Advice for newly bought Amiga1200

[mamalos]

Hey all, after a lot of time I decided to buy a gift to myself and so I bought me a used Amiga1200. I own 2 Amiga500's back in Greece (and a 1084 monitor), but due to some crazy circumstances, I don't have access to them for the moment.

The Amiga came only with a PSU (functional one) and a CF-HDD, so I ordered a bunch of stuff in order to make it functional - and make sure it works:
- A new Amiga RGB 2m Scart TV Cable.
- A USB mouse adapter to use a USB mouse.
- An ArcadeR joystick.
- And a SCART2HDMI adapter (the cheap one from Amazon).
- A Sony KDL 15G2000 monitor for "the real thing".

All-in-all, the Amiga powers-up nicely (it does makes some sounds when booting that I'm not sure whether it should do them or not...but I'll investigate before posting about this at some later point), it boots from the CF-card/HDD, but it shows some error messages about some disk blocks (I'll add another thread for this if I see it makes sense), yet eventually shows some folders'n'stuff (and a Workbench folder) and I'm able to click on some demo games and see them on my screen...which is COOL! (nostalgia). I asked the guy I bought it from about what's installed on the drive and he didn't remember much, he thought he started setting it up to boot through the HDD but he doesn't remember if he ever completed it successfully.

So, here are my questions:

• What should one do when they buy a used Amiga? Open the case and see if something is leaking and/or replace something just to be on the safe side? (I remember some battery might be leaking which can cause damage).
• After I bought the SCART2HDMI converter, I saw some videos saying it's screwing the gaming experience (as it adds delay) and people are generally suggesting to go for OSSC. After I confirm this delay myself (still haven't had enough time to play with it), and due to the fact that my current coverter doesn't seem to provide a 4:3 output which I don't like because it stretches the display, I'm thinking of returning the SCART2HDMI adapter and go for an OSSC. But the OSSC's I see in Amazon (and in the market) are relatively pricey (>120GBP) whereas on eBay I found some cheaper alternatives (~70GBP), which I read somewhere that they're probably "Chinese replica's" and not of good quality (which I can't confirm). Does anybody have experience with cheaper OSSC's, as they are way cheaper and atm I've already spent quite some money on this project that I hadn't expected (which is totally my fault, as I didn't do my research properly before buying the Amiga). Or are there any not-so-expensive alternatives for my display? OK, I now bought the additional monitor (which hasn't arrived yet, btw), so I'll be cool in this regard, but it wouldn't hurt to have an alternative that doesn't consume as much space.
• I am not familiar with how HDDs work on Amiga's, nor do I remember much about AmigaOS/Workbench, but to my poor knowledge and understanding I guess that someone can add programs/games in a CF-HDD and bundle them using WHDLoad (which I'm not exactly sure what it is, I guess it's some packaging/bundling thing?) along with some Workbench and then boot from it. As I currently have a licenced copy of AmigaForever from Cloanto, I suppose I may have some legit workbench coming with it as well, which I assume I can use on my Amiga1200, right? So, is there some guide you'd suggest which explains clearly the steps of how to setup an OS on a CF-HDD and add programs/games to it (ideally with WHDLoad)? I may not remember anything from the Amiga world, but I still cope with OS', I've been working as a *NIX sysadmin for the last 25+ years so I understand some computer stuff . Btw, I've seen this guide here, which seems quite complete, but it also seems quite long and maybe a bit too verbose, so I'm looking for other resources too.
• Are there any other suggestions of how to properly enjoy and treat my newly bought Amiga? Eg. will I soon need to upgrade its memory or anything?

So, thanks everybody for your time in advance, I'm super excited to have put my hands on an Amiga keyboard after all these years, and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions!

EDIT
Well what do you know?!?! After I opened the Amiga to disconnect the HDD and see what kickstart version it's running, I realised that there's no SC-HDD, it's a real HDD?! :-D Toshiba MK2124FC (120MB I think). So, these were the strange noises that I was hearing most probably (sounded like rotating disks).

Moreover, the kickstart version it's running is 3.00 ROM 39.106

 

[miggymad]

One of the most important things to look for are signs of mainboard recapping and timing fixes done to it. There might be a label from the company with a recap date on it but if not then assume no work has been done. There are plenty of reputable people/vendors who will do this work for you.

Your Amiga is at risk if this is not been done. Capacitor and battery leakage are the biggest killers so it is important to visually check for any signs of it. Green 'fur' or capacitors with domed tops instead of flat is cause for immediate concern. A fishy smell coming from the mainboard can also be indicative of the problem.

One word of caution is to NEVER have the electrolyte capacitors replaced with tantalum capacitors as some people have done. They can explode under certain circumstances and potentially cause even more damage to the Amiga internals.

​

Steve at retropassion.co.uk is my personal go-to guy for all my Amiga recapping work but as previously stated, there are many others.

 

[rootboy]

Recently had a tant go pop in one of my Micro-Professors.

 

[miggygossip]

TBH when I built my main A1200 I bought a cheap 44pin IDE to CF adapter and bought a pre-installed OS 3.9 cf on ebay with it all. I've spent the last 7 years trimming it back and setting it up to taste. I have set up other Amigas from scratch. A few basic things to do are grab some 3.1 roms. They fix a lot of issues with larger drives. You could also go "mainstream" and use 3.1.4 or 3.2 roms but they're still ironing out compatibility issues afaik. Clean Install OS 3.whatever on whatever drive and add from there. Who needs leftovers from a secondhand unit? Also add PCMCIA drivers to allow PC file transfer. You can download WHDLoad files from http://www.whdload.de/

There are many guides of setting up a CF HDD such as: https://johan.driessen.se/posts/Set...sic-Workbench-and-WHDLoad-for-Amiga-600-1200/

Scan-Doublers are a nightmare tbh. RGB out => doubler => monitor have nothing in common and approximate a result.
Summary site: http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/

I bought an Apollo IceDrake for HDMI out on a new A1200 build and it's great with ApolloOS.

 

[Xanxi]

One word of caution is to NEVER have the electrolyte capacitors replaced with tantalum capacitors as some people have done. They can explode under certain circumstances and potentially cause even more damage to the Amiga internals.

​

I got myself some tantalum caps blowing into my face but that was on 30 years old boards.
My A600 has been recapped last year by a technician with tantalum caps and is fine now and probably will be for at least 30 years. Those doing this often remind that Phase 5, one of the best hardware vendor on the amiga history, has used a lot of tantalum caps even on PPC boards and that they are amongst the more reliable pieces of hardware.
Yet it is true that i am a bit worried about my BPPC boards that i have not used for about 15 years, and this long period of inactivity could short a tantalum cap and cause an explosion.
On an Amiga mobo used a on regular basis, at least a few times a year, i don't think there is a matter of worries before several decades.

 

[Xanxi]

My advice to mamalos : don't bother with OSCC until you get a perfectly serviced and working with nice OS A1200. And then think instead of an Indivision MK3.

 

[CrazyC]

Personally I would use amiga OS 3.2 (or now 3.2.1) from the word go. I have migrated all of my 1200s to this including the more expanded ones and its been fine.
Unless I missed it, you dont have an acelerator yet, for WHDLOAD etc and general enjoyment you will need a little extra memory at least.
This is where it gets kinda expensive depending on what you want to use your miggy for, and what you are willing to pay....
Then yes you also might want to look at how you are going to connect to a display if a normal RGB to SCART wont do it. That too can be expensive.....

 

[miggymad]

A standard 8mb ram upgrade will only cost you between £50 and £75. Okay so it won't make your A1200 break any speed records, but for WHDLoad it's ideal

 

[CrazyC]

A standard 8mb ram upgrade will only cost you between £50 and £75. Okay so it won't make your A1200 break any speed records, but for WHDLoad it's ideal

yeah but how many of us started like that and then within weeks decided that they wanted something with a little more to it, and then after that a bit more, and....then you have to admit to yourself that buying stuff late at night on amibay can be dangerous.......I still don't know how I ended up buying my B1260....(wouldn't sell it now though).

I started with a trusty Hawk 8mb card, and then literally within about a month was on the look out for something better although I didn't NEED it....and well yes OK now I maybe have a bit of an addiction...

 

[miggymad]

It's only an addiction if you let it become one.....(Says he who owns 8 A1200's with various 1260 cards in the trapdoors )

No addiction here

 

[StrongARM]

Right on. On the other side, every human has it's own drug/addiction to survive the lethargy.

 

[mamalos]

Hey, thanks all of you for helping out here!!! This is awesome!

So, I'll sum up what I've understood so far and I'll also write my plans so far, plus some additional questions which were triggered by your answers:

• First of all, I've packed my Amiga motherboard and I'm going to send it for a "full recap", as when I opened it, it became clear to me that it hasn't been recapped.
• I'll add at least some extra memory for WHDLOAD. And this is a decision I came up with even before reading your answers, based on my "research" so far. A few questions there:
  • I've read some articles mentioning that > 4MB will practically "disable" the PCMCIA port (as IIUC, they're overlapping with the PCMCIA memory addresses). And to my understanding, the PCMCIA can be used for "volatile" communication with the rest of the world (adding an external HD, adding some NIC, etc). Is this the general case or are there any 8MB expansion boards that don't necessarilly make the PCMCIA useless?
  • After "digging a bit deeper" into where an FPU could be used, I'm leaning towards that FPU's are mostly helpful for demos; yet demos are not the reason I currently want to use my Amiga. What I mainly want to use it for is games and playing with AmigaOS/workbench, plus exploring communication with my other OS' and maybe see if I can play with networking. Ah, and I'd like to see how NetBSD works on it, where I'm not 100% if I'll need some DMA or not. There's also a tiny chance that I'll play with some 68000 assembly, but I'm not sure if I'll ever find the time to do so (in the Amiga).
  • Do we have any preference of what type of memory I should add (if there are different "varieties")? Pros/cons?
  • In terms of games, would I even really need more CPU speed? I suppose that most-if-not-all of games must have been written with the slowest CPUs in mind, so that they can refer to a broader audience; so since I'm not going planning to play with demos, I'm not sure if it would make sense for me to ever pay more money for an additional CPU that I'll practically never use. Moreover, IIUC from some articles I read here and there, there might be even games that won't work well on faster CPUs exactly because they were written with the slow CPU speeds in mind in the first place.

A few basic things to do are grab some 3.1 roms. They fix a lot of issues with larger drives. You could also go "mainstream" and use 3.1.4 or 3.2 roms but they're still ironing out compatibility issues afaik. Clean Install OS 3.whatever on whatever drive and add from there.

Personally I would use amiga OS 3.2 (or now 3.2.1) from the word go. I have migrated all of my 1200s to this including the more expanded ones and its been fine.

• I understand that it would be good to upgrade my ROMs. From your answers it seems that there are some tradeoffs for newer versions (>=3.1.4?) in terms of compatibility. Do we have some "official" answers on these? Moreover, what's the right way of buying ROMs? To my understanding there are some licensing issues which need to be addressed before buying ROMs/kickstart, right?
• I've purchased a 40GB PATA HDD (for ~£7, and which is supposed to be never been used from eBay) where I'm thinking of adding some <=4GB partitions to use with my Amiga.
• In terms of display, I think I'll currently stick with the LCD monitor I bought (haven't tried it yet) and with the SCART2HDMI cable for now. If I see that for some reason I'm not happy with these solutions, then I'll get back to you with more questions.

Thanks again for the help so far!!

 

[miggygossip]

• I've read some articles mentioning that > 4MB will practically "disable" the PCMCIA port (as IIUC, they're overlapping with the PCMCIA memory addresses). And to my understanding, the PCMCIA can be used for "volatile" communication with the rest of the world (adding an external HD, adding some NIC, etc). Is this the general case or are there any 8MB expansion boards that don't necessarilly make the PCMCIA useless?
• After "digging a bit deeper" into where an FPU could be used, I'm leaning towards that FPU's are mostly helpful for demos; yet demos are not the reason I currently want to use my Amiga. What I mainly want to use it for is games and playing with AmigaOS/workbench, plus exploring communication with my other OS' and maybe see if I can play with networking. Ah, and I'd like to see how NetBSD works on it, where I'm not 100% if I'll need some DMA or not. There's also a tiny chance that I'll play with some 68000 assembly, but I'm not sure if I'll ever find the time to do so (in the Amiga).
• Do we have any preference of what type of memory I should add (if there are different "varieties")? Pros/cons?

There are 8mb boards such as the DKB 1202 which uses software called magicMem to switch the 8mb simm to 5.5mb - the maximum allowed for PCMCIA compatibility.
The PCMCIA card is useful for PCMCIA ethernet if going online ( I didn't though) and CF adapters using CFO: device in devs/dosdrivers, compactflash.device in devs/ and fat95 in L/ on your system partition. The CF card is to be formatted in FAT32 and therefore good for transfers from PC. Also hot swappable.
The trapdoor expansion has an 8mb limit (Z2) without a processor on the card and usually 128mb or maybe more with a processor. FPU's can be on any size ram card.
Quite a few graphics and audio programs use different system files if there's an FPU available.
One of the main devides in ram/accelerator cards is the preference of classic or modern. You could spend a lot on a Blizzard or Apollo from the era or something like the Tsunami or TF1230 are cheap performers today. Bear in mind a simple 4mb ram card gives 2x-4x speed increase over standard. The 030 cards mentioned with say a 16-32mb simm make your system jump to attention.

 

[CrazyC]

What follows is purely my own experience and opinions, and others may have different views etc.

I have always used the pcmcia slot for a wired network card, and have a shared drive at home that my pcs and amigas can all access.
I haven't used a WiFi card but I understand that the WiFi encryption is challenging for the cpu and so an accelerator helps or may even be required. Others will have to comment more on that.

There are some bits of software worth buying and I bought amiga os 3.2 and a set of the physical roms. These are available from various sources and there are then no licensing issues etc. (If you end up with a terrible fire accelerator then get roms with the ehide driver built in).

When setting up a new system I like to have external access to the cf card I am using as a hd. I generally see no need to go above 8gb. Being able to easily remove it allows you to set it up on winuae, and and also to take backups by simply imaging the card on your pc. Not good to write full images to a card I know but has saved me a few times...
External access can be via an adapter that brings it out just above the pcmcia slot but requires cutting the case, or amigakit do an adapter that goes out the expansion slot at the back under the floppy drive.

If you only want to play general games, a memory expansion will do. If you want a snappy workbench etc and maybe to be networked, go for an 030 or better accelerator. It will be much nicer and avoid issues with pcmcia compatibility, and depending on the accelerator may include a faster ide port and maybe a battery backed clock.

When you get the board recapped, get the rf modulator removed as well to make room.

It not hard to add usb if your clockport is ok. All mine have it.
There is a thread for freeway usb on amibay. I use this for file transfers as well.

 

[miggymad]

If your monitor has a VGA input then perhaps you might have a nice quiet word with @axel81 in regards to his RGB to VGA buffered (with vertical line removal) adaptor that he sells on here.

Might be a cheaper solution for you if available funds are low when purchasing all those upgrades and the mainboard recapping.

 

[redhothero]

I'll be watching this thread. I'm more or less in the same boat and have watched a few dozen hours of youtube the last week or two. Coupled with the hundreds of magazines I've read since the 80s- this is going to be a fun trip!

 

[Aeberbach]

If you go with the OSSC...
Spend money on an Amiga-SCART plug as the VGA input on the OSSC is not as good, technical reasons to do with filtered input that can't be unfiltered IIRC but look it up.
Videogameperfection say no more OSSC production until Q4, FPGA shortage :-( How have the cheap ones on eBay been made, perhaps with real parts, perhaps with real parts at a lower speed grade, perhaps with parts that are almost right but not quite? Tough choice.

To get it working today I would probably try an Amiga-SCART cable + the HDMI-SCART converter from Amazon or a gbs-control modded GBS8200.

No method is perfect, all have complexities or blank screens when they change modes or require $$$ or they introduce lag or something... all except the holy grail, the original CRT. I bought one of these: https://www.arcooda.com/accessories/arcade-monitors/20-1-inch-lcd-arcade-monitor/ - it's pretty nice.

 

[mamalos]

No method is perfect, all have complexities or blank screens when they change modes or require $$$ or they introduce lag or something... all except the holy grail, the original CRT. I bought one of these: https://www.arcooda.com/accessories/arcade-monitors/20-1-inch-lcd-arcade-monitor/ - it's pretty nice.

This is VGA IIUC, right? How's the "performance" when converting to VGA?

 

[miggymad]

I use a Hanns-G HU196D 19" monitor (4:3 ratio), buffered VGA adaptor and the picture is perfect with no noticeable lag. I would even go so far as to say the output and performance is on a par with an Indivision AGA scandoubler.

As @Aeberbach has stated, the display remains black until Workbench has loaded and the monitor driver kicks in but it's a small price to pay IMHO.

Remember that above all else, it's factoring in both personal choice and the costs involved. If you are on a budget, then I would recommend the buffered VGA adaptor and a cheap VGA monitor solution.

 

[Aeberbach]

This is VGA IIUC, right? How's the "performance" when converting to VGA?

All I can really say is "good enough for me". Supposedly 1.9ms delay only? Definitely better and a much sharper picture than the NEC LCD71V I also picked up recently.