[rescue] Amigas arrived

[Bill Bradford]

On Fri, May 18, 2007 at 08:40:01AM +0100, Mark wrote:
> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/sets/72157600226133061/
> Looks nice and clean at least, and little yellowing.

The front panel cleaned up nicely with a Magic Eraser [0].

> > Has a Retina BLT Z3 "retargetable graphics" card
> *That's* what an RTG card is. It's no a bad one either. :)

I still need to find a "dummies guide to RTG cards", as I never dealt
with one when I had my A1000 (of course).  As far as I can tell, I have
to do basic OS install/setup using the normal Amiga resolutions out the
standard video port, then I can set things to go out the RTG card after
the OS is installed and drivers are setup...  If I can do 1024x768 at
24bit, I'll be happy.

> > an Emplant Macintosh-emulation card (which I don't need/want/wont  
> > be using)
> Shame, it was a bit of marvel in it's day. Still you, like me,  
> probably have at least 1 real 68040 Mac (I have about 12!) somewhere!

Actually I own two Macs right now - the iMac Core Duo 20" and my MacBook -
but if I want to emulate an older Mac I'll just do it on one of my actual
Macs. 8-)  If you (or anybody you know) wants the Emplant card, just let
me know and you can have it for cost-of-shipping.

> When you get it up and running I strongly recommend investing in 3.1  
> ROMs and OS 3.9 for it. Any 030 or better can run 3.9, but 1200s,  
> 3000s and 4000s do it best (that said my 2000/040 isn't *bad*).  
> You'll certainly want OS 3.1 at least. If you need help sourcing ROMs  
> and Workbench disks then drop me a line, they are generally easier to  
> find in the UK.

It may already have 3.1 ROMs; I haven't gotten the guts yet to unplug 
the CPU card to see what the ROMs are underneath it.  I'll find out when
I fire it up tonight after the rest of the cables and the mice arrive.
If it doesn't have 3.1, I can get them from Softhut for $30 or so.

I've got disk images of every major WorkBench release up to 3.1; once
I get my other A2000 working, I can use AmigaExplorer (connected to my
PC) to write WB3.1 disks, which I can then use to "bootstrap" the A4K.

Once I get 3.1 working on the A4K, I've got an ISO image of AmigaOS 3.5,
and have a friend who is giving me an image of 3.9 in a day or two.  It's
*almost* a chicken-and-egg problem. 8-)

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford 
Houston, Texas