Considering selling the Walker

[minator]

I am seriously considering selling the Walker.

In case you don't know it is this machine:
http://www.blachford.info/computer/walker/walker.html

The Walker is the very last of the classic machines, it is a prototype made 15 years ago during the Amiga Technologies years.

This is pretty much the ultimate collectable Amiga, the only Amiga with the "Toni" custom chip (FPGA actually) and Kickstart/Workbench 3.2.

I bought it because I wanted to ensure it'd be looked after.  It's got a very flimsy case and it'll easily break.  I also got it for it's rarity value - there are only 2 Walkers in existence.

The case is still in the condition I got it in but as far as I'm aware it *probably* does not work any more.  That said when it did work it didn't work very well - it was damn near impossible to get it to boot and it's slow and temperamental when it did.  It can't access the floppy or CD so getting data in or out requires dismantling it!  It is however a prototype so this is only to be expected.

Even if it would boot the boot drive is currently unbootable after Windows wrote over the RDB.  I do have instruction on how to fix this but never got around to doing it.  I do have a copy of the data from the HD though.

It's nice to have but I don't do anything with it, I'm not really a collector so it's not that important for me to own.  OTOH I know it's worth quite a bit and I happen to be currently eyeing up an Alesis Andromeda synth.

So, I'm thinking of selling it.  I'll most likely put it on eBay but I thought I'd let you lot know first.

IF I sell it it will be *collect only*, Posting it anywhere is likely to destroy the case unless it's packed very, very carefully.  I bought it to protect it remember!

...that said I live very close to a train station which goes directly to the London Euro star terminal.


So, anyone interested?  or have an Andromeda they'd like to swap...

[minator]

Even if he allowed the circuit board to be photographed then it would do the Amiga community a good service.

Ahem - How many years ago did I post this?
http://www.blachford.info/computer/walker/walker_inside.html

Well, the synth Minator is interested in seems to be in the $3000-$4000 range on eBay and he's proposed a swap for the synth on the offchance someone here has one, so that might be a starting point...

What I'd like and what I get are often two different things!
Anyway, the price is   ...whatever it goes for!  I haven't set one.
BTW I'd also swap it for a CS80 ;-)

Out of curiosity was was Toni, what did it do?

I think it's a memory controller.

It belongs in a museum!

I'm inclined to agree.  Whoever gets it could always loan it to a museum.

I am interested in buying it for the case, I think a new MSI board with an AMD 6 core processor should bring it right up to date, and don't worry, I will even put win UAE into it, so it can be used as an ultra fast Amiga.

The idea of someone buying it and putting another board in it absolutely horrifies me.
You just don't do that to old very rare machines!

That said, it's a prototype.  There are no mounting points for anything and you'd have to cut holes in the back to put cables through .

What did you pay for it yourself?

I'll say after  It was something of a bargain. I got it at the Thendic-France bankruptcy auction.

I think its value is solely as a prototype/curiosity. What is there to gain in making it work 100%/reproducing it? It's a 33mhz A1200 compatible system, and an incomplete one at that, probably with some unresolved hurdles.

Correct.  It's a prototype.  Given the number of patch wires on the board I suspect it would of needed quite a bit more work before putting it into production.

Some guy over on EAB (or actually it may have been two separate guys) put together their own Walker case replicas, one of them was looking pretty good.

Yes.  That looked amazing!  It's probably better made than the real thing.
If you wanted a Walker case that's the way to do it.

Walker was just another frantic attempt to do something original carried out by people given not a slightest bit of imagination

I don't agree at all. AT were pushing towards moving to PPC and the Walker was an intermediate step to update the range before the PowerPC machines were ready.

Certainly *nobody* was doing cases like that in 1995.  It was all beige boxes back then - even from Apple!

Unfortunately the case if anything was too imaginative, if AT had continued it would have been sold in a different case.


BTW Apparently I haven't read my own pages in a long time - it did read from the floppy when it worked.

I tried to fire it up last night but it wasn't playing ball.  It may be the capacitors have gone or something like that but it needs someone qualified to look at it.

[minator]

Quick update:

Looks like there are some interested collectors here so I'll probably list it on ebay in the next few days.

There will be a reserve price, probably around £250 (I never said I wanted thousands!)

As mentioned on the first post of this thread it will be *collect only*.  It is very fragile so I am not posting it anywhere.  That said I'm a 10 minute walk from a well connected train station - I can get to London in just over an hour and Paris in 4-5 hours.

The full package will include:
The Walker.
A painted Amiga keyboard (German I think).
A non functional black Amiga branded mouse (it never worked).
An Amiga branded M1438S CRT monitor.

Regarding it's functional status:
I've been trying to get it to boot and it's being temperamental as ever. It does power up but it's not going into the boot sequence, but is getting confused sometimes and goes into a reset cycle. This is actually not unusual, it always used to do this.  It *might* actually still be working and I just haven't been patient enough.

If you fix the RDB on the HD and sit pressing reset and/or random keys for an hour you might get lucky!

I have consequently changed the status in the first post to "probably not working".

--

I've taken a few pictures and I took a few more to get some measurements.
I will be keeping the Walker web site going so maybe I'll post them some year.

BTW According to my web stats lots of people have visited the walker site in the last couple of days.  Disappointingly >80% are running Windows and if there are Amigas they're not even showing up in the stats!

[minator]

Still trying to get her to try and boot (it should display a guru like message) but no luck yet.

I did discover the keyboard probably wasn't connecting so I made sure it did and indeed the caps lock light did light up - you need to be an engineer to get this thing to do anything!

I might get the PSU checked out, it's a standard PC supply but maybe it's gone.  Who knows.

I took it to an ANT meeting a couple of years back and it did go into the boot sequence and display the guruesq message once so I'm hoping I can get it to do that again.

Even if I can talk in into working, this isn't a machine you'd ever want to use as a desktop - it's far too unstable.

The fact you need to dismantle it just to power it up doesn't help!

[minator]

OK, an update:

I'm still thinking of selling it but it might be a while yet:

I'm going to try a bit more to get her working.  I'll see if I can get the HD RDB fixed as well - I have instructions for this but don't know if they'll work on a PC.

I've been asked a few times to save Kickstart / Workbench 3.2.  I have a copy of the data on the disc but I'll see about getting the ROMs dumped as well.

I am also now considering opening up the sale to international folks.
I think I have figured out a way to get it transported without destroying the case.  It involves dismantling it and putting the bits into a wooden box full of bubble wrap or polystyrene bits.  It'll be expensive to ship but should be transportable to pretty much anywhere then.

[minator]

Weight?  Not sure but it's not very heavy.  But to ship it that far will will require a crate and that will up the weight a lot.

OTOH I'll not include the monitor - it's a CRT so is heavy.

--

There are measurements on the web site but I didn't describe them very well.  However, I took some pictures the other night with a ruler included to get better measurements :-)

[minator]

This will sell for a lot more than £400.

I certainly hope so :-D

[minator]

So what ended up happening with this being put up for sale?

I decided to hold off for a while.  I wanted to try and get it working again and salvage the ROM.

I've been busy so haven't been able to get it going again.  However the ROM has been salvaged and it'll hopefully be available to everyone in the future.

I'll be busy for a while yet so it may be another month or so before I do anything with it.

[minator]

Can I imagine someone updating UAE to emulate the Walker?

You can imagine anything you want! :lol:  Seriously, that would be pretty neat; I'm just feeling punchy today.

Be careful what you wish for ;-)



IIRC 3.2 is just a modified 3.1.  While there may be technical issues getting it to work (memory map changes) it should be functionally the same as a 3.1 68030 based A1200.

To get an accurate emulation would be more difficult, because it wasn't finished it actually ran quite slowly and the timing was all screwed up.  Then there's the fact it took about five minutes of pressing reset and randomly hitting keys before it booted in the first place...

[minator]

I am just wondering... I am no way interested in old junk. But we do have a computer museum here in Jyväskylä in Finland. There is no centralized place but static exhibitions are in local universities anyone can visit. If anything I could probably try to arrange a place for this machine there.

Thanks for the offer but Finland is a bit far!

That said, I'm no longer planning on using it to raise money any more so actually museum is a quite good option and the British computing museum is not that far away...

Video about the place here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sw15F2QzMQ&fmt=18