A600 Help Please

[PerigrineFalcon]

I am having a problem with an A600 and need some pointers please.
I found in my loft a pile of A600's in bits and one I had that was still in one piece, I plugged it in and it whirred into life so I shut it down and cleaned all the dust and fluff out of it, checked over the caps which are fine and was pleasantly surprised to find the hard drive fitted in it, I put it back together and connected it up to the tv via a scart socked and it booted...but only to the Amiga Shell screen and not the usual Amiga boot screen, there is a prompt to enter some commands or dialog but that's it, I put a floppy in and the drive goes through it's motions of reading etc but still does not get past the shell screen.
What am I missing, I don't have any boot disks as they are long gone.
Any assistance greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[PerigrineFalcon]

I'm guessing that the hdd is blank and I'll need the workbench disk set to make it work which will have to wait until pension day on Friday, if I unplug the hdd will I get the animated boot screen thingy?.

[PerigrineFalcon]

Kickstart rom is MX v2.05 so a set of workbench 2.05 disks required as the hdd stuff will be on the extras disk.

[Tajmaster]

Originally Posted by PerigrineFalcon

I'm guessing that the hdd is blank and I'll need the workbench disk set to make it work which will have to wait until pension day on Friday, if I unplug the hdd will I get the animated boot screen thingy?.

Yes if you unplug the HDD you should see the Kickstart screen.


From the sounds of it your hard drive is either blank or has corrupt start up sequence.


If you are only interested in playing old skool games then take the HDD out and just run them off the floppys like the old days. There are other ways too but thats the old fashioned way and its still works

[PerigrineFalcon]

Thank you, I'm going to try that today. As I saw the long forgotten hdd I thought great, I'll be able to save game on the likes of MC Kids where you took all day to progress so far only to have to restart and do it all over again..
On another note I tried lighting up the other machines I had, all were dead, literally then I had the idea of leaving out the only other floppy drive I was using on them and they lit up, so I am going to modify an old working teac pc floppy and try again, it will be interesting to see if the floppy was the cause of dead boards. The caps are all good on these boards too.

[RetroPassionUK]

Originally Posted by PerigrineFalcon

Thank you, I'm going to try that today. As I saw the long forgotten hdd I thought great, I'll be able to save game on the likes of MC Kids where you took all day to progress so far only to have to restart and do it all over again..
On another note I tried lighting up the other machines I had, all were dead, literally then I had the idea of leaving out the only other floppy drive I was using on them and they lit up, so I am going to modify an old working teac pc floppy and try again, it will be interesting to see if the floppy was the cause of dead boards. The caps are all good on these boards too.

Just saying, the caps 'may' look ok but they won't last and well past their usefulness, give it a couple of weeks of use you may start having issues which will be apparent via the audio or it wont boot up and the caps lock stays on. so just be prepared ;-) have fun!

[PerigrineFalcon]

Thank you for the heads up on that, I will keep an eye out for issues such as those you mentioned.

[Bren McGuire]

newsflash buddy you cannot save game in most games especially not t hat one (was a huge fan so i know i had to leave the computer on all day to play)

you need to learn some stuffs about amiga it seems just because you put a hard drive in doesnt mean you can save progress

Originally Posted by PerigrineFalcon

Thank you, I'm going to try that today. As I saw the long forgotten hdd I thought great, I'll be able to save game on the likes of MC Kids where you took all day to progress so far only to have to restart and do it all over again..

[PerigrineFalcon]

Damn, was looking forward to actually finishing that particular nightmare.
Oh well, out it comes along with the upper shield and on goes the fastram expansion instead.
Just finishing up the floppy conversion...takes longer these days, I have early stages of Parkinsons so I am time limited as to when my soldering days will be over...not bad for a seventy year old though.

[PerigrineFalcon]

Just finished the fdd conversion, drive works ok and my working A500 accepts it and reads disks. Bench tested the other two boards out of their cases, one has the caps lock light on all the time....recap needed, the other is ok but not picking up the fdd, fdd light not coming on and zero activity when disk inserted...suspect the same recap required.
So, working 600 will be stripped down to it's mainboard and sent for recapping before that too decides to feel unwell.

[Bren McGuire]

and why did you do that? you haven't ever used an Amiga
more newsflash you have just made your A600 even more incompatible than it was before since lots of games off floppy will not work with fast RAM installed

Originally Posted by PerigrineFalcon

Oh well, out it comes along with the upper shield and on goes the fastram expansion instead.

[PerigrineFalcon]

Nevermind eh, we can't all be experts.

[Bren McGuire]

oh no you took it the wrong way thats not what i meant i just think you have followed classic bad amiga advice online given by people who think you have to upgrade an amiga first thing without even trying to enjoy it

Originally Posted by PerigrineFalcon

Nevermind eh, we can't all be experts.

[redblade]

Originally Posted by PerigrineFalcon

Thank you, I'm going to try that today. As I saw the long forgotten hdd I thought great, I'll be able to save game on the likes of MC Kids where you took all day to progress so far only to have to restart and do it all over again..
On another note I tried lighting up the other machines I had, all were dead, literally then I had the idea of leaving out the only other floppy drive I was using on them and they lit up, so I am going to modify an old working teac pc floppy and try again, it will be interesting to see if the floppy was the cause of dead boards. The caps are all good on these boards too.

What is this MC Kids games? I've found McDonald Land and that seems to have trainers (Unlimited Lives) to make the game easier to complete

[PerigrineFalcon]

MC Kids is another name for McDonaldland MC Kids are Mick and Mack
I have played this game so often and I never realised that there were trainers that had extra lives.

[PerigrineFalcon]

Originally Posted by Bren McGuire

oh no you took it the wrong way thats not what i meant i just think you have followed classic bad amiga advice online given by people who think you have to upgrade an amiga first thing without even trying to enjoy it

I have peen happily playing the A500 for years and an A1200 and as these were old units that I didn't know if they worked or not I thought I would upgrade to the max which will include a raspberry pi and anything else I can jam under it's hood, gotek and hdmi converter and then see the difference between the two models...if it turns to toast so be it, at 70 I have time on my hands.

[supaduper]

I love the A600 personally as it has a small footprint, and today you can max it out with a 030 upgrade, I know Steve at retropassion sells them as I have one works great and is PCMCIA friendly