Vintage Computing & Consoles Amiga 2000

Well done for getting it working again. Your repair should work indefinitely, but if you feel the need to replace the CPU they are not too expensive. Last year I got one from AliExpress for £3.

Those Ni-Cd backup batteries are evil.

The video out from the motherboard is monochrome only. As you know, there was a plug-in external modulator with NTSC or PAL encoder, RF and composite video output according to the user's country. However, a much better solution would be to use an Amiga RGB SCART cable. You can buy these online from dealers like amigakit.com or make your own. The 23-pin D plug is hard to obtain nowadays; the Amigakit cable uses a cut-down 25-way plug.

It should be possible to adapt a PC keyboard for use with the Amiga 2000. It won't work directly, but a quick search shows some converters have been produced. These use an inexpensive microcontroller (PIC chip) to 'translate' from PC to Amiga. I have a similar converter that enables a PC mouse to be used with an Amiga. It means I can use an optical mouse which is much smoother than the original Amiga one. The Gotek USB floppy drive emulator looks like a worthwhile purchase. As well as being more reliable than 30+ year old floppy disks, it makes it a lot easier to transfer data from PC to Amiga. Actually it's great that a market has developed for retro computer accessories. We can go on enjoying our old computers with the benefit of some new technology.

@hamid_1 way ahead of you! Got an Amiga RGB to Scart lead from Amazon. It's a modified 25 pin D-plug so it'll fit the Amiga's 23 pin video output:

The picture quality on this mid 00s Asda TV (actually an Orion inside) is really good. The guts of this may end up in the Commodore monitor shell I have: 

I already had a Gotek drive. It's interesting to note that these vary wildly in price on Aliexpress, from around £15 to over £50! Best thing to do is just buy the cheapest and reflash the firmware to FlashFloppy (plenty of guides online on how to do this.) It supports OLED screens too so you can scroll through different files but I generally prefer the basic LED 7-segment display and multiple USB sticks for different disks.

This is just temporary! I want it to blend in with the rest of the Amiga. The case requires repairing anyway so it's likely to get sanded and resprayed.

I do also have a couple of Amiga 500s, one is an original "red power LED" model from 1987, the other is a 1990 model which may be donating its keyboard for this. I also have an accelerator card...!

Managed to get an Amiga 500 keyboard to work by soldering a 5 pin DIN plug to the keyboard's driver board. I do need to remove transistor Q1 from the keyboard so the reset function will work.

 But it works very well! I'll probably make a case for it from sheet steel at some point although the Checkmate Digital keyboard housings are quite reasonable. 

I even dropped in a modern kickstart EPROM:

Unfortunately I got a bit too carried away and tried installing the accelerator card in place of the Motorola 68000 CPU and promptly broke the already battery leakage-damaged CPU socket. 

Idiot. 🙄

I remember doing that to an A500 keyboard donkeys years ago. The Amigas were and still are a firm favourite of mine. Wish i still had my Blizzard 060 accelerator it was amazing. Sill got the A1200 but it needs re capping i suspect, the HDD didnt spin last time i tried it.

@freya I've noticed this with both Amiga hard drives and floppies, they don't seem to age very well. At least there's modern options with both Gotek USB floppy drives and compact flash/SD card hard drive replacements. 

I'd certainly replace the surface mount capacitors in your A1200 as soon as possible. The damage that this era of capacitors can do is devastating.

So this is the plan for the monitor, on the left is a Commodore monitor with no PCB and a very low emission tube (red is completely gone) and on the right is the Asda-brand TV/DVD combi that I've been using with this Amiga and have been very impressed by.

I'm going to put the tube and guts (minus the DVD player) into the shell of the Commodore monitor. Unfortunately the Asda TV's tube doesn't have the fine phosphor dot pitch of the original Commodore monitor's tube but they're just not available anymore.

Interestingly enough, the tubes in both of these are made by Orion and are exactly the same size and shape.

There have been replacement Amiga A500+ boards available for some time now for "Death by Varta" syndrome but I have just seen A2000 ones have now appeared although yours looks to have been caught in time. My A500+ is badly corroded but after cleaning up for the most part works, some titles do show some video corruption. I have a suspicion that the Fat Agnus may be suspect and second hand  replacements are crazy prices.

@jayceebee yeah, the "ReAmiga" boards are great. I have an Amiga 1200 version. John "Chucky" Hertell is the guy who designs and makes them. Amiga 1200s and 600s have the other problem of surface mount Electrolytic capacitors leaking.

Don't think I've seen an Amiga 500+ that HASN'T been damaged by a leaky Varta. Amiga 3000s are probably the worst for Varta damage, hence them being so rare now.

Denise could also be suspect regarding video corruption, at least that's the cheaper one.

Finally got round to installing the new CPU socket. I've actually put in round female header pins as I've personally found these are much more gentle on chip pins:

It works great!

Unfortunately the accelerator card I was planning on using doesn't seem to be working anymore. A bit of oscilloscope probing is called for.

Transplanted the innards of the 2005 Orion TV into the Commodore monitor shell:

The DVD player was easily removed from the Orion's chassis. I also unsoldered the composite video RCA sockets from the front. Needed to do some clearance work on the monitor shell just so the Orion's board would fit neatly inside. 

Also, despite having discharged the anode, this tube gave me the biggest zap I've ever had from a cathode ray tube! I've now started leaving a wire between the anode and ground whenever I'm working on this. 

The stereo audio output to the speakers is in roughly the same place on the Orion's PCB as it was on the Commodore's. Also, the Orion has horizontal and vertical position adjustment pots which is useful.

The buttons on the front of the Orion's PCB, I've soldered wires to them and used buttons from an old Sky box so they're still accessible:

Need to find/make a replacement flap for this. I did need to do some clearancing on the back for the Scart socket. Need to do something for the power button too. Luckily the Orion powers on as soon as mains is applied rather than going into standby. 

I'm very happy with how this has turned out though! The RGB input really makes this Orion chassis shine. The stereo effect of the two speakers on the side of the monitor is really good too. 

Not exactly a conventional repair and I prefer keeping things as original as possible but I didn't really have a choice here.

Posted by: @Anonymous

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Also, despite having discharged the anode, this tube gave me the biggest zap I've ever had from a cathode ray tube! I've now started leaving a wire between the anode and ground whenever I'm working on this. 

Indeed I learnt that lesson too, years ago I made this lead up from an old duff tripler. Cut off tripler and attach an insulated  croc clip. I always use it, even if folk think i'm a wuss.

@crustytv that's a good idea! It seems that newer TVs are more prone to holding a charge. Neither the Rediffusion Guildford nor the Pye CT450/G11 have zapped me.

So, keyboard... I'd already repurposed an Amiga 500 keyboard for this. I got a brand new case from Checkmate Digital. I'm seriously impressed with the quality of this! It's made from aluminium.

Really looks the part too.

Oh my! That's looking seriously good now, you mist be very pleased. The keyboard shell is superb. 👍 

The Checkmate cases are really good. Unfortunately it shows how yellow the keys have become! 🤣 

When the weather improves I'll put them in the sun for a few hours.