What is cheapest hard drive option for the A500? - Page 2

Schoenfeld · 22 June 2024, 10:19

@Fuzzball
Don't go for "cheap", but for "value for money". The A500 is indeed the cheapest Amiga you can find, and it practically never requires refurb work such as re-capping: The old DIL technology is way less demanding on the components than the reflow soldering process of an SMD oven, which is what A600 and A1200 are suffering from.

Further, the ACA500plus only "looks" expensive at first sight. If you factor in system cost (price of Amiga plus price of this card), you're likely already at a lower price point than an A1200 or A600+memory expansion + CF card adapter (plus the effort of opening the machine for installation).

In terms of compatibility, the ACA500plus allows you to switch Kickstarts and CPU speed as your program(s) need it. You will hardly find any 1990s title that you can't get to work on an A500 with ACA500plus, and you will hardly need to spend any extra money on that system - except if you've tasted blood and want to dive deeper with networking and an even faster CPU (which is likely, but doesn't happen to everyone).

The problem with any lower feature set is that you'll be disappointed at some point. When I've made the first ACA500 in 2013, my prime goal was low price (79,- EUR back then), but I got LOTS of criticism for not-enough-RAM, lack of hot-plug support on the AUX CF slot and the low speed.

When I made the ACA500plus in 2016, I wouldn't have thought that this will be built many years into the future, practically without change. I guess the secret is that it's a very complex thing that is very easy to handle: Very few entry hurdles for beginners, but all options available for expert users and those who evolve into the latter.

If you go for cheap (like memory+IDE), you'll end up buying more equipment (cable, CF card adapter), but will have to abandon that as soon as you only want a single feature on top of that - for example if you want to connect your A500 to the net, you'll have to work with tinker-solutions like Plipbox, or go with the X-Surf-500, which is a low-cost add-on for the ACA500 and ACA500plus - but doesn't work without that accel.

Jens
(obviously biased...)

Fuzzball · 22 June 2024, 13:07

Related to all this, I decided just to try out a similar config on Mister FPGA (yes I have a Mister but it doesn't give me the nostalgia of using my Amiga 500 which is why I am looking to get a real one). An A500 setup with a 1.3 kickstart patched with scsi support and a hard drive setup. I installed Monkey Island to it using the hard drive installer it has. When running the game it comes up with out of memory error. So I up the chip ram to 1Mb and still get out of memory error. I set chip ram to 1Mb and Fast ram to 8mb. Still out of memory error. I had to up the chip ram to 1.5mb in order for it to run.

The thing is my understanding is you can't have more than 1mb chip ram in a A500. So how did I ever run this game from a hard drive back in the day? I don't even remember having a 512kb expansion in the trapdoor let alone modding it somehow to show as chip ram.

@schoenfeld - I will never want to connect to the net. I want it simply to use how I used it back in the day which was pretty basic stuff except I was the only one of my friends lucky enough to have a hard drive for it back in the day. Even then I never used WHDLoad or anything like that. I just installed WB1.3 on it and a few games that supported installing to hard drive. I don't want any more than that. Buying a ACA500Plus which will cost me more than the A500 seems complete overkill for me. However, I do want a solution that resolves the above issue but the cheapest solution that will definitely solve it. I definitely never modded my A500 back then. I never even opened it. I am also pretty sure I never had a memory expansion in the trapdoor because I do remember later on getting a PC emulator board in there and never had to remove anything. How I got Monkey Island to run off HDD I just can't remember.

Update:
Well I purchased an A500 so I'm fairly committed now. However, my first upgrade (after receiving it and checking it all works) will be to get some sort of Gotek device, preferably an external one as long as the floppy drive works. Then it will be showing my son the greatest computer of all time (in my biased opinion).

The hard drive upgrade will come some time after that so I have some time to decide which way to go. Having forgotten to consider that I also want a Gotek, the ACA500Plus is probably far too expensive.

Schoenfeld · 23 June 2024, 11:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

So how did I ever run this game from a hard drive back in the day?

You were probably running your WB with fewer colours (4 colours were standard for WB1.3). This saves a lot of chip ram.

Jens

alexh · 25 June 2024, 09:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

The thing is my understanding is you can't have more than 1mb chip ram in a A500.

A500+ could have 2MB

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

So how did I ever run this game from a hard drive back in the day?

As already noted it will be your Workbench setup eating all your ChipRAM. Back in the day you would have had to tweak your setup to get it to work. e.g. add one of the "addXXk" programs to the Monkey Island IconX script (e.g. add36k)

Liqourice · 25 June 2024, 18:16

Back when I was on my A500 with only 1 MB Chip and harddrive (GVP with 4MB Ram) I usually set WB to 4 colours to save chip ram for those games that were hard to start otherwise. Worked just fine.

Fuzzball · Yesterday, 17:43

Having now bought an Amiga 500 (revision 6a) I have sadly come to the conclusion I was a bit hasty. I have come to the conclusion there is no hard drive option for me. The IDE68K option requires soldering 2 wires which I won't do. The ACA500Plus requires shorting 2 points on the motherboard on a revision 6a. Again I am not prepared to do that.

So I have come to the conclusion that I should give up and sell it back again. Bit silly really but it's too much time and hassle for me. For some reason I had thought that the IDE68K didn't require soldering but I have now watched a Youtube video saying otherwise because the grabbers don't stay on so the wires need to be soldered instead.

dreadnought · Yesterday, 18:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

The ACA500Plus requires shorting 2 points on the motherboard on a revision 6a.

Are you sure about this? After all, their webpage says in bold that "There is no need to open the computer at any time." Which is one of the main reasons Igot it myself.

Another option is trying to find some kind soul who can do this mod for you. There are many Amiga enthusiasts in UK, I guess some could be willing to do this just for postage costs.

Jope · Yesterday, 18:13

Could you link to the instructions where the ACA500plus requires you to solder something? I wasn't aware it needed any modifications to the A500.

Fuzzball · Yesterday, 18:24

Perhaps I am getting confused after looking at the Lazurustorm which also plugs into the left expansion slot. That says it requires soldering on rev 6a board. I thought I had read the same about the ACA500Plus specifically for rev 6a boards but I can't find it now.

My other issue with the ACA500Plus is it is ugly hanging off the side of the Amiga and the only case available is transparent (which I really don't like) and also way bigger than necessary if you have no intention of adding additional boards to it. But if I'm wrong about the soldering on rev 6a boards then perhaps that is the price you have to pay for a simple option.

dreadnought · Yesterday, 18:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

My other issue with the ACA500Plus is it is ugly hanging off the side of the Amiga and the only case available is transparent (which I really don't like) and also way bigger than necessary if you have no intention of adding additional boards to it.

I didn't like the looks of it all myself at first, but then I got used to it (the display is actually pretty cool) and yes, the absolute all-in-one powerhouse that ACA is, and the fact it's plug-n-play makes up for it in spades.

I know a lot of mod-minded people can do all kind of clever things to squeeze stuff into the case, but I'm not one of these people

Fuzzball · Yesterday, 18:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I didn't like the looks of it all myself at first, but then I got used to it (the display is actually pretty cool) and yes, the absolute all-in-one powerhouse that ACA is, and the fact it's plug-n-play makes up for it in spades.

I know a lot of mod-minded people can do all kind of clever things to squeeze stuff into the case, but I'm not one of these people

Well I will take some time to put my mind at rest that I am confusing the rev 6a board thing with Lazurustorm but it does seem the ACA500Plus is the only option. The other issue with the IDE68K was some people saying they had trouble getting it to fit without the keyboard pushing against it. The more I look into it, I think external options are best for me. All this internal modding gives me anxiety

I am already considering a GoDrive and a rgb2hdmi but both of those are at least solder free.

One thing for sure. The amount I am spending is over what I had hoped for

Fuzzball · Yesterday, 18:53

Actually I just remembered the one thing I really dislike about the ACA500Plus. That boot screen that comes up every time you start the Amiga. I really don't want that. I want the experience to be as close to the original I had back in the day. Just the original startup experience.

I may keep the vanilla A500 as is just for the nostalgia but I don't see myself bothering to use it much.

d4rk3lf · Yesterday, 19:21

The boot screen is only when you turn on your A500, after you restart there's no boot screen.

Aca 500 + is the best choice, as many of us already said. Mine is broken now, after I moved from place to place, and I plan to order another one, because I was so happy with it, and I don't have ANY reason to advertise IComp... it's just.. what it is.

No soldering.. just be careful when you insert it into A500 (I've read that some users placed it upside down). You only need then CF to USB and 2 CF cards.

I found somewhere WHDLOAD preinstalled games.. all I had to do is transfer them from PC to my CF Card.. then the CF card into my A500... BAM.. 95% of the games works... no installation.. nothing... it just works.

Here is what I also did with Aca and A500:

[ Show youtube player ]

PascalDe73 · Yesterday, 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

The ACA500Plus requires shorting 2 points on the motherboard on a revision 6a.

This is completely false !!!
The ACA500Plus does not require any welding.
I own 6 Times unmodified A500s (Rev 6.A 8372A)
2 of mine A500 Revs. 6A are equipped with 2 perfectly functional ACA500Plus

Fuzzball · Yesterday, 21:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

The boot screen is only when you turn on your A500

Yes that really isn't what I am looking for. Ruins the nostalgia for me. I realise that will sound odd to some but if I can't get the same experience as back then I don't have the motivation to bother.

It seems the only nostalgic option is the same original hardware (i.e. the GVP but too expensive now) or the IDE68K but requires soldering. I might as well stick with my Mister FPGA if I can't mimic the exact same experience as I had 30+ years ago.

Anyway, I'll leave this topic now. It's clear its reached the point of going round in circles. The option just isn't really there that I am looking for so no point carrying this on. Thanks everyone for all the help.

Konrad · Yesterday, 21:24

Regarding the case situation:

If you don't have a 3d printer by yourself you can get this printed. Looks very fitting

.
https://www.thingiverse.com/make:683677

https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comme...aca500aca1234/

Lineof7s · Today, 00:22

The boot screen on the ACA500plus can be turned off in the settings, very easily. Mine is set so that it only appears if I hold down the left mousebutton on a reset. Otherwise it just boots straight in to my CompactFlash card hard drive and into Workbench, just like normal.

It's no more cumbersome off the left of the Amiga than (say) a sexy GVP hard disk from back in the day. Wanting a case is valid, and I can recommend the Plexilaser one I think you mentioned, but there are also 3D printed types available and a cursory glance at ebay.co.uk revealed a couple (I'm sure there are other sources a local will know more about) [edit] See above [/edit].

For someone who doesn't want to solder onto or cut into their new machine (and I certainly feel that) it really is the best bang-for-your-buck upgrade to get you back up and running.

22 June 2024, 13:07	#22
Fuzzball Registered User Join Date: Apr 2021 Location: UK Posts: 85	Related to all this, I decided just to try out a similar config on Mister FPGA (yes I have a Mister but it doesn't give me the nostalgia of using my Amiga 500 which is why I am looking to get a real one). An A500 setup with a 1.3 kickstart patched with scsi support and a hard drive setup. I installed Monkey Island to it using the hard drive installer it has. When running the game it comes up with out of memory error. So I up the chip ram to 1Mb and still get out of memory error. I set chip ram to 1Mb and Fast ram to 8mb. Still out of memory error. I had to up the chip ram to 1.5mb in order for it to run. The thing is my understanding is you can't have more than 1mb chip ram in a A500. So how did I ever run this game from a hard drive back in the day? I don't even remember having a 512kb expansion in the trapdoor let alone modding it somehow to show as chip ram. @schoenfeld - I will never want to connect to the net. I want it simply to use how I used it back in the day which was pretty basic stuff except I was the only one of my friends lucky enough to have a hard drive for it back in the day. Even then I never used WHDLoad or anything like that. I just installed WB1.3 on it and a few games that supported installing to hard drive. I don't want any more than that. Buying a ACA500Plus which will cost me more than the A500 seems complete overkill for me. However, I do want a solution that resolves the above issue but the cheapest solution that will definitely solve it. I definitely never modded my A500 back then. I never even opened it. I am also pretty sure I never had a memory expansion in the trapdoor because I do remember later on getting a PC emulator board in there and never had to remove anything. How I got Monkey Island to run off HDD I just can't remember. Update: Well I purchased an A500 so I'm fairly committed now. However, my first upgrade (after receiving it and checking it all works) will be to get some sort of Gotek device, preferably an external one as long as the floppy drive works. Then it will be showing my son the greatest computer of all time (in my biased opinion). The hard drive upgrade will come some time after that so I have some time to decide which way to go. Having forgotten to consider that I also want a Gotek, the ACA500Plus is probably far too expensive. Last edited by Fuzzball; 22 June 2024 at 21:51.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
What's the cheapest A1200 68030 accelerator option out there?	Tigerskunk	support.Hardware	37	24 August 2020 18:56
cheapest option for an A1200 accelerator?	amigaosx	support.Hardware	9	01 August 2019 23:20
What's the best A500 hard drive option in 2015?	Starglider 2	Hardware mods	10	22 April 2015 18:04
a500 hard drive	lost_loven	support.Hardware	3	01 March 2009 07:59
Project: Adding a CF Drive as an Hard Drive to an A500	mfletcher	support.Hardware	8	03 July 2008 00:20

22 June 2024, 10:19	#21
Schoenfeld electricky. Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: out in the wild Posts: 1,258	@Fuzzball Don't go for "cheap", but for "value for money". The A500 is indeed the cheapest Amiga you can find, and it practically never requires refurb work such as re-capping: The old DIL technology is way less demanding on the components than the reflow soldering process of an SMD oven, which is what A600 and A1200 are suffering from. Further, the ACA500plus only "looks" expensive at first sight. If you factor in system cost (price of Amiga plus price of this card), you're likely already at a lower price point than an A1200 or A600+memory expansion + CF card adapter (plus the effort of opening the machine for installation). In terms of compatibility, the ACA500plus allows you to switch Kickstarts and CPU speed as your program(s) need it. You will hardly find any 1990s title that you can't get to work on an A500 with ACA500plus, and you will hardly need to spend any extra money on that system - except if you've tasted blood and want to dive deeper with networking and an even faster CPU (which is likely, but doesn't happen to everyone). The problem with any lower feature set is that you'll be disappointed at some point. When I've made the first ACA500 in 2013, my prime goal was low price (79,- EUR back then), but I got LOTS of criticism for not-enough-RAM, lack of hot-plug support on the AUX CF slot and the low speed. When I made the ACA500plus in 2016, I wouldn't have thought that this will be built many years into the future, practically without change. I guess the secret is that it's a very complex thing that is very easy to handle: Very few entry hurdles for beginners, but all options available for expert users and those who evolve into the latter. If you go for cheap (like memory+IDE), you'll end up buying more equipment (cable, CF card adapter), but will have to abandon that as soon as you only want a single feature on top of that - for example if you want to connect your A500 to the net, you'll have to work with tinker-solutions like Plipbox, or go with the X-Surf-500, which is a low-cost add-on for the ACA500 and ACA500plus - but doesn't work without that accel. Jens (obviously biased...)

25 June 2024, 18:16	#25
Liqourice Registered User Join Date: Jul 2018 Location: Stockholm / Sweden Posts: 194	Back when I was on my A500 with only 1 MB Chip and harddrive (GVP with 4MB Ram) I usually set WB to 4 colours to save chip ram for those games that were hard to start otherwise. Worked just fine.

Yesterday, 17:43	#26
Fuzzball Registered User Join Date: Apr 2021 Location: UK Posts: 85	Having now bought an Amiga 500 (revision 6a) I have sadly come to the conclusion I was a bit hasty. I have come to the conclusion there is no hard drive option for me. The IDE68K option requires soldering 2 wires which I won't do. The ACA500Plus requires shorting 2 points on the motherboard on a revision 6a. Again I am not prepared to do that. So I have come to the conclusion that I should give up and sell it back again. Bit silly really but it's too much time and hassle for me. For some reason I had thought that the IDE68K didn't require soldering but I have now watched a Youtube video saying otherwise because the grabbers don't stay on so the wires need to be soldered instead.

Yesterday, 18:13	#28
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,920	Could you link to the instructions where the ACA500plus requires you to solder something? I wasn't aware it needed any modifications to the A500.

Yesterday, 18:24	#29
Fuzzball Registered User Join Date: Apr 2021 Location: UK Posts: 85	Perhaps I am getting confused after looking at the Lazurustorm which also plugs into the left expansion slot. That says it requires soldering on rev 6a board. I thought I had read the same about the ACA500Plus specifically for rev 6a boards but I can't find it now. My other issue with the ACA500Plus is it is ugly hanging off the side of the Amiga and the only case available is transparent (which I really don't like) and also way bigger than necessary if you have no intention of adding additional boards to it. But if I'm wrong about the soldering on rev 6a boards then perhaps that is the price you have to pay for a simple option.

Yesterday, 18:53	#32
Fuzzball Registered User Join Date: Apr 2021 Location: UK Posts: 85	Actually I just remembered the one thing I really dislike about the ACA500Plus. That boot screen that comes up every time you start the Amiga. I really don't want that. I want the experience to be as close to the original I had back in the day. Just the original startup experience. I may keep the vanilla A500 as is just for the nostalgia but I don't see myself bothering to use it much.

Yesterday, 19:21	#33
d4rk3lf Registered User Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Novi Sad, Serbia Posts: 1,701	The boot screen is only when you turn on your A500, after you restart there's no boot screen. Aca 500 + is the best choice, as many of us already said. Mine is broken now, after I moved from place to place, and I plan to order another one, because I was so happy with it, and I don't have ANY reason to advertise IComp... it's just.. what it is. No soldering.. just be careful when you insert it into A500 (I've read that some users placed it upside down). You only need then CF to USB and 2 CF cards. I found somewhere WHDLOAD preinstalled games.. all I had to do is transfer them from PC to my CF Card.. then the CF card into my A500... BAM.. 95% of the games works... no installation.. nothing... it just works. Here is what I also did with Aca and A500: [ Show youtube player ]

Yesterday, 21:24	#36
Konrad Registered User Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Germany Age: 43 Posts: 744	Regarding the case situation: If you don't have a 3d printer by yourself you can get this printed. Looks very fitting . https://www.thingiverse.com/make:683677 https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comme...aca500aca1234/

Today, 00:22	#37
Lineof7s Registered User Join Date: May 2019 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 63	The boot screen on the ACA500plus can be turned off in the settings, very easily. Mine is set so that it only appears if I hold down the left mousebutton on a reset. Otherwise it just boots straight in to my CompactFlash card hard drive and into Workbench, just like normal. It's no more cumbersome off the left of the Amiga than (say) a sexy GVP hard disk from back in the day. Wanting a case is valid, and I can recommend the Plexilaser one I think you mentioned, but there are also 3D printed types available and a cursory glance at ebay.co.uk revealed a couple (I'm sure there are other sources a local will know more about) [edit] See above [/edit]. For someone who doesn't want to solder onto or cut into their new machine (and I certainly feel that) it really is the best bang-for-your-buck upgrade to get you back up and running.

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)