Amiga 500 Storage solution - And free advice :)

[cheezmonkey]

Hello Community,
I am a collector of old consoles etc and have built up quite a collection over the years - sadly I owned just about every mainstream console over the years but as a foolish child I swapped/sold/threw out :'( most of it so have had to re-buy.

Now has come the time for me to re-buy an Amiga, so I jumped on eBay and couldn't believe my eyes when I found the exact same package I had as a yoof, a snip of a price too. So without any hesitation, or research, I bought it right away. Which may have been a mistake.

So, I've bought an Amiga 500 (the Cartoon In Box box) with the 1mb upgrade. What I want is some kind of hard-drive/flash based storage, size is fairly unimportant. I just want something simple to install which doesnt involve solder or disassembly. This is why it looks like I made a mistake, it seems the CF device for A600 + would have been ideal, but seems to not be an option. I've been looking at the A590, which seems easy enough. I especially like that it can also increase your RAM.

So yeah - some free advice and someone willing to sell me something simple, please. And thanks!



[edit]
Sorry cheezmonkey, I had to edit your post is it could be seen as price driving / guiding, I know you didn't mean it this way so please don't worry. When you get a moment have a read here of the rules and guidelines, if you have any problems don't' hesitate to contact any member of staff. Z

 

[Zetr0]

Hello Cheezmonkey,

Welcome to AmiBay!

You will find lots of retolicious mischief to get up to around here, so make yourself at home, have a look at the various member projects that always keep me login-in every day!


Were to start with your set up is tempting to just jump in with an answer, but I shall let our fellow members start that one off for you

 

[Turranius]

If you do not even want to open your Amiga, get an ACA-500.

Main distributors all sell it (Amigakit, Vesalia, GGS-data etc).

For example, here is hte vesalia link
http://www.vesalia.de/e_aca500.htm

 

[fitzsteve]

You can read my review on the ACA500 here in Amibay:

https://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=55062

 

[cheezmonkey]

Thank you both for your input. Sorry about quoting the price, I must have mis-interpreted the rules. It won't happen again.

Turranius - Thanks for this, it looks absolutely ideal. I notice the remark on the description page about it not working with a certain mainboard revision (rev 3 I think it said) - Is there any way I can tell which revision my machine is without opening it? It's not the end of the world if I have to open, it was just modifying that I am uncomfortable with - my soldering skills, eyesight and hand-shakiness are not what they used to be.

I assume this can use most/all standard CF media?

Thanks again.

---------- Post added at 11:10 ---------- Previous post was at 10:51 ----------

FitzSteve, thanks for this link and indeed the time and effort you've clearly put into helping this community. I think I'm convinced. Now all I need to do is learn how to put games and whatnot onto it from the PC/MAC. I'm sure this won't be rocket science.

Thanks Amibay community for your swift and helpful replies. I can see I'm going to like it here!

 

[roy_bates]

it wont hurt to open it up to see the revision,look just below the floppy drive.

 

[Turranius]

Is there any way I can tell which revision my machine is without opening it?

Not that I know of, no... Dont quote me on that though =)

Here is another alternative, but requires a little soldering of two easy points.

http://kipper2k.com/amigaforsale/
"A500 (1000, 2000) 4MB / 8MB Fast Ram Memory Expansion board With CF Card IDE support"

 

[fitzsteve]

Hi cheezmonkey, I can't post the link right now as I'm mobile but in my signature is a link to my blog/website. You can watch a tutorial I made for setting up the cf card and games.

My aca500 article needs updating re compatibility but it seems that more cf work than not
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.5; en-gb; HTC_DesireHD Build/GRJ90) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1

 

[cheezmonkey]

Thanks folks. As soon as it arrives, I'll start buying random things.

 

[www_amigakit_com]

@cheezmonkey

Welcome!

As you are located in the UK, here is the UK link for ACA 500 in £ :

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1168

This item is in stock and available.

If you need any advice on the ACA 500, you can call us in the UK on 02920 566233

 

[cheezmonkey]

Hey www_amigakit_com, I'd already found your site actually, as one of the previous posters mentioned that you may stock them. I took a look and found that you can offer preconfigured CF media too - This sounds like it will save me a lot of time and effort. I was, in all likelihood, going to grab one from you as soon as the Amiga has actually arrived and tests OK! Thanks for the tip though. All suggestions welcome.

 

[www_amigakit_com]

That's great

If you need any pre-sales advice, please call us or send an email.

Thanks!

 

[cheezmonkey]

Thanks again everyone for your input here. The good news is the 500 turned up yesterday. The bad news is the courier seems to have given it a bath and the box and all disks within are pretty much worthless. I did post in another thread about getting hold of workbench disks, but the good news is that I've managed to resurrect the Amiga itself and am looking forward to payday, when I will pick up the ACA500, as recommended.

In the meantime, it's Xenon II all the way

OK Question removed - it is actually answered on the ACA500 page itself. Must.Read.Before.Posting.

 

[cheezmonkey]

Good news Everyone!

Well really, it's just good news for me and amigakit. But I'm pleased. I have ordered an ACA-500. Thanks all for your advice!

Please mark as Found admin.

Cheers!