Hi all, firstly i wanted to say hi from Wales.

Back ground, i am a sinclair retro geek so i love all things spectrum, the Amiga came out when i was mid teens and due to skate boards and girls this platform passed by me.

A couple of days ago my wife saw a facebook post selling an a500, mint condition for £25. we grabbed it.

I checked all voltages etc, stripped and checked her over inside and she is perfect and unmolested, i plugged it in and its all good, now this is where my skills and knowledge end.

She has no Ram expansion, no hard drive, she is as Amiga released her, complete with sparklingly shiny rf shield.

I got one game with it which didnt work and the floppy drive sounds like a cat on fire. ive ordered a Gotek Drive and a scart adapter, (i dont like that 520 thing hanging out the back)

I gather the ram expansion was to load more more into the memory, if i have games on usb do i still need that? essentially my son is also an 80s geek (although he is only 13) so we just want to potter about with it and play outrun and the old classics, do you think its worth me getting the ram upgrade for this type of task? (i have the fat agnus board)

Any advice would be amazing, dont be afraid to dumb it down, i literally have no idea about these machines. :)

Cheers, Mike

@KratonMikey
Welcome friend, for my expericen you need at least other 512KB to have the 1MB to can play to many classic games, also a very important thing is some games for Amiga 500 was made for ROM 2.05 for Amiga 500+ and in your Amiga 500 don't works except you put one dual rom board with rom 1.3 switched with the 2.05, but all good games runs fine with the 1.3 but better with 1MB, there are several boards with this extra 512KB for the trapdoor, is not necessary this expansion board has the clock, only if you want use the Amiga 500 to work.

@KratonMikey

Basic A500 should be fine for most games. 512 kB RAM expansion is required by some 1991/1992 games, but many of these would work OK with some limitations (eg. less music and sound effects). I never heard about a classic A500 game requiring Kickstart 2.x (quite the opposite).


And of course...

Welcome!

@KratonMikey

Quote:

KratonMikey wrote: Hi all, firstly i wanted to say hi from Wales. Back ground, i am a sinclair retro geek so i love all things spectrum, the Amiga came out when i was mid teens and due to skate boards and girls this platform passed by me. A couple of days ago my wife saw a facebook post selling an a500, mint condition for £25. we grabbed it. I checked all voltages etc, stripped and checked her over inside and she is perfect and unmolested, i plugged it in and its all good, now this is where my skills and knowledge end. She has no Ram expansion, no hard drive, she is as Amiga released her, complete with sparklingly shiny rf shield. I got one game with it which didnt work and the floppy drive sounds like a cat on fire. ive ordered a Gotek Drive and a scart adapter, (i dont like that 520 thing hanging out the back) I gather the ram expansion was to load more more into the memory, if i have games on usb do i still need that? essentially my son is also an 80s geek (although he is only 13) so we just want to potter about with it and play outrun and the old classics, do you think its worth me getting the ram upgrade for this type of task? (i have the fat agnus board) Any advice would be amazing, dont be afraid to dumb it down, i literally have no idea about these machines. :) Cheers, Mike

It appears that the two other members that replied missed the part of your message above that says "(i have the fat agnus board)". I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to by "fat agnus board", but I'm guessing that it is a Chip RAM expansion and that you have 1mb of Chip RAM. This should be enough to run 90% of the old Amiga games you will find. If not, and you just meant that you have an A500 that has the Fat Agnus chip installed in it, I would suggest that you order some version of RAM expansion, to bring your system up to a minimum of 1mb. Luckily for you, the A500 is the most popular Amiga model, and is easily expandable. Even today, there are many hardware expansions still being actively developed for it, like the Gotek floppy drive emulator and scart adapter you have ordered.

Welcome to the world of Amiga (retro)computing, and have a blast. You will find that this group of users can be very helpful with any of your questions. Just ignore any of the other nonsense that happens here, there is a long history of conflict and division within the Amiga community, which leads to far too much squabbling from time to time.

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@amigadave

I think (and my comprehension may be limited) OP has bare A500 with better Agnus chip. Many late A500 models (even before A500+) were so designed. Sure 1 MB Chip RAM would be an ideal configuration for classic gaming.

@pavlor

"better" or "fatter"? heh.

Anyway, I'd ignore that since although late A500 boards sometimes came with fat agnus, it still reverted to being just an agnus (chip ramwise) unless the modification was made to the board. Rev. 6A being one of these.

#6

Last edited by number6 on 20-Aug-2020 at 10:45 PM.

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@KratonMikey

This takes me back to 1988 when I lived in Yugoslavia and I finally upgraded from a Commodore 64 to a fresh, new, long time coveted Amiga 500. I can almost smell it now. Computers had a different scent back then.

It was an amazing time in computing, and I was salivating at all the new possibilities. My first peripherals and add-ons were a couple of joysticks, an external floppy drive and then the 512k expansion. The second floppy was pretty much essential when working with Workbench launched apps as it reduced disk swapping. The extra RAM more so for applications like Deluxe Paint than games.

I was 17 at the time and an uber geek. I had zero game when it came to the ladies so during my university years most of my spare time was spent on the Amiga. No regrets here.

I hope your Amiga journey is even a fraction today of what it was for many back then. You're in for some fun times.

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All the way, with 68k

Thanks everyone for your help so far, the parts arrived today and its working of sorts.

She boots fine, i can get games to load through the usb drive no issues, the only problem is the keyboard doesnt seem to work, Ctrl, lamiga and ramiga works to reboot just fine and the mouse works but the caps lock led is permanently lit, no other keys seem to work.

I pulled the keyboard apart, (note to self, lots of springs) and it all looked ok, i refitted the ribbons but no joy.

Anyone?

@KratonMikey

Nobody mentioned recapping. I do not have any 500s so maybe this is not an issue for them, but I know all of my Amigas needed to be recapped due to leakage causing possible damage.

Can someone please answer the question of whether a 500 needs to be recapped?

@outlawal2

I wondered that as i had to recap my old spectrum, looking at the 500 board though theres no signs of any caps leaking or expanding, in fact i can load games just fine from the gotek usb, i just cant use the keyboard. i was thinking the keyboard is at fault but ctrl, lamiga and ramiga works ok, it just wont do anything else, i think the controller board it faulty, anyone think the same?

@KratonMikey

It could be the keyboard controller chip has failed. Where in Wales do you live? If you're close by I can bring one round to test. I might even have a spare lying around somewhere.

You already have a gotek, wich is good start. You could check if you can easily use trapdoor ram as a CHIP ram. Some newer revisions it is very simple to do. Google it, Amiga 500 1mb chip ram modification/hack.

If you want to get hard drive and play whdloadized games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHDLoad you should upgrade Kick start to 3.1

Then easiest way would be buy Terrible fire 536 accelerator with IDE support from Amibay.com. It is about 150€

Nice to have things are like Plipbox wich is ethernet card for a paraller port.

@KratonMikey
Also the keyboard membrane with the use cans be dirty, you try to clean up or replace it.

https://www.amiga-shop.net/en/Amiga-Hardware/Amiga-replacement-parts/Keyboards-membrane-for-Amiga-500-600-1200-4000::896.html

The keyboard controller doesn't usually give problems, more with the age the membrane keys, because they are of carbon with silver paint also you can try to repair them.

And you don't forget buy a good joystick to enjoy the Amiga games.

@KratonMikey

Check the keyboard pcb for bad solder joints.
I have 4 or 5 complete A500 systems here and on two of them the keyboard was not working when i recieved them because of bad solder joints on the keyboard pcb so it might be a quite common issue.

Guys, thanks so much for your help so far, i will pull the pcb again and check the joints, i checked the membrane and tested some of the traces with a multi meter, they looked good.

Rob, thanks for the offer, im in the RCT area by Llantrisant if thats anywhere near you? i would really appreciate a knowledgable eye on it.

Being a spectrum nut my joystick of choice was always the Cheetah 125+, totally compatible with the amiga thankfully.


Again, thanks everyone, i definately joined the right forum.

Well i think i got myself a bargain on ebay and ordered a second hand keyboard with pcb, its advertised as working so fingers crossed, i chacnged those two chips around for the mouse and keyboard and still it didnt work proving those chips are fine, the mouse worked wherever the chip was.


I will be picking up a ram expansion in a week or two but just bought a 3d printer so need to let the wife settle a bit first. :)


Also i notice there are lots of upgraded roms on ebay, whats the difference?