A500+ vs. A600

[Motormouth]

Which is better???

ECS vs ECS
upto 2 meg chip in both

Zorro I vs A600 trapdoor expansions

scsi options? vs ide on board

number pad vs small keyboard

opinions???

[Motormouth]

I have an expanded A500, and an expanded A600...

The A600 takes up about 1/5th the desk space as the A500, that alone give the A600 the win

Of course, they are expanded in different ways, so the A500 could be made smaller, but its always going to be twice the size of the A600.

Back in the day I had an A500 (rev 6A) with a GVP A500 HD and a slingshot pro with an A2065, the thing was really long..............  Plus you needed extra room on the right side for floppy access.   It was difficult finding a "small" desk to hold it.

Even the A2000 was small (in length) compared to this beast.

Neither is better. They both had their merits back then (with the A500+ slightly more expandable back then), they both have their merits right now (with the A600 being slightly more expandable right now).

They are quite alike and 'suffered' from the same incompatabilities when it came to software.

With either of these 3.1 should probably be the goal for configuration and not attempting to run older 1.3 games.

[Motormouth]

I would argue that the A500+ is probably still easier to expand, what with the ACA500 now available and the motherboard having socketed chips rather than surface mounting. I haven't owned either but i've heard of people having a lot of problems with boards overheating in the A600 or just coming loose intermittently.

It looks like the ACA500 out of stock at AmigaKit,  Is Jens going to be making more of these?

[Motormouth]

There was a PC emulator card for the A600's trapdoor, but it is very rare. The IndivisionECS can be mounted in here too on top of one of Jen's chip ram expansions (A603, A604).

Was there not also a PC emulator card for the A500's trapdoor?

[Motormouth]

Both are 2nd class choice for gaming and 2nd class choice for productivity work (whatever this would be in 2015).

IDE (PATA) drives used to be cheaper and easier to find but now it is obsolete technology just like SCSI.

I thought, even for the diehards out there, that the amiga is primarily a hobby (at this point)  and a little bit of gaming.  I personally just like to tinker around with a computer I know something about .  

Oh for the hardware junkies it is also a fun computer to collect.  This is reflected in the crazy prices that hardware goes for on ebay.   Supply and Demand at work

[Motormouth]

I think A500 is always useful for compatibility with games and the possibility to use Action Replay cartridge: don't know if A500+ is compatible with without a ROM switcher.

Some of the older 1.3 game expect chip ram to be at one memory location and fast ram to be at another low "slow" fast ram memory location.  Many of these games don't work with even 1meg chip ram A500s and 1.3.  Some really old game don't even work with 1.3 and need 1.2.  The original old rom switchers had three dip socket one for 1.2, 1.3, and 2.04 (or 2.05 in a pinch) from back in the day, obviously the 2.04 would be switched out for 3.1 today.

The ACA500 actually help with this by providing for "slow" fast ram memory locations that is actually faster than "fast" fast ram and it works great with WHDLoad.  I would love to have an A500+ with 2meg of chip a ACA 500 with very fast "slow" fast ram and an ACA 1233 with 128 meg of 32 bit ram and a 40Mhz 68030 (of course).  This would blow even a stock A3000 away.  Alas, if you could only get RTG graphics with the config.......

I don't know if the A500+ would have problems with a 1.3 rom.  My guess (and only a guess) (someone out there knows the answer to this) is that it would not be able to address the second meg of chip ram.  Can A2000s or a500 with a megachip address 2 megs of chip ram with 1.3 roms?

What about the old softbooting A3000s, are they able to address all of its chip ram in 1.3?  I use to have one of these at work almost 25 years ago, but cannot remember.

I would guess that the A600 would be more incompatible with 1.3 rom particular the IDE controller and PCMCIA controller.  Even the original A600 roms were incompatible with IDE controller (ie necessitating 37.300 to 37.350 roms).

[Motormouth]

The PC286 from GVP that fit inside the 530 Turbo.

The PC286 also fits inside the original GVP A500HD8+, I am fortunate to have one of these, that is the A500HD8+ and PC286.  (back in the day I wanted an A530)

It basically is an At Once Plus.  It actually work very well except for the slow graphics, and no access to high density floppy (which were standard on PeeCee's even back in 286 days).