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Disclaimer:
All the information presented here, was taken from the following sources:
Brain Bagnal's Book
On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore.
Available at Amazon.ca
The new edition had been delayed at Amazon until Feb.2010
Also, a lot of information has come from Video interviews with Bil Herd and Dave Haynie. Dave has a lot of videos on You-Tube. Search them out.. I wish I could post them here, but I don't have permission.
Lastly, more sites on the net have information. There are even a few dedicated sites to the C16. Do a Goggle search, because Bing is just a flash in the pan.:)
Please help keep the lounge alive and donate Today.Your donation helps keep an Computer from ending up in a Landfill, and keeping the history Alive for future generations!
The A4000 Desktop
PHOTO REMOVED DUE TO HOTLINKING
The A4000 is often seen as the big brother of the A1200 but was targeted more at productivity users, rather than gamers. The A4000 was seen as a disappointment to many after the reception that the A3000 received. Although it uses a newer ROM and Chipset, the onboard SCSI-II had been replaced with a significantly slower IDE Controller (PIO Mode 0) and it did not contain the scandoubling hardware for attaching PC VGA type monitors which the A3000 did. Significant improvements were however, made to the Zorro III bus design particularly with regards to DMA and bus mastering that fixed many problems which plagued the A3000, providing you had a Rev 11 buster. Unlike most other big box Amigas the A4000 uses a PS/2 style keyboard connector, however the signals and keyboard clock that the A4000 uses are not the same as the PC so you cannot use PC PS/2 keyboards. Like most big box Amigas the A4000 also has a keylock which effectively works by removing power from the keyboard and mouse rendering the machine fairly useless.
Some A4000's may have been released which contained 020 CPU's, as the A3630 that was supplied with the A4000 can also be fitted with an 020 and there is one claim that Commodore donated an 020 based A4000 as a prize at The Gathering '92. A4000's with a Rev D motherboard differ slightly from the other versions and are dubbed "A4000-CR" which stands for "Cost Reduced". It was an attempt to reduce the cost of manufacturing the A4000. Most A4000's were shipped with a separate processor card connected to the CPU fast slot however the A4000-CR had an 030 soldered directly to the motherboard therefore a processor card was not required. It still contained the CPU fast slot however for attaching accelerators. In addition to this Commodore also removed the fifth SIMM slot which is reserved for CHIP ram and soldered the CHIP directly to the motherboard. As all A4000s were supplied with 2MB CHIP by default, the fifth SIMM slot was rather useless because the AGA chipset could not address more than 2MB of CHIP. Commodore had planned to give the A4000 the ability to address up to 8MB of CHIP and indeed a jumper can be found on the motherboard which would have been used for this purpose, but the jumper actually does nothing.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Commodore Amiga 4000 An Amiga 4000 desktop model
Type Personal computer
Release date 1992
Discontinued 1994
Operating system AmigaOS 3.0
CPU Motorola 68EC030 or 68040 @ 25MHz
Memory 2 MB~18 MB
The Commodore Amiga 4000, or A4000, was the successor of the A2000 and A3000 computers. There are two models, the A4000/040 released in October 1992 with a Motorola 68040 CPU, and the A4000/030 released in April 1993 with a Motorola 68EC030.
The A4000 originally came in a white desktop box with a separate keyboard. Later Commodore released an expanded tower version called the A4000T.
Unlike most other Amiga models, early A4000 machines have the CPU mounted in an expansion board using a special CPU slot. The motherboard has no CPU at all. Later revisions of the A4000 have the CPU and 2 MB RAM surface mounted on the motherboard in an effort to reduce costs. These machines are known as the A4000-CR (Cost Reduced) and the surface mounted CPU is a Motorola 68EC030. The cost reduced models also made use of a Lithium-ion battery for real-time clock battery backup rather than a rechargeable NiCd battery. The NiCd backup battery is one of the most common causes of problems in an aging A4000 because it has a tendency to eventually leak. The released fluids are somewhat corrosive and can eventually damage the motherboard.
Technical information
Processor and RAM
The stock A4000 featured a Motorola 68EC030 or 68040 CPU and shipped with 2 MB of Amiga Chip RAM and up to 16 MB of additional RAM. Later, third party developers created various CPU expansion boards featuring higher rated 68040, 68060 and PowerPC CPUs. Such hardware did not only offer faster CPUs but also more and faster RAM (128 MB or greater).
Graphics and sound
The A4000 was the first Amiga model to ship with Commodore's third-generation Amiga chipset, the Advanced Graphics Architecture or AGA. As the name implies, the AGA chipset had superior graphical abilities in comparison with the earlier chipsets. However, the basic sound hardware was not upgraded and remains identical to the original Amiga 1000 (the Paula sound chip).
Peripherals and expansion
The A4000 featured Amiga compatible connectors including two DE-9 ports for joysticks, mice, and light pens, a standard 25-pin RS-232 serial port and a 25-pin Centronics parallel port. As a result the A4000 was compatible with many existing Amiga peripherals, such as, MIDI interfaces, serial modems and sound samplers.
Like the earlier Amiga 3000, the A4000 featured internal 32-bit Zorro III expansion slots which offered the use of devices, such as, graphic cards, audio cards, network cards, SCSI controllers, and later even USB controllers. One of the most notable hardware items of the era was the NewTek Video Toaster system which became popular in the 1990s for amateur and commercial desktop video production of standard-definition, broadcast quality video, comprising of tools for video switching, chroma keying, character generation, animation, and image manipulation.
Later, in an effort to offer modern expansion options third party developers created replacement expansion boards for the A4000 which provided PCI slots allowing use of higher performance and widely available PCI hardware, such as, graphic, sound and network cards.
Operating System
The A4000 shipped with AmigaOS 3.0, consisting of Workbench 3.0 and Kickstart 3.0, which together provided standard single-user operating system functionality and support for the built-in hardware. Following release of AmigaOS 3.1 it became possible to upgrade the A4000 by installing compatible Kickstart 3.1 ROM chips. The later AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9 releases were A4000 compatible as pure software updates requiring Kickstart 3.1.
AmigaOS 4, a PowerPC native release of the operating system, can be used with the A4000 provided compatible PowerPC hardware is installed. Likewise, MorphOS, an alternative Amiga specific operating system can be used with this hardware.
Variants of platform independent operating systems such as Linux and BSD can also be used with the A4000.
Specifications
* CPU: Motorola 68EC030 or 68040 at 25 MHz
* Memory:
o 512 kB Kickstart ROM
o 2 MB Amiga Chip RAM
o Up to a further 16 MB RAM on board
o Up to an additional 128 MB RAM via the CPU slot on the CPU's local bus
o Up to an additional 512 MB per Zorro III slot
* Chipset: AGA (Advanced Graphics Architecture)
o Video:
+ 24-bit color palette (16.8 Million colors)
+ Up to 256 on-screen colors in indexed mode
+ 262,144 on-screen colors in HAM-8 mode
+ Resolutions of up to 1280×512i (more with overscan)
+ HSync rates of 15.60-31.44 kHz
o Audio (Paula):
+ 4 hardware channels (Stereo)
+ 8-bit resolution / 6-bit volume
+ Maximum DMA sampling rate of 28-56 kHz (depending on video mode in use)
* Removable Storage:
o 3.5" HD floppy disk drive, capacity 1.76 MB
* Internal Storage:
o 40-pin buffered ATA-Controller
* Input/Output connections:
o Analogue RGB video out (DB-23M)
o Audio out (2 × RCA)
o Keyboard (6 pin mini-DIN)
o 2 × Mouse/Gamepad ports (DE9)
o RS-232 serial port (DB-25M)
o Centronics style parallel port (DB-25F)
o Floppy disk drive port (DB-23F)
* Expansion Slots:
o 4 × 100pin 32-bit Zorro III slots
o 1 × AGA video slot (inline with Zorro slot)
o 3 × 16-bit ISA slots (require bridgeboard to activate)
o 1 × 200-pin CPU expansion slot
o 4 or 5 × 72-pin SIMMs slots
* Operating System:
o AmigaOS 3.0 (Kickstart 3.0/Workbench 3.0)
* Other Characteristics:
o 2 × front accessible 3.5" drive bays
o 1 × front accessible 5.25" drive bay
o 2 × internal 3.5" drive mountings
o Key lock (disables mouse and keyboard)
Fun Facts.
An A4000 Prototype came up on Ebay in the last few months. It sold for well ove $2000 USD.
The Prototype had a black faceplate that looked completely different from the final issue.
Many Post Production Houses, TV stations and Animation Studios used (and still Use to this day) the A4000 "Video Toaster" unit.
PHOTOS REMOVED BECAUSE OF RETARDED HOTLINKERS
My Collection (as of January 1, 2010)
I had lucked out and got one after my A1200 Score, Unfortunatly, when replacing the CD-Rom drive, it would not boot, so I sold it as parts. The Buyer informed me, that it booted fine for him and works fantastic.
The A4000 is often seen as the big brother of the A1200 but was targeted more at productivity users, rather than gamers. The A4000 was seen as a disappointment to many after the reception that the A3000 received. Although it uses a newer ROM and Chipset, the onboard SCSI-II had been replaced with a significantly slower IDE Controller (PIO Mode 0) and it did not contain the scandoubling hardware for attaching PC VGA type monitors which the A3000 did. Significant improvements were however, made to the Zorro III bus design particularly with regards to DMA and bus mastering that fixed many problems which plagued the A3000, providing you had a Rev 11 buster. Unlike most other big box Amigas the A4000 uses a PS/2 style keyboard connector, however the signals and keyboard clock that the A4000 uses are not the same as the PC so you cannot use PC PS/2 keyboards. Like most big box Amigas the A4000 also has a keylock which effectively works by removing power from the keyboard and mouse rendering the machine fairly useless.
Some A4000's may have been released which contained 020 CPU's, as the A3630 that was supplied with the A4000 can also be fitted with an 020 and there is one claim that Commodore donated an 020 based A4000 as a prize at The Gathering '92. A4000's with a Rev D motherboard differ slightly from the other versions and are dubbed "A4000-CR" which stands for "Cost Reduced". It was an attempt to reduce the cost of manufacturing the A4000. Most A4000's were shipped with a separate processor card connected to the CPU fast slot however the A4000-CR had an 030 soldered directly to the motherboard therefore a processor card was not required. It still contained the CPU fast slot however for attaching accelerators. In addition to this Commodore also removed the fifth SIMM slot which is reserved for CHIP ram and soldered the CHIP directly to the motherboard. As all A4000s were supplied with 2MB CHIP by default, the fifth SIMM slot was rather useless because the AGA chipset could not address more than 2MB of CHIP. Commodore had planned to give the A4000 the ability to address up to 8MB of CHIP and indeed a jumper can be found on the motherboard which would have been used for this purpose, but the jumper actually does nothing.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Commodore Amiga 4000 An Amiga 4000 desktop model
Type Personal computer
Release date 1992
Discontinued 1994
Operating system AmigaOS 3.0
CPU Motorola 68EC030 or 68040 @ 25MHz
Memory 2 MB~18 MB
The Commodore Amiga 4000, or A4000, was the successor of the A2000 and A3000 computers. There are two models, the A4000/040 released in October 1992 with a Motorola 68040 CPU, and the A4000/030 released in April 1993 with a Motorola 68EC030.
The A4000 originally came in a white desktop box with a separate keyboard. Later Commodore released an expanded tower version called the A4000T.
Unlike most other Amiga models, early A4000 machines have the CPU mounted in an expansion board using a special CPU slot. The motherboard has no CPU at all. Later revisions of the A4000 have the CPU and 2 MB RAM surface mounted on the motherboard in an effort to reduce costs. These machines are known as the A4000-CR (Cost Reduced) and the surface mounted CPU is a Motorola 68EC030. The cost reduced models also made use of a Lithium-ion battery for real-time clock battery backup rather than a rechargeable NiCd battery. The NiCd backup battery is one of the most common causes of problems in an aging A4000 because it has a tendency to eventually leak. The released fluids are somewhat corrosive and can eventually damage the motherboard.
Technical information
Processor and RAM
The stock A4000 featured a Motorola 68EC030 or 68040 CPU and shipped with 2 MB of Amiga Chip RAM and up to 16 MB of additional RAM. Later, third party developers created various CPU expansion boards featuring higher rated 68040, 68060 and PowerPC CPUs. Such hardware did not only offer faster CPUs but also more and faster RAM (128 MB or greater).
Graphics and sound
The A4000 was the first Amiga model to ship with Commodore's third-generation Amiga chipset, the Advanced Graphics Architecture or AGA. As the name implies, the AGA chipset had superior graphical abilities in comparison with the earlier chipsets. However, the basic sound hardware was not upgraded and remains identical to the original Amiga 1000 (the Paula sound chip).
Peripherals and expansion
The A4000 featured Amiga compatible connectors including two DE-9 ports for joysticks, mice, and light pens, a standard 25-pin RS-232 serial port and a 25-pin Centronics parallel port. As a result the A4000 was compatible with many existing Amiga peripherals, such as, MIDI interfaces, serial modems and sound samplers.
Like the earlier Amiga 3000, the A4000 featured internal 32-bit Zorro III expansion slots which offered the use of devices, such as, graphic cards, audio cards, network cards, SCSI controllers, and later even USB controllers. One of the most notable hardware items of the era was the NewTek Video Toaster system which became popular in the 1990s for amateur and commercial desktop video production of standard-definition, broadcast quality video, comprising of tools for video switching, chroma keying, character generation, animation, and image manipulation.
Later, in an effort to offer modern expansion options third party developers created replacement expansion boards for the A4000 which provided PCI slots allowing use of higher performance and widely available PCI hardware, such as, graphic, sound and network cards.
Operating System
The A4000 shipped with AmigaOS 3.0, consisting of Workbench 3.0 and Kickstart 3.0, which together provided standard single-user operating system functionality and support for the built-in hardware. Following release of AmigaOS 3.1 it became possible to upgrade the A4000 by installing compatible Kickstart 3.1 ROM chips. The later AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9 releases were A4000 compatible as pure software updates requiring Kickstart 3.1.
AmigaOS 4, a PowerPC native release of the operating system, can be used with the A4000 provided compatible PowerPC hardware is installed. Likewise, MorphOS, an alternative Amiga specific operating system can be used with this hardware.
Variants of platform independent operating systems such as Linux and BSD can also be used with the A4000.
Specifications
* CPU: Motorola 68EC030 or 68040 at 25 MHz
* Memory:
o 512 kB Kickstart ROM
o 2 MB Amiga Chip RAM
o Up to a further 16 MB RAM on board
o Up to an additional 128 MB RAM via the CPU slot on the CPU's local bus
o Up to an additional 512 MB per Zorro III slot
* Chipset: AGA (Advanced Graphics Architecture)
o Video:
+ 24-bit color palette (16.8 Million colors)
+ Up to 256 on-screen colors in indexed mode
+ 262,144 on-screen colors in HAM-8 mode
+ Resolutions of up to 1280×512i (more with overscan)
+ HSync rates of 15.60-31.44 kHz
o Audio (Paula):
+ 4 hardware channels (Stereo)
+ 8-bit resolution / 6-bit volume
+ Maximum DMA sampling rate of 28-56 kHz (depending on video mode in use)
* Removable Storage:
o 3.5" HD floppy disk drive, capacity 1.76 MB
* Internal Storage:
o 40-pin buffered ATA-Controller
* Input/Output connections:
o Analogue RGB video out (DB-23M)
o Audio out (2 × RCA)
o Keyboard (6 pin mini-DIN)
o 2 × Mouse/Gamepad ports (DE9)
o RS-232 serial port (DB-25M)
o Centronics style parallel port (DB-25F)
o Floppy disk drive port (DB-23F)
* Expansion Slots:
o 4 × 100pin 32-bit Zorro III slots
o 1 × AGA video slot (inline with Zorro slot)
o 3 × 16-bit ISA slots (require bridgeboard to activate)
o 1 × 200-pin CPU expansion slot
o 4 or 5 × 72-pin SIMMs slots
* Operating System:
o AmigaOS 3.0 (Kickstart 3.0/Workbench 3.0)
* Other Characteristics:
o 2 × front accessible 3.5" drive bays
o 1 × front accessible 5.25" drive bay
o 2 × internal 3.5" drive mountings
o Key lock (disables mouse and keyboard)
Fun Facts.
An A4000 Prototype came up on Ebay in the last few months. It sold for well ove $2000 USD.
The Prototype had a black faceplate that looked completely different from the final issue.
Many Post Production Houses, TV stations and Animation Studios used (and still Use to this day) the A4000 "Video Toaster" unit.
PHOTOS REMOVED BECAUSE OF RETARDED HOTLINKERS
My Collection (as of January 1, 2010)
I had lucked out and got one after my A1200 Score, Unfortunatly, when replacing the CD-Rom drive, it would not boot, so I sold it as parts. The Buyer informed me, that it booted fine for him and works fantastic.
The A4000T (Tower)
All photos removed Due to Hotlinking
The A4000T from Commodore only saw a limited production of machines (estimated at 200) before they went bust in 1994. North American units were manufactured in West Chester, Pensylvania whilst European units were assembled in Bensheim, Germany. The A4000T is arguably the best Amiga model ever made. It is easy to assume that the A4000T is simply the same motherboard as the desktop A4000, but this is not the case. The A4000T uses a totally separate motherboard. The A4000T is intended to be a large AT form factor motherboard and infact appears to use a standard PC AT power supply. Unlike the desktop version, the A4000T also includes a SCSI-II controller on the motherboard in addition to a 3.5" IDE controller. This is why the A4000T uses a slightly different version of Kickstart 3.1 compared to other Amigas (including the A4000). It contains the drivers for the SCSI-II controller in ROM and in order to allow it to fit, workbench.library was moved from ROM, supplied on the Workbench disks and is loaded from LIBS: like any other disk based library. The A4000T also contains an internal speaker for native sound output, however external speakers and headphones can also be used. The speaker can be disabled or enabled by pressing the button labelled "Turbo". The case also contains a reset button as well as a key lock. The A4000T also uses coin shaped lithium batteries unlike most Amiga models which use the barrel shaped batteries. The A4000T contains 4 x 72pin SIMM slots for adding up to 16MB of RAM in addition to the 2MB of Chip RAM surface mounted on the motherboard. SIMM sizes of 1MB, 2MB, 4MB and 8MB can be used. Please note, than even though it is possible to use 8MB SIMMs, you are still limited to 16MB on the motherboard. If 8MB SIMMs are used, only 2 SIMMs can be used and they must be inserted in alternate slots. All of the external connectors in the A4000T reside on little cards which in turn connect to the motherboard. This means they could easily be replaced or upgraded and infact some companies did release alternate cards for the small PCB containing the video related ports. The A4000T uses the 5pin DIN keyboard connector, unlike the PS/2 style connector which the A4000 uses. Unusual for Amigas, the A4000T does NOT have an external floppy drive connector, however two internal drives can be used.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Amiga 4000T (made by Commodore) Amiga 4000T made by Commodore
Type Personal computer
Release date 1994
Discontinued 1994
Operating system Amiga OS 3.1
CPU Motorola 68040 @ 25 MHz
Memory 6 MB
Amiga 4000T (made by Escom) Amiga 4000T made by Escom
Type Personal computer
Release date 1996 (introduced 1995)
Discontinued 1997
Operating system Amiga OS 3.1
CPU Motorola 68040 @ 25 MHz or 68060 @ 50 MHz
Memory 6 MB
The Amiga 4000T, also known as A4000T, was a tower version of the A4000 computer. Using the AGA chipset, it was originally released in small quantities in 1994 with a 25 MHz Motorola 68040 CPU, and rereleased in greater numbers after Commodore's demise by Escom in 1995, along with a new variant which featured a 50 MHz Motorola 68060 CPU. Despite the subsequent demise of Escom, production was continued by QuikPak in North America into at least 1997.
The A4000T was the only Amiga ever to have both SCSI and IDE interfaces built-in on the motherboard. Having driver software for both interfaces in the 512 KB ROM meant that some other parts of AmigaOS had to be moved from the ROM, and thus the A4000T is the only machine to require the file "workbench.library" to be stored on disk. It was also the only Amiga to use a PC form factor for the motherboard (AT), and one of the few to use a Lithium Ion backup battery instead of a NiCd, vastly reducing the risk of an aging battery leaking corrosive fluids onto the motherboard and causing damage. Modularity was another unique aspect to the machine, with the CPU, audio, video, and input-output ports all on separate daughterboards.
The machine was targeted as a high-end video workstation with expandability in mind and an eye towards NewTek's Video Toaster. Its motherboard contains two Amiga Video Slots, five 100-pin Zorro III slots, and 4 ISA slots, and its case can accommodate up to six drives. Up to 16 MB of RAM can be installed on the motherboard, while additional RAM can be installed on some CPU boards (up to 128 MB), and yet more can be added on Zorro cards.
This was the final computer to be released by Commodore International. Only a couple of hundred 4000Ts were produced before the whole company folded. Production of the 4000Ts was restarted after Escom bought the Amiga assets. Apart from the new option of a 68060 CPU, the Escom-manufactured 4000Ts had minor differences with the old one, including the substitution of the high density floppy drive with a double density one, and a different front bezel to the case.
Specifications
* CPU:
o 68040 at 25 MHz
o 68060 at 50 MHz
* Memory:
o 512 kB Kickstart ROM
o 2 MB Amiga Chip RAM
o Up to a further 16 MB RAM on board
o Up to an additional 128 MB RAM via the CPU slot on the CPU's local bus
o Up to an additional 512 MB per Zorro III slot
* Chipset: AGA (Advanced Graphics Architecture)
o Video:
+ 24-bit color palette (16.8 Million colors)
+ Up to 256 on-screen colors in indexed mode
+ 262,144 on-screen colors in HAM-8 mode
+ Resolutions of up to 1280×512i (more with overscan)
+ HSync rates of 15.60-31.44 kHz
o Audio (Paula):
+ 4 hardware channels (Stereo)
+ 8-bit resolution / 6-bit volume
+ Maximum DMA sampling rate of 28-56 kHz (depending on video mode in use)
* Removable Storage:
o 3.5" HD floppy disk drive, capacity 1.76 MB
* Internal Storage:
o 23-pin floppy connector
o 40-pin buffered ATA-Controller
o 50-pin fast Scsi2
* Input/Output connections:
o Analogue RGB video out (DB-23M)
o Audio out (2 × RCA)
o Audio out (1 × 3.5mm headphone jack)
o Keyboard (5 pin DIN)
o 2 × Mouse/Gamepad ports (DE9)
o RS-232 serial port (DB-25M)
o Centronics style parallel port (DB-25F)
o Fast SCSI2 (D-High density DB-50F)
* Expansion Slots:
o 5 × 100pin 32-bit Zorro III slots
o 2 × AGA video slots (inline with Zorro slot)
o 4 × 16-bit ISA slots (require bridgeboard to activate)
o 1 × 200-pin CPU expansion slot
o 4 × 72-pin SIMMs slots
* Operating System:
o AmigaOS 3.1 (Kickstart 3.1/Workbench 3.1)
* Other Characteristics:
o 0 × front accessible 3.5" drive bays
o 5 × front accessible 5.25" drive bay
o 1 × internal 5.25" drive mountings
o Key lock (disables mouse and keyboard)
Fun Facts
only about 200 made it out of CBM.
Software Hut May still sell these, but it has never been confirmed or denied, as they haven't really updated their web page since 2005. Then, they started at $1,200. I am not sure I trust a supplier who can't be bothered to update a simple web page.
Ebay
Oh, Boy bank on over a grand if they show up
My collection
Are you Kidding? Another holy Grail
The A4000T from Commodore only saw a limited production of machines (estimated at 200) before they went bust in 1994. North American units were manufactured in West Chester, Pensylvania whilst European units were assembled in Bensheim, Germany. The A4000T is arguably the best Amiga model ever made. It is easy to assume that the A4000T is simply the same motherboard as the desktop A4000, but this is not the case. The A4000T uses a totally separate motherboard. The A4000T is intended to be a large AT form factor motherboard and infact appears to use a standard PC AT power supply. Unlike the desktop version, the A4000T also includes a SCSI-II controller on the motherboard in addition to a 3.5" IDE controller. This is why the A4000T uses a slightly different version of Kickstart 3.1 compared to other Amigas (including the A4000). It contains the drivers for the SCSI-II controller in ROM and in order to allow it to fit, workbench.library was moved from ROM, supplied on the Workbench disks and is loaded from LIBS: like any other disk based library. The A4000T also contains an internal speaker for native sound output, however external speakers and headphones can also be used. The speaker can be disabled or enabled by pressing the button labelled "Turbo". The case also contains a reset button as well as a key lock. The A4000T also uses coin shaped lithium batteries unlike most Amiga models which use the barrel shaped batteries. The A4000T contains 4 x 72pin SIMM slots for adding up to 16MB of RAM in addition to the 2MB of Chip RAM surface mounted on the motherboard. SIMM sizes of 1MB, 2MB, 4MB and 8MB can be used. Please note, than even though it is possible to use 8MB SIMMs, you are still limited to 16MB on the motherboard. If 8MB SIMMs are used, only 2 SIMMs can be used and they must be inserted in alternate slots. All of the external connectors in the A4000T reside on little cards which in turn connect to the motherboard. This means they could easily be replaced or upgraded and infact some companies did release alternate cards for the small PCB containing the video related ports. The A4000T uses the 5pin DIN keyboard connector, unlike the PS/2 style connector which the A4000 uses. Unusual for Amigas, the A4000T does NOT have an external floppy drive connector, however two internal drives can be used.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Amiga 4000T (made by Commodore) Amiga 4000T made by Commodore
Type Personal computer
Release date 1994
Discontinued 1994
Operating system Amiga OS 3.1
CPU Motorola 68040 @ 25 MHz
Memory 6 MB
Amiga 4000T (made by Escom) Amiga 4000T made by Escom
Type Personal computer
Release date 1996 (introduced 1995)
Discontinued 1997
Operating system Amiga OS 3.1
CPU Motorola 68040 @ 25 MHz or 68060 @ 50 MHz
Memory 6 MB
The Amiga 4000T, also known as A4000T, was a tower version of the A4000 computer. Using the AGA chipset, it was originally released in small quantities in 1994 with a 25 MHz Motorola 68040 CPU, and rereleased in greater numbers after Commodore's demise by Escom in 1995, along with a new variant which featured a 50 MHz Motorola 68060 CPU. Despite the subsequent demise of Escom, production was continued by QuikPak in North America into at least 1997.
The A4000T was the only Amiga ever to have both SCSI and IDE interfaces built-in on the motherboard. Having driver software for both interfaces in the 512 KB ROM meant that some other parts of AmigaOS had to be moved from the ROM, and thus the A4000T is the only machine to require the file "workbench.library" to be stored on disk. It was also the only Amiga to use a PC form factor for the motherboard (AT), and one of the few to use a Lithium Ion backup battery instead of a NiCd, vastly reducing the risk of an aging battery leaking corrosive fluids onto the motherboard and causing damage. Modularity was another unique aspect to the machine, with the CPU, audio, video, and input-output ports all on separate daughterboards.
The machine was targeted as a high-end video workstation with expandability in mind and an eye towards NewTek's Video Toaster. Its motherboard contains two Amiga Video Slots, five 100-pin Zorro III slots, and 4 ISA slots, and its case can accommodate up to six drives. Up to 16 MB of RAM can be installed on the motherboard, while additional RAM can be installed on some CPU boards (up to 128 MB), and yet more can be added on Zorro cards.
This was the final computer to be released by Commodore International. Only a couple of hundred 4000Ts were produced before the whole company folded. Production of the 4000Ts was restarted after Escom bought the Amiga assets. Apart from the new option of a 68060 CPU, the Escom-manufactured 4000Ts had minor differences with the old one, including the substitution of the high density floppy drive with a double density one, and a different front bezel to the case.
Specifications
* CPU:
o 68040 at 25 MHz
o 68060 at 50 MHz
* Memory:
o 512 kB Kickstart ROM
o 2 MB Amiga Chip RAM
o Up to a further 16 MB RAM on board
o Up to an additional 128 MB RAM via the CPU slot on the CPU's local bus
o Up to an additional 512 MB per Zorro III slot
* Chipset: AGA (Advanced Graphics Architecture)
o Video:
+ 24-bit color palette (16.8 Million colors)
+ Up to 256 on-screen colors in indexed mode
+ 262,144 on-screen colors in HAM-8 mode
+ Resolutions of up to 1280×512i (more with overscan)
+ HSync rates of 15.60-31.44 kHz
o Audio (Paula):
+ 4 hardware channels (Stereo)
+ 8-bit resolution / 6-bit volume
+ Maximum DMA sampling rate of 28-56 kHz (depending on video mode in use)
* Removable Storage:
o 3.5" HD floppy disk drive, capacity 1.76 MB
* Internal Storage:
o 23-pin floppy connector
o 40-pin buffered ATA-Controller
o 50-pin fast Scsi2
* Input/Output connections:
o Analogue RGB video out (DB-23M)
o Audio out (2 × RCA)
o Audio out (1 × 3.5mm headphone jack)
o Keyboard (5 pin DIN)
o 2 × Mouse/Gamepad ports (DE9)
o RS-232 serial port (DB-25M)
o Centronics style parallel port (DB-25F)
o Fast SCSI2 (D-High density DB-50F)
* Expansion Slots:
o 5 × 100pin 32-bit Zorro III slots
o 2 × AGA video slots (inline with Zorro slot)
o 4 × 16-bit ISA slots (require bridgeboard to activate)
o 1 × 200-pin CPU expansion slot
o 4 × 72-pin SIMMs slots
* Operating System:
o AmigaOS 3.1 (Kickstart 3.1/Workbench 3.1)
* Other Characteristics:
o 0 × front accessible 3.5" drive bays
o 5 × front accessible 5.25" drive bay
o 1 × internal 5.25" drive mountings
o Key lock (disables mouse and keyboard)
Fun Facts
only about 200 made it out of CBM.
Software Hut May still sell these, but it has never been confirmed or denied, as they haven't really updated their web page since 2005. Then, they started at $1,200. I am not sure I trust a supplier who can't be bothered to update a simple web page.
Ebay
Oh, Boy bank on over a grand if they show up
My collection
Are you Kidding? Another holy Grail
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