Amiga 1000 Software on 500

[Weemus]

I can't seem to find or acquire a 1000. Can I run 1000 software (i. e., Sonix) on the 500? I have a chance to buy a 500 and wanted to make sure. It uses Workbench 1.3. Thanks to all!

[s2325]

I think only software which require Kickstart 1.2 will not run on A500 but I know only few games with that problem. Maybe it's possible to load Kickstart 1.2 from floppy disk.

[Photon]

That should work fine, Weemus. Having said that, software compatibility varies, so for a few programs you might have to try some versions. But an A500 with kick 1.3 is the closest thing to an A1000 (apart from an A500 with kick 1.2, of course), so there should be minimal trouble.

The latest version is Sonix 2.0 that you can get from PlanetEmu (click on Amiga, then Applications). There's a newer version of the playroutine for newer Amigas, but not of the composing software.

[Weemus]

Thanks so much for the quick replies! What a great Amiga info site. I'll buy that 500 and hopefully my old faithful Sonix program will be up and running again. It worked about a month ago on a 100 I bought which after a week developed an internal disk drive problem. It just sits there and clicks. Thanks again!

[source]

I rememer having Sonix on my 2000 with 1.3 roms back in the day. It worked fine for me. The 2000 is a 500 with a zorro bus.

[clauddio]

The best kickstart and more compatible for the A500 is kick 1.2
nothing fails there ...new A500 games or old
even those old games from 1986-1987 which fails on kick1.3 works great on kick 1.2

[Weemus]

Thanks so much clauddio! Last night I discovered I can't find my KS1.3 disk. But I have three KS1.2s. You're a lifesaver!
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Incidentally, I've been playing with Sonix on my PC with WinUAE all night. It works quite well (with a few little bugs). I'm still buying the 500. Thanks everyone!

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Weemus

Last night I discovered I can't find my KS1.3 disk.

KS disk?
You mean Kickstart floppies for the Amiga 1000?
The A500 (and beyond) uses Kicktart in ROM, not floppy.

I don't remember too many (can't think of any, but there are probably some) programs that didn't like kickstart 1.3, and needed 1.2

Mostly, the old compatibility problems I remember from way back then were some games that didn't like more than 512k of RAM.
(That's why some of the early A500 RAM cards had a jumper to disable it)

I know, by the time Kick 2.x and above came out, you started running into problems with older games, and you could "degrade" your Amiga to an older kickstart using some programs/boot floppies. (Not the Amiga 1000 kickstart floppies.)

desiv

[Weemus]

Thanks desiv. I did discover that most 500 versions do not need Kickstart. I read somewhere (I think on wiki)that some early releases used Kickstart but I'm sure the one I've bought will work fine without it.

[s2325]

All classic Amiga computers have Kickstart inside rom, you can load different version from floppy but if you reset your machine you have original Kickstart again.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by s2325

All classic Amiga computers have Kickstart inside rom, you can load different version from floppy but if you reset your machine you have original Kickstart again.

Not quite true..
The Amiga 1000 doesn't have kickstart in ROM.
It requires a floppy to load the kickstart. (Unless you've applied an after-market hardware tweak to add kickstart in ROM)

s2325 is correct that no Amiga's after the 1000 require a kickstart floppy; they have kickstart in ROM.
In fact, none of them can use the Amiga 1000's kickstart floppy. They won't know what to do with that disk..

That said, if your Amiga has kickstart 3.0 in ROM (or whatever) and you have a game that "needs" an older version, there are floppies out there called "degraders" (relokick was the first one I used) that will let you boot to an older version of the kickstart. Those disks are not the Amiga 1000 kickstart disks..

desiv

[Weemus]

We are using the Amiga for audio and video in our studio as we had from 1985 through 2008. The 500 should be fine. We always had the 1000 for our uses. If we can continue to see 500 expansion devices available we should be ready to roll in no time. We will also need an external floppy drive and their availability seems to come and go. Thanks for all your help s2325, Photon, source, clauddio and you, desiv. Our ignorant frantic search for Kickstart disks is over.