Time to show off a little bit and to perhaps to encourage others by proposing a challenge to anyone that can provide pics of a better looking Amiga, as far as features, overall looks, practicality, and coolness are concerned. :-D
The image gallery doesn't do this baby justice, so I'll provide hosting for the high res pictures. Too bad my digital camera is only 2.1 megapixels...the pics could have been a bit more detailed I guess, but anyway...
This here ladies and gentlemen is the fastest classic Amiga. If you think that yours is faster...I'm listening. :-)
Specifications are the following:
Commodore Amiga 4000
Original High-Density floppy drive
Motherboard revision B
Kickstart 3.1 roms
Socketed Buster 11
Motherboard ram: 16MB fast / 2MB chip
Cyberstorm PPC 060/233 with 128MB ram on it
Grex 4000D PCI daughter-board
Realtek 8029 chipset PCI ethernet card
Terratec 128i PCI sound card
Voodoo 3 PCI video card
36GB U160 SCSI hard drive
Picture #1 and
Picture #2 - here we see the first internals shot of the A4000 system. You can see the motherboard fast and chip ram memory. Fast memory contains four matching IBM 4MB FPM simms that are rated @ 70ns. Grex4000 daughter-board nicely replaces the original Commodore one and starting from the top, Ethernet, Sound, and Voodoo 3 PCI cards are inserted in it. The internal SCSI-3 chain ends with the internal to external 68-pin converter and is then terminated with an external 68-pin active SE terminator. I've decided to not use an internal CD drive in order to give the PSU less stress and to leave some more breathing space for other components. When I need CD access I simply remove the external 68-pin terminator and insert an upper-byte passthrough 68-pin to DB25 terminator, and then I can easily connect my external Fast SCSI-2 burner, which is actually a 52X Sony IDE burner converted to SCSI through one of those Acard IDE-to-SCSI gadgets, sitting in an external SCSI-2 case. ;-)
Picture #3 and
Picture #4- top view of the internals. As you can see, there's not much internal cabling that is in the way, as I've minimized internal cabling as much as possible. SCSI chain is connected through the blue round cable which is just right size wise. It's a must as flat SCSI cables are really a pain to deal with in regards to little space available with A4000 desktop case. Perhaps I should also seek for an amiga compatible round floppy cable. CSPPC has been upgraded with a 12V fan that is much taller than the original one, and it's a quality Sunon type. I've also managed to find four matching Micron brand FPM 32MB 60-ns non-parity SIMMS for it. :-) The hard drive is a very speedy Fujitsu 36GB U160 SCSI hard drive that can go slightly faster than 30MB/sec in OS3.9. The hard drive cradle has been isolated from touching the Grex4000 daughter-board with some isolation tape which can't be seen from this picture. The original Commodore A4000 clear isolator had to be removed as after installing Grex4000 there's no more space for it to be fit and I didn't want to trim it down and ruin it, so I've improvised. ;-) Battery on the motherboard is brand new of course, and the old one never leaked so the motherboard is as mint as it gets. :-D There is also an IDE-killer header installed over the 40-pin IDE port so this system has no IDE chain scan delays upon power up.
Picture #5 - back of the case. You can see the SCSI terminator lighting up, indicating working and proper termination. ;-) You can see the standard back connectors, including the extra PCI ones from Ethernet, Sound, and Voodoo 3 cards.
Picture #6 and
Picture #7 - show the outside, final look. Everything but the floppy drive face-pate is as white as it gets. The 4000 badge still has the protective slip over it. ;-)
The only few things that I would like this setup to improve on would be getting a round floppy cable, perhaps changing Terratec 128i with a 512i digital card, and obtaining a non-yelowish floppy drive...however the one that I have now works perfectly fine, so no need to change it yet. :-D
Let the contest begin! ;-) Judges?
