Weird Amiga 500??

[Tajmaster]

Hi all

I was wondering if any of you have anymore information about the Amiga 500 I picked up today. It looks like an A500+ with the blank key on the keyboard and the wide A500+ like badge. I have heard about these before and was under the impression that it should have a revision 8 motherboard which for all intents and purposes is an A500+ motherboard without the battery on-board (Ive been told anyway).

Anyway, upon opening mine up it is just a bog standard rev6 A500 board, the machine had not been opened before from what I can make out as the sticker was pushed in slightly but not far enough to unscrew the machine, so I dont think anyone has swapped it. How come mine has a rev 6 board, Ive always thought these should have rev 8 boards?

Pics are attached to show which A500 I mean

Taj

PS, The cat thought he would have a look at it but he drew a blank so went back to his normal state (sleeping!)

 

[nikos.rizos]

I have an amiga 500 exactly the same. Badge the same like a plus model and a revision 6 board. I really like this amiga because rev 6 for me it's the best and most compatible board and the logo is the modern one.
Later cases like this had a rev 8 board with 0.5 MB chip memory(hybrid boards), with a "500+" writing but it was from the transition period of commodore moving to 500+ boards.

 

[masheen]

I have one of these also, but I don't have the blank key. (are u sure someone hasn't replaced it at some point? )

What kickstart?
A rev8 should have 2.04 right? (unless it's been replaced ofcourse)

masheen

 

[nikos.rizos]

This must have a 1.3 kickstart.

 

[TjLaZer]

I am thinking C= did stuff like this to clear out old stock of parts, mix and matching to move units. They must of ran out of old 500 cases and started using the new batch of A500+ cases. Pretty cool.

I remember back when the A2000 first came out, I saw some that had butchered mouse cables--they cut off the A1000 plugs and installed the regular DB9 plugs on them! It looked like crap and unprofessional but that's commodore...

 

[JLPedro]

I also have one of this A500 badged like the A500+, inside is a rev 8A board with 512kb ram and A500+ writhen on it. Still needs cleaning througt :dry:

 

[Tajmaster]

Thanks for the replies guys

It has a 1.3 ROM and Im almost certain it hasnt been opened before, the warranty sticker was only slighty pushed in and came apart very easily when I went to open it

So it appears that some have the rev 8 board some dont, probably down to Commodore being cheapskates! LOL

 

[Buzzfuzz]

That should have been rev 8 board with 2.04, this can be upgraded to a plus version, so becoming an 8A.
But the upgrade work is quite much and since it's value of the plus is only a tad more, it's better to pick one up.

 

[bebek]

Upgrade is pretty easy. Clock IC and some caps and resistors, one TTL and four memory IC's, rom change, jumpers change and you have A500+ without any damage, I did one like this for myself - twice .

 

[specialK]

hi everyone!
this is what i believe;
this was the leftover and new parts A500 that was produced before and a little into life of A500Plus

the first Amiga500 had the small square C= logo on the upper right corner of the case
then once the design of the A500Plus was completed and manufacturing was about to be started Commodore realised they were still sitting on many spare parts from the A500 and most likely since the old cases were no longer pressed Commodore ordered new badges in the style of A500Plus and quickly made these type of A500's
from what i know (my observations) these "hybrid" A500's were mainly sold in central and eastern Europe (i could be wrong) because i have been living in Australia for over 15 years now and all i see are the old small square C= A500's
visiting Poland every 2 years i always search through flea markets and internet and i see alot of the "hybrid" A500's but with the old A500's boxes (old case A500 picture featuring on the box)

im sure our friends from western EU and the USA might have other information regarding this type of Amiga500 and i could be totally wrong

 

[rkauer]

One of my A500 is this exact case but with a rev5 board inside. Yes, C= did their tricks back in the day.

Of course I replaced the board with a cheerful rev6 and now it is my main A500 Amiga.

 

[ChrisUnionNJ]

Yeah like sell 3.3 million worth of pets with only 3 prototypes and said you would get the order with in 90 days..lol

Chris

Ahh meds are a wonderful thing!!

 

[Skyrunner]

As others stated, these were the last A500s to be made, a bit after the A500+ was introduced. Why press two different kinds of cases while you can have the same result with a slightly different badge?
Also don't forget that there were quite a few people who were initially annoyed by the new machine's incompatibility with hardware-banging software. That's before the ROM switchers appeared - upon the A500+'s release and first magazine reviews. And that was good for Commodore as they got rid of remaining parts pretty quickly.

 

[AndyLandy]

As I understand it, the problem arose in the lead-up to Christmas 1991. Commodore didn't have enough A500s to fulfil the demand for Christmas that year. As such, they plugged the gaps using parts that were meant to be A500pluses. I don't think there was any rhyme or reason to how they decided which bits went together to make these A500s, just as long as they could fulfil the Christmas demand.

I was fortunate that when I got my A500 for that same Christmas, the actual machine was a fully-fledged A500plus. Of course, I didn't really understand the difference at the time, but it was still pretty cool to have!

 

[rkauer]

I think they even used refurbished/returned old A500 main boards with new cases.

That's explain why I had a rev5 mobo inside the latest case (warranty seal was still there when I get this 500).

 

[Sensi]

I had this one too, bought in July 1993 as a new one.
I never opened it and then sold in 1997 as an unopened virgin. Pity I cant tell you what revision it was, my model was little weird in some ways:

1. Commonly used 512K memory expansion did not work with my model, had to wait for anohter one I ordered directly from the company that I bought my Amiga from.

2. Silmarils' games did not work, they always froze with Silmarils' logo on the screen. Once I discovered by accident their games boot with no problems when I reset Amiga first with disk inserted in floppy drive.

My model was "Made in Philippines" and for sure it didnt have the blank keys, Return key was like the one on the pic below and Shift too.
Maybe C= were out of big Return and long Shift keys so they used blank ones? :dry:

from what i know (my observations) these "hybrid" A500's were mainly sold in central and eastern Europe(i could be wrong) because i have been living in Australia for over 15 years now and all i see are the old small square C= A500's
visiting Poland every 2 years i always search through flea markets and internet and i see alot of the "hybrid" A500's but with the old A500's boxes (old case A500 picture featuring on the box)

You are absolutely right, I bought my hybrid in this box:

Until I found this thread I always thought my Amiga had been something special in a positive way (unique models=better models) with that uncommon badge and I was wrong

 

[AndyLandy]

I am thinking C= did stuff like this to clear out old stock of parts, mix and matching to move units. They must of ran out of old 500 cases and started using the new batch of A500+ cases.

This is almost certainly what happened. If you bought an A500 in the months prior to the A500+ being released, you could end up with any weird and wonderful combination of bits, up to and including a complete A500+ (as I was fortunate to end up with for Christmas 1991). There were plenty of oddball combinations of OCS and ECS chips, kickstart versions, motherboard revisions and case designs.

According to Wikipedia (Source of all fact on the Internet), this was due to C= running out of A500 stock in the run up to Christmas, so they initially plugged the gaps with frankenmachines and eventually moved on to complete Pluses, even though the Plus wasn't officially released until 1992. You don't see me complaining though! I was expecting an A500 and I got a Plus.

 

[Justin]

The A500+ was released in several markets (including many European countries), but was never sold officially in the U.S.
Although officially introduced in 1992, some Amiga 500 Plus units had already been sold (masquerading as Amiga 500 models, and with no prior announcement) during late 1991. It has been speculated that Commodore had already sold out the remaining stocks of Amiga 500s, before the run up to the profitable Christmas sales period. In order to make enough A500s before Christmas, Commodore used stocks of the new 8A revision motherboards destined for the A500+. Many users were unaware that they were purchasing anything other than a standard Amiga 500. Although the Amiga 500+ was an improvement to the Amiga 500, it was minor. It was discontinued and replaced by the Amiga 600 in summer 1992, making it the shortest lived Amiga model


don'y ya just love wiki?

 

[bebek]

The first Amiga 500 I bought had long sticker, A500+ board inside and red LED . Loved it . And it was one of the last batches of A500's in sale in Poland.

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

The first Amiga 500 I bought had long sticker, A500+ board inside and red LED . Loved it .

I have a couple of very nice keyboards here with red Power LED and Caps Lock. Very nice they are too, proper mechanical switches