From: rigby@pyramid.unr.edu (Wayne Rigby)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: The Amiga 4000 at WOC
Date: 13 Sep 92 23:41:09 GMT
Organization: University of Nevada, Reno  Department of Computer Science

OK, I returned from WOC this morning and now have recovered enough to think
once again. As I see no articles about WOC or the 4000, I'm sending off
this short description of the 4000.  (Of course, between reading news Sunday
and finishing writing this, news about the cancelling of the Usenetter 
luncheon, which was posted Wednesday, came in.  I hate this site's usenet
capabilities... Oh, well...)

The Amiga 4000
  25 MHz 68040 in a removable processor module
  2 MB 32 bit Chip RAM
  4 MB 32 bit Fast RAM (expandable up to 16 MB on board via SIMMs)
  AGA (Advanced Graphics Architecture (TM)) chipset
  512 kB ROM
  Standard A3000-like keyboard
  2 Mouse/Joystick ports
  1 RS-232 port (25 pin)
  1 Centronics Parallel 
  1 RGB/RGBI (15kHz - 31 kHz)
  Right and Left Stereo audio
  Internal and External Floppy drive ports
  Internal IDE port
  200 pin CPU slot
  4 Zorro III slots
  1 Extended 24-bit Video slot (in-line with 1 Zorro-III)
  3 IBM PC/AT slots (in-line with the other 3 Zorros)
  2 button Optomechanical mouse
  1 3.5 inch HD floppy drive
  120 MB IDE hard drive
  110 volt/60 Hz 150 Watt power supply
  
Bays
  2 front and 2 rear 3.5 inch bays
  1 front 5 1/4 inch bay

Dimensions
  15 1/4" deep x 15" wide x 5" high
  Weighs about 20 lbs

Software
  AmigaDOS 3.0
  CrossDOS

 
OK, that's the quick reference, now observations and other junk...
The 4000's case is not as slick as the 3000's, but it's pretty nice and much
better looking than the 2000's.  On the front there is a keylock similar to
the 3000T's and those on many IBMs.  The power switch is once again on the
front. The two joystick/mouse ports are on the left side of the case and all
the other ports are on the back.  The mouse that seems to come with it is the
old standard mouse and not the nice 'pregnant' mouse.  All the A4000's on
display had the 1960 monitor, which seems pretty nice and a small improvement
over the 1950.  The 5 1/4" bay is near the top of the case, between the
power switch, which is on the upper right edge of the case, and the key
lock, which is slightly to the right of the center of the front at top.
The 3 1/2" bays are in-line with the leftside of the 5 1/4" bay's right side
and the top 3 1/2 bay holds the floppy.  The lower 3 1/2 appears to only be
perhaps 2/3rds the height of the upper one and doesn't appear to be big
enough to contain a second floppy.  The specs mention only 2 front 3 1/2" bays
so this could be an illusion, but I think not.  

The 120 meg hard drive probably occupies one of the rear 3 1/2" bays.  Of
everything that comprises the 4000, the only complaint I really have with
it is why IDE?  The spec sheets mention an optional SCSI adaptor, but that's
most likely just a Zorro II/III SCSI card.  The hard drive felt sluggish
loading 24 bit pictures and the drive light blinked off often while loading.

The AGA Chipset... The AmigaWorld preview sheet mentions the Alice, Lisa
and Paula chips, but there was no information on the chips and there specific
capabilities, just the performance and options under WB 3.0.  There were
several new additions to the ScreenMode selector, and most of them supported
up to 256 colors.  I didn't check them all and forget the various resolutions,
but an 8 bit WorkBeench screen at decent resolutions is now a reality.
The pallette is 24 bit and a pallette selector exists under Prefs that gives
one a color wheel.  Color sharing between applications is now possible,
evidently.  New HAM modes allow up to 256,000 colors at once, on screen.

Screen resolutions mentioned in the spec sheets:
  All standard NTSC and PAL Amiga Screen Modes up through the ECS chipset
  (320x200, 320x400, 640x200 and 640x400 with or without overscan.  ECS
  640x480, 640x960 Productivity, 1280x200 and 1280x400 SuperHiRes modes also
  have overscan)
  The only AGA mode resolution mentioned is 800x600. The AmigaWorld preview
  article mentions that this is one of the Super72 modes and, of course, 
  overscan is possible.

AmigaDOS 3.0
  The only difference between 2.1 and 3.0 seem to be that 3.0 requires
kickstart 3.0 and supports the AGA chips, whereas 2.1 uses the 2.04 ROMs and
only supports ECS and down.  I missed the talk about these so there may
be other things not apparent.  The prefs has a few new additions and changes.
The color pallet support.  The mouse pointer now has two resolutions, hi-res
and the old normal resolution.  PostScript is suported with a PS printer
driver.  New drawers similar to 2.04's Monitor drawer exist.  They are
Monitors, Keymaps, Printers and DOS Drivers.  There are four of them total and
four storage drawers for drivers and stuff not currently being used are
logically placed.  There is a 'Locale' icon in the Prefs area.  This is a map
of the world with one time zone that can be hilighted to tell your computer
what time to use.  A nice little addition and allows Amigas to have a
universal time stamp for programs on disk.  CrossDOS is included and supported.
Arexx is still there and support for AGFA fonts.  No new fonts, though.  Just
the old CG Times, CG Triumvirate, and LetterGothic.  Supports scaling of
bitmap fonts (didn't try this, but says it does...).  Fountain has been 
renamed (forget what to...).  Has the 2.0 look.  A program comes with it to
add things to the Tool Menu.  Claims faster and more reliable floppy access.

OK, that's a quick rambling of it all.  I'm sure I missed things, but there
were a lot of people there who can fill in the gaps.  AGA will not be
available for the 3000 or any of the others is what they stated.  Seems that
if you want it in them, you'll have to wait for 3rd party hacks.  Alusions
were made to other models coming out using them, though.  And the 4000
has the module for an '040, indicating that other processor modules would
be coming out.  One of the 4000's had an '030 in them, even though 040 was
stated on the case.

Wayne Rigy
rigby@cs.unr.edu