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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Gaming => Topic started by: amiga1084 on December 31, 2008, 12:39:25 PM

Title: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: amiga1084 on December 31, 2008, 12:39:25 PM: Hello All,

I own two Escom A4000T's does that mean I have two of 2000 machines out there? The figure of Escom only making 2000 machines has to be wrong. The amount of machines poping up on Ebay all the time and machines I seen up for sale in my area makes me believe this must not be the case. Love to hear your opinion on this subject.

Happy New Year To All,

Thanks in advance,
Merv Stent
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: Everblue on December 31, 2008, 12:47:24 PM: They are the same machines that keep getting bought and resold.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: dannyp1 on December 31, 2008, 02:04:55 PM: I don't believe that sales figure either. I have 5 of them here in different states of disrepair. I also don't believe it is the same ones being sold over and over again on EBay. There are many sold on EBay that seem to come from people who had used them for Toaster type of activities. Where did the 2000 figure come from and where is there a list of how many of each model were sold?

Dan
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: Ilwrath on December 31, 2008, 02:38:49 PM: Yeah, I have to say, I'd question that figure, as well. Besides the fact I've never heard it before, the Escom A4000T is fairly easily available to anyone who wants to shell out the money for one.

I wouldn't think that would be the case for a system that had a total run of 2000 units almost 15 years ago...

As Redrumloa had stated in his auction, there may well have been less than 200 COMMODORE BRANDED 4000T's. I've only seen two of those. Is this the point of confusion?
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: recidivist on December 31, 2008, 04:22:40 PM: If the 2000 units were all originally purchased by knowledgeable people who wouldn't and didn't reflexively consign those "old,obsolete computers" to trash or recycling,that could be accurate count.
On the other hand ,I answered an ad for free Amiga computer stuff,and the nice lady gave me a big stack of manuals,etc.She explained that she and her husband had taken the Amiga itself to the city-sponsored computer recycling center!!!!Oh,yes,it did have a bunch of extra cards installed. :boohoo:
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: HopperJF on December 31, 2008, 04:28:22 PM: From a 1995 issue of CU Amiga Magazine, shortly before the 1200 and 4000 were relaunched it states that 2,000 A4000Ts were on order to US customers so the figure is blatantly wrong
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: orb85750 on December 31, 2008, 10:49:48 PM: Has anyone compiled a list of known 4000T serial numbers or serial number ranges to get a handle on the total?

On a similar note, what is the source of the assertion that under 10,000 Commodore SX-64 computers were made? Anyone know?
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: djbase on December 31, 2008, 10:52:08 PM: Quote

amiga1084 wrote:
Hello All,

I own two Escom A4000T's does that mean I have two of 2000 machines out there? The figure of Escom only making 2000 machines has to be wrong. The amount of machines poping up on Ebay all the time and machines I seen up for sale in my area makes me believe this must not be the case. Love to hear your opinion on this subject.

Who says Escom made only 2000 units? Where does this came from? There are at least 5000 units around.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: Matt_H on December 31, 2008, 11:40:12 PM: I was always under the impression that 2000 was the high-end estimate of Commodore 4000Ts. There have to be / have been more Escom units.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: murple on January 01, 2009, 12:01:27 AM: I could believe a small number like 2000-4000. If these were popular and in demand computers, it'd be a different story... but with Amiga dead for well over a decade now, I suspect that the number of people in the world who still own and use Amigas is pretty small. Among people like us, these are great machines with real value. To the vast majority of the world though, they're just old electronic junk. I wouldn't be surprised if the same few machines are getting passed around among collectors and retro hobbyists. With many people being happy with 1200s or Commodore 4000s (not to mention older non-AGA models) I could believe that a couple thousand Escom 4000s would be enough to satisfy the market.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: arnljot on January 01, 2009, 03:11:02 AM: Again it's a question of definition, isn't it?

How many did Escom build, and how many did they sell. Was it JIT production for the market?

Hard to say. A lot of NOS CD32s exist. But they were for the most part built by Commodore and siezed by courts since Commodore lost that law suit (remember one of the triggering factors for why they went belly up?).

Commodore didn't do JIT production, I don't think so.

And Escom couldn't have been ready with their own production facilities and all to retool them for Amiga production, probably they just used the same as Commodore did.

So they probably didn't JIT either.

So what's the gap between built and sold? I'm sure the number of sold must be quite low, remember - they were bankrupt too, and new owners weren't keen to sell stock taken over or restart productions...

No, I suspect the number of Escom A4Ts to be quite close to the number of Commodore A4Ts. Both in number of units built, and number of units sold. With perhaps a small edge to Commodore in units sold as there seems to be more NOS Escom units than Commodore units.
Title: /
Post by: Lorraine on January 01, 2009, 04:59:50 AM: /
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: QuikSanz on January 01, 2009, 05:18:02 AM: @amiga1084

Do Amiga Technologies A4000Ts Count? Here's one.

Chris
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: Matt_H on January 01, 2009, 07:37:34 AM: One area of focus could be QuikPak - they manufactured and distributed 4000Ts in North America from the restart of production in 1995 through some point in 1998. Only 2000 built in that timeframe doesn't make sense, especially when you consider there was also a European factory. Back then, the market was small, though still viable. Exponentially larger than today's userbase.

News from that period, especially North American news, will probably yield the best information - Amazing Computing, Amiga Informer, and CUCUG's Amiga Web Directory are probably the best sources.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: djbase on January 01, 2009, 09:08:48 AM: Escom wanted to make 100.000 A1200 and 6.000 A4000T in total. Remember that Escom crashed only a few months after the A4000T was on sale. From the serial numbers I have I can estimated that a minimum of 5.000 A4000T and 80.000 A1200 were made. From the Commodore A4000T there must be at least 150 units so a total of 200 is possible.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: X-ray on January 01, 2009, 12:46:02 PM: Someone needs to start a serial number database on the A4000Ts.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: stefcep2 on January 01, 2009, 01:34:08 PM: Not sure how many were made but I don't think that many would have been sold as at the time the things were wayyyy too expensive: $4000 Aus for 25 mhz 68040 with 6 Meg ram and 1.2 gig hard drive plus a magic pack. No monitor, and I think you got the Magic pack software plus Scala, plus they were TALKING about some 3d rendering software, initially Lightwave was mentioned and later Reak 3D.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: X-ray on January 01, 2009, 01:39:15 PM: Mine cost me £2000 in 1996, brand new. Bought here in England. I can't remember if that included the M1438s monitor or not.
It was very expensive. I got the 060 later that year, and I think it was just short of £700. The SCSI module for that Cyberstorm was another £150 IIRC.

Miggies aren't for the faint of heart or the short of wallet

:lol:
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: klx300r on January 01, 2009, 02:59:58 PM: no..& Happy 2009 to you too ;-)
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: scuzzb494 on January 08, 2009, 08:27:37 PM: Hi

Mine says...

Amiga
Model A4000T
Assembled in Germany
Part No 365317-20
Bar Code: 2610596534812030000255 :-)

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz126.htm

I also have a brand new unused spare case.

scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: X-ray on January 08, 2009, 09:23:39 PM: Here is mine:

(http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g154/Odd_Job/IMG_0196.jpg)
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: RMK305 on January 08, 2009, 09:39:27 PM: Scuzz,

I'm interested to know if the spare case originally had a motherboard in it or if it would have come from the factory empty. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Robert
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: scuzzb494 on January 08, 2009, 09:50:17 PM: Hi

I don`t think the case ever had a motherboard in it. The guy I got it from bought it from Germany as a spare case. Its in mint condition with absolutely no signs of there being anything fitted inside. Could be wrong.

scuzz
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: scuzzb494 on January 08, 2009, 09:56:41 PM: Its possible I guess that those last three digits on the bar code represent the actual unit number... In your case the number being 955. Probably not.

scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: RMK305 on January 08, 2009, 10:15:46 PM: Good find Scuzz!

Thanks.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: djbase on January 08, 2009, 10:24:40 PM: Quote

scuzzb494 wrote:
Its possible I guess that those last three digits on the bar code represent the actual unit number... In your case the number being 955. Probably not.

It is but mainboard, modules and other stuff have its own serial number. So this is the serial of the case.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: morduk on January 09, 2009, 03:46:34 AM: Don't know how many 4000 Towers are out there but i have one of the original ones made by Amiga. Any takers??
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: Tahoe on January 09, 2009, 07:20:29 AM: Mine are found here (http://www.amiga4ever.nl/system.php?id=13)

The serials numbers (bottom of page) are very different indeed. I have not figured out a way do calculate an amount from it, but that also goes for most other machines.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: ddniUK on January 09, 2009, 11:55:35 AM: only difference that I see in the numbers are the last three. 978 and 955. But your system id14 has a very different number.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: Tahoe on January 09, 2009, 12:11:56 PM: Yes, that machine has a serial number much closer to the one from scuzzb494... That's why it's not possible to deduct an amount from the serial numbers imho.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: dannyp1 on January 09, 2009, 01:23:03 PM: I also have an empty spare new case that I bought from a collector (the same guy ReDrum bought the large lot of collectables from) that I was told was new and it looks new and appears to have never had a motherboard in it. I have no idea of it's history other than what I have stated.

Dan
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: djbase on January 09, 2009, 03:10:03 PM: Quote

Tahoe wrote:
Yes, that machine has a serial number much closer to the one from scuzzb494... That's why it's not possible to deduct an amount from the serial numbers imho.

It is possbile if you know how the serial numbers work.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: X-ray on January 09, 2009, 09:48:04 PM: My mobo serial is 365150-02090
I know of another one (that I almost bought) with a mobo serial of 365150-01320
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: impactor on January 09, 2009, 09:57:01 PM: Imagine how cool it would be to have a database of every piece of hardware, including serial number, bar code, etc, etc,... :-?

Or is it just me being amazingly anal that thinks that would be cool? :-D :lol:
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: djbase on January 09, 2009, 10:07:05 PM: Quote

impactor wrote:
Imagine how cool it would be to have a database of every piece of hardware, including serial number, bar code, etc, etc,... :-?

Or is it just me being amazingly anal that thinks that would be cool? :-D :lol:

It would be a pain in the ass. I have collected over 1000 serials of amiga hardware and I know what crap this is.
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: Akiko on January 09, 2009, 10:58:54 PM: Mine-

mobo serial: *365150-00972*

Case serial: 1611096534812040000724
Title: Re: Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?
Post by: dannyp1 on January 12, 2009, 05:53:06 PM: Does anyone know how many A3000T's were made? You see a lot less of them than you do the A4000T's.

Dan