A rather shabby discoloured Amiga 1200 that hasn't
seen the light of day for over six years
The machine was clearly marked with the word
A500 indicating the 1.3 Workbench installed
When I opened up I discovered a loose section
of shielding that was the cause of the clanking
noise as I turned the computer over
That was odd. The Computer had the 3.1 ROMS
which had my hand writing on them
The hard drive was a Seagate 420MB which
sadly is broken. It currently gives out a
high pitched screeching noise and then dies
The card turned out to be an ACT Apollo 1230 LC
made in Germany by Elbox. The writing on the
main face is covered by the shielding on the
SIMM which is why I couldn't read the name
Quite a nice card. Think I will use this
The hard drive appears a little more new
than I would have anticipated for an A500
Anyway, as one last act of desperation I
decided to hit it with the blunt end of the ..
screwdriver.
Remarkably that worked and the drive sprung
to life giving me an unexpected Workbench
Workbench 44.2 and that means OS3.5 and not
Workbench 1.3. Also means the computer must
have had a CD-ROM as the OS comes on CD.
Also an odd version of DOpus which was not
of my making. All very strange to me.
The drive data shows 401MB of a 420MB drive
There is a 41MB Workbench partition
And a 360MB DH1 or Work:
Also had a later install of SensiSoccer
than I would normally have installed
I couldn't run SysInfo from the OS3.5 so
I booted with a floppy 3.0 and read off the data
SysInfo picked up the Zorro II
Picked up the DH0:
Picked up the DH1:
And the 8MB RAM on the card
DOpus 5 which I really never ever used
I concluded that I must have bought a 2.5"
drive off the Bay when the earlier 1.3 drive
busted and the drive was already loaded with
OS 3.5. The Apollo struggles with the PCMCIA
so I doubt I had a Squirrel installed. The
drive has way too much stuff on it that I
just do not recognise.
The Workbench 1.3 drive if I recall had a ribbon
that was a whole mass of single wires for each
pin connection. It was in the machine originally
I was sure it packed up though.
Anyway I guess when all else fails hit it with a hammer
