ACA Expansion Alternatives?

[Jope]

Originally Posted by BadHatGamer

Why, oh why couldn't they just shift-map this to a key like sanity would suggest?!

I always wondered why the S keyboard has the USA legends at the same time on the keycaps and the GB keyboard didn't. Perhaps ours was different enough when using the ROM keymap that they wanted to do us a favour..

Then again Commodore PCs also had this same style of dual legend, so maybe it was just a Commodore thing. Other manufacturers didn't have the dual legends on keyboards sold in Finland.

http://jope.fi/amiga/amikbd/cbmpcmitsumi.jpg

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by Jope

I always wondered why the S keyboard has the USA legends at the same time on the keycaps and the GB keyboard didn't. Perhaps ours was different enough when using the ROM keymap that they wanted to do us a favour..

Then again Commodore PCs also had this same style of dual legend, so maybe it was just a Commodore thing. Other manufacturers didn't have the dual legends on keyboards sold in Finland.

http://jope.fi/amiga/amikbd/cbmpcmitsumi.jpg

I can't really offer anything enlightening on that - just that the only keyboards with dual legends I've ever seen were the same sorts of machines you speak of. But then we follow the U.S.A in just about everything here tech-wise, albeit a few years behind. Its also generally assumed that one reads English here, although its neither required nor always the case with many immigrants - no malice intended, of course. But going by the above assumption that we are generally an English-speaking nation, there's no need for that sort of thing anyway.

And in the eyes of our government, theres far more money to be made in teaching bad English to immigrants in overpriced low-budget education institutions, than there is in manufacturing keyboards for different languages.
Obviously, I'm no fan of government policy as it stands.

Britain & Europe have it better in this regard due to having so many distinct and native languages within relatively close proximity and therefore must accommodate for language barriers. One example is the number of English nationals that can "parle bien le Français" and vice versa - simply because of the amount of contact (and historical conflict) between the two nationalities as a whole. (Je ne parle pas beaucoup français. )

Australia doesn't have much more than a century of history with its neighbors and our neighbors are much, much further away.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Jope

In that case you need to hit alt-# to get the apostrophe on a GB keymap. Just like alt-Ä works as an alternative for the S keymap. :-)

I just tried it in 3.9.

GB keymap: tilde key unshifted gives you an apostrophe, even though the keycap legend says backtick.
S keymap: alt-Ä gives you a forward tick instead of an apostrophe. :-)

Perhaps everyone just needs to try these out for themselves for each os version using keyshow or keytoy, depending on which release you're running.

[Amiga1992]

Since my first two computers were QWERTZ, I learned not to look at whatever junk the keyboard has printed on the keys I always use the same layout, US.

But it becomes a problem in newer keyboards with Enter. This is like an "inverted-L" shape in some keyboards (GB), and a long key like "shift" on others (US). If you get used to hit Enter at a certain point, you might hit the wrong key.

Sorry about the keyboard ramblings :P But I thought it was interesting, since I do kind of look at the keyboard, but just for position I guess, not at precisely what is printed. This is also how I use VICE, with positional keyboard emulation. I remember where those keys were -placed- at in a C64.

[E-Penguin]

I use QWERTY at work and QWERTZ on the home laptop (at the insistence of the Mrs). I am permanently wrong.

On things Amiga - I can't decide whether I love or loathe the A600 keyboard. It's every so slightly too small for my hands but is otherwise very nicely laid out.

On topic - I've talked myself into getting an A590 scsi hard disk + 2Mb fast ram in lieu of an ACAsomething or HC508. It's neither a practical or economical option.

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by Akira

But it becomes a problem in newer keyboards with Enter. This is like an "inverted-L" shape in some keyboards (GB), and a long key like "shift" on others (US). If you get used to hit Enter at a certain point, you might hit the wrong key.

I'm pretty sure every PC/Mac keyboard I've ever owned - since my A500(+590)-of-old died 20 odd years ago - had/has a rectangular Enter key which is slightly smaller than the shift key.

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

On things Amiga - I can't decide whether I love or loathe the A600 keyboard. It's every so slightly too small for my hands but is otherwise very nicely laid out.

I've never been much of a fan of the A600 mainly due to its smaller size. Sure its portable and all that, but when ol' brick-fingers here tries to type anything useful on an A600, I hit half the keyboard at once. I always hated mobile phone touch screens for this reason.

I remember messing about as a kid with "Say" with the voice speed set high in WB 1.3 and accidentally mashed a few keys at once, without looking at the screen before pressing Enter. The lesson here is that mashing "B, H and G" more than once in succession oddly causes the voice to pronounce it "BEERGEE". This even happens in UAE.

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

On topic - I've talked myself into getting an A590 scsi hard disk + 2Mb fast ram in lieu of an ACAsomething or HC508. It's neither a practical or economical option.

I had intended to do this with my current A500, but those 590s are damn illusive, and insanely expensive. I had the 590 on my old A500 as a kid too. It weighed in at a whopping great size of 20 megabytes , which naturally was always filled to the brim.

Besides, SINCE WHEN WAS OWNING AN AMIGA 500 IN THE 21ST CENTURY EITHER PRACTICAL OR ECONOMICAL?! Methinks thou doth try to rationalize too much.

[E-Penguin]

The worst bit is that I actually wanted an HC508 so probably I'll have to buy a third A500 to put that in. Sigh. I'm going to need a bigger man-cave.

[Amiga1992]

Sorry to keep the OT, but...

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

On things Amiga - I can't decide whether I love or loathe the A600 keyboard. It's every so slightly too small for my hands but is otherwise very nicely laid out.

Originally Posted by BadHatGamer

but when ol' brick-fingers here tries to type anything useful on an A600, I hit half the keyboard at once.

You guys are nuts, or senile, or both!

The A600 keyboard has exactly the same size keys as the A1200 keyboard. Actually, the layout is a little wider! It just doesn't have a bunch of keys ("tenless" design). Compared to an A500, the keyboard is exactly the same size.

Just took these pics for you:




It gets a bit lost due to perspective, but really, the A600 keyboard has in no way smaller features than any other Amiga keyboard. Have you ever even tried or is this one of those Amiga lore stories that got laser-etched in your minds because people just kept repeating how shitty the A600 is?

So if you have problems with keys on this, you would also on an A1200, an A500 and I believe all other Amiga keyboards. And the Commodore 128.

[E-Penguin]

Blimey. I stand corrected - I own a 500, 600 and 1200 and the 600 is the one I have most trouble typing on. Very odd.

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

The worst bit is that I actually wanted an HC508 so probably I'll have to buy a third A500 to put that in. Sigh. I'm going to need a bigger man-cave.

There's no such thing as a "big enough" man cave really. The more space we have, the more space we'll fill up with 30 year-old computers.

Originally Posted by Akira

You guys are nuts, or senile, or both!

Well, yes. Obviously. But what does this have to do with anything?

Originally Posted by Akira

It gets a bit lost due to perspective, but really, the A600 keyboard has in no way smaller features than any other Amiga keyboard. Have you ever even tried or is this one of those Amiga lore stories that got laser-etched in your minds because people just kept repeating how shitty the A600 is?

I think you just hit it on the head. And to answer your question, one of my mates back in the day had an A600 which we both beat up pretty good (or rather, his father owned it, because we were a bit too young to fully grasp the concept of having to work for a living to buy stuff).

PERSPECTIVE is the buzz word here.

Maybe the physical size is indeed the same. It could very well be a psychological thing. Maybe its due to the keyboard talking up most of the top casing of the unit (unlike the A500 which "looks" more spacious). You know, when you start feeling like you have less floor space, your feet seem to get bigger regardless of your shoe-size.

[demolition]

Yeah, the size of the individual keys are the same except for a few of the keys like R-Alt, R-Shift, Help, Del and the spacebar. For the remaining keys, you can even take keycaps from an A1200, A500 or CDTV keyboard and install onto the A600 keyboard (if it is the green membrane type).

[BadHatGamer]

Incidently - going back to the ORIGINAL original topic which came before keyboards became the apparent not so original topic.....

I have decided to quit Hmmmmm-ing and Haaaaa-ing and shell out extra for the ACA 1233n 40Mhz instead of being a cheap sod with the ACA 1221ec. If I'm going to do up this A500, I may as well put some wallet into it.

I just can't help myself, really.

[E-Penguin]

Fortunately I got hit by a tram today so I might have some money to buy an ACA1233n shortly. First thing I thought in hospital was "ooh I wonder what amiga stuff I can buy with the inevitable compensation..."

Nothing broken so I doubt it'll stretch to an A3000UX but something to stick on the ACA500plus would be just the ticket.

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

Fortunately I got hit by a tram today so I might have some money to buy an ACA1233n shortly. First thing I thought in hospital was "ooh I wonder what amiga stuff I can buy with the inevitable compensation..."

Nothing broken so I doubt it'll stretch to an A3000UX but something to stick on the ACA500plus would be just the ticket.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by TuKo

Most people saying Vampire is incompatible never had one :-)

You have statistics to back this up?

I would instead say that most people saying that Vampire is "compatible" are either Team Apollo members, or they never had a Vampire card.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by kolla

You have statistics to back this up?

I would instead say that most people saying that Vampire is "compatible" are either Team Apollo members, or they never had a Vampire card.

I have a Vampire and can only report my own finding that it is very compatible with classic (68000) stuff indeed since Gold2. Probably much more so than 040/060 since they were never very compatible with the older stuff.

[BadHatGamer]

Originally Posted by demolition

I have a Vampire and can only report my own finding that it is very compatible with classic (68000) stuff indeed since Gold2. Probably much more so than 040/060 since they were never very compatible with the older stuff.

Can the Vampire not be "switched off" in a similar (or not so similar) way to side car expansions like the ACAs etc?

I ask because this would render any incompatibility problems more or less moot.

(Ok so its a fairly uneducated question, but you gotta remember my first hand experience with expansions is rather limited. )

[demolition]

No, it cannot be switched off. I agree that would make it moot, but they wanted to make it as compatible as possible without needing to turn it off. If you want a plain classic machine, just get a 2nd Amiga (or more like I have).

Only some accelerators have a proper off-switch anyway. Some may have an off function but not really be 100% invisible when disabled and then they could still provide some problems.

[TrashyMG]

Originally Posted by BadHatGamer

Can the Vampire not be "switched off" in a similar (or not so similar) way to side car expansions like the ACAs etc?

I ask because this would render any incompatibility problems more or less moot.

(Ok so its a fairly uneducated question, but you gotta remember my first hand experience with expansions is rather limited. )

Well on the A600 if you don't want to remove the Vampire card, you can clear the FPGA using the Altera Quartus software with a "USB Blaster" FPGA programmer and it will boot normally with the original 68000 processor, then just reprogram it again to add back the vampire features. This won't typically work with the A500 as typical installation removes the original 68000 processor. Not sure if this trick works with the A2000 if the Vampire is installed in the CPU expansion slot with the adapter as I don't have one to try.

I have to say I've seen very little OCS/ECS games that I couldn't play with WHDLoad on my Vampire V2 A600. AGA support is coming with the gold3 core, and they're play testing the hell out of that right now.

[E-Penguin]

Interesting tip, although it seems a bit extreme. A disable jumper would have been nice.