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Offline brostenenTopic starter

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My case convertion.
« on: August 12, 2019, 11:31:49 PM »
Hi all.
I just want to show what I have been putting together. I have a build-log on my blog.

https://to9xct.blogspot.com/2019/08/amiga500-in-pc-case-my-201920-vintage.html

Hope you all like it.
 

Offline paul1981

Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2019, 12:27:47 PM »
This is really good, I like it. Have you seen those Amiga case badges and stickers on ebay? AmigaKit sell a nice tick one that is supposed to cover the top of the RF modulator as it tends to corrode there. There are some really good real custom badges on ebay too that will perhaps be even more suitable.
 

Offline brostenenTopic starter

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Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2019, 07:18:43 PM »
This is really good, I like it. Have you seen those Amiga case badges and stickers on ebay? AmigaKit sell a nice tick one that is supposed to cover the top of the RF modulator as it tends to corrode there. There are some really good real custom badges on ebay too that will perhaps be even more suitable.

Yup. I have bought a square Commodore keyboard badge from that seller. It is for the another 500 that I have restored, from the state of a rusty non working unit to a unit that are now running without errors. Yet the case is in such a bad shape, that I need to do a spraypaint job on it.
 

Offline brostenenTopic starter

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Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2019, 10:53:30 PM »
I installed a keyboard connector in my machine... And....

It is done. The basic convertion is done. Sure it need's a keyboard now, and it need's some final touches. Yet the convertion in it's basic form is done. Now that the baby have been "born", is is screaming for upgrades and expantions.  ;D
 

Offline paul1981

Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #4 on: October 01, 2019, 02:44:57 PM »
900 KB/s for the IDE is a very good result indeed for the 68000. Why do you say you can't utilise all 40GB of the hard drive though? Of course you can - all you have to do is load a suitable replacement scsi.device with Loadmodule (providing you're using your Kickstart 2 ROM that is). I take it you're not using the hard disk with the 1.3 ROM? I think there's a bounty or something for a KS1.3 scsi.device loaded custom ROM - I saw it on eab or amibay, but I'm sure I seen something on aminet years ago for this. Anyway, I suppose if you could use this ROM then you could also boot into Workbench 1.3. You might be able to find a scsi.device that can work with KS1.3 (perhaps this is what I saw on aminet?) and you could use Loadmodule or similar to load the scsi.device from floppy (from your KS1.3 bootscreen) and then it will boot from your hard drive from KS1.3.

I wish I could tell you more, but I have a M-Tec Megabody in my A500 which has its own bootrom so it works fine from KS1.3 anyway - so I've never had to think about other solutions.
 

Offline brostenenTopic starter

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Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #5 on: October 01, 2019, 10:33:46 PM »
900 KB/s for the IDE is a very good result indeed for the 68000. Why do you say you can't utilise all 40GB of the hard drive though? Of course you can - all you have to do is load a suitable replacement scsi.device with Loadmodule (providing you're using your Kickstart 2 ROM that is). I take it you're not using the hard disk with the 1.3 ROM? I think there's a bounty or something for a KS1.3 scsi.device loaded custom ROM - I saw it on eab or amibay, but I'm sure I seen something on aminet years ago for this. Anyway, I suppose if you could use this ROM then you could also boot into Workbench 1.3. You might be able to find a scsi.device that can work with KS1.3 (perhaps this is what I saw on aminet?) and you could use Loadmodule or similar to load the scsi.device from floppy (from your KS1.3 bootscreen) and then it will boot from your hard drive from KS1.3.

I wish I could tell you more, but I have a M-Tec Megabody in my A500 which has its own bootrom so it works fine from KS1.3 anyway - so I've never had to think about other solutions.

No problemo. I am not after getting a harddrive working on eighter the Kick 1.3 or 1.2 that I have in my machine. The reason for only using harddrive on kick 2.0 are actually simple. The aim with this case convertion, is to have a really expanded Amiga500, with the best compatibility possible, yet having as many features as possible. That is why I am keeping both kick 1.2 and 1.3 free from harddrive access. I am not using WHD loader at all, because I want to run games and other software the way it was meant to be run. That is from real floppy disks, and I don't want to have games that I am not using. All these reason's are actually also the reasons as to why I won't be installing PFS3 as the filesystem. I simply have no need for more than two 2gb partitions. All I need, is room for a few ADF games files for writing to floppy and then room for stuff like mod files. I want this machine for stuff I used back when I was young and experienced Amiga's (I was 13 in 1990)

I have actually tested various harddrives out on the M68K-IDE adaptor. At first, I was only able to use my 40gb PATA drives. They are all 40gb in size, all 7200rpm's. And they all delivered between 905kb/s to 920kb/s or something like that. I can't remember the exact numbers. Yet after some fiddeling, I had CF cards and a CF card with SD-Slot build into the CF card, running on this machine. All delivered around some 600 to 630 kb/s in transfer. Then I found a couple of 2.5 inch laptop SATA drives that I had running with SATA-to-PATA converters. The SATA drives delivered just over 700kb/s in transfer. So 900kb/s is good? Well... I like it, and at least it is faster than loading WB from floppy. Not that I would ever do it for any serious work. I am not a masochist in any way.  ;D ;D

Basically.... A real 3.5 inch PATA drive are the absolute best. And the old Seagate Baracuda 40gb 7200rpm PATA disks, that have a shield over the PCB, are really quiet. Inside the case, I can simply not hear the drive at all. I have 3 of those and 2 of them are extremely low noise. The third are a tiny bit louder. 40gb 7200rpm Maxtor and other brands, are not that quiet at all. The worst of all, are those Hitachi drives. The ones that were formerly made by IBM. Those are loud and should be kept away from.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2019, 10:36:11 PM by brostenen »
 

Offline paul1981

Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #6 on: October 02, 2019, 07:17:07 PM »
I made no mention of PFS. I'm an SFS supporter! Besides, you could always use FFS and still use the 40GB. Anyway, I now know that 2GB is enough for you, so that's fair enough. However... I have some cdrom images that I like to mount now and again which are crammed full of software / fish disks etc. etc, so this is where your 40GB can come in handy (cd images).
My A500 is strictly KS1.3 with Workbench 1.3.2, because that's what it came with. It has 1MB Chip RAM and the Megabody IDE interface with a 1.4GB Hitachi 2.5" HDD. I am using PFS though, but I might change that to FFS one day. I think I get 700 KB/S out of that. I'd get more speed if I had some Fast RAM. I have one of those Slow RAM cards but I'm not currently using it. I'm toying with the idea of whether to buy a ROM switcher. The thing would have to squeeze under the Megabody though.
700KB/s is a lot compared with the floppy drive speed!  ;D
 

Offline TribbleSmasher

Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #7 on: October 02, 2019, 07:28:18 PM »
@brostenen
 Have you any idea for the colour of the case yet?
 

Offline brostenenTopic starter

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Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #8 on: October 02, 2019, 10:01:22 PM »
I made no mention of PFS. I'm an SFS supporter! Besides, you could always use FFS and still use the 40GB. Anyway, I now know that 2GB is enough for you, so that's fair enough. However... I have some cdrom images that I like to mount now and again which are crammed full of software / fish disks etc. etc, so this is where your 40GB can come in handy (cd images).
My A500 is strictly KS1.3 with Workbench 1.3.2, because that's what it came with. It has 1MB Chip RAM and the Megabody IDE interface with a 1.4GB Hitachi 2.5" HDD. I am using PFS though, but I might change that to FFS one day. I think I get 700 KB/S out of that. I'd get more speed if I had some Fast RAM. I have one of those Slow RAM cards but I'm not currently using it. I'm toying with the idea of whether to buy a ROM switcher. The thing would have to squeeze under the Megabody though.
700KB/s is a lot compared with the floppy drive speed!  ;D

Ahhh.... I thought that only PFS would get me at +2gb :-) Thanks for clearing it up.
Yeah. 700kb/s are indeed fast enough for these old machines, if they are running stock 68000.

 

Offline brostenenTopic starter

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Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2019, 10:03:56 PM »
@brostenen
 Have you any idea for the colour of the case yet?

Not yet. For the moment, I am thinking about keeping the origianl colours and the scratches that comes with it. If I had to choose a colour, then I would go for something with 70's nuances. Colours would be blue, red, green, yellow, orange or something like that. Yet the same colour all over.

EDIT:
Like these on the keyboard of this Piccoline computer. (danish designed and produced machine)

« Last Edit: October 02, 2019, 10:08:29 PM by brostenen »
 

Offline brostenenTopic starter

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Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #10 on: November 29, 2019, 10:41:37 PM »
I have done some more work on my machine. And I have updated the blog with the progres. Now it even have a USB-Keyboard adaptor for standard USB keyboards. I can even use the reset button on the case if I want to. All looking good so far.  :P
 

Offline paul1981

Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #11 on: November 30, 2019, 10:03:26 PM »
Ahhh.... I thought that only PFS would get me at +2gb :-) Thanks for clearing it up.
Yeah. 700kb/s are indeed fast enough for these old machines, if they are running stock 68000.

SFS is 68020+, so no 68000 support I'm afraid.
 

Offline OldAmigan

Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #12 on: December 01, 2019, 02:51:46 PM »
I've been following your blog. What a nice job you're doing

It's something I've had in mind to do for a long time but never taken the time to do it.

Well done.

Fred
 

Offline brostenenTopic starter

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Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #13 on: December 01, 2019, 07:20:01 PM »
Ahhh.... I thought that only PFS would get me at +2gb :-) Thanks for clearing it up.
Yeah. 700kb/s are indeed fast enough for these old machines, if they are running stock 68000.

SFS is 68020+, so no 68000 support I'm afraid.

Thanks. :-) Good to know.
 

Offline brostenenTopic starter

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Re: My case convertion.
« Reply #14 on: December 01, 2019, 07:32:36 PM »
I've been following your blog. What a nice job you're doing

It's something I've had in mind to do for a long time but never taken the time to do it.

Well done.

Fred

Hi Fred.
Thanks for the kind words. :-) The thing, is that it is the first time that I do anything like this (cutting metal, converting stuff), though I have been doing a couple of hardware mod's before. Like 2x Amiga500 chipmem upgrades and fiddeling with that 5volt VIC-II chip in a 12volt board.

The only thing missing now, is actually a scandoubler, and building the keyboard. It is implanting an original a500 keyboard into an old AT keyboard shell. Though it might take some time before this project is finished. Founds are running low for vintage hardware here. :-(

Regarding the scandoubler. Then I have a choice between an IndivisionECS-V2 and an ScanPlusECS. They can both be bought brand new, and are way cheaper than vintage 1990's scandoubler's. Yet the question remains, wich one? I have a flatscreen Sony LCD monitor, that can sync to 50hz refresh rate. And I have an 19 inch ThinkVision from IBM, that can sync to 60hz refresh rate. The IndivisionECS-V2 need a monitor that can do at least 60hz or 62hz. The ScanPlusECS need a monitor that can do 50hz. The IndiVision have tons of settings, yet higher than 50hz do not make smooth scrolling at all. On the other hand, the ScanPlusECS do not have any tools, and are just plug and play. It deliver completely smooth scrolling and crisp and clear picture that have absolutely no error. So.... What to get?

I must confes that I have one of both in other machines, yet on this machine, I am kind of still asking my self what to get. They cost the same, more or less.