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avatar_beaker

Looking to buy and Amiga 1200.. advice needed

Started by beaker, 17:57, 03 February 13

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beaker

I know I could probably register on an Amiga forum but I thought this would hopefully be quicker if there's anyone on the forum also into Amiga's? Now that I've got rid of a Megadrive I have room for another machine. I've offered €100 for an Amiga 1200 with kickstart 3.0, 50 disks but it turns out there's only 1 workbench disk. Anyone with any experience with Amiga's know if this sounds about the right amount to pay? Here's a link to the listing: http://www.adverts.ie/other-computers/commodore-amiga-1200-vgc/2569903.

I am planning to fit the thing with a HxC and probably a CF hard drive and really only plan to play games although I understand I'll need more RAM using a hard drive.

Thanks in advance,

Beaker

ralferoo

€100 sounds expensive to me, but I've not bought one recently... I'm still using the one I had back in the day. I'm sure you can just download the other system disks - I can't remember how many there were, maybe 6?

I'm not sure about the HxC, but I've got a CF drive in mine. The card and adaptor were only about £15 in total and... Wow! It's amazing! It's massive compared to the 81MB drive I had in it before (and cost £150 of my hard earned pocket money)  :o and best of all, it's totally silent.

There are some programs (ALoad?) that patch most of the common games to run from hard disk. I've not looked into this, but it might be an option instead of the HxC...

steve

You may want to upgrade to OS3.1 in which case there only being one disk (should be 5), is irrelevant.
AmigaOS3.1 disks and rom should be about £30.

Bryce

€100 is a good price for what's on offer. It seems to be in pretty good condition. You can get KS3.1 for about €15 if you need it. I'd also recommend putting a 4GB CF Card in it, with OS3.9. AmigaKit sell it pre-installed still I think.

Bryce.

steve

There are many A1200's on ebay currently, one is £31 with 20 hrs left, one is 99p with 6 days left.

Bryce

The current price in ebay is irrelevant until the auction is over. Either or both of them still might end up going for €100 or more.

Bryce.

steve

Yes we know that, but if one goes too high in price there are dozens more to try for.

beaker

Thanks all for the feedback  :)

The only problem I can see with ones from the UK on ebay would be the postage to ROI which seems to be between €40 and €50 so the final sale price would have to be around €70 or £60 to make it worth my while. I'll keep an eye on just the auctions for a few days and see how much they go for :)

Beaker

Munchausen

I think the price is about right... in the retro shop where I live A1200s sell for a touch over that, even more with discs etc, IIRC. Generally the prices there are a bit higher than ebay, so it sounds like a good deal, especially if you can see it and it isn't really yellowed and is in good condition.

beaker

Thanks for the advise, I ended up buying it in the end and it is very white which is nice. The next thing I need is more desk space.... :)



Gryzor


beaker

lol, unfortunately most of it's company property (working from home and all) otherwise I'd probably have a decent machine there :)

Gryzor

No wonder they're having second thoughts about your productivity and the whole scheme then :D

Bryce

Quote from: Gryzor on 15:53, 13 February 13
No wonder they're having second thoughts about your productivity and the whole scheme then :D


I think his boss signed up as a new CPCWiki Forum member a few weeks back :)

Bryce.

beaker

They're just glad I stopped working out of the pub after 6 years :)

Bryce

Why did you do that? Were they looking for you to pay your tab?

Bryce.

Zetr0

#16
@beaker

when you get a moment, you should look at signing up to Amibay.com Forum - Powered by vBulletin and eab.abime.net,  both these site will serve your Amiga well.

Tell you what, as you are a new member and have a new found Amiga, I would be happy to prepare for you a 30GB HDD to install into it - its yours free - just cover postage (about £4.50 to Italy)

I would humbly suggest the following order of upgrades my friend

1. FAST RAM upgrade -

This will give your machine a much need boost of speed and provide room for the processor to really crunch some numbers.  Currently your A1200 has only 2MB of CHIP RAM -  (CHIP RAM) is shared by the custom chips, because of this the CPU has to wait until its turn to fetch / process and put data.  FAST RAM is CPU dedicated memory, because of this it improves the processing speed of the machine from 1.1MIPS to 2.7 MIPS!

FAST RAM Cards come in various sizes from 1MB to 8MB, and costs vairy accordingly from £45 to £65.


2. KICKROM upgrade -

Currently your A1200 is using ROM version 3.0.  While this is okay, for the later OS version (Workbench 3.1 / 3.5 and 3.9) you will need ROM version 3.1 - this is referred to as Kickstart 3.1


3. Mass Storage Solution

I can honestly say there is something nice about running from CF - its low power, quiet and easy to exchange data with the PC and back.  However there are some problems with CF - not all present themselves on the ATA bus properly and only as Removable devices - because of this the Amiga cannot see them to use.  A lot of CF cards are known to have issues, so if a CF card is you real want then I humbly suggest SANDISK brand - I have about 100 CF cards and this Brand has never failed me.

Alternatively is an IDE hard disk (laptop 2.5" IDE), these are that cheap enough people give them away - like me LOL!  There is something almost ethereal about powering up an A1200 and hearing the little purr of the hard drive spinning up and going through its diagnostic...  I have both solutions across a few Amiga so I have am lucky to have the benefit of both flavours of mass storage.


4. WHDLoad

This is quintessential (a must have) for today's Amigan!  essentially it allows you to play all the Floppy Disk Games from Hard Drive (essentially by emulating them on the Amiga) - without going into too much detail, there is approximately 5GB of Amiga Games available to install as well as over 200MB of demo's to get with a s well.   While WHDLoad is free, it really does come into it own when you buy a key - its only £15 but its really makes you part of the community and supporting WHDLoad is a great way to ensure more games are available to install onto a hard drive. (
an over view of WHDLoad) - Here is a system running Classic Workbench and WHDLoad (
click here)


6. Classic Workbench

This really is a pinnacle of perfection.  perfectly crafted workbench operating systems tailor made with tools, utilities and a whole lot of embedded features - 
have a look at this youtube - best of all it is FREE!


There is so much to learn, explore and experience - I almost envy you.... however I have every Amiga released since my 25 year obsession!=)

Systems I currently own

This might give the game away a bit - but I really love my Miggy collection.

A1000 STOCK
A500 (x3) 4MB FAST 1MB CHIP + 4GB IDE + CDROM, 2x STOCK
A500+ (x2) 1 with A570 8MB FAST 2MB CHIP 6GB HDD, 1 with GVP HC8+ - 8MB FAST + 2MB CHIP + 9.1 GB SCSI
A600 (x4) 1 with 8MB FAST 2MB CHIP, 1 with 4MB FAST 2MB CHIP 4GB CF IDE, 1 with 2MB Fast 1MB CHIP + 2GB CF IDE, 1 with ACA020 + 10.5MB FAST + 2mb chip + Indivison ECS GFX + 40GB IDE HDD.
A2000 (x3) 1 with GVP 68040 16mb FAST, SCSI, 2MB CHIP 36GB SCSI, 1 with CBM 030 8MB FAST, 8GB SCSI + SCSI Optical, 1 with 8MB FAST, 4.1GB SCSI + Optical
A3000 UX, 132MB FAST, 2MB CHIP, 36GB SCSI + External Optical, Retina RTG GFX
A1200 + Cyberstorm PPC 200Mhz / 040@25 256MB RAM + Bivsion 3D GFX + Sound Card + 80GB SCSI + Optical Drive,
A1200 + 030 @ 40Mhz + 64MB RAM + 60GB IDE HDD
A1200 + 8MB FAST RAM + 30GB IDE HDD
A1200 + Apollo 060@80 + 64MB RAM + ZIV BusBoard + Ziv PCI Mediator + 3DFX Voodo 5500 64MB, Radion 9200 256MB, 10/100 Network Card, Creative Labs Sound card + Spider USB
A4000 CBM 030, 16MB FAST, 2MB CHIP, CV64 3D mk2 GFX, Tocatta Sound Card
CDTV (x2) 1x STOCK, 1 with 4MB FAST + Internal 20GB IDE + 1MB CHIP
CD32 (x2) 1x STOCK, 1 with Prototype developer board (memory / FDD and IDE)

I have probably forgot something... =)

One of my A2000's is a custom hybrid build I have been working on - it has a companion P3 1GHZ Single Board Computer built into it, it has 512MB RAM, 64MB Graphics on board as well as LAN, USB and 80GB of IDE - I have built a custom Keyboard / Mouse interface thats shared between the two, alongside an internal KVM switcher.  the A2000 has a Picsasso 2 RTG Graphics and also has a Microway SD/FF that is plumbed into that - so three outputs into one monitor all auto switching - lots of fun.... its my longest project and theres so much more to do ;)
If I had a hammer.....

Marq

I'd definitely get an accelerator card for the 'Miggy instead of just a RAM expansion. Some of them, such as the Blizzard 1230 will let you softload newer Kickstart ROMs (3.1). A suitable PCMCIA card is an affordable way to get the machine connected to the net.

Bryce

@Zetro: all good advice. Beaker is in Ireland though, not Italy... We really need to get the colours of that flag image improved :D

Bryce.

Gryzor

If anyone wants to provide me with icons for their flag I'll gladly replace the existing ones :)


Also: damn, all this makes me wish I had some room to properly set an A up... *sigh*

Zetr0

#20
@Bryce

I may need a trip to spec-savers or clean my glasses -  I was sure that was an Italian flag....  in my defence it was late and I was tired or something.... ;)



@thread

Just to add -

AmigaKit.com - the Amiga shop and Vesalia Online - The Amiga & Retrocomputing Store (Est. 1987) - both are fantastic online stores to help you equip your Amiga, I have used both frequently and I have only good reviews about both stores.
If I had a hammer.....

Bryce

You're at least the third person to have thought it was Italy, so you don't need any excuses, it's definitely the flag that needs adjusting :)

Bryce.

beaker

Grazie per tutte le informazioni! The colours are a little too close hey :)

Firstly, thanks for your advice and kind offer Zetr0 which I'll gratefully take you up on, thanks :)

I've not had too much time to look for the blizzard card but is this one on Amibay any good or would more RAM be better? http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=41070? I think I read somewhere that WHLoad needs extra RAM to run AGA games...

Looking at a video the Kickstart ROMS appear to be socketed, is that the case with all Amiga 1200's? I've not opened mine up yet as the seal sticker is still in place. Also is soft loading the newer ROMS a better option for a complete n00b like me to the Amiga, or would would I be better having the physical ROMS in place?

@Bryce - yup, that and they changed the law in my area so I had no excuse to stay BBC News - Irish council in Kerry bid to relax drink-drive limit :(

Thanks again for all the tips

Beaker.

Marq

That 1230 you linked would be a safe choice and 32M is plenty for pretty much all Amiga stuff, especially WHDLoad. Blizkick is not hard to use, but if you have extra money then get the 3.1 ROMs, by all means.

Bryce

The A1200 ROMs are always socketed and you can usually get an NOS set of 3.1 KS ROMs on ebay for under €20.

Bryce.

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