Tom Thul, 8 meg, A500 instructions please?

[djos]

The A500+ is like an A600 but cooler :-P

Indeed! :biglaugh:

pfft! the A500+ is like the A500, but with corrosive stuff poured on the motherboard :p lol

hehe, makes restoration that much more satisfying when complete. :cool:

[djos]

It is why I like my A3000's so much!

Az

Now that is an Amiga I'd luv to own! :cool:

[Lurch]

A600 has PCMCIA, you can add networking! It also has inbuilt IDE and 2meg chipram and FULL ECS chipset. So its MUCH better than an A500, and only slight better than an A500+

A500+ is full ECS, comes with 1MB standard just like the A600. Only two things missing from an A500+ internal IDE and a PCMCIA slot.

A500+
IDE = A590 or internal mod
Network = very hard to do :-)

A600
No numeric keypad :-)

[djos]

A500+ is full ECS, comes with 1MB standard just like the A600. Only two things missing from an A500+ internal IDE and a PCMCIA slot.

A500+
IDE = A590 or internal mod
Network = very hard to do :-)

A600
No numeric keypad :-)

Im planning on adding an IDE68k which adds the missing a600 IDE controller and I'll prolly use an IDE-CF converter mounted under the floppy drive so I can remove the CF Card and copy files to it in WinUAE.

[Azryl]

A600 does have a missing numpad....  but then again not many games use numpad but lots of them are hard drive installable

pcmcia networking rocks, netgear ma401 for wireless = win!
I installed the ma401 into my A1200

One of my a500's has KS2.04/WB2.1 and an internal IDE, the ICD AdIDE40 + 240meg harddrive.

The other A500 has an A590 attached, KS3.1/WB3.1, 2meg-fastram, 2gig scsi and external Cd-rom

Neither has 2meg chip yet, when I finally get an expansion for that it will go into one of my A2000's

I would like to own one of Tom Thul's internal IDE solutions, CF would be much nicer than the internal AdIDE40 I have now. ( it will not do CF, barely does older IDE drives )

Az

[djos]

I would like to own one of Tom Thul's internal IDE solutions, CF would be much nicer than the internal AdIDE40 I have now. ( it will not do CF, barely does older IDE drives )

Az

I think MKL's IDE68k* is a better solution as TomThul's IDE board is not auto config.

*emulates the a600 Gayle IDE adapter.

[Lurch]

The only thing I worry about with the IDE68k is it clashing with what I already have internally. i.e. The indivision, and also there's a few people mentioning issues with some accelerator cards.

Tom's doesn't auto boot, although you can use a floppy to boot it from what I understand, not sure if it has the same conflict problems?

Plus at some point the keyboard and top case isn't going to close :-)

[desiv]

Tom's doesn't auto boot, although you can use a floppy to boot it from what I understand, not sure if it has the same conflict problems?

Yes, there's a boot floppy which loads the IDE driver, then it transfers control over to the HD and you finish the boot of the OS from your HD.

I have it for my A1000 and it works pretty well.
Especially since I use a "kickwork" floppy to kickstart the 1000, and then load the driver on the A1000.  Since I needed a floppy for my kickstart, it's still just one floppy in the system when I boot.

Not sure about size conflicts, as the CF/IDE card I have is a sidecar (Tom made a few different types).

desiv

[Lurch]

Yeah I think he had at the time was the side car version. At the moment I'm trying to get everything inside the a500 case. Which is harder than what I thought, height wise and the gap between the indivsion ecs and anything I plug into the CPU socket is very close.

Then the keyboard is pushed up just enough that the case wont close :-( So I don't know how some people can do it.

[tomthul]

Hello All, I don't look at this site much...I should!!!!!  I have been working
on a 1mb battery backed chip ram board. I think I have a working prototype!!! I will do some more testing.....I am going to make a small
test batch. This board will allow you to boot the amiga without a floppy disk. It does this by using a recoverable ram disk RAD: it takes about
100k of chip ram....and yes I agree that Mika's auto-booting ide controller is way better!!!! I have one and it works great!!!! I will have some 8mb
ram boards for sale in the next few days....also I made a couple of 8mb
boards for the A600...they clip onto the 68000.... there is a jumper
to configure the board as 4mb or 8mb so you can still use the pcmcia slot.
the chip ram board is going to cost about $50.00.... the hxc floppy emulator is alot nicer...but it costs about $125.00..this could be a cheaper way to boot the amiga without the use of a floppy.
tom

[Azryl]

Yeah I think he had at the time was the side car version. At the moment I'm trying to get everything inside the a500 case. Which is harder than what I thought, height wise and the gap between the indivsion ecs and anything I plug into the CPU socket is very close.

Then the keyboard is pushed up just enough that the case wont close :-( So I don't know how some people can do it.

Hiya Lurch, I have seen the end of the cpu that touches the keyboard ground/sanded/shaved at a 30degree angle to give clearance. Its not pretty, but then again all your removing is the plastic part, the carrier so its not essential for the cpu to have this

Az

[Lurch]

Hiya Lurch, I have seen the end of the cpu that touches the keyboard ground/sanded/shaved at a 30degree angle to give clearance. Its not pretty, but then again all your removing is the plastic part, the carrier so its not essential for the cpu to have this

Az

Have been very tempted to do something like this but knowing my luck I'd hit a trace LOL. Will see how it all goes together once I get my indivision back.

My poor A500 is in parts all over the table at the moment :-(

[tone007]

I recall grinding down the plastic inside the bottom of the case to make the board sit an extra millimeter or two lower when I installed an IDE68k and a VXL-30/32 combo in my A500+.

[Lurch]

Just like to say making some great hardware there Tom. Glad I could the chance to purchase one.

[Lurch]

I recall grinding down the plastic inside the bottom of the case to make the board sit an extra millimeter or two lower when I installed an IDE68k and a VXL-30/32 combo in my A500+.

Now that's a good idea, the case is quite thick so could get some space there. BTW lucky you have the 30/32 combo I just have the vxl-30. :-)