My Latest Purchase - An Early A500 With No Battery

[MiAmigo]

I can see the immediate benefits - no battery to leak, change, or clean!

However, what are the limitations of this board, insofar as upgrades are concerned?

Without swapping out the entire mobo, what will I be able (or unable) to upgrade? :hammer:

[runequester]

Upgrade paths :

Do you have the trapdoor internal memory expansion? Otherwise, you are limited to 512 K of RAM, which will not permit a lot of stuff.

There's a side expansion slot (left side, opposite the floppy drive) but it can be a bit hit and miss finding stuff to put here.

You can upgrade ROM's and I believe you can swap out chips for ECS if you want to.


For a retro gaming machine, 1.3 ROM's and 1 meg of RAM is probably all you need.

[CritAnime]

I may still have a trapdoor expansion laying around if you don't have one. Would mean having to hunt through boxes to find it.

[MiAmigo]

I may still have a trapdoor expansion laying around if you don't have one. Would mean having to hunt through boxes to find it.

Thanks! Not sure yet, but will let you know when it arrives. Its coming from Amiga Retro Experience on eBay. Here's the original listing:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120982585275?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_2397wt_952

[MiAmigo]

Upgrade paths :

Do you have the trapdoor internal memory expansion? Otherwise, you are limited to 512 K of RAM, which will not permit a lot of stuff.

There's a side expansion slot (left side, opposite the floppy drive) but it can be a bit hit and miss finding stuff to put here.

You can upgrade ROM's and I believe you can swap out chips for ECS if you want to.


For a retro gaming machine, 1.3 ROM's and 1 meg of RAM is probably all you need.

The machine will be arriving soon, coming from Amiga Retro Experience on eBay. Here's the original listing:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/120982585275?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_2397wt_952

[MiAmigo]

Past two days were great Commodore Days, especially Friday 09/14/12!

1. Thursday took delivery of a Commodore 1702 monitor.
2. Set up my C64 with the monitor, printer, cassette, and closed bidding on a floppy drive - new in box!
3. Also took delivery of 3 TEAC floppy drives for my CatWeasel.
4. Also got speakers for my A500 setup.
5. Friday delivered another 1702 and my A500!

Now for some bad news: The A500 showed up extremely clean, almost pearly-white, with tons of software, a really nice game controller, A520, hard-drive already installed, plenty of extra RAM, and every cable I could possibly need, however...

I got it from Amiga Retro Experience in the UK, so the power hardware will need 'tweaking' before I can use it! Bummer!

I picked up a Universal Grounded Adapter Plug from Radio Shack, and ordered another one with a built-in voltage converter from Ace Hardware, but it won't be delivered until Tuesday! Gonna be a long weekend waiting for it. :huh:

Well at least I have my two A2000's to keep me busy until then with other upgrades and repairs.
:hammer:

[MiAmigo]

I may still have a trapdoor expansion laying around if you don't have one. Would mean having to hunt through boxes to find it.

Still taking stock of everything that came with the A500 yesterday. I might be interested in that trapdoor expansion, if its not too hard to dig up.

[Havie]

Does the listing not say that it is 0.5 meg upgraded to 1meg?  If this is the case you don't need the trapdoor expansion because it will be full already.  I would check if I was you -it's on the bottom of the 500 and just needs prising off.

[MiAmigo]

Does the listing not say that it is 0.5 meg upgraded to 1meg?  If this is the case you don't need the trapdoor expansion because it will be full already.  I would check if I was you -it's on the bottom of the 500 and just needs prising off.

Just had a look at the listing, and inside the machine. It's been upgraded to 1 meg of RAM.

[TjLaZer]

You can pick up a 110 volt A500 PS for cheap for it.  Only problem is that is a PAL unit so you cannot use it with NTSC TV or monitors.  Will work fine on a RGB monitor like the C= 1080/4 etc.

Edit, also check that 512k ram expansion for a battery.  If its old you might want to remove it.

[Methuselas]

Edit, also check that 512k ram expansion for a battery.  If its old you might want to remove it.

+1


Yup my 512k expansion looks like something grown in a lab...... :insane:

[MiAmigo]

You can pick up a 110 volt A500 PS for cheap for it.  Only problem is that is a PAL unit so you cannot use it with NTSC TV or monitors.  Will work fine on a RGB monitor like the C= 1080/4 etc.

Edit, also check that 512k ram expansion for a battery.  If its old you might want to remove it.

Good one! I'll check. But I think the vendor said he installed the ram expansion recently.