wood_jl

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 200687769855


Description says no RF modulator, and must have authentic Atari monitor (or multisync, as if you'll ever find one).

I guess I'm still learning here.

But I thought the 1040STf was the only one in this boat, or perhaps the earliest 520ST before 520STm came out.

Is this for real?

OK, ST people. trivia time, here.

Reason for confusion? I was under the impression that by the time they (Atari) went to the 1/3-height floppy drive (small parallelogram eject button as you'll see pictured below), they were into the 1040STfm. This is the drive that's seen in the 1040STe. Also, the power/floppy LEDs of the 1040STfm and 1040STe seem to be green, and accompany the last-revision floppy drive.

Well, that was my "conventional" wisdom, which I don't know to be accurate, and now it seems it is not.

Here is a 1040STf for auction.......(pics included for reference, since you know this message will last longer than the listing will)

 listing.JPG   172.76K   22 downloads
eBay Auction -- Item Number: 130600752840

 IMAGE1.jpg   41.93K   24 downloads  IMAGE2.jpg   34.33K   17 downloads
 IMAGE3.jpg   36.28K   15 downloads  IMAGE4.jpg   31.25K   13 downloads

Note that the floppy led (seen in the pic, under the 1040STf badge) - although it is not illuminated - appears to be green (definitely ain't red).

So, obviously, they moved to green LEDs and 1/3-height drives, BEFORE moving to 1040STfm? Really? I've seen (and looked at) a lot of pics, but I've never seen a 1040STf with green LEDs and 1/3 height drive. What gives?

You know the drill.... Nice-looking Commodore 64 bought from Ebay. "Owner can't test" because they don't know anything about it, or they did test and it didn't work and they're pretending they didn't. Either way, same result.

Black screen.

But it does look like new!


So what I need is just a working motherboard, or a really beat-ass-looking one THAT DEFINITELY WORKS to drop the mobo in my case.

Any thoughts?

Thx.

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.

First off, see this mod:

http://www.intellivi...d/video_mod.php


This is the "beeslife" Intellivision mod. If someone has a NICE Intellivision modded with this - that they're not using - I might pay them a good price for it!!!!

or, secondly,

How about a NICE Intellivision? Really would like an undamaged one, as I'll probably spend more time looking at it than playing the sucker.

I don't like the Intellivision 2. I really like the original model. I'm not quite sure what the INTV III is, but since it looks like the original model, I guess it would do. Any improvements?

Thanks!