The Amiga 1000 Chip RAM situation in 2021+
 

Howdy,
The amount of Amigas I have in my house is counted in double digits but only recently did I manage to get hold of a long sought after A1000.

There are some nice solutions for FastRAM out there and also full accelerators like the "Classic 520" which can be preloaded with kickstart etc.. Also, as mentioned in another thread, PiStorm on the A1000 is also a thing..
Ive seen people use an ACA500+ but Inividual Comp seems to advise against it.
So.. then what about the chip RAM situation. Fortunately, my machine has the 256k in the front.. But going beyond 512k chipram in A1000 used to be problematic.. from day 1. I'm only finding old info about stuff like the rejuvenator board, Phoenix board.. stuff that's just stupid rare etc..

But hey its 2021 now, and I'm trying to read up on what out there for the original Amiga. (Are there any Agnus adapter boards and other hacks that turn fastram into chipram (Like the ACA500+ does if you have the right Agnus))

If someone could suggest a few interesting products or projects (if they exist) that would be great. :great

I envy you, I never managed to even touch an A1000, let alone use or own one. To me, it's still kind of the holy grail of Amiga's :)

Sadly, I don't know of any projects for the A1000 that do what you want. However, there is one small detail I'd like to point out.
The ACA500/ACA500+ can only transform Slow RAM into Chip RAM, it sadly can't change Fast RAM into Chip RAM. This is because Slow RAM is on the Agnus bus already and most A500's have a 1MB capable Agnus built in. Fast RAM is not on the Agnus bus, so it can't be accessed by the custom chips even with tricks like the ACA 500(+).

Well, at least not at present - never say never and all that :)
Hope you find a solution for your A1000 though!

I thought someone was working on recreating the Rejuvenator with modern components?

Sadly there is no solution for this at all but yes Amigalove.com is supposedly working on a rejuvenator resurrection

There's always the GBA-1000.

Go to Jens Schonfeld’s forum on his possible plans for the A1000
https://forum.icomp.de/index.php?thr...-aca500-ace1k/

Jens: I was tinkering a little with a real 2MB Agnus on the A1000, but due to the limited quantity of chips available, I Have dropped this idea. It will probably be an Agnus-implementation in an FPGA - some time next year. Sept. 2019

I think our best chance is that new Rejuvenator board, if it ever materializes.
I am using the ACA500+ on my 1000 as well, worls like a charm.
I'd love to buy an upright ACA1000 though, that would hopefully not stand out on the right side like a sore thumb.. ;)

@Firthy2002 & @TjLaZer Yes, the resurrection of the rejuvinator has been going on for a while. I've also seen the attempts by AmigaLove but then sometime in 2019 that attempt ended.. However, now that I checked again, it seems he sent his board to some ppl in Germany ("Joethezombie" being the key figure) who have been hard at work with reverse engineering the board. As I understand it, the hardware part is "done", however there are some "locked" PAL chips on the board that they still haven't managed to figure out. Just recently (like this month) someone thought there were positive signs that it might actually be possible to figure out these PAL chips by probing the outputs..
https://github.com/psurply/ReGAL

So it seems this would be THE upgrade to get for all A1000 lovers out there.
So let us hope this goes well..
But if it fails, not sure if there is an obvious plan B (for chip ram) right now..?

Someone modded a case from a dead A1010 drive and put the ACA500+ inside :D

Btw, in case those interested still managed to miss this one..
They did it! The Rejuvinator is fully reverse engineered!
Upcoming tweaks to the design will most likely allow for less rare Fat Agnus versions as that is currently a real issue... (Also, the Video port is probably another thing that will be swapped for something more useful).
https://youtu.be/41q0jgGaO-c

But you need a 1000 with a daughter board to use it, so it's no good for most European / PAL 1000s.

Unfortunately.. yes... Though I guess there are plenty of NTSC A1000s in Europe by now. (9 out of 10 A1000 listings (if not more) on ebay are US NTSC machines).
But yea, not much joy for the rest from that valiant effort.

Seems PAL machine owners will have to decide between modern trickery that basically replaces most of the A1000 (PiStorm, Vampire, A1100 motherboard etc) or keeping it more genuine and accept the chipRAM limitations ("Classic 520", ACA500+).

Really most? I've had I think five A1000s and only one was without the DB.

Perhaps it was different in the continent.

Same here, got a daughter board one.

At least 50% of mine are without the daughter board.

Are you living in Munich, Deimos? :)

No... Should I be?

Nah, just saw "monaco", and Munich is called "Monaco di Baviera" in italian I think.
So us Munich folks call our city like that sometimes in jest as well.

Would have invited you to our local Amiga meet ups if you were living here.