Cant believe I forgot about my 500+ :)

[wood-chris]

Thought Id join up and say hello, I came accross an Amiga Marketing video on youtube the other day which led me too watching a few classic game compilations followed by searching a few forums.

I was bought a 500+ for my 10th or 11th birthday and remember playing it until my hands had blisters on them from over enthusiasm with the joystick lol.

Before this we had an Atari, Spectrum, 2 Dragons and my favourite a C64- I remember playing kickstart ALLOT lol

Well I picked up my Amiga yesterdayfrom my parents house and it all looks to be in good shape, no controllers although a quick search of ebay has proved they can be picked up cheaply and replicas can be had new for £10

Im hoping to introduce my 2 young children to some classic platform games i.e RoboCod, Fire+Ice, New Zeland Story, Captain Planet, Lemmings etc and hopefully will give them an idea how to play the PS2/Wii a little better.

I bought the PS2 7years ago and have probably used it for 10 hours or so, but gaming doesnt seem the same anymore, I cant stand the "virtual" games of today. (This must make me sound really old but im only 30 lol)

Ah well, I just need to find somewhere to install the Amiga now

[MickJT]

Welcome. Perhaps join up to amigaworld.net and amigans.net too and see what's happening with the Amiga today.

Games & computers just aren't the same anymore. Thankfully we still have our niche market and development hasn't stopped.

[Twiggy]

Welcome, don't forget about the 500+'s leaky battery problem!

[wood-chris]

Originally Posted by twiggy

Welcome, don't forget about the 500+'s leaky battery problem!

Leaky battery problem
Im slightly concerned now, think i will fire it up later and see if it works.

What battery is it, and how easily fixed is this problem? I presume its the damage done to the motherboard???

[TCD]

Hi wood-chris and welcome to EAB!

Well, have a look here : http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=31597
You should open your A500+ and have a look. Fingers crossed all is well with the old lady
Enjoy your stay

[wood-chris]

Thank you, Im going to check this tonight once the kids are in bed, I really hope this isnt the case, although I do have a good bench engineer at work that has a good stock of RS components!

Are their any tricks I need to know to get the casing apart, or is it self explanitary?

[Djay]

welcome to the board
my daughter (12yrs) and I enjoy a game of Wiz 'n' Liz now and again...
give it a couple of weeks and you'll buying an A1200 and then fitting a hard-drive!

[TCD]

Originally Posted by wood-chris

Are their any tricks I need to know to get the casing apart, or is it self explanitary?

Sorry, not a HW man myself, but I'll ask around if there are any tricks to consider.

[wood-chris]

Originally Posted by Djay

welcome to the board
my daughter (12yrs) and I enjoy a game of Wiz 'n' Liz now and again...
give it a couple of weeks and you'll buying an A1200 and then fitting a hard-drive!

Those things dont come cheap on ebay lol, most of my friends had Amigas when I was younger as we all made good use of X-COPY, no one seemed too impressed when I posted the youtube Amiga video on facebook so Im sure I wouldn't find it hard persuading them to part with their machines (if any of them survived)

I know someone that used to do a lot of tinkering with the Amiga and I think my dad may have given him all of our old consoles to play around with a couple of years ago, just need to pop around and see him

[Djay]

indeed... i caught the 'buying Amiga bug' in February last year...

here is a list!!!

During 2010:-

-Amigakit
Amiga Technologies A1200 (New Old Stock) £157.99
4GB CF IDE Hard Disk £28.99
EasyADF PCMCIA CF Transfer Kit £13.95
Scart TV to Amiga Cable £5.99
10 x Disks £4.29
4GB CF £16.99
10 x Disks £4.29
3 x 10 Disks £12.87
5 x 10 Disks £24.95

-eBay
Magnum 8 Ram Expansion 4MB (A1200) £60.00
Cumana External Disk Drive £15.00
2 x Ascii Joypads £20.00
3 x 100 Cap Disk Box £10.00
Various Software £50.00
Magazines £25.00

-other
WHDLoad Registration £15.00
Samsung 22" LCD TV (dedicated to Amiga) £150.00
Logitech 2.1 SPeakers (dedicated to Amiga)£40.00

Sub Total £655.28

During 2011:-

-Amigakit
RGB Cable Scart (fixed for LCDTVs) £16.99

-eBay
64MB Ram Simm 60ns (Blizzard) £20.00
CD32 Pad £10.00
Commodore Amiga A1200 Package £60.00

-other
Phase 5 Blizzard 68030/50 32MB £135.00

Sub Total £241.99

Previously bought:-

A600 £50.00
A600 1MB Chip Ram £20.00
Zipstick Joystick £10.00
Various Software £20.00

Sub Total £100.00

Total £997.27

[wood-chris]

Thats quite some shopping list lol

Right well Ive taken her apart, battery looks ok, quick blast with an air duster and back together within 15 minutes! If only they still made things that easy to strip and re-build- it took me 2 hours a few weeks back to change a Nintendo DS shell!

Will run it up after 'Top Gear', im interested to see what the graphics will be like on a 32" LCD lol, I only ever played it on a 14"CRT!

Only issue I have now is not having the joystick- Lemming's it is then, haha that games so addictive that I will be on it all night if it works.

[Djay]

i have a spare Amiga joypad you can have... drop me a PM

also LCD TVs have big issues with the Amiga's scart output... if you uncover a problem you can get a fixed RGB scart cable from amigakit.co.uk

here is a video of the problem i had
[ Show youtube player ]

[prowler]

Hi wood-chris, and welcome to EAB!

It's good to hear that your A500+'s battery has survived, despite your "forgetting about it".

[jmmijo]

Welcome to the forum

[pubzombie]

greetings
we all feel old here

[wood-chris]

Not bad for a 20yr old computer

It run up fine, got bored of lemmings after a few minutes though

Looking forward to playing ZOOL, Chase HQ, Road Rash, SwitchBlade II, allong with the other games mentioned earlier.

Originally Posted by Djay

i have a spare Amiga joypad you can have... drop me a PM

also LCD TVs have big issues with the Amiga's scart output... if you uncover a problem you can get a fixed RGB scart cable from amigakit.co.uk

here is a video of the problem i had
[ Show youtube player ]

Yes my tv/computer looks like its suffering with this problem, or is it just the graphics

What is special about the "fixed" scart cable? Is this something I can modify myself or wire differently onto my tv?

Is their anything I can do about this constant nagging im getting because apparently the amiga doesnt fit in with the decor of our living room lol

[Djay]

Originally Posted by wood-chris

Not bad for a 20yr old computer

It run up fine, got bored of lemmings after a few minutes though

Looking forward to playing ZOOL, Chase HQ, Road Rash, SwitchBlade II, allong with the other games mentioned earlier.

the first few levels are a tad boring... try the later ones, much more of a challenge

if you get back into Amiga gaming, you might wanna check out HOL as it will give you an idea of what games to get you may have not played before... steer clear of Moonstone is not that great and it goes for a small fortune on ebay

[alexh]

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=47185

[Djay]

Originally Posted by wood-chris

Yes my tv/computer looks like its suffering with this problem, or is it just the graphics

What is special about the "fixed" scart cable? Is this something I can modify myself or wire differently onto my tv?

Is their anything I can do about this constant nagging im getting because apparently the amiga doesnt fit in with the decor of our living room lol

lol, i had to borrow a corner of my daughter playroom to dedicate to my Amiga check link for photos, wasnt allowed to put into my 42" Panasonic HDTV

you need to buy a modified RGB scart cable, it is rewired to work on LCDTVs, check my video for an example... goto amigakit.co.uk to buy one i really recommend it, it will make everything the way you remember it

[wood-chris]

Originally Posted by Djay

the first few levels are a tad boring... try the later ones, much more of a challenge

if you get back into Amiga gaming, you might wanna check out HOL as it will give you an idea of what games to get you may have not played before... steer clear of Moonstone is not that great and it goes for a small fortune on ebay

I remember it being much more difficult, it was one of the free games I got with the computer and it didnt get played for a long time as i didnt understand it, then one day I decided to play it and got hooked. Im pretty sure I completed it years ago.

Im definatelly going to get a few bits together, if only for curiosity and it ends up back in its box, then in another 20 years it may come out again lol.
If I manage to secure some space for it then it will stay setup, im sure it would be a bit of a talking point and a bit of excitement for those who had one