Amiga 4000 on its way!! Now what?

[dandelion]

Hi all..

I've just bought an Amiga 4000/040 with no extras. I've been an a1200 owner for around ten years and this is the fufilment of an equally long dream.

The only thing is - what should I check and first try and upgrade when it arrives? My main concerns are - the buster chip. How can I check which revision I have and what problems will an early revision cause me?

Battery corrosion. I've been assured that the battery is fine and the machine is still working well, but it has been in a loft for a while. Should I remove this or as the machine will now be used quite heavily again, will it recharge and thus not become a problem?

Any interesting quirks/4000 specifics which I should be aware off?

I'm sooo excited I could almost fall over!!!!

dandelion

[Cyberus]

Same here!

The A4000's still at my sister's house, but I already have a Cyberstorm mk II 060 sitting here....
And a mediator 4000 Di which I'm meant to be getting of a guy.....

[redrumloa]

I've just bought an Amiga 4000/040 with no extras. I've been an a1200 owner for around ten years and this is the fufilment of an equally long dream.

Congrats!!

The only thing is - what should I check and first try and upgrade when it arrives? My main concerns are - the buster chip. How can I check which revision I have and what problems will an early revision cause me?

It causes problems mainly when using certain Zorro III expansion boards. When you get it open it up and look at the chip. If it says rev-11 you are set. If it says 9 you sould definately change it. If it says 7 only change if you intend to install a Zorro card that needs DMA. Also see if it is socketed(pray it is).

Battery corrosion. I've been assured that the battery is fine and the machine is still working well, but it has been in a loft for a while. Should I remove this or as the machine will now be used quite heavily again, will it recharge and thus not become a problem?

Check the battery!! Leaky batteries kill Amigas! If the battery has ANY leakage or fuzz PULL IT OUT!!

Any interesting quirks/4000 specifics which I should be aware off?

See what ROM you have. If it is 3.0 you will probably want to hunt down some 3.1 ROMS.

Enjoy!! :-D

[miles]

You should for sure check the battery, if it shows signs of leaking
replace it.  If it is not leaking it might need to be left on for a
while to charge the battery.  It a coin type battery it might be flat
and need replacing, probably not though.

To check the buster revision open the case and look for the chip
marked Buster.  if you see a -11 that is the good one!  If it is not
-11, it might be surface mounted and be tricky to upgrade -7 and -9
are the more common problem ones.  Buster can effect some cards that
use DMA only -11 fully supports this.  If you plan to get a Graphics
card or run other zorro cards as well as a Graphics card a -11 is also
good to have.

Kickstart 3.1 roms are good to have too, early 4000s had Kickstart 3.0
roms.

Hope your 4000 gets there soon :-)

[xeron]

Ahhh congratulations! I remember when I got my hands on my 4000... it had been a dream for me as well since the early 90s... always out of reach, then a few years ago, I sold my 1200 tower and got a slightly less powerful 4000. I didn't regret it one bit! The 4000 is a brilliant machine.

Of course, since then i've put it in a tower, added a PowerFlyer Gold, a Repulse, Mediator 4000, Cyberstorm MkIII 060, and a load of other cool things.

I love it, and I hope you get as much use and enjoyment out of yours as mine has given me over the years.

[miles]

Red,

Funny how two people can be writing the same thing at the same time on
the other side of the world really shows how far the net has gone to
bring the world together, it is such a small place :-) :-)

Peace Dudes and Dudeettes!

[miles]

Cyberus,

Man I would not be able to sleep, I'd be in the car to collect!

Hope you get it all in one place soon :-)

[redrumloa]

@miles

 I agree, it's an amazing thing!:-)

[dandelion]

I know..I really can't wait.

And the best thing is..I got it for a really very reasonable price! The joys of Amibench!

[Framiga]

@dandelion

The first suggestion is . . . you ENJOY it :-D

The second is:
"Sell the crap A4000 and buy an A2000HD Professional"  :destroy:

Ciao

[Brian]

My suggestion is as unique as the others, get buster11, rom3.1 and make damn sure the battery ain't leaking.

When it comes to quirks I don't realy know that many but heat is a bit of a problem in the 040 modells and the 5.25" bay ain't that deep so try get a short modell CD/DVD for it. I've also heard the PSUs fan can sometimes be turning the wrong way. You should hope you don't get one of the A4000 that have a fullsize 3.5" diskdrive as they make it impossible to have an extra diskdrive or HD in the other 3.5" bay aswell as they have a cut in the other 3.5" panel so even if you get a normal 3.5" diskdrive for it the panel won't cover the hole.

Other uppdates you would like to get asap is a gfxcard, a SCSI controller and a NIC. Question then is if you want to go the PCI way or the original Zorro way. PCI solutions are a bit expencive but it will save you some money on GFX and NIC's later on.

[keltic]

Recently i also got my hands on an A4000.

I really don't know what to do with it, i have installed an hard drive (1,2GB), cdrom drive, 16 MB memory(or something).

And i built an Amiga RGB to VGA adaptor.

But now i am a little stuck, the main purpose for this machine was to run linux or preferably netBSD on it. The problem is that i would like a good GFX card for it and a network card. The cheapest (i think) would be an Mediator 4000Di, but Linux/netBSD support for the mediator is somewhat problematic if i have understood all correct.

BTW would an TV modulator for the A500 work with the A4000?

[DanDude]

If you lose time after 24 hours (or better yet, within a week) without power, replace the battery immediately!  Don't even wait until your battery starts to leak.  Ask me how.
 :-)

[duesi]

Quote: but heat is a bit of a problem in the 040 modells and the 5.25" bay ain't that deep so try get a short modell CD/DVD for it. I've also heard the PSUs fan can sometimes be turning the wrong way.

Check out that the PSU-Fan pushes the air to the backside of the Case. If it dosent't turn it..
Here are informations about it:

 http://wonkity.com/~wblock/a4000hard/main.html

(Be careful when opening the PSU !)

[Brian]

A RFmodulator for an A500 would surtantly work on any Amiga RGB port also the A4000 one.

I didn't have enough $ for a mediator solution to my A4000 tower project but I got hold of an prometheus PCI solution for under 35$ and it should support Linux also (at least I hope so, will see when my project is done).