A4000 Upgrading .. Need advice

[dougal]

Hi ,

For one , i see pictures of A4000s giving an awesome display with a nice resolution and no flicker/lace . When i upped the res on mine (with no flicker) , the Amiga became miserably slooooooow .
 :-?

Also , its easy to have a network with an A1200 by using a PCMCIA Lan card , but with the A4000 i noticed the Zorro lan cards have the old stupid BNC connector , plus they cost a fortune while A1200 cards are cheap .

Is there no cheap way (besides serial) that i can have a network on the A4000 ?

[spirantho]

Shouldn't be slow at all.... well, as long as you've installed a graphics card anyway.

As for the network, my Ariadne has a 10-baseT connection on it...?

[Matt_H]

Is there no cheap way (besides serial) that i can have a network on the A4000 ?

The XSurf also has a traditional RJ-45 plug, so that's an option.

The most cost-effective means of getting online, though, is probably through a USB->Ethernet adapter. A USB card is a larger initial investment, but it opens the door to so many other (cheap) peripherals that it pays for itself very quickly.

[beller]

The two best upgrades to your A4000, I think, are the Indivision for your display and the X-Surf 3cc for networking.  I've just upgraded to the Indivision and I was surprised how much faster web surfing was.  Seemed significantly snappier than prior to the upgrade when I was using an older ScanMagic scandoubler.  Also, the X-surf gives you two A1200 clockports which opens up other upgrade paths.  

While the X-Surf has the old connector it also supports the standard ethernet connection.

Oh, and make sure you've maxed the memory of the machine to a full 16 of fast ram...

Bob

[dougal]

16Mb of fast ram is ok .. I just bought this A4000 and it already has 16mb Fast and 2mb chip , so thats good .

It doesnt have any cards except for a Macrosystem Vlab card which i dont think is going to be any use for anything .

I'm kind of broke at the moment but thanks for the advice , i will def upgrade once i have the money :-)

[Ross1]

Its the 2mb chip ram that suffers when running the higher resolutions, by adding FBlit you can share the fast ram with the graphics and it works very well.FBlit

[dougal]

Would i need a graphics card ?

Ross1 wrote:
Its the 2mb chip ram that suffers when running the higher resolutions, by adding FBlit you can share the fast ram with the graphics and it works very well.FBlit

[beller]

Dougal...

Think of Indivision as your graphics card.  It goes up to a 24-bit display on a VGA monitor.  FBlit just shares the chip memory requirements with your 16 megs of fast ram.

Bob

[dougal]

This ?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Indivision-Amiga-4000-CD32-FlickerFixer-ScanDoubler-_W0QQitemZ120394085621QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090319?IMSfp=TL090319121005r22899

There is another for the A1200 and i saw one that looks external .. The external if compatible with both A1200 and A4000 would be the best choice

beller wrote:
Dougal...

Think of Indivision as your graphics card.  It goes up to a 24-bit display on a VGA monitor.  FBlit just shares the chip memory requirements with your 16 megs of fast ram.

Bob

[Ross1]

dougal wrote:
Would i need a graphics card ?

Ross1 wrote:
Its the 2mb chip ram that suffers when running the higher resolutions, by adding FBlit you can share the fast ram with the graphics and it works very well.FBlit

No, but the newest indivision is a great add on for the 4000 or 1200 The older Toastscan worked well but it droped the amount of colours available to 8bit if I remember correctly (not a real big deal if all your using it for is to use a standard PC monitor)

[Darrin]

@ dougel:

If you want to network your A4000 then seriously consider a Deneb USB card, it's what I use on mine.

The Deneb will give you 3 USB 2.0 ports (more with an off the shelf hub) and then you can connect a cheap PC USB Ethernet dongle (I use a Trendnet TU2-ET100) for less than $20 and use the Genesis TCP/IP stack that came with OS3.9.  Plus you'll be able to do a lot of expanding outside of the case (external drives HD & CD/DVD, memory sticks, card readers, floppy drives, printers, etc).

Couple that with the Indivision and you'll be surfing the net in no time.  However I also have a Cybervision 643D card which gives me a nippy RTG display.

[terminator4]

@dougal
Xsurf 2 has also RJ45 connector.
cost fortune?  cards on A1200 are cheap?  then go get an A1200. ;-)  Oh an A4000 can be easily upgraded to graphics card.
other options:
- serial cards
- null modem cable to network to pc
I think the prices for upgrade are reasonable.

Also , its easy to have a network with an A1200 by using a PCMCIA Lan card , but with the A4000 i noticed the Zorro lan cards have the old stupid BNC connector , plus they cost a fortune while A1200 cards are cheap .

Is there no cheap way (besides serial) that i can have a network on the A4000 ?

[beller]

dougal wrote:
This ?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Indivision-Amiga-4000-CD32-FlickerFixer-ScanDoubler-_W0QQitemZ120394085621QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090319?IMSfp=TL090319121005r22899

There is another for the A1200 and i saw one that looks external .. The external if compatible with both A1200 and A4000 would be the best choice

Yes, that's the one.  Easy to install too!

The external scandoublers aren't even close to the quality of output you get from Indivision.  No comparison, and they aren't that much cheaper if you can find one.  

Bob