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Author Topic: Broadband solution for the amiga 500  (Read 4315 times)

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Offline bloodmoneyTopic starter

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Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« on: August 04, 2004, 06:16:12 PM »
I stumbled upon the following link and found there is a broadband solution for the C64!
Broadband C64
I can't believe this can exist and there is nothing for the Amiga 500. I have seen proprietary nic hardware for the Amiga 500 but nothing that gives a TCP/IP stack to connect to a router. Wasn't the Amiga 500 one of the best selling Amiga models? Why is there so little interest for its hardware when so many of my friends had the 500 versus other models? Just food for thought.
 

Offline x56h34

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2004, 06:20:48 PM »
Well, I haven't tried the C64 solutions, so I don't know how they work and how enjoyable ethernet on those is, however A500 would require at least an 030 CPU upgrade in order to qualify for something better than just plain text-access (e.g. surfing the net). For just networking, other solutions are available, I believe, but not through LAN.
 

Offline Effy

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #2 on: August 04, 2004, 07:40:32 PM »
And why not putting an normal regular off the shelf Xsurf ethernet card in the left side of the A500 ??? That way you have AND ethernet, AND a non-bootable IDE controller, AND a clockport !!!   :-)

Offline bloodmoneyTopic starter

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #3 on: August 04, 2004, 07:56:21 PM »
That would be great, but of course the 500 doesn’t have any Zorro slots that the xsurf requires. I’m sure it wouldn’t be that hard for the manufacture to make a left expansion slot version for the 500, but again this is a classic example were the A500 gets ignored. I don't understand why these companies don’t make  a 500 version,it just means extra money/sales for them.
 

Offline Orjan

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2004, 08:09:33 PM »

The side expansion slot of the A500 can be converted to one or more Zorro II slots... There are/were several solutions to this... On aminet you can find instructions to build an interface yourself to get a Zorro II slot.
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Offline redrumloa

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #5 on: August 04, 2004, 08:10:55 PM »
@bloodmoney

To be brutally honest, traditonally A500 users didn't upgrade their hardware. PERIOD. 1MB and maybe an extra floppy drive, that's it. There have been some hardware expansions made for the A500 in the past but they sold terribly.

Your best bet would be to find a Bogoda Bay, or maybe even a Slingshot.
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Offline Holley

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2004, 09:12:23 PM »
Used to see quite a few A530s back in the day ... one of those with a prometheus and riser with PCI 10/100 ethernet, graphics card and 3.1 roms would do nicely :-D
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Offline bloodmoneyTopic starter

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #7 on: August 04, 2004, 10:22:30 PM »
Interesting Holly.
I have an a530 turbo 40mhz. I see a 99-pin expansion connector that looks like a ribbon cable could hook up to it but no Zorro like slots for any card. If there was a way to connect this up, space wouldn’t be a problem, I would just build a case around whatever mess I end up with.
As far as slingshot or bodega bay goes, they are imposable to find. Note there was something once called a HI-Q tower once. I guess I will have to build a sling shot like device as mentioned earlier. It would just be nice if there were already a complete solution. As far as a market for this I feel many people like me bought there A500 10 or more years ago when they were young and poor, as we grow older and more financialy successful, we now have funds for hardware we couldn't buy in the past. I know this would be a niche for the enthusiasts market, but I bet there are more people than me that would be willing to pay money for "new" devices to expand the 500. I got my old cranky Mac se 30 hooked up to broadband and surfing the Internet with early browsers. There is no reason I see that this cant be done for the 500, a much more capable machine. So come on developers, tap into this undiscovered resource. If the C64 can do it than the might Amiga 500 can do it. YOU CAN DO IT. lol.
 :-D
 

Offline Wol

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2004, 10:55:42 PM »
Hey Bloodmoney,

Have a look at this!

http://www.v4fun.net/Images/A500zorro.jpg

Get that soldering iron out, :hammer:


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Only after the last river has been poisoned,
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Offline bloodmoneyTopic starter

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #9 on: August 04, 2004, 11:27:07 PM »
Cool, good info Wol. Im having a little trouble reading the grey boxs on the left on the jpg. Is that from Amiga user international? Is that the whole artiicle?
Yea looks like I will be soldering. Thanks for the article, and thanks to all for the great info and ideas here.
 :-)
 

Offline Acill

Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #10 on: August 05, 2004, 01:16:53 AM »
I made one of them as a class project back in the day! Its real easy and worked great.
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Offline Argus

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #11 on: August 05, 2004, 03:01:11 AM »
I second the Bodega Bay idea.  I just spent a month putting the Bay's busboard in a custom tower with a Rev. 5 A500 a la Tom Week's T.O.P. project.  I also had a Denise Extender Board lying around so I added a video slot for a Microway flickerfixer.  So, after much work I have an 'A500T' with four ZII slots, one ECS video slot, 1MB chip/8MB fast ram but still the lowly/mighty? 7MHz 68000.  Works great for adding an A2091 SCSI card, memory, even ethernet but still no processor slot so you'd need to find a CSA MegaMidget or other 68000 slot accelerator to speed it up or go mad waiting for windows to open, etc.  Also, a 68020 is minimum for 3.5/3.9.  Be careful though, not all A500 accelerators that go in the 68000 slot will be compatible with the Bodega Bay.  I use this DIY project with a Multiface III card and dial-up (I don't mind waiting) and turn off image loading for web stuff and plan to add a MegaChip some time. My advice for A500 broadband: buy an old A2000 or better yet an A3000 instead and add one of Jen's excellent X-Surf cards.  I love the A500 but it's a bear to find stuff for it, imho.
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Offline redrumloa

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #12 on: August 05, 2004, 03:51:25 AM »
Quote
My advice for A500 broadband: buy an old A2000 or better yet an A3000 instead


I hate to say, but I'd have to agree. Funny though, back in the mid to late 90's I built up a beefy Amiga 500 and put it on the net. i was looking for more ways to beef it up, and many Amigans back then would tell me to simply buy an A3000 or A4000. Unfortunately back then (~10 years ago) the cost of doing so was staggering. Nowadays you can pick up an A3000 on eBay for about $100, less than the price of an A530 usually.

Well let me back up. Do what you'd like. If you wish to beef up the A500 and it's for the heck of it, go for it. I've been meaning to do this with an A1000 forever, I'll finally given up (lack of time). However if your ultimate goal is a modernish system without breaking the bank, A3000 would be the better bet.
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Offline bloodmoneyTopic starter

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #13 on: August 05, 2004, 04:05:25 AM »
@redrumloaa
My goal is to get my amiga 500 hundred on a broadband/network connection simply because I want to, and I like the challenge. The mac thing I mentioned earlier was a little bit of a challenge but I did it. I’m the kind of guy who would try to connect a Univac to broadband if I thought it was possible. I just like the coolness and geekdom involved.
 :insane:
 

Offline Lemmink

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Re: Broadband solution for the amiga 500
« Reply #14 on: August 05, 2004, 07:23:44 AM »
Well maybe an other approach that is a little difficult to set up (I don't know how to do it excactly too)
Try to get an A560 Arcnetadapter für the A500, and an A2060 Arcnetcard for a Zorroamiga. Put in that Zorroamiga an Ethernetboard too. Using MiamiDX it should be possible to rout the broadbandconnection of the Zorroamiga to the A500 via the arcnetconnection.
Not really interesting, but it`s there.
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