A contest! Best classic Amiga of A.org! :-)

[x56h34]

Time to show off a little bit and to perhaps to encourage others by proposing a challenge to anyone that can provide pics of a better looking Amiga, as far as features, overall looks, practicality, and coolness are concerned. :-D

The image gallery doesn't do this baby justice, so I'll provide hosting for the high res pictures. Too bad my digital camera is only 2.1 megapixels...the pics could have been a bit more detailed I guess, but anyway...


This here ladies and gentlemen is the fastest classic Amiga. If you think that yours is faster...I'm listening. :-)

Specifications are the following:

Commodore Amiga 4000
Original High-Density floppy drive
Motherboard revision B
Kickstart 3.1 roms
Socketed Buster 11
Motherboard ram: 16MB fast / 2MB chip
Cyberstorm PPC 060/233 with 128MB ram on it
Grex 4000D PCI daughter-board
Realtek 8029 chipset PCI ethernet card
Terratec 128i PCI sound card
Voodoo 3 PCI video card
36GB U160 SCSI hard drive

Picture #1 and Picture #2 - here we see the first internals shot of the A4000 system. You can see the motherboard fast and chip ram memory. Fast memory contains four matching IBM 4MB FPM simms that are rated @ 70ns. Grex4000 daughter-board nicely replaces the original Commodore one and starting from the top, Ethernet, Sound, and Voodoo 3 PCI cards are inserted in it. The internal SCSI-3 chain ends with the internal to external 68-pin converter and is then terminated with an external 68-pin active SE terminator. I've decided to not use an internal CD drive in order to give the PSU less stress and to leave some more breathing space for other components. When I need CD access I simply remove the external 68-pin terminator and insert an upper-byte passthrough 68-pin to DB25 terminator, and then I can easily connect my external Fast SCSI-2 burner, which is actually a 52X Sony IDE burner converted to SCSI through one of those Acard IDE-to-SCSI gadgets, sitting in an external SCSI-2 case. ;-)

Picture #3 and Picture #4- top view of the internals. As you can see, there's not much internal cabling that is in the way, as I've minimized internal cabling as much as possible. SCSI chain is connected through the blue round cable which is just right size wise. It's a must as flat SCSI cables are really a pain to deal with in regards to little space available with A4000 desktop case. Perhaps I should also seek for an amiga compatible round floppy cable. CSPPC has been upgraded with a 12V fan that is much taller than the original one, and it's a quality Sunon type. I've also managed to find four matching Micron brand FPM 32MB 60-ns non-parity SIMMS for it. :-) The hard drive is a very speedy Fujitsu 36GB U160 SCSI hard drive that can go slightly faster than 30MB/sec in OS3.9. The hard drive cradle has been isolated from touching the Grex4000 daughter-board with some isolation tape which can't be seen from this picture. The original Commodore A4000 clear isolator had to be removed as after installing Grex4000 there's no more space for it to be fit and I didn't want to trim it down and ruin it, so I've improvised. ;-) Battery on the motherboard is brand new of course, and the old one never leaked so the motherboard is as mint as it gets. :-D There is also an IDE-killer header installed over the 40-pin IDE port so this system has no IDE chain scan delays upon power up.

Picture #5 - back of the case. You can see the SCSI terminator lighting up, indicating working and proper termination. ;-) You can see the standard back connectors, including the extra PCI ones from Ethernet, Sound, and Voodoo 3 cards.

Picture #6 and Picture #7 - show the outside, final look. Everything but the floppy drive face-pate is as white as it gets. The 4000 badge still has the protective slip over it. ;-)

The only few things that I would like this setup to improve on would be getting a round floppy cable, perhaps changing Terratec 128i with a 512i digital card, and obtaining a non-yelowish floppy drive...however the one that I have now works perfectly fine, so no need to change it yet. :-D


Let the contest begin! ;-) Judges?

[x56h34]

@J-Golden:

Nice. I've been thinking of expanding my A4000T with a Mediator, however for now it's basically still around the stock config. Quikpak 4060 w/128MB ram, 16MB motherboard fast ram, 2MB chip ram, 18GB SCSI HD, HD floppy drive, and a SCSI cd drive. There's a few pictures of it in the image gallery.

[x56h34]

@X-ray:

Sweet setup. It seems like you've really utilized the extra space of the A4000T to the max.

[x56h34]

doctorq wrote:
I fully understand PaSha I must say. I wouldn't mind running my A4000 in the standard desktop case, but to much of my hardware needs cooling, and for the moment I wouldn't like to ditch my 2 x CD drives.

Exactly one of the reasons why I didn't install an internal CD drive and why I used a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI card instead of 3000. 2000 produces way less heat than 3000, and it feels like the performance gain of 3000 with Amiga is minimal.

I have thought about using an external SCSI box for a desktop setup like my WarpEngine setup does, but since I haven't got a nice looking desktop case, it's not a plan for the near future. In case I do it, then I would go Mediator instead of course :-)

I am a big fan of Grex so naturally I had to get the 4000D version :-) ...however if I were unable to find one then I would have gone with Mediator 400Di, for sure. What I like about Grex4000 is that it utilizes the CSPPC PCI bus, thus offering faster performance, and not to mention the availability of the video slot on it, unlike Mediator 4000Di. Of course, Mediator is way better supported so that counts for a lot of points for it. :-)

Btw, nice looking setup you got there Nenad.

Thanks. :-) I'm thinking I should post pictures of the A1200T next.

[x56h34]

TheMagicM wrote:
come on A3000D owners.. I know some of you have some awesome machines!!!  I <3 A3000's!!

Nenad: that is a very clean A4000!!  

Thanks. I can post pictures of my A3000D setup too, however it's a very, very stockish config. The best thing about it is its mint condition. Other than that it's a simple 16MB fast / 2MB chip, 3.1 roms, A3640 config. :-)

[x56h34]

@T_Bone:

I thought you were getting a MicroA1? ;-) :-P

[x56h34]

PaSha wrote:
@x56h34
Regarding the heat, I must say that I'm surprised to see that you haven't modified the PSU. That'll be the first thing I do with mine; cut away the original fan grill and install a mesh one, maybe even a 92mm fan if there's room, and cut away the air outlet vents on the back of the PSU and replace them with mesh. Less noise and less heat = happy amiga owner.

I am actually looking into mounting a small form factor ATX PSU of higher wattage (~300W or more) inside the original 4000 PSU's casing and also making an ATX connector to 4000 power connector conversion. The ATX power switch would replace the commodore switch that is located on the 4000 PSU. The only problem is finding a suitable ATX PSU for the job and of course measuring all the space needed, drilling holes, etc...but some day I will go for it. :-)

Oh and btw: regarding an Amiga-compatible round floppy cable, just buy a PC cable and 'untwist' pins 10-16, making it a straight-through cable working with your Amiga. Or, just make a round cable yourself with colored heatshrink-tubing.

Cool. I'll see what I can do about that. Thanks for the tip.

[x56h34]

X-ray wrote:

Are you also going to beef up your A4KT?

Probably not for now. There's really no reason to have more than one beefed up Amiga. That would make four heavily expanded units for me, so I think I'll stick with only 3. :-D

[x56h34]

Well, I originally expanded a 4000D into a Mirage 4000 tower. The Escom 4000T I mainly kept around for collecting purposes, and as a backup unit. I then received another desktop 4000D, which I've expanded to the originally mentioned specs at the top of this thread.
4000D is overall a bit wealthier with expansion options available out there than 4000T, epecially as far as Grex4000 goes. I really wanted it instead of any other PCI solution. IIRC Grex4000T version was only made in very small numbers (something like less than 5 units?) so as far as that is concerened, there really was no chance of making it happen. Oh yes, I do have a Picasso IV in that 4000T, so it's not really that bad of a system afterall. :-)

[x56h34]

@Oli_hd:

Oh yeah? Well my Amiga has a rare built-in paging service, so in case of problems Dave Haynie gets a page directly from it and he appears on-site within 2 hrs to fix the problem! :-P ;-)

[x56h34]

@mr_a500:

I'd think that your setup would at least earn a lot of "coolness" points. :-) Do you have a Viper 520 CD accelerator inside the A500?

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@Tahoe:

Very, very nice.
I will try and post some pics of my own A3000. It's pretty much identical to yours, with the A2065 nic in it and all. :-)