68kMLA Classic Interface
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| Click here to select a new forum. | | Amiga 2000 with Mac Emulator Hardware! | Posted by: Huxley on 2009-07-24 22:27:53
Hi guys,
Today I managed to win an auction for a Commodore Amiga 2000 from a local seller. The seller was great (and may be a source of more vintage gear in the future!), but not particularly knowledgeable about this particular machine. The A2000 I got is a plain-jane model (it didn't leave the factory with any of the special options like a hard disk or RAM expansion), but at some point in its life it underwent some significant upgrades:
First, it received a "Great Valley Products" Impact A4000-HC+8 - essentially a 70 meg SCSI hard drive on an expansion board, along with 8 30-pin SIMM slots for RAM expansion. The slots on my board are empty, but the drive is fully functioning, loaded with software, and boots flawlessly!
Second, it got a Commodore-brand "A25000" RAM board with 2 megs of DRAM chips soldered on.
Finally (and this is the part that makes it relevant to the MLA), this A2000 has an A-MAX Macintosh emulator module. This strange rectangular brick connects (externally) the the rear of the A2000, and when outfitted with genuine ROM chips from a Mac 128k or 512k Mac, allows the Amiga to natively run (early!) Mac software. The 1st-gen A-MAX that I have will boot up to Mac OS 6.0.3, according to some info I found online.
I've gotten the system booted up, but I only have an older Commodore monitor (designed for the C64 and C128), so the Amiga 2000 is displaying a pretty shaky image in greyscale. I'm going to start scrounging online for a monitor more suited to what this machine is capable of! Also, we're experiencing a pretty good lightning storm here in Albuquerque, and the Amiga is clearly unhappy with the currently unstable power, so I'm going to play with it more tomorrow.
The A2000 I got actually came in its original box (in pretty good shape too), with the keyboard, mouse, and original power cord. The A-MAX (along with some other software and games, and a 2-channel hardware audio mixer / input box!) all have their original boxes, manuals and disks.
All-in-all a great find, and a really fun addition to my collection! I'll let you guys know if / when I get that A-MAX emulator running.
Huxley
| Posted by: System7 on 2009-07-25 10:18:11
That mac emulator must be pretty interesting. Its a shame the Amiga flopped so quickly, and its assets are left rotting. If only Apple bought what was left of old Commodore.
| Posted by: Unknown_K on 2009-07-25 10:36:56
Amiga hardware at that point was played out, we are better off with modular components instead of a few chips that run everything that cannot be changed without something breaking. The Amiga started off a major leap ahead and ended up ancient left behind by everything else.
The mac emulator should be fun to play with, I have a XT bridgeboard in my A2000 thats kind of cool (and you get to use the built in ISA slots for cards in it).
| Posted by: ddni on 2009-07-27 09:40:39
The Amiga emulates 68k macs exceptionally well.
The hardware emulator for your A2000 is a great solution, however it is not actually required...
Look at my sig to see my A1200 running os8.1 using a purely software emulator...
| Posted by: Huxley on 2009-07-27 12:27:17
Strange - several recent posts (from earlier today) have disappeared from this thread!
H.
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