#Upgrade or die?
14 messages in this thread
OK folks, I have been an Amiga enthusiast for *years* — I still have a
functioning A1K in my office, as well as an A2K and a non functioning 68020
(C=) board from when it *was* an A2500. AmigaDOS 1.3.2 (not certain about the
.2 <g>) running on either one.
I held back on any further upgrades when I decided to spend my money on IBeM
compatible hardware for my work (network engineering) rather than on a hobbyist
platform that was not gaining any acceptance despite its obvious superiority
and because of the company's obvious incompetence / possible (alleged)
criminality.
Now that Escom has won (it *is* in the bag isn't it? — no more two more weeks
finally?) If I wanted to invest $500 dollars to make at least one of the
machines viable for future use — what would be the sage recommendations of the
local cognoscenti for upgrades.
In particular, I am looking at OS versions, and any hardware needed to support
them.
Thanks in advance,
–Gabe
You want to get OS3.1 for your A2000.
Maybe upgrade it to ECS if it is not already, unless you buy a 24bit video
board.
An accelerator+ram+scsi2 board would be good, with as much ram/disk and
processor power as you can afford.
Unfortunately I don't know of too many low end upgrades, I only drool over the
expensive ones.
But get the OS3.1 a hard drive (preferably SCSI or SCSI2 and if you
You might be able to get an 020 or 030 pretty cheap I suppose though.
Other big problem is that I cannot remember the exchange rate, so I cannot
quite think how much 500 dollars is :).
OS3.1 will work on any hardware, even an a1000 if you can get it to fit.
Everthing else is to make the machine "nice" to use. I remember using floppies,
uurgh.
Phill
Yeah, I drool over the expensive ones, too. But there are a few other money
suckers in my life these days — home, wife, two children, my own network
engineer certifications, etc. etc. 500 bucks is about the limit.
The upgrade to OS3.1 sounds like where I want to go based on my readings/
lurkings here, but the big question still remains — how much? And also how
difficult?
–Gabe
Not difficult, really. I had no problem at all. Only the weird thing about
"syncronous scsi transfers" but there's nothing to care about that. 3.1 is the
same as 2.1… but clearly better 😎 It's faster, more mature, well, try it,
you won't regret! And don't bend any pin when installing the ROMs!
Good luck
And don't forget to make a backup first. You will need it. But for good. My HD
transfer rate changed from 1100 to 1900 kb per second (SysInfo dixit) after
formating the partitions with "directory cache" option. But save your 2.05
disks. The speech ability is not in 3.1
Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80
>…olive oil is the way to go.<
I fried my 3.1 ROM the other day, good job I also had a soft kick version handy
:). I was trying to find a fault with my keyboard, the ctrl-amiga-amiga does
not reboot my machine any more. I can reset the machine by grounding the reset
pin on the keyboard connector but the keyboard won't pull it itself. If I
hadn't fiddled though I would still have had the ROM working and wouldn't have
damaged my ROM socket on the motherboard (I think it's OK but the 3.1 ROM
doesn't work, could be the motherboard the socket or the ROM 🙁 ).
phill
I'm truly sorry to hear that, Phillip. I had a good experience and you had a
really bad one! Sorry again.
Maybe you can prevent others about what one should avoid when installing 3.1.
I wish you good luck.
Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80
>…olive oil is the way to go.<
Try not to force the chip in, I bent the pins badly when I got angry. The
motherboard socket also took a long time to straighten out. I had it working,
that is what is annoying. I don't know whether static can screw a ROM. Maybe
someone could shed light on why my ROM nolonger works.
Phill
Any tips on installing 3.1 ROMs on an A1200. A1200 just stares at me in blank,
while the A4000 boots right up w/3.1. I don't get it. Same roms, different
machines, different results. Any idea what could be causing this?
Thanks…
I think 1200 ROMs are not the same as 4000's. The 4000 has no PCMCIA slot. You
need a 1200 set.
Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80
>…olive oil is the way to go.<
Why then do all of the adverts state 3.1 for the 1200/4000? When I ordered
them, I did mention to my source that Expert services should ship the 1200
version if there is a difference. I am also aware that installing 3.1 will void
the use of my PCMCIA slot, all magazine adverts state this. I'll have to
investigate further. Thanks for your hhelp Rafa. 🙂
$500 plus what you could get from selling your machines would buy a pretty good
used A3000. That's what I'd do.
-Richard
Do you think I could realistically get *anything* for an A1000?
How much for the A2000?
Where would I buy an A3000 these days?
I think that upgrading in a minor but effective manner is what I would *like*
to do. That should keep cost down and usability up.
That's the idea, anyhow…
–Gabester
If you sold your A1000 to the right person you might, something is only worth
what someone else is prepared to pay. A1000 for nostalgia wouldn't interest me
(unless it was pretty cheap), but to someone it could be put into use.
A2000's are better as you can put in faster processors and have 24 bit display
boards, making the machine quite attractive.
A3000s will only be second hand though.
Phill
It seems like you could get 300 to 400 bucks for the 1000 and 2000. Add to that
the $500 you were going to spend to upgrade and you're in the ballpark of the
3000 listed in message #195512 at $1000. Think of what it would cost to add all
of these features to your present machines: 2 meg chip ram, 16 megs 32 bit fast
ram, deinterlacer, 3.1 roms, SCSI bus, SCSI hard drive, an 030 cpu at 25mhz,
and an fpu. This is a very usable machine.
-Richard