Retro Amiga
I blame @TheRetroManCave and that's that.
Bought new caps, GBS8220 board, GoTek drive and internal flash HD for the old Amiga 1200.
Nail biting stuff replacing all the capacitors. I'm OK with soldering stuff onto boards, but taking them off is a bit new for me. New hot air gun and some better pliers also required to ensure this job was going to complete with a working 1200 at the end
It's not entirely necessary to restore this relic of 1992 as WinUAE delivers all the same on a PC.
There's the challenge to do this with something about improving the Amiga experience with better hardware for data management.
First casualty was the old hard drive. I think it was a 20 or 40MB drive and it didn't boot anymore. Not to worry though!
Amiga kit have the right kit to modernise the old spinning hard drive. Got Workbench 3.0 running from the old 1200 disks in no time.
Starting off there was a small hint of a leaking cap in the top left, but the board mostly looked OK.
Surgery on the old capacitors caused the lifting of one pad, which I think I may have got away with as I was being gentle enough that it didn't totally rip off the board. Most plastic in proximity also go a bit melted, but nothing too serious and more a cosmetic issue.
I was surprised that the through hole caps were the hardest to remove. I had to cut the top left one off the board. My temp controlled soldering iron struggled to melt through to both sides of the solder and required some brutal heating with the hot air gun to get the remaining metal out of the joints.
Nervously the board was booted up and loaded with some oldie demos. Sound was totally fine and graphics displayed perfectly for AGA demos. Some really old demos glitched, but this is likely down to 1200 incompatibility. One demo seemed to make the 8220 lose signal and required the Auto button to be pressed to restore the image.
The old Hired Guns game also booted up a dream and I enjoyed the excellent atmosphere of the game.
I just need to tidy up the box for the 8220 and make up a custom video cable for the Amiga before I can say I'm done. Lid is going back on the Amiga 1200 and hopfully it shouldn't need opening for a good time to come.
Bought new caps, GBS8220 board, GoTek drive and internal flash HD for the old Amiga 1200.
Nail biting stuff replacing all the capacitors. I'm OK with soldering stuff onto boards, but taking them off is a bit new for me. New hot air gun and some better pliers also required to ensure this job was going to complete with a working 1200 at the end
Pre-operation board
It's not entirely necessary to restore this relic of 1992 as WinUAE delivers all the same on a PC.
There's the challenge to do this with something about improving the Amiga experience with better hardware for data management.
First casualty was the old hard drive. I think it was a 20 or 40MB drive and it didn't boot anymore. Not to worry though!
Dodo drive
Amiga kit have the right kit to modernise the old spinning hard drive. Got Workbench 3.0 running from the old 1200 disks in no time.
Starting off there was a small hint of a leaking cap in the top left, but the board mostly looked OK.
Before mutilation
Surgery on the old capacitors caused the lifting of one pad, which I think I may have got away with as I was being gentle enough that it didn't totally rip off the board. Most plastic in proximity also go a bit melted, but nothing too serious and more a cosmetic issue.
I was surprised that the through hole caps were the hardest to remove. I had to cut the top left one off the board. My temp controlled soldering iron struggled to melt through to both sides of the solder and required some brutal heating with the hot air gun to get the remaining metal out of the joints.
Nervously the board was booted up and loaded with some oldie demos. Sound was totally fine and graphics displayed perfectly for AGA demos. Some really old demos glitched, but this is likely down to 1200 incompatibility. One demo seemed to make the 8220 lose signal and required the Auto button to be pressed to restore the image.
The old Hired Guns game also booted up a dream and I enjoyed the excellent atmosphere of the game.
I just need to tidy up the box for the 8220 and make up a custom video cable for the Amiga before I can say I'm done. Lid is going back on the Amiga 1200 and hopfully it shouldn't need opening for a good time to come.
Cant let an amiga die, wish i hadnt sold mine long ago!
ReplyDeleteStill got the A500 to dig out, unfortunately I just don't have the space to put it down anywhere
ReplyDelete