My ongoing adventures with my A2000.

[r0jaws]

It's with mixed feelings that I write this.
Mainly I'm pretty excited. A neighbour offered me his old a2000 complete with tons of discs and productivity suites.
It's not often that such treasure falls into your lap so I'm now a proud owner of said beastie.



I plugged her in and connected her up to my trusty 1084 to test her out, no joy unfortunately. Whilst there appears to be activity from the Hard Disc, all the screen shows is a flickering display :-( on the plus side she is showing lots of HD activity however, both floppies appear dead :-(.

On inspection inside there appears to be numerous cards that I'm not familiar with (not terribly familiar with a2000 as it is) but I believe I have a GVP Series II SCSI/RAM Controller, a BSC fast RAM memory expansion, and a KCS Power PC Board.





The onboard battery appears to be in fairly good nick but I will be pulling that little bugger out in fairly short order.
I've also got a big pile of discs and productivity suites to sort through, vidi amiga, showmaker, stereo master and some drawing and desktop publishing suites.

I'm going to pull out all the non standard gubbins over the next few days and see if I can't get this bad boy up and running again.

Any pointers out there specifically regarding a2000's? Things to look out for, any clues as to why she might not be displaying too much (I did try both composite and RGB).

(Edited for better quality shots of the installed expansion boards)

[r0jaws]

What's happened here?
2 Pages of my thread have disappeared and so have my last 6 posts.
Has there been some sort of trimming exercise or what?  :-o
I wouldn't mind so much if it was just mine but it's the replys too, I was following up on some of that info, ho hum  :-?

[r0jaws]

OK, Long story short, I got her running again. It was the PSU at fault and in need of some refurbishment, judiciously provided by one of the electricky wizards at work.
I have reposted all the pics below, with what I can remember of the description below.


The Motherboard with 2 Meg Agnus Chip fitted

 
From Top, Omega 68000 Speed Up Board, 2.04 ROM (Now refitted),  Original Agnus Chip (Currently fitted due to diagnostics) & a Real Time Clock Chip.


She Lives!  :-D  :-D  :-D Installing Dune II!


Workbench 2.04 Desktop


System Config


System Boards. Consisting of a Memory Master (1 Meg), KCS Power PC Board (2Meg), and GVP Impact Series II SCSI/RAM Controller (0 Meg installed)


SYSINFO, (Not the fastest, but not really a problem for what I intend for her)

I'll keep this updated as and when I significantly change anything, hopefully it'll last a bit longer this time  :lol:

[r0jaws]

At the moment it's running standard with only the memory boards connected.
I'm going to try the Omega 'accelerator' and post the difference (if any) it makes, then when my PLCC Remover turns up, I'll replace the Agnus 2 Meg Board and post the results. There isn't physically any room for both to whichever provides the best improvement will stay in.
My moneys on the Agnus chip, but I've a few days wait before I  can get anywhere with that.

[r0jaws]

Ho Hum, Just went to test out the Omega Speed Up board, and the Agnus Chip looks like it's decided to take a swan dive.
Just before I was going to install the Omega board, thought I'd power her up to check everything was A-OK.
It wasn't. :boohoo: Green screen indicating Chip RAM failure!
The Dimensions preclude fitting the Omega Board and the Agnus Chip board at the same time which is a shame, so until I can get my hands on another 1 Meg Agnus chip I can't test the Omega board to see what it can do :-(  
Off to look for one of these now.

[r0jaws]

Its the original Agnus chip that I replaced the 2 Meg board with when I was originally having problems.
That may be part of the problem, I've had the 2000 open and made sure the chip is seated firmly and it seems OK. I'm waiting on a PLCC Extraction tool to turn up so that I can replace it safely and ensure it's actually that, it may just take a few days.
I'm reluctant to try to prise it out and thus damage the socket.

[r0jaws]

Brilliant!  :-o
I'm really looking forward to this now! :boohoo:

[r0jaws]

PHEW!

I'm glad I waited for the chip puller to arrive, It popped the Agnus out straight away with no effort! I reseated the chip and, BINGO, she lives again! :-D



Now I can finally get started on testing the 'accelerator'/ Agnus chip RAM boards to see what speed bonus (if any) they produce. It'd be nice to get the boot up time to less than 30 secs!

Will post results when I get the chance.

[r0jaws]

There are a few programs running on start up but I haven't delved too deeply there just yet as I just wanted to get her up and running reliably first.
TBH this is my first 2000, my 1200 boots almost instantly (but so it should) and I didn't really know what to expect with a 2000.
It's on my To Do list at the moment to get the start up routine as standard as possible to get a base line from which to test these bits of kit out.

@ motrucker an accelerator may be on the cards later, but at the moment I'm happy with her capabilities. I just want to see what these Boards that came with her can actually do. Old fashioned curiosity I guess.

[r0jaws]

TjLaZer wrote:
r0jaws,

Congrats!  It's nice getting an old miggy up and running.

Say can you email me that world backdrop pic?  I like it.

Thanks, and no problem at all. :-) It might be a few days though (I'm kinda buried at work at the moment)

[r0jaws]

[Drumroll] Ladies & Gents, the moment you have been waiting for has arrived [/Drunroll]

I have the 2000 back to the state it was when I originally clapped eyes on it, but fully operational!  :-D

I replaced the Gary Socket adapter with the missing pins (for the 2 Meg Agnus board), and popped it back in this evening and she lives!



Cheeky little glass of Red to celebrate.  :-P





There's a mild increase in speed, according to the sysinfo, but bizzarely the workbench rendering seems to have slowed down dramatically! ie open a drawer and each icon is drawn, but much more slowly than before.
I shall have to investigate this board, maybe I haven't set something up for it correctly.




I still haven't removed the battery, should it just pop out, or do the mountings have to be snipped?
It had some white crystals forming around the contacts that weren't there last time I looked so that's the next job to yoink that out before it causes any trouble (I've cleaned it up for now pending further investigation).

I have managed to halve the start up time by merely removing 2 programs on startup (Pro Draw & Pro Page) so its down to a mere 15 secs!

All in all a good nights work, next job to get the battery out, investigate the Agnus setings, and bung the Omega Speed Up board in to test it's comparitive worth.
Oh, and I have 8x 1 Meg SIMMS racing their way to me to chuck in the GVP card, and I still haven't fully checked out that KCS PC Board yet.

Fun Fun Fun

 :-D  :-D  :-D

[r0jaws]

@ T4, as soon as I get hold of some snips, that battery is coming out, just haven't got around to it yet.

My Main reason for posting though is to update y'all on my progress with the expansions.

I finally got round to fitting the Omega Projects 68000 Speed-Up Board. It promises a big speed boost from the standard 7 Mhz, all the way upto 14.28 Mhz! So I'm quite interested to see if it can live up to it's promise, and how that'll affect the 2000's set up (ie usability and stability).
Unfortunately I had to remove the 2 Meg Agnus board in order to fit this as there physically isn't the space to have both fitted!



It's a fairly easy fit (once I manage to persuade the Original 68000 to relinquish its grip on the socket! But there are problems (surprise surprise)

There isn't much info (that I can find) out there on this piece of kit, so I have only the original manufacturer's instruction sheet to go by. (1 sheet of A4)

Once I worked out the switch positions (the green, white and blue wires leading to the front of the cage) and set it to standard, she boots up fine and is rock solid stable.

Unfortunately when I switch to the 'Accelerated' position, that's where the problems start.
I get a red screen with;

System Expansion Board Check
Status       Manufacturer        Product
OK           2017                11
OK           767                 0
BAD          2092                8

This is not good. The other cards are all ok, and the system still boots and runs fine in 'Standard mode'.
The instructions mention installing a tiny 'Boot Block' Program via the provided floppy in some systems because of physical mechanical limitations.
I hadn't installed this program initially, because it was in  the Amiga 500 installation instructions (not the 1500/2000 installation instructions)
Booting from the disc (in standard mode) presents a limited 1.3 enviroment and the opportunity to install the boot block.
Great, but unfortunately it doesn't find the HDD (only the floppy) and consequently won't install the Boot Block!!!

So, I have a question out there, does anyone have any ideas as to how I may be able to either, force the installation floppy to search for and find the Hard Disc, or manually adjust the boot block myself?

I am assuming that I get the Red screen of Death is because of the absence of this modified boot block and not just that the card itself is a gonner, primarily because it still functions in standard mode.

Finally, once I chucked it back together (leaving the board in place) I had to let the kids have a crack at it! (they love Galaga & Missile Command)

[r0jaws]

Just a quick update (for those still interested) I have managed to get hold of 8x 1 Meg 30 Pin SIMMs for the GVP SCSI/ RAM board, Installed them, set the jumpers and POW 8 Megs of Fast RAM Power!


Sweet!  :-D

Runs a little faster now but also means I have a spare 2 Meg Memory Master Board which I'll put up on Amibay in due course.
There appears to be a conflict between the Memory Master and a populated GVP Board that precludes using them simultaneously, Oh Well, out she comes.



I'm still having trouble getting the 'accelerator' to run at 14Mhz, however the system does now boot to a CLI after the Red screen of death, so I am making progress (of a sort).
It'd be nice to be able to use this speed up board, however if it proves to be a dud, I still have the Agnus chip and I'll just put it out there to the community to see if anyone can have more luck with it that I can.

[r0jaws]

Ok, the Expansion board is officially dead, I tried numerous configurations and even managed to get a modified boot block running from a floppy to test it and it was unresponsive.
Its a shame but it will have to go back in it's box until I can find time to test each track and chip.
I know it would be cheaper to just get an accelerator and I would be able to keep my 2 Meg Agnus chip, but for novelties sake, and to keep a small piece of Amiga engineering alive I think it would be worth it.

[r0jaws]

@rkauer

Cheers for that, I'm happy with the 8 Megs of Fast RAM and 2 Megs of Chip RAM at the moment, the Memory master uses ZIP RAM anyway, which is a little tricky to track down, so it's useful to know that there's not much point.

The 68000 Hack, as you mentioned, will now probably end up inside a 500, if I can track one down and persuade my wife to let me have another miggy in the house.
I'd like to see it running, just out of curiosity now, and to see if I can actually get it to work.
As you have mentioned it probably isn't 'dead' just that I am unable to get it to work in my 2000.

I'm actually very happy with the 2000 as it is now. I have 2 accelerated 1200's for more strenuous tasks, but this system is a firm favorite of mine and the kids. (Mainly because I'm happy to let them play on it without having palpitations at the thought like I do with my 1200's)  :-D