OK, I've got 23 Amiga 500's - now what?

[giantweta]

I just scored a car load full of Amiga 500's, manuals, PSUs, cables, internal floppy drives, CDTV CDs, mice, joysticks and a printer, but I have never even turned on an Amiga before! Was $20 too much to pay?

After a session of plug-it-in-and-see-if-anything-happens I think I have 13 'working' machines and 10 dead ones. The working machines all come up with a picture of a hand holding a disk with the number 1.3 undeneath - I assume it's asking for Workbench 1.3. One of the machines displays 1.2 instead of 1.3.

I don't have Workbench 1.2 or 1.3 but I do have 3.0 on floppy disk.

OK, here come the questions ...

One of the machines has Commodore A500 written on the case - is this a special version?

There's one A500 Plus - unfortunately it's not one of the working ones.

There's also two of those internal expansion boxes that live under the rectangular cover on the bottom of the machine - I think they're probably RAM expansions but is there any way to tell for sure? there's nothing written on them.

What's usually the problem when the power light flashes and nothing else happens?

A couple of the machines had green power lights, most of them were red. What's the significance of the colour?

So, here I am, surrounded by Amigas and I don't know what to do with them. Any ideas?

[giantweta]

Man, there's HEAPS of RAM Expansions on that page!
The units I have are completely encased in an aluminium triangular box - I guess I'll have to take one apart to check out the circuit board.

[giantweta]

Good work Sherlock (TjLaZer) but I'm actually in New Zealand.

Here's another question for you all ... should the startup screen (the hand/disk screen) have a purple background, or is my 1084S monitor faulty?

I tried the monitor on a C64 using the Red/Yellow/White plugs to the 8-pin socket on the C64 but got nothing - should that have worked?

[giantweta]

Dodgy screen then. Oh well. :/
I've got an old Acorn AKF40 hanging around that I might try - might have to disassemble the 23pin plug to make up a new cable though because they're impossible to find here.

I guess my next question has to be, where can I get a copy of Kickstart/Workbench 1.3 so I can boot these things?

[giantweta]

dropping from a height ... ahhhh the subtle approach!
Hey it's worth a try.

So is Workbench 1.3 is still a jealously guarded bit of commercial software? Or can it be downloaded onto a PC from somewhere and then be written to an Amiga-spec floppy disk? I assume this is where RAWrite may come in handy.

[giantweta]

PaSha wrote:  

-Paul

Thanks Paul, the flashing lights, screen etc info is great.

I found a bootable copy of TextCraft Plus and booted up a couple of the machines successfully. At least I can test them to some extent now.

I had a look at the A500 Plus board - yup, leaking battery and  green corrosion on all the pins around one of the recessed chips, and brown on some of the resistors (rust?). It's not looking good!

I'm wary of cleaning/scrubbibg the boards with meths/vinegar/meths/water ... how careful do I need to be to avoid getting various bits wet?

[giantweta]

AdMartin wrote:
Getting bits wet is no problem, as long as you're 100% sure they're dry once you turn the power on. I think I read in an old thread here that some people would wash complete motherboards and then let them dry and allegedly it worked fine! Though, maybe I read it somewhere else... and don't hold me responsible if something goes wrong... :-P

Hey, what have I got to lose?! I'm sure I'll get the hang of it after the first 4 or 5 attempts to ressurect the dead ones. By the time I get to the currently working ones that probably need a clean too I just might know what I'm doing!

[giantweta]

Argo wrote:
Beowulf Cluster!?

I know I should Google that, but that'd spoil the fun of being ignorant. It's bliss you know