Commodore Amiga 1200 From eBay (September 2021)

[@alphahr]

I enjoy seeing your new purchases. I made a deal with myself a few years back to restore at least one computer off of the pile before I purchase another

[@DavePoo2]

In this case that's what i did, I got the recent A500 purchase cleaned before moving on (it didn't need any electronic work), I've also got 2 A600's that are both in full working order.

[@alphahr]

@@DavePoo2 I still have a stack of C64's, a couple 128's, 6 CoCo 2's, 4 MC10 and 6 ZX81!

[@DavePoo2]

@@alphahr you have your work cut out for you with those.

[@KeyserTheRedBeard]

astonishing content Dave Poo 2. I shattered that thumbs up on your video. Always keep up the outstanding work.

[@DavePoo2]

I've got some acetone, so if the thumbs up button is made of ABS plastic, i should be able to weld it back together.

[@ChrisFredriksson]

Awesome, can't wait for next in the series!! 😀

[@tyarnagrove6629]

I have one of these brand new with original box and a brand new floppy drive still in original packaging. Never used it, was my uncles but I had it given to after his passing. I have had it in my possession for years. I am only 20 years old and know nothing about them lol

[@DavePoo2]

Wow, a mint condition Amiga 1200. They are probably one of the more popular Amigas as it was the last "wedge shaped" Amiga that Commodore made before they went bust in 1994. So what you have (if it is new in the box) is quite valuable, as even second hand these machines go for quite a bit nowadays (this one was £240 and had a broken internal floppy drive). The box might also have a checkmark on the side to say if it has a HDD in it, which might make it slightly more valuable. All this said though, even though the machine is brand new in the box, it came from a time when they put pretty crappy surface mount capacitors on the main board, so it's possible that the machine needs to be recapped even though it's never been touched. But on the plus side, it is most likely either still working, or easily repairable by someone who knows how to recap it (this Amiga in the video did work, but the capacitors were leaking and it did cause some problems, but not enough to stop the computer starting up)

[@jay3fox]

If it is mint in Box as you claim then you have pure gold!

[@HoldandModify]

Fun video. Lots to discover for you coming! Welcome to 1200 ownership !

[@DavePoo2]

It took me 30 years but i finally got there

[@jasonmillward3743]

Fantastic, looks like a nice little restoration project in the works. Looking forward to it and I sincerely hope those caps haven't leaked, I was lucky with no leaky caps on my 1200 (did mine back in May). If I remember correctly there are only two tricky caps, the first one you've already spotted by the keyboard connector (shield that connector well). Nice to see Jan Beta departing some of his vast knowledge, and I can recommend GadgetUK's channel for great vid's on the 1200 (amongst many other systems), especially around cleaning up after leaky caps. Are you gonna look at retro-brighting the keyboard? The Amiga grey keys are notorious for coming out blotchy, even with the submersion method. Good luck, and look forward to the content.

[@DavePoo2]

Yeah, I've recapped 2 a600s now, and I've got a video or 2 of me doing that. I will retrobrite the keys using the same method I did for my other Amiga, which seems to work well.

[@jasonmillward3743]

@@DavePoo2 Ah my bad, I completely missed all of your other video's. At least I've got some more reference material to watch, keep up the good work

[@bazza5699]

just discovered your channel.. nice one.. i had a 1200 back in the day.. loved it.. it came with a tank mouse.. and a 20meg hard drive.. lol. 20 meg?? i remember thinking wow!! i'll never fill it.. it does take a while to boot..

[@DavePoo2]

Back in the day, I had an A600 that had the 20Mb hard drive (probably the same one they used in the Amiga). It was my first computer to ever have a hard disk. I don't have the drive anymore, i must have sold it a long time ago and forgotten. I also still have my Tank mouse (and use it on my A600), it must have come with an A500 i had at one point. I didn't know they shipped the A1200 with the Tank mouse, maybe they just used whatever they had in stock when they were packaging it.

[@bazza5699]

@@DavePoo2 i was thinking of getting one again.. but can't afford it anymore.. like you said prices skyrocketted recenty.. i'll stick with my MiSTer and it's minimig core..

[@DavePoo2]

@@bazza5699 Seems to be the 1200 that is really pricey. The other wedge models like the 500 & 600 don't seem to go for as much. I suppose the 1200 was the most powerful wedge form factor model, maybe that makes it more desirable.

[@vettemuziekjes]

You broke the warranty seal !!! 😲 Well, you're on your own now !!!

[@DavePoo2]

The manufacturer went bust about 27 years ago, it's surprising there are any warranty seals still intact.

[@neilo3476]

fair play on getting it for that price

[@DavePoo2]

I actually thought it was pretty expensive for an Amiga that wouldn't boot any disks, but it's not turned out too bad as it didn't have any other serious faults.

[@kobe3576]

This might be a really late reply to this video. I still didn't watch the other repair videos, but in case you don't know, i heard that floppy drives TEAC FD-235 (models H, G and HG) are compatible with Amigas. They need a very minor modification. I modified many times to work in MSX computers with great success. Also, these are beltless drives and really durable, as well as easy to find.

[@DavePoo2]

Thanks for the tip, i will look into those drives you mentioned. I wasn't able to fix the drive from this Amiga unfortunately, the video for that is here kzbin.info/www/bejne/g4OnlIl7qrNriNk

[@foch3]

The red stripe on the floppy cable always faces the power connector at least that's how I remembered it.

[@DavePoo2]

All i know is, I always get it wrong.

[@ridiculous_gaming]

I bought one in 1992 here in Canada, and traded it to someone two years later who owned an Amiga 4000 that died. I then went to a PC, 486SX. I regret letting it go.

[@DavePoo2]

I managed to keep my A600 from back in the day when I moved to PC, but that was probably only because it was really worth pretty much nothing (financially) by the time I came to move to PC. I think most of us now regret throwing out or selling some of the stuff we did, but seems like you got rid of yours when it was worth the most so don't feel so bad about that.

[@ridiculous_gaming]

@@DavePoo2 true, but the sting is still there.

[@davidlloyd1526]

I can highly recommend getting a little compact flash IDE board to use as a hard disk. You'll have to restrict the size to

[@DavePoo2]

Thanks, I will. I've already got one in my Amiga 600.

[@daviniarobbins9298]

The machine is capable of formatting partitions up to 4GB in size. You just need a lot of memory installed to do it. If all you got is the 2MB as standard it will complain and refuse to do it.

[@Waccoon]

With regards to the floppy drive, the only issue I have with my A1200 is that the disk change and write protect carbon switches are a bit flaky. If it can't detect there's a disk in the drive, it won't spin but you'll still get the drive click. I did clean the switches, which did improve things, but they are still a bit iffy. It's possible there's a cap on the floppy board that goes bad and needs replacing. I recapped my A1200 a couple years ago, but haven't done any service to the floppy. Everyone wanted a fast ram upgrade back in the day, as it effectively doubles the CPU speed (the Alice chip isn't designed to let the '020 access memory on every open cycle). As soon as I bought mine in '93, I got a 32MHz FPU w/4MB and clock, which is a far better upgrade than an '030 board and gave me performance similar to a stock A3000! I highly recommend even a small fast ram board, as it makes a huge difference.

[@DavePoo2]

I posted a video this last week looking at the drive. I wasn't able to fix it. The disk detect switch inside works fine. The drive head position motor is not functional, and i suspect its a bad chip on the floppy. I have "fixed" and A600 floppy drive in the past that had bad caps on it (older video about that), but in that case there was a cap had clearly leaked so it did seem to be the problem there. The A1200 floppy i have here, doesn't appear to have surface mount caps (they are through hole), and they appear to be ok. I might get some fast RAM for this, but this already the fasted Amiga I've ever owned so I'm enjoying that already.

[@ncf1]

Ive found that my teeth have yellowed at exactly the same rate as my Amiga keyboard.

[@tonybell7267]

Great machine , would love another one to finish my gaming set up

[@DavePoo2]

Yeah, it's becoming my favorite Amiga

[@MrJozza65]

Nice, looks very much like my A1200 (nice case, dark yellowy-brown keys). Floppy drive might just need cleaning/lube, I recently saw a video where the drive was doing nothing, they cleaned up the worm drive on the stepper motor and it sprang back into action.

[@DavePoo2]

The floppy isn't doing the heart beat and when it spins it sounds bad so i suspect electrical and mechanical problems. The one i fixed (from the A600) had leaky old caps in it, this one could have similar problems. It can probably be fixed given enough time, effort and expertise (which quite often i don't have), but i will try. I've actually just gone back to the 1200 now to give some other disks a try (with the slightly janky A600 drive inside), and actually quite a few things do actually work, i managed to load Workbench 2.0, Deluxe Paint III, Turrican II & Tiny Bobble which all worked fine. Other games either didn't work at all or crashed very soon after loading (but i am still putting that down to the dodgy floppy drive so far).

[@MrJozza65]

@@DavePoo2 Sounds like a challenge, I hope that you can make a video of attempting repair, should be interesting!

[@DavePoo2]

I will give it a go

[@bordellobrotherz]

I've still got my 1200 from release day. Mine boots faster than yours, probably slightly slower than a 600. Those keys will retrobrite a treat and it will look like new. I'm in the process of putting a Gotek in mine with an internal speaker and a OLED display on top.

[@DavePoo2]

So you used your 1200 back when it was just released. Were you ever disapointed at the lack of software specifically designed for the 1200?

[@bordellobrotherz]

@@DavePoo2 I was very disappointed. I was also unhappy that the AGA gemes weren't much better than the srandard versions. It was also my introduction to hard drives, which cost a fortune to have fitted. I had a 200 MB HD and a 4 MB memory expansion. The memory and clock still work well.

[@DavePoo2]

@@bordellobrotherz Yeah, there was very little AGA content, it could have been really good had Commodore not been on their death bed at the time they released it. My first HDD was in the Amiga 600, it was a massive 20Mb.

[@kasi7777]

R-Type isn't compatible on a 68020+ CPU, so that's not the floppy drive problem.

[@DavePoo2]

You are right about Re-type, but unfortunately that floppy drive did have problems. The stepper motor was not working.

[@performa9523]

I've always heard tremendous things about the 1200, but I guess it didn't sell too well in America as I've never seen one in the wild, and they crop up on eBay very rarely. I think we've got more 3000 and 4000 units floating around over here though- although good luck finding the keyboards to go with them. Great video!

[@DavePoo2]

Yeah, i think it's the first 1200 I've ever seen. It's a shame it didn't turn up much earlier in Commodores life, it could of have really good run. There doesn't appear to be any sales figures for the 1200 anywhere on the net, but the guess i saw said that maybe a million of them were sold, so low by Amiga standards. How many exist today? 30 years later? Not sure, some will have died, some will have been scrapped, so they might be reasonably rare by Amiga standards.

[@norwegianblue2017]

I am American and used to own one of these. Also had a 2000 and a 4000 with Video Toaster. But I always loved the 1200 for its sleek compactness and portability.

[@garyproffitt5941]

Amazing deal it's cost about £240 from eBay super cool stuff with no floppy drive but its cheap, amazing, amazing, amazing.. I have got 2 X Commodore Amiga 1200 with floppy drive with including 8 mb, any offers ???

[@DavePoo2]

Well, they are not as cheap as other Amigas. However, I am really into using this 1200 now it is all jazzed up.

[@vinmangob8555]

My last Amiga till I gave up because Amiga fell so far behind. Sold it and got a 486/33 and never looked back.

[@DavePoo2]

Yep, that is a familiar story. My last Amiga was the A600, I held on until the Pentium days. I missed out on 486. It is however nice to look back every now and then and see how we go to where we are today.

[@bitoxic]

Its normal boot time... as it checks the floppy drive before the screen appears. You can install an floppy drive terminator to make it boot within a couple of seconds but then you would scarifies the use of the floppy drive.

[@DavePoo2]

Do you mean IDE HDD terminator? I linked to one of those in the video description. Jan Beta also says the long boot up time is fixed with KickStart 3.1, but yes it seems that once you do have a bootable floppy in, then the bootup time is much less because I suppose if it knows it found a floppy then it doesn't need to check for a HDD to boot on. Still, i was quite suprised that they would continue to check for a HDD for 12 seconds. Maybe they were trying to account for drives that took a while to spin up to full speed, but even in 1992, hard drives were never that bad.

[@gamescoffer]

Wondering what the best Courier service is for sending Amiga computers through the post?

[@DavePoo2]

In what country? In the UK i wouldn't recommend Royal Mail as they don't really have the services for these kind of very large parcels. However, no matter what courier you use, you are going to have to make sure that thing is packed really (padding on all sides of the machine). You'll also need a really sturdy box as no matter what courier you use, because the box is big, it's guaranteed to get other smaller boxes stacked on top of it, so it will always end up bottom of the pile. Take a look at my A500 eBay unboxing vid, it was wrapped in carpet underlay and paper shreddings, a little overkill maybe, but it arrived in perfect order. Also worth noting is that the box might take jolts on the way, so if anything inside the computer is loose or the plastic standoffs that things are scewed to are weak (like on the C64), then the computer could still get damaged, so thing about anything inside that might need to be secured. I unboxed a C64 breadbin where the standoffs that held the mother board in I think had all broken during shipping, but the outside of the computer appeared to be just fine.

[@gamescoffer]

@@DavePoo2 Yep, UK. I heard horror stories with certain couriers and was wondering if people have a certain go to courier for sending retro stuff.

[@daviniarobbins9298]

I think I can guess why retro computers on eBay are demanding such high prices. eBay fees. A seller loses 12.8% plus 30p straight off the top. £240 the fee is £31.02 If you are looking for £210 you got to sell for £240. Unless the seller had a FVF offer. I miss the £1 max FVFs offers. Selling on eBay just isn't worth it for occasional private seller. I recently sold a printer for £225 only got £195.90 after fees. Hadn't cottoned on that eBay fees had gone up in the last 18 months. If I had known I would have counter offered £230.

[@DavePoo2]

Yeah, I suppose you are right. The fees are quite a large chunk of the sellers cash, but on the flip side, eBay has made it possible to actually find this kind of stuff easily. I think without eBay, there would have been little chance of me finding a n A1200 for sale locally. Anyway, at the time I thought the price was high (a non upgraded A1200 with a bad floppy drive), but the prices seem to have only gone up since then. Every day that passes, more and more of these computers will die, if any custom chip dies in any Amiga, then that is 1 less to the population (even if the remaining working parts go to fix another), so sadly the Amiga's are an endangered species and the prices will only ever go up until eventually the last working one will be sitting in a glass box in a museum somewhere.

[@barados2006]

David it took for ever to boot up.

[@DavePoo2]

Due to the lack of floppy or hard drive, it spends ages seeking for a disk to boot.

[@FatNorthernBigot]

You do realise, now you've broken that warrantee seal, the current fleet of Amiga engineers, commodore's finest, will no longer fix your A1200?

[@DavePoo2]

No problem, Dave Haynie will fix it for me, he's on KZbin these days kzbin.info - He has replied to my comments on some of his videos

[@bittitab5963]

You never had an Amiga? You poor poor man.................................Kind regards from Vienna, Chris

[@DavePoo2]

I never had a 1200. I had a 500 and a 600. But thanks. I feel for those who missed out.

[@manmohansingh50]

Sar mere pass bhi Ek amiga keyboard hai use repair karvana hai Sar kaise hoga main India se hun

[@TheLemminkainen]

If u have 3.1 roms it boots really slow from floppy

[@DavePoo2]

Was that because Escom shipped the 1200 with 3.1 & a dodgy modified PC floppy drive?

[@TheLemminkainen]

@@DavePoo2 no because it will boot always from hdd. From internal ide or scsi. Some drive seek time or external drive needs power and time to warp up

[@barados2006]

It was much better with a hard drive .

[@DavePoo2]

It's got one now (well, technically it's an SD card)

[@PATTHECATMCD]

Floppy drive maybe has half a cat's worth of fluff jamming it. Otherwise looks well looked after really.

[@DavePoo2]

Unfortunately I was not able to get it to work.

[@PATTHECATMCD]

@@DavePoo2 Yeah, bit specialist to fix. Although GadgetUK164 has a couple of videos on refurbing Amiga floppy drives.

[@Jonathan.media50]

its look for a hard disk

[@DavePoo2]

Yeah, but it's just pretty annoying boot up time. The V2 Rom doesn't have this kind of problem.

[@dkhl02]

Una cachanga jeje

[@Channel-iu6de]

280 pounds lol, i cannot get one for under 500. Someone please hook me up.

[@DavePoo2]

Keep in mind this did actually have a busted floppy drive and needed a recap. But I imagine they are only going to get more expensive as time goes by.