Report: My Experiences with the Amiga A1222+
Francis G. Loch develops tools such as PowerReboot for AmigaOS 4 in the C
programming language. 20 years after purchasing a MicroA1 and after a long
break from OS4, Loch bought an A1222+. In his experience report, he describes
his impressions of the hardware and operating systems, as well as the
applications that are important to him:
My Experiences with the Amiga A1222+
Introduction
In this article, I share some of my general experiences of building
and using the Amiga A1222+ computer. With the official pre-built systems
lacking an optical drive, I opted to purchase just the motherboard and assemble
the system myself. For me, the process of selecting components and putting
everything together is half the fun!
AmigaOS 4.1 Installation
I started by building the system to a point where I could begin
installing AmigaOS 4.1. It was here that I encountered my first issue, and I
confess that I must take full responsibility for this one. The AmigaOS 4.1
installer comes on a recovery USB drive. I must have missed a step as the
installer started overwriting files on the USB drive leading to corruption and
preventing me from fully installing the OS. Fortunately, I had created an image
of the recovery USB drive beforehand allowing me to restore it to its original
state.
The next issue I faced was that the system would not boot
from the USB drive. The A1222+ must be a bit fussy about which USB port is used
for boot devices as switching to a different port resolved the issue and I was
able to install the OS without any further hitches.
Screen Modes
My main monitor has a resolution of 3440 x 1440. I have had
issues with some other systems not being able to handle this resolution, and I
am happy to report that the A1222+ booted to Workbench using the monitor’s native
resolution automatically with no problems. However, I did notice that the
Workbench’s screen preferences tool did not automatically recognise all
available screen modes (e.g. 1920 x 1080). I suspect this may be an issue with
my monitor not communicating these options with the A1222+. I can manually
configure the other screen modes, but I have not been able to successfully configure
the monitor’s native resolution manually.
Optical Drive SATA Issue
While building my A1222+ system, I connected a DVD drive to
one of the onboard SATA ports. Initially, this seemed to work fine, but I soon
experienced frequent disconnections of the DVD drive during copy operations,
leading to a dreaded Grim Reaper error from the “Mounter Task.”
After discussing the issue on one of the Amiga forums, I
learned that early versions of the SATA driver did not support removable media,
and this limitation still appears to exist. To remedy the situation, I
purchased a USB to SATA adapter which allowed me to connect the DVD drive via
USB. Since doing this, I have not encountered any further issues with the DVD
drive.
Lack of HDMI Audio Output
Currently, the A1222+ does not support audio output via
HDMI. While this may not be a problem for most users, it posed a challenge for
me since my soundbar lacks a 3.5mm audio jack and only supports optical, HDMI
or Bluetooth connections. I experimented with several HDMI audio inserter
devices (example in the photo below) to find one compatible with my setup. Some
devices did not support my monitor’s resolution, and in one case, did not
output a compatible audio stream for my soundbar; however, I eventually found a
working solution.
USB Ports Underpowered
The USB ports on the A1222+ are somewhat underpowered. They
work fine for low-power devices like USB drives, but even the most
energy-efficient USB optical drive I found failed to operate reliably, with AmigaOS
indicating that too much power was being drawn. The system also struggled with
my keyboard, which admittedly falls into the higher-powered category as it has
a lot of smart features and lighting. I resolved these power issues by
installing a powered internal USB hub connected to a SATA power connector, as
shown in the image below. An added benefit of using this type of hub is that it
provides additional USB ports.
A1222+ Freezes During Copy Operations
I occasionally experienced freezes when copying files using
Workbench, although copying files using the Shell worked fine. Copying more
than the RAM: drive could handle would also cause the system to freeze. After
discussing this on an Amiga forum, I learned that there is a bug with ASyncWB.
Disabling the ExtMem feature with the command "SYS:Kickstart/ram-handler.kmod
ExtMem=NO" provided a workaround and I have not had this issue since.
Enhancer Software Issues
I encountered problems with the Enhancer version of the sound
preferences tool. For some reason, the gain setting goes astronomically high,
as shown in the image below. Before I had the system hooked up to my soundbar,
I was using headphones – and that was a painful moment for my ears when the sound
came through!
I also experienced another issue with the sound where I
think, as part of the adaptive volume settings, it would set the DAC mixer
level to minimum, resulting in the sound no longer being audible. Restoring the
original version of the sound preferences tool supplied with AmigaOS 4.1
resolved these issues.
Similarly, I found that the Enhancer version of the time
preferences tool causes issues, particularly with daylight saving adjustments.
Again, reverting to version supplied with AmigaOS 4.1 fixed these problems.
Updater and AMIStore Issues
Not to be confused with the AmiUpdate tool, I found
that A-EON’s Updater has some issues. When I originally built my A1222+ system,
I was unable to download some of the updates, but this issue appears to have partly
sorted itself recently. There also appears to be some confusion with version
numbers, as shown in the image below, which indicates the latest version as
being 2.2, while the downloaded version is incorrectly reported as 7.3c.
I also discovered that some updates I was able to download, such
as AmiPDF, are incompatible with the A1222+, so I had to revert to the
originally installed versions. Similarly to the Updater tool, AMIStore also has
issues with some of the reported version numbers being incorrect, as shown in
the image below.
Software
Odyssey is a very good web browser that has a high
compatibility with many modern websites, even to the point of being able to
watch YouTube videos. My main gripes with it, however, are the time it takes to
start the application as it spends a long time loading the fonts. Additionally,
if I click on something that wants to open a webpage, it opens another instance
of the browser, again taking a long time to load up.
CubicIDE was my main C programming IDE and text editor when
I had my first AmigaOS 4 system. Sadly, I have been unsuccessful getting this
to work with the A1222+. For my C programming needs, CodeBench has been a
top-notch replacement.
Other Things
I believe this is already a known problem which also affects
some of the other AmigaOS 4 systems – pressing CTRL-AMIGA-AMIGA to reset the system
does not work very well as the computer will just boot with a blank screen. CTRL-ALT-ALT
will work though.
I find that there is a bit of a lag when keypresses are registered
by the system. This results in some characters being missed when I’m typing at
my normal speed, which has led to some frustration.
The mouse I use has a left/right scroll-wheel in addition to
the up/down one. It’s a minor inconvenience, but the system does not appear to
recognise this.
I quite like the default A1222+ wallpaper and it would have
been nice if it came in other resolutions or aspect ratios.
Final Words
In my usage of the A1222+, I have tended to stick with what
I mainly bought it for, so I have perhaps not been as adventurous as some
others in trying out everything that it has to offer.
The more minor issues that I have come across I have left in
the hope that things will improve with future software updates. Other issues I have
found that the Amiga forums are invaluable for advice on how to resolve them.
Despite its shortfalls, I am very pleased with the A1222+.
There are niggles with software compatibility and software bugs, but I am
hopeful that these will eventually be addressed over time.
(cg)
[News message: 16. Nov. 2024, 19:45] [Comments: 1 - 17. Nov. 2024, 12:45]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
| 
