Expanded A2000 using NO SLOTS!

[Iggy]

Yep, the Kipper2k board definitely looks like the way to go.
When I stop playing with alternative ISAs long enough, I intend to install one in my A2000.

[TheMagicM]

Thanks for the pics.  Its a tight fit but definitely a cool project.

[psxphill]

It seems the GVP combo board disables the cpu socket AND everything in it so anything plugged in there is a fleeting memory unless I disable the GVP board which sort of defeats the purpose of having it in there.

Yeah, you shouldn't use 68000 socket expansions in an A2000. If you want to use them then you'd be better off with an A500.

[mechy]

I'm in the process of expanding an A2000 I picked up a while back.

So far, I've added a kipper2 8MB memory card.

Got a minimeg installed for 2MB chip RAM which gives me a total of 10MB!

Am considering using a cfide68K for the hard drive.  Now that mkl has figured out the IDE hard drive problem with the adapter, it'd be perfect.

Probably add a ROM switcher just for s&g's.

Anyone else ever try this?  I know it kind of defeats the purpose of the slots for the A2000, but it's still kinda cool looking!

Curtis

Why do all this to a machine that has a proper expansion bus curtis. You are way better off bang for buck using a gvp 030 board or some such. especially since 32bit ram is way better than 16bit ram,and onboard scsi is a plus. all the dongle type things are neet and all but generally not as reliable as a cpu slot accelerator in the long run. If you really want a bridgeboard,go for the C= 2088,2286 or 2386.. 286 boards are pretty easy to find and relatively cheap-they allow you to share amiga side cdroms,floppies and even use isa vga gfx cards and soundcards for the pee-cee side.. 2088's are semi useful maybe as a low end dos box lol.
Take advantage of the slots,it is what they are there for

[curtis]

Mechy, I was just trying to see what could be done!

Yeah, it's easier to use the slots, but sometimes you just have to try something to see if you can do it.  Sort of like the last words of a redneck, "Hold my beer and watch this!"

[mechy]

Mechy, I was just trying to see what could be done!

Yeah, it's easier to use the slots, but sometimes you just have to try something to see if you can do it.  Sort of like the last words of a redneck, "Hold my beer and watch this!"

Don't get me wrong, it does work. I have used a csa derringer 030/50 with 32MB ram in a 2000 long ago,which fits in the 68000 socket.The IVS vector 030/50 was also a great card which used the cpu slot with the same spec and decent scsi on board. it was a darn good card and probabaly better than the gvp stuff in some ways,72 pin simms was a plus on the derringer and the vector used standard 30pin ram!

We all enjoy hearing about your trials with this hardware also.

good luck

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

We all enjoy hearing about your trials with this hardware also.

Ditto this!  This thread is chock full of tips to help expand my own A2000 project!  

[motrucker]

I got some ideas too, for my A2000. An Indivision ECS will be on the way and I'll trade that for the Microway AGA 2000 it's been using.
I'll stay with the GVP 030 (unless I can find an 040 I can afford), But for now this thing doesn't miss a beat.

[curtis]

A quick update on progress so far.

Pulled the kipper2 memory expansion and the CFIDE68K since with the GVP 030 combo card they were just drawing electricity and not doing any good.  They'll find a new home in an A500 when I finish with this project.

Next was planning on dropping a 2286 bridgeboard upgraded to a 486SX, but suddenly remembered bridgeboards don't like more than 6MB of RAM and there is no way to configure the memory on the combo board to push 3 banks of memory to outside the Zorro map area, so it's out.

Finally installed a media reader with the compact flash/microdrive as the boot device.  Added a CD drive and turned it on.  No boot!

Checked the addresses on the media reader and CD.  For some strange reason the media reader has to be set as device 6 to boot.

It also appears that with the media reader set as device 6 any address I set the CD to will not allow the media reader to be bootable.  The system tried to boot from the CD.  So out the CD drive goes!  It'll be installed in an external case and plugged into that side of the SCSI chain.

Out or curiosity and to refresh my (obviously) failing memory, does SCSI automatically default to the lowest device number for booting?

So, anyway, I'm up to 1 card in the A2000 and I only plan to add one more card, the Thylacine I have laying around.

Curtis

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

What media card reader are you using? If it's one of the Mechware ones, I use them successfully in both my A500 (with external CD drive) and A2000 (with internal CD drive). You might want to check your termination jumper, otherwise you should have no problem running an internal CD. Using an external chassis to house the CD drive seems like a huge waste of space.
 
It shouldn't matter what your device ID is for booting, I boot from 0, or 1, or 5, or whatever. All that matters is that the devices are set to different ID's, terminated correctly, and show up as "bootable" when you open the Early Startup screen.
 
Also AFAIK most GVP accelerators map their memory into the 32-bit address space, so shouldn't conflict with the 16-bit address space limitations of the bridgeboard. Try running SysInfo, it should tell you if the memory is 32-bit or not.
 
Also, good luck with that Thylacine! It's a dog in my A2000, laggy and slow when it even detects a device at all (or doesn't freeze up), and this is with an '040. I've been meaning to try it with the original Thylacine software instead of Poseidon and see if that's any better, otherwise I'll be selling it on. Really seems to need A3000/A4000 ZIII bus.

[curtis]

It will be a couple of days before I have time to get the model number on the media reader.  Christmas time is a bit hectic!

However, IF I remember correctly, it's a SMC.  Just don't hold me to that.

Curtis

[curtis]

Okay, the media reader is the SCM PCD-50B.

Tried finding a manual for it online.  No joy.  Since it's the same thing that mechy sells, I may drop him a line and see if he's got a scanned copy I can get from him.

However, I also did some checking on the CD drive I was using, a TEAC CD-56S.  Come to find out, to DE-activate the terminator on it, you put the shorting block in place, NOT REMOVE IT!  Totally bass-ackwards of what I was expecting.

Since it's now bedtime for this tired old body of mine, I'm going to try it with the shorting block in place tomorrow after I get off work.  I strongly suspect I may have some interesting results to report...

Stand by to stand by!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I was going to suggest checking with Mechy! I was confused by mine at first, too (I have a pair of the 60 models) and he was able to set me straight.
 
If it helps you at all, on my A2000 system I've got the internal CD-R drive set as unit 0 (with no termination) and the card reader set as unit 1 (with termination jumper installed). It was just easier to route the cable this way, coming up from beneath the drive sled, hitting the CD and then the card reader. I use a few different cards but my default configuration is with a CF in the PCMCIA adapter (LUN 0) as my main OS3.9 system, a second CF in the CF slot as OS3.1 (backup), an SD card (LUN 3) installed and formatted as FAT95, and occasionally I've set up a partition on an xD card for backups, as well. The only slots I have yet to use are the SmartMedia and Memory Stick ones, LOL.
 
Trust me, it all works, but you may have to do a little bit of poking around or messing with Mountlists, especially if you want to do crazy things like have one of the drives set up running PFS and another running FAT95, and I can pretty much promise you there will be some cursing involved, but at the end of the day it all works pretty darn well. HDToolbox should detect the card reader as one device, and address all the slots as individual LUN's, just remember to check the "bootable" box and set your boot priority correct for whichever cards you install an OS on. :mickeymouse:

[curtis]

Well, turning the termination on the CD didn't help a bit.

Tried setting the ID on the CD from 1-5 with no change.

Tried switching places on the cable.  Didn't make a bit of difference.

No matter whether the CD is terminated or not, in any position on the cable, any address; if the CD is in the chain, the SCM is not recognized.

Oh, did notice one other odd thing.  With the CD in the SCSI chain, when I turn the computer on, I get 6 short flashes on the power light and a dark gray screen.

So, I'm really thinking about bowing to the invertible and taking the CD external.

However, to keep the space from going to waste, I am going to try and mount the 286 board in the computer and poke a microdrive reader in that space.

On the 286 board, I found a "Make It 486" adapter that swaps out the 286 processor for a Cyrix 486 clocking at double the clock speed.  That should be interesting to see how it runs.

Updates later...

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

No matter whether the CD is terminated or not, in any position on the cable, any address; if the CD is in the chain, the SCM is not recognized.
 
Oh, did notice one other odd thing. With the CD in the SCSI chain, when I turn the computer on, I get 6 short flashes on the power light and a dark gray screen.
 
So, I'm really thinking about bowing to the invertible and taking the CD external.

As another thought, it really sounds like there's some issue with your CD drive.  It's a standard 50-pin SCSI, correct?  Have you considered just trying with another drive?  It really sounds like yours may have some defect.  The card reader works fine without the CD drive in the chain, correct?  I've bought 50-pin SCSI drives on ebay before for under $5 each, shouldn't break the bank.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Actually dude, it's really messing with my OCD-thing to think that someone with an A2000 would have to use an external drive. I've got this here drive that I bought with a bulk lot of other Amiga items recently. As you can see from the pics it's mounted in an external housing, but internally it's just a regular 50-pin SCSI drive. I'd be glad to sell you this one for $5 plus shipping from VA. You could remove it from it's external chassis and try to mount it internally (in the chain with the card reader), and if that still fails just throw it back in it's external housing. Interested?
 
Note - I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but everything else I bought from that lot has worked fine. You may need a Centronics-connector termination block for external use, or the termination jumper on the drive may be enough... let me know and I'll try to dig one of those out and throw in with it, too, if you need one.