Project Bodega Bay

[RobertB]

     My Bodega Bay expansion unit for the A500 was the talk of last weekend's AmiWest Show.  As it sat there, attendees would stare at it; some had never seen such a thing; others said that hadn't seen one in years.  Its casing was open, revealing the huge amount of space inside, the powerful power supply, the 2 SCSI drives -- one being on a GVP A2000 board, and other empty Zorro-II slots just waiting to be filled.
     I asked opinions of Matthew Leaman of AmigaKit, Duncan M. of TOGA, and others who would listen; how could I fill up those slots?  Now that my A1200 tower was virtually finished, it was time to think of upgrading something else, like the Bodega Bay.  Another Z-2 memory board?  Nah, the GVP A2000 board was not only a SCSI controller with hard drive, but it carried memory on it already, albeit it still needed 4 megs more in addition to the 4 it carried.  An accelerator board?  Another negative because the Z-2 slots would not recognize a processor.  An Ethernet board?  Possible.  A 24-bit video board?  Well, those slots were not video slots... Wait a minute... Matthew told me that a Cybervision or Picasso-II would work, because they did not need a video slot.  Very expensive to get one of those, though.  Matthew did tell me that it was theoretically possible to add in a Deneb USB card... hmm, USB on an A500!
     Already, Duncan is chomping at the bit.  He'd like me to put in a CD-R drive in it and bigger hard drives.  My main A500 is ECS with 1 meg of chip RAM.  That would have to be upgraded to 2 meg.  And Matthew does have a newly-received stock of NTSC Mini Megachips.

                To dream,
                Robert Bernardo
                Fresno Commodore User Group
                http://videocam.net.au/fcug
                The Other Group of Amigoids
                http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
                Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
                http://www.sccaners.org

[RobertB]

My Bodega Bay expansion unit for the A500 was the talk of last weekend's AmiWest Show.  As it sat there, attendees would stare at it; some had never seen such a thing...

Heh, that was the reaction at yesterday's TOGA meeting.  Lots of stares and curiosity, all of the members saying that they had never seen one in-person before.  One member, Mitch Z., called it a beast.

Already, Duncan is chomping at the bit.  He'd like me to put in a CD-R drive in it and bigger hard drives.

A quick visit with Duncan to HSC Electronics ( http://www.halted.com ) and I bought a used Apple CD-R SCSI drive for the Bodega Bay.  Price of the drive - $5.  However, I'm set on buying a CD-RW SCSI drive for it; price... much higher.  The modding of Bodega Bay begins in earnest in December.
   
               Truly,
               Robert Bernardo
               Fresno Commodore User Group
               http://videocam.net.au/fcug
               The Other Group of Amigoids
               http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
               Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
               http://www.sccaners.org

[RobertB]

     For Project Bodega Bay, I was scrounging around the storage for the A500 that I swore had a Microbotics VXL-30 accelerator board.  Strangely, I found an A1200 which had a Blizzard '060 accelerator board and Blizzard SCSI attachment; I didn't even know I had it (or forgot about it).  I can't remember how I obtained that one.  When I saw that Blizzard '060, I thought to myself, "Not another one!" 

              The search for the VXL-30 continues,
              Robert Bernardo
              Fresno Commodore User Group
              http://videocam.net.au/fcug
              The Other Group of Amigoids
              http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
              Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
              http://www.sccaners.org

[RobertB]

     Though I was tempted today to get a Picasso II+ video board from Germany, the postage would have been too much (35 Euros!).  I will wait for another board.  If true, Software Hut ( http://www.softhut.com ) still has new Spectrum video boards.

              Still dreaming of the expanded Bodega Bay,
              Robert Bernardo
              Fresno Commodore User Group
              http://videocam.net.au/fcug
              The Other Group of Amigoids
              http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
              Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
              http://www.sccaners.org

[RobertB]

     Now I'm back in the San Jose area for tomorrow's TOGA meeting.  I'll meet up with tech Duncan M. so that he could figure out the power supply of the Bodega Bay.  Oh, the p.s. is fine.  It's just that another fellow BB owner needs to know the voltages of each connection coming out of the p.s..  With that information, he could get his BB going again (though he tells me that his has no case).

                Truly,
                Robert Bernardo
                Fresno Commodore User Group
                http://videocam.net.au/fcug
                The Other Group of Amigoids
                http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
                Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
                http://www.sccaners.org

[RobertB]

     O.K., Duncan figured out that the Bodega Bay just had an ordinary AT power supply with a few special lines going out of it.  In the meantime, while he had it open, he removed the smaller (20-meg) hard drive out of the two it had and replaced it with a CD-ROM drive.  He did that without even examining the contents of the small drive; when I brought up my concerns, he said he would e-mail me the contents of that drive mech.

             Satisfied with that answer,
             Robert Bernardo
             Fresno Commodore User Group
             http://videocam.net.au/fcug
             The Other Group of Amigoids
             http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
             Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
             http://www.sccaners.org