A500 HDD? How to do it?

[circlip]

Hi all,

now that I've got my Amiga 500 working again, I'm downloading and transferring ADF's across from the pc.

I was only wondering, what sort of Hard Disk would work with the A500, and how is it connected? I'm assuming it's SCSI, since it was the norm back in the day. Where do I connect it, do I need adapters?

Will an ebay pc scsi hdd do? How many Gb can I use?


Thanks

Circlip

[Tension]

Oh dear...

[countzero]

you'll need a a500 scsi board like the ones listed here. they're kind of rare and pricey. ebay is your best friend.

[circlip]

Hmmm.... rare. Not quite the word I was wanting to hear. I guess I'll stick to floppies for a while.

Thanks!

Circlip

[kidkoala]

your chances aren't as bad as these guys want it to be, if you stick with IDE it's not that rare and it won't cost you astronomous amounts of money (though everything in the amiga world costs bucks now a days).
links to these expansions follow under, it's an expansion that goes in the slot on the left of your 500. both the controller and the disk itself is inside that box (see links). note that i haven't checked the details of these auctions, examples only;

Amiga 500 Sidecar HDD controller
More of the same


or you could go for a top of the line accelerator;
E-matrix Accelerator for Amiga 500

gives you 50Mhz 030 cpu and a max. of 128Mb ram. And ofcourse three IDE-connectors.

ofcourse this IS rare and very expensive.


as for sizes you can use any standard IDE (non sata ofcourse) disk but I will recommend you to keep them small to avoid extra configuration and problems. Under 2GB.

[countzero]

kidkoala wrote:
your chances aren't as bad as these guys want it to be, if you stick with IDE it's not that rare and it won't cost you astronomous amounts of money (though everything in the amiga world costs bucks now a days).

DOH, what the hell are you talking about ? IDE add ons are actualy even more RARE since they are more sought after.

links to these expansions follow under, it's an expansion that goes in the slot on the left of your 500. both the controller and the disk itself is inside that box (see links).

the second link you gave is an A590 which is a SCSI controller (technically, it has an XT controller too, but it's useless).

besides, SCSI is a much better idea for a 68000 system, cause it incurs less cpu load.

[rkauer]

 Or do it yourself!

 There is a guide on Aminet to build your own IDE controller!

 Look for A500IDE.

 With a "plus": if you have a ROM (aka Kickstart) version 37350 or up, you will have autoboot!

[circlip]

I found a "Dataflyer Plus Zorro II SCSI controller" in Aussieland, where I am.

It says "Works in 1000 & 500 if you have an external box & connector. Supports small HD's"

It's $AUD 59, so not toooo expensive.

The DIY option would be nice, but I just don't have the skills for that.

[countzero]

that's a zorro board for a2000's. you need a a500 expansion slot converter to use that (which is also rare, and sometimes VERY EXPENSIVE

a500 is the most popular amiga ever was and every kind of expansion for it is sought after.

or you can get a cheap A600 mobo which is an a500 with built in IDE and PCMCIA and move on from there. However you'll find it much more difficult to upgrade than the a500 if you're thinking of an CPU upgrade (a chip ram upgrade is readily available at amigakit and vesalia for about 50$ and a DIY ram upgrade is in the works which wil give you 8 mb fast ram)

or you can get a cheap A1200 mobo and have all kinds of upgrades more readily available.

[kidkoala]

@countzero

don't agree, the 500 sidecar expansion pops up often and doesn't cost that much..you would ofcourse have to check ebay in several countries regularly until you find one that suits you and doesn't cost too much. (about my second link, like i said i didn't check details it was merely a "more of the same" link, i wanted to point out that sidecard expansions are on ebay a lot, for several systems.


as for cpu ide being cpu intensive, does it really matter, he's talking about using adf, meaning playing games i guess..why would you _need_ scsi to just play some games, the difference isn't that big in this context.
i love scsi myself, but i know when i don't need it.

and making his own scsi-card, come one, this guy seems like he doesn't want to pay or do a lot of stuff, he just want the simplest, easiest way to using adf's on a disk, and i think that's the sidecar expansion..

@circlip

btw here's another one of the sidecars,
Ebay UK sidecar
this one might be a little more expensive since it has onboard ram (4mb this one), the cheapest ones are those without ram ofcourse.
some extra ram will be good when classic gaming but a lot is not necessary.

since someone brought up the a600 that's a nice tip, will make you able to play ecs games (second generation chipset games), and you can very easily connect a 2.5" hdd or a CompactFlash-card, like he mentioned. it's also smaller than the 500.

[circlip]

@kidkoala, you're quite right, I do want the simplest method for using an HDD, and yes, I don't have much money to work with.

@countzero will an A600 mobo simply fit straight into an A500 case? What to do with an A1200 mobo? :-o Does it fit into a pc "tower" style case?

Thanks guys.....

Circlip

[kidkoala]

@circlip

A600 mobo is much smaller, don't think it fits directly, maybe countzero can answer that better.
i'd rather just buy a whole 600. they don't cost that much either if you search for the right one. i have one myself with fitted Compactflash card.

a 1200 is said to be the best choice for classic gaming/general amiga-fiddling by many:) it has the last generation chipset (aga) and is backwardscompatible with most old games
by using bios switches. and like countzero says it has a _lot_ of expansions easily available on ebay and elsewhere.
prices vary from very cheap to very expensive depending on what you are after i guess. it has an onboard ide-controller like the 600.

what you can do with it? aside from putting a disk in it for playing old games, you can put much more ram in it, you can put an accelerator in it (now we are beginning to talk more money), these range from low-end 68020 (?) to high-end PPC accelerators. this makes you able to use an amiga much like a more modern computer, with a more modern operating system (os 3.5, 3.9 or os4) but it's not really comparable, and when speaking of prices again it gets outrageous other than that there are numerous other expansions that do various things; network, internet, graphics cards, soundcards etc.

btw here's _another_ sidecar for the 500, this is also the 590 scsi-controller;
Ebay Italy sidecar

[countzero]

@kidkoala

making his own SCSI expansion ? when did I say that ? Why do you think I'm against sidecar expansions ? That's what I'm suggesting. But I claim IDE ones cost higher. SCSI sidecars are cheaper. Anyway, not that it really matters ...

That's a very nice GVP HD8+. But it's also a SCSI unit SCSI sidecar expansions by far out number IDE sidecars, that's why they're cheaper. Also, you'll see that this HD8+ won't go anything less than 60-70$ since it's a nice boxed unit. it may go well beyond 100$.

@circlip

a a600 motherboard is way smaller than a500 mother board. You can easily fit it, however you'll need to secure it somehow, as screwhole locations would probably be different. Another problem is the keyboard. You can't use the a500 keyboard directly. You'll need to make yourself an adapter which clips on the keyboard controller chip of a600. you'll need a pllc socket and do some soldering 8-)

a1200 mobo is also smaller than the a500 mobo. You can put it in a pc tower case but you'll have to a lot of hacking.

[countzero]

kidkoala wrote:

btw here's _another_ sidecar for the 500, this is also the 590 scsi-controller;
Ebay Italy sidecar

oh my god poor a590 ... somebody burned it ! this auction looks really fishy, I'ld never spend any money on it ... altavista translates :

"UNFORTUNATELY I DO NOT ARRANGE PIU' OF An AMIGA 500 NE' Of ITS LOCAL P0WER SOURCE IN SMARRITO HOW MUCH And I DO NOT HAVE The POSSIBILITA' TO TEST OF The OPERATION"

means, sold as is, a big gamble really.

[kidkoala]

@countzero

i commented on the scsi controller DIY because someone else mentioned it, wasn't you..

and like i said, i don't think he wants to solder and stuff he want the easy way to the solution. though i personally find modding/hacking fun to.

haha italians are always fishy aren't they? like i said my links are examples, buy it or leave it.

@circlip

there are also towers meant for the 1200 but now we are talking money again so i won't go into that.

i think your best options are get the cheapest sidecar you find for the 500 that seems like it's in ok shape, ide or scsi, doesn't matter hehe:)
and maybe get a little extra ram for it, also cheap (for the small upgrades at least).

or, get a whole 600 cheap and put a cheap 2.5" hdd or CF card in it. you can probably get the ram upgrade for the 600 used on ebay as well, might save you some dollars. i know i did..

here's all ebay country-links for you if you want to do some heavy searching i usually just check the biggest countries.. amiga.com does _not_ cover all countries or even all items in the biggest countries.
Ebay country links

@thread

btw if he goes for the hhd in 500 solution, don't he need the 2.05 or 3.1 rom upgrade as well? 1.3 doesn't support hdd? that's not expensive anyway..