Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Rivkid on August 07, 2007, 09:15:30 AM
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Hi all,
Ok the below pics are from inside my A1500. I don't really know what they are so any advice / ideas would be great as I really need to get a working HDD and CD drive in there.
(http://www.bladesofangels.com/amiga/1.jpg)
(http://www.bladesofangels.com/amiga/2.jpg)
These above are both ends of a connector used to connect harddisk to the hard drive controller. No idea what kind of connectors they are or what hard disk they will connect to.
(http://www.bladesofangels.com/amiga/3.jpg)
(http://www.bladesofangels.com/amiga/4.jpg)
The above are two ends of a second cable that also connects to the HD controller and HD. Again no idea what it is or what HD it fits.
(http://www.bladesofangels.com/amiga/5.jpg)
The above looks like some kind of mod thats been added. Two solders to the main board wired together but with a connector in the middle to break/connect the link at will
(http://www.bladesofangels.com/amiga/6.jpg)
The above looks like some kind of RAM board maybe? No idea..
(http://www.bladesofangels.com/amiga/8.jpg)
The above is an AGA chipset board. I don't have an EGA monitor to test it. Anyone know if it will require software or not? If not I might buy an EGA - VGA cable and connect to my PC monitor.
Thanks for any help guys!
Pete
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Which make of HD controller do you have in there?
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Welcome to a.org =).
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hi thanks for the welcome!
Its a 2090 - not sure who made them. Does that help? I believe this model doesn't autoboot.
EDIT
sorry I'm such a spaz - heres the pic
(http://www.bladesofangels.com/amiga/9.jpg)
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Clickety-click (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1159) and clickety-click. (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?product=2090&company=)
Try browsing both sites for your other cards, they have loads of info =).
Here's (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/aga2000) some info on that Microway AGA-board, it's a flickerfixer apparently.
Also, which kickstart do you have in that beast and can you boot into Workbench using floppies?
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Man thats so helpful! I feel like I might have a chance of getting this all sorted now.
Not sure which kickstart is in it at the moment - when I turned it on last night I had no modulator (gave it to my brother last christmas) so waiting for new one to arrive.
My goal is to get a working HD and CD drive in - I'll be happy then. The CD drive is in but I seem to remember it wasn't working last time I tried it. Suspect it needs software. I've now downloaded dms files for the AGA card and the HDD controller so I'll have to port them over to the amiga and see if they work. Guess I'll need to find a scsi HDD somewhere too..
Thanks so much for the help. I only bought this at a whim on ebay last year for £40.00 - didn't know all this work would be needed lol!!
Pete
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The connectors you have there are MFM/RLL interface connectors for (very old) hard drives. The A2090 controller you have was made to primarely support these drives. It does have a SCSI port but is really isn't of much use.
If you want to fit her up with SCSI hard drives and a CD-Rom drive you will need another type of controller. An A2091 would be a good bet.
The memory expansion is THIS ONE (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/8mi). It looks like it is populated to the full 8MB, thing you should keep in mind when going for a SCSI controller: take one without any extra RAM as your A2000 has as much ram as it can handle, apart from adding a accelerator board.
The cable you see there looks more like a fuse to me, and the fact that the two cables are soldered both very close to an external connector would make sense. Probably a fuse was blown on that port, and the previous owner replaced it with a rather large one!
And you have a so called Flicker Fixer! Nice, this means you can connect a standard PC VGA monitor.
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hey sounds like I got a good deal for £40 then? Can't believe that mem upgrade is so big!
I may try and find an old MFM HDD - I work in computers so its not that unthinkable that some of my contacts my have the odd one lying around. There is a CD drive and controller in already so if I can get that working great. If not then I'll go for a scsi controller and get new cd drive and hdd and go that route.
I've found a place I can buy a VGA - EGA cable so I can get this linked up to my pc monitor. That will be a great asset.
Man can't wait to get this all set up now.
FYI - its an Amiga 1500 not a 2000 with dual 3.5" floppes in the front (although they both need replacing really!)
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The 1500 is merely a rebadged 2000, primarily marketed at 'home office' users if I am not mistaken. Here's (http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/a1500.html) a bit of history on the A1500.
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Darn!
I just sold a 20Mb MFM drive.
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Rivkid wrote:
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I may try and find an old MFM HDD - I work in computers so its not that unthinkable that some of my contacts my have the odd one lying around. There is a CD drive and controller in already so if I can get that working great.
...
You should keep in mind that once you got an MFM- or RLL-HD, you still need sofware to operate it.
I had a selfmade HD solution for my A500 ('ct-interface offering one PC/XT slot, where I plugged in an OMTI RLL controller with two 65mB-RLL-HDs connected to it) and I used "BOIL3" software to operate it.
If you dont have such software, you might feel the need to write me an PM, as I don't think you still can get it somewhere nowadays...
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Ok I've rethought this and I'm going to buy a 2091 card with a HDD already set up on ebay. Save me a lot of hassle and I can sell my 2090 card then (must be someone looking for one!)
Think my next move is to get the 2091 card installed then sort out the cd rom. Once thats done I'll get the AGA card working properly and replace the floppy drives. Actually - does anyone know if pc and amiga floppy drives have the same power connectors? Reason I ask is I need an extra floppy power connector in my amiga and best solution is one of these :
(http://i17.ebayimg.com/01/i/000/ac/b7/1e3f_1.JPG)
Reckon it'll work?
thanks to everyone - its been a great welcome to the forums! :)
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Yup, its a standard floppy driver power connector, it'll work fine.
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Superb - things are coming together quite nicely. Should be quite a beastie when she's finished. Eventually the plan is to have this seated under my desk connected to my PC to enable me to download ADF files, drag them over and convert them to amiga disks (not piracy!! - I have stupid amounts of original games with faulty disks that I need to restore).
I hear the easiet way is null modem cable - I had hoped it would be possible to get a NIC card and network it (possibly adding internet access). What do you guys use?
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reddwarfer wrote:
Darn!
I just sold a 20Mb MFM drive.
Gah!! Who to? Whats they're address lol!!
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odin wrote:
The 1500 is merely a rebadged 2000, primarily marketed at 'home office' users if I am not mistaken. Here's (http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/a1500.html) a bit of history on the A1500.
yeah I'd read that - apparently if you peel the 1500 sticker off theres likely to be a 2000 sticker underneath - I'm not curious enough to ruin the finish finding out!
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Rivkid wrote:
reddwarfer wrote:
Darn!
I just sold a 20Mb MFM drive.
Gah!! Who to? Whats they're address lol!!
Well - I still should have two 20mB MFM drives laying around somewhere in my cellar - so if you're really interested...
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Well I've bid on a 2091 with a 52mb drive but if I don't win it yes I'll definitely be interested.
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If the A2090 has "A2090" printed on it, it's an A2090a (autoboot version). If it says "HARD DISK CONTROLLER", it's no autoboot.
The autoboot version can work quite nicely in an unaccelerated A2000, but it may be a pain to set up due to it's outdated software (predates RDB).
You can use any SCSI drive up to 512 MB, probably dirt cheap at eBay (even larger ones, but only the first 512 MB of them). Forget about MFM drives, they're slow and much more unreliable.
Just use a small OFS partition to boot from and mount the real FFS/DCFFS/SFS/whatever partition and don't set up any partition larger than 256 MB (according to BBoAH (http://amigahardware.mariomisic.de/cgi-bin/showhardware_en.cgi?HARDID=1159)).
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@OP:
the AGA-2000 has a DB9 *VGA* output, which cannot be used on an EGA monitor. What you need is a DB9-to-DB15 converter cable or make your own, which is pretty simple if you have some dead IBM clone hardware laying around to grab the plugs from (a DB9 from a serial port, and a DB15 from a dead VGA card). Here are the pin-outs:
Although Microway is not our product, (Ours is HD-SUB 15 pins) but we'd like to help any users. ;-)
Wish you have got what you need.
If don't, please refer the following: DB9 for VGA pin outs. (differs from a EGA or CGA connectors)
Pin 1: Red Video
Pin 2: Green Video
Pin 3: Blue Video
Pin 4: H Sync
Pin 5: V Sync
Pin 6: Red Return
Pin 7: Green Return
Pin 8: Blue Return
Pin 9: Ground
The RGB returns are equal to the Ground.
Any pin outs question please send to tech_at sign_biocon.com.tw
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What you call an AGA board is in fact Microway's Flickerfixer.
It is THE ORIGINAL (the first) Flickerfixer and they are the ones who coined the term flickerfixer. Back then, these sold for nearly 1000$.
It uses the old type of VGA connector which is pin compatible with EGA, a DB-9 connector. You can easily find adapters to convert the output to a standard VGA-15 connector on eBay.
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Tahoe wrote:
The memory expansion is THIS ONE (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/8mi). It looks like it is populated to the full 8MB...
Nope, it's not the 8MI (18 pin DIPs) but the 2MI (http://amiga.resource.cx/photos/micron) (16 pin DIPs). So there's only 2MB fastram in this Amiga.
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Wow, I haven't seen an MFM cable in years. You really do not want to use that. MFM drives are ancient, slow, big, pieces of {bleep}. Any one you find is going to be very old now and I wouldn't trust any unreplaceable data on one. If you find one cheap/free, maybe use it as a temporary thing, but long term you should find a SCSI or IDE controller.
The "AGA card" (god, I wish there were AGA add-ins for A2000s) is like other people said, a flicker fixer. Those are quite cool, as you can use a PC monitor and use interlace modes without getting a headache.
The RAM card does max out your Zorro bus, so, be careful about other cards you use. I got bit in the ass by that recently myself.
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Gah!! Who to? Whats they're address lol!!
Heh, I only asked £1 for it aswell!
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reddwarfer wrote:
Gah!! Who to? Whats they're address lol!!
Heh, I only asked £1 for it aswell!
dammit.
ah well I've bought this now :
(http://members.shaw.ca/pfindlay/pics/a2091.jpg)
2091 SCSI card. It has 2mb ram on board and a Quantum 52MB hard drive formatted with Amigados 1.3. SCSI chips v6.1
The extra 2mb RAM will be nice - can't wait to get it up and running woo!
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murple wrote:
Wow, I haven't seen an MFM cable in years. You really do not want to use that. MFM drives are ancient, slow, big, pieces of {bleep}. Any one you find is going to be very old now and I wouldn't trust any unreplaceable data on one. If you find one cheap/free, maybe use it as a temporary thing, but long term you should find a SCSI or IDE controller.
The "AGA card" (god, I wish there were AGA add-ins for A2000s) is like other people said, a flicker fixer. Those are quite cool, as you can use a PC monitor and use interlace modes without getting a headache.
The RAM card does max out your Zorro bus, so, be careful about other cards you use. I got bit in the ass by that recently myself.
I've just found this in my drawer at work :
(http://www.bladesofangels.com/amiga/moncable.jpg)
am I right in thinking this will connect that flicker fixer to a monitor? If it is man what are the odds of finding that lol!!
When you say max out the zorro what do you mean? My i/o cards will be ok won't they?
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;^) Another bit of helpful advice for resurrecting old Amiga accessories: Visit this site (http://www.l8r.net/install/). They specialize in hosting driver disk images for obsolete hardware. They've gone to the trouble of obtaiing permission from the various copyright holders, so everything is above board and legal.
Have fun with your new setup!
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Rivkid wrote:
I've just found this in my drawer at work :
...
am I right in thinking this will connect that flicker fixer to a monitor? If it is man what are the odds of finding that lol!!
I think you're right and I think the odds are just as good as finding a DB-9 / DB-25 serial port adapter.
These were quite common on the PC from 1988 to 1994.