Getting an Amiga 500 off Craigslist, what should I need to know?

[HyperDuel]

Just came home with the system and here are the updates:

 

* System is 1 MB (it appears so, there's extra RAM at the ram slot with a battery on it??????).

* The joysticks suck, I need some Genesis controllers.

* A520 composite is not bad at all, will be good for me for now.

* Got two music software with it so I can use the Amiga for music (sweet).

* I only paid $40 for it (the guy said it was ok so I got the whole thing for $40).

* At least it came with Shadow of the Beast.

* Workbench is 1.3.3

 

Pictures incoming!

Edited August 11, 2010 by HyperDuel

[+save2600]

I think this guy is either ill informed of just jerking you a bit.

 

Just ill-informed I'd say. Or perhaps he's too young to have grown up with the Amiga and downloading/pirating *IS* a way of life for many Thing is, MOST of those downloads are PAL. But obviously there were a TON of NTSC software released. Pretty close ratio, 'cept maybe towards the very end.

 

BUT... if someone had an older A500 with a 512kb Agnus that couldn't handle PAL modes - I could see where someone might want to hold out getting a different machine. Again, just an awareness thing as you can mod any A500 to accept the 1MB Agnus for true PAL/NTSC compatibility. Even with Kickstart 1.3 you can force PAL modes via a program or startup disk. Kickstart 3.1 on an A1200 for instance has an early startup screen that'll boot PAL or NTSC. A certain game might force a change yet again on you though as it boots up.

 

A1000's now... You're stuck dealing with chopped off PAL games as the Agnus inside of that machine is 512kb all_day_long

 

Nice score HyperDuel!

Edited August 11, 2010 by save2600

[HyperDuel]

Pictures are with this post!

 

Questions:

 

* How you replace the battery on the RAM PCB? I know it is easy but do you just lift the arm from the battery and put the new one in?

* What's on the back of the external Disk drive, a socket for another disk drive? Also on the back of the disk drive what is the switch for?

[desiv]

* How you replace the battery on the RAM PCB? I know it is easy but do you just lift the arm from the battery and put the new one in?

Yep, just slide it out. That card looks pretty clean from what I can see in the pic. Nice!!

(and you don't need to replace the battery if you aren't worried about time..)

 

* What's on the back of the external Disk drive, a socket for another disk drive? Also on the back of the disk drive what is the switch for?

 

Yes, you can daisy chain up to 4 drives (well, 3 external I believe for 4 total). Not sure about the switch. Can't remember..

 

True, some A500's can do software switchable PAL with the right Agnus (forgot that, mine can't :-), but most TVs won't like it...

You'll want an RGB monitor for that, but there are a lot of NTSC games to have fun with!!

 

Congrats. Looks very nice..

A500 with 1M, external floppy, A520, some games and manuals for $40? Very nice!!!!!

And SOTB!! Sweet! I still have my T-Shirt somewhere..

 

desiv

[HyperDuel]

Well amigo I don't want the battery to leak and I don't know how long that battery was on that RAM PCB. It is better to play it safe than to be sorry.

 

The PAL switch won't work because of US TVs only support NTSC (while in Europe more and more TVs support both NTSC and PAL). I need a monitor yes but there's no way in hell I'm going to buy one online and ship the bastard. I could either get on locally or either run the system via S-Video or the VGA upscaler.

 

I want your T-Shirt.

[desiv]

You can just run the RAM card without the battery. (That's what I meant above, but didn't say it right) At least the A501 worked that way..

 

Yeah, I have an Amiga<>s-video adapter, and since my TVs don't support PAL, my 1200 doesn't play PAL games there.

 

You can get an s-video<>VGA adapter (if you also have the Amiga<>s-video adapter) and run on a VGA monitor and that works OK (actually, better than OK. The screenshots I saw with the good adapter are great) with PAL games.

 

Amigamaniac, who makes the Amiga<>s-video adapter, also sells the s-video<>VGA adapter (he doesn't make that one) if you want. It works well, but you're talking $70 or so for both adapters, which is getting spendy.

 

I did that early on, but got a cheap s-video<>VGA adapter and it doesn't work to well. (The one Amigamaniac sells works great, but we didn't know that the model I got was sucky till I bought it, so I took one for the team. :-).

 

At that price tho, you can probably find an Amiga 1084S monitor.

 

Of course, that still implies that your Amiga has the correct Agnus and you really need to run PAL... No rush there..

 

As for the t-shirt, I wore it a lot back in the day, so it's not in great shape. (I didn't consider that it might be collectible at the time. :-). I was really surprised when we were moving last year and I found it tho..

 

Have fun!!!

 

desiv

Edited August 11, 2010 by desiv

[Shephda]

WOW! Great deal for $40, and at that price the very least would recoup your investment.

The case looks very clean and well taken care of. Here's a tip! Remember that these units are around 20+ years old, take your time when removing and replacing screws in the case. Screws only need tightened enough to keep things together, not torqued down like a set of hemi heads on a 69 Roadrunner!

What I do is to use something like WD-40® on the screws before putting them back in, just a light coat on the screws and shake off any excess. Never spray a bunch into the holes where they go, this can actually make things worse.

 

Yes, replace the battery and it simply slides into place.

 

The switch on the rear of the drive is most likely a power switch. The external drives get their power via the cable, the switch simply cuts that line to power off the unit. Also, you can daisy chain up to 4 drives on the floppy bus, one internal and up to three external.

 

So where do you want to go from here? The system is pretty much game ready as it is. If it were mine (I hate it when people say that, but this is purely IMHO)I'd get the 2MB memory expansion card (with SCSI interface) and see what ROM you have so you can get up to Workbench 2.1 or 3.2.

 

Bottom line is, you did very well sir!

[Bill Loguidice]

That was a great deal. Definitely get some type of 1084S monitor or other variant thereof. The difference in picture between that and the A520 is dramatic. The A520 provides a very soft picture. Of course, you can try one of those S-video adapters from Amigamaniac that was recommended on here. I just ordered one myself to allow me to make clearer captures straight from the Amiga when recording direct footage. I don't know how closely the S-video mimics usage on a real 1084 monitor, but it will surely be better than what you get from the A520.

[HyperDuel]

Well I've decided to remove the battery from the extra RAM because the clock is useless + I don't even want to think about the battery leaking on the RAM board anytime soon.

 

Now the hunt for software starts, but before that it is a good idea to think about upgrading!

 

I'm going to do the HD/2 MB RAM route so I guess the A590 is in order. Also I see that people put in huge HDs for the Amigas so if possible can anyone give me the rundown on the A590 (and also if anyone has one for sale I might be interested in it!).

 

Also would it be a good idea to pick up the A570 CD-ROM drive for it as well?

 

If I have an Amiga I think for my best interest it would be best to "pimp" it out all the way.

[Shephda]

Well I've decided to remove the battery from the extra RAM because the clock is useless + I don't even want to think about the battery leaking on the RAM board anytime soon.

 

Now the hunt for software starts, but before that it is a good idea to think about upgrading!

 

I'm going to do the HD/2 MB RAM route so I guess the A590 is in order. Also I see that people put in huge HDs for the Amigas so if possible can anyone give me the rundown on the A590 (and also if anyone has one for sale I might be interested in it!).

 

Also would it be a good idea to pick up the A570 CD-ROM drive for it as well?

 

If I have an Amiga I think for my best interest it would be best to "pimp" it out all the way.

 

The A590 is a good option, there are several but the A590 is good. If it does not come with a HD, then look for something around 500MB ~ 1GB range. That is a good starting point.

 

A new battery in there will have very little chance of leaking, the problem happens when the battery is 20+ years old. I'd go ahead and do it.

 

I would get the ROM upgraded to 3.1 then go with WB 3.1 (I can help you there). I'm looking for a 3.1 ROM myself, there are plenty on e-ripoff but I'd like to find one here. Anyone?

 

As for a CD, honestly I'd get an external SCSI Iomega 100MB ZIP drive rather than a CD. If you put one in your PC (IDE not SCSI) as well then you can transfer ADF and other files to the 500 in style. It would be a lot better investment.

 

Also get yourself a good power strip. I leave everything switched on and use the strip to turn on\off the system. It's hard to find new power switches for old equipment.

[desiv]

There are several options.

 

If you can find them reasonably, the A590's are nice.

Also, GVP and Supra made similar boxes...

 

Also, some of them (GVPs at least) have CPU upgrades as well, if you really want to soup it up..

 

A lot of people are taking those and using a SCSI<>IDE adapter and then an IDE<>CF adapter and using CF cards as their drives.

 

Also, there is a guy on www.amibay.com who is selling internal 2M RAM + IDE cards for the A500 right now.

They don't support autoboot by default (if you can burn your own ROM, it can be done, but I haven't seen that anyone has done that yet for this card), so you still need a boot floppy, but that's no biggie..

 

Another alternative (if you are patient) would be something like this:

 

http://retromaster.wordpress.com/ufe/

 

It is designed to replace the internalfloppy with an SD card. Doesn't add any memory, but makes disk swaps very easy.

But they guy who designed/built it isn't going to make them himself, so it might take a bit for his finalized design to be picked up by some people who can make a batch of these... (Very slick, uses the Amiga's keyboard and video (overlay) to select the floppy image..)

 

If you're just looking for gaming, it is a very nice looking option...

(Note: there are other SD/USB Amiga floppy type options, but this is the first with "write" support; the others are read only.)

 

Either way, you'll have loads of fun..

 

TTYL

 

Desi

[HyperDuel]

I check the mobo (besides the dead ant) and the version is 6a.

[mimo]

you may want to look at the HcX floppy disc emulator. I use one on my a500/600/1200 atari STe etc, a great device for keeping all your games on an sd card

http://www.torlus.com/floppy/

[Shephda]

How's the A500 project going?