Commodore A500 and A570!

[TjLaZer]

Since the forum lost recent posts, I'd thought I'd repost!  Got a A500 Rev 6A with PS for free last week!  Then on the way home I stopped by the local goodwill in Seattle and found a lonely Commodore A570 CD-ROM drive!  

Woot!  :banana:

After hooking everything up I was pleased to find out the A500 and drive work, but no CDTV games would work.  I discovered that the A570 needs 1MB Chip RAM to work, so I did the 1MB Chip mod on my A500 and it now works great!  Pretty cool playing CDTV games on this A500!  Now I need to find a 2-4MB RAM card to install in the A500.  I also want to install a Novia and AdIDE kit that I have, but holding off until I get the extra RAM.

http://www.vintagecomputercafe.com/mycomputers/A500&A570_1.jpg
http://www.vintagecomputercafe.com/mycomputers/A500&A570_2.jpg
http://www.vintagecomputercafe.com/mycomputers/A570.jpg
http://www.vintagecomputercafe.com/mycomputers/A570_2.jpg

[adolescent]

Try to get the SCSI card for the A570.  Maybe Amitrix still has some around.

[doctorq]

By reading this post the last time it was up, I found out that I most likely have the prototype at home (called A690). The information was on one of the links given.

Now I just need to get the thing plugged in to test. A normal A500 PSU would be enough, or do I suffer from read errors in memory?

Ram shouldn't be a problem since I have 3 or 4 MB installed on my ram card, and I can switch between 0.5 MB chip and 1 MB chip.

I actually think I have an extra ram expansion that can hold more than 0.5 MB, but I think it's broken

[TjLaZer]

Whats the SCSI card called for it?

[melott]

Go to the Amitrix site, they make a model for the A570
and one for the CDTV. I don't remember the exact name
but its easy to find on their site. I beleave they still
have the A570 SCSI adaptor available.
The abaptor works great, I had one on my A500 system.
I've since sold the whole system.
The adaptor will except a 2 1/2" harddrive mounted on
it or use the SCSI pass-thru for external drives.
My adaptor only excepted 2 1/2" SCSI drives internally
which are/were very expensive so I only had the SCSI
pass-thru connected to a SCSI tower box.
I ran my BBS on it.
It makes a nice system.
 

[TjLaZer]

I went to the site, it's on there, but I wonder if it is still avail?  I wish there was a RAM expansion option for it, as I have a AdIDE and Novia I want to install but need more RAM.  Nice add-on though.

[jjans]

Good for you! 8-)

Out of curiosity, which CDTV games are you playing?

[Tahoe]

Whoa! Fantastic find! The whole set looks brandspanking new!!

BTW: There is another SCSI controller; looks smaller:
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/falcon570.html

[TjLaZer]

@jjans

Well all CDTV games seem to work fine.  But no CD32 CDs work.  I tried Wrath of the Demon, Lemmings, Xenon 2, and Defender of the Crown II so far!  I need to get more CDs...

[jjans]

Interesting. I seem to remember somewhere in my ASimCDFS DIR, there being a Simboot program that supposedly emulates booting from CD32 CD's, and allows running of CDTV Games as well.

Not having any of these CD's, I never gave it a try. I think I will now after reading your post.

[Argus]

@jjans

About AsimCDFS and those CDTV and CD32 emulations.  The CDTV one works pretty good on a standard A2000.  I think the problems lie in running some of these games on expanded machines.  I seem to remember CDTV games not liking an accelerator (A2630) machine.  I tried a little while ago to get Worms CD32 version to run on my A4000/060.  I got to the intro screen a couple times but then everything froze.  My experimentation leads me to believe Asimboot probably works best on 68000 OCS/ECS machines for CDTV titles and on unexpanded 68020 A1200 machines for CD32 titles.

[melott]

TjLaZer wrote:
I went to the site, it's on there, but I wonder if it is still avail?  I wish there was a RAM expansion option for it, as I have a AdIDE and Novia I want to install but need more RAM.  Nice add-on though.

Well .. on my system I had a SupraRam expander (8 megs)
and a SupraTurbo 28mhz accelerator sandwitched between
the A500 and the A570 CD Rom. They're great (no problems).

If you can find a SupraRam expander that would be the
way to go.

[jjans]

Argus wrote:
@jjans

About AsimCDFS and those CDTV and CD32 emulations.  ...

My experimentation leads me to believe Asimboot probably works best on 68000 OCS/ECS machines for CDTV titles and on unexpanded 68020 A1200 machines for CD32 titles.

Thanks for the info Argus!