How far can an A2000 go?

Yesterday, I was able to finally secure my first real, serious Amiga purchase in years - a "new" (used) GVP Spectrum card for Old Faithful, a.k.a. my humble old Amiga 2000.  Before this, I had lost touch with the Amiga dealer in my town, mostly as a consequence of my becoming rather into the x86/Linux side of life, and as a result was stuck with a very dated system that nevertheless was still very dear to my heart:

* Stock ECS A2000
* 8 MB fast, 1 MB chip
* GVP 68030 accellerator card (25MHz) w/68882 math coprocessor
* Oktagon 2008 SCSI controller
* One 500MB and one 120MB hard drive
* 4x CD-ROM
* AmiGen genlock (quickie replacement for a C= 2300  that just died)
* Three floppies, two external

Not exactly the most awe-inspiring Amiga by today's standards, but it got me through all of my associate's program and a great deal of my bachelor's degree, so I'm obviously a tad sentimental about the old girl.

When I got the new card and installed it... I'll be honest,  I hadn't felt a rush quite like that in ages.  Not even the thrill of finally mastering the fine art of XFree86 customization under *nix comapred to the thrill of seeing my favorite machine suddenly brought up to spec in terms of visuals... TrueColor display, no flicker, and all of that... and having it Just Plain Work, first time out of the box.  (Well, after I was able to "liberate" an old 15" SVGA monitor currently being used on a test-bench system...)  I had, of course, experienced this before with AmigaForever on my PC, but this was the real thing.  

But, it did get me thinking about something.  The new graphics modes that are suddenly available to me seem to be taking a serious toll on my system resources.  Worse yet, the Spectrum card came with no instructions, and I haven't been able to tell from the card itself which model it is, making it difficult indeed to know what the top limits are.  I'm at a loss as to which to upgrade right now to speed things up - memory, CPU, or try for a better graphics card?  And once I do, how much further can I realistically expect to take an A2000 setup, in an Amiga "scene" mostly comprised of 4000s, 1200 tower mods, PowerPC upgrades, and the forthcoming AmigaOne?

Any help would be appricated, of course, but I'd also like to hear some stories about how far one can push the older Amiga systems, and what good pre-3000 systems can still perform in this day and age...  8^)

[cecilia]

well, on one of my 2000's it has a Magnum 040 and I put in about 48 megs or something. like you - when I got my spectrum card i also had an orgasmic experience, so to speak, but it happened again when i installed OS3.9 (on that system I had 3.1 before)
that really made a big difference. there was no change in hardware but everything moved faster. and i use the newest Cybergfx - no problems at all.

2000's have limitations but they are good workers and i like mine alot.

[Damion]

A2k's are killer. I wish I had one to mess around
with.

It would be so much fun to upgrade within the real
case. I have an A500 and an A1200...I like them, but
I don't like the 3rd party add-ons and cases.

[whabang]

How far can an A2000 go?

42?
 :-D  :-D  :-D

Seriously, though, they can be pushed rather far ( with 060, Ethernet, GFx card, etc...
I wish I had one! :-(

[Desmon]

How far can an A2000 go?

Mine has a Blizzard 060 w/32MB, an A2032 flicker fixer, an X-Surf, Oktagon 2088 and MultifaceIII serial/parallel card.
I bought a CV64/3D with the express purpose of upping the graphics capabilities, but it made the system run like it was full of molasses. The card soon found a home in my A3000/030 instead. Nowhere near as fast a machine, but the Z3 bus seems to push the graphics faster. (of course)
My A2000 has been running 24/7 since 1996 and never misses a beat. It's the gateway to the LAN here, with this linux box, the aforementioned A3k and a spare A4k all connected.

[carls]

@TheKid965:
Congratulations to your new graphics card! It really does make a difference. However, graphic cards tend to eat some fast memory and they do require some CPU to feel smooth.

I'd start looking for second-hand memory expansions (or memory for your 030 card), or perhaps even a new CPU. I've got an A1200T (Zorro II like the A2000) with a 060/50Mhz and I must say I wouldn't want to use anything less than an 040 with the graphics card - you can view JPEGs in true-colour but they take forever to load on an 030 ;-)

There is both PPC and 060 cards for the 2000 AFAIK, and all I can say is go for it!

As far as the specs of the card, maybe these links can help:

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/spectrum28.html

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/spectrum110.html

[4pLaY]

No there is NOT PPC card for the A2k! Phase 5 had some beta boards but i doubt they will be easy to digg up! his best bet will be Blizzardf 2060! beware some of them are acctualy cut down 040/40 versions but people still sell them on auction sites etc as 2060.

[JurassicCamper]

Mine went as far as the dustbin. :-o  :-D

[Lo]

Any help would be appricated, of course, but I'd also like to hear some stories about how far one can push the older Amiga systems, and what good pre-3000 systems can still perform in this day and age... 8^)

The GVP has 32 bit wide memory, like the A3K.
Add memory to that rather than the 16 bit Z II bus.
Change the battery before it corrodes.  A2K is still
adequate for dial-up connections.
hmm, doesn't the GVP have an on-board ScSI?
Mine does.  If you go to a wide-band connection,
tho', you may see the limitations..

[Indoro]

Harv's A2000 is a rather wicked machine..not much unlike my 4000*. He has a Wildfire 060/SCSI-II card, a Picasso II video card (the Spectrum is slightly better), and some other mods (Mini-mega chip, high density disc drive, etc.). His system is not updated (thanks to my efforts) with a larger HDD and OS 3.9 plus a CD-R drive.

When he decides to get a router to network it to the PC he runs AmigaForever on I will help him set that up too...I would really like to see the two connected.

*My 4000 had a CS-PPC/060 and a GVP Spectrum. I had a Picasso IV in my 4000T that was stolen a couple years back. That is still IMHO the best Amiga video card.

[xeron]

Don't forget, the Coldfire guys have said they want to make an A2000 card... so you might be able to get a nice 200Mhz Coldfire powered Amiga.

I *think* there is also talk of putting an AGP slot, USB etc. on the card, too.

[Nick]

After a few rather expensive experiments. I have answered your question. Using my specially designed
Hyper Amigalauncherator® I have made one go 400ft up in the air and 1km up the road. :-D

[vortexau]

Mine has a Blizzard 060 w/32Mb, an A2032 flicker fixer, a PicassoII Gfx card, GVP SCSI+ , a Toshiba CD-ROM and an external 1760k Floppy Drive.

A Kickboard allows switching between 1.3, 2.05, and 3.1 Kickstarts.

A MegaChip Daughterboard upped the CHIP RAM to 2Mb.

There's a 850Mb Quantum mounted on the GVP card which also controls an external 500Mb Quantum.

Two external 1.1Gb Seagates, the CD-ROM and a HP 4c Scanner are under the control of the Blizzard's SCSI-II controler.

I've output 1600x1200x8bit but normally use 800x600x16bit. I created NEW screenModes with P96 including one that matches the Full Overscan of HiRes PAL, and 720x500 for wordprocessing.

I go onLine with this A2000HD that I have owned since 1991, and manage a website with it. I may have to link it to the eagerly-awaited A1 in the future when THAT becomes my main machine.

__________________________________________________

 "You are false data, so I shall ignore you" -(Bomb No.20) __________________________________________________
 

[harvlaser]

Harv's A2000 is a rather wicked machine..not much unlike my 4000*. He has a Wildfire 060/SCSI-II card, a Picasso II video card (the Spectrum is slightly better), and some other mods (Mini-mega chip, high density disc drive, etc.). His system is not updated (thanks to my efforts) with a larger HDD and OS 3.9 plus a CD-R drive.

 :-D

Plus the Wildfire 060 card has 10BaseT Ethernet on it.. and a five gig Secrate drive, and a 4x CD-R/RW Burner in the five inch bay..

Now in case you didn't know, I got that 2500 in its original configuration (A2620, 2090-A, dinky 44 meg hard drive, etc. etc.)..  directly from C= in West Chester in 1989 as payment from John Dvorak for writing the Amiga chapter in his book "Dvorak's Guide To Desktop Telecommunications" in which I wrote 16 pages on Amiga terminal programs and online services.. they had gone over budget on the book by the time I got involved with it but they wanted an Amiga chapter, so they asked me what I'd take in lieu of cash for writing it, and I said "Get me a new 2500 from Commodore and have it shipped to me".. so he did.. it came with a 1080 monitor, I think, and an exciting Amiga RS1200 modem, which I never used once and still have in the closet, Mint In Box (and probably quite worthless)..

At the time, I think the 2500/020 was selling for about $3000.00.. it had just come out..

I got the galley sheets to review before the book went to press, and I later got a copy of the book when Osborne/McGraw-Hill published it in 1990.. with the 16 pages I wrote basically exactly as I wrote them.. Dvorak writes very little of the books that bear his name.. he contracts out most of the chapters to other writers..

So that's where my 2500 first came from, and it's gone through many iterations of upgrades in the past 14 years up to its present, somewhat beefy state.. still running

Yes, I need to network it to the Winblows box so it can share the cable modem.. a project I have wanted to do for over a year but just haven't gotten a round tuit yet..

  :-D

Harv
 :-o

[Atheist]

All I have is an A2K with a GVP Impact II with 8 Megs of ram and a SCSI Fujitisu 180 Meg HD. It has a Supraturbo 28 MHz acellerator in it, but every time I start it, the first access to the HD causes it to Guru(tm).

Don't you still just love using it? Every time you press the on button, you're in Lala land.

Amiga! Still captivating, after all these 17 years!

Amiga 2000 owner, user, Fanatic, since 1989!