A1200 woes

[Fern]

Right, so I decided to pick up an A1200 off eBay, as a birthday present to myself, and I've run into a few problems.

Given the item was described as being in good condition, full working order, never been opened etc, I was surprised, as you might imagine, to find that not a single one of the supplied floppies could be read without AmigaDOS whinging about disk block errors, or the software failure screen. Odd, I could have sworn the seller said it was recently tested...

So, I do the obvious thing and make sure nothing's taken a knock in transit. Time to check the cables and make sure there's no fluff or foreign objects in the drive. I opened the case up and was frankly horrified by the amount of rust and corrosion on the RF sheild, drive housing, and the phantom hard drive bracket I was not expecting to find. There's also huge amounts of dust everywhere (not a problem, it blows out) but my god! This is going to take me AGES to clean and that's after I've bought the right shit to do it with! Also need to wire-brush the TV modulator housing as that's rusty too. Has anyone else found unexpected electrical tape on their A1200 innards? I suspect strongly I've been lied to just a little bit by the seller.

Then we need a new floppy drive, because I wouldn't trust the old one as far as I can throw it (which incidentally I am about to find out exactly how far), a new cable because the current one seems to be rusting as well (wtf!?) in parts, and finally (I hope!) a whole new keyboard because I can't afford to take the 6 weeks off work it'll take to get all the filth out of this one. I'm sure I saw a pube in there earlier... I mean what the hell.

That's BEFORE I can even think about getting hold of a copy of ****ing WorkBench and have it running, nevermind any of the stuff I actually wanted to mess around doing.

I am rather cross and not having a very nice day. I honestly don't know whether I'd prefer to spend the money fixing it up or just throw it in the bin and try to forget about the money I wasted.

[Buleste]

First thing to do is contact the seller and try to get at least some refund. If he's not willing to refund you then open a dispute with paypal as the item is most definitely not as described. Hopefully you'll get at least some of your money back. Once you have some money back look at it as a restoration project, something to while away the hours when you don't want to speak to people and feel like banging your head against a brick wall. You could even post pictures of it here. Most of all look at it as a learning experience.

[Harrison]

It could well just be that the seller had stored the A1200 in their attic since last using it and that has caused the corrosion inside the system. One very good reason why you should never store anything electrical in the attic! And finding so much dust and crap inside the case probably does indicate it hasn't been opened up.

To source a replacement floppy drive I highly recommend you post a wanted advert on our sister site www.amibay.com. Someone on there should be able to help you our and not rip you off. You actually just missed out on someone selling two drives on there.

And if you need a set of Workbench floppy disks just ask. I can sort you out with a site for the price of postage. Just PM me if and when you need some.

[woody.cool]

I had a very similar thing happen when I bought an A1500 off ebay.

The A1500 had two floppy drives (both internal), an A2091 SCSI Controller card, Kickstart Switcher (with a front mounted switch) and a SCSI Hard Drive.
I was told in the auction that it was in A1 condition.

When it arrived, it was a different matter altogether.
The case was badly damaged and had a couple of massive dents in it as well as the case being completely buckled.
The front bevels off the floppy drives were hanging off and the eject button was missing from DF1:
I could hear rattling about inside, so I decided to open it up. I was horrified with what I saw, the A2091 SCSI card and the HDD were both rattling about loose inside the case, the A2091 card hadn't even been screwed in. I found DF1's eject button loose inside the case!!!!
Also, someone had done a naff bodge job on the internal PSU leads, and tried to add a couple of extra drive power connectors and had done this by cutting an existing lead, stripping back the wire, and twisting extra wires together ..... they didn't even cover the bare wire with electrical tape!
I decided to put it all together (I put the SCSI card back in the slot) and hooked it up.
I turned it on, and just saw a blank black screen, as well as hearing a horrible *CLUNK* *CLUNK* *CLUNK* from the hard drive.
I concluded it was either a loose chip, or the kickstart switcher (which didn't look like the wires to the switch were soldered very well, as they were quite loose fitting!)
I removed the Kickstart switcher and put the 2.04 chip in from the kickstart swithcer (on it's own) and now I got the grey boot-up screen colours, and that horrilbe noise from the hard drive. Then FINALLY the purple insert disk screen, so I concluded that the hard drive was buggered!
Other observations I noted were that the motherboard had loads of bent pins all over the place. It seems that for the system to access two floppy drives, they'd lost the jumpers so bent the pins together !!!
Anyway, the machine works, but there's no way I can fix that case - it's beyond repair.

Anyway, I contacted the seller, who gave me a partial refund (I got most of my money back) - I got a few games out of it, and a spair internal floppy drive, as well as a working A2091 card, all of which ended up in my A2000 but I would say that you should DEFINATELY speak to the seller, you never know, they might give you your money back!

btw If you want Workbench 3.0 disks, I have at least one spare set (minus the install disk) and I'm happy to let you have a set for a small fee.

[Harrison]

Do you think that the A1500 case and HD were damaged during shipping? And the cards were obviously shaken loose from not being screwed in place.

It is always a random lottery buying any second hand hardware. You never know the real history behind it and what has been done to it until it arrives.

[woody.cool]

Do you think that the A1500 case and HD were damaged during shipping? And the cards were obviously shaken loose from not being screwed in place.

It is always a random lottery buying any second hand hardware. You never know the real history behind it and what has been done to it until it arrives.
The damage is so severe,I doubt it could have happened accidently.
The A1500 had travelled down from Glasgow, Scotland to Northampton, England - so yes it had a long journey, but it could only sustain as much damage as that if it was thrown!!! The case front was pratically hanging off.

[Harrison]

How was it sent? RM/Parcel Force and I would believe the damage could easily be caused during transit. When handling parcels they do get thrown from location to location, not carefully handled. And any fragile or handle with care stickers are ignored.

[woody.cool]

How was it sent? RM/Parcel Force and I would believe the damage could easily be caused during transit. When handling parcels they do get thrown from location to location, not carefully handled. And any fragile or handle with care stickers are ignored.

If I remember correctly, it was sent by Royal Mail!
It's quite a while ago now, and I've since got an almost full refund. It cost £50 and got refunded £40, meaning that I bought a "spares & repairs A1500" for a tenner!

[Fern]

Thanks for the replies guys :) Now I've calmed down a little I'm more inclined to work on it as a restoration project. Given that the case and motherboard appear to be fine, and a brand new motherboard would cost more than I actually paid for the A1200, it's probably not a bad idea. If I didn't get a boot screen, I'd have been making noises about refunds... but given that it sort of works, and the amount of money is rather small, I've decided not to pursue a refund. But I have explained the reasons for his neutral feedback.

The hardest part for now I think will be cleaning the RF shield or sourcing a new one. Unless it's possible to just remove the thing and run the A1200 without one, but that might make mounting stuff inside the case a bit tricky. I'm thinking, remove it, and get happy with rust remover spray, and a wire brush on a drill! If that doesn't shift it, nothing will.

I have looked into the prices of a replacement internal FDD and keyboard, they seem cheap enough and will be bought next paycheck. Once everything is clean, fixed and happy to load WB, I will start putting together the rest of the project.

My wish-list for the A1200 is probably fairly standard, but hopefully as and when the money for parts becomes available, here's what I aim to accomplish:

1) 3.1 ROMs
2) Internal CF card storage
3) Possible internal CD-ROM... but everyone does this, so I'm tempted to get creative! Assuming the OS can recognise the drive, what I'd like is one of these:

http://www.minidisc.org/images/sony_mdm111.jpg

I think MO disks are really cool, and it'd be something a little different. Problems to overcome would be a suitable adaptor cable and power supply. Making the thing actually fit probably won't be that hard.

4) Accelerator card. The obvious choice is a Blizzard 1230-IV, + 50Mhz FPU and a fair bit of RAM. These are always expensive so this step might take a while.
5) Heavy-duty PSU to ensure stable operation :D


I am very inclined to take some pictures and document my progress. While the pros on this board have probably had worse to deal with, it might possibly be helpful for those less experienced (like me!) to have a guide on "What to do if you buy an Amiga and it turns out to be a piece of crap". Wish me luck!

[woody.cool]

3) Possible internal CD-ROM... but everyone does this, so I'm tempted to get creative! Assuming the OS can recognise the drive, what I'd like is one of these:

http://www.minidisc.org/images/sony_mdm111.jpg

I think MO disks are really cool, and it'd be something a little different. Problems to overcome would be a suitable adaptor cable and power supply. Making the thing actually fit probably won't be that hard.
I didn't realise that Sony did a data MiniDisc drive. I soooo want one of those.
I use MiniDisc a lot (even now that they're a bit old hat) and I think they're the most reliable format ever.

As for power, I reckon it'd be the same power connector as a 3.5" hard drive or an internal CD-ROM drive.
For the cable, if it's IDE, then it'll most likely be the usual 40-pin cable - if it's SCSI, it depends on the type of SCSI connector. SCSI would also present another problem ..... the A1200 doesn't have built in SCSI, so a SCSI controller card would be needed.

[Fern]

Yeah, I always loved them as a data storage format. Very reliable and would be great for backups! Also, I want people to look at my finished A1200 and go "holy crap, minidisc drive! cool!" :D

If by some miracle the power connector is the same as a floppy drive, I wonder if it might be possible to steal power from where the internal FDD plugs in. If it needs the big ol' molex connector, that'd be a pain in the arse but not the end of the world. I may well end up using a PC PSU anyway, and there's generally enough molex connectors hanging off them. Getting power to it one way or another shouldn't be too hard - making it look neat and tidy could require some skillz.

I'd much rather the drive was IDE. If I can work with the onboard IDE controller instead of having to mess about finding/affording a SCSI controller for the Blizzard I don't even own yet, that would be preferrable. A splitter/adaptor cable thingy would be much cheaper.

[Harrison]

I am very inclined to take some pictures and document my progress. While the pros on this board have probably had worse to deal with, it might possibly be helpful for those less experienced (like me!) to have a guide on "What to do if you buy an Amiga and it turns out to be a piece of crap". Wish me luck!

If you want somewhere to document your progress, we now have the perfect place within our new Wiki site:

http://wiki.classicamiga.com/Amiga_DIY

You could have a page to document your project as it progresses, posting image and information about it.

I've also not seen a data MD drive before either. If you can get it working with the A1200 it would also be cool to document that in the Wiki.


I use MiniDisc a lot (even now that they're a bit old hat) and I think they're the most reliable format ever.

Sony always invent the most robust and highest quality new media types, and normally everyone else completely ignores them and leaves them out in the cold (Betamax, MiniDisc, MemoryStick etc). I was so glad they finally won one with Blu-Ray.

I just had a look at the MD Data Drives and saw that there is also an external USB one that uses a newer Hi-MD format, allowing 1GB of data per disc, compared to 305MB for the original MD Data discs. You can fit USB to an A1200 so that could be an option.

I also saw that the MDM-111 is SCSI.


As for power, I reckon it'd be the same power connector as a 3.5" hard drive or an internal CD-ROM drive.

I'm also guessing it would be the same as either an internal floppy or 3.5" HD. Therefore a Y-Splitter cable from the floppy drive power header would work fine.


For the cable... if it's SCSI, it depends on the type of SCSI connector. SCSI would also present another problem ..... the A1200 doesn't have built in SCSI, so a SCSI controller card would be needed.

For SCSI it is easy enough to do an internal setup using a Blizzard accelerator + the SCSI expansion card for those. However actually finding one of the SCSI cards will be very hard. I did see one for sale on ebay a while back and that sold for £30. Shame it isn't IDE as that would have been a much cheaper option, just requiring a £10 buffered IDE interface.

In this case I think going for a CD-RW is a much cheaper and easier option than the MDM-111 drive, which might not even work with an Amiga if drivers don't exist.

[Harrison]

Yeah, I always loved them as a data storage format. Very reliable and would be great for backups! Also, I want people to look at my finished A1200 and go "holy crap, minidisc drive! cool!" :D

If by some miracle the power connector is the same as a floppy drive, I wonder if it might be possible to steal power from where the internal FDD plugs in. If it needs the big ol' molex connector, that'd be a pain in the arse but not the end of the world....A splitter/adaptor cable thingy would be much cheaper.

As I mentioned above, yes you can steal power from the floppy drive power header. Most people (including myself) fit a y-slitter cable to this header to continue power the floppy drive, plus another drive. You can easier find or make cables that have 3 pin molex or floppy style connectors.

[Fern]

In this case I think going for a CD-RW is a much cheaper and easier option than the MDM-111 drive, which might not even work with an Amiga if drivers don't exist.

I'm guessing I'd be S.O.L for drivers :( Can't imagine anyone's tried to bodge the MDM-111 into an Amiga before so nobody would have needed to write any. I was kinda hoping that the OS might see it as a hard disk and it would "just work". If that's not going to be the case, it would be a massively expensive and pointless venture. And being SCSI, it can go straight to hell. My last encounter with SCSI drives was inside a Yamaha A3000 sampler, trying to fit an internal ZIP and hard drive. That was a huge faff to get working, and they even gave me a controller on the mainboard to get started with! I'd rather not go through that again.

Still, there may be other options for internal MO drives out there, and I'll always have the CD-RW as a fallback.

[woody.cool]

In this case I think going for a CD-RW is a much cheaper and easier option than the MDM-111 drive, which might not even work with an Amiga if drivers don't exist.

I'm guessing I'd be S.O.L for drivers :( Can't imagine anyone's tried to bodge the MDM-111 into an Amiga before so nobody would have needed to write any. I was kinda hoping that the OS might see it as a hard disk and it would "just work". If that's not going to be the case, it would be a massively expensive and pointless venture. And being SCSI, it can go straight to hell. My last encounter with SCSI drives was inside a Yamaha A3000 sampler, trying to fit an internal ZIP and hard drive. That was a huge faff to get working, and they even gave me a controller on the mainboard to get started with! I'd rather not go through that again.

Still, there may be other options for internal MO drives out there, and I'll always have the CD-RW as a fallback.
I've never seen any of these Sony MDM-111 drives about before. Where can one be bought?

[Harrison]

I don't think Sony make the drive any longer. I just did a quick search on ebay and there are none that I could see.

[woody.cool]

I don't think Sony make the drive any longer. I just did a quick search on ebay and there are none that I could see.
Damn! :mad:

[Fern]

Well, it looks like I've found every single one of the parts I need in the near future at AmigaKit! Even a new RF shield which might well be easier than cleaning the old one.

Have you guys done much shopping with this company? They seem to have all the goods in stock but a recommendation or two would be nice :)

Also, what is the general opinion on this piece of kit:

http://www.softhut.com/cgi-bin/test/Web_store/web_store.cgi?page=catalog/hardware/ioaccel/subway1200.html&cart_id=52674

Seems like there would be plenty of room on the back panel for mounting the ports, and as I can't think of any other practical use I might have for the clockport, it might be a good investment, particularly for transferring files easily between the A1200 and a PC. I do not intend using anything more power-hungry than a USB memory stick, but by the looks of things I would already need to be running an 1230 board to use it. Are there any alternatives to the Subway worth considering?

[Harrison]

Yes Amigakit.com is a great Amiga store. They are even a member of this very forum if you take a look (username "amigakit.com").

Most of the regular members of classicamiga, including myself, have purchased from them and we have always been very happy with their service and their continued devotion to the Amiga community.

Another Amiga store I would like to highly recommend to you is the German store http://www.vesalia.de/ They do an equally great job and are larger in terms of content. They also support the more recent PPC systems more than Amigakit, which tends to stick more closely with the older classic Amiga range.

As for the subway, yes it is a great addition for an A1200. It is AFAIK the only USB upgrade available for the A1200, unless you did a tower conversion, then you could use a PCI USB card. However I don't think the subway is very easy to find these days, and it is quite expensive when you do find one.

An alternative to transfer files easily is via a CF card reader. For this you have two options. Amigakit sell a PCMCIA to CF card reader + the software to use it. This allows you to transfer files via CF card to the Amiga. Alternatively you can also get a CF card to IDE adapter and connect the CF card directly to the A1200's IDE port and use it like an IDE HD. It's silent, solid state, faster than an HD, and you can connect it to a PC to copy files.

Regarding software hut, I've heard that must of the items they list as being on their site are not actually available, and also that some have had trouble with them. I've never ordered from them myself so cannot say from personal experience, but I would recommend sticking with Amigakit and Vesalia if you can as I have purchased items from both many times.

[woody.cool]

Another Amiga store I would like to highly recommend to you is the German store http://www.vesalia.de/ They do an equally great job and are larger in terms of content. They also support the more recent PPC systems more than Amigakit, which tends to stick more closely with the older classic Amiga range.
Vesalia are a regular for me. Everything I've bought from them has been superb, althugh delivery takes it's time because their in Germany. Still quick for where they are though.

100% Recommended.

[amigakit.com]

@Fern

Hello and welcome.

We have commissioned a new production run of Subway USB controllers (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=137) for the Amiga 1200, which will be delivered next week, thanks to our hardware partner, E3B.

@Harrison

We have as big a range as Vesalia (maybe larger) - currently we stock 855 different product lines for the Amiga and growing daily.

We don't charge Paypal fees on top of the Invoice total as some other Amiga dealers do, so there are no hidden charges. We also charge in GBP so there are no large EUR/GBP conversion charges.

If you need any help, we have a UK support line for our customers: 029 2000 6344, operated Monday to Friday 09.30 to 18.30