Resurrected A4000

[Orkin]

Okay, so I decided to increase the size of the existing Amiga community by one yesterday, and I dug out my A4000 (with a Toaster), found my connectors (minus a keyboard adapter), and fired her up. I about a half hour later, my screen went dark, and I determined that I have a bad fast RAM SIMM.

So, I have to purchase some memory, a keyboard adapter, and probably a bunch of other stuff to get this thing ready for prime time. I have 3.0 kickstart ROMs, so I am sure that has to go, but I kinda want to make this thing ready for AOS 4.1.

Just a few questions:

1. What should I plan on buying?

2. What hardware do I need for an appropriate accelerator? Where can I find one that isn't prohibitively expensive?

3. Do I need a ZorRAM card, or how much memory is appropriate for OS4?

4. Can I just plug any old IDE CDROM drive in, or is there anything I need to be aware of?

5. What should I get for network connectivity?

Thanks for your help. I am really looking forward to using this again, but I honestly don't have much A4000 experience. I used to use an A2000 regularly, but that was a long time ago.

[Orkin]

Hey
Glad you are getting the a4k going! its too nice a machine to collect dust. FYI we have In Stock a complete a4000 ram kit - 5 simms good for replacement or backups for $25 shipped! in usa. Let me know..Guaranteed to work!

What's the URL? The one in your signature doesn't seem to be working.

[Orkin]

You could get a Flyer card for your Toaster so it's not lonely.

Ooh, I like this idea!

[Orkin]

A CyberStorm 604 233Mhz 060 and AmigaOS4 for classic machines

See above and I can't say where you'd get one cheap, maybe a lower spec one

Join www.amibay.com a site that buys and sells Amiga gear.

Thanks for that one. I've never seen that site before. I haven't found a CyberStorm just yet, but I'll keep looking. I don't need anything special to use a CyberStorm, do I? Does it just plug into a ZORRO III slot?

I use the Ariadne II card

I'll have to look for this one, since I'm unfamiliar with it. Thanks for all your advice!

[Orkin]

It plugs into your CPU slot not the A4000 daughter board. I think I recognise you
bidding on a CS at the moment. The only thing you might need to do is change
a few jumpers on your board to Ext. Ask the seller about this. (of course, if
you have an 040 CPU installed it would have already been done.



It worked well in my A4000 towerised Setup running OS4

Yep, that's me! My machine is an 040, so that shouldn't be a problem. Now I have to figure out what the CPU slot is.

If anyone knows of any less pricey PPC cards out there, I'm all ears...

[Orkin]

I dont know why no one else said this, but seriously, if its OS4 you want to run you should get a SAM board, the A4000 wont even run the latest OS4 version and to get it up to speed i can see you using more cash on it then a SAM and it will be much slower in useage. If it were me, id just keep the A4000 for retro things and get a SAM board asap.

I am suspecting you may be right. Since I can get a full system for the price of one of those CyberStorm boards, and there's no telling when the X1000 will be out, I think that may be the way to go.

I'd still really like to get the A4000 up and running, though, for nostalgia purposes, I guess.

[Orkin]

Don't forget to check the battery for leakage.

Is that a common problem in A4000's? That highlights another questions I've had: are there components that I should replace no matter what at this point just because they're old, likely to fail, or just good ideas?

[Orkin]

Depending on how far you want to go in supping up your A4000 (in light of the SAM revelation) due to incompatiabilities between expansion boards you might want to check that your Buster Chip is revision 11... but sometimes this is hit and miss anyway so perhaps only explore this is you get it altogether and there are quirks in areas once operational...

Well, if the "390539-11" on the chip means it's revision 11, I'm in good shape on the Buster.

As for battery leaking it does seem to be a problem especially for people storing there stuff vertically (acid can run down the MB) but the drier its been the more likely your battery will be okay... in my very vast collection of hardware I've only ever encountered one leaky battery and that was on a A3000 Desktop I'd only just picked up in a recent auction...

I haven't seen any indication of battery leakage, but I'd probably want a new battery anyway, wouldn't I? I mean, batteries don't hold their charge forever, or isn't that a factor with these?

[Orkin]

Now come on, there's no reason why he can't have both!

I kinda agree on this. I'd like to get it running and network them. Plus it just feels good having the A4000 up and running like my old A2000 and A3000.

As an aside, the reason I'm a bit unfamiliar with the A4000 is I picked this up from an acquaintance several years ago, but never did much with it. I played with it a bit, but moved shortly thereafter, and it's been sitting in a basement ever since.

I'm a Linux guy the last 13 years; gotta relearn this stuff!