YERZMYEY
Offline
The Rubber Man

At last - a really impressive (and cheap!!) booster for A500.
It's called ACA500 and You can read about it here:
http://scoopex1988.org/the-scoop-examin … ca500.html

- 2 kickstarts on-board: standard 1.3 and..... 3.1! smile
- 2 CF cards: on the left - a card for transferring data from/to PC. On the right - the main CF that is Amiga's HDD. This HDD is *BOOTABLE*!
- CPU booster - 14Mhz (!!).
- additional 2Mb of RAM. It doesn't "fight" with the standard RAM, so on A500 1Mb You should have 3Mb in general. And 4Mb on Amiga500 Plus.
- the additional slot is....... for A1200 cards! smile So You can have even faster A500, if required. smile

I bought mine several days ago and it came yesterday. I installed there Workbench 3.1 and... it works excellent. smile Will be testing OctaMED 4.0 (after first tries it has no problems working smile ).

Last edited by YERZMYEY (Dec 13, 2013 12:49 pm)

TSC
Offline
Milwaukee, WI

Awesome. The prices of other Amigas have surged into ridiculous territory. 500s are relatively cheap.

thebitman
Offline
TSC wrote:

Awesome. The prices of other Amigas have surged into ridiculous territory. 500s are relatively cheap.

A year ago I asked CCDM what I should pay for a A1200. He told me if I didn't buy one in the next two years I would probably never find one, let alone afford it here in the States. I'm looking into 600's and 500's now because I've never seen a A1200 sell for less than $300. <_< but I might not be looking in the right places.

EDIT: speellin'

Last edited by thebitman (Dec 13, 2013 4:11 pm)

TSC
Offline
Milwaukee, WI

Yeah, we've talked at length about this and I agree 110%. Prices in the states are absolutely absurd. I actually went to look at 500 prices after I posted and I have to admit A500 prices are creeping up too. An Amiga shouldn't be any more than $75 *maybe* $100. Even then, you'll have to make another residual investment of $75-$100 at least.

Two years ago an A500 could be had for $20. Not so much now. Having said that, Individual Computers is a great brand.

As far as Amiga music usage - buy a cheap netbook, stick with an emulator and run it through a cheap Aphex 104 or something. Same difference.

LamptonWorm
Offline
United Kingdom

Nice bit of kit that. Cool.

Cheers,
LW.

DESUMATE
Offline
thebitman wrote:

I've never seen a A1200 sell for less than $300.

I literally just bought a 1200 for $250 and $70 shipping.
It did have a cf card installed and a bit more ram.
But still so ridiculous.
Also I don't like how it sticks out of the PCIMCIA port. Looks ugly.

Last edited by DESUMATE (Dec 13, 2013 10:46 pm)

XyNo
Offline
Joliette, QC, Canada
DESUMATE wrote:
thebitman wrote:

I've never seen a A1200 sell for less than $300.

I literally just bought a 1200 for $250 and $70 shipping.
It did have a cf card installed and a bit more ram.
But still so ridiculous.
Also I don't like how it sticks out of the PCIMCIA port. Looks ugly.

sounds like you got it on amigakit am I right ?! tongue

DESUMATE
Offline
XyNo wrote:

sounds like you got it on amigakit am I right ?! tongue

Nope.
I'm pretty sure they've been out of stock for quite some time now.
Also there shipping is crazy expensive.

YERZMYEY
Offline
The Rubber Man

Hmmmmmmmmm.
Sadly, if You have just an Amiga500 1Mb (standard), the board will be no use for entertainment: most demos nor games don't work.
Only utilities (like mine the main tool - the OctaMED). I've just discovered it.

YERZMYEY
Offline
The Rubber Man

OK, not for ALL Amiga 500 computers but for some of them (worked on mine!!!!! wink ).

How to "increase Yourself" wink Your ChipRam to have 1Mb for samples.


Jens Wrote:
____________________
A simple way to extend your chipram to 1MByte is to use an ECS Agnus and activate the "Chipmap" feature of the ACA500. The stock firmware of the ACA500 does not activate Chipmap yet. However, the latest version does:
http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/File:Menu500_V081.zip

Unpack that archive to a FAT-formatted CF card, insert the card into the AUX slot and remove any card from the Boot slot. Start the computer, press F10 for expert menu, then F for flash update. Follow the instructions on screen. After the update, it will activate ChipMap if you have an ECS Agnus, so you can use 1MByte Chipram.
____________________


So I asked my friend JAD how to check the Agnus out and he informed me there is a prog "WhichAmiga":
http://aminet.net/package/util/moni/WhichAmiga

I tested my machine and I saw this:
"Custom Animation Chip: ECS PAL Fatter Agnus 8372A, 1Mb".

So - it should work.

I re-flashed the ACA500, like Jens suggested.

And........... IT WORKED! wink Now I have 1Mb of ChipRam and 1,5Mb of FastRam.
Also, additionally, I intend to buy the ACA1220 card, to get 128Mb of Fast and 020 CPU, heheh.

YERZMYEY
Offline
The Rubber Man

Yupp. Now the interface works juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust fine.
http://soundcloud.com/yerzmyey/yerzmyey-give-it