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Text File | 1996-12-14 | 24KB | 447 lines

Archive Name: 1200Tower20.lha Title: How to put your A1200 in a tower box Version: V2.0 (14th December 1996) Author: Massimo Santoro (maxmo@mbox.vol.it) ------------------------------- ATTENTION --------------------------------- Everything the author desrcibed in this text, if it won't correctly applied, could be seriously dangerous for your computer. The author can't guarantee anything and can't assume any responsabilities. Everything you will do will only be at your own risk. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi everyone! This is the fifth version of my text about the A1200 Tower. I decided to rewrite everything since lots of people asked me about something I didn't explain in the previous text. I sincerely hope that this version (1.3) will be the latest (and definitive). So I'm really interested to explaining EVERYTHING I can remember now. Ok. So if you are reading now, you are going to decide if you could transform your little A1200 in a very good and explandable A1200T. In this text is contained everything I did to do that. Now I have a A1200T with a Blizzard 1260, 16Mb Fast Ram, 1 420Mb Conner Hd, 1 1.6Gb WD Hd and a really poor Sony TV (which fortunately almost doesn't flicker in NTSC mode). So what I really need and I didn't afford yet is a good monitor and a fast graphic card. You are saying: "Graphic card on a A1200???? Nooo! That's impossible!!!". Sorry, but it's possible. A friend of mine has a Picasso II in his 1200Tower and a Blizzard 1230IV. So there aren't also problems about compatibility with a such accelerator card. Instead there are problems if you buy one of those weird tower kits with Z2 expansions. My solution to that problem is buying a really good Z2 Slot Card manufactured by Micronik (there's also another good releaser, the same which is doing the Amiga Technologies A4000 boxes, the Eagle). Someone also told me that Micronik is going to release also a Z3 Slot Card (of course always 5 slots, as the Z2) but that news really seems to be too good for my poor heart. My purpose is to buy that Z2 (or Z3) Slot Card and then a CyberVision 64 3D. I asked Phase 5 if there will be incompatibility problems with this, but they simply replied that such a solution causes a really dangerous alteration of the whole electrical behaviour of the A1200. Hmmm. I didn't like that answer. I really trusted them all, also when I bought their Blizzard 1260 (a superb product, believe me, it's the only way to make your 1200 like a Pentium). Well, I didn't like what Phase 5 told me because I'm sure I did everything not to cause problems to my dear 1200 and I've never had any problems!!! So if you are interested in this "alteration" of the electrical behaviour of your 1200" then please continue to read and enjoy this text. WHY YOU SHOULD DO IT -------------------- You should upgrade your A1200 because: 1 - You can buy a Zorro 2 (or 3) Slot Card and then fit up to 5 (five!!!) cards in your "poor" A1200. 2 - You can buy a Blizzard 1240 which can only fit in a A1200 Tower because of its huge fan. 3 - You can store how many hard disks and other peripherals you can imagine (of course if you have a SCSI interface). Believe me, if you don't have a store box, it's quite hard to have also 2 units (like a hard disk and a CD ROM reader. 4 - Your A1200 will get a drastical improvement (in my honest opinion, a GOOD improvement) 5 - You won't have all that cables exiting from the A1200 anymore, but only one cable (the one from your keyboard!!!) 6 - With a graphic card and a Blizzard 1260 (or another 68060 accelerator card), your A1200 will become the fastest Amiga computer ever made, capable of emulating without any problem the fastest 68000 Mac ever made (a 68060 Mac doesn't exist, at least in Europe) and a good 386 50Mhz (even though PC Task 3.1 doesn't allow any 386 code). You can also run NetBSD (also Linux if you like, but I really prefer NetBSD) and so you can have a complete UN*X machine. For further informations about emulations with my A1200, read the free text included in this archive "Emulating.eng". PROBLEMS DOING IT ----------------- Yeah, there are a lot of problems doing a Tower. First of all you could not be so good in solderings. Well, if you aren't so good, don't worry, you can also solve this problem. But now let's see the first part of what you have to do at the beginning. LOOKING FOR THE NEEDED STUFF ---------------------------- This is what you need (ALL that you need) to make your tower in all its parts. Well, I hope I wrote everything I used, and if I forgot something I also hope you will be so nice to forgive me :) 1 - A good "Tower Case Box". Well, it could also be a desktop, but I honestly didn't find anything big enough to the very large mother card of my A1200. I used a "slim" tower. It's not so "huge" but the board fits properly. All I can tell you is to find the RIGHT tower, so the one which is good for you and good also for your A1200. 2 - About 2 meters of 50 poles plain cable. It's needed to attach all the Amiga ports to the tower rear side. All these cables aren't really usefull if you chose to fit your A1200 main board vertically and so making holes in your tower box. I personally fit my A1200 orizontally and then I built every cable needed to have them all out of the tower. 3 - Lots of connectors (always if you are using my method). You will need four 25 pin connectors for the parallel and the serial port (obviously 2 female and 2 male connectors). For the same way you will need four 9 pin connectors for the joystick and the mouse port. Then you probably could have problems looking for a female and a male 23 pin connector for the video port, because it's not a standard and only Commodore (grrrr!!!) used it for a computer. Even if you will find it, it's almost impossible you'll find it also "crimpable" like the other ones. Another problem could be to find a POWER connector, in fact also that one isn't a standard one and so I used an old and destroyed power supply (of a A500) to connect the new (PC) 250 watt PSU to the A1200. For the video port problem I didn't do anything because I didn't find anything yet and because I'm surely going to buy a graphic card or (if Viscorp will be finally a good thing for us) a new Amiga machine. Now my video cable from Amiga to the TV is directly connected to the REAL port of the 1200, so to move the whole tower is quite difficult. 4 - A new disk drive (the ones for the A2/3/4000, also an high density 1.76 Mb drive, if you want) of the old one with a PC drive mask on it. I had to adapt the PC drive mask because it didn't fit the Amiga drive. 5 - Some resistence for leds, because if you directly connect HD and drive amiga output to some new leds without resistence, they will burn in hours. 6 - Wire cables, very small ones, and small ones. These to connect the leds and some pin of the keyboard connector. You can use them also to do a power switch (cause, you'll see, the normal keyboard reset Ctrl-A-A won't reset anymore). 7 - A A1/2/3/4000 or CDTV/CD32 Keyboard. You can also use a A500 keyboard, but it isn't really good for this work, even though works really good. 8 - A female DIN (A2000/A3000) keyboard connector or a miniDIN (or PS2 if you like, those ones used in IBM PC and in some other machine like a Sun Sparcstation 4) for A4000/CDTV/CD32. If you find a A1000 keyboard, don't worry! It's quite easy to find a telephone like connector! :) 9 - Screwdrivers, mono and bi-adesive narrow, screws, a soldering iron. HOW TO ASSEMBLE THAT STUFF -------------------------- - The Keyboard Problem: Yeah, now you have to play the worst part of the game. The "keyboard problem". I'm sure you asked ourselves how to solve this problem also before reading this text. The problem isn't so simple, so listen carefully. There are 2 chips on the mother board that could really solve your problem, but the REAL problem is that you should use your soldering iron with some VERY small pin. Think that first you have to use a very very smaaaaall soldering iron and of course you must be a real solderings expert. I didn't feel to be so expert so I took my A1200 and I brought it in a centre of electronic reparations and assemblations and they did that work in almost 5 minutes. I was astonished when I saw how those 3 wires were soldered on those smaaaall pins. If you don't believe they are so small, take a look on the main board and see! Before I opened A1200 case I was sure I could do that work, I was sure I could solder those wires, but after I opened it.... hmmmm... IMPOSSIBLE!!! Anyways, this is the scheme you have to follow not to make mistakes and get a perfect female DIN or PS2 connector for your keyboard. How you can see you have to take 5 wires, CLOCK, DAT, RESET, GND and +5 V. For the keyboard you have just to connect 4 of them (DAT, CLOCK GND and +5V), and the KB RESET must be connected to a switch (if your tower case has a RESET button, you can use it) with a GND signal (ground, so you can also use a simple wire connected to the same tower case ground). | | | | | | | | | | | L_L_L_L_L_L_L_L_L_L_L -=| |=- -=| |=- -=| U7 |=- | | | | | | | | | | | -=| |=- L_L_L_L_L_L_L_L_L_L_L -=| |=- -=| |=- -=| 8520 PL |=- -=| |=- -=| |=- -=| U13 |=- -=| |=- -=| |=- -=| |=- -=| |=- -=| |=- -=| Keyboard Micro |=- -=| |=- -=| |=- -=|_____________________|=- -=| |=- T T T T T T T T T T T -=| |=- | | | | | | | | | | | ,---=| |=- | | | -=|_____________________|=- | | | T T T T T T T T T T T | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | '----- KB DAT (pin 44) | '------- KB CLOCK (pin 43) '------------------------------------------------------ KB RESET (pin 38) ____ |....| <--- Floppy Power '++--' || |'----- GND '------ +5V _________________________________________________________________________ | | | | | A1000 | A2000/3000 | A4000/CDTV/CD32 | | Phone Jack Female | DIN Female | MiniDIN/PS2 Female | | | | | | ______ | _ _ | _ _ | | | |||| | 1 = GND | / V \ 1 = KB CLOCK | /6|5\ 1 = KB DAT | | | 1234 | 2 = KB CLOCK | |3 1| 2 = KB DAT | |4 3| 2 = N.C. | | |__ __| 3 = KB DAT | | 5 4 | 3 = N.C. | \2_1/ 3 = GND | | |__| 4 = +5V | \_2_/ 4 = GND | 4 = +5V | | | 5 = +5V | 5 = KB CLOCK | | | | 6 = N.C. | |_______________________|_______________________|_______________________| If you already have solved this (for me the worst) problem, you have done half a work and you can also begin to be happy to have half a tower. But it isn't finished it. Now you have to assemble EVERYTHING. Prepare to work a lot (I worked about 1 week and then I was bored because I was tired to look for some piece I couldn't find out, like the video port connector), and to try and try until everything will be ok. - The Motherboard: On first you have to place the mother board. Well, it seems to be easy, huh? NO! It's VERY difficult, believe me! The first time I tried to put it in a very huge tower (those ones used to be servers for quite big networks, do you know?) and it won't fit!!! I was quite angry about that, but fortunately I didn't pay it. So I changed it and I got my actual tower and the main board fit incredibly well. This is its disposition in the tower: __________________________ / /| /_________________________/.| <--/- Leds | | |.| <-/ | | | | | | _________| | | | /_________|/| | /) |__________|/<- Disk Drive |//) |__________|/<- HD 1 Ports --> (//)\--------\ |__________|/<- HD 2 (//|\-------\ | | | (/ | \------+-+-\ | | | | \---\ | | | | | Keyboard -> o|______|_|_|_|_________ | | | | || | | | A1200 Mother ________|| | | | Board | | | | | | | | | /--------------'---------| / |/_________________________|/ NOTE: This is just an approximative scheme. You'll find another one in IFF-ILBM format in which you'll understand better how to make the main connections. I used a biadesive narrow to attach the main board to the tower box wall. Yeah it doesn't seem a good idea, but I did it and it's there, solid and clean. The problem is when I'll decide to change the case tower, hehehe! Anyways, if you find out some other way to do that, I'll be happy to know how, because I couldn't think about anything else when I built my tower. - Hard Disks and the Floppy: If you have 1 IDE hard disk, then you simply find out a way to place it orizontally (or vertically if you like, but I didn't feel to do it). I had some problems, 'cause I had 2 hard disks and I had to place quite far from the motherboard. So I used another IDE plain cable (40 p) and 3 connectors (1 male and 2 female) and I connected it to the old one which is (too bad) miniIDE(female)-->IDE(female). This is the scheme: 44p 40p 40p 40p 40p IDE IDE IDE IDE IDE fem fem mal fem fem _ __ __ __ __ |:|----------------------|::| |88|----------------------|::|------|::| |:|======================|::| |88|======================|::|======|::| |:|======================|::| |88|======================|::|======|::| |:|======================|::| |88|======================|::|======|::| |:|======================|::| + |88|======================|::|======|::| |:|======================|::| |88|======================|::|======|::| |:|======================|::| |88|======================|::|======|::| |:|----------------------|::| |88|----------------------|::|------|::| ' '' '' '' '' I really had some BIG problem to find a 40 pole male IDE connector and more than a dealer told me that is inexistent. This is FALSE. The main problem is to find a crimpable version of it. I didn't find it, but I found a board version so I had to solder every pin on every wire of the cable (so a total of 40 solderings, aargh!). If you are completely deficient in solderings, try to ask a friend, or to buy a long cable miniIDE44p->IDE40p. For the floppy cable it's different, because you have only to buy 2 common 34pole female connectors and then crimp them on a 34 pole plain cable. It's easy to do. I made a 1 meter cable and it works good. If you have 2 drives (1 internal and 1 external) and you want to fit the external one into the tower, you have to do the same thing you will do with the other output ports. So buy a plain cable (but the 2 meters 50 p cables should be enough also for this) and then crimp on 2 connectors (1 male and 1 female). - Ports: As I said before, you should simply crimp the 25pin and the 9pin connectors to their proper cable. To crimp those connectors you should use a morse (with the hands and the fingers only it's impossible). If you don't have one, you can ask a friend or buy it, it doesn't cost too much. - Leds: Generally if you get a tower case, you should also have 2 or 3 leds indicating "Power", "Turbo" and "HD". The power should be already active thanks to a direct connection with the power switch. The turbo is useless (I think it's impossible to control an accelerator card via a turbo switch unless you are a really good expert of the Amiga hardware). What about the HD led? Yeah I used it, even though the first and the second time, I burned 2 red leds because I forgot to connect a proper resistence. Anyways you have to connect the same type of resistence which is on the 3 led card in the A1200 case. This is the scheme where to take the led power: ____ |....| '--++' || |'----- GND '------ +0.5V For the floppy led you can also do the same thing, but surely you won't have any led (unless you use the turbo one) on your case tower. So I used the led in the PC drive mask. - Power Supply: On a PC power supply you can find many cables. Most of them are simply 4 pins connectors (the bigger ones for HDs, CDROMs etc, and the other ones for floppy drives). You'll find out also 2 other connectors (named P8 and P9) which are instead 6 pins. In this scheme you'll find the way to have what you need to connect the Amiga: _______ _ | |o| ----- ___ ___ 1 = | |o| ----- | 1 V 2 | 2 = | |o| ----- | 3 | 3 = | |o| ----- | 4 5 | 4 = | |o| ----- '-------' 5 = |_______|o| ----- FINISHED? --------- So? Do you have finished this huge work? I hope yes and that everything goes great now. If you discover to have done some mistake, don't worry too much. It's always possible to come back and rebuild your old A1200 (I didn't do it, and now I'm happy). So if you see that's too complicated for you, please don't do it, don't TRY it, ok? If you think you could do it, then do it now, because it's worth it! If you have my same idea to buy some Z2 slot for your A1200, then email me and tell me how you did, how much you paid and so on. Tell me also which graphic card you would like to buy, ok? HISTORY ------- Archive Date Aminet Version Changes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1200Tower.lha YES 1.0 - 1200Tower.eng - 1200Tower.ita - 1200Tower.readme 1200Tower11.lha 22/10/96 NO 1.1 - Completely rewritten during 3 - 1200Tower11.eng days in my office in the Army. ARGH! Just 8 months left! Sigh! 1200Tower12.lha 26/10/96 NO 1.2 - More explanations about the - 1200Tower12.eng whole work added. - 1200Tower12.ita 1200Tower13.lha 28/10/96 NO 1.3 - Completely re-analized and - 1200Tower13.eng corrected. - 1200Tower13.ita - Added Italian version. 1200Tower20.lha 14/12/96 YES 2.0 - Re-re-analyzed - 1200Tower20.eng - Added a scheme in IFF and GIF - 1200Tower20.ita version - 1200Tower20.readme FUTURE ------ - I hope I won't write anything about this anymore. Anyways as usual if a lot of people will tell me some mistake I did, or that I didn't talk about something, I'll surely write something else, but of course I won't rewrite it completely. - I liked to include that relation about emulation under my Amiga. I think that could be something that will save the future of our computer. I'm sure I'll always use my Amiga, thanks to NetBSD and, why not, also thanks to ShapeShifter. I would like to talk a lot about this with someone who could surely tell me something more than I know and I said. - I'm trying to decide myself to write something else. I don't know if I should always write something about another hardware hack or another argument in general. Hmmmm. I'll decide later. GREETINGS --------- When I firstly released the first version of this text I received a lot of emails. Many people asked me more about the way to put their A1200 in a case tower, someone told me that everything went great. Everyone told me that my text was really usefull. Thank you all, folks. A special thank you to XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX who translated my text in german and then asked me if I could include it in the archive. I'm sorry I didn't include it 'cause I was just starting the newer version. I wonder if he'll translate the second version too... :) Greetings go also to all my friends, Giacomo "Saturno" Villoresi, Bernardo "Bernie" Innocenti, Stephen "Nevez" Cantini, Alessandro "Alex" Lombardi, Fabio "FBY" Barzagli, Alfonso "Alfo" Caschili and all the other Amiga friends I forgot. Special anti-greetings go to NicBat "Conscio dell'esistenza di me stesso medesimo pieno di me e anche di qualcun altro" and to Emanuele "Ci sei? No? Va a cagare, stronzo" Mecca.