Amazing but true. I received a request from an Amigan to collect all his gear. He was off to Australia... So I obliged. And this is what happened... [ Collection Overload ] Hi Scuzz, I have visited your very impressive website and was wondering if you would be interested in some more kit. I was going to do a similar thing but we will be emigrating to Australia and I can't take it with me. Hopefully there'll be Commodore stuff available in Oz. [ scuzz bursts into action ] Hi Well I am up.. I was up at 5 o'clock. Couldn't sleep. I have emptied the old Picasso of all its seats... er except the front ones. I am ready to trek over to Bristol to pick up the Amiga gear... And I can't wait.. Whoo hoo. It is really a wonderful feeling travelling out in search of Amiga kit and particularly when you really don't know just what you are going to find. No doubt you will be the first to know. Sounds as though I will have to do more than one trip.. Exciting. Anyway.. cuppa tea and then I'm off. ' To infinity !!! ' Heh heh :-) Happy days. [ scuzz returns ] Well I am shattered, and what I would call full. I know cus I just heard the cats run down stairs straight into waiting boxes.... You know we were talking about that bogus Amiga 1500 Checkmate which was an A2000. Well, I have another actual Checkmate here, and its in its original box. And its slightly different from mine.
Checkmate
There are loads of boxes here and included is an A4000 tower ( new one ) honestly... Megga tons of stuff. I am now going to open said boxes and collate a full list... I had to leave a car load of stuff cus it wouldn't fit obviously.. I said I would communicate with the guy during the week. All the stuff has been boxed in a garage since he last moved, and he is now off to Australia. I didn't ask how long it had been in the garage. What's amazing is that he was just about to pay someone to chuck it all. This my friends was a major Amiga find. And I am chuffed to bits it was me that found it... And that's cus he Googled Retro Amiga and got me. [ scuzz ponders his new bits and pieces ] You can actually see the history of this user through his kit from the early C64 though the 5.25" drives up through the C64Cs on to the A500 and Checkmate and then to the A1200 and finishing up with the 4000 tower. In the base of the last box there is a Lynux CD. Each machine has its vast array of add ons. I particularly like the stacked double floppy drives and the ever so tiny CD unit. There are boxes full of cables and mice. All the 500s have ROM switchers and expansions with wires going under the keyboards. All the A1200s have accelerators and there are boxes of other RAM expansions etc. The software is generally programming stuff .. There is even a massive box with C++ for the PC. This was a serious computer user growing up with Commodore. The gems here are the video toasters which are all mint in their original boxes. These are why I went and collected.
Toasters and Upgrade
When the guy held this Checkmate out to me all in its original box I just couldn't believe it. Honestly, this is a real find and a great thing to have in the collection. One of the boxes is crammed full with C64 goodies, loads of cartridges, and I just can't wait to get in there. My problem is that I don't even have any space to unpack. The A1200s have a variety of formats with ribbons hanging out the back of the computer. I really haven`t scratched the surface of the contents yet. I really wanted to install my DVD on the Mac. I shall do that tomorrow morning now. Hot again here and only April. My goodness. Never mind. Cuppa tea. [ scuzz reflects ] Hi Sitting having a cuppa and gazing over all the kit strewn all over the place, you come to realise that what made the eighties and early nineties so wonderful for those that grew up in computing, was that to make stuff work you had to get seriously involved. And cus there were limitations on kit you had to tinker. And there was a great joy in celebrating to the world just what you had done. But if you can imagine early computing like a storm, then the wind and rain have subsided and what we are left with is a refinement now of what we already know. Same goes for any technology.. ie the motor car. Everything at the start was ground breaking but now it really is just about refining what we know... And to the point. Well, computing was accessible, but also it was interesting and stimulating cus there wasn't the later advancements. The joy was cheating the kit to get more out of it. Today, there really isn't the challenge, and there are far more interesting things to stimulate, all be it not in a very creative way ie music downloads, online gaming, etc etc. Kids are stimulated in a different way and rarely question the physical attributes of the hardware and software... It just works. We shouldn't complain, after all this is their time. What is sad, is that that vast army of computer bedroom jockeys have all but given up the ghost and I guess that's why I am sitting awash with my own storm of old C64s, 500s, 1200s and a maze of disk drives and cables. Times have changed... Fortunately, I can recall how it was. And I still get a kick from it... [ the boxes are empty ] Hi I have now emptied all the boxes and collated all that I can generally find. There are a number of items in smaller boxes which no doubt I will look through when I photograph the stuff. I have piled it all so I can again get round the house... Needs more work though. Can`t do this without doing the pics really. I have cancelled all my Ebay activity, cus the room was already full before my trip yesterday... Anyway a brief final list now stands as... Troops in... Checkmate 1500 complete and in original box A4000 040 Desktop with harddrive and 3.9 A4000 Tower with PicassoIV, PolomaIV and Concierto A1200 Magic Pack A1200 boxed with Magnum RAM8 plus 85Mb hard drive A1200 with accelerator unknown A1200 A1200 A1200 A1200 case A500 with Power Computing RAM plus wired internally A500 with XtraRAM A500+ A500 A500 A500+ A500+ NewTek Tapeless Video Toaster Boxed mint Video Toaster 4000 Toaster 4.2 boxed mint NewTek Video Toaster 4 point zero boxed mint CDTV plus keyboard and remote and masses if discs CDRom plus Squirrel Interface A590 hard drive ( not the 590 just the drive ) 2 x A4000 floppy drives A1200 HD Action Replay MkII A570 drive 5.25" drive Power Computing external HD Masses of cables Blizzard 1230IV New and boxed RCA1 RAM expansion 2 x A500 Workstations KCS Power Board Pablo Video Encoder Elbox Fast ATA 1200 Power Computing 4 Way buffered interface boxed unopened C64 Mindbenders boxed C64 Light Fantastic boxed C64C C64C C64C Commodore MPS801 1541 Disk Drive CDTV Genlock Module A4000 030 68020/030 spare board C64 Assembly Language C64 Basic Programming by Dr Watson Both these are massive. A500 Manuals and books GVP A500HD+ sidecar XTDrive Eight external drives 3 CD drives 4 ethernet cards 17 joysticks 1 foot controller 2 gamepads 4 external power supplies 6 Amiga bricks 4 1200 power 1 1200 heavy 1 1200 black power 1 C64 power 2 C64C power 2 GVP HD+ power External 2 bay height external drive STFax C64 Manuals for computer, drives and printer Backstage Newsletters Server drive ? 3 boxes 5.25 disks Complete set of C64 dustcovers Easy Calc Easy File Future Finance Easy Script Best of PCW Software Machine Code Tutor SupaBasic Graphics Adventure Creator The Image System The Artist Speech 64 The Filer White Lightning BusiCalc Simons Basic TurboDisk Laser Compiler Many Amiga mice Octamed Sound Studio Manual Picasso IV Manual PabloIV Manual PolomaIV Manual Concierto Manual Turbo Print 6 50 PD CD discs 200 C64 tape games The Expert - Cartridge Power cartridge 20 Amiga mice 4 modulators 1 Mac mouse 3 C2N Datasettes 1 1531 boxed 1 1530 boxed Massive box of C64 Games and books Loads of C64 games, tapes books ie... Ghostbusters 1 and 2 The Hobbit The Tolkien Trilogy Terminator 2 Taito Coin Op Italia World Cup Soccer WEC LeMans Can You Find the Real You Wargame Construction Set Daley Thomson Challenge Lord of the Rings Valhalla Combat Lynx Football Manager 2 etc etc Catweasel manual plus disks. And that was that...
You will see from the list there were quite
a number of A1200's in the collection, and some
came with their own RAM cards.
Vidi Amiga
I spent many a happy day kitted out only with a video camera and the Wonderful VidiAmiga video video grabbing software. I used this tool to both capture still images and video, for use in such diverse applications as AMOS Professional. In those days I couldn't afford a scanner and the camera was set up to capture stuff for use with artwork and the like. Vidi Amiga came out in a variety of packages, with the latter being in Real Time. This was my most treasured bit of software and hardware to be honest. The version I had ran from the disk drive, which could be a nuisance. The latter ones had their own power supply. I was chuffed to bits to be honest when I found this very early box in the recently acquired collection.
The CDTV was Commodores new big idea back in the early nineties, which followed on from the A570 and culminated in the CD32. Not really sure just what Commodore were doing here. They were so unsure of the product that it did not carry the Amiga badge all be it an Amiga fundamentally. I thought I would share the brute with you before I gave it a good clean. This machine also came with the Genlock Module. What I found interesting about the CDTV and CD32, is the efforts Amigans made to try and convert these machines into proper computers. What Commodore failed to realise, was that had they shipped the A1200 or A4000 with a CD unit, you could have outgunned most machines of the day. Commodore would play with their toys, and sadly that always confused the serious computer user of the day.
Both the A4000d and A4000 in the tower
had leaking batteries
I deliberately left mucking around with the A4000 in the tower until today. When I switched it on last week it had all the hallmarks of a machine with loose boards, so I left well alone. Today I set to getting her working, and my goodness has this been a trial. The first thing I noted was just how by fiddling with the boards the machine flipped out, or didn't recognise the PicassoIV and Buddha. Anyway I decided to go right in. This was a puzzle till I realised that the metal slide holding the motherboard had jammed. After quite a struggle I got the motherboard out ... and there was the dreaded battery leaking. A red one. I removed it and cleaned up. The damage is very minor , though it had started to seep through the holes and underneath. The next thing I noticed was that the processor board wasn't supported on any plastic feet. This would indicate an upgrade from the 030 to the 040. Fortunately I had some spare feet. Anyway.. I put her all back together and securely fitted the second hard drive which was hanging off and fired up. This time she booted but won't get past the very fancy coloured boot screen. I installed the Workbench disk and she went straight in. I then unhooked the CDs and she booted fine... Problem with the device driver for the CD. Strange problem though. This computer has only the 3.0 ROM but is using the 3.1 Workbench. I was just wondering how sensible or do-able that really is. Anyway all the bits and pieces work, and she fires up fine. Keyboard, mouse all working and I get images on the 1084 and Iiyima. I just think this ROM thing is wrong, as is the device driver for the CD. I will probably fit the Cyberstorm and upgrade the ROM to 3.1. Nice machine otherwise. I managed to get the tray working properly.
I just did a search on Google for this brick I have here. I guess I knew it was from some kind of server, but honestly 3.25" high and just 10GB. My goodness.. Its a door stop.
ST410800WD - SEAGATE - ELITE 10GB 5400 RPM 68 PIN FAST SCSI DIFFERENTIAL HARD DISK DRIVE. 1MB BUFFER 11 MS SEEK TIME 5.25 INCH FULL HEIGHT(3.2 INCH). Seagate ST410800WD (9.0GB) 5 1/4" 5400 RPM Differential Fast/Wide SCSI Options 783 / 784 / 785 / 786 370-1868 540-2646 3 1/4" Height 9A7004-021 Elite 9 9.0GB Disk Drive FRU w Bkt 340-2612 Notes The minimum operating system is Solaris 2.3. Solaris 2.3 requires Patch 101378-xx. The firmware on 370-1868-03 and 540-2646-02 is level 0407. The maximum operating altitude is 6000 feet. The adapter is required on 370-1868-01 and 370-1868-02. The adapter is not used on 370-1868-03 or 540-2646-02. So what machine would this have come from. I can`t get it to fit in the A1200 :-)
One of the machines at work today threw up an error message on boot up. This has been happening to a number of folk of late. Anyway I diagnosed the problem and was directed to a Microsoft ' fix ' to resolve the problem. And so yet another update was installed. Evidently the problem occurs when one security update conflicts with another. And you have to update with another security update to correct the update that was conflicting with the other update. And so the original update prior to the second update, had updated the computer, but sadly had conflicted with the previous update, prior to the second update, and therefore another update was required to update the update that updated the update. You know what I mean... Microsoft... What an organisation. :-(
Ashe center stage but alone again
Well... I finished Final Fantasy XII. This was not anticipated as I did expect there to be much more to this game. I really don`t know how to rate this game against the rest. In the end it probably was the best game of its period, but, it lacked deep substance that will sustain it over the years. The game is massive, but not. The start is just brilliant and I thought that we were going to be treated to a kinda Shakespeare meets Lord of the Rings. The blades and armour combined with a medieval plot line did suggest an epic saga. Sadly though this gave way to monotonous levelling up and less and less interactive story board stuff. At times I just forgot what the hell the story was. Anyway.. The story is the usual interplay between ordinary kid fighting for his country; meets princess... er doesn't fall in love.. ( strange ) fights with assembled troop against all odds to win the day. Mixed into this is the usual boss fights, strange and wonderful creatures and the odd assortment of side quests. Trouble is there really isn't that much problem solving. And the side quests are not character building. In terms of strengths, well, its incredibly well done, and the graphics are breathtaking. The whole feel is just magical. The fight engine has been totally revamped and is classic, and the best I have ever played. Sadly though the intricacy of armour, weapons, skills etc have been reduced to a reward process that to be honest is quite pathetic. There really is no skill here. If you just level up and become strong you really don`t need any of the vast array of magics. Also, all the characters can do the same thing. What you find is that to seriously complete the game you just use three characters. There is this thing called a gambit which allows you to set certain tasks during battle, and this works well. I ploughed through the skills and weapons section, called Licences in no time, and at Level 50 I could really kill anything in one swipe. The characters are very similar to all the characters of old, except they really have tried too hard to humanise everyone. Its all become very believable. The old classics are laced through, though the ' summoning ' is just pointless, and ' quickening ' has to be a last resort, or you are doomed to no MP. As to characters, well the final boss was just not nasty enough. The star was this guy called Balthier who I would have loved to have had a fling with Ashe. Poor old Ashe finished up with Basch, and the main character Vaan, well he just went back to school I guess. Thing is Balthier kept saying all the way through he was the main man, and yes he was. In the end this game was very very good, but not brilliant, and I would say that FFX was still the most polished of the set. FFVII is classic, but for being ground breaking. Still worth playing and if you like gaming then its a must. And for me.. Well I have started it all over again
Ashe in action... Not very ladylike
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Last updated 22nd April 2007
Chandraise Kingdom