Memory question? *noob alert*

ipod_sock · 07 February 2010, 14:54

Okay, so when I had (and presently) an Amiga 500 back in 'the days' I, like a lot of people back then, upgraded with a 1/2mb expansion via the trapdoor slot. Now, this was simple enough and these were readily available anywhere and despite being produced by numerous manufacturers they all did the same thing and were roughly the same price. Now I'm getting back into 'the scene' it doesn't seem so straight forward anymore, so I have several questiions regarding expansion on the A600/A1200 inc...

- A600, it already has 1mb in right? can it be expanded? if so, by how much? (without any special expert tinkering around inside, just via the normal trapdoor) an extra 1mb? and is it worth doing?
- A1200, again, it has included memory right? 2mb if I've read correctly. Now I know you can expand it to 8mb right? but again, via the 'normal' trapdoor route how much is recommended 4mb? and what benefits would this bring?

I'd appreciate it if anyone could offer some advice

I don't even wanna get into accelerators with memory

meega · 07 February 2010, 15:08

A600, 1MB standard; +1MB in the trapdoor, worth doing? yes, sadly expensive; +4MB through the PCMCIA slot if you wish, worth doing? yes, again those cards can be costly. That's about the end of current available memory upgrades.

A1200, 2MB standard; +loads of things in trapdoor, cost £15 (cheapo RAM board) to £hundreds. Worth it? Usually yes, up to a certain point (well kitted 030 or equivalent). +4MB is fine for many purposes, if you don't use PCMCIA then +8MB is slightly better. You do want to get into accelerators as they let you have more RAM as well as faster processors. RAM is cheap/free up to 16/32MB or more these days, as long as the card takes 72-pin simm.

fitzsteve · 07 February 2010, 15:10

Hi Ipod_Sock!

You are right the A600 has 1mb memory as standard, you upgrade with another 1mb in the trap door bringing your Chip Memory to a totl of 2mb these cost around £20

You can expand furher with a 1, 2 or 4mb SRAM Card is the PCMCIA slot I recently picked a 2mb SRAM card up for £25 but they can be a little rare to come by and often sell for more on ebay for this reason!

With the A1200 it comes with 2mb Chip Memory by default. You can use the SRAM cards in an A1200 but the memory will only be 16 bit lthough it will be an improvment you're better off with a memory expansion in the trapdoor.

You can get either 2, 4 or 8mb upgrades some use a 72pin Simm or have Zip ram on the board.

If you are using an 8mb ugrade you will not be able to use the PCMCIA port as the memory is addressed in the same place. You can overcome this on must cards by either using a 4mb Simm or with jumper setting.

When it comes to memory the more the better if you are going to use 4mb then most WHDLoad games will be fine but some can do with a bit extra.

A Ram board for the A1200 should cost between £20-£40 depending on availability.

Hope that helps.

Steve.

ipod_sock · 07 February 2010, 15:24

Nice one guys and fast responce! so, either way 72pin in the trapdoor is the future huh? and should be relatively inexpensive... good times!

Not too bothered about extreme amounts of memory so I won't go via the PCMCIA option but me thinks a can of worms has been opened now, you see I recently put 'the' CF kit together of the a 4gb sandisk, CF adaptor and IDE cable all ready for receipt of my A600 and A1200 (yea, I know you need a certain chipset for the A600 to recognise it) and gots me a shed load of pre-whdload'd games/demos and thought these would run (once set up, configured/formatted CF card etc.) but now I'm thinking you actually NEED more memory to run WHDload?

fitzsteve · 07 February 2010, 15:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by ipod_sock

but now I'm thinking you actually NEED more memory to run WHDload?

You will need a memory expansion to run most WHDLoad stuff. There are some games that will work on a stock A1200 some of the old A500 1 disk games for example.

Steve.

ipod_sock · 07 February 2010, 15:57

Thanks again... but now it's getting CONFUSING!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/8MB-RAM-8x1MB-...item4a9dad3ce5
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/16MB-RAM-for-A...item4a9dc0ddef

I just want 2mb for the a1200 or 1mb for the A600, would that be enough? to recap, altogether 4mb for the A1200 and 2mb for the A600, can anyone show me a simple card for either to pop in the trapdoor?

Allen1 · 07 February 2010, 16:05

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Amiga-1200-8MB...item45f0c3e50c

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Memory-storage...item1e5a52191d

The first link is for the 1200 and it is a trapdoor expansion, the second link is for a 2meg SRAM card which fits into the PCMCIA slot and can be used for the 1200 and the 600.

Nikolaj_sofus · 07 February 2010, 16:17

just saw they have a few acc. boards up on vesalia for the a1200

http://www.vesalia.de/

coze · 07 February 2010, 17:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by ipod_sock

Thanks again... but now it's getting CONFUSING!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/8MB-RAM-8x1MB-...item4a9dad3ce5
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/16MB-RAM-for-A...item4a9dc0ddef

they are 30 pin SIMMs for some zorro boards, totally useless for you as none of your amigas has a zorro bus (eg, Amiga 2000, 3000, etc).

Quote:

Originally Posted by ipod_sock

I just want 2mb for the a1200 or 1mb for the A600, would that be enough? to recap, altogether 4mb for the A1200 and 2mb for the A600, can anyone show me a simple card for either to pop in the trapdoor?

2mb for the 1200 is not enough. Why not go full 8mb when you go the trouble of getting a ram board ? The price difference between a 8mb 72 pin RAM and 2mb will be negligible (sometimes 2mb stick may cost more).

coze · 07 February 2010, 17:33

here is a trapdoor card for A600. vesalia also has them in stock for a slightly higher price I think.

ipod_sock · 09 February 2010, 19:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allen1

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Amiga-1200-8MB...item45f0c3e50c

I bagged me this one, and quite happy with the price, although thought it was gonna break the £60 barrier for a minute there

Hope I'm, getting all this right, this'll be my set-up...

Miggy 1200
8mb expansion
4gb CF running via the IDE cable inside as a 'hard-drive'

No issues right? cause I believe if you try to use the exterior pcmcia that can cause issues right?

Just out of interest, anyone know what brand card I bought, decent?

Allen1 · 09 February 2010, 20:02

Good to see you have got yourself a memory upgrade, there must have been quite a demand for that one as it is a bit on the dear side but that is what sometimes happens on Ebay as I too have found out in the past.

What you have (CF card etc) is great but you need a way of transferring games etc over to the drive once fitted, the PCMCIA CF transfer method can still be used if you unplug the trapdoor expansion or if there is an option to swap it over to just 4MB. I had one hell of a time plugging my trapdoor expansion card in the first time, tight does not even start to cover that experience

it eventually fitted though

Have fun and remember to go to bed now and then as time just disappears once you get started

ipod_sock · 09 February 2010, 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allen1

it is a bit on the dear side

How much did they go for in 'the day' originally?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allen1

What you have (CF card etc) is great but you need a way of transferring games etc over to the drive once fitted, the PCMCIA CF transfer method can still be used

Recommended?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ADF-Transfer-K...item3ca9d94c30
or
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...roducts_id=440

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allen1

go to bed now and then as time just disappears once you get started

Bed? what's that?... I've got Modern Warfare 2/Xbox 360, it's been a while since I've had anything even approaching a good nights

by the way, anyone figure out what brand/type it is yet and how come it's in two bits?!?!?

And thanks again Allen

Allen1 · 09 February 2010, 21:04

Hi

your card is similar or possibly a version of :-

http://hardware.amiga.hu/photos/hawk,1

The littler card is the memory stick, that can be 2, 4 or as in yours 8MB in size, you can change the memory to any of the common sizes and move the links on the bigger board to the size of memory stick you use.

These cards were VERY expensive when they came out and are no longer made but nowadays you can pick them up for between £20 to £40 but if there are lots of bidders as in your case the price will go up. What you have is still value for money as you may not get an opportunity to get another card in the future.

Both transfer adapters you link to are fine but you still need a CF card to put in them, if you already have a CF to PCMCIA adapter the all you need is a CF card and download fat95.lha and cfd.lha free from Aminet, those files will open with Winrar, the hard part is sticking them onto a floppy and getting them on the Amiga but saves a fortune on buying stuff you already have for the sake of a floppy disk.

Doom on the PC and Halo on my Xbox kept me away from bed when I should have gone in the past

ipod_sock · 09 February 2010, 21:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allen1

Hi

your card is similar or possibly a version of :-

http://hardware.amiga.hu/photos/hawk,1

Nice! thanks - you're a gent and a scholar!

ipod_sock · 11 February 2010, 00:52

btw, what WOULD the A600 need to realistically run WHDload?

fitzsteve · 11 February 2010, 01:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by ipod_sock

btw, what WOULD the A600 need to realistically run WHDload?

I'm running A 1MB trapdoor expansion and a 2mb SRAM card in the PCMCIA slot (Total 2mb chip and 2mb other RAM)

I'm having good success, most 1 or 2 disk games are working fine, even some of the bigger games too.

I'd say with a 4mb SRAM card & 2mb chip you'd be good for most non AGA Games.

Steve.

ipod_sock · 26 October 2022, 15:10

Wow, the years have passed (and not been kind, to some of us, ME! haha) fast, enjoyed reading this and I guess I'm back! still have the A500, 600 and 1200 (requires a top case, keyboard, drive.. hint hint) an C64c and only now finding that about 1/4 of my original disks no longer work

MrFluffy · 01 November 2022, 13:58

If you have bad discs its worth looking into trying backing them up with a greaseweasel imho.
I just had to recover some irreplaceable floppy diskette contents (not hyperbole, it ran a industrial machine using a PC-9801 with all the bespoke parameters for that machine on it!) and using the machine's drives it couldn't read them. But with a greaseweasel running off really nice psu and retries set to 20 it managed to read the bad sectors on the 2 floppies.

Weasel Fierce · 01 November 2022, 19:12

It is a good idea to sit down and figure out exactly what you are intending to do with your systems.

"Mess around a bit and relive a few old memories" - you don't need very much at all.

Play some retro games, mess with some old programs - A few extra megs of RAM will make life much easier and 8 megs is plenty for the vast majority of classic games.

If you want to put more hours into the system, explore some of the mid-tier software then the 1200 will benefit a lot from an 030 card with more RAM down the road.

Things like a PCMCIA adapter to move files via compact flash card or a Gotek floppy replacement will probably benefit you as much or more as an expensive accelerator when it comes to actually using the system day to day. Good luck!

07 February 2010, 14:54	#1
ipod_sock 1st love = Psygnosis Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Liverpool (work Manchester) Posts: 105	Memory question? noob alert Okay, so when I had (and presently) an Amiga 500 back in 'the days' I, like a lot of people back then, upgraded with a 1/2mb expansion via the trapdoor slot. Now, this was simple enough and these were readily available anywhere and despite being produced by numerous manufacturers they all did the same thing and were roughly the same price. Now I'm getting back into 'the scene' it doesn't seem so straight forward anymore, so I have several questiions regarding expansion on the A600/A1200 inc... - A600, it already has 1mb in right? can it be expanded? if so, by how much? (without any special expert tinkering around inside, just via the normal trapdoor) an extra 1mb? and is it worth doing? - A1200, again, it has included memory right? 2mb if I've read correctly. Now I know you can expand it to 8mb right? but again, via the 'normal' trapdoor route how much is recommended 4mb? and what benefits would this bring? I'd appreciate it if anyone could offer some advice I don't even wanna get into accelerators with memory

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07 February 2010, 15:08	#2
meega Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Oooh what a feeling yeaaah dancing on the ceiling Posts: 314	A600, 1MB standard; +1MB in the trapdoor, worth doing? yes, sadly expensive; +4MB through the PCMCIA slot if you wish, worth doing? yes, again those cards can be costly. That's about the end of current available memory upgrades. A1200, 2MB standard; +loads of things in trapdoor, cost £15 (cheapo RAM board) to £hundreds. Worth it? Usually yes, up to a certain point (well kitted 030 or equivalent). +4MB is fine for many purposes, if you don't use PCMCIA then +8MB is slightly better. You do want to get into accelerators as they let you have more RAM as well as faster processors. RAM is cheap/free up to 16/32MB or more these days, as long as the card takes 72-pin simm.

07 February 2010, 15:10	#3
fitzsteve Professional slacker! Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Kent, UK Age: 44 Posts: 6,683	Hi Ipod_Sock! You are right the A600 has 1mb memory as standard, you upgrade with another 1mb in the trap door bringing your Chip Memory to a totl of 2mb these cost around £20 You can expand furher with a 1, 2 or 4mb SRAM Card is the PCMCIA slot I recently picked a 2mb SRAM card up for £25 but they can be a little rare to come by and often sell for more on ebay for this reason! With the A1200 it comes with 2mb Chip Memory by default. You can use the SRAM cards in an A1200 but the memory will only be 16 bit lthough it will be an improvment you're better off with a memory expansion in the trapdoor. You can get either 2, 4 or 8mb upgrades some use a 72pin Simm or have Zip ram on the board. If you are using an 8mb ugrade you will not be able to use the PCMCIA port as the memory is addressed in the same place. You can overcome this on must cards by either using a 4mb Simm or with jumper setting. When it comes to memory the more the better if you are going to use 4mb then most WHDLoad games will be fine but some can do with a bit extra. A Ram board for the A1200 should cost between £20-£40 depending on availability. Hope that helps. Steve.

07 February 2010, 15:24	#4
ipod_sock 1st love = Psygnosis Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Liverpool (work Manchester) Posts: 105	Nice one guys and fast responce! so, either way 72pin in the trapdoor is the future huh? and should be relatively inexpensive... good times! Not too bothered about extreme amounts of memory so I won't go via the PCMCIA option but me thinks a can of worms has been opened now, you see I recently put 'the' CF kit together of the a 4gb sandisk, CF adaptor and IDE cable all ready for receipt of my A600 and A1200 (yea, I know you need a certain chipset for the A600 to recognise it) and gots me a shed load of pre-whdload'd games/demos and thought these would run (once set up, configured/formatted CF card etc.) but now I'm thinking you actually NEED more memory to run WHDload?

07 February 2010, 15:57	#6
ipod_sock 1st love = Psygnosis Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Liverpool (work Manchester) Posts: 105	Thanks again... but now it's getting CONFUSING! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/8MB-RAM-8x1MB-...item4a9dad3ce5 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/16MB-RAM-for-A...item4a9dc0ddef I just want 2mb for the a1200 or 1mb for the A600, would that be enough? to recap, altogether 4mb for the A1200 and 2mb for the A600, can anyone show me a simple card for either to pop in the trapdoor?

07 February 2010, 16:05	#7
Allen1 Registered User Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Blyth England Age: 68 Posts: 786	http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Amiga-1200-8MB...item45f0c3e50c http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Memory-storage...item1e5a52191d The first link is for the 1200 and it is a trapdoor expansion, the second link is for a 2meg SRAM card which fits into the PCMCIA slot and can be used for the 1200 and the 600.

07 February 2010, 16:17	#8
Nikolaj_sofus Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Copenhagen / Denmark Age: 44 Posts: 259	just saw they have a few acc. boards up on vesalia for the a1200 http://www.vesalia.de/

07 February 2010, 17:33	#10
coze hastala vista winny vista Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: mt fuji Age: 46 Posts: 1,335	here is a trapdoor card for A600. vesalia also has them in stock for a slightly higher price I think.

09 February 2010, 20:02	#12
Allen1 Registered User Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Blyth England Age: 68 Posts: 786	Good to see you have got yourself a memory upgrade, there must have been quite a demand for that one as it is a bit on the dear side but that is what sometimes happens on Ebay as I too have found out in the past. What you have (CF card etc) is great but you need a way of transferring games etc over to the drive once fitted, the PCMCIA CF transfer method can still be used if you unplug the trapdoor expansion or if there is an option to swap it over to just 4MB. I had one hell of a time plugging my trapdoor expansion card in the first time, tight does not even start to cover that experience it eventually fitted though Have fun and remember to go to bed now and then as time just disappears once you get started

09 February 2010, 21:04	#14
Allen1 Registered User Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Blyth England Age: 68 Posts: 786	Hi your card is similar or possibly a version of :- http://hardware.amiga.hu/photos/hawk,1 The littler card is the memory stick, that can be 2, 4 or as in yours 8MB in size, you can change the memory to any of the common sizes and move the links on the bigger board to the size of memory stick you use. These cards were VERY expensive when they came out and are no longer made but nowadays you can pick them up for between £20 to £40 but if there are lots of bidders as in your case the price will go up. What you have is still value for money as you may not get an opportunity to get another card in the future. Both transfer adapters you link to are fine but you still need a CF card to put in them, if you already have a CF to PCMCIA adapter the all you need is a CF card and download fat95.lha and cfd.lha free from Aminet, those files will open with Winrar, the hard part is sticking them onto a floppy and getting them on the Amiga but saves a fortune on buying stuff you already have for the sake of a floppy disk. Doom on the PC and Halo on my Xbox kept me away from bed when I should have gone in the past

11 February 2010, 00:52	#16
ipod_sock 1st love = Psygnosis Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Liverpool (work Manchester) Posts: 105	btw, what WOULD the A600 need to realistically run WHDload?

26 October 2022, 15:10	#18
ipod_sock 1st love = Psygnosis Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Liverpool (work Manchester) Posts: 105	Wow, the years have passed (and not been kind, to some of us, ME! haha) fast, enjoyed reading this and I guess I'm back! still have the A500, 600 and 1200 (requires a top case, keyboard, drive.. hint hint) an C64c and only now finding that about 1/4 of my original disks no longer work

01 November 2022, 13:58	#19
MrFluffy furtling tinkerer Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: Mouhet France Posts: 55	If you have bad discs its worth looking into trying backing them up with a greaseweasel imho. I just had to recover some irreplaceable floppy diskette contents (not hyperbole, it ran a industrial machine using a PC-9801 with all the bespoke parameters for that machine on it!) and using the machine's drives it couldn't read them. But with a greaseweasel running off really nice psu and retries set to 20 it managed to read the bad sectors on the 2 floppies.

01 November 2022, 19:12	#20
Weasel Fierce Registered User Join Date: Nov 2020 Location: Michigan Posts: 661	It is a good idea to sit down and figure out exactly what you are intending to do with your systems. "Mess around a bit and relive a few old memories" - you don't need very much at all. Play some retro games, mess with some old programs - A few extra megs of RAM will make life much easier and 8 megs is plenty for the vast majority of classic games. If you want to put more hours into the system, explore some of the mid-tier software then the 1200 will benefit a lot from an 030 card with more RAM down the road. Things like a PCMCIA adapter to move files via compact flash card or a Gotek floppy replacement will probably benefit you as much or more as an expensive accelerator when it comes to actually using the system day to day. Good luck!

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