A1000 restore with ACA500+

fordav1

New member
Joined
Aug 31, 2014
Posts
162
Country
Australia
Region
WA
I just got my A1000 working. Came from a mate who had it in his shed for 17 years..... yeah 17 years sitting in a damp shed, you can imagine how bad it was, full of bug crap and leaves and other stuff. A few bugs crapped on the motherboard and then died there hehe! So let that be a warning, don't crap on an A1000 motherboard unless you want to die ;-)

It's still in pieces so far as case etc needs to be peroxided. I say "peroxided" because I'm simply going to use common off-the-shelf peroxide creme rather than making up that retrobrite concoction. I won't show the case condition here as some people might get violently ill and die ;-)

The A1050 had bad RAM and would boot but Guru'd soon after loading workbench or any program.
Ordered new RAM and changed all the 64k x4-bit DRAMs, and now working fine (first pic, showing "The Pawn" running).

So then I wondered would it work with the new ACA500+ I just bought..... hmmmm.....
First time I plugged it in it didn't work. Went into the menu and changed a few things and it works fine (up to max 21MHz but not 28MHz or 42MHz). I think the main thing that makes it work in an A1000 is to force set the kickstart to 3.1. The other settings don't stop it working, but it won't do 28MHz or 42MHz, fastest it works at is 21MHz.
Here's a few pics booted from my CF card and showing the Sysinfo and Which Amiga specs. Which Amiga isn't so accurate. It thinks it's an old A500 at 8MHz even though it was clocked at 14Mhz when that was done. The Sysinfo specs are amazing for an A1000. Who would have ever thought an A1000 could ever run at 21MHz and have 8Megs of Fast RAM all for ~130 Euros :-D
 

Attachments

  • DSCN1182.jpg
    DSCN1182.jpg
    202 KB · Views: 4
  • DSCN1184.jpg
    DSCN1184.jpg
    206.8 KB · Views: 10
  • DSCN1185.jpg
    DSCN1185.jpg
    194 KB · Views: 7
  • DSCN1183.jpg
    DSCN1183.jpg
    196.1 KB · Views: 4
  • DSCN1186.jpg
    DSCN1186.jpg
    199.5 KB · Views: 6
  • DSCN1187.jpg
    DSCN1187.jpg
    191.5 KB · Views: 6
  • DSCN1188.jpg
    DSCN1188.jpg
    190.9 KB · Views: 5
  • DSCN1190.jpg
    DSCN1190.jpg
    194.1 KB · Views: 4
  • DSCN1193.jpg
    DSCN1193.jpg
    184.1 KB · Views: 3
  • DSCN1194.jpg
    DSCN1194.jpg
    197.7 KB · Views: 4
Last edited:
Here's a few pics of the A1050 repair. Basically removed all old RAM, add sockets, plug in new NOS RAM.
1st pic shows Systest RAM failure on D8-D11 (4 X's). For those wondering about the program, it's available here....
https://github.com/keirf/Amiga-Stuff/tree/master/systest
The failure shows that the motherboard 256k is ok and the 2nd 256k is bad.
 

Attachments

  • DSCN1176.jpg
    DSCN1176.jpg
    194.1 KB · Views: 2
  • DSCN1178.jpg
    DSCN1178.jpg
    188.6 KB · Views: 2
  • DSCN1180.jpg
    DSCN1180.jpg
    186.6 KB · Views: 3
  • DSCN1195.jpg
    DSCN1195.jpg
    180.6 KB · Views: 2
Last edited:
Congratulations :)

What of kind of rom do you have?

Is ACA 500+ working correct when A1000 booting from disk boot with kickstart 1.3?

Could You test it?
 
ACA500+ has Kickstart 1.3 and 3.1 in memory so you don't need the Kickstart disk on a 1000 with the ACA500+ plugged in.

Congratulations :)

What of kind of rom do you have?

Is ACA 500+ working correct when A1000 booting from disk boot with kickstart 1.3?

Could You test it?
 
That mean, that to activate ACA 500+ menu, I don't need any room?

And next question is: what about A1000 NTSC version? ACA 500+ will work correctly with NTSC A1000?
 
That mean, that to activate ACA 500+ menu, I don't need any room?

And next question is: what about A1000 NTSC version? ACA 500+ will work correctly with NTSC A1000?

Yup, it works with no Kickstart loaded from floppy, or on a ROM through a 3rd-party Kickstart switcher. The ACA500+ intercepts that boot process and loads the ROM. Pretty cool! It also has the Workbench ADFs in memory and can mount them for install onto CF card.

The ACA500+ boot menu is presented before the Kickstart is loaded. I've even had a bad CPU on my 1000, the ACA500+ works just fine -- it must totally bypass the CPU on the motherboard. Crazy.

Yup, it works on an NTSC 1000. I have the ACA500+ running on a stock NTSC 1000 and a NTSC 1000 with a Rejuvenator board. It can be flakey at boot sometimes. Something about the timing of the 1000s bus not syncing with the ACA500+ (I'm not technical, sorry). But a soft reboot once or twice fixes it and then it's solid.
 
Last edited:
The ACA500+ works fine in my A1000 PAL. Only needs an extra soft reset after starting.
But according to the a1k.org forum the maker does not support this card in an A1000. He has plans to develop one specific for the A1000 however.
 
yeah the small doc that comes with the ACA500+ says do not plug the card into an A1000. I guess he wants people to buy his future ACA1000 card ;-)
The ACA500+ works just fine so I'm guessing the ACA1000 would be 99% the same and perhaps mounted at 90 degrees upright instead of hanging out the side by 6"
 
I may wait for ACA1000 but, how much time?

And I'm not sure at all that ACA1000 will be in reality produced!?
 
Wow, this is some great information. I have an ACA500+ for one of my 500s and was wondering if it could also be used on a 1000. Good to know. Is the limit still 21 MHz? And has anyone tried using an add-on accelerator to the ACA500+ such as an ACA1233n (which I'm also using), or is that pushing the original hardware far beyond its capabilities?
 
I successfully use an ACA500 with my Amiga 1000 and I also use the ACA 1233 at 55 MHz no problems at all
 
2041cdf40872daf3ec5fae34ef2777af.jpg
 
Good to know, TjLaZer. I'll have to try it when I hook up the 1000 again. Still working on the A4000D/040 but waiting on a couple of deliveries.
 
That is pretty amazing I am also planning to buy a ACA500+ for my A500 plus that I recently saved from battery damage, and now knowing that it will work on an Amiga 1000 makes it even more interesting!
When I eventually can buy an Amiga 1000 at a reasonable price because that's the computer I had when I was younger.

Thanks for being brave enough to try this on a precious Amiga 1000!
 
Back
Top Bottom