Thu 31 Dec 2009
I have been quite busy last couple of months so there has been no time for any activity such as messing around with Amiga gear.
So it was with great anticipation I awaited the days between x-mas and New Years Eve because there would be a 99% chance no work would turn up, and I was right.
First task was to configure my A1200 desktop which have never really fully worked each time I decided to run it. My Amiga 1200 consists of an A1200 in regular desktop, a 1.86 MB MicroniK floppy drive (that is running with X-copy 24/7, not really 
), and an Indivision scandoubler/flickerfixer and finally an Apollo 1240 accelerator upgraded to 060 with 32 MB Fast memory.
The Apollo 1260/1240 problems in a desktop A1200
So it turns out the problem is the Apollo 1260 (or 1240), no do not get me wrong, the Apollo 1260 is actually a very nice turbo card. It might be a bit picky with motherboard revisions, such as this 1D.4, but there are guides on the net explaining how you can modify such an A1200 motherboard to fully work with the Apollo.
Back to the problem, sometimes (or mostly, everytime) I power on the A1200 after I let it sit for a month or two without having been used I got a black screen of death, but caps lock on the keyboard would lit the little LED in the key, so the computer was working but something was broken. If I removed the Apollo 1260, everything worked as it should be. So the problem was found to be the accelerator. Well, it turns out that when you put the trap door cover on, the trap door pushes up on the SIMM-slot or the SIMM on the Apollo and then the computer wont boot. Sometimes by rocking the card a bit problem was solved, but it would appear again next time.
So by running with no trap door my A1200 was as reliable as it usually is with one important difference, it started whenever I switched power button on WITH the Apollo 1260 left hanging from the A1200 edge slot. Solution to the problem is to dremel the trap door cover so there is no cover over the SIMM-slot. Whenever I get time, that’s exactly what I am going to do and my A1200 will stop looking like an ugly Frankenstein-Amiga without cover or trap door.
The HighGFX/Indivision combo
It has been a while since I have been running a non graphics card expanded Amiga but I have to say the experience was not at all bad. As you all know with the HighGFX drivers and an Indivision scandoubler you can run 1024×768, in combination with a 060 and an 8 color desktop Workbench becomes a joy to use. You can stop dreaming of a graphics card in the Amiga 1200 desktop now, the reality is here, cool, simple GFX-board for the A1200 
(so the BVision can be run in the A1200 desktop, but be sure to post pictures when you created your Bvision setup with zero fans ).
So you wont be able to run a 32-bit background image or PNG-icons anymore, good that I find the original C= icons and the MWB icons the best looking icon-sets on the classic Amiga then
Compact Flash = best harddrive ewar!
Anyways, from the screenmodes of the Amiga 1200 to the storage solution. I am always shocked when I get in contact with people who still run after a 2.5” harddrive to mount in their A1200 and just roll their eyes with confusion when I mention CF-cards. This Compact Flash card I mounted with a 2.5” CF to IDE converter in my Amiga simply destroys any 2.5” IDE harddrive in speed!
Ok, so it might be a bit slower when writing, or when deleting files from the CF-card, but loading data from the CF-card is so fast that I will never ever, forever, again run an IDE-harddrive on any of my personal Amiga computers again (unless in emergency or setup). No, you will not destroy the CF-card by reading and writing to much data from it, and yes, it is totally 100% silent and produces minimal heat. Best of all, remove the CF-card from the A1200 and mount it on your PC in WinUAE if you want to transfer files or backup your system. Do not forget to Google the maxtransfer settings for the CF-card before formatting it though, it will eliminate you MUCH trouble if you take your time to do that first (believe me)!
The solution to your Amiga problems?
So, you can only guess how it feels running Workbench 3.1 on a A1200 with 060 clocked at 50 MHz (soon 80 MHz) running super-fast CF-card booting the Amiga in 3 seconds to a crisp and clear high-resolution Workbench on your TFT screen: maybe you don’t need much more than this to satisfy your Amiga lust after all?
I will leave that question up for answer until next vacation between x-mas and New Years Eve 2010, see you then