I need disk drive standoffs and ribbon cables !

[DoomMaster]

Hey guys, can any of you spare any disk drive standoffs and ribbon cables for the Amiga 2000 internal drives?  I am trying to put together 10 to 12 Amiga 2000HDs for the kids at school.  They are all missing the standoffs and ribbon cables.  I am introducing the Amiga computer, instead of the PC, to some elementary school kids.  I think that they will just love them and go home and tell their parents all about the AWESOME Amiga computers at their school !     :-D

[adz]

I currently work in the Victorian Department of Education as a network engineer, so I am in constant contact with Learning Technologies co-ordinators (the people who decide what goes into a schools IT curriculum) and to be honest, I see virtually no point in educating primary (elementary in the states) school students in the use of an A2000, when their time could be better spent learning the ins and out of real world applications. I know this sounds biased, but face it, that is the reality of things. I reckon high school students studying electronics would benefit from them more. Besides, why don't you contact your friends at NASA or something, pehaps you could deck them out with military grade chips :-)

[JimS]

I have to agree. I don't see any point in putting Amigas in elementary schools. The time has past...
There's only  one reason that might make sense here.  The Amiga's OS is less complex the windoze...  A younger kid might benefit from messing around with the Amiga, rather than jumping right into the byzantine world of Windows.  ... Still, I would have loved to have one when I was in school... but a TTY with an acoustic modem was state-of-the-art then.  :-D

[DonnyEMU]

Well I don't know if you are in the USA or not but last time I looked here most elementary schools had macs. I worked for an Amiga education dealer. The university bought Amiga 2500s running MAPLE for their math visualization labs. It worked great. There just wasn't that great of an amount of Amiga Education software for elementary ed based amiga schools. Although we had a few of them. Back in those days the learning company had all the good software and while Commodore made efforts, Apple's practices about buying "ONLY MACS" and giving what the schools thought were significant discounts were in reality most of the same tactics we see with micro$$$ and spreading their OS around.

Apple at the time used business practices which really hurt the Amiga getting the foot in the door and they still own the schools through high school.

Apple thought the Amiga was such a threat to that market the brought out the Apple ][gs.. Anyone remember that product??

[Damion]

Apple thought the Amiga was such a threat to that market the brought out the Apple ][gs.. Anyone remember that product??

Indeed..it was the subject of many theoretical
"which is better" conversations when I was a
kid. And you can find them dime a dozen
now on ebay, most with some sort of school
district tag still intact.

[JimS]

DonnyEMU wrote:
Apple thought the Amiga was such a threat to that market the brought out the Apple ][gs.. Anyone remember that product??

Yeah, I used to run an Atari group meeting in the Flint schools. They replaced the Atari 400/800 machines with AppleIIGS machines about the time they came out.  Much later I was at an auction and those same GS machines were going for about 8 bucks.  I bought an apple ][ that someone stacked with a VGA monitor for 3 buxks, and sold the ][ for 2 the next day.

[DoomMaster]

But, can any of you spare the parts I need?!     :roll:

[DoomMaster]

While I do admit that most Americans are stupid, some schools here in the USA do have some smart teachers and kids.  I teach computer classes in those types of schools.  I use the powerful Amiga 2000HDs to teach kids about computers in a fun and not boring setting.  I know that the computers in the future WILL be more like the Amiga and not like the PCs.  More and more people are already getting sick and tired of Intel based PCs running Winblows XP.   My Amiga 2000HD computers runs circles around my piece of crap Pentium 4 PC computer.  Just last night I was having printer problems on my Pentium 4 PC, so I finished the work on one of my Amiga 2000HDs.     :-o

[Matt_H]

I can see the use of A2000s in schools as a very valuable history lesson in computing, and how the Amiga was first to offer capabilities now taken for granted, but unless you're putting together 10-12 fully decked-out, 060 OS3.9 CyberVision/PIV video, Ethernet capable A2000s, or A 1200T PPC/Mediator system, I don't really see the benefits of introducing them to the Amiga as a modern system. These kids have probably got WinXP boxes or iMacs at home, not to mention games consoles. I don't think they'll see the appeal that the rest of us have found.

That being said, I do wish you luck in your endeavors. These kids will at least grow up knowing what an Amiga is. Most people in my generation don't.

[Wain]

My Amiga 2000HD computers runs circles around my piece of crap Pentium 4 PC computer. Just last night I was having printer problems on my Pentium 4 PC, so I finished the work on one of my Amiga 2000HDs.

How ironic, just last night I helped someone move their work from an A2000HD to a Pentium 4 because an A2000 can't do hard-disk based audio recording and editing worth a crap compared to a pro-tools system.  :-o

[AmigaPete]

Doom,
IIRC what the standoffs look like, you could buy a piece of aluminum tube and cut it (or have it cut) to length or buy a bunch of small washers and stack them. As far as the cables go maybe check Software Hut or similar Amiga hardware retailers.

Hope this helps,
Pete

[levelLORD]

DoomMaster wrote:
I teach computer classes in those types of schools.  I use the powerful Amiga 2000HDs to teach kids about computers

I hate to say this, but after a numerous posts like this, I have to ask you something. A month or so, you declared yourself as  a computer technician, after that you was making OS4.0 exclusively for AMiga 2000HD, now you are a computer teacher or whatever. I really don't care, but is there a line for you that you aren't going to cross? I love your posts, they are very, very, very funny, but this is too much. Like once, you insulted one guy (I think csirac?) who was obviously helping you in the right way, about mounting HD floppy drive on one of yours AMiga's. That was so rude... Anyways, can you at least try to stick with original story? I don't wanna be rude, I'm just trying to be nice and tell you why all this people here are pointing in your direction...

You take care DoomMaster,

levelLORD

[adz]

My Amiga 2000HD computers runs circles around my piece of crap Pentium 4 PC computer

Then you obviously have one very poorly configured Pentium 4 based system.

[JimS]

Those standoffs are a standard part. They should be available at radio shack or such places.  As for the cables.. I thought you could use a peecee floppy cable, but it looks like more leads are twisted in the pc cable.  Still, it should be an easy task to buy some bulk cable and IDC connectors.  If you use care, you can crimp those on with a vise instead of the special tool they wan't to sell you. I've done it with scsi cables.

[xyth]

Yeah I know, your average Amiga (even the powerful A2000 professional!) can't do a lot of the things that a PC or Mac can in relation to educational stuff.

But when I was a kid and first got my shiny new A500, one of things I delved into with great enthusiasm was programming.

Sure I started off with the awful Amiga Basic, but then I discovered the light: AMOS and Blitz Basic.

Kids these days can navigate the internet, publish documents, and create multimedia extravaganza's but I've yet to meet a 12 year old who could program even remotely as good as I could when I was that age.  Not that I was brilliant or anything.

I doubt there are any PC/Mac setups that you could program as easily, or with such powerful results, as a good old A2000 running AMOS.

Certainly a damn sight cheaper.

The next generation are becoming excellent computer users, but very few know anything about the 'guts' of computing so to speak.

I'm a teacher myself; I think what Doomy's trying to do could be really valuable.


-edit-
Sorry, I don't have any spare parts.
-edit-