Checkmate Digital A1500 plus Kickstarter

[NorthWay]

I wish the Kickstarter all the best of luck, but the 3000 never tickled my design bone...

Personally I could be interested in something like an A1000 scaled up to 140-150(?)% - big enough to let you park your typical full-size keyboard under it and high enough to have space for expansion cards.
The A1000 always looks bigger on pictures than it really is...

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by NorthWay

I wish the Kickstarter all the best of luck, but the 3000 never tickled my design bone...

Me neither, and I used to own one. It had a few ergonomic issues that would be better not copied. Also the front grill looks a little silly when raised up to take a keyboard underneath.

Personally I could be interested in something like an A1000 scaled up to 140-150(?)% - big enough to let you park your typical full-size keyboard under it...

That's what I want too.

About 20 years ago I gutted an A1000 and put an A600 motherboard in the case, with a CDROM drive in place of the front RAM expansion. I wired a socket to the motherboard to use the original A1000 keyboard, and extended the mouse and joystick ports. Most of the A600's rear connectors lined up with the existing holes in the case. It worked very well.

With a Vampire that machine would be amazing, but the stock A600 was a bit limiting so I sold it many years ago. Now A1000s are very rare and expensive, and besides it wouldn't be right to gut one today. So I have decided to make my own case, wide enough to take an A500 or A1200 motherboard and park my A2000 keyboard underneath, but not as deep as a typical desktop PC case.

Not everyone is going to love the look of any computer case, however good looking it is to most people (beauty is in the eye of the beholder, be a boring world if we all liked exactly the same things etc.).

However this case has a lot more going for it than just its looks; its worth visiting the Kickstarter page & seeing exactly what Steve has done, as long as you at least think it looks okay of course.

Only 4 days left till the end of the Kickstarter now.

[nexus]

looks like he ripped off the A3000
even more sad he wants a PC in it

now looking even more at it
it doesnt even support bigbox amiga boards but yet its a desktop case

be nice if all the case making people would just make the original stuff to replace the old with
nothing new added
at least plastic parts like bezels etc power button rod etc

[Signman]

Hey, off the Vampire bonfire and on to a new one I see.

[trixster]

Only just realised it does not support A4000 and A3000. That's a bit of a bummer.

[wmsteele]

Originally Posted by trixster

Only just realised it does not support A4000 and A3000. That's a bit of a bummer.

Update from a few days back, potential 4000/3000 board support (27:00 onwards)...

[ Show youtube player ]

[nexus]

its not a amiga case
its a desktop case that looks like a amiga 3000 model used to house everything but bigbox amigas
buying this case doesnt help amiga in anyway or preserve it

so many companies and people trying to bank off of the popularity of retro

[nexus]

you do know there is another kickstarter for the a500/a1200 cases?

[adonay]

Originally Posted by nexus

its not a amiga case
its a desktop case that looks like a amiga 3000 model used to house everything but bigbox amigas
buying this case doesnt help amiga in anyway or preserve it

so many companies and people trying to bank off of the popularity of retro

Sad to say but i feel the same way, Look on any Facebook user group, or forum and you will be blasted with commercials for this thing . Like for example on the vampire user group a new or bumped post every other day . For that reason alone i will NOT be backing as there has been way too much begging .

However this is maybe the only available aftermarket case for A600 computers.
Not sure why you would move the A500/A600/A1200 to this, as it does not make sense unless there is some sort of PCI bridgeboard coming.

Hope those who want it get it though .

Steve is doing his final Q & A live now before the Kickstarter is finished with special guest Trevor!

[ Show youtube player ]

[nujack]

Originally Posted by adonay

Not sure why you would move the A500/A600/A1200 to this, as it does not make sense unless there is some sort of PCI bridgeboard coming.

Because the space on my desk is very limited and I can store additional extensions like cd-rom in that beautiful case, which will be placed under the monitor.
Furthermore I can store modern PC-hardware in a case which reminds me to the good old days.
Please let the project become reality. Only 5k GBP needed.

[Pyromania]

It looks like it will succeed.

It certainly looks like it will succeed but even now its not 100% guaranteed, as Steve says there has been a fair few cancellations; fingers still crossed.

[BarryB]

Would be interesting to know the reasons for the cancellations!

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by BarryB

Would be interesting to know the reasons for the cancellations!

its well over the amount needed now

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by adonay

However this is maybe the only available aftermarket case for A600 computers.

Indeed, though its primary motivation was for the A500 as a remake of the much older Checkmate case.

Not sure why you would move the A500/A600/A1200 to this, as it does not make sense unless there is some sort of PCI bridgeboard coming.

There's not, however there is a Zorro-II extender coming for it for the A500 that will let you use a Zorro-II card and a sidecar expansion like the ACA500 inside the case. There's less of a benefit for the A600 or A1200, though if you wanted to use a CD-ROM drive and solve power supply issues it's an option.

Hope those who want it get it though .

Well, that's it really. It's nice to have a choice, and retro computing still means different things to different people. Many people strive for original, pristine vintage hardware these days, but there are still plenty of people out there who enjoy modding their machines, trying to push them as far as they can go.

[BarryB]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

its well over the amount needed now

Which didn't answer the question, regardless of reaching it's goal or not, of why people cancelled

But, talking to a backer I know, he quoted people in the Youtube streams complaining of the additional cost of items like Keyboard adapter, custom drive bays and small form factor PSU which makes it much less attractive knowing they don't come with it!

[sokolovic]

approximately 580 000€ have been raised just for new cases and new key caps the past two years.
2900 vampire have been sold, which represent at least 800 000€, maybe more.

But we're still stuck with 30 years old machine that will eventually die without any simple replacement solution (Like..., a new Amiga that doesn't recquire to be a soldering master, or a programmer expert, or a plastic assembly enthusiast).

Anyway, it's always good to see that the Amiga can generate some money.

[Marle]

I backed this and my reasons are quite simple - I adore my A600, and love using it again. That's staying in its case.

What I am doing is gradually picking up the pieces to put an A500 or 500+ motherboard into my case, and eventually an accelerator, something like a HC533 or maybe the ACA 030 depending on price. The idea is that in 2001 I sold my Amiga 3000 for a pitiful £150, I think it even had a few expansions in it like a Zorro II RAM card, KS 3.1, but regardless an 030/25+882 A3000 with its keyboard and mouse for £150.

I've regretted it ever since. So I'm just basically going to build myself a sort of A3000 on the cheap, as I have no desire for graphics cards or other things, just would like to eventually have something that works a bit like the gorgeous A3000 I used to have back in the day.

Although I can still see myself using the A600 more because it's compact and I can leave it set up longer whereas this will be more of a set it up for a day or so and then put away again

I still have all the A3000 paper inserts (the Quick Connect), 2.04 boot disks, and Amiga Vision + its binder manual in the loft so some remnants of that gorgeous machine are still in my possession

I know it's not really an A3000 as it may end up lacking an FPU, and won't be 32bit chip RAM access, but hey, I'm not here for running Pagestream at fast speeds, just the old apps