I am working on an Amiga 2000 that I want to turn into a “decent” workstation for the time it originally comes from – or shortly after. I had planned to give it some extra RAM, a hard drive and a networking option, so that I could do word processing, graphics processing and also access network shares to send/retrieve files. My goal here isn’t that I want it to be 100% accurate when it comes to using the technology from 1988-1991 or so, but use reasonable (affordable, available, technically sound) means to get there – and explore how it all works.
Starting with a IDE68K + GottaGo FastRAM 8MB – AMIGAstore.eu card gives me 8MBytes of extra RAM, plus an IDE option to put a IDE-based CF card reader + CF card in there, to use as a hard drive. The stock CPU that the Amiga 2000 has, I keep.
Hooking it all up, it was necessary to not only plug the card into the CPU slot, but also wire the card up in a little bit more extended way than I thought – there’s two signals that need special wiring between the card and the mainboard. If you’re buying from one of the famous Amiga shops, likely you’ll get the card plus cables plus a description of what needs wiring: it’s the INT2 (interrupt 2) and OVR signals that need to be connected from the card to the ODD CIA (INT2) and Gary (OVR) respectively .
While that works nicely, there seems to be a problem when adding a Zorro II card into my Amiga 2000, in my case, specifically the X-Surf-100 network card. It just doesn’t show up in the boot menu, holding both mouse buttons while turning the Amiga on. The only expansion I see is the GottaGo – the X-Surf-100 never shows up, no matter what Zorro slot I try it with.
It appears it’s a known “problem”, and I need to make sure that CFGIN/CFGOUT for Amiga’s autoconfig routine finds the expansions in the right order, so that there’s no conflict: GitHub – LIV2/GottaGoFastRAM: 8MB Autoconfig FastRAM for Amiga 500/1000/2000/CDTV
There are suggestions to connect the CFGIN pin on the GottaGo with the U606 chip, to put the GottaGo card at the end of the autoconfig chain – or use CFGOUT with another pin, to put it to the start. Interestingly enough, neither of these solutions work in my Amiga. When CFGIN is connected to U606’s pin #8, none of the expansions show up and also RAM is not detected, when booting into workbench. When connecting CFGOUT to U606’s pin #13 as suggested here A2000 Autoconfig Help – GottaGoFastRAM – English Amiga Board (abime.net), the GottaGo is showing up, but the X-Surf-100 still doesn’t make an appearance. So CFGOUT connected and not connecting any wires to CFGOUT/CFGIN show the same result.
I haven’t managed to get the X-Surf-100 card working since – and I am still looking for new pointers. At no time did the X-Surf card show up in the boot menu, holding the two mouse buttons. I had tried different Zorro II slots already. Hum.
FRICKELSOFT 