Amiga 2000: The companion video

[@falksweden]

Regarding your video format (talking head etc.) I personally think it's great. I definitively prefer it to the overly scripted and stiff style that's too common on youtube. You're making it entertaining, informative and fun to watch since we can follow your thought process and learn together with you. 👍

[@tekk9995]

Hear hear!

[@timothyp8947]

'So what else went wrong?' - sounds like it would’ve been quicker to ask what went right 😜 The 'joys' of trying to keep 30+ year old kit running. You’re taking tenacity to a new level.

[@digitalarchaeologist5102]

Just wanna say, thanks so much for the content. I love that Neil, Adrian etc all watch the content too and it's become quite the community and extra kudos to those that have day jobs too. Thank you for sharing

[@timrb]

Enjoying the Mr Lurch videos however they come. Keep it up mate.

[@xPLAYnOfficial]

Since the upper floppy-sized blanking plate is already non-original, why not create a basic hinged blanking plate attached to a carriage that the Gotek can sit inside of. In this way, the Amiga will look 100% original at first glance, but will now have a useful access panel on the front for using the Gotek when needed. I personally think this is the best solution available to you. Kudos for continuing to ship-of-theseis this build despite all of it's setbacks. The end video was very well done, but don't stress about "needing" to make videos like those. Personally, I find your style of videos to be refreshing amidst the heavily-scripted modern KZbin world of content creation.

[@pipschannel1222]

Nice job! I have to say I can really relate to the amount of headache these old behemoths can cause but in the end the isane amount of effort is always worth it. Somehow these machines gravitate towards me or the other way around as I somehow ended up with four(!) of them in my living room this year :-) It was the first Amiga I ever touched in 1987 and I have been a die hard fan of the machines ever since.. I fixed two of these old gals up this year for friends of mine. One was really easy and just needed a good clean and a new CPU socket. The other one needed lots of trace repairs but is still happily humming along. Then I somehow stumbled on 2 very poor machines that were beaten to a pulp and flooded with water and battery acid. It took ages but one of them ended up really nice cosmetically and is fully working. It took me an insane amount of time to get the mainboard to work as there were multiple faults but it turned out great. For the 4th one I'm still working on finding the ambition/courage to fix it but she'll be working fine as well by the end of the year ;-)

[@RisteSekuloski]

This was even more heroic effort than I thought. It makes me glad that I decided to go via emulation route for my retro nostalgia. Anyway, keep it up mate, your pains are appreciated!

[@Dwarfboysim]

Admire your dedication to stick with it. It looks great

[@OzRetrocomp]

If this experience wasn't enough to turn you (and Nathan) off Amigas for life, nothing will! Congrats on persevering for what sounds like the most cursed Amiga in Australia.

[@fattomandeibu]

Oh god, that sounds like an absolute 'mare. I can only imagine the number of four letter words. Glad you got it going in the end, though.

[@NerdThingsAndMore]

Good video thanks

[@parrottm76262]

If you plan on getting a period accelerator, I would strongly recommend an 040. I had an 040 card in my 2000 and it transformed it. It extended the life quite a bit. Thanks so much for sharing your trials and tribulations. As much as I love all the different Amiga models I had, all those machines seem to have not aged well.

[@pauledwards2817]

I would agree with that but once memory is placed outside the 24bit address range then the Amiga 2000 really shows what is was, an A500 with more side slots. DMA can't reach memory on the accelerator and such like leading to hell with bridgeboards and hard drive controllers. Given the silly prices they fetch going for even more silly money on an A3000 seems less daft.

[@SuperVstech]

The like this drive was a 1/4 height drive that would have fit without problem, you must have had a half height drive in there… wild. It must have been for running a 8088 bridge board software… crazy!

[@XAct-6510]

What about a bridgeboard as a period correct expansion? They were quite common in the A2000

[@Frank_2023]

I appreciate your time and effort mate, keep up the good work, but look after yourself first :)

[@pwissink1]

A switch less df0/df1? Now I am getting curious how that works. A gotek is indeed the best solution for replacing the disk drive. But like you, I choose to build my gotek in an external case en keep the df0/df1 switch behind the bottom trapdoor of my A500. I appreciate your dedication to keep this beauty running and looking stunning.

[@MrLurchsThings]

There is a design on PCBWay

[@michaelpiotrowicz6100]

If you get an old school accelerator Commodore's Amix (Amiga-Unix) OS would be cool. I believe it is supported in ROM on Commodore accelerator boards. Also 68020 accelerators often need a firmware update to work with anything past Kickstart 1.3.

[@VK2FVAX]

What a fricken mission (tm). :) I've had resto's like this so I can feel ye. Good on you for sticking with it. It'll be a great system when you're finally "happy with it". Regarding talking head.. maybe I'm not fussy, do what ever *you* want. It's all good. :) Still batting a hundred.

[@Foobar_The_Fat_Penguin]

I don't mind the talking head as long as it's saying something interesting. So far, you haven't managed to disappoint. And watching people actually do repairs is also very instructive. Just tell your employer that they need to give you paid leave to make more videos. Tell them I said so. That should definitely do the trick. No way that can go wrong, trust me.

[@StingyGeek]

Wow. Perserverence.

[@Chriva]

Low the star trek-esque sweater :)

[@JVHShack]

@Mr Lurch's Things Is that monitor door's design available somewhere? As you stated, "...they're all broken...or missing...or whatever." I have the Magnavox branded NTSC composite only version gifted to me by a family member. She used it with her Apple IIc back for work in the 1980s and I even played some Pac-Man on that IIc through the Magnavox monitor as a kid in the late 80's and early 90s. It's a rusted mess inside, but I would like to restore it nonetheless. I can only say that the reason behind that is the same one for watching your channel and many others with the vintage computer content: rose-tinted nostalgia. As for your frustrations getting that accursed Amiga 2000 resurrected, It seems that the fruits of all the labor, swearing, and emotional turmoil are looking rather sweet. I will definitely keep an eye out for your next video!

[@MrLurchsThings]

There are various revisions of it on Thingiverse. Although I do remember having to customise one to make it print stronger. If I can find it, I'll post up a link.

[@UpLateGeek]

Oh yeah, definitely don't ruin the look with an internal gotek. An external one would definitely be the go ... tek.

[@SuperVstech]

Wait… it’s rare to have an unbroken original 1084 with decals and cover door?

[@MrLurchsThings]

There’s certainly more broken ones than unbroken ones these days.

[@geofftottenperthcoys9944]

@@MrLurchsThings Mine was broken when I got the monitor in the early 90's!

[@OzRetrocomp]

@@MrLurchsThings I still have the original (broken) door for my 1081. If I can find a long-term solution for reattachment I'll die a happy man.

[@MrLurchsThings]

@@OzRetrocomp send it to me. I’ll fix it the same way I made this

[@wimwiddershins]

Stealth gotek? Hidden behind a blanking plate. 👍

[@MrLurchsThings]

Hmmm…. Hinged, maybe held close with a little magnet. /thoughtfully strokes beard….

[@falksweden]

I'm thinking of using a CD drive myself but gutting it and 3D printing a new custom tray with the Gotek display, buttons and USB in it. And trying to preserve the eject mechanism to "eject" the Gotek with the drive's button.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

Just do your thing your way. Retro Man Cave has plenty of "ho hum" content too. It happens.

[@10MARC]

Wow... That was a cursed project for sure! Yikes!

[@acj1971]

Nice

[@VincentGroenewold]

Almost sounds like there is some kind of power issue, shorting all the things out once in a while? :) What a challenge.

[@MrLurchsThings]

Honestly, no. We went right through everything/anything like that. The PSU got pulled apart several times to triple check. The original motherboard was just too far gone. The problem with battery damage is if you can’t find/see/access everything single spec of corrosion, it’ll just keep eating away cause more damage and issues.

[@brianv2871]

Wait, so multiple Amiga floppy drives failed? What a surprise... Haha. I don't know what it was about the Amiga and Atari 3.5" drives but man are they terrible... And in most cases they had custom form factors so using PC drives (modified for the drive 0/1 issue) aren't really an option either most of the time. For my ST, i gave up and used a gotek with a 3d printed faceplate. Will likely do the same when the Amiga one inevitably fails.

[@jaimeperezdelafuente9521]

It's far better the original machine, the Minimig implementation in UnAMIGA haven't the PAL 28'37516Mhz Clock!

[@SuperVstech]

You’ve had your fill of AMIGA? I don’t understand… you need to work on all the lines of Amiga now! Do this level on every model…

[@OzRetrocomp]

Have you seen A3000 and A4000 prices recently? I'm not sure how much kidneys fetch in Australia these days, but I suspect it still wouldn't quite be enough to buy an A4000...

[@SuperVstech]

@@OzRetrocomp I had no trouble buying one on eBay last month…

[@SuperVstech]

@@OzRetrocomp admittedly, my 1000’s, 2000, and 3000 were free to me… but I bought my 1200’s and 4000, and I’m working on a deal for 600’s.

[@SuperVstech]

@@OzRetrocomp heck… many beloved channels get gifted amigas for repair and restoration… your channel has a great following. You could get lucky with subscribers.