From: camge@ix.netcom.com (Curt Esser) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Micronik A1400T Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Date: 17 Sep 1998 10:31:43 -0400 Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 270 Sender: barrett@belvedere.cs.umass.edu Message-ID: <6tr6gf$1fg@belvedere.cs.umass.edu> Reply-To: camge@ix.netcom.com (Curt Esser) Keywords: hardware, A1200, computer, commercial X-Review-Number: Volume 1998 Number 2 NNTP-Posting-Host: belvedere.cs.umass.edu X-NNTP-Posting-Host: belvedere.cs.umass.edu Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!not-for-mail PRODUCT NAME A1400T [MODERATOR'S NOTE: This is a very delayed posting from 26 September 1997. - Dan] BRIEF DESCRIPTION The A1400T is basically an A1200 - with the easy expandability of the "big box" Amigas such as the A4000T It consists of an A1200 main board, a built in 150watt power supply, an expansion board with 5 zorro II slots & 1 inline video slot, one standard Amiga 880k floppy drive, standard 1200 keyboard in a seperate case, and a mouse. The A1200 board has the 3.1 workbench ROM installed, and the A1200 manual and 3.1 workbench manual are included. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Manufactured by: Name: Micronik Address: Brukenstrase 2 D-51379 Leverkusen GERMANY Telephone: +49(0)2171-72 45 24 Fax: +49(0)2171-72 45 90 World Wide Web: www.micronik.de I purchased mine from: Name: Software Hut Address: Folcroft East Business Park 313 Henderson Dr. Sharon Hill PA 19079 Telephone: Info- 610-586-5703 Order 800-932-6442 FAX: 610-586-8640 E-mail: softhut@erols.com World Wide Web: www.softhut.com LIST PRICE $849.95 MACHINE USED FOR TESTING A1400T (USA - NTSC version) 2M chip ram 4M fast ram (on the HD card) Trifecta 2000 ide/scsi/memory expansion board Connor 450M ide hard drive Toshiba 4x scsi CDROM Commodore A2320 flicker fixer Panasonic E15 multi-synch monitor INSTALLATION The A1400T comes in an Infinitiv case which has an extra floppy drive bay, a 3.5" hard drive bay, and 2 5.5" bays included, and more snap on modules are available if this is not enough for your needs. The case can even be expanded in height if you need more 5.5" bays. There is also space at the back for several more 3.5" bays but the actual bays are not included, so you would need to get these separately. All the 3.5" HD bays have removable face-plates at the rear of the case. The face-plate for the second floppy drive is moulded into the front of the case rather than a snap out panel like the 5.5" bays have, so you might have to do some surgery to install a second floppy (such as remove it's face plate). All the above mentioned extras were formerly used in my now dead A2500, and were removed and installed in the new tower. Installation of all of them was quite simple, easier even than the installation in the old 2500, as the Infinitiv case is very well designed, and all the panels snap in and out. The only problems I encountered were due to the fact that the plastic drive bays are thicker than the metal ones in the 2500, I had to replace the mounting screws for the hard drive and CDROM with slightly longer ones. In my case this was a simple matter of a dig through my junk box, but if you don't have one of these you will need to go buy some appropriate screws. Of course if you are not comfortable with working on the innards of your computer you will want to have any hardware additions or transfers done by a qualified service man or a knowledgeable friend, but if you have done this kind of thing on a "big box" Amiga before, you will have no trouble with this one. FIRST IMPRESSIONS The first thing I noticed when I turned my new system on was how quiet it is. I immediately put my hand over the fan outlet on the power supply, thinking the fan was not working. It was! The fan on my 2500 was quite noisy, and was one of the only things I did not like about that machine. Since the A2500 I had previously been using had a FPU, MMU, and 4M 32 bit ram which I could not transfer to the A1400T (they are all on the 2620 accelerator card) I expected some initial loss of performance compared to the A2500. I was surprised to find that everything seemed to run just as fast as before. In fact, some things seemed to go faster! For example, web page graphics seem to load faster, probably because it is easier to remap the pictures to 256 colours than to the 16 I was restricted to with my old ECS system. And a multi-coloured workbench screen goes just as fast as the 8 coloured screen I had used with the 2500. On the 2500, I had tried a 16 colour screen, but this had produced a noticeable slowdown. The A1400T can handle 256 colours with no performance loss! Please note than these are subjective comparisons, and programs such as SysInfo do report the expected loss in speed. My impressions might be due to the way I use my system, the efficiency of the AGA chipset, the difference between theoretical calculations and "real world" results, or a combination of all. And I do plan to add an accelerator as soon as finances permit. REVIEW I will not spend a lot of space reviewing the basic A1200 part of the system, as the A1200 has been around for a while, and most people are familiar with it by now. If you have never tried an Amiga with the AGA chipset, I will say that it is a huge improvement, and makes available to you many programs which won't run without it. The extra Meg of chip ram is also a big improvement over the 1M I had previously. As far as software compatibility, I have found very few programs that worked on my old system that gave problems on this one. The few I did find problems with were easily corrected with degrader, or by booting in ECS emulation on the Early Startup menu. These were all old PD games. The Infinitiv tower case itself is a work of art. It is good looking and very easy to work on. It is coloured in what I call "computer off-white", the same as most peripherals you will find. It matches perfectly with my monitor, printer, modem, and speaker system. It has a nice sculptured look without being overdone. The keyboard case is also more rounded and modern looking than my old 2000 keyboard. I should say here that I never have been a big fan of those industrial grey systems, nor the "bat-wing" style of keyboards. To me, beauty and functionality must go hand in hand, and Infinitiv has hit the mark here! You can also, if you wish, use a PC keyboard, as the system has a built-in adaptor and the plug is the same. Perhaps I am missing something here, but I never understood why you would want to use a PC keyboard. Do they have something that is missing on the Amiga keyboard? Maybe you need to do this if you have a bridge-board, which the A1400T also allows. The case has a front-mounted power button and power indicator light, and below this a reset button which has a light for your hard drive included. At first I thought this was rather silly, since the reset button does the same warm-reboot as the [Ctrl][Amiga][Amiga] combination, but I have now become spoiled, and use the reset button exclusively. (I do a lot of programming on my Amiga, so I wind up re-setting much more often than most!) The inside of the case is just as well designed as the outside, all slots are properly aligned, everything snapped apart and together correctly, the power supply has several of the standard size connectors you will need, and all my peripherals fit easily into their intended locations. And all work just as they did before. Please note that the flicker-fixer I installed in my A1400T is not really necessary, as the OS will allow you to mode-promote your screens to be com- patable with a VGA or Multi-synch monitor, but this requires an adaptor to attach the monitor's cable to the standard Amiga monitor port. The adaptor is NOT included with the system, and I already had the flicker-fixer, so I installed it - and it works fine. So, in short, what I now have is the equivalent of adding the AGA chipset to my old system, combined with the benefits of the new case, and the ability to use one of the low-cost A1200 accelerators! This unit is the perfect upgrade path for me. I have long wanted to upgrade my system, but couldn't afford a new A4000 and didn't want to get an A1200 due to the difficulty of expanding it even enough to just duplicate my old A2500. If you are still using a 500, 600, 2000, or 3000 and have been wanting to upgrade, here is the machine you have been waiting for! There are also two other models, the A1300 which does not have the zorro slot board, and the A1500 which has zorro III slots, and a processor slot for A3000/4000 accelerator cards. And all for less than half the cost of an A4000T. If you currently own an A1200, the case itself and all the internal components are also available separately. DOCUMENTATION A standard A1200 manual is included. A workbench 3.1 manual is also included No documentation for the case is included Also not included are the 3.1 DOS and AREXX manuals that come with the 3.1 upgrade kit. LIKES I like EVERYTHING about it (as if you couldn't tell by now!) DISLIKES My only (minor) complaint would be the lack of any sort of documentation on the case. Although it is pretty easy to figure out, some brief descriptions and diagrams would have been nice. Perhaps this lack was due to the rush to get these out to the dealers or something similar, as I have one of the first available units. (I ordered it the instant I saw they were available) SUGGESTIONS I am sure they have already thought of this, but I would like to see some models available with a hard-drive, a bit of extra ram, and a software bundle. A model like that could, with proper marketing, actualy sell to NEW Amiga users. I am thinking especially of the old magazine ads for the Volkswagon Beatle, which sold a ton of these small economy cars in the USA at a time when everybody thought you needed a car the size of a battleship with a motor capable of propelling a 100 car freight train. These ads did it not by directly comparing the car to others available, but by subtly allowing you to draw the only logical conclusion: that you really didn't want the big gas-guzzeling dinosaur when your needs could be served just as well by the Beatle. VENDOR SUPPORT I have had no need to contact the vendor, the unit was delivered on time (actually less time than they said), properly packed, and in perfect working order. CONCLUSIONS This is truly an excellent product, and I expect they will sell a lot of these. If money is no object, an A4000 is still the ultimate Amiga, but if you are looking for a lower cost option, this is the way to go! And you still have the capability to upgrade as your budget allows. A new, expandable Amiga in a beautiful tower case for less than the cost of a "budget" PC? How could you go wrong? I take my hat off to Micronik, Infinitiv, and Gateway 2000 for this excellent product, and to Software Hut for their excellent service. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1997 Curt Esser This review is freely distributable as long as it is not altered Feel free to email me at camge@ix.netcom.com --- Accepted and posted by Daniel Barrett, comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews Web site: http://math.uh.edu/~barrett/reviews.html