A500 Rev 4
 

Cannot find any info what so ever about this revision. Heres a few pics.

Attachment 29975

Attachment 29973

Attachment 29974

More pics
 

please if you know anything about this revision let me know.

I always wondered if there was a Rev.4 board..... like you say, there is next to no information.

Comparing it with Rev.3.... looks like a few changes have taken place on the board itself (Rev.3 was notoriously buggy) - the ceramic chips you have on there are quite rare before they were replaced for the cheaper non-ceramic counterparts.

So most likely a 'fixed' board to replace Rev.3. I would imagine Rev.4 wasn't around for long.

What version is the kickstart (I cant quite make it out from the pic)

KS is 34.5. Seems someone swapped it out later on.


Has anything new turned up about the Rev. 4 in the last six years, or have any more of them been found?

As far as I can tell, only one other Rev. 4 board besides mine is known to exist.


http://eab.abime.net/picture.php?alb...pictureid=3073

It seems that not many of these ever made it out. :-)

Does the serial number mean anything? CA1000049

I haven't had any luck figuring out the encoding scheme they used. Should it be read as 49 or 1,000,049? The back half of the case may not be original too.

March 1987... wow! Maybe it was US only, hence so little have ever surfaced?
Was definitely a KS 1.2 by origin.

The "W.C. BUILD" label probably means it was built at Commodore in Westchester, PA. Maybe 1076 is the "real" serial number in a sense.

I wonder if the custom chips are the original ones. They're ceramic packages which I'm surprised to see in an A500. Can you upload some higher-res pics of the board?

This one has nice detail. It really expands if you right-click and hit 'view image' once you load the full-resolution version.

As far as I can tell, every chip is dated 1986 or earlier, except for the KS which is dated 1989.

Did the A500 ever come with ceramic chips?

https://preview.ibb.co/jR47Ek/A500_R...ard_Hi_Res.jpg
image upload

Seems to have chip production dates between '86 and '87. They are likely leftover Denise and 8520 ceramic chips from the A1000 production bin. Agnus is 512K made May '87. Gary is the Toshiba-made variant before MOS started producing it. Sharp made the KS1.2 ROM. note the old style ferrite beads and the heavy resistor package along the rear

That expansion. Did you open it and removed battery? And if you need clock put button battery with adapter.

Hi Platatomi, do you still own the REV 4? I am working on a project to collect all different retro A500 mainboards revisions. Currently I have 2 different REV 3's, 3 different REV 5's, 2 differnet REV 6a's, REV 7. Looking to expand with REV 4 and REV 8a(1)'s. Going to put them next to each other and share with main forums when complete. Do you want to sell the REV 4 or swap for other hardware/software? Greetings from Belgium Jean C.J. van Damme