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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: sim085 on August 07, 2008, 09:50:58 AM
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Hi,
I decided I need a strategy in order to get my A500+ back to its past glory :) My end goal is to be able not only to do the same things I used to do with my A500+ when I still was in my teens but also to be able to browse the Internet on it (not sure if possible)! Obviously I’ll need to do some hardware shopping and this is why I need a buying strategy. I already did some research and decided to put all my questions in a single post rather than in multiple posts which do not provide enough background on my goal! Also this would help other people who have similar goals :)
So to start with I will give my current A500+ specifications:
Processor: 68000@7.14Mhz
Chipset: ECS
Kickstart: V2.04
MMU: none
FPU: none
(I do not know the exact motherboard revision but I can open it and see if it is available on the inside. Should you need any more information just ask me and I’ll try to get it)
Following are all the hardware upgrades I have considered so far. Please do not hesitate to inform me should I have forgotten any hardware upgrade I could need.
Internals:
On these forums I found out about a person who successfully browses the internet from his A500 (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=1192=7). However in his A500 specification I can see he has the Processor 68030 w/68881 FPU, Kickstart version 40.63 and Workbench OS 3.5. Now as much as I know with my current specifications I can only install up to Workbench OS 2.x! So will I need to upgrade my Processor and Kickstart? If so how can I do this? And is there anything better than those specifications for the A500+? The only worries I have with such internal upgrades are that I feel my A500+ would no longer be an A500+! However if that is the only way forward then I am happy to try it out :) Also should I consider upgrading my RAM/Fast RAM?
Hard Drive
I used to have a Grand Slam hard drive once but this one no longer works. I am not sure if I should go for the Comodore A590 hard drive or one of the GVP hard drives. Personally I would like to have an all Comodore A500+ but from what I can find on the internet it seems that the GVP hard drives are just better – they also suite better (in design) to the A500 but am not sure if this is also true for the A500+! I also read somewhere that the A590 hard drive cannot be daisy chained with other peripherals while the GVP hard drives can! Is this true? Anyways what would you people pick?
Modem
Personally I think this would require a whole post for itself since like that it would help better people with this same goal. So the question here is not exactly how to connect my A500+ to the internet but rather if there is anything (hardware wise) which I have missed out in this post which is essential to connect my A500+ to the internet.
To conclude I would like to thank anyone who has read till here. I am sorry for the long post but did not know a better way how I could communicate all this. Personally I would like to keep my A500+ as close to the original specifications as possible but understand that this could be hard. Thanks to everyone for any the comments :)
Regards,
Sim085
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Hi! Quite a fun idea for a HW project :-)
You can install AmigaOS 3.1 ROMs in your A500+. I don't know what hardware requirements OS 3.5 and up has, but Workbench 3.1 should run fine and provide you with a current enough environment to run a TCP/IP stack and most web browsers available on Classic Amigas today.
As for the hard drive, if you can find a GVP A530 this would probably be your best shot. It's an external (sidecar) hard drive AND accelerator in one, with a 68030 CPU at 40MHz and fast-RAM.
If you're using dial-up, any old serial modem should do. You could also use a null modem cable connected to a PC, Mac or another Amiga connected to the internet and use that computer as a gateway. I don't know of any NICs for the A500+, but if there is one, I'm sure someone here knows about it.
Good luck!
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Thanks for your reply :) I did a quick search on the internet to see if I can find any GVP A530 for sale but seems to be really hard to find one! It is nice to hear that I can just upgrade my Kickstart without replacing any ROM chip. I will do a quick search on the internet to see how this can be done.
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Indeed a nice project. I've considered it myself but I ended up with some A4000's.
Anyway, if you want to browse I would recommend to install a 030 accelerator. As mentioned by Carls, a GVP A530 is a nice option. If you're lucky, you might find a Derringer which can hold up to 32Mb fast ram.
There are some NICs for an A500(+) in a sidecar expansion box but they've got two downsides.
- no passthrough for other devices so an external device like a HD sidecar will be difficult to find. So if you'd choose this option and you can't find an external HD with passthrough, you'll have to find an internal HD controller and an internal accelerator.
- very hard to find (I know as the two I sold were the only ones I've ever seen for sale in a very long time)
Another option is the RR-Net network device (from Individual Computers) that connects to a clockport. It would require a clockport adapter and according to Jens Schoenfeld it would be really slow. I don't know if the drivers for the Amiga exist.
And imho you should definately get a 3.1 kickrom.
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HyAmi wrote:
And imho you should definately get a 3.1 kickrom.
From the little research I did on upgrading to Kickstart 3.1 it seems that I need to buy new ROM. Is this so? If yes then which is the place to buy such ROM chips? (I found some already but not sure which one is best).
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take a look here and drool over amiga hw's, that you can use for your project...
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/
some of the stuff you find here usually show up on evilbay, but you have to dig deep in your pockets... if money aint no barrier then your dream will come true.
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@sim085
You don't have to get a new rom if you don't want, if you have plenty of ram... you can of course SoftKick a ROM file... personally I use BlizzMagic (A softkick for blizzard accelerator boards) with a legal 3.1 ROM from Amiga Forever.
Although getting the actual physical ROM's will mean you don't lose 512K of RAM.
:-)
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DBAlex wrote:
You don't have to get a new rom if you don't want, if you have plenty of ram...
I think I'll buy the 3.1 Kickstart ROM from amigakit.com :) Will this allow me to install older versions of Workbench as well (such as the Workbench 1.0 and 2.0)? Also is there any more recent version of Kickstart ROM available for the A500+? At amigakit.com there is only the Kickstart 3.1 ROM available for the A500+.
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I upgraded my a500 (which was trully an a500+ but only ks1.3 and 1/2meg ram)
You can see the result of my signature.
You can install os3.5 or even 3.9 if you have more than 6Mb ram and a turbo cpu card, but prepare yourself that it will be dog slow. I recommend the 3.1 os.
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When talking about the processor what does the first number mean exactly. That is when saying 68030@14MHz what does the digit 68030 mean? Sorry if this is a stupid question :$
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There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.
The 68030 relates to the processor type i.e
in the pc world it would have been a 286, 386 or 486 etc
the motorola chips were names 68000 (A1000,a500,a500+,a600 etc, 68010 ( not seen much in the wild), 68020 (amiga A1200), 68030 (A2000 , A4000 and accelerator cards), 68040 ( A4000 and aceelerator cards) and 68060 (accelerator cards only)
hope this helps
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I have an m-tec cpu turbo card. It can insttalled into the socket of the 68000 cpu in the motherboard of the a500(+)
I think it is one of the slowest 68030 cpu card in the amiga. Anyway it is more than 5 times faster than the original 68000 cpu at 7MHz. The seconf one is the FPU (68882) but it is not so much used in the wolrd of amiga.
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Thanks for the answer. The reason I asked the question in the first place is because I went to check the specifications of the GVP A530 hard drive (from here: http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=68) and it says inside it is has a 030@40Mhz processor!
So I am confused does 030@40Mhz processor really mean a 68030@40Mhz processor or it is an 030Mhz processor which together with the 68000@7.14Mhz inside my A500+ makes a total processor power of 68030@40Mhz? I do not know if the question is clear. I got the impression that the GVP A530 hard drive comes with a 68030@40Mhz processor.
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Yes, 030 is an abreviation of 68030, you will also see from time to time, mention of 040 and 060 which are the same as 68040 and 68060.
Other chip numbers which may also be abreviated include '881 (68881), '882 (68882) and '551 (68851).
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Thanks for your reply. I understand now. Something else; when I connect an accelerator card (or a hard drive) which has a processor of lets say 68030@40Mhz then will my A500+ start using just this processor or it will use its 68000@17Mhz AND ALSO the 68030@40Mhz processor?
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The 68000 will start the machine, but soon after loading kickstart I think, it will then hand over control to the 68030, which will then be the CPU in use.
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When you plug an accelerator into an amiga it takes over from the factory fitted processor, so the 68000 is effectively disabled.
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The 68000 will start the machine, but soon after loading kickstart I think, it will then hand over control to the 68030, which will then be the CPU in use.
Unless you use a cpu socket accelerator. it will bypass the 68000 commands completely and run only the "speedy" cpu.
Unless you tell it to boot from the 68000....
(accelerators like the derringer)
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@sim085:
I have an A500+ that I can use to browse the web. The best way to upgrade your A500+ is, as you already guessed:
- an accelerator
- more RAM
- a harddisk
Often an accelerator will already offer you more RAM. You could try and do it without a harddisk and without an accelerator (I know, I did, just to see if it would work), but it will be slow as hell.
To get online you should indeed use Kickstart 3.x, because I think iBrowse requires it. Install AmiTCP (the TCP/IP stack). If you're on dialup a modem will work, but if you have broadband the easiest way is to hook up a null-modem cable between your A500's serial port and a PC or Mac and use a PPP connection. PPP is a pain to setup properly in Windows, but really easy if you use Linux or Mac OS X.
There are Ethernet solutions for the A500 (I have a Hydranet), but they use BNC connectors, so they're a pain to set up and also very hard to find.
Good luck with your setup!
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Considering that it is nearly impossible to buy a GVP with an 68030@40Mhz processor should I consider buying a hard drive and an accelerator card (with the 68030@40Mhz processor)? If so any additional RAM I buy would be connected with accelerator card or with the A500+ itself? If it is connected with the accelerator card (as I suspect) then would this RAM be specific to the accelerator card RAM for the A500+ follow some sort of standard. I am asking this because my Grand Slam hard drive had some RAM with it and don’t know if I can maybe make use of this.
Also, I know I need an accelerator card with a 68030@40Mhz processor, but how much RAM would I need and how much hard drive space?
Thanks again for all the comments :) As I said I am sorry I am asking such question but when I used to play with my A500+ I was still 7 years old and used it steadily only till when I was 12 years! :( Therefore for me everything you people tell me is completely new and mostly fascinating :)
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Enter bboah in google and it will take you to a site that gives a lot of information on most amiga hardware.
It lists nearly 40 accelerators for the amiga 500 alone, plus tech specs on them such as how much memory can be fitted.
Find an accelerator on ebay, ebid or amibay and look up the details on bboah.
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I started similar project some 3 years ago, with a 19 years old Rev5 A500. I've got challenged by a usual "bet buddy" with ironic support of few other friends which still can't accept the fact A500 could display this very HTML page.
In short, everything is already said - you can't move an inch forward unless you get an accelerator. For A500 there are some 30+ designs, but generally only few of them are top-class (Derringer, A530, VXL30, Viper530, PPS040-500). Top class means top price. For instance, I got my A530 fully functional after 2 years of constant search. At last it was a faulty unit generously delivered from a member of this forum, which I have recently repaired in AMIGACENTER. With 8Mb FASTRAM, SCSI controller and 68030 @ 40Mhz it is argubly the most complete A500 accelerator set available (this is subject of discussion, many would bias Viper). This piece or something similar should permit smooth Workbench 3.1 installation and form fair basis for further system expansion.
In my case, I went for GVP because I thought it would be almost impossible to match/find both affordable and capable HDD controller in one box and faster CPU with extra RAM in other box.
Since SCSI drives are hard to acquire in one piece for a decent price, I got a 2Gb drive just for making headstart with GVP A530. My final solution include SCSI-to-IDE converter and IDE-to-CompactFlash converter. Few forum members have succesfuly applied this layout, using all benfits of modern solid-state mass storage (lower power consumption, temperature, lifecycle and shock resistancy coupled with superior transfer rate performance).
Stable storage system on A500 will bring the system a step closer towards the networking part. For that issue, I'm shooting on clockport adapter with SubWay USB adapter. Once configured with new bug-check version of Poseidon USB stack, it will (I hope) allow at least 50Kbytes per second on 40Mhz A500 (of course this requires USB-to Ethernet adapter).
Anyway, good luck on project, keep us informed on further progress.
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@Lockon_15
can you post pictures of your a500?
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@Lockon_15:
Dobro!! ;-)
I have a clockport adapter which I never got to use. But if I use it with a Subway, how can I have a USB-Ethernet adapter work? Wouldn't you need specific drivers for that, so it can show up as a SANA-II network device?
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Your project is certainly interesting. I think you were referring to Mr A500, if not check out his screen shots on this site.
The most minimalized Amiga that I've seen this done with was an A600 HD (7 Mhz - no acceleration) with 3.1 roms and 2 megs of fast ram in the PCMCIA. The standard serial.device was replaced with 8N1.device (I think). It seems it could browse with Aweb and iBrowse, both earlier versions. It was not fast and the images were dithered but it was surprisingly satisfying.
I think the mininal upgrades are a harddrive and at least 2 megs of fast.
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@A1260
I have a scheduled summer vacation with my family, starting later this very day. Won't be even close to A500 untill early September, but will monitor this forum "traffic". Of course, pics of A500 and A530 will be posted shortly uppon returning home.
@CPFUTURE
That driver issue thing crossed my head several times when I browsed eBay listings for those 5 euro USB-ETHERNET adapters. However, if you navigate to this page:
http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=2538
System description is listed below pic. It's easy to spot 2 metal USB bracket pairs with a single USB port connected to a RJ45 cable over an adapter. Now, check comments below - it seems like a working setup.
Since I'm months away from opening "networking chapter" and there are still some issues with Poseidon driver, I just put the usual IT logic aside and concluded USB-Ethernet as a done deal.
This state of mind might deviate from reality, but hell it's a good feeling. :)
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Hi,
I have been doing research all over the internet all yesterday evening and this morning and still did not find any accelerator card for sale.
From the research I did it seems that the best two options are the GVP A530 and the Viper 530 with the Viper 530 being my first preference!
However from what I read on this forum and other forums it seems that such hardware peaces only rarely appear on eBay and other auction sites and a lot of people suggest to have patience.
Therefor I decided I should concentrate on other parts of this project; such as the RAM.
I found on amiga-hardware.com that Commodore produced the A501 and the A501+ RAM expansion boards. It seems that the A501+ is specific for the A500+. However if I find and A501 would this still work with my A500+? Also are there any better RAM expansion boards and would this be still required once I buy the accelerator card (since some accelerator cards also have RAM on them)?
Also regarding Kickstart ROM; Should I buy a Kickstart switch board so that I keep both the Kickstart 2.0 and 3.1 or I no longer need the Kickstart 2.0 if I have the Kickstart 3.1!?
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sim085 wrote:
I found on amiga-hardware.com that Commodore produced the A501 and the A501+ RAM expansion boards. It seems that the A501+ is specific for the A500+. However if I find and A501 would this still work with my A500+? Also are there any better RAM expansion boards and would this be still required once I buy the accelerator card (since some accelerator cards also have RAM on them)?
Yes. The trapdoor slot of A500+ is to increase Chip RAM, which is always useful regardless of how much RAM you have on your acelerator. Think of it like graphics card RAM. It maxes out at 2 mb, so get a 1 meg card. The A501 and A501+ are 512K only, so I would avoid them. 1 meg cards for A500+ pop up at ebay from time to time.
Also regarding Kickstart ROM; Should I buy a Kickstart switch board so that I keep both the Kickstart 2.0 and 3.1 or I no longer need the Kickstart 2.0 if I have the Kickstart 3.1!?
Kickstart 2 is totally useless once you have 3.1 rom. Maybe you may want to keep a 1.3 rom for old games, but you won't need it much if you have whdload.
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If it maxes out at 2Mb then why did they get out 8Mb RAM expansion boards such as the Elbox 500/8 (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1543) or 2Mb RAM expansion boards such as the AmiTek: Maximem (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=945)?
These are marked as to be connected with an A500/+ Trapdoor Slot which I am assuming to be either A500 or an A500+. Is this wrong?
edit: found a good article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Chip_RAM. However still cannot understand why such companies produced such RAM expansion boards if the A500+ could only be upgraded to 2Mb.
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AFAIK, there are 3 types of trapdoor RAM expansions:
- i.e. A501 with 512Kb RAM; those use so called "SlowRAM" and always use only exposed socket to function
- i.e Elbox 500/2 with 2Mb RAM; those also use so called "SlowRAM", but due limitations/design of Amiga memory map, it can only use appx 1,8Mb of installed RAM banks. Moreover, such expansions need extra logic (provide address space for 4 RAM banks) which can be easily seen in form of additional adapter which connects RAM expansion board with one of well known Amiga chips (usually GARY, but can also stretch to 68000 COU as well)
-i.e. Elbox 500/8 with 8Mb RAM; those use real FASTRAM in 100% address space; physical layout puts RAM expansion board on trapdoor, but there are 2 additional adapters which connects to other Amiga chips on motherboard. Basically, this type of expansions offering 8Mb RAM need access to expansion bus usually ocuppied by sidecar expansion port on left side of Amiga.
Regarding A501+ RAM expansion holding additional 1Mb CHIP RAM, I'm not sure if that's correct.
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Thanks for the reply Lockon_15. Things are more clear now regarding RAM :) I will try to find a 1Mb RAM expansion board then since I would like to leave the sidecar expansion port free for a hard drive and also I do not want to mess to much with the chips in the A500+. Thanks again :)
btw - is it important to know the maker of a RAM expansion board? or they are no so different from one another?
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EDIT: never mind
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i recommend ebay too.
Try different sites. So for exapmle ebay.de and ebay.com etc. The result will be different.
Two years earlier at least 2 pcs of a500 accelerator hit the ebay.de site so it is not impossible to get one. I buy mine for more than 100 Euro, so it will be not cheap.
Try to get an accelerator with onboard ram, or ram slot. this will be the fastest ram.
For example i have an a500 which is the latest revision. So it is truly an a500+ motherboard. It has 512 ram by default, but i can solder an additional 512kb ram to it because it had the space on the pcb. I had an a501 (512kb ram expander)clone so then i have continuous 1,5MB chip ram on my machine.
I has an ide controller which has got ram slot, but i can't use it because the ram of theaccelerator card ram and the ram expansion of the controller is incompatible with each other.
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Thanks for the suggestion, I am doing some more research right now :)
I now also have another question (sorry buy questions keep popping in my mind :$)
What would be the best setup; to have a hard drive and an accelerator card all in one (like the GVP A530) connected to the Side Expansion Slot OR to have a hard drive (like the GVP A500 HD8+) connected to the Side Expansion Slot and an accelerator card (like the Viper 530) connected to the CPU Socket?
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It's hard to judge as the most important figure remains unknown - available budget. If your budget can hold on his own, then I would advise combo like Derringer or Viper and GVP HD8+. That would put you in fastest CPU/maximum RAM envelope covered with additional fast storage solution. In any terms that's a more powerful solution than A530, but it could also be more expensive overall.
As you already figured out, those goodies for A500 are EXTREMELY rare targets for low-budget prespective owners. basically, you're gonna shell-out a nice pile of cash if youe're after a specific setup, meaning that there are other HDD solutions and CPU/RAM designs.
For instance, I can assure you that at least 10 GVP A500 HD8+ units will pass eBay listings before a single A530 unit appear. It's not a rule, but it shows some trend for sure.
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i've not had problems with ebay. but then i've never sold anything... i've even lost an auction or two and had the seller come to me and say that the top bidder couldn't complete on the purchase and ended up getting it anyway.
however, i have had my paypal account "hacked" and it is now locked out, along with my associated bank details and credit cards. which sucks. paypal have, (barring catching the fraud, for which i commend them whole heartedly), generally sucked bigtime for any help in getting my account back and working.
anyway, i have an A500 with 3.1rom, 40Mhz GVP A530, 8Mb 32bit fast, plus half a meg chipram, and half a meg 'slow' fastram, a 4Gb compact flash acting as a hard drive, a clock port adapter, a subway USB card, and a USB2LAN adapter.
for the best web browsing on an A500, you really need to cover the following bases.
- as much CPU as you can for image rendering
- as much chipram as you can for images, you got an A500+ so the 2Meg max isn't as out of reach as for anyone with an older machine ;-)
- as much fastram as you can for everything else. TCP/IP stack, workbench, web browser, browser page loading, cache etc.
- hard disk. i suppose you could work from floppies. i used to when i used to hook upto BBS's and the like, but web browsers are a bit bigger, and need space for caching pages and all those aminet downloads ;-).
- a 3.1rom in there with make life much easier, as your machine will support datatypes and the like for image loading. if you think this detracts from the plus'ness of your A500, just think of it as an OS upgrade, or what OS2x should have been :-)
- some form of internet connection.
i think someone said that they wern't sure how the amiga would use a USB LAN adapter. well, the USB stack takes care of that and provides a usbpegasus.device (in my case) for a SANA networking driver.
be warned though. i havn't found the subway/USB LAN adapter isn't really a good combo. but maybe its just the pegasus chipset of my adapter, but the subway card seems to poll the CPU's interrupt lines massively when the IP stack is active and using the USB2LAN device, and drains what extra CPU power the accelerater provides leading to a painfully slow "just cos i can" web surfing expirience, and about a 4-5KB/s transfer rate from the LAN.
so i'd really be better off on dialup, or a serial link to a PC sharing it's network connection.
i hoped it would be fixed in the version 4 release of the poseidon USB stack, and to be fair, it is better. but i still wouldn't think it usable. nowhere near as usable as an 030 based A1200 with a cnet card...
'nother thing i've found. i wouldn't really bother with anything higher than OS3.1 on an A500. 3.5 and 3.9 look pretty, but will chew hard on what little resources you have. 3.1 is still perfectly usable on a 7Mhz 68000
the viper530 would be the best solution for accelerating your amiga. you wouldn't need an external hard disk, as it has IDE ports to take both 2.5" laptop drives, and 3.5" desktop drives. the more expensive versions had onboard scsi too. plus it has its memory addessed outside of the Zorro2 range, so it could take upto 128Mb on a single 72pin simm. not to mention it is pretty much the fastest, (bar the PPS 33Mhz 040, with no hard disk controller, and only able to take 8Mb ram).
if you had some other internal accelerator that didn't have a hard disk controller, then yes, you would need an external solution like a GVP, or A590 for your hard disk.
i hope this helps, but this is just my expirience from kinda following the same path as you :-)
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Thanks, I'll buy the GVP HD8+ and 1Mb RAM extension board now and then when a Viper or Derringer becomes available I'll try to get it as well :) I also hope to upgrade my Kickstart ROM chip soon as well!
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i bought a GVP HD8+ and SupraTurbo28 (super clocked 68000@28Mhz!) initially, but they are now sitting gathering dust as i found a GVP A530 on ebay about two months after buying them! :lol:
i wish you the best on your hunt for a viper or Derringer! :-)
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Thanks darksun9210 for your long description. Your setup is very interesting. However I am hoping to stick to the GVP HD8+ a little longer then you ;)
I bought the GVP HD8+ and the 1Mb Ram expansion board from eBay for GBP 60.98 (excluding shipping). Is that a fair price? Also the GVP HD8+ I bought is 2GB. Is that good? Or I should already start thinking to upgrade this?
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2Gb sounds fine. you'll be able to fit workbench and all the apps you could ever need in about 200-300Mb, and will still have over 1.5Gb left for games and stuff.
Hard disk amigas used to come equiped with 20, 40, or 80Mb drives. maybe even 52 or 105Mb drives if i remember the GVP series correctly. so 2000Mb is a huge amount! :-)
and the price for both? sounds good. i think i paid 45GBP for mine with 4Mb internal fastram, and a 52Mb drive
but you are getting a chipram boost aswell for an extra 15GBP, which is good :)
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The GVP I bought should also have 4Mb internal fastram :) So I guess I got it for a good price. Now I just have to wait for the stuff to arrive and see if they work :) (They should, at least that is what the seller told me)
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one thing to bear in mind with the GVP, is my PSU made a high pitched "singing" noise and then died after a few weeks. i guess at being nearly 18 years old i can't complain. so you may need to find someone that is good at electronics and can find the fault in the PSU and replace the part, (audio repair shops are a good source of soldering skill). or there are a two sets of jumper pads (one for 5Volts, and one for 12Volts) you can solder together yourself, or have someone solder for you that makes the GVP draw power from the Amiga itself.
The A500's PSU should be more than able to power everything quite happily if you have PSU problems... i had to do this for my A530.
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It is dirt cheap to upgrade HD8+ to 8Meg if you wanted to. They use regular 30-pin SIMMS. It will happily take 1*8Meg or 2*4Meg.
Be warned the HD8+ (ROM?) is particularly picky about what accelerators it will work with.
If you find your HD8+ a little slow, and if you can find one, a Guru ROM for your HD8+ is worth getting.
Here is a link to the self-power mod mentioned above:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~davem2/overclock/a500hd.html
If you are worried about power you can use an ACard 7720U SCSI->IDE adapter (~£15) to use IDE drives and an IDE->CF (~£3) to use silent, low power, compact flash.
And of course the best purchase now you have a hard drive is WHDload (http://www.whdload.de)
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the SCSI>IDE adapter and compact flash route is brilliant. after running a howling 1Gb scsi drive to a silent compact flash, makes life so much more pleasant. not to mention the less stress on the A500s power supply...
and WHDLoad... what a genius bit of software. :-D
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@ sim085
Here (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=110278515039) is your future accelerator for your A500+...
Just start bidding.
I have one of these myself. it is really great...
Although, it do not have any kind of hdd controller. but the speed is close to comparable to an A1200 with blizzard 1230 mkIV. A friend of mine has an A1200 such speced...
(though, i have the 50mhz version...)
EDIT: ooops. i forgot the link... :-D
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At the moment I am also looking in an 040 accelerator card for the A500+.
I bought the ROM 3.1 (amigakit) and Workbench 3.1 (eBay). With the GVP HD8+ hard drive (with 4Mb fast ram) and the extra 1Mb slow ram I should be able to achieve my above goal right?; that is to browse the internet from my A500+.
If yes then would my A500+ be under so much stress (without the accelerator card) that it could burn?
Also I do intend to even try to install Workbench 3.9 on my A500+. However for that I would need to definitely buy a good accelerator card a CD drive and the actual workbench on CD. However I still have the same worry - could my A500+ get burn with all that stress processing?
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sim085 wrote:
--zip--
However I still have the same worry - could my A500+ get burn with all that stress processing?
No. Maybe you will need another PSU to run all add-ons you want.
A Goliath or a hacked AT/ATX PSU.
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there are the PPS 040 accelerators out there, but i have never ever seen one come up on ebay :-D
trouble is that IIRC they are/were only expandable to 8Mb of ram...
the other option you have is to build some kind of slingshot device that bolts onto the sidecar expansion slot to give you an A2000 style CPU slot. then you can plug in A2000 style accelerators.
bit of a mission is you will probably have scsi cables and drives all over the place, not to mention some sort of uprated power hookup to drive an 040 or 060.
if you really really want to go that route, then i'd look out for an A500 zorro bus board. as these provide not only the CPU slot, but zorro2 slots aswell, for things like graphics, ethernet, and sound cards. then you'll need to put it all into some full height PC tower case.
have a look through the images as there is one guy who has done this already. and got an 060 powered A500.
otherwise, if you want to stick with the A500ness of your current setup, i'd get the derringer card. it'll outgun pretty much anything except top end 030 cards and above, being and order of magnitude faster than the stock 68000,
and be compatable with pretty much everything, and provide you with the most amount of ram, barring an A2000 type accelerator...
:-)
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My hard drive will have a PSU all for itself so that means I will have two PSU's, one for A500+ and one for the hard drive. What I am most worried is if the CPU (on the A500+ or the accelerator card) could get burned because of the amount of processing requested by the operating system.
Regarding Fast RAM; how much Fast RAM is enough? That is how much Fast RAM will actually make a difference for the processor?
Today's processor have an address space and having more RAM then the address space can support is pretty much useless right? Didn't the A500+ processor work the same way?
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sim085 wrote:
I bought the ROM 3.1 (amigakit) and Workbench 3.1 (eBay). With the GVP HD8+ hard drive (with 4Mb fast ram) and the extra 1Mb slow ram I should be able to achieve my above goal right?; that is to browse the internet from my A500+.
Not graphically. How are you going to connect your Amiga to the internet? SLIP/PPP connection to the PC? An analog modem?
sim085 wrote:
If yes then would my A500+ be under so much stress (without the accelerator card) that it could burn?
Absolutely, make sure you've got a fire extinguisher. Or perhaps some liquid nitrogen! ;-)
sim085 wrote:
Also I do intend to even try to install Workbench 3.9 on my A500+. However for that I would need to definitely buy a good accelerator card a CD drive and the actual workbench on CD. However I still have the same worry - could my A500+ get burn with all that stress processing?
I would say no, but it depends on the accelerator. Some 040's are known to run rediculously hot.
You do not need to have a CD-Drive to install OS3.9! Take your hard drive out, put it in the PC install using WinUAE.
sim085 wrote:
Regarding Fast RAM; how much Fast RAM is enough?
For 99.99% of everything Amiga, 32Mbytes will be fine. You could probably get away with 8Mbytes but if your accelerator can take more you'd be mad not to max it out.
32Mbytes is the maximum for most A500 accelerators.
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alexh wrote:
Absolutely, make sure you've got a fire extinguisher. Or perhaps some liquid nitrogen! ;-)
You are joking or? :-?
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sim085 wrote:
You are joking or? :-?
Of course
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alexh wrote:
sim085 wrote:
You are joking or? :-?
Of course
Thank god :) my heart missed a beat on that line :)
I will try to configure my A500+ as it is. I still have to remove the leaky battery, and make the keyboard work. Then I will install Workbench 3.1 on the hard drive and see if everything works fine. If so then I will try to connect the A500+ with my PC and see if I can manage to browse the internet :) Depending on the success of that I will decide what to do next.
How often do 'good' accelerator cards come over eBay? Or this is usually a very rare deal?
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My hard drive will have a PSU all for itself so that means I will have two PSU's, one for A500+ and one for the hard drive. What I am most worried is if the CPU (on the A500+ or the accelerator card) could get burned because of the amount of processing requested by the operating system.
erm. nope, you should be ok. you can stick a heatsink to it if you really want...
Regarding Fast RAM; how much Fast RAM is enough? That is how much Fast RAM will actually make a difference for the processor?
64 kilobytes of fast ram will make a difference to the processor, as it has direct access and doesn't have to fight the custom chips to get to it. hence 'fast' ram. but this amount will be pretty useless to actually run stuff in.
4-8Mb makes a very usuable machine,
16-32Mb and you don't need to worry about running out of memory from running TCP/IP stacks, web browsers, paint packages, music players etc all at once...
64-128+Mb for big lightwave renders and openGL games,
Today's processor have an address space and having more RAM then the address space can support is pretty much useless right? Didn't the A500+ processor work the same way?
yup. the 68000, being a 16bit chip has a maximum of 16Mb of address space. on the A500+, this is (roughly speaking) split into, 2Mb is assigned to chipram, around 1Mb for the operating system rom, 8Mb for zorro2 ram space, around another meg for autoconfig space, and the remaining 4Mb for motherboard resources.
the 68030 being a fully 32bit chip has 4Gb of address space. hence being able to put 256Mb ram on a Blizzard 1230.
the Derringer board, cpu, and memory is fully 32bit, but has to comply with the above memory layout for the A500+. so its onboard memory is outside of the 16Mb upper limit for 16bit range. i think it autoconfigs properly to tell the amiga about this new memory area, but i could be wrong, and you may need to run a utility to tell the amiga this neew memory is there, before the memory is available.
anyway, the two advantages are, that this doesn't clash with the memory already in your GVP, as the GVP ram sits in the 16bit zorro2 ram addres range, AND that you are not limited to the 16bit address range for the Derringer's onboard 32bit ram, so you could (memory controllers permitting) have as much ram as you liked up to the upper 4Gb limit of the 32bit address range.
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darksun9210 wrote:
yup. the 68000, being a 16bit chip has a maximum of 16Mb of address space.
[Snip]
the [accelerator] memory is outside of the 16Mb upper limit for 16bit range.
This is me just being pedantic but the 68000 has a 24-bit address bus and that is why it can access 16Mbytes. The 16-bit refers to the external data bus.
2^24 = 16M bytes
2^16 = 64K bytes
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ahaaaaa... that makes sence, just like the range of the EC020 on an A1200...
good stuff, everyday's a school day :-)
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How often do 'good' accelerator cards come over eBay? Or this is usually a very rare deal?
Not too often. I believe I've seen one viper530 the last three years. Derringers are a little less rare; maybe 3 in the last 2 years. I'd say it must be a sign of God/Buddha/Jawhe/Allah/...* that a Derringer pops up on ebay right now.
* Select or add your preferred deity
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If i am not completely wrong it should be an easy task upgrading the derringer to 50 mhz.
However. the hard part is to get the 030 cpu that can handle 50mhz. after that it is just to replace the oscillator.
And add a heat sink to the cpu....
looking at the pictures there is not much difference in the 50 mhz and the 30mhz versions....
EDIT:
OH. and adding a 50mhz capable fpu and its separate oscillator for extra performance boost...
Doing so you get pretty close to what an A1200 with 1230 is doing...
EDIT:
I did a testrun on my A500.
In sysinfo 3.23 it gives 7636 dhrystones and 7.97 mips
(Anyone with any 1230 for comparing....?)
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If I do get a Viper 530 and 128Mb of Fast RAM then would I also be able to install OS4.1 (I think this is the latest version) on my A500+ as well? Or I can only arrive till Workbench 3.9 max!
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nope, the viper, being a 68k based accelerator, will only allow you to run OS3.9. so will the derringiner, and the GVP A530...
for OS 4.0 you need an A1200 or A4000 with a PPC cpu accelerator, and for OS 4.1, at the moment it seems you need a PPC based AmigaOne...
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No I am just seeing the limits the A500+ has :) if 3.9 is the max I can install on it then I will try to get it till there and there only! :) thanks.
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What do you expect to get with 0S 3.9 compared with OS 3.1 ?
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Lockon_15 wrote:
What do you expect to get with 0S 3.9 compared with OS 3.1 ?
I do not know the difference between the two. I only used Workbench 2.0 in the past and mostly just to access the games I had installed on the hard drive. If there is not a big difference between OS 3.1 and OS 3.9 then I do not mind sticking with the foremost.
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Without AGA or a graphics card you wont get the most out of OS3.9.
Economically you would be much better off trading in your A500+ for an A1200 rather than upgrading your A500+ beyond a hard drive. It has AGA, 020, RAM & accelerators are relatively cheap.
You'll not get change out of €500 for a Viper 530.
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My hoped for a Viper 530 just vanished in a cloud of mist!! €500!? What was its price when it was released then!?
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Using Google I have Discovered (http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.sys.amiga.hardware/msg/8b24d671e35d4c29?hl=en&dmode=source)
Viper 530/40mhz IDE $179
Viper 530/50mhz IDE/SCSI II $239
Those prices are 1998. Compensating for inflation in April 2008 they would have been:
Viper 530/40mhz IDE $240.29 = €161.32
Viper 530/50mhz IDE/SCSI II $320.84 = €215.40
But of course those prices were when it was on sale. It's is now more sought after. Antique if you like
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If you set your sights a little lower (Supra Turbo 25 and their HD/ram expansion) you could have a tricked out system for a modest investment. It's a shame Supra never combined their accelerator with 500XP in one case! The two can be chained together.
I agree with others above, if you really want to stretch the Amiga envelope, the 500 is probably not the Amiga to build from.
To answer your other question, WB3.1 was the last Commodore version of the operating system. OS 3.5 and 3.9 were based on 3.1 but enhansed for top end Amigas (many improvements but lots of eye-candy). 3.1 can be improved with add-ons without bogging a 500 down with heavy graphics.
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My project is not to build some type of Super Amiga but more to try and bring my A500+ to working form. My original idea was to stretch the A500+ possibilities as much as possible. If it is not possible then I don't mind :)
From the comments I got over here it seems obvious that I cannot have anything more then Workbench 3.1 on the A500+. This is not a problem for me and if Workbench 3.1 does not need an accelerator card then I'll not need an accelerator card either! However if Workbench 3.1 runs very slowly then I will consider buying one :)
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I did have A500+ (2MB CHIP) + A530 (030+882@50MHz, 8MB, 4GB) quite maxed out package. I was able to do almost everything I wanted; keypoint is to accepted limited resolution&color-combination on workbench.
Sad thing is that I had to sell it because of new amiga-projects.
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However if Workbench 3.1 runs very slowly then I will consider buying one :)
Well, the point is that Workbench 3.1 itself will run quite ok on a relatively unexpanded (read 68000 processor) A500+. Especially when you have a harddisk and several MB fastram. If you want some programs to run nicely, then imho you want an accelerator
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Why not hack an A1200 motherboard inside the A500 shell?
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@ sim085
My project is not to build some type of Super Amiga but more to try and bring my A500+ to working form. My original idea was to stretch the A500+ possibilities as much as possible. If it is not possible then I don't mind :)
If i am correct you do already have a harddrive, meaning you only need kickstart, os and accelerator.
If you choose to buy the derrigner 030 i pointed earlier in this tread. it will be more than sufficient to run os 3.9 at an acceptable speed. And if you manage to squeeze in a network card as well it will surf internet just fine...
You will be able to do most work on that computer. and be quite happy about it.
And a future project could be to gather parts and build a greatly expanded A4000.
And the point i am trying to put out is; you already have the A500. you have a great accelerator available NOW. And at this point it will be the least expensive and best option. If you choose to do so you will have a great amiga up and running in notime. but if you sell it and go for the A1200 (which truly is a far better machine...) you will most likely end up "computerless" in the time you spend searching ebay for usable parts to expand your 1200 to usefulness...
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@sim085
IMHO, your stock A500+ already with 3Mb (1Mb CHIP + 2Mb FAST, not sure) and harddrive will make you happy while exploring Workbench and other apps. I suppose that GVP HDD controller you bought could accept even more FASTRAM, and also getting A501+ would max-out your CHIPRAM (maximum 10, but 5-6 is already enough).
I went through all of this several times, with both A500 and A2000 (have both machines, besides A1200) so be sure I'm talking about things happening when you realize you could move further. Games, for instance, are a bit troublesome to operate under KS3.1 since the large part of them are made for most compatible KS1.3 environment; floppy drive wear-out over time and floppy disks are prone to failures, read errors, not to mention proven lower quality of HD disks over ancient DD disks (could be also problem of medium electrical features or data read/write technology). For that matters, we have WHDLOAD, a real masterpiece of Amiga software development. In short, WHDLOAD allows good old games playable from harddrives, with complete installation procedures, game fixes/patches, removed copy protections, trainers and save game features. Of course, now you can exit game at any time and crawl back to host Workbench OS.
Minimum requirement for WHDLOAD is 68000 CPU, 2.0+ Kickstart, 2Mb of RAM and a harddrive. Some games need some more RAM, but generaly 1Mb CHIP and 4Mb FAST will cover almost 100% of all available WHDLOAD games.
I have a simialr setup on one of my A500s, have played many games with decent retro-feel, just the way I used to. However, a fair share of my favourite games were unstartable since their install procedure requires at least 68020 CPU. That's the part when I realize "step further" moment. I need an accelerator.
You might hit that mark even sooner, depending what are your biases towards Amiga games (what a stupid thought, at least brave stupid to post it on this forum).
:-D
Since your GVP HDD have no passthrough connector, you can write-off any side-car accelerator, so get a piece which sits on CPU on motherboard bellow keyboard. Derringer is a great one, you are lucky someone has offered you in public. If you have the cash, this is no-brainer.
Get it. A500 accelerators are rare, expensive and usually tend to change owners only in weird circumstances.
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Mate, get that Derringer board, seriously :-)
they can be upgraded to be equivilent speed as the Viper530 if you really need to, and 32MB of ram will see you through most things you will do with this machine.
you already had a GVP hard disk, so thats good, you'll pretty much have the equivilent kinda machine to the viper right there.
if you don't go for it, at that price, i will! :lol: and i've got a supra turbo28, and a GVP A530! :crazy:
3.1 is plenty fast enuff on a standard chipram only 7Mhz 68000, and on an accelerated amiga, it rocks.
3.5 and 3.9 require a 68020 and 4Mb ram at the base point, as they load more things into memory and try to be more "advanced" with the way they do things.
i used to run 3.9 on my A530 powered A500, but went back to 3.1, and it feels like another speed increase! :-)
with WHDLoad, i wouldn't worry about incompatabilites between 3.1 and 1.2/1.3, you can have the 1.3 rom as a file on your hard disk that WHDLoad will use for the game if it needs to. for a good WHDLoad machine you ideally want:-
020/030 cpu
1-2MB chipram
2-8MB fastram
harddisk
2.x or higher rom.
that will have pretty much every game you want running from hard disk...
and it should suit basic web browseing too :-)
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So far I still don't thing I am going to bid on the Derringer currently on eBay. I have been weighing this a lot but I feel for the amount of time I will spend on the A500+ (very little) the Derringer Card is just to expensive. Maybe in the future I will consider buying one; if ever such card becomes available again and I am interested in upgrading my A500+.
At the moment (or when all things arrive) I have a 2Gb hard drive, 2Mb slow ram (1Mb on the A500+, 1Mb ram extension board), 4Mb fast ram and kickstart 3.1.
I do not plan to install loads of games; just the ones I used to play in the past and some small programs.
@Lockon_15
> would max-out your CHIPRAM (maximum 10, but 5-6 is
> already enough).
Is chipram slow ram? If so then what does maximum 10 mean? I thought that the A500+ could only have a maximum of 2Mb slow ram.
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ChipRam maxes out at 2. True for all amigas (even A4000) no way around.
Not sure what lockon meant, but he probably meant ChipRam + FastRam on the zorro2 adress space (side car) which make 10 mb in total.
There is also another adress space for the A500 (not A500+) called ranger mem. This is the place where trap door slot maps to. It is 1.8 mb AFAIR. The A500+ trap door slot maps to ChipRam address space so this space is not usable AFAIK.
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That Derringer won't go cheap...
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@countzero
So you mean that on my A500+ I can only have upto 2Mb slow ram and 8Mb fast ram? What happens to the extra fast ram I put in?
@darksun9210
Your post on page 3 of this thread was really explanatory but I still can't understand this ram part :$
@tone007
I can imagine the price will continue going high till the very end and with that budget I could actually build a small PC server.
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Slow ram and Chip ram are not the same things. Depending on the context slow ram can be used to mean as chip ram, but it's better to call chip ram, chip ram. Anyway, the answer to your question is, simply it won't be recognised, and you won't be able to use it. There may be eggzentric trap door expansions which use gary adapters to map to ranger mem space, but I doubt they will work on your A500+.
The maximum mem you can get on your A500+ is 2 mb chip ram via trap door slot and 8mb on the side car. That is without an accelerator which plugs onto 68k socket. Acclerator cards are out of these boundaries and can hold upto 128 mb of Fast ram.
Now of course when an accelerator comes into picture, you see the FastRam/SlowMem terminology turning meaningless, cause the mem on the sidecar which we called fast ram will be slow when compared to fast ram on the accelerator board. So I prefer to call them slow mem, and chip ram as chip ram. The difference between them is of course the chipset can't access the slow mem, but it can access chip ram.
To get a better picture of things, check the Amiga System Memory map (http://www.ntrautanen.fi/computers/hardware/misc/amiga_memory.htm). This map covers the whole 68000 addressing range (16 bit). The 68030+ accelerators have 32 bit addressing range, so they are not limited to this map.
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Thanks for the explanation :)
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yeah, what he said ;-)
sim085, sounds like you've got a fairly decent amiga setup there now. 2MB chip, 4MB fast, hard disk, yadda yadda yadda, i think it'll be a fun machine to play around with. maybe even get some WHDLoad goodness out of it :-)
enjoy! :-D
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I was just wondering something. An accelerator card is in fact another (more powerful) computer. I mean it has a Processor, it has RAM, it has a ROM chip, etc etc. Is it possible to literally connect a hard drive with the accelerator card and the accelerator card to a monitor and have a Derringer or Viper rather then an A500+? Or the A500+ motherboard has other things which these accelerator cards need?
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yes, basicly all I/O is done through motherboard. They're not designed to run stand alone.
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Thanks :) I thought it was something like that but just wanted to be user :) thanks.
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I was just wondering something. An accelerator card is in fact another (more powerful) computer. I mean it has a Processor, it has RAM, it has a ROM chip, etc etc. Is it possible to literally connect a hard drive with the accelerator card and the accelerator card to a monitor and have a Derringer or Viper rather then an A500+?
Eeeeem.... i don't think it is that easy...
In the case of the derringer i can speak. It do not hold the kickstart roms, and it most sertainly do not hold the chipset. The derringer (and others like it) holds the new CPU and it holds the clock generator for the accelerators speeds. and of course it holds the memory circuits...
Or the A500+ motherboard has other things which these accelerator cards need?
Yes, it holds everything else than the cpu and the ram.
only exceptions is the very rare cpu slot accelerators that has an additional ide/scsi controller like the DCE Viper 5230 CD (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=66), 530 (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=67) and the ICD addspeed IDE (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=74)...
And of course you have the sidecar accelerators...
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Beating a dead horse (wish I knew how to tie in the graphic, grin).
The early Amigas (1000, 500, 2000, 600, & CDTV) were all designed with 16-bit data bus on the motherboard. Memory that could be shared by the custom chips AND CPU was addressed and refreshed by the Agnus chip. The Agnus was the traffic cop, the chip with the most authority on the motherboard. Shared memory was called Chip memory.
Memory that the 68000 CPU did not have to share or wait for was called Fast memory. Fast memory expansion boards were normally added on and had their own refresh circuitry. Amigas with CPUs that could only interface thru 16-bit data buses could be expanded with a maximum of 8 megabytes of fast ram. This was also the Zorro II adress limit.
SLOW memory was a wierd category that Commodore should never have allowed. It is trap door memory on the original A500 (not the + model), the board was called the A501. It was mapped outside of Chip memory space to be compatible with the earliest Agnus chips (OCS, which only allowed 512K of Chip). It was still refreshed by the Agnus, so the CPU had to wait it's turn to use it just like true Chip memory. Also, the other custom chips could not share it. It is the worst kind of memory expansion. Confusingly, Workbench called this memory "Fast" on the title bar, even though it was neither true Fast nor true Chip memory. There is a motherboard hack for A500s (not the + model) that allows a user to re-map the A501 to the true Chip memory space if the motherboard has a 1 Meg Agnus (ECS). Many of us have done this.
32-bit memory came into being with the first full 32-bit accelerators (68020s, 030s, 040s, and 060s). This memory was mapped outside the Zorro II range and was fitted directly onto the accelerator. It is technically a kind of Fast memory because the CPU does not have to share it.
The 3000, 4000, 1200, and CD-32 all had the full 32-bit data bus and CPU on the motherboard. This is part of the Zorro III specification.
The A500+, A600, 1200, 3000, 4000, and CD-32 all shipped with the latest and greatest 2 Meg Agnus chips (ECS). No motherboard re-mapping required!
The 1000, early 500s and 2000s had the Original Chip Set (OCS). Later 500s, 2000s, 600s, 3000s, and CDTVs had the Enhansed Chip Set (ECS). ECS Agnus was defined as both the 1 Meg and 2 Meg versions, I think. The 1200, 4000 and CD-32 had improved custom chips called AGA (better graphics). A version of the ECS Agnus was used in AGA machines.
Sorry for the long windedness!
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Hi sorry to bring this thread up, but a new question popped to my head and wanted to see if there are any answers for it :-)
So since A1200 accelerator cards seem to be (1) more frequently available and (2) more powerful; Is there some converter which would allow an A500+ owner to stick an A1200 accelerator card rather then an A500+ accelerator card?
If not (which is the most obvious answer I guess), why not?
Regards,
Sim085
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No. It doesn't exist. A500/A600/A2000/CDTV are 68000 based designs with 16 bit data path. A1200/A4000/CD32 are 68020/68040 based designs with 32 bit data path. Also the 68k bus protocols are different AFAIK. Such an adapter will probably have equal or greater complexity than doing a A500 accelerator from scratch.
Now that I think about it, A3000 is a strange case scenario with a processor with 32 bit data path and 16 bit chipset (ECS). Probably there's some custom logic in there to interface the two.
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It would probably be easier to adapt A2000 accelerator to fit into A500 side expansion bus.
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It would probably be easier to adapt A2000 accelerator to fit into A500 side expansion bus.
All you need is this (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1385) and the micronik (or similar) tower....
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pyrre wrote:
It would probably be easier to adapt A2000 accelerator to fit into A500 side expansion bus.
All you need is this (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1385) and the micronik (or similar) tower....
But that would mean I would have to change mu current case for the A500+ right?
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@ CountZero
Im pretty sure the 020 at least, is 32bit proc with24bit data path
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@JJ
The 68020 has a 32bit address-space and a 32bit data path.
The 68ec20 (as used in the A1200) has 24bit address-space and 32bit data-path.
24bit data path ? :shocked: :nervous:
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JJ wrote:
@ CountZero
Im pretty sure the 020 at least, is 32bit proc with24bit data path
and ? :-?
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But that would mean I would have to change mu current case for the A500+ right?
Yes it would mean you must mount it in a tower....
Search a.org for pictures of towered A500ds...
Could be a nice project. And it would enable you to use the Blizzard 2060 (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=174) which (to me) is the ultimate A2000 accelerator...
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So I cannot maybe just build a convertor from the A500+ style CPU fast slot to an A2000 style CPU fast slot? Something very simple and strait forward? I guess there would still be the problem on how to put that thing in the A500+ case but that would be another problem. I personally do not like the idea of towerzing my A500+ ... it just feels strange to me to see an A500+ inside a tower!!
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technically this is possible. AFAIK all the signals are there. My previous answer was about a A1200 accelerator bridge, which is a totally different beast. However, I can't see you fitting a A2000 accelerator inside your 500+. Maybe you could do a side car like thingie though. There was a project from an italian guy who did a custom A500 zorro + accelerator plate from a A3000 daughterboard, but I don't have access to my links now :roll:
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I understood your point about the A1200 accelerator bridge and agree that such a project would be impossible. But this project does not sound so much impossible :-) But it is not going to happen now for sure :-P I guess fitting such a big card in the A500+ is the hardest task once a convertor is built! Thanks for the answers :-)
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But still... the easiest way of accelerating your A500+ as it is now is to got your hands on a 68000 CPU accelerator like the derrigner... Sadly the derrigner is gone...
Other options is those sidecar expanders like the GVP A530...
But your A500+ will still do well in terms of games and demos...
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Thanks pyrre for your reply :) As I said in previous posts I am not intrested in ANY accelerator cards for my A500+ at the moment ... I mostly keep asking on different accelerator cards for two reasons. The first one is to learn the differences between the different Amigas and the second one is that in the 'future' I may still upgrade the A500+ with an accelerator card... maybe ...
The Blizzard 2060 is an intresting option because I think it would be very powerfull for A500+ with an 060@50Mhz processor and 128Mb of fast RAM!
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Yes, it would be.
But then you could proceed with upgrades and maybe get a PicassoIV RTG graphic card with internal scandoubler/flickerfixer.
Just a thought...
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Yes it would. However. due to the size of the Blizzard 2060 (full size) it is not recommended puting it in an A500 without a tower. Some sort of sidecar and the micronik (or similar) bus board modded together would be possible.
With the bus board you would be able to use any zorro II cards as well. Including network cards for internet surfing and GFX cards for better graphics and display +++
But for keeping the A500 "wedge" case. GVP 530 or Derringer like accelerators are the best options...
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Hi people,
Sorry to change subject again. Today I received the parts I had ordered from eBay; I have connected the GVP HD8+ and the 1Mb RAM expansion board and everything worked fine :) However I am scared of only one thing ... how do I switch the computer off now?
I have two ppc supplies. Is it ok if I just switch the hard drive ppc off and then the computer ppc off or there is some other way? I am afraid I could damage the hard drive if I just switch off the hard drive ppc.
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I would not use two PSUs for one computer...
I would rather modify one to power both the computer and the Hdd.
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pyrre wrote:
I would not use two PSUs for one computer...
Why? Is it for the space they take or there is something more to it? Such as it is bad to first switch off one device and then the other!
pyrre wrote:
I would rather modify one to power both the computer and the Hdd.
At the moment I was trying to avoid doing this since my soldering skills are practically none.
However still; even if with one PSU then is it just a question of switching off the PSU or I have to follow some steps to switch the Amiga off? I do not feel right just switching off the PSU since it feels as if I am cutting the electricity from the hard drive all of a sudden and thus potentially breaking it.
-
The use of just one PSU is highly recommended. IF you have to use two PSU, then the better thing is put the the two in a switched distributor and simply turn it off instead the PSUs.
The Amiga is projected to do this, and always be. Only crap like M$ computers need "press to shutdown".
-
Long time ago, you had to perform "HDD heads parking" procedure, before killing power, in order to prevent heads ramming onto rotating disk surface. Not sure, but i.e. A590 install floppy could still have little utility for that purpose.
Anyway, your SCSI drive, if larger than 300Mb should have autopark actuator servo, meaning you can switch off PSU anytime except while some larger chunk data is being written accross disk (like moving files between disk partitions).
Don't get me literally as a 100% secure source, but somehow I guess GVP should be powered first, before A500. A500 maps GVP RAM in autoconfigured memory address space and that means RAM should be powered before A500 Kickstart routines start. On the second note, powering GVP should spin-up SCSI HDD motor and thus harddrive starts prepared for controller SCSI commands when they start rolling.
Powering off may be in reverse order - first A500, then GVP.
Let's wait for other opinions.
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@sim085
...And if decide to substitute big, noisy, hot, power hungry SCSI HDD with the feature-opposite CompactFlash card, you can wire GVP controller to drain power from A500 side bus expansion, instead of your current GVP PSU.
That would put you in win-win solution: single PSU and single power-on/off cycle.
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Thanks for the replies. I am very conservative and was not planning to change the hard drive ... mostly since I just bought the thing and seems it is working as should :)
I am glad to hear that the hard drive will auto lock once the power is turned off. I thought I should have to lock the hard drive first in some way or another.
BTW - The hard drive has a switch on top of it. If I am not wrong this is to determine if I want to play using the floppy disks or else start the workbench from the hard drive. If so, couldn't I just turn this switch to 'Game' and then restart the amiga and only after that I switch off everything? Or changing this when the hard drive is running is considered a bad thing?
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pyrre wrote: I would not use two PSUs for one computer...
Why? Is it for the space they take or there is something more to it? Such as it is bad to first switch off one device and then the other!
Two psus, if not grounded in the same socket may cause electric "disturbance" (don have the correct English word for it). Current may interfere between the two psus and may in worst case damage or blow up your computer. If grounded correct this is not an issue. But i have blown a pc motherboard and a disk drive of such reasons...
To find out if you have a problem with "overspenning" (norwegians, please help translate) touch the two psus if you can feal the current flowing in your hand... Switch to one psu immediately before damaging something!
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I have connected the two PSUs to a socket extention which in turn is connected to the same wall socket. This means that if I wanted I could just turn the wall socket off and all my Amiga (including hard drive) would also turn off. I am not doing so because I am afraid this would damage something. Feel safer to switch on/off everything step by step. However I guess if all my PSUs are connected to the same wall socket (through the socket extention) then I should not have the problem you mentioned - altough I will still test :)
-
Connected in the same extension cord should mean they are grounded to each other. Meaning no current will flow between them. But measure it with a multimeter to be sure.
-
Switching both simultaneously with the power strip would probably be just fine. If you feel safer with a sequence, then switch the GVP ON first then the A500. When powering OFF, the A500 should be switched OFF first, then GVP.
My 2 cents.
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why would you buy/use a none grounded socket extension in the first place?... and you dont grab your moms 1970 socket extension and use that.. your dealing with computer equipment and 1 rule is ground everything to hell and back before usage.
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why would you buy/use a none grounded socket extension in the first place?... and you dont grab your moms 1970 socket extension and use that.. your dealing with computer equipment and 1 rule is ground everything to hell and back before usage.
Could no agree more.
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I bought this socket extension a month ago so it is new! However I am no expert in electricity and therefore cannot know if it is grounded or not! I do not know if this is relevant but where I live (Malta) our electrical system is like that of the UK; this means we have a Neutral wire in every plug (even the socket extension I bought has one)
I would never use old equipment with my A500+; apart from my A500+ :-P :-)
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tree wires usually means a grounded socket. two wires for the current and the one for grounding.
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the GVP was designed to use an external powersupply and all it probably drives is the hard disk itself. probably isolated from the A500's supply so that it doesn't cause floating earths, fluctuating voltages all all the other scare stories people have been saying on here. :lol:
basic rule of thumb.
turn on all extrnal devices first, then the amiga.
to turn off, switch off the amiga, then all external devices.
the switch on top of the GVP unit you have, is a disable switch. some really old floppy games don't like the presence of extra fast memory, or a hard disk. so flick the switch, reboot, and the hard disk and memory isn't visable to the amiga anymore. switch it back, reboot, and you should be back to hard disk nivarna.
to be honest, it'll probably be one of the least used switches you'll ever own ;-)
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Thanks people :) I'll follow the instructions :)
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In the showroom of a1k.org you can find some interesting A500 projects. There is also an international section where you can post your questions about the projects.
http://www.a1k.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=14
-
It looks like an interesting site, but appears to be German language only. Maybe I missed an English language option?
-
I used an A500+ with GVP HD8+ with two PSU's connected to two different sockets for years!
I would randomly switch off them in different order. I never had any problem, never had data corruption.
-
There is also an interntional section where you can post in English. http://www.a1k.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=23
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Hi again,
Was just wondering .. is there maybe a wireless adapter for the A500+ rather than connecting the Amiga with PC with a cable?
-
Not that i can think of no...
At least not easy.
You can get a cpu socket adapter with clock ports (http://www.vesalia.de/e_a500clockport.htm).
They will enable you to use USB adapters like the subway USB (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=137)
And in theory you should be able to use network adapters with it.
But..
the subway requires "Processor 68030 (25MHz) or higher" to work in amiga...
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sim085 wrote:
Hi people,
...
However I am scared of only one thing ... how do I switch the computer off now? I have two ppc supplies. Is it ok if I just switch the hard drive ppc off and then the computer ppc off or there is some other way? I am afraid I could damage the hard drive if I just switch off the hard drive ppc.
Errrrrmmmmmmmmm - first of all:
A "PPC" is a microprocessor (=CPU; called "PowerPC").
What you mean is an "PSU" (Power Supply Unit).
Regarding your fear:
Why don't you plug all your devices into an switchable multipoint connector?
This way you can switch on/off all your devices simultanously...
-
Hi Dandy,
Yes in my first post I wrote PPC rather then PSU :$ but I corrected it in my second post on that subject :) I connected everything to the same socket extension but still switch everything step by step as suggested on this thread :)
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@pyrre
mmm ... let me see if I understand correctly all this.
If I buy a clock port then I would have to remove my CPU from the CPU socket, connect the clock port in the CPU socket, and then connect the CPU on the clock port. After that (if the CPU was powerful enough) I could connect a subway USB to the clock port which would allow me to connect USB stuff to my A500+ (including some type of wireless adapter). Is this right?
Now if the above is right. If I buy an Accelerator Card then I would connect this to the clock port instead of the CPU? or they cannot be chained?
-
yup, the clockport adapter plugs into the CPU socket on the mainboard.
the accelerator would plug into the CPU socket on the clockport adapter, and the old 68000 chip would plug into the 68k socket on the accelerator if you need it for backwards compatability.
however, you may find that stack of hardware means your keyboard doesn't fit right anymore ;-)
plugging a subway into the clockport adapter will give you USB on your A500 for keyboards, mice, usb memory sticks, CD drives, hard disks, etc. etc. and even USB>Ethernet adapters.
although, i don't know of any drivers for USB>Wifi adapters for the amiga, and there is something up with the hard/software of the subway and USB drivers for USB>LAN adapters (using the pegasus2 chipset - in my experience) that causes massive amounts of CPU interepts.
this results in slow screen redraws, jerky mouse movement, and transfer rates no better than a direct serial to serial connection. or even parallel to parallel using the old 68000 gives you 20KB/s...
it might be something up with my hardware config, but to be honest, since i can't figure it out, i've given up with my a500... :-(
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@darksun9210
From your comments, even if I buy all the hardware required it seems nearly impossible to get that configuration working! So I guess I better find another alternative. Isn't maybe any wireless adapter which connect where the null modem would usually connect. If not how hard would it be to build such a device?
-
You should try some other USB-Ethernet converter, some which use ASIX chipset. DLINK DUB-E100 has been reported as fully "Poseidon friendly". This info comes from people actually getting A500 online, so no rumors - take a look at A500/A600 showroom on A1K.org site.
-
sorry for the off topic, but just ordered a Dlink dub-e100.
many thanks for the heads up Lockon_15! :-)
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If I buy a clock port then I would have to remove my CPU from the CPU socket, connect the clock port in the CPU socket, and then connect the CPU on the clock port. After that (if the CPU was powerful enough) I could connect a subway USB to the clock port which would allow me to connect USB stuff to my A500+ (including some type of wireless adapter). Is this right?
Yes exactly like that.
except one thing. wireless. I have not investigated enough on this matter. but i don't know of any wireless solution for A500.
However.
I will embark on another solution for my A500+.
I have the trumpcard sidecar. It has two zorro sockets. and hopefully i can use the budda flash (http://www.vesalia.de/e_buddha.htm) in it. the trumpcard does not have the buster chip. So i am really excited, will it work...?
And if the budda works. then i will try adding a subway, and hopefully i find some network adapter that works with it...
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@Lockon_15
I entered in the international section of the A1K.org site, but I did not find any A500 section. Do you mean I should ask question about the A500+ on that forum?
... also; so I cannot maybe find/build a wireless adapter which I can connect instead of a null modem?
-
Take one more shot...
http://www.a1k.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=14
Enjoy.
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Yes but that section is for German users. In the international section there is no A500 or other sections at least I did not find one.
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sim085 wrote:
Hi again,
Was just wondering .. is there maybe a wireless adapter for the A500+ rather than connecting the Amiga with PC with a cable?
Actually, there is :-D
Get one of these http://www.gridconnect.com/bluetooth-rs232.html or similar from different vendor, plug one into a PC and one into the amiga. You can ofcourse also use the http://www.gridconnect.com/bluetooth-rs232-usb.html (or similar) that is the same only with USB for the PC-side, a better choice these days when PCs often dont have serial ports.
The really nice thing with this compared to cables, from the amigas point of view, is that there is no electrical connection between the two computers, so there is a lot less chance to blow up the oh so precious and fragile 8520-chips that control the serial port.
Cheers! :-)
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I don't recollect claiming A500 showroom was inside international section.
However, there are a lot of pics so you can see what real stuff is made of.
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what about this (http://www.gridconnect.com/wi232.html)? Wouldn't this give me access to wireless network I have at home and thus also be able to share files between the A500+ and PC?
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According to the user guide, yes.
For a discounted price of USD 214,95 (Malta is hooked on 230V powergrid, correct?) you'll get less cable mess in your appartment, but it all depends what is media source on the Amiga side. If you choose serial, then you'll crawl in painful early 90's trend set of 33K modems.
When I say crawl, then I mean some 5 kbytes per second on PC-to-Amiga, and a bit better 13-14 kbytes per second when used as Amiga-to-PC.
If you choose Ethernet, then something in range of 100Kbytes per seconf could be achievable, depends on CPU.
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If I buy such a device then I would try and use Ethernet since my wireless network is based on Ethernet! Wouldn't my Amiga be recognised just like any other computer I have on the network! I can then maybe use the Amiga Browser sold by Amiga Forever.
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If I buy such a device then I would try and use Ethernet since my wireless network is based on Ethernet! Wouldn't my Amiga be recognised just like any other computer I have on the network! I can then maybe use the Amiga Browser sold by Amiga Forever.
Yes, in theory. BUT.. only if you can find or write drivers for that device. And on top of that find/write drivers that are compatible with amiga TCP/IP stack.
And if you get it to work. you will always be limited by the speed of the serial port.
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It doesnt really matter if you use the bluetooth option or the http://www.gridconnect.com/wi232.html (which btw also needs special software on the PC side), they would both plug into the slow serial port of the A500.
I dont know what Lockon thinks he is talking about, but the only way to get the speed that he mentions is to get a proper ethernet device for the A500 - these are very rare (and I would guess them to occupy the expansion slot).
If you get a better CPU (68020 and up) you can get a clockport adapter and a Subway USB controller and use a USB-ethernet dongle. The CPU requirements is due to the USB-stack (Poseidon) not supporting 68000 (and it also needs more RAM).
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SubWay, of course.
I hope sim085 now understand he's pretty cornered with stock 68000.
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darksun9210 wrote:
...
plugging a subway into the clockport adapter will give you USB on your A500 for keyboards, mice, usb memory sticks, CD drives, hard disks, etc. etc. and even USB>Ethernet adapters.
...
Currently it will give you only access to keyboards, mice and usb memory sticks, aside from Hubs.
The author of Anaiis dangled support for usbmassstorage.device (and possibly more) with Anaiis v2.0.
You can get more detailed information about the capabilities of Anaiis and discuss with the author of Anaiis here:
"Anaiis - Highway USB Stack for very limited Amigas" - thead at Amiga.org (http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=23159&forum=27&25)
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sim085 wrote:
Hi Dandy,
...
I connected everything to the same socket extension but still switch everything step by step as suggested on this thread :)
Hmmmmm - don't know who suggested it and why - since meanwhile 10 years I have my Amiga 4000 PPC up and running.
All the time I switched my eqipment on or off using the switch on the switchable multipoint connector and never had a problem since - even in the days I used my 19" CRT monitor (which used to draw a lot of current on power on).
Before that, I did the same with my A500 equipment for +9 years - equally no problem at all.
So I'm really asking myself what switching on all devices step by step is meant to be good for?
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sim085 wrote:
Was just wondering .. is there maybe a wireless adapter for the A500+ rather than connecting the Amiga with PC with a cable?
Nothing which is Amiga native (without a CPU accelerator) but you could get a Bluetooth Serial Dongle.
But using a wired/wireless serial connection to your Amiga will be very slow. You'd be better off fitting a SCSI->IDE->CF adapter inside your HD8+ and cutting a hole in the side so you can remove the CF card for transfer to PC card reader. It would be very easy.
You would need:
An ACard AEC-7720U ($20) (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260279084468)
A IDE to CF adapter (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110282832935)
A CF card (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130249622525)
A dremel or something to cut the slot in the side of the case.
A hot glue gun (or some good super glue) to glue the CF card in place!
The speed will be 10x or more that of a serial link!
P.S. I cannot believe some of the crap advice people are giving you!
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@alexh,
Yes, Lockon_15 suggested this the moment I got my new hard drive and I am now giving it a thought. With a CF card I think I could build the environment I want using an Emulator on the PC and then try it out on the A500+ right? or?
I have a non-working hard drive (not GVP). The hard disk is dead but all the rest seems fine. Maybe I can try this on that hard drive :) Are there any good links on how this can be done?
I would still need to connect my A500+ to the PC in some way or another in order to be able to browse the internet. I prefer a wireless alternative but seems impossible to get without an accelerator card so I guess I'll wait until I get one.
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sim085 wrote:
With a CF card I think I could build the environment I want using an Emulator on the PC and then try it out on the A500+ right?
Sure.
sim085 wrote:
I have a non-working hard drive maybe I can try this on that hard drive :)
If you have the aforementioned parts. (See above)
sim085 wrote:
I would still need to connect my A500+ to the PC in some way or another in order to be able to browse the internet.
You are not going to browse the internet on an A500+ You should get that out of you mind now. Even after you bought all the best equipment at a ridiculous price it will just about work but it will still be CRAP!
sim085 wrote:
I prefer a wireless alternative but seems impossible to get without an accelerator card so I guess I'll wait until I get one.
You will not be able to browse the web without an accelerator card anyhow. And with only 32 colour ECS it will look terrible.
It will be very expensive to get a native wireless ethernet for Amiga A500+. (You've have to buy a USB etc. and it may not be compatible with your accelerator) You should consider getting rid of the A500+ and buying an A1200. The accelerator will be cheaper, you have 256 colour AGA (web still looks terrible) and you can get a cheap PCMCIA wireless ethernet card!
If you really want wireless and you really want A500+ your only real choice is a Bluetooth serial dongle. It will work with all Amiga's (even A500) just like a modem.
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Thanks alexh
Regarding wireless on my A500+ ... one day it will happen, just not right now :-) :lol:
I know I am pushing my luck now, but rather then a CF card could I put a USB Pendrive?
Thanks for all the help so far :) The hard drive will be an interesting project all by itself :)
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@alexh
I did a little bit more research. If I understand correctly I need the ACard AEC-7720U to connect with my current SCSI interface (the one whit which the previous hard disk was connected). Then I need the IDE to CF adapter connected to the ACard AEC-7720U which will be used to connect the CF card.
Now couldn't I buy a SCSI to USB adapter and USB pen drive? Wouldn't that be the same. I did a small search on google and seem there is some type of SCSI to USB adapters!
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I know I am pushing my luck now, but rather then a CF card could I put a USB Pendrive?
Yes you can.
Autoboot= NO! (the drivers must be active at bootup for that.)
But you still need a 030 at minimum 25mhz to power ANY usb controller in ANY Amiga...
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Now couldn't I buy a SCSI to USB adapter and USB pen drive? Wouldn't that be the same. I did a small search on google and seem there is some type of SCSI to USB adapters!
Link please?
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pyrre wrote:
I know I am pushing my luck now, but rather then a CF card could I put a USB Pendrive?
Yes you can.
Autoboot= NO! (the drivers must be active at bootup for that.)
But you still need a 030 at minimum 25mhz to power ANY usb controller in ANY Amiga...
My knowledge on this subject is very limited so sorry if I sometimes over simplify what sounds like very complicated.
From what I am understanding I would only be connecting the USB to the SCSI adapter. My A500+ will no be seeing a USB but only a SCSI hard drive which in reality would be a USB pendrive! So why do I need a more powerful CPU? I am sorry in advance for my stupidity on this subject :$ :$
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From what I am understanding I would only be connecting the USB to the SCSI adapter. My A500+ will no be seeing a USB but only a SCSI hard drive which in reality would be a USB pendrive! So why do I need a more powerful CPU? I am sorry in advance for my stupidity on this subject :$ :$
Hmm... depending on how the SCSI-USB interface works...
If it replaces the CF bridge and lets you connect a pendrive to the SCSI chain. Yes it should work fine...
Do you have any link for such a device?
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I found this but I do not think it does the job :(
http://www.amazon.com/Adaptec-1856600-USBxchange-Kit/dp/B000067OHN
Also found this:
http://techgage.com/article/vantec_sataide_to_usb_adapter/
and this:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=USB2IDE-N
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sim085 wrote:
I know I am pushing my luck now, but rather then a CF card could I put a USB Pendrive?
It is vaguely possible with an accelerator. You would need to buy a Subway USB card (http://www.e3b.de/usb/main_subway_e.html) ($130) and an A500 Clock port interface (http://www.vesalia.de/e_a500clockport.htm) ($43). However it is almost certainly NOT physically compatible with most A500 accelerators.
I.E. USB is not recommended!
sim085 wrote:
If I understand correctly I need the ACard AEC-7720U to connect with my current SCSI interface (the one whit which the previous hard disk was connected). Then I need the IDE to CF adapter connected to the ACard AEC-7720U which will be used to connect the CF card.
Correct. Sounds like a faf but it will work fine.
sim085 wrote:
couldn't I buy a SCSI to USB adapter and USB pen drive?
I am not familiar with that technology. I am not sure it exists. Give me a link.
sim085 wrote:
I found this but I do not think it does the job :(
http://www.amazon.com/Adaptec-1856600-USBxchange-Kit/dp/B000067OHN
That is USB->SCSI and you would need SCSI->USB.
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Oki, and if I buy an SD/SDHC to CF Adapter (http://www.virtuavia.eu/shop/sd-sdhc-to-cf-adapter-p29867.html) then I could connect an SDHC (http://www.scanmalta.com/item.php?WebCategory=flashmem&ProductCode=FLA-L99762) card. This would be more simple for me since I already have a place where to put these in my laptop.
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I do not recommend it. The more adapters you introduce and the more unusual they are the more chance you have of incompatibility.
GVP->ACard7720U->IDE->CF is confirmed as working.
Use a CF card and get a cheap PCMCIA->CF (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130249666611) adapter (which you'll also be able to use with Amiga 600/1200) or a USB card reader.
If you MUST use an SD card, why not get an IDE->SD (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220269735078) adapter, but do your homework. Find one known to work with ACard adapter! (The one I link here may or may not work with Acard!)
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CF-to-SD, why?
That's 3rd converter, real cable mess, not to mention how ugly it must look...
If you insist on SD, then get a IDE-to-SD adapter
I.E
http://cgi.ebay.com/SD-SECURE-DIGITAL-MEMORY-CARD-TO-IDE-ADAPTER_W0QQitemZ110282283529QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item110282283529&_trkparms=72%3A570%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A3%7C65%3A12%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
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And what about this?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SD-MMC-Card-to-IDE-HD-Flash-Memory-Adapter-Converter_W0QQitemZ280259983877QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item280259983877&_trkparms=72%3A1121|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
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Yes. it should work fine with a SCSI-ide adapter.
It will enable you to connect a SD card as HDD to a SCSI chain.
And with a SD-card reader you can mount it in UAE as a harddisk and install software to it...
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pyrre wrote:
Yes. it should work fine with a SCSI-ide adapter.
Not guaranteed. All adapters are not automatically compatible. In a thread (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=38548) last week it was discovered that THIS (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320283051265) IDE->SD adapter is not compatible with the Buddha Phoenix edition (http://www.vesalia.de/e_buddha.htm)!!
Do your homework. Make sure it is compatible with the ACard AEC-7720U first. (Or at those prices just risk it?)
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I am soon going crazy! :crazy: :-) How can I make sure it is compatible unless I buy all the staff and actually test it!?
EDIT:
... just now saw your last comment to actually buy them and test it :-)
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sim085 wrote:
I am soon going crazy! :crazy: :-) How can I make sure it is compatible unless I buy all the staff and actually test it!?
Eh? You GOOGLE and check out the Amiga forums. You wont be the first. I think you'll be surprised how many Amigans have gone before you. A few searches of EAB and A.ORG and you've usually got your answer. Or you email ACard directly with the brand & model numbers of the adapters.
But if you already have an SD card and you do not have a CF card, at those prices then perhaps you just go for it ;-)
But prepared to go the CF route if it doesn't work.
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@alexh
Or at those prices just risk it
I go for that option.
And i said SHOULD...
I did not say it WILL....
Sadly, with amiga and hardware like that it is often trial and error...
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Hi again,
I am back home now and did some testing. As I may have already said earlier in this thread I have an IVS Grandslam 500 (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1212) with inside it an IVS Grandslam 2000 card (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1211) with 2Mb fast RAM.
Long time ago this hard drive no longer continued working! I now re-connected it as it was. When I switched on my A500+ I could hear the Hard Drive spinning. I used the Workbench 3.1 disk to see if workbench could see the 2Mb fast RAM and Workbench could not see the 2Mb fast RAM. I removed the hard disk and tried it alone and still Workbench did not recognise the fast RAM.
I guess the whole IVS Grandslam 2000 card (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1211) has gone then right? If so I would need another SCSI control card to connect with the spare Zorro II slot (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1212) I have before I can buy a SCSI to IDE converter!
-
Information i can find:
Grandslam (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?product=grand+slam+2000&company=)
Trumpcard professional 2000 (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?product=TrumpCard+Professional+2000&company=)
In short...
Check the jumper for ram and see if it is in the right position.
You may need to add commands in the startup-sequence to make the system see the ram...
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pyrre wrote:
You may need to add commands in the startup-sequence to make the system see the ram...
How is this done? I do not mean the actual commands I need for this particular hard drive ... more in general of how you can add commands in the startup sequence :)
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you must have a text editor tool. and use it to edit the file called "startup-sequence" in the "s" directory on the disk used to boot workbench. either floppy or hard disk.
In the newly purchased OS 3.1 and 2.1 there is a tool called "ed" in the c directory.
It is a simple and easy editor...
EDIT: wrong folder at first...
EDIT: oh.. to use it. boot wb press right amiga key and "e" as in Execute. (english keyset!) And type "ed s:startup-sequence" in the popupwindow.
And so on and so forth...
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Thanks I'll try that .. I will try and find how to configure it although I am most afraid that the scsi controller on the Grandslam is dead (since in the past the RAM was recognised and I do not remember changing any jumper settings). Thanks again :)
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Trail and error.
But remember to BACK UP the files you are working on. in case you mess up... :-D
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Hi,
Since my 2Gb hard disk in the GVP drive still works fine; what if I connect this hard disk to the PC? Would WinUAE or equivalent recognise this as an Amiga hard disk and allow me to build my environment like that?
Regards,
Sim085
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Yes, WinUAE works great with real Amiga hard disks.
Do you have a SCSI controller in your PC ?
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I do not have one but my cousin does; so I was hoping to get his and try it with the GVP hard disk I have.
btw - how can I know what type of SCSI hard disk to I have. Because he told me there are different type of SCSI hard drives (connector wise).
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You have a Narrow SCSI (IDC 50 pin) hard drive.
The other two are :
(Fast/Ultra) Wide SCSI (SCA 68-pin)
(Ultra2/U160/U320/U640) Wide SCSI (SCA-2 80-pin)
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Thank alexh,
I will see if it is anyone of those 3. If I cannot identify it then I'll take photos and post them here :) Thank you.
I still plan to build/test that scsi -> ide -> sd prototype but connecting the SCSI to PC will give me some results more quickly :) (I hope).
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As I said, your hard drive will be narrow SCSI (IDC50). Almost all Amiga SCSI drives ARE narrow SCSI (IDC50).
(http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/3484/scsiiy1.jpg)
AFAIK the only Amiga SCSI with a different connector is the Cyberstorm MKIII/PPC which has an Ultra Wide SCSI (SCA 68-pin)
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Here is my A500+ specs:
2 megs chipram (soldered on motherboard)
Derringer 68030@50mhz 68882@50mhz 32megs 32bit fastram
Supra 500XP+ with 300meg SCSI drive and 2megs 16bit fastram
First of all, when considering a 68000 socket mounted accelerator, there are some definite mounting issues to consider. Most of these type of accelerators (the derringer included) have no provision for securing the card other than sitting in the 68000 socket and possibly having some rubber feet that rest against the motherboard. To make matters worse, there is very little (if any) clearance between the top of the accelerator and the keyboard assembly. If you dont have a VERY GOOD TIGHT connection where the pins of the accelerator plug into the 68000 socket, then anything from a moderate bump of the computer desk to vigorous typing on the keyboard can cause all manners of gurus, system lockups, spontaneous system resets, and general operational flakiness. I was able to fabricate a plastic bracket that bolts over the 68000 socket, and maintains moderate downward pressure on the Derringer, keeping it firmly seated in the 68000 socket, but there is barely room for this, and it took quite some work (half a day) to carve this thing out of plastic in exactly the shape it needed to be. It bolts to the 2 motherboard screw holes that are on either side of the sidecar expansion bus connector.
Secondly, with this type of accelerator, there is no room underneath it for a kickstart switcher board to reside in the rom socket. Some manufacturers have made kickstart switcher boards that hang on the end of a long ribbon cable (which in turn plugs into the ROM socket) for this purpose. I dont like the idea of hanging my system ROMs on the end of 8 inches of ribbon cable. I dont think this is a good step forward in the way of system stability.
For an A500 (or any OCS/ECS machine) it is often advantageous to be able to boot with Kickstart 1.3. Most of the floppy based games/demos that run best on these machines expect Kickstart 1.3. Kickstart "degrader" utilities work in some cases, but not all.
There are two possible solutions to this. First, you can put a 1.3 kickrom in the rom socket, and just employ a "soft-kicker" in your startup sequence on your hardisk. This way, when booting from floppies, you have kickstart 1.3, and when booting from the hardisk, the 3.1 kickstart image is loaded into a 512k chunk of fastram which is then remapped as the system ROM, allowing Workbench 3.1/3.9 to load and run correctly. I have done this in the past with many AMIGA systems, and it even works rather well with a stock 68000, despite the absence of an MMU. Unfortunately, I am unable to find a softkicker that works correctly using the Derringer's fastram.
The second possibility is to burn BOTH kickstart images onto a 1 megabyte EPROM and hook a switch between the highest adress line and ground, allowing it to "float hi" when the switch is open. This takes no more physical space than a standard Kickstart ROM, and allows you to switch between the upper and lower 512k of the EPROM (on which you will have your 1.3 and 3.1 kickstart images burned, respectively). I would like to avoid having to do this if possible, but so far it seems to be the only alternative.
Lastly, I'll say that the 2 megs of 16bit fastram which resides on the Supra Controller does work with MANY "soft-kicker" programs, but I have this ram disabled because it does not work (hangs the system on reset/bootup) with the Derringer installed. Also, I'd like to avoid using 16bit fastram if possible, for obvious performance reasons.
Anyone dealt with this issue before? Can you reccomend a softkicker that works using Derringer 32-bit fastram?
Anyone know of someone who makes custom dual-kickstart EPROMs? I do own MANY original kickroms of both the 1.3 and 3.1 variety, so there are no legality/licensing issues here.
Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks.
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@ Metalguy66
I have a Derringer 030 myself. It is the 50mhz version, modified with a 50mhz fpu (was 25 originally).
I have never had those instability issues you refer to.
Mine sits quite firmly in the cpu socket.
As far as kickstart switches go. i have not come to that yet. I am still in the lookout zone for parts.
Need a new Zorro based SCSI or IDE controller. Will also try to install a network card inside the trumpcard (if i can find one small enough.)
However i have a dedicated A500 with kick 1.3 for games and demos requiring that. It is also a OCS machine whilst the 500+ is ECS...
In future i will pay some attention for the 1.3 A500 as well. But first up is the A500+.
Then i will try to setup my A1200 to work properly with the BVision board. Then the A2000 will get some attention.
So far all that is done is to remove all leaky batteries and clean the corrosion off the motherboards and ram expansions for A500...
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Yeah I havent experienced problems with my derringer either, but I am speaking from many years of owning and working on many accelerated amigas for many people. The last machine that I had this Derringer in was actually an A2000, and I never experienced any flakiness with it whatsoever. But when I set out to build this A500+, I decided to do everything I could to ensure the highest degree of stability from the start.
I have seen many highly upgraded/accelerated AMIGA configurations that were particularly "vibration sensitive" and these have all been of the A500/A600/A1200 variety. This is due to the way that the machine is designed and the way that internal expansions have to plug into them, versus a machine such as the A2000/A3000/A4000 where almost everything is on a card, in an actual card-slot.
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alexh wrote:
As I said, your hard drive will be narrow SCSI (IDC50). Almost all Amiga SCSI drives ARE narrow SCSI (IDC50).
(http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/3484/scsiiy1.jpg)
AFAIK the only Amiga SCSI with a different connector is the Cyberstorm MKIII/PPC which has an Ultra Wide SCSI (SCA 68-pin)
The A4000T 060 board (one of them anyway) has both 50pin and 68pin SCSI connections on it.
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amigadave wrote:
The A4000T 060 board (one of them anyway) has both 50pin and 68pin SCSI connections on it.
I'd be curious to know which one. A4000T is one of the Amiga's I've never owned.
Edit: I've looked but I can't find it
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/a4000proc
http://bboah.com/cgi-bin/showcat_en.cgi?CATID=8
Must have been a very late one. Or a prototype?
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I have just recieved an A590 no power supply used an old a500 power supply taped of the white left the no3 pin uc
n0 1 red n02 grnd no4 brown I think thats right (howerver what does the white do)there nis also a bare wire that i presume attaches to the shield?
does anybody know what the blinking red fred led means
and wilma blinks then goes out fred stays on lit up
all jumpers seem to be set up ok I presume
have run install HD software (old seagate baracuda HD)
prep hd gives bad arg :key
drive definitions gives no hd installed this is self explanitory
considering the previous
baracuda does not seem to make any noises
have checked power to it checks ok orange black yellow.
also what does this tell us about the A590
u12. 390388-03 1989 CBM V6 DFA0
u13. 8390388-03 1989 CBM V6 CBE8
also even if the HD is dead or canot be detected
the ram still appears to be (2meg fast) avail
is it usable
please forgive my ignorance
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(http://home.earthlink.net/~kjones66/images/Metalguy66%20A500+.jpg)
This is A500+ with 50mhz Derringer 030/882 board installed.
The white bracket on the left is custom made to ensure that no matter what happens, the Derringer's header pins remain firmly seated into the 68000 socket. The long chip on top is a 68010, which is used in "68000 mode".
The 72-pin SIMM is a SIEMENS 60ns 32meg
You can also see that the board has 2 megs of chipram hard-soldered onto it and that the RTC battery has been replaced with a PC-style CR2032 socket.
The hardisk controller partially visible on the left is a Supra 500XP.
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kick arse. thats got to be a rev 8 to have 2meg chip ram on board?
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Yes.. The board in the picture is an A500+.
A500+ motherboards are Rev 8a.
As noted before, Commodore also built very late A500 machines with Rev. 8a boards, and only populated 512k of motherboard ram, left off the RTC, and additonal chipram decoder circuits. These boards can be upgraded to A500+ specs.
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as from the first few posts i have a
GVP 500 series II i might be persauded to sell for you if your still interested. works fine, i believe its origianl hdd died, but now has a 2gig in it, with 8mb im currently waiting for my 40.63 ROM so at some point after i see its working fine. i could sell it to you. with a brand new 31 workbench installed and partitioned. with lots of games and as many aps i can find. its got an on off button to ;) at the front.
obviously the price i payed was around £80 with a heavy postage cost, so taking this into consideration and time to put the stuff on to it. any sensible offer would be an advantage, i do welcome any and all reasonable prices from this community for the guy who needs it on the first post.
i have no idea how long it will take me to complete this as yet, i`m still waiting for the 3.1 rom for the 500+ 1mb ram. not including the time to install the rest.
the box is in perfect order to, so its been well looked after. if the guy does not reply anyone else who would like to make an offer feel free.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b205/DARTH-THOR/DSC00216.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b205/DARTH-THOR/DSC00217.jpg
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That's a different box to mine!