A few questions about the GVP Impact A500 HD8+ Series II

[Huxley_D]

So I was lucky enough to pick up a GVP Impact A500 HD8+ Series II (what a mouthful of a name!) for $20 while attending the Amiga 30th Anniversary bash at the Computer History Museum this weekend. This unit is complete in the box with all the manuals and original floppies, and seems to be in good overall shape. It was very dirty / dusty when I got it, so I took it apart and gave it a cleaning with some compressed air. Other than the fan not wanting to spin when it's reassembled (looks like the cables are pressing on the fan when it's all clamped down), it seems to work fine mechanically - it powers on, the drive spins, etc.





However, when it's connected to my ROM 1.3 A500 and in auto-boot mode, the drive-access flickers for about 30 seconds before stopping and the Amiga just requests the boot floppy like normal. Based on this, I'm assuming three likely issues:

- The drive has failed
- The drive works but there isn't a bootable OS on the drive
- The drive works and has a bootable OS, but is loaded with a newer OS than my ROM 1.3-equipped Amiga can boot into

Does that summary sound roughly accurate? Am I missing anything?
 
I'm acquiring a set of Workbench floppies tonight (I currently don't have any OS disks, only some games), so hopefully I'll be able to boot the Amiga to a desktop and try mounting the SCSI drive. I'm also looking into a ROM switcher and a ROM 3.1 chip from eBay, which should theoretically make it easier to run the whole OS (including Workbench 2.x, I think) from the SCSI drive.

Definitely open to any suggestions or tips - it's been ages since I did much with an Amiga, and I'm pretty fuzzy on the best-practices on these machines...

[Huxley_D]

Thank you for putting together that wealth of useful info and links, Oldsmobile_Mike! Very cool and generous of you.

I'm happy to report that I did indeed get a PSU with the GVP drive, along with *everything* else - as best I can tell, it's a complete set, with the box, manuals, disks, cardboard inserts, etc. etc. I'm a relative newcomer to the Amiga collecting scene but I've been in the 68k Mac world for years and years and I can vouch for how rare it is to find rare accessories like this, let alone ones that were kept all together. I really lucked out here!

I'll spend some time reading through the info and links you provided later, but again, thank you - having a newbie-friendly guide like this is worth its weight in gold right now!

[Huxley_D]

My GVP drive has some extra RAM, but not the maximum. If I got any more RAM, it probably wouldn't work with the RAM I've already got. I recently noticed an interface on the back of this unit, but I don't know what it's for. Would this allow me to fit a CD-ROM drive of the right type with the right cable? I don't know.

If my understanding is correct, the port on the back of the GVP is a 25-pin external SCSI port, suitable (in theory, at least) for connecting an external hard drive, a CD-ROM drive, a Zip drive, etc., though driver availability on our old versions of Workbench may be questionable.

Hope this helps!

[Huxley_D]

Once again, Oldsmobile_Mike has swung to the rescue with a ton of well-written, helpful advice and links!

A follow-up question (which may warrant its own thread, if the answer is complex): a few years ago I purchased an "Amiga Forever!" CD which contains various emulators, ROM's, OS's, etc. - does that mean I could legally request someone make me a set of OS 3.1 floppies, or do I still need to purchase them the normal way?

Thanks again - I'm so grateful for all the help here!

[Huxley_D]

Hi again guys,

Thought you might enjoy a quick update: I got in touch with a local Amigan via Craigslist yesterday, and he was kind enough to create a pair of Workbench 1.3 floppies for me. Using those, I was able to (finally!) boot to the OS and tinker around - I was relieved to see the memory line at the top showing ~9 megs (512k chip + 512k fast + 8m in the GVP sidecar). The HDD still wasn't mounting or doing much of anything, so I started tinkering with the GVP setup disks that came with it. None of them could "see" the HDD, but during one attempt there was a loud CLICK from the GVP drive, the read/write LED started blinking, and suddenly it was working (and bootable!). Maybe the heads were stuck and needed some coaxing to work loose after 20+ years of lying dormant? Who knows - I'm just psyched that it's working now!



I definitely don't 'trust' this Quantum drive and won't be terribly surprised if it suddenly dies on me, but it's at the very least confirmation that the entire GVP sidecar is electronically sound. Not too bad for $20!

Have any of you experimented with mounting some sort of SCSI-to-CompactFlash (or SD?) adapter in one of these sidecars? Any suggestions or advice around that idea?

[Huxley_D]

If working on old computers exposes us to radiation, then presumably we're all going to develop superpowers, i.e. Peter Parker > Spider-Man. I look forward to developing the speed,  computational power and sleek good looks of an Altair 8800.

[Huxley_D]

This is a great thread with a lot of awesome info.

And Huxley_D I'm jealous!  

Hahaha - don't be too jealous, my GVP is still being flaky. I can't yet tell if it's just the (notoriously failure-prone) Quantum drive or the GVP itself, but it frequently fails to be recognized by the system without being repeatedly disconnected / reconnected to the side of the A500. Something definitely fishy going on here...

H.

[Huxley_D]

A good cleaning of that edge connector might help, but I would replace that drive asap, and avoid putting repetitious strain on the connector.  I know it's designed to be connected/disconnected, but you know, 30-year-old hardware and all...  

Totally agree, 100%. I've got some other SCSI drives (both internal and external) buried in my storage locker, but I'm a little nervous about replacing one 20+ year old drive for another 20+ year old drive. I think you mentioned one (rare, expensive) SCSI-to-CF adapter earlier - are there any others I should be looking for, possibly ones that won't require an organ sale to procure?

Alternately, I think I'll be buying one of the "kipper" adapters soon anyway, which might make it a moot point...