A new endevour

[SpidersWeb]

So I've tried to keep my collection purely IBM to save money and room, however some of you may remember me mentioning a guy in Wellington who's only open Saturday that wouldn't sell a large pile of Commodore and Amiga equipment - well today he decided to sell me the lot.

Going to take pictures as I unload the car but there is a lot of accessories, a lot of software (some is boxed) - 60-80 on disks as well as some on cartridges, at least an Amiga 600, Amiga 2000 desktop, and Commodore 64. Also 1541 disk drive, cassete player, joystick(s), IBM AT/XT clone keyboard, another Commodore PC-10 keyboard, a Nitendo Gameboy docking station :S parallel Zip drive - lots of goodies.

Now just to rearrange my gear and see what works! My boot is full to the top.

[cjr]

/me looks at a bunch of old pc stuff ready to trade..

[tezza]

The collecton grows and grows. Is storage an issue yet.

[SpidersWeb]

Yes, I have a small nightmare on my hands of arrangement tonight!

Amiga 600HD gets flickering lights - I have multiple power supplies and all do the same - I've opened it and cleaned the board but haven't tried it again yet.

Commodore 64 lights up but does nothing. It's disk drive looks like it's almost new but can't test. Two Comoodore cassette units, one with no trap door, and the other has a "Blackjack for VIC20" tape inside. Boxes and manuals as new for Digger and Gunship, no disks. International Soccer, Blueprint, and another cartridge. Lots of cables and it came with roughly 4 power supplies.

Amiga 2000HD booted up first go but issues with accessories. The two mice it came with don't work. I also got 4-5 Commodore mice, and each had a failure - they'd either only work in one direction or the buttons wouldn't work. But I was able to make a hybrid mouse which works perfectly. Did not come with a keyboard, so need to find one. Has Agnus, Denise, 3Mb memory, and came with the install discs which seem operational.

Also came with the Technical Reference for the A500/A2000 series, and Amiga Basic manual. Tech Ref is huge and has everything from hints on writing drivers through to board schematics.

Disks - seems I have around 50 'Amiga User' magazine floppies, around 10-15 floppies are copy programs (suprise lol), and Mortal Kombat (didnt work) plus a few other utilities and games bundled with the A500 - most of the software seems to be for the A500.

Pics of A2000HD:

[SpidersWeb]

In storage now, at least temporarily, except the Commodore 64 because I think poking around inside might be rewarding and it doesn't take up much space. A2000HD is a nice setup but it's accessories aren't compatible with any others in my office so it'll take up more space which I don't have. I am moving the collection from this room to a larger room soon so will probably set it up then or later (need keyboard).

Other thing with the A2000HD, according to it it has a SCSI and memory card, but there is a third card and I have notes suggesting it's an ISA video card upgrade - on the back are switches, 9pin and 15pin VGA, but plugging in a VGA monitor displays nothing and I can't find any software to indicate what it's used for or any evidence it's even installed. The slot it's in is the opposite side to the SCSI card. Should have probably opened it up, if anyone knows what it likely is I'd be curious.

I'm somewhat keen to keep the A2000HD, but I could be seperated from it (including the technical reference manual) if bribed.
600HD is basically parts - multiple power supplies, disk drive, 3 x hard drives (IDE 40Mb x 2, 50Mb x 1), 1MB memory expansion, keyboard, case.
64 going to try and fix, but most valuable part of that is probably the 1541 which is in suprisingly (although untested) really nice condition. Also have a really cute Commodore joystick! and that VIC20 tape.

Oh and by accident I have an audio tape, recorded in 1975 with two songs on it, the big magnetic reel style. Hand writing from recording studio on the cover.

[acsi]

but there is a third card and I have notes suggesting it's an ISA video card upgrade - on the back are switches, 9pin and 15pin VGA

It possibly used to have a bridge card installed. I had one in my old A2000 and from memory the ISA slot are only supported by a bridge card although I think there is a card which allows them to now be accessed by the Amiga OS. From memory it's this card http://www.amiga4ever.nl/expansions.php?id=161 Golden Gate 2+.

[SpidersWeb]

Cheers for that
I feel obliged to dig it out and open the case now. Looked at some photos of the motherboard, and the video card is definately ISA. If it's sitting there without any form of bridgeboard I'll remove it - because I really need another ISA VGA!

Also after edumicating my brain some more, my Commodore 64 is actually the 64C model. If I can find a few moments have a few tests to try out.

[Carcenomy]

Talk turkey with meh! I'm short on 64 power supplies but have plenty of spares.

Also, if your 1541 is an early model with the push-down latch, make sure you open that sucker up and lubricate the drive rails. You don't want to fire it up, try load something and promptly throw it out of alignment, do you?

[recycled]

Cor, I've been thoroughly enjoying your 'blog' in the 'New toys' thread, but you sure know how to put somebody right off you. I mean, accepting all that Commmodore stuff, how could you be so cruel as to admit that here! (You lucky b@strd :o) I am sure that despite the wrecked condition you describe for much of it, it will be a lot less frustrating getting good results than you have had for your PC/XT endeavours.

Yes, you require a bridge board that will convert the Zorro slot signals to the ISA slots. Drivers for cards could be an issue, on the otherhand, the power and earth lines are connected, so if you need extra power for a board you can source it here, (some of the hardcard (HDD on an internal card) solutions do this. Or if you have an ISA card that doesn't need to communicate with the system it should work fine - not likely that there is such a thing, though?

As we know from Commodores history, they were quite keen on taking as much money from the PC market as they could too. This may be a reason some degree of compatability was designed into their premier product. And check out the interface expansions here http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl? ... e=dec&pid= for a giggle. Somebody was keen to have access to all that cheap PC expansion ability. But what you really want to get hold of is one of these : http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/a2286at which will give your internal PC native access to those slots. Then your PC/amiga dilema is over.

[SpidersWeb]

LOL
well I'm glad someone reads that thread

I was actually just there asking if he'd fired any of them up yet, and was recommending he put them on trademe, but he seems to REALLY hate trademe and when he offered them for a price, I couldn't say no. I've never used an Amiga before, so it's all new to me. Also my first time with a C64 since primary school. I think the 600HD has a power supply issue - but think it's actually on the board rather than the PSU (I have 4 PSUs for the A600).

Anywho felt inspired so plugged the C64 back up. Tests so far:

- red power light comes up nice and bright - solid, no flickering
- datacassete player works
- flicked power on and off 5 times in quick succession, no display output at all (was looking for random colour/characters)
- tried some cartridges, no sound or display

Have not opened it up yet. I also have 3 broken keys, painfully these are " $ and *
Although two of those I can still press, the 3 key I can't. Going to need a parts machine I think.

Carcenomy - cheers for that I haven't plugged it in yet. It's the breadbin style but not an early model - has the normal swing down lever.
Had a 360KB drive here that had that same problem, think dust had mixed in with the original lubricant and gone all sticky, had to dismantle the whole mechanism to clean it all off (smooth as silk now).

[Carcenomy]

I pretty much only have breadbin era spares, but it will depend what board you find in there. Both my 64Cs were C64B3 equipped, early board with dual memory modules. But WelshWizard's is C64G, the cost reduced low volt variant. If you find a B3, I can help

Your 1541 will be Newtronics mech. Give it a clean for posterity, but they are reliable. Well, as reliable as a 20+ year old floppy drive made by one of the most miserly manufacturers of the era can be!

[SpidersWeb]

Small chance it might actually be fine.
Being a C64 newbie, I was using an 8 pin DIN to RCA cable - I just assumed yellow=video, red+white = stereo, but it's red+yellow=video and white=audio.
Why did I think the C64 was stereo??... I'll never know.

[Carcenomy]

There's a mod for that, but it's only MSSIAH that can really use it...

[SpidersWeb]

haha nice

Picked up the cable today, but off to dinner first.
Also got some coin batteries for my IPC AT.

Hoping I get home to the blue screen of life ??

[caluser2000]

We're still awaiting;). Did it fire up?