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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: r0jaws on January 27, 2008, 01:06:43 AM
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It's with mixed feelings that I write this.
Mainly I'm pretty excited. A neighbour offered me his old a2000 complete with tons of discs and productivity suites.
It's not often that such treasure falls into your lap so I'm now a proud owner of said beastie.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000Outside.jpg)
I plugged her in and connected her up to my trusty 1084 to test her out, no joy unfortunately. Whilst there appears to be activity from the Hard Disc, all the screen shows is a flickering display :-( on the plus side she is showing lots of HD activity however, both floppies appear dead :-(.
On inspection inside there appears to be numerous cards that I'm not familiar with (not terribly familiar with a2000 as it is) but I believe I have a GVP Series II SCSI/RAM Controller, a BSC fast RAM memory expansion, and a KCS Power PC Board.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000Inside.jpg)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000Expansions.jpg)
The onboard battery appears to be in fairly good nick but I will be pulling that little bugger out in fairly short order.
I've also got a big pile of discs and productivity suites to sort through, vidi amiga, showmaker, stereo master and some drawing and desktop publishing suites.
I'm going to pull out all the non standard gubbins over the next few days and see if I can't get this bad boy up and running again.
Any pointers out there specifically regarding a2000's? Things to look out for, any clues as to why she might not be displaying too much (I did try both composite and RGB).
(Edited for better quality shots of the installed expansion boards)
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Welcome to the A2000 club! The A2000 is my favourite Amiga. The clock battery in question is located under the drive cage; you will want to pull that out to inspect it for leakage. It is located next to the 68000 CPU. Also, you will want to verify that the monitor and cable you are using are good.
Keep us posted!
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both floppies dead?
hmmm...I didn't think the 2000 would even try if there wasn't a working floppy.
there's a jumper that has to be closed if it has two floppies in it, btw.
Is the screen just doing a flicker/cycling like it's rebooting? the LED on the keyboard lights every few seconds and the power light dims?
what colors does the screen go through?
do you know what ROM is in it?
If you disconnect the hard drive and or remove the scsi/ram card can you get the boot prompt screen?
if so there may be something wrong with the config, the hard drive, the ram or some app it's trying to run in startup.
just a few thoughts.
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yes l have to admit l like my newly acuried 2000 also
l have always had amiga 1200s .
l have one broken 2000 and one working one.
u can get os 3.1 roms on ebay
are ur sure its not set video resolution ur 1084s can handle.
the second amiga 2000 flopy was dead also it should click when booted. try see the floppy cable is around the right way and on the connector closet to where the psu plugs in.
l been playing blues brothers and superfrog.
:-)
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Congratulations! I'm also the proud owner of one of these beauties. She' an 030 with 3.1 ROMS. Seeing those photos makes me want to get her out of the loft and fire her up. I've never seen a photo of one in which it looks like the floppy drives actually fit. Oh well! :-)
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Congrats, she is a beauty, hope u can get her going :) I miss my A2000 I left in Detroit, Mi when I moven to New Bedford, MA. Got an A2500 coming soon though ;)
I do have an A2000T no monitor though, can't use her right now. Soon though :) Enjoy!
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What's happened here?
2 Pages of my thread have disappeared and so have my last 6 posts.
Has there been some sort of trimming exercise or what? :-o
I wouldn't mind so much if it was just mine but it's the replys too, I was following up on some of that info, ho hum :-?
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OK, Long story short, I got her running again. It was the PSU at fault and in need of some refurbishment, judiciously provided by one of the electricky wizards at work.
I have reposted all the pics below, with what I can remember of the description below.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000ChipRAM.jpg)
The Motherboard with 2 Meg Agnus Chip fitted
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000Chips.jpg)
From Top, Omega 68000 Speed Up Board, 2.04 ROM (Now refitted), Original Agnus Chip (Currently fitted due to diagnostics) & a Real Time Clock Chip.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000working1.jpg)
She Lives! :-D :-D :-D Installing Dune II!
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000working2screenshot.jpg)
Workbench 2.04 Desktop
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000working3SystemConfig.jpg)
System Config
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000working4Boards.jpg)
System Boards. Consisting of a Memory Master (1 Meg), KCS Power PC Board (2Meg), and GVP Impact Series II SCSI/RAM Controller (0 Meg installed)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000working5Sysinfo.jpg)
SYSINFO, (Not the fastest, but not really a problem for what I intend for her)
I'll keep this updated as and when I significantly change anything, hopefully it'll last a bit longer this time :lol:
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@ r0jaws,
I thought that too, what the hell happend!? :angry:
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r0jaws wrote:
What's happened here?
2 Pages of my thread have disappeared and so have my last 6 posts.
Has there been some sort of trimming exercise or what? :-o
I wouldn't mind so much if it was just mine but it's the replys too, I was following up on some of that info, ho hum :-?
I think it has something to do with Amigeek/Doomy. It seems all of his posts and threads have disappeared too. Some of the posts went missing too. I'm guessing he was banned again?
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It would be a shame if he was banned, as I did not see anything offensive in his posts, in fact, he behaved very well in the face of numerous personal attacks by others.
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I would not say he behaved "very well", but he was INCREDIBLY improved from the last time! Definately tolerable, so far, from what I saw.
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He's a bit of a git but atleast he was changing his image. Oh well...
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r0jaws wrote:
OK, Long story short, I got her running again. It was the PSU at fault and in need of some refurbishment, judiciously provided by one of the electricky wizards at work.
I have reposted all the pics below, with what I can remember of the description below.
From Top, Omega 68000 Speed Up Board, 2.04 ROM (Now refitted), Original Agnus Chip (Currently fitted due to diagnostics) & a Real Time Clock Chip.
(Not the fastest, but not really a problem for what I intend for her)
Seeing your Sysinfo, I noticed you are running without your "accelerator".
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A6000 wrote:
It would be a shame if he was banned, as I did not see anything offensive in his posts, in fact, he behaved very well in the face of numerous personal attacks by others.
It looks like all of his posts have been deleted. This is silly. If the guy is making an effort to play nice, then let him.
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gdanko wrote:
...
It looks like all of his posts have been deleted. This is silly. If the guy is making an effort to play nice, then let him.
Point is that he in the past had several chances to redeem himself, but he always got back to the old Doomy ways. I guess he p-off too many people.
What I don't like is deleting his messages, but also messages from other people. That is censorship like used in China :-o Even the site where I hang around the most doesn't do that, and they are VERY strict (try asking a question that can be looked up @ google and your topic gets closed for example)
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that behavior is stupid.
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What behavior?
Anyway this is offtopic, no need to hijack this topic :lol:
I'm just glad to see the Miggy running again :-D
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I agree with the toilet guy a little ways up this thread - it looks like your speed is all due to your fastram and we're not seeing the CPU running at 14.4 mhz. I'm assuming that the omega accelerator performs this function.
Can it get you up to about 140% - 150% normal speed when active? That would be a really nice bang for the buck!
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At the moment it's running standard with only the memory boards connected.
I'm going to try the Omega 'accelerator' and post the difference (if any) it makes, then when my PLCC Remover turns up, I'll replace the Agnus 2 Meg Board and post the results. There isn't physically any room for both to whichever provides the best improvement will stay in.
My moneys on the Agnus chip, but I've a few days wait before I can get anywhere with that.
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Ho Hum, Just went to test out the Omega Speed Up board, and the Agnus Chip looks like it's decided to take a swan dive.
Just before I was going to install the Omega board, thought I'd power her up to check everything was A-OK.
It wasn't. :boohoo: Green screen indicating Chip RAM failure!
The Dimensions preclude fitting the Omega Board and the Agnus Chip board at the same time which is a shame, so until I can get my hands on another 1 Meg Agnus chip I can't test the Omega board to see what it can do :-(
Off to look for one of these now.
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are you sure the megachip was seated properly? jumper clip attached?
I had two 500s give me the green screen before I realized they had chip seating problems and given you took the thing out and had another agnus in there I'm wondering if things might just be a little loose...???
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Its the original Agnus chip that I replaced the 2 Meg board with when I was originally having problems.
That may be part of the problem, I've had the 2000 open and made sure the chip is seated firmly and it seems OK. I'm waiting on a PLCC Extraction tool to turn up so that I can replace it safely and ensure it's actually that, it may just take a few days.
I'm reluctant to try to prise it out and thus damage the socket.
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I'm waiting on a PLCC Extraction tool to turn up so that I can replace it safely and ensure it's actually that,
I think I remember having done it both ways and as long as you're careful it's ok...but waiting won't hurt.
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I've extracted many of these chips, and I never have problems EXCEPT with A2000 Agnus's. For some reason, these sockets are extremely brittle, and break with or without the tool.
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Brilliant! :-o
I'm really looking forward to this now! :boohoo:
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PHEW!
I'm glad I waited for the chip puller to arrive, It popped the Agnus out straight away with no effort! I reseated the chip and, BINGO, she lives again! :-D
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000ressurected.jpg)
Now I can finally get started on testing the 'accelerator'/ Agnus chip RAM boards to see what speed bonus (if any) they produce. It'd be nice to get the boot up time to less than 30 secs!
Will post results when I get the chance.
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Brilliant! i love a success story with hardcore pictures! :-D
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If you want to be on the secure side of things, put some rubber bellow the Agnus.
It dives into the socket regularly, the rubber prevent it to happen.
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I'm a little surprised no one has mentions this (maybe it was in the missing messages?) but you really should add a real accelerator! I have an A2000 that I have used for years, with no troubles. I used a GVP G-Force 030 that was a great board because it would allow any game to play, yet added power to graphics prgs, animations, DTP, or what ever. They can still be picked up without taking out a second mortgage, and help with overall power AND adding extra RAM.
The Accelerator allows running 3.1/3.5/3.9 OS too.
I am just now upgrading to a G-Force 040, so I'll see first hand how compatibility suffers (or not?).
Good luck with your machine...
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What the heck are you loading on startup that it takes longer than 30 seconds??? Or, do you have an old Seacrate hard drive?
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There are a few programs running on start up but I haven't delved too deeply there just yet as I just wanted to get her up and running reliably first.
TBH this is my first 2000, my 1200 boots almost instantly (but so it should) and I didn't really know what to expect with a 2000.
It's on my To Do list at the moment to get the start up routine as standard as possible to get a base line from which to test these bits of kit out.
@ motrucker an accelerator may be on the cards later, but at the moment I'm happy with her capabilities. I just want to see what these Boards that came with her can actually do. Old fashioned curiosity I guess.
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You should be able to boot an A2000 in well under 30 seconds, but, it depends what's all going on in the Startup-Sequence, and of course, the hard drive. Oh, and the SCSI bus, if it's spending a lot of time polling for devices.
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r0jaws wrote:
@ motrucker an accelerator may be on the cards later, but at the moment I'm happy with her capabilities. I just want to see what these Boards that came with her can actually do. Old fashioned curiosity I guess.
I understand. I still use an old A1000 that is a bit expanded, but no accelerator. It is GREAT for old games, and a few old apps like Data Retrieve Pro. It does have a hard drive though.
I get a lot of use out of my A1000 and A2000. They're great machines!
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r0jaws,
Congrats! It's nice getting an old miggy up and running.
Say can you email me that world backdrop pic? I like it.
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TjLaZer wrote:
r0jaws,
Congrats! It's nice getting an old miggy up and running.
Say can you email me that world backdrop pic? I like it.
Thanks, and no problem at all. :-) It might be a few days though (I'm kinda buried at work at the moment)
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Nice. The A2000 scores very high on my 'Favorite Amiga-list'. Very expandable and durable and I prefer the socketed chips compared to the A600/1200/4000 SMT-chips. Needless to say I have an A2000 (in the process of building up), although my current main Amiga is a heavily expanded A1200.
Depending on what you are planning to do with it, a nice 68030-card would do your A2000 some good. Otoh, if you are planning to mainly run games with it, I wouldn't go any further than put in a nice SCSI-harddrive and several MBs of fastram.
Treasure it! :-)
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You have made someone VERY green with envy (i.e. me). :-D Well done. :-)
I'm not sure if there's any local computer/retro conventions but if there is the it would be great to see your machine there in the flesh. I will have to research it. I'd be tempted to bring my machines along too.
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[Drumroll] Ladies & Gents, the moment you have been waiting for has arrived [/Drunroll]
I have the 2000 back to the state it was when I originally clapped eyes on it, but fully operational! :-D
I replaced the Gary Socket adapter with the missing pins (for the 2 Meg Agnus board), and popped it back in this evening and she lives!
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/2MegAgnusRefitted.jpg)
Cheeky little glass of Red to celebrate. :-P
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/SysInfo2MBAgnus.jpg)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/SysConfig2MBAgnus.jpg)
There's a mild increase in speed, according to the sysinfo, but bizzarely the workbench rendering seems to have slowed down dramatically! ie open a drawer and each icon is drawn, but much more slowly than before.
I shall have to investigate this board, maybe I haven't set something up for it correctly.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/Battery.jpg)
I still haven't removed the battery, should it just pop out, or do the mountings have to be snipped?
It had some white crystals forming around the contacts that weren't there last time I looked so that's the next job to yoink that out before it causes any trouble (I've cleaned it up for now pending further investigation).
I have managed to halve the start up time by merely removing 2 programs on startup (Pro Draw & Pro Page) so its down to a mere 15 secs!
All in all a good nights work, next job to get the battery out, investigate the Agnus setings, and bung the Omega Speed Up board in to test it's comparitive worth.
Oh, and I have 8x 1 Meg SIMMS racing their way to me to chuck in the GVP card, and I still haven't fully checked out that KCS PC Board yet.
Fun Fun Fun
:-D :-D :-D
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There's a mild increase in speed, according to the sysinfo, but bizzarely the workbench rendering seems to have slowed down dramatically! ie open a drawer and each icon is drawn, but much more slowly than before.
do you have the jumper clip attached and to the right pin?
I still haven't removed the battery, should it just pop out, or do the mountings have to be snipped?
it won't "pop out". Ideally it needs to be desoldered and that required removing the motherboard from my 4000 to do it properly. You may be able to get it off with a Dremel with a cut off wheel but be careful.
I have actually twisted the batter away from the metal contacts on each end but I wouldn't recommend that....too much torquing of things.
Batteries are attached at three points and these extend through holes in the motherboard and are soldered. Holding a soldering iron to the top side (battery side) probably won't heat the solder enough to get it to flux and pull it off.
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on the battery....
one thing some do is after successfully and cleanly desoldering the old battery, solder wires into the connection points with enough length to mount a battery compartment off the mother board. That way you can put a replaceable battery of appropriate voltage in the holder and change it out when needed.
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Black Screen?
First congrats on your gift. If battery did not leak (you can tell its fairly obvious) then its likely alive & well.
1) if it has leaked or hasn't remove it that battery (just cut above the pcb (give yourself some left overs to which you may want to solder the new battery).
2) strip all the hardware cards. then plug into the mono video connector at back to tv or via RGB port to your Amiga monitor (don't forget there's an rgb swich at front for 1084 etc monitors).
3) if still no luck, then contact me and i got a denise (graphics chip) for ya!
T4 :-D
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I hate to say it but your battery may have already leaked (looking at photos).
make sure you clean the area very well after you remove that thing. try with flat screwdriver removing some of that stained green - if its coming off with "sand" like material then you know it did leak. don't butcher it - no need to remove the rest - but then you know even more that you must clean it well. :idea:
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@ T4, as soon as I get hold of some snips, that battery is coming out, just haven't got around to it yet.
My Main reason for posting though is to update y'all on my progress with the expansions.
I finally got round to fitting the Omega Projects 68000 Speed-Up Board. It promises a big speed boost from the standard 7 Mhz, all the way upto 14.28 Mhz! So I'm quite interested to see if it can live up to it's promise, and how that'll affect the 2000's set up (ie usability and stability).
Unfortunately I had to remove the 2 Meg Agnus board in order to fit this as there physically isn't the space to have both fitted!
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/OmegaChipFitted.jpg)
It's a fairly easy fit (once I manage to persuade the Original 68000 to relinquish its grip on the socket! But there are problems (surprise surprise)
There isn't much info (that I can find) out there on this piece of kit, so I have only the original manufacturer's instruction sheet to go by. (1 sheet of A4)
Once I worked out the switch positions (the green, white and blue wires leading to the front of the cage) and set it to standard, she boots up fine and is rock solid stable.
Unfortunately when I switch to the 'Accelerated' position, that's where the problems start.
I get a red screen with;
System Expansion Board Check
Status Manufacturer Product
OK 2017 11
OK 767 0
BAD 2092 8
This is not good. The other cards are all ok, and the system still boots and runs fine in 'Standard mode'.
The instructions mention installing a tiny 'Boot Block' Program via the provided floppy in some systems because of physical mechanical limitations.
I hadn't installed this program initially, because it was in the Amiga 500 installation instructions (not the 1500/2000 installation instructions)
Booting from the disc (in standard mode) presents a limited 1.3 enviroment and the opportunity to install the boot block.
Great, but unfortunately it doesn't find the HDD (only the floppy) and consequently won't install the Boot Block!!!
So, I have a question out there, does anyone have any ideas as to how I may be able to either, force the installation floppy to search for and find the Hard Disc, or manually adjust the boot block myself?
I am assuming that I get the Red screen of Death is because of the absence of this modified boot block and not just that the card itself is a gonner, primarily because it still functions in standard mode.
Finally, once I chucked it back together (leaving the board in place) I had to let the kids have a crack at it! (they love Galaga & Missile Command)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/KidsPlayingwiththe2000.jpg)
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Just a quick update (for those still interested) I have managed to get hold of 8x 1 Meg 30 Pin SIMMs for the GVP SCSI/ RAM board, Installed them, set the jumpers and POW 8 Megs of Fast RAM Power!
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/GVP8MegPopulated.jpg)
Sweet! :-D
Runs a little faster now but also means I have a spare 2 Meg Memory Master Board which I'll put up on Amibay in due course.
There appears to be a conflict between the Memory Master and a populated GVP Board that precludes using them simultaneously, Oh Well, out she comes.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/MemoryInformation.jpg)
I'm still having trouble getting the 'accelerator' to run at 14Mhz, however the system does now boot to a CLI after the Red screen of death, so I am making progress (of a sort).
It'd be nice to be able to use this speed up board, however if it proves to be a dud, I still have the Agnus chip and I'll just put it out there to the community to see if anyone can have more luck with it that I can.
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Ok, the Expansion board is officially dead, I tried numerous configurations and even managed to get a modified boot block running from a floppy to test it and it was unresponsive.
Its a shame but it will have to go back in it's box until I can find time to test each track and chip.
I know it would be cheaper to just get an accelerator and I would be able to keep my 2 Meg Agnus chip, but for novelties sake, and to keep a small piece of Amiga engineering alive I think it would be worth it.
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r0jaws, the "accelerator" is not dead, as you can see (it works flawlessly in "original" mode).
The problem is related with the hack itself (and this board is just a hack).
Put a true accelerator inside the very nice A2000 you have and use the "accelerator" inside an A500 (or A1000).
__________
For the problem with the RAM: the A2000 Zorro bus can only manage 8Mb. That's why you can't have more than this.
To achieve more fast RAM, you need an accelerator with its own RAM and a better processor.
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@rkauer
Cheers for that, I'm happy with the 8 Megs of Fast RAM and 2 Megs of Chip RAM at the moment, the Memory master uses ZIP RAM anyway, which is a little tricky to track down, so it's useful to know that there's not much point.
The 68000 Hack, as you mentioned, will now probably end up inside a 500, if I can track one down and persuade my wife to let me have another miggy in the house.
I'd like to see it running, just out of curiosity now, and to see if I can actually get it to work.
As you have mentioned it probably isn't 'dead' just that I am unable to get it to work in my 2000.
I'm actually very happy with the 2000 as it is now. I have 2 accelerated 1200's for more strenuous tasks, but this system is a firm favorite of mine and the kids. (Mainly because I'm happy to let them play on it without having palpitations at the thought like I do with my 1200's) :-D
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Congrats on your new toy!...also congrats on the clear jpeg of the A-2000..my question is: what type of camera & setting did you use to post your A-2000 on the web?...just curious...thanks...Tony....radio amateur WA9YOZ..
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I agree with rkauer. I've tried 3 68000 accelerators: a hack from aminet, ICD's AdSpeed, and Supra's Turbo28Mhz.
The hack from Aminet seems equivalent to your accelerator. There were some chips to massage a few of the 68000's control lines and a switch to flip the clock. There was no buffering. The clock was doubled but the performance was NOT. It made my A500 barely usable.
ICD's AdSpeed was a little better. It had some buffering on the accelerator. It worked with fast ram, gave a noticable improvement, and was fairly reliable by itself. It seemed to work with A570 for about a week. I killed 2 A570s testing this configuration. I don't remember getting it to work with any other SCSI expansion either (GVP or Supra).
Supra's Turbo28 was much faster and had twice the buffering as ICD. It seemed more reliable, too, though still incompatible with A570 which is picky about timing. It is currently installed in an A2000 and running well with A2091 w/2Megs of fast and V7.0 roms, OS3.1. This machine does take a long time to boot though, about 1 minute!
A 32-bit accelerator is the way to go if you need more than the allowed 8 megs of fast ram.
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@Tenacious,
Spot on Post there mate. TBH I hadn't even heard that these hacks existed, but having googled around a bit and combined with your experience I don't think I'll bother pursuing it any further.
On that basis, I shall probably pop it on Amibay (In the Recycle bin most likely) for anyone that's interested.
[shameless plug]
If you'd like it why not pop along to Amibay and have a look yourself?[/shameless plug]
BTW I'm not actually affiliated with Amibay, just happen to think its a great resource. ;-)
EDIT: For those who haven't made it there yet, here's a linky: Amibay (http://www.guildserver.co.uk/forums/amibay1/index.php)
You have to register and PM a Mod to get access to the Recycle Bin (Free Miggy stuff) to make sure it doesn't get abused by traders.
@WA9YOZ.
I just got off a couple of lucky shots with my rather old Goodmans G-Shot Digital Camera. It's auto focus is pretty good and can usually be relied upon (with a little help sometimes). However I do usually fire off about 3-4 shots and then pick the best of the bunch. Depending on the lighting at the time really dictates the flash, but I find it does bring out the internals really rather well.
Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.
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This thread inspired me. I powered up the A2000 mentioned above for the first time in a long while. Yes, it took over a minute to boot. SysInfo shows it running at 3-1/2 times normal with the Supra Turbo28 after it gets going though. I'd like to get another Turbo28, grin.
I ran DistantSuns also after a long time (DS doesn't seem to like my main Amiga's 060). What a great program, I've really missed it. The whole experience was great. I think I'm going to permanently setup more of the old machines for the kids so I can jump between them.
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@r0jaws
Great pictures. All the best with your A2000.
I still have my Amiga 2000HD, no accelerator, but it has some extra RAM, two hard drives, a CD-ROM drive and a flickerfixer card so I can use a regular CRT monitor.
My machine is about 19 years old and runs AmigaOS 3.1 :-D
---
redfox
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Right Update Time.
It's been a while but I've finally managed to make some 'real' progress with the 2000.
First things first, a BIG thank you is due to Zetro of Amibay & EAB fame, he's helped me a load so far.
The Battery has finally been removed (and in good time too as it was on the verge of disintigration!)
Zetro did a lovely job desoldering it as you can see below;
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/batteryremoved.jpg)
He also took the opportunity to tidy up my Agnus board Hack's tinning and sealed the connections with hot glue.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/AgnusHackrepaired.jpg)
Then he sold me a SCSI CDROM that I had been pestering the poor bugger about for the last month, which I have just successfully installed this evening using IDEFix '97 (unregistered);
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/Backtogether.jpg)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/CDMounted.jpg)
I'm looking forward to being able to get some games across to the system now (hopefully running under WHDLoad)
I'm awaiting a 3.1 ROM, and hopefully that install should go smoothly, as I'm currently running a nice smooth fast 2.1 install I'm not sure how 3.1 will behave on an unaccelerated system such as this.
I upgraded the 50 Meg SCSI HDD to a lovely 500 Meg HDD, Partitioned her into 3 partitions, Workbench (80Meg), Work (300 Meg) and MS DOS (120 Meg).
The final partition is to be used by the KCS Power PC Board installed to run MS DOS 5.0 under emulation.
With a few false starts I managed to get this up and running too. (the aim is to run a few DOS games and programmes in the future)
Since the installation of my CD ROM, however, the viewable area of the emulator has shrunk itself to the top half of the screen, and takes about a minute and a half to start, whereas before it took mere seconds! (some further investigation will be called for I think)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/IBMDOSShellshrunk.jpg)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/MSDOS5Prompt.jpg)
Finally, The only real fly in the ointment is an unusual error on boot up.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/Booterror.jpg)
It doesn't present any significant problems but I do wonder why it's there.
Any ideas anyone?
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zkick sounds like some kind of ROM-kick tool, and it's looking for a ROM image that probably isn't there (and/or isn't needed with your current config).
Edit your startup-sequence or user-startup and comment out (or remove if unnecessary) the zkick entries.
--edit--
zkick exists on aminet, I suggest downloading it and checking the docs -- it probably isn't needed or needs to be modified.
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Is that not a kickfile it's asking for?
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Eclipse wrote:
Is that not a kickfile it's asking for?
Seems to be, and since he's already upgraded the kickstart (and again to 3.1) I don't think it's needed.
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You're both right it isn't needed, It's a remenant of a backed up wb 2 installation (on prepping the disc the GVP software offered to copy a disc to the new bootable partition, so I grabbed the first disc I had)
It was easily fixed by editing it out of startup-sequence.
Thanks for the prompts gents.
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What is that Agnus replacement. Looks something like a Mini-megi, but different. I assume it's the same sort of deal, a replacement Agnus that has an extra 1 MB of chip RAM attached to the board?
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abbub wrote:
What is that Agnus replacement. Looks something like a Mini-megi, but different. I assume it's the same sort of deal, a replacement Agnus that has an extra 1 MB of chip RAM attached to the board?
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/chip2mb
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I'm envious. My first Amiga was an A2000 with 8088 bridgeboard that I used for my CIS classes. There was an A2000 in the recycle bin at amibay but Gordon the poster has been too busy to get the items together for shipping.
I keep hoping I can have an A2000 again to show my little son my first "real" computer.
-Nyle
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BTW, for the problem on the 68000 "accelerator" software:
There is a workaround: copy the whole contents of it to a drawer on one partition, boots the Amiga normally and them run the installation program.
Problem solved!:banana:
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Cheers for the idea rkauer.
Unfortunately, that little piece of kit is now in zetros sweaty paws.
I believe he is hammering it into a 500 as we speak, I shall certainly pass that idea onto him. His further intention was to see if he could reproduce it, or something similar for a 600.
Mind you he has so many projects on the go its hard to see how he has time for other stuff, like breathing and feeding himself. :lol:
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You aught to get some sort of ROM switcher so that you can have the compatability of 1.3 with the latest 3.1 ROMs. Just an idea...
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The thought had crossed my mind, but I haven't had any compatibility problems so far. Everything seems to run OK with the newly installed 3.1 ROMs and WB 3.1
The only obvious no-no is any AGA only games, but I have a 1200 for that.
If I come across any problems with 'must have' software then I'll certainly be investigating the possibility.
Right now I'm looking at tidying up the cosmetics (painting/ dyeing the CD ROM to match) and maybe installing Windows 3.1 to the DOS partition.
I have heard of someone doing this using the KCS board, so it has intrigued me.
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Windows on A2000.
Yep that was me, Zetro did get excited when I told him and I have to get some piccys done this weekend.
It's actually Windows 3.0, I've installed alongside DOS6.2
Win 3.1 is not possible with an 8086 CPU which the KCS board has
Win 3.0 however does have 3 modes of execution.
Win /r being real or 8086 mode.
The display update is very slow, due to Bitplane to VGA conversion by KCS software but VGA 16 colour is presented using an amiga interlaced display mode.
It's not really useable but it's a great laugh, my old 386 couldn't emulate the Miggy, but my old A500 can run Windows
:lol:
Anyway congrats on the 2000, I've recently aquired one and I'm in the process of beefing her up....
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Right now I'm looking at tidying up the cosmetics (painting/ dyeing the CD ROM to match) ...
Hey, let me know how that works out for you. My A2000 has a Plextor drive in it that's a much lighter shade of white than the rest of the A2000. I'd be interested in making it look a bit more like it belongs.
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@ Corflot
Aha!
I did wonder, I have had a cursory nose about to see what was out there about this and didn't find a lot.
Thanks for the heads up, I shall adjust my targets accordingly :-D
If you get a moment, piccies would be great!
I'd love to see that on a 500!
@abbub
Its a work in progress but I shall keep this updated with some hardcore Hardware pron pics when complete.
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Ok, Brace yourselves, significant update time!
I've managed to get hold of 2 improvements to my baby the first being a lovely clean Keyboard courtesy of G-H from Amibay (Cheers mate)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/00NewKeyboard.jpg)
Secondly, and also from Amibay (courtesy of McVenco) I received an a2620.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/01a2620.jpg)
Fitting it was a little tight but not difficult.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/02Fitted.jpg)
She booted up straight away and worked brilliantly!! (Or so I thought initially)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/03Running.jpg)
The speed boost is modest, but significant. Doubling her clock speed, and making her run at equivalent to a standard 1200 (or 2500 :-P )
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/04Sysinfofirstfitting.jpg)
However, there was a problem. The board came with RAM fitted, and only 2 Mb of Fast RAM was displayed.
My SCSI card has 8Mb on board, I had just lost 6 Megs of RAM without trying! :-o
Time to dig out some manuals I think!!!
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/05SysinfoFastRAM.jpg)
Firstly I thought to disable the 2620's on board RAM using the Jumpers.
On reboot, brilliant! It worked, 8 Megs of Fast Ram back. However, Sysinfo shows a different story.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/062620RAMDisabledSpeed.jpg)
Quite a significant drop in performance, What the F has happened?
An inspection of the card led me to believe that there was 4 Mb of Zip RAM attatched, however the jumper settings were for 2 Mb.
Well if I can't have my full 8 Mb, 4 Mb will have to do until I can figure out the correct configuration.
Swap a few jumpers around and BINGO 4 Mb's Fast RAM.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/11Sysinfo26204MB.jpg)
Great, I think. Time to fire up Deluxe Galaga and have a blast to celebrate! :-D
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/12Errormessage.jpg)
Oh Sh1t.
Not only that, sysinfo chucks up loads of recoverable errors whilst checking it out.
Another look at the Zip chips, revealed that I do only have 2 Mb of RAM. The serial numbers do have 256 on them (in my defence)
Ho Hum.
Another, think and a dig out of the SCSI manual reveals that I may just have to reduce the Fast RAM on board the SCSI drive.
Dropped it down to 6 Mb and changed the Jumpers, no Joy. (wouldn't even boot from the hard disc).
Dropped even further down to 4 Mb and BLAMO!
She Rides!!!
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/13SUCCESS.jpg)
Now I know its not perfect, and my reasoning is a bit sloppy and slapdash. But it is late & I have had half a bottle of wine. ;-)
However, that said, my 2000 is now running at double her original speed and I have 6 MB of Fast RAM and I still have my 2 MB of Chip RAM.
I've just had a blast on Deluxe Galaga and she is significantly more responsive than she used to be.
All in all, not a bad nights work. In the future I will sort out the RAM configuration issues and hopefully get her back upto the full 8MB that the 2000 supports.
But for now, she'll do. :-D
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We don't get enough picture stories on A.org...
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That keyboard is the rare "Doomy Editon" first release. Nice find!!!
The reason you were having memory issues with the A2620 and the GVP card is both occupy the 24-bit (8MB MAX) address space. Yes the A26xx cards use the 24-bit address space and NOT 32-bit like other cards...
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I have been really going to town on my 2000 lately, and have finally got a few things that I had planned to do completed.
First things first though, many thanks to Zetro of EAB & Amibay for helping me through my first 'proper' soldering job.
The thought of wielding a soldering iron anywhere near the motherboard had filled me with dread, but zetro allowed me to use his brand new air-station to solder on a new coin battery.
The difference decent kit makes is unbelievable! My own soldering iron is the b@stard love child of a chisel and a malfunctioning hotplate.
Needless to say, I was very pleased with the results. :-)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/BatteryFront.jpg)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/BatteryBack.jpg)
Finally, I was able to reset my clock and the info stays put, no longer does the Amiga belive that Stayin' Alive is top of the charts and it is still 1978!
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/BatteryClockReset.jpg)
You may remember that I have a KCS Power PC board installed. This was running DOS 5.0, however, after having attempted to botch some drivers for the CD-ROM using an old Win 98 boot disc and having manually adjusted config.sys I was left with a lovely DOS system that would hang indefinitely on boot up and no emergency back up boot disc to rectify it!
Luckily, I managed to restore it back to it's original state after tracking down a suitable disc which was just as well.
I had been inspired by a thread on EAB some months ago that aluded to someone actually getting Windows up and running on their 2000 using a KCS.
It was something that, whilst possibly not terribly practical I had to give a go just to see if it worked!
It does.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/Windows30onAmiga.jpg)
Windows 3.0 running on a 2000. :-o
Many, many thanks to The Corfiot who was the original weaver of this magic and was absolutley essential in me being able to pull off this little feat!
I had an enjoyable time playing the slowest game of solitaire ever at a fraction under one quarter speed. :-P
Whilst it does works, the refresh rates are somewhat slow, but it does work.
I'd like to see an 18 year old PC run WB 3.0!!
@TJlazer
After having a bit of a chat with zetro, and although it doesn't seem to mention it in any docs I have read, the 2620 does seem to reserve the first 4 Mb of address space for its own RAM even if it doesn't have 4 Mb fitted and the jumpers are set to 2Mb.
This would account for me having to drop the GVP's Fast RAM down to 4 Mb in order to get the 2000 to boot.
It's not really a problem though as I'm now on a slow time search for another 2 Mb of zip RAM for the 2620.
I'm sure that when they do turn up they'll be tucked away under that Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. ;-)
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Windoze on Amiga, and the world hasnt exploded yet?
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R0jaws
Absolute Pleasure Mate,,, You can update to DOS6 easily too.
TC :-D
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Nice work! Makes me want to get a desktop Amiga alongside my computer-in-keyboard ones.
I take that the KCS has ISA slots. Would Windoze be faster if you got a i.e. Tseng ET-3000 VGA card for it?
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very interesting read r0jaws, keep posting updates.
I still believe the A2000 was (is) the best Amiga for hardware "experimentation" :lol:
Keep the faith!
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r0jaws: "My own soldering iron is the b@stard love child of a chisel and a malfunctioning hotplate."
:lol: Too Funny! Sounds like my soldering iron!
Nice 2000 there, BTW...
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Hi r0jaws
The 2620 & 2630 cards from C= are craply slow if you disable the onboard RAM or worse still, have none at all. Not sure why it should make the HC8 cards ram dissapear tho!? As a matter of interest, what version of ROM is on the HC8?
Unortunately, the ZIP chips on this card are rare to find. The real bummer is, they aint socketed & need soldering directly onto the mobo!
Also, do you have GVPDAT running in WB Startup folder? Surely, an addmem cmd in the Icon parameters would sort things out for you!?
Zeets might be able to help you on this one.
Btw, well done all round m8. That`s a nice 2000 you have there now! :-)
bloodline wrote:
We don't get enough picture stories on A.org...
Completely agree! :-)
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@KinHell,
Thanks m8, I did notice the speed drop is significant when the onboard Fast RAM is disabled!
I won't be doing that again in a hurry.
The GVP SCSI ROM is Version 4.0, I have no idea why the 2620 made the RAM disappear but I'm sticking by the theory that the 2620 hogs the first 4Mb of RAM space for itself, regardless of actual RAM fitted or jumper settings.
I did try populating the SCSI adapter with 6 Mb again and ensured the correct jumpers were properly fitted and she still refused to boot from the Hard Drive, infact the Hard Disc LED starts up strongly then flutters weakly as the boot process continues, leaving you with only the Insert floppy screen.
I know Zip RAM are like hens teeth to find, but Zetro is working on a project to address this as we speak (the man is a relentless hackery machine to say the least! :-D )
I don't have GVPDAT installed and I couldn't find anything about it through Google, is it some sort of aditional software driver/ memory controller?
Anyhoo..
I had been hoping to do a little gentle hackery myself by knocking up a KVM switch of a kind for my 2 miggys.
The problem being that I actually have a 1200 and a 2000 but only one 1084 monitor.
There is no point them sharing a keyboard and mouse, but the monitor would save a lot of fannying around plugging cables in and out.
I thought about using a Serial switch box and serial cable, initially as a template for the switch.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/SwitchBox01Front.jpg)
I had never seen the inside of a switch box and didn't know if it would be compatible with what I wanted for it, or if any work would need to be done to make it work.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/SwitchBox02Rear.jpg)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/SwitchBox03Interior.jpg)
I secretly hoped that it wouldn't work and that I would have to spend some time getting a usable little box of tricks going, turns out there was absolutely no need to do anything bar plug them all together and switch both miggys on.
Bah, Foiled! :-P
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/SwitchBox07Setup.jpg)
It does work very nicely and combined with an audio cable splitter it means that I no longer have to dive about behind my desk just to switch between machines.
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/SwitchBox04AudioSplitter.jpg)
This means that I can now easily and instantly switch between my miggys and bask in the glow of the backdrop of my 2000 that I spent ages knocking up
(a small prize to the first person to guess what it is! ;-) ).
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/SwitchBox052000.jpg)
Now, I'm just trying to work out why my 2000's screenmode High Res Pref is stuck at 16 colours in PAL.
Is that standard for an ECS machine? I noticed Los Res allows upto 32 colours, but I wouldn't mind a few more.
Any ideas anyone?
One of the visitors to Amibay also PM'd me his concerns about the coin battery soldered to the board. He voiced the concern that
"there will still be a charge circuit trying to push power on your battery when it's on. I'm sure you have to Diode one side of the battery to avoid this. It's been rather a long while since I've undertaken this work so I could be wrong but I'm sure you do."
This thread on EAB HERE (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=36462&highlight=lithium+batteries) has come to the consensus that these new lithium batteries should have no problems at all, however, I'm not 100% on this myself, is there anyone out there who can confirm or refute any possible risk to my beloved 2000?
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Hi r0jaws
16 Colours is the ECS Max I'm afraid...
The switch box idea is superb, being fully passive & switched there was no doubt in my mind it would work, keeps getting better does it not.
BTW your screenbackdrop is a photo of your A2000 motherboard (Megachip clearly visible LOL)
Can I claim my small prize now.
All the Best
TC :-D
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TC
Spot on mate, have a smug feeling of satisfaction as your prize. :-P
Just finished adding a 9Gb SCSI drive to the 2000, unfortunately it meant having to ditch the second floppy drive, but with the CD Rom this isn't so much of a problem (I actually prefer the single floppy look for some reason)
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a20009Gb.jpg)
There were a few problems, namely getting the right jumper setting so that it didn't conflict with the CD-ROM, attempting (and failing) to get SFS installed to it (I'll work on this later) and the fact that my boot time has drastically increased.
I've split the drive into 3x 3Gb FFS Partitions, the boot sequence now takes about 25 secs!
This may also be due to the fact that I've installed ClassicWB ADVSP using a copy of the files from my 1200.
I realise that this installation is optimised for an accelerated 1200 (with AGA obviously) but I just wanted to check it worked.
The sharp eyed among you may notice that the installation is using 3 Mb of Fast Ram just to sit there!
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l119/r0jaws/a2000ClassicWB.jpg)
When Bloodwych gets the packs back up again, I'll be chucking ClassicWB Lite on there.
She runs Ok but is a bit sluggish compared to a vanilla 3.1 installation.
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@r0jaws: Having recently acquired an A2000 myself (unexpanded, 3.1 ROMS and CD-ROM), it's been very interesting to follow your ongoing adventures with yours.
I've a Buddha Flash coming in the mail to get a HD installed and the CD-ROM connected. At some point I hope to get some kind of accelerator, an RTG card and more RAM into it.
Before anything, I have to open it up and dismantle it to see the battery, etc. Is that replacement coin battery that you installed into yours, rechargeable?
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Yes it is, and its been running with no problems so far.
It's a simple but absolutely essential mod that can literally save your 2000 from failure.
The one we all got hold of came from HERE (http://cpc.farnell.com/BT01218/batteries-power-supplies/product.us0?sku=MAXELL-ML2032-T25)
Hope this helps :-)
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Nice job there r0jaws. Good photos and comentary.
You can get that second floppy drive back inplace by fabricating a backplane out of heavy rigid plastic sheet and some aluminum rails to mount the harddrive on and place it just like the other harddrive. Take a look at the Supra Wordsync 2000 for reference.
Dug out my A2000 recently and started upgrading it.
What brand/version CDrom do you have installed?
Laterz.
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r0jaws: What is you current fast mem setup? Is it 4 MB from A2620 and 2 MB (4?) from GVP? Looking at your pic of the A2620, it seems to have only half of the ZIPs populated, which would mean you'd have only 2 MB on the A2620.
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Currently I have 2 MB on the 2620 (Zip RAM) and 4 MB on the GVP, totaling 6 MB.
I have been playing with the 2000 more and more recently, trying to iron out a few issues that I'm not happy about (namely boot time). Should have an update fairly shortly.
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I'm really sad to say that in order to pay for some nice upgrades for my 1200, I've finally had to let this go.
I'm parting it out, and if you're interested the bits and pieces can be found on Amibay (http://www.amibay.com/viewforum.php?f=24) In the Hardware/ Amiga threads.
I have listed all the bits and pieces on Amibay and ask that any correspondance is entered into on there according to the site rules.
She was a great little machine, I shall miss her and hope she goes to a good home. :cry:
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This is a surprise considering all that you went thru to get here. Everyone seems to have enjoyed the process.
If you were in the States, I would consider the KCS. How did it perform in Dos mode (not Windows)? Were you able to use the parallel port with it? I don't have a working Dos emulater.
Did you ever get the boot time problem solved? My 2000 with SupraTurbo accelerator still takes a whole minute.
Good Luck!
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It is a real shame, it's also a decision that I have been making over the last 2 months. That said, I'm really getting to grips with my 1200 and am really enjoying the hacks I have for that, and the plans in the future.
However, I always promised my wife that my Hobby would be self financing (mostly), so I really had to make a hard choice.
The long boot time was purely down to a Seagate drive, which seemed to take an absolute age to spin up (and sounded like a jet turbine once it got going).
I timed it and it took exactly 59 secs from power on to workbench.
Using an older 500Mb Quantum drive took around 20 secs, much better.
The KCS was an absolute treat TBH, it worked quite nicely with MS DOS, it had been a while since I have used a native DOS machine, but the usability was comparable (as far as I remember).
I never hooked up a printer to the Miggy, but the KCS does support printing via the miggy's parallel port. I suppose there would be no bar for it to be used for other things as long as you had the appropriate software and drivers.
I have really enjoyed working on this Miggy, and I will have fond memories of it, and I'm glad I started this thread as a record of it's ressurection.
I'm also really glad that it seemed to strike a chord with certain users and certainly enthused them enough to dig their old big berthas out and breathe new life into them.
It's a worthy machine, and as far as I'm concerned an unjustly overlooked system.
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Thanks for the post r0jaws.
I luv the classic Amigas as well, and u certainly put in a lot of effort getting your A2000 up and happening. In reality it is great to "have and hold" a classic Amiga in working condition, but the journey to get there is what it is all about.
Still if it were me I couldn't let her go.. Sob Sob..:boohoo:
Well done again and all the best with the A1200.
Gertsy.