Like many Amigans, I viewed the plethora of mods being made available around 1996 through CU Amiga and Amiga Format with envy. Being 14 and having no money didn't make it any better, yet it didn't stop me wanting to one day tower up my Amiga.
Back in 1996, my brother and I gathered together our birthday money, went off to Silica, and purchased an Amiga Technologies Magic Pack version A1200, with a 170mb internal hard drive, along with a load of bundled software, Wordsworth, Personal Paint etc. We did add a 4mb RAM card, and bigger hard drive when the original went wrong, along with an external SCSI CD drive, but then something called Quake came along, and then Championship Manager, and University. So the A1200 was packed away next to the Atari ST (FM with 1mb RAM thanks for asking) that had come before it. We occasionally got it out, fire it up for a few games of SWOS, but the A1200 spent most of the time after that at the back of the wardrobe.
Cut to today when I finally have the money to do something, and the Amiga is seen by some as a bygone relic, cosigned to history. I've decided to drag my A1200 into the 21st century.
The project kind of started off in a bit of a half-arsed way, I wanted to play Alien Breed 3D2, and some other Doom clone type games (Breathless, Gloom Deluxe, Fears) at a decent speed in full screen, so I bought an Apollo 060. When I tried to test fit it, it wouldn't fit, and after spending that much I decided to go the whole hog.
Now the A1200 has been dissected, and re-homed and stripped of it's original physical limitations, and it's been transformed into a modern machine, by it's standards.
Most of the stuff I have put into the build has been sourced through this forum, along with some other bits from Amigakit, eBay, and freebies from well wishers, such as my brother.
The case is a Power Tower or an E-Box as it seems to have been called at some point. The previous owner was a heavy smoker by the looks of it, and the entire case was nicotine stained throughout. The PSU, CD, DVD and floppy drives installed in the case were all dead, so I purchased a new floppy, and added a working CD/DVD drive. The good thing is that the tower is designed to house the A1200 motherboard, so installing this wasn't a problem. I had acquired a Goliath PSU at some point, and took this apart to use in the mock up prior to painting. Thankfully the AT keyboard adapter installed in the case did work, and after using a PS/2 PC keyboard through an adapter for a while, I purchased an A4000 keyboard to complete that part of the set up.
I also added a CF card reader, this was primarily for data transfer between PC and Amiga through WinUAE, though this was not without it's teething problems.
Amigakit provided an IDE interface, the previously mentioned floppy, audio mixer leads (which I could have made myself really having seen the wiring), and an extended floppy cable.
I have also acquired a PCMCIA right angle adapter and wireless network card, but the successful connection to the network alludes me to date, but it's a start!
Motherboard attached to tower case motherboard holder
Front view of the Power Tower, very yellow, very nasty looking
Early stages of mock up, before I determined the CD, DVD and floppy drives were kaput. Using the Goliath PSU and a borrowed external floppy to assist in testing.
Motherboard mounting piece prepped for primer.
Tower case stripped of everything, except the keyboard adapter which is attached by rivets, bagged it up to prevent it getting ruined!
Motherboard back on primed mounter
Poor quality photo but all primer done and ready for assembly.
Rear view of tower with new PSU and audio mixer cables configured.
All the internal gubbins connected up (unfortunately I don't have picture like this before break down and paint)
I went for a silver finish on the out case in the end, with the buttons done in primer for the contrast.
Time for some fun now, where's my joystick and that copy of SWOS....
Back in 1996, my brother and I gathered together our birthday money, went off to Silica, and purchased an Amiga Technologies Magic Pack version A1200, with a 170mb internal hard drive, along with a load of bundled software, Wordsworth, Personal Paint etc. We did add a 4mb RAM card, and bigger hard drive when the original went wrong, along with an external SCSI CD drive, but then something called Quake came along, and then Championship Manager, and University. So the A1200 was packed away next to the Atari ST (FM with 1mb RAM thanks for asking) that had come before it. We occasionally got it out, fire it up for a few games of SWOS, but the A1200 spent most of the time after that at the back of the wardrobe.
Cut to today when I finally have the money to do something, and the Amiga is seen by some as a bygone relic, cosigned to history. I've decided to drag my A1200 into the 21st century.
The project kind of started off in a bit of a half-arsed way, I wanted to play Alien Breed 3D2, and some other Doom clone type games (Breathless, Gloom Deluxe, Fears) at a decent speed in full screen, so I bought an Apollo 060. When I tried to test fit it, it wouldn't fit, and after spending that much I decided to go the whole hog.
Now the A1200 has been dissected, and re-homed and stripped of it's original physical limitations, and it's been transformed into a modern machine, by it's standards.
Most of the stuff I have put into the build has been sourced through this forum, along with some other bits from Amigakit, eBay, and freebies from well wishers, such as my brother.
The case is a Power Tower or an E-Box as it seems to have been called at some point. The previous owner was a heavy smoker by the looks of it, and the entire case was nicotine stained throughout. The PSU, CD, DVD and floppy drives installed in the case were all dead, so I purchased a new floppy, and added a working CD/DVD drive. The good thing is that the tower is designed to house the A1200 motherboard, so installing this wasn't a problem. I had acquired a Goliath PSU at some point, and took this apart to use in the mock up prior to painting. Thankfully the AT keyboard adapter installed in the case did work, and after using a PS/2 PC keyboard through an adapter for a while, I purchased an A4000 keyboard to complete that part of the set up.
I also added a CF card reader, this was primarily for data transfer between PC and Amiga through WinUAE, though this was not without it's teething problems.
Amigakit provided an IDE interface, the previously mentioned floppy, audio mixer leads (which I could have made myself really having seen the wiring), and an extended floppy cable.
I have also acquired a PCMCIA right angle adapter and wireless network card, but the successful connection to the network alludes me to date, but it's a start!
Motherboard attached to tower case motherboard holderFront view of the Power Tower, very yellow, very nasty lookingEarly stages of mock up, before I determined the CD, DVD and floppy drives were kaput. Using the Goliath PSU and a borrowed external floppy to assist in testing.Motherboard mounting piece prepped for primer.Tower case stripped of everything, except the keyboard adapter which is attached by rivets, bagged it up to prevent it getting ruined!Motherboard back on primed mounterPoor quality photo but all primer done and ready for assembly.Rear view of tower with new PSU and audio mixer cables configured.All the internal gubbins connected up (unfortunately I don't have picture like this before break down and paint)I went for a silver finish on the out case in the end, with the buttons done in primer for the contrast.Time for some fun now, where's my joystick and that copy of SWOS....
