Greetings, Amigans

[davide405]

My Amiga 500 has been sitting in a box for over 2 years.  I realize that on this board, that is tantamount to confessing to child abuse, but it doesn't seem to have suffered any harm.

I unpacked the beast, booted up Lemmings and remembered how much fun I used to have with it; not just with applications, but also tinkering with the configurations and so forth.

I have conceived an ambition to connect it to the internet :-o , so I have joined this fine board in order to learn more about how that might be accomplished.

In advance, I thank you for your support :-D

[Tomas]

Welcome to amiga.org  :-D

I dont know much about how to fix internet on the old a500, but i am sure someone else here will help you.

[davide405]

Thank you for the welcome, sir. :-)

I can be patient in following my quest 8-)

[Darklight]

I'll add my welcome to the thread as well  :-)
Welcome to Amiga.org  :-D

The A500 is a great machine, I still have mine, and the majority of software I have is OCS games, like Lemmings   :lol:

As far as going online with an Amiga 500.....you're braver than I am  :-P You should be able to get text browsing (ALynx, I believe) working well on there, and TCP/IP connection with your PC to share files should be alright, but you'll need a hard drive (unless ALynx works from disk :-?), at least 2mb of ram, and probably something more recent than Workbench 1.3 - I don't know if there's software for 1.3, or whether you'll need 2.0  
All in all, it's a fairly ambitious project   :-)  I haven't tried it on my A1200 yet, but I'd say anything but text browsing would be fairly painful.  Give it a go though, and let us know how it goes   :-D

[davide405]

Thank you for the welcome :-)

I do have a harddrive, and a whopping 8 meg (or so) of RAM.

I have switchable ROM for 1.3 and 2.1, but I've had trouble with the disk for the 2.1 OS :-(

Ah well...

Win, lose, or draw, it will be an interesting project.

[Azryl]

G'day and Welcome,

If you wish to connect an A500 to the NET, a few major issues need to be overcome. Physical connection thru a LAN is difficult at best with the A500, most of them use the 86pin side expansion slot, which will stop you using harddrives and other storage media which uses this slot.

Next is processing power, you WILL need more cpu power, preferably 68020 or 68030 if your budget allows. You can look on ebay for a GVP A530, which is harddrive and accelerator combination that works extremely well. Otherwise a cpu replacement board for the inside of the A500 works well. Some of these also add true FAST RAM. You will need at least 4 meg of FAST RAM to successfully surf the NET.

Next is the Kickstart ROM installed inside your machine. Most if not all Amiga Web Browsers need Kickstart 3.1 which is still on sale from most Amiga resellers.

One of the limitation that you cannot overcome if you intend to surf Web Pages is the amount of available colours your A500 can display at high resolution. 16 colours is the most you can expect the nearly 20years old hardware to display.

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=906

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=908

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=919

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=903

There was available a networking solution that used the external floppy drive connector to talk with another amiga but I cant find much information on that product at the moment.

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=899

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=898

Az

[Darklight]

@ Azryl

That's true, I didn't think of the physical problem with networking it.  :-o  Is it possible to somehow pass through a network connection through the parallel cable (similar to parnet)?  Obviously the serial port is too slow.    :-(

@ davide405

Perhaps a better solution to getting an Amiga on the net would be to try and get a hold of a cheap A600.  Obviously, you're not going to get stellar results, especially from the built in 68000, but it's got Kickstart 2.0, as well as an IDE controller, so you can add a cheap HD, and a PCMCIA (16 bit) slot, so you can add an 11 mbps 802.11b Wi-Fi card and go wireless, as well as ECS graphics instead of the OCS ones of the A500.  LOL, it's just hard to get expansions for it.
 
I guess part of the idea of getting the A500 on the net is the challenge  :lol:  Good luck with it though.

[Argus]

The problem with the A500 is the speed you can achieve through the native serial port with the standard 68000.  And a 3.1 ROM is a minimum for graphical web browsing.  Try adding a VXL030 or CSA Derringer 68030 board in the 68000 slot to speed up cpu cycles.  These shouldn't interfere with the sidecar hardrive you may have, but check before you buy (stay away from MTec products, they interfere with DMA).

As far as the serial port goes, Individual Computers made a small amount of adaptors boards that fit in the 68000 cpu slot and add two a1200 style clockports.  You can add a Silversurfer clockport fast serial card on one of these clockports (also from Individual) to give real fast serial access via modem.  The clock port board may or may not be compatible with the accelerator.  I have one and a VXL030 too but haven't tested them together yet.  Of course, it is also possible to add a Subway USB adaptor to one of the clockports but I don't know if the drivers support it.

The most elegant solution is to add a real ZII busboard onto the side expansion port and use a ZII ethernet card to go broadband, but these are very hard to find and in that case an old A2000 would be a much cheaper way to go.

Oh, and don't forget that the Amiga native chipset uses chipmem to display images, so you're going to want to add a 2MB Agnus upgrade board (MegaChip or similar) or a graphics card (ZII only)...another reason to go right to an A2000.

[davide405]

Thank you!  That is a wealth of information :-D

I look forward to a pleasant hour or so just exploring the links 8-)

[davide405]

I have considered moving up :-P from the A500...

Judging from what's available on eBay, that might be a more practical solution, but...

As you observed, part of this exercise involves tilting at windmills :lol:

[davide405]

Thank you for the several specific suggestions and warnings. :-)

I have the "Fatter Agnus" chip on board (I'm fairly sure) for a full meg of chip RAM, but that would seem to be only half enough...

The quest continues 8-)

[davide405]

Is it possible to shoe-horn 3.1 ROM chips (there are two of them, aren't there?) into an A500?

[AmigaFreak]

I can get my A500 online using my modem and this disk called "Online" I could copy it for you and send it to you IF you have a modem for the A500 and you also have to find a service one called Grex is good, but its somewhere on the east coast and is long distance for all of us but the locals

[Darklight]

Yes, it is possible to add 3.1 roms to an A500.  There are specifically designed 3.1 roms that fit the A500, A600 & A2000.  These come up on eBay from time to time, but you'd probably find them elsewhere.

[AmigaFreak]

trying it myself on my A500 with a local service here