External CD-ROM for the Amiga 500....

[AmigaClassicRule]

Have there being any external CD-ROM for the Amiga 500 invented that fits in the disk drive port, parallel port or serial port of the Amiga 500? If the only one that works are SCSI external CD-ROM can the Amiga 500 boot directly from the SCSI external CD-ROM and what do I need as a hardware to be able to hook a SCSI external CD-ROM?

But before I go through that route I am just wondering if there have being any external CD-ROM that works on the disk drive port of the Amiga 500 or parallel port or SCSI port?

[mrknight]

Parallel port CD-ROMs do exist. I remember it was very common to use parallel port for external devices in the 90's.

[mrknight]

External CD-ROM with parallel port connection do exist. I remember parallel port was very common for devices in the 90's.

[AmigaClassicRule]

Parallel port CD-ROMs do exist. I remember it was very common to use parallel port for external devices in the 90's.

Two questions:

1) Would it work on an Amiga 500 parallel port?
2) Can I boot from the CD directly if I was to hook it into the Amiga 500 parallel port?

[Tenacious]

I have never seen an Amiga with a CD connected thru the parallel port (common on old PCs) nor the disk drive port.  I haven't seen everything.  

To my knowlege, the only Amigas that can boot from CD are the CDTV, CD32, and A500 with an A570 CDRom sidecar (I have a setup like this .

It is my hope that someone will patch and update KS3.1 to also allow booting from CD and other media.  I wouldn't care if Amiga Inc approves or not.

[Ezrec]

I've done some extensive research on this, and the simple answer is that the Amiga's parallel port (on the 1000 and 500) don't support enough control signals to be able to run 95% of the parallel to SCSI adapters that were designed for PCs.

[mrknight]

I've done some extensive research on this, and the simple answer is that the Amiga's parallel port (on the 1000 and 500) don't support enough control signals to be able to run 95% of the parallel to SCSI adapters that were designed for PCs.

Oh, so that means A1000/A500 don't use a standard parallel port? That's a shame since I was thinking of getting a parallel port CD-ROM.

I thought that if it was connector compatible all that would be needed would be a device driver.

[Matt_H]

Oh, so that means A1000/A500 don't use a standard parallel port? That's a shame since I was thinking of getting a parallel port CD-ROM.

I thought that if it was connector compatible all that would be needed would be a device driver.

None of the classic Amigas use what would be considered a standard parallel port, at least by late 90s standards and beyond. PCs got newer protocols (ECP? EPP?) that the Amiga parallel port does not support. I think some of the extra I/O cards made for the Amiga do support these newer signals, but I don't think any of them work on the A500 without considerable other expansion.

Regardless, I don't think anyone ever wrote a parallel port CD driver.

Meanwhile, I think the OP's options for an A500 CD drive are:
-An A570
-SCSI via GVP sidecar or similar
-IDE via some sort of add-on IDE port (this would be messy, since there's no such thing as an external IDE enclosure - you'd need to modify a SCSI enclosure and run your own cables)
-USB via Subway and Clockports expansion (requires an 030 and will be very slow due to clockport bottleneck)
-Use another Amiga's CD drive via serial or parallel network

The A570 can boot CDTV stuff. None of the other solutions are bootable. There is a software package called CDBoot that can fake a bootable environment, though. Once installed to your hard drive, it mounts the CD drive very early in the startup-sequence and if it detects a CDTV- or CD32-bootable CD it offers you the option of transferring the system to CD and continuing to boot from that, or finishing your normal hard drive boot.

[motrucker]

On an A500 the only way to accomplish installing a CD ROM drive is either with an A570 (this limits you to 2.0OS) or use something like a GVP hard drive sidecar and use the CD-ROM drive from that with a SCSI drive.
Parallel port devices were never made for the Amiga (to slow with the 68000 for one thing), and no drivers (again due mostly to speed problems).

[Astral]

A570 all the way!

Auto config. Physically made to fit. Auto-boot. Can expand with 2mb expansion and SCSI controller.

No brainer for me

[AmigaClassicRule]

A570 all the way!

Auto config. Physically made to fit. Auto-boot. Can expand with 2mb expansion and SCSI controller.

No brainer for me

in that case this is the setting i want. i will get a570 and have workbench 1.3 boot from cd. then external scsi drive for games. i will the cd with all the necessary apps
fonts tools etc. what do you guys think? can it be done?


if not i will reverse order and get gvp then scsi dvd.

[AmigaClassicRule]

one more question.....i saw someone who have the most beefed kickstart 1.3 setup. he have hundreds of apps tools wordprocess etc. i want the same where do i get it?

[motrucker]

Personally I would go the GVP side car route. If you use Asimware's file system for the CD, it has excellent CDTV emulation. Plus you can add more RAM.
Working A570s can be hard to find these days.

[amiman99]

There is another option you can consider: Bodega Bay for A500
http://www.bboah.com/index.php?action=artikel&cat=76&id=3489&artlang=en
You can then install A2091 SCSI card with 4MB RAM. This can give you HD and CDROM option, all integrated nicely in a case.
Probably more difficult to find then A570.
There is a cheaper way and sort of "hackery", you can use ZORRO adapter that converts A500 ZORRO slot to A2000 type, then you can use A2091 SCSI card for the HD and 25pin external connector for your CD Drive.

[Merc]

Or, get an A590 and do the same, should work the same as the A2091 card, although maybe a SCSI ROM upgrade would be needed?