amiga 500 reborn..added lcd and gotek

hey .. im new to,this forum

i had an amiga 500 sleeping around for some time now.. its been taking dust for so many decades that i almost forgot how you reboot that thing... lol

the 1084 was giving me issue.. and they are hard to find in my area. so instead ive upgraded the board to add an indivision to the denise chip.
amiga on lcd is just too cool.

then i also added a gotek drive to replace the internal df0:

i just got a few questions

first, most of my original game disks are very old... but still working.. but i lost many documents .. so because of that i can't get past the security code some ofmthe games are asking.. so now i have to do like everyone else.. download adf files from the net and boot them on the gotek..

i have tried several games on the gotek.. but many games are not working on the gotek ... most of the time they hang right after the hackers intro screen..
is this normal?

another problem is that many games requires a blank save disk...or ask you to insert one when you want to save.
how do i make one ? do i have to unplug the gotek everytime i need to make a save disk?

And how am i supposed to load workbench now? i couldn't find any workbench.adf ...

the only workbench i have is 1.3 which ask me to insert disk in NV0.. i have to cancel button every time... and to,use it i have to unplug the gotek drive..

plugging unplugging plugging the gotek... is bad
and because of that i won't be able to put it inside the casing..so the black gotek is just hanging there... outside the amiga 500 case in df0.



to sum up

how do i get a workbench to load on the gotek?

many downloaded adf games espacially when they have a crack intro music are not working with the gotek.. whats the trick?

how do i make save disks? i forgot how you do that..

[emufan]

hi,

not sure if i can answer all questions, but a littlebit here:
on your windows box you can create empty adf disk images with ADFView.
once installed, look into the windows-explorer context menu: New -> amiga disk file.
those empty disk you may use as a save-disks.

some games may not work, due to missing fast ram, or they will only work with chip mem (disabled fastram).
some may not work because they are simply bad releases/cracks.

may help with gotek sorting adf files, i recently discovered a usefull tool - GotekADFedit.

we are not allowed to share links with kickstart workbench disks - due to copyright issues. :/

did you installed the latest firmware for the gotek?

there is the possibility to use a different firmware, done for HxC floppy emulators. the firmware is still maintained,
which results in better compatibility for certain software.

btw. what is exact config of your a500? kickstart/fast mem ?
if it's an a500+ you should remove the battery on the mainboard - after 20+ years you should also replace the capacitors.
there are many threads with that topic, one is here.

well,

i did not change the battery nor the capacitors. all the caps seems to be good though..

don t know about the battery..


its the original 500 american ntsc .. all the chips on the board are factory..

it has 1mb ram total .. im not exactly sure how you increase beyond 1mb..
i can t find any external device that you attach on the left side online.. i forgot its name .


so this one has no hd.. i'saw a few people using compact flash card as hard drive.. im not exactly how you do that on amiga 500. or what you need to buy.


i find it surprising that workbench are still copyrighter after all these years.. it should go to public domain really.

so i just need to figure how you can boot wokbench without unplugging the gotek,

[happymondays]

From the high numbers of games not running, my guess is that it's an A500plus, but maybe you only had a bad luck with cracks or tried AGA games. You might want to change your Kick to 1.3 if you want higher compatibility. How does your screen look like, when it asks for a disk?

If it's purple, telling you that you have 2.04 Kickstart, then it's an A500plus.
You should check and remove the RTC battery or change it to a non-leaking alternative.
Then we also found the reason for the high number of games not running.

If it' blue and white, telling you it's Kick 1.3, you are good.
Sound problems might be caused by a broken leg of one of the resistors in the audio section of the motherboard, you might want to check that as well.

[emufan]

Originally Posted by minimaster

well,

i did not change the battery nor the capacitors. all the caps seems to be good though..

don t know about the battery..

at least remove the battery, before it starts bleeding
only the a500+ had such battery, a500 only from those expansion cards in the bottom slot.
you can find other images here from bad capacitors aswell, dont get me wrong, it's just a good advice.
maybe a friend of yours is good with soldering, if you wont do it on your own.

#1) if its a500+ you got, with kickstart 2.04, you can hold both mouse buttons, right after a reboot,
you should see early startup menu. kickstart 1.3 did not had this feature.

[idrougge]

I don't think any A500+ had red LEDs.

yeah

i listened to your advises.. i just removed what i think was the battery..

i though the battery was on the main board but couldnt find it..

its on the 501 memory card.. here some pics

anyhow.. i removed it... but i dont have anything to replace it with so ill just leave it like that ...no battery until i find one..

im not sure where to find a replacement battery though.. i dont use ebay...

the sound is not as good as i remember.. but i dont see any broken leg/pin in the audio region


i also took picture of the main board.. can you guess which kickstart it is and if its the 500+? i think its the 500.. which chip is the kickstart ? i forgot hehe.. let me know..

[amigasith]

It's an Amiga 500 with a Revision 5 board and Kickstart 1.2 - nice

[emufan]

oh, nice images, and you can see, it was about time to remove the barrel battery.
clean the card with some isopropyl alcohol, it already got some little damage.
around the hole on BT1 writing - maybe the white scratch in the white square too.
otherwise the acid(?!) of the battery will crawl around.
but overall in good shape, compared to the images i gave you above

i dont think you need a replacement for the battery, of no use when you play games,
it's just about the datestamps of files you create with some applications.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by emufan

i dont think you need a replacement for the battery, of no use when you play games,
it's just about the datestamps of files you create with some applications.

Agreed.. I leave them out from the wedge machines too. :-)