Just picked up Amiga 500 and bits! Need some help.
 

Hi all. I got a great collection of Amiga gear given to me for free today. I have to say it's much more than I was expecting and I'm really quite chuffed!

But. There are a few things I don't recognise. It looks like the previous owner was heavily into video editing (as well as his flight sims) and it’s got all this weird RGB gear. Genlock or something? Plus it’s got 3 separate external floppy drives. I really wanted one extra when I was younger and now I got 3!!

Also, can anyone tell me what that card is in the bottom trapdoor slot? It has a switch on it? It's the place where you'd normally stick the half Meg upgrade.
Also. Should I clean or do something with the amiga before turning it on? It's been sitting for a few years I think.

Cheers
Tony

Heres the pics:

http://www.trydowave.com/amiga500.web.htm

P.s. Insert image dosent seem to work so I only included the link. If anyone knows how to fix this can you please let me know. Its a jpeg.

A genlock is used to mix two video sources. You have one color on the Amiga which is defied as transparent and the Genlock will replace this color with the content from the other video channel. Can be used to place text (subtitles, scrollers etc.) on top of a video or simply to watch TV on your WB background. :)

The card in the trapdoor is probably just a 512kB upgrade card which can be enabled/disabled on the switch.

I'd just try hooking it up and power it on. If there is a problem, try reseating all chips in sockets. Also check if there is a battery on the trapdoor card. If there is, it is probably leaking and should be removed and the card cleaned asap.

Ive updated the image, even though its all gone squished?

http://www.trydowave.com/amiga500.web.htm

Do you think it needs a clean up?

Cheers
Tony

It doesn't look like it has leaked yet, but I'll cut off the battery anyway as it's bound to happen soon if that's the original battery. I do see some white stuff around the battery, but it's probably just dust?

By cutting off the battery you would lose the real time clock so it would not be able to remember the time setting. Depending on what you'll be using the machine for, it might not be relevant to have a clock anyway.

When I buy a used Amiga I normally take it apart completely and clean it inside and out. One thing is one's own dirt, another is someone else's. :)
Functionality-wise it's not so important though, maybe except the disk drive which can often benefit from a cleaning of the heads.

can i just leave the battery and inspect ever once in awhile and then cut it off when i see leaking. I don't like the idea of doing it now unless i have too. Also. whats the switch for? can i switch it while its on?
some more questions :)...
do i daisy chain the floppy drives?
will that rgb scart plug display the amigas picture or does it just deal with the output in video editing?
what is that hub thingy with 3 serial type ports?
what plugs into where? this concerns everything here (apart from the amiga itself of course, im familiar with that )
cheers
Tony
p.s.,... ill give the vents a quick blast of my air compressor.

I can't see everything detailed enough, but I can make some educated guesses:
Whether you should remove the battery or not is up to you. I'm not even sure that it can hold a charge any more, and in that case your date and time won't be right anyway.

Yes, the floppy drives can be daisy-chained up to three external drives for DF1 through DF3.

The switch is for turning the memory expansion on and off. And you will crash the machine if you do it while it's running. A few games might not work unless it's turned off, but you'll hardly run into any.

The RGB Scart plug is either an input for the Genlock (to be connected to a video source) or an output from the Genlock (for the TV). See if it connects to an input or output at the other end.

The 'hub thingy' is probably a mouse/joystick switch so you won't have to pull cables out and in every time you want to play 2-player games.

Otherwise read the writing on the boxes, do not connect two outputs together and only connect similar types together (e.g. don't mixup video and floppy connectors).

Edit: I can see that the 'hub thingy' looks rather like it has 25p connectors, not 9p as I first thought, so it could be an automatic parallel port switch, allowing you to connect two computers to one parallel port printer.

I'm slowly realising that I have no way to connect this to a TV or monitor. All I have is these weird vidi amiga, genlock devices and some strange scart lead with a serial socket (think it it anyways) Looks like the C64 video outout, that big round one.
Is there anyway I can connect any of this stuff to either a VGA monitor or a standard CRT TV? Isnt the mono out a monochrome video out?
Cheers
Tony

Yeah, the A500 outputs monochrome composite..
The OUT from your genlock should be color tho.

Never used a genlock, but I would think that would work..

Of course, in your neck of the woods, an Amiga to SCART cable would be best..

desiv

I have a couple of A520 video modulators spare, I can send you one for free if you need :)

The Vidi Amiga is digitizer hardware for video grabbing:
Vidi Amiga

You might be able to get a color picture from composite out on the genlock but I would recommend you to buy an RGB Scart cable if you want to use the Amiga. It will then connect to a CRT or most modern TVs without problems.

If you have no intention to use the digitizers, then I'm sure someone would want to buy it from you. There's a lot of people out there who likes old, useless hardware. :)

I've managed to hook up the amiga to some speakers, still no video yet. I put in a few disks and some buzz for a bit and then stop. Some dont do anything. Shouldn't the amiga fire up a game even thought the monitors not plugged in?

This is really annoying. I can check it. Hope its not dead.

It's a red light model, one of the early ones.

Oh. yes pls... How do u want me to share my address?

Cheers
Tony

p.s. im currently broke so the rgb to scart will have to wait.

In the meantime, I have to make sure the A500 is even working! I'm getting no sound and discs arent booting up. Without video its really hard to troubleshoot.

Don't you have a TV that still accepts composite video?
The RCA port on the back of the Amiga (the one that's not audio ;-) is composite monochrome.
Doesn't have color, but should work for testing...

desiv

I have a large plasma monitor, no media box so vga only. A samsung 27 inch monitor for my pc, HDMI and DVI only, a VGA monitor for my xp machine, 3x VGA CRTS and a projector (with composite) but it has a busted bulb. I have no TVS as I tend not to watch TV. I did have a small portable a few months back but i dumped it!! Arghhh this is soooo frustrating!
But... shouldnt I be able to hear the game boot up regardless of the video? None of the disks are booting. I'm hopeing they have all just degraded over time rather than the A500 being dead.
I tell ya.. my luck... first I get an A600. That was fried. Now this.

Laterz
Tony

It's possible the Disks are kaput. I'll bung a couple of floppy Disks in the envelope for you too. If you have put dirty disks in the drive you might need to clean the drive heads, you can get those cleaner Disks you run through, I run one through my drives every so often to keep them reading fine.

gracias my friend.

Arent Amigans the best!! :)

how do you clean the drive heads?

Also I have 3x externals here... im having trouble booting from them too... but i read somewhere that some games dont like being booted from anything other than DF0?

I Have a dead A600 here too... anything I can canabalise from that do you think. Like the floppy for instance?

Cheers
Tony

Yep, you can use the A600 floppy drive for testing.
Not sure if it will line up for the eject button, but it should work at least for testing..

desiv

Another weird thing is the sound of the Floppy. On the Amiga I used to own back in 1990 the drive made this really loud sound when accessing data. Exactly the same as the one you hear in Winuae when you emulate drive sound.

This is really quite and smooth sounding in comparision. The strange thing is, this is a red light version of the A500. First Rev if im corrcet? I used to own a green light version.

If anything I thought that this one would be louder!

There were more brands of floppy disk drives which you could find in Amiga, some where louder, while others were quieter.

Got a TV and connected it using monochrome video. It starts up fine. Some floppies work, some don’t. Not sure it that’s a sign of a faulty drive or degraded disks?

The half Meg upgrade is stumping me though. Even though it’s plugged in and set to on the Amiga is not picking up the extra memory. Desert Strike won’t load for example. Does anyone know how I can fix this or will I have to buy another one. If that’s the case does anyone have one they want to sell?

Cheers
Tony