So just how far can you push an A600?

[Meeloh]

Like I mentioned in my "greeting" thread, I had an A600HD dropped in my lap a few months ago. Just getting the thing running again was a struggle in of itself. I tested it when I got it with nothing but a blank black screen. It needed a recap which while looked great, still left me with the same black screen. I fixed the reset circuit, and while the HDD would spin up, I was left with either still a black or yellow screen. Eventually I salvaged a MC68HC000FN8 CPU from a model 2 Sega Genesis and soldered it in place of the CPU it was shipped with(that was halting itself), and now I'm sitting here with keyboard membrane woes; but there still exists a solution for that which I'm seeking.

But with all of that said, how far can one push an A600 in terms of upgrades? I know there's some LCC socket addon cards that can run a 68030, but can it be pushed to the realm of AGA? Mine specifically already has a 1 meg chip ram card in the trap door bay, but I want MOAR! I've seen videos of Amiga's running complex games such as Descent (An early highschool favorite) and I want to run that! If I can't, I want to know what I can do; and I figured of all places this would be the place to ask.

 

[Timtheloon]

With regards to the keyboard membranes there are people who sell PCB membrane replacements which are a good alternative.

AGA is sadly only really achievable properly with the Amiga Models which have the AGA chipset installed, I remember there was AGA with the Vampire 2 model with a certain Vamp Core but I think it was only a BETA test I'm not sure about Apollo accelerators newer model of cards

Pi Storm will give an amazing boost and even RTG to your amiga 600 which is a cheaper way to go but compatibility issues are still seen with these cards.

 

[Meeloh]

I'm kind iffy when it comes to pi related add-ons, not because of incompatibility issues; but more because even a pi-zero is computationally more powerful than my A600. Using it just feels wrong to me because it takes away the quirky nature of the hardware and pushes the "why don't I just emulate" mumblings.

 

[Watson]

If that's how you feel, then the best path forward would be to add some fast ram in the trapdoor, an ide to sd adaptor kit for the hard disk, and you'll be able to enjoy pretty much the full compatibility with whdload.

Unless you want to stick to floppies.

 

[Timtheloon]

I'm kind iffy when it comes to pi related add-ons, not because of incompatibility issues; but more because even a pi-zero is computationally more powerful than my A600. Using it just feels wrong to me because it takes away the quirky nature of the hardware and pushes the "why don't I just emulate" mumblings.

I understand what you saying, but if you go for the Emu68 way of the PiStorm the emulation side of it is more just the processor and the pi gives you the benefit of RTG and more memory and very fast hard disk support

When it comes to original hardware I believe the highest accelerator for a 600 is an 030, I think the vampire will fall under your "is it not just emulation bracket"

Noticed you posted on a PCB keyboard membrane, hope you can get one and fix your membrane issues

 

[Meeloh]

I've been messing with floppies, fortunately I grabbed a gotek which let me update workbench to use the PCMCIA slot for CF cards. I do want to eventually get rid of the spinning rust, but hearing it spin up is also fun. And yeah, I'm gonna grab the membrane when it's available. In my earliest disassembly of the computer I didn't realize the keyboard connector had a ZIF lock on it, so I kinda wrecked the membrane. Last night it went from right Amiga key not working, to 80% of the keyboard not working, to 100% dead. BUT I'll fix it.

All I wanted to do was play "Another World" ;~;

 

[Lynn]

honestly, beyond what you already mentioned, the A600 doesn't have a lot of good upgrade paths that aren't partially or fully emulation. I love my A600 -- I put an ACA600 and Indivision ECS into -- but beyond that I think the best upgrade path to put your money towards is an A1200.

(also, nice profile pic :3)

 

[Amiga Forever]

I like my Amiga 600 as small and it is Cute LOL
And also does the job what suppose to do like play games, Programming, word processing , Dulxue Paint and list go on.

Just make sure you got enough Ram

 

[Meeloh]

The thing for me is, I don't really see another Amiga in the immediate future, as I got my 600 for stupid cheap. I MAYBE have all of 200 bucks in it at the moment, including the gotek. Like I mentioned before, it was just dropped on my lap. Eventually I'll do the 030 upgrade with a hefty chunk of fast ram. But I've been enjoying the computer for what it is, spare the keyboard issues.

And thank you Lynn. I too love my goober profile pic. X3

 

[Watson]

Goteks are handy and great if you want to just experiance the Amiga without the hassles that come with floppy disks, but Installing fast ram, an hdd and OS will open up an whole new world. You would be able to use WHDLoad, which is better than a gotek/floppy drive in terms of game fixes, compatibility issues and games will load much faster.

 

[Sardine]

For me an amiga with 030 and fast ram is just “convenient”. Easy to boot. Whdload sorts the games out and plenty of ram for playing around in lightwave or the likes of dpaint

Don’t get me wrong i would love my unicorn a kitted out a4000 but i would never use it for its intended purpose. So an a500 with 1mb chip ram would run 95%+ of games etc exactly the same as an a4000 with 100mhz 060

So an a600 2mb chip ram with a hdd and some fast ram is a perfect gaming machine and spending lots of money on an 030 just to play the handful of games that would improve is not worth it but would be fun doing it anyway

A1200 with fast ram is also perfection running 99.9% of everything

 

[Xanxi]

Remember this already vintage webpage about an upgraded A600 http://www.amiga600.de/index.htm ?

Seems obsolete now with the like of Vampire and Pistorm allowing RTG on the A600 with fast cpu.

 

[Mikele]

Since I am not really interested in FPS games, I'd go with a faster 68000 -based acccelerator like HC533 (40 mhz) or xT card (28 mhz), maybe Furia 020 (25 mhz).

 

[YouKnowWho]

You can put a MISTer in it! Get AGA/RTG/68EC020 and tons of other cores.

 

[SilkWorm]

I think these days the most powerful non-FPGA / non-ARM based card is the A630 Rev 2, which comes with a MC68030@50 MHz and has 64 MB of RAM.

https://retrorewind.ca/a630

 

[Xanxi]

Rev 3 gives also a FPU.
I don't know if it is worth upgrading my nice ACA630, which is 100% reliable, because i have heard of troubles with the previous A630.

 

[SilkWorm]

True, rev3 not listed on RetroWind yet but available on the manufacturer website.
Which ACA630 do you have, the 30 MHz 64 MB edition?

 

[Xanxi]

No, i have the ACA 630 /25 - 32 MB. It replaced more than a decade ago my previous board which was an Apollo630/50 with 32 MB. This board was hot as hell and i needed to have a fan, which i absolutely hate in a desktop Amiga, and had all kind of weird unresolved problems with WHDLOAD at the time.

 

[SilkWorm]

Had the Apollo 630/50 as well, it was indeed a hot beast back in time

 

[SilkWorm]

Today I’ve run SysInfo using A630 and PiStorm with 3B and Zero2.