Is an HD Required for A500 Multi-disk Gaming?

[kellylawrence]

Hello all! I recently picked up two "like new" Amiga 500's, and I've been looking to pick up a Slim HxC Floppy Emulator to play a number of older games. I'm just about ready to purchase the HxC, but I had one quick question before I do so.

I'm a huge Adventure game fan, and that's been my main intention for picking up an older computer. With the lack of an internal HD on the 500 though, I was wondering about games that had multiple disks.

Sorry if this is completely obvious, but will I need an HD for most multi-disk games (Think Monkey Island, Space Quest, etc.), and if so, is there any modern workaround such as using an SD/CF card, that wouldn't require a much old Amiga part as an interface?

Again, I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, as I could only assume you would need an HD to install multi-disk games to, but perhaps/hopefully I'm wrong!

 

[SkydivinGirl]

An HXC emulator will run any games that would normally be played from floppy disks. So long as the game does not to be installed to a hard drive, you should not need one.

You may need to get an HXC with an LCD screen if you want to play multi-disk games. I belive the only way to swap virtual disks on the slim version is via software. You won't be able to access that software during a game.

Good luck!

Heather

---------- Post added at 23:23 ---------- Previous post was at 23:05 ----------

I just read over the features of the disk image selection software. You can boot up to the disk image selection software to build a sort of swap list. After that, you can rotate through the disks in the list by pressing the one button on the HXC slim. You just have to remember which disk is in the drive.

Good luck!

Heather

 

[thgill]

The Slim changes disks via the single switch. So long as you have assigned the disks to slots, you can tap the button to switch disks. You will hear a number of beeps to indicate which disk is the active one.


I have a Slim on the way. I hope to have it in a weeks time. Will give further thoughts on it once it has arrived.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[SkydivinGirl]

The beeps to tell the current slot is a nice touch! That would be a great feature for the SD2IEC type devices.

 

[kellylawrence]

First off, thank you everyone for confirming a secondary matter. (Switching disks with the HxC slim) I had watched a video from Lotharek on his YouTube channel, and saw a screen in the video with the large amount of virtual disk slots, but never really thought to much into it.

As for the HD matter... crap! Being able to play games like Space Quest 3, Monkey Island 1 & 2, and I'd imagine a bunch of other games that would require an HD was kind of my big reason for picking up the Amiga when I found it for sale. Don't get me wrong, there's a bunch of non HD-required games I'm still wanting to play, but some of the previously mentioned ones were the big reason!

So... what kind of options would I have for my 500? There's a Canadian based store that sells a number of Amiga parts I found a few days ago. I've heard a lot of mention of SCSI when looking for 500 HD related info. Would anything from these pages help me at all?

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=27
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=42

As mentioned in my original post, is there any options for the 500 that might involve a more modern approach, such as a SD/CF reader based approach, or something similar?

 

[SkydivinGirl]

Hi Kelly!

There are multiple options for adding a hard drive to the A500.

• You could get a vintage sidecar of some sort, like a GVP HD8+. The only problem with this option is that most, if not all, of the sidecar options are SCSI devices. You'd need a SCSI to IDE adapter to add something like a CF Card.
• One of our members, TomThul, created an IDE/RAM expansion for the A500. On the plus side, it mounts inside the A500 and gives an IDE connection and extra RAM. On the negative side, it will not autoboot, so you'd have to boot from a floppy (real or hxc). You could program a new Kickstart that would let it autoboot, but you'd need to program it or have someone else do it. I also don't know if he still has any available.
• Another option is again from TomThul. It's a Zorro slot adapter that allows you to plug internal Zorro cards into the A500. With this, you could buy an IDE adapter (like the Buddha Flash). The bad part about this solution is that you have the card exposed outside the computer.

There are probably a few other options. I love my A500. Unfortunately, the A500 is the most difficult Amiga computer to expand. Your best bet might be to pick up an A1200 because it has IDE built into it and is very easy to expand.

Good luck!

Heather

 

[eyedeebee]

Sorry to Hijack, this thread has been very useful for me too.

I too thought about a HDD for the soon to be mine A500+, however I think the HxC Floppy emulator is fine for my needs.

On a side note there are a couple of 'sidecar' solution on eBay right now, I think theres a GVP with PSU.

From my limited research the A600/1200 is definitely more hard disk friendly and cost effective. However I'm going for the HxC and see how I get on...

 

[SkydivinGirl]

No problem eyedeebee! I'm glad the information so far has been useful. I really like the HxC emulators! I've got four of them now!

Heather

 

[jimbob]

I would have thought an HxC would be enough to play just about all games. Are there any titles that actually require an HD install?

 

[kellylawrence]

I would have thought an HxC would be enough to play just about all games. Are there any titles that actually require an HD install?

Hey Jimbob! I could only assume so, based on the HD install field from the descriptions for these games from Hall of Light:

A-Train
Frontier: Elite II
Monkey Island 1: The Secret of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
Space Quest 3

Perhaps I've been reading it wrong, and it's only stating there is an option to install to an HD if preferred, but it's not required? icard

 

[SkydivinGirl]

I know that Frontier can certainly be played directly from the floppy. Many games have a hard drive install available, but I don't know of any off hand that require hard drive installation. There are probably some though.

Heather

 

[jimbob]

I would have thought an HxC would be enough to play just about all games. Are there any titles that actually require an HD install?

Hey Jimbob! I could only assume so, based on the HD install field from the descriptions for these games from Hall of Light:

A-Train
Frontier: Elite II
Monkey Island 1: The Secret of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
Space Quest 3

Perhaps I've been reading it wrong, and it's only stating there is an option to install to an HD if preferred, but it's not required? icard

That's right, HD install in the HOL just means that there is an option to install, a luxury extra, not essential. I doubt there are any games that you can play on a 500 that cannot be played from floppy.

 

[kellylawrence]

Well thanks again Heather and jimbob! I guess I wanted to just make sure I wouldn't be missing something entirely by not having an HD for the 500. Based on the amount of work it would require to get one working with the 500 though, I can see why most of the games probably didn't require one!

 

[Cammy]

If you were to get a sidecar expansion like an A590 which has SCSI, or the HD8+ which has SCSI and also allows you to expand the RAM to 8MB, you won't need to search around for an old SCSI hard drive or an expensive SCSI-IDE adapter, you can use a SCSI card reader, like the ones from /\/\ECHWARE and load it up with a couple of CF or SD cards. Using a hard drive is preferable to using floppies or images, you can have a nice Workbench setup with all your games available to click on from there, or have it set up to load a game menu instead of Workbench, where you can access thousands of installed games.

I think the Canadian fellow you mentioned is Kipper2k, who makes some great RAM expansions for the A500 in 4MB and 8MB configurations. While it's advisable to have extra RAM if you are using a hard drive, none of his current A500 expansions have IDE or SCSI so you would still need an A590 or other sidecar expansion to provide your HDD interface. However recently Kipper2k started considering a new expansion for the A500, based on a combination of his 8MB RAM expansion and another homebrew project, the IDE68k, which would be the perfect expansion for an A500 in my opinion, giving your A500 8MB RAM, a CF slot, IDE for a CDROM, and a Clock or Clockport, I'd even get a couple for my A500s. Of course, it's not out yet, so all we can do is express our interest and encourage him to make them!

There's also the upcoming ACA500 accelerator, which gives your A500 a 14Mhz 68000 and 2MB RAM, as well as IDE and CF, and it also has a connector so you can plug in an A1200 accelerator.