My A500, random pics, possible mods? and some questions

Questions first?
can I simply add more ram to the A590? board appears to currently have 1 meg on it.

what CPU can I upgrade to? thats still compatible with most, if not all games? 68010? or can I go faster?

rom switching? how is it done that you have two kickstart roms? wanting some compatibility with older games, but also wanting to run workbench 3 if possible? was there a device available thats now extremely rare, or can the mods be done yourself? (about to research this, haven't yet :p)

thanks! and on to some pics!

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/2...0518225243.jpg

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/311...0519113759.jpg

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/1...0519183150.jpg

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/6...0519184522.jpg

http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/1...0519190030.jpgOut

after spending half the day crawling around under the house, looking through boxes, cupboards, spare room, and everywhere I could think of, I finally found an old SCSI drive...

its a 2.1gig, Seagate ST32430N.

the question is, will it work with the A590?

I've seen it mentioned before that it probably will, but how do I go about partitioning and formatting it?

Need the version 7.0 rom chips for the A590 to use the 2gig drive, so I ordered some ;)

also ordered Kickstart 3.1 for the A500, and a Motorola 68010 for a massive, hardly noticeable speed increase :D

Is there any issue with using an external scsi CD rom plugged into the back of the A590?
anything I should be aware of or take into consideration when doing this?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmmoJammo

Is there any issue with using an external scsi CD rom plugged into the back of the A590?
anything I should be aware of or take into consideration when doing this?

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If I remember correctly, I had used an external SCSI CD ROM with my A590 with no problems at all. But I forgot how as it was quite some time ago.

Think I used IDEFIX'97 Software for it to work.

You can have a maximum of 2MB Fastram attached to it. That is how mine is setup.

Nice A500 you have there :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dougal

You can have a maximum of 2MB Fastram attached to it. That is how mine is setup.

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so, just find some ram chips with the same part number as whats currently in there I guess? :P

KM44C256AP-10

$20 for two chips... needs 8...
might not do that for a while :p

AmiCDFS works better for SCSI CDROM.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dougal

Think I used IDEFIX'97 Software for it to work.

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The other issue is getting files onto the Amiga, which is the main reason I wanted the CD Rom drive in the first place.

I was considering using a serial cable, as I can't think of any other reasonable way of doing it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmmoJammo

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dougal

You can have a maximum of 2MB Fastram attached to it. That is how mine is setup.

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so, just find some ram chips with the same part number as whats currently in there I guess? :P

KM44C256AP-10

$20 for two chips... needs 8...
might not do that for a while :p

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You don't need exactly the same chips, but wiring will looks ugly. Try to find 1Mb SIMM(i should have some... somewhere...) or very old laptop memory modules. Neiboroughs trademe might help you

@AmmoJammo
A serial cable (more precisely: a null modem cable) works very well, you'd likely need the -08 revision of the WD SCSI chip for trouble-free CD-ROM operation anyway.
A nice piece of software for such transfers is Amiga Explorer by Cloanto. Just make sure the cable is wired for RTS/CTS as Amiga Explorer uses hardware flow control by default. Alternatively a short cable (<1 m) will do although I wouldn't trust a cable lacking RTS/CTS wiring for transfers of considerable length.

For extra RAM, just look for two A500 half-meg trapdoor RAM expansions, those with four socketed chips will make excellent donors for your A590, that' ll probably be way cheaper than getting individual chips.

@AmmoJammo

After you complete your A590 ROM and memory upgrades here is an interesting hack I did make a schematic for! :cool:

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=19260

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BLTCON0

you'd likely need the -08 revision of the WD SCSI chip for trouble-free CD-ROM operation anyway.

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what's the issue? what does or doesn't it do? will some scsi CD drives work but not others?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SpeedGeek

After you complete your A590 ROM and memory upgrades here is an interesting hack I did make a schematic for! :cool:

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=19260

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I'll keep that in mind, should I ever source some "tight a$$" memory :p lol

---------- Post added at 12:00 ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 ----------

found an old modem cable with female 9 and 25 pin connectors on it, so I'll make up a null modem cable some time ;) only 10cm long, as I'll be using a USB to serial adapter on my laptop that has a metre long cable anyway.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmmoJammo

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BLTCON0

you'd likely need the -08 revision of the WD SCSI chip for trouble-free CD-ROM operation anyway.

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what's the issue? what does or doesn't it do? will some scsi CD drives work but not others?

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IMHO WD SCSI chip bugs are over-rated. They primarily manifest themselves when certain models of tape and CD ROM drives are connected and when more than one such device is connected. The early rev. WD chips are often blamed for more common SCSI problems. (i.e. faulty termination, flaky SCSI cabling and SCSI firmware bugs). I have 2 older Quantum drives which cold boot in sychronous mode OK but fail on warm boot so you have to use asynchronous mode with these drives. :blink:

Used this diagram:
http://www.hardwarebook.info/Nullmodem_%289-25%29

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/1950/serialcable.jpg

Amiga Explorer seems to fail to actually copy anything from the PC to the Amiga RAM using the setup procedure.

Should any "flow control" be set on the PC end? I'm fairly sure all the settings are correct on the amiga end.

I don't get any error messages, it just does nothing, says its copying, but just sits there.. How long should it take to copy anyway?

---------- Post added at 13:26 ---------- Previous post was at 13:15 ----------

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8850/copyjy.jpg

You might have to use a little program called userport to let the Amiga Explorer surpass winblows OS OCD control on the serial port.

Thanks, ill give that a try when i get home ;) is it just an installable application? Sorry on my phone.

Grant list?

---------- Post added 25th May 2012 at 00:13 ---------- Previous post was 24th May 2012 at 23:56 ----------

device manager doesn't list any resources for the serial port, I assume because its a usb to serial adapter... therefore, there is no I/O range to enter in userport...

plugged the usb to serial adapter into my desktop, same thing... no resources tab in device manager makes it rather difficult to add it to the userport list...

http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/571/noresources.jpg

I have a USB-serial bridge somewhere, if I find it I'll give it a try with my RTS/CTS compliant null-modem cable and let you know if it works. IIRC it's based on the Prolific PL-2023 bridge which offers a fully featured serial port (yes, not all USB-serial bridges are made equal).

I might try connecting it to a desktop PC tomorrow... *looks at the 10cm long null modem cable*

hmm...

I'm considering putting the A500 in a tower, as with the external CD Rom, external HDD, external FDD, plus two power supplies... it's going to be a mess...

Of course, I'll worry about that when I actually get it working how I'd like...

I relocated to the basement, and went rummaging through my "old" PC collection, ended up finding a Duron thats running at 1800Mhz (possible overclocked) with a gig of ram, and 20gig HDD.

Not the point, has serial...

made an extension cable, about 4 metres long... (aware of serial length limitations, but also limited by space and laziness!)

PC to the left, Amiga to the right, plus paint, speakers, books, and a microwave :whistle:

http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/9...0525175329.jpg

More to the point, it now copies the first bit, takes about 15 seconds, follow the directions on the PC screen, and get greeted by this on the Amiga....

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/2...0525175511.jpg

And this on the PC?
http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/5...0525175946.jpg

Please explain?

---------- Post added at 18:51 ---------- Previous post was at 18:14 ----------

"An error message like "Unable to load Setup: file is not an object module" during the initial Windows-to-Amiga software installation usually indicates that the transfer did not complete properly due to a cable wiring problem. This initial part of the installation consists of a plain serial file copy, rather than being controlled by Amiga Explorer, so exact error messages cannot be issued. You can run "List RAM:Setup" instead of "RAM:Setup" in the Shell to verify the size of the Setup file, which should be at least 45000 bytes."

I shall try again and see what happens, possibly cable too long...

---------- Post added at 20:50 ---------- Previous post was at 18:51 ----------

sorted... serial settings were all wrong.
knew I was meant to check something again!

won't work with the USB to serial adapter though.

thanks for the assistance,

went trawling through my collection of PC hardware again, looking at the floppy drives this time.

here's a pic of the collection...

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/4...0530124528.jpg

The bottom two intrigued my slightly, as they had jumpers on the back (one came from my 386, I remember this as the eject buttons are larger than most FDDs...

Upon searching for the part numbers, I was most delighted to find that they're Amiga compatible, with a simple jumper change, WOOT!

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/3...0530124541.jpg

So, today was a rather productive, and totally free day! :lol:Out

The FOUR in the under side of the pile are Amiga-compatible! The TEAC 235-HF is completely adjustable to Amiga needs. And the YE-Data 702D is another winner. The Sony 420 is another well known Amiga companion.:nod:

Need the correct jumper block?

Win-win-win-win situation. I love when it happens!

Ds0, mm, rdy, ttl?

---------- Post added at 20:37 ---------- Previous post was at 20:35 ----------

Can i connect two drives to the a500 internal floppy connector set as DS0 and DS1?

Aye for DS0, MM, RDY, TTL (photo).
Nay for two drives on the internal floppy connector (without hacking, that is).

You might also want to disable High Density detection on the drives, in "Amiga mode" they'll only ever work in DD mode anyway.

Chinon drives do nothing, workbench says they're bad (connected to the external FDD case), can't boot a disc. (J2 was already bridged in both drives)

I did however find two panasonic JU-257A896P... any use?

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=30944

and the PCB in mine... shall have to try the mods sometime ;)

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/7025/floppy.jpg

Never touched a JU-257 but the same-breed "native Amiga" JU-253s used in Commodore-made Amigas were excellent.
JU-257s were the ones used in Escom-made A1200s if I'm not mistaken.

Piece of foam... really? are we trying to destroy all Amiga hardware here?!?!

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4149/ks31w.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmmoJammo

Piece of foam... really? are we trying to destroy all Amiga hardware here?!?!

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4149/ks31w.jpg

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Unfortunately, thats the way Amigatoaster ships them now:picard.
he used to have either the correct foam or tubes, but now he uses this styrofoam. I order a ROM from him just about every other month

Quote:

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Originally Posted by quarkx

Unfortunately, thats the way Amigatoaster ships them now:picard.
he used to have either the correct foam or tubes, but now he uses this styrofoam. I order a ROM from him just about every other month

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you didn't see the need to point out that it was bad? and that by simply wrapping the foam in aluminium foil first, it would be ok...

I did... I assume he's going to do this from now on...

Thankfully the chip works, for how long, who knows...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmmoJammo

Quote:

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Originally Posted by quarkx

Unfortunately, thats the way Amigatoaster ships them now:picard.
he used to have either the correct foam or tubes, but now he uses this styrofoam. I order a ROM from him just about every other month

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you didn't see the need to point out that it was bad? and that by simply wrapping the foam in aluminium foil first, it would be ok...

I did... I assume he's going to do this from now on...

Thankfully the chip works, for how long, who knows...

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it's only the last couple I got from him, I assumed, that is was temp, but it doesn't seem that way, and the last 2 shipments I got from him were battery hacks, so it really didn't mater all that much.

bought a cheap cheap PCI SCSI controller so I could test the 2gig HDD, and any other SCSI drives I come across before attempting to get them to work in the Amiga.

Should I partition the drive on the PC before connecting it to the Amiga? Just to make things easier?

What size partition should I use for the workbench 3.1 install? I was thinking maybe 200meg? and use the rest for storage?

My advice is no more than 250Mb for OS3.9 (half for elder Workbench versions), then something around 250 to 300Mb for applications, then some for music/images/temporary archives (not much more 200Mb might be OK), the leftover for games.

Most Amiga applications and games with installers will not "like" to be installed on a partition larger than 2Gb as they will understand the available size as negative.

Workbench: 100meg
Applications: 300meg
Games: 500meg
Storage: 1100meg

Lets face it, the smallest partition is still FIVE times bigger than the A590 had to begin with :p

Swap over the Storage & Game partitions. You'll soon discover the Games: partition is not big enough.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmmoJammo

Should I partition the drive on the PC before connecting it to the Amiga? Just to make things easier?

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No, the partitioning schemes are different. But you can use the "verify media" utility of your controller's SCSI BIOS to check for bad blocks and reassign them to good ones.

Ended up partitioning it with the Amiga anyway, thanks. When i plug in the 68010 should sysinfo report it as running faster?

Yeah, 3% faster :D

yay, 3% :/

tried getting WHDLoader installed... failed... simply told me there was no installer? or something along those lines.

You must download installer433 from aminet. It is not bundled with any Workbench prior OS3.9.

Copied installer to the C : folder, now it has installed, apparently, somewhere...

Executable will be located inside C:, configuration script (WHDLoad.prefs) will be inside S: .

I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what I'm doing.

Yes, the files are there... thats all I know!

Hopefully my SCSI CD Rom arrives soon, as transferring files via serial really is a massive pain in the bum...

:blased:

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/3...0602131437.jpg

This arrived yesterday ;)
I might just twist all the wires together, and poke them into the end of the plug.

http://img815.imageshack.us/img815/3875/gbsns.jpg

looks like you got the 8200 instead of the 8220 which has the extra DB15 output connector? (no idea if there is any diff in PQ tho)

Stick with the 1084S.

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