HDD equipped A500 - which WB ?

[nickoteen]

Hi,
 
The wait is over. My IDE68K has finally arrived. I haven't installed it yet (waiting for some peace and quiet time for myself, this weekend most probably), so I was wandering, what WB are you guys using on your hdd equipped A500s ?
 
I plan on installing whdload and .. erm, a bunch'o'stuff. Not sure yet.
I'm one of those "new" Amiga users who lacks the expirience/knowledge of the "golden era". What else would be worth having on my A500 ? Recommendations most welcome.
 
Thanks in advance.

[ChaosLord]

Which workbench depends on what ROM you have in your Amiga.

A regular A500 has a Kickstart 1.3 ROM.  In that case you are looking at one of the 2 following options:
A: Workbench 1.3 plain jane unmodified.
B: Magic Workbench.  Which is just a regular workbench that looks a zillion times better.

If you have a Kickstart 3.0 or 3.1 ROM then you could install ClassicWB which is very popular and very powerful.

I have not actually messed around with an oldsk00l ECS workbench install in a century so I am sure other ppl will be along to give more detailed, elaborate, up-to-date answers.

You forgot to say how much RAM you have.  If u have a totally basic 1MB RAM Amiga then that limits what you can do.  If you have a more reasonable 5MB RAM A500 then that opens up a lot more possibilities.

I gave away all my A500s many many years ago but I kept 1 A2000 which is exactly the same thing as an A500 with a detached ergonomic keyboard and expansion slots.  I use my A2000 for retro gaming the same way u use ur A500.  My A2000 has 1MB chipram and 8MB fastram which is what plainjaine A500/A2000 were designed for.  Having the 8MB fastram lets me multitask nicely, have lots of drive buffers, etc. etc.  Just makes the whole experience more enjoyable.

[ChaosLord]

Hi,
 
The wait is over. My IDE68K has finally arrived.

WOAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Wait a sec!  What is this?  Is there a pic or a website?!?!?  Can ppl buy these now?

There is a guy on here who really needs one of these if they are available!

Gimme some infos!

How much $?

Pls hurry

[nickoteen]

I must say I don't follow. I contacted Mika, asked about the board and three weeks later, give or take, it arrived. V402. 48 euros, shipping included.

[nickoteen]

Oh, yeah, ks 3.1, 8 MB RAM.

[ChaosLord]

Oh, yeah, ks 3.1, 8 MB RAM.

That is nice

The only way for it to be nicer is if it was one with a 25Mhz 030 + 16-32MB highspeed fastram.

As soon as you test your IDE68k to make sure it really works then I shall go around telling everyone and their dog to buy one!

[Darrin]

Oh, yeah, ks 3.1, 8 MB RAM.

Install ClassicWB then.  It is already set up for WHDLoad (unregistered).  Just download the game packs, copy the Kickstart images into the correct folder and off you go.

You'll want the 68K version for your A500:

http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/68k.htm

I use this one on my Minimig, Chameleon64 and FPGA Arcade.  It is very easy to set up using WinUAE.  Just follow the instructions carefully and then transplant the drive into your Amiga.

[nickoteen]

Thanks ya all. ChaosLord, this is what you wanted:
 
 http://www.students.tut.fi/~leinone3/ide/ide68k.html
 http://www.students.tut.fi/~leinone3/ide/i68k.html
 
But it's not really that new of a product. It's been around for some time now. djos has one, if I'm not mistaken. Mine is v402, prior to it, there have been other revisions of the board, so I don't see why it wouldn't work. Will let you know as soon as I hook it up.

[k4lmp]

Install ClassicWB then.  It is already set up for WHDLoad (unregistered).  Just download the game packs, copy the Kickstart images into the correct folder and off you go.

You'll want the 68K version for your A500:

http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/68k.htm

I use this one on my Minimig, Chameleon64 and FPGA Arcade.  It is very easy to set up using WinUAE.  Just follow the instructions carefully and then transplant the drive into your Amiga.

I  agree.  I run ClassicWB 68K on my Amiga 500+.

[Ral-Clan]

Thanks ya all. ChaosLord, this is what you wanted:
 
 http://www.students.tut.fi/~leinone3/ide/ide68k.html
 http://www.students.tut.fi/~leinone3/ide/i68k.html
 
But it's not really that new of a product. It's been around for some time now. djos has one, if I'm not mistaken. Mine is v402, prior to it, there have been other revisions of the board, so I don't see why it wouldn't work. Will let you know as soon as I hook it up.

Am I reading this right?  You need an A600 version of Kickstart with the IDE controller code on it, even in an A500 (one of the first lines at the link above).

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Am I reading this right?  You need an A600 version of Kickstart with the IDE controller code on it, even in an A500 (one of the first lines at the link above).

From the website: "Since the board emulates the internal IDE-interface of Amiga 600 and it doesn't have ROM of its own, you thus need Kickstart ROM with the driver for A600's IDE."

Looks like it!

Just noticed down in the FAQ that this board conflicts with the Indivision in Amiga 500's.  Might be important for some of the other users posting about this topic recently.  Personally I tried researching the IDE68K a while back, but got confused by all the different versions and just went with a sidecar HD instead, LOL.  :p

[Lurch]

The IDE68K has been around for a few years now, just declare interest over at Amibay and send him a PM or drop him an email :-)

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=7158

I had one, great little board but ended up swapping it for some other Amiga hardware :-)

Kickstart 2.05 or higher works fine or a custom kickstart 1.3 with the A600 code and it works fine.

As for the board it fits fine and it is miles away from the Indivsion ECS, I know because I had it setup that way :-)

You will need to be able to solder though, two wires run from the IDE68K to the Amiga 500. Plus you can't use a side car with it installed.

[Lord Aga]

Whoaaa it has arrived
Picspicspicspicspics !

Now... why bother yourself with one choice ? Do all of them !
You'll be using a CF hard drive, right ? Well CF cards are nothing if not easy to swap.
Have a 3.1 (Classic WB) on your main 4GB card, and then have several more on smaller cards. You should be able to find used 256MB CFs for a Lipa, or for free even Install WB 1.3 on them just for the fun of it. Feel the ultra retro system Then switch back to 3.1 for serious work. Do a mutant system of your own on a third separate card and use it to test and experiment the hell out of Amiga software
See... there are no limits !

[nickoteen]

Install ClassicWB then. It is already set up for WHDLoad (unregistered). Just download the game packs, copy the Kickstart images into the correct folder and off you go.
 
You'll want the 68K version for your A500:
 
http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/68k.htm
 
I use this one on my Minimig, Chameleon64 and FPGA Arcade. It is very easy to set up using WinUAE. Just follow the instructions carefully and then transplant the drive into your Amiga.

Uhm, Darrin, a little help here please.
 
I've dl-ed the Classic WB 68K as you suggested, and managed to set it up under WinUAE without a hussle. But, how do I transfer that System.hdf to my CF card ? I'm clueless.
 
I can add my card as a hard drive under WinUAE, and it says it a 399 MB drive (the CF itself is 4 GB). I tried using HDSetup and HDTools that reside on WB 3.0 install disk, but neither of them managed to partition my card. The card is either invisible or I get a message similar to: Error - this drive cannot be partitioned.
 
The installation of a WB 3.0 (again, under WinUAE) to the 399MB (why 399 MB I don't know) partition went thru. After removing all floppies and reseting WinUAE, I sucessfully booted into WB 3.0 (took only 4 MBs on the card). How to partition the card ? What's the largest partition size I can use under WB.
 
A bus full of questions, I know. (Lord AGA, feel free to jump in at any point : ) )
 
Thanks in advance to all ...

[ChaosLord]

Kickstart 2.05 or higher works fine or a custom kickstart 1.3 with the A600 code and it works fine.

As for the board it fits fine and it is miles away from the Indivsion ECS, I know because I had it setup that way :-)

You will need to be able to solder though, two wires run from the IDE68K to the Amiga 500. Plus you can't use a side car with it installed.

Too complicated for me.  I suddenly lost interest.
1. Hafta upgrade the kickstart.  That is extra $
2. Banished from adding memory expansion on the side?  It just ain't an Amiga without some FASTram added on.  Certain games need fastram to run at full speed, else they drop the framerate.

If you plug one of these into an A2000 does it banish you from using ALL your Zorro slots?

If you plug one of these into a CDTV or Minimig then does it block any hardware from working?