What to upgrade on an A600?

[Hatt]

HI all,

I'd like to make more use of my original A600. It is completely stock from 30 years ago.

Is there a way to make it use an internal storage device like an SD card and not need to rely on the old floppy disks as much? What would I need in order to do this?

Also what is the best way to use a modern TV with it?

[Daedalus]

If you're otherwise happy with the machine and it's just the actual floppy disks that are concerning you, the most basic of upgrades is a floppy drive emulator. There are several options for these, mostly based on Gotek drives. Perhaps the best one is a GoDrive - this allows the internal floppy drive to be retained and used along with a mostly hidden version of the Gotek, and is quite a neat solution. These will let you use floppy disk images on a flash drive instead of actual disks, but the speed will be the same and you'll still have to "swap disks" using the Gotek's controls.

Beyond that, the A600 has an internal IDE port that can be used for IDE laptop hard drives and CompactFlash or SD-based replacements. In this regard it's basically the same as an A1200. However, some early A600s lack the drivers in ROM to access the IDE port. If you have Kickstart 37.299 you will need to upgrade it. Depending on what you're planning to use it for, it could well be worth upgrading anyway.

As stock, the A600 only has 1MB of RAM. Adding a hard drive will eat into this, so you really need to upgrade that. You can get 1MB chip RAM upgrades that fit in the trapdoor slot, and this will give you the bare minimum you can get away with. To be properly useful with the OS, WHDLoad and so on, some Fast RAM would be a good idea. There are 4MB and 8MB fast RAM cards available that clip over the CPU inside the A600.

A cheap PCMCIA card reader will allow for easy transfers to the Amiga's hard drive from other platforms once you're up and running, but these won't work with 8MB fast RAM cards, so you might need to disable a RAM card when you want to do transfers.

If your TV doesn't have SCART then there are a couple of options, depending on your preference. First, there are cheap SCART-HDMI converters that do a reasonable job but introduce lag that some people find ruins the experience, particularly for fast-moving action games. More expensive SCART-HDMI converters like the OSSC give a practically lag-free experience and are well regarded for this job. In terms of internal upgrades, there's an RGB2HDMI version that works on an A600. This fits internally and gives you a HDMI output, and is based on a Raspberry Pi. You'll need to find a suitable model of Pi - some are hard to track down.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you need to get the capacitors replaced regardless of whatever other upgrades you decide to go for. The A600 is very prone to damage from leaky capacitors, and there may not be any obvious symptoms until damage has already been done.

[Hatt]

Thanks for the info.

Can you suggest any places to get the RAM upgrades and the bits to run an internal HDD?

Is there a guide on the capacitors at all?

[Nobby_UK]

2.5 inch IDE to SD Card (assuming you have ribbon ?)
Ebay = around £10 from UK or £8 from China
1 Meg Ram = £24 Ebay/AmigaKit (£26 with clock header)

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Hatt

Can you suggest any places to get the RAM upgrades and the bits to run an internal HDD?

There are a good few sellers in the UK who will sell you what you need - AmigaKit, RetroPassion and RetroReady are some options. They tend to also have eBay presences if you'd prefer.

Some of the stuff is generic (e.g. hard drive-CF/SD adaptor, Gotek drives) you can get cheaper from China, but you may have extra hassle actually setting them up, and there are also customised versions that might better suit the Amiga or your particular setup so it's worth investigating the options from dealers too. For example, I much prefer the neat little IDE adaptors that put the CF card over the PCMCIA port instead of on a cable floating around the middle of the motherboard.

Is there a guide on the capacitors at all?

There are a few around, e.g. here, but if doing SMT soldering and repairs isn't something you're pretty competent at, I would strongly advise sending it to someone who offers it as a service. I have a list of some people who offer this service here (though I'm not taking on any myself at the moment). Some of these (e.g. RetroPassion) also sell the various upgrades, so you could get the whole lot done in one shot if it suited.

[Hatt]

Thanks for the links and info. I watched a YouTube video last night on doing the capacitors. I can solder, but feel that is probably a bit too much for me. I only have a basic soldering iron setup. And the risk of wrecking the board is probably not worth me attempting.

I see there are CF and SD IDE adapters, any real benefit in one or the other?

e.g.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131709849071
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165596240648

What sort of size card should I be looking at? I guess there is a max size the Amiga can support? Although it'd be nice to have enough not to worry in the future.

I like the idea of boot form HDD and just launch games/apps form there. I need to check what ROM my machine has. I think I need a specific one or newer to boot from HDD?

I see the chip ram has an option of a real time clock, is there any benefit on the A600?

And lastly, the fast ram upgrade that clips over the cpu. I see some people saying they have issues with it moving etc. Is there a preferred option for this and how much memory would I need?

This one is 4mb
https://www.amigakit.com/a600-fast-m...rs0vgv87l9nlsq

This is more money and 5.5mb
https://retroready.one/collections/a...miga-600-black

Would the extra 1.5mb be noticeable at all?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Hatt

Thanks for the links and info. I watched a YouTube video last night on doing the capacitors. I can solder, but feel that is probably a bit too much for me. I only have a basic soldering iron setup. And the risk of wrecking the board is probably not worth me attempting.

Yep, probably sensible.

I see there are CF and SD IDE adapters, any real benefit in one or the other?

e.g.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131709849071
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165596240648

SD cards are easier to get hold of these days, so there is that. CF cards are more straightforward in terms of the interface becasue they act like IDE hard drives, but there can be come compatibility issues with certain brands. Ultimately though, once you have a decent quality card, either type will be fine. But aside from which card type suits you best, the physical layout of the adaptor is worth considering. Personally I much prefer the second option above as it means the drive isn't dangling loose in the machine and sitting on top of other stuff. Also, if you wanted to use an SD card in a CF-style adaptor, you can also buy SD-CF adaptors.

What sort of size card should I be looking at? I guess there is a max size the Amiga can support? Although it'd be nice to have enough not to worry in the future.

This depends on the Kickstart version you have. 3.1 (40.xx) and lower are limited to 4GB, though you can use more by being careful and using various work-arounds. Newer Kickstarts can use pretty much any size.

I like the idea of boot form HDD and just launch games/apps form there. I need to check what ROM my machine has. I think I need a specific one or newer to boot from HDD?

Yup, that was a massive deal for me when I got my first hard drive back in the '90s - the convenience of booting from the hard drive and loading stuff quickly was a game changer. You need Kickstart 37.300 or higher. Most A600s I've seen have 37.350, so with a little luck you should be fine there.

I see the chip ram has an option of a real time clock, is there any benefit on the A600?

That really depends on what you want to do with the machine. If you're just playing games then it probably won't make a difference, but if you'll be handling files in any significant way, it can be a good thing to be able to see when a file was last edited, which one is newer etc.

And lastly, the fast ram upgrade that clips over the cpu. I see some people saying they have issues with it moving etc. Is there a preferred option for this and how much memory would I need?

Unfortunately the A600 wasn't really designed for being so heavily expanded. The only official option is to use the PCMCIA slot in the side of the machine, where you can add up to 4MB of fast RAM with an SRAM card. But they are crazy expensive these days, and they stick out of the side of the machine leaving them prone to damage. Piggyback-type cards are a much cheaper and more common way of doing it, but as you can see, they're not 100% solid. Most people have no issues though, and provided it's a good quality socket and it's been carefully adapted by whoever built the card, you should be fine.

This one is 4mb
https://www.amigakit.com/a600-fast-m...rs0vgv87l9nlsq

This is more money and 5.5mb
https://retroready.one/collections/a...miga-600-black

Would the extra 1.5mb be noticeable at all?

You'd be surprised When you're playing games from a hard drive that were only ever meant to be played from floppy disk, the best way to do it is using WHDLoad, which typically loads the entire game into RAM and plays it from there instead. 4MB is probably enough for most games, but some that spanned 4 or 5 disks might benefit from the extra RAM. Don't worry too much, they'll still be playable if you don't have enough RAM to fully load them in, you'll just get pauses whenever it needs to load something from the hard drive. Personally I'd go for an 8MB board, but they seem to be sold out.

I didn't really touch on accelerators in the previous post, but they're also an option. They also sit on top of the CPU and essentially replace it with a faster CPU and some fast RAM. This greatly improves a lot of games, but they're also expensive.

[amigakit.com]

@Hatt

Welcome to EAB!

Here are some of the Amiga 600 items we stock on our Amiga Kit Amiga Store. We also sell them on Ebay but they are more expensive due to the Ebay fees that we have to pay:


A600 1MB Expansion With Clockport - £18.99 on our webstore directly

A600 4MB Fast Memory - £32.99 on our webstore directly

4GB SD Card Hard Drive

INTERNAL 44-PIN SD CARD IDE ADAPTER A1200 / A600

A600 CF IDE Hard Drive 4GB

Capacitor Replacement Service - £33.99

Classic Amiga Optical Laser Mouse (Black)

Combined postage is extra based on weight of package.


Hope this helps!

[RetroPassionUK]

Its great to see another Amiga coming out of the dark :-)

if you after a bit of speed then we have just relased the new A630 Rev 3 Accelerator, packing an 68030 50mhz cpu, 64mb ram and FPU.

retropassion.co.uk/product/a630-rev3-accelerator/

We can also offer the brand new AmigaOS 3.2.2 that makes it far simpler to add a CF/SD card to your amiga with no silly size restrictions for 4Gb or messing around with patched scsi.device etc.

Recapping wise again we can offer both standard and premium services including ultrasonic PCB clean starting at £34.99 and I'm sure if you speak to someone that saw us at Kickstart 01 or the recent ZZapp Live 2023 there is a 30% off code for all Amiga recapping services and free ultrasoninc clean.

https://www.google.com/search?q=amiga+A600+recapping

HDMi on an A600, sure and includes the 1Mb chip ram upgrade.

https://www.retropassion.co.uk/produ...1mb-expansion/

Ever thought in 1993 that in 2023 you have so many options??

Any questions just ask.

[Hatt]

Many thanks for all the suggestions. I'm just putting a shopping list together of all the bits I want to get.

I'd like to have a go at fitting the mods myself. Then probably send it off to get the capacitors changed. Is it normal to send the entire machine in for this or just the main board?

I got the Amiga plugged in and booted up today just to check a few things. Looks like it might need a retrobright treatment in the future. The sun has discoloured it quite a bit.



Looks like the Kickstart ROM is 37.299

Will this need upgrading to boot from HDD? Is this the ROM chip on the board that needs changing. Where can I buy a suitable replacement?

[RetroPassionUK]

Originally Posted by Hatt

Many thanks for all the suggestions. I'm just putting a shopping list together of all the bits I want to get.

I'd like to have a go at fitting the mods myself. Then probably send it off to get the capacitors changed. Is it normal to send the entire machine in for this or just the main board?

I got the Amiga plugged in and booted up today just to check a few things. Looks like it might need a retrobright treatment in the future. The sun has discoloured it quite a bit.



Looks like the Kickstart ROM is 37.299

Will this need upgrading to boot from HDD? Is this the ROM chip on the board that needs changing. Where can I buy a suitable replacement?

We prefer just the motherboard sent in its shield, its cheaper and safer.

Kickstart Rom we sell Cloanto 3.1 Roms if needed. And yes .299 did not have pcmcia or HDD support. .300 and above did. 3.1 or AmigaOS 3.2 is a good choice.

[Hatt]

Originally Posted by RetroPassionUK

Its great to see another Amiga coming out of the dark :-)

if you after a bit of speed then we have just relased the new A630 Rev 3 Accelerator, packing an 68030 50mhz cpu, 64mb ram and FPU.

retropassion.co.uk/product/a630-rev3-accelerator/

We can also offer the brand new AmigaOS 3.2.2 that makes it far simpler to add a CF/SD card to your amiga with no silly size restrictions for 4Gb or messing around with patched scsi.device etc.

Recapping wise again we can offer both standard and premium services including ultrasonic PCB clean starting at £34.99 and I'm sure if you speak to someone that saw us at Kickstart 01 or the recent ZZapp Live 2023 there is a 30% off code for all Amiga recapping services and free ultrasoninc clean.

https://www.google.com/search?q=amiga+A600+recapping

HDMi on an A600, sure and includes the 1Mb chip ram upgrade.

https://www.retropassion.co.uk/produ...1mb-expansion/

Ever thought in 1993 that in 2023 you have so many options??

Any questions just ask.

Thanks, just looking over your website.

I like the idea of the Premium recapping with the polymer capacitors.

Where are you based? I couldn't see a business address on your website (apologies if I missed it).

I assume the recapping price includes the cost of shipping the board back and forth?

[RetroPassionUK]

Originally Posted by Hatt

Thanks, just looking over your website.

I like the idea of the Premium recapping with the polymer capacitors.

Where are you based? I couldn't see a business address on your website (apologies if I missed it).

I assume the recapping price includes the cost of shipping the board back and forth?

Hello,

Sure we are in Birchington Kent. Shipping to us and return is extra. so return shipping is calculated at the checkout and all we would need is the motherboard. Once purchased via the website, an automated email is sent with the address and tips on how to send.

Any further questions just ask.

Thanks!

Steve

[Hatt]

Originally Posted by RetroPassionUK

Hello,

Sure we are in Birchington Kent. Shipping to us and return is extra. so return shipping is calculated at the checkout and all we would need is the motherboard. Once purchased via the website, an automated email is sent with the address and tips on how to send.

Any further questions just ask.

Thanks!

Steve

Many thanks Steve. Really appreciate the help. Seems there is a lot to learn. Think I'm onto my last question(s) now.


With the Kickstart ROM:
https://www.retropassion.co.uk/produ...a500-600-2000/

I assume I would also need to buy the licence and not just the chip for 3.2?

Or are there other options?

If I paid for the recapping and the Kickstart ROM at the same time, I assume you'd switch the chips over as part of the process or would it be something I'd have to do once the board was returned?


Reading here:
https://www.retropassion.co.uk/produ...2-cd-rom-only/

What is the process for getting Kickstart 3.2.2 onto a chip? It looks like you have to register first and download??