Thinking of buying an Amiga 500, should I?

[Shannon]

I used to have an amiga 500, 2000, and 1200. The 500 and 2000 were all pimped out and the 1200 was pretty much factory.

 

Boy do I regret selling them. Sigh.

 

At the time an Amiga 500 with 1 meg could outperform a 16mhz 386sx with 4 megs of RAM. (I think I got the specs right).

 

On thing I liked about the 1200 was it's de-interlaced modes. But nothing beats the 500 with a 1.3 kickstart for compatibility. My 500 had one of those multi kickstart modules so I had the best of both worlds.

 

Pc's did not get my respect until the advent of VGA (for graphics), and Winblows 95 (for multitasking). Until then the Amiga held it's own pretty wel (except for those damn guru errors).

Edited December 12, 2005 by Shannon

[elliott]

I have a A1000 that I picked up complete KB,Mouse,1MB Ram, 2nd 3.5 drive, etc. for $5.

 

I recently picked up a huge lot of Amiga disks off ebay cheap, I have Kickstart and Workbench 1.1-1.3 and a few extras and demos from Amiga.

 

My favorite games so far are:

Populous (I like it on SNES but it really needs a mouse)

Lemmings

Cosmic Relief

Road Rash

Street Fighter

Double Dragon

 

I have a few text adventures that are pretty interesting.

 

I am trying to find someone that can help me transfer from my PC to my Amiga. I don't have CrossDos or anything else.

Edited December 12, 2005 by elliott

[bedouin]

I picked up the Amiga today. It came with a box full of disks (hundreds), an external drive, ram expansion, and a bunch of other goodies (like an audio capture device that uses the parallel part). Everything seems to be working well, though I need to read up on using an Amiga to get the most out of it.

 

I found this chip in the box and I'm not sure what it does. Any ideas? Is it a ROM chip or something?

[+remowilliams]

I found this chip in the box and I'm not sure what it does.  Any ideas?  Is it a ROM chip or something?

981514[/snapback]

That I believe is a Gary chip from the Amiga.

 

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1461

[bedouin]

So why might that have been in the box? Why would it need replaced?

[Ze_ro]

I might be wrong here, but I believe replacing that chip was one of the steps you had to go through when doing the memory upgrade. The previous owner probably decided to keep it for whatever reason (My brother did the same with any of the chips he changed in his Amiga too). You likely won't ever need it.

 

--Zero

[LocalH]

Since you said you needed to bone up on the Amiga, here's a good resource for Amiga technical information.

[classicgamingguy]

I was more into the C-64 when I was younger, but I have fond memories of my Atari 800XL. I was always on that system playing something or other. But in firm first place was my C-64, with Wasteland and a myriad of other games. I did have an Amiga at one point, but it got laid by the wayside in favor of the old C-64 and Wasteland, which I literally hauled the whole computer system over to my friend's house frequently so we could all gather around the monitor and "take turns" role-playing our characters.

 

Steve

[MegaManFan]

I found this chip in the box and I'm not sure what it does.  Any ideas?  Is it a ROM chip or something?

981514[/snapback]

That I believe is a Gary chip from the Amiga.

 

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1461

981533[/snapback]

 

That link is 404'd.

[+remowilliams]

That link is 404'd.

983806[/snapback]

Apparently the whole site is down. Oops

 

"The Big Book of Amiga Hardware

 

Firstly, apologies for the previous message. It was written as a quick placeholder in the early hours of the morning and I needed to sleep. The site has been taken down because I received a copyright violation notice from the author of a driver. Perhaps it was foolish of me to offer such things for download. The site has always been non-profit, is ad-banner free and has cost me a lot in the 7 years it has been running in both time and money. It is also the product of hundreds of contributors who have taken the time and effort to send submissions. It's for these reasons that I would like the site to return, however I need to decide whether it's worth the risk and if so what alterations need to be made. "

[kevin242]

I might be wrong here, but I believe replacing that chip was one of the steps you had to go through when doing the memory upgrade. The previous owner probably decided to keep it for whatever reason (My brother did the same with any of the chips he changed in his Amiga too). You likely won't ever need it.

 

--Zero

983004[/snapback]

 

No chip has to be replaced to install a ram card in an A500. You simply insert

the card into the trapdoor slot under the machine.

Edited December 17, 2005 by kevin242

[kevin242]

I have a A1000 that I picked up complete KB,Mouse,1MB Ram, 2nd 3.5 drive, etc. for $5.

 

I recently picked up a huge lot of Amiga disks off ebay cheap, I have Kickstart and Workbench 1.1-1.3 and a few extras and demos from Amiga.

 

My favorite games so far are:

Populous (I like it on SNES but it really needs a mouse)

Lemmings

Cosmic Relief

Road Rash

Street Fighter

Double Dragon

 

I have a few text adventures that are pretty interesting.

 

I am trying to find someone that can help me transfer from my PC to my Amiga. I don't have CrossDos or anything else.

980989[/snapback]

 

Some other Amiga games you might like:

 

Flashback

Out of this world (aka Another world)

Chaos Engine I and II

Cannon Fodder (if you like lemmings, you'll love this)

Alien Breed II deluxe (the orig is good too)

Shadow of the Beast II and III

Leander

Project X (deluxe edition is best)

 

 

that's a few I can think of off hand, all classic Amiga games.

[NightSprinter]

I'll chime in again with my A500 picks:

 

R-Type (though you really ned a 2-button stick for the pod unit in the game)

 

DynaBlaster (BomberMan to those of us outside of Europe, like me, but you need to build a 4-player adapter)

 

Gauntlet II (ditto here on the 4-player part)

 

Ghosts 'n Goblins (just a fantastic port..)

 

Turrican Series

 

Lemmings

 

Lemmings 2: The Tribes

 

Pang

 

I'll edit this post as I think up of more stuff.

[liveinabin]

I liked :

Pinball Dreams

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (the Amiga version was always the best)

Speedball (much preferred the first game)

F-18 Interceptor

 

i think the Amiga must be the cheapest computer you can buy in UK at the moment. Everyone had one (consoles weren't nearly so popular here) and they're not seen to be 'retro' enough yet, so they're worthless

I still have my A500 but I never use it (damn thing is HUGE)

[LocalH]

I might be wrong here, but I believe replacing that chip was one of the steps you had to go through when doing the memory upgrade. The previous owner probably decided to keep it for whatever reason (My brother did the same with any of the chips he changed in his Amiga too). You likely won't ever need it.

 

--Zero

983004[/snapback]

 

No chip has to be replaced to install a ram card in an A500. You simply insert

the card into the trapdoor slot under the machine.

984418[/snapback]

It may have been required for some 3rd-party above-1MB RAM upgrades, but not for any of the 512K RAM cards that came out (since the A500 was designed for this to begin with). Also, it's not this situation, but there's also an Agnus replacement necessary for 1MB or 2MB chip RAM, last I remember (for 1MB you just had to upgrade the Agnus and change a jumper, but 2MB required a small daughtercard).

[Shannon]

Did that chip have to be replaced in order to make the 1 meg RAM all chip memory?

[LocalH]

No, as I said, that was an Agnus upgrade - you also had to upgrade to at least an 8372 Agnua to have switchable PAL/NTSC capability. And if you do this, it's also a good idea to upgrade to an 8373 Super Denise, which will basically upgrade your machine to ECS. Here is an example of part of a RAM upgrade that goes in the Gary socket, although the Gary still plugs into the daughtercard, so I still don't know why there would be a loose Gary. It'd either be a spare or a bad chip, as I can tell.

[kevin242]

It may have been required for some 3rd-party above-1MB RAM upgrades, but not for any of the 512K RAM cards that came out (since the A500 was designed for this to begin with). Also, it's not this situation, but there's also an Agnus replacement necessary for 1MB or 2MB chip RAM, last I remember (for 1MB you just had to upgrade the Agnus and change a jumper, but 2MB required a small daughtercard).

984576[/snapback]

 

 

nope you could upgrade an A500 to 8megs of fast memory without any chip

replacement. At least using any of the sidecar ram expanders (the most commen)

I do not know any details regarding internal ram exp but those add ons were not

commen.

 

 

If you had an older A500 it was necessary to replace Agnus

to get a full meg of chip ram. Most A500's had the Fat Agnus already and needed

only a solder job to enable the extra 512k as chip ram.

 

 

 

BTW even my old A1000 (which was like 136 of the line) (and I unfort sold 15 years

ago!) could switch to PAL. No upgrade to Agnus was needed. This functionality

could be implemented in software on any Amiga.

Edited December 19, 2005 by kevin242

[bedouin]

Okay, dumb question.

 

Is there any way to turn the 500 on and off at the main unit, not via the power supply?

[+remowilliams]

Okay, dumb question.

 

Is there any way to turn the 500 on and off at the main unit, not via the power supply?

985147[/snapback]

No - but remember you can reboot with Control-Amiga-Amiga keys.

[LocalH]

nope you could upgrade an A500 to 8megs of fast memory without any chip

replacement.  At least using any of the sidecar ram expanders (the most commen)

I do not know any details regarding internal ram exp but those add ons were not

commen.

I didn't say you had to do that for all RAM expansions, just on some 3rd-party internal expansions.

 

 

If you had an older A500 it was necessary to replace Agnus

to get a full meg of chip ram.  Most A500's had the Fat Agnus already and needed

only a solder job to enable the extra 512k as chip ram.

 

BTW even my old A1000 (which was like 136 of the line) (and I unfort sold 15 years

ago!) could switch to PAL.  No upgrade to Agnus was needed.  This functionality

could be implemented in software on any Amiga.

985047[/snapback]

Hm, that's odd, because I used to have an OCS A2000, and could NOT enter PAL-modes at all until I upgraded the Agnus to an 8372. Of course, while I was at it, I also changed the 512K of slowfast into chip RAM. I didn't upgrade the Denise, however, and so I had problems with PAL in a multitasking environment, but software that took over the machine and hit the hardware directly had no problems with PAL on my old 1084S.

 

Also, if you're actually wanting to be able to power the machine off without reaching for the power supply, just get one of those power strips designed to sit under your monitor. I've got one that I've had for about 10 years now that still works perfectly.

[kevin242]

Hm, that's odd, because I used to have an OCS A2000, and could NOT enter PAL-modes at all until I upgraded the Agnus to an 8372. Of course, while I was at it, I also changed the 512K of slowfast into chip RAM. I didn't upgrade the Denise, however, and so I had problems with PAL in a multitasking environment, but software that took over the machine and hit the hardware directly had no problems with PAL on my old 1084S.

 

Also, if you're actually wanting to be able to power the machine off without reaching for the power supply, just get one of those power strips designed to sit under your monitor. I've got one that I've had for about 10 years now that still works perfectly.

985178[/snapback]

 

 

It was a while ago. I could be wrong, but I could of sworn that A1000 could do pal

mode.

[Quadhorn]

I'll chime in again with my A500 picks:

 

......(snip).....

 

I'll edit this post as I think up of more stuff.

984437[/snapback]

 

_TwinWorld_; happy platformer.

 

And surely there were ports of Elite 'I' and 'II'...

[Aaron]

I still have an Amiga 500 and 1200, though the 500 never sees any use (a 1200 with some extra ram and a big hard drive makes an _excellent_ game machine).

Anyway, if you need a joystick, the Epyx 500XJ is quite good. I've also heard you can use Genesis pads with it, though there might have been some rewiring involved. The Atari 7800 sticks work with 90% of the games I have (they don't like Psygnosis for some reason).

 

Here's a few game recommendations off the top of my head (plus what's already been said). Most (all?) of these are freely available if you look around.

Syndicate

Lionheart

Disposable Hero

Poing (freeware)

Hired Guns

Black Crypt

[kevin242]

Here's a few game recommendations off the top of my head (plus what's already been said).  Most (all?) of these are freely available if you look around.

Syndicate

Lionheart

Disposable Hero

Poing (freeware)

Hired Guns

Black Crypt

988449[/snapback]

 

 

I forgot all about Lionheart that is a great game!