Just bought a 500

[ifrit05]

Heya. Just bought a 500 after wanting to get an Amiga since I was like 13 (just turned 24).

I got mine for $100 and it has a 512k expansion board and rtc but the expansion card is pretty corroded so I took it out.

It also has a backed up copy of WB 1.2 and it's a rev 5 motherboard with the 1.2 Kickstart.

All in all its in really good condition besides the expansion card. The zorro slot has a bit of corrosion but it's not that bad.

What expansions should I get/need?

[demolition]

Depends what you want to do with it. Want to use it for games only? The popular choice is to get a modified Gotek floppy drive emulator, rather than messing with real floppy disks. That way, you can have disk images on a USB stick and run everything from there. Some people replace the internal drive with a Gotek, but if you want to keep your hardware looking original (like I do), it can be mounted in an external enclosure and used by installing a boot selector in the Amiga. KS 1.2/1.3 will only boot from DF0, but the boot selector will make the external work as DF0 and the internal drive DF1.

You will need a 512kB expansion for most games, so either you can fix up the one you have or get another one.
I suppose the expansion card is corroded due to a leaking battery on it. It may still be working though and in that case you can stop the corrosion by snipping off the battery, putting the entire PCB in some vinegar for a little while, clean it with a brush, then rinse it thoroughly under some water (demineralised is best).

Without the battery, the clock will be reset every time the power is removed, but if you just want to use it for games, it can be ignored.

If you want to put a CF card in it to use as HDD to boot from, you could look at either Kipper2k's RAM+CF cards (I have one of those in my 500+) or the ACA500.

[ifrit05]

I just desoldered the battery and cleaned the memory board off. Hooked it into the Amiga it it sees all the memory, so I guess it works lol. I can deal without having a clock but I would like to get it fixed.

[Galahad/FLT]

I'd be inclined to look after that one, and try not to damage it at all.

Kickstart 1.2 Amigas are pretty rare beasts as it is, pretty much the most compatible A500 there was.

[ifrit05]

I was looking into maybe getting a 3.1 kickstart. Should I or just stick with 1.2?

[demolition]

Again, depends on what you want to do with the Amiga. If you just want to play games from floppy, then you should probably just stick with 1.2 as 3.1 will only mean problems with compatibility and no real benefit. KS3.1 is only really useful if you want to use Workbench or other tools.
To get the clock working again, you can install something like this:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...oducts_id=1093

Then you can install a common CR2032 cell. Notice that a lithium cell cannot be charged and may in fact explode if you try to charge it, which is why this board has a diode on it to prevent charging of the battery.

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I'd be inclined to look after that one, and try not to damage it at all.

Kickstart 1.2 Amigas are pretty rare beasts as it is, pretty much the most compatible A500 there was.

lol - I'm about to sell my A500's, one has KS1.2 and the other KS1.3.

Did offer them on here but no one was interested so soon to go on eBay.

I'm more inclined to start using my A600 once I get it out of storage after so many years because it occupies less space and has harddrive

[Superman]

If your Rev 5 is NTSC then you won't be able to use the ACA500 card as it has compatibility issues with this.

[ifrit05]

I went ahead and bought a Gotek Floppy Emulator and a TTL cable to program it. Should be here around April-ish. Also bought a Amiga RGB to Scart cable (with audio) from AmiKit. I have a Scart to HDMI converter so it shouldn't be an issue.

Originally Posted by demolition

Again, depends on what you want to do with the Amiga. If you just want to play games from floppy, then you should probably just stick with 1.2 as 3.1 will only mean problems with compatibility and no real benefit. KS3.1 is only really useful if you want to use Workbench or other tools.

I'm mostly going to use it for games but I do want to get Workbench 3.1 at least running on it.

Originally Posted by demolition

To get the clock working again, you can install something like this:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...oducts_id=1093

Then you can install a common CR2032 cell. Notice that a lithium cell cannot be charged and may in fact explode if you try to charge it, which is why this board has a diode on it to prevent charging of the battery.

I might go for this... Depends on if I don't mind not having a functional clock every time I boot the machine up.

Originally Posted by Superman

If your Rev 5 is NTSC then you won't be able to use the ACA500 card as it has compatibility issues with this.

I was actually thinking about going the Kipper2k route anyways after reading about that.

[Zippy Zapp]

Originally Posted by ifrit05

I was actually thinking about going the Kipper2k route anyways after reading about that.

Hi. According to his website he is making a dual kickstart board that can have 1.3 and 3.1 in place. Check it out here, might be a good option:

http://www.kipper2k.com/kickstarts.html

If you had enough ram, you could also install a 3.1 rom and then use a software kickstart like Relokick. I have used that plenty of times to play older games on my A1200 that would not run without the older kickstart.

Have fun with your new system!