A500 Memory Upgrade Options Advice

[CDTV1991]

I am working through an A500 restoration project, which I intend to be a simple spec 1.3 machine with a nice Gotek installation (never liked floppies). It currently has 512k memory and the 8372A Fat Agnus.

I'd like to make sure that the machine was compatible with as many games as possible (OCS-era, all from floppy ADF images) and was wondering if it was worth expanding the memory at all and what the options are. I originally had an A500+ when I was a kid, which already had 1MB of memory, So I don't know if many games actually needed over 0.5MB

I'm trying to keep the cost down, as its only a bit of fun. The options I can think of are:

1) Trapdoor 512k memory expansion (£30?)
2) On-board ramp chip upgrade (not done much research on that yet) (£??)
3) One of those 8MB CPU slot RAM upgrades £50
4) None, 0.5MB will do for lots of games

or just go nuts and get some £150 accelerator with memory and IDE?

I already have a nice accelerated A1200 (ACA1230, 28mhz, 64MB) with an 8GB CF HDD, so I don't need a faster machine or any sort of hard drive.

Any recommendations?

Thanks

[alexh]

A CF-IDE + 8MiB RAM card is your cheapest all round solution. It will give you a hard drive plus maximum RAM for about £50.

Thing is can you still get them from anywhere?

[CDTV1991]

CF+8MB for £50 would be ideal and I'd buy that if it was available.

[alexh]

Kipper2k used to sell them

http://www.kipper2k.com/a500fastmem.html

I dunno if he has any left or will even reply to you.

MKL over at Amibay is still selling them. They are not as good as Kipper2k's board as Kipper merged the two into a single board where MKL is the original stack of two

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php...0this%20thread.

[Marchie]

Just ordered IDE + RAM from mkl and it was a single board.

Haven't tested or installed yet, but looks fine at a glance...

8meg fast RAM + IDE gives you access to just about everything, but I can hardly think of a game that wouldn't run on 1.3 ROMs and 1meg RAM (512k chip / 512k slow). I'd go the trapdoor upgrade if you want to keep it cheap.

[MickGyver]

Originally Posted by Marchie

8meg fast RAM + IDE gives you access to just about everything, but I can hardly think of a game that wouldn't run on 1.3 ROMs and 1meg RAM (512k chip / 512k slow). I'd go the trapdoor upgrade if you want to keep it cheap.

Being able to use whdload with the fast ram + ide is a big bonus though.

[CDTV1991]

Thanks for the responses, helpful so far.

I'm stuck between several choices. Its easy to forget that these expansions are not "off the shelf" mass produced things, so availability definitely plays a part.

The minimum is a half meg upgrade, which can be bought for around £30

The 8MB CPU expansions dont seem like the right option in this case

I've considered TF530 and Wicher 500i but neither are readily available. However I am tempted to upgrade, but I think I'd need to upgrade the ROM chip too, which is another £20 or so.

Currently favouring the cheapest half meg upgrade I can find.

[amiga1260]

Did you also looked the options: ACA 500 Plus or HC508?
At the moment the ACA 500 Plus is not available.

https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/...CA500plus.html
https://www.amedia-computer.com/en/a...ator-card.html

If you can get a hold of the ACA 500 Plus, then you don't need to buy Rom chip. Kickstart 3.1 is included in the A500 Plus.

The only thing you need is to have 1 or two Compact Flash cards.

[CDTV1991]

Thanks for the info. I'm not keen on the side expansions, so that rules out a HC508 and ACA500 for me.

[CDTV1991]

Decision made. I bought an £18 half meg upgrade from eBay.

Getting a FlashFloppy Gotek working on the machine made my mind up. I already have an expanded A1200, so this 1.3 machine can be simpler and slightly different. Just cosmetic improvements to case, keys and shields to do.

Thanks for the useful information