Looking for new hardware-A500

[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

[mr_a500]

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

What? Why not 3.0?

MikeD wrote:
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)

I think they still have Mini Megi (2Mb chip for A500) at Softhut.

They're not scarce, just bloody expensive.

[patrik]

What? Why not 3.0?

Simply because there was no Kickstart 3.0 ROM-chip made for the A500.

The only way to get 3.0 on an A500 is to softkick or use a Viper card, but the latter doesnt count as a stock A500.


Btw, to "hide" links, type for example (without spaces before and after the [ and ] characters):
[ url=http://www.aminet.net ]amystuffhere[ /url ]

Which without the spaces would look like this:
amystuffhere


/Patrik

[mr_a500]

Ah ha. That's what I suspected.

Edit: Thanks for the url tip :-)

[Methuselas]

If I could find an a500 with a derringer, I'd be a happy man. That's all I would need to satisfy my Amiga craving. I like emulators, but I want the real thing and I want to be able to play all the old games, the old way.

I bought a 2000 that had a derringer in it, so I threw it in my 500, with 32MBs of ram. It was blazing fast. I can honestly say, getting rid of that derringer was the worst thing I've ever done.

I wish I still had it.  :-(

[Miked]

I think they still have Mini Megi (2Mb chip for A500) at Softhut.

They're not scarce, just bloody expensive


So, I contacted Softhut, and except for a few remaining Roms they have nothing for the A500.  The person was nice and did suggest I purchase an A4000 desktop unit.  Maybe this is the way to go as it seems everywhere I turn I hit a brick wall.

-Miked

[cpfuture]

Hi Miked,

I too am trying to increase the specs of my A500. It's a tough job, because parts aren't as readily available as they are for the A1200. CSA's site seems out of business for years. I also had my mail bounce a couple of days ago.

A500 accelerators are pretty hard to come by and when you do find them, they can get pretty expensive, but don't give up!! My advice is to keep checking eBay, or better yet, set it up that way to have eBay mail you as soon as an auction matching the terms amiga and accelerator pops up. Most will be for the A1200, but just yesterday an auction for an A500/A2000 Harm Professional Turbo board ended on eBay (from a Danish seller I believe), which didn't sell, because the 70UKP reserve was not met. (Find it here: http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-030-accelerator-for-Amiga-500-2000-RARE_W0QQitemZ8800924661QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWD2VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem )

It's just 14 Mhz so a bit on the light side and didn't justify the 70UKP asking price IMO. The holy grail of A500 expansion (GVP A530, at least IMO) did sell a short while ago for 465 US$ !! *gulp*

http://cgi.ebay.com/GVP-A530-Turbo-68030-Accelerator-for-Amiga-500_W0QQitemZ8794216318QQcategoryZ4598QQssPageNameZWD2VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I was in luck and managed to find a local Dutch seller on a fleamarket site, also selling a Harms Professional Turbo 030 with CPU + FPU, but this one clocked at 25 MHz IIRC and I bought it for 100 euros. I'd have liked a faster accelerator, but this one will do for the moment!!! I just had to snag it away before someone else did :-) I got this one:

http://amiga.resource.cx/photos/photo.pl?id=professional530plus

I also managed to buy an A590 harddisk controller + 100MB SCSI disk for about 50 euros I believe.

What it all boils down to is having patience. A500 stuff like harddisks and accelerators (especially accelerators) are scarce, but they do pop up on eBay and other secondhand goods sites every so often. I'd also advise you to bone up on the brands of hardware available for the A500 on Amiga hardware sites like http://www.amiga-hardware.com/. They even have a section on A500 accelerators. Sometimes sellers only put the product name in the product description, which might make you miss the listing. E.g. I only found the Harms Professional 030 after searching for that name on a local auction site. Just looking for "Amiga accelerator" would not have found this product.

Hope these tips were helpful. Sure, I could get an A1200 or even an A4000, but it's the A500 with 1.3 Kickstart that I grew up with all those years ago, so I'm sticking with it! I love that machine! :-)

[mr_a500]

MikeD:

So, Softhut finally cleared out eh? They had lots of A500 stuff when I upgraded in 2002 and I thought they would still have lots left because they're so damn expensive and never lower their prices.

I hate companies that don't alter their websites to remove stuff they no longer sell. Before finding Softhut in 2002, I "added to shopping cart" lots of items on many sites (even entered credit card info!) and later found the companies actually haven't sold Amiga stuff for 8 years or more.

I eventually found my Viper 520 card in Australia - probably becuause they didn't call it a Viper and people searching wouldn't have been able to find it. Unfortunately, they went out of business in 2004. So, it seems that there are finally no companies left selling A500 upgrades.

I suggest you leave your A500 as it is and buy a new A1200 from Amigakit (I'm getting one!). Expanding an A1200 should be much easier and you'll have a much more powerful Amiga than you would have had with an A500.

[Amiduffer]

adolescent wrote:
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...".  

Yep, the CSA phone # is disconnected. How sad. :-(  Sorry for misleading you.

I bet there's a warehouse somewhere that's got a bunch of the old Derringers stashed away.

How long do these websites stay up anyway?

[SamuraiCrow]

Miked wrote:
I think they still have Mini Megi (2Mb chip for A500) at Softhut.

They're not scarce, just bloody expensive


So, I contacted Softhut, and except for a few remaining Roms they have nothing for the A500.  The person was nice and did suggest I purchase an A4000 desktop unit.  Maybe this is the way to go as it seems everywhere I turn I hit a brick wall.

-Miked

An Amiga 1200 is generally more cost effective than an A4000 although it is easier to get a graphics card for an A4000.  Either the A1200 or A4000 will be more cost effective than upgrading an A500.

The best part about the A500 is the number of older games that will run on it that would require some hackish HD installer such as WHDLoad to get it to work on the A1200/4000.

Rumor has it that the A3000/4000 version of the PowerVixxen accelerator card will come out before the A1200 version.  These new cards will come bundled with AmigaOS 4.0 and will run older software through emulation using a JIT compiler on the PowerPC processor.

It is doubtful that there will ever be a PowerPC-based accelerator card for the A500/2000 since these were 16-bit systems.

In short, an A1200 or A4000 would be a good investment compared to upgrading your A500.