Some A2000 questions

[runequester]

1: What accelerator cards are worth being on the lookout for ? Mostly wondering what was compatible with the 2000, and which could be fitted without too much messing around.

2: The machine I am getting has 2.0 ROM's. Will this run workbench 3.0 or should I look for 2.0 instead?

3: What would be the simplest way of getting a hard drive set up for this thing?

4: Anything else that is worth knowing about the 2000 ? I had a 1200 back in the day, so I am aware that the stock machine is basically just a box 500, but anything of note?

[Tumbleweed]

Accelerators come up for sale on Amibay and eBay quite often for the A2000 but the better ones always attract the most interest and can expensive. Cheap options are the 020 and 030 boards - A2620 and A2630, which give a speed bump on a stock A2000 but they aren't great and don't offer extra ram. The blizzard cards from DCE/Phase Five - 2040 and 2060 are good boards but are expensive and dont come up often. The G-Force boards from GVP are OK too. The fastest board for the A2000 is the DKB Wildfire but you'll have more luck finding hens teeth than one of these.

In my A2000D I've got a CSA Magnum 40/4, which Im pretty pleased with and it provides extra ram (upto 64MB) and a SCSI interface.

Weed

[runequester]

Thanks for the advice. I am honestly mostly after a bit of extra RAM, so I can get extra sound effects in the couple of games offering that (Hired Guns, Walker etc) but a slightly beefier processor couldn't hurt.

[Jiffy]

Tumbleweed isn't entirely correct regarding the A2620 and A2630. Both cards offer extra 32 bit fastram up to a standard max of 4 MB.

The A2630 (with a 25 MHz 68030) gives a nice speed bump, is easy to find and is relatively cheap. Yes, there are faster and better cards. But hey, it's still a nice expansion to any standard A2000.

[Tumbleweed]

@Jiffy cheers, I forgot they come with some ram but not alot.

@runequester - if its ram your after and you're also looking for SCSI controller you can pick up a GVP hard card - it'll take upto 8MB ram and they come up for sale fairly often.

Weed

[dougal]

You want some important advice?

Open it up, find the battery.... make sure it didnt leak.

If it has leaked, remove it and clean the corrosion from the motherboard.

In any case i would remove it right away.

[Philophus]

I have the a2630 in mine with 4mb onboard and the speed difference was noticeably huge over the stock machine.
 
GVP combo boards are plentiful but some only take GVP's own make of memory simms and they can be hard to find and expensive.
 
Couple an a2630 with a hardisk/memory card like the GVP HC+8 or commodore a2091 and you have a cheap but effective upgrade path.

[blanning]

1: What accelerator cards are worth being on the lookout for ? Mostly wondering what was compatible with the 2000, and which could be fitted without too much messing around.

I have a GVP 68030 board that I'm happy with.  It has extra memory and a scsi controller.  It's a great combo.  It gets you access to cd/dvd drives and hard disks, both internal and external.

2: The machine I am getting has 2.0 ROM's. Will this run workbench 3.0 or should I look for 2.0 instead?

I believe you can run older workbenches on newer roms, but not the other way around.  You might want to consider a rom switcher though for older games.

3: What would be the simplest way of getting a hard drive set up for this thing?

If you end up with a memory board instead of an accelerator, you might want to consider a buddha board from individual computers.  You can put an IDE to compact flash adapter on it and have a CF hard drive.  It works great and it's fast.  I believe it also has a rom switcher in flash.

Other than that, I'd suggest an A2091.  The hard drive attaches right to the card.  They made 1000s of them so they're cheap.  And you can still attach an internal cd/dvd drive and keep both floppies since the drive is on the card.  There's an external scsi connector also.

4: Anything else that is worth knowing about the 2000 ? I had a 1200 back in the day, so I am aware that the stock machine is basically just a box 500, but anything of note?

Like others have said, cut off the battery.

You might want to consider a megachip.  Get it now.  I think amigakit has them.  Historically, they've been pricey.

You might want to consider a indivision at some point.  I dont have one, but it's on the shopping list.

I also have a deneb in mine.  It's expensive, but you get a lot.  It works with usb keyboards and mice in addition to thumb drives, printers, scanners, drives, and just about anything else.  People have even plugged USB sound cards into it and made it work.  I have plans to experiment with that as well.  I think even usb ethernet works.  It requires at least a 68030 iirc.

There's also the bridgeboard thing.  I have a 286 version in mine.  I just plugged it in though.  I haven't had a chance to play with it yet.  I hear that you can put a network board on the PC side and run a goofy driver that lets the amiga side use ethernet.

brian

[runequester]

thanks for the advice guys.

Here's a question too... is there a way to reset the d**m machine other than the power button. Does the 2000 not respond to the normal 3 key reboot?

[r0jaws]

It should respond as normal to ctrl+A+A, if it's not there's a problem somewhere.

[runequester]

Actually my bad. For some reason I remembered it as amiga+amiga+DEL. Its been too long...

[runequester]

You want some important advice?

Open it up, find the battery.... make sure it didnt leak.

If it has leaked, remove it and clean the corrosion from the motherboard.

In any case i would remove it right away.

so this might be a dumb question but.. how do I identify the battery and how do I safely remove it?

[blanning]

so this might be a dumb question but.. how do I identify the battery and how do I safely remove it?

If it's original, it's a blue or green cylinder the size of a grape soldered to the motherboard on its side near the 68000 chip.  I cut mine off with a pair of wire cutters and some patience.  

If it's a coin type or some other battery "hack", then it was already replaced by someone and you can leave it.

If there's corrosion, come back and search here or ask about it.  There's procedures for cleaning it up.

brian

[Effy]

From my own point of view, get yourself a not so expensive kickstart 3.1 chip, it gives your 68000 really neat options ...

[runequester]

If it's original, it's a blue or green cylinder the size of a grape soldered to the motherboard on its side near the 68000 chip. I cut mine off with a pair of wire cutters and some patience.
 
If it's a coin type or some other battery "hack", then it was already replaced by someone and you can leave it.
 
If there's corrosion, come back and search here or ask about it. There's procedures for cleaning it up.
 
brian

Someone posted some pictures so I've identified it. It has no corrosion at all, and the battery looks newer than the rest but its still the old "barrel" looking type. I'll remove it this week, just to be on the safe side