My new 4000T

[Moto]

Here she is:

4000T Slide Show

Details:  new 4000T with new quikpak 4060 128mb EDO
I have a Picasso IV and Deneb waiting to go inside but just don't have the time at the moment because of work.  Lots more 10-12 hour days of coding before I can get to this baby.

[Moto]

@efrenmgp:  Correct, SoftHut FTW!  He has a few more new old stock base 4000Ts. I was surprised and I just thought it was one of those wild rumors going around that you could still buy a new 4000T.  I emailed Joe and he said he had em.  

@amiga_3k:  Yes, I'm a kid at heart!  But also it was very heavy and I just barely got in inside the front door.  So it needed to be unpacked before it went up to the man cave.

@Tumbleweed:  You know what they say... if you have to ask.  Seriously it was expensive but then I really like that new computer smell.

[Moto]

@X-Ray : Revision 1.0 of the Disk Module

I finally got to spend some time with the Beast this week.  First thing I did was to make sure that 4060 card was still in place and that all the cables were hooked up properly.  I hooked it up to my 1084 and it powered up without any problem.   My system came with no HD so I had to re-learn how to configure SCSI drives.  I have a handful of 10 year old server-grade SCSI disks, so I had to adapt connectors accordingly.  I then booted from the OS3.1 disks and had all sorts of trouble partitioning the HD.  The HD toolbox program that comes with OS3.1 is pretty bad IMO.  I would have much preferred an FDISK type solution.

Unfortunately I accidentally made the boot partition 4MB instead of 4GB!  Strangely enough it was big enough to install the basic OS3.1 components before I realized my mistake.  I used that HDDFixSize program to straighten things out.  

Here are my observations regarding the 4000T vs my AmigaKit 1200:

* The 4000T keyboard is much better than the 1200.  I'm a touch typist and I'm always bumbling around the 1200 keyboard.  Not so with the 4000.

* My 1200 gets very hot with all the components it has crammed in it:  1260, IndivisionAGA, Subway, CF-Card adapter.   The IndivisionAGA gets wonky after about an hour of use and the video actually looks sync with the LCD ( black picture, flashes, etc).  Only solution is to turn off and let it cool down.

* The 4000T does not get hot at all and runs for hours and hours.

* I am using a Viewsonic VX924 (19" LCD, 1280x1024) monitor attached to the Picasso IV.  Things look horrible in non-native resolution from both the IndivisionAGA and also the SD/FF part of the PicassoIV.   Before installing the Picasso96 drivers, I was using both the 1084 and LCD simultaneously in low res NTSC.  Things looked much better on the 1084.    Conclusion:  I think more pixels are needed to make low res look good (eg. an LCD that runs 1920x1080).  Out of curiousity, I ran my MBP's 17" (1920x1080) screen at 640x480 (stretched) and it didn't look nearly as bad as the viewsonic at that resolution.  

* In RTG mode, the PicassoIV is awesome!   Picasso96 drivers installed w/o any problems!  Fast fast fast and looks great!  Native 1280x1024 24bit resolutions.  

* I installed MagicWB demo just for fun.  Looks great and love those new fonts and icons!  

* OS3.1 boots in like 5 seconds!  FAST!  My A1200 came preconfigured with OS3.9 and it is a little bit of a dog.  Too much crapola loaded up.  Might have to drop the 1200 down to an OS3.1 configuration.

* I highly recommend that anyone coming back to the Amiga from early years (kickstart 1.3, 2.0) should do an install of OS3.1 so you can see the evolution of the OS.  I didn't have any kind of appreciation for what was going on with the pre-configured 1200 sytem.  

* Ran SysInfo on the 4000T.  44MIPs vs 34MIPs (4060 vs 1260).  Disk speed was the biggest difference.  I get a little over 1MB/s on the 1200's CF card and almost 7MB/s on the 4000T (7200rpm SCSI).

* I wish the 4000T had an external floppy connector!  Swapping all those floppies was no fun!  

Next up:   Install Deneb card and get CDROM going.

[Moto]

@HammerD - It's one of the new 4060 cards that were made earlier this year.  

That's a great transfer rate you've got there on that UW bus.  You must have a pretty high performance CF card.   I'm at the mercy of the 4000T's SCSI2 bus.  I've got a 10,000 RPM cheetah that I want to test next.  Too bad it has to go UW->SCSI2.  RAM speed is very nice on the quikpak because it uses EDO but I do eventually see a CSPPC card in my future.

[Moto]

@Raketa - Ok, I stand corrected on that.  It's definitely a QuikPak model but not manufactured this year.   I think I just assumed that since it was new.