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Author Topic: How to test my Amiga, and did I get Amiga 500 or 500 PLUS?  (Read 4858 times)

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Offline SaeidTopic starter

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How to test my Amiga, and did I get Amiga 500 or 500 PLUS?
« on: November 28, 2012, 07:06:56 PM »
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:
 

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My electronics & programming website:
http://www.eetutorials.com
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Offline SaeidTopic starter

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Re: How to test my Amiga, and did I get Amiga 500 or 500 PLUS?
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2012, 07:19:39 PM »
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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Offline SaeidTopic starter

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Re: How to test my Amiga, and did I get Amiga 500 or 500 PLUS?
« Reply #2 on: November 28, 2012, 09:03:38 PM »
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?
My electronics & programming website:
http://www.eetutorials.com
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Re: How to test my Amiga, and did I get Amiga 500 or 500 PLUS?
« Reply #3 on: November 28, 2012, 10:08:08 PM »
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 ?!
My electronics & programming website:
http://www.eetutorials.com
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Re: How to test my Amiga, and did I get Amiga 500 or 500 PLUS?
« Reply #4 on: November 28, 2012, 10:30:20 PM »
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;716798
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?
My electronics & programming website:
http://www.eetutorials.com
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Re: How to test my Amiga, and did I get Amiga 500 or 500 PLUS?
« Reply #5 on: November 29, 2012, 01:28:26 PM »
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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Re: How to test my Amiga, and did I get Amiga 500 or 500 PLUS?
« Reply #6 on: November 29, 2012, 02:38:39 PM »
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;716859
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!
My electronics & programming website:
http://www.eetutorials.com
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