Adapting an Amiga 2000 accelerator to an Amiga 500

The title pretty much says it all. Has anyone thought of or attempted to adapt an Amiga 2000 accelerator card to the Zorro slot of the Amiga 500? From what I have read it is theoretically possible; however, I do not have the electrical skills to accomplish such a task. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter.

Afterthought: Would it be possible to adapt an Amiga 2000 accelerator to the Amiga 500 68000 processor slot?

[Charlie]

FWIW:
It would be mind-numbingly fiddly but assuming all the same signals appear on both Zorro connectors (A500 & A2000) it should be doable 'simply' by perusing the data-sheets for the two and then soldering wires across the two edge-connectors joining equivalent pads...
...getting the A500 back together may be the trick as I suspect you couldn't use long runs of ribbon cable for easy positioning - signal paths may well get too long & cause timing / signal degradation / cross-talk issues.

Adapting a Zorro-based accelerator to the 68k CPU socket is probably doable, but only in a theoretical sense - too much work required.

[alexh]

I would imagine you could sell an A2000 accelerator for around the price of an A500 accelerator if you wanted.

But I assume the hacking is what is the fun for you?

[musashi5150]

Unless he's got a Blizzard 2060

[Zetr0]

@Miked

if I am not mistaken, a rather bold and clever chap over at a1k.org managed to just what you are on about with a Apollo A2030.

He did require to pull signals off the board as well as the zorro port, although a little cramped it still looked awesome!!

I will have a look for the page, I thought I had it booked marked - alas no.

However this link will help you with some resources.

[gulliver]

I remember i read somewhere (I believe Amiga Format) that there was a guy who hacked an A2630 into an Amiga 500 and had it working.

Originally Posted by alexh

I would imagine you could sell an A2000 accelerator for around the price of an A500 accelerator if you wanted.

But I assume the hacking is what is the fun for you?

That is correct Alex. The problem is that my technical skills aren't very good... i don't think that I could accomplish such a feat.

I had been speaking to someone about adding an 040 Amiga 2000 accelerator card to an Amiga 500 because there just aren't any 040 (or 060 cards for that matter) available for the Amiga 500. Although I do remember seeing a PP&S 040 card in an Amiga 500 a few years back.

Anyway, as of right now, it's just a dream of mine.



PS- thanks for the link info Zetr0

[Matt020]

@Zetro
Just a quick one to ask if you found the link?

Cheers,
Matt.

[coze]

done before.

http://web.archive.org/web/200503240...i/a500pro.html

he didn't mod the accelerator though, he made a adapter board which transforms A500 CPU slot to A2000.

possible, but it's a huge project which will take lots of time and devotion, lots of hair loss, very likely to not function properly if you miss something, and unusable because of its humongous size on the desktop and sheer ugliness. And very easy to breakdown if you accidentaly hit it or something.

yes it's possible, my advice would be to get an A2000 and be done with it. clean solution, and will give you more expansion opportunity in the future

[chiark]

Blimey Coze, that link is nuts! And bloody marvellous
There's more to it than just moving signals about - wonder if there's any documentation anywhere!?

[spock-79]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@Miked

if I am not mistaken, a rather bold and clever chap over at a1k.org managed to just what you are on about with a Apollo A2030.

He did require to pull signals off the board as well as the zorro port, although a little cramped it still looked awesome!!

I will have a look for the page, I thought I had it booked marked - alas no.

However this link will help you with some resources.

The A500 with Apollo2030 is here on a1k.org, there is also a A500 in a Desktop case with Blizzard2040 and a self made Zorro board from the same user.

[chiark]

Far too awesome. Oh blimey, this is giving me thoughts for the 1000...

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by chiark

Far too awesome. Oh blimey, this is giving me thoughts for the 1000...

you read my mind Glad I picked that Escort 2 up now... time to find a mental Zorro card

[cosmicfrog]

I wondered how long it will take you to put something else in that escort Paul

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

I wondered how long it will take you to put something else in that escort Paul

The Buddah would fit in nicely, not sure about a full length zorro card though! It'd be sticking out both front and back

[cosmicfrog]

yep a buddah would be a nice thing to have in there, you might even be able to drill some holes to mount the HD on it

there must be an acc that would fit it though somewhere