Just got my A500 and was about to fire it up for testing

[irishmike]

Hello:

I am a total newbie to Amiga and I have been waiting for over a week for this A500 to arrive.  It is here... no manual, not sure if the disk that was in the drive is a kickstart, etc.  never been inside one either.  

First things first, need to know where to plug the mouse in at.  There are two joystick ports and I may be wrong in assuming it is one of these, but I see no place to plug it in.  It has a box that hooks to the video port and gives me RGB RCA out for my monitor that I have... I have seen adapters, but I am not ready to take this step.

Need to get this bad machine up and running first.  Hard Drive?  is this external if it had one?  SOrry for all the questions, but this is my FIRST amiga :-)

SOmeone please help!  I can be IM'd on YIM jmikeneedham(at)sbcglobal(dot)net... or just pmail me.  I will wait online for a bit though.

Thanks for any and all help... an idea of how to use the AmigaOS would be nice too :-)

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Mike Needham
LOST in Shawnee, Kansas USA

[TjLaZer]

Yes the mouse plugs into one of the ports on the back.  (Back left) This model does not use a Kickstart disk.  Kickstart is in ROM.  Just hook it up to a TV using the onboard mono RCA Video port or the composite port on the external video modulator if you have it.  You will need a bootable workbench disk to use the OS.  Most Hard Drives for the 500 are side car external boxes.  There were some internal models made that could be mounted internally.  They used laptop IDE 2.5" hard drives, but these are rare and hard to come by.

[irishmike]

Thanks TjLaZer!

How do I know if it has one of these hard drives inside?  Is it going to be under the bottom port?  also I do have the modulator and I am not sure if the disk is that bootable workbench disk or not, the question becomes, do I have the disk in the drive at power up?  Thanks again.

[BoingBoss]

Hi irishmike,

If this is your first Amiga computer then you do have a lot to learn.  My advice is to get yourself an Amiga 500 Manual from eBay and study it.  Read a chapter every night before going to bed.  That is what I did years ago.  If you need any more help just let me know.  You can also Pmail me.    :-)

Enjoy your Amiga 500. It is a great computer.  Did you know that the Amiga 500 was Commodore's number one selling computer, even out-selling the famous Commodore 64!  The Amiga 500 was the most popular Amiga model, even more popular then the Amiga 2000 in America and the Amiga 1200 in Europe.  ENJOY IT !!!!    :-D

[kd7ota]

BoingBoss wrote:
.  Did you know that the Amiga 500 was Commodore's number one selling computer, even out-selling the famous Commodore 64!

The commodore 64 IS the number one selling computer. Even the Guiness book of world records says "Most successful Computer" the commodore 64 selling 30+million units of the brown commodore 64.


*If someoen objects, then i guess Guiness was lieing?*

Moderator Edit: Flame bait.  TheMagicM

[BoingBoss]

They were.  Read Amiga Format magazine sometime.

[HopperJF]

irishmike wrote:
Thanks TjLaZer!

How do I know if it has one of these hard drives inside?  Is it going to be under the bottom port?  also I do have the modulator and I am not sure if the disk is that bootable workbench disk or not, the question becomes, do I have the disk in the drive at power up?  Thanks again.

If there was a hard drive, it would be attached  on the left side of the Amiga

[BoingBoss]

Hi irishmike,

How do I know if it has one of these hard drives inside?

If an Amiga 500 has an internal 2.5" hard disk, it will be in the place of the disk drive (there will not be an internal disk drive).  People that have hard drives inside their Amiga 500 have to use an external DF0: disk drive.
 

[PhatBoiCollier]

Hey, anyone still got (or even remember) "My Very First" tutorial!?  :-P

Anyways, first thing to try (I guess you havent switched it on yet?) is to make sure there are no floppies in the drive and turn her on!  If shes alive and well, you should get a picture of a hand holding a disk (this will also tell you which version of kickstart you have).

Next thing is to make sure your floppy is write protected and just put it in the drive.  The Amigas poll the drive every couple of seconds (you should be able to hear it).  Once it detects you have put a disk in, it will try to boot from it right away.  There is no need to have the disk in before you turn it on.

Final job is to post on here and let us know how you got on and most importantly, whats on your mysterious disk!

Have fun... oh... and WELCOME TO AMIGA!!!

[irishmike]

Hi all:

Thanks for all the great advice.  I am proud to say that the "mystery disk" contains Workbench 1.3.3 :-)  The machine is alive and well and it does not yet have a hard drive, that is my next quest to find one of those illusive sidecars :-)

Have a great day and happy computing to you all... also I am seeking a C= monitor with cable to replace the 520 modulator on this box.

Again, thanks for all the support of a newbie!

Mike

[vpcs]

BoingBoss wrote:
Enjoy your Amiga 500. It is a great computer.  Did you know that the Amiga 500 was Commodore's number one selling computer, even out-selling the famous Commodore 64!  The Amiga 500 was the most popular Amiga model, even more popular then the Amiga 2000 in America and the Amiga 1200 in Europe.  ENJOY IT !!!!    :-D

If you take all Amiga models ever sold added them together the C=64 still outsold them  Sorry BingBoss Fact is Fact..

BTW when you worked for C= where did you get your training... Just courious being an exemployee myself...

[Martyn]

vpcs wrote:
BTW when you worked for C= where did you get your training... Just courious being an exemployee myself...

So who are you Mystery Greg?!

Not Berlin I take it?! :-o

[TheMagicM]

irishmike: I have a manual/book with a title like "Intro to the Amiga computer" or something... I can mail it to you for free if you want it?  PM me if you do.

-Alex

[irishmike]

A hearty thanks to all who have advised/helped me out on this one.  At least I know the machine boots.  Thanks to MagicM for the offer :-)

I am still looking for a sidecar and possible C= monitor for the a500... would like to get muli-color... also I am looking for the illusive A1 mobo and have made contacts... either the companies are VERY backlogged or the thing is not available yet?  

I did prep for it though, just bought an ATI Radeon 7000 AGP video card with 32MB ram since that seems to be the one sold in those systems :-)

Also, I have a decent Winblows setup that I would trade mobo for mobo if someone has one of these G4 a1 boards... the specs on my mobo are as follows:

AMD Athlon Xp 2800+
Kingston 512 PC3700 RAM (2 256 DIMM)
ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe Mainboard
ATX case up for grabs... inexpensive model but with blue cool cathode light inside (NO Powersupply)

The mainboard does in fact have the NFORCE 2 chipset on it, built in Gigabit Ethernet, SATA.

The whole system is exactly 2 months old.

pmail me if interested!

Thanks,

[TjLaZer]

@irishmike

Check eBay for a Commodore monitor.  Models like 1080, 1084, 1950, 1960, 2002 will work great.  I have a couple spares here myself.

Also the C64 is the best selling computer of all time.  The Amiga 500 never came close.  Though it was the best selling Amiga model.

If you want a HD just get a used 2000.  Might cost less than a sidecar drive for the 500.