Commodore Amiga A4000 User Manual

The Complete Amiga 4000 User Guide

by Peter Hutchison © 2007

Revised: 21/08/2007

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Contents

Introduction Page 3

Setting up the Amiga for First Time Page 4

Guide to Workbench 3.0 Page 6

Menus Page 6
Mouse Page 8
Programs Page 9
Preferences Page 13

Beyond Workbench 3.0 Page 19

Adding more Memory to the A4000 Page 19

Upgrading the Processor Page 20

Upgrading Expansion on the A4000 Page 22

Upgrading the Kickstart and Workbench Page 23

The Motherboard in detail Page 25

Jumpers Page 25

Backward Compatibility Page 27

Adding a Hard Disk to A4000 Page 28

Installing Workbench onto a Hard Disk Page 30

Installing a CDROM device Page 31

3

Introduction

Welcome to the Commodore Amiga A4000, one of the top Amiga models of its time.
It was affordable and easy to use. It had a wide range of software, in particular,
games which Jay Minor, the creator of the Amiga, had designed it for.

The Amiga A4000 is based on either the Motorola 68030 25MHz , 68040 25MHz or
the top end 68060 50MHz Processor with 2Mb RAM, a single 880K floppy drive with
support for three more floppy drives, Zorro cards and a Custom Chipset that provides
the Sound and Graphics.

The Amiga runs the Operating System called Amiga OS which consists of the
Kickstart ROM which contains some essential libraries and devices needed to load
Workbench which is the desktop:

Figure 1

You can a while menu bar at the top and all the disks mounted on the right hand of
the screen. The Ram Disk is a special one which is a disk in memory basically. More
on Workbench will be explained later.

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Setting up the Amiga for First Time

Before setting up the Amiga make sure you have the following items ready:

Amiga A4000
Monitor or TV Set
Mouse
Power Supply
Joystick (optional)
Speakers (optional)
External Disk drives (optional)

Withe Amiga facing you, first plug the square end of the Power Supply cable to the
Power socket at the back of the Amiga. Plug the other end into a power socket but
DO NOT switch on yet.

If you have a monitor, plug the monitor cable into the Video socket, and also plug the
power cable into a power socket.

Next plug the Mouse into Port 1 of the D shaped sockets on the right-hand side. Plug
any Joystick onto Port 2 next to it.

The stereo speakers can be plugged into the Left and Right speaker sockets in Audio
sockets at the back. The speakers can be either stand-alone ones or part of the
monitor so if necessary, plug the other ends into the Left/Right sockets on the
monitor. Plug in to power supply as necessary.

Finally if you have any external floppy disk drives plug them in to the External Flopy
drive socket on the back of the Amiga. Further drives can be added to other drives.
The A4000 usually comes with an IDE Hard disk to run Workbench and your
applications.

Now switch on the power and press the power switch located at the front of the
Amiga and switch on the monitor.

If you do not have disks inserted or Workbench is not installed on your hard disk, you
will see the Insert Disk screen below:

Figure 2

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You can then insert either a Workbench disk or any other bootable disk such as a
game into the floppy drive on the right-hand side of the Amiga (called DF0: - Disk
Floppy Zero).

Insert your Original Workbench disk and wait for the workbench screen to appear.
Before continuing, I recommend that you make one or more copies of your original
Workbench disks to use rather than the Original as that can become damaged over
time and you may need to make other copies later.

To make a copy, get hold of a blank 880K double-density disk ready, then move the
white arrow (called a pointer) with the mouse over the Workbench 3.0 disk and click
the left mouse button once (this will select the disk), then move the pointer to the top
left of the screen and click and HOLD the right-hand mouse button and a menu
appear, make sure the Icons menu is selected, move the mouse down the menu and
select Copy

Figure 3

It will say ‘Put the SOURCE disk (FROM disk) in drive DF0:’, remove the disk from
the floppy drive, and make sure it is your original Workbench disk, at the top there is
a hole, make sure it is covered with the black tab to protect the disk during this
operation. Reinsert the disk, and with the left mouse button click once on Continue.

Once the read operation is complete, it will ask you to insert the DESTINATION (TO
disk) in drive DF0:. Press the eject button to remove your original Workbench disk,
and insert your Blank disk. Click on Continue to write the information to your new
disk.

You may need to repeat the disk swap a couple of times more until the operation is
completed. Now you will have a disk called ‘copy of Workbench’, you can rename this
by selecting the disk, then select Rename from the Workbench menu and change it
to just ‘Workbench’. You should put your original disk somewhere safe and then use
your copy of Workbench from now on. Reboot with your new Workbench disk in DF0.

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Guide to Workbench 3.0

Contents

1. The Menus

2. The Mouse

3. WB Programs

4. AmigaDOS

5. Common Problems

1. The Menus

At the top of the screen, there are three menus which are accessible when you move the pointer to the
top of the screen and click the Right Mouse Button. (RMB).

1.1 Workbench menu

1.1.1 Backdrop
Turns the backdrop window on of off which surrounds the desktop.

1.1.2 Execute Command
This displays an input box where you can enter any AmigaDOS command or launch any Workbench
program by entering its name. For example, typing NewShell will open a Command Shell window.

1.1.3 Redraw All
This redraws all the icons on the desktop.

1.1.4 Update All
Reload all the icons and redraw them.

1.1.5 Last Message
Display the last error or information m essage on the title bar.

1.1.6 About
Display Kickstart and Workbench versions and Copyright information.

1.1.7 Quit
Exit Workbench, this will quit workbench and leave the workbench screen open. You should open a
command window before quitting otherwise a reboot is required.

1.2 Window menu

1.2.1 New Drawer
Create a new drawer (or directory or folder) in the current window.

1.2.2 Open Parent
Open the parent window of the current window.

1.2.3 Close
Close the current window

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1.2.4 Update
Update icons in the current window.

1.2.5 Select Contents
Select all the icons in the current window.

1.2.6 Clean Up
Tidy up the icons into a standard left to right and top to bottom layout.

1.2.7 Snapshot

1.2.7.1 Window
Save the current window size and position in icon information

1.2.7.2 All
Save the window and all icon size and position information in their respective icon files.

1.2.8 Show

1.2.8.1 Only Icons
Displays files that have an icon file and hides all other files.

1.2.8.2 All Files
Display all files in window wether or not they have an icon file or not.

1.2.9 View By

1.2.9.1 Icon
Display files using Icons only.

1.2.9.2 Name
Display files using Name and displays protection flags, size and date and time last changed.

1.2.9.3 Date
Display files in date order using same format as Name with the newest files at the top.

1.2.9.4 Size
Display files in size order using same format as Name with the smallest files at the top.

1.3 Icons

1.3.1. Open
This opens or runs the currently selected file or drawer.

1.3.2 Copy
Copies one or more files and prefixes file(s) with C opy_of_ e.g. Copy_of_MyFile

1.3.3 Rename
Changes the name of the file. A Rename dialogue box appears with the current name

1.3.4 Information
Displays information about the file, drawer or disk. Includes information about the icon, type, size,
comment and protection flags.

1.3.5 Snapshot
Saves the current position of file within window.

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1.3.6 Unsnapshot
Removes positioning saved information from a file.

1.3.7 Leave Out
Places the file on the desktop but the file is still located in its original location. A backdrop file contains a
list of files left out.

1.3.8 Put Away
Returns a file left off the desktop back to its original location.

1.3.9 Delete
This deletes a file or drawer permanently. It does not use the Trashcan.

1.3.10 Format Disk
Formats or prepares a disk to be used to store files and drawers.

1.3.11 Empty Trash
Empties the content of the Trashcan folder on the boot disk.

1.4 Tools

1.4.1 ResetWB
Reloads Workbench and redraws the screen

2. The Mouse

On the Amiga mouse there are two buttons: the Left Mouse Button (LMB) and the Right Mouse
Button (RMB). Moving the mouse will move the arrow or pointer on the screen.

2.1 Using the Right Mouse Button

To use the menus, press down the RMB and move the pointer to the title bar at the top of the
screen. Move the pointer over one of the m enu nam es and some m enu items will appear. Now, still
with the RMB pressed, move the pointer down to the selected menu item and release
the RMB to select that item.

2.2 Using the Left Mouse Button

This button is mainly used to select and move icons around and click on gadgets (or buttons).

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2.2.1 Clicking

To select an icon, m ove the pointer over the desired icon and then click the LM B once. The icon will
change to a reverse or an alternative image to indicate it has been selected.

When using gadgets such as those on windows (there are four gadgets on a window: Close,
Window-to-Front, Window-to-Back and Resize) move the pointer over the desired gadget and click
once to use that gadget. The gadget will change briefly and also change the window.

2.2.2 Double-Clicking

This is sometimes a tricky technique to use and requires a steady hand. This method is used to
open disks, drawers and files or run programs. To do this, move the pointer over the desired icon and
in quick succession (without moving the pointer) click on the LMB twice.
This should open the icon.

2.2.3 Dragging

This technique allows you to move objects such as icons around the screen or resizing windows.
Select an icon with a single click, now keep the LMB down and move the pointer, the icon will now be
dragged with the pointer. If you let go of the pointer the icon will be dropped into it’s
new position.

2.2.4 Multiple selection

You can select more than one icon at a time. To do this, click on the first icon, press the SHIFT key
down (either one) and then click on the second, third, fourth icons etc. to select multiple icons
You can also select a whole group of icons by pressing the LMB at the top left of the icons and while
keeping the LMB down moving the power towards the bottom right. An expanding box will appear and
the icons in it will be selected.

3. The Programs

Here I will give a brief explanation of the programs provided with Workbench 1.3.

3.1 Workbench Disk

3.1.1 Utilities Drawer

3.1.1.1 Clock

This displays an analogue or digital clock showing the present time and/or date. From the menu you
can select Analog, Digital 1 or Digital 2 (difference being is that one displays time in a window, the other

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displays tim e in the window bar). You can also set the m ode (12 or 24 hour), display seconds or not,
the date and whether to set an alarm for something.

3.1.1.2 Multiview
This program can view pictures, animations, sound and other documents using Workbench’s Datatype
library which can be expanded to any number of file formats from basic ILBM, 8SVX, AmigaGuide,
FTXT, ANIM and CDXL to modern types such as GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP, Wave, Mpeg and other
formats. Datatypes can be downloaded from the internet and installed.

You can run the program and then open a file from the file dialogue box, if the file has an Icon file you
can set its Default Tool to use Multiview to open and view the file automatically or you can click on the
file, press shift and double click on Multiview to view the file with Multiview.

3.1.1.3 More
This program can be used from the com m and line to view text files with page breaks between screen’s
worth of text.

3.2 Tools Drawer

3.2.1 Calculator

Here is a sim ple calculator, you can press the buttons to enter values or use the keypad. The symbols
are CA (Cancel All), CE (Cancel Entry), * (Multiply), / (Divide), + (Add), - (Subtract), . (Decimal point), <­(Backspace), +- (Change sign), = (Equals)
The Calculator Tape window can display equations as you enter them, useful for long calculations.

3.2.2 CMD
The CMD program is useful if you wish to redirect printing to a file. Run this program before printing
and any output will be sent to RAM:cmd_file. Additional options can be set in the Tool types including:
DEVICE = parallel or serial
FILE = location of file output
SKIP = skip flag
MULTIPLE = store m ultiple prints
NOTIFY = notify flag

3.2.3 GraphicDump
GraphicDump can be used to print pictures to a printer. This is mainly for IFF ILBM pictures, use
Multiview for other formats. Picture size can be set using SIZE Tool Type.

3.2.4 IconEdit

IconEdit is used to modify file icon or .info files on the Amiga. Most Workbench 3.x icons are 4 colour
icons but can be expanded to multicolour icons via the Extras, Color P alette m enu. You have the main
drawing area on the left. In the middle you have the currently selected Colour (black in this case), the
colour palette below and the drawing tools: freehand drawing, curves, circles (outline or filled),