I just found my Amiga 2000 down in the basement last week and decided to set it up for some retro gaming! Let me tell you, the last couple of days playing with some vintage computer hardware have been a BLAST. I pulled it up from downstairs, took it apart, cleaned the PLANT ROOTS that had grown through the WINDOW of the basement out of it, completely disassembled it, cleaned it, checked for bad caps, etc and then put it back together.
I should probably note at this point that it was the passing of Gary Gygax that kind of put me in the mood to visit my childhood/teen years and pay a bit of respect by going through some of the old SSI rpgs. In those days, video games and D&D were a big part of my life.
Anyway, the system is a 2000B with a 2090A MFM/SCSI hard drive controller card and a 2630 CPU upgrade card that has a 25 MHz 68030 and 4 MB of RAM on it. The Kickstart is a 1.3. Sadly, my 1084S did not make it (not dead, necessarily, but not in the basement anymore.
) so right now it's hooked up to a 1702 from the mono composite jack. After looking around at video cards to use VGA monitors and/or replacing the 1084S, I've decided to do a neobitz mod on it and add color composite, svideo, and component video to it and use it with a 19" flat panel TV. Since I really am most interested in retro gaming, I think that'll do me well.
The 2090A has the Rodime 40MB MFM drive hooked up to it and working. I also have a Quantum Prodrive 80S that I tried to hook up, but couldn't get working. I think that the HDD is the only issue I'd really like to address for my intended purpose. Maybe try to find a 2091 and a larger SCSI drive.
So far I've gotten to:
- build a null modem cable.
- discover that hyperterminal is the worst terminal program ever...AGAIN.
- have fun looking at old programs on Aminet.
- discover that most serial transfer programs were not written with XP in mind.
- realize the floppy disks don't last forever.
- realize that you can easily convert from ADF to DMS in WinUAE. (Duh!)
- have a blast playing some games that I had completely forgotten about.
Anyway, that's a long winded introduction, but it's good to be back playing with Amigas again!
