Crazy upgraded A2000 video toaster/graphics/recording system

[orb85750]

Is this system worth fixing?  It's an A2000 first-generation Toaster with DPS PAR (personal animation recorder) and dual DPS TBC IV cards.  In addition, there is a GVP Spectrum graphics card hooked up to a GVP SCSI II 68030 accelerator combo card -- plus 2-3 (2 working) hard drives.  The mouse port is bad, making the whole system very painful to explore at this point.  Does anyone have any experience using a system similar to this for recording and editing video?  (This is one very tightly packed A2000, realized as soon as the cover is removed.)  Thanks for your informed opinion(s).  -Dave

[nishtek]

Whats worth fixing?  have you determined what is working and what is broken?  The mouse or the mouse port?  
First strip all cards and attempt booting off floppy to see if mouse works.
Mouse related items to check:
- Paula, Denise.
- 8520s
- 74LS157
- EMI 1401 5.1 ohm Res
troubleshoot in this order.
without working/tested spare pare its impossible to pinpoint. :-P

[orb85750]

nishtek wrote:
Whats worth fixing?  have you determined what is working and what is broken?  The mouse or the mouse port?  
First strip all cards and attempt booting off floppy to see if mouse works.
Mouse related items to check:
- Paula, Denise.
- 8520s
- 74LS157
- EMI 1401 5.1 ohm Res
troubleshoot in this order.
without working/tested spare pare its impossible to pinpoint. :-P

I should have been more clear.  The mouse is absolutely fine (as tested on my other Amiga).  The mouse port is faulty for sure.  Thanks for the tips on troubleshooting.  I suppose I need to decide whether to fix and keep this system vs. stripping and selling off the parts.  Was just wondering if either choice seems foolish to anyone here?  Maybe someone with experience will tell me that this is a great system that rivals an A4000 toaster/flyer.  Or maybe it's really an inferior set-up and not really worth all the time and bother?  I'm pretty new to video and I have zero experience with Amiga graphics expansion cards and DPS PAR cards.

[Iggy_Drougge]

nishtek wrote:
Mouse related items to check:
- Paula, Denise.
- 8520s
- 74LS157
- EMI 1401 5.1 ohm Res

Don't forget the mouse port itself.

[magnetic]

If you have no luck fixing the mouse port you can always try a pc serial mouse with drivers from aminet.

Or,, I can sell you one of  my nice rev 6.x a2ks for a nice price

[jupo42]

I don't know why you wouldn't fix it! My family ran a studio off a similar spec system for years. An A4000 would only gain you a couple color wipes in the Toaster, and you'd need a HighFlyer or similar expansion case to hold all the cards and drives.

But if you don't, I'd happily take the Spectrum, PAR, and TBC off your hands.

I'd actually troubleshoot a little differently. Some revision motherboards have a fuse near the port. And the first chip I'd pull would be swapping the two CIAs - I forget which is which, but if the mouse starts working you can look up the details to figure out which to replace.

Both of those have happened to me on various A2000s when I was a kid. It is usually caused by plugging in mice or joysticks with the power on and shorting pins. This seems more likely than a chance failure of some other chip.

[Tenacious]

As Amigas go, it's a very cool system.  There are ppl here who would love to have the whole thing or in part.

Maybe I don't understand your question.  If you have no ambitions for using it, getting it to someone who does would be a great thing.  It's not like there is an abudance of these things left in the world.

Please don't throw it away.

[persia]

It's a first rate collectable, if you have the original boxes you'll get a crazy amount of money on Ebay for it...

[Matt_H]

That's a fine setup. Worth keeping, I think.

Here's some mouse port info. Details seem to vary depending on the motherboard revision.

Also check out the Tech Topics from this page.

EDIT: Fixed links