Ahoy from Brisbane, Australia

[ChrisW67]

New to the forum after deciding to resurrect my A1000 Phoenix machine which has been boxed and in the garage for years.

I obtained the A1000, A1010 external drive, and 1084S monitor in Dec 1986 or Jan 1987.
It served me well through university, with too many hours spent on co-op Bubble Bobble
Somewhere along the way I added a 1MB Proton Ram Expansion that I later had to replace one of the 32 RAM chips in.

I replaced the original motherboard with a Phoenix board late 1991 or very early 1992 (Serial 7A528 Mod A2).

• SCSI option installed with a DB25 external plug. Had an external 20MB SCSI device attached in the day.
• 8372B Agnus with 2MB of chip RAM
• Kickstart 1.3 in ROM, to which I later added KS 2.04.
• Kickstart switch and disk drive swap switch installed.
• Picked up in person from Phoenix in Adelaide.

I am amazed that the machine still functions. I have not recapped anything (yet), although I have inspected for bulges, leaks, bad voltages, obvious shorts etc. and found nothing ominous. The RTC battery is very dead but has not leaked.
Have to work out something for video output; the A2000-style mono composite is terrible.

Still have original floppies, manuals, and packaging from the Kickstart upgrade, and the original SCART video cable.
No longer have the monitor, original A1000 board, Phoenix manuals/software, or external SCSI device.

Here's a happy snap of it in its present state of undress:

That was my fourth computer; a ZX80, VZ200, and MicroBee Computer-in-a-book coming before.
I subsequently owned an Amiga 3000 before succumbing to the IBM PC world and bigger UNIX machines at work.

The ZX80 might be my next resurrection job. I reckon it might look sporty with 16KB RAM.

[intric8]

Welcome, ChrisW67!

You're one of a small handful here that has a Phoenix machine. I have one, as does McTrinsic, Mickatroid, jamesyoung. There are probably others but off the top of my head the rest are escaping me at the moment. As you know, the Phoenix boards are exceptionally rare and fascinating "diva" machines as McTrinsic likes to say (and I would agree with that label).

When I received mine it was a pile of parts but were supposed to all be working.

It took me a few days to finally understand why it wouldn't boot. There was a switch installed into the back panel that lead to the missing floppy drive. I discovered that when that switch was in the wrong position the machine would seek an external drive on bootup. If one wasn't attached the computer would hang. It nearly drove me crazy figuring that out.

After that, I worked with a friend to replace the floppy drive with a more modern floppy replacement.

I did that because the original drives were too tall to fit into the case with the replacement motherboards. That became a huge time sink in itself. My friend modeled and printed multiple floppy eject buttons and we finally found a good landing place. That drive button was so exceptionally finicky the solid metal bracket took a bit of fine tuning to in order get things perfectly aligned. If the drive was so much as a fraction of a millimeter out of alignment it would get cranky.

The final step for the Phoenix for me was getting a SCSI2SD card installed. The entire SCSI history on that machine was a bit of a nightmare, too, but I ultimately did get a card working.

I eventually recreated the Phoenix "brag sticker" (I still have several) so I could slap it on a very nice A1000 front cover that didn't look a thousand years old. (Do you need a sticker?)

Once you get one of those machines working, they are a very nice experience. Have you ever seen McTrinsic's impossibly upgraded Phoenix? It's really something. (more)

Welcome!!!

[fxgogo]

Hello Chris. Nice to meet you. Lovely machine you have there. What exciting things do you have planned for it once it is up and running?

[ChrisW67]

G'day intric8 and fxgogo

I watched a few of your videos on the pile-o-parts Phoenix (a random Youtube offering). Also saw the display case Phoenix from Mickatroid. Really had no idea of the Phoenix scarcity, although I guess it should not be surprising.

It brought back memories of doing the original install. I had benefit of knowing I had all the pieces and support was a local phone call/drive away. I really cannot remember if I ever had boot from hard disk going although it would be unlike me to leave that stone unturned. All power to you for persevering.

I eventually recreated the Phoenix "brag sticker" (I still have several) so I could slap it on a very nice A1000 front cover that didn't look a thousand years old. (Do you need a sticker?)

Actually, still have the original on my front panel and a serial number sticker on the underside of the case. The sticker and panel have matching retro-yellow hues. Thanks for the kind offer though.

Once you get one of those machines working, they are a very nice experience. Have you ever seen McTrinsic's impossibly upgraded Phoenix? It's really something. (more)

Man, that's turned all the way up to 11! Not sure I want to go quite that far.

As for what I'd like to do with it once it's back together. Not really thought it through too hard. This was more of a Christmas quiet period project (viewed with some amusement by my wife). An RGB to HDMI solution is probably needed before I go much further (I think it will fit and Denise seems to have the extra signals missing on the original board). A SCSI-to-SD or BlueSCSI is also on the cards.

Did do a little programming on this machine back in the day. I did build some unrelated M68K hardware in the 80's and do remember both enjoying the programming of that and using a dedicated in-circuit-emulator to work out the creative way I broke things. Some of the drop-in emulators look like an interesting experiment.

[LineOf7s]

Ahoy, Chris, from Ipswich... just down the road.

[Zippy Zapp]

Welcome and love the story about the machine you kept all these years. That is so awesome as it seems many did not keep their setups. I look forward to seeing more Phoneix goodness. It is such a great mod that they did back then. I was an A500 dude so I had not ever owned an A1000. I wish now that I did because it is such an amazing system.

[McTrinsic]

Ahoy!!

It is SO great to welcome another Phoenix-aficionado on board!

If I can do anything just let me know.

Sorry for the late welcome. I was busy putting my Phoenix back together. This brings memories for me as well. The first time I had a Phoenix. In … 2005 or so .

Anyway. Do yourself a favor and check the battery. It’s not a Varta, but still might be worth checking for leaks. If anything, I’d add wires to put it between the frontslot and the front-cover. My first coin-cell is already empty and had to be replaced.

The recapping came up some time again when the board was in the hands of a wizard of oz, err, A1k.org. The feedback was: the Phoenix uses Tantal-caps that don’t need replacements. Let’s see.

In any case I recommend that SCSI-hack that , along with a new driver, allows pseudo-DMA access to the SCSI. With a decent accelerator card, you might reach ca 6x-8x the original speed.

DJCook @ AmiBay often sells some stuff designed by Matze, an Amiga-Guru. It really worth it.

With a decent accelerator (030) including some fast-RAM and massstorage update (SCSI-Hack or accelerator-IDE) you already have a system which you can have incredible fun with.

If you go that route, you could install a 3.1 ROM and use WHDLoad to play almost every ECS-game made for the Amiga. And enjoy demos and chiptunes.

What more to ask for.

And the Phoenix is a fantastic base for this.

Oh, and keep us updated about your Amiga-rediscovery and your system!

[McTrinsic]

Hi,
in case you do consider an expansion. Here is an example of an expanded setup without too much effort:

https://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?thr ... st-1716474