My A500+ Project

[sim085]

Hi,

I decided I need a strategy in order to get my A500+ back to its past glory My end goal is to be able not only to do the same things I used to do with my A500+ when I still was in my teens but also to be able to browse the Internet on it (not sure if possible)! Obviously I’ll need to do some hardware shopping and this is why I need a buying strategy. I already did some research and decided to put all my questions in a single post rather than in multiple posts which do not provide enough background on my goal! Also this would help other people who have similar goals

So to start with I will give my current A500+ specifications:

Processor:   68000@7.14Mhz
Chipset:   ECS
Kickstart:   V2.04
MMU:      none
FPU:      none

(I do not know the exact motherboard revision but I can open it and see if it is available on the inside. Should you need any more information just ask me and I’ll try to get it)

Following are all the hardware upgrades I have considered so far. Please do not hesitate to inform me should I have forgotten any hardware upgrade I could need.

Internals:
On these forums I found out about a person who successfully browses the internet from his A500 (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=1192=7). However in his A500 specification I can see he has the Processor 68030 w/68881 FPU, Kickstart version 40.63 and Workbench OS 3.5. Now as much as I know with my current specifications I can only install up to Workbench OS 2.x! So will I need to upgrade my Processor and Kickstart? If so how can I do this? And is there anything better than those specifications for the A500+? The only worries I have with such internal upgrades are that I feel my A500+ would no longer be an A500+! However if that is the only way forward then I am happy to try it out Also should I consider upgrading my RAM/Fast RAM?

Hard Drive
I used to have a Grand Slam hard drive once but this one no longer works. I am not sure if I should go for the Comodore A590 hard drive or one of the GVP hard drives. Personally I would like to have an all Comodore A500+ but from what I can find on the internet it seems that the GVP hard drives are just better – they also suite better (in design) to the A500 but am not sure if this is also true for the A500+! I also read somewhere that the A590 hard drive cannot be daisy chained with other peripherals while the GVP hard drives can! Is this true? Anyways what would you people pick?

Modem
Personally I think this would require a whole post for itself since like that it would help better people with this same goal. So the question here is not exactly how to connect my A500+ to the internet but rather if there is anything (hardware wise) which I have missed out in this post which is essential to connect my A500+ to the internet.

To conclude I would like to thank anyone who has read till here. I am sorry for the long post but did not know a better way how I could communicate all this. Personally I would like to keep my A500+ as close to the original specifications as possible but understand that this could be hard. Thanks to everyone for any the comments

Regards,
Sim085

[carls]

Hi! Quite a fun idea for a HW project :-)

You can install AmigaOS 3.1 ROMs in your A500+. I don't know what hardware requirements OS 3.5 and up has, but Workbench 3.1 should run fine and provide you with a current enough environment to run a TCP/IP stack and most web browsers available on Classic Amigas today.

As for the hard drive, if you can find a GVP A530 this would probably be your best shot. It's an external (sidecar) hard drive AND accelerator in one, with a 68030 CPU at 40MHz and fast-RAM.

If you're using dial-up, any old serial modem should do. You could also use a null modem cable connected to a PC, Mac or another Amiga connected to the internet and use that computer as a gateway. I don't know of any NICs for the A500+, but if there is one, I'm sure someone here knows about it.

Good luck!

[sim085]

Thanks for your reply I did a quick search on the internet to see if I can find any GVP A530 for sale but seems to be really hard to find one! It is nice to hear that I can just upgrade my Kickstart without replacing any ROM chip. I will do a quick search on the internet to see how this can be done.

[HyAmi]

Indeed a nice project. I've considered it myself but I ended up with some A4000's.

Anyway, if you want to browse I would recommend to install a 030 accelerator. As mentioned by Carls, a GVP A530 is a nice option. If you're lucky, you might find a Derringer which can hold up to 32Mb fast ram.

There are some NICs for an A500(+) in a sidecar expansion box but they've got two downsides.
- no passthrough for other devices so an external device like a HD sidecar will be difficult to find. So if you'd choose this option and you can't find an external HD with passthrough, you'll have to find an internal HD controller and an internal accelerator.
- very hard to find (I know as the two I sold were the only ones I've ever seen for sale in a very long time)

Another option is the RR-Net network device (from Individual Computers) that connects to a clockport. It would require a clockport adapter and according to Jens Schoenfeld it would be really slow. I don't know if the drivers for the Amiga exist.

And imho you should definately get a 3.1 kickrom.

[sim085]

HyAmi wrote:
And imho you should definately get a 3.1 kickrom.

From the little research I did on upgrading to Kickstart 3.1 it seems that I need to buy new ROM. Is this so? If yes then which is the place to buy such ROM chips? (I found some already but not sure which one is best).

[A1260]

take a look here and drool over amiga hw's, that you can use for your project...

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/

some of the stuff you find here usually show up on evilbay, but you have to dig deep in your pockets... if money aint no barrier then your dream will come true.

[DBAlex]

@sim085

You don't have to get a new rom if you don't want, if you have plenty of ram... you can of course SoftKick a ROM file... personally I use BlizzMagic (A softkick for blizzard accelerator boards) with a legal 3.1 ROM from Amiga Forever.

Although getting the actual physical ROM's will mean you don't lose 512K of RAM.

:-)

[sim085]

DBAlex wrote:
You don't have to get a new rom if you don't want, if you have plenty of ram...

I think I'll buy the 3.1 Kickstart ROM from amigakit.com Will this allow me to install older versions of Workbench as well (such as the Workbench 1.0 and 2.0)? Also is there any more recent version of Kickstart ROM available for the A500+? At amigakit.com there is only the Kickstart 3.1 ROM available for the A500+.

[derringer3]

I upgraded my a500 (which was trully an a500+ but only ks1.3 and 1/2meg ram)
You can see the result of my signature.
You can install os3.5 or even 3.9 if you have more than 6Mb ram and a turbo cpu card, but prepare yourself that it will be dog slow. I recommend the 3.1 os.  

[sim085]

When talking about the processor what does the first number mean exactly. That is when saying 68030@14MHz what does the digit 68030 mean? Sorry if this is a stupid question :$

[jj]

There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.

The 68030 relates to the processor type i.e

in the pc world it would have been a 286, 386 or 486 etc


the motorola chips were names  68000  (A1000,a500,a500+,a600 etc, 68010 ( not seen much in the wild), 68020 (amiga A1200), 68030 (A2000 , A4000 and accelerator cards), 68040 ( A4000 and aceelerator cards) and 68060 (accelerator cards only)

hope this helps

[derringer3]

I have an m-tec cpu turbo card. It can insttalled into the socket of the 68000 cpu in the motherboard of the a500(+)
I think it is one of the slowest 68030 cpu card in the amiga. Anyway it is more than 5 times faster than the original 68000 cpu at 7MHz. The seconf one is the FPU (68882) but it is not so much used in the wolrd of amiga.

[sim085]

Thanks for the answer. The reason I asked the question in the first place is because I went to check the specifications of the GVP A530 hard drive (from here: http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=68) and it says inside it is has a 030@40Mhz processor!

So I am confused does 030@40Mhz processor really mean a 68030@40Mhz processor or it is an 030Mhz processor which together with the 68000@7.14Mhz inside my A500+ makes a total processor power of 68030@40Mhz? I do not know if the question is clear. I got the impression that the GVP A530 hard drive comes with a 68030@40Mhz processor.

[A6000]

Yes, 030 is an abreviation of 68030, you will also see from time to time, mention of 040 and 060 which are the same as 68040 and 68060.
Other chip numbers which may also be abreviated include '881 (68881), '882 (68882) and '551 (68851).

[sim085]

Thanks for your reply. I understand now. Something else; when I connect an accelerator card (or a hard drive) which has a processor of lets say 68030@40Mhz then will my A500+ start using just this processor or it will use its 68000@17Mhz AND ALSO the 68030@40Mhz processor?