Amiga 2000/030 upgrade path questions.

[mcostanza]

I am interested in upgrading my A2000/030 as much as possible to achieve two goals. The first is to get in on the network for web browsing. The second is to run AmigaOS 4.0.

The current configuration is below:

A2000 Rev 6.1 motherboard
OCS Chipset with fat Agnus
1 mb chip ram.
GVP 40Mhz 030 in CPU slot with 4 mb of fast ram
WB 3.1 roms.
GVP Spectrum graphics card.
One high density floppy drive.
One 880k floppy drive.
AmigaOS 3.5 installed.
Full version of Miami TCP.
2 Gb SCSI HD.

Items on the upgrade list so far:
Max out ram on GVP 030 card (16mb ?)
AmigaOS 4.0
SCSI Cdrom drive with CDFS software.
10BaseT network card (XSurf or CBM card).
MUI or MagicWB for browser support
Most compatable Amiga web browser ().

If anyone has any other items that should be on the list, please let me know. After the upgrade, I would like to use the Amiga 2000 for general email, IRC, web browsing and FTP etc..

At one time, I was looking to pick up a A4000 but would like to investigate upgrading the A2000 to achieve most of the functionality of an A4000. Since I already have the A2000 this makes the most sense.

Any input or suggestions would be appreciated.

Regards,

[TheMagicM]

welcome fellow Texan..

I'm all the way down here in San Antonio.

[Darrin]

Well, unless I've gone blind then the one thing you're missing is a PPC card otherwise OS4 isn't going to run.  Is there a Cyberstorm PPC card for the A2000 or are they A3000/4000 only?

I have to say, that if you're thinking of buying a PPC card then you seriously need to consider getting a microA1 instead as they're not cheap and buying one on eBay means risking being ripped off or getting a DOA.

[mcostanza]

Interesting. I was under the assumption that AmigaOS 4.0 was going to support the classic Amiga as well as the PPC based systems. My general assumption is from the fact that there are more 68XXX based Amigas (classic) than there are PPC based systems.

If this is the case then I guess AmigaOS 3.9 is the last release that will support classic Amigas's?

Regards,

[JimS]

The notion strikes me that if you have no Zorro or ISA cards installed, you could fit the uA1 inside the A2000 case. Personally, I'm thinking of gutting a 1000 or maybe a 500.

[Alma96]

Hello,

As far I as know, there is no PPC accelerator for the A2000. It means it will not be possible to run OS4.0 on a A2000.

Nevertheless, OS3.1, OS3.5 or 3.9 are goos OSs which provide enough power for the 68K applications.

The most powerful accelerators are based on the 68060 (Blizzard 2060, Tekmagic 060 or DKB Wildfire). But your current GVP030/40 board should be ok for the applications you are contemplating.

Concerning your current configuration, if you want to get online with your Amiga, you may need more RAM. There is once in a while some GVP simms on Ebay.

Alma96

[darksun9210]

for an A2000, the best you can get is OS3.9, and if you can, get the netconnect 3 bundle. has the full registered voyager built in plus loads of other goodies. i used to use an A4000/030 16Mb with netconnect 2 for internet stuffs just fine. but the more memory and disk space, the better. really, an 030 is just about acceptable as a web browser. and 4Mb of fast is the absolute minimum for the web, i wouldn't want to get by wioth less than 16Mb if i had a GFX card aswell.
if you can, get an 040 or 060 card, and lots and lots of ram. (ok you don't need it all the time, but its nice to have it there for the occasional time you do need it.)

A cybervision64, CV3D or PicassoIV would be good as although they are dated by todays standards, it'll be an improvment over your picassoII (smoother screens, more colours for rendering web pages etc.)

OS4 is PPC only, and there is no viable PPC option for the A2000, unless you used to work for phase5 and have one of the dev boards that can drop into an 040/060 socket of a blizzard 2040/2060. :-) (warpOS has a hardware application layer in the distribution to support the development boards)

other than that, its either a A1200, A4000, A1 or derivative PPC for OS4.

the choice, as they say, is yours.

BTW if you are going for a PPC card, i'd go for amibench. people there are much more genuine