OK, I've got 23 Amiga 500's - now what?

[giantweta]

I just scored a car load full of Amiga 500's, manuals, PSUs, cables, internal floppy drives, CDTV CDs, mice, joysticks and a printer, but I have never even turned on an Amiga before! Was $20 too much to pay?

After a session of plug-it-in-and-see-if-anything-happens I think I have 13 'working' machines and 10 dead ones. The working machines all come up with a picture of a hand holding a disk with the number 1.3 undeneath - I assume it's asking for Workbench 1.3. One of the machines displays 1.2 instead of 1.3.

I don't have Workbench 1.2 or 1.3 but I do have 3.0 on floppy disk.

OK, here come the questions ...

One of the machines has Commodore A500 written on the case - is this a special version?

There's one A500 Plus - unfortunately it's not one of the working ones.

There's also two of those internal expansion boxes that live under the rectangular cover on the bottom of the machine - I think they're probably RAM expansions but is there any way to tell for sure? there's nothing written on them.

What's usually the problem when the power light flashes and nothing else happens?

A couple of the machines had green power lights, most of them were red. What's the significance of the colour?

So, here I am, surrounded by Amigas and I don't know what to do with them. Any ideas?

[amigadave]

I'm on Ebay in the Amiga section everyday.  You can probably get $5 to $20 each for the working A500's, maybe a bit more.  The dead ones are useful for their custom chips that are mostly socketed and can easily be pulled and put in other machines for replacements.  If you are interested in seeing what great EARLY computing looked like, keep one and go shopping for some software on Ebay or elsewhere.  There is a ton of shareware and commercial software that has been released free as well on the Internet.  Have fun reading up and playing with and/or selling your collection.

[Amigamia]

Start selling them on eBay!!   :-D

[nagaflas]

The working machines all come up with a picture of a hand holding a disk with the number 1.3 undeneath - I assume it's asking for Workbench 1.3. One of the machines displays 1.2 instead of 1.3.

The infamous disk in hand indicates the version of the kickstart installed on the computer. The kickstart is the Amiga's internal operating system. The workbench simply provides a GUI for the user, as the ROM is too small to hold it.

There's also two of those internal expansion boxes that live under the rectangular cover on the bottom of the machine - I think they're probably RAM expansions

Bingo...

So, here I am, surrounded by Amigas and I don't know what to do with them. Any ideas?

Keep one or two for yourself, sell the working ones on eBay. You can also chop up the non-working ones and harvest the parts and sell those on eBay also.

[leirbag28]

@Amigamia

Whats with stealing my Avatar?  I used to be an avatar theif myself :-)

What part of the USA are you in?  I am in New York

[narcea]

Before you "chop up" the bad ones first try reseating the chips. I've had to that before with my A500... way back when.

[TjLaZer]

I bet the A500 Plus is not working due to the battery leaking all over the motherboard!  I would also check the A500 memory expansion cards that install in the belly of the A500 for battery leakage.  Since you spelled color "Colour" I assume you are in the UK or Auz so the A500's will be worth less than in the USA.

Good luck.

:banana:

[orange]

One A500+ that I have seen has batt. in great condition, no leakage at all. It seems that C= used better batteries with A500+

[starf81]

A month ago I've checked the battery of my 13 years old A500+ (... my first Amiga!). It was a disaster!

It was a stroke of luck because the battery had a lot of leakage but hasn't yet reached the motherboard.

Now I've changed the battery placing it in a safer place (in the right side of the case, near the floppy) with two wires soldered on the motherboard.

Alex

[xeron]

@giantweta

If you're having trouble identifying the A500 trapdoor expansions, you could try comparing them to the pictures on http://www.amiga-hardware.com

Click on "RAM expansions" on the left side. In future, you'll be able to go to "Browse by connection", and then select "Trapdoor (A500/+)", but for now that only shows up a tiny percentage of the cards produced for that trapdoor slot.

[giantweta]

Man, there's HEAPS of RAM Expansions on that page!
The units I have are completely encased in an aluminium triangular box - I guess I'll have to take one apart to check out the circuit board.

[giantweta]

Good work Sherlock (TjLaZer) but I'm actually in New Zealand.

Here's another question for you all ... should the startup screen (the hand/disk screen) have a purple background, or is my 1084S monitor faulty?

I tried the monitor on a C64 using the Red/Yellow/White plugs to the 8-pin socket on the C64 but got nothing - should that have worked?

[Markus_Bieler]

The units I have are completely encased in an aluminium triangular box - I guess I'll have to take one apart to check out the circuit board.

I think these Ram-Expansion are the original A501 from C=.

Markus

[Noster]

Hi,

> Here's another question for you all ...
> should the startup screen (the hand/disk screen) have a purple background, or is my 1084S monitor faulty?

The startup-screen with the hand for Kickstart 1.2 and 1.3 should be white, only for the Kickstart 2.0 of the Amiga 500+ (animation with inserting a disk) should have a purple (magenta?) background.

Noster

[starf81]

Here's another question for you all ... should the startup screen (the hand/disk screen) have a purple background, or is my 1084S monitor faulty?

It is correct for Amigas with Kickstart 2.0 and following but that screen is animated (a disk enters into a floppy drive...  there isn't any hand).
Otherwise, the previous kickstart versions (1.0-1.3) shows the hand with the disk on a WHITE background.

Alex