Proud owner

[Lurch]

Will hopefully be receiving my A500 Plus and A590 HDD early next week. Have already purchase my null modem cable so I can transfer some files over to the HDD... so finally I have an Amiga with a HDD... lol a shame it's not an A4000... so hard to come by down here

[mfilos]

Congratulations!!!
I hope you'll enjoy your A500 as much as I enjoy my A600.
Wishing the best!

[Argus]

If you can find an internal 68030 card for the A500, you'll have yourself a pretty nippy machine for old games, etc.  Maybe a rom switcher too.

[Lurch]

Will be on the look out, havent seen anything locally along those lines.

Might have to look into getting a credit card, then I can start shopping on ebay

alittle off topic but an Amiga 500 plus comes with 1mb? So theres 2mb in the a590 so would have a total of 3mb? I also have a spare 512kb card so will be putting that in for the meantime.

also looking into wether I can get the a500 on the network using tcp/ip. I would have enough ram I guess, just needing a network card of some sort?

Maybe theres away of using the null modem cable like dialup networking on the PC?

I also guess I'd need to upgrade the ROM's to run OS3.x ? I have a copy of AmigaOS 3.5 but it's on cd, is there another way to install it? main issue is space, 20mb hdd isnt really going to be big enough. I'd have to look at upgrading that too

[InTheSand]

Hi Lurch,

I'm guessing from the address in your profile that you're in NZ? If so, welcome from another NZ Amiga user!

Which ROMs does your A500 come with? Is it Kickstart 1.x or 2.x? Realistically, in order to do anything semi-serious with an Amiga, you want to be running at least 2.x...

As far as ROMs go, you can either buy genuine 3.x ROMs from various online dealers, or you could consider buying the Amiga Forever DVD set (which gives you licences to all the ROMs) and soft-kicking Kickstart 3.1, at the expense of some of the Amiga's RAM. I have a 1.3-based A500 with hard drive that I use with a soft-kicked 3.1 ROM.

You're unlikely to find a network card for an A500, but you're right in thinking you can use a null modem cable to a PC.

Finally, upgrading the A590's hard drive should be easy - try TradeMe for 50-pin 1Gb SCSI drives and you should be able to get one for around $10!

 - Ali

[Tomas]

Which ROMs does your A500 come with?

The a500+ came with kickstart 2.x as default afaik.

[Lurch]

Yeah from NZ, hard to find any hardware down here thats for sure. Do you know of any local places selling Amiga gear? Theres a computer fair in Glenfield that I might go have a look at.

I see from your profile your from Nelson?

Comes with 2.x roms, what do I need to do to soft kick 3.1 roms?

My problem is I dont know if it comes with the a590 setup disk or workbench, will find out when it arrives I guess.
Could be fun trying to set it up with a new drive

I have a dead A1200 dont know whats wrong with it, possible to pinch roms from that?

Heading on over to trademe as we speak, thanks for the great info

Good to find another kiwi

[Lurch]

LOL just my luck no 50 pin scsi drives on Trademe, but will be keeping a lookout... thanks again

[Lurch]

Possible to use this drive?

http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/auction_detail.asp?id=44837080

Going by the model number it's 50pin. Might offer him $15

[Argus]

Just about any 50 pin scsi drive less than 4Gb in size will work with version 2.0 of the OS.  You are in luck even without the 590 install disk because 2.0 upwards versions have native support for scsi.device (which is the A590 scsi controller).  Just boot from the 'Install' disk of version 2.0 or later an open HDToolbox to format the drive.  You can do null modem networking with a PC with 2.04 roms but you might want to just throw in some 3.1 roms as all the better internet apps will need at least 3.0 of the OS.  You might be able to softboot into 3.1, though I've never been able to manage this from 2.04 roms and you'll need a 3.1 rom image anyway (which implies having the physical roms).

[Lurch]

Thanks for the info Argus, how do I tell if the roms are 2.04?

[InTheSand]

Hi Lurch,

Amiga hardware is definitely hard to find in NZ... Ah well, sometimes bits and pieces appear on TradeMe, but usually just basic A500s...

Yep, I'm from Nelson, but I'm a Pom really (don't hold that against me though!) - emigrated out here in March/April so still getting used to all things Kiwi! Brought several Amigas with me though: A1000, A500, A600, A1200, and then bought a stock A3000 since I've been over here, which I've recently expanded.

You can find the A590 setup disks here, assuming you've got some way of reading those into a real Amiga. If you haven't, give me a shout and I'll write them out on to real Amiga disks for the cost of the postage and a padded envelope.

Soft-kicking into 3.1 is relatively easy, assuming you have legal ROM images of an A500/A2000 3.1 ROM set. Search Aminet for the relevant software. I can't remember what I used on my A500... I'll dig it back out of its box and give you the configuration if you have no luck with the above.

 - Ali

P.S. 3.x ROMs from an A1200 won't work in an A500.