Amiga 4000 with Toaster

From: Gary Hildebrand <ghldbrd_at_ccp.com>
Date: Tue May 21 17:30:34 2002

Roger Merchberger wrote:
>
> Rumor has it that Gary Hildebrand may have mentioned these words:
>
> >Merch, what are yo looking for, early or late Amiga?? I will have an
> >extra A2000 after I do an equipment shuffle here. If you want an AGA
> >Amiga, good luck, they are few and far between.
>
> I'd prefer a later Amiga (3000/4000, but I'd even be happy with a 1200)
> mainly for the ability to use not-quite-so-nonstandard hardware (ie IDE or
> SCSI drives, PeeCeelike floppies, and the ability to use a multisync VGA
> monitor would be *golden* -- not so much for the resolution, but for the
> ability of using 1) hardware I already own, and 2) the ability to use the
> monitor portion of a KVM switch - I'm direly limited in space right now... :-(
>
> Whazza AGA Amiga? Never had one before, so I don't know all the intracacies
> of the Amiga line...
>
> Laterz,
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger
> --
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
> Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
>
> If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
> disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.


Ethan Dicks covered it as well as I could have. The Amiga BTW does use
standard 720k MFM floppy drives with the right jumpers, and if it is
externally mounted, a one IC flip flop is added; that IC is the source
of the notorious drive click, used by the OS to detect disk changes.
Certain HD drives can be used, but only a couple specific models.

The 1200 and 4k have an IDE interface, but you need IDEfix and an
adapter ($50) to attach anything other than the 2.5" drive to it.
Finding that 44 pin IDE cable is a pain too.

I'd reccommend an A3000, as it has an onboard SCSI controller, and built
in scan doubler that drives a VGA monitor directly. The other models,
expecially the 1200 and 4k, need a DB23 to HD15 pin adapter, which are
pricey. Parts are relatively available for the 3k as well, the 1200 and
4k are notorious for NO parts. The 1200 is expandable (essentially an
updated A500) but the stuff is quite a bit more than I would like to
spend. I have a 1200 looking for a tower case. To flesh out my 1200
the way I would like would set me back about a grand, and I have better
places to spend that kind of dinero.

The ever frugal,
Gary Hildebrand
St. Joseph, MO
Received on Tue May 21 2002 - 17:30:34 BST