ScuzzBlog: Diaries July 2018 Entry 16th July 2018: Post 01: Amiga 1200 - My 30 A1200s Part I Amiga 1200 - My 30 A1200s Part I This little adventure has been a long time coming. Since 1993. My First Amiga 1200 arrived here in the November of 1993 and she still sits here switched on every day. The second called TANK arrived in the winter of 1995. My next was a brand new boxed Magic Pack from Analogic in 2002 and then the flood gates that is EBAY launched me into a buying frenzy which resulted in a grand total of 30 Amiga 1200s finding their way here. It was never my intention to accumulate so many but at the time I was very busy at work and hardly at home so I would scour the auctions in the evening and place bids in for a few quid for various computers. Most to be truthful were tatty, busted and incomplete. In those days you really could pick up anything for £10 or so. I had this old Citroen on the drive that I used as a parcel box and as I arrived home weary from work I would joy at the parcels stacked up waiting inside. I really had no other interests and so a few quid a week on computers was a whole bag of fun. Interestingly my collecting stopped in April 2008 when I ran out of space. I have not made any bids for Amiga computers since that date. Other Amigas have arrived here but those were gifted to the collection. Over the years I have been steadily refurbishing the A1200 collection and only yesterday was setting up another machine ready for a 2.5" hard drive that is coming off the Bay. I was troubled by a video cable connector and spent time sorting out one for the 1200. And so it goes on daily. I have many times hinted at the numbers of A1200s I had but in truth I have never quite established just how many there are. So in the heat of July I started to put together a list. The final number is 30 though in truth the number 30 is subject to a decision by the dubious goals committee. One sadly is broken but retrievable and I sense there is still one trapped in a box in the small store cupboard. Either way 30 is a good number. Many of these computers were in a bad way when they arrived here. Some with broken keyboards, disk drives, mouse ports. They generally had been hammered though some were in very good condition. The Analogic computer of 2002 is a complete replica of my 1993 Amiga complete with Blizzard and was purchased in the anticipation of my beloved original A1200 falling over. That has never happened so the computer stays in its box. And I guess some reading this may say, why so many, why not sell a few or give them to worthy Amigans. The answer to that is simple... it would make me very very unhappy. I am an Amiga nutter. I have spent years building up the collection and have spent so much time not only repairing machines but also putting together all the various peripherals, disks, books etc that would have gone with the computers. Nothing but nothing is really ever left in a junk state. So each and every one of these computers holds a very special place in my life and I would be heartbroken losing any of them. As I say I am an Amiga nutter and seriously if you had a collection of something that valuable why on earth would you part with any of them. The Amiga 1200 for me is more than a computer. It is more than the sum of its parts. It represents a time in my life when I was on my knees and broken and needed a friend. The computer entered my life and lifted my spirits and sparked a resurgence in my very being. She was there every night I returned home from my busy toils and never let me down. I am sure there are some reading this that have been taken or bitten by the Amiga bug and even now appreciate what it is to have a working Amiga in their grasp. Some will have parted company but still wish deep down they could again hear that gentle click of the floppy drive. For me I live the dream every day and will do so until the day I die. BUT and the big but.... they are all mine. I would not change a thing in terms of collecting. And in truth if things were different I would collect another 30. To anyone that has an Amiga 1200 I say 'well done'. Please look after your cherished and wonderful computer cus in truth she represents probably the greatest computer ever made. I believe that totally. I will not explain why but I will show you 30 of them. I am so lucky to have so many 'girlfriends'. A1200 - 1 thro' to 5 Amiga 1200 01 Emma such a clever girl. Also known as Spike. 3.1 ROM 40.48 and 45.3 with Analogic Squirrel Tecmar external SCSI and a second external SCSI. Power Computing CD-ROM and Iomega ZIP Drive. Blizzard 1230IV Turbo with 32MB RAM. Running off a Microvitec and Parnetted to an A4000d. Two external 3.5 SCSI and an internal 2.5" 450mb The computer is used daily for ZIP disks. and backing up ADF files from the A4000d. Amiga 1200 02 Sam 39.106 and 40.42 with the external ZIP drive running off the HiSoft Surf Squirrel. Has an internal 500mb HD. GVP Turbo 4MB RAM 68030 Zorro II Series II SCSI GVP. And Microvitec. This is my games machine. Amiga 1200 03 My treasured Chantel from 1993 Blizzard 1230IV Turbo with SCSIKIT. Kickstart 39.106 and WB 39.29 original. The Blizzard SCSI KIT off the 32MB Turbo RAM card supports Power Computing CD ROM, 2 x external SCSI drives, Iomega ZIP drive. Ethernet PCMCIA networked. Power Computing HD external floppy. Vidi Amiga and TechnoSoundTurbo all running off the Microvitec. Trinkets are like lucky charms and if work for me never leave my side. Lisa Leob has been there since I successfully installed my first accelerator. The wrestler has been there since day 1... No idea. Don't know where it came from and I certainly don't like wrestling. He's my Mr T and tells me to get it together when I'm flustered. The games in the disk box are the best cover disk games ever released. Lisa Doig was the first Andromeda set that I burned and was able to use on the Amiga. Karen Mulder is a my GHOST animation set.. the first. PPaint is on that very tiny CD which works on the ROM. And Clara Veiga needs no introduction. Its a feng shui thing with me. When everything is working in harmony then you'd be a fool to move it around. When the computer is idle I have a DPaint animation running in the background. I have hundreds of them. The one shown is Clara Veiga. I just grab off the DVD using VidiAmiga and edit in DPaint and run from DOpus. Much better than seeing a Workbench screen. Essential DPaint commands. I tend to only use ZIP disks. Mostly cus I have so many Amigas with SCSI and also I have a number of PCs with ZIP disks. With FAT and CrossDOS I can read PC format disks and so move stuff around so quickly. Also.. Amiga files are so small. I can copy my whole WB to one ZIP as a back up. So easy. I have all my essential reading material located behind this Amiga. When switching on the last thing I power up is the Amiga. I have the Canon Bubblejet there but never use it. Have never used it. Fast enough for me with oodles of RAM Like I have enough VOLUMES... I have to have a small book with all the names. The computer is also networked to PCs. Amiga 1200 04 KS 39.106 WB 39.23 and recently Tumoon got the new 2.5" 40GB drive and even the Apollo 1260... Seriously. Tumoon was the subject of a series of recent blogs so if interested then flick through this months blogs. Amiga 1200 05 TANK aptly named given that I bought this from a soldier on Bovington Tank Camp. Cost me £200 in 1995 and came with a busted floppy and PCMCIA port. The guy had small kids and they had been stuffing things into the slots. 39.106 and 39.39. Bare machine with no hard drive. This was my second Amiga 1200 and once I repaired the floppy drive I played games on the computer. My first game if I recall was the very wonderful Hilsea Lido. OK that was Amigas 1 thro' to 5. Only another 25 to go.... Read on

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Last updated 16th July 2018

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