How to find a good Amiga 500

[+wood_jl]

Last year (I think it was) I had an unsuccessful experiment with the Amiga 1200. Bad motherboard caps. Common problem.

 

I've never had an Amiga before that. As there are RELATIVELY few "AGA" games, that's not really what I'm after. A WHDload system with "degrader" and all that crap - playing classic games - is what I was really after. Well, that's a handful - A1200, all the stuff to make that happen.

 

I've decided a simpler approach is - A500, and the HXC Floppy Emulator is a nice option, since I have it already, and the later versions offer Amiga write support. The Amiga 500 is the model I should have gone with in the first place, and I think it has a better reputation for reliability, as there aren't sites dedicated to the bad capacitor issues of the A1200/A4000 - which there are. I know adding a hard drive to an Amiga 500 is a major bitch (no internal IDE cable like the A1200), but I just want to game from floppy images. I don't care about all that stuff, unless I have to.

 

Trouble? So many revisions, so little knowledge.

 

I grew up with the ST, and while there are several models, each is more distinct. Even revisions taking place under the same nameplate are easier to understand. Example: 1040STf, 1040STfm, 1040STe.

 

The trouble with the A500 is there are SO MANY REVISIONS - each called simply "A500" and each much less distinct than the Atari 1040ST - that it leads one to believe that necessity was the mother of the invention of so many revisions, and by virtue of so many revisions, the earlier versions must be inherently flawed, or there wouldn't be so many revisions. Also - how to tell - by Ebay listing - what revision you're buying? So confusing, I'm almost inclined to give up before I gamble again, but I'd really like to have an Amiga in my collection. I wonder if A1000 wouldn't get the job done, but it was less-popular, and I have a feeling the A500 is what I'm after.

 

Our pal - AA user save2600 - has one on ebay right now.....

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 300619138342

 

.....which cues me in, towards a few things to look for. It's difficult, when you've never followed Amiga before. I'm inclined to want to buy from him - he's reputable, knowledgeable, and pretty much great guy - but there's a bit more there than I need. However, in attempt of learning something from his ad:

 

(1) Rock Lobster motherboard. This is the earliest, from what I can Google. Caveats? There are so DAMN MANY revisions (6? 8?) that I figure there must be something to it. I'm assuming the later the motherboard, the better, but is this correct? One likely is NOT going to know which motherboard revision they're getting, from Ebay, unless they state, as our pal does. Is this really an important consideration?

 

(2) 8372 1MB Agnus - I take it that this is not "stock" for the older A500 (but is it for the later revisions) and this imbues PAL compatibility for Yank machines. This sounds nice.

 

(3) Kickstart 1.3 - As I think I understand it, 1.2 was the standard for older A500 (but newer revisions have it) and 1.3 is an upgrade. Caveats? What's wrong with 1.2, specifically, if you end up with it?

 

(4) ECS Denise - I'm not sure what this means. This means it will play ECS (Enhanced Chipset) games or something, that OCS (original chipset) wouldn't?

 

(5) 1MB RAM - 512k chip ram and 512k Fast RAM (but can be changed to 1MB chip ram upon request). Well, I don't really know what this means. What's the "standard" 1MB Amiga 500 setup? I think I understand that lots of people had a "standard" 1MB upgrade, and in the end a number of games required it. Was this "chip RAM" or "fast RAM" or what? The only accord I can try to draw is on the Atari TT and Atari Falcon, they had "ST RAM" and "TT RAM" (or whatever - I never owned those machines) but I think the "ST RAM" was more like "chip RAM" and the "TT RAM" was more like "Fast RAM" but, this is just an attempt to understand what the hell they're talking about. I only had Atari ST, and there was just one kind of RAM, which is why I'm not so sure what's up with this. What is the standard 1MB setup, for maximum game compatibility?

 

(6) Any other general reliability issues? Why are the power supplies so maligned? Are there any clock batteries that leak electrolyte onto motherboard traces, ruining them? Why is it that I even suspect this? I think I'm getting my Amiga revisions a little confused, but there was one model of Amiga with this battery problem, eh?

 

 

Thanks for any info. I feel a slight void in my retro-collection without an Amiga of some type, and the A500 still catches my eye, yet I find I know so little about them, that even the lingo is somewhat greek to me.

 

Edited November 4, 2011 by wood_jl

[Rybags]

I wouldn't worry too much about one motherboard revision or the other with the 500. For me, a good machine would be one that hasn't been messed about with by the hamfisted, although that said, some of the common mods are dead simple and could be done by almost anyone.

 

Kickstart 1.3 was much more prevelant, and more reliable/desirable to have than earlier 1.x versions. A popular mod is a dual OS board that has 1.3 and 2.1 (from memory about the highest OS revision the 500 could run).

 

Base config with the 500 is 512K "chip RAM" - chip RAM refers to RAM that can be accessed for graphics/sound, later Fat Agnus machines have 1 Meg chip RAM ability.

 

Most 500s have 512K built in and another 512K on the trapdoor RAM expansion, IIRC it was the much later ones that have 1 Meg on the motherboard. A Fat Agnus is required to run 1 Meg on the motherboard.

 

For most games, a system with 1 Meg is sufficient, some sidecar HDD expansions also provide more RAM.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Chip_Set gives a good overview of the partial ECS abiltiy you can have with a 500.

 

Amiga is like the ST in that compatibility issues crept in with later hardware and OS revisions, but like the ST, many of the fixes were implemented to software by cracking groups.

But, like a base 1040ST, you could probably say that a somewhat vanilla 1 Meg Amiga 500 probably has the biggest range of trouble-free game running ability.

[desiv]

I've never really heard anyone complain about A500 motherboard revisions when talking about gaming....

 

You'll want an A500 with with 1M total RAM and 1.3 kickstart for the best compatibility.

That RAM can be 512K CHIP and 512K FAST or all CHIP. For gaming, it doesn't really matter...

Lot's of games required 1M total. I'm not aware of any non-AGA games that require more than 512k CHIP.

(There were some "very early" games that didn't like FAST RAM, but not many...)

 

As for the PAL issue, I never tried PAL games in PAL mode on an A500 so I wouldn't know...

You would probably need a newer Agnus (Fat or Fatter) at least AND an RGB monitor and a program to flip it to PAL.

But that might also be motherboard revision dependent?? I'm not sure...

 

And about the monitor, the A500 has a composite output, and it's really sharp.... because it's monochrome..

Yep, there's no color composite on the A500.. There is the A520 and it's OK for gaming, but it's quality isn't great.

There's a guy in Australia who makes Amiga-composite (and S-Video) adapters that are great quality, although he's a student and his availability can be spotty depending on school work..

 

I'm not aware of any games that use ECS modes...

 

Not sure what the issue is with the power supplies.. The A500 PSU is the best out there..

Many A1200 users get an A500 PSU because it has more amps than the A1200 PSU..

 

The A500 Plus (I don't think we got that in the U.S.) would be the only A500 I'd avoid for you. It came with Kickstart 2.1 and a RTC on board, so battery damage potential...

 

As for that, yes, some 512k RAM expansions can have leaky batteries. Luckily, on the A500, it's not on the motherboard, just the memory expander.. So, when you get one, take out the memory card and check it!! It'll run fine without a battery...

 

desiv

[Chilly Willy]

(1) Rock Lobster motherboard. This is the earliest, from what I can Google. Caveats? There are so DAMN MANY revisions (6? 8?) that I figure there must be something to it. I'm assuming the later the motherboard, the better, but is this correct? One likely is NOT going to know which motherboard revision they're getting, from Ebay, unless they state, as our pal does. Is this really an important consideration?

 

I wouldn't be too concerned about the specific revision of the motherboard but more on the other stuff you list below. I don't remember there being revs of the A500 that were tremendously better or worse than the others.

 

 

(2) 8372 1MB Agnus - I take it that this is not "stock" for the older A500 (but is it for the later revisions) and this imbues PAL compatibility for Yank machines. This sounds nice.

 

The "Fatter" Agnus gave you two things: the ability to have more chip memory, and the ability to change the video mode (between NTSC, PAL, VGA, etc). The original "Fat" Agnus only supported 512 KB of chip memory and was fixed to either NTSC or PAL only.

 

 

(3) Kickstart 1.3 - As I think I understand it, 1.2 was the standard for older A500 (but newer revisions have it) and 1.3 is an upgrade. Caveats? What's wrong with 1.2, specifically, if you end up with it?

 

KS1.3 added: Support for the Fatter Agnus/ECS Denise so that you could change the video mode; KS 1.2 was hardcoded for either NTSC or PAL only. Support for AUTOCONFIG - this allowed you to boot harddrives connected to the side expansion port; KS1.2 required you to boot a floppy that in turn boots the harddrive.

 

 

(4) ECS Denise - I'm not sure what this means. This means it will play ECS (Enhanced Chipset) games or something, that OCS (original chipset) wouldn't?

 

The Enhanced Chip Set made some minor changes to the Amiga hardware. You could change the video modes on the fly, do larger blits, and use more chip memory. The two chips affected were Agnus (Fat -> Fatter -> Obese) and Denise (OCS Denise -> ECS Denise). Paula was not changed in the update from OCS to ECS.

 

 

(5) 1MB RAM - 512k chip ram and 512k Fast RAM (but can be changed to 1MB chip ram upon request). Well, I don't really know what this means. What's the "standard" 1MB Amiga 500 setup? I think I understand that lots of people had a "standard" 1MB upgrade, and in the end a number of games required it. Was this "chip RAM" or "fast RAM" or what? The only accord I can try to draw is on the Atari TT and Atari Falcon, they had "ST RAM" and "TT RAM" (or whatever - I never owned those machines) but I think the "ST RAM" was more like "chip RAM" and the "TT RAM" was more like "Fast RAM" but, this is just an attempt to understand what the hell they're talking about. I only had Atari ST, and there was just one kind of RAM, which is why I'm not so sure what's up with this. What is the standard 1MB setup, for maximum game compatibility?

 

The 1MB setup on an A500 is either 1MB chip memory with the Fatter Agnus, or 512KB chip memory + 512KB bogo memory. Bogo memory is also called slow memory. This 512KB of memory is accessed through Agnus, but cannot be used for video or sound data. Since it is accessed through Agnus, it has the same DMA slow-downs as chip memory, hence the reason people called it Slow memory instead of Fast memory.

 

The absolute best configuration for gaming is 512KB chip memory + 512KB slow memory. A lot of early games were hardcoded to only expect 512KB of chip memory, so they don't take advantage of 1MB chip memory properly. At the same time, 512KB of slow memory was pretty common on the A500, so many games look for slow memory.

 

 

(6) Any other general reliability issues? Why are the power supplies so maligned? Are there any clock batteries that leak electrolyte onto motherboard traces, ruining them? Why is it that I even suspect this? I think I'm getting my Amiga revisions a little confused, but there was one model of Amiga with this battery problem, eh?

 

The only complaint I was aware of for the A500 PSU was that the power switch was on the power block instead of the computer. That made turning on/off the computer a little irritating to some folks. What I did was plug the thing into a power strip that I turned on/off with my toes. The PSU for A1200 got many complaints because it was so wimpy that you couldn't hardly add anything to the A1200 without also upgrading the PSU. The A500 PSU could power the base A500 + a 512KB belly slot card + one extra external floppy. If you wanted more memory or external floppies, or an internal accelerator, you would need to update the PSU. External harddrives for the A500 came with their own PSU, so you didn't need to update the PSU for a harddrive.

 

The A500 used a clock that plugged into the belly slot, if it used one at all. A clock was pretty rare on the A500 and I don't suggest bothering with one. Many 512KB ram boards for the belly slot do not come with the clock, and one isn't necessary for any game I'm aware of. So there should be no motherboard/battery issues with any A500. At worst, it would be a battery/belly slot expansion issue.

Edited November 5, 2011 by Chilly Willy

[Rybags]

I've got one of those RGB to S-Video convertors mentioned earlier - it was about $40 delivered.

 

The quality is better than the Amiga modulator, but there's pages around that show how to add S-Video to the A520 modulator - the onboard chip used supplies it and it's kind of a mystery why they didn't have the color and luma outputs on the A520 in the first place but I guess it might have meant less sales of the 1084.

 

Of course even S-Video is still inferior to RGB especially when dealing with text but if you're only playing games it doesn't matter that much. Most games were predominantly in the 320 pixel modes anyway.

 

1084s are in demand and you might pay $40 + for one, and they have a habit of failing in various common ways so running S-Video on a modern TV is a worthwhile way of saving some money.

 

Alternatively you could run with an EGA or colour ST compatible monitor but you'd need to make up a custom adaptor to run ST monitors.

 

A520 modulators you can pick up for anything from about 8 to 25 bucks.

Edited November 6, 2011 by Rybags

[marcfrick2112]

Well, fact is, I have had 3 different 500 mobo revisions, sure there may be some work involved to get a 2.04 , or 3.1 ROM in there..

I will say 1MB CHIP may be required for certain European games, Theatre of Death for one, will only run properly on a 1MB chip machine, and in PAL mode...

Also, I am quite certain that later rev. 500's can be upgraded to FULL ECS. My 500 system, that I miss so much:

A500 Rev 6, OS 3.1,030/50, 882/50, 2MB Chip, 34 MB fast, external 1GB HDD (at the end), and 100MB SCSI Zip. (2MB Agnus, and Super Denise, of coz) On this system, I could even play games with no real compatibility issues, you will be using Degrader a lot tho! (WHDLoad makes things SOOO much nicer!)

 

And, I believe Sofware Hut may still have new OEM A520 adapters for sale.

[RARusk]

Wait a minute. Using a "Fatter" Agnus chip may allow you to do Progressive Scan RGB (VGA) on an A500? That's news to me. How could that be enabled?

[desiv]

I'm guessing they are talking about the ECS productivity modes.

All the early Amiga models supported only 15khz modes.

With ECS, you got some new "multiscan" modes:

MULTISCAN:Productivity 640x480 60Hz, 31.44kHz ECS

MULTISCAN:Productivity Laced 640x960 60Hz, 31.44kHz ECS

But I think those are more dependent on having a new Denise chip, not Agnus (though it might need that in addition to the new Denise).

 

But, those work for Workbench and those "very" few games that support "Mode promotion."

Most don't, they just open a 15khz screen for whatever resolution they need, and won't work on a VGA monitor..

 

As for modding an A520 for s-video, there are some great docs on how to do that for a PAL model.

I found 1 doc on how to do that for an NTSC model, and it didn't work for me, but I'm not that great with a soldering iron.

It was significantly different than the PAL mod, and I couldn't find anyone who had posted that an NTSC A520 mod worked for them.

 

desiv

[R.Cade]

I have a bone-stock old A500 also, with an A501 expansion, and the USB HxC. It really is a nice compatible solution and less work to keep running for games than an A1200 with WHDLoad. The only mod I would make is a switch to turn off the extra 512M trapdoor RAM, which is an easy mod for the few early games that don't like it.

 

I think mine has KS1.2, and since I never use a hard disk with it, it is the most compatible. To my knowledge, the only addition to 1.3 is the ability to auto-boot from a hard disk. There are some early EA titles that don't work with 1.3 or the extra 512M (Skyfox, Archon, etc.) but most games do... I don't know of any that won't work with KS 1.2 that needed 1.3...

Edited November 21, 2011 by R.Cade

[+wood_jl]

There are some early EA titles that don't work with 1.3 or the extra 512M (Skyfox, Archon, etc.) but most games do... I don't know of any that won't work with KS 1.2 that needed 1.3...

 

Bummer, man! I wanted to play Amiga Archon! Is there no hacked/patched version?

[+save2600]

Shoot, totally missed this thread!

 

Kickstart 1.2 shouldn't be too hard to find and is a snap to install if there's no crack and you really must play Archon or some of those other super early EA games...

 

Oh and about 1.2 being "hard coded" for either PAL or NTSC, I was not aware of that, but I do know there are bootable disks that will manually switch to PAL mode... can probably find it on aminet.net. I have a copy on disk somewhere too.

Edited December 15, 2011 by save2600

[+remowilliams]

Bummer, man! I wanted to play Amiga Archon! Is there no hacked/patched version?

 

AW72 on the minimig forum came up with a fix.

[+wood_jl]

The Eagles Amiga has landed!

 

Actually, I've had it and have been sitting on it for a month (??) or so, but never got all the parts together....until, today!!!

 

I bought save2600's A500. It works like a champ, and looks good, too.

 

I now have what's essentially a non-involved, easy-to-use setup. Follow:

 

(1) I already have spare Atari SC1224 monitors. (2) I didn't want to have to buy and store Amiga monitors. (3) Even if I should decide to buy an Amiga monitor, I don't know which I want - 1080? !084s? Which 1084s? Just as there appear to be more than one monitor billed as different versions of Amiga 1084s, there are different versions of the Atari SC1224.....really different monitors with the same name, which I suspect is the case with the 1084s.

 

One of my favorite monitors of ALL TIME is the FIRST Atari SC1224, made by JVC. After years of playing game in 160x192 in 4 colors over an RF connection, the ST's graphics on this rock-solid display were astonishing. It's a glossy/shiny screen, and while it makes for reflections in bad lighting, it made the graphics look polished and shiny. Of course my DVI flat panels kick the crap out of it today (for their intended machines and purposes) , but to move to this sharp, rock-solid display from the TV era was the SINGLE biggest incremental upgrade I ever made. ST graphics look PERFECT on it. Well, turns out it does some justice to Amiga graphics, too!

 

 

The curved top back and the darker front bezel with front push button power button are the way to tell this monitor. It is also unique in SC1224 models in that it's the only one with a removable cable. Unfortunately, that means the cable is frequently lost out in the wild. But for connecting a custom Amiga cable, it's the one you'd want, anyway. Otherwise, what kind of bridged cable-to-cable kludge would you have to make, if you couldn't remove the ST cable? I believe this version can sync in more ways (at least 1?) than the other models, although I'm not sure, I think the others may still be capable of working with Amiga but I wonder what the cable would look like.

 

 

Further adding to the confusion that there are 3 monitors (JVC, Goldstar, Samsung) sold under the SC1224 moniker, this FIRST one (JVC) is labeled on the back as "Version 2."

 

 

How the hell can this be Version 2? It doesn't get much earlier than 1985 for the Atari ST, as that label indicates! But what it also indicates is "Made in Japan" quality. Not Korea. Not China. Not Malaysia. I think by 1986 they'd moved on to the Goldstar with built-in cable.

 

I had this cable made for it......

 

 

.....and I must admit I was still skeptical when hooking it up, but it works......

 

 

The RCA cables pipe the Amiga sound to the little mono speaker in the top of the monitor. Hardly ideal sound, but adequate for gaming and clutter-eliminating. I was pleasantly surprised they included the sound connection and planning on cluttering the desk further with some el-cheapo Chinese amplified speakers and power supply.

 

This monitor also seems to display PAL, but the pic is a tad lower in the frame. I think the bottom 1 or 2 scan lines may be cut off. There's some positioning controls inside the monitor but since I'm going to play NTSC mostly (and since I don't know what I'm doing inside monitors, really) I won't fool with it. The PAL games are still completely playable. I think it was "Hard Drivin'" PAL I was playing and it's just a little off, but I was so impressed I could see and actually play PAL that it didn't bother me much as it was acceptable.

 

This Amiga didn't come with a mouse, but I didn't care, because I wanted to use a reliable optical mouse. Ball mice suck (and compromise your game of Arkanoid) after years of perfect optical mice. I had previously bought a couple of adapters for the ST and I remembered the Ebay seller had Amiga versions, so I got one. Yes, pricey, but I can't stand crap ball mice anymore.

 

 

It's cool the Practical Solutions Mouse Master I use with the ST works on the Amiga (of course) so it's a good place to plug in the adapter.....

 

 

....and PERFECT optical mouse functionality with the same old Logitech M-BJ58 mouse I recommend for using the similar adapter on the ST.

 

 

 

The Ebay ad tends to allude to this adapter working with "any" USB mouse then names some like some versions of Microsoft Intellimouse. Well, there are enough different versions of the Microsoft Intellimouse over the years that you could fill a catalog with them. Honestly, this adapter is more of a PS/2 adapter with a USB connector. The "USB" mice that work with this adapter (and the ST's adapter of course) are really working though their PS/2 functionality, as these mice originally shipped with a USB-to-PS2 adapter and worked on either connection. You can go through a lot of trial and error, or you can find a nice used Logitech M-BJ58 on Ebay (or thrift store) and disassemble it and clean it with a toothbrush and whitewall tire cleaner (my standard procedure) and have something clean, cheap, comfortable, and that actually works. You just have to ignore the scroll wheel!

 

Quite interestingly, the same seller has a more "advanced" version of this adapter, that you can install in the actual Amiga! Because I am not familiar with the Amiga chassis and I don't quite understand where this goes and what it repalces - and I *AM* familiar with the success of just the little adapter from using it with the ST, I wasn't interested in getting this, but I found it interesting, nonetheless....

 

 

 

Finally, since I already have the HxC SD-card Floppy Emulator which works wonders with the ST, I was dying to try it with Amiga. I removed the Amiga's internal floppy (now preserved from further wear) and put a power extension and longer floppy cable out the slot......

 

 

Man, if this isn't a hot setup for 16-bit gaming! Amiga or ST, you just push buttons to change games and reboot. I suppose this is a bit of a poor man's WHDLoad. Easy to set up and use? You Betcha.

 

I'm much less frustrated (actually, not frustrated at all) than my earlier A1200 experience. This is really a hot gaming setup, and since I already had the monitor and the floppy emulator, I really just needed the A500. I like it!

[+save2600]

We *really* got to get you a 1080 or 1084. That 1224 looks, well... kinda too much like a 1224.

 

Super glad you're happy with it all though!! PM incoming...

[+wood_jl]

Bummer, man! I wanted to play Amiga Archon! Is there no hacked/patched version?

 

AW72 on the minimig forum came up with a fix.

 

Remo, you're a helpful genius, as always. THANK YOU!!!!

 

 

To save the minor trouble of having to use the hex editor......

 

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SWWF3Z1R

 

 

 

Amiga Archon totally rocks!!! The AI is less-predictable to shoot against, in 1-player mode. The game is largely the same as the 8bit versions, which is great. The little differences are very cool! One player mode is more difficult.

 

I forgot that the Amiga got Electronics Arts and the ST didn't.

[+wood_jl]

We *really* got to get you a 1080 or 1084. That 1224 looks, well... kinda too much like a 1224. appropriately-branded for this would-be/should-be Atari machine.

 

There! Fixed that for ya! Still haven't pasted an Atari badge on the machine yet, though. :)

 

Super glad you're happy with it all though!! PM incoming...

 

Thanks! Still all smiles with this thing, and the floppy emulator. This is a fun and interesting machine to those who never really used one!

[Mirage]

Ordered the HxC floppy emulator hopefully to arrive end of January, thanks to this thread and my talks with James! Now I'll have the best of both worlds, the WHDLoad and the floppy emu. Messed around with the miggy again last night for the first time in awhile. It's always nice going back to the Amiga again.

 

Thanks James (and Frank too) for getting me back into the Amiga again after all these years.

[tjlazer]

Where did you have that cable made for the SC1224?

[FastRobPlus]

Where did you have that cable made for the SC1224?

 

Redmond cable made a custom cable for me back in 1988. It made for an overall fantastic picture. Brighter and sharper looking than even the origianl A1080, owing to the slightly smaller tube size.

After they made mine, they started offering it widely. I'll bet they can still make it.