New Recruit to the Amiga Ranks

[alfredbonnabel]

Hello everyone. As of two o'clock yesterday afternoon I am not the proud owner of an Amiga A2000 and can finally start indulging in my passion for old computers.

First, a little about myself. My name is Alfred Bonnabel and I live in Conway, Arkansas, USA with my wonderful wife and high energy one-year old son. I am an avid collector and tinkerer of retro video games and have been doing so for a few years now. Computers have been a passion of mine since my parents purchased their first IBM clone in 1987-88. Since then I have dismantled and upgraded every home computer they purchased as well as anyone else's that would let me. I cut my teeth on DOS 3.0 and to this day I still prefer a command line whenever I can get one.

About a year ago I started actively looking in my local area for a Commodore 64 or, if I was lucky, an Amiga. Pickings are fairly slim in central Arkansas and the few C64's I found were all way over what I was willing to pay (we're talking triple digit $$$ for a beaten up, might work/might now systems).

But it seems that holding out for the right deal worked in my favor as yesterday I walked into a Goodwill thrift store with my wife and discovered this Amiga 2000 standing sideways and mixed in with the other computers. I immediately froze and had to take a moment to pick my jaw up before I could even talk. Pulling the system out and laying it down on a nearby table to examine my find, I was pleased to see that everything appeared to be in good cosmetic condition. A few scrapes on the top and sides with a small dent on the bottom were the only signs of damage I could find.

I looked around in vain for a monitor, keyboard, mouse or anything else but had no luck. The best I could hope for was a quick test to see if there was at least some power going to the system so I grabbed a generic ac cable and plugged it in to a nearby wall outlet. Sure enough I got a power light then the hard disk light began to flicker. Oh happy days!

Looking a little closer I noticed the mono video output so at least I could hook it up to a TV to see something. The keyboard port in the front would have been a challenge but I keep plenty of spare computer parts and I remembered having an old adapter just for this. No serial mouse to speak of unfortunately so that will have to be my first purchase. Two 3.5 inch floppies and a 5.25 inch floppy rounded out the system.

Needless to say that once I got home the first thing on my agenda was the get this baby plugged in and to see what I've got. Well, I was extremely excited to see that the system powered on and booted into Workbench successfully. Unfortunately, using my TV as a monitor is not going to work well. The text was so blurry that I was barely able to make anything out. Plus, black and white just isnt fun. So add a monitor to my wish list with the mouse.

Being the intrepid and curious sort I knew that I would have to crack the case and figure out what all was installed since there was evidence on the back of at least two expansion cards. Imagine my surprise when I found out there were actually 3 cards installed, all of which were even more exciting the more I learned about them.

The first card, after some research, turns out to be an A2091 with a Quantum SCSI hard drive installed. I didn't remove the card but upon boot the system seemed to indicate that the capacity was around the 100MB mark. Will verify that later. Unfortunately no additional RAM is installed on this board.

The next card, which I forgot to write the specific model number down when I pulled it out, turned out to be a 2MB RAM card. Very nice.

The third and final card is the A2088T which the 5.25 floppy is connected to. An emulator card is going to be very fun to play with indeed.

All in all, yesterday was very exciting and it has carried over into today. I am so glad I've been able to find a community of Amiga users and enthusiasts who truly enjoy this system. I look forward to spending a great deal of time here and learning from the combined expertise available. One day soon I hope to begin making my own contributions to the community, but until then I hope to learn all I can about this amazing system.

I've uploaded some pictures to my blog if you care to check it out.

[tone007]

You'll probably need an actual Amiga keyboard as well, the connector is the same as an AT keyboard's but the protocol is different, I believe.

Alternatively, this http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=49&products_id=228 will allow you to use a standard PC keyboard on an Amiga.

[AmigaEd]

Welcome and really enjoyed reading of your excitement with your new find.

Just would like to point out that the Amiga mouse is not a serial mouse (at least not in the same sense as operating through the IBM COM port.)

Enjoy!

Regards,
AmigaEd

[Matt_H]

Welcome! The Amiga can be a challenge to get into (difficult availability of parts), but it's a lot of fun. I think you'll come to love the AmigaDOS command line, and ARexx for inter-process communication.

First order of business to ensure the longevity of your system to to make sure the battery isn't leaking. The clock batteries Commodore used were not designed to be around this long, so they usually leak and can easily damage the motherboard. In the A2000, the battery is located under the drive chassis. The Amiga only needs the battery to keep time while switched off, so the system will still work if you can't replace it right away (or ever). You can either cut it (carefully) from the component side of the board, or desolder it from the bottom.

As tone007 (EDIT: and AmigaED) says, those are not standard PC keyboard and mouse ports. In addition to the keyboard adapter, you can also get a mouse adapter that lets you use standard PS/2 mice.

If you're having trouble finding an Amiga monitor, you may want to look into the Indivision ECS, which will let you use standard VGA monitors.

Again, welcome!

[alfredbonnabel]

Thanks for the info tone007, AmigaEd, and Matt_H! Guess I've got a little more work to do before I can get into the fun and playing with this machine. :-)

[amigakit]

Welcome!

[commodorejohn]

Congratulations on your find! I see people have already pointed out about the keyboard and mouse, so I'll just add that until you get a monitor lined up, you can put Workbench into 320x200 mode with the configuration dialog, which will make it a lot more readable on composite video.

[alfredbonnabel]

Congratulations on your find! I see people have already pointed out about the keyboard and mouse, so I'll just add that until you get a monitor lined up, you can put Workbench into 320x200 mode with the configuration dialog, which will make it a lot more readable on composite video.

Wow, thanks for the tip commodorejohn. I figured there should be a setting somewhere but I hadn't given it too much thought since right now I can't even control anything. :roflmao:

[runequester]

Welcome aboard!

[inoel]

Welcome to the Amiga ! You are going to have lots fun if
you stick around . The Amiga is so much more then a retro
computer ! Its also way of life. Amiga has retro hardware
to die for! New school hardware like SAM 44o a kick ass emu
in winuae and clone's MorphOS and Aros .

 So it how few Down the Rabbit Hole you want to
go with Amiga

[alfredbonnabel]

Thanks for all of the warm welcomes everyone. i can't wait to get a keyboard and mouse so I can get started on the full Amiga experience.

[trekiej]

I miss an A2000 and an A3000.
I think the A2000 is built like a tank.
I hope to get both next year.
Welcome to the site if you are new.
Have fun.

[Tripitaka]

Welcome from me too. I hope your time on this forum is fun and informative, I'm sure it will be.
You've come to the right place that's for sure, the level of technical knowledge around here is shocking at times. Never be afraid to ask for help, this is a great forum on the whole.

[amigadave]

Sounds like the original poster might be an ideal candidate to become a new Amiga user for life.  I hope he does not get too disappointed with the A2088 bridgeboard, they were crap.  A 386sx bridgeboard would be much better to run old DOS apps and games on his A2000.

Anyway, welcome to Amiga.org Alfred and enjoy your A2000.  If you can't find an Amiga keyboard and mouse for a good price closer to you, contact me via PMail here on Amiga.org and we can make a deal on extras of those that I have in my collection.  I am in Calif., so the shipping shouldn't be too much via USPS parcel post.

[jj]

Welcome.  Never owned a big box Amiga myself.   Towered A1200 but that another story.
 
There are a lot of nice friendly people around here.  You will never leave, even if you stop using Amigas