OK - how much stuff did you pack into an Amiga ?

slaz

New member
Joined
May 19, 2010
Posts
382
Country
UK
Region
London
No pictures I'm afraid - well it was >20 years ago :)

I built up a 2000 for some professional animator folk .... not all at once of course, but by the end it contained :-

GVP 030 + SCSI card (CPU slot)
Flicker Fixer (Video slot)
DKB Megachip (Agnus)
Picasso card (can't remember which version) (Zorro slot)
GVP I/O extender (Zorro slot)
AD516 audio card (Zorro slot)
PAR (Zorro slot)
TBC for PAR (8-bit ISA slot)
AmigaDOS SCSI HD in 3.5 bay next to floppy
PAR IDE drive in 5.25 bay with 3.5 adaptor

Think thats it :)

The internal cabling was a feckin 'mare :) .... and you should a seen the cabling round the back !!
Its amazing the PSU coped OK really.

Wish I'd have had pics of it ....


So come on then - can anyone beat that ? :)
 
Not with an Amiga but

:eek:fftopic:

My UK101 had that much added to it I had to build a new case to hold it all. I wish I hadn't got rid of it now.

Extra RAM
Colour Board
Sound Kit
Speech Board
PAR Interface
Screen Enhancement Board
Numerous Additional ROMs
Twin Joysticks
Floppy Disc Interface
 
Can't beat that but my A2000 currently contains:

1x floppy, 1x gotek
Internal floppy switch board
Quadbios board
Megachip
A2630 accelerator
GVP Impact II with IBM hard drive mounted to it
Tandem IDE card, plus CFlash slot backplate
ASDG GPIB card for Sharp scanner
A2058 RAM card
A2320 scandoubler/flicker fixer
 
My A4000T is pretty loaded.
All slots are filled.

WarpEngine4040/128 MB
Video toaster 4000
Cybervision64/3d w/scan doubler
X-Surf 100 w/RapidRoad USB
YCP-100 (svideo inputs for Toaster/Flyer)
Video Flyer

I have a slim DVD drive and IDE CF card drive in one 5.25" bay, a 3.5" multicard format USB reader and two 2.5" SSD drives in another 5.25" bay and a 3.5" HD floppy drive and two more 2.5" SSD drives in the third 5.25" bay.

Each SSD drive is connected to an ACard IDE > SCSI adapter. One SSD is IDE so ACard to SCSI cable to WarpEngine. The other three SSD drives are SATA and have a SATA > IDE adapter between the drive and ACards which then cable to the Video Flyer.

Internal cabling is a nightmare as I needed a lot more power connectors than available so I have quite a few molex power splitters as well.
 
Last edited:
You guys need to see what Phipscube & Mfilos got inside their A1200's lol
 
could on multiple amigas,but cant be bothered to type it all out
and still have them


anyway,nice etup
 
Well - there's highly impressive stuff done to 1200's there - yes ..... but thats really more in the realm of hacks - which in many ways is more impressive/difficult than my efforts. Building that mad A2000 was largely just plugging in lots of cards and stuff, and getting the s/w to talk to it all. It _did_ all work - albeit a bit slow and clunky at times.
But that machine was doing a real job of _work_ - so at times I was under pressure to get things working, fix problems etc. ..... there were production deadlines involved.

Latterly - the 2000 was joined by a 1200/030/internal HD alongside it, as the 2000's ECS video out was no longer in use to any real extent. The 1200 was now the one connected up with a top-end genlocker (the same G2 VC3 I have currently listed for sale :) ) .... as the AGA could do certain useful things. Now that was cool, but it necessitated the PAR-NET (parallel port pseudo network) between 2000 and 1200 .... and that was pretty flaky.

Their animation techniques evolved, and one guy learned Lightwave 3D - which became the primary imaging tool really - and thats where the DPS PAR came in - outputting to £20k's worth of Betacam SP video recorder sitting next to it :)

Wasn't too long before Lightwave 3D got onto Windows platform though, and we started the move over to PCs/Windows NT. I put together their first PC - with a DPS Perception sub-system. TBH, a Pentium 166 absolutely smoked the Amiga when it came to real-time painting work (in TV Paint) and 3D animation modelling - and rendering of course.
Soon after the whole Amiga setup was relegated to the junk cupboard :-/ .... and much later I inherited some of it.

[/ramble off]

Anyway - lots of respect to the peeps carrying on with the myriad hacks etc. to Amiga platform - most of it well beyond my skill/knowledge level.

I currently have a 2000 in my house (long story) - so I'm in a bit of a time warp with it :) ...... I'm feeling very ambivalent about where to go with it though. Still got some love for Amiga :) .... I might write a little piece about that actually.
 
In all fairness - cabling inside a big box Amiga is easy; especially if you make your own cables to your own specifications. I regularly did that with any computer I was working on to keep things tidy and the air flowing.

I got shot of a whole bunch of 2000's back in the late 90's that were dumped by a local school - I'd like to think they're in population somewhere, but big box Amiga's never really felt "Amiga" to me :)

It's far easier to expand an A1200 if you stick it in a tower, but that feels sooooo wrong to me lol
 
In all fairness - cabling inside a big box Amiga is easy

Well yeah you're right really - but dealing with it under time pressure is a bit different. Coupla times I remember stripping down the 2000 to get access to something or other, then after re-assembling it I'd forgotten something, and had to strip it all out again to fit a couple of screws etc. ..... with a couple of animators (with a dealine to meet) drumming their fingers on the table :)

I got shot of a whole bunch of 2000's back in the late 90's that were dumped by a local school - I'd like to think they're in population somewhere, but big box Amiga's never really felt "Amiga" to me :)

It's far easier to expand an A1200 if you stick it in a tower, but that feels sooooo wrong to me lol

OK - well know what you mean .... but that was what was at the heart of Commodore's "identity crisis" re the Amiga.
Commodore (unlike Apple) was run by grey men in suits and accountants etc. - they were making money out of selling squillions of Amiga 500's by marketing them as games consoles, whereas there was also major desires (from inside and outside) to develop the Amiga as a "workstation" machine .... it had something of a niche market in the video graphics domain at the time - but the suits were resisting spending on the staff/development work reqd. to really do that. If C= had got the AAA chipset up and running and into market sooner, it could have drastically affected things, and got Amiga into an entirely different place.

I remember a few times discussing Amiga with corporate types (as "serious" video instrument) - and hearing "Amiga ???? Uh ? My 12-year-old got one for Xmas to play games !!"
 
I know what you're saying and I agree, I get the whole time pressure thing every now and then myself being an Infrastructure Specialist, especially when network hardware decides to die and affect production systems.

Commodore was mismanaged to death unfortunatley by the parent company in the US, although Newtek managed to help market the big box jobbies as serious video editing machines; I think Central TV (now ITV) was using some of them for a while :)
 
Well the Newtek Video Toaster never made it to a PAL version, so I doubt if was ever used in this country to any degree. Also I don't think the Toaster ever did proper CAV (component analogue video, aka YUV) which was the standard for Betacam SP (industry standard for broadcast and "serious" non-broadcast video at the time)..

Amigas did get used in various minor ways in broadcast telly (I actually did about 30 seconds of DPaint animation myself which was broadcast on Channel 4 :) ) ..... but if we'd had full-on 24-bit imaging - natively - on Amiga (with higher bandwidth custom chips and good CPU up-ticks) by around 1993/1994 - well it could easily have made inroads into the Quantel/Aston marketplaces, as - for sure the s/w developers were there ready and waiting.
 
Nope they were NTSC only, but timebase converter cards were available (for mega money), although you'd need two as minimum - one to convert the output and a second to convert the input. There was an issue of Amiga Format that covered it - or one of the magazines at least.
 
On a late Friday evening, after the company Christmas party (I think it was December 1991), I go back to the office with my boss. You see, there was a raffle among all the techs (I missed the announcement - I was part of the setup crew for the party and left early) - Everyone was going to get an A3000 in the tech support department, and one was going to get an A3000T! Nobody had won it yet, and it was down to him and I. I immediately replied to the boss when he informed me of this that he should just give it to me - I was going to win it.... (yeah, right...)

So we go back. He walks into his office, grabs his coffee cup and shows me it's contents. It's got 2 folded pieces of paper. He says, "One has a T written on it." I look him in the eyes, reach in without looking away from his gaze, grab a folded piece, and open it, facing him. Would you believe....it had the 'T' on it.... :LOL:

Weeks and months later, I've been on a roll to get this thing well outfitted. It eventually gets:

GVP G-Force 68040/8MB/40Mhz (yep, the one with 40ns RAM - this was an engineering prototype - never sold @ 40Mhz, only 33Mhz - yup, it was fast)
16MB Motherboard RAM
GVP HC8/6MB (because C= SCSI wasn't that great for removable media drives)
GVP I/O Extender
Hydra Systems Ethernet
A2386 Bridgecard with 4MB RAM
Trident ISA VGA
3Com 3C509 ISA (DR DOS/Netware IPX stack)
AT ISA Multi I/O (IDE, Serial, Parallel)
Various Quantum & Maxtor SCSI HDs of the 200MB-500MB range off the on board SCSI
Ricoh 50MB SCSI removable cartridge (on the GVP SCSI)
SCSI CDROM (on the GVP SCSI)
20MB IDE HD (PC)
USR V.Everything (we used my modem, from a USR Sysop deal) off the I/O Extender
The GVP BBS ran 24/7/365 on MEBBS (I was a beta tester) and had FIDONet (GVP Support Echo)
Kickstart 2.04/Workbench 2.1

It was my daily work system. I did Tech Support as I needed to on the Amiga side (we had a pier to pier Amiga network, with docs and details on products). We had a custom call tracking interface made from Magic PC (DOS) on the PC side, or the order-entry network-based programs (over Netware 3) if something needed to be shipped out.

I miss that system. Couldn't take it with me...


These days, I'm working on re-outfitting my A4000T and others...

TekMagic (ultrasound) 68060/64MB/60Mhz
16MB/2MB on the motherboard
X-Surf 10/100 with RR USB
2x 256MB Zorro II RAM
GVP Spectrum 28/24 2MB, Picasso96 RTG
Kickstart 3.1 (accelerator has 060 FPU fix code native)
2GB IDE DOM (for now)
IDE DVD (not connected at the moment)
Future:
I have a Golden Gate 386/16MB w/FPU on the way, with ISA Video. I'm going to have to see what other PC cards I have in storage...
Overclock the '060 to 66Mhz, possibly higher, is on the list.
PIO2 GAL upgrade kit in hand, need to implement.
1MB Kickstart ROMY components also in hand to install.

If stacking/hacking counts:
A1000 NTSC
Kickstart 2.05/3.1 Switcher (replacement for WCS)
MKL IDE68K w/2GB IDE DOM (dual partitions)
Insider 1000 1.5MB (C00000+ 1,5MB Fast) custom lowered to stack the MKL IDE and RAM
MKL 8MB Under CPU Module
Working on a 14Mhz hack, possibly with RAM - in the design phase at the moment.
(Yep, that's a 10MB A1000)
1x PLIP Box (modified for A1000)

A500 Rev 6a
2MB Chip on motherboard (no wires/no socket PCBs)
Trapdoor clock-only module
GVP HD8/8MB+SCSI2SD V5, 8GB SD module
Kickstart 2.05

A1200
GVP JAWS-II 68030/50Mhz/32MB
4GB CF-IDE (AmigaKit)
Kickstart 3.1
3Com 3C589 PCMCIA LAN
(I have the JAWS SCSI module, not currently installed)

Plus 4x A2000's (two need repair) and 2x A3000Ds (each 16MB, one DRAM, one SCRAM) which are currently my test beds.

A3640 v3.1 updated to a 68060
(I have the parts to transfer it to a Hertel A3640 v3.3 PCB, and to build a second as a Hertel A3660 - spare time...)
I've made an A2000 PP&S 040/28Mhz/32MB into a 68060/56Mhz.
A GVP A2000 68040/33Mhz/64MB will soon follow to '060 land and likely overclock.
A fully populated G-Force 68030/50Mhz/16MB
I have an MNT VA2000 I need to put in one of those systems once done with testing.
Various other network cards (C= 2065, 2x Hydra)
2x GVP HC8/8MB
1x A2091/2MB
1x GVP Series II HC
1x GVP Impact HC2
1x GVP I/O Extender
Microway Flicker-Fixer
A couple of Kickstart switcher modules
A half dozen Gotek USB
Aztek Monster CF (4MB)
Aztek Monster SATA (80GB SSD)
SCSI2SD v6 (8GB)
Quite a number of old SCSI HDs in the 50-320MB range.
PLIP Box Deluxe
Roadshow IP stack (just arrived - probably headed to the A4000T)
v3 (ADF for emergency boots, PLIP network backups), v4 of AMITCP (for those with NICs always in)

I've got various SCART adapters to HDMI and also my original C= 1084, and a few others around.

I've got a Netgear NAS with 5.5TB here, hence all the network gear in the mix.
 
Last edited:
[the back-in-the-day 3000T machine]

Thats alot of stuff :)
I set up 3000T once or twice, but can't remember now - how many ISA slots did it have ? With a bridgeboard fitted, is there a way to view image files created on Amiga side to be displayed on the PC side - directly ? Just curious - as when I had my 3000D I was (attempting to) get my head around one or two 3-D modelling/animation programs but (until I later had a PAR on loan) I had to render at PAL SQP TV resolution of 768x576 24-bit - usually .tga files I think .... then resize with AdPro, then serial-link over to a 386PC I had - fitted with a dirt cheap Cirrus Logic chipset ISA 1MB graphics card (which could display 24-bit @ 640 x 480) .... was a bit hilarious really :) But it always made me think "Why the hell can't we have 24-bit graphics on the Amiga without taking out a mortgage ?" ..... the ISA graphics card cost about 20 uk pounds at the time :) - whereas the Amiga cards were 600-700-800 or more :-/

What was the Amiga peer-peer network running on ? Ethernet ? Did you have Amigas running A/UX ?

FidoNET - Aaaaaah - now there's a thing. I spent _way_ too much time faffing around on Fido. Its not impossible I would have been in contact with you back then !! Between about 1990-1992 ?
 
Both my big box Amigas are pretty busy:

A4000:
64MB motherboard fast ram
Cyberstorm Mk2 66Mhz Rev 6 68060, 128MB ram
Mediator 4000Di V3
Voodoo 3 3000 (PCI)
FX750 G3 950Mhz PPC + 384MB ram (PCI)
Deneb USB (Zorro III)
ZorRam 256MB (Zorro III)
Indivision AGA
Soundblaster 128 (PCI)
Prisma Megamix (Zorro II)
Ratte Switch
Realtek 8139 Ethernet NIC (PCI)
CyberSCSI Module
Acard AEC 7720UW SCSI to IDE bridge
8GB IDE SD card
32 GB USB Drive
DVD-RW

Left.jpg

A3000:
16MB motherboard ram
Warp Engine with 66Mhz 68060, 64MB
Cybervision 64 4MB graphics card (Zorro III)
Vortex GoldenGate 486SXLC 66Mhz +FPU + 16MB ram + 512MB DOM (Zorro II and ISA)
ATI Mach64 2MB VGA card (ISA)
Deneb USB (Zorro III)
SCSI2SD V6 + 16GB SD Card
Acard AEC 7720UW SCSI to IDE bridge + 8GB CF
16GB USB Drive
 
Last edited:
ISA slot count in the A3000T was 4x 16-bit ISA, with 2x overlap on Z2/3. The A4000T has 3x ISA/16 overlap (other two Z2/3 are video slot overlap).

Amiga P2P was via the HydraNet software, on Thinnet or an AUI box for twisted pair, IPX-like packet communications. With software tools, you mounted other system's volumes of like type. There was NO Security. Remote Run capability: The Benchquake or WBMelt tools run on an unsuspecting user, they might lose their mind.

I didn't know of a direct image transfer method. Best way at the time to swap files across systems was via floppy/CrossDOS. Nowadays I'd use SMBFS and the IP stack with a network share (I have a NAS at home).

If one were to run Unix on the Amiga, the Ameristar/A2065 I believe is the supported board & chip set. 68K Linux/BSD might also support others. I know as a test at the time they swapped out an A2630 and put an A3001 (A3033) w/8MB plus the C= Unix boot ROMs on the A3001 card in an already installed Amiga Unix system. Ran smoother of course with more RAM and a higher CPU clock.

As for FidoNet, I was in the northeast PA in the later 1980's area until late 1989, and then in King of Prussia, PA (@ GVP) through summer 1993, and Eastern PA in general for the rest of the 1990's. I also worked closely with the Philadelphia Amiga User Group Sysop Joe Mollica (RIP @2007 or so) who also ran a 5-line MEBBS system on the A2000 G-Force 68040/33 and 2 I/O extenders. It swallowed the data rush of week-long satellite echo outages when they happened without even a blink. In 1990-1992 era, I would have been active on the GVP Echo and the main Amiga message group(s).


[the back-in-the-day 3000T machine]

Thats alot of stuff :)
I set up 3000T once or twice, but can't remember now - how many ISA slots did it have ? With a bridgeboard fitted, is there a way to view image files created on Amiga side to be displayed on the PC side - directly ? Just curious - as when I had my 3000D I was (attempting to) get my head around one or two 3-D modelling/animation programs but (until I later had a PAR on loan) I had to render at PAL SQP TV resolution of 768x576 24-bit - usually .tga files I think .... then resize with AdPro, then serial-link over to a 386PC I had - fitted with a dirt cheap Cirrus Logic chipset ISA 1MB graphics card (which could display 24-bit @ 640 x 480) .... was a bit hilarious really :) But it always made me think "Why the hell can't we have 24-bit graphics on the Amiga without taking out a mortgage ?" ..... the ISA graphics card cost about 20 uk pounds at the time :) - whereas the Amiga cards were 600-700-800 or more :-/

What was the Amiga peer-peer network running on ? Ethernet ? Did you have Amigas running A/UX ?

FidoNET - Aaaaaah - now there's a thing. I spent _way_ too much time faffing around on Fido. Its not impossible I would have been in contact with you back then !! Between about 1990-1992 ?
 
Back
Top Bottom