Mods/Hacks: Who's done what?

[LP]

hmm.. let's see I can't do anything with wires nor electric circuts without breaking something.. but I did manage to build a tower for my 1200...

I had a medium sized PC tower lying around, so I started to cut the alu on the back out, cutted a wooden board for stabilization of the motherboard, cutted a stick and screw some screws in it to hold up my mediator, my soundcard and my ethernet.. a bit dodgey but works quite well

[Stedy]

My little list of things:

PC PS/2 keyboard to Amiga adaptor, for my CD32 and my A1200.

I built a simple IDE expander, it was a little unreliable though, so I bought IDE Fix and all works well.

I've done the A1200 timing fixes on 2 motherboards.

I built a sound sampler 10 years ago, worked kinda crap due to taking too much power from the parallel port, oh and {bleep} loads of cross talk/mixing analogue & digital grounds.

I towered my CD32/SX32 once. Blew up the keyboard port doing it though. Due to problems with the video interface, this did not last too long though ;(

Adapted an ATX PSU to power my Amiga and built a plug-in adaptor.

Built a teletext decoder from the design on Aminet, it still works!

Designed a 24 bit I/O card for the Parallel port. It worked OK, shame I lost the Amiga S/W in a hard drive crash. Also re-designed a variant for the clockport. Both had PCBs built.

Built an Audio mixer, 2 x line level and 2 x amplified inputs.

Tried to make a PC HD floppy work in my Amiga but no success.

Blew up a CD32 trying to increase the video brightness, damn current mode DACs!

Replaced the capacitors on my A600 that cause the audio to fail. Replaced the PSU capacitors on the CD32 that are inserted backwards.

Currently in the CAD tool (I don't have a drawing board ) are a clockport adaptor and a scandoubler. Towards the end of this year by the time they are ready.

I've also built a few PIC and EPROM programmers from Aminet designs, all worked OK.

I think that's about it.

[Azryl]

Limited hacking

A500rev6a 1meg chip ram installation on mobo
A500Rev5 1meg chip ram hack

Lots of A2000 lithium battery modifications, a few A501 mods as well

A2000 Internal cd-rom to native amiga audio connections (only half volume? need a amplifier in there somewhere) but allowed 1084s to output cd music :-)

A3000 apart ready for lithium battery hack and a Int2 fix
(waiting on new custom chips to arrive)

AdIde floppy LED hack for HD access.. works well

Lots of rewired floppy cables to allow 1.44 IBM floppy drives to work in 19inch rack mounted a1200's (approx 600 of those all around Australia and parts Asia)

I wanna build a Ethernet controller for zorro slots!
(researching at the moment on how best to acheive this)

oh.. and a failed 14mhz a500 accelerator hack..  smelled bad! :-)

Az

[clockmstr]

I've done a few, here goes...

A1000:
1Mb internal RAM hack
Kickstart ROM hack
PAL grounding hack

A500:
Onboard memory expansion by population existing slots on rev 6.x boards.
512k chip/fastRAM switch mod
Fatter Agnus upgrades on earlier boards.
Homemade IDE interface (2 working prototypes see images section)
14Mhz accelerator project including using square 68000 from A600
68010 upgrades
A1000 to A500 keyboard hack including mounting A500/GVP HD8+ board,HDD, CD-ROM and floppy drive to bottom of desk for zero footprint computing also using AT PSU.

A520:
Hacked VGA out

A1200:
PCMCIA reset hack

A2000:
Added full size AT slots and used AT backplane 386 (*see below) plus expansions like CD-ROM and HDD and used PC2Amiga software to access them from the Amiga side, all within the same box.

Supraturbo 28 for A2000:
Overclocked from 28MHz to 40MHz

A2088:
Overclocking hack

*286 backplane CPU card:
Upgraded with 386SX CPU

Many more PC and other C= equipment hacks/repairs/mods that I've deliberately left out or forgotten.

[SHADES]

Lots and lots of things.
1 MB hacks for 500s
CIA hacks and switching for internal drive to external dire booting, clock port hacks, CPU hacks 68010 to 14 Mhz. IDE Interfaces scan doublers, genlocks, repairs to sm devices, full A2000 chip replacement, A4000 chip replacement, track repairs to people doing own hacks and removing or breaking tracks etc....

Mind you I used to repair AMIGAs as a tech so that's probably why lol
Just finised refurbishing 2 A4000 MB from leaking caps and batteries. Nasty! I also hate thos flimsy angled SIMM sockets, so those go too lol.
Actually one of my most favourite hacks was on the PC using a resistor chain matrix on the Paralell port to make a real grubby D/A converter. I was sick of people saying PCs couldn't do sound like AMIGAs so I went out to prove them wrong. Mind you it was mono only, cost me ohh round $5 to make and then set in potting mixture. Sold lots of those lol.

Oh, but I got a friend who studied with me and he's the man responsible for designing and making working prototypes for the first AMIGA MFM interface. Did quite well actually!! I had one myself! He also changed it slightly later to work with RLL drives. Now we have IDE so I guess it's not much use. He's bloody smart though


Things I have fried.......

Hmm where do I start lol
PS1, PS2s, AMIGA4000 internal tracks (too much power from regulator) speakers, most costly bad bad by me was a 10k server. I didn't unplug it from mains while soldering in new component and standby power zapped it good. hehehehhehe!!

[adonay]

Dont know if this actually qulify as hacks but here goes.
450watt ATX built into plastic suitcase and power outlet cable for my 1200.

AMIGA1200D Current project! watercooled(peltier"TEC" 8watts on Bvision,blizzard ppc and 68k) quddddro port clockport usb and delfina sound internal slimline cd and microslimline LS120 Ide controller 1,8"+2,5" internal hds.the real hack here is to fit everything into the amiga1200 descktop + an custom keyboard.

it will all fit and also have a custom keyboard that will give better room inside..

adonay   :-D

[Doobrey]

Yonks ago I did a DIY tower for my A1200, dropped the motherboard several times, soldered on an AT PSU header on flying leads for power, then dropped the whole case.. still fired up OK.

 Timing and PCMCIA fixes to both A1200`s, where  I learned not to catch a soldering iron if you drop it :pissed:
 
 Built the multimedia keyboard adapter gizmo on aminet, and the PS2 mouse adapter to go with it.

 4x20 LCD on the serial port using an off the shelf adapter.

 Replaced the battery in my A4000 on flying leads, so it won`t ever leak on the mobo.
 
 Parallel port mp3 player using a VS1001.. just a testbed for a clockport version.

 A1200 1Mb flashrom, currently hacking away to try and get it to cold boot from a CD !

[delshay]

first project: fitted a 25+25w amp into power supply..NOTE: this is a good place as the amp is kept cool by the fan..

now use a car amp with my a1200..

built own clockport riser..

mod on blizzppc.. now take any 72pin simm..

mod on simms now have akasa heatsink.

blizzppc powered direct from power supply to processor 3.3v
same to bvision...controled by antec truecontrol..

mod on ide cable ( internal a1200 ) about 1 to 1.5 cm long..


pcmcia access led..

a1200 sound direct to prelude ( can be switch out controled by two micro solernods..



a1200 trapdoor changed to metal..can be used as heatsink..

pcmcia reset fix..

[Generale]

Wow. So many amazing things!!

Its interesting to see what has and hasn't been working for people. Looks like the floppy mod has the highest failure rate.

Oh yeah, I posted 2 more pics of my version of a500ide last night. here
and here

Keep them coming!

I think its good for the community as a whole knowing what has been done, and what peoples experiences are!

[Plaz]

So many mods an hacks, so little time to remenis.
You have inspired me to drag out one last time
the amazing TS-500. My first 500 back in 1988 that
I hacked into a desktop unix case, added HD, memory
accelerator, powersupply, tethered keyboard, 2megchip
memory ... I'll post some pictures this weekend if
work and spare time allow. Hard core modsters might
get a kick. It took about 3 weeks to do back in the day
when a similar A2000 cost 3 times as much. I wonder if
it will still boot up?

Plaz

[Plaz]

@lorddef

3 - killed an a600 by tinkering too much

Can I have it? Not much left I'm sure :-)

Plaz

[metalman]

PhilMoore wrote:
I took my working A1000, and tried to hardwire a kickstart 1.3 ROM to the CPU (following instructions I found on Aminet).

That A1000 does not work after that...   I had to buy another one off Ebay.  I won't be trying that again!

I did that hack to my A1000 (in about 1988??), removed the daughterboard, new PAL's chips and kickstart 2.1 rom installed on motherboard, spirit board expansion card, 68010 cpu swap, Microforge HD expansion

Worked great, gave it to my sister when I got my A3000 in about 1992??

Its now back in its origional box, next to all the other amiga "collectables" I've aquired

[Generale]

I wish I had some of the hardware described here. Lacking in funds, all I can do is mangle my a500. If only there was a hack I could do that involves a slab of 1541-IIs or ancient x86 hardware to make it do something cool. I have a nice collection of both.

Accelerators/expansions are cool. Especially homebrew ones. They can be so unique and scary.

...Yay! I won an ebay auction for $1!! A nice chunk of accessories for my palm m500. hehe. Not related but cool anyway (for me)

[coldfish]

I forgot some:

-I hacked an A500 into an arcade machine, wired up to JAMMA connector so I could play Rodland, RuffnTumble and Speedball (+ others) in true arcade style.

-Built many a Joystick including one that had its own amp and speakers.

...umm, what else???

[Generale]

I was considering doing that to one of the a500s funnily enough. I have a great jamma cabinet in the loungeroom. Its a 2 player woodgrain jobbie. It was streetfighter 2 champion edition, but the board got cooked.

[Ronmor]

Two weeks ago I had a 4000 mobo that booted up but only showed 2 megs of memory, but had all the memory sticks installed.
So I repaired all the traces that was damaged by the leaking NiCa battery, and installed a Lithium coin case and battery from a HP mobo. Eveything working fine even the clock which wasn't working before.

 ps. I have 2 other 4000 mobo that need repaired but need Rom chips. So if there is someone who has up graded to 3.1 roms but wants to sale the old 3.0 roms let me know.