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[runequester]

so amigakit has the 1200's but they are currently all amiga technologies.
How worried should I be about the floppy drives and compatibility issues?

[paul1981]

As far as I'm aware, AT 1200's were shipped with High Density floppy drives converted for Amiga Double Density use. This means that if you insert a High Density floppy disk (the one with the extra hole in) into the drive - your Amiga will not be able to read it, nor write to it. The solution is to tape over the extra hole on the disk.
You should be using Double Density disks anyway, so I can't see it being an issue for you. As for other possible issues, I'm afraid I don't know of any.

One good point about those drives is that you'll be able to use a package from Aminet to format your HD floppys to 1.5MB...making use of your HD Floppy Drive:

http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/HiDensity

[Jope]

They will not work as HD drives no matter what driver you install..

The biggest problem with them is the missing ready signal, which will affect some games, trackmos and tools (like x-copy).

You can fix the computer and the drive using instructions from SPS:
http://www.softpres.org/article:hard..._fdd_connector
http://www.softpres.org/article:hard...u-257a605p_fdd

[paul1981]

Originally Posted by Jope

They will not work as HD drives no matter what driver you install..

The biggest problem with them is the missing ready signal, which will affect some games, trackmos and tools (like x-copy).

You can fix the computer and the drive using instructions from SPS:
http://www.softpres.org/article:hard..._fdd_connector
http://www.softpres.org/article:hard...u-257a605p_fdd

True, you can't use the drive and format it to "Amiga HD" floppy format, but you can use the driver in the above 'HiDensity' package and format HD floppys to 1.5 MB. I know this to be true because about 15 years ago my floppy drive died, and the replacement drive from Gordon Harwood Computers was a HD drive like the Amiga Technology ones.

[Buzzfuzz]

And why should this be a problem ?
You can run WHDload's and adf's as soon as you have an os running on a CF or HD.
After that you won't need the floppy drive.

[AppleHammer]

Well, you might still need the floppy drive for something at some point. I can see why it may be an issue.

If I wanted to buy a brand new A1200 I don't think this issue would stop me buying one though. Especially as AmigaKit's prices seem very reasonable for these. If it really is an issue you can do the mods that have already been linked to.

[Matt_H]

The issue is that the drives aren't compatible with some copy protection schemes / NDOS disks. Regular system friendly floppies will be fine.

[amiga1260]

Years ago I bought an Amiga Magic Amiga 1200 and I haven't had problem with reading NON-dos disks.

[Buzzfuzz]

And if it doesn't work, order a drive @ http://www.vesalia.de/
I got my drive for my A500 there and it works like a charm

[runequester]

thanks for the advice guys. Good point on the internal hard drive.