Today I would like to introduce you to my dear Amiga 1200. Please say hello!
This computer has been with me since the year 2000. I purchased it after one of my older Amiga 1200’s died. The old one was a Commodore model, but this one is from Escom. I got it brand new from old stock. I’ve taken extremely good care of it, so it looks almost new today, 11 years later. I look after it often, wiping it clean of dust and checking that everything is in order.
Let’s have a look at my setup in more detail:
Indivision AGA Scandoubler/Flickerfixer (makes it possible to hook the machine up to an LCD-screen for example.. good stuff!)
Apollo 68030/40 MHz turbo-card with 32MB of RAM
40 GB 2.5 inch Toshiba hard drive
Micromys Mouse Adapter (makes it possible to use a standard optical mouse!)
AmigaKit W-LAN PCMCIA card (running wireless Internet on the Amiga works great)
PCMCIA Compact Flash adapter with a 512 MB memory card (excellent for transferring files between my Amiga and the PC)
The computer is running Workbench 3.1 with several extras added. Believe it or not, but the OS is only using 16 colours on the screenshot above. Thanks to Magic Copper, it looks like a whole lot more!
The hard drive is filled with various games, demos, utilities and music modules. I’d like to point out that I use the amazing WHD-Load for my games. If you are interested in running all kinds of games directly from your hard drive, this utility is a must! Please head over to their site to check it out. You won’t regret it.
Here’s a list of the programs and games I use frequently:
AMOS Professional (excellent BASIC programming language)
Deluxe Paint IV (I use this drawing program to create logos, font sets and sprites)
Hippoplayer (my favourite music module player)
Filemaster 3.0 (even if Dopus is a great file manager, I can’t seem to change my old Filemaster habits..)
Banshee AGA (one of the best shoot’em up’s ever!)
Project-X (another smashing shoot’em up)
UFO: Enemy Unknown (old-school turn-based strategy at its best)
I’m happy with my current setup, but I’m thinking about upgrading. If I’m going to do that, I’ll probably get a 68060 turbo-card. I’ve always wanted one of those, but they are incredibly expensive.. Doesn’t seem like the prices will drop in the nearest future either. Time will show. 🙂
So, what do you think about my Amiga 1200 setup guys?
Do you have an Amiga yourself? If yes, then I’d love to hear about your setup. 🙂 My Amiga 1200 would also appreciate if you said “hello” by the way. 😉
Old School Game Blog 
Hello Amiga 1200. 🙂 Did the ones from Escom not have a problem with the floppy drive?
LikeLike
My Amiga 1200 says hi! 😉
Yes, some models from Escom had problems with the floppy drive. I remember some old games refused to work. Not good. If I remember correctly these drives were orginally high-density but re-arranged to become double-density.
LikeLike
🙂 Indeed. They changed them to double-density.
LikeLike
Your Amiga 1200 has that good, congratulations.
And such were the Apollo? I had a 40MHz 68030 Cobra with a SCSI port that also was good, but if I remember, the best expansion to 68030 was the Blizzard, I think we arrived at 50Mhz and noticed the difference.
LikeLike
Thanks for the nice comment concerning my Amiga 1200, Estigia Soundtrack. 🙂
The crown jewel of 68030 turbo-cards for the Amiga was probably the Blizzard 030 Mark IV. It was clocked, as you wrote, at 50mHz. You could install a whopping 128MB of RAM and an additional 128Mb if you had the optional SCSI-controller. Not bad for a mid nineties turbo-card! 😉
Would love to try one of those 68060 turbo-cards, but they are unfortunately very expensive.
Do you still use the Amiga by the way?
LikeLike
Yes, I met people who had the Blizzard and comparing it with my Cobra, there was only difference in Breathless and AB3D2 (wanting to cover more screen) but it was obvious what it implied.
Unfortunately, I do not use Amiga for long time ago, but I think I had a good A1200 for that time:
Cobra 68030 40Mhz
16Mg extended (i think…)
Hard Dick 2.5″
Modem US Robotics 33.6 external
I remember how many friends did not understand that with so little memory, speed and configuration could be done so many things at the same time, like the demos, OctaMED, games and its soundtrack (i love Shadow of the Beast, Blood Money and Alien Breed).
For nostalgia I survive watching demos, play in WinUAE and listening all the music (including the new mixes in internet).
LikeLike
That was certainly an excellent setup back in the 90’s. 16MB of RAM was a LOT on the Amiga back then! 🙂
Yes, the multi tasking capabilities was impressive. You could do so much at once! Poor PC users still used DOS or struggled with Windows 95! Hehe..
Cool that you are interested in demos. I like watching them myself. Favourite groups includes Freezers, Anadune, Floppy, IRIS and many more. 😉 Do you have any favourites?
LikeLike
Haha, I remember as a PC was very limited, even with the Creative cards, and still was far away. Even worse, when it appeared the emulator PC-Task.
It was rather interesting to know that people who had devoted his time to programming, to make music, demos, etc … many are practically works of art. My favorite band is The Black Lotus, I still remember when I buy the CD Aminet (7 I think) and came a demo of them was called Dark Side, just impressed.
The other thing I also like is the music, the MODs (octamer rulez!) and the soundtrack of the games … music from Shadow Of The Beast, Blood Money, R-Type, Capital Punishment is impressive.
LikeLike
The Black Lotus have released a ton of good demos. 🙂 I agree that Darkside is a nice one, along with Tint and Captured Dreams.
Oh yes, so much excellent music to listen too. A lot of the tunes are, as you write, impressive. 🙂
LikeLike
[…] my Amiga 500 has been collecting dust for a while now. It’s the Amiga 1200 that sees usage on a regular basis. I think that is a bit sad, so I’m going to bring back the […]
LikeLike
[…] new monitor will primarily be used with my Amiga 1200 (and Amiga 500 when I’m finished restoring and upgrading it), but if I’m lucky enough […]
LikeLike
[…] adventure game called The Flight of the Amazon Queen through ScummVM. Used to play this game on my Amiga 1200, but now I’m running it on the PC with speech. The humour in this game is simply awesome. […]
LikeLike
[…] Sadly I haven’t been able to test it myself yet, but I will do that in the near future. My Amiga 1200 has 32MB of fast-RAM and a 68030 CPU, so I shouldn’t have any problems getting it up and […]
LikeLike
[…] get a CD32 for my collection again. I’m sure it will fit nicely alongside my Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200. Although it will increase my Amiga hardware projects to two (still working on the Amiga 500 […]
LikeLike
I just had an Amiga 500 before but now I use UAE. I have used DPaint IV, Protracker, Filemaster, and XCopy as I remember.. and a lot of smaller stuffs. I have many of favorite games on Amiga, so I only mentioned the 1st two games I tried on the A500 and it was love at first sight: Lotus Turbo Challenge II and Turrican 2. Then it came so many super games!
LikeLike
Hi Illegalquantity,
Many thanks for commenting. 🙂 Cool that you used to own an Amiga 500. It was a great machine for its time. The games you mentioned are great. 🙂 Lotus 2 had some very impressive graphics, and let’s not forget the music! So many cool tunes in that game! Turrican 2 is epic. Which other games did you use to play?
LikeLike
Well, I think I started well getting to know the world of Amiga games.. 😛 Lotus II has indeed super gfx and nice tunes, but I preferred also its great playability, as most of the Amiga games! Turrican 2 has wonderful music. I used to be listening sometimes the original game music and also the CD edition ‘Turrican video game soundtrack’ by Chris Hülsbeck! Yes, there are so many great games, wonderful gfx, awsome music thanks for the AMIGA! And yes, games.. now only a few mention more I played (and walked through): Wonderboy in Monsterland, Prince of Persia, Another World, Flashback, Gods, Beast serie, Lionheart, Rick Dangerous 2, Arabian Nights, PP Hammer, Bubba n Sticks, Superfrog, Premiere, Yo Joe (cooperative with one of my friend!), First Samurai, Lost Vikings, Traps n Treasures, Chaos Engine (coop and single), Tower Assault, Alien 3, Cannon Fodder, Lotus I, Jaguar XJ220, Super Cars 2, Wroom, Test Drive 2, Skidmarks, Carnage (sometimes with three friends in 4 player mode! Cool racing game!) Future Wars, Operation Stealth, Elvira I, Hook, Megalomania, Lemmings 2, Pinball Dreams/Fantasies, Arcade Pool, JWW Snooker, North and South, Sensible Soccer.. huh.. that’s all now suddenly! 😛 These games and more and just three years of my A500! Meanwhile I made more music on Protracker, and made some gfx with DPaint – those were the times! After 3 wonderful years I sold my Amiga and I bought my 1st PC. I didn’t want to sell, but I had the money for the new computer. Fortunately I can play Amiga games again with UAE. And even now I have any Amiga that I want! 😉 Sorry about my weird English – I never learned 🙂
LikeLike
Hi Illegalquantity,
You mention so many good games there.. 🙂 I’ve played most of them and they rock. 😀 Can’t go wrong with the likes of Superfrog, Cannon Fodder and Chaos Engine!
Cool that you’ve made music in Protracker and pictures in Deluxe Paint. Were you involved in the demo scene by any chance?
What kind of PC did you get back then?
LikeLike
We has a four-membered team with my friends, but unfortunately we didn’t get so far as to have something published 🙂 Our name was ‘4mat design’. In fact, none of us knew enough to encode 😛 Ironically, two members later became a real software developer on PC. It’s their job now. Me and the fourth member, we are working in the automotive industry. But I like Amiga demos still today. PC demos not really. I miss the limits! (RAM, resolution, number of colors, CPU..) The great thing is when you see such is what you don’t have believed! I like C64 stuffs also! I started to using a computer with this amazing machine! Of course I also have C64 emulator and a lot of games 😉
My first PC was a 486-133MHz with 8MB RAM, 1GB HDD, 1MB VGA, SB16, and 14″ crt display. As a 1st PC it wasn’t so terrible. It ran well the two programs which makes me want to change the Amiga: Doom 2 and Fasttracker 2. Both impressed me! Since I had more PC-s (17. now?) but never a strong one. I’m not a hardcore gamer on PC. I like the Tomb Raiders, FPS games, and car racings. But usually I prefer to play the older games in DOSbox or even on some emulator. I like your A1200 setup, it’s fantastic! I think, it runs any 3D Amiga games also perfectly. A basic one not really.. 😛
LikeLike
Hi there,
Does the name 4mat design has anything to do with the musician (4-Mat) by any chance? Did any of you do any mailtrading/swapping back then? That is an activity I miss today. The Internet is great for communication, but there is something special about receiving a few floppies in the post with a personal, physical letter to boot.
I remember those 486 PC’s. Plenty of good games for those machines. I too remember the FPS titles and must admit I was a bit envious of those who could play Doom. 😉 Ahhh.. Fasttracker.. that was a good tracker.
Glad you like my current Amiga 1200 setup. I’m very happy with it. Have now added a 128MB RAM module as well, so I seldom run out of RAM. 😀 Check it out here:
https://oldschoolgameblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/amiga-1200-upgrading-to-128mb-ram/
LikeLike
Hi! Sorry about the long delay!
Unfortunately, the name ‘4mat design’ nothing to do with the famous musician 4-MAT.. Then we have not been online and had no enough information about the scene. My nickname was Alien for a while, and I didn’t know that already used in the Amiga world – a musician again 😀 But wait.. one of the team members made a DOS game later, and I helped him. The game called CHARTRIS. Yes, a character-mode tetris! The developer’s name Dolf-0-Matric. (other team members was: Jeff, Soniq, and me, Alien (now illegalquantity). The game is TOO fast on XP, so you have to use DosBox on PC or some emulator on Amiga..? This is the download link:
http://www.restfile.co/r6jn3fec5pnx/CHARTRIS.RAR.html
True, long ago, when someone came to me with a few floppy, it was very exciting. We was happy with floppies, and today dvd’s don’t cause as much fun. (or just rarely) Well, a emulator is totally not the same feeling like a real hardware. I hope once I will buy again a Amiga. I watch the ads! A day I read an article about fixing the old computers darkened or yellowish color. This gave me back the hope.
Wolfenstein 3D never was one of my favorite because its poor playability (Wolfenstein and ROTCW it is!) but I look forward to the video that you did mention in the linked article! I wish a nice summer for you and the Amiga fans! ☼ I’m on Holiday, so I’m fine ☺
LikeLike
[…] reason I’m writing, is that I’m thinking of letting my Amiga 1200 enter the age of retirement. This means it’ll end up on the shelf or in the cupboard. I […]
LikeLike