My A1200NG Amiga system build

I remember when AmigaKit announced the A600GS system a while back. I was not so interested in it, as it is a linux based Amiga emulation installed in a generic case that unfortunately doesn't look or feel like an Amiga. Much the same as the Vampire 4 standalone - another machine I didn't buy.

It was why I bought the A500 mini system when it was released - it looks like an Amiga. 

But then AmigaKit announced the A1200NG, a Amiga 1200 system replacement motherboard that has the same functionality of the A600GS, but expanded with real floppy drive support, CF card expansion, and more.

First up, be aware that the A1200NG requires an Amiga 1200 case, keyboard and floppy drive which are not supplied. 

This means the A1200NG system suits people who have a dead A1200, bought an A1200.net case with a spare keyboard, or have migrated their A1200 to another (newer) case like the ones from A1200.net, and now have an empty A1200 case doing nothing.

That is my situation - I bought a A1200.net case a few years ago for my Amiga 1200 Vampire 1200 project, and it left me with a empty original A1200 case.

Sadly though, I didn't have a spare A1200 keyboard to use with it, so this meant I was not initially interested in the A1200NG - however, AmigaStore.eu released a brand new mechanical A1200 keyboard (not just keycaps - a brand new full replacement keyboard). 

So with them both, I had the parts I needed to build a A1200NG system! I decided to take the plunge and buy a A1200NG in July. 

The A1200NG starts from GBP205 with optional extras adding to that base cost. The mechanical keyboard costs EUR185. Both exclude shipping costs, which to Australia in 2025 is horrible and adds quite a bit more.

It took around 2 months to get it, as demand apparently is quite high. Keep in mind that it does take a while to get one, so you will need to be patient.

Two boxes are included in the package I received. One that contains the A1200NG board, and the other containing the accessories, which are options I chose to include with the purchase. 

Included with the A1200NG was the PSU needed to power the motherboard, which does not include the kettle plug lead. I needed to supply my own AUS lead with kettle plug to use with it. 

Also included is the hard disk/floppy/power LED display with cable to connect to the motherboard, and the metal rear frame for clean mounting the motherboard to fill all the unused A1200 ports.

In addition, the stickers for the underside of the case, and the system A1200 sticker on the top left of the case are included, with 4 different variants to choose from - more on that later.

Lastly, included is an insulation sheet to place on the bottom of the A1200 case. You then place the board on top of it when installing in the case. This is because the board does not have a metal frame underneath for insulation (which the original had).

I had already received the Amiga 1200 keyboard from Amigastore some time before the A1200NG arrived, so I was able to photograph them together, along with the A1200.net box containing the old A1200 case I would be using for this project.

In my case, I also bought the optional upgraded 256GB MicroSD card, CPU speed boost (activated with AmiSphere), additional joystick port expansion, 3D printed ventilated bottom expansion bay cover, the HDMI mounting and cable for the connection to the external expansion port, and the floppy drive power and cables (since I had moved the originals from the old A1200 case to the new one and had none spare). 

The included User guide shows the features of the system - 1GB fast memory! There is a Wiki that contains more information not in the user guide, so that is worth checking out too.

My old vanilla A1200 case is the Amiga Technologies era case:

Next, I opened up the A1200NG box to take a closer look at the system board:

The system board has a CF Card port that lines up with the old PCMCIA port on the left hand side of the A1200 case.

On the back there is a power supply port, video out (AV), RCA audio ports, Serial port, two USB ports and a DB9 standard Amiga joystick/mouse port.

On the main board is a A1200 keyboard port, internal Floppy drive port, CCDA port for CD audio (if you have an internal slim CD drive or have a full CD drive and this board in a Amiga 1200T third party tower case). 

There is also a LEDS port for the Hard disk/Power/Floppy drive activity, Fan port, HD Power (if you have a physical drive or other device in your Amiga 1200 case that needs it), USB header, and Antenna for the WiFi. Bluetooth is also available, although I didn't use it yet. 

There is also the connection for the small Linux system on a seperate board, which looks a bit like a Raspberry Pi size system board. I don't believe it is though - I am not sure what it is to be honest. It is tightly secured with multiple screws, so I didn't remove it.

The system part of the board houses a Ethernet port, USB port, USB-C port and HDMI micro output ports on one side, and the MicroSD port and 256GB MicroSD that houses the Linux system and Amiga emulation.

As you would expect, there is a lot of unused space on the board, since the original Amiga system chips, memory, hard disk and processor are not present, as they are emulated by the linux system. 

But that said, there is a lot of custom functionality here, which definitely elevates it above the A600GS, Raspberry Pi or other PC based emulation system solutions.

This is a board clearly designed and intended for Amiga enthusiasts to explore and enjoy. It is one of the main reasons I got it.

I also love that the system board is blue, as it is my favourite colour. Note the expansion port on the right side of the motherboard to connect the additional optional joystick port module.

I suppose I should have bought another A1200.net case to put it in, rather than using an old case. But then I would still have an unused empty case! 

Also, the A1200NG system and mechanical keyboard were not cheap, and I didn't want to sink any more of my hard earned money into the build at this time.

I may change my mind later, but for now I will use the old A1200 case for this project.

First step is to connect the optional joystick port board to the main system board:

Job done:

I may not actually need the extra port, but I prefer to have it anyway. I am the kind of guy that I suspect car yard salesmen love to have visit their showrooms when buying a new car - a guy who wants all the options ticked. Heh.

I learnt a long time ago that it is better to have all the options for something you want, while it is still easily available. In the years to come it will eventually stop being sold, and then those optional parts will be impossible to get.

I will be using a normal Amiga DB9 joystick with the system, not a USB one. I didn't know which port is the joystick versus mouse, so I wanted the optional module. Turns out it didn't matter unless I wanted two players with two Amiga joysticks. Anyway, whatever.

I decided that I will use a USB wireless Amiga Tank mouse I already own. 

It is easy to use with Linux and looks more "Amiga" than the offered optional generic USB mouse with a Amiga checkmark sticker slapped on top. I use the generic usb mouse thing with the AmigaOne A1222 system and X1000 system (with boing ball sticker attached) and I am underwhelmed by it. YMMV.

Next task is installing the Metal shield on the back of the motherboard, in preparation for installation into the A1200 case.

There are Quick connect instructions in the User guide:

I set to work with one of my least favourite tasks - removing the screw in connector plugs on the DB9 and serial ports, as the metal backing plate is mounted with these removed.

I then lined up the board with the cutouts on the metal backing plate.

I then secured the plugs back into the ports, which fixes the backing plate in place:

With that done, now it is time to install it into the A1200 case.

I opened the case and put down the insulating 1200 board cutout:

I then positioned the A1200NG board in the right spot.

Note that you need to angle the board in carefully. I found I needed to carefully flex the base of the case to allow the bottom corner of the board to clear the expansion bay vertical retainer. It didn't quite clear it otherwise.

With that done and the board in position, I needed to put in the screws for it:

The screw holes line up pretty well with the original A1200 case, as shown below.

Next job was connecting the LED module to the board.

It plugs into the LEDS port on the board - quite straightforward.

Also included (forgot to mention earlier) is a 3D printed floppy drive mount:

This would be needed for the mounting of a floppy drive. Basically the same solution used on the original A1200 case - although that was metal rather than 3d printed.

This means you need to be careful not to tighten too much, as the 3d printed part may snap.

I connected the floppy drive cable and floppy power cable next.

The next task is connecting the HDMI output to the expansion slot on the rear of the A1200 case. There is a small HDMI micro to standard HDMI female plug with 3d printed mounting bracket to facilitate this:

I know 3D printing is the way these days for many retro part solutions, but perhaps vendors could at least clean out the mess left in the port holes... I needed to screw a screw into both blocked ports to allow the port holes to be used as intended to mount the HDMI port to. Small thing I suppose, but attention to detail is important to me.

You can see the blocked port on the right side:

Once done, I mounted the HDMI port and then tried to install it into the rear expansion bay port:

I stress the word "try". 

The 3D printed part was too large for the port. It would fit nicely on one side or the other, but not both:

On the original Amiga 1200 expansion port, this port cover had a push in part with your finger so it would slightly bend the port so it would click into place. This 3D part has no such feature and it doesn't bend.

I tried many time to gently get it to click into place but it never did. Ultimately one of the side retaining clips snapped with the repeated effort. I guess I can say "well, it now fits"..

I had to put tape on it externally to hold it in place. Not great to be honest. I can imagine I will be told that I should have been more careful, or that I am too impatient. 

It didn't fit!

Flexing the almost 30 year old case with the motherboard in it was not something I wanted to do to make it click in - I suspected I may damage the case trying. I couldn't get the 3d part to flex to click in. Anyway, it works - let's move on.

I connected the HDMI cable to the Micro HDMI port on the main system board.

I can imagine you could feed ethernet cable to the system through this port with a different port replicator solution if you want to use ethernet instead of WiFi. But I wanted WiFi, so I didn't bother with it.

With that sorted, I wanted to install a floppy drive next. However, I hit a problem with this. My two remaining A600 internal floppy drive spares are both faulty!

Also, more modern PC floppy drive solutions (which can be connected) don't physically fit the eject button location on the A1200 case.

To prove it, I grabbed my spare internal sony PC floppy drive - I normally use this with Kryoflux for writing out ipf floppy disks on my Mac Studio:

I removed the front bezel:

When I put it in the A1200 case, you can see that the eject button does not line up.

It is not possible to close the case like this, unless I cut the case to make it fit.

I pulled out the faulty A600 floppy drive to illustrate the difference in the eject mechanism location. 

I know some people print 3D eject buttons for some models, but I don't have a 3D printer, and the A600 floppy eject button does not fit on the Sony floppy drive I have spare to use.

For now, I will attach a Gotek floppy drive emulator internally instead. Perhaps I will find a better floppy drive solution down the road. 

I pulled out my faulty A600 (audio totally non functional after the Vampire600 I put in it years ago) to retrieve the gotek drive I had in it:

I then set about mounting it in the A1200NG case:

The 3D printed floppy drive bracket lines up well, and I secured the screws to the drive:

I am not sure I will be able to use this with the A1200NG, but time will tell. Worse case, it fills the floppy drive slot!

Now it is time for the new keyboard installation. I pulled up the keyboard connector on the A1200NG board, ready to insert the mechanical keyboard cable:

I was somewhat surprised by the AmigaStore A1200 mechanical keyboard replacement for several reasons!

First of all, it is VERY heavy.

Secondly, the keycaps are a little strange, and the colour is not the same as the original A1200 keyboard.

The keys feel nice to type on though, as you would expect with a mechanical keyboard. I put it in the case and threaded the LED display module through the gap on the top right provided for the purpose.

I then screwed in the LED display into the top of the A1200 case. The LED displays fit perfectly.

Sadly these days the cheaper LEDS are much shorter than we used to have back in the day, so they have used two leds for each part (hard disk / floppy / power) to fill out the space. This leaves a noticeable "break" between the two LEDS in each section, as below:

From a distance it is less noticeable. But like all things that bug you once you notice it, you can't un-notice it...

The top part of the A1200 case fits over the new keyboard ok, but there is a noticeable gap on the right side of the keys compared to the left, and the top of the keys compared to the bottom. See the photos above and below.

Fortunately, it doesn't affect the operation of the keys, which do not catch on the left side or top edge. Seems strange - perhaps they didn't check the alignment to the Amiga technologies case. Perhaps it fits perfectly for the Commodore A1200 case and 1200.net cases? YMMV.

Anyway, it is not a problem for the keyboard to be used, so I will ignore it.

I then set to work attaching the stickers provided by AmigaKit to put on the A1200 case. Seems my A1200NG is the 249th to be made from the serial number - so there are already quite a few of them out there! Kinda sad I didn't get the 250th one :-)

AmigaStore also provided a A1200 top case sticker too, which matches the original Amiga Technologies one.

Personally I didn't like the Amiga technology A1200 sticker so much, so I am happy to replace it. It felt so cheap compared to the Commodore original sticker.

Decisions, decisions - which one to choose:

In the end, I chose the black background one. I think it looks better with the cream white case than having more white...

I then set about putting the A1200NG bottom sticker on the underside of the case:

 

Job done - "Made in France" is now "Made in Great Britain":

I suppose no one will ever see this bottom label, but I am glad it is there anyway.

With the A1200NG system assembled into the case, I can now try it out!

I think the system looks nice enough externally, but I suspect a A1200.net transparent or other coloured case would look better.

Some more shots of the assembled system, because, why not!

I think the system looks pretty good. Especially with the USB Amiga tank mouse and Amiga joystick now connected also.

I put a USB stick into the Gotek floppy drive, containing some ADF files - perhaps I will try this out later.

For now though, it fills a hole that would otherwise be empty until I sort out another working floppy drive to put into it.

I located the small external PSU, and raided my spare parts for a AUS kettle plug and connected to the A1200NG. There is a power on/off switch on the cable to the PSU. This is located at the plug end and is a seperate part you plug into the power cable plug end, so it means the on/off switch is right next to the A1200NG system for easy access.

Power on time - and it works, first time:

It boots up to a A1200NG splash screen - press a key to get started:

There is a first start wizard to walk through the base settings, like the language, keyboard, WiFi connection, and importing kickstart rom files. 

The keyboard is important since you are using the A1200 keyboard, not a full size PC keyboard which has additional keys the A1200 keyboard doesn't have.

In order to access the A1200NG menus when using a game, demo, or the included AmiBench workbench environment, you need to set a keyboard shortcut that works with the A1200 keyboard. This key combination should not be something that you use on the Amiga emulation itself.

I chose Right Shift plus F10 for that menu access, and changed the keyboard type to A1200 keyboard.

I then followed the next step to connect the A1200NG computer to the internet by searching for and connecting to my local WiFi connection in my house. You can also specify to use a Wired cable connection setting here too, if that is what you prefer. 

You can use DHCP or manually specify the IP address, subnet mask, and gateway IP address settings. Sadly I didn't see a way to change the hostname, which is fixed to the default A600gs rather than A1200ng which I would prefer it to be.

 

Next is importing the kickstart roms. You can select the kickstart roms you have from a USB stick connected to the USB port on the back, or via a FAT32 CF card in the CF card slot on the left side of the A1200NG. 

As I own Amiga Forever (multiple versions!), I used the kickstart roms from the DVD and transferred via USB stick using the menus in the A1200NG to import to the onboard 256GB MicroSD card.

The volume/directory navigator is easy to use, and I it only shows valid kickstart rom files to select from. With the import done, I can see the current kickstarts I have available on the system. I will do more work with these later as I customise the system.

With this homework done and wizard completed, you are presented with a nice graphical menu system to navigate with your mouse, or connected joystick.  Let's take a look around at what is included in the package as delivered - we will of course add a lot more to it later.

Note that the joystick needs to be registered before you can use it in any game, demo, AmiBENCH or the menu. You can do this by double pressing the fire button on the joystick connected to the A1200NG. 

You will then see the joystick appear in the Controller settings - you can assign it to mouse or joystick port:

Good to go, Joystick can now be used. Note that annoyingly it doesn't remember this, and you have to do it each time you reboot the A1200NG system. Perhaps there is a way to save this permanently?

Turning my attention to the very nice menu system.

A number of games, applications and full Workbench environment (called AmiBench) are pre-installed and ready to try out - each launcher has a screenshot preview image, which makes it look so much nicer than a pile of text:

The included stuff includes Directory Opus 4 (the amazing Australian made file manager), Final Writer 7 new version, OctaMED 8 (new version), Personal Paint (new version), YAM (Email software), Super Skidmarks, Virtual GP and some other game titles are also available to run as delivered.

I tried running the included AmiBench workbench environment first. 

This uses a RTG driver to display a native 1080p "Workbench", running on AROS kickstart roms and a limited set of applications and tools that are developed by AmigaKit. This is not a full AmigaOS 1.3/2.0/3.1 environment, but it functions similarly, within the limitations of AROS kickstart roms.

As the hard disk boots up, you see the LED light up. Personally, I prefer the power light to be red and hard disk light green, but that is how the LED's are oriented on the module.

The AmiBench desktop appears, and looks very nice indeed at 1080p on my large HDMI display.

On the hard disk there is a video trailer for the Viva Amiga film produced a few years ago. I assume this is using something like RabbitHole in AmiKit XE to pass through to play the videos?

As you can see, the Prefs drawer (and other drawers) have a limited set of settings compared to the full AmigaOS 1.3/2.0/3.1/3.9/3.2 setups. 

I will play with AmiBench more later, since I know I need to first upgrade the firmware on this A1200NG for some new functionality improvements and updated software.

From the main menu/launcher screen on the A1200NG, you can navigate the settings preferences on the left side icons by moving the mouse over to that area. It will then expand the icons and show all the options to choose from.

I noticed straight away that I didn't hear any audio through the HDMI output. Perhaps it is the fault of the cheap HDMI switcher I am using rather than the HDMI output, as this screen shares the HDMI input with the A1222 and X1000 AmigaOne systems. 

I ended up hooking up the RCA audio ports on the back of the A1200NG and changed the audio output in the settings menu on the A1200NG to resolve this. 

It may just be me, but I noticed some background noise interference on the RCA audio ports with the A1200NG for some reason. 

I don't have this issue with the other computers connected to the same speakers - I'll need to isolate if it is the cables I used or something else is going on. Anyway, not a big thing, but worth mentioning.

While the emulation is running, you can at any time use the menu access keyboard shortcut to Quit, Save State, close the emulation, reboot the emulation, insert a disk, take screenshots, and more. This is the pop up menu that appears:

You can navigate this menu with joystick mouse or keyboard.

Next, I tried out OctaMED 8 Sound Studio from the launcher. I tried the sample music files included, but of course I plan to add plenty more mod files from my other systems soon. As a user of OctaMED sound studio on my other Amigas, I am glad to see there is a new updated version in 2025.

In the future I will try out the MIDI support with this - I heard you can connect a USB MIDI device (like I do on the A1222) to playback MIDI using OctaMED 8.

As a huge fan of Super Skidmarks, I had to try this game next.

As this is running the usual 4:3 aspect ratio, it does not fill the screen, in order to stay perspective correct.

In the Lores mode it looked and played great. In high res mode, the de-interlacer makes the cars and track look awful and difficult to focus on. 

I use the lores mode instead.

I also tried out T-Racer, which is included:

Also included with the A1200NG is the Virtual GP game, which is a commercial game I bought for my Amiga 1200 back in 1999. It is nice to see it included with the A1200NG system.

I had to try out the Melbourne grand prix track, being an Australian :-)

This game was impressive in its day - people didn't think Amiga systems could do games like this at the time. The 3D shows it's age now though:

Last, I looked at an included game I never heard of before, a shoot em up game called ThunderHeli:

It's ok, but in my opinion there are much better shoot em ups on the Amiga.

Let's switch back to the main menu launcher on the A1200NG and look at some of the preferences, and sort out firmware updates, registering the device for updates with my AmiSphere login.

First though I wanted to show the Bluetooth and Display preferences, accessible from the options in the A1200NG main menu launcher. I believe you can pair and output the audio from the A1200NG to bluetooth speakers if you want to! I haven't tried it yet.

The display settings allow you to adjust the Amiga emulation output settings if you prefer scan lines, or want the amiga display in emulation to fill the screen rather than being aspect ratio correct.

There is also a Backup and Restore section to backup the setting changes you have made to the system, and to restore from those saves, or back to the factory default settings if you make a real mess of things.

In the power settings menu is the option to reboot the A1200NG or power off the system. Note that you need to gracefully shutdown the A1200NG via this menu - don't just turn off at the power switch like you can with a Classic amiga system.

Next I logged in my AmiSphere profile. I already have one since I use it for my AmigaOS 4 systems.

With the profile logged in, I can get to work registering this A1200NG to my AmiSphere profile. For privacy reasons I don't show this step since it reveals the unique product ID and my AmiSphere details.

I can then select Check Update:

It lets me know that there is an update to install, so I get to work installing it:

This takes a few minutes - time for a coffee:

\

The update completes successfully, and it restarts the A1200NG to complete the patching:

I can see I am now running (as of this blog post) the latest 46.2.1224 version:

With the AmiSphere login done, I can also see if there are any other downloads or updates I need to install on the A1200NG:

I later plan to play around with the recently announced Amibrowser application under AmiBench, which apparently gives access to normal websites that normally don't work on classic Amiga systems.

I also later want to try the real floppy drive support (Drawbridge/Greaseweazel). 

I already have done this in previous blog posts on my CrowPi laptop build, PC, and Raspberry Pi AmiKit setups. Most recently I did it on my AmigaOne A1222 using AmigaOS4 along with doing Air printing under AmigaOS4!

For now though, I want to try out adding some Amiga games and demos via ADF disk files to the menu launcher. I am pleased to say that this process works very well.

When you select any title in the launcher menu, its screenshot appears to the left, and some options appear at the bottom. One is to launch of course, but an ADD and Edit option is also available. Add is used to create a new launcher.

The edit option shows all the settings for this particular launcher. Use the scroll wheel on the mouse to scroll down as there are more settings than the initial screen. 

If the Protected checkbox is selected, then the launcher cannot be deleted unless the protect checkbox is cleared and saved first. This prevents accidentally deletions from the preview screen when launching a title.

I got to work copying a pile of ADF files onto a MicroSD card, which I inserted into a CF card adapter to use in the A1200NG CF card port.

With it inserted, it feels right. I think using this port for CF Cards is a great idea.

That said, it is VERY easy to push the CF card over the top of the CF card and into the case, forcing you to disassemble the A1200 to get it out - happened to me twice!

Also be careful not to bend the pins on the CF card slot - I found they bend very easily on the A1200NG, much like the ones in the ACA500 expansion for the Amiga 500/1000.

When you click on ADD to create a new launcher, you get a number of options - you can import some ADF disk files, a CD image file (for CD32 or CDTV titles), a HDF hard disk image file, a custom system configuration launcher, and importing WHDBoot archives, which contain all the files needed to boot a single game with WHDLoad.

I wanted to do ADF disk files first, since I assumed they would be the easiest to get working. Also because I had a goal in mind - I wanted to have new release Amiga games in my launcher menu for the most part, with a few favourite classic games I like to play from time to time.

Why do it this way? I assume most people would load up a HDF image with every Amiga game and demo ever released in WHDLoad format and use a launcher in the hard disk image to select from them to run.

I have this setup already, and I rarely use 99% of the games. 

I find I prefer to play the new release games more, as it offers a new experience on the Amiga, rather than re-hashing games I have played hundreds or thousands of times before.

That said, I also want a way to load new ADF files without having to create a launcher for every one - after all, I may only play it once. And I don't want a huge pile of disks to navigate through on the launcher menu. So first I created a base Amiga 500 Workbench 1.3 custom system

I select A500 as the model, the v1.3 kickstart rom file for the A500, and set CPU type as 68000.

I added the serial port option, adjusted the memory to be 512k chip, 512k slow, and 2MB fast memory.

By default you can insert ADF files using the pop up menu keyboard shortcut in the emulation. I left the remaining settings as per the defaults.

You can add hard disk files, drawer based hard disks, etc, but for this launcher I just want to use ADF files - so keep it simple. With the launcher saved, it shows a generic joystick icon image. 

I launched the new Amiga 500 launcher title and I quickly an Amiga v 1.3 insert disk screen appear.

Using the keyboard shortcut (R.Shift + F10) I setup earlier, I can get the pop up menu to insert a ADF disk.

From the popup I can also select to Save a screenshot of the current screen to the Thumb preview image on the Launcher title. With that done, when I exit the emulation (from the same pop up menu), I now get a nice preview image for my new Amiga 500 launcher!

With that in place, I set to work on adding specific recent and favourite games as seperate ADF imported launcher titles.

First up is Roguecraft, a 2024 release game I bought as a physical box release, and I am still enjoying playing on my Classic Amigas. I also got the ADF version of the game as part of the purchase. 

From the Add menu, I created a new launcher and selected the Roguecraft adf file to import from my USB stick:

I then setup the system as per the Amiga 500 setup I showed before:

As I scroll down the configuration for the launcher, you can see the disk file I imported is already listed there:

I then saved the Launcher title.

On launch, the first thing I did was grab a screenshot of the game title screen (although I could have grabbed an in game shot too of course) to use as the thumbnail launcher title image:

I then quit the emulation to check the screenshot thumbnail - it looks great!

Roguecraft is currently my favourite Amiga game, and I am enjoying playing it! It works perfectly on the A1200NG.

From the Pop up menu in the emulation, as mentioned earlier you can save the state. Now for a Launcher title like a game, this is awesome. Many Amiga games have no save game option, so a save state allows you to save where you are up to and restore it when you want to play it again later, without losing your progress.

Can can saves multiple save states, and they are selectable from the launcher preview pane by clicking on the Saves button:

I then set to work adding some other newer games like "Tiny Pixel Adventures". 

For this game, I found I needed to select the "Faster chipset" option, or it didn't run at full speed. For all future games, I selected the option automatically.

After my experiences with Super skid marks hires mode, I was worried about Turbo Sprint AGA since it also uses a hires interlace mode. But it worked perfectly. 

Note that I needed to select A1200 as the model with A1200 V3.1 kickstart rom for this Turbo Sprint AGA launcher, with JIT CPU emulation turned on.

I added many other ADF titles as launchers, including some classic demos like Desire's Inside the Machine from 2024, using standard A500 settings covered earlier:

It ran well, and I was quite happy at this point!

I also tried two other ADF demo titles - Mental Hangover from Scoopex, and TEK's Trnashuman from 2022.

Again, both worked well for me.

Next, I wanted to try getting CD32 titles working with the launcher, importing the ISO from USB stick. 

For these I needed to select the Ext Rom section to select the CD32 rom, and using the Automatic setting for the main kickstart ROM, with JIT CPU emulation on.

I tested first with Dungeonette AGA, another 2024 release I got in early 2025.

You can use the Turbo CD function in the settings to speed up the loading time. 

Dungeonette works well - I have CD32 games from an easy launcher on the A1200NG!

FYI the turbo disk option works well for some ADF floppy disk titles too, but not for non-dos ADF disks and track loading demos that depend on the timing of the drive loading speed.

When I got my Amiga CD32 second hand many years ago now, it came with a CD-R with a CD32-200 games on it. I saved the CD as a ISO image, and decided to import it as a launcher on the A1200NG.

This works very well. Many classic Amiga titles covered by one launcher title - time to play Agony methinks:

It works well enough, so I guess I don't need to create a ADF launcher for it now!

I also added a launcher for the Amiga CD32 title Yoomp!, released in 2024. I bought the physical box release from K&A plus, which included the CD32 iso (and a ADF) with the purchase.

The game works great on the A1200NG, and I had some fun playing it for a while!

A game I hadn't tried was Stardust wars, an impressive Star Wars themed game with stunning visuals, controlling one of the empire's tie fighters to shoot the rebels ships as they try to destroy the Death Star. 

I downloaded the ISO and imported into a launcher title on the A1200NG as I did for the other CD32 configurations earlier.

The game works very well indeed.

I decided to turn my attention to getting drawer based hard disk systems up and running on the A1200NG.

I have backups of my Amiga 2000 and Amiga 1200 hard disks from back in the early 2000's, which I copied to more modern computers into drawers, rather than as a image file.

This is because WinUAE supported running Amiga hard disk systems this way, and it makes copying files to the system folders from the host system much easier.

The Amiberry lite emulator that is used for the A1200NG also supports this feature. You'll note that at no time have I had to go back to the linux environment to do anything - it is all done via this launcher interface. 

That in itself is a remarkable achievement, and makes this quite user friendly to use and operate with no linux knowledge needed.

I set to work creating a custom system launcher for the Amiga 1200 HD configuration.

I need to create the drawer based folders from this configuration screen. I can specify the device name (DH0. DH1, etc) and the drive label, which is seen in the system.

Note that these drawer based "Drives" are empty at the start.

So we need to mount the USB and CF drives to the emulation, so we can copy the files across within the emulation itself.

I added a second drawer based hard disk, as my Amiga 1200 originally had more than one hard disk in it.

The system will not boot like this, since we have no installed any operating system to the drawer based folders yet. 

So when we start the emulation from the launcher, we will quickly get a AmigaDOS prompt and nothing else. We bring up the pop up menu in the emulation, and select to insert a disk, I select the AmigaOS 3.1 install disk, which is a bootable ADF.

I then soft reset the emulation from the same menu, and it boots the Workbench:

You can see that the two disks I created are now present, along with the CF card I told it to mount as well. This CF card contains all the files for both drives:

I then open an AmigaShell and set to work copying the files across to each drive from the source folders on the CF card (which I copied from my PC).

I then relabelled the disks to the names I used on the original hard disks before I reboot.

After the reboot, the system booted and it was like it was 1996 all over again! This is the exact Amiga 1200 setup I had back then, running AmigaOS 3.1.

The Workbench soon appears, with everything working exactly how it did back in the day!

I then setup an Amiga 2000 Workbench 1.3 setup the same way. I cheated by using a 3.1 kickstart rom and boot adf initially in the configuration to copy the files across to the drive I created, and then changed the configuration of the launcher to be v1.3 kickstart rom. This avoided me having to deal with using a v1.3 workbench disk to copy the files.

I have to say I am quite impressed so far with the A1200NG. 

It already does a lot - being able to have a nice preview menu launcher system for commonly played games and demos is wonderful. 

I have read online that the A1200NG system is not so fast if you want to run higher 040/060 titles, and there is work to improve the speed of the system, with more updates to come. I have not tried this out yet, but I think I covered a lot in this post already! I took hundreds of photos for this blog post!

Whether you personally like emulated Amigas or not, I think AmigaKit have made a genuine effort to make an emulated Amiga system with lots of bells and whistles that does a lot more than the average emulation system can do. For that, I am grateful to have a A1200NG in 2025.

It doesn't replace my classic Amiga systems as I still have them, and nothing beats using the real thing for me. 

But it is good to know that when the old systems eventually fail, I have the A1200NG system to relive all my favourite games and Amiga systems still. And it does it all in a genuine Amiga 1200 system case.

As mentioned I still need to muck around with the A1200NG AmiBench, GreaseWeazle and drawbridge floppy drive setup. 

As also said, I want to try out the MIDI support with OctaMED 8, and getting some HDF image files working so I can use my later backed up Amiga systems with it. That will come in a future blog post.

I hope you enjoyed this post and found it interesting! 

The sad quiet death of computer and console magazines

Have you been to your local newsagent to buy a magazine recently? No?

You would be quite surprised if you went to a newsagent ten years ago, and then went to a newsagent these days (assuming it is still open for business). So many have closed in recent years.

This is the "Computer magazine section" in a local newsagent here in Australia in September 2025:

Most Newsagents I have seen in Australia in 2025 now sell loads of stationery, occasion cards, act as agents for selling Lotto tickets, and do work under contract as agents for delivery/shipping companies (eg. Australia Post, DHL, UPS and others).

The newsagent shops in Australia are often full of undelivered packages, cluttering up the remaining tiny magazine display space which is always empty of people. Birthday/occasion cards dominate the previously full magazine display stands. 

The lines of people in the newsagent you see sometimes are for the post office delivery collection and for buying Lotto tickets...

The reality is that in 2025 very few people are still buying magazines from newsagents. In Adelaide's Central Business District (CBD), all but one newsagent in Rundle Mall have already shut down. 

I visited that newsagent in the city last weekend. They have a slightly larger selection of magazines than my local, but still very small indeed, with many copies of the same magazine across multiple locations to fill it out, as below:

So where has the magazine audience gone?

These days, on the internet you can see everything you ever wanted to know about pretty much any topic. 

Any new or old computer or console, any new or old game, application, tool or device. Read or view in real time - from the comfort of your smartphone or tablet.

Just search for and watch a short video on YouTube (as below), or watch development of new games live on Twitch, or read detailed posts about newly released devices on a blog. 

Such content is created within a few hours of a product release anywhere in the world. 

We get notified on our smartphones and tablets that something has happened and we can check it out, or use an AI tool to summarise it if we are too lazy or time poor to watch 5-10 minutes of content.

I can also watch short review or full long play videos online of any game ever made that I want to play. For any platform, current or old.

If that is not enough, I can watch popular streamers live playing these games and talk directly with developers who are often present on popular streams to gauge real time feedback and suggestions. I can save the videos to my smartphone or tablet device to watch later on a plane or train trip.

Take, for example, the latest release Hollow Knight: Silksong game on console (Switch 1/2) and Steam (PC/Mac/Linux) this past week. 

This game is made by talented local Adelaide developers Team Cherry over the past 7 years. 

First, let's check out YouTube and Twitch - Hollow Knight Silksong full and quick reviews, play throughs and live streams - huge quantities of instant content for you to consume...5.6 million people watched the release trailer alone!

You can see exactly what the game looks like and plays like - you don't need to rely on the reviewer - you can see it, and hear for yourself without buying it. 

I can do a quick search on Facebook, which has plenty of videos showing the game, and feedback to read.

Using Twitch (shown below), YouTube live or Kick, you can watch many people playing the game all around the world in real time and in your local language. 

You can ask questions in chat in real time too, to make the decision to buy it or not even easier - over 8,000 people are watching just one Twitch streamer in real time playing Hollow Knight Silksong during my lunch time Adelaide time (in the screenshot below):

In addition, you can debate Hollow Knight Silksong news items, product reviews or stories in real time with your similarly minded colleagues on Discord, Facebook, WhatsApp, BlueSky, X, Telegram, Tik Tok, YouTube, Line, Web forums or other social media platforms. 

Great game by the way, and I bought it on Steam. Sadly no physical box release yet.

I am so glad to see local game dev alive and well in Adelaide in 2025.

Continuing this example, you can get feedback from developers who worked on it directly or other knowledgable game players via the official Hollow Knight Discord channel. 

Discord channels have different sections for different topics, sort of like a web forum website but much more interactive between the users and in real time. Voice channels are also setup and available for active discussion about the game in real time.

As I screenshotted the discord channel below, note at the top of the right pane that there are over 55,000 people online at lunch time on a Tuesday in the official Hollow Knight Discord channel - just for this one game! 

*This* is where all the magazine audience has gone.

Would you write an email for a future Magazine letters page asking for help to get an answer in a few months. Why bother, when you can get an instant answer in Discord, watch a long play in YouTube or watch full review and play through in realtime with all tips and tricks shown!

So why would anyone buy a magazine released at least 1-2 months afterwards with delayed and limited coverage of what they are interested in? 

They don't. And they aren't.

So the magazine companies are selling up, amalgamating multiple titles into one as readership and revenue from ad companies plummets, and then closing them down and disappearing. 

Quietly up until ten years ago, but much more rapidly in recent years. It is a generational shift.

This situation in 2025 is VERY different to what used to happen with magazines covering obsolete computer and console platforms. 

In those eras in the 1980's and 1990's, when the platforms life came to an end, the specialist magazine closed as people moved on to newer platforms, with new magazines to cover them. For example: OS/2, Amstrad, C64, Atari ST and Amiga users moved on to Windows, Mac and Linux magazines.

Web forums were in their infancy in the mid-late 1990's - mostly places like usenet - and there was no YouTube, no Facebook, no Twitch, no Steam, no Discord, no WhatsApp. No DLC, no "fremium" games, no micro-transactions in games to progress, no games dependent on online internet servers to run. Operating system patches and games were actually finished and tested fully internally before they were released to the public, back when Kickstarters, Early access, DevOps and Agile development processes didn't exist. 

Yikes, I feel much older after typing all that.

Magazines were how we found out about what was happening in the world of tech, and we trusted their reviewers to give us the scoop on whether a piece of hardware, system, game or application was worth getting or not.

Now in 2025, this is not happening with current computer and console platforms. The platforms are not obsolete yet, but the magazines are still gone - even the magazines that are available in Digital form on tablets and smartphones for many years!

Where is "Official Nintendo magazine", "Official Xbox magazine", "Official Playstation magazine", "PC Format", "Official Windows magazine", or MacWorld to cover current developments for current platforms in 2025? 

They don't exist. They are all gone. Years ago. Did you notice? Possibly not.

Young gamers were the first to move away from magazines and now almost everyone has, for the reasons I showed with Hollow knight Silksong example earlier.

Specialist platform magazines are also quietly disappearing. 

I saw Computer Music magazine, Linux Format, 3D World, Australian MacWorld and MacUser have also now closed.

Multi-format magazines are also mostly gone in the last ten years - C&VG, Electronics Gaming Monthly, Game Informer, Megazone, Games(tm), Games Master and many others. 

Specialist magazines also got the axe. None of the magazines below is still around as a physical printed magazine today (except PC Pro).

Commodore magazines are mostly long gone, but already I covered in a previous blog post about Amiga magazines from 1985 to 2022, and their amazing continued run despite the decimation of computer magazines elsewhere around the world. Please read that article for more detail on Amiga magazines!

Here are some of the older Amiga and Commodore magazines (definitely not all of them - see my blog post for more details) 

So what is left?

"Edge" magazine is one of the few multi-format magazines to still survive in 2025 - but seriously, take a look at the tiny thin size and page count of it. Other US and UK specialist magazines such as "PC Pro" and "Admin Network & Security" magazine are also still around in 2025. There are probably others that I can't get here in Australia, and I am only looking at English language magazines.

I bought Retro Gamer and PC Pro latest issues from the newsagent here in September 2025 (note we get magazines one or two months later than they are released in the UK/US. 

Ironically PC Pro magazine this month is running a feature about 30th anniversary of Windows 95 in 2025! :-)

Some Retro related magazines like Retro Gamer, recent new specialist Retro computer/console related magazines like Amiga Addict, re-started Zzap 64/Amiga, Boing, Amiga Future, Freeze64, K&A Plus, and similar have also survived. 

Amongst the negativity, it's good to see there are several Amiga and C64 magazines are still available in 2025!

This I believe is because there is still some new software and hardware released for the C64 and Amiga, and an entire generation keen to learn more about their childhood computing/console history from Retro Gamer. 

There are also other old magazines like Compute's Gazette, Crash and Sega Force that have been resurrected under new owners in 2025 with new issues being released for the Retro computing/gaming community.

Luckily there are plenty of remaining developers and company executives still around to tell those stories as exclusives to those magazines, and AmigaOS continues to be developed in 2025 with new games also! 

I am glad this type of magazine is still around as I enjoy these too, but it is generational. Buy them while you can!

The next generation sadly couldn't care less about magazines or physical box classic game content. They seem totally engrossed with digital game licensed (with DLC upsell) gaming consoles, smartphones and tablets. This is when they are not live streaming or sharing snapchat, telegram, instagram, YouTube, Kick and Twitch content to their online friends and discussing in real time via Discord, etc. 

This is not limited to the home either. IRL (In Real Life) live streaming, emojis and chat are replacing magazines, real conversations and text for a new generation. 

Next generation adults are now watching YouTube shorts and Tik Tok videos - they last 1 minute or less. Their attention span has narrowed for whatever reason, and the need for companies to adapt ads to get eyeballs onto sponsored content to make money still rolls on without magazines. 

Content quality and quantity has consequently reduced in favour of shoddy clickbait, constant pestering for subscriptions and likes, and deliberate drawing out videos to meet minimum eyeball viewing time statistics for payments from platforms like YouTube. 

You probably know the sort of thing. 

Terrible "YouTube watch party live streams", YouTube videos reviewing of other people's popular videos, Unboxing videos, AI generated artwork, AI voice overs and AI generated videos are being released for a generation too lazy or not willing to spend the time to create their own content, all to make a quick buck. 

How many AI generated videos do you watch and learn something useful from?

Detailed quality reviews (blog or video) are rapidly becoming a thing of the past - except on my Epsilon's World blog of course :-) 

All of my content is written 100% by me and all photos and screenshots taken by me - no AI generation tools, or image perfecting processing used. I bought everything myself with my own money from working full time - no patreon money, kickstarters or shady pre-order schemes. And I make no money from it - I do this because I love it. I must be crazy.

Is this change a bad thing? I think you can be the judge of that. 

Given the situation, I decided to get a selection of these closed down computer/console magazines that people are chucking out while there are some still to be had. You have already seen some of them earlier in this post.

For me, particularly sad is the death of nearly all local Australian magazine content. No one talks much about Australian magazines, so I will!

Australia used to have so many different computer/console related magazines on the shelves. Above and below is a sample - a number of US/UK "official" computer and console magazines also had dedicated Australian versions with their own local content mixed in:

Atomic PC was a great Australian PC gaming hardware and software magazine that sadly closed in 2012 - the photo of Atomic magazine with the :-( at the top of this blog post was their last issue.

Australian PC User magazine was around for years (since 1990) before being rebranded in 2012 into Tech Life magazine, which was itself finally discontinued in 2022.

Hyper magazine was a popular local multi-format gaming magazine that lasted from 1993 until it stopped 26 years later in 2019.

Official Nintendo Magazine, Official Windows magazine, Official Playstation magazine (later rebranded to Play), Game Informer, Australian Game Pro, and MacWorld Australia (1985-2018) were local licensed versions of the US/UK original magazines with local Australian content added. All are now discontinued.

 

We also had older Australian magazine titles like Your Computer (1981-1997), Megazone (1988-1995), OZ Amiga (1991-1992), Australian Commodore & Amiga Review (1996), and Professional Amiga User (1990-1992)

With a few exceptions like PC PowerPlay (magazine handbooks only - the regular magazine shutdown in 2018) and Australian Personal Computer (APC), there are basically no other locally produced Australian computer magazines left in 2025. 

Note: Silicon Chip is an electronics magazine, before someone local points it out - I know. Also, JB Hifi's Stacked "magazine" is not a magazine - just a long form advertisement for all their products dressed up as a "magazine".

If I missed any other local Australian computer/console magazines still sold as physical magazines in 2025, please let me know! 

I bought both those Australian produced magazines below in September 2025 - APC has been released every month since 1980 - it's now 45 years old! PC Powerplay magazine has been released since 1996-2018, now limited to occasional Handbooks rather than regular magazines.

I paint a bleak picture about magazines future in 2025 because it is bleak. Very.

I am glad to see that Australian government is working to preserve copies of Australian produced computer magazines so they will not be lost forever as the world moves on.

I openly wonder how will content created on Discord and other walled garden social media applications be preserved in the future after they are inevitably discontinued and their supporting servers turned off?

For now sadly, the magazine as you and I know it, is dying. Forever. I believe it will not return once it is gone.

In ten years, I predict no one will be able to buy a magazine in a newsagent - they simply won't exist. 

Your children's kids/grand kids will grow up not even knowing what a magazine is, the same way as your kids don't know what a floppy disk, DAT tape, Minidisc, cassette or Iomega zip disk is today.

Technology moves on. People move on. Not all progress is good progress, but it is what it is. 

While we older people may wipe away a tear, I assure you the next generation is losing no sleep over the quiet death of magazines in 2025.

So here on my blog I wanted to show and preserve a small piece of what are wonderful memories for me - the humble and long lasting computer and console magazine. 

You can also read more detailed videogame magazine history on the very excellent Forgotten Worlds website. Many scanned collections of these old magazines are available on archive.org and elsewhere on the internet if you want to read them without further filling your house or apartment with old magazines!

I have a special thanks to everyone who has ever worked on, or written an article for, any computer or console magazine in any era. 

Especially I want to acknowledge those still creating magazines and content in 2025 for the tiny remaining audience. I do my best within my financial means to support those who continue to produce magazine content in a format that is now considered "old fashioned and obsolete".  

Like most others, in 2025 I have embraced the new tech as well, but I love magazines still - the fact I kept so many old magazines to remind me of that era, and still buy 2025 new release magazines from overseas and occasional issues of local magazines should hopefully prove that!