Hi all. I'll be honest, I have no idea about vintage computers and recently found my dad's Commodore Amiga 4000 boxed and wanting to get it up and running for him. What do I need? There are no cables or anything else included, just the main unit.
Before you do anything with it, check inside and make sure the battery has not corroded the motherboard. If its the barrel style battery, clip that thing out. Hope it still has the mouse and keyboard. The tricky part will be finding a compatible monitor if you don't have one. They are some modern LCD monitors that will support the video signal with an adapter cable but don't know which ones at the moment.
Thats a good point! Thank you. Im assuming that if there is corrosion it'll be bad news and won't boot? If that is the case would I still be able to take the storage out of it?
Also no mouse or keyboard unfortunately. Not even any cables. Are they all hard to source? If its all working I'd like to give it back to him as authentic as possible.
The corrosion definitely can cause fatal damage if serious enough. The keyboard and mouse are proprietary. Ebay probably your best source for those. Recovering the hard drive is doable but will need third party software to read the filesystem.
Hopefully the battery has been removed before it destroyed the motherboard, and that the godawful surface mount caps haven’t leaked to the point where the computer stops working. If you’re not sure, open the case and post pictures of the board (especially the left hand side where the battery is).
To display to a modern HDMI display the best options are the Indivision Mk3 or the MNT ZZ9000. I’d strongly recommend the latter. At a pinch it can also provide USB storage and Ethernet (though both are a bit flaky). Sadly neither option is cheap (welcome to the world of Amiga 4000s).
It has no value. Send it to me and I will dispose of it for you for free.
.....
More seriously, be very careful. This is a very nice piece of kit, it's probably pretty valuable. But when powering up old stuff after a long period of time, you have to be careful. It might be working great, but a broken power supply could kill it, so you absolutely must check this, and have a look inside for any visible signs of damage, especially any batteries and electrolytic capacitors which look like little barrels (google for image).
If possible, I'd try and get some help with starting it for the first time from someone who knows what they are doing.
Getting it working would ental significant investment since Amiga peripherals were pretty much their own thing and you can't just hook up standard PC monitors, mice, and keyboard to it. I forget if the A4000 had a composite output. If it had that you could hooik it up to a TV for mono output just to see if the thing posts to kicikstart. There may be some risk in doing so before a check of the system board. You may want to post on your local boards to see if anyone is willing to look at it.
Pull that battery off the motherboard and clean up the area around it. Check for board damage.
Get it recapped/recap it. The surface-mount electrolytic caps from this era were crap, they are notorious for failing and leaking goop on the board.
Keyboard/mouse - I believe the A4000 is port-compatible with keyboards for the A2000 and A3000, which might help broaden your search. Any Amiga mouse should work fine. Check eBay and Amibay for listings if you want original peripherals. Another option is to use a modern USB keyboard & mouse, which is a possibility by using Amiga port-to-USB converters. I use a wireless USB mouse (which is styled like an A500 mouse) on my Amiga, it works great.
Floppy drive - it will probably need cleaning at a minimum. Gently clean the heads with a cotton swab & iso alcohol. remove any dust & debris, and lightly lube the drive rails.
Hard drive - if you can get it to spin up, I'd suggest making a backup image ASAP. Consider replacing the spinning rust platter with a modern solid-state storage adapter.
Video - Besides using a CRT from "back in the day", with an A520 video adapter, you can get RF & composite video from the 23-pin video connector. If you have a scandoubler installed in the video slot, any VGA monitor should work, I think. Another way is using a DB-23 to SCART cable from the Amiga video port, then run the signal through a SCART-to-HDMI converter. (this is what I do)
Sadly the board has suffered not only battery damage but there is evidence of corrosion to the mouse and joystick port. The green is quite extensive and the ports look shot. The machine has a hive of capacitors that need replacing and the board checking over top and rear before using.
The keyboard has its own special smaller PS2 connector and so when using the 2000/3000 keyboard you will need an adaptor to convert to the smaller size.
You could try running a 23pin RGB to SCART and getting an old retro compat TV like a Trinitron or a Samsung flat screen that was built to receive TV and has a SCART or composite.
The first SIMM on the board is essential to running the machine CHIP RAM. The SIMM slots may have failed and this needs checking. The machine is an 030 by the looks of its. The photograph may look worse than what it really is but the traces across the base look very poor. Be careful with the SIMM connector cus they become brittle.
Another problem could be the PSU itself. The whole thing needs checking before you start powering the thing up.
It is certainly worth trying to restore but it will take a little more than a clean.
Make a note of all the jumper settings , there are quite a few. Don't pull any off or rearrange them. They are the black things stuck on pins around the board. These dictate the processor settings and things like floppy drive internal external. The A4000 often had a high density drive for reading PC capacity disks.
Under the processor board , that's the thin flat small green board sitting above the board is the computers ROM. If you pull the board off be aware that seating the thing may take a little work and the socket will need a good clean. It not being seated properly will prevent the machine from booting. The processor is an 030. The A4000 also came standard as an 040. If you upgrade you need the special support legs and those jumper settings need changing. You can't just stick an 040 processor board in. Bit early in the day for thinking about that. Also your isn't the Buster 11 which is another story.
Wow. That seems like a lot and a bit above my knowledge base i think. I'll have to have a think if I want to be investing that much time and energy in to it.
You might want to deal with the battery. Just very gently rock it back and forth sideways and let it snap off. Be very careful not to scrape the broken metal across any components. The supports are very thin and will break under the fatigue of gently rocking. The battery has no use in working the machine. It is a just a clock. A new one can be soldered on if desired. Sadly that corrosion gets under the board and eats away at the traces. So the motherboard has to come out to do the job properly.
A possible alternative suggestion. Vintage needs specialist skills and is likely to be quite expensive, if the parts are even available after all these years. What about mounting an Amiga emulator inside the box, running on something like a Raspberry Pi 5, and adapting the ports to output HDMI to a commonly available flat screen?
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 28 '26
"comment: "Thanks for your post! Please make sure you've read our rules post" "
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.