Commodore Amiga 1200 Upgrades
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2017
- We ran into "LoadWB" from Amiga.org at VCF SE 2017 and he gives us a tour of his Amiga 1200 which contains many interesting upgrades that are available to users in 2017. It is a beauty!
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What an amazing 1200! I just bought an a1200 with 2 megs. My journey has just begun.
Congrats! Enjoy James!
The same history) hello from Russia!
1 year later im expecting the upate like...
" oh my god, how much money have i spent on getting really old shit like mice and moniters to run on even older shit like my amiga! My wife thinks im crazy!
I should have just shoved a raspberry pi into an erganomic keyboard!! it would have been faster and it not like im unused to case mods now..."
;)
@@sammymcfone8281 bahaha, it's true! I have 2 a500's, a 1000, and a 1200. One broken monitor. They all need recapping, and my 1200 has broken pins so I can't plug in an SD card. Def cramping my wife's style as well. All I wanted was an upgraded 1200 with an SD card but no keep getting side tracked
still happy with it?
Amazing stuff. Every now and then I go looking back through older hardware on UA-cam and I'm never happier than when I'm watching stuff about the Amiga.
Clay Mann aw, thanks Clay. Glad you enjoyed the video!
This video was the one that pointed me in the direction of getting a USB and a DOM for my A1200.
WOW this is great to hear! I hope you are happy with your upgrades. Enjoy!
NIce Amiga. Really like the USB ports and your new Intro.
This is very good.. bit over my head... but I am going to get there... I just finally got an Amiga 1200 from England... very happy ..keep up the good work... chow
Right on Stuart! Congrats on the new machine! You will learn and this will make sense to you soon. Thanks for watching!
How's your 1200 going now?
Wow. What a fantastic bunch of guys. I learned a lot. Thanks for the video. Just got my Amiga 1200, and am interested to pimp it.
Awesome Christian! Congrats on your new Amiga 1200!
Great video. Didn't realise so many USB devices worked on the A1200.
Yeah, that was really nice to see!
Pimp my ride - Amiga Edition!
Nice to see you again Anthony. :)
@LoadWB is a terrific explainer. Nice gear.
Yeah, he was never on camera before and did an amazing job! He is a natural!
Nice looking 1200 !!!. Crazy the ammount of expansions people have mode for it.
Nice video guys.. I have some of the same upgrades on my 1200.. Gotta come see you guys someday as I'm in western Pa.. Near Johnstown/Altoona...
Nice setup. I am envious :)
Me too. I would love to have mine pimped as much as his!
5:28 Hahaha! is that Zach? :o))
Now i'm wanting a Rapidroad USB! I had no idea you could attach a usb soundcard to it and use it with AHI! :oD
It's amazing just how upgradeable the A1200 is! Droolworthy upgrades too!
Yep! That is Zach hamming it up! Video bomb! Yeah I never thought about a USB sound card either. It is a really cool setup. And I have to say those A1200.net cases are absolutely beautiful. You have to see them in person to appreciate them. Can't wait for my CD32 edition!
Please read the comments before commenting. I wasn't talking about the CD32. I am talking about the CD32 color cases/keycaps. An Atari 7800 is like a super computer compared to a CD32? Really???
There is nothing better then Paula ;)
She rocks! - Literally! :-)
very nice - my A1200 is suitably pimped out. I have all the expansions LoadWB does ;)
Ballers be ballin' ;-)
THESE AMIGAS 1200 CAME OUT TO EARLY IN HISTORY .... THEY ARE SO MODERN TO SOON THEY CAME OUT
Just about to embark on beefing up a 1200.
I always had my 500+ but acquired and subsequently forgot about 3 1200s.
Dig them out recently.
The one in the worst condition fell out of the attic and hit the floor hard.
Luckily it was the worst one so I used it to practice tearing the 1200 down.
The other 2 won’t read disks.
Removed the drives, cleaned them a minimal amount and still no joy.
I got one game to work once on one of the machines and now it won’t load again.
Looking at a service and recap for £54.99 here in the UK.
Going to have them both done along with the 500+ and then it’s downhill for my wallet from there.
I want to keep the 500 and one 1200 standard, then I’ll slowly beef up the other 1200.
Very excited, I’ve chosen this over a PS5.
Seriously old fan of the amiga, but at this point you running a new computer, in a amiga box.
Love the Amiga as well. I guess it is all a matter of your definition and preference. Some people feel anything other than stock isn't a real Amiga, while other feel upgrading and tinkering is the spirit of Amiga. Then there is...The Vampire!
Amazing!
Yeah, it is a beauty!
That's beautiful. I'm doing this!!
Nice! Do it!!!!
These upgrades are great, even for Ben Heck creating an Amiga 1200 upgraded laptop as an option or suggestion.
Cool! Glad you like the upgrades. Bring on Ben!
The Indivision is is great, but personally i prefer the OSSC for connecting my Amiga to a LED screen. You can also add scanlines to get the more authentic look, and it supports both 50 and 60hz refresh rates. Awesome video guys :)
Thanks Kenny! You are the 2nd or 3rd person to recommend the OSSC to me. It sounds great. I will have to pick one up. Thanks a million for the recommend and the kind words. Much appreciated!
I actually got the indivision And it can indeed add scanlines and support 50 and 60 Hz refresh rates in fact there is a whole slew of options within the software
My A1200 is stock aside from 3.1 Kickstart ROMs and a CF card hard drive...accelerators and scandoublers are not cheap!
thats one cool amiga :D I missed the case kickstarter T_T but I did get in on the keycaps and am waiting for the phenomena special ed set to arrive. Hopefully one day I'll get a grey case to match :D
Nice. I did the keycaps Kickstarter as well and ordered the CD32 color case to match the keys. Can't wait!
That was pretty interesting.
Nice video. I would like to know more about that usb sound card. Could you find more info? For example what model to get and the main thing: What can you get using it???. Thanks a bunch.
That's a beautiful rig but how much Amiga 1200 is left? :-)
It is always an interesting thought when upgrading the vintage machines. At what point does it become something new? I think everyone would have a different opinion. In this situation I would say it is still is an A1200. Because he is still using the motherboard and original chips. The Blizzard 060 was a hot upgrade back in the day and that is what he is using. However some people fee that if you change anything it is no longer vintage and that included things like a GoTek floppy emulator. Even though I really like the Vampire cards and am very happy they exist, I think that starts to put the machine into a gray zone because it is now doing the processing. However, that is just an opinion. The bottom like is just have fun. Personally I have my 1200 completely original except for a Microbotics 030 accelerator card, but that was something that was available in the heyday. -- Bill
Yes, it’s important to recap the AMIGA 1200.
Next to my AMIGA 500 Rev6A / ACE2 / Indivision ECS V1 8373R3PD / ACA500Plus V1 / ACA1221EC RTC. I’m busy with my AMIGA 1200 Rev1D.4 project and waiting for the ACA1233n-55 and for the black A500 case and black keycaps / tankshell for the A500/A1200. Got a black A1200 case from A1200NET. There are so many things to be done for my A1200 such a IDE SD adapter and more little things. All with all i like to be all in black with the Bose speakers and the BenQ BL702A VGA 17 inch monitors. It’s a great hobby with my Commodore 64’s and there is always new things to do on it.
Wow, nice fleet! I agree, there is always something new to do with the machines. We are lucky to have so many new options
Yes, the options are great. Got now for the A1200 a Indivision AGA MK2CR and a FataATA A1200 MK-V CF/SATA ELBOX with ROM risers. Have 3.1.4 ROMS on it and get 7MB/s on my CF cards. There is always to do with a AMIGA.
@@johandenhertog6878 Very nice! I am building up a new 1200 as well. It is so fun with all the options available today
There are alot of nice things to do for the A1200 and the A500 such as the Warp 1260 and the Vampire. Waiting for a old ACA1232/33 RTC and want it upgrade with a 50MHz MMU CPU .
@@johandenhertog6878 oh yeah! I am on the Warp 1260 list. Can't wait!
13:37 ergh. realised my old mac ii's caps leaked now looking through all the other old machines with smd caps. happy to find the a1200 was still perfect but while having it open decided to get rid of the rf modulator, never gonna use it and that reduces number of caps too
Do you know which 4GB disk on module LoadWB actually is using here? I've got some CF setups, but that thing is slick!
That is a very good question. I don't know, but will ask. -- Bill
I know I'm a bit late to the party. But just saw this vid for the first time. When you look at the information printed on the label it says ts4gdom44h-s. Which is a 4GB Transcend DOM. It's stupid expensive if you ask me. The least expensive one I could find was around 135USD. I'm sticking with CF for now and make sure I have a backup on a harddrive.
#coolness. bring back the Amiga!
Yeah baby! AMIGA4EVER!!!
I really wish I could afford one of these machines. I've never had the chance to work with an Amiga outside of emulation but they really seem like great computers. Unfortunately I seem to have missed my chance, I remember the 1200 going for $120 on AmigaKit a few years ago and now they're going for $900 on eBay and that's 5 months worth of spending money.
It is crazy how the price has skyrocketed, isn't it? Retro is getting really popular and the demand for these things is going up. I would say keep your eye and ears open though. Sometimes someone is unloading one at a reasonable price. eBay is by far the most expensive place to find them. Look on the Amiga boards, flea markets, thrift shops, etc...
They are actually quite affordable :) In about ten years you will pay somewhere around 2000 - 3000$ for them.
We have two Amiga a1200 computers with me. if you want reply me ok
That's a very decked out 1200👌
yeah it is a sweet build!
at a first look not, but now i love that transparent case!! i'd like one, i think that i will send my Amiga at mr Cill (if he doesn't mind :-)
The transparent cases look even better in real life than in videos and photos. Actually, all the new A1200NET cases look better in person. They are top quality. Yes, Acill does top notch work!
Amiga for me is new to me, i don't know very much about amiga never seen one of these machines in use, they were alternatives to , IBM PC, Apple II, Macintosh Platforms, UNIX platform, back in the day,
Cool! It is never to late to learn about it. If you have any questions let me know. My favorite machine in 2018 is the Amiga 1200. But emulation is a great place to start. I suggest Amiga Forever if you are just getting started
fab!
Sure is!
With the pandemic I've been madly shopping for parts. I'm trying to find a clockport usb controller. Any help would be great. Edit. Nevermind the clockport usb is unicorn poop. I do have the blizzard 1260 and the scsi card. Works so good with a cd rom or scsi hard disk. And I have the gotek drive, it's so nice not having to change discs.
Im thinking about getting a accelerator board for my a1200. Id like to run OS4.1 and use it as a daily computer
Nice! You will need a PPC accelerator to run OS4. You might want to consider the new A1222 when it comes out as well. It will run OS4 better than an accelerated 1200, but there isn't anything wrong with beefing up your machine!
"emm kay two". Also known as Mark 2. And the big yellow patch wire does give a hint someone's reworked the motherboard...
Wow, i want to buy an Amiga 1200!
Had a Amiga 500 back in the 80s. With upgraded RAM, Workbench 1.2/1.3 switch, big external floppy drive.
Is TAC-2 joysticks buyable somewere?
orfeous Nice! The 500 was my first Amiga as well. I love it. The 1200 is the best one to have these days in my opinion. Sadly the TAC-2 is only available used
We had A500 in school. Amiga 4000 was used at art lesson :) deluxe paint :)
Where can Amiga 1200 be found? What does those cost? Are people modding them for like SDcard use and stuff? or are people using the good old floppys? I have seen both standard 1200s and the modded ones that only had the keyboard and then used like Rasperry Pi as "motherboard".
I am Swedish and i dont remember if my Amiga 500 had Swedish keyboard layout? We have three characters ÅÄÖ and also PAL
TAC-2 should be remaked by someone :)
orfeous Nice. The A1200 can only be found used as well. Yes most people replace the hard drive with a CF or SD card. Many people, like me, keep the floppy drive but some replace.it with a GoTek drive which allows you to load floppy disk images from a USB stick. I prefer to use the GoTek on my 500. I really like using the Pi 3 to emulate the Amiga and putting it in a real case with a Keyrah to use the original keyboard is great although I would only do that of the machine was broken beyond repair. I plan on doing it with one if the new A1200.net cases that I bought. That will be fun!
Where can you get the AGA4000 monitor upgrade now? I can't find where to buy one.
Go here: icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/Flickerfixer_Scandoubler.html?flifi_type=A1200%2FA4000T
You should get a gotek mount from riscman!! ... riscman on ebay amazing gotek mounts and other 3D printed parts such as an awesome mount for Compact Flash cards both internal and external. All non-destructive case parts -Amazing stuff!!! You can see the LCD really easily with his gotek mounts...perfect!!! And it looks really cool!!
I’m looking for usb sockets compatible with the a1200.net case, closest I’ve found is a startech low profile usb backplate. I don’t have the rapid road yet but thinking of ordering one anyway and trying it
humm USB sockets compatible with A1200.net cases is a good point. I will address this with them
The Guru Meditation yeah I’ll let you guys know if the ones from that backplate fits when it shows up
Ok I confirm that the Startech one DOES NOT fit. The ports are slightly too far apart and the mounting holes are too close together to line up. I’ll keep my eye out and see if any others turn up with a similar form factor.
Looking at that video.. and looks at my A1200, wth grey kickstarter case, 64GB DOM, BPPC, 66MHz 060, 210MHz PPC and 256MB of RAM, BVision, Scanjuggler (scanduobler that ACTUALLY works with 50Hz modes!), Ratteswitch for automatic switching between native/RTG. :) sorry juuust have to show off.. :)
Ah, ha ha! No worries! Sounds like a beauty and a machine to be proud of! Awesome
What ever happened to Scanjuggler ?, is there a page with gerbers to get the boards printed (and get a PCB house to do assembly).
No idea.. A friend of mine have them for sale at times. atleast the lite version and that is enough for me.
All is good and well, but... can it run Superfrog?
Like butta!
Very nice A1200. I love the transparent case! I got the Scoopex case, and also waiting for the matching keycaps. :)
Oh man, the Indivision MK2. :-/ If you're in PAL territory like me, and you're critical about picture quality, this thing is a nightmare. It's impossible to get it to output a smooth 50Hz picture. There is always tearing and skipping. It's possible that some HD screens somehow compensate for this, and make it smooth(er), but if not, you're screwed. I spent many hours making different screenmodes with 0.001 hz increments. I never found an acceptable setting. You can get close, but it will never be perfect. And it does not support VSYNC either. Now it sits in a drawer doing nothing.. That makes me sad. Back to good old RGB.
yes this is a great point - i go back and forth between mine and just regular RGB for this reason.
Oh wow, that is a great point. Thanks. I never realized it had problems with PAL systems. Ironic especially since it is made from a German company
Right, it's a cruel joke.. :)
That and Individual Computers persistent "software is always in beta" motto. I generally speaking like Jens hardware, but his lackluster support of his software and his kinda crappy attitude towards anyone he thinks is a competitor is a real turn off.
Cego, you're right, and I'm aware. ;) If I could find a setting, which only had the occasional frame skipping and NO tearing, like RGB, I would be happy. But I could never get rid of the tearing with the MK2. Tearing is very visible in games which have slow horizontal scrolling, like Persian Gulf Inferno. Some of the best settings I found, would scroll perfectly for 10, maybe even 15-20 seconds, then the tearing comes from top to bottom. Very visible, and very annoying. :/
What is this guys name and what is his YT channel. He speaks well and clearly has a heavily interest in Amiga.
Well, his username is 'LoadWB' from Amiga.org
All joking aside, I have a 1200 with Kickstart 3.X roms, a CF to IDE adapter, and CF to PCMCIA adapter. I have an Individual Computers RTC but it green-screens my system when installed for some reason. I want to get an ACA-1221ec to finish this bad boy out.
Understood. I have a really nice new PC as well and the games are absolutely stunning. I love modern games. There is just something about real vintage computers that turns me on :-)
1084s “old” RGB & Composite Monitor
The major drawback in Retro Computing - living in North America.
Luckily in Europe there is that thing called SCART interface which almost every TV between 1980-2010 had and they are available in the millions still, from antique CRT to LCD flat.
Although I still prefer using my original computer screens I can hook up my Amstrads and C64s to those TVs should the monitors die.
I paused the video and noted the part number of the DOM. Apparently it's a Transcend TS4GDOM44H-S 4 GB Internal Solid State Drive - IDE.
andy davis nice! Excellent deceive work Andy. Thanks! Bill
I worked with the 1200 for years with music. just wondering what people do with this in 2017.
They still make music with it. Check out our friend cTrix.net. Thanks for watching! -- Bill
Its actually ctrix.net
OOPS! You are totally right. I will edit my comment above. Thanks! -- Bill
hate these cases but this was a great amiga
no love for the new cases Vincent? They look really nice in person. Much better than in photos and videos. My case is in great shape and I like to keep things original, but the new cases are cool if you have a damaged case. I want to put a RaspberryPi in one and make that my Amiga emulator, but the keyboard is the problem. Would have to find a broken 1200 and remove the keyboard. It would have to be a very broken one, because I would rather fix a 1200 instead of piecemeal it.
The Guru Meditation I don't like the look of them as the plastic has some "scars" that the original didn't but I can pass this. The main reason is that is fucking overpriced!
Yeah, they certainly are not cheap, but I know they did it the right way and made these from professional molds and didn't skimp on quality. They are really well made and that is why they are pricey. I was much more impressed with them in person than videos or photos. I ordered a CD32 theme version :-)
huh? they can't of been over priced because they were not priced. It was a kickstarter to back the creation of metal moulds that will allow them to make cases, people who backed were generally as interested in supporting the scene as they were getting themselves a case. The cases were thank you rewards for donating to the campaign for creating moulds. Anyone thinking about case price missed the point.
Maybe I am missing the point and I will miss 89e for a basic version which I think is still too much.
I had blizzard powerpc with 060. I regret selling it :(
Chozus Makavelli Oh man yeah that is too bad. It would be great to have one. They are extremely expensive these days
Wow!! I Would really love to see the return of the amiga with new hardware.. PPC is really expensive hardware.... Intel/AMD based probably?. I think AmigaOS is unmached in speed..
The A1222 is really exciting. Still PowerPC, but much more affordable than the X5000
Blizzardy za miliardy :D :D :D
LOL. Blizzard is najlepscz!
Najlepszy to on jest ale zdecydowanie za drogi.
I would love an indevision ecs for my 600. Market is unfortunately dried up and they are nowere to be found. Darn it... Finally I need an usb upgrade as well. Then my 600 is as I want it. I just fear that no new indevision ecs will ever be produced again.
That is too bad. I didn't realize the Indivision ECS was hard to find now. I suppose you could get an external frame doubler like the OSCC
The Guru Meditation I will look into that scart/hdmi instead. The square black one you made a review about. 🙂
I recently bought an OSCC which is technically better than that cheap SCART to HDMI that I did the video about, BUT my capture card and main monitor both don't recognize the signal from it. Also, it doesn't do y/c so it doesn't work with a c64, but the cheap one in my video does work with c64 as well, so I like it even more now.
The Guru Meditation Just checked the price on the OSSC. Darn it... That is a lot of money. 🤔 Not working with a C64 is a big downer. I have one of the C models with short board. And I want to be able to use it as well. So not working with a 64, at a price of 160+ pounds, is not good enough in my book. 😁 On the other hand, I have my 600 for the reason of experiencing/revisiting amiga as I knew it back then. So no vampire or any other acc card for my Amiga. So I could actually go out and buy that OSSC. Last option is to use a 23-15 pin monitor cable dongle that I have and get a 15khz compatible lcd screen. Options are out there, at least. About acc cards and 600's. If I have to get an acc card, or upgrade, then I will search for something like an 020 running at something like 14 or 16 mhz. Nothing more fancy, as I really enjoy that authentic Amiga feel and speed. Too fast and it begins to feel like a pimped out big box. This is why I have kick 2 (37.350) in my machine and run Workbench 2.10.
where to buy it without payout ton of money for it tho
It isn't cheap to upgrade the Amiga as there isn't a huge market for this stuff. Check eBay, AmiBay, Craig's list etc...
Well I'm reaaally late to this video but I found that in lack of a 1084 screen, and old crt works aswell, I run an A1200 with Indivision with and old Samsung 15" crt monitor and the games look as they are supposed to look. I used to run it with a more modern dell but the games we're pixelated, no anti-aliasing at all. Workbench looked the same pretty much but games looked awful
Cool. I have never seen an Indivision used with a CRT. I have always just hooked up CRT's to AmigaRGB out. I bet that looks great!
The only thing you'll need is a d-va-to-vga adapter, then you're good to go.
If you run the first Indivision I believe that had a vga-port but Mk II has D-Vi
Yeah I have a MKii with DVI. I never though of hooking it up that way. Thanks for the idea!
It's great but there needs to be a Open Source (sort of like similar to the stuff youtuber TerribleFire and pals are making) "Tradoor and SideCar caddy only" expansion set (as if plugging a 32x into a megadrive and the segaCD in too) expansion that won't scare off a casual retro gamer. The never-released-by-commodore-amiga Hombre Graphics (and I have been ranting hard about this in comments sections and I have an Evil Genius plan to make all you nerds construct this btw) needs to be invented as a homebrew OpenSource variant about the speed of a voodoo or voodoo2/banshee and it should be named as a pun like "HomBrew" or "HomeBre" (or HAMbrew or HAMbre, as in HAM graphics) to encourage it being the standard for homebrew games that absolutley must boot off CDROM (so coders can sell gofundme style versions in cardbord box on physical copy to collectors) even if that means piggy backing from a Floppy Disk (and Hard Drive installs but only be optional if adhering to this standard I call the "Chambre" because it runs at room temperature, like a wine) which unpacks compressed data enough to boot from CDROM for games which always have a 50meg to 100meg folder of every agreed upon FOSS driver you can think of, like for some ATI radeon cards or 3dfx and the Lallafa Plipbox parallel ethernet dongle to check for updates if an internet connection is detected).
The homebrew retro gaming community will be the thing that makes the amiga gaming scene go massive but there must be no soldering required by the end user (or even so much as the need to remove the a1200 case since that can risk cutting a trace - yes I saw that happen before) and there must be a HAMbrew (that graphics) standard and games have got to boot from CDROM (although floppy piggybacking is allowed). Games by this standard should require at least 4meg or 8meg minimum (and that boot floppy unpacking compressed archives could need that) and a 68030 or higher and the HAMbrew caddy and ethernet. If you think about it, this thereby means (especially btw if the HAMbrew graphics card that plugs into the caddy has double dge flip card PCI and zorro connector) can thereby run on a "real amiga" such as an a4000 so as to keep things authentic. The sidecar caddy (considering some PC graphics cards have firewire on them or even TV tuners like the voodoo3500) should have two usb ports, one of which is for the bootable CDROM, since there'd be a CDROM bay in it and the other is for a USBstick flash memory thumbdrive which could have a USBhub before it, because even a usb1 speed thumbdrive serves rather well for amiga storage even for gameplay installs when one has not hard drive. A usb1 CDROM drive is easily 6speed which is fine for games running on a 68030 (25mhz or 50mhz or better) with a voodoo2 style card. It needs to be idiot-proof simple for the retro gaming scene and the CDROM of every game should have drivers for a CD32 pad which has analogue thumsticks like a playstation2 pad has and the guts of a gravis analogue stick could be used using an arduino to fake it to the amiga's joystick port thinks it is a Gravis with cd32 known quantity gadget. Lastly, the HAMbrew should have the cd32 FMV module mpeg1 decdong capability thereby fooling the a1200 into thinking it has one) becaus ethis would take hte load of gaming horsepower if video was being used simultaneously and also because graphics cards ofetn had mpeg1 (and mpeg2 etc) decoding on them anyway (and actually the voodoo3500 had a tv tuner with mpeg2 encoding and the drivers are, I believe FOSS). So I am proposing a standard for gaming you see. Then purists can also simply unplug the sidecar caddy and trapdoor expansion as if nothing every happened to their a1200 and return to playing old gmes if they want to.
The boards in the video though are obviously great for enthusiasts. They really are great. I'm just saying we need to make sure we don't scare people off like the linux community did in PC gaming for years before finlaly realsing that exe files are easy as are MacOS DMG files and snappackges. The homebrew retro gaming community will make the amiga massive again if we (geek community) treat then right by doing this so as to encourage sega homebrew gamers who remeber the amiga but are scared of any hardware that is not some external sidecar no scarier than a sega32x addon with a megacd.addon.
Wow that is quite the master plan. I love it TableWolf. I feel you. Some sort of easy side car plug and play expansion set would be really amazing. Reminds me a bit of the ACA 500+ even though they are obviously different. Wow, I need to read your comment again and digest all of it. Thank you.
:) I've been putting massive rants like that (same idea but different wording and adding bits here and there) over various Amiga channels. I have had some positive responses and other people have likely ignored it probably because it looks to be too high word count to bother with. Somebody needs to read one out in their videos. I don't know if youtube has hidden some of them though (which would be a pity since I was really good and put no links in them and did no copying and pasting). A particularly good versions resides on " *Vintage Console Gamer* " video " _Saturday Afternoon Stream. come hang out and watch me port openBOR to the amiga_ ". Definitely read it to yourself (when you get a moment) from his comments section where I wrote it.
The crux of it is that, for console peasants (using the term affectionately) who bring their hard-earned homebrew-game craving cash to the amiga retro gaming scene, we need a 2step upgrade approach of (1) the trapdoor (being like the megadrive's sega 32x sort of) and (2) the sidecar caddy being like the megadrive's sega-CD addon. It needs to be that easy, and no harder and then games boot just like a playstation game from CDROM disk (because that is how we all loved the amiga back in the day for its easy floppy boot)... Or at worst a gamer need only have a floppy (for boot piggybacking) and a CDROM inserted.
*Hurr Durr* :
This simple 2step upgrade process should be called the "HurrDurr" upgrade process. So 1 is the "Hurr" and 2 is the "Durr". These are caveman grunts like a teenager makes. Imagine a caveman holding up one hand and saying "Hurr" and then clapping with the other hand once as he says "Durr". Like THAT is how simple it needs to be... And not another vampire card to go in the cardboard box of old soundcards and graphics cards in the loft, with a photo of it on an amigakit style nightmare website of scary components that will drive away Console Peasants (because be honest we amigans were all console peasants when we used amigas in our teens. We did not want a PC).
Sure the vampire is lovely for geeks but we need a better easy (HurrDurr) solution. The vampire, as much as you and I love it, is sadly (in the eyes of the console peasants - people who we actually like and want them to get involved) something that scares people off from the amiga which has become a intimidating coder nerd hole for people who somehow enjoy using linux for dependency hell. We must drop that image and get back to the amiga roots (easy GVP caddy upgrades and floppy boot or cd32 CDROM style boot). I cannot stress the importance of that enough. A user doesn't need ethernet, but if they have it they can be guaranteed their game CDROM has a line of code upon bootup that checks if you have ethernet and then checks if it is online. This must not become the software centre online faffing just to play a single player game. Likewise Steam is retarded for that. Steam-Like functionality must merely be optional and not mandatory.
The Homebre graphics card needs FPGA SLI (or real SLI) on it since TerribleFire's accelerator cards only get about 50mhz and so two three, or four of those would be multiples of the power.
*HAMbre Naming* :
Any such graphics card (I hereby decree) is of a superset of ALL such cards hereinafter known as *HAMbre* . Any software written pertaining to using it (like games for it) is thereby called *HAMbrew* (with W - this is good material isn't it?) and any new individual card (like if TerribleFire and you were captured like Tony Stark in Iron Man and forced to make one - bwa ha ha) would be called a "HomeBre" and any software for that card would be called "HomBrew" (i.e. that pun again from the Amiga Hombre unreleased graphics hardware of yore). As you can see, this is all sheer brilliance and geniusness. Maybe the retro demo scene skills of somebody like ScoopexUs could be lured into all this. Or whoever, whether it is them or other people.
A release of a card (let's call it "the potato" or whatever) would for example, therefore be " *HomeBre: Potato* ". So you could say to your mates,
" _Hey I have one of those new _*_HAMbre_*_ graphics cards in a sidecar-caddy for my Amiga and the version of it is the _*_HomeBre Potato_*_ which comes with a CDROM full of demoscene content and games optimised for that model, all of which software is known as _*_Potato HomBrew_*_ (like this driving game called Vodka). It's with a usb bootable DVDWriter in a sidecar caddy that I have never opened and never need to open. I can unplug it to go back to vanilla A1200 one day. So I am wondering how well the demoscene demos that came with it will perform with other _*_HAMbre_*_ graphics cards and if their generic _*_HAMbrew_*_ games and demos will work well with my _*_HomeBre Potato_*_ . I do believe for Christmas you are planning on getting the other model known as the _*_HomeBre Lemon_*_ . So we shoud swap CDROM disks and try the same in reverse when you get it . It is also great how all _*_HAMbre SideCar Caddies_*_ have 2 USB ports and a USB CDROM or DVD bootable drive to accompany that PCI slot which takes the graphics cards, any of which have FMV hardware on it to fool the A1200 into thinking it has the CD32 FMV cartridge in it for playing cannon fodder etc. And I always have a usb flash drive plugged into the sidecar to autosave all settings because I haven't a clue how the guts of that thing works what with me being a console peasant and so I just put in game CDROM disks and play games easily and I never need to plug it into the internet although it is nice to know I could do . Also before I forget I must now compulsively say _*_Hurr Durr_*_ for some reason beyond my immediate capacity to understand. I am no computer scientist. Also please excuse me while I inhale. GASPPPPP_ !"
...And so it goes. Riveting convo of course. A hierarchy chart can be drawn from that (or maybe a decision tree), so all subsets and supersets can be shown, and then on the paper hardcopy printed out version, scrawl in the instances of potato or lemon etc. with a pen.
Lastly the logo (and this should all be opensource by the way, just like TerribleFire does) on the sidecar caddy etc should be a pig (as in HAM) in a Sombrero drinking a brew (be that tea or beer). And that character who is maybe called HambrewPig could maybe appear in TuxKart racer and so forth. These words and images circulated in youtube and online elsewhere will make this dream a reality since people will see the logos and catch on to the words. It''ll be all the rage. " _Those darn Moonshiners are at it again_ ". Homebrew is Moonshine, I reckon.
The github stub (which I have not done) has the following progress: I have a cardboard shoe box with the logo on it masquerading as the sidecar caddy (a bit like an a590 or GVP sidecar) and in it the graphics card is currently a rivita with some Bassets Allsorts sweets hot glued onto it to make it look like capacitors and so on (like you know how when you look at a motherboard or graphics card it looks like a tiny metropolis city). Feel free to make one and put a blanking plate on it for the monitor output. The sidercar's LCD arduino/Pi style screen for settings configurations as easy presets and mp3 player graphics equalizer is an oblong of tinfoil I cut out and the pertaining buttons and headphone/microphone sockets are drawn on in felt-tip pen. At the back of the sidecar I have drawn on all the dip swicthes and input/outports ports where the usual amiga TV-wires and connectors must connect to.
*Plot Thickening* :
*Carrot* :
My evil genius plan is to lure a bunch of you geeks and retrodemoscene programmers into the lab to make all this into a real caddy and card so as to do my dirty work. I will lure you all in using a biscuit on a fishing line. I will choose a particularly robust biscuit, such as a McVities-Ginger-Nut so that if you try to thwart my plan by countermanding the biscuit with a hot cup of tea to make it go all floppy and break up like a Rich Tea would when dunked in the tea moat, your thwarting-attempt won't work. The problem I am having so far is that I don't know if you geeks and nerds like Ginger Nut biscuits.
*Stick* :
Anybody who does not comply with making games that boot straight from CDROM or at worst CDROM+Floppy (EASY PEASY) and work on an 8meg a4000 with a graphics card like the Homebre (HAMbre) or a something like a voodoo2 get the amiga-Light-Gun treatment (as in " _bye bye eyebrows_ ", or " _Byebrows_ " for short). This must be the case, so it is all authentic real amiga games even though many people will be using some manner of pimped out a1200 or fpga frankenstein. The CDROM or DVD of every game adhering to the aforementioned standard has all the agreed upon drivers and booting OS stuff (maybe 100meg in a folder or file always of the same name - maybe called "Chambre") whether a game needs it or not. This is called the *Chambre* standard. Easy words to remember and to start circulating in youtube videos and comments so people know what we are all talking about with no jargon. Like I say, that Vintage Console gamer version is the best one of these rant versions to read to yourself since it has details of what hardware would be used and so on (like ethernet on parallel like the plipbox a560 by *Lallafa* which you can google for, so as not to waste pcimcia bandwidth which is sorely needed for the graphics card and usb cdrom). So it goes "Hurr... Durr" and then Chambre game boot standard. Simple. Consider all this a plot-hatching to be sort of mission statement. An a1200 for a console peasant should not be in a tower. It should just look like an a1200 with an a590 or gvp sidercar (HAMbrew caddy) on it and a trapdoor expansion (HurrDurr). We don't want to scare them off. Feel free to show this comment to people who make hardware. In fact, print it, frame it and post it to the CEO/Sheriff of Individual Potatoes.
My evil genius plan will come to fruition, one day. Soon.... >:D
I made a video from this channel about the HAMbrew idea. Some people have shown interest in spreading that HAMbrew hashtag which is in the title. Hope you like the video. :)
Sweet! I will check it out!
Cool! If you get a chance to skim its ridiculously long video description text box, you might want to skip to the part where I give a link to the Jan Beta channel, since he is in on this tag now too. The link shows him making awesome Atari cartridges and he tinkers with Amiga harware too. He is sharp as a pin that bloke.
I'm too poor to upgrade my Amiga 1200. I'm just going to sell it and build a new Ryzen 1700X gaming rig with a GTX 1080 for my Oculus Rift. I also need to get new turbos for my R32 GTR I imported from Japan.
He should throw out the RF box and put the videoout from the Indivision there.
They also make a back plate that fits the DVI connector to the empty slot on the back of the 1200.
Blizzard 1260 rulez !
Yeah baby! A storm is brewing!!!
You do realize that vga monitors,(8bit outpu) are inferior to the RGB ones as EVERY epileptic would honestly tell you. Just get a TV. I do that. What he said never made,any correct sense. plus, I had a 19.95 adapter. .It did the same thing.
Hi we have two Amiga a1200 computers. If any one needed reply me ok
So why does this guy wear TWO tshirts?
why buy an A1200 and put all that new junk in it. just buy a new pc .. a shame to wipe out the experience
To each is own. Keeping a machine stock is certainly a valid choice. I am lucky to have 2 1200's so I keep one stock and one for pimping out. The upgrades are fun and keep things interesting
The simplest way to upgrade an A1200 is to throw it away and get a real computer like a pc. Amigas were great back in the day, but the pc blew it out of the water ever since the 2086 came out. Better for everything even back then. The pc killed the Amiga for many reasons, but the main one was upgrades. It was cheaper and easier to upgrade a pc than an Amiga and with more options. And today, upgrading an Amiga is a completely pointless waste of time, effort and money. You can spend 1000's of pounds just to upgrade an Amiga to 286 specs which is dumbass.
Dude. It's a hobby like tuning old cars. It's not like you are going to do day to day tasks with A1200. PCs are for work. Amigas for fun.
It certainly isn't a pointless waste of time, effort and money if you are having fun! Vintage computers and retro gaming is an awesome hobby and it is important to keep this stuff alive so people can appreciate where their modern PC's/smart phones/tablets come from. History is important. You should see people faces when they come to our museum or Vintage Computer festival. They are smiling ear to ear. Like 3viis says, this stuff isn't supposed to replace modern PC's. The world would be a sad place if everything that was no longer cutting edge was thrown away. Guess we won't be seeing you at a museum any time soon. At least your home must be clutter free!
Yeah, that is the great thing about emulation. I think having both emulation and some of the real stuff is the best of both worlds. Emulation lets you have boatloads of more systems/games than you can have in real life, but there is nothing like using the real machines. As far as upgrading goes I kind of agree with you. It is really an interesting idea. How far do you take it from stock/original ? Personally the only thing I did is replace the traditional spinning platter HD with a CF card. When I see these upgraded machines, I really like them a lot, but personally I have kept mine very close to stock. I also have an accelerator and extra RAM, but those are items that were available at the time.
Oh man, I am sorry to hear to hear that. Kids can be real jerks. Can't believe they gave you a difficult time for not upgrading. That is awful! I always wanted a faster processor (I only had an 020) because I did a lot of 3D work and sometimes it literally took days to render, but at least I didn't have some punks harassing me about it.