Hilarious story with some troubleshooting fiascos.

[slaapliedje]

So, I'll start this with a little background.
While I have a fully upgraded beast of a A4000 with CSPPC, and the works, I decided I wanted another one, since I just got a shiny new ZZ9000 and it'd be a shame to rip out the x-surf, voodoo, etc out of the CSPPC one, so I ended up getting an A4000 Tower.

Now at first, due to some of the pictures not being great, I thought it was an actual A4000T with a video toaster, which would have meant I could use the Toaster (requiring the video slot) and the ZZ9000 with AGA passthrough (which also requires a video slot). Since the A4000T comes with two Video slots, I should be golden, right? Well, it wasn't an A4000T, it was an A4000 Toaster Oven. So only one video slot. no big deal, was just switching between 1084S and a Dell U214. But my quest continued to be able to ditch one of those screens (or use it for Toaster output!)

Enter the Micronik board, it was cheap enough and I was thinking maybe I could build a daughter board extender (since it comes with a built in 90 degree angle connection, but wouldn't be long enough for the tower... ) that got put on the back burner, may eventually 3D print a frame for it and get something so it'll sit high enough.. but I digress.

I found another tower kit for 250 bucks, I figure it's a steal AND according to the pictures, it looks like it has the two video slots on the board, plus enough ISA slots for my newly acquired TBCs, so Toaster / zz9000 love, hear I come!

Well, with some other annoying details like getting a super buster 11, finding out I needed an updated GAL, then realizing I think the GAL I want is already on the motherboard, not the A3640 (need clarification on this, since the one on the 3640 is 391467-01 and the one on the motherboard (sort of close by the audio output) is 391477-02, and the one I keep seeing people reference on this fine forum).

So onto the funny part of this...
After the HUGE arduous task of pulling out the motherboard, having zero screws with the new tower (thank god I ordered a crap load of computer screws just the other day.) I get the board and the zorro extender in there (here's the weird thing, it actually has THREE video slots empty, the one on the daughter board, and then the right angle extender has two ribbon cables on it that connect to the ISA/Video slot board, so I could physically fit three video slot cards... not sure if that'll work yet. But having experienced issues far too often, I did not mount any of the zorro cards into it and instead took it back to my table, plugged in the monitor, mouse, keyboard and gotek and booted it on up....

Red screen. Well shit, so looked up the error. Kickstart. Well, it was just working, so look further, maybe CPU, maybe voltage... okay, well it was working great, but reseated it anyhow, pushed around on some things, booted it back up, still red...

Well I'll skip ahead, I figured it was probably the power. Now it has some weird janky ass connection, it uses the AT cables and they connect to the DVS Direct board that connects to the daughter board., and that has some (badly soldered) wires underneath that then connect to the power on the motherboard.

So I did some testing with my original 4000D PSU (Got a shiny SFF one in the PPC Amiga.) and lo and behold it booted with the daughtboard and not the extension. so, wasn't the kickstart, definitely was the power. But I needed a way to test the new extension board, because it needed to power the board. Well, I figured I could just yank the PSU out of the Toaster Oven.... .Nope, that thing i stuck in there between a fan I can't remove, and the frame. I have no idea how they physically got it all in there, but it doesn't seem to want to get out.

So I did the next best thing.... I set the two towers up next to each other, had to raise up the newer one so that the PSU from the Toaster Oven would reach and...

WE GOT DESKTOP! So now I'm looking for an AT PSU to replace that one with....
Edit: this is the tower I got; not much info on it. http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/mega4000.html

[Hewitson]

Not sure what's so funny about it, I think most of us have probably done similar things. Glad to hear you got it up and running though!

[slaapliedje]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Not sure what's so funny about it, I think most of us have probably done similar things. Glad to hear you got it up and running though!

I think of it as my version of the Two Towers....

Seriously, that Toaster Oven case is a nightmare to deal with, you can tell most of it was just hacked together with a dremel. Ironically the Mega 4000 tower is the exact same as this other full tower case I've had for years and years, and had an Abit BP6 in it, ran my old Linux email server on it with dual 566mhz Celerons.
Serious pain in the ass is what it was. And now it's time for bed, since it's 2:41am and I have work in about 6 hours.

[Pyromania]

@slaapliedje

Question, why are you still using TBCs in 2019? The Toaster does no need them unless it’s capturing from analog sources like Betacam, VHS, etc. It will capture clean without a TBC all day long from digital sources like a DVD player, MiniDV Camcorder, etc. Are you capturing from old analog tapes?

[slaapliedje]

I actually haven't gotten that far yet. Finally got the new tower working yesterday, and just this morning re-installed with PFS3 (it did not like the new FFS with long file names from 3.1.4). But it sounds like I am probably not going to need the TBC IV or the 2xII that I have? Still trying to figure out if it is better to have RAM or the PAR in there...
I have an old Sony Handycam that has Firewire, but also an A/V cable with it. I guess that means I could hook that up with BNC adapters and not need the TBC?

[slaapliedje]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

@slaapliedje

Question, why are you still using TBCs in 2019? The Toaster does no need them unless it’s capturing from analog sources like Betacam, VHS, etc. It will capture clean without a TBC all day long from digital sources like a DVD player, MiniDV Camcorder, etc. Are you capturing from old analog tapes?

So I've been looking around everywhere on the connections for the Flyer, since they're all RCA / S-Video. I'm sure they are a mix of input/output, but need to know which is which. My MiniDV camera has s-video/composite capabilities, so if it's that easy to plug in without needing to go through the Toaster's BNC connections, it'd be nice.

Edit: Nevermind, I found it. The printed manual I have is for 3.0. The 4.0 manual has it in the Installation section, which is great. Gonna see if I can find a printed copy of it.