Commodore Amiga Retro

So you bought an A2000

Fitting an SCSI controller and drive

To fit an SCSI controller to the A2000 first thing you need
to get your hands on is a Zorro II card like the one shown
This is the very popular GVP Impact Series II 2000 HC+8
This card gives you three basic expansions; first the facility
to add extra RAM up to 8MB using 100ns or faster 1MB SIMMs type
30 pin SIMMs which are quite rare; second is the addition of the
SCSI controller via the 25pin port at the back; and finally
an SCSI hardrive which can take it`s power from the card.

You will need to configure the jumper settings so pop along
to the Big Book of Amiga Hardware and print off the page with
with details of your respective card.

Next you need to screw to the card the SCSI drive which
does have a size limit. I would generally buy a drive that
you know has been running on a similar system. Make sure the
drive is not bootable, cus it may have an OS on it that cannot
be run from your computer

The power can be taken direct from the PSU or from the card
itself. I have chosen to take power from the card.

Before you fit the card make sure the A2000 is working ,
and check the OS and kickstart. Suprisingly this machine
has the 2.0 ROM chip and is running the later OS for the
A2000. From the state of the label, and the twin floppies
I would guess this machine started life as an A1500

Inside you note that the computer has already been fitted
with a SupraRAM card populated with 4MB of RAM. I added
2MB to the SCSI card so this will take us up to 6MB RAM

Locate an empty Zorro II slot on the board and unscrew the
back fixing plate. Always keep the removed plate and make sure
you put the screw in a safe place.

Slide the card down the plastic guides and make sure you tuck
the ribbon cable in so that it doesn`t catch on the middle bar
Carefully slot the card into the Zorro II slot and connect the
LED connector to the card. Then, get that screw and secure the
back plate in position.

At this point you should hear the hard-drive kick in when
you fire up. Sadly this didn`t happen and my fears for the
hard-drive which had failed on another card were realised
No mind, this happens when you collect. And so another
SCSI will have to be obtained and the whole procedure repeated

Atleast I know the card works and the machine now has SCSI
control, so two out of three ain`t bad. See below for latest
update, and see how I resolved the busted hard-drive prob

So you`ve bought an A2000

Lets replace that faulty hard drive