Amiga.org
Amiga.org specific forums => New User Introductions => Topic started by: giantweta on June 09, 2005, 03:35:23 AM
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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?
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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.
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Start selling them on eBay!! :-D
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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.
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@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
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Before you "chop up" the bad ones first try reseating the chips. I've had to that before with my A500... way back when.
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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:
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One A500+ that I have seen has batt. in great condition, no leakage at all. It seems that C= used better batteries with A500+
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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
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@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.
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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.
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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?
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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
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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
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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
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Dodgy screen then. Oh well. :/
I've got an old Acorn AKF40 hanging around that I might try - might have to disassemble the 23pin plug to make up a new cable though because they're impossible to find here.
I guess my next question has to be, where can I get a copy of Kickstart/Workbench 1.3 so I can boot these things?
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I guess my next question has to be, where can I get a copy of Kickstart/Workbench 1.3 so I can boot these things?
buy it on ebay or have someone close to you help you out. I'm sure someone here can mail something to ya. If they are stock Amiga 500's, I'd ebay them all if you're not interested in playing around with one.
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Hi,
Completely off topic. I realized you were from New Zeland with the "weta" in your account name. Peter Jackson's special effects shop was Weta Digital or something like that... Great... now WTF is a weta? (Almost afraid to ask)
-G
P.S. We spell it "Colour" up here too...
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Trust me....you don't want to know. You certainly don't want to do a google picturesearch on 'weta'...
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Yeah, you might just need to push the chips back in and maybe spray some canned air through things. I heard about a technique that involved twisting and bending the case to eseat the chips, but I don't know if that really works. Anyone know about that?
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Ewwww!
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23! and I thought 4 was excessive. But $20 is a good price, especially.
Do the Commodore Drop. Pick the A500s straight up 6-8 inches and drop them flat on a solid surface, maybe a couple of times. Then try them again.
6
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dropping from a height ... ahhhh the subtle approach! ;)
Hey it's worth a try.
So is Workbench 1.3 is still a jealously guarded bit of commercial software? Or can it be downloaded onto a PC from somewhere and then be written to an Amiga-spec floppy disk? I assume this is where RAWrite may come in handy.
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So is Workbench 1.3 is still a jealously guarded bit of commercial software? Or can it be downloaded onto a PC from somewhere and then be written to an Amiga-spec floppy disk? I assume this is where RAWrite may come in handy.
You cannot download it for free, I'm afraid. If you want to emulate an Amiga as well then Amiga Forever (http://www.amigaforever.com) comes with the images, however putting them onto an Amiga disk wouldn't be nice; the Amiga has a more flexible floppy controller than the PC, with the result that the PC cannot write to Amiga disks. Unless you've got a working Amiga that can read PC disks, then it wouldn't be possible. If you just want to check that the systems are working, then you could grab any bootable disk, like a demo, but again you wouldn't be able to write it to disk. I'd have thought that you'll need to go looking round for the physical disks.
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One of the machines has Commodore A500 written on the case - is this a special version?
Nope, it's just newer than the others.
There's one A500 Plus - unfortunately it's not one of the working ones.
The A500 plus has 1 MB of ram (as opposed to 512kB in the A500) kickstart v2.04 and a slightly better chipset. And as already mentioned, an onboard clock with a battery that's probably leaking.
What's usually the problem when the power light flashes and nothing else happens?
http://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/pub/aminet/hard/misc/errormessages.txt
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/aminet/hard/hack/Amigafix.txt
4) Green Screen; 10 short 1 long power LED blink
a) clean and re-insert Agnus chip
I know I've seen a larger list of 'blink-codes' somewhere, but I couldn't find it.
A couple of the machines had green power lights, most of them were red. What's the significance of the colour?
red=older ones
green=newer ones
-Paul
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PaSha wrote:
-Paul
Thanks Paul, the flashing lights, screen etc info is great.
I found a bootable copy of TextCraft Plus and booted up a couple of the machines successfully. At least I can test them to some extent now.
I had a look at the A500 Plus board - yup, leaking battery and green corrosion on all the pins around one of the recessed chips, and brown on some of the resistors (rust?). It's not looking good!
I'm wary of cleaning/scrubbibg the boards with meths/vinegar/meths/water ... how careful do I need to be to avoid getting various bits wet?
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Beowulf Cluster!?
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Argo wrote:
Beowulf Cluster!?
:roflmao:
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Getting bits wet is no problem, as long as you're 100% sure they're dry once you turn the power on. I think I read in an old thread here that some people would wash complete motherboards and then let them dry and allegedly it worked fine! Though, maybe I read it somewhere else... and don't hold me responsible if something goes wrong... :-P
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AdMartin wrote:
Getting bits wet is no problem, as long as you're 100% sure they're dry once you turn the power on. I think I read in an old thread here that some people would wash complete motherboards and then let them dry and allegedly it worked fine! Though, maybe I read it somewhere else... and don't hold me responsible if something goes wrong... :-P
Hey, what have I got to lose?! I'm sure I'll get the hang of it after the first 4 or 5 attempts to ressurect the dead ones. By the time I get to the currently working ones that probably need a clean too I just might know what I'm doing! :)
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Argo wrote:
Beowulf Cluster!?
I know I should Google that, but that'd spoil the fun of being ignorant. It's bliss you know :)