Amibay is all about the pr0n, it really is. We do love it so. So, here's a photo diary of my current miggy project. As you can guess from the title, it's an A4000 this time. (And for those who missed them: Hardware Pr0n: An Amiga 2000 Story, Hardware Pr0n II: An Amiga 3000 Story)
Part 1: Let's begin at the beginning
We begin with a plain old A4000 motherboard. This is a Rev. C with an A3630 CPU card and 2+16MB Fast RAM. I acquired the CPU card from the rather splendid Kin Hell and the board from my good friend Chiark as faulty and dispatched it to Castellen in NZ to get it fully refurbished. Anthony worked his magic and I was returned a good-as-new A4000 board. He also de-soldered the Super Buster-9 and fitted a socket instead. You will notice that said Super Buster-9 is missing, expect it to appear soon in Hardware Pr0n thread near you!
The lovely people at Amigakit dispatched me some goodies last week, including (amongst other things) a shiny Super Buster-11 and an IDE terminator. I haven't decided whether I'm gonna use the on-board IDE for anything, but having a terminator while testing is an absolute godsend!
Now all it needs is a home. I had originally intended to mod an ATX tower case, but then the incredibly generous Fizzy offered up this rather spiffing Micronik A4000 aftermarket tower in the Amibay recycling bin and I just had to have it!
POWER! I don't have an A4000 power supply, but fortunately this case allows me to fit a standard ATX supply. Once more Kin Hell comes to the rescue with an Elbox ATX-to-A4000 PSU converter. A quick mod to the power button on the front of the case to remove the latching and we have a proper ATX-esque solution to powering the old girl.
Now these I'm proud of. I acquired a couple of Chinon FB-357A high density drives, one from Kin Hell and the other from someone on eBay. The eBay one was yellowed horribly and whilst Charlie's was beautifully clean, it sadly had a crack down the fascia. In another place and time I'd also bought a couple of NOS FB-354 drives from Jon Hare. Those drives were modded to fit in an A500 and an A3000 and are working an absolute treat, but I was left with these nifty little 5.25" mounting brackets for Chinon 30mm drives. Some further bodgery later and the two 357As are now in pristine condition and fit perfectly into a 5.25" drive bay.
At this point, I think it's time for a test. I plug it all in, take a deep breath, hold it in and hit the 'on' button. RESULT! We do love the purple begging screen. I guess we should give it a disk...
No hardware pr0n thread is complete without some gratuitious Sysinfo shots, and this thread is no exception. The 25MHz 68030 gives us a modest 4.38 MIPS/4204 Dhrystones, almost identical to my A3000 (4.39 MIPS/4207 Dhrystones), both of which are 10% less than the Sysinfo A3000 rating. One assumes that if there were a way to fit Static Column RAM into an A4000, you'd be able to use the CPU in burst mode for that extra 10%
Oh, and just a quick shot of Showconf as well. AGA 030 with 2+16MB. A nice little starter A4000. I apologise for the TV shots, for ease-of-setup, I pinched the kitchen telly and plugged the miggy in via SCART. Eventually we'll have a full-on RTG/Scandoubler solution, but for testing purposes, this is the easiest way to check the old girl works!
Part 2 will be with you shortly!
Part 1: Let's begin at the beginning
We begin with a plain old A4000 motherboard. This is a Rev. C with an A3630 CPU card and 2+16MB Fast RAM. I acquired the CPU card from the rather splendid Kin Hell and the board from my good friend Chiark as faulty and dispatched it to Castellen in NZ to get it fully refurbished. Anthony worked his magic and I was returned a good-as-new A4000 board. He also de-soldered the Super Buster-9 and fitted a socket instead. You will notice that said Super Buster-9 is missing, expect it to appear soon in Hardware Pr0n thread near you!
The lovely people at Amigakit dispatched me some goodies last week, including (amongst other things) a shiny Super Buster-11 and an IDE terminator. I haven't decided whether I'm gonna use the on-board IDE for anything, but having a terminator while testing is an absolute godsend!
Now all it needs is a home. I had originally intended to mod an ATX tower case, but then the incredibly generous Fizzy offered up this rather spiffing Micronik A4000 aftermarket tower in the Amibay recycling bin and I just had to have it!
POWER! I don't have an A4000 power supply, but fortunately this case allows me to fit a standard ATX supply. Once more Kin Hell comes to the rescue with an Elbox ATX-to-A4000 PSU converter. A quick mod to the power button on the front of the case to remove the latching and we have a proper ATX-esque solution to powering the old girl.
Now these I'm proud of. I acquired a couple of Chinon FB-357A high density drives, one from Kin Hell and the other from someone on eBay. The eBay one was yellowed horribly and whilst Charlie's was beautifully clean, it sadly had a crack down the fascia. In another place and time I'd also bought a couple of NOS FB-354 drives from Jon Hare. Those drives were modded to fit in an A500 and an A3000 and are working an absolute treat, but I was left with these nifty little 5.25" mounting brackets for Chinon 30mm drives. Some further bodgery later and the two 357As are now in pristine condition and fit perfectly into a 5.25" drive bay.
At this point, I think it's time for a test. I plug it all in, take a deep breath, hold it in and hit the 'on' button. RESULT! We do love the purple begging screen. I guess we should give it a disk...
No hardware pr0n thread is complete without some gratuitious Sysinfo shots, and this thread is no exception. The 25MHz 68030 gives us a modest 4.38 MIPS/4204 Dhrystones, almost identical to my A3000 (4.39 MIPS/4207 Dhrystones), both of which are 10% less than the Sysinfo A3000 rating. One assumes that if there were a way to fit Static Column RAM into an A4000, you'd be able to use the CPU in burst mode for that extra 10%
Oh, and just a quick shot of Showconf as well. AGA 030 with 2+16MB. A nice little starter A4000. I apologise for the TV shots, for ease-of-setup, I pinched the kitchen telly and plugged the miggy in via SCART. Eventually we'll have a full-on RTG/Scandoubler solution, but for testing purposes, this is the easiest way to check the old girl works!
Part 2 will be with you shortly!