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Author Topic: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?  (Read 3293 times)

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Offline TomaskTopic starter

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Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« on: December 03, 2012, 07:55:02 AM »
I have an Amiga 2000 rev. 4 with kickstart 1.2 and was planning on upgrading it with a SCSI HDD controller, kickstart 2.04 and an acelleratorboard (type 2630 or something like that) but after reading a little more, it looks like the rev. 4 board is no good..
 
What do you guys think? Not easy to get hold of a n Amiga 2000 here in Norway..
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Offline barney

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2012, 01:26:34 PM »
Hell yeah, I'd upgrade it.  I used a Amiga 4.3 motherboard for over 2 years without a problem.  I had an 68030 accelerator, SCSI Card with 2mb hard drive, Kickstart 3.1, 8mb of extra memory and a flicker fixer card in the video slot.  It worked perfectly.  The only thing I hear you may have a problem is if you ever decide to connect the Indivision flicker fixer.  I hear the motherboard has some capacitors that will be in the way.  Other than that, it worked fine.


note:  I wouldn't bother with KS 2.04.  In my opinnion it's the worst choice to make.  I would go with KS 3.1.

Barney
« Last Edit: December 03, 2012, 01:34:48 PM by barney »
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Offline Ral-Clan

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2012, 01:57:17 PM »
I used a 4.3 as well for a decade (highly upgraded) without a problem.

But is the "4" (i.e. 4.0) the German A2000B?

In that case, it may not be upgrading, as it has the weird A1000 based motherboard.
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Offline Jope

Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2012, 02:18:25 PM »
I wouldn't bother with the A model. If you do end up upgrading it, Commodore expansions work the best.

Norway has a lot of Amigas.. Just keep your eyes open.
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Offline bbond007

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #4 on: December 03, 2012, 03:46:14 PM »
Quote from: Tomask;717268
I have an Amiga 2000 rev. 4 with kickstart 1.2 and was planning on upgrading it with a SCSI HDD controller, kickstart 2.04 and an acelleratorboard (type 2630 or something like that) but after reading a little more, it looks like the rev. 4 board is no good..
 
What do you guys think? Not easy to get hold of a n Amiga 2000 here in Norway..


I had a 4.2(or 4.3, can't recall)  with 3.1 ROM, 1MB agnus, PP&S 040/28/32MB, GVP4008+GURUROM+4mb, CV64 3D, Hydra Ethernet...

I never ran into any limitations with having such a old revision A2000...
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Offline orcish75

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #5 on: December 03, 2012, 04:47:20 PM »
I'm guessing it's the German 4.0 or "A" revision that the guys above have mentioned. This was my first Amiga I got and I had endless problems with it. As Ral-Clan has mentioned, it uses the A1000 chipset with the "Thin" Agnus that can't address more than 512K chipmem. A lot of WHDLoad games (probably most) require at least 1Meg chipmem.

It doesn't have a Buster chip, so the signals on the expansion slots are very noisy and gives a lot of problems with various expansion boards. When I had my GVP A2000 HC+8 card in it, it would randomly freeze up when playing games or loading games off the HDD. I swapped out the MOBO for a Rev 6.2 board and haven't looked back, my A2000 is now 100% stable.

If you're able to get one cheaply, go for a Rev 4.3 or 6.2 motherboard. They're fairly common and will make your A2000 far more usable.

Cheers
« Last Edit: December 03, 2012, 04:53:11 PM by orcish75 »
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Offline TomaskTopic starter

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #6 on: December 03, 2012, 05:08:04 PM »
It's a 4.0 german board..
 
If I upgrade the board to - let's say 4.3, then it won't fit in my case since the 4.0 board only have the 2x sound outputs and all the others have 2x sound and 1x mono composite..
 
Oh well, from what I understand the 4.0 german version is a real retro A2000 so I guess I'll keep on to it for now. :)
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Offline orcish75

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #7 on: December 03, 2012, 08:36:54 PM »
Quote

If I upgrade the board to - let's say 4.3, then it won't fit in my case since the 4.0 board only have the 2x sound outputs and all the others have 2x sound and 1x mono composite.
Ah, yes, I did forget about that! I upgraded the mobo a long time ago. I didn't really want to do it, but I modified my case to allow all 3 phono plugs out. I was in the same situation as you then, very few A2000's available in South Africa and wasn't prepared to pay the shipping costs for such a heavy beast, so I just modified my case.
 
Cheers
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Offline Amiwest

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #8 on: December 03, 2012, 08:46:58 PM »
http://www.nyx.net/~rdavis/AmigaHints2.html#upgr43
This site has information for upgrading 2000 mother boards.
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Offline Ral-Clan

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #9 on: December 04, 2012, 02:50:19 AM »
Quote from: Amiwest;717338
http://www.nyx.net/~rdavis/AmigaHints2.html#upgr43
This site has information for upgrading 2000 mother boards.


Yes, but you can't simply upgrade a 4.0 motherboard to a later revision.  They are almost entirely different computers, designed by different teams working on different continents.  The A2000 4.0 is really an A1000+.
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Offline TomaskTopic starter

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #10 on: December 04, 2012, 10:19:29 AM »
Guess I'll start searching for a newer board then, and use my good old Dremel on the case to make it fit :)
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Offline TomaskTopic starter

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #11 on: December 12, 2012, 05:57:22 PM »
Rev 6.2 board is on the way! Looking forward to upgrade and install my new SCSI controller too! :)
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Offline Zac67

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #12 on: December 12, 2012, 07:57:26 PM »
Rev 4.0 = A1000 + Zorro bus board
Rev 4.1+ = A500 + Zorro bus board + Buster
(there's also a "4.0" American version with Big Agnus but I guess it's extremely rare)
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Offline TomaskTopic starter

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #13 on: December 14, 2012, 01:08:08 PM »
Is the Rev 4.0 a rare board?
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Offline dannyp1

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Re: Amiga 2000 rev. 4 - any use upgrading it?
« Reply #14 on: December 14, 2012, 02:07:37 PM »
The 6.2 motherboard is a good choice.  You did the wise thing and won't regret it.
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