You may recall seeing in my previous posts the
battle hardened Amiga monitor in most pictures
Rewind to the 14th August and the busted A4000d
I decided to extract the 3Gb Quantum for closer scrutiny
Plugged in the drive and powered up Graham. First
error was a PicassoIV requester. The drive is
very clean and had very little on. No doubt a 3.1
install and using the 3.1 ROM
And this is Graham with the 3.0GB literally sitting
on an empty Blizzard Turbo box within a 1500 case
Thing is that this is no ordinary Amiga 1500
Ok I plugged Graham's existing 3.5" drive which shows
it is running Amiga Version 3.1
That's the 80mb drive given to me as a gift extracted
from a 1200. The drive now powers another 1200, but this
time trapped within the body of an Amiga 1500
Confirmation of the 1200 mobo sitting within the
casing of a converted Amiga 1500
Bit of a beast this but does the job of checking
3.5" hard drives with ease
The double floppies and 5.25" drive bay plus the
external keyboard make using Graham a dream cus I
can sit stuff on top and still have all the
functionality of the drives and keyboard of a 1200
Like I say not pretty, but works
Graham from the rear
The rear has been modified to accommodate the 1200
port array whilst using the 1500 power supply
Graham's very basic OS set up primarily for Parnet
Anyway.. this is about the monitor and the first
' switcharoo '. Enter a 4000d sitting on top of
two Amiga 2000s. All working and all capable of
being plugged in and used on the monitor. It is
just a case os swapping out the monitor connector
And there we have the A4000d Workbench running 3.1
Let's put Graham's case cover back on
On goes a tatty old bit of veneered chipboard and
on top a very grubby Amiga 1000. She isn't pretty
but again is there for functionality
That welcome hand
And she works.. on the same monitor
Next we can sit an Amiga 500 with 3.1 ROM and
A590 and swap out the monitor connector again
Confirmation of 3.1 running on an XT and 500
And top of the pile an Amiga 600 with internal 2.5"
running as you would expect 2.05 on the 2.0 ROM
The A600 using that same monitor
I had to format the A600 drive leaving the very
first section blank or the thing just wouldn't work
I do have a whole mass of floppy drives on hand
my favourite being the Amiga 1011. This unit is
so sleek and seriously efficient. Classic
And so what would a monitor post be without
some classic visual software
The Amiga was not only classic at creating great
machines and peripherals but also all the software
in the world at your fingertips and bound in such
magical and wonderful volumes complete with disks
So there you have it .. A day in the life of the very
humble but wonderfully efficient Amiga 1081 monitor
