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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: drewz21 on March 08, 2006, 04:53:39 PM
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Well, I'm almost finished building my ultimate A4000, will post specs later after everything is installed and running, and now I would like to build my ultimate A500. What advice can you give on setting up an A500 that is still very compatible with old Amiga games but is very expanded.
If any of you have built your ulitimate A500 please post those specs too so I can have a benchmark to go by.
Thanks!
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A hardware kickstart switcher is almost a must for an A500 set up to play games. Get one and install it with 1.3 and 2.04/3.1 ROMs. You will then be able to play almost any OCS/ECS Amiga game with ease (and it's quicker, easier and less memory hogging than a software ROM switcher). Not that software switchers are bad, they are just a little bit of a pain sometimes if you are changing ROM versions a lot.
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I believe I have the ultimate A500 - not just in hardware, but in software config (hence the name "mr_a500" ;-)).
If you can find an elusive Viper 530 - something I have been searching for for years - then you might have the ultimate. (and I might kill you to steal it :-D - the Viper 530 has 50Mhz 030 and 128Mb RAM!!)
My A500 has:
Viper 520 - 33Mhz 68020, 68882 FPU, 8Mb Fast RAM, 3.0ROMs
Mini Megi - 2Mb Chip RAM
40Gb 5400RPM 2.5" IDE HD
ECS Denise - with Mini Megi gives full ECS chipset
DCTV - for 24bit composite (displaying images, not WB)
Microspeed Trackball - verrry comfortable and no need for mouse space
WB 3.1 - believe me, on an A500 WB 3.9 is NOT the ultimate
I don't consider scandoublers or CD-ROM an improvement so I don't have any. All of my upgrades are internal, so there's no junk hanging off. (except DCTV, but it's just a small black box)
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Wow, mr_a500 that is one sweet setup! How do you do with old Amiga games or is that something you mess with?
Was/Is the Viper an internal trapdoor expansion? How did you get all that inside the A500? I mean, wow! Very impressive.
The A500 was the very first Amiga I had. I had always wanted an A1000 and I recently acquired a very nice one off Ebay. I also got my A4000 setup pretty much complete but now I want to go back to my A500 roots.
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i'd like to see an A500 with a PP&S 040 card and one of the powerup PPC dev boards :-D
i guess a hard disk and KS3.1 would be a requirement too ;-)
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The Viper plugs into the A500's 68000 CPU slot. There are 2 IDE connectors - one for 2.5" (which my HD is attached to, sitting on top of the card) and one for 3.5". I never could use the 3.5" connector because there's no convenient way to power a 3.5" drive. I was thinking of getting a compact flash to IDE adapter and using compact flash instead of 2.5" HD. Modern harddrives are total crap and usually fail within 2 years!
About the old games - about 99% OCS/ECS games work fine on my Amiga, thanks to WHDload. The remaining 1% either haven't gotten a WHDload install yet or have minor graphics problems in WHDload or have unexpected exits. It's still a hell of a lot better than using a stock A500, waiting for slow floppy load and swapping disks!
My A500 is my first Amiga too - bought in 1989. I recently got a free A1000. The A1000 is nice, but much harder to upgrade. The great thing about the A1000 is the built-in composite output. I played Beast on my big TV and it looked great.
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Y
darksun9210 wrote:
i'd like to see an A500 with a PP&S 040 card and one of the powerup PPC dev boards :-D
i guess a hard disk and KS3.1 would be a requirement too ;-)
Yeah, PPS 040 board would be fun to see in action
I wonder how many that were sold :roll:
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Yeah, PPS 040 board would be fun to see in action
You mean "smell in action". From what I've heard, the 040 gets very hot and the A500 case is pretty tight. "mmmmm.....burning plastic" ;-)
Does anybody out there have an 040 in the original A1200 case? Is a fan needed? (I'm not a fan of fans)
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mr_a500 wrote:
Yeah, PPS 040 board would be fun to see in action
You mean "smell in action". From what I've heard, the 040 gets very hot and the A500 case is pretty tight. "mmmmm.....burning plastic" ;-)
Does anybody out there have an 040 in the original A1200 case? Is a fan needed? (I'm not a fan of fans)
hehe, yeah..I guess the A500 case would get warped by the heat which almost happened to my A600 which I had an Mtec 630 in before I added a cooling fan to the case to draw out the hot air and a heatsink on the '030
The PPS '040 had a cooling fan as standard but the airflow inside the A500 is quite terrible
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darksun9210 wrote:
i'd like to see an A500 with a PP&S 040 card and one of the powerup PPC dev boards :-D
i guess a hard disk and KS3.1 would be a requirement too ;-)
A good start but a towerized A500 goes still further, as my A500T in Micronik Classic Mini Tower:
A500 upgraded to ECS, Megachip2 giving 2 MB Chip, KS 2.05 +3.1 in switcher, Micronik busboard with 3 ZorroII slots and A2000 compatible CPU slot housing Blizzard 2060 clocked to 57 MHz, with 96 MB Fast atm. 4GB SCSI2 HD, 8x SCSI CD-Rom, Denise adapter to acquire PicassoIV flickerfixer - loaned to my A4000; CV3D and PicassoII+ cards, Eyetech flickerfixer + AutoMon switcher to CV3D, HD-floppy as DF0: And 2-4 MB extra RAM available on Oktagon 2008 depending on which RTG gard(s) sit in the tower. Mostly gathering dust nowadays...
I was so disappointed they shelved the Blizzard 2604 PPC board :-?
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zipper wrote:
darksun9210 wrote:
i'd like to see an A500 with a PP&S 040 card and one of the powerup PPC dev boards :-D
i guess a hard disk and KS3.1 would be a requirement too ;-)
A good start but a towerized A500 goes still further, as my A500T in Micronik Classic Mini Tower:
A500 upgraded to ECS, Megachip2 giving 2 MB Chip, KS 2.05 +3.1 in switcher, Micronik busboard with 3 ZorroII slots and A2000 compatible CPU slot housing Blizzard 2060 clocked to 57 MHz, with 96 MB Fast atm. 4GB SCSI2 HD, 8x SCSI CD-Rom, Denise adapter to acquire PicassoIV flickerfixer - loaned to my A4000; CV3D and PicassoII+ cards, Eyetech flickerfixer + AutoMon switcher to CV3D, HD-floppy as DF0: And 2-4 MB extra RAM available on Oktagon 2008 depending on which RTG gard(s) sit in the tower. Mostly gathering dust nowadays...
I was so disappointed they shelved the Blizzard 2604 PPC board :-?
mmmmm..... http://web.archive.org/web/19980111014119/www.phase5.de/products/b2604e.html
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Hi
Look at mysig for my A500 spec, its not that ultimate but is not stock either. Would Like to get the mega chip so it has more chip ram and something to improve the video out put (scan doubler or graphics card if they even exist for the 500). Also i can play MP3 on it (with MAS player).
@A500
Thats a nice 500!
Robert
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A good start but a towerized A500 goes still further, as my A500T in Micronik Classic Mini Tower:
Bah! That's not an A500 anymore, it's an A2000 in a PC case. "Real A500s don't have towers."TM
That's like taking the engine out of a VW Beetle and putting it into an Oldsmobile - and still calling it a Beetle. ;-)
I'd love to have an 060 and 96Mb RAM in my A500, though!
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@mr_a500
I second that. Its scareligious! 500s are ment to be in a desktop case.
Robert
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I have butchered together the following beast (all in original case that still closes, also it`s a little bit tight):
A500 with Kick 1.3 on the Board
2 MB Chip-RAM (MiniMegi Chip)
E-Matrix 530 50MHz 68882 Kick 3.1, SCSI 64 MB (couldn`t find a 128 MB that was slim enough)
CD-ROM (internal)
ICD FlickerFree 2 (internal)
Clockportadapter with Subway.
Here are some pictures that will be integrated in my website when I finally update it.
http://home.joice.net/j100513/scans/temp/A500
The cutting for the internal CD-ROM and the denisesocket-extentioncable wasn`t done by me, so I don`t take credit for that.
The CF-Card -> IDE Adapter (located under the Floppy) you see in one pictutre does not work as slave unfortunately so it`s not connected in the final version.
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Look at mysig for my A500 spec, its not that ultimate but is not stock either. Would Like to get the mega chip so it has more chip ram and something to improve the video out put (scan doubler or graphics card if they even exist for the 500). Also i can play MP3 on it (with MAS player).
Yes, you definitely need 2Mb chip if you want to do anything useful. There are two different chips, by different companies - the Mini Mega and Mini Megi. I think Softhut still has some Mini Megi, but they're damn expensive.
I wouldn't bother with a scandoubler - A500 graphics look much better on a 1084 monitor. (I tried a scandoubler and was horribly disappointed)
I play MP3s on my A500 too. I use DiamondGUI with Mpega.library. DiamondGUI allows you to buffer for smooth playback (A500 is too slow for smooth real-time decoding). Once I decide I like the MP3, I convert to AIFF so I don't have to worry about buffering or decoding.
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E-Matrix 530 50MHz 68882 Kick 3.1, SCSI 64 MB (couldn`t find a 128 MB that was slim enough)
Holy #$%#! That means YOU ACTUALLY HAVE THE VIPER 530!!! I read that E-Matrix 530 = Viper 530. Oh man, I want that thing!
I guess you win the "Ultimate A500" award. (...walks away to stick head in pile of mud...)
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CSixx wrote:
I have an Apollo 040 inside my A1200 in a desktop case. It does have a small fan attached directly to the cpu (no heatsink). Haven't had any heat or stability issues at all.
My A500 is a rather hefty machine with a GVP-A530T (030 chip, 40mhz) and 9 megs ram (512+512trapdoor, 8M on A530T).
Has 1.3 roms and softkicks 3.1.
Be sure to check the fan is secure regularly.
I had an Apollo 040 in my A1200. Unfortunately the fan worked itself loose from the CPU without me realising.
One fried CPU later the board is dead. I was gutted.Wouldn't want it to happen to anyone else.
:boohoo:
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Sorry mr_a500...please don't kill him for it. Besides you have one sweet A500 setup. I looked at some of your screenshots and it is very sweet!
I'll have a hard time getting an A500 up to your level but I'll keep you informed of my progress. Once I start, that is.
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I had 512Mb chip, then added 512Mb "fast"
then then 2Mb chip ram upgrade,
3.1 Rom,
M-TEC 28Mhz 020+882+4Mb ram.
A570 CD.
the M-TEC wouldn't fit with the 2Mb chipram upgrade :-(
send the M-TEC back, and swapped my A500 for a non-functional A4000/030 with no keyboard (from the bloke that did the titling and video work for "The Word" TV show). 80quid for a repair, and 80! quid from analogic for a keyboard! all working.
*sigh* happy days :cry:
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My specs:
A500 Rev. 6/ECS/1MB chip
CSA Derringer 50MHz 68030/68882
32MB 32-bit simm (on Derringer)
C= A590 2MB w/ 2.1Gb SCSI drive
3.1 in rom
12x SCSI CD (external off A590)
Individual Computers clockport adaptor
SilverSurfer fast serial
Zoom external 56K modem