It can be difficult to manage but it can be done. Without an accelerator it becomes questionable but I still haven't purchased an A1200 due to it. It is somewhat unfair though as I do have an A3000. For an A500 the best configuration would be to effectively create a dual boot situation.
To do this you'll need a 3.x ROM image file. I won't give you one. You should buy the chip, install it, make the image and replace it with the older 1.2/1.3 ROM chip. If you are lucky enough to find one the hardware ROM switchers that is the way to go.
If you are interested I can try to find the right software to do this (does somebody remember?) but you can load the ROM into RAM and boot from the image in memory. As long as a game doesn't crash hard and you don't do a hard boot you will have a machine with the new ROM in memory and you can reboot at will.
The startup script should use the 1.3 version and execute commands as the newer ones don't work on the older os and it should call the respective startup script. Come on guys I am sure someone can help me out here. There were many people doing this when I used my A500 a lot.
You can install both OSes on your hard drive (you do have a hard drive right?) and boot whichever you'd like. Some versions of 3.x OS require an 020. I believe you can still find some A500 020/030 accelerators on eBay and some sites. Look around. Be prepared to pay between $50-100 for one. There was only one 040 accelerator ever made for the A500 that I am aware of and only a few of them ever left the warehouse as there was a fire shortly after they were released. If you can find one I'll pay a couple hundred for it. nyteschayde@yahoo.com
