My Crash Course with the Amiga 2000

[@MichaelAStanhope]

In 1990 when I was in Jr. High we had a TV studio in the school. Instead of the principal doing morning announcements over the PA system, we would have students read out the announcements on the TV in a "news" style show in the morning. The "pre-show" was the days lunch menu and upcoming events shown on the screen, computer generated. We initially used a TI 99/4a to do the screens, but in 1990 we upgraded to the Amiga 2000 with a genloc in it. Man, that made things so much easier, and nicer, and we could even use the Amiga to overlay the "newscasters" names on the screen while they were talking, which we couldn't do with the TI. It was an amazing machine for its time. Glad they still are so loved to this day!

[@TeeDohJackson]

When I was younger, we almost bought an Amiga 2000 and had a family friend with a 500. I remember being in the computer store and playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the salesman getting angry with me because every time you enter or exit the sewers, you needed to change the disk and wait for it to load. Well, anyone who's ever played that game knows that you're constantly going in and out of sewers, especially on that first map. But I'll never forget seeing and playing Shadow of the Beast and Agony also and how amazing those games were. When I lived in Japan, I was able to revisit Shadow of the Beast on the PC Engine and held the speed run record for both the PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16. Lately, I've been playing loads of games on the Amiga 500 Mini. Even though it's not real Amiga hardware, it's still a blast and makes me think of what could have been if we bought one when I was a kid. We ended up getting a 486 years later.

[@giuseppe74921]

Lots of people had an Amiga at home (mostly Amiga 500) back in the days, at last here in Italy and I think in parts of Europe too like Germany and Britain, I remember i laughed alot at the b/w PC 286s my school had for the Informatics classes, we programmed there in turbopascal 3 and had pascal excercises to do at home. Now believe me or not, i used a total software emulator of a pc (slow but usable) called "transformer" on my humble Amiga 500 and I prepared my Pascal home exercises there on the Amiga. The professor at school couldnt believe I used an emulator on an Amiga to make the excercises. Also we used to exchange games disks at school among friends, and there always was the pirate guy who used to sell them for around 5000 liras if i well remember, equals to about today 2,5 euros (edit: I used sometimes to buy some games from the pirate guy but i had also a lot of original boxed games, some of my favorites: Turrican I and II, Dragon Breed, and Lotus I, the first one, i didnt like the second). Very good times. PS: I remember on the magazines Commodore was very often called: "mamma Commodore" (mother Commodore) so much Commodore was a thing back in the days, at last here.

[@yodabolt1247]

I went from the Color Computer 2 to an Amiga 1000. It was such a great time to be a nerd.

[@danyoutube7491]

The 'cover disks' were stuck to the front of magazines that you would buy in the shop ('cover' being the front cover of the magazine) - in the case of the one you show @8:17, the magazine was Amiga Format, probably the most popular Amiga magazine in the 1990s. I always looked forward to getting the next month's magazine, I rarely if ever failed to buy one each month, whether from Amiga Format, CU Amiga, The One or Amiga Action. My principal interest, as a child with no knack for creating music or artwork, was demos of computer games, but I also enjoyed the snippets of various types of 'serious' software that came on these coverdisks. I never knew about the Amiga until Dad surprised us with an A500+ for Xmas 1991, and I read in the magazines about the older big box Amigas such as the A2000 with curiosity.

[@lawrencemanning]

I loved my Amigas. We got a 500 in Xmas ‘89 (Batman pack) and mostly it was just games, but I loved exploring workbench and figuring out how to make a bare bones OS with RAD:. But I really got sucked in with a A1200. Learned the skills that started my programming career: C and Perl on that machine and I still have it. I still love the OS and had so much fun exploring it, as a user and programmer. Really looking forward to hearing you explore this machine fully. I dreamed of owning a A3000 but a 2000 would have been fab too!

[@fattomandeibu]

On the games not working thing; this may actually be because of your OS ROM. The Amiga OS is stored in ROM, the Workbench disk simply holds the UI and some tools. A lot of older games will access the OS ROM directly, and if you aren't using OS 1.2 or 1.3, then these will fail to load. A considerable number of other titles will also refuse to run if not in the internal drive. You can solve the first part by using a boot disk(I forget the name) that will write a ROM image into RAM and use that as the OS until powered off by the power switch, but survive a control+double Amiga key reset. For the latter issue, you'll unfortunately have to find a working internal floppy drive.

[@JamieOrlando]

Lovely machine. The barrel batteries in these act like a self destruct mechanism these days. Best to remove them and neutralize the alkaline stuff with an acid like vinegar. The traces can be repaired, sockets replaced, etc. Definitely worth looking into someone who can repair. Chris Edwards Restoration is a good channel to see what can be done with these corroded boards.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Nice Amiga, could you hear me screaming at the screen? prob not

[@7828191]

Amiga Format is a thick magazine for the Amiga that came with disks. Used to buy some of them back in the day when i had a Amiga 500. That 2000 motherboard is not destroyed it just need some work.

[@drphilxr]

FYI- Do you know about "Dr Chris"? Chris Edwards restoration channel here on YTube- great guy, super amiga resource (he was a tech for CBM back in the day), great channel, great help for saving people's Amigas!

[@nevilovermann797]

I just want to let you know that these Amiga floppy drives are usually farily easy to service, and if there is no bringing them back they can be replaced with modified PC-drives (or digital media drive emulation solutions). There are several online Amiga stores in the US, and I'm sure a few of them also offer good repair services. I live in Norway and send all my damaged components to a guy in finland. No matter how broken they are they always come perfectly working and looking fantastic. I'm sure someone could take care of your motherboards and expansion boards. The Amiga is still very much alive and the A2000 is a great machine to get into the platform. There are lots of new and interesting Zorro- and accelerator-cards being released for the A2000. You're in for a treat! Also, check out LemonAmiga for a quick intrroduction to the games available. ;)

[@naviamiga]

Such envy whenever I see a big box Amiga. Would love to own one (and have the space for) one of these days.

[@Channel-Zx]

Great video, if you are looking for some classic all time Amiga games, the Lotus I, II, III series car racing games and for pinball, Pinball Illusions, Pinball Fantasies and of course all time classics Lemmings, Turrican 2, Rainbow Islands, Bubble Bobble for starters there are a ton of classic side scrollers Putty, Flibo's Quest big list.

[@EddieSheffield]

My journey is much like yours - I started with a Coco as well. Had a bit of Apple ][ at school and dad had a //c I did some work one. He was a physics teacher and before he got the //c we worked together to write a couple of physics programs on the Coco to use in class. But since he had Apple ][s at the high school I would get the code working on the Coco, copy it from the screen using a typewriter (no printer yet!), while attempting to translate the differences in the BASIC dialects along the way. Dad would take the modified hardcopy, type it in on the Apple at school, and bring back any errors he hit that he couldn't figure out himself along with a printed listing of his version. Later, rinse, repeat. Did it for a couple of programs - one for doing force vector calculations and one for projectile motion. But mostly I jumped from the Coco to the IBM when I started college in '85 I also really wanted an Amiga later, around '90 or so when I learned of the Video Toaster. Tho I had a neighbor in the dorm in '86 at with an Amiga 1000 I never really got to know him or use it. Still want to get my hands on one!

[@8antipode9]

Even though this is an older video, I had to comment. Just like you, as a kid I went from a CoCo2 to IBM PCs, and just like you, I've never even seen an Amiga until I got my first one a few months ago. And yes, just like you it took a significant amount of effort to get it working. I would have been very surprised if your system worked on first power-on.

[@cobaltblue1975]

@3:43 I laughed so hard at that edit. Went right to: "Its been about a month....."

[@Ezyasnos]

Most often the belt of the floppy drive needs replacement, which isn't too diffult a job, and these belts can also easily be sourced. Also, a PC disk drive can fairly easy be adapted to work in an Amiga. Regarding a taste of Amiga gaming, better try Lotus Turbo Challenge 2, Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer, The Settlers, Worms, the Chaos Engine, Pinball Fantasies and Turrican 2. If you want to see what the Amiga is capable of displaying, try Agony, the Shadow of the Beast series, Elfmania and Fightin' Spirit.

[@ArctosArcanum]

The reason you got flickering is that it is a non-standard mode for NTSC. The interlaced mode flickers on the monitor, but on a standard NTSC display it would be the standard mode. The interlaced video mode was the reason the Amiga was so beloved in TV, because it was compatible with standard NTSC out of the box.

[@sideburn]

Your disks may not be bad. I’ve had a hell of a time getting many games to work on a 2000 and most that do work, I have to boot off the internal fd:0. They won’t work off the external df:2.

[@Ramel34]

I still have my Amiga 2000 plus all the magazines and games like Shinobi, Rampage, Roger Rabbit, Magic Johnsons Basketball, Disney Animation Studios, etc.. I got the old rubbery joystick too. Guy tried to trade me for PS5 lol.

[@MechaFenris]

My Amiga 500 was my high school and college computer! Got me a CompSci degree... Lattice C ahhhhh... the memories!

[@billyballin1871]

Man.. All the Graphics and features on PC at the time, were not necessarily so much different from their 8 bit counterpart. But the PC had more data capabilities, so the features and depth of the game is just so funky and different. Plus one thing I remember at the time, was all those PC systems came with those Atari looking joysticks.. And just for that reason I sort of wished I had one, but only played the Nintendo.

[@dragonbleu1205]

I LOVE AMIGA.

[@giuseppelavecchia775]

Hai un'ottimo AMIGA.l'A2000 e' uno dei migliori della leggendaria stirpe AMIGA,computer mitico!

[@0ggie]

I noticed one of the photos of the motherboard shows the battery is still in there. I'd suggest you get that out of there immediately and clean the area with vinegar to neutralize any battery acid.

[@systemchris]

Lost Dutchman mine is a really expensive boxed game lol... And it's great too!

[@waterup380]

what you should of got was the Amiga Pak that comes with a bunch of stuff

[@darak2]

I have fond memories of the PC/Amiga wars of the early 90's. Modern console wars are such a joke in comparison.

[@MarkeyJester]

19:34 yyYEEEYyyy /homer in the monorail

[@Starfia]

Most enjoyable.

[@d0nKsTaH]

I'd be doing some serious cleaning of those two Amigas... Looks like you got a CPU card with one of them.. but with no fast RAM on it (I saw empty simm sockets! my god.. if that was a Wildfire 060 in there with no RAM... that's like winning the lottery almost!) There are lots of scsi drive options... you could also maybe get the older ones working long enough to see what's on them... and then copy them to one of those new gadgets that use a SD Card as a SCSI drive... .. Disks can also be cleaned as well as the floppy drives... Might be some contact cleaner needed on some chips and or sockets to get them working again. Who knows.... Looks like you got some good stuff.. just need to learn more about it if you weren't familiar. Its been a year since you posted this... So what was the CPU card? LOL Curious

[@bobbykimble6358]

I ran a 5 node warez bbs on a 2000

[@koekiemonster332]

Moonshine Racers: use joystick button (change gears) to speed up!

[@miguelhamrol6567]

The capture card shows everything in black and white.

[@stephaneauger1036]

I have a 3000😃I have a lot of commodore 😃😎🤓thank !!! I like all your video

[@JVHShack]

I believe that both Amiga 2000 machines can be brought to life in some manner. The procedures have already played out in my mind. Was the battery corrosion neutralized in the first machine? Hello from Arkansas, btw.

[@vintagegeek]

Hi there! I agree…and we do have the one at least running…the problems came with trying to run it with the hard drive (which didn’t work and actually brought up some weird errors). On the first one, we did remove the battery…I think replacing the CPU socket with the corroded pin sockets would bring it back to life it’s just about finding the time to do it and some patience with the soldering iron

[@JVHShack]

@@vintagegeek I forgot to mention that there's something that might work in place of the hard drive: BlueSCSI. It's nowhere near as costly as the SCSI2SD and I believe less fiddly.

[@vladimirquirozmendieta2964]

Com­mo­dore Amiga 2000!!! ALF S04E04

[@raulrrojas]

Why not pointing a camera to the monitor? Seing you watching it in color while us in b&w jaja!

[@vintagegeek]

We actually tried that...unfortunately with the reflections from the screen and the roll effect of being filmed we felt that the B/W capture from the direct output was more suitable. We hope to get an RGB capture adapter soon for future videos so we can avoid that issue. Thanks for watching!

[@AnnatarTheMaia]

Ah Americans with their obsession with the Video Toaster! In Europe most people used the Amiga as a normal PC - nobody had a genlock nor did anyone care; people just wanted to play games, paint graphics, compose music and code intros and demos on the Amiga.

[@Foebane72]

I'm skipping through this video, and I'm confused as to why the full screengrabs of the games are in black and white, while your shots with the monitor show them in full colour.

[@vintagegeek]

At some point we do acknowledge that...the reason is that to do the video capture we had to use the secondary output from the Amiga which is composite but only sends black and white. I wish we had an adapter to break out the RGB and capture it but we don't...at least not yet. We also tried putting the camera on the monitor itself but the reflections and roll made it a bit difficult to see so the black and white seemed like the better option

[@jaimeperezdelafuente9521]

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

[@gamedoutgamer]

Congrats on your A2000 pickups! None of those games show off the graphics that the machine is capable of doing. No need to cover the wheel copy protection. Video seems to drag on and lacks excitement. =( You can summarize each game in a five second clip. Send the non functioning boards to Chris Edwards here on KZbin. He'll repair them for you, which is important. Please don't throw any of your Amiga stuff away. Cheers.

[@massmike11]

More than likely the SCSI Hard disks are dead

[@alott6532]

Noice