Amiga 500+ board in A500 case?

[McBierle]

Hi everyone! First post!


Usually i live in another space, the so called x86-Space. I hope you won't eat me because of this.


As i said i lived my whole life with dos machines. I never had an amiga, well i once had an cpc 464 (recently got one again), but i have literally no experiance in the amiga world.


Some weeks ago i got my first amiga. When i opened it i was greeted by i 500+ on the mainboard. So, is this normal? There is no indication on the case of a 500+.


greetings!

[Hewitson]

Welcome to EAB, the best Amiga site in the world!

It's not all that uncommon to have a 500+ board in a 500 case. A previous owner could have swapped the board. Also I believe for a short time CBM were putting (non fully functional) A500+ boards in 500 cases.

It's a superior board. I'd say you got lucky

[nogginthenog]

Welcome! You were double lucky. A real A500+ has a clock battery that tends to leak and eat the motherboard.
As you can see it's missing here. You have a RAM expansion too.

[Mark sealey]

Awesome.....it would make my day to fine a A500+ in a A500 case....Welcome.

[jbilander]

Welcome to big endian world where computing is a lot of fun

You were indeed lucky finding that motherboard inside. If you want to you can modify it into a fully fledged A500+ pretty easily.

Check out this thread:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=77705.

I recently did this mod and used ultra-flat sockets for the RAM chips. No problem with keyboard clearance. Worked like a charm.

[demolition]

After C= launched A500+, they kept selling the old A500 but C= reduced the manufacturing costs by using the same board in both models, so that is why all the latest A500s have A500+ boards inside. They were only configured with KS 1.3, 512kB RAM and no RTC like the original A500 which made it a bit cheaper than the A500+ (although if you added the cost of a 512kB RAM expansion, the price was not that different in the end).

I think that most A500s who have the wide rectangular badge like this one is likely to also have an A500+ board inside since that is the case that was made for A500+:

[McBierle]

Many thanks for that Info.
I see that there were some compatibility issues with the real plus-version. Were those just because of the newer kickstart rom?


Greetings

[demolition]

Originally Posted by McBierle

Many thanks for that Info.
I see that there were some compatibility issues with the real plus-version. Were those just because of the newer kickstart rom?

Yes, it was mainly due to the kickstart, however using SW like ReLoKick solved most of those issues.
Apart from the KS issues, some older games also required memory to be present in the $c00000 area which is where the 512kB trapdoor memory was normally located in the A500. In the 500+, the trapdoor expansion was used for chip memory so it would not occupy this area.
Some of those older incompatible games were later re-released in updated versions which would also work on 500+/600 (which is more or less identically configured).

[Photon]

It can be tricky to use an A500+ to run A500 era games. A500+ puts all RAM except sidecar expansion RAM as chipmem. The oldest games, say 1985-1989, were made for 512K chip only, so there only the Kickstart version is a problem. 1990-1991 saw games take advantage of more RAM, but expected A500 memory as mentioned. If game from these two years are what you want to play, and it isn't available patched for 1MB chipmem, you can't play them. From 1992 on, games should detect model and RAM fine, and also support Kickstart 2.0.

This is for floppy lovers. Many play games on WHDLoad, and an ACA500+ is the quickest way to launch thousands of games from a CF card.

[BrooksterMax]

Being an A500+ owner back at launch in 1991, it was a surprise to have it inside the Cartoon Classics pack but a bit of a pain too. With the older games, it was a minefield sometimes whether they were compatible as there was no internet or checklist. I specifically remember Italia 90 didn't work - I paid good money for that at a petrol station too one day. Still annoys me to this day!

However today, because it can take 2mb Chip Mem I love it. Very versatile.

[zipper]

Use some degrader to make fake fast from chip, for instance TUDE.

[demolition]

I also got myself an A500+ in 1991, and I never regret choosing it over the 500. Yes, there was a few compatibility issues but they could usually be worked around in some way, and since I also used my Amiga for more than just games, I appreciated having WB2.0 over the dated WB1.3.
Like many others I had mostly pirated games back then so if a game didn't run, it wouldn't be such a big loss.
I do remember once I bought Chase H.Q. only to find out that I couldn't make it work on my 500+. Some shops were nice enough to refund the money if it didn't work though.

[BrooksterMax]

Originally Posted by demolition

I also used my Amiga for more than just games, I appreciated having WB2.0 over the dated WB1.3.

The gaming compatibility was a little annoying at the beginning, I agree the new Kickstart/Workbench was a huge advantage beyond games. I remember particularly with Amiga Format Coverdisks, I could pretty much use everything as 1.3 got left behind.

[camsoft2000]

So I seem to have been unlucky and purchased on eBay what was sold as an A500+ but the mainboard appears to be a Rev 5 A500.

Pretty annoyed and thinking about returning it. What do you guys think.

I posted pictures in this thread: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=101750