27 February 2024, 15:21 | #21 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2022
Location: Birmingham, UK
Posts: 163
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Quote:
Now, pretty much all accelerators with onboard IDE want 2.05 and above, but 3.1 is ideal. There are kickstart switchers available, 1.3 and 3.1 usually, but these don’t usually let you boot the hard disk. If you got a TF536…lovely 030 accelerator about £150ish, you can use a kickstart switcher. With 3.1 you’ll get the 50Mhz ‘030, 64MB Fast RAM and IDE. If you switch to 1.3 it will boot up in a special 7Mhz mode with no RAM, no IDE, so you can play disk games. The Sordan HC533 (I think they still make a few each month, you’d have to email them) is a 33Mhz 68000 which has a special Oktagon ROM which lets you keep 1.3 and boot from IDE. So it’s a good solution if you want to keep 1.3. It has 8MB Fast RAM. Bear in mind that for the most Utility on WHDLOAD you’ll want at least 1MB chip, so a modification is needed depending on your motherboard, because the A500 usually has 512K Chip and 512K “slow” RAM. That slow ram becomes chip ram when you do the mod. Many WHDLOAD games need 1MB chip and some extra fast ram, say 0.5MB. Some need more. I think Vampire and PiStorm might use a ROM in memory and not a physical one, so you get 3.x anyway by default but I’m not an expert on these. |
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27 February 2024, 16:44 | #22 |
AmiMatti
Join Date: Feb 2024
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Posts: 16
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So many options it's hard to know where to start!
I'll probably start simple with the Gotek then look into the PiStorm which I believe can switch between ROMs (I assume in software). Then who knows! I had a dig through the loft and unearthed one of these Flylink PAL/NTSC SCART + HDMI to HDMI Video Converter which hopefully should do for plugging into my 1440p monitor, at least for starters. Thanks everyone for the detailed responses and advice! I'm hoping to take delivery of the A500 towards the end of the week |
27 February 2024, 16:47 | #23 |
AmiMatti
Join Date: Feb 2024
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Posts: 16
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27 February 2024, 17:07 | #24 |
Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Scunthorpe/United Kingdom
Posts: 2,152
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PiStorm is probably a good way to go. You can disable it for playing floppy games if you need to, but pretty much everything you will want to run has a WHDLoad option now.
The PiStorm will give you any Kickstart ROM you want (so 3.x will be available without having to swap out your ROMs - the PiStorm will just load it from disk), 2GB of FastRAM and as much storage as you want via the Pi's uSD card. Incompatibilities abound with older software but there is a new library of patches for WHDLoad that deal with those. Anything OS-friendly is just superb. And damn it's fast. RTG graphics are available via the Pi's Videocore so you can run your WB at 1080p if you so desire, in millions of colours, or you can stick with the old PAL modes if you prefer. As AlexH points out, Wifi/Ethernet/USB is coming in the future and will be a drop-in update via a software update on the Amiga side. I have one in my A1200 and cannot recommend it enough. |
27 February 2024, 18:58 | #25 |
Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: South Wales
Age: 47
Posts: 947
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Well I would have said anything past Birmingham. but I know from relatives who live in Buxton ( which I would have said was defo north , and I know is part of derbyshire) is actually East Midlands
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27 February 2024, 19:25 | #26 |
Thalion Webshrine
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Oxford
Posts: 14,591
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27 February 2024, 20:34 | #27 |
Registered User
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: England
Posts: 425
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I like the A500, and I have one with a hard-disk and 2MB RAM (KS1.3). I wouldn't dream of trying to modernise it much beyond that (I'd like some real Fast RAM one day for it)...you need to keep it slow and 7MHz so you can appreciate the 1200 and faster CPU's more!
Then again, if you ultra modernise it, you won't need a 1200, so the choice is yours! |
27 February 2024, 21:02 | #28 | |
Global Moderator
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Derby, UK
Age: 48
Posts: 9,355
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Welcome.to EAB AND GReetings from Derbyshire myself. Where are you at? I'm from Derby but live in ilkeston currently.
Need any help give me a shout Quote:
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27 February 2024, 21:50 | #29 | ||
AmiMatti
Join Date: Feb 2024
Location: Chesterfield, UK
Posts: 16
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Quote:
The north part of Chesterfield. So pretty much on the border of South Yorkshire. Thanks! This seems like a really great community Quote:
There's just so many options for the modern Amigan. I like the idea of trying to keep it stock, but I know I'll end up "pimpin' it out" as they say across t'pond. |
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28 February 2024, 10:17 | #30 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: Newcastle, UK
Posts: 278
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Quote:
I used to live right on the south coast and anything above the M4 corridor is considered up north. However I now live in Newcastle and get really annoyed when people talk about Leeds and Manchester etc being up north as they are now miles south of me and clearly Midlands the most!! |
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28 February 2024, 15:09 | #31 |
Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Scunthorpe/United Kingdom
Posts: 2,152
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08 May 2024, 15:00 | #32 |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2024
Location: Derbyshire
Posts: 4
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Howdy from Derbyshire as well ??
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09 May 2024, 01:04 | #33 |
Also known as GarethQ
Join Date: May 2019
Location: Twickenham / U.K.
Posts: 740
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Well hello from sunny Lundun down south. Any bets on when he second amiga will be purchased?
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09 May 2024, 12:41 | #34 |
Professional old fart!
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: Dumfries, Scotland
Posts: 54
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@skintt
This is a great community here and always ready to help out. Don't forget the local user groups, too, where you would be able to take your machine and show it off but also get first hand help, too. Near you, you have Yorkshire Amiga Group (some of their meets are in Sheffield) Lincs Amiga Group (meet in Welton, just south of Lincoln) Robin Hood Amiga Group (meet in Nottingham) And there's the upcoming Kickstart Expo in Nottingham 29th/30th June. We're still served by English language print magazines, Amiga Future and Amiga Addict, too. |
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