A1200 second time round newbie help please :-)

[thekrakenwakes]

Hi

Looking for advice on upgrading my (soon to be purchased) A1200. Ideally ive bought this as a retro games machine so I can re-play games I had in my teenage years. Down the line I may want to do some other cool stuff with it. Sorry if these are very newbie like questions but here goes...

So, my question is what type of HD should I go for? A 2.5" HD or CF card? Ill be buying original (hopefully working) games so would like to install these to HD where I can and looking for maximum compatability.

WHDLoad I guess is a must for games which wouldnt originally install to HD, what is the best way for me to transfer things across from my PC to Amiga such as this and other demos etc I may download?

Do I really need any memory etc expansion? The only reason I bought an expansion for my original A1200 was the excitement to play Doom-a-likes being released at the time but thats not really for me at the moment.

Finally will be wanting to connect to a Bush widescreen 22" TV im using as a PC monitor and playing my Spectrum through. It has VGA / Composite / RF / Scart in sockets and gives a nice display for my PC and really nice on my Wii U when ive used it on there. What are my connection options? Old school RF lead or can I connect using Scart or composite for a better picture / VGA for a more monitor like performance? Will games play "normally" this way?

thanks

 

[demolition]

See this thread which is basically the same question:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=72010

My recommendation would be:
SCART-RGB cable for best picture quality and smoothest motion.
CF with adapter as internal HDD
CF with adapter for PCMCIA (for PC transfers)
ACA1220 or bigger accelerator to give you enough memory for WHDLoad.

 

[Templar]

So, my question is what type of HD should I go for? A 2.5" HD or CF card? Ill be buying original (hopefully working) games so would like to install these to HD where I can and looking for maximum compatability.

I recommend to you to buy a 2.5" internal HD and not mess with CF cards.

WHDLoad I guess is a must for games which wouldnt originally install to HD, what is the best way for me to transfer things across from my PC to Amiga such as this and other demos etc I may download?

You'll need a PCMCIA transfer kit. You can buy it from here: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=440

Do I really need any memory etc expansion? The only reason I bought an expansion for my original A1200 was the excitement to play Doom-a-likes being released at the time but thats not really for me at the moment.

For the best pleasure is advised to have a 030/50MHz accelerator, preferable a second-handed Phase5's Blizzard MKIV 030/50MHz with 16 or 32MB Fast RAM. Or you can buy the new ACAs here as well:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=aca+12

Finally will be wanting to connect to a Bush widescreen 22" TV im using as a PC monitor and playing my Spectrum through. It has VGA / Composite / RF / Scart in sockets and gives a nice display for my PC and really nice on my Wii U when ive used it on there. What are my connection options? Old school RF lead or can I connect using Scart or composite for a better picture / VGA for a more monitor like performance? Will games play "normally" this way?

If you cannot find an original Commodore 1084S monitor (the best compatiblity and visual for Amiga games), then you will need an Indivision SD/FF if you gonna try to connect your Amiga to an LCD monitor.

Here: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=82&products_id=1148

Alternatively, if you want to connect your Amiga via a telly, then it's advised to connect it through a RGB to SCART cable.

Here: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=scart+to+amiga

 

[scrappysphinx]

Rgb scart for connection, and ram expansion or accelerator for whdload games would be my first recommendation. As for hard drive I guess it's personal preference. Some people like the quietness of a cf I prefer a hard drive. Also remember to use bigger than 4gb you need a custom file system. There are guides around here or contact fitzsteve for pre-setup drives

 

[fitzsteve]

This post is useful:

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

You will need at least a 4mb trapdoor ram upgrade to play most WHDLoad Games although some will run on a standard A1200 if you boot with maximum free memory available.

Classic Workbench is a great help for those returning to the scene:

http://classicwb.abime.net/

You will want the lite version if you have no upgrade for your A1200, it has low memory boot options to load Games too.

I offer a CF setup service if you get stuck or you can follow my Video Guide:

http://www.fitzstevesamigaworld.co.uk/?p=65

Good luck with your project, I agree with demolition re: RGB-Scart this would be your best option for your TV

---------- Post added at 12:02 ---------- Previous post was at 11:58 ----------

For playing games CF cards are perfectly fine, I'm using them mostly without issues for the last 3 years.

However it's down to personal choice what you go with in the end, if you are using your Amiga for heavy productivity work then a mechanical HDD is probably a better choice. Just bare in mind that older 2.5in HDD's (4gb/6gb/etc) are reaching the end of their useful life.

 

[-Acid-]

I recommend to you to buy a 2.5" internal HD and not mess with CF cards.

Couldn't agree more with this especially if you don't know what you are doing or are not experienced with setting up drives.

 

[fitzsteve]

I recommend to you to buy a 2.5" internal HD and not mess with CF cards.

Couldn't agree more with this especially if you don't know what you are doing or are not experienced with setting up drives.

Setting up a CF card is no different to setting up a real mechanical drive.

It only gets complicated when you want to use drives greater then 4gb and again the same rules apply to both mechanical and flash media.

Both have their pros and cons, these are what should be considered when making a choice and go with what suits your own usage best.

CF Media:

Pros:

Quite and cool
Quick seek time for data
Relatively cheap per/mb data storage
Easy to setup on a PC with any USB card reader
No moving parts

Cons:

Limited write cycles
A lot of fakes on the market so buy from trusted sources

Mechanical HDD

Pro's

More reliable for heavy usage
better & safer for larger amounts of data storage

Cons:

Drives can be noisy, especially older ones
Consume more power, consider this along with other upgrades
Being mechanical there are moving parts, these can of course be prone to failure.

Overall:

My personal recommendation is for an A600/A1200 that you just want to play games on get a 4gb or 8gb CF card, fill it up with Games and enjoy your Amiga.

If you have an A4000/A2000/A3000 or Amiga in a Tower get a real Mechanical HDD or if you want to use your Amiga for a lot of write intensive productivity work or store 10's of GB's of data then consider a 2.5in Mechanical HDD in your Desktop but buy a newer drive, avoiding older <6gb drives. I've seen more of those fail than CF cards even under light use!

An overall note, all my CF's I have bought are still working fine on my Amiga's, the only CF that died was a 1gb card my wife used for her DS with SuperCard CF, the continuous game saving has killed it, but she would play the DS daily.

 

[Templar]

The only issue the CF cards have if you're using them as HDs, is their stability and reliability. So I guess, it's better for an internal 2,5" HD. And what's that actually with the noise factor and speed? I cannot hear anything at all in my A1200 setup and the speed is as fast as I want.

 

[thekrakenwakes]

Thanks for everyones super quick advice. Was thinking before posting id prefer to stick to a 2.5" drive as that is what ive used before and seems to be the easiest set up / the "original" solution for the machine. Do all 2.5" drives fit or are there better options? Seem to remember back in the day a lot of discussion around cutting the case but think was just to fit 3.5" drives?

Does anyone sell pre-formatted 2.5" drives?

Are the Blizzard accelerators infinitely preferable to the new ACAs given im not going to some super user? The Blizzards seem to be selling for lots of money but am keen for a fairly decent set up.

Lastly, are replacement keyboards easy to fit? Im imagining opening up the case, unscrewing a few bits and slotting the new keyboard in / fitting the ribbon connector as with other similar replacements ive made on other things?

cheers

Matt

 

[Templar]

That was the case to fit a 3.5" HD. The A1200 is ready for 2.5" HD. Just put in on the cradle, connect the cable and off you go.

 

[CrazyC]

Blizzards seem to avoid the potential issue of needing timing fixes.

In your circumstances I would add my voice to the CF option. Once you have a clean set up it is easy to make a back up of the card on a PC and play with it using WinUAE so am not overly worried about failure - although I have yet to have one fail.

If you dont mind making a slight mod to the case, Kipper2ks external CF adapter means you do not even need to open the case.

I personally never got the PCMCIA CF card transfer option to work - I am sure it was just me being stupid but I transfer stuff to and from the amiga using a network card that accesses a shared folder on my NAS. I just drop stuff in the folder on the PC and away I go.

Changing keyboard is easy as far as I can see.

 

[demolition]

I personally never got the PCMCIA CF card transfer option to work - I am sure it was just me being stupid but I transfer stuff to and from the amiga using a network card that accesses a shared folder on my NAS. I just drop stuff in the folder on the PC and away I go.

The PCMCIA CF card solution is not complicated to get to work, just get FAT95 and CFD from Aminet and you're set.

I never got the network card transfer option to work properly. I managed to connect to my NAS from the Amiga using ftp but thought it was a bit slow and tedious. Would rather have a way to mount a network directory as a device so I can use dopus for copying. Do you use a Samba client?

Edit: I agree with the Blizzard considerations. ACA1220 might need timing fixes while the Blizzard 030 cards usually do not. And yes, the keyboard is easy to replace.

 

[CrazyC]

I personally never got the PCMCIA CF card transfer option to work - I am sure it was just me being stupid but I transfer stuff to and from the amiga using a network card that accesses a shared folder on my NAS. I just drop stuff in the folder on the PC and away I go.

The PCMCIA CF card solution is not complicated to get to work, just get FAT95 and CFD from Aminet and you're set.

I never got the network card transfer option to work properly. I managed to connect to my NAS from the Amiga using ftp but thought it was a bit slow and tedious. Would rather have a way to mount a network directory as a device so I can use dopus for copying. Do you use a Samba client?

Edit: I agree with the Blizzard considerations. ACA1220 might need timing fixes while the Blizzard 030 cards usually do not. And yes, the keyboard is easy to replace.

I just have a Network drive.......(best answer I can give - sorry)
I am playing around with something called MountFTP I think - which mounts the FTP as a drive. Seem a bit hit and miss at the moment but does partly work for me.
Normally I use Miami and AmiTradecenter.

 

[demolition]

I just have a Network drive.......(best answer I can give - sorry)
Normally I use Miami and AmiTradecenter.

Samba is also known as SMB or Windows filesharing, which is what you use when you share a folder in Windows. It's slow, but convenient.

I couldn't get the 3C589 driver in Miami to work, so switched to AmiTCP instead.

 

[supaduper]

Even though you dont like emulation I have found it the best way to transfer files to my cf card just boot from your card in winuae add the folder you want to copy to the winuae setup and just drag and drop onto your cf card, thats why I love having my cf card fitted externally and you can swap systems in seconds.

And also if you go the whole 50 yrds and fit an DVD drive you could just transfer files using cdr-rw, easy peasy

 

[demolition]

Since I have all my ADFs stored in an archive on my NAS (they would take up much more space if they were not), I thought about making a simple HTML page with a search form and server-side script to decompress a found ADF file which can then be downloaded through HTTP.

This way it should be simple to download any ADF file from my NAS straight to the Amiga through the browser.

 

[supaduper]

And also if you need an HD cradle for your A1200 PM me I have a spare one lying around

 

[thekrakenwakes]

And also if you need an HD cradle for your A1200 PM me I have a spare one lying around

I need a cradle? From fitting one in my old 1200 doesnt it slot straight in? Or maybe this is in response to someone elses post

 

[scrappysphinx]

The hard drive sits on a cradle which in turn sits into slots on the motherboard. Its not required but some people like to have it.

 

[CrazyC]

Since I have all my ADFs stored in an archive on my NAS (they would take up much more space if they were not), I thought about making a simple HTML page with a search form and server-side script to decompress a found ADF file which can then be downloaded through HTTP.

This way it should be simple to download any ADF file from my NAS straight to the Amiga through the browser.

Would you not just go down the whdload path and store all the games on your hard drive? Then use a front end (there are several - I use iGame) to navigate?