Amiga ACA500 is awesome!

[mindprober]

Yes, I appear to be good now. I never thought to try other boot options because the main menu options at the top were more obvious.

Oh awesome, so you are good now? I was doing something similar, until reading your post. That made me question what I was doing and looked into it further.

[sm3]

Yes, I appear to be good now. I never thought to try other boot options because the main menu options at the top were more obvious.

That's great! I don't think the operation of this device is all that intuitive.

[Bif]

I've been running the ACA500 on my Phoenix equipped A1000 for some time now w/ nary a hiccup!

I finally found time to go through a pile of Amigas I have collected over the last several years to try to find/build one I can dabble on. Depressingly I found almost all of them to be dead, even ones that worked a few years ago on initial inspection (probably from leaky caps). I was hoping to build a super A4000 with a Picasso IV and lots of other goodies pulled from a dead A3000T, but no go. So back all this goes in storage until I can find the time to learn cap replacement.

The one Amiga I have left that does work is an A1000 with a 1080 in beautiful shape. These seem quite hardy for their age! I played with it a bit and realized there isn't a heck of a lot I can do with 512k and old boxes of rotting floppies.

So I got to looking around how I might make it more useful and came across this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbeRvkjs1og

That really got me drooling, had no idea all these expansions were this useful at the time they came out.

Now I'm reading that Individual doesn't want you to use the ACA500 on your A1000, and that there is an ACA2000 planned and then an ACA1000 coming after that. It has been some time now since the ACA500 has come out and I didn't find anything about the ACA2000 even progressing. Does anyone know if these are still coming?

Failing that, with this much time passed have people figured out what possible compatibility issues are with the ACA500 on an A1000? I'd be fine with the ACA500 on my A1000 if I knew it would work.

I'd also want an ACA accelerator to plug on it. Unfortunately it looks like the faster versions are all sold out, curious if any other 030 or better ones are coming in the future again.

I'm guessing there aren't any 100% solid answers here, but consider this an expression of interest to buy all this for my A1000. I've always loved the idea of upgrading the original Amiga to be a top end Amiga with some modern amenities.

[save2600]

Someone else in this thread said the ACA500 worked in one of their A1000's, so may as well try it on yours to see. I have yet to try it on my other regular A1000 myself, but I suspect the reason why Jens warns against using it with A1000's is because someone might accidentally install it wrong and blow it up.

Re: further expanding the ACA500 with another card, I see the 020 and 030 boards are a bit smaller than the older A1200 accelerators that would take up the entire room in the trapdoor. Used on an A1000, might be enough clearance to not interfere with the joystick port.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

So back all this goes in storage until I can find the time to learn cap replacement.

I'm a big fan of the "do it yourself" approach, but on the off chance you weren't aware, there's a number of good (and reasonably well-priced) folks that will do it for you, right?  

[klx300r]

@ Bif

thanks for posting the video! looks great but unfortunately the dude didn't run any programs/games on it:(

I was waiting for the ACA 1000 as Jens said it would kick (pun intended) the chip ram up to 2mb so I'm assuming the ACA500 doesn't add any additional chip ram to the A1000??

[Bif]

Someone else in this thread said the ACA500 worked in one of their A1000's, so may as well try it on yours to see. I have yet to try it on my other regular A1000 myself, but I suspect the reason why Jens warns against using it with A1000's is because someone might accidentally install it wrong and blow it up.

Yeah I've seen reports if it working on some A1000's and not some others, which is what worries me. I was hoping there might be more info on what rev A1000/etc. they might work with or not by now.

I would be fairly bummed to get one and not have it work. I don't have or want an A500 (again) to plug it into. On the other hand I was looking at them again on Amigakit and they aren't terribly expensive so might be worth a roll of the dice. I went to go check total cost and saw they are also out of stock though, ugh - I thought I had noticed it in stock a few days ago, guess I read it wrong. So it's all moot for now anyway until I hear of new stock coming in.

[Bif]

I'm a big fan of the "do it yourself" approach, but on the off chance you weren't aware, there's a number of good (and reasonably well-priced) folks that will do it for you, right?  

All sorts of reasons I'd like to do it myself. Between my 5 Amiga's and their add-ons and monitors and power supplies, an expanding collection of pinball machines where some have circuit boards from the 70s, and vintage guitar/bass amps and other gear there is long list of stuff that is going to need cap replacement and other electronic servicing around here. It's a skill I want to learn and it may help out with other future possible electronic things I wish to tinker with as well. Plus, I just really don't trust other people to get the job done right even if I think I should. I have had too many bad experiences with that for home repairs done poorly - I pretty much do anything I can myself.

[Bif]

@ Bif

thanks for posting the video! looks great but unfortunately the dude didn't run any programs/games on it:(

I was waiting for the ACA 1000 as Jens said it would kick (pun intended) the chip ram up to 2mb so I'm assuming the ACA500 doesn't add any additional chip ram to the A1000??

Yeah that's a good point about running other things, I'd think getting into WB means it should be fairly stable though.

And yeah, I don't think the ACA500 adds any chip ram for an A1000, but I think I was prepared to live with 512k (though I've not really played with Amiga's since the 90s so I am not aware of how crippling that may or may not be). If I knew the ACA1000 was actually coming out I'd of course wait for that though.

[Bif]

So I got to looking around how I might make it more useful and came across this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbeRvkjs1og

That really got me drooling, had no idea all these expansions were this useful at the time they came out.

OK, talking to myself like a weirdo now, sorry. Just thought it was interesting to come across a listing for the computer in the video I linked for sale now:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261999407953?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&fromMakeTrack=true

Almost tempted but I suspect it will end up pretty expensive in the end (especially with CDN $ and shipping) for the extra stuff that I don't really need.