Some A2000 questions

[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

[Tenacious]

Accelerator-wise, everything depends on what you want to do, and how far you're willing to go.  In addition to 32-bit acceleration and memory (and those things already mentioned), you can upgrade to RTG (better graphics card) and sound, and OS3.9.  

A more modest expansion might be a Supra Turbo28, a 2091 SCSI and ram, and maybe stock graphics with a flicker-fixer.  This is still a totally 16-bit system and may be more compatible with older 1.3 games (if that's important to you).

The 16-bit route is not necessarily cheaper than the 32-bit.

I have 3 2000s, 1 with a Supra Turbo, 1 with A2630 and DKB's memory add-on, and another with GVP's combo board.  They're all fun.

I only rescued the 2000s a few years ago, the big surprise to me was the rom of the SCSI interface may also have to be upgraded in addition to the system rom.

[runequester]

I am mostly after a fun machine to mess with, and to play old games on, so keeping it 16 bit might be the best then.
 
The only real techie thing I'd like is a CD ROM drive, to give me an easy way of transferring files, since I don't have another option currently

[Philophus]

Just go with a a2091 or hc+8 then will give you a little extra ram and allow you to add a hard disk and cdrom...and they are pretty cheap and plentiful.

[gertsy]

If your just playing games a 030 card with a nice 2GB HD would be best.
Then you can use WHDLOAD speedily and have the most compatible configuration.
GVP impact 030 Combo with 4MB unpopulated or 16 Fully populated is a fairly trouble free unit.

Gertsy

[Effy]

A few years ago I tried an A2000 with 2630+4 Mb and I inserted a CV64/3D gfx card and installed a 4 Gb scsi hd on a scsi board with 2 Mb Ram. The installed OS 3.9 did run but had to set the options to minimal because it didn't run really smooth ...