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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: sim085 on October 09, 2008, 10:27:20 AM
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Hi,
Is it possible to connect a GVP A530 Turbo to the CPU socket rather then to the side of an A500+? I understand that some modifications would need to be made (or the development of some cable). But is it possible? This would make it possible to have a A570 connected as well ;)
Regards,
Sim085
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i don't see why not. you may have to run some extra lines from the expansion slot that are missing from the CPU socket...
cpu socket 64 pins
side port 86 pins
other thing you can do is make a port doubler for the side slot of the A500, then you'd have all the lines you need. i imagine you are going to have the GVP sat on top of the A570...
another thing you can do is get a CPU accelerator that goes in the CPU socket. these are often faster, and carry more ram than an A530, (32-128Mb as opposed to 8Mb).
but you don't get scsi.
or just get an A530 and an external scsi cd drive. the only thing you don't get then is booting off of CD-rom, but the advantage that you arn't limited to the single speed, caddy loading mechanism the A570 has....
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Thanks darksun9210,
I was just asking to see any possibilities ... some else on the 'is possible list' (if I may).
Is it possible to buy an 020 card and then change the processor to an 030 on the same card? (I pretty sure this is a 'no' answer).
Regards and Thanks,
Sim085
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Its not possible :-)
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It might be theoretically possible, but I wouldnt recommend trying it (unless you enjoy the modding more than using the equpment).
Already suggested but I would recommend you sell your A530 unmodified (they sell for lots of $$$) and buy an internal 030 accelerator for the A500 like the VXL030 or something? (Perhaps buy the other accelerator first if you can afford it!) It would have to have an IDE or SCSI controller or you'd loose your hard drive capability.
Also, before you try anything I would make sure the A570 is fully compatible with an accelerator. I have a feeling that it is but I am not 100% sure, I would double check before you spend all this time and effort to find it doesn't work.
Again already suggested but you can connect an external SCSI CD-ROM (or DVD-ROM) to your A530 and give you almost the same capability for very low price? I know it's not quite as good but hey.
If you are willing to loose the 030, you can buy a hard drive adapter and a 2Mbyte RAM upgrade for the A570. It makes it quite usable.
http://freenet-homepage.de/x1541/hardware/a570ram.html
http://www.amitrix.com/scsi-tv-faq.html
2.5" SCSI drives can be quite expensive though :-(
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Thanks for the reply :)
I checked on amiga-hardware.com and the VXL030 does not seem to take a SCSI or IDE hard disk. I know the Viper can take an IDE hard disk. Is there any other accelerator card that can take SCSI or IDE?
Regarding the GVP; there is one for sale on eBay and I was considering whether to buy it or not .. at the moment it is more of a not.
Thanks again for the replies,
Sim085
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It can only take 8 Mbytes of RAM (compared to 32Mbytes or 128Mbytes of other 030 cards).
You'll never ever get a Viper 530. They are almost mythical. I've only ever seen one for sale and it sold for many times what I felt it was worth (around the $1000).
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Thanks alexh for your reply. I gave up on the Viper long time ago and the Derringer is usually very expensive as well.
Anyways; I have been reading about different accelerator cards on amiga-hardware.com and when I mentioned the Viper I did not mean to buy one but that it seems amiga-hardware.com says that the Viper has an IDE connector but it does not seem to say the same for any other accelerator card.
Does this mean that only the Viper had an IDE connector? Or I can find other 030 accelerator cards with 32Mb or 128Mb of RAM which can has an IDE connector? I only have an Amiga 500+.
Thanks again,
Sim085
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yeah i think as far as i know, the viper was the only internal A500 accelerator with an onboard hard disk controller. i think there was an option for scsi on the viper aswell, plus more than 32Mb ram....
you may be able to get a supraturbo28, an external 8Mb ram box, (i don't think i've ever seem the 2Mb ram expansion for the A570) and a 68kIDE board that plugs into the internal 68k socket and allows you to have an IDE hard disk inside the A500. that would still leave you a side port slot to bolt the A570 into... not to mention an increasingly long A500 :-D
otherwise you're stuck looking for the scsi expansion for the A570 and some form of scsi drive to plug into it.
i belive there are hard disk controllers that plugged into the side port that had a pass through, but i think the last time i same one of those was pre 90's
i'd go with the external CDrom idea. however an A570 was the easist way i've ever bolted a CD drive to a machine...
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aaaa... ok I think I understand (maybe, correct me if I am wrong).
So basically the IDE connector does not need to come with the accelerator card itself. I buy a 68kIDE board which would be connected in the CPU socket and then the accelerator card would be connected on top of the 68kIDE board!
Is this right? Does everything still fit in?
Thanks,
Sim085
I like the A570 because I think it would look cool ;)
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YEah you can do that as long as you can figure a way to cram the keyboard and top case half back on.
A friend ran a BBS for a while with an ICD AD-IDE hardisk controller in the 68000 socket, and then an Mtec 020/14mhz plugged on top of that.. It worked, but he had to "space" the keyboard up about 2 inches, and was unable to put the top case half back on the machine.
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hmmm...
So considering the fact that Viper is impossible to get and that an accelerator card on top of a 68KIDE board would make my Amiga look funny ... then it is practically impossible to have IDE connector and accelerator card all inside an A500+? Or there are other alternatives?
Regards,
Sim085
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heh, that brings back memories. my first A500, i had an ICD ad-ide under an Mtec020 board to lift it over a 2meg minimegachip agnus upgrade. i didn't care about the keyboard as the lid was never on my machine :lol: but it did work with an A570... even with the 3.1 upgrade... good times...
ok, so as you want to keep your amiga with its lid on, :-D your options are pretty much as follows:-
A570,supraturbo28,external rambox,68kIDE hard disk board..
A570,internal accelerator, no hard disk.
A570, rambox with pass-through, 68kIDE controller, no accelerator.
A570,find a hard disk with a pass-through,internal accelerator.
external scsi DVD/CD, scsi hard disk contoller+ram, internal accelerator or supraturbo28.
extrenal scsi DVD/CD, A530.
really you gotta ask, what are you going to use it for? if it is primerily playing CDTV titles then get the A570.
if it is just accessing CD stuff, then go for the external CD drive. you can kinda play most CDTV stuff on a CD drive anyway. iirc the IDEfix97 CDrom driver software off aminet comes with a CDTV/CD32 emulator for stuff thats hard coded to look for cd.device
i hope this is of some help in getting you to where you want to be :-)
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To be honest the most cost effective upgrade for an A500+ is an A1200 ;-)
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Thanks for the reply :)
So if it is impossible to put a 68KIDE board and an accelerator card then I think it is also impossible to but a clock board (If I remember well this was to have USB support) and an accelerator card right? or?
Regards,
Sim085
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alexh wrote:
To be honest the most cost effective upgrade for an A500+ is an A1200 ;-)
I know ... but I want to modify my A500+ out of affection and nostalgia :)
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Very true.
Exploring A500/A500+ HW upgrade limits provide ultimate stress test for both nerves and bank account balance. If one could justify such action, that could mean you have to have "the thing" for A500 or got lost in wrong platform.
Just a thought from experienced A500-er :-D
With the thing, of course. :crazy:
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More people who enjoy modding more than using :roll:
I would be surprised if you can use an internal accelerator + IDE68k. Has anyone tried? If it did I'd be surprised if the A500+ case lid fits.
Native USB on Amiga is expensive and IMO sucks. It is not the fault of the USB software or hardware. (E3B we love you!) You have to ask yourself why you want it? Then listen to some frank comments about Amiga USB's capability and then make a judgement call.
If you get IDE68k then a CF->IDE adapter would be much cheaper.
I would say an IDE68k + CF->IDE adapter + CF card with a 2Mbyte RAM upgrade for the A570 would be the best buys for your A500+
An A500 clock port adapter (http://www.vesalia.de/e_a500clockport.htm) would make the 68000 "tower" even higher. Probably introduce signal integrity issues. You can only try it :-)
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Ok ... back on the internal hard disk problem.
I had another thought (maybe I am entering in fantasy world now) ... Is there an IDE board which connects to the A500+ side slot?
If so; couldn't I solder some extra wiring with the side slot which would create a second side slot which I could place on top of the metal shield over the motherboard.
In other words I would have two devices (hard drive and cd drive) connected to the same side slot?
Regards,
Sim085
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Yes, there are perhaps 10 different designs using sidecar IDE on A500...
For instance, I have AlphaPower 500. Had IDE-CF adapter and 128Mb CF working like charm...I've seen decent looking units (as metioned) on eBay...usually no more than 50€...
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I think you'd be mad to try and wire in two side car expansions :-)
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Lockon_15 wrote:
Yes, there are perhaps 10 different designs using sidecar IDE on A500...
I had a Rochard 800C controller (Mem+IDE/SCSI), Action Replay III on a T-piece splitter (Datel) and Supraturbo28 - made a longish extension to the side...
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zipper wrote:
Lockon_15 wrote:
Yes, there are perhaps 10 different designs using sidecar IDE on A500...
I had a Rochard 800C controller (Mem+IDE/SCSI), Action Replay III on a T-piece splitter (Datel) and Supraturbo28 - made a longish extension to the side...
By T-piece splitter you mean something which is connected to your A500+ side expansion slot and provides two side expansion slots? If so from where did you get it?
alexh wrote:
I think you'd be mad to try and wire in two side car expansions :-)
Why potential conflicts? I checked a website which talking about an IDE60K board and in it the person had to solder two wires from the board to the side expansion board.
Therefore I thought; why not solder wires on the side expansion slot (on each teeth - I think that is what they are called). And then connect an IDE Board to these wires (obviously with some connectors). This would allow me to have a hard drive inside my A500+ without the problems that come with using an IDE60K board!!
Also the (main) side expansion slot would still be empty allowing me to fit some other device!
Regards,
Sim085
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sim085 wrote:
I checked a website which talking about an IDE68K board and in it the person had to solder two wires from the board to the side expansion board.
You do not solder directly to side expansion just to the header pins behind. You do not have to do this, you can get clips which clip to CIA and Gary chips.
I wonder if you can buy v188 yet? (The version with CF card slot built in)
sim085 wrote:
This would allow me to have a hard drive inside my A500+ without the problems that come with using an IDE68K board!!
What problems?
sim085 wrote:
Also the (main) side expansion slot would still be empty allowing me to fit some other device!
It is much more work than the two solders for IDE68k (which you can use Pin-Clip's if you do not like to solder.)
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I'm not so quick to dismiss the people who want to mod their older Amigas. At the very least, they'll gain more insight into how the system works overall. Nothing wrong with that.
Have said that, I don't think that wiring the A530 into the CPU socket is a reasonable project in practice. In theory, it will be an opportunity to play, but I don't use a practical use for this.
Good luck, in any case. Some good thinking in this thread.
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> you can get clips which clip to CIA and Gary chips
From where can I get such clips?
> What problems?
From what I understand (the problem is that) you cannot have a IDE68K board and an accelerator card on top of it since that would make it impossible to close the case.
> It is much more work than the two solders for IDE68k
Yes I am sure of that but mine was just a thought to see if it would work. I assume with the clips you mentioned things should be easier right?
At this moment all I want is to see if the concept is ok or not. If things work as I think they should, then I should be able to put the hard drive (only the board) inside the A500+ (maybe on top of the metal case). At the same time I would still have the side slot empty and I can connect another device there (hypothetically an A570).
Regards,
Sim085
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By T-piece splitter you mean something which is connected to your A500+ side expansion slot and provides two side expansion slots? If so from where did you get it?
Yes, from an Amiga reseller - probably just made for Action Replay users, as the PCB has Datel printed onto it; they did AR, too.
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IIRC, in the early times of the A500, many people with some skills on electronics made self-made harddisk enclosures+controllers for the side CPU connector, and many of those had a pass-though, so you could connect another thing, like a CD-ROM drive, for example. Could it be that even GVP had some of those with pass-through connector?
Saluditos,
Ferrán.
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sim085 wrote:
From where can I get such clips?
Most good electronics stores. Radio Shack, Maplin, RS etc.
One brand I think is called "Minigrabber"
You should be able to get two with the correct connectors on one end to plug onto an IDE68k for about $1 each
(http://www.testpath.com/ProductImages/3925.m.gif)
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Hi again,
So this weekend when at home I opened my A500+ and my GVP Hard drive and saw if this (the internal parts) could fit inside the A500+ over the metal case! It seems the answer is no.
I believe that if I find some IDE board and maybe some CF adapter then maybe I can fit the CF in there without a lot of problems. However that would put me out of the 8MB RAM that come with the GVP already!!
I also have some other questions;
Are these IDE board easy to find?
Why should I add clips to the Garry chip rather then directly to the side connector? What does the Garry chip actually do?
Thanks and Regards,
Sim085