Just got my first A2000! :)

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

After being an Amiga fan and user for 20 years I've finally gotten my own A2000, hoarders and price gougers be damned, ha!    Of course it's got some issues and I'm sure I'll be swamping the forums with hardware questions any day now, but first the specs:

- A2000, Rev. 6 motherboard, full ECS including 2MB Megachip
- GVP GeForce '040, 16MB memory
- AD516 sound card
- Pair of hard drives of undetermined size or condition

It appears the monitor (even though double packed inside boxes) didn't survive the journey, no flicker of life at all on the screen when I power it up, but the best I can tell the Amiga itself is working, i.e., it responds to keyboard reset commands, caps lock key lights up, trackball lights up when you roll it around, also it came with one of those C= silver VGA adapters and when I hook it up to a standard VGA monitor it displays a sync error... all to be expected.  Will know more once I've had a chance to bring in a working 1084 from home, but I'm confident the system itself is working and the monitor, eh, not a big deal.  Maybe a loose solder joint?  It's the Amiga I really wanted out of the deal, however.  

First questions:

- Has the usual battery damage.  I plan on snipping it out very soon here, and I know the topic has been covered ad nauseum, but what's a quick tip to clean up around this area based on the attached photo?

- How do the keys come out?  The left Alt key is broken off and part of it appears to be stuck inside the springy rubber piece.  I'd like to pull this out and superglue it back together but don't want to damage it further.  On my A500 the keys just pop off for the most part.  Same on an A2000 keyboard? ----------------  Disregard, I managed to pull the broken bit out with pliers and superglued it back together.  Cake!

Ack, and I already forget what my third question was.  Oh well, it was pretty marvelous opening the original C= box today to receive her!  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Oh, I can confirm that the A2000 is working now!  Just hooked it up via it's composite output to a TV.  Awesome!    The WORK: hard drive is bad, but big woop, I'd planned on replacing these anyway, it's booting into Workbench off it's primary drive.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

@motrucker, @Bigbronc, @rdolores - that would be great!  I know there's at least a couple more still semi-active Amiga users in our area, and I remember going to a few of the old NCAUG meetings.  Of course they were mostly on days that I already had something scheduled (of all the luck), but my favorite was when they had a booth at the old Fairfax Fair with an A3000 & a Toaster, doing fades & wipes and "Star Trek beam-ups" on people as they walked by.  Ah, good old days, must've been around 1995-ish?

What would you guys propose?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

But I think I use the floppy emulator more often than the hard drive.

I never really "got" the idea of a floppy emulator.  What do you use it for so much?  On my A500 All my games are on WHDLoad on a partition of my CF card, and when I need to transfer files from my PC I just burn them to a rewriteable CD.  Couldn't think of a single reason why I'd need a floppy emulator?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

LOL.  I think this is the first time I've ever found a use for "Productivity" mode.    After tweaking the colors and screen placement a bit (after I took this picture, unfortunately), it doesn't look half bad!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Hey @ A2000 experts!  Finally having a chance to get back to this.  I pulled the battery and scrubbed the area for about 30 minutes with a combination of toothbrush, Q-tips, soap, Radio Shack electronics cleaner, WD-40, etc.  It's sitting in front of a fan drying out right now, which is why it looks a little wet still in this picture.  Does this result look typical of the process or should I work on it longer?  I can't seem to get it to be any "less green".  On the bright side the corrosion doesn't appear to have gotten into my 68000 socket, oh, and it's a 6.4 board, I found the sticker when I pulled it out to clean it.  W00t.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

That was the one thing I forgot to list - alcohol.  Putting a little more of that on there now, and then one for me afterward!  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

If you guys are starting a DC/Metro area group I would definitely also be interested as I live in the area

I would love to!  Just not sure what's centrally located enough, or how far people would be willing to travel?  My office moved to Gainesville earlier this year.  It's right off Rt. 66 just west of Manassas.  On the downside it's a hike for the Maryland folks.  On the upside I've got several decent-sized IT work tables and plenty of monitors, power, tools, etc.

I don't think anyone would want to come to my crappy basement apartment off Craigslist, LOL.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I am in Alexandria, VA - just outside DC. I might just be interested in forming a group. Last Amiga user group I properly belonged to was ALFA - the Amigoid Life Forms Association in Hampton, VA back in the early '90s. :-)

Ha, you might be more centrally located than I am... although everyone is more than welcome to come out to my office in Gainesville (!!), and then we'd all get to see that A1000 you've been working on!  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I suppose you could always stick an A1200 motherboard inside a 2000, that might be interesting and would probably fit pretty well... but sort of defeat the purpose, LOL.  :p

A2000's are great though, love them for what they are.  Of course mine is all in pieces right now being restored, but I can't wait to have it running again, haha.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Would an ATX mobo fit?

Actually since I have mine open right next to me I can tell you.  Internal dimensions measure just under 17" from left-to-right, and just under 14-1/4" front-to-back.  Sorry European folks, you're going to have to convert that on your own.  :p

I'm a Dell shop here and don't have any ATX motherboards handy, but I set one of Dell's proprietary BTX boards in... it looked kind of rediculous though, also the slots are on the wrong side, haha.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

A little more progress on this project, waiting for bits to come in from Newegg, AmigaKit, etc., is making me bite my nails, just have a couple easy questions:

1 - Thoughts on the GeForce 040 - should I run it with the little metal cover on or off?  I'm sure GVP knew what they were doing when they put it on there, right?    *wink wink*  Offhand I'm guessing better RF protection and lower noise on, but better airflow off.  Will probably go with "off".

2 - A really nice member on this board gave me a box full of old A2000 bits he no longer needed, including a BSC/Alfa Data "Tandem" card.  I'm considering various things that I might be able to do with this card including resurrect some data from my old A1200 IDE hard drives (3.5", so I won't need any adapters), or adding an IDE-to-CF adapter for transferring files.  Anyone have any experience with this "Tandem" card?  Not concerned about speed, just compatibility with "large-ish" hard drives and CF cards?  

Thanks!!!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Of course.  CD-RW drive is already mounted.    Just received my replacement battery kit from AmigaKit today, need to get that soldered in and then everything put back together.  I also rewired a 3-speed Antec fan to work inside the power supply (with the speed selector switch mounted on the back of the PSU), am looking online for round cables at the moment plus a few other bits.  And case lights - I know some people hate 'em, but she's gonna be blue, hehe.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

It's very much a work in progress still.  Here's a pic of the PSU while I was testing the new fan.  

Of course it looks like AmigaKit is sold out again on the Indivision ECS.  Rats, and they just got some in a few days ago.  Should've ordered sooner!  :-/

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Amiga 2000 restoration project coming along nicely.  Still needs a lot of work but at least it's running again.  Yes, it is packed full of blue LED's, and the trackball lights up red when you spin it.  Dork-dork-dork.  

Unfortunately it seems that even after cleaning the heck out of my motherboard and installing one of those AmigaKit coin battery adapters, it's not keeping time.  I can set the time and save it, but when I turn it off and back on again the time just comes up to whatever it was that I originally set it at (like it's stuck in the past), or occasionally some random time.  I'm going to try to check it a little more, but on the off-chance does anyone have a 6.4 or 6.5 motherboard with no battery damage they'd like to sell?  It can be completely stripped of chips because I've already got all those, but an undamaged late revision would be nice, or tips to repair this one?  I've got a spare 4.4 that works but would rather not step back to such an older one just for a working clock, LOL.    Thanks!!