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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:47 pm

Back in October of 2016 I was able to attend the fantastic Portland Retro Gaming Expo which was held at the Oregon Convention Center. That show features a large arcade (aww yeah), speaker panels, museum, gaming tournaments, auction and a large vendor floor where some folks set up tables with wares to sell.

To be honest, the first place I went was the vendor section. Overall, there was a huge turnout for Nintendo carts and gear, which is to be expected. There were plenty of other retro consoles represented, too, and to my surprise a rather large turnout of Intellivision gear.

After walking around the entire room - about the size of a high school gymnasium - I found one vendor with some Commodore software which surprised me. I took a look and slowly started to circle his setup which was 4 rectangular tables arranged roughly in a square where the vendor stood in the center. Below one table not really in a place to be easily seen, two huge boxes caught my eye which made me nearly gasp. They had Amiga logos on them. I bent down to the ground and took a closer look and soon discovered I was looking at 2 boxed Amiga 2000s. I flipped open one, and saw a rather yellowed machine sitting inside the box. I flipped open the other and couldn't believe what I was looking at - a NOS Amiga 2000 HD, never used and never removed from its box. I wondered if it might have battery issues, but ultimately decided I didn't care. I quickly bought that machine and felt like I'd just found excalibur and pulled it from the rock. I was so stoked. But before leaving the table, I realized there was another box sitting behind the 2000s.

It was a small box sporting a 1010 external floppy drive. I snagged that, too. It only cost me $20.
1010-01.JPG
The NOS 1010 external drive in its original box.

It's been nearly a year and I'd yet to open it. With the dual-floppy 2000s I've been using, I really had no use for an external drive. But I knew I might some day. After acquiring an awesome Amiga 1000 recently that day finally came. When I first powered up the 1000, I plugged an extra external floppy drive which I knew worked into its external port but it never powered up the drive. I decided to try and clean the 1000 first and reseated some of its chips. I was nervous but wasn't ready to panic about the external drive not firing up.

After buttoning the 1000 back up, I decided to go "all in" and use the NOS 1010. I mean, aesthetically the 1010 looks like a perfect extension of the 1000's case. This really is what the 1010 has been waiting for since 1986 apparently.

Assuming the 1000 could see it, that is, and power it up this time after its cleanse.

Below is the unboxing of my 1010 for the very first time. I opened the box and released some 1986 air into our 2017 air. We could probably use it; it couldn't hurt.
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With the top flaps of the box opened, you can see it's all snugly inside.

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The original cord tie is still in place. Not for long.

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I removed the drive from the box and started to remove the styrofoam.

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The plastic is absolutely perfect in color. A beautiful thing to behold. And hold. Note the black plastic thing hiding in there where a disk would go. Is that a disk?

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The black plastic thing in the drive was a head protector. I've seen cardboard varieties in C64 drives. I've never seen hard plastic ones for Amiga drives until now.

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In utter elation, the drive was recognized by the cleaned 1000 and powered on!
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And will it read disks? You bet it will.
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Engage, Number One!

Now, the interesting thing about this Amiga 1000 that I've found a bit curious is that it really only likes disks that were created on a machine running 1.3. My other machines (500, 2000) that are running 1.3 can read literally any disk that was made on 1.3 , or simply duplicated on any Amiga machine regardless of classic OS. For example, had I created a Amiga 1.3 disk on a 1200 running 3.1, the 500 and 2000 could read those disks. The 1000 is quite fickle and will balk at those disks. If the ADF was created on the 500 or 2000, however, it's totally fine. Very odd.

But whatever - I'm stoked to have this working! I can hear a very slight rumble coming from the 1000s primary DF0: drive. I hope I don't have to perform some sort of surgery on it in the coming days, too. Ah, age.

<3

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mattsoft

Posted Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:48 pm

Wow, great find! I'm going to the PRGE this October, hoping some vendors will be selling Amiga gear!

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icbrkr
Particles! BBS

Posted Sun Aug 20, 2017 8:53 am

That is AWESOME. I've never seen a NOS 1010 before. Good find!

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri Aug 25, 2017 10:16 am

@icbrkr have you seen this thing? Did you consider it before getting your machine?
Attachments
amigaone500_image.jpg
Amigaone 500


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Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Sat Aug 26, 2017 5:54 pm

Nice find. Nice to have a non-yellowed pristine disk drive. The only thing NOS I have found in the last couple of years was a C128 and a 1571 from the same guy been sitting in a closet for 30 years unopened. Yep I bought it. Even though I didn't need another 1571 as I have my original bought back in the 80's it was nice to find a new 128.





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