Among these choices I went for the ACA500plus and never regretted it a single bit.. Mine overclocks to 42MHz without a hitch and performs absolutely beastly for what it is.. I mean, a 030 CPU is nice and all what use is it on a non-AGA Amiga? The extra utility that ACA500+ brings to the table (8MB Fast RAM, dual CF-IDE, WB3.1 in ROM, KS1.3/2.0/3.1 in ROM, automatic WB CF installer, Action Replay 2/3, HRTMon, automatic injection of updated SCSI drivers, mapping trapboard ram to chipram, mapping slow ram to slow ram, df0/df1 swap support, PAL/NTSC switch etc. It's AMAZING all around.) outweigh the advantages of a faster CPU for me.

melbar wrote:

Thanks for the info, brostenen. It helps me to get a good overview about all the amiga things and possibilities. […]
Show full quote

brostenen wrote:

It really comes down to eighter 68000+8mb or 68030+2mb.

brostenen wrote:

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?7158-A50 … A600-CF-adapter

With this, you can source an 68010 which are cheap enough.

Thanks for the info, brostenen. It helps me to get a good overview about all the amiga things and possibilities.

Ramp up the different solution's, you can see:

• - The board you have linked: 8MB+ide board --> ~80€
  a 68010 cpu cost ~ 10€
  So you definitely end up with min. 100€
  
  - ACA500+ ,68HC000 + 8Mb, the external solution. --> 135€
  
  - Witcher 500i, (new batches can be preordered...), --> 133€
  Still addtional cpu needed: 68HC000 --> ~15€
  8Mb 72-pin Ram i still have in storage i think.
  So you end up with min. 150€
  
  - HC533, 68HC000 + 8Mb, --> 130€
  Still out of stock.
  
  - Terrible Fire 530 (your card), you have paid 156€.
  Out of stock now.
  
  - New TF534 soon available. with 4Mb instead of 2Mb.
  But acc. to the developer, it will be more expensive.

Conclusion:
These turbo boards are not much more expensive than your first proposal, the 8MB+ide board.
Then you will get also problems with the height and the tight fit inside the case. For me, the better price-/performance ratio is related more to the ACA500+ or the HC533.
Nevertheless, i will only need these upgrade solutions if a want to handle with whdload.

By the way, did you replace some capacitors from your Rev.8a board? I have heard that some of them can make problems... 😕

Yup. Those accelerators are not cheap. Yet thinking about it, what would a 1993 PC that has all the bells and whistles cost to build today? Here I am thinking about something like a DX2-80, a really good and fast VLB-Motherboard, VLB controller and VLB VGA card (good controller with bios and something like S3-805 or ET4000), an AWE32 and a GUS. Then of course CF card, CD-Rom and a real AT-Case. I mean... Suddenly a pimped Amiga500 does not sound that expensive at all, compared to what those PC parts will set you back these days.

I have not recapped any of my 500's yet. I bought a recapped replacement systemboard for my Amiga600 though, as the original was in a poor and sorry state. I will guess that my 500's need recapping within the next 5 to 6 years from now.

appiah4 wrote:

Among these choices I went for the ACA500plus and never regretted it a single bit.. Mine overclocks to 42MHz without a hitch and performs absolutely beastly for what it is.. I mean, a 030 CPU is nice and all what use is it on a non-AGA Amiga?

I know... An 33 to 50 mhz 68000 CPU are fast enough, yet I look at an 030 in a 500, as a kind of mini-version of a really fast Amiga2000. Minus the expansion possibilities that is. I know that there are even 040 accelerator cards for the Amiga2000, and thinking about it, then I actually only need option for adding external drives. Like CD-Rom, ZIP, MO and other kind of drives. That can be done with some kind of SCSI solution, using the sidecar expansion slot. Regarding boot selector. Then I will be getting one too.

brostenen wrote:

I have not recapped any of my 500's yet. I bought a recapped replacement systemboard for my Amiga600 though, as the original was in a poor and sorry state. I will guess that my 500's need recapping within the next 5 to 6 years from now.

You know, there's this big topic on A600 and A1200 capacitors replacement. If you buy a A600/A1200 now, and if the previous owner's haven't take care, there is a big chance for damaged area's on the board.

I thought, that the A500 has 100% nothing about such problems. Yes, the A500+ has it's problem with it's leaking battery, the same issue as it is with a lot of old 286, 386 and 486.

But there is maybe one more problem with two capacitors on the A500 Rev. 8A board.
There are 2 possible versions available from the Rev.8A boards.

I have seen this on a youtube channel of a german AMIGA "expert". Recently, he did two video's on the Rev. 5 and the Rev. 8A board.

Here you see the screenshots from the video. The black capacitors are the good ones 😀 and the bright blue ones are the bad 😠
It seems, Commodore has taken different capacitors.

Rev. 5 board with good capacitors, but he has replaced them anyway.

In the backround also the Rev. 5 board with good capacitors, but he is showing two bad leaking caps from a Rev. 8A board

In the backround: A Rev. 8A board with good capacitors, and in the foreground he is showing two bad caps from a Rev. 8A board.

appiah4 wrote:

I mean, a 030 CPU is nice and all what use is it on a non-AGA Amiga?

Yea, not a lot of software out there that really needs an 030 on an non-AGA machine.
Probably because accelerators were never really a thing in the days of the Amiga 500, and only the rare Amiga 3000 has an 030 combined with an ECS chipset.
So anything that needs an 030 or higher is generally also targeted at accelerated A1200s and A4000s.

Having said that, there are a few demos that were developed for an OCS/ECS machine with a very fast CPU.
And technically it quite makes sense. Most accelerated games/demos on AGA use the Chunky-to-Planar approach to render graphics, which are basically converted to a HAM8 or similar screenmode on-the-fly.
Even standard HAM can deliver quite good image quality, if you have the CPU power to do conversion on-the-fly.
Here's a nice example of a demo for OCS/ECS and an 030:
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=55576
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poKkuPb_G0E

And another one:
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=51161
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCPWFMY_MMU

I think the only thing with the 486 parts you mentioned, there is alot more chance of getting lucky at recyclers classifieds or even finding dumped old hardware.

with amiga they are alot more rare, much more special too.

Also amigas are really picking up value thesedays too, i saw a few for around $700 with basic mods. I spend around $400 in parts to build mine and I got no accelerators or even a good video chip 🙁

melbar wrote:

You know, there's this big topic on A600 and A1200 capacitors replacement. If you buy a A600/A1200 now, and if the previous owne […]
Show full quote

brostenen wrote:

I have not recapped any of my 500's yet. I bought a recapped replacement systemboard for my Amiga600 though, as the original was in a poor and sorry state. I will guess that my 500's need recapping within the next 5 to 6 years from now.

You know, there's this big topic on A600 and A1200 capacitors replacement. If you buy a A600/A1200 now, and if the previous owner's haven't take care, there is a big chance for damaged area's on the board.

I thought, that the A500 has 100% nothing about such problems. Yes, the A500+ has it's problem with it's leaking battery, the same issue as it is with a lot of old 286, 386 and 486.

But there is maybe one more problem with two capacitors on the A500 Rev. 8A board.
There are 2 possible versions available from the Rev.8A boards.

I have seen this on a youtube channel of a german AMIGA "expert". Recently, he did two video's on the Rev. 5 and the Rev. 8A board.

Here you see the screenshots from the video. The black capacitors are the good ones 😀 and the bright blue ones are the bad 😠
It seems, Commodore has taken different capacitors.

Rev. 5 board with good capacitors, but he has replaced them anyway.

Rev.3_5.jpg

In the backround also the Rev. 5 board with good capacitors, but he is showing two bad leaking caps from a Rev. 8A board

Rev.8A.jpg

In the backround: A Rev. 8A board with good capacitors, and in the foreground he is showing two bad caps from a Rev. 8A board.

Rev.8A_2.jpg

Yup. I have seen that video as well. I came across it, a couple of weeks ago. And the 600, 1200 and 4000 do need recapping, as commodore went for cheap caps on these machines. And as they are SMD ones, then I can not do any recap of these machines. I have only tried hole-through soldering. Like my C64 Model-C, that went back to original reliability, after I did a total recap of that machine. I am aware of the 600/1200/4000 cap's issue, yes. And that is why I bought a fully recapped board, were the seller had used ceramic caps.

Speaking of recapping an a500. Then my C64 is from 1987, and because my Amiga500 is from 1991. Then I still think that I need recapping of my Amiga500 within the next 5 to 6 years (top). Might be just a couple of years from now. Yet it is working flawless for now. Yet I can not say this too much to people who say that Amiga500's do not need recapping at all. I stand by, that any caps will go bad down the road. And so the 500 need recapping. It is only a question of when, and hole through components seems to have a longer life-span than smd ones (for some odd reason). We all know this from Socket-478 and Socket-A era, on hardware that were produced during the 00's.

For the board version. Yes. There are two Revision-8 models. Revision 8a and 8a.1 and it looks like the Plus version of Amiga500, had the Rev. 8a board. And some early stock-500/non-Plus models in Rev.8 used the Rev 8a board. Then they stopped making the Plus model, and as far as I can see, they still produced stock non-Plus Amiga's for the market after that. Hence the Rev. 8a.1 board. My board is the later model, and all chips are full-ECS. Wich is another hint, that it is the absolute last non-Plus model to be released. Only because I have never seen an Plus model with 8a.1 and because the Denise in mine is the ECS/Super-Denise.

Scali wrote:

Yea, not a lot of software out there that really needs an 030 on an non-AGA machine. Probably because accelerators were never re […]
Show full quote

appiah4 wrote:

I mean, a 030 CPU is nice and all what use is it on a non-AGA Amiga?

Yea, not a lot of software out there that really needs an 030 on an non-AGA machine.
Probably because accelerators were never really a thing in the days of the Amiga 500, and only the rare Amiga 3000 has an 030 combined with an ECS chipset.
So anything that needs an 030 or higher is generally also targeted at accelerated A1200s and A4000s.

Having said that, there are a few demos that were developed for an OCS/ECS machine with a very fast CPU.
And technically it quite makes sense. Most accelerated games/demos on AGA use the Chunky-to-Planar approach to render graphics, which are basically converted to a HAM8 or similar screenmode on-the-fly.
Even standard HAM can deliver quite good image quality, if you have the CPU power to do conversion on-the-fly.
Here's a nice example of a demo for OCS/ECS and an 030:
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=55576
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poKkuPb_G0E

And another one:
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=51161
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCPWFMY_MMU

I know.... Yet I have get a machine, that have 2 times the CPU power of a stock Amiga3000. And I have the full ECS chipset. I get harddrive controller and I have lots of memory. So... Basically makes me able to run OS 3.1.4 without any issue. My plan is to have it running with productivity software and other type of programs, as well as gaming on it. So I actually am going to use it for more than just gaming. To me it is a real computer and not some sort of gaming console. That is what I saw back in the late 1980's, before PC took over the entire gamer-scene and became populair in the household all over. Basically from around 1988 to 1993 here in Denmark. Yup... People were using Amiga's as they were intended back then. And boy... Was it a populair machine. A bit cheaper than the PC during that time period. I remember that you paid 2/3 for a complete 500-setup, compared to what a complete PC setup would set you back. And then the PC was no near in the same leage as the Amiga, when we look at what the Amiga was able to manage and do. The 486 platform was the one that changed it all here in Denmark.

treeman wrote:

I think the only thing with the 486 parts you mentioned, there is alot more chance of getting lucky at recyclers classifieds or even finding dumped old hardware.

with amiga they are alot more rare, much more special too.

Also amigas are really picking up value thesedays too, i saw a few for around $700 with basic mods. I spend around $400 in parts to build mine and I got no accelerators or even a good video chip 🙁

That's expensive..... 😳
They go for some 122 US Dollars to 183 US Dollars depending on the cosmetic condition here. 700??? That is in the US right? If you want an Commodore64 here, then you can get it as low as 77 US Dollars if you are lucky, else they go for the same as Amiga500's. Depending the type and amount of extra's that you want with it.

That is the reason why I said that an 486 are more expensive to get here. As an example. I have only seen one single GUS card for sale, the last 10 years or so in Denmark. And it was put up for sale, at something like 183 to 229 US Dollars. That alone, will set you back the same as a single Amiga500 in fair condition will. And you still need the AT-Case, a good motherboard (like Abit, gigabyte or or Asus), a couple of VLB cards, a CPU, Ram and then an AWE32-CT-3900 and that AWE32 will set you back at least 90 to 125 US Dollars. Socket-3 era stuff are nowere to impossible to source locally here. Hence that insane pricetag.

Unobtanium are not cheap.

I am in Australia so most the amigas I see are in Europe or usa so add $100usd+ for shipping. The local ones here seem to be more expensive by 100 or 200 which is that shipping cost. When I said $700 it was aud so probably about 500usd, yeah a bit expensive for amiga but it was a good condition one.
I was just using the prices as numbers to compare.
I agree if you are getting top level vlb parts then it becomes a expensive game. I guess I have always been lucky to find alot parts for pc cheap or free because amiga is so much more rare here I never got any luck with good deals on amiga so its very exotic to me

Ahh Australia. Then it is a tiny bit cheaper than I initially thought. Still massive in comparison with EU prices. I used good quality PC parts, because the Amiga was a highend product back then. So I thought that it is only fair to compare with top PC products of that same era.

I think that there are like 20 times or more Amiga's avaliable at any time, than vintage PC stuff. And fully build vibtage Dos machines are even fewer here. So it is not Amiga's that are the exotic machines here.

The reason is simple. Back in the late 90's, we began to recycle old electronics heavily. And as people were and still are more attached to Amiga's and C64's than PC's, then nearly all AT class machines, went to recycling and people kept their Amiga's. As of now, I see one 486 laptop at 321 US Dollars, two AT class CPU's for sale, one AT power supply and two add's were people want to buy. Not much PC related. As compared to Amiga's. Then I see 12 Amiga500's, 3 Amiga1200's, 2 Amiga3000's and one Amiga2000 for sale. And the first 5 adds with addons and games for Amiga's.

wow thats alot of amigas, yes it seems the markets in our 2 countries cannot be fairly compared

Scali wrote:

It still is. I suppose the Amiga people just stick to their own dedicated forums. Vogons seems mostly focused around IBM PC comp […]
Show full quote

treeman wrote:

first time I see a amiga post here, always wondered why no amiga fans here because it was such a popular computer.

It still is.
I suppose the Amiga people just stick to their own dedicated forums. Vogons seems mostly focused around IBM PC compatibles, DOS and DOSBox.
I've always been a Commodore guy myself. First a Commodore 64, then an Amiga, and my first two PCs were also Commodores.
The Amiga is the one that always felt the most special to me. Its custom hardware allows you to do the most crazy things.

I was a registered Amiga developer in the 80s/90s (though I never developed anything...)
I went from A1000 to A2000 to A3000... the A3000 languishes in my closet, the battery has probably destroyed the motherboard by now 🙁

I've never posted anything Amiga related here because I thought this was strictly IBM PC related content, which means no Commodore, Atari, Tandy, etc. I'm interested in all vintage machines, but came up through the Vic/C64/Amiga line (even had a PET at one time).

I would let people on the TRS-80 model100 mailing list know about Vogons... if they're allowed to discuss Tandy machines here?

Where can I find out more about this viper accelerator? I may dig out my A3000 and see if I can make it functional, and if so, give it an accelerator.

yeah Amiga was big in Australia when I was growing up. As for acceleators, they were common for big box amiga's (1k, 2k, 3k) but you didnt see them for A500's tho, outside of the 68010 upgrade or something.

Hamby wrote:

I was a registered Amiga developer in the 80s/90s (though I never developed anything...) I went from A1000 to A2000 to A3000... […]
Show full quote

Scali wrote:

It still is. I suppose the Amiga people just stick to their own dedicated forums. Vogons seems mostly focused around IBM PC comp […]
Show full quote

treeman wrote:

first time I see a amiga post here, always wondered why no amiga fans here because it was such a popular computer.

It still is.
I suppose the Amiga people just stick to their own dedicated forums. Vogons seems mostly focused around IBM PC compatibles, DOS and DOSBox.
I've always been a Commodore guy myself. First a Commodore 64, then an Amiga, and my first two PCs were also Commodores.
The Amiga is the one that always felt the most special to me. Its custom hardware allows you to do the most crazy things.

I was a registered Amiga developer in the 80s/90s (though I never developed anything...)
I went from A1000 to A2000 to A3000... the A3000 languishes in my closet, the battery has probably destroyed the motherboard by now 🙁

I've never posted anything Amiga related here because I thought this was strictly IBM PC related content, which means no Commodore, Atari, Tandy, etc. I'm interested in all vintage machines, but came up through the Vic/C64/Amiga line (even had a PET at one time).

I would let people on the TRS-80 model100 mailing list know about Vogons... if they're allowed to discuss Tandy machines here?

Where can I find out more about this viper accelerator? I may dig out my A3000 and see if I can make it functional, and if so, give it an accelerator.

Sweet... Yeah. It is mostly x86 related here. Regarding your 3000. Then check it out. It might be fixable, and they are extremely rare and expensive these days. Have you tried "The big book of Amiga hardware", to see if your accelerator afe listed?

http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/C … yList.aspx?id=2

brostenen wrote:

Sweet... Yeah. It is mostly x86 related here. Regarding your 3000. Then check it out. It might be fixable, and they are extremely rare and expensive these days. Have you tried "The big book of Amiga hardware", to see if your accelerator afe listed?

http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/C … yList.aspx?id=2

I just looked on ebay to see what Amiga stuff was available; I miss my A2000, actually. My A3000 is better in many ways, but I just miss that old behemoth.

the prices went from ridiculous to absolutely batshit insane.

I'll probably fix my A3000 up and get it running again. Considering they're trying to sell them on Ebay for $1500+, I'd consider selling it to buy a few things I want, but it still has sentimental value.
I imagine mice have chewed up my developer manuals I have in storage, by now, too.

Back on topic... I didn't realize you could cram all that into an A500. If only an LCD and battery could be connected... portable A500 on steroids.

your not gonna find an ebay deal without leaking batteries these days. all the 2k/3k/4k (except 4000T) had nasty barrel batteries. 4000t was only one with a coin cell and 1k/500/600 didnt have a battery

Did a much needed upgrade on my 500-TF530 machine. I converted it into a near stock Amiga500-Plus, or a chipmem mod in other words. 😀 As my board is an revision 8a.1 and the chipset is a full ECS. Then it was rather easy to do. I had to remove a couple of solder blobs, and move other solder blobs from one pad to another. And finally solder in the sockets and insert the chips. Now it has 1mb chipmem on the board, and I can use trapdoor mem as chipram, without the use of a gary adaptor. I only messed up once, ripping a solder pad, yet there are through holes, so I used a wire to bridge the JP2 at the kickstart socket.

EDIT:
If anyone a qurious as to how I did it, then I followed Kipper2K's guide.

Nice photos of that buffed-up A500+ !

Regarding the discussion about "Personal computer", right now I am looking at that 1985 IBM 5170. The case alone weighs 18 kilograms iirc.
I threw away the original mobo 12 years ago when I moved, together with a PET 2001 mobo and keyboard (yes the small one) and other today extremely rare vintage stuff. Stupid! I really regret that... else I'd have a PET too, not only a PC 😀
Because, all these advertising photos seem to try to convince the reader "Hello, I am no PET, I am a PC!"

Anyway... currently I am working on upgrading that PC again, too.
Without the original mobo, I am not limited to ISA above boards (iirc these go up to 486).
Recently ordered a baby AT Intel 810 mobo, which can run up to 1400MHz Tualatin.
Hopefully it can play in max res better than the AMD processors with their weak FPU...
No matter, it will probably dwarf all K6 processors it already housed.

Curious already when I can benchmark to find the number of times that scores better than the original 6 MHz 286... 😀

retardware wrote:

Nice photos of that buffed-up A500+ ! […]
Show full quote

Nice photos of that buffed-up A500+ !

Regarding the discussion about "Personal computer", right now I am looking at that 1985 IBM 5170. The case alone weighs 18 kilograms iirc.
I threw away the original mobo 12 years ago when I moved, together with a PET 2001 mobo and keyboard (yes the small one) and other today extremely rare vintage stuff. Stupid! I really regret that... else I'd have a PET too, not only a PC 😀
Because, all these advertising photos seem to try to convince the reader "Hello, I am no PET, I am a PC!"

Anyway... currently I am working on upgrading that PC again, too.
Without the original mobo, I am not limited to ISA above boards (iirc these go up to 486).
Recently ordered a baby AT Intel 810 mobo, which can run up to 1400MHz Tualatin.
Hopefully it can play in max res better than the AMD processors with their weak FPU...
No matter, it will probably dwarf all K6 processors it already housed.

Curious already when I can benchmark to find the number of times that scores better than the original 6 MHz 286... 😀

Thanks. I sure hope that this upgrade will allow me to use the TF-530 with minimum 1mb ChipRam.
I installed a boot selector on that Amiga500 as well, so I can boot from external drive. Need Gotek now.
Today I am going to install the 2018 release of AmigaOS 3.1.4 on my Amiga600.
Disks are DOA, yet I got the ADF files on mail from Sordan computershop, as I have paid for the legit Kickrom with registration code.
And I installed a 9 megabyte memory module as well in my Amiga600.
It is a sweet machine now. OS 3.1.4, 1mb Chip upgrade, Scandoubler, IDE-Adaptor, SD-to-IDE and 9mb Fastram upgrade.