Loved my Amiga back in the day and recently acquired a 1200 at a car boot sale.
Started (too many years ago to mention) with an A500+ (rememeber dismembering the box in Currys to make sure it was a + model as these had just been launched but in the same boxes as the older models- much to the girlfriend's (now wife so didn't put her off) embarrasment). Loved my 500 and then sold it to a friend so I could upgrade to A1200. As with many Amigans, I loved my 1200 and lavished it with gifts such as a Blizzard 1220/28, 80mb (yes mb) hard disk (said girlfirend came with me for the top to Milton Keynes to get it fitted and then bought my Star Trek as a present), then an Apollo 60040/40 (what a power house), Overdrive CD, CD32 gamepad (excellent for straffing in Gloom) beofre taking the plunge and sweatly, shakely removing motherboad and putting in a power tower. Added a new Cd- rom, bigger hard disk (can't remember the size) and was heading for a graphics and PPC card before I was convinced (wrongl) the UAE was a sutiable substiute. Sold the whole kit and kabboddle on Amibay (I think) to a very grateful teenager from Hull (who convinced his dad that this was the bargain of the century (and it was to be fair)and made him hire a car and drive to Surrey to collect it!
The came the wilderness years - various PCs and flirting wtih ever improving Winuae.
Then at the end of August I had one of those moments I had dreamt of - Amiga 1200 in decent condition and box of disks for cheap price!! Even wife couldn't deny me and excitedly I took it home. It booted first time and seemed to work but having no joystick/pad I couldn't test many games. My little boy (4) had a fun time on Theme Park but thought the disk swapping was a pain. Unfortunately, the left A key failed to work so you couldn't reset it. Still the challenge was trying to fix it. So with help from father-in-law, we dismanted the 1200 (never been opened as I guilty broke the seal) Obviosuly I had dismantled a 1200 before and in teh interim had built and upgraded various PCs so entering the innards was not the trauma it had been in the past. We completely dismantled the keyboard and cleaned out the membrane and lots of gunk from under the keys but still didn't work (looked like it should though). It was then I realised why the big C had left some keys blank - a quick swap over of the bits and the A key worked!!! The I gave the whole machine a good clean - not bad condition -case completely white but some yellowing to keyboard. The the fun began...
Being slightly sad I still had 2 power supplies (1 replacement supply by Technoplus and a Powerbox (used before 1200 in tower with Apollo 60040), trapdoor cover, Power Tower manual and the original 80mb har disk. Sadly I had sold my Blizzard 1220 early this year as I had given up on the dream. Unfortunately I had no ide cable so could not try out the hd. Obviously this needed to be rectified so a quick trip to the bay and I had ordered a CF adpator and cable (figuring I could use it for both) as well as an RGB cable (the fuzz, wobbly and buzzy screen was just doing my head in). A few days later it arrived and everything worked but sadly there was not much on the hd (was hoping for some of my early Blitz games) but I was pleased that it worked. Found out that you could sort out CF card on PC through Winuae and after struggling with this managed to create a bootable workbench which I slipped easily into the 1200. Problems soon arose due to lack of memory (I don't ever remember it being this bad but then I was floppy based in those days) and I really regretted selling the Blizzard. Still needed a jpoystic/pad and a better way of transfering software from the internet than constantly opening the 1200 and taking out the CF.
Last week, at another boot sale I found a Megadrive pad at a bargain price (had mentally decided if I didn't then I would by something of e-bay). pad works ok - opened it and gave it a bit of a clean and then discovered that it was a newer (relatively) model of pad (Megadrive 2) which had been redesigned poorly. The rubber membrane that is pushed by the buttons sits a the back of the pad instead of the front and sort of works backwards (very weird) but hey, I could now play all my games. Also picked up a battered copy of Putty (not Squad!!!) as well.
Finally this week I purchased a pcmcia CF adaptor and in the spirit of cheapness just went for a plain adaptor and no software as I figured I could sort this out myself. At first I thought this was a mistake as it just wouldn't work but a change of brand (from TWINmos to Scandisk) and as if by magic it just appeared on the desktop. Now things are really moving although I do sense that use Winuae for all the leg work doesn't always work when you plug the CF in and copy to internal Cf. Still struggling with lack of memory (and if I'm honest speed) so it looks like I need a bit of a serious investment (i.e. accelerator and ram). Keeping my eye on both bays to see what comes up - seems to be that the general opinion is to get a Blizzard 1230/50 (or possibly an eqivalent). Would love 1260 or PPC but don't think I can justify the cost although this would open up lots of avenues i.e. OS4. WOuld be happy with one of those new ACA accelerators alhtough they seem scarce and by all accounts a bit of a tight fit! Anyway, that's enough rambling for now and if you've got this far - well done, haven't you anything better to do?
The adventure begins anew...
Started (too many years ago to mention) with an A500+ (rememeber dismembering the box in Currys to make sure it was a + model as these had just been launched but in the same boxes as the older models- much to the girlfriend's (now wife so didn't put her off) embarrasment). Loved my 500 and then sold it to a friend so I could upgrade to A1200. As with many Amigans, I loved my 1200 and lavished it with gifts such as a Blizzard 1220/28, 80mb (yes mb) hard disk (said girlfirend came with me for the top to Milton Keynes to get it fitted and then bought my Star Trek as a present), then an Apollo 60040/40 (what a power house), Overdrive CD, CD32 gamepad (excellent for straffing in Gloom) beofre taking the plunge and sweatly, shakely removing motherboad and putting in a power tower. Added a new Cd- rom, bigger hard disk (can't remember the size) and was heading for a graphics and PPC card before I was convinced (wrongl) the UAE was a sutiable substiute. Sold the whole kit and kabboddle on Amibay (I think) to a very grateful teenager from Hull (who convinced his dad that this was the bargain of the century (and it was to be fair)and made him hire a car and drive to Surrey to collect it!
The came the wilderness years - various PCs and flirting wtih ever improving Winuae.
Then at the end of August I had one of those moments I had dreamt of - Amiga 1200 in decent condition and box of disks for cheap price!! Even wife couldn't deny me and excitedly I took it home. It booted first time and seemed to work but having no joystick/pad I couldn't test many games. My little boy (4) had a fun time on Theme Park but thought the disk swapping was a pain. Unfortunately, the left A key failed to work so you couldn't reset it. Still the challenge was trying to fix it. So with help from father-in-law, we dismanted the 1200 (never been opened as I guilty broke the seal) Obviosuly I had dismantled a 1200 before and in teh interim had built and upgraded various PCs so entering the innards was not the trauma it had been in the past. We completely dismantled the keyboard and cleaned out the membrane and lots of gunk from under the keys but still didn't work (looked like it should though). It was then I realised why the big C had left some keys blank - a quick swap over of the bits and the A key worked!!! The I gave the whole machine a good clean - not bad condition -case completely white but some yellowing to keyboard. The the fun began...
Being slightly sad I still had 2 power supplies (1 replacement supply by Technoplus and a Powerbox (used before 1200 in tower with Apollo 60040), trapdoor cover, Power Tower manual and the original 80mb har disk. Sadly I had sold my Blizzard 1220 early this year as I had given up on the dream. Unfortunately I had no ide cable so could not try out the hd. Obviously this needed to be rectified so a quick trip to the bay and I had ordered a CF adpator and cable (figuring I could use it for both) as well as an RGB cable (the fuzz, wobbly and buzzy screen was just doing my head in). A few days later it arrived and everything worked but sadly there was not much on the hd (was hoping for some of my early Blitz games) but I was pleased that it worked. Found out that you could sort out CF card on PC through Winuae and after struggling with this managed to create a bootable workbench which I slipped easily into the 1200. Problems soon arose due to lack of memory (I don't ever remember it being this bad but then I was floppy based in those days) and I really regretted selling the Blizzard. Still needed a jpoystic/pad and a better way of transfering software from the internet than constantly opening the 1200 and taking out the CF.
Last week, at another boot sale I found a Megadrive pad at a bargain price (had mentally decided if I didn't then I would by something of e-bay). pad works ok - opened it and gave it a bit of a clean and then discovered that it was a newer (relatively) model of pad (Megadrive 2) which had been redesigned poorly. The rubber membrane that is pushed by the buttons sits a the back of the pad instead of the front and sort of works backwards (very weird) but hey, I could now play all my games. Also picked up a battered copy of Putty (not Squad!!!) as well.
Finally this week I purchased a pcmcia CF adaptor and in the spirit of cheapness just went for a plain adaptor and no software as I figured I could sort this out myself. At first I thought this was a mistake as it just wouldn't work but a change of brand (from TWINmos to Scandisk) and as if by magic it just appeared on the desktop. Now things are really moving although I do sense that use Winuae for all the leg work doesn't always work when you plug the CF in and copy to internal Cf. Still struggling with lack of memory (and if I'm honest speed) so it looks like I need a bit of a serious investment (i.e. accelerator and ram). Keeping my eye on both bays to see what comes up - seems to be that the general opinion is to get a Blizzard 1230/50 (or possibly an eqivalent). Would love 1260 or PPC but don't think I can justify the cost although this would open up lots of avenues i.e. OS4. WOuld be happy with one of those new ACA accelerators alhtough they seem scarce and by all accounts a bit of a tight fit! Anyway, that's enough rambling for now and if you've got this far - well done, haven't you anything better to do?
The adventure begins anew...
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