My A500 "project" pics, details, build log?

[djos]

what do folks use for stress testing chip & fast ram?

[djos]

Are you using classicWB or plain wb3.1?

[djos]

924k of chip ram after workbench loading is very good!

1meg fast ram is fine for most applications under WB3.1

I've got 951kb of free chip-ram now - got my a500 extension board and 8mb fast-ram board today from Kipper and they work great!

Having auto-config fast ram makes a huge difference!!!

[djos]

How much was the board made by kipper?

if it true autoconfigs then he has made a great a500 expansion!

Az

Yeah it's brilliant and the adapter board is awesome for relocating my CPU, Ram-board & IDE68k to where there is more room:

The Auto-config 8mb board is $49CAD + $9.95CAD and the adapter board was $9.50CAD

http://kipper2k.com/amigaforsale/

[djos]

Sysinfo gives me totally nonsense results for SCSI speed... someone suggested I use this:

http://aminet.net/package/util/moni/RSCP

Which gives considerably more realistic results.

Here are my results, a bit slower and not surprisingly I have no spare CPU (one of the reasons SCSI is so much better than IDE)!

[djos]

Slow, no not really but I will get a Zeus68k when they are released.

[djos]

AJ, is that a 2000 in the corner on the right hand side?

[djos]

First photo is so the setup I had, although we couldn't afford the monitor at the time so had the A500 connected to small 14" NEC CRT TV :-)

Same TV I used with my Commodore 64C, never liked the dark brown 64. Wish I had a camera back then.

Would love to be able to look back.

I was pretty lucky, my folks teamed up with my Nan to buy our family our 1st computer for Xmas '88 - it was a Tandy 1000ex (with CM5 monitor & Tandy DotMatrix printer) which was much better than most PC's of the time as it had PCjr 3-voice sound and PCjr 16 colour CGA GFX (instead of 4 colour) if you had the RAM/DMA upgrade board with at least 384kb in total - which dad bought about a year later.

I think he traded it in for a PC clone in about '91 which was much faster and had a 40MB HDD but no sound and normal CGA GFX (which sucked!). I had to save up for an Adlib Sound Card to get music again!

@djos, the A500 adapter, would that cause problems if one had an accelerator?

not sure mate, although as long as there are no tall caps it should be able to sit on top of the accelerator board. It comes with removable riser-pins too so you can make it lower profile if need be.

[djos]

I believe you can get scsi to cf adapters which would be the fastest option.

[djos]

If you want IDE without chewing up your CPU i'd wait for the Zeus68k (im prolly gonna get one myself once they are ready):

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=65047

I wouldnt waste your time on Jen's aca500, that thing is an insult to a500 owners with it's pathetic 2mb ram and 14mhz 68k - he should make a proper accelerator for the 500 and if he wants a500 owners to buy his aca12xx boards he should just make a bloody adapter with no redundant ram, no redundant CPU and just IDE + some useful stuff like Ethernet and USB!

a 1200 is a good idea, i want one but cant really afford one.

[djos]

Your Birthday?

[djos]

the joysticks birthday.

lol, nice one! :pint:

[djos]

I pointed this out to him over at eab but he refuses to listen, very disappointing and even the aca500 itself is currently vaporware with not 1 single pic having been posted of even a prototype!

[djos]

@AJ mate I now have a spare fully working rev5 mobo that you might be interested in for your 2nd a500, it has a 1.2 ks rom and ran perfectly when I tested it (includes top and bottom sheilds).

[djos]

Yeah FDD's are a PITA, I just bought a refurbished drive from Vesalia for my a1010 as my modded Panasonic doesnt fit and despite several, apparently successful clean and lube jobs, it keeps failing and killing discs! :destroy:

[djos]

SOLD!

Thanks Derek!

No worries mate, was nice to finally meet you.