The
Amiga1200 HTAC Case
HTAC stands for Home Treatre Amiga Computer.
Lots of parts are needed to be purchased first to complete the project.
You need to buy some usefull gadgets to bring your amiga to 2016.
An external usb keyboard adapter so you can fit your own wireless keyboard.
A wireless mouse adapter kit.
A special external drive cable needed for
df1: and df2: drives such as gotek and external drive to be fitted together.
The A1200 Badge is a custom metal plate. (you can use your original also)
A CF adapter with master/slave option
A standard AT 200W PSU is more than it needs (no need for ATX for me).
Lets see the steps 1 by 1.
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The Cuttings
Lots of cuttings take place on this project but the biggest one was this
for the external drives double hole and the df0: drive slot.
Its not easy to make the cuttings. A perfect allignment has to be first done properly. Double and triple check your countings to be perfect before you cut the case.
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A file is needed to grind the choppy metal areas you canibalized.
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For the double hole a metal cutter wheel was used
(WARNING dangerous if you dont know how to handle this machine)
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For the Slot Drive a dremel was used to open the slot and the drive eject button and lots of noise when drilling the box.
Bad thing with dremels is that it can take a lot of time to cut something
but the final product is perfect.
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Also back pci slot metal frame was removed completely to make the motherboard fit perfect inside. A custom metal plate was then cutted and fitted in the back to cover any holes done from the project.
Testing the Df0: slot drive after the fitting and cutting
Cable needed for FDD bay.
You will have to buy this special cable made from a perfect user on ebay
ikonsgr74 has the Amiga external drive adapter cable for gotek and standard pc floppy drives.
I was in contact with the seller before the order to ask him if he can make the cable a little bit more long. After sending him pictures of my project he made me a special 60cm cable adapter and it can travel easily from the back to to the front left of the desktop case. please make sure you messured correct to make the cable as you want.
The cable adapter has a built in decoder board for reading standard pc drives.
It has also built in 2X drive power plugs.
You can connect with ease 2 drives and they can work together as external drives (df1: & df2:)
On df1: you can add any pc floppy drive you have on your home
On Df2: you can plug your gotek drive if you have one or purchase one from ikonsgr74 ebay shop.
Here is Also a very nice video presentation of the adapter.
Wireless keyboard and mouse adapters
The SUM (catfish) USB Adapter was purchased from amigastore.eu
Sum adapter enables connecting USB HID keyboards to your Amiga. It has been designed for installation inside A1200’s casing. Sum is based upon 16-bit Microchip microcontroller.
Its fitted in the U7 chip on the right of the ribbon keyboard connector.
It can support a lot of USB Keyboards and also wireless keyboards.
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MKIV Amiga / Atari USB mouse adapter BUNDLED WITH FUJITSU WIRELESS MOUSE
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Ebay Seller Kevinmount has this fantastic bundle that works just perfect.
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Works with ANY USB mouse that is PS/2 compatible.
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Works with the Amiga early boot menus.
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Ultra-smooth and responsive mouse cursor.
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The middle mouse button works with programs that support it, such as Dir Opus 5.x.
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Your computer doesn't even know it has a different mouse attached, so no compatibility problems!
Adapters Working perfect in a distance of 5 meters in my living room. Now the only adapter missing is a wireless joystic adapter that i have to built myself . Maybe we will analyse this project in another topic. Dont have enought time to built one myself.
Internet on the Amiga 1200
Life would not been complete without internet in my HTAC. You can buy from a variety of ebay sellers the modded PCMCIA wireless card. Its a wifi card with altered bios to work on amiga's pcmcia slot and with the help of Prism2 drivers and AmiTcp Or Miami you can connect to your internet connection at work. Amiga shops offers a more simple solution with added extra software bundled with your card.
I've got this linksys (WPC11) wireless network PC card that works flawless and with the extra cutting on the left side i can fit it anytime i want.
Here is also a video that simple shows you how to connect your amiga on world wide web with some steps to follow . This was the method i used and worked.
PrepCard Shows The card stats and on the left photos internet loading and browsing. Wifi from the couch on plasma 50'' panasonic UT50 3D
CF Hard Drive adapter & CD-ROM
For the CF adapter ther is a choice you have to make, if you gonna buy a cheap or expensive one ? Well to tell you the truth there is no difference on those 2 because i bought an expensive kit back in 2008 with a Cf card installed and in 2016 i bought the cheap IDE 40 pin Cf adapter and worked just perfect.
For the Upgrade I used a Sandisk Extreme 8gb card, not for speed but for quality built. The Cf adapter is a chinese 5$ IDE 3.5'' 40 pin CF Adapter with Master/Slave ability. I also used a high quality 3.5'' Ide cable.
All the connections made with 3.5'' cables and connectors because room is plenty on the case.
A 2.5'' ide to 3.5'' ide converter used for altering the Ide cable to 3.5'' standard cables we all use in modern computers.
A sony 24X Cd-rom CD-RW is used and painted black to fit the front side.
Amiga PSU and various case mods
A simple 200W AT PSU is used in this project because no ATX PSU is needed in amiga. You can find easy how to convert an AT PSU for amiga guide.
The only thing i didnt spoil was my original Amiga PSU power connector.
I didnt need to be cutted so i find a solution that fitted just right on the amiga power port.
It was standard metal nails. Yes the ones we use to hang items on walls.!!!
Long enough in perfect fit and size the only thing to to is to cut the heads of the nails and solder the power wires into the nails and fit a heat shrink tube in any power cable.
Its not something risky as i will never remove again the motherboard.
If i will its easy to put back on with colors on each cable and a photo saved from the connection ( just in case i forgot how it goes)
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The Power switch has been put in the back. It was a choice i made for not spoiling the front ATX button. Reset button is working with soldered pins on the A1200 motherboard.
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Also amiga leds are used inside the case. Soldered cables lead the way from the amiga Led board in the front 2 leds. One for the Hard disk and one for the Power led. The case had two blue leds that were thrown instantly to replace them with one red for power and one green for the hard drive.
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The Only thing that wasn't needed was the double ball bearing silverstone fans.
The only good thing on them that i use them on 5V+ only and they are silent.
Also keep the case cool with a nice small airflow. When i power up my machine the only thing you hear is the floppy drives when it boots.
A DIY stereo sampler is fitted in the back and comes to the front to make headphone jack input for sampling.
High quality cables were used for the connection from RCA input of the sampler to the front of the Headphone plug.
Accelerator Board
It is the dream of all amiga users. A powerfull accelerator card that can cost almost 1500$ for the good PPC ones.
Today we have more compatible gaming cards such as the ACA accelerators from Individual computers
There is also a big project that skyrockets amiga with FPGA acceleration. The Vampire Accelerators
Not yet completed for A1200 but very promising. we will see in the near future.
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So i have to stick with my Apollo 1240/40 clocked with 80mhz crystal and 32 mb of fast ram.It produces almost 30mips.
Still need to collect money to convert my card into a 68060/50 with 2nd simm socket for 64mb fast ram.
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A large Aluminum heatsink with ballbearing fan working also on 5V+ keeps cool and quiet the 040 CPU.
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Overview and some extra photos
I'm Very happy with the overall performance and flexibility of the amiga in 2016.
2 years have passed since the project has started for the one and only purpose.
To preserve my amiga and respect the hardware that is produced the last years from new accelerator cards industries , mouse and keyboard adapters to fit modern hardware made from small companies in poland and other countries (respect to poland for demoscene)
also the gotek drive is a breaktrhough combined
with the external 2X FDD Adapter cable.
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20 years back internet was a real mess.
BBS with a dialup connection was fun
but internet thrived on PC from the early years.
15 years later Wifi hack has given to the amiga the spark of wireless internet as simple as some few lines in a script and a driver.
It helps me if i need a driver from aminet and downloading some extra demos.
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WHDLoad is also the best amiga game preservesion system for modern amigas.
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The Ultimate goal for me as an amiga fan
was to build a high quality Desktop case to
fit properly into my modern living room with wireless solutions as mouse, keyboard and internet access.
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A big thanks goes to MasterGR for recapping my A1200 and also upgrading my KS to 3.1 roms.
Without him my machine would be dead now.
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The goal was completed and if you like my project please share it and make your own
1200 HTAC (Home theatre Amiga computer).
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Some extra photos from the finished project
included in the last part.
