A2000 video and network expansion

[sez11a]

Hi everyone,

Been lurking for a while, but now I definitely have a reason to post. My uncle worked for Commodore (actually, MOS Technology) back in the day, and a few weeks ago he gave me his old A2000, which had been sitting in his basement for a decade.

When he gave it to me, it had a 2.0 ROM, two floppies and two SCSI hard drives, and it uses a ROM switcher (a 1.3 ROM is in the other socket). It has a 68030 upgrade board and a flicker fixer, so I can plug it into a VGA monitor.

I have since upgraded the 2.0 ROM to a 3.1 ROM, and have removed one of the hard drives (it was going bad) and replaced it with an old server hard drive I had lying around in my basement. The other drive has his data on it, and I took it out of the machine to make sure the data is preserved while I try to get this thing upgraded and working.

Using my copy of AmigaForever, I created floppy disks from the 3.1 workbench images that come with that, and at the moment I'm posting this, I'm trying to get the new/old hard drive partitioned (it's taking a long time; it's a 9GB drive--circa 1998, if I remember correctly).

I'm in a little over my head, so I need some help. Is the 2320 flicker fixer something I can use with Picasso 96, or do I have to get something else? (I ask this question because I already went through the Green Amiga Alien Guide on my emulator as a dry run). There's also a missing card; presumably there was a network card in there, because I found a hosts file on my uncle's hard drive with a bunch of Commodore server names in it. Is there a network card I could stick in this thing? I'd love to get it on the Internet. What other cool stuff could I do with it?

Any help is greatly appreciated; thanks!

[freqmax]

Network can be accomplished with A2065, X-Surf, Adriane etc. Or via RS232 / parallell port (slow).
Surfing can be done with Amosaic.

How much RAM does it have?

[direktorn]

The 2320 is not a graphics card and therefore its not related to the graphics library. There are two main gfx librarys out there, p96 and cgx. If you mean the Picasso II/IV graphics cards the 2320 scandobler is not compatible with any of these but the Picasso IV has its own built in scandoubler.

[Tenacious]

Is the 2320 flicker fixer something I can use with Picasso 96, or do I have to get something else? (I ask this question because I already went through the Green Amiga Alien Guide on my emulator as a dry run).

If I understand your question, your Flicker Fixer/Scan Doubler is purely a hardware solution to convert from Amiga native 15kHz video (Television) to 31kHz video (VGA type).  The screen resolutions that were always available in ECS will still be the norm, the interlaced modes will simply be much easier on your eyes.    No software or drivers should be required.

Your 2000 is nicely equipped for most Amiga apps.  It can do many things on the net (email, etc) as is.  Many people would rather have a retargetable graphics card (this will require P96 or similar) for surfing, although, there are screen shots here of folks surfing with ECS (Mr.a500, etc).  Also, many would like a more modern browser than is available currently (iBrowse).

Did you catch some of the recent threads about updating OS3.1?

Oops - someone beat me to it.

[sez11a]

Thanks for the help! I was always a PC guy, so I'm having to learn about this platform. I'm teaching a class in the fall on the History of the Microcomputer, and I'm trying to get this machine into a state where I can show the kids an Amiga that was well-equipped for its day vs. a "home" Amiga (I also have an Amiga 500 from ebay).

So if I want better video I have to get a different card. I think I'll hold off on that for right now, because I have a more pressing issue:

It's looking like my Amiga doesn't like the SCSI drive I was trying to use; I left it trying to partition for 24 hours and it never got past 0%. I have various old IDE drives lying around; I'd love to use one of those, but I'm having trouble finding an IDE adapter for the Amiga 2000 at either AmigaKit or Vesalia. Google also isn't helping. Or am I barking up the wrong tree, and I should just stick with SCSI?

[freqmax]

What SCSI controller do you use? and what SCSI drive do you use? What other cards are installed?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Sitting in a basement for 10 years?  Check the battery ASAP, while doing all this other work on it!  Also might be neat to post that Commodore Hosts file online somewhere, with all the old CBM server names.  

[JimS]

It's looking like my Amiga doesn't like the SCSI drive I was trying to use; I left it trying to partition for 24 hours and it never got past 0%. I have various old IDE drives lying around; I'd love to use one of those, but I'm having trouble finding an IDE adapter for the Amiga 2000 at either AmigaKit or Vesalia. Google also isn't helping. Or am I barking up the wrong tree, and I should just stick with SCSI?

Most older Amigas will have problems with a 9GB drive. Depending on the controller card, the firmware may not even deal with drives bigger than 1GB. You might have to hunt around for new ROMS for the controller card.. assuming it was upgraded.  In any case, the OS won't deal with it either without some patches or workarounds, there's a 2GB limit on the OS itself. It's old, eh ;-)

[sez11a]

What SCSI controller do you use? and what SCSI drive do you use? What other cards are installed?

It's a Commodore A2091. Originally had a Quantum ProDrive mounted on the card itself. That's the drive that has my uncle's data (and the hosts file), and which I've taken out so that nothing can happen to the data while I mess around with the machine. The other cards are a flicker fixer (A2320), a 68030 processor card, and a memory expansion card. Everything in the machine is Commodore stuff, from what I can tell.

Sitting in a basement for 10 years?  Check the battery ASAP, while doing  all this other work on it!  Also might be neat to post that Commodore  Hosts file online somewhere, with all the old CBM server names.  

Yeah; I checked the battery. Small amount of corrosion on the battery contacts themselves, but hasn't spread anywhere. I'm terrible with a soldering iron, but within a month I will have a friend replace with one of these and a CR2032.

Once I get a clean HD installed and working in this system, I'll reconnect my uncle's hard drive and copy his data. I do remember one of the server names, though. It was enterprise.commodore.com :-)

Most older Amigas will have problems with a 9GB drive. Depending on the  controller card, the firmware may not even deal with drives bigger than  1GB.

That is very helpful to know. Somebody is selling this on ebay, but I'd much rather go IDE if I can. The Ebay drive is a 4GB drive; are you saying that it won't work either? Do you know of any IDE cards for this machine? I haven't been able to find one.

Thanks!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Do you know of any IDE cards for this machine? I haven't been able to find one.

Here's one IDE controller card for you but it looks like it's out of stock.  Might have to watch ebay or Amibay, or try contacting shops like AmigaKit or Versalia.

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=486

Another alternative would be one of those homebrew kits that sits underneath the CPU and are more designed for CF cards, but with an accelerator already in there I'm not sure if those would work.

Personally I'd recommend just picking up a cheap SCSI drive off ebay, maybe even something under 540MB, just to get yourself up and running.  Oh, and you can just snip that battery out with a pair of dykes, nothing to it!  

[JimS]

That is very helpful to know. Somebody is selling this on ebay, but I'd much rather go IDE if I can. The Ebay drive is a 4GB drive; are you saying that it won't work either? Do you know of any IDE cards for this machine? I haven't been able to find one.

Thanks!

Unless your 2091 has version 7 ROMS, that 4GB drive won't work either. I had a couple of 2GB drives salvaged from a Sun box that wouldn't work either. I couldn't even get them to work partitioned as 1GB drives. The 500MB drive from a mac external drive worked great.

IDE cards have been made... I don't see any still available either, at least on a quick search.

[Matt_H]

A little more re: battery. You need a diode to disable the charging circuit, otherwise bad things will happen with that non-rechargeable CR2032. A quick google search shows that rechargeable 2032s now exist, so you might be able to use those by installing just the coin socket. I put one of these in my A2000. It includes the socket and diode pre-installed on a small PCB.

In addition to removing the old battery via soldering iron or snips, you can also just rock the battery back and forth until metal fatigue causes it to give way.

Re: the firmware on the 2091, there should be 2 similar looking chips just next to the RAM chips/sockets and the DMAC chip. If they say 7.0, you're good to go for drives up to 4GB (and higher, with software patches, but best stick to a basic setup for now). Since this was a Commodore machine, hopefully they kept it up to date

The drive on ebay you linked to is overpriced. Just do a search for 50pin SCSI and you should get some cheaper results.

[freqmax]

Just remember to make sure it has Zorro-II interface

Anyway the A2091 SCSI controller seems to support 32-bit LBA (2 TB) according to the datasheet for the WD33C93B controller chip so it's likely a software issue.

That leaves the OS, so one possible solution is to create a harddisk image in UAE (emulator for Amiga) and then dump it to the harddisk using dd. That makes RDB and filesystem to mask the fact that the disk is huge right from start.

[magnetic]

Unless your 2091 has version 7 ROMS, that 4GB drive won't work either. I had a couple of 2GB drives salvaged from a Sun box that wouldn't work either. I couldn't even get them to work partitioned as 1GB drives. The 500MB drive from a mac external drive worked great.

IDE cards have been made... I don't see any still available either, at least on a quick search.

This is not entirely factual. An older rev rom a2091 can use 4gb drives from what iirc.

[Iggy]

Funny, I'm building up an A2000 too.An A3000 or A4000 might have more expandability, but the really good hardware is getting rare and stupid priced.
A2000 parts?
Still cheap.


At this point? 8mb of ram, 25 MHz '030, ECS, looking for a good RTG solution that I can feed the output of an Indivision through.
Wish I could go PPC.
Don't really care about AGA (uh, guys, ever bench that against a Voodoo3? trust me, you don't want to - you'll get depressed).