mfilos Amiga Blog

A600: Mounting NMI and USB connector

2012-02-05T22:16:00.001+02:00

Well, today I thought of proceeding more to the finalization of my A600 mod :)

I forgotten that I had to put the NMI reset button since I've included the HRTmon module inside the custom ROM that I'm kicking via ACATune utility.

That was one of the easiest mods since it just requires just a push switch wired to a female header.

Since I'm not going to press this button frequently and since I don't want it to be visible I thought of putting it close to my Kickstart 1.3/3.1 switch. So a hole has been drilled...

...and here it is mounted and connected to the NMI header of ACA630.

You can see how it looks underneath below.

So this was the easy part...
The hard part that was twisting my mind was WHERE the heck I was going to mount the USB connector?
Every time that I was trying to think about that, I ended up telling myself that I'm gonna think about it another time.
You see... I don't want to make an ugly mod nor mount it in the top part of the case.

Ok after examining the case carefully I FOUND IT!
There is a small empty space under the Floppy Drive that you can see in the following pic.

Well... cutting the case for just a single USB (due to it's size) was one of the most annoying and boring things I have done for my A600. In the end, it became rather pretty :)

Next part was to create the custom USB connector and the female header that was going to be connected to the Subway.

And presto! USB connector mounted and hotglued in place :) It does look good and it doesn't even get in the way in kipper2k's PSX/PS2 adapter.

Here you can see how the USB cable was mounted to Subway. 3 more headers are left for future usage.

I had in mind to put an USB-->Ethernet adapter inside which is rather easy, but sadly there is no space available to mount the RJ-45 connector (unless I salvage the top case which I don't want) alas it won't be installed for now :)

A last panoramic photo of the beasty is presented bellow. I guess the miggy is coming close to completion! Thank God :)

A600: Custom audio mixer & mounting MAS-Player inside!

2012-02-04T23:03:00.000+02:00

Gotta love free time that weekends give :) Time to tinker my lovely Amigas.

First of all, I had to do the boring stuff of cutting the case above the PCMCIA port just to install the perfect CF2IDE adapter by kipper2k which I had for a really long time :)

OK it's done...

By the way, the last 2 days I was thinking of putting my beloved MAS-Player inside my A600 beast, clearly cause it would be really cool!

Well, easy into thinking, difficult into implementing it though. Such obstacles are the following:
- MAS-Player is mounted on Parallel port.
- MAS-Player requires a +5V wire that by default is drawn from the near Serial Port.
- MAS-Player gives an extra audio out. So in order to have both inputs (Amiga+MAS-Player) you need an external mixer or a dual input amplifier/speakers.

OK... after I figured out what to do, I got all the necessary components from my local electronic store.

My initial thought was using an IDC 25pin connector with a ribbon in order to bring the parallel port inside! Of course I don't want to loose the possibility in using the parallel port in case I need to mount anything else (like a MIDI or Sampler unit).

Yep, it fits really well and whenever you want, you just disconnect the connector and you can mount everything else you like :)

If you checked clearly the above photos, you must have seen the lack of RCA audio connectors! :O
Where are they? lol

Putting the MAS-Player inside meant that I needed to make a simple dual mixer for audio output. I didn't want to be invasive to the case so I thought of using the default RCA connectors for the job, alas I desoldered them off :)

...and then soldered a cable in it's position.

After checking out Phipscube's Epic A1200D PPC custom mod, I thought of doing exactly the same mod of his Audio mixer that he used for his Delfina!
For whoever doesn't know what he did, he made a custom PCB audio mixer with some Pots per device and channel.
The only extra I putted on the custom PCB was a header for +5V/GND/+12V to be able to mount MAS-Player's juice and perhaps some fan in the future.

As you can see from the picture below, my custom PCB has the following:

+5V/GND/12V connector on the left side,
The Input angled Pin headers for MAS-Player and Amiga
Pin headers for measuring the POTS! I tried without these and it was messy :)
The default RCA connectors that are the mixed audio out
...And the POTS per device and channel

Here you can also see the custom power connector that I used. More pics on that later :)

This is what the connector looks like from the back... LOL it looks like robot eyes doesn't it?

And finally a picture from the lower part of the PCB with the cable mess :)

As I said before, I also needed some power that would be drained from the floppy connector, so I used a pico veroboard to mount 3 sets of cables in it and insulated it accordingly.

This is what the system looked like while I was doing the preliminary tests :)

After hot-gluing my custom PCB in place, I had to start dealing with the ribbon! Damn I so dislike ribbons inside the Amigas. They grab so much space and don't allow proper airflow. That's why I decided as always on my Amigas... to convert it to round cable. Easy stuff, just separate each wire one-by-one! :)

...and Presto! Wire rounded, and hot-glued in place for better visibility and airflow :) I also used a bit of hot-glue to secure safely the MAS-Player on kipper2k's CF2IDE adapter.

Looking good doesn't it?

Just before I close this article... one panoramic photo as always. Tidy, beasty and beautiful :)

Stay tuned \o/

A600: Trying 800x600 resolution & setting up ClassicWB 3.1

2012-01-31T01:02:00.000+02:00

Hi my fellow Amigans,

Some days ago, I saw with surprise Ratte's post over A.org about a new Beta firmware from Jens for Indivision ECS and his new version of SuperPlus driver that didn't have the alert box!

I immediately downloaded the appropriate files and after flashing my Indivision ECS with the new version 1.10 and copying the SuperPlus driver over my Devs:Monitors/ drawer it was time to test teh beast :)

Well the results were more than outstanding!!!

I just couldn't believe how awesome it is to have an ECS mode filling the entire screen of my LCD Monitor without the need of overscan stuff!!!

Only problem is that the 800x600 mode with 16 colors on ECS system having an ClassicWB 3.9 installation... despite my numerous of optimizations, wasn't so much enjoyfull.
Whatever I have tried, the ECS chipset is really slow comparing to AGA :(

That was time for desperate measures then... Hopefully Bloodwych's new ClassicWB packs versions gave me the morale boost I needed to start installing everything from scratch! LOL

This time I decided NOT only to not use OS3.9 as a base but only 3.1, but ALSO to not install the latest and more heavy ClassicWB 3.1 versions like AdvSp and Adv.
Instead I decided to go with the ClassicWB 3.1 Full version which has the MagicWB look and feel.

Ofc that installation needed a lot of alterations which were done after spending a lot of time with it. Those were the following:

Reduce the number of colors to 8, based on MagicWB colors on Scalos
Install fonts and reconfigure Workbench and DOpus based on these fonts.
Convert some demo Backdrops to 640x512 and 800x600 to 8 color format based on MagicWB palette
Change ALL the iconset of ClassicWB Full since it's based on SmallMagic iconset made for 640x256 PAL resolutions that seem really streched on Hi-Laced or 800x600 ones. That was ONE HECK of a painful procedure since it was made One-By-One!... not for the faint hearted for sure. :S
Custom recolored and altered SilverBlue skin by Rebel (check white titlebar) in order to match better with the 3.1 look and the MagicWB colors.
and finally, a system of mine couldn't be called a system, without some custom Kickstart magic loaded via ACAtune. It contains modules from Kickstart 3.9 along with some other stuff like HRTMon, and newer SCSI.device 44.2 from Doobrey to be able to support my 16GB CF card and big Work (10GB) partition :)

Here you can see a screenshot from the main Workbench screen once system is booting.

This is the primary partition OS3.1 along with it's contents

This is the Programs drawer which you can see every single change of icons that I made!

And last but not least, same procedure also in Prefs as well :)

Just for getting a better view, I'm attaching a YouTube video of my A600 booting so you can check the response time and quickness :)

I really love my A600 now... Many stuff to setup yet like Subway, MAS-Player etc... but I'm not in a hurry.

Stay tuned \o/

A4000: Custom audio connector

2012-01-24T22:05:00.002+02:00

Just before I install my repaired A4000 mobo by Cosmos, I thought...
"Why don't you put an internal Audio cable so you could insert it into ESS-Solo-1's input?"
I thought that in the past, but there was no way I would dismantle the whole Amiga to do such a mod :)

Now I had the opportunity :D

So, I got some nice cable and soldered it underneath the mobo to the RCA connectors

I really like the small cut that existed by default on the mobo! It gave me the necessary space I needed for the audio cables to pass underneath.

After installing everything and putting Grex and the cards... I had to install the internal audio cables!

You can see the new audio cable coming from the back of the default RCA headers (on the bottom left) and going on one connector on ESS-Solo-1/
Also you can see the CD Audio cable that I had made in the past (you can see previous article about it) as well mounted in ESS-Solo-1.

One more panoramic photo bellow where you can see everything mounted .

So... ESS-Solo-1 has the following now:

Backplate - Green = Line Out
Backplate - Blue = Line In
Backplate - Red = Mic In
Internal - CD1 = Paula (Shows as "Aux" in Solo Mixer in Workbench)
Internal - CD2 = CD (Show as "CD" in Solo Mixer in Workbench)

Everything works perfectly now!

Stay tuned \o/

A4000: Mobo got a nice service :)

2012-01-23T16:36:00.002+02:00

As I said in my previous article, I was without my A4000 mobo for about 2 weeks due to sending it to Cosmos for general repairs.

The mobo was operating just fine as you can tell from the previous Blog articles, although it required at a point a professional service for some stuff like:

Repairing the RTC circuit (it didn't work)
Replacing all the SIMM sockets with new ones having metal brackets
Replacing all caps (they were just fine but a refresh is always nice to have)
Checking SuperBuster's socket (it was kinda bent)
Putting sockets in PIO GALS in order to put the updated PIO-2 GALS.
... and finally a general lookout.

Cosmos supplied me with photos of his repairing process so I'm presenting some of those here.

First of all and after removing the SIMM sockets, he realized there were 2 cut tracks underneath, so after clearing them a bit, he bridged them :)

Now the sockets could be replaced... so this is how it was before

...and after the replacement

After that, it was time to replace teh caps which is easy stuff for him :)
Motherboard with the former caps was like this...

...and after the replacement like this

Sadly there was one shity one that lost it's pads so they had to be replaced customly.

Perfect job isn't it? :D - Ok lets continue...
RTC circuit after examination had a burned Ricoh so it was replaced with a new one. One diode that was soldered into a Pin of Ricoh was placed under the socket in case of future replacement!

Previous owner (or a previous repair guy) had already putted a coin battery socket with a diode but it was floating in the air not so professionally.

Cosmos decided to mount it better in the mobo so he putted another smaller diode and twisted a bit the coin battery socket in a way so it could fit just fine :)

Socket was indeed kinda bent so after asking me, we decided to remove SuperBuster's socket and solder the SuperBuster 11 directly to the motheboard.

Well... one pad had issues but not something that couldn't be fixed with a wire to the nearby track :)

PIO GALS removed and sockets including the upgraded GALS were put in place.
This was what it was before...

...and this is how it's now with the sockets and the PIO-2 GALS in place.

Last but not least, some diodes had a little solder so Cosmos thought of giving a bit of fresh one since he had some issues in the past with those.
This is an example of how it was before...

...and after the refresh...

As always, I'm gonna give a full mobo photograph of before and after the whole service...

BEFORE:

AND AFTER:

Awesome job Cosmos mate! Thanks again and I can't wait to assemble everything from scratch to check it out \o/

Stay tuned

A1200: Checking out my former lady :)

2012-01-22T19:19:00.001+02:00

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/

Happy New Year!!!

2011-12-31T19:36:00.000+02:00

As the year is ending and 2012 is already at our doorstep, I wish you all...

A Happy New Year ! ! !

Lets hope for a year full of joy, health and happiness.

May the new year bring us...
New Hardware & Software and more appetite to tinker our lovely Amigas!

Keep moddin'... :)

A4000: Mounting Ratte's Auto switch & Buffing Grex

2011-12-25T01:45:00.002+02:00

Hi my friends,

Today despite going out for presents and enjoying the day with friends, I decided since I stayed home @ night to tinker my lovely Amiga.
Having some more extra time tonight was really nice and it was time to permanently attach Ratte's Auto AGA/RTG switch and fill the extra PCI sockets of my Grex :D

Checking the space and ribbons, I decided to mount the Auto switch in the Expansion bracket position.
Well it was time to cut a VGA backplate exactly at Expansion bracket's dimensions

I positioned the VGA hole a bit to the right (just to be safe with ribbons from RTG/AGA) but mostly because I wanted the extra space IN CASE something comes up in the future :)

Well the following mod, took me quite some time, only because I tested the joints via a multimeter and continuity test many times to be sure! Don't wanna risk damaging something in my system :)
It was fun procedure though.

What on earth am I doing?.... Yep you understood correctly :)
Internal soldering of Ribbon that goes to Ratte's Auto switch. (Like BVisionPPC/CVisionPPC but now on Voodoo!)

Then it was time for stuffing and buffing my beloved Grex!
I already had the Voodoo3 and ESS-Solo-1 but now I also got...:

An RTL8029(AS) Ethernet NIC (Thanks Leo)

And an Terratec TerraTV/Radio card (Bt878 chipset) that I had for a really long time in one of my drawers LOL!

Stuffing it all was a really amusing moment since everything fitted like a glove without wires in the way :) Gotta love this Voodoo mod.

This is a photo with the wire installed that goes from DVD-ROM's audio signal to ESS-Solo-1's internal connector for CD. I already had it ready from my Delfina mod, so now it also works like a charm in this current mod.

And now some photos from the back of the A4000. Haven't showed a pic since I had the Delfina/USB NIC mod :)
You can clearly see... Ratte's Auto RTG/AGA swith on the Expansion bay, along with the PCI cards.
Amiga Paula's sound goes to ESS-Solo-1's "Line In" connector. I could have made it internal in ESS-Solo-1's AUX internal connector but I'd had to take apart the whole motherboard = NO FUN!

And finally a close up of Ratte's Switch mounted and sitting comfortably in the Expansion bay without interfering with the 80mm fan that blows some silent air into the CSPPC and Memory sockets :)

Just a quick photo from CSPPCs PCI menu...

...and we're ready to Rock & Roll :D
Everything works like a charm and I'm a happy Amigan. It's nice having such clean mods inside without too much wires cutting my airflow and vision to teh awesomenezz :D

I hope you like it as well.

A4000: Setting up my newly acquired Grex 4000

2011-12-18T01:21:00.000+02:00

Hi peepz,

Recently I managed to get a Grex 4000 from Amibay. That was a dream come true since I always wanted to find one, but sadly these boards are REALLY rare and really expensive if they show up!

Ok enough with the long talk...
Board arrived safely with it's original CD that you can see just fine below

Of course... I didn't know if the board was working since the seller sold it AS-IS since he didn't have the equipment to test it.
I tend to have an optimistic mood with Amiga Hardware as most of times tend to be very resilient :)

Here are two more shots comparing it with the original daughterboard...

Isn't it a beauty? :D Pretty funny is the extra wire put at some pins. It's on all Grex pictures I found over BBOAH and my friend Leo (Keropi) assured me that it was on his former Grex as well.

My RTG card will be nothing more than the known and awesome 3DFX Voodoo3 2000 that I hacked with the help of Cosmos's blog putting an onboard fan as it tends to be ULTRA hot!

Just to be sure, I followed all the required steps after downloading all the drivers from DJBase's website here: http://grex.amigaworld.de/index.php?lang=en

Updated CSPPC to latest version (firmware 45.71) that includes as well a PCI menu under CSPPC setup menu (via ESC key on boot).
Updated 68040.library and 68060.library with the latest versions (46.5/46.15)
After taking a backup from my previous system, I formatted my Hard Drive and started from scratch with a CF ClassicWB 3.9 BB2 installation.

You can see the new menu in the following pictures

[off topic]
I always had some parity problems with my Hard Drive having from-time-to-time Parity Error requesters. After a lot of frustration and headbanging turned out that I found a thread over A.org with exactly my symptoms. Since I downgraded my ACard some time ago with an earlier firmware I have these issues so some point today or in the future I will update it again with latest firmware and be done with it :)
Till then... I putted manually 8-bit in the controller settings under SCSI Menu of CSPPC and never had issues again.
[/off topic]

Ok time for more info now about installation. The steps I followed were:

Installing Grex's CGX4 version from Grex CD
Updated CGX4 to version 4.3 again from Grex CD (CGX4 CD required)
Updated CGX4 to latest version 4.6 (CGX4 CD required)
Copied my old Env-Archive variables from my previous installation including my Monitor-Mode file.

...and that was about it :)

Booting for first time after installation gave me the well known "Light my Fire" PPC logo and that was what I wanted to see to understand that my Grex was working as intended!!!

I went straight ahead to SYS:Prefs/CGXMode to check/setup my Monitor installation.
Just to help some of you that asked me in the past, I'm presenting from my previous setup my CGXMode monitor installation settings for 1280x1024 and the Widescreen 1360x768 that newly HD Ready LCD/TV's have.

These are the 1280x1024 settings for my Dell 17" monitor

...and these are the 1360x768 settings for for my Samsung 24" LCD/TV.

So... after using these old but trusted settings I was seeing RTG finally on my Grex Setup :)
As you can see from the photo, "God of War" 1280x1024 wallpaper and WhichAmiga running just fine under my setup.

And a close-up of WhichAmiga for the fun part :)
Haha Voodoo3 is presented as Inferno (I think they must have given that codename based on it's temperature LOL)

Just for closing this brief article (soon will follow for sure) I'm presenting a photo from the side where Grex with the following is mounted and working:

Voodoo3 2000 Graphics adapter (PCI)
ESS-Solo-1 Sound adapter (PCI)
ZorRAM 256MB Fast RAM adapter (Zorro)
Deneb USB2.0 adapter (Zorro)

Stay tuned :)

A600: Testing my new arrived "Furia S628"

2011-11-12T21:00:00.001+02:00

Hi my friends.
Long time no see I know... but after fiddling along with other hardware platform over the weeks I thought of giving a bit of rest to my beloved Amigas :)

So, yesterday I received my very own "Furia S628" accelerator with 2MB Fast RAM and connector for future Fast RAM board.
This was a board that was discussed over EAB at some point. I already have gotten the excellent ACA630@30MHz from Individual Computers but I really wanted to support such an effort so I made a small donation to Boboo just for supporting him a bit :)

Some time ago he completed testing his board so I was given the chance of ordering such a lovely unit!
To follow the whole original thread on AmigaPortal.cz follow this link.
Enough for the long talk... Time for some pr0n :)

So here's the package that arrived yesterday.

Yes it had a 3-wire cable to solder to 3 points in the motherboard... but that will be seen next :)

This is the front side of the PCB with the ceramic (I think) heatsink and the SmartBUS connector.

This is the back side of the PCB with the PLCC connector, the 3-wire connector and the Donators names! (Thanks a lot for this honor Boboo mate) /respect

This was a folded print page that explained where to solder the 3-wire cable onto the A600 motherboard. Not so hard to spot :)

...and this is the actual soldering of my own cables into my A600 Rev.1.5 mobo.

Most awesome part is that the classic El'Cheapo angled female 44pin CF2IDE adapters fit like a glove with "Furia S628" (not to mention it holds the accelerator in place better).

Well, I present you with a video that I uploaded on YouTube that shows a mini test performance of "Furia S628".
The test was made using Bloodwych's ClassicWB 68k and it's test without and with the Furia in place.

As you can see from the video, the results are MORE than impressive and Furia seems to work really well with many WHDLoad games that I tested :)
It's a really nice addition and the future FastRAM module that will be attached to the SmartBUS connector would be even better!
The installation is really straightforward and Plug&Play (once you solder the 3-wires).

The memory lacks 512KB of memory that can be added by using the AutoAddRAM command using the following file that was taken from the AmigaPortal.cz Furia thread:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/939939/Furia/FuriaS628_AddRAM.lha
Just adding the following command before SetPatch in Startup-Sequence is enough :)
C:AutoAddRAM >NIL:

Also a better resolution connector photo can be downloaded from here as well:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/939939/Furia/FuriaS628_Connector.pdf

That wasn't such a thorough review, but a test of this amazing accelerator which really gives a nice boost to our beloved A600's!
Once the extra memory module will be ready, it will be a LOT better than the A608 :)

Boboo mate, great job! Keep up the good work \o/

A4000: Custom circuit for Auto AGA/RTG switch

2011-09-27T21:49:00.000+03:00

Hey my friends,

It's not have been a long time since my previous post but trust me... I was waiting some things to arrive alas I couldn't write without having stuff in my hands :)

Anyway, since a long time I was wondering what I was gonna do with the manual switch that Ratte's Auto AGA/RTG switch had. Don't get me wrong I love my Auto switch but I really dislike the classic stick switches.
Sadly On/Off/On switches don't have a great variety and for a round one... the smallest I could find had a diameter of 21mm which is really big to mount.
Then it struck me... Why wouldn't I put an awesome momentary Push-On switch that has an embedded LED on it and mount it on the obsolete position if the keylock switch???

Well I ordered the switch and voila... IT REALLY fits like a glove...

In the previous photos I just supplied voltage to the LED to test it out.

So... I had the switch... so now I needed the circuit that would make my Push-On click... to transform to On/Off/On states (and loop back). I made a thread on Amibay about it but on the meantime I asked a good electronic friend of mine (Mike) to bring an idea about that.
After searching a bit he told me he has done something similar in the past with an CD4017 IC. After getting the PinOuts we designed a circuit that was simple enough.
The IC used was indeed an CD4017 that has 10 outputs. Since I only wanted 3 outputs (On/Off/On) we fed the 4th output into the RESET on IC so it loops back to the start once the 3 output switches :)

You can check it out in case you wanna try something like this in the future :)
So... after getting the parts that was needed, and after 2-3 hours of assembling the prototype board, there was it. You can see the sockets for the IC and the relays plus the headers.

I soldered a couple of LEDS to female headers to be able to try out the output LEDS on the PCB

...and the first TEST (after some troubleshooting) was successful!!!

Left LED = ON
No LED = OFF
Right LED = ON

Since everything worked fine, I needed to cut the remaining unused veroboard and mount the PCB inside A4000's faceplate :)

I used some dual foamy sticky tape that insulated and hold the veroboard solid as a rock inside A4000's faceplate. Wires from Push-On button on header plus a custom Molex to Fan+12V power for my PCB was made :)

And that's about it!!!

Because I'm sure you're pretty weird how that thing works... how about a little video about it?
(I'm also testing Line-In of Delfina because some peepz requested it).

Enjoy :)

A4000: My ACard 7220UW experience and results

2011-09-21T13:25:00.002+03:00

Sadly I don't have many updates as I would love to, because I'm always waiting for some extra parts and stuff to arrive but most important because I have other projects to maintain and not so much time to tinker my lovely Amiga :(

Some time ago reading a thread @ Amiga.org I got again the eager to replace my 7720U (Ultra SCSI - 50pin) ACard with 7720UW (Ultra Wide SCSI - 68pin) version.
This would have been awesome because:

It wouldn't need the extra 50pin to 68pin adapter alas more room for airflow
It would be able to give better speed due to the Wide SCSI interface!

Since getting an ACard 7720UW isn't an easy task if you reside in Greece (none reseller around) I decided to order one from Vesalia since I had some nice PayPal balance sitting around for quite some time now.

Package arrived yesterday and I was really happy to try it on my A4000 once I got back from work.

The only thing that worried me a bit was the Firmware revision that was printed as in all ACards over the ICC that had version 3.89. Based on ACard's website this revision was released on 27/05/2009 (and was compatible with the new systems like WinXP/Vista/7 etc) while the previous version 3.86 was released on 16/06/2006 (and was compatible by legacy systems like Win95/98/ME/NT etc).
I already knew that latest version of ACards aren't compatible with Amigas and after a recent conversation over a thread @ EAB I knew that 3.85 version was one of the latest that for sure worked with Amigas.

Once I got home, I pulled off the old trusty 7720U ACard and putted the new on maintaining ofc the same SCSI ID and termination jumpers.
Sadly... the Amiga saw the ACard and HD (since HD LED's output from ACard was blinking just fine) but within the booting sequence it stopped :(
Early startup menu, showed that Hard Disks were recognized as partitions though. That's why I booted my CF Backup setup (via the SCSI Multicard Reader) and hard drives appeared. For some reasons I got hard drive errors for my DH0 partition so I tried to reformat it but got "Error 4" in hard drive description.
That wasn't good :(

After some more fails and troubleshooting I was almost convinced that my ACard's revision was screwing me!
I decided to take the situation on my hands so I putted an Adaptec SCSI controller into an old PC of mine with WindowsXP and mounted ACard onto it, downloaded the previous version plus the ACard flash utility and Downgraded the firmware to version 3.86. Flashing was sucesfull so there was only one way to find out if I did it succesfully :)

The ACard was mounted on my A4000 and I also changed the ID to something else just for safety. Hard Drive was discovered but boot partition DH0 with 3.9 was corrupted :(
I decided then to initialize the drive from scratch (booting with CF Backup 3.9 environment) and repartitioning it with new sizes, etc. Thank God the drive initialized just fine without problems! (Phew No.1)
In my previous partitioning scheme I had:

950MB PFS3 for OS3.9 (DH0),
950MB SFS for OS4.1 (DH1),
950MB SFS for MorphOS (DH2)
and the rest of the 80GB HD space left unpartitioned for future usage.

Now I made a similar scheme but with 1023MB partitions (I played it safe and under 1024MB=1GB) and all with SFS.
All partitions were defined and save changes didn't give a single error (Phew No.2)

After I booted to 3.9, I cloned my CF partition to my fresh formatted partition and rebooted my Amiga...

YES!!! Hard disk booted just fine and I was in my previous well known custom ClassicWB 3.9 environment with CGX4/AfA OS/Antialiased fonts/Ken's Icons etc!

Since I was so happy I though of checking out my new hard drive speeds via SysSpeed and SysInfo.
Results were more than amazing!!!

Well... compared to my previous screenshot with the ACard 7220U I now got an 10.6MB/s speed increase! (from 18.3MB/s to 28.9MB/s). Not bad at all aye? :D

Also without the need of an 50pin to 68pin adapter, now the space needed is much shorter and gives a nice extra for better airflow :)

Awesome stuff! After this successful try, I installed again OS4.1 and didn't have a single issue! On to MorphOS today but we'll be ok on that as well me thinkz :P

Soon more to come.

A4000: New fans and some minor audio mods

2011-09-10T17:07:00.000+03:00

One more Saturday to work on my lovely A4000. Sorry for not updating sooner but last weekend I was hackintoshing my Dell Mini 9" (dual booting Snow Leopard with Windows 7) but that was not Amigish to share so... here we are once again :)

Well first of all I thought of getting 2x new silent 80mm fans for my A4000. One will replace my PSU fan and the other will be mounted where the original Hard Drive bracket existed. After some searching around local stores I came up with a Noctua 80mm 17db - 53CFM. This fan has also 2xAdapters with resistors to lower the silence up to 10db or even 7db (ofc lowering the CFM as well). Since I tested them a bit... I thought that 17db was just fine for my taste.

PSU replacement was easy enough... and you can barely see the difference with the previous one. Sound difference is a LOT though! Awesome \o/

Next step was to mount the second 80mm fan where I wanted. As a holding surface I thought of using one spare metal bracket that we use for the backplates of our ISA/PCI etc slots.

I straightened it a bit using pliers and with a little hammer I gave the final look.

After that, I dremeled one side to match a bit with the other and sanded the whole bracket. It looks better right?

After the sanding... it was time for 2x coats of a gray spray paint which I used in the past for some components. Result was really neat.

Now I had to put some dual sticking foamy tape to the upper side of the fan...

...and then attach the painted metal bracket to the sticky tape! Last step before putting it in the Amiga was to put 2x tie wraps to hold the fan even better and more steady.

Here you can see it mounted in it's permanent place. It's very steady quiet and it's airflow it's just epic! Some mini heatsinks on the CyberVisionPPC and RAM SIMMS on the CyberstormPPC will be must better now :)

Since last time I didn't like the way that I mounted the RCA cables to the internal spot of Delfina, I thought of doing something better and more good looking :)

That's why I decided the following:

Changing the Mic input connector (Pink) to the Internal connector on the Delfina (after all Aux2 can be used for Line or Mic so I had one spare connector).
Making tiny cute Mini Jack to RCA cable to be able to connect it from the Amiga RCA output to Delfina's Internal input (now Pink femal Jack)

You can see it clearly now :) Doesn't it look better? And I can anytime remove the cable and get the RCA from the Amiga (don't know why I'd do such a thing... but anywayz).

I had to include one last photo from the internal of the A4000 with the Delfina and custom cabling showing also the new fan mounting! Small update but definitely an important one.

Cheers for lookin'

A4000: Custom Delfina/USB Ethernet NIC mounting

2011-08-27T16:16:00.010+03:00

OK this was an interesting Saturday so far!

After my previous thread of testing the Delfina I had to put it on permanent position along with the USB Ethernet adapter.
I was thinking about it the whole week so after I figured out how to do it... I had to find an old ISA Ethernet Card or an old ISA Soundcard...

My good friend Leo (Keropi) sent me yesterday an El'Crapo ISA Soundcard and an ISA ISDN Modem (lol) that I would salvage for my own modding needs :)

This is what the ISA ISDN Modem card looked like when I received it from Leo.

And that was what it looked like when I desoldered it's components and dremeled the whole area :)

Pretty spooky I know lol. Well I also cut the half of it (left part) cause I didn't need it and attached the Delfina via plastic spacers that I cut.

Btw, I forgot to tell ya that I drilled 3 new holes for my custom audio connector to back of the bracket and painted it to look better.

Some more detailed pics follow:

Ok it looked really nice. Time for the USB Ethernet NIC now... :)
First of all I had to drill a hole for the ethernet cable to be able to pass underneath the ISA card to reach the RJ-45 connector

...and then it was time to salvage/hack the D-Link USB Ethernet NIC.

...and after removing the Ethernet and USB connector... I attached the custom USB cable for the Deneb and the Ethernet mini cable that I attached from the adapter to the RJ-45 connector under the ISA card.

I really like it!!! I also putted some plastic spacers as well to keep the USB ethernet adapter in place so you can check out some more detailed pics bellow

Finally I had to mount it on the A4000 to give the combo a spin :)

Yep it works just fine... and what a better test than listening some good modules music from Eagleplayer (playing through Delfina's Line-IN) while surfing CSS content with Netsurf from my USB NIC :)

More stuff coming soon so stay tuned... \o/

A4000: Custom audio cabling and Defina testing

2011-08-24T22:34:00.010+03:00

Yesterday I thought of giving a shot once more on my Delfina after 3 years having her :)
Well... tbh I have tested her on my previous A4000 where I had some freezing issues so I pulled her out and thought of testing it in the future...
...well 3 years after, the time has come and testing it on my ClassicWB 3.9 custom setup, IT WORKED LIKE A CHARM!!!

It was really awesome not to have any issues and all the mp3's that I tested worked just fine without a single glitch.
Take not that except from the latest delfina.library I also used the delfinampeg.device to be able to use Delfina to decode the mp3's without having my CPU doing that lol (yeah I know that I could use the WOS plugin of AmigAMP to have the PPC decode instead).

Amplifier didn't have a single issue and mp3 was really playing nice (even 256kbit playing from USB via Deneb).

Sadly though... I didn't have any cable to test it's input/outputs so I thought of waiting one day (meaning TODAY) to make some cables myself :)

First of all I desoldered an triple audio connector that I had on a dead PC mobo and mounted 3 cables with 4pin header on every connector. It may seem easy... but trust me... it's a real pain in the butt stripping and soldering these mini connectors...

Next one was a custom length, CD Audio connector after measuring it out.

And last but not least, the default A4000's audio output that needed to connect internally. You may not believe it but I soldered the cable near the A4000 cause I wanted it to pass through the tiny holes that exist for air flow on the right of Amiga!!! (Yeah I'm mental I know)

Here you can see the inside part of the cable with the thermal tube and the header

I was so thirsty to test it out that I only put some carton for insulation and gave it a spin!

YEY!!!
- Audio OUT (Green connector) --> Works
- Line IN (Internal connector) = Amiga Output --> Works
- Aux1 IN (Internal connector) = CD Audio --> Works
- Aux2 IN (Blue connector) --> Works
- MIC IN (Pink connector) --> Haven't tested yet

At first nothing worked but I realized that all inputs had MUTE on LOL. After setting it correctly on Delfina mixer everything worked like a charm! I even put my SammichSID on Aux2 IN and it sounded awesome!

On the following picture you can see the programs I used to play simultaneously audio without a single problem.
- Amplifier (mp3)
- EaglePlayer (mod, via Amiga output to Line IN)
- PlayCD (CD audio, via CD audio out output to Aux1)

Not bad aye? Next step would be the permanent mounting on a custom bracket. That will require some time and effort but I'm in no hurry :)

Cheers

A4000: Recapping CVisionPPC

2011-08-19T19:21:00.005+03:00

As I showed in a previous thread some time ago, I changed one cap on my new acquired CVisionPPC that I got as faulty.

Thankfully... the cap was the problem that kept CVisionPPC from working on the previous owner.
Of course this replacement capacitor was only a temporary solution.

After setting up ClassicWB 3.9 and installing CGX4, AfAOS etc... I realized that I didn't pretty much liked the scrolling on screen. My 1280x1024 17" Dell screen worked just fine under my BPPC+BVision combo on my A1200 so it wasn't any issue with the Monitor.

Since my CVisionPPC has SMD electrolytic capacitors I thought of changing them with new tandalums since heat can dry them off pretty quickly. Also I realized that my previous CVisionPPC that I sold, as long as most pictures I saw over BBoAH and other forums had CVisions with tandalums as well.
I asked Cosmos if he had some (since here in Greece I couldn't find in my local electronics store any SMD component) and he sent me the required 7 caps that arrived today :)

So this is what the board looked like before the surgery (lol):

...and this is how it looks like after the recap:

It was a frightening experience for someone not as skilled in desoldering and soldering so small components but I managed to do it really smoothly.

Well there was only one way to find out if the surgery was successful... Fire it up and see what's coming :)

Result was SUCCESSFUL! Not only it looks a lot better but all the annoying scrolling and sizzling lines disappeared and the picture on my monitor is once more Crystal Clear!

Feels really good! And looks a lot better don't you think? :D

A4000: Putting all together

2011-08-14T13:16:00.011+03:00

After testing my A4000 for quite some time, I was expecting many components to be able to put all the Amiga together permanently (like accelerator spacers, 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter).

This Amiga sadly didn't have spacers for the accelerator (since it came with an stock 030@25MHz CPU).
I had 2 spare spacers from my previous A4000 but these were temporary solution since I wanted something more robust that could hold my CSPPC with screws.
Thankfully my friend Justin (JuvUK) sent me freely 4x spacers to use on my beloved accelerator (Man you rock!)

Here they are screwed on the lower side of A4000's motherboard

...and here they are from the upper side of the A4000's motherboard.

Accelerator screwed in it's place permanently (unless I decide to overclock or change the PPC CPU at some point = Stan the man)...

You will also notice in this photo the following:

68060 fan being not center aligned on purpose due to the connector of CVisionPPC that requires a bit of space
PPC heatsink changed with an awesome copper one and a 30x30x10 noiseless fan
My beloved custom IDE cable that goes under CSPPC and goes right side near the PSU
The round Floppy cable that I stripped wire-by-wire on hand :)

Awesome airflow and not ugly ribbons all over the CPUs blocking the air (not to mention beautiful sight to watch lol).

This is the metal bracket with all the drives etc. You can clearly see the ACard with it's adapters along with the SCSI Multicarddrives.

After inserting the metal bracket that holds the drives... you can see that I have a really nice view and space even with the tight space that A4000 has.

On the side things get a little more squeezed but take in mine that there is plenty of room for the PSU fan to suck air to the back without cables blocking him.

If you noticed carefully you definitely saw the adapters train on the DVD-RW area :)
To enlighten you a bit the DVD-RW doesn't have anything weird but the custom yellow cable that comes from the IDE header.
The weird train comes from the 2.5" IDE Hard drive that sits under the DVD-RW (as you saw in a previous photo of mine) and consists of...
2.5" HD --> 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter --> ACard AEC-7220U --> 50pin to 68pin SCSI adapter and finally the SCSI 68pin cable from CSPPC's chain :)
Just to have better look here's the following pictures...

This is the 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter

...and this is the ACard with the 50pin to 68pin SCSI adapter

It's not noticeable that there's a custom mini cable with an male power connector that is soldered to the ACard and gives power to the 2.5" to 3.5" adapter. I forgot to take a picture of that but it was really need not to have another one power connector floating around :)

A view from the top can show you perfectly how it's all arranged together...

I'm pretty happy about how everything fitted without problems and that I haven't had to put extra money into acquiring an ACard!
This ACard was taken from my A1200 that from now on will be with her Idefix Express :) Sorry sister, my needs are huge...
I won't need to get an UW ACard in the future for the simple reasons that it's a lot bigger and won't fit as nice as this, and it's expensive not to have to think about it lol.

Just to see how well my ACard performs on the CSPPC's SCSI interface here's a photo of SysSpeed... 18.3MB/s yeah! \o/

Not bad for an SCSI-II interface (ACard AEC-7220U) don't you think?

More soon to come :)

A4000: Deneb's custom cable

2011-08-13T10:27:00.006+03:00

Ah Saturday :)

Since I woke up pretty early today I thought of doing some boring but essential stuff like making the custom USB cable that would go from Deneb to the USB header of my 5.25 bracket.

Since I don't like flat ribbon cables and I wanted 8 wire cable I salvaged one of my many UTP cables for the job. I measured the cable putting it in the path that I wanted and I was ready for some soldering. Connector's haven't been put straight to the cable but instead on a tiny veroboard to hold it steady on both ends. Ofc thermal tubing was attached for better stability.

I think it will be just fine for the job... Time to install to the 5.25 bracket's USB header.

...then putting the cable above the DVD-RW and follow Daughterboard's holder

...and finaly mounted on Deneb :)

Pretty neat don't you think? Finally I had to make some testing to check if both headers worked as they should!

Yep! It worked just fine in both USB positions! One more boring stuff done :)

Soon more to come.

A4000: Custom 5.25 bracket

2011-08-12T19:07:00.010+03:00

From my previous A4000, I realized that good airflow and heat dissipation is rather difficult due to the not so spacy case and devices.
First of all CD/DVD-ROM units are rather big and along with the cabling makes it kinda messy.
I made a quick comparison back between the length of a normal DVD-RW and a slim DVD-RW.
Result was indeed amazing!

Ok I had to put it! Finding a 5.25 bracket back then wasn't easy and after a lot of searching around I found a really neat unit that has a spot for a slim CD/DVD unit, a spot for an 3.5 unit (floppy/multicard reader etc) and 2xUSB headers!
I quickly put a slim slot-in DVD-RW that I had along with a stock A4000 floppy to check it out! Not bad I'd say...

Well. After selling my A4000 and getting a new one... I came across the same issue as before but now I had the solution in my hands! In the following pictures you can see a test paint I used (which kinda suxed) along with a tray slim DVD-RW nice and neat Temperature/Fan control bracket that I bought.

I really liked the combo cause it's really good to know the temperature and fan speeds of my 060/PPC CPUs and VGA without being too kitsch.
It definitelly needed a good paint though cause that thing had so many colors... Ewww! Result was pretty perfect

I really like it and it works just fine! I found out that the Temp/Fan control bracket had also an Alarm per Temperature that you can set at will and also at a fan error (I tested it by pressing one working with a finger) you also get an alarm sound except the 0rpm message. NEAT!

The most awesome part though was that the bracket it's so thin that the 3.5" slot is almost empty!!! Time to take advantage of this extra space (as always lol).

This is the bracket of the default 2.5" HD for A600/A1200. Since I had 2 spare of these (nice to use CFs in my Amigas lol) I thought about modding it a bit for my needs.

...and now, you can place it inside the Temp/Fan bracket...

It fits like a glove! Also the cables for the Fan/Temp connectors/sensors were glued to the sides of the internal bracket.

Yep... the 2.5" Hard Drive is very well putted in it's bracket and it's ready for receiving it's own care... meaning an ACard!

More soon to come :)

A4000: PSU mod

2011-08-03T13:09:00.014+03:00

A4000's PSUs have some times some issues with the fan being incorrectly installed (opposite direction blowing hot air from PSU inside the Amiga instead of Outside!).
The exterior holes for the air flow to come out aren't good enough so I'd thought of making something about it :)

For this task I trusted my good old friend Leo (Keropi) to cut the PSU case and mount an inox backplate, since he has done that on his previous A4000 as well.
Having the right tools is always awesome :)

Marking where to cut is essential... Yep the passthrough female power connector (for Monitors) isn't needed. I only need the normal power connector which will be re-aligned on the top where the female power connector was instead!

Inspecting it by hand to check if everything is as it should. Yep it's just fine :)

...and now it's the time to attach it permanently!

It's ready now. Kinda ugly after all the surgery but still cool to see.

Looks pretty cool doesn't it? Ok time to cover the Inox surface before the painting...

It looks rather well I think :) Can't wait for it to dry in order to peel off the tape and see it complete!

After leaving it for 12+ hours to dry... stickers were peeled off. Awesome lookz!!!

On the meanwhile... as I said we bypassed the passthrough (female power connector) since I'm never gonna use a cable to connect a monitor to the Amiga. This is too oldskool and better keep every device with it's own cable instead!
Alas, this is what the internal power cable looks like

Also removing the old noisy fan was essential (for putting a new better and more silent one) so off he went...

After putting the modified backplate and mounting the power connector... One final look...

...and we're set! PSU ready for putting inside the Amiga :)

And finally... 2 last photos of the PSU before and after the mod. I hope you like it :)

Thanks a lot to Leo (Keropi) for his awesome work!!! /respect bro.

Vacation ended... New items arrived though :)

2011-08-01T10:56:00.007+03:00

Haven't wrote for a while since I was on vacation @ Chania (Crete). I had a great time and sadly today is my first day @ work.
Thankfully many packages were waiting me patiently and I was happy enough to unwrap every one of them gently...

Well... here's some photos of my after vacation LOT that include:

A4000D (030@25MHz, Oktagon SCSI controller, Coin-Battery, Changed Caps etc)
Cyberstorm PPC 060/604
CvisionPPC (bought it as faulty but will have to check it out to see)
Deneb USB adapter (brand new from AmigaKit... I'm glad I got one of the very last of them)
kipper2k's CF Extenders (2x)
kipper2k's IndivisionECS Extender
kipper2k's DB9 Extender Multiadapter (incl. connectors for PS/2 Mouse, 2xPSX Joypads)

Along with these I also had some other stuffz like LSDJ module for my Gameboy and an ArduinoBoy kit...

FUN TIMES AHEAD and soon more updates to come!

EDIT: After checking out CVisionPPC I noticed that a capacitor was having an issue so I removed it and soldered a new one in it's place.

After putting the A4000 on... Turns out that CVisionPPC outputs Kickstart Bootscreen (4 colors) just fine W00h00!!! Also checked the CSPPC Menu (Esc key on boot) and indeed works there as well. I guess that capacitor was indeed a problem, so now I'll have to make more thorough tests as I'll setup this beauty from scratch!

Stay tuned...

A600: A604 received! Case change and more

2011-07-12T09:59:00.010+03:00

Yesterday I received the wonderful A604 Chip RAM Expansion from AmigaKit.
What an awesome designed product! It's so small comparing it with the A603 and offers a lot more things.

2x clockports (instead of 1)
Custom clockport extender 2nd clockport for mounting Subway (special driver required)
The second clockport reaches a 60% higher transfer speed than the first, which makes Subway a lot faster!
Angled Indivision ECS socket that makes Indivision ECS co-exist along with the floppy!
All the usual stuff like 1MB Chip RAM to max out A600's Chip RAM to 2MB total, and RTC.

Getting a new A604 also gave me appetite to re-case my A600 into a spare that I had which was more white (near mint) and didn't have any cut on the case. Keeping the floppy on the case was a nice thing to have.

My spare A600 is really awesome but required removing of the TV Modulator and a good mobo bath!!!
Modulator was an easy task to remove (done it 4-5 times in the past) and a good bath is always nice for my Amiga mobos :)

This time I decided NOT to remove the stock power connector since I got some time ago a nice PSU from MechWare.

Since I wanted to minize the cutting on the new case I decided that except from the replacement of the TV Modulator with the VGA connector for the Indivision ECS, I'd also make a small hole for the Kickstart switch (that simultaneously disables ACA on Kickstart 1.3).

You can check the internal mod of both the VGA connector and Kickstart switch that gets it's +5V from a nearby resistor and Ground from the nearby RGB's connector ground :)

As you may have seen I'm using Mika's angled CF2IDE adapter since for the time being I didn't want to make a hole above PCMCIA (waiting kipper2k's rev.2 CF2IDE adapter in the following days since I had issues with his rev.1 in my previous setup).

You can check some photos of the so far re-casing. I really loved the way that Indivision ECS's cable can go under Indivision and Subway making it look really clean:

Looking good doesn't it? The mods are looking a lot cleaner without the extra cabling that existed in my previous mod. Only need to see now where am I gonna put the USB headers, although I will use for sure the headers I used on my A1200 as well.

Just before I close this post, I thought it'd be nice to include 2 more photos of the A600 in use... Enjoy :)

A1200: Playing Crysis... :)

2011-07-09T15:04:00.005+03:00

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 :)

A600: Kickstart refresh day

2011-07-09T12:14:00.011+03:00

I love Saturdays not only because I don't work, but because I have more time to tinker my lovely Amigas :)

Today I refreshed a bit of my Custom Kickstart OS3.9 for my beloved A600 since I have done some changes recently due to Peter Keunecke's Icon.library and Cosmos SCSI.device.

What modules I have so far in my Custom 1MB Kickstart (except the normal Kickstart 3.1 modules) are the following:

Exec 45.24 (instead of 40.10)... [OS3.9 BB4]
BootMenu 44.7 68020 (instead of 40.5)... [OS3.9 BB2]
Card.resource 40.5 (instead of 40.4)... [OS3.9 BB4]
Console.device 44.10 (instead of 40.2)... [OS3.9 BB3]
Datatypes.library 44.48 (instead of 44.47)... [OS3.9 BB4]
Filesystem.resource 45.10 (instead of 40.1)... [OS3.9 BB2]
FastFilesystem 45.16 (instead of 40.1)... [OS3.9 BB4]
Graphics.library 42.8b11 (instead of 40.24)... [Cosmos]
KingCON-handler 40.4 (instead of Con-Handler 40.2)... [Cosmos]
Icon.library 46.4.220 (instead of 40.1)... [PeterK]
RAM Handler 44.24 (instead of 39.4)... [OS3.9 BB3]
Ramlib 40.3 (instead of 40.2)... [OS3.9 BB4]
Romheader 45.21 (instead of BlizKick module)... [OS3.9 BB4]
SCSI.device 43.46b8 (instead of 40.5)... [Cosmos]
Shell 45.27 (instead of 40.2)... [OS3.9 BB3]
Trackdisk.device 40.2 (instead of 40.1)... [OS3.9 BB4]
Workbench.library 45.131 (instead of 40.5)... [OS3.9 BB3]
BBlank... [For Black Borders]
HRTModule 2.30... [HRTmon using ACA630's NMI header]

Everything seems to work just fine :)

And you can check the correct versions from CLI:

A1200: Subway USB mounting

2011-07-03T19:45:00.002+03:00

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

2011-06-28T16:54:00.001+03:00

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

2011-06-25T18:40:00.002+03:00

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

A600: Booting from USB

2011-04-03T22:21:00.002+03:00

I wouldn't say that the following is exactly an update, but more of a successful test!

Dunno how many of you tried it in the past with success... but I present you Amiga 600 booting from USB stick

You only need to insert in a custom Kickstart the following files:

subwayusb.device (or device that you have for USB)
hub.class
massstorage.class
poseidon.library
PSDStackLoader (this must be the one you're using now and works)

The tricky part is that it didn't fit in my Custom Kickstart Image since Poseidon.library was huge!
Thankfully I got some space, leaving Workbench.library outside the Kickstart, and putting it in LIBS: which worked a treat \o/

It's not for my everyday usage, but really cool I might add!

Enjoy

A600: Kipper2k's CF extender installation + more

2011-04-02T17:24:00.005+03:00

Since I got Kipper2k's awesome CF adapter I thought of installing it (cause at the weekdays it's really tough)...

Dremeling the case was once more a shity procedure, but had to be done

I also changed my upgraded from Revision B to C HxC SD Floppy emulator to a new one of Revision C that I got from a fellow Amibayer since it had less height (due to my hack missing lol). After all my hacked HxC will be used in an external case in a future mod (to be able to use it on my other Amiga and Amstrad computers.

I also like that the color matches the one from Indivision ECS.

Along with the hardware mod, I was more busy remaking my own custom 3.9 ROMS adding stuff like Cosmos KingCON-Handler and PeterK's Icon.library 46.4.196 that supports displaying DualPNG Icons (like Ken's Icons or MasonIcons). Not really usable under processors like 030 but really cool to be able to see an icon instead of seeing it as a dot or not at all
I'm so in love with Remus (for giving the opportunity into making so easily custom kicks) and ACA's MapROM feature (for giving the opportunity in mapping those kickstart without having to burn every once and a while).
Anyway take a look on some PNG icons under my ECS A600

Just a couple of things needed and I guess I would be finished with this mod (at last). Case needs to close to proceed with my more serious A1200D PPC project

I hope you like it.

A600: Custom Kickstart 3.9 + Visual enhancements

2011-02-18T13:13:00.002+02:00

I made quite some changes today

I changed from Bloodwych's ClassicWB 3.5 to 3.9 because I wanted more recent shiz
Ok here's what I removed (Gulliver my friend, thanks tonz):

AmiDock --> Too heavy for my taste. For now it's off till I find a better one.
DefIcons --> Not needed for me. Bloodwych made a great work not for me to need that.
RAWBInfo --> It's cool but not so important for me.
AsyncWB --> Really unimportant since I never do multiple copy/delete etc.
Benchtrash --> Never used it. For now it's off.

I also enabled Env-Handler since by default it's disabled (Bloodwych my man, your enable/disable scripts are just epix)

Result was a workbench at EXACTLY (I measured it in seconds) the same booting speed and response with the 3.5!!! I really love it.

So today I made quite some upgrades, putting BB3+BB4+Cosmos scsi.device and after all worked like a charm via LoadModule declarations... a custom 3.9 BB4 custom Kickstart was made and voila... No reboots and every new version exists on the spot

Just for information the contents are the following:

Exec 45.20 (instead of 40.10) --> OS3.9 BB2
BootMenu 44.7 (instead of 40.5) --> OS3.9 BB2
Console.device 44.10 (instead of 40.2) --> OS3.9 BB3
Datatypes.library 44.48 (instead of 44.47) --> OS3.9 BB4
Filesystem.resource 45.10 (instead of 40.1) --> OS3.9 BB2
FastFilesystem 45.16 (instead of 40.1) --> OS3.9 BB4
Icon.library 46.4.181 (instead of 40.1) --> OS3.9 BB4
RAM Handler 44.24 (instead of 39.4) --> OS3.9 BB3
SCSI.device 43.46b3 (instead of 40.5) --> Cosmos
Shell 45.27 (instead of 40.2) --> OS3.9 BB3
Workbench.library 45.131 (instead of 40.5) --> OS3.9 BB3
ROMUpdate 44.57 --> OS3.9 BB2
BBlank --> For Blank Borders
SpeedyIDE --> For quicker IDE speed
HRTModule --> Action Replay clone using ACA's NMI header (=full of win)

I really enjoy my new WB and at last I think I have all the things I wanted Maybe in future I'll put some more modules.

I'm attaching 2 screenshots of the WB along with some appz and window open (Thanks for the tips Cammy about EaglePlayer and Shine color change in VP).

Good thing is that after the BB3 upgrade... The icon colors (new icon.library) restored to the BLUE we all loved!!! No more washout colors using Rebel's Palette!!! /awesomeness

A600: Power + Kickstart switch installation

2011-02-14T20:56:00.002+02:00

I thought of mounting at last the Power Switch plus the Kickstart Switch into their permanent position.

After a lot of patience dremeling a little rectangle for the kickstart switch it mounted just fine and it hotglued.
The power switch was easier but needed a careful measuring and filling.

It looks really good imho.

A600: ClassicWB 3.5 installation + videos

2011-02-13T13:09:00.003+02:00

OK I really love weekends... Especially the ones that include some Amiga workout

I haven't really messed with hardware this week except for the custom 1.3/3.1 Kickstart switch that at the same time disables ACA630 for old software compatibility.
I messed with software though and that had to do with installing Bloodwych's ClassicWB 3.5 (with custom kickstart 3.5 loaded via MapROM).
Bloodwych told me that 3.5 is a bit more responsive than 3.9 so I had to check it out...

...DAMN, IT REALLY IS!!!

I'm attaching 2xYouTube links from booting OS3.5 and booting kickstart 1.3 just to check it out for yourselves.

Booting Bloodwych's ClassicWB 3.5:

Booting Kickstart 1.3 + Hybris via HxC SD Emulator:

Since the YouTube videos can't show how well the WB looks... I'm attaching some screenshots as well:

I hope you like them (damn CreateOutline seems really good! Thanks for the tip Cammy)

A1200: DVD-RW mod

2011-02-02T20:21:00.000+02:00

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

2011-01-23T23:02:00.000+02:00

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!

2011-01-22T18:46:00.000+02:00

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.

A600: Mounting HxC's LCD screen + buttons

2011-01-14T23:01:00.002+02:00

Since I got some time tonight...

I thought about finishing AT LAST the buttons for HxC mod inside my A600.
Was a tough call since many spots were available but usability was something I really wanted without looking bad.

First of all I soothed with my Dremel some surface of upper case on the back after marking the spots needed. (Wanted to put screen even closer since I didn't like the previous long gap).

I also dremeled some of the keyboards metal backplate in speciffic area for the same reason as above.

Aye! It fitted like a glove! Hotglued the LCD screen plus the mini custom PCB with the buttons that I bought extra, and voila!

And some last exterior pictures...

Looking good doesn't it

A600: Testing ADoom 1.4 with Indivision ECS

2011-01-12T20:18:00.001+02:00

Since my friend Zetr0 asked on EAB, I'm sharing a test video of my A600 testing the new version of ADoom 1.4 (with Indivision ECS support)...

Enjoy

A600: Booting ClassicWB AdvSP + OS3.9(BB3) on ACA630

2011-01-09T17:51:00.005+02:00

Just because my friend Fitzsteve asked... I'm sharing a video that I took some minutes ago showing some basic functions along with boot time of both ClassicWB AdvSP, and AmigaOS 3.9+BB3 on my ACA630@30MHz.
Not many things installed yet but the basic usability

I hope you'll like it...

A600: ACA630@30MHz + HxC rev.B --> rev.C mod

2011-01-08T09:35:00.005+02:00

I thought of making a small update since from the last time, I have now the new ACA630@30MHz replacing my old Apollo 630@40MHz

Yep it's a piece of art and fits like a glove along with the other hardware that co-existed!

Good thing is that the extra socket I putted in the past for raising a bit the Indivision ECS (hacked in A603) for the Apollo to co-exist is a lot better since without it... mounting the clockport cable would be difficult!

Since I had some time off today I thought of making the extra mod in my beloved HxC SD Floppy Emulator in order for me to be able to also "Write" instead of only "Reading" floppy images.
The mod exists in Jeff's Release notes (that can be downloaded with the new firmware from his website) and consists of 4xResistors, 1xCapacitor and 1xMicrochip.

Well since finding the microchip was a pain in the butt to find locally I ordered it from eBay so while waiting for it to arrive... I used a socket instead to finish my mod

Cool isn't it

OK here are now all put-up together

And to finish this post...

Here's some photos of the case (semi) closed and WB up and running.
1st pic is a ClassicWB AdvSp installation (DH0@PFS3) while 2nd pic is a OS3.9 (DH1@PFS3) installation. Both reside in 2 different partitions in the CF drive selectable via Early Startup Menu.

Well for a old ECS machine... I'm pretty well proud!

I'd like to thank d0pefish and Cammy for sharing some info and ideas that helped me a lot!

Cheers and more to come soon

A1200: Idefix Express mod + more

2010-12-12T17:08:00.006+02:00

I thought of updating some pictures of progress since the last YouTube videos don't show the inside pr0n!

So...
In the following picture you can see the ready PicoPSU in Ian's adapter but now trimmed and glued to the custom base along with a 25mm Fan that blows air into PicoPSU's extra copper heatsinks
You can also see DJBase's S-VHS adapter insulated with a tube.

Next picture shows the removal of the embedded connector pins on Idedix Express adapter (in both Idefix+Express adapter) and soldered with a ribbon cable underneath. Aye, the height of the connectors was a definite NO if I wanted the Slim IDE DVD-RW mounted inside the miggy

On the next image, you can clearly see the ACard SCSI to IDE Bridge glued where the Floppy rested and next to the custom Power connectors. Power lines where soldered under the ACard due to height limitations of the original molex power connector.
Underneath there is a an IDE 40pin extension cable that connects to the CF2IDE adapter. In the picture the Floppy Terminator is shown as well along with Ratte's awesome auto AGA/RTG switch.

After receiving an 14cm 44pin cable from AmigaKit, I decided it's time for Idefix Express to gain it's permanent position just above Indivision AGA.
Idefix was hotglued in a custom plastic base and then in some spot over Indivision in order to be able to be removed whenever needed!
You can also see in the top right corner the EZkey PS/2 adapter for all my keyboard needs all this time that the miggy doesn't have it's keyboard attached

Yep!... Slim DVD-RW + CF2IDE adapter + 4GB CF (including OS4.0+Debian PPC) fitted like a glove!!!
That was a long time waiting relief and after powering up and realising that everything worked like a charm... a large smile took place upon my face!

Just before closing tonight's update, take a last look from the side where you can see how tight everything resides in there! WTF... I really can't understand why the fok I decided to go through all that shiz but... if you check my previous post... you will see that the actual photo was 100% implemented as my design was.

That's all for tonight, more updates soon to come.

A1200: Booting with Custom Kickstart 3.9

2010-12-08T21:00:00.002+02:00

YEY! I finally did it!

While waiting some stuff from eBay and AmigaKit to finish some last details on my A1200D PPC I found some time to experiment on custom Kicstarts.
After Gulliver's advices (since in the past I haven't managed to make it happen)... I managed to burn my own OS3.9 Kickstart including BB3+AfA OS along with some BlizKick modules as well!!!

I couldn't imagine the thrill when I powered my Amiga (after altering the Startup-Sequence) without seeing a reboot and everything work like a charm!

Check it out yourself comparing to my last video when I was just testing Ratte's Auto switch!

Thank again Gulliver mate for pointing out some stuff that I have overlooked in Remus Guide.

Soon more to come \o/

A1200: ACard installation + more

2010-12-01T12:27:00.004+02:00

These days I've been working almost every night on my beloved A1200 so I'd though of a little more update to my Blog

So far I made the following:

Removed UMON (AGA/RTG switch) that I had with a manual switch
Removed Jumpers plus Fast 10 pin header from Idefix Express Gayle Adapter plus the Fast 10pin header from Idefix Express Adapter since they were messing with the height of the internal DVD-RW. Ofc these were replaced by a ribbon soldered underneath of both PCBs.
Installed my spare EZkey that I had after removing some component sockets that would never be used (since they were messing with my BVision) and soldered it with an ultra cool custom PS2 plug that will be installed on the right side (next to USB plug). You can't imagine how convenient is having an external keyboard for messing in the OS while the internal keyboard is not installed. Since space exists... why not?
Installed (Finaly!) the ACard (next to my custom power lines). I couldn't believe how perfect it fitted along with an IDE Male-->Female extension cable that I bought in the past. BPPC's SCSI to 50pin M cable mounted also just fine in a custom 3cm 50pin F-F into ACard's socket and everything works perfectly!

I'm attaching a quick video that I took (this time from my Cybershot) showing the auto switching of Ratte's outstanding switch plus some SysInfo drive speed tests on both ACard+Idefix Express after my mods

--------- Video missing here. Will upload again and re-link ---------

If you watch it carefully (around 15-18 secs of the video) you will see that the DVD-RW+CF2IDE adapter that connects to Idefix Express is shown upside down and you'll see that the CF has a weird angle...
Nope I'm not crazy... I did that on purpose since when Idefix will move, and DVD-RW will mount the CF2IDE+CF was giving me a height that wasn't appropriate. That way I managed with an free angle, to be able to stuff CF2IDE under the DVD-RW and just before PicoPSU!!!
Don't laugh with the design. I just took a pic from BBOAH and used paint to just show you how I thought to implement it

Now I'm waiting now a 44pin cable extension from AmigaKit for moving Idefix Express in order to install permanently the internal DVD-RW+CF2IDE adapter. Next steps will be mounting Ratte's switch along with the power connector in a nice custom metal backplate (with the help of Keropi). I'm also waiting a nice 3way (on-off-on) switch from eBay for mounting it in the old UMON's switch position (in case manual switching is required for OS4.0, MOS and Debian).

Soon more to come with some better quality pictures

A1200: Ratte's Auto AGA/RTG Switch arrived

2010-11-22T19:24:00.003+02:00

No updates for long due to excessive work and wedding plans ahead...

But today... I received Ratte's Automatic AGA/RTG switch to replace my Amiga's UMON adapter.

The package contained all the necessary stuff for different setups:

After disconnecting the installed cabling into UMON, and after installing Ratte's Switch and Software on User-Startup everything worked like a charm!!!

You can give a quick sneak peak in the following YouTube video that I uploaded some mins ago.

Awesome work Ratte!

...More to come soon...

A600: USB plug + HxC's LCD sceen mounting + more

2010-07-07T19:21:00.002+03:00

Today I stole some time and managed to finish 2 of my mods in my A600.

First mod was hacking and mounting a nice USB extension that I found in my cables in A600's case and specifically where the floppy eject button took place in the past! I couldn't believe how nice it fitted!

Feeling good doesn't it? (I haven't screwed the case, that's why it doesn't look so tight.)

Second mod was AT LAST being able to cut very carefully the upper part of the case for the LCD screen of HxC SD Floppy emulator could be mounted. Man that was a tough job with lotsa dremeling but more sandpapering...
At least the result paid off and really looks nice.

There is a gap between the LCD panel and the case due to PCB not being able to attach 100% with the backside of upper part of case. That was covered with 3 layers of dual thick (foamy) sticking tape and result except from perfect... is that it's mounted solid and it doesn't move at all!!!

As you can see also, I changed the oscillator with 2xOscillators in a custom PCB that can be changed via jumpers (or via switch in the future) from 40MHz to 50MHz and vice versa

You can also check a small video on YouTube with the A600 powering on.

A600: Apollo 630 fix

2010-06-13T11:50:00.001+03:00

OK my board arrived 2 days ago from Sweden, where it have been modded by PG to have a CPU socket instead of CPU soldered to PCB.
Since I had some instabilities with the replaced 030@40MHz with a 030@50MHz... I thought about removing the crystal and putting the former 40MHz one to test...

That was something I didn't expect since desoldering the crystal also removed the pin socket (eye-let) from the PCB along with some track
Ok that was something not for the faint hearted to realize...

I made some tracking through the PCB to find the signals from other places getting them with wire but haven't managed to make it work...
I can assure you that I had a really bad sleep that night
Next morning, I thought of asking Zetr0 "teh fluxmasta" about these signals since he has experience with the board!
Keith was very happy to help and provided a nice picture with the signals clearly:

CystalOscillator: 4pin (14 Dill package)
Pin # Desc
--------------------------------------
1 --> NC (not connected) *sharpe edge*
7 --> GND
8 --> Output
14 --> +5VDC

After trying it... OMG IT WORKED LIKE A CHARM!!! I was so happy about it that made a clean hack for it in order to be able to change whenever I wanted the oscillator.

In case you ask WHY I putted an external mini-PCB with a socket and not mounting it at the designated spot wiring the signals there... it's because YOU CAN'T put an oscillator socket along with the Indivision ECS since the height forbids it!

Well it's not bad after all aye?

One last picture from the 50MHz version working now semi-stable is this:

Thanks tons Zetr0 my friend! You're the ambassador of Kwan!

Retr0brighting a spare A1200 case

2010-05-30T15:58:00.002+03:00

I had successful results some time ago trying to Retr0bright an A500 PSU and an A600 case. This time I made the mixture better and since the sun these last days is too great here in Greece. I thought of taking advantage of it for my spare A1200 case.

Just for information, I got the external casing + keyboard from eBay. OFC I knew it would be in sh*ty condition but didn't care much since it was for spare A1200 and most of all - because I had plans of Retr0brightin' it

OK here are the tools of teh whitening:

And here is after some Retr0bright application to the case + keyboard @ my balcony.

Only after 5 hours of letting my Amiga in the sun... the results where stunning! (I removed it prior to the recommended 8hours since I saw that the results were good).
The results that follow are from 3 stages in before and after:

- 1st Stage (As received from eBay seller)

- 2nd Stage (After cleaning it thoroughly with lotsa water and cleaning fluid)

- 3rd Stage (After 5h in the sun with application of Retr0bright)

Lookin' Good aye? For the NO believers, you can clearly see that this is the Amiga I used on Before and After, seeing the keyboard that has some flaws in some keys (like "R", "T" and "I")

Merlin, you da man!

A600: Power connectors + Subway/HxC mounting

2010-05-25T20:25:00.003+03:00

Tonight I tried to make some boring but totally required mod that I also made in my Desktop A1200 PPC. Power connectors (via screw) to be able to mount whatever fan/power header for Apollo/blah blah is needed.

Next to it, I mounted the Subway USB (you can see one small mini PCB underneath that holds it better.

Last but not least I mounted firmly the HxC SD Floppy Emulator in such way, being able to insert/remove the SD card as a Floppy Disk.

Nice huh?

OK some panoramic photos as always:

Just before I close this update, 2 more pics from the HxC in use (along with my custom LCD (+future buttons) extension as I try some "Shadow of the Beast 2"

Waiting my Apollo to arrive from Sweden after the upgrade... then more photos will take place

A600: PicoPSU via Ian's ATX adapter mounting + more

2010-05-21T08:43:00.001+03:00

Ok, one more update since I had a little time these days (after work ofc)

First of all I wanna thank Ian for the wonderful ATX adapters of his. I had some timing issues with my A1200's adapter so he made some modifications and also a prototype with an angled adapter so I got both and apart from working PERFECTLY in my A1200 now... the A600 prototype is very sexy for my needs! Cheers again man.

While waiting the adapters to arrive, my good friend Keropi offered to make me an Inox backplate for hosting PicoPSU's power plug (instead of the classic Amiga power connector).

After some desoldering of the origiinal power connector... the result was perfect

Time for mounting Ian's proto adapter... Well since I didn't want an internal CD, I figured the best position would be the one that most slim internal CD mods reside. Added some spacers underneath for holding the adapter+pico together and some straps to hold the cables intact

Of course I also made the cabling + header for the Power switch (that for now I haven't decided where to put it best).

I was so glad that everything worked like a charm upon booting Then again, I have made the same procedure in my beloved A1200 without issues and with a more hardware heavy environment.

One thing I haven't mentioned is that I have ordered an HxC SD Floppy Emulator device from Lotharek. It arrived some days ago and looks and works just fine (except some minor disk change incidents that I'm trying to settle).

The bad thing with this adapter (as it comes) is that it doesn't have a header for mounting the LCD Display + Buttons externaly. (In my case since I'm gonna install it inside A600 - in Floppy drive's position - I wanted the LCD+buttons somewhere else).
Of course the header place exists along with the signals so I just soldered the header myself.

Jeff's Manual clearly states the signals for making your own mods for external panel, but just for safety, I made a continuity test with my multimeter to the embedded LCD header plus buttons and I made my own extension

And yep... It works like a charm (sorry for not putting a pic - I forgot lol)
Button signals will be putted in the female header once I figure where I'm gonna put the panel + buttons in A600's case.

That's all for now... stay tuned for more soon

A1200: Debian PPC installed.

2010-05-16T17:10:00.003+03:00

At last I managed to also install Gnome in Debian Sarge PPC (had some issues with some packages these days... and Sarge being an old dist, makes repositories searching more troubled)...

Just some pics with the effort (sorry for the quality though).

A1200: Partition schema

2010-05-16T08:17:00.002+03:00

I'm making my progress slow but steady
Atm I have also putted DJBase's Clockport Expander that works (I wonder if I could also manage to fit my Delfina in there but will be very hard).

So far I have the following HD's/partition's setup that work like a charm:

BPPC's SCSI --> ACard
CF2IDE with 16GB Transcend 133x CF
- Partition1: DH0 --> OS3.9 (950MB - SFS)
- Partition2: DH1 --> MorphOS PuP 1.4.5 (950MB - SFS)
- Partition3: DH2 --> Work (13GB - SFS)

A1200's IDE --> 4way buffered adapter (soon to be Idefix Express)
All connections only in Primary and none in Secondary. Using 44pin 3way cable (to not have extra wires for powering devices)
PRIMARY MASTER: CF2IDE with 4GB Transcend 133x 4GB CF (might change to bigger soon)
- Partition1: SDH0 --> OS4.0 (950MB - FFS - Since OS4.0 doesn't recognize BPPC SCSI)
- Partition2: SDH1 --> Boot-Linux (50MB - FFS - for future Boot to Linux from Early Startup)
- Partition3: Linux --> Debian Sarge 3.1 APUS (2GB - Ext3)
- Partition4: Swap --> Debian Sarge 3.1 APUS (500MB - Swap)
PRIMARY SLAVE: Slim DVD-RW drive (with JAE to 44pin IDE adapter)

Everything works just fine and of course OS3.9, OS4.0, MOS can access the DVD-RW along with Linux in same chain.

OMG how the hell am I gonna stuff all these inside? It's a lot of challenge I know but I hope I will succeed. More soon to come
I'm just so happy the PicoPSU hasn't failed me with all that power hungry beast

A600: Apollo 630 stability mod (2)

2010-04-17T15:11:00.000+03:00

One little update (and since I told "temporarily" in a previous post)...

The mini PCB that I putted to just test the stability is now removed, and the 2xCapacitors+Power header is attached on the Apollo without extension.
It took a bit of patience but I think it's just fine and very steady (it doesn't move at all).

A600: Apollo 630 stability mod (1)

2010-04-17T10:48:00.000+03:00

Ok, one more update since AT LAST it's Saturday and I got time for some hackery!

First of all, I made a quick PCB for stabilizing the Apollo plus putting a mini 2pin socket for the external power when it arrives (PicoPSU+Adapter on the way! lol) along with the 100μF Electrolytic capacitor + 100nf Ceramic capacitor.
Since Mika's adapter is very close on the left, I couldn't make a left "attached to PCB" solution with all the components soldered since it would interfere with the adapter. So, I just made a 2-wire extension from the Apollo to the mini PCB and attached it (temporarily) with some drops of hotglue on the Apollo until I find a better spot to put it
(Don't scream, it's very easy to remove - I tested it lol)

Next step was putting at last the VGA connector to a better spot. Hmmm what should we remove... Oh I know! The sh**y unwanted TV-Modulator!
Ok away it went and after some Dremeling on the metal backplate plus the A600's case ready it was.

Pretty neat huh? I couldn't believe how neat also would have been, putting the rest of the cable under Mika's adapter! Man it rox!

And one last photo of the complete and ready setup (...for now...) that was tested and works like a charm!

--------- Picture Missing. Will be added soon! ---------

Stay tuned...

A600: Mika's CF to adapter installation

2010-04-16T06:51:00.000+03:00

Mika's custom angled CF to IDE adapter arrived 2 days ago so I had to get some more photos.

I just love how nice is aligned with the Apollo! Since I won't need any CD-ROM solution to this Amiga (at least for now lol) I thought that this was a clean and nice solution.

A600: It has began :)

2010-04-13T07:28:00.000+03:00

Hi guys, I thought of sharing my A600 project as I did with my A1200D PPC one.
The A600 was my favorite (my means of appearence and size) Amiga in my childhood but I was never able to get one with my pocketmoney... After many many years I got one and was able to get even an M-Tec 630 with 4MB RAM. Was a true beast but sadly the lack of more RAM was always an issue plus with a hungry A1200D PPC project eager to continue, I sold it

Some years after and kinda feeling bad for giving my baby, I decided to get one more A600 (part by part to be less expensive) just for the fun part of it.
I managed to get an 1.5rev mobo for 15euro, one pretty neat case for 7euro and a clean keyboard with 7euro also. As a summary was 29euro for complete A600 without PSU and Floppy (which I already had) so I thought it was ok
I spend a large amount of time into cleaning the case since it was pretty dirty but almost white. Keyboard was perfect but also dirty. Dismantled all keys and washed them one by one! (What a sh*ty proccedure lol). In the end, it was well worth it! (pics soon).

For the hardware part I really wanted an Apollo since 2005, but being unable to find I thought of waiting for a 2nd or 3rd batch of A608... so I just ordered an A603+Indivision ECS for feeling a bit l33t
When I was in easter vacation (and because one colleague wake me early in the morning to support him in a harware issue) I couldn't sleep so I thought of checking the forums+eBay for my casual searches...
...THEN SUDDENLY it hit me!
An Apollo 630@40MHz+FPU+Original Box+Manual tested and working for 160euro BIN??? WTF?
I made a 15second check on seller+feedback and bought it faster than a speeding bullet!

Ofc I contacted seller for some pics and Tracking ID... and everything was just fine...

After a long waiting week (shippment from Spain to Greece) it arrived yesterday! W00h00!

Ok... enough for long talk (sorry for keep ya waiting lol). Time for teh hackery!
First of all I'd like to thank Christian Krenner for the inspiration and wonderfull how-to's on his so many years website http://www.amiga600.de

Ok first of all... A603 doesn't fit right with Apollo 630 not to mention Indivision ECS = NOT AT ALL

Image taken from Christian's website since I forgot to shoot mine

Only way to fit without bending the Apollo's right side... is by cutting A603's top left pin from the 48pin socket, putting another 48pin socket on top, and bridging the pin under the A603 with the pin from the upper socket.

Since I couldn't find localy an 48pin socket but only 40pin ones (round gold ones) I cut the remaining 8pins from another 40pin socket LOL (sorry but it was the best I could do)

Ok, 1st step done... On the Apollo now... :S
The jumpers that Apollo has for WAIT state and Enabling/Disabling the RAM had to be removed since they can't fit with Indivision ECS (VGA header is on the way), so carefully the left:

...and YES! Now it fits like a glove!

Image taken from Christian's website since I forgot to shoot mine

Some more photos from different angles:

Pretty awesome stuff!
Powering on and testing was 100% succesfull so I went with installing OS3.9 with help of my A1200's 4way buffered interface+CF Adapter+Slim DVD-RW... Thanks sistah. Of course I also putted the usual outstanding copper VGA heatsinks I always use and some other temporary heatsink to the 030 (he will get a fan also don't worry)

Everything went smoothly without even much heat (odd), and now I installed OS3.9 BB3@640x512@8 colors. It's pretty fast and neat
Tried for fun HighGfx 1024x768 as shown in Christian's website... but 4colors seem ugly, but the worst part... is that they whole experience SUX bigtime. Everything is so slow that I thought of starting smoking... hahahah!

That's about it for now...

I'm waiting some more parts like Mika's custom angled CF adapter for everything to fit just fine, and some other things

A1200: Ian't ATX adapter + PicoPSU installed

2010-03-27T17:54:00.001+02:00

Ok time for some updates...

Today I tried something scary... cause I thought I could make it!

FINALLY.............. I MADE IT!!!

I actually Dremmel'ed PicoPSU's connector and also Ian's ATX adaptor's connector ~0,5cm in height!!! That created 2 messy connectors that after a LONG time of knife cleaning & soothing, became just fine! So now that the PicoPSU is 0,5cm shorter...

I CAN NOW INSTALL my spare slot-in slim DVD-RW!!! W00h00!!!

Apart from that, I decided to put one simple IDE2CF adapter with an 4GB CF on the primary IDE Master just for OS4.0 since it's not compatible with BPPC's SCSI. The DVD-RW will be the slave

Damn, does that means I need to also fit an 4way buffered ide controller inside or I can do it with a 3-way IDE cable?
Amiga 1200's IDE bus support 2 channels on it's own (meaning an idefix is used for the 2nd port to activate) ?

Anyway, that's all for now

Some pictures of Ian's adapter + PicoPSU:

BEFORE :

AFTER:

A1200: ACard installed

2010-03-24T14:42:00.001+02:00

FastATA is now history since he has been replaced by an ACard 7720U!!! Everything works faster and with better CPU utilization.

One lousy picture is this:

I'm waiting some custom cables to be made and the orientation of the ACard will be slightly different from the picture above.
It will sit under the white keyboard connector (the bottom part with the IDE connector). I already made a round 50pin SCSI extension cable already and everything works like a charm :P

Will continue to put updates on this thread as I progress

A1200: It has began :)

2010-03-07T16:03:00.001+02:00

I thought of posting about my 1200D PPC mod since I've been working it for quite some time and just recently thought of finishing it since all hardware was on a drawer waiting to be modded
My first will was putting as much as I can inside the desktop shell being as much beautiful, functional and securely I could!
Fitting inside A1200 Desktop shell the following...

Blizzard PPC, 060@60MHz/603+@330MHz (thanks to Stanislaw),
Blizzard Vision RTG Card,
Elbox FastATA mkIII IDE controller,
Subway USB controller,
Indivision 1200 SD/FF
UMON monitor AGA/RTG monitor switcher,
PicoPSU 120W,
Hard Drive

...clearly isn't an easy job, especially if you got similar experience (due to different clip-on pcb layers, much cabling and inefficient air flow for cooling)
Of course many people have done that in the past (as my friend r0jaws), but wanted to be able to have a more stable system with as much airflow as I could without sacrificing all the hardware I wanted to put inside in the first place
Since I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I asked the help of one close friend of mine that happens to be an electronic type of guy (Chris) who likes modding like me, but never used to have nor known much stuff about Amigas...

Let's cut to the chase then...

We started from the hard stuff, which meant putting PicoPSU (including Ian Stedman's ATX connector) inside the case. Since there aren't many spots available of putting them, I chose the place where the normal Power connector, TV Modulator and Composite connector exist as the best option. These connectors had to leave so away they went quickly!
Our only issue, was a capacitor that existed behind the Composite connector...

No harm done! Away he went carefully (with heat shrink tube) behind the 23pin RGB connector when it was attached with hot glue.

That way we were very comfortable in attaching Ian's connector (with some insulation base underneath pcb not to have connection with mobo parts)... Some low quality photos shot from my Blackberry that night follow:

You must have seen the blue connectors hehe. There are just 6 triple connectors which were soldered in a pcb to power supply anything needed (floppy, mobo in the floppy connector for extra power supply, fans for BVision, fans for the case etc). The first triple connector holds the Output that comes from PicoPSU. The other 5 triple connectors are Inputs (for devices) with +5V,GND and +12V to be able to get whatever power supply we want. The PCB of course was insulated with another PCB underneath and hot glue, and the whole PCB with connectors was hot glued in the case without disturbing the upper shell in closing.

For information, we putted it that way (along with the strapped cables) so that it doesn't disturb not even by mistake, keyboard's flat ribbon cable since I wanted to be totally free.

I discovered that after connecting PicoPSU's power cables underneath mobo (in old power connectors place)... that it was leaving me a really nice empty spot!!! Time for more hackery... and what a hackery! Kinda difficult to find exactly what I want for the job ... Well, after many hours of research... EUREKA!!!

Of course I removed the metal frame and also cut the plastic brackets. Dremel was used to trim it enough for my taste. One problem was that since the insulation was pretty thick, I couldn't bend the cable as much as I wanted... That's why I removed some insulation at specific spots that I wanted, moved the cable where I wanted, and glued it with Hot glue :O Some photos presented bellow:

Nice huh? Clearly, the connector sits ONLY to mobo's pcb and not to the rest shell (making that way, the removal of the mobo easily in case some hackeries will be needed lol).
If you were observing, you should have saw 2 more stuff in the pictures.

1. One black thick heat shrink tube strapped to the wires of PicoPSU... through it, some cables go to U12 chip soldered and safely glued with hot glue... Looks familiar?
Yep, it's DJBase's S-VHS adaptor that I simply insulated with some heat shrink tube for safety

And just for the external satisfactory...

(I haven't figured it out yet what I'll put in old's TV Modulator hole but I'll find something, or I'll close it beautifully in the future)

2. Ok, the first connector goes where the old Power Connector was... the second one where does it head to???

Time for the next hackery...
Right from BPPC I made a square hole to host the second double USB header along with a hole to host the button that will make the switching of between RTG/AGA through UMON! I have to confess that this was the most time consuming and hard hack in this project for it to be exactly in the size needed for the USB header. Crazy cutting with Dremel and lot of patience. In the end... It was awesome!!!

As the previous header, some insulation was cut to be able to bend the wire since being thick. Don't worry I'll insulate it later on. The black button in the right side is the Power switch (Push-on switch).

Since you saw UMON's switch... that just gives +5V to UMON (bypassing the horrible default switch with the double color LED of UMON) you ought to see the hacked and naked UMON into the expansion slot

Yep, it resides along with the power connector and the push-on Power button.

Note: You can't see it clearly, but if you look carefully, you'll see the necessary cutting in the metal plate that holds the floppy drive into position, so non of the wires that pass underneath the floppy will interfere

Continuing, i present one picture of UMON connected with the Indivision through the total custom connection inside the heat shrink tube. The truth was that the selected mod pretty time consuming since the VGA connectors of Indivision and UMON were huge and horrible inside the case so they had to be removed! Thats why we checked with a multimeter which cable goes to where carefully... cutted the connectors and connected one-by-one the ribbon cables with heatgun and heat shrink tube per connection! In the end, we tested the cabling with multimeter again and once we were sure of our work... we also included a small pcb just to hold the connections inside the external heat shrink tube. That's what the result was...

It also made it more easy to sit on mobo with hot glue!

Next, I added BVision it's own ribbon that followed Indivision's ribbon path (Yeah I know I'm a fan of Zorro LOL)...

Let's see if the floppy with the rest cabling fits???

Oh yeah, they fit like a glove

You can get a panoramic view with everything on (except of my CF to IDE 44pin female angled adaptor that will sit on top of FastATA, and the upper shell with the fans).

Also one more photo (although a little blurry) with the back side of the case with all the custom mods.

The only thing that's left, is to cut with the Dremel the metal frame of the keyboard which touches 3 spots without being able to sit firmly in the predefined place...

Kickstart ROM (the lower one) sine it got lot higher with the double Kickstart sockets to be able to fit with BVision and Indivision. (Note: I already changed the sockets with better/more expensive ones which instead of flat pinned, they're round pinned with gold sockets, that apart from quality are half milimeter thiner that the old ones... something that fitted just fine for my use!)
Lower Part of Subway USB (some capacitors)
One mini heatsing that resided on one chip that gets really hot on BPPC.

I'll update you with extra information, and some last photos and videos once I got the case closed and Boot in 3.9, 4.0 and MOS that already run just fine in my 16GB CF card :P

Just for info, I present 3 updated Photos from miggy in use...

16GB CF Card in CF2IDE 44pin angled adapter (on top of FastATA):

Cybergraphx4 Boot Pic :P

OS 3.9 + AfAOS 4.6...

For those who wonder how on earth the upper shell gonna close...

As I said earlier... keyboard touches kickstart roms and the lower part of Subway (some capacitors) making unable to sit firmly in the prefefined position. Not to mention... that also touches one mini heatsink that I've putted on top of a chip that gets really hot on BPPC.
Today was Dremel's day... (Ι gave it a first spin also since I got a new original one hehe)
Here are the results:

I thought it was fine and fits perfectly and securely
One thing that always bothered me was the floppy holster which always made my Memory Simms not being able to fit (excpet from one hyper slim that I got). So we also cut here to be just fine:

At last!!! lower shell is ready (changed also the 2 fans in BVision with 2x4cm, 14db which simply are totally silent), also both Memory Simms are mounted without any issues, and of course my beloved mini heatsink mounted as it should be (persistence huh?) lol.

Lastly, here's the keyboard mounted and connected without absolutely no problem!!! Upper shell was tested and everything close perfectly. I must supply it though with 2 more silent fans which you'll see in a next update... That's all for now