English Amiga Board - View Single Post - Simplest/cheapest hardware add ons allowing WHDLoad on A500?

LezRed · 11 January 2020, 22:05

I recently bought and repaired an A500+. My first though was to aim for a TF530/TF534 and to upgrade the kickstart to v3.1 and setup an IDE/CF hdd. I then discovered the HC508 and HC520. The HC520 really appealed as it would allow easy file transfers from a PC compred to a TF534 plus I'd be able to unplug it and just have a stock A500+ without faff.

Then I came across the ACA500plus and couldn't make up my mind between it and the HC520. In the end I went for the ACA500plus due to features like the included kickstarts, WB3.1 installer, advanced start up options and inbuilt Action Replay. I've not regretted it as the 68000 running at even 21MHz with fast mem is good enough for most OCS/ECS games and is similar to an unexpanded A1200. At 42MHz it's a little quicker than an A1200 with fast mem.

Having said that I will likely pick up an ACA1221LC or 1233n and a X-surf-500 this year when funds allow. It would be nice to get to at least 030 @ 25MHz levels of performance for a few of the 3d games (but I'm not worried about trying to play FPS games).

So; if you have the desk space and like the flexibility, expandability and extra features of the ACA500plus I recommend it. It makes getting WB3.1 with WHDload running a doodle and its easy to add more games as you find them later without opening up the Amiga or faffing with ADF files. If you just want the fastest CPU for the lowest price then the TF534. For something in between probably the HC520.

In each case there probably isn't a wrong decision

EDIT: As Ragnarok suggests, check your mobo revision, if it's rev 6a then you should have the correct Angus that will allow the ACA500plus to get you 1MB of chip ram. There are some WHDLoad games that need this and won't run if you only have 512Kb of chip mem.

11 January 2020, 22:05	#5
LezRed Registered User Join Date: Nov 2019 Location: Buckinghamshire, England Posts: 30	I recently bought and repaired an A500+. My first though was to aim for a TF530/TF534 and to upgrade the kickstart to v3.1 and setup an IDE/CF hdd. I then discovered the HC508 and HC520. The HC520 really appealed as it would allow easy file transfers from a PC compred to a TF534 plus I'd be able to unplug it and just have a stock A500+ without faff. Then I came across the ACA500plus and couldn't make up my mind between it and the HC520. In the end I went for the ACA500plus due to features like the included kickstarts, WB3.1 installer, advanced start up options and inbuilt Action Replay. I've not regretted it as the 68000 running at even 21MHz with fast mem is good enough for most OCS/ECS games and is similar to an unexpanded A1200. At 42MHz it's a little quicker than an A1200 with fast mem. Having said that I will likely pick up an ACA1221LC or 1233n and a X-surf-500 this year when funds allow. It would be nice to get to at least 030 @ 25MHz levels of performance for a few of the 3d games (but I'm not worried about trying to play FPS games). So; if you have the desk space and like the flexibility, expandability and extra features of the ACA500plus I recommend it. It makes getting WB3.1 with WHDload running a doodle and its easy to add more games as you find them later without opening up the Amiga or faffing with ADF files. If you just want the fastest CPU for the lowest price then the TF534. For something in between probably the HC520. In each case there probably isn't a wrong decision EDIT: As Ragnarok suggests, check your mobo revision, if it's rev 6a then you should have the correct Angus that will allow the ACA500plus to get you 1MB of chip ram. There are some WHDLoad games that need this and won't run if you only have 512Kb of chip mem. Last edited by LezRed; 11 January 2020 at 22:27. Reason: additional point.