A1200 expansion options - enlighten me

Okay, so I'm giving in and moving to a 1200 for my main Amiga, as it seems that it really is pretty much the most-supported model out there. What I'd like is to get some advice on upgrading the thing, as it seems there's a rather dizzying array of things to choose from. Here are my chief questions:

• Accelerator. I want something reasonably fast, but fairly available/low-cost; I don't really need an 060 board or anything like that. I do want the ability to put in a fair amount of RAM (16MB+,) though. (Also, is there any point to PPC accelerators if I'm not interested in OS4?)
• I'd like Ethernet capability. It doesn't have to be fast, just usable. Can I use a generic PCMCIA network adapter for this, as long as it's a Type II card? What about wireless cards?
• It looks like the 1200's built-in IDE controller is a bit underwhelming. Would a separate upgrade do much to help, or is it only really worthwhile to get one on an accelerator?
• What's a good flicker-fixer? Are the "luxury models" like the Indivision AGA really worth it, or is there a simpler one that's pretty much as good?
• Workbench 3.9 seems awfully slow on my A3000. Is there really that much advantage to 3.5/3.9 over 3.1 other than its coming with a bunch of extensions and libraries all pre-configured?

(Note: this isn't a "wanted" thread, at least not at the moment. I just want to get an idea of how best to go about building a moderately-capable Amiga system from the stock 1200 I'm getting.)

have a look at andys guide for Accelerators

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=16681

To answer your question, one must ask a question.

What do you want to do with the amiga?

Basic WHDLoad will be fine on a basic A1200 with a fast ram upgrade. Obviously the more hardware you throw at it, the better it gets. I am using an 030 accelerator with 64mb of ram, and it is not being used to the max!

The IDE controller is not a major issue for using a small (read less than 4gb) drive. To go to a larger drive requires all kinds of tricks - the easiest I have found is to use WB3.9 as it installs a soft-rom on my blizz 030 and hard drive sizes do not matter as much. There are tutorials and tricks around this, but I found wb3.9 did all for me.

One thing to remember is that the amiga was released when an 800mb hard drive was huge. This is the main issue that many people find. However, I have a 30gb hdd drive and am struggling to fill it, with less than 8gb used. Yes, I have a lot of whdload titles installed, and many amiga mods. With the current PC based os requiring 10gb, it plays tricks on your mind that an OS can take 2-5 mb of space.

From experience, for a beginner with an A1200, I would:
Spend a bit of cash and get a good 030 accelerator. 32mb of fast ram would be great, speeding up the amiga a lot, and giving plenty of room for apps. However, and fastram would improve performance.
Stick with a small hard drive - less than 4gb. Obay the 2gb partition size limit.
Think of what you want out of the miggy, and work towards this target. Else you will be wasting money, or running round in circles.

Hope you can take a bit of advice from someone in similar boots :)

Cheers,
Chinners

What I'd like to do with it is game development (simple OCS/AGA stuff,) gaming, and very basic web browsing (basically just a minimal browser that I can use to get things off Aminet.) Nothing really complicated, but a bit more than what a stock 1200 can pull off. A decent 030 or maybe a basic 040 accelerator should serve for that, I agree. As for the IDE controller, it's less about capacity issues for me (as you're right, 4GB goes a long way on the Amiga) and more about transfer speed - if it's not too much trouble, it'd be nice to get something a little snappier, but that's not vital. The Ethernet capability is the thing I'm really not sure about.

PCMCIA ethernet card is dirt cheap.

Something like a 3Com 3C589D-TP PCMCIA card works perfectly.

Card:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/270666863279...ht_1562wt_1396

Dongle:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/370529881770...84.m1439.l2649


So you can see how cheap an ethernet solution for a 1200 or 600 is.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by commodorejohn

The Ethernet capability is the thing I'm really not sure about.

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"Ethernet in a box" can be found at Amikit. They have all you need to get easily set up.
As for ide, I have personally been toying with the idea of getting a fastATA controller, but to be honest, I can't justify it. With a good hdd with a nice cache, or a CF, I am sure you will get enough performance. It may be advisable to use SFS or PFS, and when you get bored of waiting, upgrade to a hardware speed up device.

Hi

I'd like to address the PPC question, as I happen to have one.
My main interest (in all retro platform) is demos, as such I wanted to be able to watch all demos made for "classic" Amigas, including PPC ones.
Thats the reason I decided to invest in a BPPC + BVision combo, as this is the setup most PPC demos from the late 90s/early 00's were targeted at.

What I found out is, its not plug&play like 060 demos, which you only need to run & thats it.
PPC demos are very very (did I say very?) picky about system settings, especially RTG (resolution, refresh etc) and AHI.
I practically needed to change these settings for most demos & write down which setting work with which demo, a real headache :lol:
Some demos I'm still unable to run, no matter what I try...

As I see it, if you're not interested in using a PPC OS, the only other thing you can do with PPC + OS3.x is play a select few PPC games (you'll probably need RTG for that, namely BVision) or watch the small number of demos made for this setup.
I'd gladly move to a 060 only board, but I dont feel like losing RTG now that I'm used to it :D

As for OS3.9 - it runs slower on my BPPC than OS3.0 on my other A1200 (030/40Mhz).
A1200 native IDE is dog slow, I recommend an accelerator with SCSI option, if possible (mine has none unfortunately).

Network is easy, there are great guides on this site on how to setup a network on A1200 quickly (WiFi is no problem as well).

Have fun building your 1200!

I think, the only thing a PPC is good for (when used with a 060) is to decode pictures or sound formats in an instant like jpg pictures, mp3, ogg files...
It's pointless to have a BlizzardPPC without a BVision or a Mediator+Voodoo3.

A 030 with some RAM (you get easily get 32 or 64mb edo rams) is the bare minimum if you want a proper AmigaOS environment.
I have a Blizzard 060 with SCSI kit. I love it although I wish I had a RTG solution "inside the original A1200 case" to use Workbench properly.

You should have a FastATA1200 to improve the IDE port or better yet use a 80pin SCSI harddrive converted to 50pin to use with a SCSI kit and have DMA. (Blizzards have the option of that) you'll also need to convert the 25pin output of Blizzard to 50pin.

The most important thing is the have a "new psu" which is compatible with Amiga1200. 8 out of every 10 Amiga problems I had were related to PSU's.

It's surprising that people pay the least attention to using a proper PSU with precious Amigas.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ancalimon

It's surprising that people pay the least attention to using a proper PSU with precious Amigas.

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Agree 100%.

Stock A1200 psu or even the beefy A500 PSUs are simply not up to the real demands of a moderately accelerated A1200. Especially considering how old the hardware is and caps going bad in both the computer and psu.


An aftermarket modded ATX or AT (my fav) is needed.

For a flicker fixer it really depends what you want out of it. The Indivisions are good but expensive, plus the next version isn't available yet so you would need to wait, and it is worth waiting rather than finding one of the older ones secondhand.

But if you don't need the Highgfx modes it offers or the need to run in every resolution the Amiga supports, then a much cheaper solution is the GBS8220 scan doubler. This will let you upscan and use a standard VGA monitor/lcd to display all standard 15Hz modes including interlaced, and with this device connected to an LCD you don't have any flicker from interlaced modes so very useful and a reasonable resolution too.