PCMCIA Ethernet Card and necessary software to drive it.
• Find an Indivision AGA Flickerfixer and install it:cool: - Complete
• Upgrade Filesystem to SFS - Complete
• Move System over to 16gb - Complete
• Have capacitors replaced - In Progress
• Upgrade Filesystem to PFS - Stalled

I'm right now using a 1084 monitor and can't wait until I can replace it with something easier to look at and easy to replace.

So far I purchased the license and ran a test in WinUAE to verify that the majority of my project is feasible.

So far I ordered the Compact Flash Card & adapter, Joystick, purchased WHDLoad and Kickstart 3.1. Should be arriving on Friday where I'll make another update with pictures.

Special thanks: :thumbsup:

• Nathanieltolbert - for providing me with the Amiga with Accelerator as well as help and advice on the forums
• Amigakit.com - great website that I used to get some parts.
• Anyone who helped or answered any of my questions :)

I wish I had known you were interested in a Compact Flash card. When I sent that A1200 to you, our local Microcenter had 8 GB CF cards from Kingston on sale for 15.99. I would have picked one up for you to ship with the machine. Their stupid sales always end on Wednesday, so the sale ended today. For the Adapter and CF drive you might try Amigamaniac. His name is Nathan as well. He ships out of Australia. He has tested the CF drives and adapters to verify they work. He has very good deals in my opinion. You can check out his home website at www.amigamaniac.com.

Edit - I have a spare joystick. Let me look at what it is. It's a quickshot. I worked the last time I used it. It's yours if you want it for shipping. Here's a picture of it. I actually have two of these and a wico, but I'm keeping the wico. Just let me know if you want it.

Thanks man! I'm already set on the compact flash (needed an adapter too) and the joystick.

Acutally I think I may already have a Quickshot joystick, but the last time I tried it on my C64, it did not work at all.

Just avoid Kingston CF as the plague. Sandisk, then some others.

Iomega was an awesome manufacturer, but I never see anything CF with more than 64Mb from they.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rkauer

Just avoid Kingston CF as the plague. Sandisk, then some others.

Iomega was an awesome manufacturer, but I never see anything CF with more than 64Mb from they.

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Will do, the only compact flash drive I had was a Kingston 8gb. I'm thinking a Sandisk 4gb will do the trick though.

Update: I removed the RF shielding to make room for the upgrades.

What's wrong with Kingston made compact flash drives? I have one and it works perfectly. I'm getting 2.5 MBps in my A600 with it and the ACA630. I haven't even upgraded to SFS yet, so I know I can get more speed out of it. Are their cards susceptible to failure or something?

Most Kingston models simply refuse to work with Amigas, don't work on the IDE, don't work on PCMCIA.

You know, the white flower ones. Maybe another series may be not that fussy.

Danelec works marvellously well on the A600/1200 IDE port.

Well time for an update:

Nathan & rkauer, Amigakit sent me a Kingston 4gb compact flash :Doh:
However I haven't had a problem with it while running it under WinUAE or while it was installed in my Amiga.

Moving on:

Swapped out my Kickstart with 3.1 roms, no bent or broken pins (have a great tool to pull these out too (got it for less at my local Fry's)

I moved the ClassicWB install I setup in WinUAE over to the compact flash, booted up, and immediately got errors regarding not being able to mount DH0: :Doh:

Whoops, it was set to ADH0:, quick reboot off of floppy into HDToolbox fixed it.

Played some Turrican, and I'm currently waiting on my Indivision AGA :D

Also I should upgrade the filesystem to SFS.

I have 2 white flower 4 gig kingston CF cards and both work fine

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

I have 2 white flower 4 gig kingston CF cards and both work fine

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Nothing wrong with those CF cards. I have 4 of them with various setup's and all working fine.