[geeks] A very d'oh! moment

[Mark]

On 11 May 2007, at 01:02, Bill Bradford wrote:

> On Fri, May 11, 2007 at 12:37:25AM +0100, Mark wrote:
>> Ultra 60 ... remembering you didn't issue a 'boot -r'  to rebuild  
>> your devs...
>
> drvconfig;disks
>
> BTDT too, just not 3 days later.  More like "2-3 reboots later.."

Good trip that - thanks :)

>> all the cables etc. to re-attach that Commodore so thoughtfully made
>> just to short to be any use :P
>
> And such tight clearance above the motherboard, too.  I've got this
> '030 accelerator here that had bent pins; I'm thinking of putting a
> new socket between it and the motherboard socket as a spacer/to have
> stronger pins going into the motherboard, but I'm not sure if there's
> that much clearance under the drive tray.

I seriously doubt it'll fit. I used to have a very similar SSL  
accelerator in mine and that only fitted with a little headroom. I  
just whipped out the tape and measured the clearance from the surface  
of the board to the drive deck in mine (got the lid off mine ATM -  
more on that in another post). It's got about 1.25" of headroom under  
there, not a great lot.

>> I'm just glad to see you raise the purple screen of life from the
>> dear thing!
>
> Me too!  I'm glad the flickerfixer works with the Dell flat panel.

When you've got Amiga problems that screen is one of the most welcome  
sights known to man :)

> If I do the ATX mount, it will be one of the PSes with a switch on the
> back - but I still have to rig a "softswitch" for the ATX connector.

Hardwire it. You just have to ground one of the pins - I forget  
which. There's plenty of info on the net.

> I'll most likely use the connector off one of the existing Amiga 2000
> power supplies, but make it into an "adapter":

EEEK don't hack the wires off a good PSU :o\ Those in-line block  
connectors are likely readily available from electronics places -  
maybe someone here knows where?

http://amigahardware.mariomisic.de/download_photos/a2000rev43mb.jpg

That's the board - the PSU connecter is pretty much central in the  
picture - has 5 caps along it's left side.

> ATX PS -> ATX female plug-----Amiga female motherboard connector
> That way if I want to switch to a different ATX PS in the future, it's
> literally plug-and-play.

That much seems like a sound plan. I did the same inside my A600/ 
Quadra610 conversion. Did I link to that here, I forget?

> I'll probably put a Plextor SCSI CD-ROM drive in the 5.25" bay, then
> put a 9G SCSI drive where the second floppy drive would normally go.

Mmmm... Plextor.... I have a Purple Sun/Toshiba drive in mine - I  
think it came out of a E250. It certainly raises a few eyebrows at  
meetings :o)

> If I do that, it lets me use a floppy-bay cover to also host the
> power switch that's connected to the ATX-to-Amiga power supply  
> adapter. 8-)

And ruin the poor things good looks? You heathen :P

> All this is, of course, if I end up expanding this system instead  
> of using
> the Amiga 4000 that will be on its way to me this weekend - I scored
> another A2K and an A4K for cost-of-shipping.  Hopefully the A4K is  
> a later
> model (the A4000cr) that uses the normal "coin cell" battery on the
> motherboard, or has not had any battery leakage/damage.

Personally a standard board would be better, you can replace  
defective CHIP RAM on the standard board. The battery issue is  
usually addressed in 4000s by using a replacement on fly leads sealed  
in a plastic bag, or just not bothering... how many accurate clocks  
do you need after all?!

> For now, I'm just glad to see Kickstart come up on this machine;  
> now all
> I need to get it basically functional is a physical set of  
> WorkBench 2.1
> floppies.  Unfortunately my source for those is out of town until  
> Monday,
> then he'll have to make them on Monday and mail them, so I may not get
> to do anything further with this box until late next week.

Yeh, you pretty much are stuck until you get Workbench going, unless  
you can find any Amiga games floating around that still have working  
floppies ;o)

-- 
Mark Benson

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"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."