Bought an A500. Now What?

[kedawa]

So, after being Amiga-less for over 12 years, I picked up an A500 system with a 512KB expansion module and a 1084S monitor.
It works perfectly and is in decent condition.
It's basically the same configuration as the one I had as a kid, except for the newer kickstart ROM and Workbench (I had 1.2 back then, and this one has 1.3)
It cost me $60 plus a $10 cab ride home, and I think it was money well spent.
The only other software I got with it is a handful of pirated games and programs, Fusion Paint being the most interesting.

Bearing in mind that I bought this machine for nostalgic recreation (it will mainly be used for games and casual tinkering with graphic/music apps), and I am on a limited budget (let's say $100 per year to spend on my Amiga) I do have some questions.

Other than a joystick and maybe an external floppy drive or three, what other hardware/upgrades should I be on the lookout for?

Is it worth the investment to buy Kickstart 3.1 and WB 3.1?

What's the cheapest way to get my Amiga and my PC to talk to each other?  Specifically, I want to get more software over to the A500.

Where can I get a cover for the side expansion slot?  It appears to be the only component missing from the system.

Are there any Amiga related organizations or retailers in Canada, preferably Ontario, that I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance for any and all input.

[TjLaZer]

I would not bother with 3.1 unless you get a Hard Disk, and that will cost you hundreds of $$.

You can transfer ADF files from a PC to the Amiga various ways.  Null Modem cable, or using 720k formatted disks.  You can do a search on Google for many pages...

[darksun9210]

a 1.3 A500 with 1meg upgrade and external floppy saw me through for years, but you may tire of having to load games from floppy disk all the time.

depends how much you use it i guess.

if you are going for it, then some form of hard disk upgrade. either that bolts on the side port, or clips into the CPU slot inside the machine (but you may need kickstart2-3 roms for the second option). then you can plug in some adapters to let you use a compact flash card as a hard disk. 4Gb is the limit for amigaOS without playing around with it too much. wich is more than enough for plenty of applications, and all the WHDLoad games you can think of.

WHDLoad? whats that? - its a program that takes floppy games, and allows you to have them installed, and run from hard disk. much quicker, and no more disk swapping! :-D
but bear in mind, that alot of WHDload modified games want one whole meg of chipram, so you may have to do the "cut and jumper" modification to your A500 to turn the 512k expansion in the trapdoor into chipram. more detail on that can be found or asked for as needed. also fastram will help as WHDLoad can "pre-cache" the game data there for instant midgame loading. helpfull for swapping scenes in adventure games for example.

obviously with a hard disk, having a full set of workbench disks would be good, and to be honest, the 3.1 upgrade and disks brings your machine upto spec so to speak. as you may find quite a few packages that are 2.x+ or 3.x+ only, and you won't loose much compatability with games either. WHDLoad helps with that as it can take into account more advanced processors, rom chips, and chipsets when it runs the game that may not like to work with anything more than an unexpanded A500

the easiest way to get your amiga and PC talking is with a serial null modem cable, and a copy of amiga explorer on the PC. the PC can then read/write to/from the amiga floppy disk, rom, and or hard disk if available.

there isn't an easy ethernet solution for the A500 at the moment, but a few of the folks here have some ideas in mind it seems.

there is a workable USB solution, using an A500 clockport adapter, and subwayUSB card, as i use USB flash keys to copy data to/from my A500. But that needs a hard disk for workbench and the device drivers, extra memory for the drivers to be loaded into, and a CPU accelerator to run it all. Unfortunatly, forget ethernet over USB for the A500 at the moment, as it just doesn't work that well at all. there is some kind of software/hardware issue. So untill those kinks are worked out, its faster to run a serial connection to a PC.

not sure about getting a cover for the side expansion slot, and not sure of retailers in Canada, but i'm sure some of the other peeps here can help :-)

--edit--

you might pay $50-$100 USD from ebay/amibay/craigslist for a GVP HD8+ expansion that bolts on the side, gives your amiga a hard disk, and 1-8Mb fast ram. you may then choose either a scsi hard disk, or with an Acard SCSI2IDE converter, either an IDE drive, or compact flash adapter and card. i paid $80 off ebay for a GVP HD8+ with a 52Mb (thats definatly meg) drive, with 4Mb ram, and a supra tubro 28Mhz accelerator.

not sure how much internal IDE hard disk adapters are going for, but they usually plug into the cpu slot. some even come with a compact flash socket on them these days! i shouldn't expect to pay more than $80 USD for one?

[Jiffy]

I agree with not bothering with 3.1. If you're just planning on playing the occasional classic game, stay with 1.3. An external floppy drive would be nice, but that is about it.

Transferring data to the Amiga works very well with a null modem cable. I still find it to be the easiest and most reliable way, even though I have all my Amigas networked.

[kedawa]

Wow.  Thanks for the quick replies everyone.

The null modem option sounds good and cheap, but that raises a few questions as well.  What sort of software do I need on the Amiga side to get the null modem connection going, and will it work with a USB<->serial adapter on the PC side?
My PC has no legacy I/O.

[darksun9210]

amiga explorer should come with everything you need for the amiga side too. not sure about the USB to serial adapters. i can't imagine it being a problem,  though could be wrong  :-?

[TjLaZer]

I would highly recommend the Amiga Forever program.  Comes with transfer software.  Not sure if USB to Serial adaptors will work though...

[amigaksi]

>by kedawa on 2008/12/23 3:16:05
...
>The null modem option sounds good and cheap, but that raises a few questions as well. What sort of software do I need on the Amiga side to get the null modem connection going, and will it work with a USB<->serial adapter on the PC side?
>My PC has no legacy I/O.

The first thing you should do is sell your PC and get one that has a parallel port and/or serial port.  They are pretty cheap on Ebay and Thinkpads and Toshibas usually come with Win98SE/WinME sticker on the bottom so you can install an OS that lets you tinker around like AmigaOS.  

Although you can then get a null modem connection, you may not have enough memory on A500 to transfer to RAM disk and connection will be slow.  I would recommend some other solution like floppy simulator or memory cards.  I also would not recommend upgrading chip RAM unless you are an expert in soldering/cutting traces.

And for tinkering on PC/Amigas as well as for normal use, you can try this as well:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320326504551

[darksun9210]

....must... not.... post... stupidity levels... rising...
can't take it..... any more.... resistance failing!.... ahhhhhh!!!!

the cut and jumper i offered is only if you find you need more chipram running WHDLoad from hard disk. and even then it is only a blob of solder on a pair of jumper pads, and one trace line cut.
i did this when i was 13 and it was the first time i'd held a soldering iron. just make sure you have a 1meg agnus. :-)

don't sell your PC. a USB to serial should be fine. amiga forever / amiga explorer even claims to work over bluetooth with a bluetooth-to-serial adapter on the amiga.

while true, you may not have enough ram to boot workbench, run a terminal program, and hold a complete 880k ADF file, amiga explorer can treat the amiga like another device, and pretty much directly read and write Amiga Disk Files to and from the amiga's floppy drive over whatever link you have setup. negating the need to hold the complete disk image in the amiga's memory.

memory cards? i'm not sure what amigaski has in mind here,
or the floppy simulator thing... and that ebay auction...

[bloodline]

darksun9210 wrote:

memory cards? i'm not sure what amigaski has in mind here,
or the floppy simulator thing... and that ebay auction...

amigaski is either stupid or a troll... just check his post history, most of it makes less sense than a Dr Seuss book... I suggest ignoring him at all possible opportunity.

I agree a copy of AmigaForever and a $5 USB->Serial adaptor is probably the best route.

[scuzzb494]

Hi

As you bought the machine for nostalgic reasons then why not stay commando and just use Amiga kit and games. All of these are very very easy to find cheaply on Ebay. Just start building a modest Amiga collection of boxed games. Also you can often pick up disk boxes full of games. I love my A500 games machine which I fitted a GVP sidecar for hard drive, though not essential. Also a desk tidy is great for putting the monitor on. I use CrossDOS and or Parnet with my other classic Amigas, though I tend to use only original games and software with the A500. Great fun.

Loads of images of Amiga related gear including sections on the A500 from my website. If you send me your mail address private I can send you a slot cover.

scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/a_amiga_inframe.htm

[carvedeye]

hundreds of pounds?.....you can buy the roms pretty cheap nowadays and harddrives are cheap as chips?

[Speelgoedmannetje]

TjLaZer wrote:
I would highly recommend the Amiga Forever program.  Comes with transfer software.  Not sure if USB to Serial adaptors will work though...

Works fine! :-D

[amigaksi]

>by darksun9210 on 2008/12/23 8:15:01

...
>the cut and jumper i offered is only if you find you need more chipram running WHDLoad from hard disk. and even then it is only a blob of solder on a pair of jumper pads, and one trace line cut.
>i did this when i was 13...

That's subjective.  I can post my opinion of what I think is good for his tinkering just like you can post your opinion.

>while true, you may not have enough ram to boot workbench, run a terminal program, and hold a complete 880k ADF file, amiga explorer can treat the amiga like another device, and pretty much directly read and write Amiga Disk Files to and from the amiga's floppy drive over whatever link you have setup. negating the need to hold the complete disk image in the amiga's memory.

Good.  See you can be rational about it without getting emotional.  If you read all my post in this forum, you see that I was also being rational.  For most terminal programs, you need more than 1MB RAM.

That's good you admit you know nothing about floppy simulator and stuff because you already spoke out against it in some previous post.

[amigaksi]

>by carvedeye on 2008/12/23 9:33:36

>hundreds of pounds?.....you can buy the roms pretty cheap nowadays and harddrives are cheap as chips?

Although he did want to use for games and newer roms and hard drives will add a level of incompatibility.