Just bought GVP HD8+ hard drive!

[k4lmp]

I have the same controller on my A500+, and second the SCSI card reader from Mechware.  I also have an external CD-RW connected to mine.  It works great.  If I am not mistaken, the A500 HD+8 uses the 30 pin simms.  I have 8 meg in mine, which is the max, using 4 2 meg simms.  I have several 1 meg simms, however, with the 1 meg simms, you can only have 4 meg, as there are only 4 simm slots.  The 1 meg simms are pretty common.  I bought the ones I have on ebay, they were 4 1meg simms for like $13, so not bad.  The 2 meg ones would give you more ram, but are not as common, at least not as I have seen on ebay.  Also, If I am not mistaken, the A500+ only has 1 meg of chip ram.  Mine has 1 meg, and with the trapdoor 512K module plugged in, has 1.5 meg of chip ram.  At least that is how mine is set up.

[k4lmp]

I have 2 x 4mb modules in mine and it is reported as 8mb total

Come to think of it, that is what I have in mine as well. :rofl:  I guess I am just nutso, so please don't listen to me, just kidding.  Seriously, though, that is the way mine is set up, not the 4 2 meg chips like I said.  I had a brain f@rt.  I think 8 meg is still the max, though.  I'm glad some people on here know what they are talking about, as I obviously am nuts.  :biglaugh:

[k4lmp]

I know you were asking bruno, but thought you might be interested, I have 2 of them, and I think I paid around $80 each for mine.  I caught them on a 'buy it now' when they were just listed.

[k4lmp]

I've had a look at this SCSI card reader on your link as well as others in this topic, but I don't know how to fit it. I could be confused because it looks like it should be external, but the only place to put it may be inside the GVP case I've just bought. I know that I need 30 pin SIMMS, which I think can only be either 1Mb, or 4Mb each, but the time or refresh rate is also important and I may need to make sure exactly which model I've bought before choosing any. The eBay seller says he has no suitable RAM chips for this unit at the moment. The A500 Plus has the "obese Agnus" which can have 2Mb chip RAM. If you plug in a full 1Mb trapdoor upgrade such as the A502 (not A501 or compatible 512K expansion) or compatible unit (not many are available) then this brings it up to 2Mb chip RAM, but I don't know if any RAM fitted elsewhere would be counted as chip RAM.

I'm really amazed that you can plug in an external CD-RW drive to this unit! Please tell me what kinds of CD drives are compatible. This purchase will let me experience a whole new side to the classic Amiga, which I never went through before without a hard drive, any more RAM than 2Mb or a CD drive. I was persuaded to go the PC route to get online and set up a website. I got the PC on a year's credit, but when I checked recently in archived magazines I think I could have afforded the necessary upgrades to my A1200. I was also involved with a private club or association where they kept talking about PCs only and someone said to me "You don't really know about computers, only the Amiga!", but I had used other systems as well, including CP/M, other 8 bit computers, MS-DOS at a college and under an Amiga emulator, and MS Windows in cybercafes.

In the near future, I hope to get my ADF transfer kit working again, then my Amiga will be really flying with more games and applications, and I'll be creating more graphics, and programs! I hope to apply any knowledge I gain to Linux, AROS, and Aeros as well.

What I did on mine, is took a longer SCSI cable, ran it out of the housing where the circuit board plugs into the A500+, along with a power extension.  I layed the SCSI card reader on top of the external CD-RW that I have.  Of course, you have the cable showing, but, it doesn't look bad at all.  It works great.  I am lucky enough to have an EPROM burner, so I downloaded the 4.15 ROM file, and upgraded the controller.  I originally bought the EPROM burner to use for copying chips for car computers, but, have used it more on my vintage Amigas and Apple computers than I ever did for those.

[k4lmp]

I would go with a SCSI card reader and use a compact flash for the hard drive.  Easy to change to a different OS or whatever, by merely unplugging/plugging in a new flash card.  Mechware has some great stuff.  You could check with him to see if he has any more of the card readers.

[k4lmp]

Unfortunately, it seems I can't afford any of the SCSI card readers from Mechware, but I'm working on some schemes to get some more money in the near future.

Meanwhile, I could run out of hard drive space in the next few days. I'm having problems with Manx Aztec C V5.05, which keeps generating error messages that it either can't find the input file, multiple input files have been specified, or it can't open stdio.h or stdarg.h. I've managed to turn one C source code file into an executable program, but I'm not sure how I did it. All the include files locations have been specified in the script the installer generated itself, called aztec.sh . Lattice C comes as 6 ADF images, but Manx Aztec C is only 4. Do I actually need to install all the 6 ADF images onto my hard drive?

As for compatible SCSI hard drives, I think the ones that would be compatible would be either internal 50 pin or external DB25 and low capacity in the Mb range, or certainly not over 4Gb. Am I right?

Unfortunately, I can also understand the 'not afford' part of it.  You are not alone.  

[k4lmp]

Reasonable enough compared to the cost of most Amiga things these days.

Absolutely agree.  Mechy stands behind his gear, and has great support.  Worth every penny.  I have bought from him many times, and have never been disappointed.