Picked up my first A1000

[mchaggis]

Hi, as the title suggests I've picked up my first A1000, and I have a couple of questions.

What goes in the front expansion? I've levered off the front cover and there is a silver 'thing' plugged in. I have no idea what it is. What would normally go here?

Any suggestions?

I haven't got the time to power it up yet, there is also a Phoenix 2Mb adapter (huge!) for hanging off the side. Will my Action Replay plug in there? Is that the same 86pin() connector that I'd find on my A500?

What's the most sought after motherboard?

And finally, is there any preventative maintenance that I should perform? Remove the clock battery???

Cheers.
Derek.

[ChaosLord]

What goes in the front expansion? I've levered off the front cover and there is a silver 'thing' plugged in. I have no idea what it is. What would normally go here?

256k ram

[tone007]

There shouldn't be a clock battery unless your sidecar RAM expansion has one (not too common.)

[save2600]

That silver thing, as ChaosLord mentioned is your 256kb memory add-on. Leave that in there! lol

Re: batteries, some 3rd party internal RAM boards do have 'em. Doubtful you have this particular one, but the worst offender was the Rejuvenator board. So yes, when you crack open the case, might be worth looking into.

A1000 mobo's only came in a few different flavors IIRC. European ones didn't all have the Daughterboards (WCS for Kickstart) and the main differences between the two North American boards had to do with copper vs. tin PCB traces. Personally, I like the copper machine (revision 6) just because it's different and I believe Paula, Agnus and Denise were all ceramic/metal cased chips (unlike plastic which was used later on). Also, real early A1000's did not come with an EHB Denise. Looks like when Commodore received A1000's from trade-in programs or whatever, they'd stamp "refurbished" on the underside of the machine and outfit them with later revision Denise's.

Congrats on your machine! The A1000 has a couple of irritating factors going for it (lack of system changing pal<>ntsc standards, expensive to upgrade), but is a great looking little computer that'll run most anything you might want it to.

[koaftder]

Open it up and see if there is an accelerator plugged into the processor slot. I've found two a1ks like that. You *never* know what goodies are lying inside those things.

[save2600]

Open it up and see if there is an accelerator plugged into the processor slot. I've found two a1ks like that. You *never* know what goodies are lying inside those things.

Gosh - that would be a dream come to true for me. lol  Better than playing the lottery  

@Koaftder - do you still have one and would it be for sale?

[koaftder]

@Koaftder - do you still have one and would it be for sale?

No, sorry. I gave the two adspeed accels away a good while ago. They're neat for sure but break compatibility with old games. Best speed upgrade for an A1K is to get HDD support. A1k flies with a harddrive.

[whiteb]

No, sorry. I gave the two adspeed accels away a good while ago. They're neat for sure but break compatibility with old games. Best speed upgrade for an A1K is to get HDD support. A1k flies with a harddrive.

What would you suggest for the A1000 then for a HDD ?  Do you need to still load the Kickstart from disk ?