New to Amiga

[Waterland]

Wow, thanks for all the advice and welcomes, I plan to stay for awhile.  This is one of those rare forums where people actually help new comers rather than tell them they don't know anything....

I haven't had access to my A2000 for a couple days and haven't had a chance to look it over any more, but I'll be back tomorrow so I can give you more info then.

EDIT:  SamuraiCrow, I noticed you're from Minnesota, do you know of any places around the Twin Cities where I can get Amiga stuff, or if there are any Amiga groups or clubs or anything?  I'd love to meet up with some other Amiga users.

[Marco]

Welcome Waterland, sounds like you got an amazing deal on your A2000, hope you enjoy it.

I hear it's a 'military spec professional computer' according to some people here.

[Sidewinder]

SamuraiCrow, I noticed you're from Minnesota, do you know of any places around the Twin Cities where I can get Amiga stuff, or if there are any Amiga groups or clubs or anything? I'd love to meet up with some other Amiga users.

I don't mean to step on SamuraiCrow here, but I'm orignally from MN also and still keep in touch with some good Amiga guys at Raymond Computer in St. Paul.  They are a full service Amiga and Commodore shop with lots of cool Amiga stuff laying around.  I can never leave their shop without finding something fun.  Ray is the owner and is really nice and helpful.  They also host Amiga user group meetings about once a month and have an Amiga mailing list.

They're the only Amiga shop I know of in Minneapolis/St. Paul, but maybe SamuraiCrow can point out some others.

Welcome aboard Waterland.

[SamuraiCrow]

I'm afraid I'm not that close to the Twin Cities to know much about user groups there.  Now I'm attending Minnesota State University: Mankato and I know of no user groups in Mankato at all.  Listen to Sidewinder though, he used to be from Minneapolis (or so he wrote on his user info here) so he should know the area pretty well.

I'm originally from Iowa and the last user group I attended was in Cedar Rapids (which was quite a drive from Waterloo).

[magnetic]

Hey Waterland

Welcome to the Club!
One of the coolest things about the Amiga is the community.
Amiga makes computing fun  :-)

magnetic

[Waterland]

Sidewinder wrote:

I don't mean to step on SamuraiCrow here, but I'm orignally from MN also and still keep in touch with some good Amiga guys at Raymond Computer in St. Paul.  They are a full service Amiga and Commodore shop with lots of cool Amiga stuff laying around.  I can never leave their shop without finding something fun.  Ray is the owner and is really nice and helpful.  They also host Amiga user group meetings about once a month and have an Amiga mailing list.

They're the only Amiga shop I know of in Minneapolis/St. Paul, but maybe SamuraiCrow can point out some others.

Welcome aboard Waterland.

Excellent, sounds like a great place, maybe I can pick up some cool stuff for my A2000 there.

Anyway, I played around with my A2000 some more and this is what I found out, it says I have Kickstart version 37.175 and Workbench version 38.35.  It also looks like I have a GVP G-Force 030, I don't know what any of that means, whether it's good, bad, or mediocre, but that's the only information I could come up with.

I also took some pictures, I'll upload them soon.

[Tomas]

Sounds like a very nice deal! One tip though.. Open up the a2000 and check if the barrel battery has been removed. A big problem with these is that they tend to leak when they age, which in turn will make the acid kill the amiga over time.

The battery in the a2000 is only for keeping the clock while the machine is turned off. If you really need this, then you can get a new replacement battery for cheap.

And welcome to amiga.org  :-)

[Waterland]

Here's a picture of the inside of my A2000:



Any suggestions on further upgrades I could do?

[Daedalus]

Welcome to AO :-) Well, looks ok from the picture, but can't really see much of the nitty-gritty detail that people on here will be looking for... One ofthe main things though (and true of any computer this age) is check the battery! Can't be stressed enough, there are many dead Amigas in the world due to battery leakage gradually destroying the motherboard. If it's even looking slightly furry, rusted or bloated, get it replaced with an equivalent type. If you're not sure, best bet would probably be a good, clear close-up photo of the battery and let us see what state it's in...

[Argus]

From your photograph I can see you have either a 25MHz or 40MHz 68EC030 GVP Combo board, with what looks like just the 1MB (25MHz) or 4MB (40MHz) of 32-bit RAM soldered on the board.  Your cpu is a 'bed of nails' style cpu so you can simply replace the 68EC030 with a full 68030 version of the same/similar MHz rating to add a MMU (memory management unit).  You can add an extra 12MB of 32-bit memory but you'll need to find the rather expensive 64-pin GVP 4MB simms to do this.  The GVP is a "Combo" because you also have a full 32-bit DMA SCSI-2 controller (evidenced by the 50-pin scsi header in the upper right hand corner).  I don't know why it isn't be used though???

The other card is a Commodore A2091 SCSI-1 controller.  It's a DMA SCSI controller and you have version 6.6 of the eproms, which will allow a scsi harddisk up to 1Gb in size (can't tell what size Quantum drive you have there, but it's probably an LS120 or similar i.e. less than 200MB).  Those little sockets on the left hand side of the A2091 are for 16-bit memory.  You can add 2MB using simple dip style drams from old vga cards. You can add an internal SCSI CDROM or an external one off of the Macintosh style DB-25 connector on the back of the A2091, or you can use the GVP's built in SCSI controller (faster and better).

Your system rom is version 2.04 from what you said earlier, but you can either physically upgrade the rom to version 3.1 (40.68) or use ZKick or a similar soft-kicker to boot into 3.1 kickstart (though you'll need a legal rom version so probably just buy the 3.1 rom).

From the looks of the power supply I'm willing to bet you have a latter model Rev. 6.2 motherboard A2000 (it's printed in the lower left hand corner of the motherboard); so you probably have the latter 1MB chipram version of the Agnus chip (8372A), it's what's called an Enhanced Chip Set Amiga (though you may not have the so-called SuperDenise 8373 chip (check the m/b)). If it isn't done already it's a simple modification (jumper thrown and pad trace cut) to have the machine address the full 1MB of motherboard memory as chip ram (i.e. addressable by all the Amiga's custom chips) and to add a SuperDenise if you like (but don't really need, imho).  You also seem to have two 3.5" double density floppy drives (which are better than one).

All in all, that's an incredible deal for $15.00.  The GVP Combo board alone goes regularly for +/-$100 on eBay.

My suggestions for hardware upgrades (aside from a 3.1 system rom):

Zorro II graphics card (GVP Spectrum, Picollo, PicassoII)
12MB of 32-bit RAM (i.e. (3)4MB GVP simms)
Video Slot VGA Display Enhancer (Commodore A2320 or Microway FlickerFixer or ICD Flicker Free Video board)
2MB Chipram expansion (DKB Megachip or DCE Minimegs)
Bigger harddisk (up to 1Gb on A2091; up to 4Gb on GVP:depends on FaastROM version)
SCSI CDROM or CD/RW drive in internal 5.25" drive bay.
Add the extra 2MB RAM on the A2091
Add an extra 4MB Zorro II ram with another RAM board (slower than the GVP memory but may be useful as long as the RAM chips are faster than 100ns)
17" SVGA or LCD monitor (with display enhancer and/or graphics card only)
56K V.90 modem

If you get real crazy and have high-speed internet you can throw a Zorro II ethernet card like an XSurf, Ariadne or even old C=A2065 and a Zorro II USB controller card like the AlgorPro.  If you plan on just using a modem to surf the net (like amiga.org), get a fast serial port Zorro II card like a GVP I/O Extender, a MultifaceIII or a VMC board.

[Sidewinder]

Excellent, sounds like a great place, maybe I can pick up some cool stuff for my A2000 there.

I'm sure you can. The last time I visited his store there was tons of old Amiga stuff to rummage through and Ray can help you find just about anything.  Ray and his store have lots of character, way more than any PC shop I've been to.  Whenever I go in there I'm transported back 20 years in computing--back to when computer geeks were real geeks and not just iPod/iBook toting wannabes.  But I digress...

Anyway, I played around with my A2000 some more and this is what I found out, it says I have Kickstart version 37.175 and Workbench version 38.35. It also looks like I have a GVP G-Force 030, I don't know what any of that means, whether it's good, bad, or mediocre, but that's the only information I could come up with.

The GVP G-Force 030 is an accelerator card.  The A2000 came with a Motorola 68000 processor that clocked in at a blazing 7 Mhz.  It also had about 1 MB of memory.  The accelerator card you have sounds like it upgraded the processor to a 68030.  These chips were several times faster than the 68000 at either 25 or 50 Mhz.  The accelerator also may have additional memory and a math co-processor 68882 to speed up some math operations.  To see if you have more memory, check the numbers at the top of the workbench screen when the Amiga boots up.  There should be two numbers: "graphics mem" and "other mem".  Usually graphics mem will be under 1 MB (i.e. 900,000 or something) and if you have any other mem then you probably have extra memory on the accelerator board.  Other mem is also called "fast memory".  It is faster than graphics mem (also called chip memory), but it cannot hold graphics...at least not data that is currently being displayed.  It's similar to the difference between graphics card memory and system memory on a PC.

From the numbers you quoted, it sounds like you have Kickstart 2.04 and Workbench 2.1.  Many A2000s shipped with this version.  Check out Workbench Nostalgia for more info on the different workbench versions.
 
To upgrade to a later workbench you will need to install new kickstart ROM chips.  The latest ROMs are 3.1 and you have 2.04.  Version 2 is not a bad OS for most things, but it really depends on what you want to do with your Amiga.

If you want the latest upgrades, then the latest OS you can run on the A2000 is OS 3.9.  To use this, you'd need to get a CD-ROM drive, 3.1 ROMs, and an OS 3.9 CD.  If you went this route then I'd suggest investing in a graphics card and more memory and possibly a faster accelerator board.

But if you want the latest OS for your system without adding a bunch of new hardware, then OS 3.1 is your best bet.

Doh! Argus beat me to it!

[Waterland]

Wow, thanks for all the advice everyone.  That's exactly the kind of advice I needed.  I'll see if I can find some of those hardware upgrades, maybe that Raymond Computer has some.

One other question.  What exactly is the difference between Kickstart and AmigaOS?  I'm still confused as to what Kickstart is....

[Waterland]

From your photograph I can see you have either a 25MHz or 40MHz 68EC030 GVP Combo board, with what looks like just the 1MB (25MHz) or 4MB (40MHz) of 32-bit RAM soldered on the board.

Actually, there's one simm on the card, it's just covered up by the cords in the photo.

(can't tell what size Quantum drive you have there, but it's probably an LS120 or similar i.e. less than 200MB).

It says I have a 50MB hard drive.

From the looks of the power supply I'm willing to bet you have a latter model Rev. 6.2 motherboard A2000 (it's printed in the lower left hand corner of the motherboard); so you probably have the latter 1MB chipram version of the Agnus chip (8372A), it's what's called an Enhanced Chip Set Amiga (though you may not have the so-called SuperDenise 8373 chip (check the m/b)).

You're right, it is Rev 6.2.  Where do I look on the motherboard to find out everything else though?


I also checked my battery, it looks brand new, no corrosion or anything.  Of course, when I bought the computer, it was in immaculate condition.  It was in the original box with all the original styrofoam and plastic packing materials.  It must have been used only for a short time and then packed away.

[Sidewinder]

One other question. What exactly is the difference between Kickstart and AmigaOS? I'm still confused as to what Kickstart is....

The Kickstart is similar to the BIOS on a PC.  The Kickstart is the basic routines needed for the system to run.  On the old Amiga 1000 there was actually a floppy disk that you needed to use to load the Kickstart before the computer would allow you to start anything else.  In all other Amigas, this Kickstart data is on the ROM chips and is loaded automatically.  The newer versions of Workbench (which is usually considered the actual AmigaOS) require newer Kickstart revisions to implement some of their features.  Again, similar to updating the BIOS of a PC to run the latest features.

[Argus]

If you have a monitor that takes standard 15kHz NTSC video (like a Commodore 1080/1084), hook that up and start the computer.  Hopefully, there's already a system partition set up on the harddisk.  The easiest way to check memory and chip revisions is to use a diagnostic program of which there are many (SysInfo is probably the most famous).  Or, if you are more adventurous, take the vertical cards out of the computer (the GVP accelerator should be held in place with two small screws at the back of the machine.  Once the cards are out, carefully disconnect the power supply plastic connector to the motherboard and the floppy ribbon cable connector (pay attention to the orientation for reinstallation). Now, remove the four screws in the rear and three in the front that hold the power supply and drive bays cradle in place.  Lift the drive tray and power supply out of the way.

Now you should be looking at the bare motherboard.  In the center of the board next to the 86-pin accelerator slot is the original 68000 cpu, the rom is to the right of that (should read 2.04 37.xx), north of these is a square plcc chip called Agnus or Fat Agnus.  It is either a 8370 or 8372A.  The difference is whether the machine can address 512K or 1MB of system memory as 'chip ram'.  If you're real lucky, you'll have a small extra board with an 8372B chip and an extra 1MB ram chip.  This is a 2MB chipram expansion board called a MegaChip or Minimegs (but probably not). To the right of the rom chip should be eight ram chips totalling 1MB.  North of these is the Denise chip (either 8362 or 8373 (not really that important because the extra video modes of the 8373 SuperDenise you could live without). North of the Denise and Agnus chips you'll find the Gary 5719 chip and two timing chips called 'CIAs' numbered 8250. The last custom chip is the Buster chip located next to the slots left of the power supply connector (it controls the Zorro II dma subsystem).

A lot of Rev 6.2 A2000s were upgraded at the factory to version 6.4 to correct some timing issues with the 68000 cpu available at that time. You should see a small white sticker somewhere on the motherboard with "6.x" typed on it.