Classic Computer Machinist

[bjjones37]

I did not realize when I got my Amiga that I would have to become a machinist.  I have had to drill holes and tap out screw holes to try to get my hard drive to mount.  I had to put another adapter plate on my mounting adapter, tap out screw holes on the plate, screw the drive to the plate and the plate to the mounting adapter.  Had to use an electric drill, a center punch and hammer and a tap and die set to make it work.  Am I a computer guy or a car mechanic?

[klx300r]

@ bjjones37

heck that's just part of being an amigan;)

Hardware hackery is in our DNA :cool: & part of the reason why we made fun of the Mac users back in the day:biglaugh:

[Ral-Clan]

That's one of the reasons I like classic Amigas.  You get your paws on them inside and out and eventually understand what every square inch of them does.  They are not mysterious black slabs.

[amiman99]

You should see what I had to do to install a different floppy drive in A1000, I had to drill 4 screw holes, which did not lineup properly, so I had to enlarge them. And then I had to make a custom eject button, that did no work that well. I may have to redo that some other time.

[Israeli]

A true hobby computer!

I did not realize when I got my Amiga that I would have to become a machinist.  I have had to drill holes and tap out screw holes to try to get my hard drive to mount.  I had to put another adapter plate on my mounting adapter, tap out screw holes on the plate, screw the drive to the plate and the plate to the mounting adapter.  Had to use an electric drill, a center punch and hammer and a tap and die set to make it work.  Am I a computer guy or a car mechanic?

[Lurch]

Yes, I have cuts and bruises from Amiga hacking.

Still have to cut a couple, one in the grill for the floppy emulator LCD, 3 on the side for the buttons. One for the ATX switch.....

I'm still having fun trying to get the Fast ATA a little lower, 2MM.... there's another solution that I was reading on EAB that I'll try next.

The other thing I've noticed is that the desktop case is smaller than you think, and all these hardware mods become too much LOL

At the moment most of mine is hanging out the back... getting there :-(

[Ral-Clan]

You should see what I had to do to install a different floppy drive in A1000, I had to drill 4 screw holes, which did not lineup properly, so I had to enlarge them. And then I had to make a custom eject button, that did no work that well. I may have to redo that some other time.

Yeah, I replaced the stock drive inside an A500 with a high-density drive, which had an extra circuit board on the back to convert it to Amiga mode (Power XL HD Floppy).

So I had to cut the RF shield to accomodate the extra long floppy.  Then of course the eject button on the new drive is a different place, so I had to modify the Amiga's case.  Also the eject button on the original drive was not long enough, so I had to do some "plastic welding" and create a new, long button from scraps of beige plastic from an old 486 laptop.

The end result looks good, though.

[kedawa]

When I was in high school, I turned my A500 into a desktop machine by putting it in a wooden box and sawing the original case in half to make a keyboard shell.
It wasn't pretty, but the way I had it set up, you couldn''t really see it anyway.