My new 4000T

[spihunter]

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.

Blocked at work! Must be some serious amiga PrOn!!

[TCMSLP]

Why do I find myself working out the equivelent GBP and wondering if I can possibly justify it ... *head desk*

[X-ray]

Very nice!
That brings back memories of when I unpacked my A4000T for the first time back in 1996. Bought mine from a shop in Croydon, got the M1438s monitor with it also. My price was around £2000! And that's just with a basic 040 setup.

One thing I am curious about, Moto. Your SCSI dipswitch panel is red and mine is blue. When you open that Miggy up to install the PIV can you please find out what revision your disks module is and post that here?

Check out my pics in the Amiga.org gallery for comparison:

http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=1674

[chiark]

Why do I find myself working out the equivelent GBP and wondering if I can possibly justify it ... *head desk*

You're not alone on that.  Am looking at the 2000, 600 and 4000 and wondering what I could get for 'em...

Unfortunately, my car demands new tyres and a service.  Oh, and the kids want christmas presents .  Other than that, I'm in

[HammerD]

Cool, nice, I got also two of them from software hut, but I sold one of them afterwards.

Some pix of mine here:  http://www.hd-zone.com/amiga/A4000T.html

Did you get the Desktop version of the 060 card or the regular tower version?  The desktop version is named XP.

Nice machines!!  Right now in mine I have:

Cyberstorm PPC 233MHz
Mediator A4000T
Voodoo 3 PCI
Deneb USB Zorro card
Realtek 8029 NIC
2GB Compact Flash card on ACard SCSI->IDE adapter

And of course OS 4.0 classic

Nice box

[raketa]

Are you sure there is a 060 card inside? I thought there are only bare A4000 (040/25) availlable from SoftHut now.

[HammerD]

At the time I bought mine 060 cards were available separately, but still new old stock.   The 060 cards were produced for the A4000T's and were an option.  I didn't think there were many left.

I don't think there are many A4000T's remaining either....

[raketa]

I changed some mails with Joe recently and he said there are no more QuikPak 060 cards  available already.

[Amiduffer]

Always a pleasant surprise coming from Software Hut. Nice hunch.

Wish someone would help Joe update the website.

[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.

[Fester]

The Deneb is definitely my next purchase too.

[Vlabguy1]

Nice T.
Got my A4000T(new) from Anti-Gravity way back when along with my CV64 :-).  Ha speaking of
the external floppy when I ordered my T I also ordered a new ultra thin Dell floppy( it was grey
speckled finish, with the slider eject button on the top)thinking it would work, alas it didnt.  I was
a bit confused why the heck the Tower did not have an external floppy port!

I wish you luck.  There are plenty of new 4KT's out there.
Mine still has da protective plastic on the door2

Rich
ny

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.

[HammerD]

@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.

Yeah, I love my A4000T too.  Still in mint condition.  I have mine fully decked out:

New Old Stock A4000T (software hut)
Phase5 Cyberstorm PPC 233MHz and 50MHz 060 (also in great shape)
Deneb USB Card (amazing purchase, highly recommended).  Poseidon in Flashrom.
2GB Compact Flash card hanging off an ACARD UW SCSI to IDE converter, about 13.5MB/sec (under OS4.0 - which is very good for OS4)
Elbox Mediator A4000T PCI Busboard with Voodoo 3 (soon to be Voodoo 4), and RTL8029 NIC.

Love that system

PS - you didn't mention if you have the Desktop version of the 060 card or the original Tower version?  My A4000T came with the Desktop version.  "XP" version.

[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.

[raketa]

Then it's not QuikPak, but GVP one.

[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.