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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Saeid on November 28, 2012, 07:06:56 PM
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Hi all,
This is my first post here :pint:
When I was a little kido I had AMIGA 500 which I could only play games with it, I mean I was like 5 or 6 so I was not a hard core programmer back then! After a while we got a PC at home and sold our amiga away.
Anyway, my nostalgia made me to buy an Amiga 500 from ebay. It comes only with power supply, mouse and some disks (including workbench). It didn't come with A520 modulator and RF cable (I already ordered a modulator and on its way).
I also don't have any TV in my room (I live in my university campus room so all I got is a modern 23 inch LCD of my PC. When the modulator comes in, can I just buy a cheap USB TV dongle and plug the RF card in it and see the amiga screen on my LCD?
I got another question, I did open the Amiga out of curiosity. I found that its main board is market as 500+, altough the battery and clock IC and some of it's surronding components are missing. In wikipedia I read that commodore sold early A500+ as normal 500 models since they ran out of 500 in the christmas of 91/92/
Here is some photos:
(http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/5734/wp000273.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20/wp000273.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
(http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/994/wp000279.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/255/wp000279.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
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ok, that looks like a rev 8 board, which IIRC is an A500 plus.
not sure why you're missing the clock chip and battery though.
maybe the battery was clipped off to prevent damage if it started leaking
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I forgot to add: It also came with a memory board in the expansion bay, there is a rusted battery on that memory board.
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It's a 500 with a revision 8A motherboard. A 500+ would have 1 Meg of ram and the clock chip and battery.
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I had exactly a bastard mobo like this which was an A500+ mobo with OCS Denise but with New Agnus and with Kickstart 1.3, 512KB soldered Chip and without the RTC circuit and Audio filter.
It's true that some Commodore A500's where shipped with the new mobo but without the extra stuff that actually categorize an A500 as a plus (RTC circuit, Kickstart 2.04, ECS Denise, 1MB Chip plus audio filter).
It's not so difficult to upgrade this mobo to a full A500+ but you need to put the ECS Denise, solder the rest 1MB Chip chips, and find some difficult to find decoupler for the RAM plus some RTC chip and some other caps/resistors for the audio filter circuit.
I tried to make this, but never actually made it. Imho it's easier to get an real A500+ mobo than try to make this a full one or keep it and treat is as an Rev6 mobo :)
Just keep it as it is as a rare bastard board from the Commodore era :P
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Thanks mfilos for clarification! I had the same guess as well.
I am an electronics student and have some good soldering/repair skills! I will try to mod it up to a 500+
Do you know those ram chips and clock chip are generic components that can be found in component stores or I should look for extracting them from other amigas?
Also, no one answered my question about testing my Amiga :( will the A520 modoulator output connected to a TV card show anything on my LCD monitor?
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I had exactly a bastard mobo like this which was an A500+ mobo with OCS Denise but with New Agnus and with Kickstart 1.3, 512KB soldered Chip and without the RTC circuit and Audio filter.
It's true that some Commodore A500's where shipped with the new mobo but without the extra stuff that actually categorize an A500 as a plus (RTC circuit, Kickstart 2.04, ECS Denise, 1MB Chip plus audio filter).
It's not so difficult to upgrade this mobo to a full A500+ but you need to put the ECS Denise, solder the rest 1MB Chip chips, and find some difficult to find decoupler for the RAM plus some RTC chip and some other caps/resistors for the audio filter circuit.
I tried to make this, but never actually made it. Imho it's easier to get an real A500+ mobo than try to make this a full one or keep it and treat is as an Rev6 mobo :)
Just keep it as it is as a rare bastard board from the Commodore era :P
You seem to bash it for reason? I take it you had some bad experience with it? Or do you hate it because it could have being potentially an A500+ but it is not?
What is exactly your beef toward the A500 Rev 8 motherboard anyways? :)
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I don't have anything to do with Rev.8 mobos man (in fact I love a full Rev.8 mobo and I certainly prefer an A500+ from an A500 any day). I wish I could make my bastard board into one but I had some bad experience with it.
Mobo works, I putted the ECS Denise and Kickstart 3.1 and life was good.
I did all the neccesary jumper alterations and also soldered the new ram chips in place but hey... no extra RAM. I thought I'd need the decoupler chip, so I ordered one and still nada 1MB chip.
After those tries I stopped trying because maybe ram chips could be faulty or the decoupler so I couldn't tell nor had the time to try more combinations.
Good luck with your own mod mate, and keep us posted with your own experience.
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The chip rams are TMS44C256-80N, I found them on sale on some component stock company website for 10 Euros each! pretty expensive...got the amiga for 40 euros but that ram chips will cost far more than the amiga itself!
I am still looking for an answer to my main question! How to connect amiga 500 to LCD ?!
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The chip rams are TMS44C256-80N, I found them on sale on some component stock company website for 10 Euros each! pretty expensive...got the amiga for 40 euros but that ram chips will cost far more than the amiga itself!
I am still looking for an answer to my main question! How to connect amiga 500 to LCD ?!
Oh um...hehe, you could buy an external TV tuner and hook your Amiga into the external TV tuner and the TV tuner into the LCD monitor. That is what I did for years and years until I decided that a Commodore 1084s is more fitting for me as a full experience :)
I preferred the 1084s over the LCD anytime...the colors and pictures are just delllliccious heh.
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Oh um...hehe, you could buy an external TV tuner and hook your Amiga into the external TV tuner and the TV tuner into the LCD monitor. That is what I did for years and years until I decided that a Commodore 1084s is more fitting for me as a full experience :)
I preferred the 1084s over the LCD anytime...the colors and pictures are just delllliccious heh.
Thanks, I dont care about quality at the moment, I really have no room in my room to put a CRT like thingy :D so using my PC LCD is the only option.
In case of TV tuner, will any kind of TV tuner do the job? I mean will a cheapo 20$ usb stick TV tuner (with antena in port) be OK? Or I should go for a expensive good quality BOX like ones?
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Oh jeeze no. You can do a little research online for a good external tv tuner, I bought one for 70 bucks it supports: PAL/NTSC/SECAM and all combination of these...oh heck let me send you a link to the one I got that is A++:
YEAH BABY: http://www.opalia.com.au/product.jsp?id=SUPERA-HD
that is the one!! THAT IS WHAT I HAVE AT HOME NOW...TWO OF THEM IN FACT...YUP, YES SIR TWO OF THEM. And I aint using them now at all in fact!!
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Thanks, I dont care about quality at the moment, I really have no room in my room to put a CRT like thingy :D so using my PC LCD is the only option.
In case of TV tuner, will any kind of TV tuner do the job? I mean will a cheapo 20$ usb stick TV tuner (with antena in port) be OK? Or I should go for a expensive good quality BOX like ones?
You said you like to solder, then you should get one of the CGA-VGA converters from Ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/ARCADE-GAME-CONVERTER-CGA-RGB-YUV-EG-A-to-1-VGA-HD-video-output-GBS-8200-/281028070157?pt=Video_Games_Accessories&hash=item416e940b0d and DB23 connector.
Works fine, there are many threads about it, even from me, showing which pins where they go etc.
Good project to start with.
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Thanks, I dont care about quality at the moment, I really have no room in my room to put a CRT like thingy :D so using my PC LCD is the only option.
In case of TV tuner, will any kind of TV tuner do the job? I mean will a cheapo 20$ usb stick TV tuner (with antena in port) be OK? Or I should go for a expensive good quality BOX like ones?
If you're not concerned about the quality, a cheap USB one will work fine.
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or pay a bit more and get an indivisionECS.... ;)
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Here
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=226
As you are european, youn woun't have any problems. You can connect your amiga to LCD-tv with scart cable.
Note that most of tvs doesn't have more than one fully connected scart. Second one would require this, http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=211 but unfortunately it is not possible with amiga 500 and any way picture quality is not that good.
Some tvs doesn't have any fully connected scarts, like sony bravio
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Here
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=226
As you are european, youn woun't have any problems. You can connect your amiga to LCD-tv with scart cable.
Note that most of tvs doesn't have more than one fully connected scart. Second one would require this, http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=211 but unfortunately it is not possible with amiga 500 and any way picture quality is not that good.
Some tvs doesn't have any fully connected scarts, like sony bravio
Well all LCD and plasma tv's I've owned have had 2x fully connected scart's every time.
I guess I've been lucky then.
Also where I live a scart switch box costs like 2-4$ so no big costs to get more ports.
It's quite easy to get your hands on cheep LCD 4:3 around 20" nowadays for 100$.
I've bought 2x 20" LCD tv's with scart for 90$ each.
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Thanks for the input guys. I won another auction for an A1200 Tower that comes with a commodore color monitor. It's on the way...hopefully I am going to be a happy amiga owner soon :P
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Thanks for the input guys. I won another auction for an A1200 Tower that comes with a commodore color monitor. It's on the way...hopefully I am going to be a happy amiga owner soon :P
Maaan...your financially set. But wait a minute!! If you you just bought an Amiga 1200 and a tower at that, what would happen to you A500? It would be in the closet unused.
Personally, if I own an Amiga 1200, towered too, with AGA and an Amiga with OCS with only 512 KB of RAM, Kickstart 1.3 I would only use the A1200 and leave the A500 collecting dust.
HOWEVER, if I only an Amiga 500 then I have no choice but to use it, you see what I mean?
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Maaan...your financially set. But wait a minute!! If you you just bought an Amiga 1200 and a tower at that, what would happen to you A500? It would be in the closet unused.
Personally, if I own an Amiga 1200, towered too, with AGA and an Amiga with OCS with only 512 KB of RAM, Kickstart 1.3 I would only use the A1200 and leave the A500 collecting dust.
HOWEVER, if I only an Amiga 500 then I have no choice but to use it, you see what I mean?
Haha, not really financially set...I suddenly felt a heavy nostalgia and decided to spare some of my savings to cure my nostalgia. 150€ for A1200T and 50€ for A500...well instead of upgrading my PC graphic card I opted to go for amiga :P
Yeah I totaly understand what you mean. Possibly if the A1200T worked like a charm I would put A500 (BASTARD MOBO) for sale!
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Depending how nostalcig you feel, Commodore color monitor is ok or not, compared to LCD-tv wich would have nice flicker free/rock steady hires picture. No need to have flicker fixer/scan doubler
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Depending how nostalcig you feel, Commodore color monitor is ok or not, compared to LCD-tv wich would have nice flicker free/rock steady hires picture. No need to have flicker fixer/scan doubler
But most LCD/plasma tv's don't flicker fix do they? I'm pondering whether to get an LCD tv that I can connect via scart with built in de-interlacing (anyone know what model does a good job?) or whether to just get an IndyAGAMkII with an up to date brand new monitor (again, any recommendations for use with the IndyMkII?). Help me!
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All LCD-TVs does flicker fix, if don't there is a problem. I've tested about a 8 different models, all of them has done that. Some LCD monitors wich can display amiga modes doesn't flicker fix, but all tvs should do that.
Today I tested old Video Seven 27" lcd tv and picture quality was great.
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All LCD-TVs does flicker fix, if don't there is a problem. I've tested about a 8 different models, all of them has done that. Some LCD monitors wich can display amiga modes doesn't flicker fix, but all tvs should do that.
Today I tested old Video Seven 27" lcd tv and picture quality was great.
A few years ago I tested my sister's LCD tv. It was only a cheap brand (Acoustic Solutions) but that didn't de-interlace at all so was no good for Hires Lace mode (which I'd want to use with Workbench).
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All I've tested has worked as a flicker fixer, you have had bad luck :( Some LCD-TVs hasn't display picture at all through scart, they have had required this http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=211 and then picture quality isn't great. A1200 has SIngle wire rgb out, A500 has also but is black and white.