A4000 toaster rip off?

[WarPiper]

I had some trouble with my 4000 a couple of weeks ago, I had sent it to a person who lives by me to see if he can fix it, after about two weeks of him looking at it he says that it is the Cyberstorm 060 MKIII board.  he is charging me $75.00 for looking at it and he also wants to sell me a 3640 card that he says does work for another $75.00, he also offerd to make it a straight out trade for my video toaster card,  he also says that he has a WarpEngine 040 that is overclocked to 50 Mhz but he wants $250.

Now here is the thing, I do not have a TBC card for the toaster or a Par card or flyer card, so the only thing that the toaster really is usefull for is for is to act as a lightwave dongle, and I am not a real artist, but after 10 years of salavating over the toaster card, I  got one. Money right now is also a tough thing to come by.

CAN SOME ONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK AND HOW YOU WOULD HANDLE THE SITUATION, ALSO IF THERE IS A PLACE TO GET MY CYBERSTORM FIXED?

[Damion]

 I don't know jack about A4k's ( I WISH SO BAD that I did) but I would double check on that 060 and keep your toaster card. An 040 is really a big step down from the 060.

I'm sure the 060 can be fixed, what can really just go wrong?

Yeah, definately get a second op on that 060!

I bet that Toaster board will be worth some serious $$$ someday.

[WarPiper]

thanks, the problem is getting a real tech to look at the cyberstorm 060 and to test the processor chip itself, I really dont think that the board can just burn out for no reason, so it may be the chip.

anyone else with a helpful opinoin?

[Argo]

What's it doing or not doing...?

[Damion]

 If you haven't seen them already, there's a company here in the States called Vernalem. They sell 50 and 60mhz 68060 processors, and also have a big Amiga logo on their site. They may also upgrade or repair CPU cards, but I have no personal experience with them.

In my experience, the standards in the computer repair industry over here suck. Most people don't know what they're doing, and getting a good tech is difficult at times.  Usually you're best off doing it yourself!

[WarPiper]

do you have a web address?

[th4t1guy]

I've heard you can use replacment processors from MAC computers.

[WarPiper]

I have never heard of a mac using the 060, I think they only had gone up to the 040.

not sure but I also think that the cyberstorm 060 can take a 040 processor, maybe I can swap one ship for another?

[Damion]

Sorry, I spelled it wrong!

www.vernalelm.com

 They may even be able to upgrade your board with the 60mhz 68060 usually clocked on the board to 66mhz.

Stay away from the 040(IMO), they use 5v, as opposed to the 060 3.3v(I think), so they would probably have to modify your board. They also get real hot, so you'd need to add a fan and heatsink. Basically, the 040 is okay, but it would cost to modify the board to accept it.

The 060 runs cooler and is way better...although you may need a fan if you go with the 060-66mhz. I have one on mine, but it doesn't get that hot even without the fan.

WarPiper there is alot more you can do with that toaster then use it as a Lightwave dongle...in fact Lightwave is the most useless part of the old toaster... the live switcher... assembler/insert AB Roll edit aspect is the big thing.


there is no way in hell I'd trade an 040 card for a toaster...the toaster is worth more outright...even if you sell it on ebay and buy a new 040 card....dont get rid of the toaster...
My personal feeling is this guy sees this and says 'hmm toaster worth about 650$ lemme see if i can swindle it off him'....I dont trust it ....

In 'ANY" case NewTek gives you a 500$ discount on a VT2 ....wich is alot better deal then trading a toaster for an 040 board.

[Quixote]

mips_proc wrote:

In 'ANY" case NewTek gives you a 500$ discount on a VT2 ....wich is alot better deal then trading a toaster for an 040 board.

:-? The VT2 is a PC card, and will install easily into the new AmigaOnes, right?  So it should be just a matter of the software being ported over to the new OS4.

Now if only NewTek will do that....

the A1 dosent have a prayer in the world of getting the VT2....it'll install on a PC ...period...

[THEONE]

mips_proc wrote:
WarPiper there is alot more you can do with that toaster then use it as a Lightwave dongle...in fact Lightwave is the most useless part of the old toaster... the live switcher... assembler/insert AB Roll edit aspect is the big thing.


there is no way in hell I'd trade an 040 card for a toaster...the toaster is worth more outright...even if you sell it on ebay and buy a new 040 card....dont get rid of the toaster...
My personal feeling is this guy sees this and says 'hmm toaster worth about 650$ lemme see if i can swindle it off him'....I dont trust it ....

In 'ANY" case NewTek gives you a 500$ discount on a VT2 ....wich is alot better deal then trading toaster for an 040 board.

I would never trade the 4000 toaster for a nt toaster 2.0 you have more pros for keeping the Amiga toasters. Jusk ask some of the Pros and then youll see why they still use Amiga Toaster/flyerss. ;-) Yeah more to the point dont every trade anything offf more value for less value. Sell iit it on Ebay and make more money. Alot of peopel are jumping all over the Amiga Toasters .

[Tigger]

THEONE wrote:
I would never trade the 4000 toaster for a nt toaster 2.0 you have more pros for keeping the Amiga toasters. Jusk ask some of the Pros and then youll see why they still use Amiga Toaster/flyerss. ;-) Yeah more to the point dont every trade anything offf more value for less value. Sell iit it on Ebay and make more money. Alot of peopel are jumping all over the Amiga Toasters .

First of all the Newtek deal is $500 off if you own an Amiga Video Toaster you dont have to trade your toaster in.   Secondly, the new Toaster is superior to the old toaster in basically every way, if anyone really offered to swap you a new toaster, RUN dont walk over to his house and do the swap.   I have both, I wrote more software for the Flyer then anyone else not having the work Newtek in their job title.  I have a new toaster, the new toaster is better, real video professionals (including myself) realize this.   It hasnt won all the awards this year for being not as good as the Amiga version.   Its won the awards for taking the idea behind the original toaster and flyer a quantum leap forward.  And the upcoming upgrades are only going to make it better.  Someone made a comment about the Toaster being a PCI card (it is) and trying to get it to run on the new Amiga.   The biggest strike against this working is the slowness of the current A1 motherboards both in processor speed and memory bandwidth.  Also its likely to be several years for there to be enough potential amiga sales for it to even be a break even effort for Newtek.
      -Tig    

Tigger I agree entirely... if you do a point to point comparison the old Toaster 2000/4000 jus dont compare... although there is still a widely installed userbase of people useing them including A/V labs in schools ....PBS's everywhere...etc etc...
I often thought if the A1 had some sort of way of useing the classic toaster it might sell in a small quantity to those people if it was priced cheap.

they dont compare even remotly to the modern toaster 2... lets just compare a few points.

Aura2.5  .v. Toaster Paint

LightwaveExpress .v. Lightwave 4.0? (last version that shipped with the toaster for amiga?)

Aura2.5 has features Toaster Paint cant even dream of... stroke recording.. export motion paths to lightwave for use in animation.. unlimited layers and the ability to key layers for 2D animation... photoshop filter support... (apply photoshop filters to video)...its got very nice rotoscoping and video paint .....supports all wacom tablets... comes with a waveform... color correction..

Lightwave Express.... where do we begin to explain why this is better then 4.0?... I wont even go into that... I'd have a list 80 pages long...

I know you think the 'classic' toaster is the best Shawn but it just isnt... it's a D1/D2 AB roll editor...and 4 input switcher...the flyer gives it very basic non-linear capabilities... but it just dosent compare to modern video editing hardware... I to have both (had a toaster 4000)  and it isnt even something you can really argue....

Next big leap newtek is going to have to face is moving to HDTV real-time/non-linear/uncompressed.