EnigmA Amiga Run 1996 June/EnigmA AMIGA RUN 08 (1996)(G.R. Edizioni)(IT)[!][issue 1996-06][EARSAN CD VII].iso/earcd/hardware/top_hk14.lha/T.O.P./ARTICLE

Text File | 1996-04-13 | 12KB | 219 lines

  __________________________________________________________________________
 /Weak & Aged A500 to The TOWER OF POWER: Simple Hacks in Lieu of Upgrading!\
|             "Amiga, The HaCkErS 'Digital Engine' of Choice!"               |
 \            By Thomas Weeks, aka Tom-D-Tek, aka Mr.Bandwidth              /
  \________________________________________________________________________/


While Finishing up the last of my upper level EET classes at Texas A&M
University  I began to notice how many hard core Amiga users were making
the choice of either upgrading to the "New and Improved", 32 bit, AGA power
houses, or  jumping ship all together and getting a 486DX66, a double speed CD
ROM player, and the latest "Lucas Films Saga" on CD.  I also noticed, working
as a part time "Authorized Commodore"(?!) Amiga Tech, that many of my customers
were beginning to squirm at  the prospects of throwing out all their old gear
and making the leap of faith into the AGA realm.  After all, we had all heard
the _HORROR_STORIES of "Incompatibilities" and how all those great games that
we once played until numb, in the world of AGA would leave one blankly staring
into the now politically reformed guru message, "Software Failure"!.  These
two harsh choices were making Amiga owners across the land , and admittedly
myself also, second guess their position and wonder wether or not they stick
with their ole faithful , lowly A500 systems, dump it all and buy a Klone,
or just "Take the AGA Plunge"!



This got me thinking...  Well..  I have acquired quite a system here over the
years and have just got it set up the way I like it!  I don't wanna sell it to
some little snotty nosed, teenageNintendoMasterWannabe!  Hmmm..  If I could
only mold my system into...



                               THE TOWER OF POWER!



I already had a MASSIVE (for when I bought it) 160Meg, 5.25", HH, SCSI drive,
a 44Meg SyQuest (that I bought off some blonde bowhead at the Dallas 1st
Saturday flea market for $35 (she thought it was a floppy drive! HA!)), a
CLtd Kronos SCSI controller, and my little Supra RX with 4 Meg of Fast RAM!
My first move to the T.O.P. was to kick up my processing muscle...



I had always been a keen observer of Amiga technology and never leaped onto
hardware bandwagons.  As having been an Amiga tech since '89, I found it was
much wiser (and cheaper) to watch others jump on the bandwagons and learn from
their mistakes in the form of unsupported hardware, defunct defacto standards,
and unstable hardware add-ons.  But now it was time for me to make my move...
GVP was liquidating their 16 bit machine accelerators and my best friend, my
Visa card, was my  ticket to ride!  I watched all the mail order prices like a
commission brochure and caught an A530 40MHz 030 with 4Meg of RAM and NO DRIVE
for $399!  WOW!  What a LEAP!  My next big move was to get a tower case...  I
mean my A500 was like 6 feet wide with all the stuff I had plugged into it!  I
was sick of all the wires, cables, extra power supplies,  and besides, all my
Klone friends had those nice elegant cases...  Why not me!  So, with one of my
techie acquaintances, I managed to get a Diamond Black Mid Tower Case for $140
delivered (whole sale cost), which due to an ordering error ended up being
dark grey, but I could wait no longer, I had the fever!  I had chosen this
case very carefully, keeping in mind the dimensions that I would need to
make my machines metamorphosis feasible.  The case had 4 5.25" exposed drive
bays and two internal 5.25" HH bays, a 300W power supply, a cool case stand,
and an real slick CPU speed/indicator panel.  It was 8.5" inches wide inside
which would give me more than enough horizontal space to mount the A530 in
that orientation.  I went to work!



My first move was to make sure that the mother board could be mounted...  I
was in luck.. the two screw holes on either side of the Zorro Expansion
connector matched up perfectly with two of the mounting brackets of the case
leaving my machine oriented with the rear connectors towards the rear, and
the right hand side of the mother board flush with the top of the inside of
the case!  This was great!  But two mounting points were not enough.  I needed
AT LEAST one more point for ANY stability.  I found another bracket on the
case that would do but I would have to <gulp> drill a hole into the double
sided mother board...  "No Problem" I said.. I've done more hard core mods than
this (but just never to my own baby!)...  I carefully lined it up so that I was
only cutting through a ground plane, and then, made the first incision!
<Whew!>.. It was clean (thanks to my handy Dremel Moto Tool).  I then turned it
over to examine for any mischievous, loose copper shrapnel... and.... <GASP!>
I had JUST DRILLED THROUGH 3 ADDRESS LINES of baby Rocklobster!! I was
devastated! There was no turning back.



I cleaned up the hole, cut back the address lines and rerouted them leaving
room for the metallic screw to form it's grip.  I then finished mounting the
mother board on brass standoffs, and with the help of an old power connector
off a now retired KlOnE 286 PC board, made a power cord adaptor that skipped
that old square DIN connector all together and used the IBM power supply's
standardized Molexish connector to give my bantling back its breath of +5,
+12, -12, and GND that it was so desperately crying for (in my head).  I
powered it up.  It came to life and uttered  the familiar "pause...click-click"
that took me back smiling to the good ole days of floopy based operation.  I
then took on the MAJOR task of bringing each and every connector on the back of
A500 to the back of the T.O.P.'s case... this could be an article all unto
itself!



The next step was to bring the A530, 40MHz, 68EC030 power house into play...
"Hmm.. I know that I needed an 86 pin zorro female for this job if I am to
mount the A530 as I have imagined." , (in the bottom of the tower case...)
But where to get one?!  I could have ripped one off an old A1000 expansion
device if I were back home surrounded by dead Amigas, but I had to make due...
Digikey and Mouser were no help...  So I tucked my tail between my legs and
went to... "The Shack"...  Yea.. That's right...  The Rat Shack, The Hole,
The Idiot Shack.. All the Engineer's derogatory slangs for Radio Shack rang
through my ears as I walked through the door to the ever predictable and
greedy welcome of, "May I help you find something?"...  "Heh.. I doubt it..."
  I muttered under my breath...  "Uhh.. Sir.. Are you looking for something in
particular?" ...  Hmm... Ok...  I'll play... "Yeeeeea.. Ok.. I need a standard
female, 16 bit, ISA bus expansion connector with either wire wrap or PC
mounting solderable connectors."...  <silence>  "Mmmm... Ahh Iiii'm afraid
we don't have that, but our Tandy 200SX/33 has THREE of those ISA thingies in
it and it's on SALE right now for..."...     "Uhh.. Yea.. I'll just go have a
look here in the back.. Thanx anyway..".  I got my connector, chucked it on
the counter and as fast as I could udder the last four digits of my phone
number, I was outta there.



I got back home, made the required and carefully measured marks on the conn-
ector to make the cut and then sicked Mr. Dremel on that nasty, ugly IBM ISA
connector.  The cut was clean and looked accurate enough.  I then whipped out
my trusty LOCTITE, 2 part, cold welding epoxy and lined up the two halves of
this home made Zorro connector that I had sliced into being, let it dry on a
sheet of wax paper over night (making sure that it was perfectly straight
lest I have to go back to the Rat Shack) ..."and  if all goes well, I should
have my Zorro connector in the morning!"



In the morning I skipped my first 5 classes and decided to tear out the ribbon
cable and make this 3 inch ribbon nightmare a reality.  I must say, it's some
of the toughest soldering I've ever done.  I had to solder 86 pins onto that
hacked ISA connector and then the other 86 pins to the board side of the
connector on the GVP A530, having to _BEND_ every other connector leg to get
my solder tip in tight enough to get the job done!  I never sweat so much in my
life.  After I finally got THAT up and running, I could now take all of my
previously external SCSI drives and shove them into..

                                    THE T.O.P.!



Some of the other hacks I had previously made to my system over the years just
seem to fit into place as if by Devine enlightenment, as if planned in the
past by something outside myself, something that knew that the T.O.P.
-M-U-S-T--B-E-...!  <hehe> sorry..  got carried away there...  My switch
debounced, TTL buffered, LED indicated, NTSC/PAL switch was set up so that it
could be hooked directly to the cases elegant RESET button and Turbo LED.
The A530's Game switch was now hooked up (with ease I might add) to the ever
powerful TURBO button.  The front LED MHz display was easily set to "40".
The C= HD floppy drive took some doing trying to get to fit into a Klonez 3.5"
to 5.25", 1/3rd height, floppy drive adaptor, but the pieces were quickly
coming together!



The next step was to internalize my fairly new purchase of one Line Link 14.4k
Baud V42.bis, Voice/Fax modem into one of the 5.25" drive bays.  This was
tricky and I was not sure it would work because I had to cut the hell out of
the multi layer board it was manufactured on to get it to fit, but I knew the
areas I had to cut did not bear any important signals but merely the Vcc and
GND planes so I did it and it worked.  I did, however,  have to build a new
power supply (9VAC) out of a 12.6V Rat Shack Xformer, and a few clamping
diodes to dissipate some of the extra juice.  I then drilled holes in the
dummy face plate I was mounting the modem behind (for the LED's to peep through)
 and brought the power switch up to the front. I needed, of course, to access
the phone jacks on the back of the modem, so for this I got a hold of an old
1200 baud internal Klone Head modem (for free) and took great pleasure in
cutting the hell out if it to extract the needed PC backplane with the RJ-11's
in tact. By simply cutting a Male to Male RJ-11  cord in half and soldering
IT to the backplane jacks and plugging it into the back of my modem, I was set!
I knew, of course, that I would also want either a second serial port or some
way to switch the serial port from the modem to an external device (like my HP-
48GX) so I used what I had.... I merely internalized a 25 pin serial switch box!
It works fine with the rotary switch located in the rear next to a  standard
Male D-Sub 25.  Then for the final touches, I used rub on lettering to  define
the modem LED indicators and the power switch.  The T.O.P was beginning to take
an elegant and usable form!



I  decided THEN that I would DEFINITELY not want people coming over and
mistaking my T.O.P. for some run of the mill, MSB, Klone headed, 386DX40, so I
stenciled onto the side in big 3" High Letters, "AMIGA" for the whole world to
see..



All in all it turned out rather nice.  I got my T.O.P. dream machine (with a
little epoxy, solder, sweat, & tears), have a unit that turns 12+ MIPS (about
486sx speed), have plenty of room for expansion, and even enough case room to
maybe even put in a dual Sling Shot type device for preparation of my REAL
dream of: a GVP EGS 24 bit Spectrum Board (for emulated AGA) and an Emplant
Mac/586 emulator!!!



With a little patience and some good technical support, anyone that's handy
with a soldering iron can do these types of modifications.  Even if you DON'T
choose the T.O.P. route, there are still MANY options open to the often scoffed
at, and lowly A500 user!  The only limits are your own imagination... (and your
current credit card status.)



                                  Tom D Tek... out.