Amiga 500 Rev 5. and ECS chip set...??

[Matt_H]

As far as new screen modes, doesn't Super Denise also provide EHB?  I think that's why I upgraded, EHB for some game (Death Mask?  Don't really remember now; it's been about 14 years.)

Only the oldest of the oldest of the oldest Denises in the first A1000s don't have EHB. Every other Amiga should have it.

[Matt_H]

ECS stands for Enhanced Chipset or something yes?  And "ECS" machines from Commodore came with a Super Denise, correct? Now, if you don't want compatibility with the couple of ECS games that use the new graphics chip out there, sure, stick your 2MB Agnus in. That's not ECS, though.  You need a Super Denise or you've got a hybrid.

I think that's pretty much right.

I think later A500s came from the factory as hybrids - a 1MB ECS Agnus and an OCS Denise. Only the 500+, 600, and 3000(T) shipped with Super Denise, but you could drop one into a 500 with the 1MB Agnus and have full access to ECS screenmodes (albeit with only 1MB of chip RAM).

[Zac67]

ECS stands for Enhanced Chipset or something yes?  And "ECS" machines from Commodore came with a Super Denise, correct? Now, if you don't want compatibility with the couple of ECS games that use the new graphics chip out there, sure, stick your 2MB Agnus in. That's not ECS, though.  You need a Super Denise or you've got a hybrid.

"ECS" compatibility in games is usually all about having 2 MB chip RAM. Show me a game requiring non-PAL/-NTSC screen modes and/or SuperHires and you've got a point.

[save2600]

How about those Maxis games such as Sim Ant, Sim Life, etc.? Then there's Civilization and maybe even Super Street Fighter. But I'm pretty sure those Sim/strategy games used the ECS Denise and her higher res screen modes. Been too long since I've played any of 'em though...

[ElPolloDiabl]

Here you go:

ECS is the name used for the enhanced version of the Amiga computer's original chipset ( OCS). ECS was introduced in 1990 debuting in the Amiga 3000. Amigas produced from 1990 onwards featured a mix of OCS and ECS chips, or even a full Enhanced Chipset. In 1991 ECS was offically introduced to the low end Amigas with the introduction the A500 Plus. The last Amiga to use ECS was the Amiga 600.

ECS included the improved Super Agnus (with support for 2 MB of CHIP RAM) and Super Denise chips. Other additional features include:

    * Support for Productivity (640x480 noninterlaced) and SuperHires (1280x200 or 1280x256) display modes, which were however limited to only 4 colors.
    * Ability of the blitter to copy regions larger than 1024x1024 pixels in one operation.
    * Ability to display sprites in border regions (outside of any display window where bitplanes are shown).

[tone007]

"ECS" compatibility in games is usually all about having 2 MB chip RAM. Show me a game requiring non-PAL/-NTSC screen modes and/or SuperHires and you've got a point.

My point was "real" ECS machines have a Super Denise.  

If you say your A500 with old Denise and 2mb Agnus is an ECS machine, you're wrong, if only for the simple fact it won't do what are commonly known as ECS screenmodes.  AmigaOS will tell you "requires ECS" in the Screenmode prefs, and if you don't have that Super Denise you don't have ECS as it was intended.

I'd be pretty pissed off if someone sold me an "ECS A500" that didn't have the full ECS chipset.

[waltermixxx]

I have a REV 5 Amiga 500

ok thanks for the info, i have done some looking around, and it looks like I will be purchasing the following:

Fatter Angus 8372A and a Super Denise.  I am in ntsc land so I don't have to mess with pin 41 on the Angus, I just have to do the JP2 thing from middle to bottom, to top to middle jumper, and then cut a trace that goes to the Bottom trap door ram....

that is supposed to give me 1 meg of continuous ram, assuming I have a memory expansion in my bottom trap door ram... I do the supra 512K memory upgrade with real time clock...

I will also be installing a ROM 3.1 and I know what to do with pins...


I do have a question,

I will be replacing my supra 512 card with an "expansion systems" Baseboard ram upgrade, that is a two part memory upgrade:

one part sits on the Gary IC socket, and the Gary plugs into it, piggy pack.
and there is a small ribbon cable to goes to the memory board that can hold
up to 4 megs of RAM giving a total of 4.5 megs....  

will that memory expansion still work with the line cut going to the trap door ram?
is anyone familiar with upgrading the Agnus, and using the Baseboard ram upgrade?  

[waltermixxx]

One other quick question,
will the 8372B (2meg fatter Agnus) work on my REV 5 Amiga 500?
I have the opertunity to get that instead of an 8372A (1 meg version)

[dreamcast270mhz]

yeah Afaik it should be good, was the same case with my 2500

[omnicron10]

I do have a question,

I will be replacing my supra 512 card with an "expansion systems" Baseboard ram upgrade, that is a two part memory upgrade:

one part sits on the Gary IC socket, and the Gary plugs into it, piggy pack.
and there is a small ribbon cable to goes to the memory board that can hold
up to 4 megs of RAM giving a total of 4.5 megs....  

will that memory expansion still work with the line cut going to the trap door ram?
is anyone familiar with upgrading the Agnus, and using the Baseboard ram upgrade?  

I just did this.

The ICD Baseboard will not autoconfig more than 1MB chip of ram on machine with ECS agnus (512  motherboard and 512 baseboard). The extra RAM must be configured with the adram program on the floppy disk.

With baseboard you need to add the ECS Agnus, Add a wire from the P4B gary daughter board to JP2-2 (second pad on the JP2) and make sure no other connections are present on JP2.  Then you have to cut the JP7A (on rev 6a A500) jumper or the equivalent line on the rev 5 machines. Now you will have 1 meg chip with ICD Baseboard.  ICD had a GAL upgrade that allowed autoconfig of fast ram but I dont know where to get it.  I use to have it on my A500 that got tossed when I went to school by my parents... darn it..  

I have still yet to find the DOCS for the ICD baseboards but I just did this mod with a 6A mb and remember some of the details from the docs over 15 years ago!

Another thing.. you want super denise but dont have or can't find one... Indivision ECS will support ECS screenmodes with normal denise over the VGA port AND the cool Graffiti modes!!!  Best mod evar!!

I am in the middle of finishing up a REV 6a A500 with all these mods...

Tim

[Matt_H]

One other quick question,
will the 8372B (2meg fatter Agnus) work on my REV 5 Amiga 500?
I have the opertunity to get that instead of an 8372A (1 meg version)

Cramming a 2MB Agnus into a 500 without a MiniMega Chip or similar requires a lot more work. I don't think the process is very well documented, it may not work with all board revisions, and there might be some side effects. Even then it's a whole lot more work to install the full 2MB of RAM.

Bottom line: I recommend either the 1MB Agnus or a full 2MB chip RAM expansion board (MiniMega/MiniMegi/whatever).

[omnicron10]

Here is a good link I found regarding A500 rev 5 and 6 mb upgrades.

http://eabmobile.abime.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=13726&d=1177615199

It was an article from Amiga Shopper 1993, Issue 27 Called "Transform Your Machine"

Tim

[waltermixxx]

wow thanks for all the additional information and links, I think I will stick to the 1 meg angus and keep it as simple as possible...  the Baseboard memory expansion board that I have is made by Expansion Systems, not ICD and being new to Amiga, I don't know if they are infact the same?   But I just thought I would point that out, if they are indeed the same, than very cool I will definately give it a shot...
 
 
thanks again for the info...

[omnicron10]

ICD and the Baseboard are different but function the same way.  The daughterboard on the baseboard is larger and has the clock on the board.  They have the same flaws and design issues.  You will still need to run the wire from the daughterboard to JP2-2 as well as run a program to get all your memory once the system is booted if the 1 meg agnus unless you have the GAL update that does on the daughterboard.

Here is a link to a thread on getting the ICD AdRam Docs.
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=626989

[waltermixxx]

Very Cool, I will have to give that a shot, it looks like it would not be a problem to reverse... I understand I will need to run something on start up for the amiga to see the additional ram on the card...

I do have one other question:

with the new ecs chipset, that gives me 640 X 400 flicker free, I read, but would need a multisync monitor to see it properly... will a standard, LCD SVGA monitor work ?
with one of those 23 to 9 pin rgb to vga connection adapters?    So in general, are today's LCD computer monitors multisync?  I would think so but just wondering if anyone has tried these connectors...

In the mean time I will search for an answer...

Cheers and thanks again, the link about two messages up was crazy helpful... excellant artical   cheers.!!!

[omnicron10]

I got the docs for the Expansions Systems Baseboard if you need them.

A chap on EAB was kind enough to send them to me.

I will try to find a place to host them online.

I put them on the ZONE at EAB so if anyone needs to get it they can for a while.