Amiga 1200 and 4000 expansion

Flink

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Hi people!

I've just got my "new" A1200s (2 of them) and A4000D!

Now, it's time to get down to business with them; they seriously need upgrades! :ninja:

I'll integrate these Amigas in two projects; the first is about a small Youth Culture and Entertainment Centre I'm building with my wife. The idea is to have a space were kids of all ages can come to study, learn, train, and enjoy technology in a healthy environment. The Amiga is one of the platforms were I can teach network, programming, electronics and microcontrollers. There will be Windowzes :shhh: , MacOS Xs :cool: , Linuxes :) , Amigas :D , Spectrums :eek: . One of the A1200 will be in this room. Kids nowadays need to learn Wintel machines are not the only platform under the sky... as many do. Any platform you think I should add?

The other project is a full-fledged Home Automation system. I want to have a small client app (where you can supervise, control and configure the system) running on the AmigaOS 3 (it communicates with the server using the Ethernet network of the house). Then I'll want the full client app running on AmigaOS 4, MorphOS and possibly AROS/Icaros, but that's another topic entirely! :roll:

On with the upgrades I'll need:

A1200:

It's stock at the moment, so I'm thinking about:

* An accelerator card. I'm trying to find some Isopropyl Alcohol to clean my Apollo and test it (for the first A1200). Then I'll have to find a 68030-based card to the other A1200 (with a decent price tag).

* A Compact Flash adapter to use as a hard drive. Any recommendations on the tipe of adapter and cards to use on the A1200? I'm thinking of getting this from Vesalia.

* A PCMCIA network card. These are harder to find. Any links?


A4000D:

* Try out my Warp Engine, my Retina and a friends' A3640 he was gathering dust.

* A Compact Flash adapter to use as a hard drive. For the A4000D, I'm thinking of getting this other adapter from Vesalia as well. What do you think? Do I need a special kind of card or will any do (speed and reliability-wise)?

* A network card. But X-Surfs are expensive... any cheaper alternatives?

Thanks a million for your help! :help: I've been without a working Amiga for way too long, but I'm a bit rusty and outdated... :p
 
I'm afraid that Zorro network solutions are too expensive, mate.

Even the slow A2065 is expensive for what it gives.
 
Adding networking to a big box Amiga in general is expensive. Because of this, I don't have networking installed in mine. I currently use a ZIP drive to transfer data but it is slow and CrossDOS does not support long file names. I'm going to use CompactFlash soon.

Networking on an A1200 is much cheaper. :)

Good luck in your search!

Heather
 
Hi,
here is my opinion would you could do:

A4000D:

* Try out my Warp Engine, my Retina and a friends' A3640 he was gathering dust.


* A Compact Flash adapter to use as a hard drive. For the A4000D, I'm thinking of getting this other adapter from Vesalia as well. What do you think? Do I need a special kind of card or will any do (speed and reliability-wise)?

Maybe you better use the integrated SCSI-2 controller on the Warp Engine board. In this case, you could use a scsi2ide adaptor for cheap ide devices.



* A network card. But X-Surfs are expensive... any cheaper alternatives?


Network cards are to expensive. You better buy a deneb USB interface card. Your advantage is to use mostly of all modern USB devices.


Hope I could help :)
 
Thanks!

How limited is the A4000D's and the A1200's IDE? From what I can gather, the A4000D's is PIO mode 0 only, and maximum disk size (as per Wikipedia) is 2.1GB. Is this true? Can someone point me to some Amiga IDE information links (connecting CF cards, limitations, formating, partitioning, filesystems, etc)?


Hi,

Maybe you better use the integrated SCSI-2 controller on the Warp Engine board. In this case, you could use a scsi2ide adaptor for cheap ide devices.

What's this scsi2ide adaptor? Do you have a link? I think I never saw such a beast... do I get a "better" IDE controller with that adapter than the one the A4000 already has?

Many thanks, and sorry for my (temporary) Amiga illiteracy! :roll:
 
You better buy a deneb USB interface card. Your advantage is to use mostly of all modern USB devices.
I actually think the Deneb USB is more expensive than the network card alone. It's true that you can use more devices with it but the cost of entry is definitely higher.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. :)

Take care,

Heather
 
Thanks!

How limited is the A4000D's and the A1200's IDE? From what I can gather, the A4000D's is PIO mode 0 only, and maximum disk size (as per Wikipedia) is 2.1GB. Is this true? Can someone point me to some Amiga IDE information links (connecting CF cards, limitations, formating, partitioning, filesystems, etc)?

If I rememebr correctly the 4000D had a 6GB drive in it. My workhorse 4000D has a 40GB. I've also got a backplate CF on the same IDE as the HD. With a SCSI CD drive on my Warp.

It is just that you need to be aware of different file limitations as for the size of the HD.

Dave G :cool:
 
What's this scsi2ide adaptor? Do you have a link? I think I never saw such a beast... do I get a "better" IDE controller with that adapter than the one the A4000 already has?
With a SCSI-2-IDE adaptor you can connect one ide drive to a SCSi Host System. SCSI is an intelligent system with an own controller cpu. meanwhile IDE systems are stupid and need help from the CPU. In fact of this, a IDE system has a higher CPU load. You can find this kind of adaptor at ebay.
/ If you prefer IDE, so you better buy a Fast-ATA controler to a max. of transferrate.

The difference between Deneb and X-Surf are round about 30€. I thin not to much for a totally flexible system. I am looking also for a Warp Engine. I think it is a really good and fast accelerator!

Sorry for my bad english... I hope you could figure it out what I mean :) FD
 
The Deneb is expensive in "raw money" quantity, but it gives lots more than a "simple" ethernet card:

* USB 2.0;

* Possibility of use its on-board flash ROM/RAM as a replacement for the Amiga ROM (you must have ROM 3.1 on the board to activate this feature) with enough space to ROM updates (OS3.9 with all fixes and patches at cold boot!);

* Use of cheap USB to Ethernet adaptors;

* All other features a true USB controller have: access to USB memory cards, USB memory readers, keyboards and mice (only in Workbench and applications, not in games).

Not bad at all!
 
Thanks!

How limited is the A4000D's and the A1200's IDE? From what I can gather, the A4000D's is PIO mode 0 only, and maximum disk size (as per Wikipedia) is 2.1GB. Is this true? Can someone point me to some Amiga IDE information links (connecting CF cards, limitations, formating, partitioning, filesystems, etc)?

The A4000, like other Amigas is limited to the filesystem being used. The standard FFS allows up to a 4GB HDD to be used. But if you swap this for a third part filesystem, SFS being recommended, you can use any size of HDD you like. I'm running a 60GB IDE drive in my A4000 at the moment.

The only limitation with any filesystem is to keep the initial boot (workbench) partition at 2GB of smaller as the Amiga still needs to initially access the HDD before it can load the third party devices to access the filesystem being used.

The A4000D's IDE port can also accept 2 devices, so you can connect up a CD/DVD drive and an HDD, compared to the A1200 only usable with 1, so limited to just a single HDD. But you can expand both to 4 devices with a third party buffered interface. With A1200 ones costing as little as £10 to do this.

However with the A4000 the built in IDE port is still fairly slow, so for the best solution an IDE expansion card is the better option for much faster data rates.
 
Minor corrections for what my friend Harrison wrote:

SFS (Smart File System), not SPS (which is a society who preserves original programs and games).

The limitation is both the file system and the Amiga IDE controller (SCSI.device is its name). What really needs patch is the SCSI.device, and that's why the boot partition must be in the first 4Gb of the drive and be minor than 2Gb (when FFS is the file system of it). More about this subject when asked.

I installed a DVD rewriter on my A1200 without any IDE splitter other than a simple cable from Vesalia. Problem can arise when not configuring properly both IDE devices.
 
Updated my post. I always type wrong words or acronyms when typing quickly.
 
Thanks for your replies!

My idea is to use a CF adapter on the A4000D to prepare CFs for the A1200s. If I get my Warp Engine running again, I'll use it's SCSI interface and my original HD as the boot device. Then, I'll stick an CF adapter and the CDROM on the mobo IDE.

As for the network, the Deneb is tempting, but for now I think I'll try to keep it simple (and cheaper) by getting an X-Surf (or a second-hand card if I can get it for half the price of the X-Surf). Since it already has another IDE port, I'll probably have another independent IDE interface to use with CF adapters (or other solid state media). :p

A quick question: do you note a significant difference when using a CF adapter in lieu of a 3.5 inch HD (using the mobo IDE interface) on both the A4000 and A1200?

Thanks!

---------- Post added at 00:31 ---------- Previous post was at 00:22 ----------

Just another quick question: I have connected my Retina BLT Z3 in two different ZorroIII slots of the A4000D, but the card does not appear listed on the "Expansion Board Diagnostic" on the boot menu, neither is it listed when running "Show Config"... should it be?

I can't find my Workbench backup CDs to grab the Retina's software and test it, but I've got a backup on my Mac and will try it out when I get some free time.

Thanks again!
 
<SNIP>
A quick question: do you note a significant difference when using a CF adapter in lieu of a 3.5 inch HD (using the mobo IDE interface) on both the A4000 and A1200?<SNIP²>

Almost instant boot and less time to programs loadings.
 
The A4000D's IDE port can also accept 2 devices, so you can connect up a CD/DVD drive and an HDD, compared to the A1200 only usable with 1, so limited to just a single HDD.
That's incorrect .... with the correct cable, you can have 2 devices on the A1200's IDE controller (as long as you set one to Master and one to Slave)
I used to do this before I got my IDEfix97 adaptor. I had 2.5" HDD and a CD-ROM drive on the same cable (HDD was Master and CD-ROM was Slave)
 
Thanks people!

I've spent a couple more minutes with my "brand new" Amiga 4000D. It's as beautifull as I imagined! I've spent a significant time of my childhood messing around with Amigas, connecting CD drives to the A1200, setting up my WarpEngine and a friend's CyberStormPPC on my A4000, along with their SCSI chains... It was fun! (Although nowadays I remember very little about the workarounds and software we used...)

Then I powered it up and seconds later I was moving (fluidly) the mouse around the Workbench screen. I always knew the AmigaOS was very advanced for it's time, but I'm really amazed at what the Amiga could do back then... OK, there is a lot I take for granted on MacOS X today, but looking back now AmigaOS was really something great... I can't really describe the feeling, but it's like the OS was much more advanced than the hardware it was running on (wich was already advanced in it's time as well).

It reminded me of the amazement I felt when I saw the Amiga for the first time, a colorful, high-resolution graphic system, like nothing I ever saw! Then I was amazed again by it's preemptive multitasking nature, the lightness of it all when in use... which really gave it the sense of being something from the future. The platform attracted lots of smart people, and no wonder. :cool:

This is one of the reasons I so want to use an Amiga-based system on my present home automation project; I need a pretty, quick and nimble, resource- and power-efficient OS to work with, preferably associated with reliable, low-power hardware. If AmigaOS4 or MorphOS have have inherited these qualities (I still haven't tested any of them), I've got some fun testing times coming up... :nod:

Sorry for the daydreaming! Back to reality:

I've connected and disconnected the Retina and cleaned it up, but it still isn't listed on the boot menu. :unsure: I've just prepared two floppies to decompress the (DMS) Retina software disk, and will try this afternoon to instal and test the software. Hope it works, I'd love to see my Retina working again...
 
I've copied the Retina-23.dms file over to the Amiga, and tried several utilities to decompress the file back to disk... to no avail. :(

I've used xdms, dms11, dmsgui, dmsII, etc, all from Aminet. The DMS comand line utility seems to write to disk, but when the writing is over the disk is exactly as it was?! :blink:

Can someone decompress the thing and put the files somewhere online so that I can download them? Or mail them to me in a ZIP file or something? Please? :help:

Thanks!
 
Oscar

I've sent you an email to the same address as your paypal.

I've got a spare daughter card I could lend you if you want to try that?

Dave G :cool:
 
Thanks Dave.

Actually, I am having trouble with the internal floppy drive. I've got an external Cumana drive that came with one of my A1200s, tried it and bingo, the disks work, I've already decompressed the Retina DMS and the ClassicWB boot ADF disks. So something's fishy with the internal drive, I'll try to see if there is a cable loose. Some disks written by the Cumana cannot be read by the internal drive, but at least one disk can be read by both. Weird...

I tried the Retina tools, by the card is definitely not seen by the system. The detect tool says no card installed, and the available Retina memory tool triggers a "yellow guru". The graphics chip gets warm, so it should be powered.

About the daughtercard, let me try a bit more. At least until the next weekend I should be able to dedicate a few minutes to my Amigas.

Thanks!
 
Oscar

Although it was well packed it could be that the trip has shaken it up a bit :(

Good luck and keep me informed.

Dave G :cool:
 
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