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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Generale on March 21, 2005, 06:17:14 AM
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Hi again.
Just thought I'd ask this question:
Who out there has done a hard hack or mod to their Amiga?
What was the mod and how successful was it?
Even horror tales of failed attempts would be great.
I'll start off.
Apart from disassembly and corrosion repairs, all I've done on an Amiga was the a500ide project. Worked well. Will work better after my next planned projects.
Ordered the parts today to make a flashkicker and PC keyboard adaptor. After they are made, I'll be putting my a500 in a minitower I have.
After that..who knows :-D
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Nothing as adventurous as the A500IDE project.
-Ive populated the empty RAM pads on a rev6 A500. Bloody cheap way to get 1Mb without buying/scrounging for a RAM board. (I used chips from an old 286 and about $1 worth of caps).
edit: 4-5x A500 rom switchers with 1.3 & 2.x ROMS
-Hacked a 1084s to output RGB. Very lumpy Composite --> RGB converter! (dunno why I did that? just found the schematics and started tinkering)
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Haha, nice one! Did that to my A500 too. Got the Rams from an old VGA card. Strangly the caps where already on the board. I added sockets and inserted the ramchips.
I did a scandoubler mod. The photo's and explainations are on this site.
This is the finished mod: http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=795
I'm now thinking how to get my SCSI out. The hole in the case that was supposed to be used for that is now taken by my scandoubler. I dont like the idea of grinding a hole in the casing. But I'm getting offtopic.
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excellent!
hmm.. vga ramchips. Are they SRAM?
Very lumpy video converter indeed. I have to know, why did you do it?
Heh. I remembered a very rough hack I did ages ago which worked for some unknown reason. It was actually on a c64 tape drive. I discovered that shorting one of the drive resistors during read sped up the motor (obviously) but it still read error free. My own fastloader lol! Oh yeah, i also added a d25 to the userport of a c64 to make it easier to plug in my own homebrew evils.
Are the scandoublers the proper 15 - 30khz converters, or is it the one that you have to do the horizontal scrolly thing?
Sorry about the dumb question. Baby girl that doesn't want to sleep means very tired father...
I'm always impressed by someone that has an idea and goes ahead with it.
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@Generale
What do you mean by lumpy video converter?
I find the scandoubler/flickerfixer the most usefull item I ever bought for my Amiga. Now I can use a VGA monitor.
Thats the main reason for doing it ofcourse. The fun of the hack was to keep both externals and internal neat.
No flatcables dangling outside or badly cut holes. Even the tinware is kept.
It is a proper video converter. Not a DIY cut half the screen away converter. It even acts as a scandoubler alowing me to use a nice 640x512 screen without flicker.
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I'll have to look into that. I'd love to use a standard svga. I like the 1084s, but it can be a shade hard on the eyes, especially when interlaced. Also, I could really cheat and use a KVM switch then too (not for the mouse though) to cut down on desk space.
The lumpy converter I was referring to was coldfish's modded monitor.
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1 - overclocked a blizzard 030/50 to 60
2 - made a rgb-vga converter
3 - killed an a600 by tinkering too much
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I did it in an attempt to get a RGB only LCD to accept a Composite input, just to see if it would work. It did, but was completely impractical. Eventually, I made a converter circuit for the LCD.
Ive got a link somewhere?
edit: http://home.iprimus.com.au/kumsijo/
My C64; made a reset button, a 1541 reset dongle, a tape drive piezo/speaker (so I could hear all those harsh squalks and squeals) and made a 1541 to PC interface cable.
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Hi,
- added an additonal case-fan (80mm x 80mm) in my A3000T just below the power supply beneth the mouse-ports, that blows the hot air out of the case (temperature controled)
- added another fan (60mm x 60mm) below the drive bridge of the A3000T, that blows cool air into the case to the accelerator card. The case has already holes here to let cool air flow into the case.
- I cut a hole in the front-plate and added a fence in front of the holes that allow cool air to flow to the accelerator board, to improve air-flow.
- Made airflow-cables out of the floppy and the SCSI-cables
- added a manual monitor switch in the front panel, that allows me to switch between the flicker-fixer output of the A3000T and another VGA-signal source (usualy my old PC).
- made the INT2-patch for the A3000T
- I also added the additional 512 KB memory to the motherboard of an A500 Rev.6 (also got the Chips from an old VGA card).
- moved the power-switch of an A2000 from the back-side to the front right of the drive-bays.
- modified two Microsoft serial mice to work at a native Amiga mouse port :-)
- killed an A2000 motherboard during the try to build into a tower, tried to desolder all port-connectors from the board and attach them via cable so the could be placed in the nowmal holes of a standard PC-tower case, made a short-cut...
- placed a Pentium-III 933MHz, 256MB Ram + 3 1/2" hardisk + standard size CDRW + 1.44 floppy + power supply in an old A1000 case :-)
Noster
EDIT: Forgot the interface box to connect standard Amiga mice to a PC PS/2 mouse port.
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Well,
I actually did not do any hacks by myself. But I asked people who know how to solder and how to "hack" to do a few things. if you are interested, I can forward any messages to the appropiate person.
On my list is:
- Overclocking a CSA Derringer 030 @ 25 to 50 MHz failed, but OCing to 33MHz worked.
- enabling a pseudo-DMA-hack on the Phoenixboard (i till hve to look for the documentation, no info available for the time being).
- enhaning the Phoenixboard-Front-slot to take a full Zorro-II-Card
- making flexible adaptors for the videoslot and Z-II-slot to relocate corresponding cards within the case
Have fun,
McTrinsic
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http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=777
Successfull all the way... A SCSIKitIV is in now also. Still no CDrom in it though but it will come eventually, aswell as the Melody1200Pro and Silversurfer hardware... need to figure out a way to modify for the extra hardware output to look nice though (don't want to have the melody sounddongle outside the machine).
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The lumpy converter I was referring to was coldfish's modded monitor.
I thought you found a scandoubler lumpy ;) I can really recommend it.
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I took my working A1000, and tried to hardwire a kickstart 1.3 ROM to the CPU (following instructions I found on Aminet).
That A1000 does not work after that... I had to buy another one off Ebay. I won't be trying that again!
On my 2000HD, which is woefully inadequate for harddisk mounting space, I cardboard and ductaped a harddisk and drilled and wired in a LED next to the others for blinkies.
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Let's see...
Working 8-)
* Modded my Audiomaster Sampler with 2 more inputs so I could plug in 2,5 & 3,5 audiojacks.
* Amplifier (from CU amiga) to mix the cdrom input with the Amiga input.
* The PSX2CD32 joypad converter. That was great, in a way since i only got 2 buttons working. BUT it was really neat because I trashed a broken PSX and putted the joystick ports into a 5'25 of my powertower :D
* A lot of reset switches (on those testports)
* A lot of custom joysticks since my dad was reseller of Suzo, which developed the famous Arcade joysticks. They where actually also used in Arcade machines as well. That gave huge joysticks with big buttons :-o
* Various audiohacks (LP filter always off, stereo to mono, paula enhancer)
* Ofcourse connected an LCD(isplay) 16x2 to my Amiga
* VU meters in an 5"25 bay :P
Not succesfull :pissed:
* Twice the homemade sampler project. Cost me €50 since those chips (ADsomethingsomething) costed a fortune back then.
* PSX memory card reader. A pain in the *ss since that voltage regulator was really tight. Never got it to work. BUT it was in a 5'25 bay (on top of the joystick port;-))
* Various PC floppy to Amiga conversions. I always found out to late that they only supported 720kb disks. Ofcourse there was a 1'44mb version. Screwed that one up too.
* A lot of attempts to fix the PCMCIA port for 90gr angleconverter since i had to plug in and out the NIC everytime i booted my Amiga. Could'nt make the resetfix since my Powerflyer was on top of that. Ofcourse only later there was that beautiful software fix!!
* Lot's of more misc stuff I screwed up....
Keep it up guys!!
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hmm.. let's see I can't do anything with wires nor electric circuts without breaking something.. but I did manage to build a tower for my 1200...
I had a medium sized PC tower lying around, so I started to cut the alu on the back out, cutted a wooden board for stabilization of the motherboard, cutted a stick and screw some screws in it to hold up my mediator, my soundcard and my ethernet.. a bit dodgey but works quite well :)
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My little list of things:
PC PS/2 keyboard to Amiga adaptor, for my CD32 and my A1200.
I built a simple IDE expander, it was a little unreliable though, so I bought IDE Fix and all works well.
I've done the A1200 timing fixes on 2 motherboards.
I built a sound sampler 10 years ago, worked kinda crap due to taking too much power from the parallel port, oh and {bleep} loads of cross talk/mixing analogue & digital grounds.
I towered my CD32/SX32 once. Blew up the keyboard port doing it though. Due to problems with the video interface, this did not last too long though ;(
Adapted an ATX PSU to power my Amiga and built a plug-in adaptor.
Built a teletext decoder from the design on Aminet, it still works!
Designed a 24 bit I/O card for the Parallel port. It worked OK, shame I lost the Amiga S/W in a hard drive crash. Also re-designed a variant for the clockport. Both had PCBs built.
Built an Audio mixer, 2 x line level and 2 x amplified inputs.
Tried to make a PC HD floppy work in my Amiga but no success.
Blew up a CD32 trying to increase the video brightness, damn current mode DACs!
Replaced the capacitors on my A600 that cause the audio to fail. Replaced the PSU capacitors on the CD32 that are inserted backwards.
Currently in the CAD tool (I don't have a drawing board ;)) are a clockport adaptor and a scandoubler. Towards the end of this year by the time they are ready.
I've also built a few PIC and EPROM programmers from Aminet designs, all worked OK.
I think that's about it.
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Limited hacking
A500rev6a 1meg chip ram installation on mobo
A500Rev5 1meg chip ram hack
Lots of A2000 lithium battery modifications, a few A501 mods as well
A2000 Internal cd-rom to native amiga audio connections (only half volume? need a amplifier in there somewhere) but allowed 1084s to output cd music :-)
A3000 apart ready for lithium battery hack and a Int2 fix
(waiting on new custom chips to arrive)
AdIde floppy LED hack for HD access.. works well
Lots of rewired floppy cables to allow 1.44 IBM floppy drives to work in 19inch rack mounted a1200's (approx 600 of those all around Australia and parts Asia)
I wanna build a Ethernet controller for zorro slots!
(researching at the moment on how best to acheive this)
oh.. and a failed 14mhz a500 accelerator hack.. smelled bad! :-)
Az
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I've done a few, here goes...
A1000:
1Mb internal RAM hack
Kickstart ROM hack
PAL grounding hack
A500:
Onboard memory expansion by population existing slots on rev 6.x boards.
512k chip/fastRAM switch mod
Fatter Agnus upgrades on earlier boards.
Homemade IDE interface (2 working prototypes see images section)
14Mhz accelerator project including using square 68000 from A600
68010 upgrades
A1000 to A500 keyboard hack including mounting A500/GVP HD8+ board,HDD, CD-ROM and floppy drive to bottom of desk for zero footprint computing also using AT PSU.
A520:
Hacked VGA out
A1200:
PCMCIA reset hack
A2000:
Added full size AT slots and used AT backplane 386 (*see below) plus expansions like CD-ROM and HDD and used PC2Amiga software to access them from the Amiga side, all within the same box.
Supraturbo 28 for A2000:
Overclocked from 28MHz to 40MHz
A2088:
Overclocking hack
*286 backplane CPU card:
Upgraded with 386SX CPU
Many more PC and other C= equipment hacks/repairs/mods that I've deliberately left out or forgotten.
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Lots and lots of things.
1 MB hacks for 500s
CIA hacks and switching for internal drive to external dire booting, clock port hacks, CPU hacks 68010 to 14 Mhz. IDE Interfaces scan doublers, genlocks, repairs to sm devices, full A2000 chip replacement, A4000 chip replacement, track repairs to people doing own hacks and removing or breaking tracks etc....
Mind you I used to repair AMIGAs as a tech so that's probably why lol
Just finised refurbishing 2 A4000 MB from leaking caps and batteries. Nasty! I also hate thos flimsy angled SIMM sockets, so those go too lol.
Actually one of my most favourite hacks was on the PC using a resistor chain matrix on the Paralell port to make a real grubby D/A converter. I was sick of people saying PCs couldn't do sound like AMIGAs so I went out to prove them wrong. Mind you it was mono only, cost me ohh round $5 to make and then set in potting mixture. Sold lots of those lol.
Oh, but I got a friend who studied with me and he's the man responsible for designing and making working prototypes for the first AMIGA MFM interface. Did quite well actually!! I had one myself! He also changed it slightly later to work with RLL drives. Now we have IDE so I guess it's not much use. He's bloody smart though ;)
Things I have fried.......
Hmm where do I start lol
PS1, PS2s, AMIGA4000 internal tracks (too much power from regulator) speakers, most costly bad bad by me was a 10k server. I didn't unplug it from mains while soldering in new component and standby power zapped it good. hehehehhehe!!
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Dont know if this actually qulify as hacks but here goes.
450watt ATX built into plastic suitcase and power outlet cable for my 1200.
AMIGA1200D Current project! watercooled(peltier"TEC" 8watts on Bvision,blizzard ppc and 68k) quddddro port clockport usb and delfina sound internal slimline cd and microslimline LS120 Ide controller 1,8"+2,5" internal hds.the real hack here is to fit everything into the amiga1200 descktop + an custom keyboard.
it will all fit and also have a custom keyboard that will give better room inside..
adonay :-D
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Yonks ago I did a DIY tower for my A1200, dropped the motherboard several times, soldered on an AT PSU header on flying leads for power, then dropped the whole case.. still fired up OK.
Timing and PCMCIA fixes to both A1200`s, where I learned not to catch a soldering iron if you drop it :pissed:
Built the multimedia keyboard adapter gizmo on aminet, and the PS2 mouse adapter to go with it.
4x20 LCD on the serial port using an off the shelf adapter.
Replaced the battery in my A4000 on flying leads, so it won`t ever leak on the mobo.
Parallel port mp3 player using a VS1001.. just a testbed for a clockport version.
A1200 1Mb flashrom, currently hacking away to try and get it to cold boot from a CD !
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first project: fitted a 25+25w amp into power supply..NOTE: this is a good place as the amp is kept cool by the fan..
now use a car amp with my a1200..
built own clockport riser..
mod on blizzppc.. now take any 72pin simm..
mod on simms now have akasa heatsink.
blizzppc powered direct from power supply to processor 3.3v
same to bvision...controled by antec truecontrol..
mod on ide cable ( internal a1200 ) about 1 to 1.5 cm long..
pcmcia access led..
a1200 sound direct to prelude ( can be switch out controled by two micro solernods..
a1200 trapdoor changed to metal..can be used as heatsink..
pcmcia reset fix..
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Wow. So many amazing things!!
Its interesting to see what has and hasn't been working for people. Looks like the floppy mod has the highest failure rate.
Oh yeah, I posted 2 more pics of my version of a500ide last night. here (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=954)
and here (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=953)
Keep them coming!
I think its good for the community as a whole knowing what has been done, and what peoples experiences are!
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So many mods an hacks, so little time to remenis.
You have inspired me to drag out one last time
the amazing TS-500. My first 500 back in 1988 that
I hacked into a desktop unix case, added HD, memory
accelerator, powersupply, tethered keyboard, 2megchip
memory ... I'll post some pictures this weekend if
work and spare time allow. Hard core modsters might
get a kick. It took about 3 weeks to do back in the day
when a similar A2000 cost 3 times as much. I wonder if
it will still boot up?
Plaz
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@lorddef
3 - killed an a600 by tinkering too much
Can I have it? Not much left I'm sure :-)
Plaz
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PhilMoore wrote:
I took my working A1000, and tried to hardwire a kickstart 1.3 ROM to the CPU (following instructions I found on Aminet).
That A1000 does not work after that... I had to buy another one off Ebay. I won't be trying that again!
I did that hack to my A1000 (in about 1988??), removed the daughterboard, new PAL's chips and kickstart 2.1 rom installed on motherboard, spirit board expansion card, 68010 cpu swap, Microforge HD expansion
Worked great, gave it to my sister when I got my A3000 in about 1992??
Its now back in its origional box, next to all the other amiga "collectables" I've aquired
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I wish I had some of the hardware described here. Lacking in funds, all I can do is mangle my a500. If only there was a hack I could do that involves a slab of 1541-IIs or ancient x86 hardware to make it do something cool. I have a nice collection of both.
Accelerators/expansions are cool. Especially homebrew ones. They can be so unique and scary.
...Yay! I won an ebay auction for $1!! A nice chunk of accessories for my palm m500. hehe. Not related but cool anyway (for me)
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I forgot some:
-I hacked an A500 into an arcade machine, wired up to JAMMA connector so I could play Rodland, RuffnTumble and Speedball (+ others) in true arcade style.
-Built many a Joystick including one that had its own amp and speakers.
...umm, what else???
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I was considering doing that to one of the a500s funnily enough. I have a great jamma cabinet in the loungeroom. Its a 2 player woodgrain jobbie. It was streetfighter 2 champion edition, but the board got cooked.
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Two weeks ago I had a 4000 mobo that booted up but only showed 2 megs of memory, but had all the memory sticks installed.
So I repaired all the traces that was damaged by the leaking NiCa battery, and installed a Lithium coin case and battery from a HP mobo. Eveything working fine even the clock which wasn't working before.
ps. I have 2 other 4000 mobo that need repaired but need Rom chips. So if there is someone who has up graded to 3.1 roms but wants to sale the old 3.0 roms let me know.
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@ronmor:
I have a question about your NiCad to Li battery conversion...well sort of a statement ant a question.
Did you put in a power diode to protect against reverse current? That is, if the circuit sends a charging voltage through when the power is on.
About 6 years back I bought a secondhand notebook. Ex Telstra. I'd been using it, seeing what it could and couldn't do. Then I stepped away for a minute to use the toilet. Just after I got up from the table and made it to the next room, the computer exploded. I'm talking a proper explosion here.
The explosion had enough force to rip chips off the boards, tear through the layers of metal, propel the keyboard across the room, and the keys throughout 2 rooms, and took a chunk out of the table it was sitting on.
After the smoke cleared (an hour or so at least. That smoke was like concentrated evil), inspection revealed that some bright spark replaced the NiCad with a Lithium, and as near as I can tell, it was because the mainboard had tried to charge it.
Hope I haven't scared you.
If you don't mind resetting your clock, I suggest taking out the battery, starting up and _carefully_ check the connector/battery holder for a voltage.
I just don't want this happening to anyone else. Especially with nice bits of hardware :-)
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That does scare me dude! I thought it could'nt do any harm, since the battery are being charged really slooow.
I just sold my A4000 with fixed battery. The new battery was an LIsomething... I hope it does'nt harm the new owner...
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My first/last/and only Amiga Mod/Hack
Opened A3000 , saw leaky battery, tryed to lift it out,
was corroded to the "post" , desoldered the post,
cleaned all corrosion from the area, re-assembled
A3000 , machine refused to boot ever again
just flashes yellow now
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thanks for the info. Generale, a diode won't be a problem.
ps. did you pass any gas before you left? :lol: :lol:
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Actually too many to remember but I'll try..
many blizzppcs 040 upgrades to 060.
many many keybs adaptors for pc keybs.
2 towerings and one desktoping of an A1200
a conversion of an A1200 desktop having a combo slotload drive disk drive hard drive and some excelent mod ventilation for blizzppc and bvision waiting to come.
2 pic programmers for amiga from aminet.
tried ps2m but for some reason failed and didn't look at it again cause I got my black amiga mouse as presend from friends ;-)
many AT-amiga power adapters and much more ATX-amiga.
tried rom extenders so to fit grex and power flyer together something happend(short circuited) or PF asked for more amps that the cable could handle and after a little smells burning rubber and smokes going out of the cables!
well.. an amstrad 6128 color monitor to A1200 conversion..
and a failed change of a plcc ppc to bga..
I must forgeting many more but my amiga life is "hacking the Amiga" and some time burnit too.. like 5 days before testing a ppc I burned the mobo by shorting a couple pins on the 23D connector.. (I will try to find whats wrong because I don't want these hardwares die anymore!)
some moons ago started to build a rom for amiga to make it boot from Cd but because I couldn't find cheap rom chips an Prom programmer I forgot it quickly.
AND!! MANY to come! :-)
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@ Generale
If youve got an empty JAMMA cabinet sitting there I strongly recommend the A500 mod.
It actually brought new life to a lot of my old games! There really is nothing like thrashing the sticks on an arcade cab whilst playing Speedball-2 with a mate, its a totally different experience compared to playing on a desktop. Then there's Silkworm, SWIV, Turrican 1-3, Alien Breed, Xenon II, Risky Woods, Golden Axe, Wonderboy in monsterland...
And, the conversion is a simple case of hooking up the right wires, easy!
JAMMA has RGB+Csync in, L+R Audio (needs a little amp), and all the Joystick pinouts. I hooked up the PLR1+2 buttons to heavily used keyboard keys (space, esc ect)
You should have no problems.
If that hasn't convinced you... :-D
ps: Ive now built a MAME cab' using an old PC (K6-350) and emulation, it just about plays all those Amiga classics spot on, plus a lot of actual arcade games.
Iz gooood!!!
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@dethknight:
Yellow, eh. The generic something error. Ouch.
@ronmor
Well, I've heard of a lot of people replacing NiCad batteries with Lithium, and I don't think I've heard of others having problems. But I have to admit, after what happened to me, I'd rather be safe than sorry. I guess those warnings on batteries about them exploding if they are recharged are more pertinent than I expected.
Anyhow, putting a power diode in, or possibly cutting a VCC trace to the battery circuit may do it. Personally I think the diode is simpler.
Heh. Naah, no gas. Mind you, the pee I was going to have had to be postponed somewhat.
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An experimental CSPPC heatsink.
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/cieffeeditingvideo/CSPPC/
Heatsink size: 45x45x16.5 mm
Fan size- 45x45x10 or 50x50x10
Others are WIP :-)
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Could someone tell me, to how many degrees (C) runs his 604e (at 200 Mhz but even at higher clocks) with the original heatsink/fan?
Both > StandBy and 100% CPU used
Thanks