A1200: Checking out my former lady :)

Hi peepz and I wish a good year to everyone :)

Last week was kinda painful cause I didn't have my A4000 to tinker, since I sent it's motherboard to Cosmos for general repairs (that will be covered in another thread though).
That's why I had time to check out the former lady that was sitting patiently in my office after I sold it's powerful heart (BPPC+BVision).

I thought about removing all components to clean them up and take some photos in case I decide to split and sell every part individually.

Those components are...

My modded Idefix Express

My loved Slim IDE DVD-RW with 44pin JAE to IDE adapter and 3way 44pin ribbon cable

My old and trusty Subway USB (Serial No. 13!)

...and one of the Clockport Expanders by DJBase and an EZkey PS/2 adapter

I was very sad to see these go so I decided for now to keep and re-install to my A1200.
The problem existed with Ian's ATX adapter and PicoPSU that for some reason, didn't work as intended. It worked but power button needed pushing A LOT of times which made me rethink about the whole idea of Push-On switch.

After fiddling around Ian's website and some schematics about ATX to Amiga Pinout... I removed Ian's ATX adapter (that took some time as I soldered PicoPSU directly to the adapter - you need to check some older posts to see it) and soldered the appropriate cables into it directly :)
After that, I only needed to wire Pin 13 and Pin 14 of PicoPSU into a simple On/Off switch and that was it.

That's one white nice switch I had on my stash for quite some time (which replaced my old switch that was mounted on Ratte's Auto AGA/RTG switch).

...and here is how I mounted PicoPSU now (without it's connector) into a plastic custom stand

Working really well I might add :)
Check the following 2 photos to get a better general look.

You can also check a quick video I grabbed showing how fast it boots ClassicWB 68k.

Not feeling bad about keeping the lot in the end (at least for now).
Only thing missing right now is an 030 I think... Oh well, ACA1231 is close :)

Stay tuned \o/

A1200: Playing Crysis... :)

Some time ago I thought of doing something cool cause I was curious how will it look :)

I got a clip of 1280x1024 of Crysis and based on it I made the following steps:

• Exported pictures from video (527 pics for about 1min of video)
• Downsized all pictures to 640x512 (Original /2)
• Converted all pictures to 16 color IFF format including Floyd-Steinberg dithering (using ImageStudio and Rebel's Palette). For not doing that 527 times (not a good way to suicide) I created a script in ImageStudio and all was great :)
• Putted all pictures to an 527 pictures animation file under PPaint (one-by-one. Ok that suxed a bit but it wasn't so painful)

Result is really cool if you imagine that is only 16 colors!!!

OFC don't expect for it to run ok on 030. You can see that even in my 060@60MHz it's a bit slow (despite loading the animation file to RAM!)

File size of the animation file is ~54MB for 1.07min of video LOL!
I uploaded the anim to my Dropbox for anyone's wanna check it out on WinUAE or 060 Amiga.
Link here.

I hope you like it :)

A1200: Subway USB mounting

One more nightly upgrade

I thought of mounting at last my Subway to it's permanent location. After fiddling around for some time, testing it where I liked it better... I decided that the only place that suited my needs best was under the DVD-RW!






The space available is indeed minimal but I don't need much After all, under the DVD-RW the only thing that exists is the awesome Auto AGA/RTG Switch by Ratte.
Well you can take a look at it:



Ok the only thing left now was the extension cable that needed to be routed and joined with the original header that I put some time ago (on the lower part of the case).
So... I routed the cable under BVision and hotglued left from BPPC. Then I joined all 8 pins with the old cable and voila... It's mounted now on DJBase's Clockport expander and rock stable


I hope you like it

A1200: Booting OS4.1 + Debian videos

As I haven't made in a past any video of my A1200 booting alternative OSes, I thought about making a couple more vids of the beasty running:

- Amiga OS4.1:

- Debian PPC:

Not anything fancy but stock boot and some fiddling around.

Enjoy

A1200: OS upgrade + more

Well not an actual hardware upgrade... But a software one that is

I was tinkering the last days with a custom ClassicWB 3.9 installation on my beasty.

So atm the system is working on a special Bloodwych's ClassicWB 3.9 version that contains BB1 through BB4, CGX4, AfAOS 4.7 (+Ken's Icons+Antialiased fonts), WarpDT, HSMathLibs, Oxypatcher plus lotsa Programs and Internet applications.
It has installed drivers for my Delfina and Subway USB along with Remus, Genesis and all is running @ 1360x768 resolution that is the native resolution of my Samsung 23" LCD/TV (tinkering CGX mode to get the best result took me more than 30mins).



Ofc that wouldn't be so perfect if it wasn't running on uber Custom Kickstart 3.9 EPROM that contains all the BB4 modules, plus Cosmos latest SCSI.device, PeterK's latest Icon.library plus some extra modules like BPPCFix, Morelibspace (from AfA OS).

Rebootless loading as fast as possible was needed for this elegant beast that now works like a charm having the goods from all worlds
- Bloodwych's awesome environment and l33t DOpus configuration
- RTG + DualPNG Icons + Antialiased fonts
- Many proggies for all taste and custom making (Remus, ImageStudio + Rebel's palette etc).


System runs stable and quick and I'm really happy with it. You can check a quick video I took some minutes ago here:

I just wish I had an A4000 with Deneb to be able to make custom ROMage along with Guides and How-To's... Oh well who knows... I might get lucky @ some point

Cheers

A1200: DVD-RW mod

One more nightly build... ehm, I mean update

It was time for the internal DVD-RW to take it's proper position and case to be dremeled...

Before I start, I thought of putting an extension to the Eject button (that tiny soldering was hard for meh skillz)




After putting the correct spacers... the result was really cool (yep the measuring, filling etc, took a lot of time). Also a tiny 25mm fan was put under the side of the DVD-RW just to give a little bit of cooling to Indy etc.






The backside of the DVD-RW was put with a little drip of hotglue to Idefix Express Gayle adapter and CF adapter.



The most irritating and most difficult part was measuring, cutting and filling A1200's case for the slot-in's hole
Talking about a loooooooooong time and patience. I wouldn't do that again for the world! Also a tiny button was put into place (next to the hole) as an Eject button along with a header.








Everything was mounted and AT LAST... I saw my miggy closed after 1.5 year!
Haven't took a photo yet but will do in the next update that is gonna be soon. I just feel good for finally coming close to completion (or at least I think I do).

A1200: CF + PicoPSU mod

One more morning update coming ahead since I was in a hack mood when I woke up this morning

First of all I spend a long time to measure, dremel and sand the area above the PCMCIA where the CF adapter would go... Result was perfect!








Time for putting the custom 44pin cable (stripped carefully) into position
Aye, DVD-RW fits so much better now!






Some more informative pics about the way I got the power cables with hot tube to ease a bit the mess, along with the PicoPSU+Ian's Adapter positioning (along with the space for the extra Fan that will blow the mini heatsinks).








An voila... Everything works like a charm!

A1200: Re-modding everything from scratch!

Saturday at last... and after many shity days @ work... Time was up for tinkering teh Beast!

I don't remember mentioning that after so much time building that A1200... I never tried the Audio. Since I got a new 22" LCD/TV I thought of trying it.
For my horror I realised that ALL audio sounded like crap!!! Damn, caps apparently hitted my 1B mobo as well

Well after my first reaction... I thought... Oh well. Every obstacle is for the better so I thought of switching the mobo for my spare A1200 with 1D.4 mobo.
After checking the spare mobo for sound quality... Everything worked like a charm so it was time to take everything OFF!!!
I gotta admit. It was a shity procedure not to mention how weird it felt taking everything apart after all this effort!

Changing the mobo gave me lotsa thoughts of making my MOD even better since I wanted:
- To change the position of PicoPSU + Ian's ATX Adapter.
- To change the position of Ratte's Auto Swich
- To soldered Clockport Expander signal cables instead of extra Kickstart socket and
- To get an extra Audio Cable under mobo for future Audio Mixer and Delfina

LET'S START:

First as usual I had to remove the Composite connector, TV Modulator, Power Plug and move a capacitor that blocked the way of mine (lol).
Soldering Clockport's Expander signal cables, along with Power Cables was an easy task done many times. I also soldered the extra cable for audio.
I also thought of insulating the soldering with some duct tape just for safety




Yep, everything was just fine. I also insulated the place where the modulator+power plug for safety. Clockport Expander feels good now and you can also see the capacitor that was moved to give me some space





Now it was time to Dremel my a$$ off
First of all I used my friend Keropi's custom Power plug Inox Backplate, and Dremeled a VGA backplate to fit the place I wanted it.
I also Dremeled the lower metal Backplate of A1200 in the modulator position in order for the VGA backplate to fit.
Everything was glued into place and voila!




Now for the hard part... Dremeling A1200's case for VGA plug to fit! That was painful
I also decided to put a custom PS/2 keyboard connector into Composite's place since I always wanted to have it there for as long I modded my miggy and couldn't have the keyboard ribbon in. Everything fitted like a glove and felt really good for the effort.




Time to put the components back in place...
Ratte's Switch (including cabling to U8 for switch signal+Manua swich), EZkey PS/2 Adapter, Floppy terminator connector. You can also see the Extra Audio cable connector that is near the Audio RCAs.




And yes... time for the heavy machinery to be placed.
BPPC, BVision, Idefix Express, Indivision AGA, along with correct and easy to put cabling (not to mess with me later)



Now it was the most difficult part of the day, since I decided I wanted to mount PicoPSU+Ian's adapter where the end of the ex-Floppy ended.
Since in the past I have Dremeled Ian's Adapter+PicoPSU ATX connector... I decided I had to desolder BOTH connectors and mount PicoPSU directly to the adapter. That was really... really... irritating!
At least it worked and felt a lot better than before.




If you saw correctly... you must have noticed the NEW switch for Manual Switching Ratte's Auto Switch. Why anyone would wanna do that? Because Ratte's Switch only operates with a program under OS3.x
What about MorphOS, or AmigaOS4.x or DebianPPC?... That's why
I didn't like the classic little switch, so I bought a better one



OK... just for a quickie now, you can see the "End of the Day" full update on my A1200 with A LOT MORE TO COME in the following days.
You can clearly see the new layout, with almost everything mounted.
You can also notice that the CF adapter that was under DVD-RW (with OS4.x and Debian PPC) is now over PCMCIA (where case will be Dremeled for CF being able to be removed when needed)



Things missing so far are:

• Subway,
• Fan for PicoPSU,
• Delfina

Many things need to be done, but at least I was sooo glad I made such a progress in one day! Time for me to enjoy some wine

I hope you'll like it.

Soon more to come.