Amiga 2000 arrived yesterday!

[Sig999]

Powered it up and it runs fine.  No monitor cable for the 1084 so I plugged it in via composite video.  The display came up, but only in Black and White. Ran a game that was on the HD, and it was in B/W as well - so it's not Prefs settings (sounds dumb but on my first Ami, a 1000, I changed  everything to grey scale due to WB 2.0 envy)
I plugged it into the TV - same, so it's not the monitor.  

I've ordered a monitor cable anyways and it should arrive in a couple of days (the guy I'm dealing with on Ebay - Amigatoaster - is extremely fast with his shipping).

I remember reading somewhere about OCS and B/W composite signals... my old amiga ran in color, but it was ECS as well. Or I recollect incorrectly - it's been a while since I tooled around with these machines (10 years).

Sound worked well through the monitor - and it looks like I've got 2 megs of ram, KS 1.3. 2 3.5 floppys and 1 5.25 floppy (my god can you even BUY those anymore?) and an 80 meg HD.

So - time to dig inside the case and see what I got for my money (very reasonable - 105 bucks for the machine, 80 bucks shipping and handling).

Dust.  Dust, dust and more dust... I used 2 cans of compressed air - and I have to go to Frys Electronics to pick up 4 more.  I got most of it out. from the powersupply to the floppy drives was a dust bunny so big I could have bought shoes for it.. I think it growled at me when I turned the air on it.

Scary stuff!

Motherboard - Rev 4.5
Chipset OCS (?) - 8370 Agnus, 8364R7 Paula, 8362R8 Denise, 5719 Gary.

Cards:

GVP A2000 - HC+8 Series II rev II - controller with Quantum prodrive ELS - populated with 2 Sims (2mb)

and a bonus - not in the listing:

A2088XT Rev 3 Bridgeboard.

The battery had very little corrosion on it, and no corrosion damage I can see to the board - but I removed it anyways - I have a lithium battery replacement ready to install.

So - not bad for the money paid! So now for the questions on how to proceed.

1. The B/W composite signal isn't a huge deal - but I'm curious about it.

2. Upgrading to 3.1 rom - I have the rom, but do I need to go up to ECS?  and given that I can get the chips for ECS, is the revision of motherboard a factor?

3. I'm going to be replacing the HD controller with a GVP 030 combo board - the sims look (at first glance) the same size - interchangable? I know GVP used 64 pin sims on the 030 board.

Ok - off to Frys to continue the war on this grubby machine!

Cheers.

Sig.

[A4000_Mad]

Congratulations :pint:

These A1500's and A2000's are becoming very popular. I only started opening them up, checking and cleaning them a few days ago myself. I was surprised that they are even easier to get into and work on than an A4000 8-)

[davideo]

Sig999 wrote:
1. The B/W composite signal isn't a huge deal - but I'm curious about it.

The composite output on a 2000 is Grey scale. The only way to get colour is either a graphics card or connect to the monitor output with the likes of a 520 converter (look on fleabay).

Dave G  8-)

[Matt_H]

Don't worry, the composite out is supposed to be black and white. It's not broken.

3.1 doesn't require ECS. If you already have a full megabyte of Chip RAM, you should just be able to pop in a new Denise chip to get the ECS modes. DIY details about the ECS upgrade are on Aminet.

[Sig999]

Thanks for the clarification Dave! The monitor cable should get me back in color!

As for the battery - I've stripped the machine down and removed all the cards for cleaning.  The battery had very little leakage and it hadn't reached the board yet. I removed it, and I'm soldering in a lithium battery tonight.

[Sig999]

@ Matt

I'll have a check when I get it back together.I'm not sure if  this agnus does 1m of chip ram. I looked up the Fat Lady on wikipedia.  I guess I could aways plug the rom in and cross my fingers

Thanks for the info!

Sig.

[Matt_H]

@ Sig999

One thing I do know is that you won't be able to plug the 3.1 ROM straight in with that board revision. You'll need to solder or clip a lead joining pins 1 and 31 of the new chip. It's an official workaround to bypass an addressing issue with the newer/larger ROMs and the older boards. Again, precise details on Aminet.

EDIT: Actually, hang on, I'll need to check that board revision issue.

EDIT2: Nevermind, it's only 3.x motherboards that need that jumper. Feel free to ignore all of the above :-)

[r0jaws]

3. I'm going to be replacing the HD controller with a GVP 030 combo board - the sims look (at first glance) the same size - interchangable? I know GVP used 64 pin sims on the 030 board.

Unless i've read you wrong i think you'll be disappointed here, the GVP Series II SCSI/RAM Controller uses 30 pin RAM Simms.

[Sig999]

Got the motherboard dusted down and clean. Cleaned up the power supply and drives as best I could with the old can-o-air.

I replaced the 1.3 kickstart rom with a 3.1 - and it boots up just fine.

Managed to find some utils (whoever originally owned it used was into audio - just about everything is midi) and checked the ram;

512 chip ram - and 2.5 meg of fast.  So with the 2 meg on the HD controller card, the motherboard must have 512 of each.

This might rule out 3.1 wb for now.  I'm currently doing some web surfing and looking to see how I go about upgrading the chip ram - I admit I am totally ignorant on how chip/fast mem is setup.  Is it a motherboard, chipset, or OS issue?

*shrug* I can't really do too much software wise until either my 3.1 disks arrive, or I get CrossDos installed on this HD.


EDIT - didn't have to look too far to find out it seems.  If I'm reading this right Agnus decides how much chip mem it can handle... mine is 8370 Fat Agnus - so I'd need the 8375 (ntsc fatter 1mb). Don't know if the 2mb version will work in the machine.. who knows... btw, if I'm totally wrong on this let me know  :-?

[AMC258]

You can modify the motherboard somehow, and replace the Fat Agnus (Fat Lady) with a Fatter Agnus, and thus convert the 512k of FAST RAM to an additional 512k of CHIP RAM.  (Ask rkauer, I got this info from him :-D)

Then, you can get a MegAChip (or one of the other 2M CHIP RAM expanders) and have the full 2M of CHIP RAM.  Granted, these can be more expensive than they are expansive.

EDIT - You cannot use the 2M Agnus without adding more RAM, via one of the 2M CHIP RAM expanders.
You can put the 1M Agnus in and you will still have 512k CHIP and 512k FAST, unless you modify the motherboard.  I have done this to several A500s but the A2000 is different.  I'm not quite sure what you have to modify.

[banzai]

Chipset OCS (?) - 8370 Agnus

That's the 512K version. You'll want to replace that with the 8372A 1M Agnus or DKB MegaChip (8375) 2M. Aminet has many files on how to do this, but one thing always worth mentioning: NEVER pop out the Agnus unless you have the right tool! A PLCC extractor is a minor investment.

1. The B/W composite signal isn't a huge deal - but I'm curious about it.

Only the A600 and A1200 had composite color out. The others had monochrome, with the A1000 having a weird DIN socket, similar to that on the C64, and the A4000 had none.

2. Upgrading to 3.1 rom - I have the rom, but do I need to go up to ECS? and given that I can get the chips for ECS, is the revision of motherboard a factor?

I'm pretty sure it's not required to have any particular chipset, just that some modes won't work. Upgrading is easy, if you can get the chips, as they're all socketed.

3. I'm going to be replacing the HD controller with a GVP 030 combo board - the sims look (at first glance) the same size - interchangable? I know GVP used 64 pin sims on the 030 board.

The HC+8 uses 256K or 1Mx8 30-pin SIMMs, which are NOT even remotely like the 256K or 1Mx32 GVP SIMMs. For one thing, in order to have them 32-bits wide, there has to be 32 leads, which is two more than the 30-pin SIMMs have. In fact, the HC+8 uses the 30-pin SIMMs in banks of two to give you the 16-bit wide data bus (which is why they have to be added in pairs). The GVP-32 SIMMs can be added singly.

To further confound you (and everyone else on the planet), GVP uses the "by 32" and "by 8" interchangably. This works like:

256x32 = 1Mx8 = 8Mbits
1Mx32 = 4Mx8 = 32Mbits

Since the Amiga is told to count using BYTES (8 bits), then popping in the 256Kx32 will show up as 1MB of memory.

And to really get your head spinning, the GVP Combo will map that 32-bit memory outside the "Autoconfig" space, so if you set the HC+8 card to disable the SCSI (unless you have 14 SCSI devices you need to connect), you can use the 8MB of memory on it in the autoconfig space (fast ram), whatever the Combo has as "really fast" ram (up to 16MB), and you'll have either 512K, 1M, or 2M of chip, depending on what Agnus you're using.

A2088XT Rev 3 Bridgeboard.

Yeech. About the only thing that's good for is any old DOS3 or CP/M programs you have lying around. It's also what's using that 5.25" floppy drive, so you can pull out the floppy to add a SCSI CD-ROM drive.

banzai

[Sig999]

@ banzai

Thanks for all that info mate!

I should be able to get the fatter agnus no probs, and I was trying to find the name of the tool to take it out too

Good to know about the ram, which to tell the truth wasn't too big an issue as the combo board I purchased came with 4megs on it already.  This is perfect for me, as I have 2 PC's for anything that needs masses of grunt.  One for 'play' and one I custom built for video editing (so I can take work home and run freelance projects if needed).
(same reason why the bridgeboard isn't going back in the box when I reassemble it I was just surprised the seller didn't mention it was in there).

My main goal is to rebuild the machine I left behind when I moved to the US. My great joy was assembly programming, it wasn't until 1997 that I bought a PC. So I've always wanted to 'recapture' the insane amount of fun I had with the Ami.

The specs were :  1 meg chip ram. KS 2.0. 200meg HD (If I recall correctly on that...)  and an 030 with 4 megs of ram.

So apart from the 1 meg chip ram, I'm pretty much there.

Cheers!

Sig.

[banzai]

Boy, you guys are fast...

I replaced the 1.3 kickstart rom with a 3.1 - and it boots up just fine.

Told ya!

So with the 2 meg on the HD controller card, the motherboard must have 512 of each.

Yup.

If I'm reading this right Agnus decides how much chip mem it can handle... mine is 8370 Fat Agnus - so I'd need the 8375 (ntsc fatter 1mb).

You've got it right. At the moment, the mobo is using the 512K Agnus as chip, and the other 512K is mapped as "/EXRAM" (just like the A500). All you need to do is pop out the 8370 WITH A PLCC EXTRACTOR, and pop in an 8372A, taking care to note the orientation of the chip (pin 1 is in the middle of one of the sides, not a corner as on a DIP chip). You then remove or cut J500 (this tells the mobo to re-map that /EXRAM as CHIP RAM), and set J101 to the other position ("Special" on the schematics, or 2-3 closed). This connects the address pin for the upper 512K to map it all as 1M chip. If you go for the 2M "MegaChip" boards, then it will have different instructions - and they have another 1M installed, so you'll also have to have the 1M chip available, as mentioned above.

Don't know if the 2mb version will work

It works just fine in mine. I've got the DKB MegaChip, which needs the on-board 1M chip RAM, and provides the other 1M and 8375 on the add-on board. There's also a small IC clip that runs over to GARY for the extra address line. Pretty simple, really. The hard part is finding one.

banzai

[Sig999]

Ok nearly midnight and I have to work in the morning - so the update.

030 board works great.  I'm going to need a longer scsi cable (duh!) - I have a mate who can make me one and drop it over in a couple of days.

Chip extractor tool was an easy find on Ebay, and only cost six bucks with shipping.

Fatter Agnus (1mb chip) and Super Denise are on the way.  Thanks again for the point in the right direction on that Banzai! - I've located the jumper and trace, for the trace I just have to cut the trace on the top side of the board with a thin point hobby knife right? or is there something on the bottom of the board too?

Software Hut also has GVP memory for use with the G-Force 030 - so if at some point I want another 4megs of memory, I know where to get it.

SCSI board and Bridgeboard won't be going back it, I'll probably try and find the setup software for them (I got no sofware with the Ami) and pack them away - for the rainy day when something blows up

Floppy Drives - it has 2 but I think they're on their last legs and are 'acting strange'.

DF0 - a chinon drive has a real hard time recognising a disk inserted. I had to insert the one amiga formatted disk I have 3 times before it recognized it at all.
I have a box of never used PC DS DD disks here - the drive got to track 80 and said it couldn't format it and try another disk... 3 disks (all new) did this.

My memory may be failing me - but I don't recall having probs using these disks 'back in the day' formatting them as Amiga disks... again - I could be mistaken.

DF1 - a Panasonic Drive. This one said that the disk was write protected when it wasn't and straight up wouldnt format it. It wouldn't free the drive when I popped it out either.

At one point DF0 wouldn't recognise a disk in it until I put one in DF1 as well - now THAT was strange!
Both, however, recognized the Amiga disk (the one and only I have) - so that is a start.

Getting the floppy working is a huge deal - as it's going to be the only way I'll be able to get the new software (including the new OS) on here (no terminal programs, no CrossDos, no TCP stack) - so I'm HOPING it's just the drives being old as dirt.

Guess it's back to cruising Ebay from work and waiting for more parts

Cheers,

Sig.

[Sig999]

Time for an update I guess!

After many tests I came to the conclusion that both drives are  pretty much shot.

Df0: won't recognize anything (df0:?) on the few rare times it actually detects it has a floppy in it.

Df1: enjoys spitting out that it has track errors and can't format disks.  (I have a couple of blank ami disks - no luck formatting at all).

Got Crossdos and managed to dodge read errors to get it installed.  Alas - Win XP won't format a floppy under 1.44 (I kid you not - go look and follow the 'error report').

Lucky for me, I have a Linux box set up... after many attempts I FINALLY got a floppy to format to 720, but Win XP wouldn't read it, and the Ami drive wouldn't read it either.

I have a new floppy drive on the way for the Ami - so fingers crossed I can get the rest of WB updated, then I'll hopefully be a step closer.

Tried 'Amiga Explorer' - the trial version.. didn't want to fork out for it until I knew it worked.  Got as far as getting the 'Setup' script to run, before the dreaded 'com error' - though it could be my null modem cable - 10 bucks sent off to get one that's 'recommended' for it.  Tried many times - searched the web for likely problems - and if someone - no joy for me getting past the 'setup2' stage.

PLCC extraction tool came - Fatter Agnus and Super Denise still to arrive, and still not very much closer to being able to transfer files to the Ami from the PC.

Hopefully better news next update - if anyone out there has anything I've yet to try - I'm all ears... I'm even thinking of using 'type SER: to RAM:filename' and seeing if I can get an executable sent one way over the cable via some crudely written shell script in linux.