A4000 - current good upgrade choices?

[MarkT]

Evening all,

I've recently acquired an A4000/030, which back in the day would've been my dream machine! I need to get its capacitors replaced and there's some retrobrighting to do, but after that I'd really like to start exploring the expansion potential I coveted back in the '90s.

At present it has 16MB Fast RAM populated on the motherboard and a 68882 25MHz FPU, but that's it. There's not even a HDD or CD-ROM drive.

Vintage accelerators and RTG cards are very costly, near-unobtanium, or both. Do I go down the modern route, maybe with a ZZ9000 graphics card? What about accelerators? The only things out there seem to be 3640s (that seem to be problematic) or 3660s - unless you're willing to sell a kidney for a Cyberstorm that never seems to move from eBay.

And other stuff you recommend? Obviously there's going to be a CF card in there at some point...

I know this is a really open question, but to be honest my head is spinning with all the different things to consider. I suppose the ideal components would be a sweet spot of not too costly, reliable, and well-supported by software/drivers. All opinions welcome!

Thanks.

Mark

[Leon Besson]

Bromigo!

Welcome to A4K ownership Mang!

So I had a similar setup a few years ago after getting some monies from my Cleaning career

I went with the following;

- IDE CD Drive
- Cyberstorm PPC/060 with 128MB RAM and using SCSI for SCSI2SD drive
- Elbox Mediator Daughterboard replacement (PCI and Zorro-III slots)
- ATi Radeon 9250 PCI graphics
- Icomp Big RAM Plus Zorro-III card (256MB)
- Soundblaster 128 CT4810 PCI soundcard
- Icomp X-surf100 100Mbit Zorro-III Network card with Icomp RapidRoad USB add-on card
- Gotek Drive


Nowadays depending on budget;

Keep Daughterboard and add ZZ9000 (Big waiting list and you have to play with firmware).

Or a mediator MK IV Daughterboard (around £400) and find cheaper PCI cards. Radeon = £45- £55, Soundblaster =£5 to £25 etc..

The x-surf, RapidRoad, ZZ9000 are new Zorro-III boards being manufactured by independents. Individual Computers etc…

As for accelerators for the A4K. Have a look around as you can get newly manufactured 68060 boards. For example a new Terriblefire board is being beta tested for the A4000 at the moment.

There is even supposedly going to be a Vampire board as well

A lot of other accelerators out there are around the 68040.

[grelbfarlk]

There are three A4000 processor cards in development:
1) TF-4060 which you can sort of get
2) Warp4060 (has everything but the kitchen sync)
3) Matze 4060 others know more about this than me

Still you need to find an 060, if you don't have one that is going to be pretty expensive for a full board.

Many 040 boards can accept an 060 adapter, Warpengine for instance, if you can find one cheap is pretty great.

I would suggest a Mediator is a good upgrade, even finding an MK-2 or MK-3 used for cheap is worth grabbing.

[alexh]

Just a CF card will make it very useable. I use this adapter. It's the easiest to fit if you have a spare Zorro slot.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303921153744

The TF4060 looks very interesting and will be a good value 060 accelerator but you're still looking at £500 with 060

Maybe sit tight and wait for the PiStorm32? That will be the best bang4buck accelerator. It's an adapter for a Raspberry Pi CM4 and brings a 1000+ MIPS emulated 680x0 plus super fast nvme SSD + RTG gfx card + AHI soundcard. Yes development is a little slow at the moment but it will come

[nikosidis]

I agree with alexh.
Buy a CF card and that adapter. You would also need a power "floppy type" extensiion. for the CF adapter.
Amikit got that.

The Pi accelerator might be great for apps. but it remains to see how compatible it will be.
If you are more into this for games, demos TF4060 might be a better idea.

[Weasel Fierce]

Id just note that there is no need to go straight into the maxed out 060 setups either, none of which are cheap.

Cover the basics first (CD ROM is probably nice to have, hard drive solution and networking are obviously important) then start looking around once you know:

A: How much you are going to USE the machine. One of those ppc cards is nice but is it 700 dollars of nice if all you do is play Quake for 5 minutes and then shut it back off?

B: What you are going to use it for and what you are willing to commit in time and money. Not that 040 boards are super cheap either but for what most people actually use their Amigas for, they are more than fast enough.

C: Dont neglect any peripherals you need either: New mice, joystick or game pads, keyboard stuff anything else like that. It all adds up and those are things that you get immediate benefit from in any task you do.

[Leon Besson]

Originally Posted by Weasel Fierce

Id just note that there is no need to go straight into the maxed out 060 setups either, none of which are cheap.

Cover the basics first (CD ROM is probably nice to have, hard drive solution and networking are obviously important) then start looking around once you know:

A: How much you are going to USE the machine. One of those ppc cards is nice but is it 700 dollars of nice if all you do is play Quake for 5 minutes and then shut it back off?

B: What you are going to use it for and what you are willing to commit in time and money. Not that 040 boards are super cheap either but for what most people actually use their Amigas for, they are more than fast enough.

C: Dont neglect any peripherals you need either: New mice, joystick or game pads, keyboard stuff anything else like that. It all adds up and those are things that you get immediate benefit from in any task you do.

Good point WF makes. I went PPC as I wanted to try and use AmigaOS 4.1FE on my A4K (PPC only AmigaOS from Hyperion).

[Daedalus]

An '060 accelerator doesn't mean you need to go for the top-end, most sought after revisions. Earlier revisions and FPU-less versions will be vastly cheaper than the revered Rev. 6, and for most tasks will make for an excellent, zippy machine. A TF1260 with a 68LC060 is less than £300 - a TF4060 won't be that much more expensive than that, which is around the price that a typical A3640 goes for... And it'll be *much* faster than the A3640.

Cyberstorm PPC cards typically go for way more than $700. The only recent one I can see on eBay wasn't even working properly and went for over $1,000... If you want to scratch an OS4 itch, a 2nd-hand dedicated machine like a Sam460 will be much cheaper as well as far more powerful and not suffering from a Zorro RAM bottleneck.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by Weasel Fierce

Id just note that there is no need to go straight into the maxed out 060 setups either, none of which are cheap.

Cover the basics first (CD ROM is probably nice to have, hard drive solution and networking are obviously important) then start looking around once you know:

A: How much you are going to USE the machine. One of those ppc cards is nice but is it 700 dollars of nice if all you do is play Quake for 5 minutes and then shut it back off?

B: What you are going to use it for and what you are willing to commit in time and money. Not that 040 boards are super cheap either but for what most people actually use their Amigas for, they are more than fast enough.

C: Dont neglect any peripherals you need either: New mice, joystick or game pads, keyboard stuff anything else like that. It all adds up and those are things that you get immediate benefit from in any task you do.

Very valid points. IMHO, I barely use the CD-ROM drive these days, I usually prefer moving stuff over network and mount an ISO in WB when needed. I have a real CD-ROM pretty much only for a few CD32 games I own.

I would advise to spend the money on a Mediator with cards or a ZZ9000, instead of a 060. You can also upgrade your A3640 with a 060 adapter (that's what I did, myself) for cheap, if you already have a 060. Yeah, you won't have processor-slot FastRAM, but it's not the end of the world.

If you don't already have a 060: between spending crazy bucks for a 060 to put on an A3640+converter and getting a good 040 board, always go with the real 040 board. It will be faster overall

[grelbfarlk]

Basically any 040 board you buy you can just appreciate the improvement over an 030 and if you want to later you can upgrade to an 060.
The only A4000 accelerator I know of that can't be upgraded to an 060 is the GVP Trexx-1.
However, almost any 040 accelerator other than an A3640 is going to cost above $500, similarly an A3640+060 upgrade+lets say theoretically that new RAM expansion is going to be above $500 anyway, you might as well just wait for one of the new ones or buy an older 060 accelerator.

[DarrenHD]

I would add a Gotek and wait a bit for some of the newer accelerators to come out.

Pistorm with Emu68 is very very good. Vampire is also good, just slower than the Pistorm/Emu68.

I would personally avoid the C= 3640 or 3660 accelerators as they have no on-board RAM and are relatively slow because of this.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by DarrenHD

I would add a Gotek and wait a bit for some of the newer accelerators to come out.

On an A4000? I don't believe that is a good upgrade, albeit very cheap, almost no disk image games will work.

Much better to use a CF card and install WB + WHDLoad + WHDload patched games.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by alexh

On an A4000? I don't believe that is a good upgrade, albeit very cheap, almost no disk image games will work.

Indeed, it doesn't see much use on my A4000. I mainly have it in case I somehow screw my install entirely and I need to reinstall. Everything else is transferred over network.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by alexh

On an A4000? I don't believe that is a good upgrade, albeit very cheap, almost no disk image games will work.

I don't know what you're talking about, there were maybe a few games that didn't run on the A4000 from floppy.

Not to say that there's any reason for a Gotek with WHDLoad around.

[QuikSanz]

The new Vamp board should be pretty good. Will need to wait for the release of the Kraken to get some numbers but transfers speeds look ok on V4, not quite SCSI3 speed.


Chris

[stevelord]

I went a different route with my A4000. Others are right in saying there's no need to max it out or try all at once. As you have an 030 in there, your first upgrades should take advantage of the 030:

• CF-to-IDE (Startech do a good one that slots on the back)
• 25-to-9-pin serial port converter and serial-to-USB cable (if you think you can set up PPP over serial, use NComm etc)
• Plipbox (if the serial approach is too scary)

I wouldn't bother with an A3640/3660. They're stop-gaps at best and I had quite a bit of trouble with them (different kinds for each but trouble nonetheless). The ZZ9000 is a great 24-bit graphics card but the other functionalities are less developed. As long as you're ok with that it's worth the wait.

I would stick with OS 3.1 or 3.1.4 until you can get more RAM, then make the jump to OS 3.2.

I'd say save up and hold out for either of any E3B USB card or classic 060 accelerator with on-board RAM. There are other USB options (thylacine, x-surf + rapidroad) but their quirks and limitations make them less useful. You might have to wait a year or two but one will come along.

The one thing I would say about getting a CD-Rom is that you get the full audio on CD games.

[DarrenHD]

Originally Posted by alexh

On an A4000? I don't believe that is a good upgrade, albeit very cheap, almost no disk image games will work.

Much better to use a CF card and install WB + WHDLoad + WHDload patched games.

There are lots of games that will still work, at least they do on my A4000/060. Not to mention installing the OS, running AmigaTestKit, etc is much more convenient.

[nogginthenog]

Originally Posted by jbenam

Indeed, it doesn't see much use on my A4000. I mainly have it in case I somehow screw my install entirely and I need to reinstall. Everything else is transferred over network.

Same here. I have a bootable ADF with RoadShow, SMBFS etc that I can use to connect to my network and restore my system pretty quickly.

[MarkT]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm going to consider what to do over the next few days.

Mark

[alexh]

Originally Posted by DarrenHD

Not to mention installing the OS, running AmigaTestKit, etc is much more convenient.

I put the CF card in my PC and install AmigaOS using WinUAE and games etc using a FAT32 partition. It's much more convenient. Faster too.