New A2000

[magnetic]

the upgrade to 3.1 is simple. you'll carefully remove 2 ROM chips and replace them with 3.1 chips. Workbench is just as easy as loading 5 disks into the drive consecutively.
.

Actually for A2000 its only 1 rom chip to change..

[dougal]

As a Scan Doubler / Flicker Fixer, I use the cheap and cheerful GBS-8220. These can be bought new from eBay for around 20 Euros including shipping and with extremely little modification work surprisingly great with any Amiga.

Works great with any LCD monitor i tried and does an excellent job flicker-fixing.

I have an Indivision AGA on my A1200 (worth approx 150 - 170 euros second hand) and the GBS-8220 on my A2000 and I can honestly say that there is not much difference is quality between them.

[Darrin]

So, I've been looking at Classic WB.  That page totally confuses me.  Do you have to download and install with WinUAE on a drive?  All of the versions listed are for different target machines.  I am sorry to ask so many questions, I try to read up all I can.

Yes, you'll need to use WinUAE because the site is "legal" and the downloads are missing certain files contained on the Workbench disks.

I've installed several versions of ClassicWB onto HDF files and real hard drives using WinUAE (Amiga Forever version).

Just follow the instructions step-by-step and you can't go wrong.

The only issue I see is that you have a SCSI hard drive, so trying to get the data moved from your PC onto the drive is going to be a major pain.  You might want to wait, order a 3.1 Kickstart ROM and find a SCSI-IDE or SCSI to USB adapter and that way you can install one of the more "pretty" versions of ClassicWB directly onto the SCSI drive while it is attached to the PC (WinUAE can mount it as a real Amiga drive).  You can then insert it into the A2000 and it should boot.

Also, while it is still attached to the PC, you could download KillerGorilla's WHDload game packs from his website and install a few of your favourite games onto the hard drive.  Come to think of it, you might want to track down a larger hard drive too.

[k4lmp]

OK, so I am intrigued by the comments on putting a HD in a pc and formatting it using WinUAE.  I have several SCSI HD's laying around, but how do I know if they will work with the Amiga?  I think I even have a couple of SCSI controllers for a PC, but I guess need to know what version of SCSI that the Amiga takes.  The drives I have are I think around 18 Gb.  Thanks so much for all of the help.  You guys, and this site are great!

Jeff

[bbond007]

OK, so I am intrigued by the comments on putting a HD in a pc and formatting it using WinUAE.  I have several SCSI HD's laying around, but how do I know if they will work with the Amiga?  I think I even have a couple of SCSI controllers for a PC, but I guess need to know what version of SCSI that the Amiga takes.  The drives I have are I think around 18 Gb.  Thanks so much for all of the help.  You guys, and this site are great!

Jeff

i would just the the SCSI CF reader(that i linked above) and just build the OS on a CF with inexpensive CF-IDE adapter.

those USB->SCSI things are $$$, and what do you have at the end of the day, AOS on a drive whose MTBF was 10 years ago...

[Darrin]

i would just the the SCSI CF reader(that i linked above) and just build the OS on a CF with inexpensive CF-IDE adapter.

those IDE->SCSI things are $$$, and what do you have at the end of the day, AOS on a drive whose MTBF was 10 years ago...

I agree.  

I have a CF card in my A2000 and I put ClassicWB on that by simply putting the card in my PC's CF slot, mounting it as a real Amiga drive in WinUAE (Make sure you run WinUAE "as an administrator" or the option to mount the card as a hard drive will be grayed-out).  Booted into a UAE Workbench environment, formatted the card (I think I used PSF3 or SFS as two 2GB partitions).  Then I followed the instrucions on the ClassicWB site to install their Workbench.

Keep a WinUAE setting to "emulate" your A2000 using that card and then when you want to download something for your Amiga you can pull the card from the A2000, put it in the PC and use WinUAE to copy the downloaded file(s) from the PC's hard drive to Workbench on your CF card.  Then just put the card back into your A2000.

You can even keep back-up images of your CF card on the PC just in case you trash the CF card and need to reinstall it again.

[Darrin]

Also, if you're missing your Workbench disks to make the ClassicWB installation then look in the news section here and buy teh downloadable version of Amiga Forever.  It comes with ADF versions of the Workbench disks that you can use to make ClassicWB.  Also, once you have your hard drive set up you can use your A2000 to turn these ADFs back into real Amiga floppies.

[k4lmp]

Well, I bought one of the CF to SCSI adapters that you linked to in a previous post.  My computer has a card reader built in.  Now I have to figure out how to run WinUAE from Linux.

[Darrin]

Well, I bought one of the CF to SCSI adapters that you linked to in a previous post.  My computer has a card reader built in.  Now I have to figure out how to run WinUAE from Linux.

Or ask a friend who has Windows to lend you his PC for an hour.

[k4lmp]

OK, so I have ordered a compact flash adapter for my scsi card, and my computer has  a compact flash reader.  I have ordered the 3.1 kickstart rom for my A2000 off of ebay.  Now for the workbench disks that I don't have.  There is a set on ebay that says they are 3.1 for an A1200, will those work?  Now, for the main trouble.  I want to use WinUAE to install Classic WB on my compact flash to use as the hard drive in my A2000.  If I replace the Kickstart ROM with the 3.1 version I ordered, How can I use the workbench disks to install the OS on the compact flash using WinUAE, when I can't do anything with those floppies on my PC?  If the disks off of ebay will work, and I own them, would it be legal for someone to email me a copy of the disks in adf format to use?  Am I overcompicating this?  If so, sorry.

Jeff

[Darrin]

The A1200 Workbench disks should work fine with your A2000.  I've used the same ones on mine.

Check your inbox for a PM.

[k4lmp]

I ordered the Workbench 3.1 disks that said they were for an A1200.  I figured even if I get the Classic WB done, I will still need them at sometime anyway.  

Jeff

[k4lmp]

Does anybody know if the A2091 RAM is just used by the SCSI controller, or should it show up in showconfig?  It has 2mb, and I verified the jumper is set for 2mb on the card, but in showconfig, it only shows 64k on a590/2091.  Also, one person asked what type of HD it had, and yes, it is 105S.  Thanks.

I almost forgot, the A2091 is a rev. 4.1 board running 6.6 roms.

[bbond007]

Does anybody know if the A2091 RAM is just used by the SCSI controller, or should it show up in showconfig?  It has 2mb, and I verified the jumper is set for 2mb on the card, but in showconfig, it only shows 64k on a590/2091.  Also, one person asked what type of HD it had, and yes, it is 105S.  Thanks.

I almost forgot, the A2091 is a rev. 4.1 board running 6.6 roms.

The ram on the scsi cards is system ram and should just show up as additional "fast ram".

I think the 64K you are seeing is the cards ROM size.

It may be a benefit for the HD controller driver to have at least some ram on the controller to DMA into, and i think the GURU ROM may know about that, but the ram is in no way dedicated to disk IO like a cashing SCSI controller on a PC.

Like for example, my old A2000 with PP&S 040/28 which had 32MB 32bit ram but no SCSI controller. The Z-II HD controller (GVP4008, GURUROM) can't DMA into the 32BIT ram, so if you have no 16bit FAST ram, its only other choice is chip ram which already has contention for everything else.

[Darrin]

I have an old 2091 with 2MB sat on a shelf.  From what I gather it is a pretty nasty old SCSI card and has some limitations.  Does the CPU card have a SCSI header on it (I don't think the A2630 does)?  If it does then connect your hard drive to that.

Also, I think your main RAM card was probably set to 4MB because the previous owner might have been using a Zorro graphics card or similar.  Try setting it to 6MB and hopefully you'll find you have 1MB Chip and 10MB Fast (2MB CPU card + 2MB SCSI card + 6MB RAM card).

Here's some tips from the Big Book of Amiga Hardware on the 2091:

The hard drive power connector on the board is not a reliable way to power a card-mounted hard drive. Use the connectors attached directly to the power supply instead.

The version 7 ROM fixes the following bugs in the 6.6 ROM
 - >1GB HD support
 - DMA reselection bug fixed
 - disconnect/reconnect performance improved a lot
 - Sync messages are handled
 - Error handling improved
 - Sync problems with Seagate/Syquest fixed
 - Removable media recognition fixed
 - Slow boot jumper now does a 15 second wait plus 300ms scan



If that information is correct, then your 6.6 ROMs might only allow you to use a CF card =< 1GB.

[k4lmp]

Wow, this board is GREAT!  Darrin, thanks for the tip.  I tried it and found out that the supra board had also came out during shipping.  Memory is kinda confusing, though:

via showconfig-

chip ram=1meg
fast ram=8meg

accelerator=2meg
scsi card=2meg
ram board (unidentified)=4meg  These two are on the one supra card.
ram board (unidentified)=2meg

Workbench shows:

9meg graphics, and 8meg other.

This kinda confuses me, as I see 10meg total, but the total chip plus fast is only showing a total of 9meg.  I probably just don't understand how  it works.  Could it be a version 2.05 issue, not supporting the 10meg total?

Thanks,
Jeff