Amiga PPC A1200 Tower

The power pc (PPC) A1200 in a tower case happened at an interesting time in the Amiga's history. Commodore had gone bankrupt, the Amiga's new owners seemed to have no love for the Amiga, and with no new Amiga on the horizon 3rd party hardware providers created their own future for the Amiga.

[RetroBytesUK]

I found a use for the turbo button. Turns out there are two pins of the bus board that if shorted turn-off the bus board, disabling all your zorro 2 boards. If I connect this to the turbo button I can turn the bus board on/off turning in back into a regular A1200 for games that don't like the expansion. The accelerator and be turned off by holding a key combination on powerup.

[TemalCageman]

As an AmigaONE X5000 owner I can say that you can use it and AmigaOS 4.1 as a "daily driver". Most 68k applications that were written without banging the hardware will run without any visual emulation (like word processors, 3d software such as LightWave, Image processing tools such as ImageFX and Photogenics and obviously much faster than any 68k would).

I've setup my emulated A1200/060 system to be as cpu speed accurate as possible (WinUAE) and for the benchmark I used a tool I used a lot back in the days which is called Pegase, which was probably the fastest 68k MP2 encoder for music files. It had very optimized versions for 030/040 and 060. I encoded the same song on my 060 emulated setup as well as using the 030 version on under OS4.1 on the AmigaONE X5000.

A1200/060: 00:04:17
A1X5000: 00:00:36

Then on the A1X5000 I used Lame to encode with the same settings, but as MP3 and the result was 00:00:17. Fun fact... running the 060 emulation with JIT and Fastest Possible, Pegase finishes at 00:00:15.

68k games (ECS/AGA) will run under the implemented RunInUAE. ADF files and WHDLoad games works... the cool thing with ADF files... if you name them properly, the system will automaticaly switch disks. You simply just doubleclick on the first disk and the emulator starts and off it goes.

The only real downside with AmigaOS is that it lacks a proper web-browser that is up to date and works with everything. So do not expect to be able to do any bank related things. I havn't even gotten Paypal to work... the browers I use is Odyssey and it can actually load most sites including youtube... however, it doesn't seem to support hardware accelerated playing of videos and the CPU will struggle there. The workaround is to use AmiTube (a separate software), find the video and then stream it directly to Emotion, which is a hardware accelerated videoplayer. That works really well. But yeah... make sure you at least have a smartphone for the sites that requires that sort of security. :)

And of course... if you are into video editing, you are going to end up empty. It would be great if the people behind Vlab Motion and Movieshop could release the sourcecode or someone buying it from them to update it for OS4.1. :) Well... that would be a dream... :D

[ukcc]

I had the Eyetech EZtower for my A1200 with the PowerUp PPC board and the BlizardvisionPPC graphics card, unfortunately my Powerup board and graphics card got lost when moving house about 10 years ago. Knowing how rare they are and how much they are worth it makes me cry to think its probably been thrown in the bin.

[cpt_bill]

Keep doing what you do! I have never had my hands on an Amiga, Acorn, BBC micro, or even Commadore 64, But being born in the US in the mid 80's to a very techie family I learned to appreciate archeotech at an early age. I love the thorough firsthand experience you share with us.

[TheErador]

I never knew about big box Amigas back in the day, everything seems like a massive afterthought, i guess they were scrabbling for any market share at this point

[GouldFishOnGames]

The Amiga 1200 tower was one of those upgrades that I always wanted to do.
It was originally the plan for my 1200, but I stuck it on the back burner at just the time this stuff was going cheap which in hindsight was a silly idea.

[richardhunter]

If you want a cheap PPC “Amiga” get a MacMini G4 and run MorphOS on it. More power than a Blizzard and total cost, including licence for MorphOS should be less than £125. I’ve got a MacMini, AppleMac Pro G5 and a PowerBook G4 all running MorphOS and old Amiga PPC software.

[TheSudsy]

Good god this reminds me of my build that I sold back in early noughties. A4000 kb, Mediator with Voodoo 3 PCI and soundblaster PCI, squirrel scsi, apollo (?)1260 @66mhz, 96 mb Ram, SCSI cd burner, IDE drives x2, surf squirrel fast ethernet, silver surfer fast serial, fast parallel, mutlisync CRT monitor 17", butchered ATX power supply, several strategically placed fans, Catweasel (?) HD floppy interface and drive (1.7mb), and twenty other things that I have forgot. PPC scared me a bit coz of compatibility - and I was a bit reluctant to lose the 060 beast - which i would have had to sell to afford a PPC and 060 combo board. I think I sold the lot and loads of software, joysticks, joypads, the original case, keyboard, every CU Amiga, Amiga Format, One AMiga Amiga power, all CD covers CD32 games for £300. Cost me thousands over the years, I yearned or an A4000 tower but decide to build my a1200 A4000 beater instead. Damn I miss it ☹

[andycope]

I put a 100 MB SCSI Hard-drive into my standard A1200. Loved the thing

[drownthepoor]

What an excellent video.
I'm a Linux user who has never used an Amiga, but my researching the progression of computers for media production of course led me to the Video Toaster & and the Amigas. I read about them and wish I'd been a part of it. I've often considered buying one, but I don't know if I can justify the cost without the personal history and nostalgia.
But the more I learn the more impressive the platform is. The way it's managed to progress despite being "discontinued" for so long is astonishing.
I love the history lessons, and the technical explanations that give a lot more comprehension for the uninitiated like myself.

[leeselectronicwidgets]

I was joking the other day when I said “I look forward to the PPC Amiga review any day” 🤣

[TheMrKocour]

Well don't even think about using Zorro II card with PPC, it's slower than AGA. Mediator for ZIV slots are really pricey. So get rid off that Elbox ZIV busboard and buy standard Mediator. You can get used one on amibay for like 180E and for another 20E you will get PCI card - USB, Radeon 9200, LAN 100Mb etc. But if you want to use Warp3D (something like OpenGL) you need Voodoo3 and they can go for 100E. Another option is to get Bvision which is 3D PCI RTG that plugs into BlizzardPPC directly.

[fattomandeibu]

Seen all this in Amiga Format and didn't have the cash. Was only a high schooler.

As for Amiga Format, the magazine itself got kinda pointless at the end, but the cover CD full of freeware and shareware(it's how I got the Amiga port of Doom, it even had the instructions on how to install the files from the PC-CD version to play the full game) was always worth the coins in pre-internet days.

[craigover]

"Gateway the surprisingly cow themed company"! Never thought about it before but proper made me laugh 😂

[jandoor]

I use Amiga OS 4.1 Final Edition on an Amiga X5000 and whilst every so often I am forced to use my Windows 10 machine when there is an app I require that is just not available on the miggy, for about 95% of my home use the X5000 is wonderful, and MUCH MUCH nicer to use than Win 10.

[FlamingChickenG]

Now you just need to add a x86 Bridgeboard so you can cram three different CPU architectures in the same computer.

[EdgeOfPanic]

Got that same tower and also had the Zorro IV busboard expansion, it did have the tendency to destruct itself. even bought the PCI expansion for it.

[stuartcastle]

I was originally an Amiga fan, and I think it is still the computer I loved most. I use a PC now, but don't feel the same attachment to it.

I used an Amiga pretty much until the end of Commodore, I was sort of forced to change because while I loved my Amiga, I'd just started a degree and *really* needed a PC I could use for development work. I didn't have the space to keep both set up, so the Amiga got packed away, and gradually replaced.

My PC I have now is many orders of magnitude more powerful than my 1200, but it still feels like I am using a tool, rather than doing something I love. To some extent, I get the feeling of doing something I love from using my various Raspberry Pis, but even that's not the same.

[marioserrano]

Nice video. COMMODORE AMIGA FOR EVER !

[Djformula]

Loved those towers, especially the home made ones at the time