A4000 Video

[carnid]

I used to consider myself somewhat competent as far as Amiga stuff goes, however I have been out of the scene for a very long time.  Just recently I purchased an A4000(D?) 040 desktop off ebay.  I got this for $300 and it came with a video toaster (which I probably don't really need), spectrum EGS video card, 240Mb hard disk and some software.  In the long term I hope to upgrade the hard disk and eventually install OS 3.9 (if the ROMs support it).  Anyway - it is on its way and I hope to have it in the next day or so from UPS.

My question concerns the video.  I currently have an old Sony SVGA Monitor and a newish Dell LCD display.  I had thought initially that one of these would be fine since the spectrum card comes with VGA port, however as I dug deeper on this I discovered I will need a scan doubler or is it called a flicker fixer?  So I am assuming neither of my displays will work once my Amiga arrives and I will need to order one of these additional pieces of hardware.  I found a product called: Internal Scan Magic - Scan Doubler w/ Flicker Fixer for A1200/A4000D on softhut.com.  Would this be the best option for me to get my 4000 running on one of my monitors?  I intend to use this machine mainly for gaming and maybe some tinkering about with OS 3.9 if I ever purchase this.

Anyway - any advice would be appreciated (please be gentle as I am a newbie)

[carnid]

Ok, so my Amiga arrived and I found that the previous owner had nicely re-located the battery before any harm was done on the motherboard.  I realized right away none of my vga monitors were going to work with this computer.  I looked everywhere for a scandoubler for the 4000 and contacted the nice folks at softhut and amigakit, unfortunately only 1200 flicker fixers seem to be available at this time.  Anyway I spent the last few weeks scouring ebay waiting for a decent deal on an old monitor to come up.  I didn't realize these old RGB monitors still really hold their value.  I am now finally up and running with a Magnavox RGB monitor (it looks like the old phillips one I remember from the UK) - it is a little painful on the eyes though - it is sharp but the scanlines are very noticable.  I am sure this shouldn't be a huge problem for gaming though.

Anyway - so all excited I decided to load up workbench from floppy.  The previous owner had formatted the HD, however when WB booted I could see the hard disk icon and was able to drag files back and forth.  Unfortunately I only have the main Workbench 3.0 disks and not the HD install disk.  I also noticed I only have kickstart 3.0.

Does anyone know if there is a way I can simply copy the files from the WB disks over to my HD or is the install process needed from the WB install disk?

If I do get up and running with Workbench 3.0 on my HD, and I buy a CD ROM, will I be able to bring my ADF files across from my PC and create new floppies (or will I need to upgrade to 3.1 for this)?

Thanks again I really love this forum and it feels nice to be working with an Amiga again!

[carnid]

I would love to purchase a Picasso or better card later on, but my Amiga Budget is overspent this month as is!  I tried copying the files from my workbench disk to the hard disk (I selected show all files from the menu) and dragged them across.  Unfortunately it won't boot - just sits there on AmigaDos.

That is good to know that the VGA driver might work - I will try that if I can manage to get my hard disk installed with the OS.  Also - I have an old dvd/rw drive that also reads CDs - I tried plugging it in to the 4000 but can't access a disc - I am assuming I need a driver of some sort?  Anyway - thanks for the advice.

[carnid]

Well I just found out the 'a' button along with a couple of other ones do not work on my keyboard!  I guess I need to tinker with it and if I cannot fix this I will need to track down a replacement A4000 keyboard or connector - back to ebay again  Do the A2000 keyboards work with the A4000?

Thanks again everyone for all your help and advice so far!!!

[carnid]

So it's been what 11 months since my last post and I haven't really gotten much further with my 4000 project.  Lots of things happened over the last few months so project Amiga was on hold.  Now I am back on board and recently ordered the Buddah controller and CD / DVD drive from AmigaKit, OS 3.9 from Softhut and a new IDE drive from newegg.  My hope is to somehow get the CD/DVD drive working with the existing 3.0 workbench and then make an emergency disk for 3.9 and install it on a fresh new drive.  Oh yeah I also picked up a set of 4000D 3.1 roms on ebay.

So I am waiting for everything to arrive and hopefully will have another update when I am fully up and running.  My main concern right now is getting (if it is even possible) the CD drive with the Buddah card to talk to WB 3.0 so I can make my floppy to install 3.9 on my new drive when it comes.  It's all a bit of an adventure though and quite exciting  Can you tell I haven't really got a clue what I'm doing! (just reading lots on here and hoping I'll figure it out as I go!)