A500 RAM Expansion - any point to 2MB in the trapdoor?

[+OLD CS1]

1 hour ago, Koopa64 said:

Ok, so how do you get games loaded into WHDLoad? Do you go online with your A4000D and get ADF files that way?

My A4000D can go online, but for WHDLoad I use the original game floppies.

 

1 hour ago, Koopa64 said:

If one has nothing Amiga related besides an old Amiga, starting completely from scratch, you absolutely need a way to access an Amiga drive, Windows and Mac have nothing to deal with Fast File System and so on, that's where UAE is required.

I never touch my Amiga hard drives with a PC or Mac.  Everything I do is native, and all the tools you need are readily available.  If you need something not immediately available to the Amiga, then there are options which do not involve UAE.  In fact, the absolute worst case scenario for me involves CrossDOS (or fat95 filesystem,) the PC0: device, and a PC floppy disk.  I see what you are getting at, but this is not the only option.

 

1 hour ago, Koopa64 said:

Yes, it's convenient when finally set up... not convenient when starting from scratch.

Convenience is subjective.  I find setting up UAE for all these shenanigans foolish and impractical.  But, to each his own.

 

1 hour ago, Tuxon86 said:

The main problem is that whdload wasn't really made for the A500 in mind. You need to upgrade the main ram, the chip ram and the cpu (to a 68010 so that you can quit a game without rebooting). In some case you also have to upgrade the roms. WHDLoad is really made for the 600 and up of the Amiga line unless you like to make hardware mods.

This, though remember an un-expanded A600 is the same as an A500 but with IDE and a PCMCIA port.  A minimum stock machine for WHDLoad is really an A1200HD.  The minimum requirements for WHDLoad are:

• 68000 (68010 for a quit key)
• Kickstart 2.0
• 1MB RAM (though same games will require more)

[+OLD CS1]

On 12/27/2022 at 2:25 PM, remowilliams said:

WHDLoad and a menu system

For what does one need a menu system?  I just have a drawer called "Games" and drawer for each game within that.  Better than a menu, IMHO.

[RobertB]

On 12/27/2022 at 4:41 PM, OLD CS1 said:

This, though remember an un-expanded A600 is the same as an A500 but with IDE and a PCMCIA port.  A minimum stock machine for WHDLoad is really an A1200HD.  The minimum requirements for WHDLoad are:

• 68000 (68010 for a quit key)
• Kickstart 2.0
• 1MB RAM (though same games will require more)

I was able to run some WHDLoad games/demos with my A600 with the following specs --

 

68000

Kickstart/OS 3.1

2MB Chip RAM (no extra RAM)

 

However, when I switched to 3.2, the computer needed more RAM in order to run WHDLoad reliably.  I upped the A600 to --

 

2MB Chip RAM

4MB Fast RAM

 

Though some demos were "stuttering", that configuration also ran more WHDLoad games/demos than my minimum set-up.

 

Now the A600 is finally at

 

2MB Chip RAM

8MB Fast RAM

 

For the most part, the demos run more smoothly now.  SysInfo reports that the A600 has a nice bump in speed, now at 1.33 times the original minimum specs.

 

Happy New Year!

Robert Bernardo

Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan

April 15-16 Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2023 - http://www.portcommodore.com/class