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My Amiga 500: Back from the Shadows Part 2

10 Comments Posted by on September 21, 2011

Hi everyone,

Some of you might have read my post called My Amiga 500: Back from the Shadows. If you haven’t, you can find it by clicking on this link. The article is basically about the fact that my Amiga 500 has lived in the shadows of my Amiga 1200 and not seen any use for a long time. I therefore got the idea to give this computer a nice make-over, which I believe it deserves.

This make-over has now officially started and in this post you’ll get to see the first “before and after” photos of the machine.

My Amiga 500 before the start of the make-over (photo by Old School Game Blog)
Before: My Amiga 500 before the start of the make-over. (photo by Old School Game Blog)
My Amiga 500 before the start of the make-over (photo by Old School Game Blog)
Before: Here’s another one.. (photo by Old School Game Blog)

The machine doesn’t look too bad on the photos. I’ve kept it clean and it hasn’t been exposed to much sunlight either. I’ve therefore managed to avoid the dreaded yellowing of the plastic.

Let’s open the lid and see what’s inside..

My Amiga 500 before the start of the make-over (photo by Old School Game Blog)
Before: The metal shielding has taken some hits and there was dust in some places. Removed the dust. See that floppy disk drive? It’s not working properly and has something that looks like rust-spots. (photo by Old School Game Blog)

I’m ready to remove the floppy disk drive and install the brand new one I ordered from Vesalia (thanks guys!).

My Amiga 500 before the start of the make-over (photo by Old School Game Blog)
There.. the disk drive has been removed. (photo by Old School Game Blog)

For those of you who are interested, here’s a quick snapshot of the old drive. It doesn’t look nice at all. This one has loaded its last game of Badlands, that’s for sure.

The old floppy disk drive (photo by Old School Game Blog)
Here’s the old bugger! (photo by Old School Game Blog)

 Now I need to install the new drive. Here’s the result! :)

The new floppy disk drive from Vesalia (photo by Old School Game Blog)
After: It’s a “winner”! ;) (photo by Old School Game Blog)

The disk drive is one of the most important things on the machine, as I can’t really do anything without it. I don’t have a hard drive for my Amiga 500 yet, so I’m stuck with floppies. Fortunately I’ve got a hard drive for Amiga 1200.

Now for a little surprise..

Remember that KCS PowerPC card I bought from Flip at AmiBay? Well, I popped that one in before the floppy disk drive..

512KB memory card (photo by Old School Game Blog)
Before: The card that’s already installed is a 512KB memory expansion. The KCS PowerPC board does include more memory, so I’ll still be able to play games requiring 1MB of RAM. (photo by Old School Game Blog)
The KCS card (photo by Old School Game Blog)
After: There.. the KCS is in place and ready to run old-school PC software. (photo by Old School Game Blog)

If the Amiga 500 could talk, I’m sure it would be satisfied with this make-over. ;) Not only has it received a brand new drive, but also a nice retro emulation card.

Want to see the machine after this little make-over? Here it is!

After the make-over! (photo by Old School Game Blog)
After: My Amiga 500 with the KCS diskette (photo by Old School Game Blog)

The make-over is not complete though, as I’ve got a Kickstart ROM switch waiting to be installed. :) I’m also on the prowl for some cool add-ons for the machine. Part three will be coming up in he near future! Then we’ll also get to see it in action on my TV!

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New Floppy Disk Drive and PC Emulator

7 Comments Posted by on August 16, 2011

My Amiga 500 project is coming along nicely. A few days ago I received the KCS Power PC Board 500. A big thank you must fly out to Flip at AmiBay for a fair deal. :) It looks great and I can’t wait to install it in my Amiga 500. Here’s a couple of pictures of the beauty:

KCS Power PC Board 500, photo by Old-school Game Blog

KCS Power PC Board 500 with manual and floppy (photo by Old-school Game Blog)

The KCS Power PC Board close-up (photo by Old-school Game Blog)

A close-up of the board! (photo by Old-school Game Blog)

This is certainly an interesting piece of hardware. It will be exciting to see it in action!

You might also remember that I’ve had some problems with the internal floppy disk drive in my Amiga 500. Not anymore! Thanks to Vesalia (great Online shop that sells all kinds of Amiga and C64 stuff), I’ve got a brand new drive waiting to replace the old one. I’ve included a picture of it below:

My new floppy disk drive for the Amiga 500

Here's the floppy disk drive in all its glory (photo by Old-school Game Blog)

Sadly I haven’t had any luck obtaining a decent monitor for my setup, but I’m still looking. If it takes too long to find, I’m considering getting an old-school TV as a temporary solution. When I got my first Amiga I didn’t have a monitor anyway, so it will be just like old times. ;)

Before I stop writing, I just have to mention that I’ve installed a classic adventure game called The Flight of the Amazon Queen through ScummVM. Used to play this game on my Amiga 1200, but now I’m running it on the PC with speech. The humour in this game is simply awesome. :)

Amiga, Hardware , , , , , , , , , ,

My Amiga 500: Back from the Shadows

17 Comments Posted by on August 2, 2011
Amiga 500 Advertisement

Old Amiga 500 advertisement. Provided by Computer History Museum (http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/artifact/284/1558)

My Amiga 500 is making a return to its rightful place. It has been living in the shadows for too long, neglected and forgotten in favour of the Amiga 1200 and the PC. Now the time has come to pamper and spoil it 90′s style. In other words, I’m going to give this computer an extreme make-over!

Now, let’s have a quick peek at the current specifications:

Commodore Amiga 500

Kickstart  1.3

512KB of extra memory in the trapdoor slot

This is a very basic setup as you can see. It’s worth mentioning that the machine looks OK after all these years, but sadly everything is not as it should under the hood. It turns out the floppy disk drive is not working properly anymore. It needs replacing.

My plan is to upgrade it with the following components:

New floppy disk drive

Kickstart ROM-switcher (This makes it possible to use a newer Kickstart that opens up the possibility of using a more modern version of Workbench. It’s very handy for a lot of utilities, applications and so on. At the same time one can revert with ease to the old 1.3 version.)

KCS Power PC Board (Already purchased from a guy at AmiBay. This beauty will open up the world of PC emulation!)

Hard-disk (Need storage space. Can’t work without a hard-disk. A must have! There are plenty of units to choose from, but I dig the ones from GVP.)

That’s what I’ve planned until now. I’m already in the process of acquiring the necessary bits and pieces. :)

I’m going to make a blog post about the upgrading and do some “before and after” snapshots once I’ve received all the hardware. :)

If you’ve got any suggestions for additional stuff to enhance the computer with, please feel free to comment below. Thanks in advance!

Amiga, Hardware , , , , , , , ,

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