English Amiga Board - View Single Post - A plea for someone to fix the A600's biggest problem...

Daedalus · 19 May 2017, 01:04

Those connectors are only really meant to be connected once and left alone. The fact that 25 years later we're pulling them apart again and again for various things was probably never considered as a possibility at the time... Not that that improves the current situation.

There is a sort of solution I used almost 20 years ago when I first put my A1200 in a tower. I removed the connector from the motheboard, soldered it onto the end of a cable, and fitted a totally different connector to the motherboard that could withstand regular connecting and disconnecting. Not ideal, but it means never needing to disconnect the ribbon again, so it should last for many years. It was vaguely similar to the situation in the A500 in the end.

Also, passive adaptors on the CIA or keyboard MPU will accept Amiga keyboards. Not that that helps for the A600, but at least you can use a native layout instead of a PC one if you do go down the external keyboard route.

Edit: Sorry, I misread idrougge's reply, sounds like his Spectrum solution was similar to my A1200 one...

19 May 2017, 01:04	#3
Daedalus Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Dublin, then Glasgow Posts: 6,374	Those connectors are only really meant to be connected once and left alone. The fact that 25 years later we're pulling them apart again and again for various things was probably never considered as a possibility at the time... Not that that improves the current situation. There is a sort of solution I used almost 20 years ago when I first put my A1200 in a tower. I removed the connector from the motheboard, soldered it onto the end of a cable, and fitted a totally different connector to the motherboard that could withstand regular connecting and disconnecting. Not ideal, but it means never needing to disconnect the ribbon again, so it should last for many years. It was vaguely similar to the situation in the A500 in the end. Also, passive adaptors on the CIA or keyboard MPU will accept Amiga keyboards. Not that that helps for the A600, but at least you can use a native layout instead of a PC one if you do go down the external keyboard route. Edit: Sorry, I misread idrougge's reply, sounds like his Spectrum solution was similar to my A1200 one...