Looking for new hardware-A500

[Miked]

Are there any companies out there that will still build to order Amiga parts?  I've been doing google searches and it seems the only place to find hardware is Ebay.  I can't seem to find chips for my A500, accelerators,etc.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Miked

[Amiduffer]

Hi Miked.

If you go on Craigslist (SFBayarea) and type Amiga, a guy in San Francisco is selling 500/2000 chips

and CSA is still in business, selling A500 030 accelerators CSA accelerators somehow. Try them. I used their Derringer and Mega Midget Racer accelerators and had no problems. It's somewhat pricey, but, there's a warranty, which is pretty good these days.

[mr_a500]

I didn't know they were still in business. The 50Mhz 030 one looks nice. Too bad there's no IDE or ROM upgrade on the card.

[Miked]

Thanks for the help.  Do you know where I can get a good harddrive system for the A500? I remember Supra used to sell a "sidecar" but don't think they are still around.  (To run OS3.9, how much hard drive space do I need to have)

-Miked

[_ThEcRoW]

Definately nice that CSA is still making accelerators for the Amiga  :-o . A derringer could be a feasible upgrade for my 500 if i don't see a viper out there on ebay.

[TjLaZer]

Are you sure they are still offering them for sale?  On the site it says that Safe Harbor is selling them and I checked the site and could not find anything Amiga related.

[mr_a500]

To run OS3.9, how much hard drive space do I need to have

Believe me, you don't want to run 3.9 on an A500. See my explanation in this thread:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=22117

I managed to cram WB 3.1 and all the best patches and most useful utilities, Internet, Email, EaglePlayer, Songplayer, my best mods, PPaint, image display programs, and my 5 best Amiga games onto a 40Mb HD (that's Megabytes, not Gigabytes!) - still leaving around 10Mb free for internet cache and temp space! If I showed you a whole list of programs I had on the drive, it would take a whole page. I was amazed at how useful that little drive was.

I've got a 40Gb drive now, but I really only use 3Gb (and that's with 1Gb of music). The rest I use for multiple backups.

[Amiduffer]

TjLaZer wrote:
Are you sure they are still offering them for same?  On the site it says that Safe Harbor is selling them and I checked the site and could not find anything Amiga related.

Well, I'm curious as heck, personally. :kitty: Just because I haven't dealt with them in years, after I sold my Derringer. Their service wasn't too bad.

Monday, I think I'll give them a call, just to see what they have. You might have to order from the company.

[Miked]

Interesting..I tried to email the "contact info" on the CSA site and I got an email error saying that email address doesn't exist.  Anyone have a similar problem?

-Miked

[Miked]

Believe me, you don't want to run 3.9 on an A500



mrA,  I am assuming that you have an A500.  So basically what you are saying is that I should get 3.0 Roms and run WB3.1?  (or 3.1 Roms w/WB3.1)  Is this the optimal set up for an A500 (btw I dont even have the ECS yet.. my system is circa late 80s)


-Miked

[adolescent]

Safe Harbor hasn't sold anything Amiga related in years.  

It's probably just like GVP-M.  Their page is up, but the company is gone.  The 1-800 number says something like, "In the mood for some stimulating talk?  Call 1-800...".  

[AmiDude]

On the bottom of the home page is printed:
"Copyright © 1996- 1997 CSA."
I don't think they're in business anymore...:roll:
 

[mr_a500]

mrA, I am assuming that you have an A500. So basically what you are saying is that I should get 3.0 Roms and run WB3.1? (or 3.1 Roms w/WB3.1) Is this the optimal set up for an A500 (btw I dont even have the ECS yet.. my system is circa late 80s)

Yes, I'm using my A500 to type this. If you're buying a ROM, it's best to get 3.1 or if you've already got a 3.0 ROM there's no need to get 3.1. Either way, you can run WB 3.1. If you really want to run WB3.9, go ahead. I just found it worse than 3.1 in my own experience.

The main reason for ECS Agnus is for more Chip RAM. I think you can still run WB 3.1 on the original Agnus, but you will run out of display RAM much faster. You can easily run without the ECS Denise. ECS Denise only gives a couple super-high-res display modes (totally useless) and the ability to have the screen border black (which is nice). I ran WB3.1 with original Denise for a year - no problem. (but I'm still glad I got it for the nifty borders)

I think the Viper really is the best accelerator because it has the A1200 3.0 ROMs on the card. This alone makes my A500 run about twice as fast as having the 3.0 or 3.1 A500 ROM in the original ROM slot (can see it in speed tests). So if you get an accelerator that doesn't have ROMs on it, the ROM reading will be the bottleneck unless the card allows you to map it to Fast RAM (I think the Derringer does).

[Miked]

Ok, so I was talking to the guy from "craiglist' and he told me that the Amiga 500 cannot run 3.0/3.1 Roms and that the highest I could go was 2.04.  He also suggested that I would not be able to add 2meg chipram because the parts that I need to do this are very scarce (in other words - good luck)

It seems my project is going to be difficult if not impossible.  Maybe I'll just enjoy my 1 meg WB1.2 A500 for what its worth.  Finding parts for an A500 is like trying to find parts for a Delorean.

-Miked

[patrik]

@MikeD:

A stock A500 can use Workbench/Kickstart 3.1, but not 3.0.

You can buy the Kickstart 3.1 ROM here and the Workbench 3.1 disks here.


/Patrik