A2000 Rev 4?

[Fingerlickin_B]

Hi folks,

BBOAH says that the Rev 4 was not released & that the Rev 4.1 was the first production model.

If that is the case, what is this?





It arrived in the mail today & looked a bit different to my other A2000 motherboard, that being the only reason I even looked it up.

PZ.

[deicidal]

Is it missing an audio input as well or is it just the picture?

[Fingerlickin_B]

Originally Posted by deicidal

Is it missing an audio input as well or is it just the picture?

The yellow RCA socket you see is actually the left audio output socket (which of course should be white).

It has no composite output RCA at all, just right (red) & left (incorrectly coded as yellow) audio outs.

PZ.

[Jope]

This is the german A2000 board. It is based on the A1000 design.

Not to be confused with the American B2000 (A2000CR) that is based on the A500.

Edit: all this seems to be on the BBoAH page, so check there.

[Zetr0]

I have one of these boards....

It only has 512KB of chip ram, to be honest it is pretty damn dire!

[Fingerlickin_B]

So this is the worst A2000 mobo?

PZ.

[Zetr0]

yeah.... pretty much

I keep mine as its part of my collection.

the best A2000 mobo to get would be the Rev6 imho.

[Fingerlickin_B]

My other one (if you recall it) is a Rev 6

Guess I've now got the best (and worst) of both worlds! LOL

PZ.

[Fingerlickin_B]

Oh, just for the sake of clarification...there is no way to upgrade the chip RAM on this board?

PZ.

[Jope]

If you have to ask, then no, you won't be upgrading it any time soon. :-) It doesn't even have a PLCC Agnus.

[pandy71]

piggyback should be doable (only Agnus version can limit possibility for such mod)

[Jope]

It has the "ICS" Agnus, which is the same as in an A1000. Physically incompatible with newer Agnuses.

Sure, you could get it to work. You need a lot of wire and the end result might not be stable.

[Zetr0]

@Jopey

and that nightmare of hackery would be to just get 1MB chip out oif it....


i wrestled with the idea of upgrading mine for.... ooooooh.... 20 seconds and decided.... naaa keep it for prosperity...

[Jope]

Yeah, not to mention the crap cpu slot that is very picky about accelerators etc.. Just leave the german boards be, put it on your shelf or cannibalize it for working CIA chips :-)

[deicidal]

I think all this talk is getting me in the mood to attack my a2000 project again tonight.

[Fingerlickin_B]

Ok, I'll just loan this one to a friend who wants to play some old game disks

PZ.

[lugosi]

From the Amiga Hardware Database:

A2000-A:
It is based on the integration of the A1000 motherboard design and an example Zorro II backplane. It uses the thin Agnus (DIP) which handles only 512 kB RAM. The video slot is just an internal version of the external video port and the processor card slot is just an internal version of the A1000 external edge connector. The A2000-A has many reliability problems. The Buster chip is missing, so as the composite output connector. Memory is configured as 512 kB Chip RAM on motherboard and 512 kB Fast RAM in the processor slot.

and from amigahistory.co.uk:

Dave Haynie commented on the original A2000 German design: Yes. The original A2000 was designed in Germany. It was based on an integration of the A1000 motherboard design and the example Zorro II backplane from "Schematics and Expansion Specifications", the A1000 hardware manual. It used the thin Agnus, which handled only 512K of DRAM. They added a "Genlock" slot, which was essentially just the 23-bit video signals on an internal connector, and the "MMU" slot, which was essentially just the A1000 external edge connector on an internal slot. The machine shipped with 512K of Fast RAM in this slot, though the case was slow and had some reliability problems. About 60,000 of these machines were made, so I've heard.


The seller probably sold the 512kb Fast RAM card separately?

I wonder if the "A" only came in the "Rev. 4" flavor. I mean, usually what you see in lists of A2000 boards is just a mention of the "A" model, no revisions stated, and then the "B" with revisions ranging from 3.9 to 6.5.

[Fingerlickin_B]

Originally Posted by lugosi

The seller probably sold the 512kb Fast RAM card separately?

Nah, I got that too

It's all here, I just didn't read it properly before posting:
http://www.bboah.com/index.php?actio...849&artlang=en

PZ.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by lugosi

I wonder if the "A" only came in the "Rev. 4" flavor. I mean, usually what you see in lists of A2000 boards is just a mention of the "A" model, no revisions stated, and then the "B" with revisions ranging from 3.9 to 6.5.

It did. Rev4.0 to 4.4.

As you can see, there is some overlap, so you should always make sure to ask whether the video slot has two connectors if you're going to be buying one of these to actually use.

[Fingerlickin_B]

Ok, now things are getting weird...

As stated, this machine will indeed to put to use.

With a single FDD fitted, once WB is loaded there is an icon "DF1:bad".

This is what happens when jumpered for a second internal FDD in my other A2000 (when no second drive is actually fitted, but jumpered as such).

However, there are NO jumper pins anywhere on this mobo, so it can't be jumpered for a single internal FDD like my Rev 6 can.

In this case...how do I convince it not to display the DF1 icon?

PZ.