ACA Expansion Alternatives?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by BadHatGamer

I mean, there's over-engineering and then there's over-over-engineering.

No idea what you're talking about

http://www.robthenerd.com/misc/Z500Test.jpg

Incidentally, that particular setup was decoding MP3s no problem last night

[Locutus]

Its not so much the width as what is hanging off, i actually like the A590 and GVP530 style addons.

But the ACA500 bare is a bit to much an....intimate display of guts hanging out and the 'cases' that exist for it dont really mesh with the A500 itself aesthethically speaking.

Ofcourse YMMV and lets not argue about taste, its your hardware feel free to do what you enjoy :-)

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

No idea what you're talking about

http://www.robthenerd.com/misc/Z500Test.jpg

Incidentally, that particular setup was decoding MP3s no problem last night

So...........much.........cabling.........eyes.........hurting!
I dunno, I just like to have SOME desk space left - even if its
only enough to put my wallet and keys on when I'm at home.
And while I love to tinker, I like to be able to see my A500 in all
its glory without a thick forest of cables etc.

Originally Posted by Locutus

Its not so much the width as what is hanging off, i actually like the A590 and GVP530 style addons.

But the ACA500 bare is a bit to much an....intimate display of guts hanging out and the 'cases' that exist for it dont really mesh with the A500 itself aesthethically speaking.

Ofcourse YMMV and lets not argue about taste, its your hardware feel free to do what you enjoy :-)

Actually I'd agree with this. I had a 20MB A590 when I was a kid, and
looks-wise it fit in perfectly. I still remember wiping the hard drive without
even thinking that I had no idea how to reinstall WB once I'd done it.
Good thing I knew someone who had a similar setup and WB 1.3 disks.

Sad thing is that here in Australia, these are bloody impossible to find.
And even on the rare occasion when one goes up for sale, they're beyond
ridiculously expensive. I could get an a600 from the UK or EU and add
CF/Ram/etc internally for what the A590 alone usually goes for here.

[EDIT]
Bugger it! Maybe I should take a holiday to the EU all cashed up and buy
a bucket load of Amiga hardware while I'm there.
[END EDIT]

My current A500 also came from the UK, because there simply weren't any
in good nick over here at the time. I could swear that the previous owner
kept it in a air-tight clean room for the last 15 years or so. Great condition.
I picked up a non-functional rev6a Australian rust-bucket for next to nothing
just to rip out the Agnus, so I could do the 1mb Chipram mod on my current
motherboard which is rev5. This also provides me with a spare case if ever I
decide to cut/mod it to mount my gotek internally. I should get an Australian
keyboard layout for it though - but really I'm lazy in that respect.

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

I'll be finished adding bits to my A500 when it's wider than I am tall.

When is an A500 ever "FINISHED"?!
I guess that happens when there's
nobody left making hardware for it,
and that might take an aeon or two.

[E-Penguin]

Originally Posted by BadHatGamer

I should get an Australian
keyboard layout for it though

Can't you just turn the keys upside down?

[demolition]

How does the AUS kb layout differ from the UK one? Is it similar to a US layout?

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

Can't you just turn the keys upside down?

Good one.

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

Can't you just turn the keys upside down?

Gotta concede that one. I got a kangaroo parked in the bike rack outside that would love that.

Originally Posted by demolition

How does the AUS kb layout differ from the UK one? Is it similar to a US layout?

Its not really that important - just a few symbol characters in different spots.
It can be a bit annoying when you go to strike the "@" or "#" symbols by reflex
and end up with quotation marks or the british "£" instead though.

I never figured out where the apostrophe ( ' ) key is though. On our layout its placed
with the quotation symbol where the "@" and "#" symbols are on a UK layout.

Or I could just change the layout in software and not look at the keys
at all like any sane person would. I'm pretty sure the American layout
is identical to ours, so an Australian specific layout isn't required.
We really need to stop following the Americans in everything like lost puppies.

[Daedalus]

Yep, that sounds like the American layout alright. As for the apostrophe, that's different from standard on all Amiga keyboards that I've seen. It's on the key above Tab and to the left of 1, where the backtick symbol is on PC keyboards. PCs have it down near right shift on UK and US layouts.

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Yep, that sounds like the American layout alright. As for the apostrophe, that's different from standard on all Amiga keyboards that I've seen. It's on the key above Tab and to the left of 1, where the backtick symbol is on PC keyboards. PCs have it down near right shift on UK and US layouts.

Weird. On my A500 rev5 UK layout, the key you're describing IS the
backtick/backquote key. All the UK layouts on a500s I've seen are the same.

I've looked at some pictures of the UK A600s and they have an extra
key to the right of the @/# key which is apostrophe (I think).

[Daedalus]

It might look like a backtick, but it's actually the apostrophe on the Amiga UK layout, or rather, the single quote since the character set doesn't offer left and right versions of the single or double quotes. A500s came with a couple of different keyboards, one of them had the larger Enter key and two keys between Enter and L, the ;: key and the @# key. Others had the same layout as later Amigas like the A600, which had extra keys beside Enter and to the left of Z, which left space for other country layouts without needing new mechanical layouts. Those keys are blank on the UK layouts, with the apostrophe still at the top left of the keyboard.

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

It might look like a backtick, but it's actually the apostrophe on the Amiga UK layout, or rather, the single quote since the character set doesn't offer left and right versions of the single or double quotes. A500s came with a couple of different keyboards, one of them had the larger Enter key and two keys between Enter and L, the ;: key and the @# key. Others had the same layout as later Amigas like the A600, which had extra keys beside Enter and to the left of Z, which left space for other country layouts without needing new mechanical layouts. Those keys are blank on the UK layouts, with the apostrophe still at the top left of the keyboard.

Ohhh. That explains why the extra keys I saw on a600s were left blank.

I didn't realise the backquote and apostrophe were treated as a single character on the Amigas.
I often forget that keyboard standards were more than a little different back then.
Even having something like an onboard numpad wasn't quite standard yet, and if I remember right
some manufacturers of the 80s offered optional numpad boards which were completely separate.
Oddly enough Apple copied this idea with some of their bluetooth keyboards which came with their
illuminati.....(COUGH).....I mean, aluminium iMacs.

Thanks for clearing this up. Too many years of Windows/MacOS monotony, methinks.

[Jope]

The backtick is a backtick on the Amiga too. It must depend on your OS keymap.

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by Jope

The backtick is a backtick on the Amiga too. It must depend on your OS keymap.

Ok now you're confusing me again.

On the UK layout the key to the left of the number 1 key has backtick and "~" (tilde?).

As for the OS keymap, I just use the standard UK one.

[Jope]

http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.co...a500_2_big.jpg shows a backtick symbol on there. I don't remember the GB keymap by heart now, but if it provides you with a regular apostrophe as you would use in "it's" or "we're", then there is a discrepancy between the keymap and keycap, which I never noticed.

My childhood Amiga had the GB layout and I used the GB keymap most often.

Here in Sweden/Finland our keyboard looks like this: http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.co...dish_1_big.jpg

I get the backtick from the top left and the apostrophe comes from the key to the left of return. Asterisk when shifted. :-)

I can also get back and forward ticks with the key between + and \. It is a dead key, first hit it and then space to get the glyph on its own, or hit it and then a wovel to combine the two.. Don't mind the mess of it showing the US keymap on the same keycaps, you get those glyphs with alt or alt shift.

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by Jope

I get the backtick from the top left and the forward tick comes from the key to the left of return. Asterisk when shifted.

Same place as the American/Australian layout, only its quotation marks ( " ) when shifted.

Ok thats it. Now that I'm home, I'm going to fire up my A500 and see what's what.........

[EDIT - After checking my A500]

Okay, I can confirm what I said earlier about using an American software keymap
in both WB1.3 and 3.1. It all matches up to an American layout, as long as i dont
look at the print on the keys themselves.

[Daedalus]

Sorry, yep, there is a backtick character on the Amiga separate from the single quote/apostrophe character too, and you sometimes see it used instead of an apostrophe/single quote in readmes. But it's not the standard UK layout for the top left key. I'm trying to remember the key combination needed for the backquote on those keyboards - maybe Alt+` or Escape-`, I don't remember. Some experimenting in Ed is needed I think...

Edit: Yep, the A500 Jope linked to is the UK layout, the same as the other Amiga models other than the blank keys. The key legend is indeed at odds with the character in that case - in fact, there isn't an apostrophe or single quote character anywhere to be seen on that layout.

[Jope]

In that case you need to hit alt-# to get the apostrophe on a GB keymap. Just like alt-Ä works as an alternative for the S keymap. :-)

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

there isn't an apostrophe or single quote character anywhere to be seen on that layout.

Exactly.

Originally Posted by Jope

In that case you need to hit alt-# to get the apostrophe on a GB keymap.

SOLVED! I can confirm that after changing back to UK keymap to match the keyboard itself, it works.
At last I can look at my keys while typing again!

Why, oh why couldn't they just shift-map this to a key like sanity would suggest?!

[E-Penguin]

This leaves me wondering how the hell I ever used apostrophes and perhaps explains my current grammatical pedantry. A sort of post-apostrophe stress disorder.

[Daedalus]

Grr, it's annoying me now that I can't find a screenshot of KeyShow using a GB keymap to show how it's actually mapped. I never thought of trying the alt-# combination, just always used the top left key. Which is actually jarring when switching back to Amiga keyboards after using a PC-style layout on other machines.

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

post-apostrophe stress disorder.

PASD: Officially added to my list of unconventional but commonly used idioms.

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Which is actually jarring when switching back to Amiga keyboards after using a PC-style layout on other machines.

Very true. But then my A500 is the only machine/gadget I have that doesn't
use the American/Australian layout, so its kind of a bit jarring anyway.

This might be because pretty much all of my gadgetry either uses touchscreen,
takes one of my two wireless usb keyboards or is a PowerMac G4 (which might
just get clobbered with the MorphOS treatment soon - because OS9, nuff said).