Glen's archived blog March 2009

	RS232 port closed.....
January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010 February 2010 March 2010 The "New" Lounge PET VIC TED LAB STORE My Collection ABOUT ME coming soon Disclaimer: All the information presented here, was taken from the following sources: Brain Bagnal's Book On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore. Available at Amazon.ca The new edition had been delayed at Amazon until Feb.2010 Also, a lot of information has come from Video interviews with Bil Herd and Dave Haynie. Dave has a lot of videos on You-Tube. Search them out.. I wish I could post them here, but I don't have permission. Lastly, more sites on the net have information. There are even a few dedicated sites to the C16. Do a Goggle search, because Bing is just a flash in the pan.:) Please help keep the lounge alive and donate Today.Your donation helps keep an Computer from ending up in a Landfill, and keeping the history Alive for future generations!	Sunday, March 29, 2009 Waisted A1000 day! Today, I thought would be a fun day on my A1000, but as my luck has been going with e-bay auctions lately, I have now a nice parts machine. I got up early and hit the dollar store today, looking for a phone handset cable. I finally got my A1000 keyboard in, but I just needed a cable. I got home and plugged it all in and the first thing is I got a good electrical shock from the unit. Not a very "good" sign, but the machine did boot into the "kickstart" screen. (although it took a bit). I have about 5 different kickstart disks, so I tried them all and the floppy drive just made funny noises and that's it. Perfect, a dead floppy drive and a ground issue. So, take it all apart. Now, the A1000 is a beast to dissemble. Commodore made it with a ton of RF shielding, so a nuke could go off and not be affected, but it is a pig to take apart. Again, I just had my Camera phone and though I would take a step by step pictures. I gues I know one thing I am buying with my Tax return.- a digital camera! Shoppers Drug Mart has one on for $70, but it PINK. That is why its so cheap, because nobody wants a PINK camera, otherwize it is a 8 megapixal. But I digress. I have parts from my other A1000. As you may or may not know, I have sent my original A1000 in to a friend to get it professionaly painted, because it was so yellowed. Well, it looks like the next coming of Christ will happen sooner than me ever seeing it actually painted, so I grabbed the floppy from that one and put it in. I put it all back together and now it just goes to a white screen. No kickstart. Lesson learned. The good thing is that A1000 pop up on E-bay from time to time and go for relatively cheap. I also want a few upgrades like a kickstart adapter, and more ram, so I can definatly wait a while on my A1000 projects. I can put this away in the store room for now and make room for the next Amiga on the bench. I know that my Toaster system will be here in the next few weeks. I am debating on an NOS A1200 right now for my tax return, but I know that will just be the tip of the iceberg, as all the "addons" I need for a 1200. So, to sum up, its all back together, but nothing accomplished! What a waist of a day. Friday, March 27, 2009 An A2000 Keyboard is NOT an A3000 Keyboard! Ok, so I have taken a few days to cool down and not just Rant about my next topic, but, it seems after all these years, people (and even reputable Amiga dealers) "forget" that there is a difference between the A2000's and A3000 keyboards. Let's back up a bit here. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am VERY picky with my hardware. Why else would I have bought a $7000 laptop, that took me over a year to pay off, when I live paycheck to paycheck. So, it should come as no surprise, that when I get in Amiga hardware, I want it physical looking like new- Especially if I am going to put a museum together some day. It really came as no surprise then, when I got my A3000 in, and it was all damaged, that I would spend more money and time hunting down a new case for it. Like I had mentioned before, it came with an A2000 keyboard. Inside, the keyboards are identical, meaning the ONLY difference is the case. The case is colored and matched to the exterior of the machine. I guess, that over time, people ASSUME that when you ask for an A3000 keyboard, that an A2000 keyboard will work fine and try to pass one off as an A3000 keyboard. This has happened 3 times now. I have put out a request for an A3000 keyboard, and paid a good chunk of money, only to get another A2000 keyboard! The sad thing is that the A2000 keyboards are a dime a dozen, not fetching over $10 on Ebay. So you can see, that when a reputable Amiga dealer says he has a white A3000 keyboard for $40, plus shipping and he sends me a brown A2000 keyboard, that I already have 5 of, I get a bit choked. By hey, people make mistakes right? Each time this has happened, I have e-mailed the seller back and questioned them about it, the only answer I get is something to the effect of "the A2000 keyboard works fine with an A3000. We assumed that you just want a keyboard that worked with your A3000, and not an original A3000 keyboard". HOLY @#$%!!!! When I ask for an A3000 keyboard, I am supposed to state an "Original white A3000 keyboard , commodore part #364447-01"? Get them to send photos to verify that I am getting the right keyboard? If this just happened once, I can see a mistake, but 3 times? Now, I don't know about you, but let us take a look at some pictures, and see for yourself. Do they look anything similar? Now, the above photos are indeed an A2000 keyboard. Notice the darker color, the rounded corners, almost a "pillowy" look to it. Now, THIS is an A3000 keyboard. Notice the white color, the fins or lines that match the A3000's case. The sharp, sleek angles. This is made for the A3000 (and 4000, but the 4000 has a smaller connector and cant possibly be confused. Thus, THIS IS TODAY'S EPIC FAIL.- Ordering and Asking for an A3000 keyboard, paying 8 times the price of an A2000 and getting something you already had a ton of. Sunday, March 22, 2009 Death, Taxes, and some more CDTV Today, we are suffering through (hopefully) one of the last snow storms here in Alberta. It has been a crazy winter to say the least. Normally at this time of year, the snow is gone, or the last of the snow is just melting, but this year, all bets are off and today looks like another 2-3 CM of snow. Today, I am taking a break from the usual Sunday routine of an Amiga project- I had planned to re-visit the A2000 as I have some stuff still left on it, and I wish to put in the SCSI CD-rom drive, but that will have to wait unit next weekend. I am doing my taxes today folks. I have been lazy and had not done my taxes for 4 years. Due to me not getting some T4 slips and such. I do not owe anything, in fact, I am looking at quite a haul for returns, but now that I have gotten the Govnment to send me all my T4 slips, It is time for me to catch up. CDTV Yesterday, I received an e-mail from one of the CDTV co-designers Reichart Von Wolfsheild (hopefully that is the correct last name- please forgive me Reichart if not). Reighart and I are carring on a very cool e-mail conversation on the CDTV. Reichart also (before CBM) worked with and on Tandy computers. He also programed many of the software we have come to love on the Amiga, like the Disney Animation Studio, Fire power and literally dozens of other programs. Quote: "Of note, Tim Jenison ( of DigiView and Toaster fame), actually cut his teeth on the Coco. He wrote the CoCo paint program, and helped build something like the DigiView called a DS69 for it, which we can assume is where he got the idea for the Amiga. Later, I specifically forced Disney to support Tandy, both with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and The Disney Animation Studio. Tandy would buy 10K units at a time of DAS (At $169 list) for the Radio Shack stores." He has been correcting me on my knowledge of the CDTV. He hasn't gone into it at lenght, but the CDTV is much more than an A500 with a CD drive. Reichart co- designed the CDVT with Carl Sassenrath, they still work together today. You may have read that Nolan Bushnell was brought on board the CDTV. Reichart states that he was brought on more of a "Face" to the CDTV. He also has a pretty cool house (at the time). Some Fun Facts about the unit: Reichart still has the "test" unit mounted on plywood Quote" "The story of CDTV is pretty damned cool, including a giant secret meeting held in a hotel in the middle of no where. A select group of 12 were picked to meet, no one knew who else was coming. We were all flown in, signed the heavy contract, and the "goal" was presented to us. We were then to review each other, and figure out the best possible way to build the device, and in a VERY short time (60 days). There is a long story of how Carl Sassenrath did due diligence on my team, and walked away blown away! This is why we got the job. In fact, he did not believe we could do what we claimed. But, we did. It paid off VERY well. And our team ended up doing way more for Commodore then originally expected." Any ways, I am always stoked, when I hear from the original designers. As I hear more from Reichart, I will do my best to bring it to you. I sure wish to thank him for taking the time to comment on the site. He was very good friends with Dave Needle, so you cant get much closer to the original CBM designers than this. If Dave Haynie ever saw this site, I am sure he would have a lot of corrections also. Sunday, March 15, 2009 Keyboard Kapers Today's project was one of those little projects, that nobody seems ever to get around to do. I had 2 extra A2000 keyboards, that both had a key busted off. The key was actually broken, so a drop of glue was out of the question. one of the keyboards had very yellowed keys, but the actual shell was cleaner then the other, so I proceeded to strip them down. First locate the 6 screws on the bottom of the keyboard (marked with the red dots), and remove them.Now you can carefully take the outer shell off. Next, flip the inner keyboard over and unplug the cable. Note that on this particular board, you must flip the unit over and remove the grounding screw. What was surprising, is that on the Donor Keyboard, the grounding screw was on the bottom. Now with the cable removed, you can now proceed to take apart the inner unit. The inner unit consists of a steel outer frame, a circuit board, and the actual plastic keyboard. There are little rubber rings that provide the actual lift, not a steel spring as one would think. With the unit flipped over you can see that there are 26 micro screws (marked with the red dots) all these screws must be removed, and this is the tedious part of the job. I had to do this on both units. Once the metal frame and the circuit board are removed, you will see the plastic tray. Be careful at this point,because there is a small LED for the caps button and it is just loose. Now, you can slide the broken shaft out. On the donor board, carefully, pop the replacement key off the shift, being careful not to break the replacement key. Slide the new shaft in place and the rubber spring. Press the new key on the shift. now placing one finger underneath the shaft, press the key down, you should feel a slight "click" when it is place. Now to reverse the process and put everything back together. I suspect one keyboard had pop or something fall on it as one of the circuit board had signs of corrosion. because I had the choice, I went carefully over all the parts and chose the best. I also took this time to clean everything. You take this time to remove all the keys and really clean everything out. With the inter keyboard all back together, now you must put the cable back on Don't forget that grounding screw! Now was the time to clean the outer shells. If you are lucky enough to have made some retr0brite, this would be the perfect time to use it. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to locate some 15% Hydrogen Peroxide, so I first used CLR and then Fantastic. I let each chemical sit for 10 minutes then took a scrub brush to each shell. I then chose the shell with the "AMIGA 2000" sticker, the other one just says "AMIGA". The Amiga 2000 shell is a bit more yellowed that the other one, but I like the sticker better. I then washed under the tap, all the cleaner off and dried it with a paper towel. Now put the everything back together and replace the 6 screws, being careful of the cable, and your done. I put the donor board back together, but I did not replace the inner screws, LED, nor cable, but packaged it all up and taped it to the keyboard. I did this, so in the future, if I or someone else needs a key, it is quickly accessible. Yes, my camera phone sucks donkey balls. Sunday, March 8, 2009 A3000 Rebuild Pt.2 I left off the last Blog, with the hard drive sled just about to be put back on, But you have to put the Card slots in first, the the drive sled. I put the card slots back on. This model had 2 screws on the right hand slide, but the old one only had one. I am not sure why. So, now it's time to put the hard drive sled back on. Before you screw down the sled, a good idea is to plug in the power supply and snake the cables through the holes BEFORE screwing it down. In the above picture, I actually goofed, and put both cables through the back hole, you should put just the scsi cable through the back hold and the floppy through the front hole. Then mount the hard drive and screw it down. This may prove a bit difficult if you have big hands like me as space is tight . After the hard drive, I then mounted the floppy and screwed it into place, hooked up all the cables. One issue I have is the scsi cable is so long, It makes a rat's nest of a mess, I am looking into getting a Smaller one, as the length only needs to be less then 2 inches just to reach the hard drive. After all this is done, comes the hardest part, Inserting the Daughter board. The daughter board is really tight and there is not any room to really get a good grip on it. Also, I put the plastic "Z" spacer clips and laminated grounding shield back on. This is not really all that necessary, its just an added safety feature. The following pictures are of the clip spots. Now, because I have no expansion cards, so that is it, just put the top back on and now its all done. Rebuilding the A3000 Part 1. So, As many of you know, I was not too pleased with the condition my A3000 arrived in. The internal Zip drive was OK, but not the best Mod. What really bugged me was the back of the unit. It looked like the computer was dropped on the corner, causing the whole chassis to twist, and the top screw holes did not line up. The picture Above shows where I believe the impact was, I apologize again for the poor pictures from my Camera phone. This may not look like much damage, but nothing aligned properly, and the Drive sled didn't even bolt up properly. I won't bother you with all the tear down details this time, I will feature that in an up coming blog. Through the forums, I was able to hook up with a guy that was getting rid of a couple of non-working A3000's. I bought a chassis, and a floppy drive. It also came with a power supply, and just about everything to replace the damaged goods. Because it was all shipped in one piece, I had to strip it all down. The only "real" damage to the new Chassis, was it was missing one of the rubber feet. I removed the remain 3 Feet and sprayed it down with some Fantastic and CLR to clean off any crap and glue residual off the bottom. I covered the bottom with felt feet, I used more than four, as I know that over time, some of these will eventually fall off. Both the old and the new chassis had a motherboard shield to prevent shorting, One was clear Mylar, and One was like a white wax paper or laminated paper. I reused the Clear one in the new Chassis. Before I could transfer the motherboard over, I had a few chores to do. There was one hole in the new chassis that had a bit of the stand off in it, it must have broke off, so with a pair of pliers, I got it out. Even though there are only 6 screws holding down the motherboard, and 4 for those are high stand offs, you still have to remove the hold down nuts on each side of the ports. This is the part that I hate, as I do not have the right tool, and end up just using pliers, and that can make the fingertips numb. Once all the nuts are removed, the motherboard comes out easily. At this time it would be a good idea to replace the motherboard battery. The last order I got from AmigaKit.com, the sent me the WRONG ones. but they swore these would do the job also. Needless too say, these are WAY too big and would require a lot of modification to make fit. For a buck part, its just not worth the Hassle, so I ended up skipping this all together. Make SURE, when you order the battery holders from AmigaKit, you make sure the send the BLACK ones, as these are just useless, and will be tossed in the bin. This is the ONLY time I have ever been displeased with the service of AmigaKit. They tried to convince me that these will work just as good, if not better, and they are just garbage. I would rather pay the $12 off of E-bay for the right part, then recommend putzing with this crap. Now, you are ready, to just slide the Motherboard back in. Then replace the screws and nuts. This is a good time to plug the LED panel back in. Don't forget to replace the 2 screws on ether side of the joystick and keyboard port on the right hand side of the computer. Now, you can go ahead and get the sled ready with the drives and such. That I will get to in tomorrow's blog. Friday, March 6, 2009 Jumping into Amiga Contrary to a quite Blog, This week has had me swamped with Amiga Stuff, I probably won't catch up anytime soon, and I still have to pay for a couple of keyboards from Ebay today. Yes, I got the keyboards from Red (RED'S RETRO COMPUTING) on Ebay for the A1000 and A3000 and have yet to take care of that today. I have ordered a bunch of stuff from Red in the past and he is a top notch seller on E-bay. In fact, I often ask him first if he has the parts I need. Lately, I have had a lot of e-mails on "how Do I get into the Amiga?" and "What is the best Amiga to Start out with?". That is a very complicated question, with a bunch of answers. I am no expert, but I will share a few tips I have come up with. First, ask yourself if you are a "Hardware person" or a "Software Person". By this I am stating, "Does the hardware fascinate you ?" or "I couldn't care less about the hardware, I just want to play my old games and such" If you don't care about the hardware, Then the best (and cheapest route) is to find an emulator for your computer. There are a few free emulators, or you can pick up "AmigaForever" . I picked up the Premium edition last year and I am very happy with it, it also comes with tons of games and legal software. BUT, if you are like me, the HARDWARE is the real joy, but you don't want to collect everything, you just want one system To play on. Here is where things get very dicey. The A500 was probably the best selling model of all Amiga's. It is probably the cheapest, and easiest to find, But the "Add ons" (hard drives, etc) are very expensive- yes, it doesn't make any sense to me either. For all intensive purposes, the A1000, A500, A2000, and A600 are the same machine, so in an entry level, anyone of these units are fine, but each has its own strengths and weaknesses. A1000 The first Amiga Pro's: Easy to find in North America, looks like a traditional desktop computer Con's: Harder to find "complete" units (with proper keyboards, and mice) Will not hook straight up to a TV in color without hard to find adaptor. Add-ons are expensive. No built in hard drive so with one floppy, expect to "swap" floppies all the time, Recommended getting an external floppy for the unit to always have workbench available. Expect to pay around $100 for a complete unit (prices fluctuate all the time) A500 (This includes the A500+ for Europe) Pro's: Easiest and cheapest to find anywhere. All in one unit so no parts to be lost. 99% of all software was written for an A500 with a 512K expantion Con's: No hard drive, Expect to be swapping floppies. Make sure you have the A520 TV adapter (Usually came with unit) to have color on TV, if you have no monitor). No internal clock, most A510's had one built in, but batteries leak Add-ons (other than the 512K Expansion) VERY expensive. Price Under $50 for a complete unit A2000 Pr0's Compatible with all A500 software. Relatively inexpensive to obtain anywhere. You can get a SCSI card and a hard drive for next to nothing. Very expandable. You can add just about everything from CD-roms to Accelerators to Network cards to this unit. You can add a second floppy drive internally for no sisk swapping, but a hard drive is best route to go, since it is autobooting. Games can be installed to hard drive, eliminating the need for floppy's Con's Big and heavy. You really need a monitor with this unit, although you can hook it up to a TV, with a A520 adapter. Some "add-on" cards like Accelerators and graphics cards are expensive On-board battery is ticking time bomb, replace or remove immediately. For a base unit, (no Add-on cards) with one floppy drive, keyboard and mouse, expect prices to start under $5o It is recommended that you get at least a Scsi card (with some RAM) and hard drive with the unit. A600 Pro's A500's improved replacement. Smaller, more compact design. Has an IDE Card built in so you can add a hard drive (if one doesn't come with unit) The expansion port was replaced but a PCMIA slot, so a ton of possibilities exist for expansion. Will work with all software written for the A500. Very easy to obtain in Europe (supposedly cheaper than an A500 in Europe) Con's VERY hard to find in North America, although they do exist. Has some limits due to IDE and PCMIA slot conflicting. From what I can piece together, A North American unit (NTSC) unit will cost over $100, but over in the UK, a PAL unit will cost Under 40 Pounds. If someone was smart, they would buy up a bunch, import them here, and make a killing. So, to wrap this up, In MY opinion, the very best Amiga to start off with is the A2000. It offers the best bang for the buck, it is cheap and easy to get, and it can be upgraded easily. Remeber, these machines were the original Video Toasters. I also got m new Chassis in for my A3000, so my next blog will show the transplant that I do on Sunday. Sunday, March 1, 2009 Here comes the Sun (day). Ok, so yesterday's rant got me to do an inventory of my Amiga stuff. Yes, I keep records of serial numbers, where I got the parts, History etc. Yes, my documentation is just as important as the hardware itself. I had discovered that only 1 thing that was "donated" through Kijji ever had been put up on e-bay, that being a A2091 card. The drive that came with it is still here. The reason why it went up, was simple, I had a much better card to replace it (A 4008), so, again, I flew off the handle abit. I hate having to justify my intentions, but I guess there are dipshits out there with nothing better to do the rag on people who have goals in life. Today, is my day off. I am working on the new site right now and came across a site called "this old Workbench", which is a perfect site for the beginner of the Amiga (like me). This site has tons of very useful information, and I might even print it all out. It is that informative.	SPONSORS OF THE LOUNGE ADVERTISE Your Company Here: E-mail the lounge for more information

Friday, March 27, 2009

An A2000 Keyboard is NOT an A3000 Keyboard!

Ok, so I have taken a few days to cool down and not just Rant about my next topic, but, it seems after all these years, people (and even reputable Amiga dealers) "forget" that there is a difference between the A2000's and A3000 keyboards.
Let's back up a bit here.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am VERY picky with my hardware. Why else would I have bought a $7000 laptop, that took me over a year to pay off, when I live paycheck to paycheck.
So, it should come as no surprise, that when I get in Amiga hardware, I want it physical looking like new- Especially if I am going to put a museum together some day. It really came as no surprise then, when I got my A3000 in, and it was all damaged, that I would spend more money and time hunting down a new case for it. Like I had mentioned before, it came with an A2000 keyboard.
Inside, the keyboards are identical, meaning the ONLY difference is the case. The case is colored and matched to the exterior of the machine.
I guess, that over time, people ASSUME that when you ask for an A3000 keyboard, that an A2000 keyboard will work fine and try to pass one off as an A3000 keyboard.
This has happened 3 times now. I have put out a request for an A3000 keyboard, and paid a good chunk of money, only to get another A2000 keyboard! The sad thing is that the A2000 keyboards are a dime a dozen, not fetching over $10 on Ebay. So you can see, that when a reputable Amiga dealer says he has a white A3000 keyboard for $40, plus shipping and he sends me a brown A2000 keyboard, that I already have 5 of, I get a bit choked.
By hey, people make mistakes right?
Each time this has happened, I have e-mailed the seller back and questioned them about it, the only answer I get is something to the effect of "the A2000 keyboard works fine with an A3000. We assumed that you just want a keyboard that worked with your A3000, and not an original A3000 keyboard".

HOLY @#$%!!!!
When I ask for an A3000 keyboard, I am supposed to state an "Original white A3000 keyboard , commodore part #364447-01"? Get them to send photos to verify that I am getting the right keyboard?
If this just happened once, I can see a mistake, but 3 times?

Now, I don't know about you, but let us take a look at some pictures, and see for yourself. Do they look anything similar?

Now, the above photos are indeed an A2000 keyboard. Notice the darker color, the rounded corners, almost a "pillowy" look to it.

Now, THIS is an A3000 keyboard. Notice the white color, the fins or lines that match the A3000's case. The sharp, sleek angles. This is made for the A3000 (and 4000, but the 4000 has a smaller connector and cant possibly be confused.
Thus, THIS IS TODAY'S EPIC FAIL.- Ordering and Asking for an A3000 keyboard, paying 8 times the price of an A2000 and getting something you already had a ton of.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Death, Taxes, and some more CDTV

Today, we are suffering through (hopefully) one of the last snow storms here in Alberta. It has been a crazy winter to say the least. Normally at this time of year, the snow is gone, or the last of the snow is just melting, but this year, all bets are off and today looks like another 2-3 CM of snow.
Today, I am taking a break from the usual Sunday routine of an Amiga project- I had planned to re-visit the A2000 as I have some stuff still left on it, and I wish to put in the SCSI CD-rom drive, but that will have to wait unit next weekend. I am doing my taxes today folks. I have been lazy and had not done my taxes for 4 years. Due to me not getting some T4 slips and such. I do not owe anything, in fact, I am looking at quite a haul for returns, but now that I have gotten the Govnment to send me all my T4 slips, It is time for me to catch up.
CDTV
Yesterday, I received an e-mail from one of the CDTV co-designers Reichart Von Wolfsheild (hopefully that is the correct last name- please forgive me Reichart if not). Reighart and I are carring on a very cool e-mail conversation on the CDTV. Reichart also (before CBM) worked with and on Tandy computers. He also programed many of the software we have come to love on the Amiga, like the Disney Animation Studio, Fire power and literally dozens of other programs.

Quote:
"Of note, Tim Jenison ( of DigiView and Toaster fame), actually cut his teeth on the Coco. He wrote the CoCo paint program, and helped build something like the DigiView called a DS69 for it, which we can assume is where he got the idea for the Amiga.
Later, I specifically forced Disney to support Tandy, both with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and The Disney Animation Studio. Tandy would buy 10K units at a time of DAS (At $169 list) for the Radio Shack stores."
He has been correcting me on my knowledge of the CDTV. He hasn't gone into it at lenght, but the CDTV is much more than an A500 with a CD drive.
Reichart co- designed the CDVT with Carl Sassenrath, they still work together today.
You may have read that Nolan Bushnell was brought on board the CDTV. Reichart states that he was brought on more of a "Face" to the CDTV. He also has a pretty cool house (at the time).

Some Fun Facts about the unit:
Reichart still has the "test" unit mounted on plywood
Quote"
"The story of CDTV is pretty damned cool, including a giant secret meeting held in a hotel in the middle of no where. A select group of 12 were picked to meet, no one knew who else was coming. We were all flown in, signed the heavy contract, and the "goal" was presented to us. We were then to review each other, and figure out the best possible way to build the device, and in a VERY short time (60 days).

There is a long story of how Carl Sassenrath did due diligence on my team, and walked away blown away! This is why we got the job. In fact, he did not believe we could do what we claimed. But, we did.

It paid off VERY well. And our team ended up doing way more for Commodore then originally expected."

Any ways, I am always stoked, when I hear from the original designers. As I hear more from Reichart, I will do my best to bring it to you. I sure wish to thank him for taking the time to comment on the site. He was very good friends with Dave Needle, so you cant get much closer to the original CBM designers than this.
If Dave Haynie ever saw this site, I am sure he would have a lot of corrections also.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Keyboard Kapers

Today's project was one of those little projects, that nobody seems ever to get around to do. I had 2 extra A2000 keyboards, that both had a key busted off. The key was actually broken, so a drop of glue was out of the question. one of the keyboards had very yellowed keys, but the actual shell was cleaner then the other, so I proceeded to strip them down.

First locate the 6 screws on the bottom of the keyboard (marked with the red dots), and remove them.Now you can carefully take the outer shell off.

Next, flip the inner keyboard over and unplug the cable. Note that on this particular board, you must flip the unit over and remove the grounding screw.

What was surprising, is that on the Donor Keyboard, the grounding screw was on the bottom.

Now with the cable removed, you can now proceed to take apart the inner unit. The inner unit consists of a steel outer frame, a circuit board, and the actual plastic keyboard. There are little rubber rings that provide the actual lift, not a steel spring as one would think.

With the unit flipped over you can see that there are 26 micro screws (marked with the red dots) all these screws must be removed, and this is the tedious part of the job. I had to do this on both units.

Once the metal frame and the circuit board are removed, you will see the plastic tray. Be careful at this point,because there is a small LED for the caps button and it is just loose.

Now, you can slide the broken shaft out. On the donor board, carefully, pop the replacement key off the shift, being careful not to break the replacement key. Slide the new shaft in place and the rubber spring. Press the new key on the shift. now placing one finger underneath the shaft, press the key down, you should feel a slight "click" when it is place. Now to reverse the process and put everything back together. I suspect one keyboard had pop or something fall on it as one of the circuit board had signs of corrosion. because I had the choice, I went carefully over all the parts and chose the best. I also took this time to clean everything. You take this time to remove all the keys and really clean everything out.

With the inter keyboard all back together, now you must put the cable back on

Don't forget that grounding screw!

Now was the time to clean the outer shells. If you are lucky enough to have made some retr0brite, this would be the perfect time to use it. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to locate some 15% Hydrogen Peroxide, so I first used CLR and then Fantastic. I let each chemical sit for 10 minutes then took a scrub brush to each shell. I then chose the shell with the "AMIGA 2000" sticker, the other one just says "AMIGA". The Amiga 2000 shell is a bit more yellowed that the other one, but I like the sticker better. I then washed under the tap, all the cleaner off and dried it with a paper towel.

Now put the everything back together and replace the 6 screws, being careful of the cable, and your done.

I put the donor board back together, but I did not replace the inner screws, LED, nor cable, but packaged it all up and taped it to the keyboard. I did this, so in the future, if I or someone else needs a key, it is quickly accessible.
Yes, my camera phone sucks donkey balls.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

A3000 Rebuild Pt.2

I left off the last Blog, with the hard drive sled just about to be put back on, But you have to put the Card slots in first, the the drive sled. I put the card slots back on. This model had 2 screws on the right hand slide, but the old one only had one. I am not sure why.

So, now it's time to put the hard drive sled back on. Before you screw down the sled, a good idea is to plug in the power supply and snake the cables through the holes BEFORE screwing it down.

In the above picture, I actually goofed, and put both cables through the back hole, you should put just the scsi cable through the back hold and the floppy through the front hole. Then mount the hard drive and screw it down. This may prove a bit difficult if you have big hands like me as space is tight .

After the hard drive, I then mounted the floppy and screwed it into place, hooked up all the cables. One issue I have is the scsi cable is so long, It makes a rat's nest of a mess, I am looking into getting a Smaller one, as the length only needs to be less then 2 inches just to reach the hard drive. After all this is done, comes the hardest part, Inserting the Daughter board. The daughter board is really tight and there is not any room to really get a good grip on it. Also, I put the plastic "Z" spacer clips and laminated grounding shield back on. This is not really all that necessary, its just an added safety feature. The following pictures are of the clip spots.

Now, because I have no expansion cards, so that is it, just put the top back on and now its all done.

Rebuilding the A3000 Part 1.

So, As many of you know, I was not too pleased with the condition my A3000 arrived in. The internal Zip drive was OK, but not the best Mod. What really bugged me was the back of the unit. It looked like the computer was dropped on the corner, causing the whole chassis to twist, and the top screw holes did not line up.

The picture Above shows where I believe the impact was, I apologize again for the poor pictures from my Camera phone.

This may not look like much damage, but nothing aligned properly, and the Drive sled didn't even bolt up properly.
I won't bother you with all the tear down details this time, I will feature that in an up coming blog.
Through the forums, I was able to hook up with a guy that was getting rid of a couple of non-working A3000's. I bought a chassis, and a floppy drive. It also came with a power supply, and just about everything to replace the damaged goods.

Because it was all shipped in one piece, I had to strip it all down.

The only "real" damage to the new Chassis, was it was missing one of the rubber feet.
I removed the remain 3 Feet and sprayed it down with some Fantastic and CLR to clean off any crap and glue residual off the bottom.

I covered the bottom with felt feet, I used more than four, as I know that over time, some of these will eventually fall off.

Both the old and the new chassis had a motherboard shield to prevent shorting, One was clear Mylar, and One was like a white wax paper or laminated paper. I reused the Clear one in the new Chassis.
Before I could transfer the motherboard over, I had a few chores to do. There was one hole in the new chassis that had a bit of the stand off in it, it must have broke off, so with a pair of pliers, I got it out.

Even though there are only 6 screws holding down the motherboard, and 4 for those are high stand offs, you still have to remove the hold down nuts on each side of the ports.

This is the part that I hate, as I do not have the right tool, and end up just using pliers, and that can make the fingertips numb.
Once all the nuts are removed, the motherboard comes out easily.
At this time it would be a good idea to replace the motherboard battery. The last order I got from AmigaKit.com, the sent me the WRONG ones. but they swore these would do the job also.

Needless too say, these are WAY too big and would require a lot of modification to make fit. For a buck part, its just not worth the Hassle, so I ended up skipping this all together. Make SURE, when you order the battery holders from AmigaKit, you make sure the send the BLACK ones, as these are just useless, and will be tossed in the bin. This is the ONLY time I have ever been displeased with the service of AmigaKit. They tried to convince me that these will work just as good, if not better, and they are just garbage. I would rather pay the $12 off of E-bay for the right part, then recommend putzing with this crap.
Now, you are ready, to just slide the Motherboard back in. Then replace the screws and nuts.
This is a good time to plug the LED panel back in.

Don't forget to replace the 2 screws on ether side of the joystick and keyboard port on the right hand side of the computer.

Now, you can go ahead and get the sled ready with the drives and such. That I will get to in tomorrow's blog.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Jumping into Amiga

Contrary to a quite Blog, This week has had me swamped with Amiga Stuff, I probably won't catch up anytime soon, and I still have to pay for a couple of keyboards from Ebay today. Yes, I got the keyboards from Red (RED'S RETRO COMPUTING) on Ebay for the A1000 and A3000 and have yet to take care of that today. I have ordered a bunch of stuff from Red in the past and he is a top notch seller on E-bay. In fact, I often ask him first if he has the parts I need.

Lately, I have had a lot of e-mails on "how Do I get into the Amiga?" and "What is the best Amiga to Start out with?". That is a very complicated question, with a bunch of answers. I am no expert, but I will share a few tips I have come up with.
First, ask yourself if you are a "Hardware person" or a "Software Person".
By this I am stating, "Does the hardware fascinate you ?" or "I couldn't care less about the hardware, I just want to play my old games and such"
If you don't care about the hardware, Then the best (and cheapest route) is to find an emulator for your computer. There are a few free emulators, or you can pick up "AmigaForever" . I picked up the Premium edition last year and I am very happy with it, it also comes with tons of games and legal software.

BUT, if you are like me, the HARDWARE is the real joy, but you don't want to collect everything, you just want one system To play on.
Here is where things get very dicey. The A500 was probably the best selling model of all Amiga's. It is probably the cheapest, and easiest to find, But the "Add ons" (hard drives, etc) are very expensive- yes, it doesn't make any sense to me either.
For all intensive purposes, the A1000, A500, A2000, and A600 are the same machine, so in an entry level, anyone of these units are fine, but each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
A1000
The first Amiga
Pro's:
Easy to find in North America,
looks like a traditional desktop computer
Con's:
Harder to find "complete" units (with proper keyboards, and mice)
Will not hook straight up to a TV in color without hard to find adaptor.
Add-ons are expensive.
No built in hard drive so with one floppy, expect to "swap" floppies all the time,
Recommended getting an external floppy for the unit to always have workbench available.
Expect to pay around $100 for a complete unit (prices fluctuate all the time)

A500 (This includes the A500+ for Europe)
Pro's:
Easiest and cheapest to find anywhere.
All in one unit so no parts to be lost.
99% of all software was written for an A500 with a 512K expantion
Con's:
No hard drive, Expect to be swapping floppies.
Make sure you have the A520 TV adapter (Usually came with unit) to have color on TV, if you have no monitor).
No internal clock, most A510's had one built in, but batteries leak
Add-ons (other than the 512K Expansion) VERY expensive.

Price Under $50 for a complete unit

A2000
Pr0's
Compatible with all A500 software.
Relatively inexpensive to obtain anywhere.
You can get a SCSI card and a hard drive for next to nothing.
Very expandable. You can add just about everything from CD-roms to Accelerators to Network cards to this unit.
You can add a second floppy drive internally for no sisk swapping, but a hard drive is best route to go, since it is autobooting.
Games can be installed to hard drive, eliminating the need for floppy's

Con's
Big and heavy.
You really need a monitor with this unit, although you can hook it up to a TV, with a A520 adapter.
Some "add-on" cards like Accelerators and graphics cards are expensive
On-board battery is ticking time bomb, replace or remove immediately.

For a base unit, (no Add-on cards) with one floppy drive, keyboard and mouse, expect prices to start under $5o It is recommended that you get at least a Scsi card (with some RAM) and hard drive with the unit.

A600
Pro's
A500's improved replacement.
Smaller, more compact design.
Has an IDE Card built in so you can add a hard drive (if one doesn't come with unit)
The expansion port was replaced but a PCMIA slot, so a ton of possibilities exist for expansion.
Will work with all software written for the A500.
Very easy to obtain in Europe (supposedly cheaper than an A500 in Europe)

Con's
VERY hard to find in North America, although they do exist.
Has some limits due to IDE and PCMIA slot conflicting.

From what I can piece together, A North American unit (NTSC) unit will cost over $100, but over in the UK, a PAL unit will cost Under 40 Pounds. If someone was smart, they would buy up a bunch, import them here, and make a killing.

So, to wrap this up, In MY opinion, the very best Amiga to start off with is the A2000. It offers the best bang for the buck, it is cheap and easy to get, and it can be upgraded easily. Remeber, these machines were the original Video Toasters.

I also got m new Chassis in for my A3000, so my next blog will show the transplant that I do on Sunday.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Here comes the Sun (day).

Ok, so yesterday's rant got me to do an inventory of my Amiga stuff. Yes, I keep records of serial numbers, where I got the parts, History etc. Yes, my documentation is just as important as the hardware itself. I had discovered that only 1 thing that was "donated" through Kijji ever had been put up on e-bay, that being a A2091 card. The drive that came with it is still here. The reason why it went up, was simple, I had a much better card to replace it (A 4008), so, again, I flew off the handle abit. I hate having to justify my intentions, but I guess there are dipshits out there with nothing better to do the rag on people who have goals in life.

Today, is my day off. I am working on the new site right now and came across a site called "this old Workbench", which is a perfect site for the beginner of the Amiga (like me). This site has tons of very useful information, and I might even print it all out. It is that informative.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Waisted A1000 day!