Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: 3583Bytes on April 02, 2014, 04:31:51 AM
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So I have been using an Amiga 500 1.3 with a hard drive 2MB ram for a while, and I am happy with it, but it has its limitations.
Today I got a free Amiga 2000 from an Amiga club member. He is moving and downsizing his collection.
We did not know this originally but once booted we discovered that this thing is a beast:
Kickstart 40.63
Workbench 3.1
Cpu 68030 24.20 Mhz
4MB Fast Ram
1MB GVP 32 Bit RAM (don't know what that is)
4MB GVP 32 Bit Ram (Again don't know what that is)
512KB Slow Ram
512 Chip Ram
250 MB Hard drove
CD Rom
Now I love my Amiga 500. The Amiga 2000 well, its butt ugly (sorry) and the PSU is super loud. And who knows how reliable it is.
So I am trying to decide if I should invest in maybe a quieter ATX PSU & Amiga Kit cable or should I just transfer the kickstart chip & processor into my A500 (upgrade to 3.1) and keep the A2000 as a backup.
I want to love this thing but its so dam ugly and loud, help!
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...we discovered that this thing is a beast:
Kickstart 40.63
Workbench 3.1
Cpu 68030 24.20 Mhz
4MB Fast Ram
1MB GVP 32 Bit RAM (don't know what that is)
4MB GVP 32 Bit Ram (Again don't know what that is)
512KB Slow Ram
512 Chip Ram
250 MB Hard drove
CD Rom
You have a capable machine there.
The Amiga 2000 well, its butt ugly (sorry) and the PSU is super loud.
:) Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As for that PSU, none of my A2000's are that loud, so the fan motor in that one may be going bad.
Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
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Sounds like you have some kind of Rev. 4 board or older. I'd do the modification to convert that "slow" ram to chip. Also you can replace the PSU fan with any standard 80mm PC fan. Note when I did this on mine the two wires had to be flipped at the connector, but that might've just been the particular fan I used.
My A2000 gets a lot more use than my A500, more fun to tinker with. Also don't forget to replace the battery with one of those coin cell conversion kits AmigaKit sells. ;)
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Also: where is your Amiga club located? :)
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Make the A2000 your primary machine. It is easier to upgrade. You could transfer the 3.1 ROM to the A500, but not the GVP030 accelerator board with its RAM or the CD-ROM drive.
So I have been using an Amiga 500 1.3 with a hard drive 2MB ram for a while, and I am happy with it, but it has its limitations.
Today I got a free Amiga 2000 from an Amiga club member. He is moving and downsizing his collection.
We did not know this originally but once booted we discovered that this thing is a beast:
Kickstart 40.63
Workbench 3.1
Cpu 68030 24.20 Mhz
4MB Fast Ram
1MB GVP 32 Bit RAM (don't know what that is)
4MB GVP 32 Bit Ram (Again don't know what that is)
512KB Slow Ram
512 Chip Ram
250 MB Hard drove
CD Rom
Now I love my Amiga 500. The Amiga 2000 well, its butt ugly (sorry) and the PSU is super loud. And who knows how reliable it is.
So I am trying to decide if I should invest in maybe a quieter ATX PSU & Amiga Kit cable or should I just transfer the kickstart chip & processor into my A500 (upgrade to 3.1) and keep the A2000 as a backup.
I want to love this thing but its so dam ugly and loud, help!
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Also: where is your Amiga club located? :)
Our club is located in Calgary, Canada.
http://www.amuc.ab.ca (http://www.amuc.ab.ca)
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Sounds like you have some kind of Rev. 4 board or older. I'd do the modification to convert that "slow" ram to chip. Also you can replace the PSU fan with any standard 80mm PC fan. Note when I did this on mine the two wires had to be flipped at the connector, but that might've just been the particular fan I used.
My A2000 gets a lot more use than my A500, more fun to tinker with. Also don't forget to replace the battery with one of those coin cell conversion kits AmigaKit sells. ;)
Oh I am totally going to do that tonight!
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I should add the 2000 also came with 2 extra Zorro cards, a PC Board with an 8080 and an extra Hard Disk controller (which I don't think I need)
Is there anything I can do about the hard disk, I am sure it is contributing to the loudness as well and who knows how reliable it is after all these years. Is there some way to upgrade it to a standard IDE or SATA or CF?
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Older SCSI hard drives are easy to get and pretty cheap nowadays. Your Amiga should be able to handle drives up to 4 GB's in capacity easily. You probably have an XT Bridgeboard in your machine. It can share space off of your Amiga HD, although a dedicated HD is more ideal for the PC board. I believe the GVP Accelerator board on your machine has a SCSI controller which probably is connected to your main hard drive and CD-ROM drive via a daisy-chained SCSI cable.
I should add the 2000 also came with 2 extra Zorro cards, a PC Board with an 8080 and an extra Hard Disk controller (which I don't think I need)
Is there anything I can do about the hard disk, I am sure it is contributing to the loudness as well and who knows how reliable it is after all these years. Is there some way to upgrade it to a standard IDE or SATA or CF?
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Is there anything I can do about the hard disk, I am sure it is contributing to the loudness as well and who knows how reliable it is after all these years. Is there some way to upgrade it to a standard IDE or SATA or CF?
I ditched the hard drives in my systems and went with CF. The easiest way is with one of the MechWare SCSI card readers, however they're no longer available from him and expensive when they pop up on ebay. You can also use something like the Acard SCSI-to-IDE bridge, that would allow you to use an IDE hard drive. Additional options exist if you're willing to stack a couple adapters, such as SCSI-to-IDE-to-SATA. Although I've never tried this personally you'll find there's users using all different manner of weird ways to connect hard drives to their Amiga's, and each one will tell you that their way is the best. ;)
You can also add an IDE controller card.
Personally I'd avoid any of the old SCSI drives on ebay, I've bought a number of them and they tend to be flakey and near the end of their life. Your mileage may vary. ;)
The XT bridgeboard might be fun if you enjoy messing around with that sort of thing, but of limited practical use. :)
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I ditched the hard drives in my systems and went with CF. The easiest way is with one of the MechWare SCSI card readers, however they're no longer available from him and expensive when they pop up on ebay....
That is by far the coolest A200 I have seen so far. I like the SCSI card reader idea but I am sure it is going to be hard to find.
Is there anything I should know about which SCSI hard drive would work. I am guessing it is 80-Pin, but do I need to worry about different SCSI protocols, max size, max speed etc?
For example would this drive works:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1591964&CatId=2346
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Most Amiga SCSI controllers use the 50-pin connector (exception being some high end Phase 5 stuff). Any 50-pin drive should be compatible with your GVP controller. You may have to partition it to use only the first 4GB of space (or other limitations) depending on what version of the OS and file system you use. You may be able to get different types to work using adapters, but I have no experience with those.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313&_nkw=50+pin+scsi+hard+drive&_sacat=0&_from=R40
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Another option to use CF is a SCSI-to-IDE bridge, then an IDE-to-CF adapter.
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Like almost everyone else, I'd favor making the A2000 your primary machine.
They are more easily expanded than the A500, and they are nearly bulletproof.
Your PSUs cooling fan is definitely going bad, mine is quite quiet.
They '030 card you have is nice, I only have an '020 processor.
About the only option that you don't have (that I would want) is an RTG video card.
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Another option to use CF is a SCSI-to-IDE bridge, then an IDE-to-CF adapter.
Yah the problem is if I am going to spend $200 I may as well just try to get an Amiga 1200.
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Most Amiga SCSI controllers use the 50-pin connector (exception being some high end Phase 5 stuff). Any 50-pin drive should be compatible with your GVP controller. You may have to partition it to use only the first 4GB of space (or other limitations) depending on what version of the OS and file system you use. You may be able to get different types to work using adapters, but I have no experience with those.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313&_nkw=50+pin+scsi+hard+drive&_sacat=0&_from=R40
Thanks, I am guessing it's probably very difficult to find a new 50 pin scsi drive these days.
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Thanks, I am guessing it's probably very difficult to find a new 50 pin scsi drive these days.
I believe you can get converters for all parallel scsi drives to make them work on scsi 1, but scsi 3 has been obsolete for a long time now too.
A scsi card reader might be your best bet.
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@Iggy and @thread -
Not to hijack this thread too much, but for anyone interested I've decided to put my two Picasso II video cards up for sale. These work great in an A2000 and were purchased as part of my insane project to get one working with an Indivision ECS, when after months I finally gave up and used a GVP Spectrum video card instead. ;)
Each card has a small copper heatsink stuck on the graphics chip (not because they overheat or anything, but just because Amiga hardware isn't being made anymore... why not stick heatsinks on everything?) as well as the resistor snipped so that they'll work with modern LCD monitors. I've tested both of these cards extensively and aside from compatibility issues with the Indivision, they both work perfectly. One is a Rev. 1.6, one is Rev. 1.4. I can include a CD with the latest 2.1c version of Picasso96 software.
I paid over $200 each for these cards, plus international shipping from Europe. I'd been trying to trade one for some 16MB GVP simm's but no takers. Figure I'll give you guys first crack at them before I put them back on the 'bay. $200 flat, each, includes shipping with tracking # anywhere in the continental US. Buyer pays PayPal fees. No international shipping, please, I work three jobs and don't have time for that hassle. :(
Below is a pic, let me know if you have any questions, you may now return to your regularly scheduled thread discussing the A2000. :D
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Yah the problem is if I am going to spend $200 I may as well just try to get an Amiga 1200.
A1200s are nice, but so is the A2000 you have. The difference shows up most when playing AGA games and attempting to run WorkBench at more than 16 colors. Any working Amiga (bird in the hand ;)) is better than taking a chance on eBay. Retargetable Graphics is easy on a 2000. See Mike's post above. :)
If you search for "SCSI HD, 50-pin", the picking might be better than you think. I have had pretty good luck with Quantum (simple jumper options) drives less than 4 GB in size.
What do want to do with an Amiga?
EDIT: The battery has already been mentioned. I wish I had a dime for every Amiga that was killed by a leaking battery. The coin batteries from AmigaKit have a good reputation. I usually opt for a rechargable cordless phone pack from Radio Shack and mount it away from the motherboard.
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Yes, AGA is nice, but I upgraded my OCS A2000 to ECS and with a good RTG card I've got two decent display options.
As games aren't my primary interest (not that you can't get plenty of OCS/ and ECS games), I don't really miss AGA.
If I had a spare $200 I'd buy one of the Picasso II cards previously mentioned and set up a second system.
A2000s are still plentiful and fairly cheap, something that can not longer be said for A1200s.
And they are built like tanks.
Nice to have a detached keyboard too.
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Sounds like you have some kind of Rev. 4 board or older. I'd do the modification to convert that "slow" ram to chip. Also you can replace the PSU fan with any standard 80mm PC fan. Note when I did this on mine the two wires had to be flipped at the connector, but that might've just been the particular fan I used.
My A2000 gets a lot more use than my A500, more fun to tinker with. Also don't forget to replace the battery with one of those coin cell conversion kits AmigaKit sells. ;)
I did check the battery and in fact it was leaking. Fortunately I don't believe it affected the motherboard, I think I got it just in time.
I am looking at the fan but it seems to be bolted to the PSU, how did you cut the bolts off.
Also I checked it is a revision 4.
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Update:
So I managed to get the old fan out by using a drill, replaced the fan with a new quiet one. Added some missing screws and placed the A2000 under the desk like a tower. Worked like charm the A2000 is now very quiet.
Its growing on me but I am not ready to replace my A500 yet.
I will post some pictures soon.
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As promised here is the Amiga 2000 all setup with an Amiga monitor
(http://www.amiga.org/forums/picture.php?albumid=192&pictureid=1193)
Here is my Amiga 500
(http://www.amiga.org/forums/picture.php?albumid=192&pictureid=1195)
And just to close the circle here is my old but still working Amiga 1000
(http://www.amiga.org/forums/picture.php?albumid=192&pictureid=1194)
Which one would you use?
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As someone who has had all 3, I'd rather *look* at the 1000, then the 2000, then 500. The 500 was my first Amiga but I never cared much for the form/look. Never had anything against the 2000, but I *love* the look of the 1000. As to which one I would rather *use*, probably the 1000 if I was just tinkering with nostalgia to see what you could get away with, but the 2000 would be the pick for practical use, so much easier to expand that machine to do whatever you like.
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That A2000 mouse has a good sun tan.
Id use the 2000 with Whdload.