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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: AmigaNow on January 27, 2009, 04:49:31 AM
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Back in the day, my first Amiga that I ever owned was an Amiga 1000. Today, some 20 some odd years later I have once again purchased an Amiga 1000. :-D
I was wondering about connecting the video output. I used to have a 1084S monitor, and later having a 1942 monitor, but now I have neither. Can I hook the video out to the video in of a TV? Is this in color? I seem to remember that either the Amiga1000 or Amiga500 was in B&W... Otherwise, is there an adapter for the 23pin to a VGA or DVI for a newer monitor?
Also, I remember I used to have a memory expansion that fit internally that had 1.5Mb ram and connected to the CPU socket. Anybody remember who made this and the name?
Your help is greatly appreciated. :bow:
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Big book of Amiga Hardware (http://bboah.amiga-resistance.info/index_e.html): just dig for connection (Andere).
A1000/500 & A2000 (& variants) just show B&W pictures on the composite video out.
If you want to use colour in a modern(ish) TV, use a Converted to S-VHS A520 (http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Edavem2/overclock/a520.html).
To use a VGA monitor, you need an external scandoubler (expensive as hell), but I think it is an overkill for a humble A1000.
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I share your excitement regarding the A1000, it is one of my favorite models of Amiga and was my first Amiga also back in 1987. I still have mine, but it needs some work to return it to it's former glory.
There were probably 2 or more different internal RAM expansion boards like what you are referring to. I bought a brand new Spirit Insider to get an additional 1.5mb of fast RAM in my A1000, which was probably the most popular internal RAM expansion board for the A1000. Brings back many fond memories of expanding (spending most of several paychecks back then) my A1000 as far as I could take it. The only thing I could have done more to it would have been a Phoenix replacement motherboard w/030 & 2mb Chip RAM to bring it almost up to A3000 specs, but that was out of my price range at the time.
Enjoy that A1000 and all your own memories of days long past while you are playing with it.
If you are interested in new projects for the A1000 check out the GBA1000's that I and many other members here are building as a DIY project from a small run of new motherboards that were produced last year. Just do a search here to find a few threads about the project.
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Another Amiga-Maniac was reborn. Congrats to your machine and good luck for your Ramextension you're searching for. My A1000 only has the 1050 front ramextension. I have another one (boxed) here, but it's only 256K :lol:
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The A1000 has colour composite out. The expansion you ask about is the spirit insider.
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If you connect the A1000 to a TV, you'll need to use 60 rather than 80 column mode. For 80 column mode, you'll need an old RGB monitor (like that 1084 you used to have) or a scandoubler.
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@ Amiganow: congrats! I too just won an A1000 on ePay. It was boxed and looks to be in excellent shape. The 1000 was my first Amiga as well and I remember saving up to get it. Fortunately, Christmas was right around the corner and my parents offered to go halvsies so I could get it in time. This was back in the day when computer stores were computer stores. In other words, not only did they offer professional service and support, they took trade-ins toward other models at the time. In this particular case, it was late 1986 and the A1000 I wanted was a used model without a box that the original owner put toward an A2000. I remember putting some money down on it and requesting I be able to take the keyboard, mouse, disks and manual home so I could study up. I was so excited to even have just a few pieces of an A1000. lol Finally brought the machine home, hooked it to a television via a $30 Radio Shack RF converter and got to tinkering with AmigaBasic. My A1000 only had 256k of ram and I found I had to save up again for the other 256k 1050 module. Never bothered to expand it further than that. I was unaware how expensive expanding a 1000 was until I started looking. It was really cost prohibitive at the time. That 1050 expansion I remember was somewhere in the $100 range. I ultimately ended up selling my A1000 to finance a 500, which was easy and cheap to expand. Guess I have a soft spot in my heart for the 500 as well. Incredible little system I remember fondly.
I do remember though when places like Software Hut and Grapevine Group started advertising the Phoenix and Rejuvenator boards for the 1000. They too were cost prohibitive, but in hind sight, I wish I would have gone that route. There's just something so cool about owning the original Amiga 1000. Hard to explain, but when you literally grew up with computers, witnessed their evolution, read and subscribed to the old magazines that would hype these things -not too hard to understand the culture back then. Kids today should be so lucky ;-)
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congrats you two on your new purchases!
i think someone's sig said it rather eliquently;
Amiga, a more elegent weapon from a more civilized (if bygone) age.
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If any of you both needs a 1050 Ramextension, just write a PM :)
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AmigaNow wrote:
I was wondering about connecting the video output. I used to have a 1084S monitor, and later having a 1942 monitor, but now I have neither. Can I hook the video out to the video in of a TV? Is this in color?
Here's a video on how to build an S-Video Hack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDP8cvIXtFY) for your Amiga 1000. This seems like a tidy solution if you're willing to try it. I haven't tried this so I can't comment further.
Hope you have fun with your Amiga 1000.
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Springbok wrote:
If any of you both needs a 1050 Ramextension, just write a PM :)
Thanks mate, I may need to take you up on your offer!
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Fester wrote:
Here's a video on how to build an S-Video Hack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDP8cvIXtFY) for your Amiga 1000. This seems like a tidy solution if you're willing to try it. I haven't tried this so I can't comment further.
Hope you have fun with your Amiga 1000.
Just checked out the video on youtube. That's sweet! Luckily I know how to solder. :-)
Definitely appreciate all the info.
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@ Springbok:
The A1000 I won on eBay did indeed come with the 1050 expansion. Not only that, but my spidey senses were correct: it also came with an Insider 1mb fast ram board. And to further bask in all that are bonuses, it also has DKB Kwikstart board piggybacked to the ram expansion. Has Kickstart 1.2 on it. Never, ever have I had an A1000 with Kickstart in ROM. Whee!
Too bad this board has 1.2 divided up into 4 chips. I've got a spare 1.3 Kickstart laying around here somewhere, but will be of no use with this system. Was kinda cool first booting up the A1000 and see it asking for 1.2 Workbench. lol
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Welcome to the A1000 owner club :banana:
Yes you've got a colour composite output.
Sadly you live in the USA, so your chance to get a TV set with RGB imput is close to ZERO.
You can hack a A520 modulator to get a Svideo output (which is a tidy bit better than the original composite output), but you can hack your TV Set and put a RGB entrance ! Go for the last one !!!
Here they have it natively since 1980, and 60 Hz compatibility since 1988...
A few moderns LCD/Plasma set can do the trick with the passive "VGA Commodore Adapter" (beware it won't double the frenquency at 31.5 !!!). Take a look at the forum about it.
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I too. have a working A1000. I'm not lucky enough to have found an InSider for it - and in a recent state of no money I had to sell both of my Starboard II boxes (with SCSI and everything!).
I just bought a perfect Xetec Fast Trak on eBay - for an A500/1000. It's a side car box with SCSI and RAM expansion. Looks like it will fill the bill - has 4Mb of RAM with the SCSI!
Some A500 side car type expansions can be used on an A1000 (they just sit backwards) IF the mouse/joystick ports clear.
I prefer using a 1080 (1084, 1942, etc) rather than a TV.
All this stuff pops up on eBay from time to time. Some times the prices are good, sometimes not.
I have also seen a limited amount of A1000 stuff on " chasethechuckwagon.com ".
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The Video out on the A1000 is color. It looks really nice too. Much cleaner picture than the A520 I always thought. (A520 is what you use on an A500 to get Video output. As the A500 didn't have video out standard) The A2000 had composite out, but it was B/W.
I think what you need to do 23 pin to VGA (then on to DVI) is a FlickerFixer as Amiga is 15khz and VGA is 31khz.
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if i remember correctly the 1000 has got the a500 memory expansion on right hand side which you can also fit a500 memory expansions,and i remember i had an expansion that put the kickstart roms on aswell that freed up memory,but it was along time ago when i had 1 so i could be wrong.
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My Amiga1000 arrived last night in a properly packaged box, that was chucked over my fence. :madashell: The front was popped out, and the rear case was shattered in many pieces.
Word of warning. Never ship anything without insurance.
Upon testing, video is good, but I am only able to get Kickstart to load properly. I tried multiple boot disks, but all stop half way with a Read Error. I did have a Demo disk so I know that stereo works.
If there are no cracks on the mobo, it looks like I need the drive cleaned and aligned? I thought I saw that someone on this board does these repairs? Please PM me. I live in the US.
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Oh man, that's a bummer about your A1k getting "chucked over the fence" as you say. Did it really? Or does it look like that? Who delivered it? Sounds like a UPS manoeuvre to me and yes, it does indeed sound as if the heads became misaligned in "transit". Insurance is definitely a must these days, but getting any of these tranist companies to make good on a claim is a trick shot to say the least.
I remember a disk utility that attempted to align the heads via software back in the day. Might be some info there on Aminet.
If you end up parting it out though for whatever reason, I could make use of the keyboard and other bits :-)
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save2600 wrote:
Oh man, that's a bummer about your A1k getting "chucked over the fence" as you say. Did it really? Or does it look like that? Who delivered it?
I remember a disk utility that attempted to align the heads via software back in the day. Might be some info there on Aminet.
Compliments of the United States Postal Service, they actually threw it over my fence. Had my seller packaged it any less, it would have been a total loss.
I'll check Aminet for disk utils. Thanks
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Yes,the A1000 Video Out is Colour,but the PhoenixA1000/A500/A2000 is B/W.
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AmigaNow wrote:
Compliments of the United States Postal Service, they actually threw it over my fence. Had my seller packaged it any less, it would have been a total loss.
I'll check Aminet for disk utils. Thanks
Wow! Who in his right mind does that? Does the mail man have a beef against you for something? I'd mention this to the originating post office and see how they respond.
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That's awesome. I don't know too many other computer systems where people get excited about buying them again. It's not like there's a huge market for 8088s out there. :-)
I just recently bought an Amigas 2000 for the same reason. That was my first real computer and I get warm fuzzies just knowing I own one again. Yes, I know we are silly but so what. People get warm fuzzies for much sillier reasons than that.