Tom Thul, 8 meg, A500 instructions please?

[Lurch]

Running an A500+ with the same 8MB board. Have 1MB in expansion, but no hacks needed as the A500+ will configure 2MB chip.

New battery has turned up but waiting on a better condition A500+ motherboard to turn up to solder it to :-)

I get 1.7MB chip with WB 3.1 and 1.9MB chip with 2.1. So might downgrade as all I do is play WHDLoad games :-)

[Lurch]

The A500+ is like an A600 but cooler :-P

[Lurch]

A600 has PCMCIA, you can add networking! It also has inbuilt IDE and 2meg chipram and FULL ECS chipset. So its MUCH better than an A500, and only slight better than an A500+

A500+ is full ECS, comes with 1MB standard just like the A600. Only two things missing from an A500+ internal IDE and a PCMCIA slot.

A500+
IDE = A590 or internal mod
Network = very hard to do :-)

A600
No numeric keypad :-)

[Lurch]

The only thing I worry about with the IDE68k is it clashing with what I already have internally. i.e. The indivision, and also there's a few people mentioning issues with some accelerator cards.

Tom's doesn't auto boot, although you can use a floppy to boot it from what I understand, not sure if it has the same conflict problems?

Plus at some point the keyboard and top case isn't going to close :-)

[Lurch]

Yeah I think he had at the time was the side car version. At the moment I'm trying to get everything inside the a500 case. Which is harder than what I thought, height wise and the gap between the indivsion ecs and anything I plug into the CPU socket is very close.

Then the keyboard is pushed up just enough that the case wont close :-( So I don't know how some people can do it.

[Lurch]

Hiya Lurch, I have seen the end of the cpu that touches the keyboard ground/sanded/shaved at a 30degree angle to give clearance. Its not pretty, but then again all your removing is the plastic part, the carrier so its not essential for the cpu to have this

Az

Have been very tempted to do something like this but knowing my luck I'd hit a trace LOL. Will see how it all goes together once I get my indivision back.

My poor A500 is in parts all over the table at the moment :-(

[Lurch]

Just like to say making some great hardware there Tom. Glad I could the chance to purchase one.

[Lurch]

I recall grinding down the plastic inside the bottom of the case to make the board sit an extra millimeter or two lower when I installed an IDE68k and a VXL-30/32 combo in my A500+.

Now that's a good idea, the case is quite thick so could get some space there. BTW lucky you have the 30/32 combo I just have the vxl-30. :-)