Do I need a work bench disk?

Noobist of noobs questions. I had an Amiga 500 when I was a kid. I found my step brothers up in the loft, it has loads of games with it, couple of mice and a joystick. I can't remember if I need to have work bench to load games, another forum (car) Is saying that the games should load but my fuzzy memory is telling me that work bench had to be installed first, when I turn it on the hand icon with work bench 1.3 disc appears on the screen.

Thanks in advance.

[Predseda]

No, you do not need Workbench disk for playing floppy games.

How do I load them then please?

[Predseda]

Push a floppy disk into the internal drive and turn your Amiga on.

Doesn't do anything apart from coming back to this image


https://goo.gl/images/v5fU41

[ajk]

Have you tried other games? If none of them work, then either all of the floppies are faulty or the drive itself needs servicing. Almost all floppy based games will self boot under normal circumstances.

Originally Posted by ajk

Have you tried other games? If none of them work, then either all of the floppies are faulty or the drive itself needs servicing. Almost all floppy based games will self boot under normal circumstances.

I went through the whole stack as I thought needed work bench and was hoping it was in there mis labelled. The drive doesn't sound in the best of health, what's involved in servicing the drive please?

[ajk]

There are a few things that may be at fault:

1) dust and dirt on the read/write heads
2) old dry grease (and dust and dirt) on the motor and rails
3) malfunctioning disk insertion switch
4) dead capacitor(s) on the drive circuit board

Perhaps have a look at some videos on YouTube to get an idea of the process:

[ Show youtube player ]
[ Show youtube player ]
[ Show youtube player ]

And of course there are also threads about this very subject here on this forum and others, it's a common enough problem with Amigas at this day and age

Thanks very much for the point in the right direction. I'll report back.

[emufan]

you may try some floppy disk cleaning kit.
out of stock there, it seems, but ebay/amazon do offer those too.

I've just got it out of the loft to look at it, there is a "warranty is void if broken" sticker over some of the screws. Should I void the warranty?

[Predseda]

So, despite the warnings I now have no warranty, took the floppy out, gave the heads a clean and...................it now loads games. Neither of the mice seem to work and there isn't any sound. Any ideas? Think it may be ready for computer heaven.

[emufan]

remove the metal shield and take a photo.
so the experts can inspect the motherboard,
maybe some bad capacitors.
is there a card in the expansion slot? if it's one with a metal shield too,
remove the one, maybe a bad battery inside.

Slight development, sound is working the mice less so, they seem so basic I can't see them being broken, any suggestions?

[Amiga1992]

Does the joystick work? Does the mouse not work in both controller ports?
Some components attached to the controller ports could be broken. It's not that hard of a fix on an A500, I've done it.

But we need more info, "does not work" is not a good report. Also you have been asked for motherboard pictures, and you have given none.

Do apologise on the picture front, need to be at home with my star bits to get the shielding off. I loaded lemmings, the cursor can be seen in the top left corner, moving either mouse in either port doesn't move the cursor, the cursor moved very slightly with the joystick plugged in.

[Amiga1992]

Can you try a game that uses joystick for inut? Preferably a two playr game so you can try both ports?

It could be that the mouse reading circuitry is not working, but it could also be the slim possibility that both mice are fucked. Do you have any other mouse that are known working, or any other AMigas you can test on? I would guess the answer is "no", but I had to mention it.

[Daedalus]

If the cursor moves slightly with the joystick (wiggling it in a circle should move it very slowly diagonally), then it could be a problem with the +5V supply. Mice need it for their sensors, whereas joysticks don't. There are a couple of small parts on the motherboard that could have been damaged by shorting pins together for example. Also, I know the mice are indeed pretty simple, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the cables on both of them have become damaged after many years of being flexed...

But my first thought is the +5V on the port. If you have a multimeter, check the voltage between pins 7 and 8 (middle two on the bottom row), being careful not to short them to anything else. There should be +5V on pin 7. If you don't, a multimeter is a handy thing to have when you're dealing with old computers, so might be a worthwhile investment. Finally, don't give up on it, it's definitely fixable, and probably a simple enough fix so well worth pursuing.