Desperate in Texas

[curtis]

Ya know, there is a Vintage Computer Festival coming up in Arlington in early August!  Probably equally inconvenient for all concerned...

http://mit-a.com/VCF2.shtml

I'm planning on attending and exhibiting.  Be nice if we could get a good solid Amiga contingent there.  Maybe even a couple of people doing displays!

Just a thought.

We Texans should set up a place to meet.

Maybe one weekend we could get together at my house and pick through all this stuff before I have to ship it out.  I'd really rather give it out locally.

I'm still going through parts but I've kind of become stuck on the 4000T.

[CaptainN]

Heiroglyph, I think I agree with you, somewhere in San Antonio would be a great first meeting as you have all that equipment that you want to thin out.  Let us know a good time for a visit and maybe some of us can make the trip.

[trekiej]

As some of you know, I've got a TON of Amiga's and parts.  The problem is that I have yet to get a stable one built.  (well, there was one that is now gone, but that's a long sad story...)

What makes these systems go randomly bad with age?  No battery leakage on the ones I'm mainly trying.

Bill P. even knew how much trouble I have had and was nice enough to send me an awesome system that was no longer in use, but it is also suffering from old age since it was last used.  The Warp Engine 040 has ram errors if memory is installed and it seems to heat up and get progressively worse to the point it won't even boot from floppy.

What are you guys doing to keep them usable?

Is there anyone in the San Antonio area that would be willing to take a look in exchange for a boatload of Amiga hardware?  4000T's, bunch of 4000D's, 060 cards, 040 cards, PCI backplanes, I've got a pretty serious load of systems and good (well, costly...) parts I'm willing to give up if you can solve the problem.

All I want is a stable system (no hardware failure reboots, no disk errors) that I can develop on, but I just can't seem to make it happen.

Do you have any A3000D mainboards or parts?
I have an A3000D case and no mainboard.

[Heiroglyph]

Do you have any A3000D mainboards or parts?
I have an A3000D case and no mainboard.

None yet, but I'm still searching and sorting.  There were two but I didn't get there in time.  R.I.P.

I might still have a floppy drive with the right button on it from my old system and probably a 3640 CPU card, but that's about it.

Edit: I'm sure I've got several Buster 11 chips if you find you need one.

[Heiroglyph]

Heiroglyph, I think I agree with you, somewhere in San Antonio would be a great first meeting as you have all that equipment that you want to thin out.  Let us know a good time for a visit and maybe some of us can make the trip.

I've already told my wife about it and she's up for it, I just need to get past the nephew visitation thing.  She's planned a lot of activities for us while he's here.

I'll talk it over with her and see what we can do.

So maybe a weekend like a Saturday two to three weeks from now?  Anyone opposed to alcohol?

[trekiej]

I seriously thinking of getting the A3000D schematics into PCB software to make some A3000D mainboards.

[Heiroglyph]

I finally got what seems to be a stable system.  I'm pretty sure it was a mixture of bad hardware.  At least motherboard, possibly CPU card and RAM in various combinations.

I swapped parts until I felt that I had a stable A3640 and A4000D, then installed OS3.1.

I ran this and replaced parts until it seemed rock solid. (took three motherboards...)

Then I installed the Warp Engine 3040 in that system.  This still seemed good even with 64MB RAM on board.

At that point, I felt cocky, so I put all the Mediator parts in and although they weren't used, it didn't make it unstable.

Then I replaced the 1.2GB IDE drive with the original 2GB SCSI the system came with and that also seems good.

So far I've copied 2GB of data (roughly the whole drive) back and forth between SCSI and IDE drives with no apparent data loss or lockups!

Woo Hoo!

I've got a good base now, so I should be able to tell when any given part is bad.  Next up, the 060 card!  I hope it is good!

I plan to use better SFS and CF drives instead of FFS and ancient IDE/SCSI once the hardware seems 100%.

[mechy]

I finally got what seems to be a stable system.  I'm pretty sure it was a mixture of bad hardware.  At least motherboard, possibly CPU card and RAM in various combinations.

I swapped parts until I felt that I had a stable A3640 and A4000D, then installed OS3.1.

I ran this and replaced parts until it seemed rock solid. (took three motherboards...)

Then I installed the Warp Engine 3040 in that system.  This still seemed good even with 64MB RAM on board.

At that point, I felt cocky, so I put all the Mediator parts in and although they weren't used, it didn't make it unstable.

Then I replaced the 1.2GB IDE drive with the original 2GB SCSI the system came with and that also seems good.

So far I've copied 2GB of data (roughly the whole drive) back and forth between SCSI and IDE drives with no apparent data loss or lockups!

Woo Hoo!

I've got a good base now, so I should be able to tell when any given part is bad.  Next up, the 060 card!  I hope it is good!

I plan to use better SFS and CF drives instead of FFS and ancient IDE/SCSI once the hardware seems 100%.

Good to hear you made some progress,I knew you could come up with a working combo from the stuff you had. SFS will be a nice improvement with more speed and long filenames etc. getting rid of autovalidation alone is worth it.

I can still make it down your way and bring some goodies if you like as long as its before the 14th (have to house sit for a friend on the 15th and take care of his dog).

Mech

[Crom00]

The title of this thread sounds like the title of a Mexcian Western Comic book... yes... these actually exsit.

[Paulie85]

I'd always thought the Amiga never really took of in America but ( judging by this) there seems to be quite a lot of US users.

[amiga92570]

As some of you know, I've got a TON of Amiga's and parts.  The problem is that I have yet to get a stable one built.  (well, there was one that is now gone, but that's a long sad story...)

What makes these systems go randomly bad with age?  No battery leakage on the ones I'm mainly trying.

Bill P. even knew how much trouble I have had and was nice enough to send me an awesome system that was no longer in use, but it is also suffering from old age since it was last used.  The Warp Engine 040 has ram errors if memory is installed and it seems to heat up and get progressively worse to the point it won't even boot from floppy.

What are you guys doing to keep them usable?

Is there anyone in the San Antonio area that would be willing to take a look in exchange for a boatload of Amiga hardware?  4000T's, bunch of 4000D's, 060 cards, 040 cards, PCI backplanes, I've got a pretty serious load of systems and good (well, costly...) parts I'm willing to give up if you can solve the problem.

All I want is a stable system (no hardware failure reboots, no disk errors) that I can develop on, but I just can't seem to make it happen.

Wow I must be lucky! I have never had a system go radomly bad with age.