ScuzzBlog: Diaries October 2026
Entry 2nd October 2026: Post 1: Amiga 1200 - 060 Apollo more than you really need.
Amiga 1200 - 060 Apollo more than you really need.
When I bought the Apollo 060 back in the very early days of the
new millennium I really did think I was doing the right thing. I
was buying a brand new Amiga Magic Pack from Analogic in London
and I thought it would be great to have a super powerful card to
go along with it. In those days we got our stuff from Amibench.
The site was very good for not just buying kit but getting to
know other Amiga users. In the case of the 060 I struck up a
very friendly relationship with a guy in Birmingham.
Sadly, although the card was super fast it conflicted with the
PCMCIA slot and struggled with the Squirrel and CD drive. So I
replaced it with a Blizzard 1230IV and never looked back. Soon
after that I got the SCSI KIT off the Blizzard so didn't need
the PCMCIA in the end.
So what to do with the Apollo. Well in truth nothing. What is
worse is that I bought two of the things and have never used
either for any serious work. The speed is off the chart and it
feels way out of my league. The accelerator was sold by EyeTech
who were specialists in the late nineties for towering up the
Amiga and selling all the various gadgets, cards, add-on, drives
etc to go along with the towers. Amiga enthusiasts were very
keen to compete with the tin box Windows systems.
So what am I doing today. My little episode with the A1200 in
this room made me think about checking over all the Amiga's I
have that I fitted hard drives to back in 2018. The A1200s are
easy to spot as I stuck a tiny symbol on the case, usually a
star. Infact I called the set of machines my new stars.
One such machine is TuMoon named after a character I created
in Archeage. Having installed the new hard drive I treated the
computer to the Apollo 060 and then pretty much glass cased
the beast. She sits on a stack of magazines in the store area
never to be used. Pretty sad really.
Today I removed all the protective tissue and gave her a run
out. More like a short jog really. She didn't boot at first.
She can be a little temperamental, nothing serious. The weight
of the 060 bends her down on the trapdoor and normally a quick
wiggle or reseat gets her back up and running. Took no time
to get her working. My fault for taking the trapdoor cover off.
Just a bit of accelerator sag.
The computer is bloody fast. When I say fast I mean fast. Way
too fast for its own good. It is not that it feels strange just
that it feels out of place with an A1200. Having used the 030
cards for so long you get used to a machine performing in a
certain way. The card is special and is treated with respect.
That big purple coloured processor is a rare thing and having
one working even more rare. So sadly once I was happy she and
the hard drive were OK I bagged her up and slid her back onto
the shelf. In a way I'm more relieved than anything else.
In truth I'm more comfortable driving the bangers than the
sports cars. I just feel out of my league driving that fast.
With respect to accelerators I take the view that an A1200
is pretty useless without one. It is why I never used the A600
cus I could never find an accelerator for it. The form factor
of the 600 is way too small to be useful. The A500 copes with
the extra RAM and maybe the Plus upgrade. But the A1200 always
needs the 030 as a minimum. I guess that is why I bought so
many cards. The computer just wasn't usable without one. As
to the 060, a nice have but really not necessary.
PS I bought my first accelerator so I could play SimCity 2000.
Once you have been treated with the benefits of speeding up a
game like that with an 030 you are never going back. Like ever.
PPS If you have never played Football Glory or fiddled with
InfoNexus I would certainly recommend giving a try. They are
sufficiently different to their equals to make them most fun
to play with. I forget sometimes just how varied some of the
games and software were in the day.
Happy days.
Amiga 1200 - 060 Apollo more than you really need.
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