A few questions about the GVP Impact A500 HD8+ Series II

[Huxley_D]

Hi again guys,

Thought you might enjoy a quick update: I got in touch with a local Amigan via Craigslist yesterday, and he was kind enough to create a pair of Workbench 1.3 floppies for me. Using those, I was able to (finally!) boot to the OS and tinker around - I was relieved to see the memory line at the top showing ~9 megs (512k chip + 512k fast + 8m in the GVP sidecar). The HDD still wasn't mounting or doing much of anything, so I started tinkering with the GVP setup disks that came with it. None of them could "see" the HDD, but during one attempt there was a loud CLICK from the GVP drive, the read/write LED started blinking, and suddenly it was working (and bootable!). Maybe the heads were stuck and needed some coaxing to work loose after 20+ years of lying dormant? Who knows - I'm just psyched that it's working now!



I definitely don't 'trust' this Quantum drive and won't be terribly surprised if it suddenly dies on me, but it's at the very least confirmation that the entire GVP sidecar is electronically sound. Not too bad for $20!

Have any of you experimented with mounting some sort of SCSI-to-CompactFlash (or SD?) adapter in one of these sidecars? Any suggestions or advice around that idea?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Have any of you experimented with mounting some sort of SCSI-to-CompactFlash (or SD?) adapter in one of these sidecars? Any suggestions or advice around that idea?

Nice, glad it's working!  Yeah, 20 years of not moving, heads probably were a little stuck, haha.

Any SCSI-to-CF or SCSI-to-SD solution that's compatible with the Amiga should work in the sidecar.  Personally I use a Mechware SCSI card reader in mine (gives slots for PCMCIA, SD, xD, CF, MemoryStick, and SmartMedia).  Excellent reader but now that the hoarders have gotten hold of them, you can usually only find them on ebay for a couple hundred $$ (Mechy sold them much cheaper when he had them).  I had to take the cover and faceplate off (and a little bit of snipping) to get it to fit.  Here's a couple pics, one from when I first installed it, and one from when I upgraded to 3.9 a few months ago:

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

PS - which AD&D game is that in your pic?  I <3 those!  

[paul1981]

Nice, glad it's working!  Yeah, 20 years of not moving, heads probably were a little stuck, haha.

Any SCSI-to-CF or SCSI-to-SD solution that's compatible with the Amiga should work in the sidecar.  Personally I use a Mechware SCSI card reader in mine (gives slots for PCMCIA, SD, xD, CF, MemoryStick, and SmartMedia).  Excellent reader but now that the hoarders have gotten hold of them, you can usually only find them on ebay for a couple hundred $$ (Mechy sold them much cheaper when he had them).  I had to take the cover and faceplate off (and a little bit of snipping) to get it to fit.  Here's a couple pics, one from when I first installed it, and one from when I upgraded to 3.9 a few months ago:

Does your top cover actually still fit over all those gubbins?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Does your top cover actually still fit over all those gubbins?

Yes sir!  

Pics with it closed:  http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=793381&postcount=12

Although I've tended to the habit of leaving the bottom screws out lately, so I can just "pop the hood" whenever I need to get at the other slots, LOL.  

[paul1981]

Yes sir!  

Pics with it closed:  http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=793381&postcount=12

Although I've tended to the habit of leaving the bottom screws out lately, so I can just "pop the hood" whenever I need to get at the other slots, LOL.  

Ah ok, but, I bet your anti-RF radiation shield doesn't fit does it?!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Ah ok, but, I bet your anti-RF radiation shield doesn't fit does it?!

What do you think?  

  :laughing:

[paul1981]

What do you think?  

  :laughing:

I think you're irradiated. :laugh1:

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I think you're irradiated. :laugh1:

Here's a pic of me working on my Miggy.  

[Huxley_D]

If working on old computers exposes us to radiation, then presumably we're all going to develop superpowers, i.e. Peter Parker > Spider-Man. I look forward to developing the speed,  computational power and sleek good looks of an Altair 8800.

[curtis]

I'm saving a ton of money by not having to turn the lights on at night anymore!

Although the dogs do look at me funny...

If working on old computers exposes us to radiation, then presumably we're all going to develop superpowers, i.e. Peter Parker > Spider-Man. I look forward to developing the speed,  computational power and sleek good looks of an Altair 8800.

[AmigaBruno]

Kaum zu glauben! You said you couldn't read manuals in German. I can read them, so if I can do it then anyone can do it.

As for the CD ROM drive fitting, that's a DVD ROM drive in your pics, but designed to be external. It looks the same style as one I saw recently on eBay, which was a similar colour to the Amiga case. It also has its own mains power cable. Of Course, you're not actually allowed to use this drive with an Amiga, because it's not the same or a similar colour, so it's shouting at the Amiga, as it's black.

@AmigaBruno -

You kill me, man.  Don't just say you can't do it, thousands of people have done it before you.  Research man, research!

To plug into a 500 sidecar all you need is a SCSI cable an an external chassis to physically hold and power the drive.  I bought mine off ebay a couple years ago for $3 from some Mac user.  

The physical connection is easy, configuring the SCSI ID and termination is what's hard, if you've never done them before.  Also I recommend OS3.1 or 3.9.  No reason you couldn't do it with an earlier version - again - you'd just be making more work for yourself, doing it that way.

I'm a very visual person, I can learn more from a few pictures than I could from a thousand pages of text.  So if you're like me, here's a few pictures to get you started:

[AmigaBruno]

Kaum zu glauben! You said you couldn't read manuals in German. I can read them, so if I can do it then anyone can do it.

As for the CD ROM drive fitting, that's a DVD ROM drive in your pics, but designed to be external. It looks the same style as one I saw recently on eBay, which was a similar colour to the Amiga case. It also has its own mains power cable. Of Course, you're not actually allowed to use this drive with an Amiga, because it's not the same or a similar colour, so it's shouting at the Amiga, as it's black.

@AmigaBruno -

You kill me, man.  Don't just say you can't do it, thousands of people have done it before you.  Research man, research!

To plug into a 500 sidecar all you need is a SCSI cable an an external chassis to physically hold and power the drive.  I bought mine off ebay a couple years ago for $3 from some Mac user.  

The physical connection is easy, configuring the SCSI ID and termination is what's hard, if you've never done them before.  Also I recommend OS3.1 or 3.9.  No reason you couldn't do it with an earlier version - again - you'd just be making more work for yourself, doing it that way.

I'm a very visual person, I can learn more from a few pictures than I could from a thousand pages of text.  So if you're like me, here's a few pictures to get you started:

[paul1981]

Here's a pic of me working on my Miggy.  

Haha! Nice one!

Btw, does anyone know how these dma scsi interfaces perform when compared with the kipper cf ram board that attaches to the 68000 socket? And I'm looking for a comparison between a sidecar without accelerator (but with ram) to make it fair. I'm just interested to know if a dma drive interface is noticeably better (and worth the expense) on a 68000 Amiga when compared with the kipper CF ide (PIO) ram board on the same 68000 Amiga.

[apsturk]

Oldsmobile_Mike

I have to say thanks for the great info. I also have a nice GVP (well 3) and 2 A590s. I am looking forward to having a great time with one of my A500s and put together a nice set up like yours minus the 03 upgrade. btw I was looking forward to meeting you and lots of others in CA last weekend but I had to cancel my flight and stay to deal with some work stuff.

This Amiga thing is like a sickness I have gone from no Amigas ever in my life to like 13 and a AmigaOne X1000 to boot. So far I am having a blast and I am very happy with this little hobby  

[Blatboy]

This is a great thread with a lot of awesome info.

And Huxley_D I'm jealous!