Amiga 2000 - Pure Commodore vs. Pure GVP...and Bridgeboards and SBCs, oh my!

[YouKnowWho]

If you feel like towering your Amiga 2000, just turn the computer 90° and you are good.

I remember a project of someone towering his A2000 in the 2000's and he had a tough time because that's one of the bigger motherboards ever made.

Yup! In the 90s I bought a generic foot-base for towering PC cases and slid my 2000 into it under the desk with the bottom side to the inside of the Ikea desk sideboard. I thought it looked very powerful under the desk drawer. To be honest, after I installed a G-Force 040 33Mhz in it, it NEEDED to be a tower! Funny thing the A2000, with the video slot not being in-line with Zorro along with those extra ISA slots and the lovely flickerfixers recently available which don't take the video slot, there are plenty of use cases where the A2000 leaves the user with up to 3 extra Zorro free slots available than the A4000T or A3000T can with same boards installed. Once you start introducing Toaster, TBCs, Bridgeboards/SBCs into your Amiga setup, it's not at all wrong to say that the best and biggest Amiga "tower" is indeed an A2000 turned 90°.

As for your point about size of 2000 Motherboards, I sold two recently, and having to ship them I absolutely can confrim that one doens't think of their surprising large size until it's time to handle them. POTUS has a perfect word for A2000 mobo...it's YUGE!

 

[Flash951]

My A2000 setup:
A2000, 1mb chip, 6 mb fast, 68010, kick 1.3, a2088xt bridgeboard with 5.25 360k (modded into turbo xt). A2091 SCSI with scsi-ide and 1 GB SD card. Period correct sw on hard drive, DPaint 3, Diskmaster, Space Quest 3, Wings, etc.

 

[YouKnowWho]

My A2000 setup:
A2000, 1mb chip, 6 mb fast, 68010, kick 1.3, a2088xt bridgeboard with 5.25 360k (modded into turbo xt). A2091 SCSI with scsi-ide and 1 GB SD card. Period correct sw on hard drive, DPaint 3, Diskmaster, Space Quest 3, Wings, etc.

You are so purist, I love it! Who says you need a DeLorean to go to 1988? Just a nice A2000.

Getting back to GVP vs. Commodore A2000 setup, this is one significant area the Commodore version probably has an advantage. There is something so pure in a 68000 Amiga with 1.3. Seems like everyone is going in the direction of 100Mhz 060s, etc. yet here is the A2000, not only equal to the task in expansion to towers, but can be switched to pure 68000 1.3 in a blink.

GVP disabled takes down everything on it, CPU, RAM, SCSI, etc. So having the CPU and HD cards apart, A2091 with 2MB is better when you disable A2630 with 030 out and 4MB off you still have the benefit of HDD with A2091 and 2MB RAM under 1.3 68000. Nice.

 

[HomeLate]

I have two A2k setups:
- A2000 with GVP Impact HC+8 Series II and a 240 (-ish) SCSI hard drive, N2630 (it originally had no accelerator)
- A2500 with A2091 and A2630 and a SCSI hard drive

I'm sure the A2K is speedwise a lot faster, but I never measured HD speeds between the two.

Both have Bridgeboards. The A2500 has a Vortex GG which refuses to work with the N2630 and is a bit picky memory wise. The A2630 has a faulty ram chip and ram is disabled, giving the A2K5 only 3Mb of ram (1 + 2 of the A2091).

The A2000 has an A2286 which works great in any configuration. I'll throw some benchmarks at both as soon as the memory situation of the A2k5 is fixed.

 

[YouKnowWho]

Both have Bridgeboards. The A2500 has a Vortex GG which refuses to work with the N2630 and is a bit picky memory wise. The A2630 has a faulty ram chip and ram is disabled, giving the A2K5 only 3Mb of ram (1 + 2 of the A2091).

The A2000 has an A2286 which works great in any configuration. I'll throw some benchmarks at both as soon as the memory situation of the A2k5 is fixed.

Perhaps the N2630 2500 is a candidate for a nice Pentium II SBC card instead of that Vortex that refuses to work? I mean, if it's not working for you...

I had given up on bridgeboards completely for what I feel are very compelling reasons that just added up to "it doesn't make sense anymore". Everytime I'm tempted, I think of the bridgeboard limitations.

Between the cost of these cards today, the slow performance (386, usually less), the fact that anytime you put a VGA card behind it you had to have a monitor switch anyway, the awesome Amiga-to-PS2 keyboard adapters available today that allow a PS2 keyboard to be used for both (also addressing the cost of Amiga keyboards), the killer powerful SBC cards with Pentium II/III and onboard VGA and even sound in one ISA card that sell for less than even cheapest XT bridgeboard, and finally the fact that the only place a bridgeboard belong in my view is in a 2000 or in tower Amigas because lets face it, it's a tough sell in a 3000 or 4000 with the limited card space in there...and what have you got? Then the MISTer DE-10 Nano and ao486 core even made me quesiton bridgeboards even more. MISTer in an Amiga case is just such a lovely experience as a non-original hardware solution. With the availability and cost of custom chips, today I look at MISTer DE-10 FPGA as absolutely the new Amiga hardware motherboard solution (Fast CPU, AGA&RTG) and the future of Amiga. The core is so refined and hardware core so accurate. The setup also totally captures the spirit of Amiga as we know it with all that emulation it can do accurately, and excellent usable performance, and out to a 15khz CRT if you want. It's totally possible to have a MISTer in an A1200 case, cleanly, outputting to a 1084, using original Amiga mouse and everything - WOW! It even does Atari ST perfectly, or Mac, it's everything from that period in a single machine at a click. This all makes living without bridgeboards possible. And with all the savings of not buying a bridgeboard...oh the hardware you can buy! Price of a A2286 today will likely get you a Pentium II/III SBC (ISA) AND also a MISTer DE-10 Nano setup. Don't forget PC-Task is there for you to give you that retro bridgeboard experience under Workbench as well. So on one side of this value scale is a A2286 and on the other Pentium II SBC+MISTer DE-10? It's a no-brainer in my view, unless you absolutely want to have he purity of bridgeboard/janus. Although in my view, an SBC is a much better PC experience at a panalty of an out-of-sight KVM hardware switch controlled by a simple keyboard shortcut. And so, that is how I completely quit bridgeboards.

P.S. I'm slowly putting together a Black Edition A2000 fantasy build with an SBC. My plans for the already automotive black painted A2000 case with twin proper 2000 size black bezel JU-363 floppy drives are: GVP 030/50, SBC Pentium II w/VGA, Sound, dedicated IDE CF/ Floppy/Black CD-ROM, Toaster in the video slot, Indivision V4 flickerfixer, RTG, Emplant, Black PS2 keyboard (I took a lot of effort to pick a good looking quality keyboard match without visible branding on top), Belkin KVM switcher with integrated cables controlled by keyboard shortcut, 17" VGA CRT monitor on top, Yamaha YST-M10 black speakers, black Amiga mouse, black PS2 mouse (I've decided on seperate mice for Amiga/PC) I think it maybe decent.

 

[HomeLate]

@YouKnowWho I have a few SBC boards, a P1 and P4, but not a PII or PIII (yet). For me it's for the retro bridgeboard experience. For good DOS/WIN game performance I have two PC builds (486 & PIII) with top notch hardware.
I also have PC boards in two Sun systems and an Acorn RiscPC so you could say I am a sucker for DOS/early Win hosted in other systems. So far the Acorn RiscPC gives me the best DOS/Win experience in non-x86 computers.

I figure you'll need a pure ISA SBC or otherwise it won't fit? And you'll need a secondary PSU to handle the wattage requirements for PII or PIII's?

 

[YouKnowWho]

I have a few SBC boards, a P1 and P4, but not a PII or PIII (yet). For me it's for the retro bridgeboard experience.

Yup, that's what I figured your approach was @HomeLate. It makes perfect sense if you're a bridgeboard purist. To be frank, we're all purists, aren't we? We all want the actual real hardware, custom chips, real period CPUs, things as they were in terms of hardware. Just some of us tweak it a bit in different areas to our preference. You, understandably, go for the bridgeboards, and I on the other hand absolutely needed to have a dot-matrix printer.

I'm not going to lie to you, bridgeboards still tempt me...often. Even though I've decided on SBC, I browse. Maybe one day a bridgeboard will find me. In my case it would only be a Commodore one, so at best 386. But again, regardless of the bridgeboard, I know I would want a VGA card in there (wasted slot vs. SBC too), so there goes the PC inside a workbench window, right? The SBC overcomes the main feature of shared keyboard/mouse/running in a workbench window for me easily it seems because of this VGA and with a KVM keyboard controlled switch.

Those SBC cards you have are certainly fine. Most are. There are many options, and all are always better more capable hardware than bridgeboards, which makes that point hard to overcome for bridgeboards locked-in-time. Those full retro PC builds are starting to make a case for themselved lately as well, and the nostalgia for me is kicking in for their retro looks too (modern PC in a retro case anyone?), so I totally understand having a sweet PC setup of some sort. You made me smile with the RiscPC as your choice of retro PC...hey, we Amiga fans will go to any length to not have a "PC" box even today, right? Why do you think I'm putting an SBC inside and Amiga? Because I dont' want an actual "PC" box from around the period that killed-off the Amiga. Same with MISTer ao486 core. It must be some type of sub-conscious futile resistance programming that is still stuck in sone of us. We had no choice, and we jumped over to PC, but we weren't that happy about it. You run that period PC from a bridgeboard (or from inside an Acorn), I run that period SBC PC from inside an Amiga, and damn it if the Amiga isn't on, neither is the PC!

These SBCs are very easy to live with, and very efficient. My plan is to put it in one of the two 2000 ISA-only slots and keep the 5 Zorros all free for Amiga use, an SBC bonus in any Amiga that has an ISO only slot in that it doens't also eat a Zorro slot. My plan B, in case I need another ISA slot is to just slice off the PCI connector most of these cards have. They work from either or (ISA or PCI), and if you just sheer off those PCI connectors, it won't impact function. It's a permanent mod to the SBC for Amiga fit, but you're probably never going to use it inside anything but an Amiga anyway, so this way it's ready for them all, including desktop 3000/4000 if one must. Powerwise, these older Pentiums are not power hungry at all and while I can't speak expertly on power consumption needs, no one seems to be having any issues with these Penium 1-4 SBC in an A2000, even when loaded with a bunch of cards. Have you heard of any issues? Probably a good idea to recap the 2000 PSU.

 

[YouKnowWho]

A thought...

There are all these adapters out there for accelerators including I think one that lets you use A1200 accelerators on an A500.

Has anyone made an adapter that would allow A1200 accelerators in an A2000?

 

[YouKnowWho]

Oh boy...look at all that space. Look at all that potential in this Mikronik 2000 Tower! Why you can fit EVERYTHING in here.

 

[Flash951]

A thought...

There are all these adapters out there for accelerators including I think one that lets you use A1200 accelerators on an A500.

Has anyone made an adapter that would allow A1200 accelerators in an A2000?

That would be technically very difficult, complicated and expensive. Because A1200 accelerator interface is 32 bit and A2000 is 16 bit.

 

[YouKnowWho]

That would be technically very difficult, complicated and expensive. Because A1200 accelerator interface is 32 bit and A2000 is 16 bit.

Well, there is that relatively popular ACA500 already that allows use of A1200 cards on an Amiga 500, so it can't be a stretch to go to 2000. It seems there were plans for ACA2000 and maybe prototypes already even, but it is not available yet to buy. Such a card and compatibility with TF cards would really open up some options on the 2000 for 68060s.

But with hardware that has software locked features offered by iComp, I'm wondering if such a device would potentially only work with their own accelerators on the 2000. On one hand, it would make sense to develop this only for their own product to help sell their own accelerators, but such a move would suck big time for users in terms of flexability.

 

[YouKnowWho]

A2000 Tower...so hard to decide what to put in all those newly available bays. Can't leave them empty!

So far, I think I'm settling on this arrangement. I'm very happy with the slim Panasonic JU-257A I found, which have the classic 2000 floppy drive bezel look. Guess I'll just have to get over the shade difference on the card reader device. Thoughts?

EDIT: Version 2 with a second A2000 look JU-257A.

 

[Buzzfuzz]

Compz tower, just like the Micronik, loads of space, easily fits a Blizzard 2060

 

[YouKnowWho]

@Buzzfuzz - am I seeing empty bays? I mean...mega-props for the sweet Syquest drive, but you need to fill this thing up Buzzfuzz. For the good of humanity...more drives please and urgently!

 

[Buzzfuzz]

@Buzzfuzz - am I seeing empty bays? I mean...mega-props for the sweet Syquest drive, but you need to fill this thing up Buzzfuzz. For the good of humanity...more drives please and urgently!

Well that is someone else's job now, I sold it years ago, currently only have a desktop 2500/30 and about 9 A1200's and 5 A500's.
I had a lot between 2010 and 2016, but I sold most to cover my trips to Bali and honestly, the memories and experiences are far better than any piece of hardware

That said, if the 4000T replica tower goes into production, I will surely order one as @AmigaDigital is going to assemble my empty 4000T board.
There is no rush in that and once it is all finished, I hope by that time PiStorm as a CPU processor card is a reality, but a BFG 9060 will also work.
And that is the only tower I will keep as a daily.

And I've had 2 A4000T's, but at the time it didn't make sense to keep them, as I was using the A1200's most of the time.
Also no regrets on selling them, cause they have found a good home just like all the other towers and A4000D's/3000D's and A2000's.

The thing is, once you have reached that stage where you have had every configuration possible with like Cyberstorm PPC, Blizzard PPC, Blizzard 2060 and so on, even with Mediators, you tend to think, ok, this is what is capable and that is it.

Don't get me wrong, it is fun to have towers if you have the space for them, but honestly in this day and age, all I do is play a few games here and there.
With a PiStorm it's possible to play video, mp3's and so on, but that doesn't really add to the overal magic of Amiga, sure it makes for good entertainment to go back in time when those mp3's were downloaded or created, but I can do that on my phone also and blast it trough one of the JBL's in my room

 

[YouKnowWho]

100% understood and agreed. I haven't had those configurations, and probably won't, but it is fun to put this 2000 Tower together for a few reasons. First, it's an unusual Amiga 2000. It has a PAL Mobo - and I don't know what to do about that. I want a Toaster in this, so I guess that makes the decision simple to go to NTSC Mobo. This tower is clean, and period, and while it has AT 4000T design hints with those 3 horizontal slots on the bottom, it is PC like that I will use a PC keyboard with this one to make it an "under-cover-Amiga". But I want to do some nutty stuff to it. Since it is PC like, I want to put a nice SBC in there and run XP. Maybe a MISTer too...there is room behind all these 5 1/4 drives. I still say, the original look 2000 tower that Corb_80 did (photo on page 1 of this thread) is just lights-out gorgeous work of art.

You're right that I'm finding myself with a 1200 most of the time. It is truly "THE" Amiga for me. So clean, so...contained to that pretty wedge. Flip swtich, onto fun. I look at this 2000 and I know it will mostly be the fun of making it over this winter like I wish I could have back in the 90s and then probably just packing it up and storing it. I guess you're passed that silliness. Although...here you are talking 4000T.

Now, what are you talking about with the replica 4000T? That sounds crazy amazing! Just the board? To fit PC cases? Or original cases?

 

[Buzzfuzz]

Now, what are you talking about with the replica 4000T? That sounds crazy amazing! Just the board? To fit PC cases? Or original cases?

It is the case that @Ordyne is building https://www.amibay.com/threads/a4000t-replica.2448054/page-9#post-2554922
The 4000T board is a replica, but apart from serial number stickers, you won't see the difference between a real one and a replica.

I am so happy it will look more as a real Commodore 4000T instead of the weak Escom design.
The door was very fragile on the Escom and the case wasn't pretty sturdy, Ordyne's one is and some more

Who knows, maybe he can design a good 2000T after that

 

[Ordyne]

It is the case that @Ordyne is building https://www.amibay.com/threads/a4000t-replica.2448054/page-9#post-2554922
The 4000T board is a replica, but apart from serial number stickers, you won't see the difference between a real one and a replica.

I am so happy it will look more as a real Commodore 4000T instead of the weak Escom design.
The door was very fragile on the Escom and the case wasn't pretty sturdy, Ordyne's one is and some more

Who knows, maybe he can design a good 2000T after that

I'll be doing a similar serial number sticker on foil like the original but you wont be able to pass it off as an original

 

[YouKnowWho]

Amiga & Bridgeboard and/or SBC? Check this Apple DOS COMPATIBLE setup out that YouTube Algo fed me:



Basically an SBC with a KVM switch, yes? What didn't Apple copy from Amiga? Apple delayed access to 68040 and then that PowerPC deal blocked access to that CPU. I accuse Apple for being jealous of the Amiga. Steve sure pulled a Job on Commodore!