A2000 hardware questions. . .

[Edpon]

Hi all,
  I just got my A2000 I bought on E-bay today,(cheering in the background, I'm an active Amigian again!!!!!), and I was wondering a few things.

1-What type of CD-ROM or CD-+RW will work BEST with this Amiga?

2-Where's a good place to get a layout of the Amiga 2000's innards, so I can know where to look to upgrade anything; say the Kickstart ROMS, Agnus, RAM, etc, etc.

3-What is the absolute fastest, most powerful CPU accelerator card available for the A2000? And if I get it and install it, will it superspeed my A500 and up games?

Thanks.

Ed

 :-D

[orange]

1) first see if you have SCSCI or IDE controller installed (or none?). Then get appropriate CDROM, any should do. I'd suggest connecting combo DVD drive it should be possible to read DVDs with some special software on Amiga (not sure, though)
2) not sure what do you mean, but http://www.amiga-hardware.com/ might help. still, you'll have to open it to see whats inside.. :roll:  (another option would be running excelent program called 'WhichAmiga')
3) '060 but it will cost you!!! (some 300$ or more if you're lucky enough to find it) it won't speed most of A500 games except maybe loading times but what speedup do you need?? maybe vector games like 4D sports driving or Zeewolf would finally run smooth. OTOH I doubt it, because they will probably need serious downgrading to run at all..

[_ThEcRoW]

You could try to find out a viper530. It's the best accelator for the 500/2000 systems and with many options of expansions as ide, etc...

[Xanxi]

Are you sure a Viper A530 could fit an A2000? What about a Viper520CD? I think classic accelerators using the A2000 cpu port are better (and allow switching back to 68000).

[iamaboringperson]

>1-What type of CD-ROM or CD-+RW will work BEST with this Amiga?

SCSI one


>2-Where's a good place to get a layout of the Amiga 2000's innards, so I can know where to look to upgrade anything; say the Kickstart ROMS, Agnus, RAM, etc, etc.

Old Commodore archives

>3-What is the absolute fastest, most powerful CPU accelerator card available for the A2000? And if I get it and install it, will it superspeed my A500 and up games?

A Commodore 68050!


>Thanks.
>
>Ed
>
>:-D

That's okay, 'Ed'


 

[TjLaZer]

Edpon, You in the USAF?  So am I...

[Edpon]

TjLaZer wrote:
Edpon, You in the USAF?  So am I...

Yes I am, small world eh? I have another question now about the A2000.

I checked out what I have in this system; I have an accelerator in it already, a GVP '030 with some ram installed. Since I have this card in it, now I need a reliable SCSI CD-Rom player. Here's the question.

1-What is the most compatible SCSI CD-ROM with the G-Force 030 Combo board?

2-If I decide to change my OS, currently it's either 2 or 2.04, I haven't looked at it too in-depth yet; which OS would be my best bet for older software?

Thanks.

Ed

 :lol:

[Argus]

Any 50-pin SCSI CDROM should work just fine, but I recommend a Toshiba.  An old Apple, NEC or other could work too, but he Toshibas seem to get along the best on the Amiga scsi chain.  Get at least a 4x drive, though a double speed works fine though slowly.  Forget about ide unless you want to buy a rather pricey Buddha IDE controller.  Afaik, cheaper polled ide boards don't work with cdrom (my experience though is limited to a Dataflyer ide).  You can download the excellent AmiCDFS2 off Aminet to operate the cdrom.  Installation is pretty self explanatory and there's a guide file with the distribution.  On the hardware side, make sure that you select a scsi ID number for the cdrom different from you harddrive and you will probably have to make sure the last drive, be it the harddrive or the cdrom drive are properly terminated so the scsi chain will work.  If you are tempted to use an external cdrom drive with a GVP Combo board, be aware that there are termination problems (i.e. I believe you need active termination on the external scsi port).  

[countzero]

Edpon wrote:
3-What is the absolute fastest, most powerful CPU accelerator card available for the A2000? And if I get it and install it, will it superspeed my A500 and up games?
Ed
 :-D

I have some bad news for you. Most classic A500 games work best with the 68000 you have on your A2000. If you're into gaming, I'ld recommend you to stick with the 68000 and get a good SCSI hd controller and get WHDLOAD. You'll see most of the games are "superspeeded" because of faster load times. Just my two cents ...

edit : ah so you already have a GVP 68030 board. 68030 is actually a good expansion for a A2000, compatibility with the 68000 is not a very big issue as far as I know (I also have a gvp 1230 board for my A1200 but I don't use it very much) I hope you have enough ram on it.

[CaptChaos]

WHDLoad will work better on an accelerated amiga, stick with the 68000 if you don't want to use WHDLoad. You will just need some more memory. I have many games with WHDLoad that won't work with my A2k because they need an 68020 or better.

[Edpon]

Ok, here's some more questions for you all. . .

1-Gaming will be my main focus on this machine, which OS will be best OVERALL for gaming from A500-2000 computers?

2-If I want to transfer Disk to CD using my Amiga's, what's the best way to to it? My A2000 doesn't have a CD-Rom, the A4000 will.

That's all. . . for now!

Ed
 :roll:

[motrucker]

Edpon wrote:
Ok, here's some more questions for you all. . .

1-Gaming will be my main focus on this machine, which OS will be best OVERALL for gaming from A500-2000 computers?

2-If I want to transfer Disk to CD using my Amiga's, what's the best way to to it? My A2000 doesn't have a CD-Rom, the A4000 will.

That's all. . . for now!

Ed
 :roll:

Focusing on games makes speeding up the A2000 really hard. The faster you make it, ie 68060 accelerator, the worse it will be for games. An old GVP '030 accelerator would be a good choice for you. The G-Force line include SCSI and RAM expansion too. A great choice for gaming. This way you can use any SCSI CD, CD-RW, DVD, etc.. You may also want to look into 2Mb Agnus upgrade. DKB made a good one, IF you can find it. It's called the MegaChip 2000.
If this A2000 has a new enough mobo, you make it real workhorse, with video cards, Catweazle and/or Budha cards, etc.
OS depends on the age of your games. 3.1 ROM would be my choice, but you may want to stay with 2.04 if your games are older.