My A1200D Project

[merlinkv]

@merlinkv
Dunno if one of the best Pablo my friend but definitely the Best one is indeed Phipscube's BY FAR!
Apart from that, mine doesn't have an FastATA as it used to. It has Idefix Express.

The SATA Idefix Express was mentioned by Jens in the Indivision mk2 thread over EAB that will start it's development logically after Indivision mk2 and ACA520.

Yes my friend, I don't have words to expresse my :wooha: :wooha: for the two systems (your and the Phipscube's one).....

These A1200's are simply wondefull

 

[Phipscube]

shuks thanks guys.

Well, i've not been doing much with the old girl these last few weeks, but I did fire her up at weekend and manage to figure out why my USB NIC wasn't initialising at boot on OS 4.1 (the configuration line comes before the Posedion stack initialisation so of course it can't find the NIC, I just moved the line below Posedion in the User Startup and all was fine). and I also applied Update 3. So at the mo she is comfortably booting into OS 4.1.3 and can go online (Very slowly). Subway is running sweet too for the USB ports and the CF card reader. I'm going to try and get my Delfina running somehow next.

 

[Phipscube]

Its been a while, and quite a strange year for me generally, but I have started messing around with the old A1200 Beast again. Whilst using her I found I wanted to see some kind of activity LED's for my NIC and DVD drives so I added a few: -

I drilled a 2.5mm hole into the side near the Delfina Mic + Line sockets so I can see when my NIC is active.

The LED is a flat top so its flush with the casing. I chose Yellow because when its off you can't notice it so much and I wanted a colour that matches the original top access LEDs.

Here's the LED for the DVD: -

This is the NIC LED flashing away when active: -

And the DVD LED: -

I've been trying to get my Delfina working in OS4.1 but i've given up. I got it to work with scratchy sound output when I blacklisted certain files in the JIT emulation but the whole system was so flakey and crashtastic that I decided to roll back to an earlier backup and just quit trying and hope that one day a proper official driver will be made.

I've now started to concentrate on installing OS3.9 on my DH1 partition

 

[johnim]

great new mods mate

 

[DonAmiga]

Great to see an update and its a nice touch indeed Looks Great

All the best it always cheers me up having a look at your A1200 project

 

[Phipscube]

Thanks John and Don

Its only a couple of small things, but i'm very happy with the tweaks

 

[mfilos]

Every little tweak count my friend! Awesome job as always
I really envy you guys that can find so many LED and electronic components so easily.

Here we can find only the general ones without many variations so eBay or Internet orders are the only way to get

Cheers again my friend and keep us posted \o/

 

[Phipscube]

Cheers Marios mate I was playing with the old girl last night and It's easier to see if there is any activity on the DVD and Net card now. Before this I was putting my ear on the DVD drive and looking through the floppy drive slot to see if the red Net led was flashing!

TBH, Most of my bits and bobs come from Ebay too, or old stripped PC's (If anyone is dumping a PC I nab the boards and do a mass heat gun attack!). I do confess to swiping the odd resistor, oscillator, capacitor and diode from work though :shhh:

Those LEDs appeared on our consumables stock (that basically means they aren't officially needed anymore) they are surplus from a very old project we had going (over 5 years ago) and they are quite special so I nabbed a couple

I hit a milestone yesterday night too! I FINALLY got Warp OS and Warp 3D running from a FRESH OS 3.9 install! Its taken a bit of time for me to get there but its working. I have 12 different backup points I can jump between to check how things work. The only problem is I have corrupt graphics sometimes in WipeOut 2097 on the loading screen (flickers menu and loading screen over the top), and when I jump back to desktop parts of it are black? I've not tried any other 3D games yet. Also my Delfina stopped working at some point (which judging by other folks experience was bound to happen)... but I have at least progressed these last few days!

What with custom 3.9 Rom and all the bells and whistles of 3.9 just about there, the old girl boots and runs very quickly

 

[ad-rs1600i]

Cheers Marios mate I was playing with the old girl last night and It's easier to see if there is any activity on the DVD and Net card now. Before this I was putting my ear on the DVD drive and looking through the floppy drive slot to see if the red Net led was flashing!

TBH, Most of my bits and bobs come from Ebay too, or old stripped PC's (If anyone is dumping a PC I nab the boards and do a mass heat gun attack!). I do confess to swiping the odd resistor, oscillator, capacitor and diode from work though :shhh:

Those LEDs appeared on our consumables stock (that basically means they aren't officially needed anymore) they are surplus from a very old project we had going (over 5 years ago) and they are quite special so I nabbed a couple

I hit a milestone yesterday night too! I FINALLY got Warp OS and Warp 3D running from a FRESH OS 3.9 install! Its taken a bit of time for me to get there but its working. I have 12 different backup points I can jump between to check how things work. The only problem is I have corrupt graphics sometimes in WipeOut 2097 on the loading screen (flickers menu and loading screen over the top), and when I jump back to desktop parts of it are black? I've not tried any other 3D games yet. Also my Delfina stopped working at some point (which judging by other folks experience was bound to happen)... but I have at least progressed these last few days!

What with custom 3.9 Rom and all the bells and whistles of 3.9 just about there, the old girl boots and runs very quickly

Great to see you improving it still further, and with OS 3.9 I bet it is an absolute rocket ship!! I'm sure you're not, but don't be dishearten by the 4.1 performance especially the web.. for its vintage, it is mighty impressive

The Defina issues sound ominous.. I've just brought one actually about a couple of months ago, is it not going to live long? The guys I brought it off said it wouldn't be that great anyway with my 030 but I thought I would get one anyway, just because I respect the madness of making new hardware for classic computers in the year 2011!

 

[Phipscube]

Thanks Ad-ri

I was a bit dishartened by OS 4.1, not because its slow on the net, that's ok I expected that, but because I don't feel like I can do much with it. Its a crying shame as there is no need to faff about "building" up an OS, its just about go from the moment its finished installing, the problem is the lack of drivers, software, and backwards compatibility.

If it would work with ALL classic hardware (including the 060 on my PPC board) and have good usability with general OS 4.1 software (ie, it worked at a fair speed without one feeling like they needed to buy an AmigaOne) and had full backwards compatibility, even through a really integrated emulator (building on JIT would be ideal I suppose) then there would be no need for OS 3.9.

In all honesty i'd very much prefer it! I don't really like having to build up OS 3.9 with all sorts of different programs patches work arounds and the like, I Want to just use the machine now, some folks like hacking and building up hardware (me) some folks like hacking and building up the software (not me).

So i'm taking the trial and error process now to get to a workable OS3.9 install and i'm sure i'll get there eventually, but unlike the hardware hacks where I feel like I progress a little each day, with the software I feel like I get so far then BAM, mistake - start again.

I've got a good backup system going now though so I can gradually find out whats causing problems and at what point.

The Delfina isn't actually broke (Well I don't think it is). Its something i'm loading at some point that's causing it to stop working, I just have to find out what it is.

I did find something cool out today. For my AVS I can use Ratte's Software! Only the external parallel version of the driver, but it works! The original software was patching CGX libs which is a bit dangerous I think. Anyway, it failed to patch them on the install I got up to and I didn't understand why, so out of the blue I just thought i'd see if Ratte's driver would work and it does, he uses the same pin 13 +5V or GND to switch the AVS.

Anyway, good luck with the Delfina, it sounds AWESOME when its working

 

[r0jaws]

This thread has so much awesome I cry a little every time I look.

 

[Phipscube]

Haha! Thanks Phil

 

[ad-rs1600i]

Thanks for the reply

I think I understand why a lot of people dislike OS4.0 and above, it feels from reading your description like a big departure from the original architecture, to the point whereby you cannot make use of the origin hardware, which is a great shame

I like tinker, but I am genuinely dreading trying to make the software do anything useful..! I think it will be very difficult, but hey I'll give it go

Could I ask you a question? I want to drive the speaker output from the Amiga into the input on the Delfina using an old analogue CD speaker cable. Do you happen to know where I solder the leads to get the correct stereo left and right channels? Viewing your build I can attach the cables to just one of the phono outputs which confused me a little

Adrian

PS - patching and workarounds are going to be the story of my life running 3.1

 

[Phipscube]

Hi Adrian

Yeah OS 4.X feels different.... It looks the same layout and all that but somehow it feels a bit like using an emulator. I can't really explain it. Don't get me wrong, its a nice OS, but I think it was never really designed to ever run on classic machines. Its like trying to port Linux to Classics, ruddy difficult. The pure fact that it doesn't work with 68K is testament to this. AFAIK it probably never will be able to work with 68K because of its low level architecture which it tailored to PPC. Hence the need for 68k emulation. For an AmigaOne I imagine its lovely... and one day i'd like a uA1 board to mess with

for audio you do indeed take L and R from Native and feed it into one of the lines of the Delfina. I've since bypassed that and I have native coming straight back out again next to the Delfina output through a filter (as I wanted to have native audio at cold boot time). But i'll explain why it looks like i'm feeding from one phono plug: -

If you look carefully in the pic you will see that the white wire (L audio) is connected to a pad that goes across to the L phono mount area (the 3 pole phono plugs allow mono sound. when only one phono is inserted, you get both channels out of one plug).. I just mounted it near the R side to keep the wires together

 

[Justin]

i love this thread!! it is just soooo full of JAWSOMENESS!!!

 

[ad-rs1600i]

Many thanks for taking time for such a detailed reply

Sorry to ask, I'm not great with this stuff, but the white wire is effectively getting a mono signal that includes both the left and right channel, is that correct?

I guess the yellow wire is redundant?

My plan was to keep the original phono sockets in tacked and simply solder the wires on under the board. By doing this I will have the native sound always available via the original phono ports and should I get the Deflina to do something, while using work bench I will simply disconnect from native phono and run the sound through the Delfina. Does this sound sensible to you?

Many thanks again for your time

 

[ancalimon]

What did you modify on the Delfina?

1-) Never seen one (I had an old Delfina Lite which I used with my A4000T)
2-) Would an mp3@64 be a better option for me? I'm not tech savy.
3-) Does it play mp3s properly? Are there any lockups?

 

[Phipscube]

@Adrian

The white wire on my Amiga (now i've taken off the phono sockets) is simply providing Left and the red wire Right. The yellow wire would be a second ground that's unecessary. The thing you have to think about is how the circuit acts with the phono socket soldered in. If they are still left on as you want to have them, the right plug will be bypassing its channel to the left side with no phono plug inserted, its only when you insert a phono plug into the right socket that it is mechanically disconnected from the left side.

So if you leave your phono sockets in place, then solder wires under the board, you're going to get left and right audio mixed together with no Right side phono plug inserted.

So if you want to do it, you're gonna have to go all the way mate! Rip those Sockets off!

The alternative is to have 2 phono plugs from your Amiga coming straight back into the case, then connecting to the Delfina Line in, then having a seperate set from the delfina output to your stereo. Then you could have a second set of phonos you could swap out when you only want to use Native Amiga Audio.

@ancalimon

Well I only changed some of the physical connections to make the Delfina more "flat" and so it could fit inside my A1200.

I took off irrelevant headers
Hard soldered the Clock port cable to the board
90 Degree angled a capacitor
took off all the phono and CDDA style sockets and lead them on wires

I have since made the inputs and output neater than the pic you posted too: -

I then stuck a thin piece of plastic under the board to avoid shorts

If you want to perform this mod, then please be careful with the two tiny capacitors under the clock port connector if you use a PPC accellerator these are vital, if not you have to take them off anyway so no biggie

1 - It looks pretty much like the photos! quite a beast and not very desktop friendly. Its most certainly not designed to fit in a Desktop.

2 - If you ONLY want to play MP3's and you don't think you can modify the connectons how I have, then maybe yes, but i've honestly never used an MP3@64, I thought it was only for the C64, so thats how much I know . But when its running, the Delfina sounds soooo nice! It can be a bit of a ball ache to get running correctly on a heavily modded Workbench (As i'm finding now). It also doesn't work in Amiga OS 4.1 Classic (Much to my dismay). But I can heartily recommend it.

3 - It plays MP3's just sweet. Depends what you mean by lockups? whilst its playing MP3's? not that i've found, when its not set up correctly? yes, it can reak havok on my poor old '12

 

[ancalimon]

Phipscube: I'm afraid I won't be able to do it Great work! The only person I know who's able to do this kind of job is tabuhuso in Turkey but his kids won't allow him to start fixing my A4000T let alone do a mod like this. If you can butcher another Delfina and sell it to me, I would buy it to use with my own A1200.

I have my old broken BPPC (no scsi) (hopefully only problem with it is related to bad soldering) and if it's fixable it I might start using it instead of the Blizzard060+SCSI on my A1200. Unfortunately without a BVision, I won't bother using it.

About Delfina lockups: I had a Delfina Lite which I swapped for a Toccata. I used a modified delfina.library and overclocked it using a utility from Aminet. That was the only way for it to decode mp3s without locking up and I still got a lockup or two in a day that way. I guess that's fixed with these new cards. It sounded great and I could boot playing an mp3 using delfplay. Friends that saw it were in awe.

 

[Phipscube]

@ ancalimon, I'd so much love to make a living out of providing all these crazy mods of mine but i've got a full time job and a family with 2 young kids, so as you can imagine, i'm very hard pushed to even have time for my own mods. I use the equipment I have at work too. If I get some equipment at home and a bigger house one day to have a workshop (And not the Dining table) I may take up the odd request.

I hope you can get your BPPC working, have you talked to stachu100 (Stan) on here? I got my BPPC from him and he is a total guru when it comes to the PPC

Ah the old libraries that needed a patch? I've always used Delfina.library V4.17 which I *THINK* has addressed all the issues with lockups and doesn't need patching. Don't quote me on that as i'm still in the early days using the Delfina in my setup under 3.9. Right now its not working and i've not had time these last days to go back to an older install backup and try and find out where its going wrong.

I'm really tempted to just crap out with a completely fresh install and load on ClassicWB 3.9 then tart it up with Warp OS etc. I'm such a slouch with software