Amiga 500 Ultra build

Amiga 500 Ultra case

Ordered a Crystal (transparent) injection moulded replacement case for my Amiga 500. To complement the crystal case I put the side-car accelerator in.

Amiga OS 3.2 installation 💾

 

Kickstart ROM v1.3 removed...

Modified Kickstart ROM v3.2 to be installed...

Kickstart ROM v3.2 installed in motherboard...

Kickstart 3.2 + Workbench 3.2 version info

Apparently v3.1 coded applications work on v3.2 👌😎

Amiga OS 3.2 💾

 

Time to upgrade both my Amiga's I guess :P
https://www.ctrlaa.com/#!/pictures

• Amiga 500 (Rev6a)
  w/ACA500Plus 42MHz accelerator
  Dual CF card storage
  
  
• Amiga 600
  w/Furia 44MHz accelerator
  CF card storage

AmigaOS C development

Cross-compilation on x64 Linux >> m68k AmigaOS.



AmigaOS C program source-code.

Executing cross-compiled window program on AmigaOS.

 

Yet another Amiga...

 Yeah, I definitely have a problem 😂😂

Got a hold of another Amiga computer, this time an A600, basically an upgraded A500+ in a much smaller form-factor.

Visit my A600 Photos album:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/GpWQ2PTzQ7vjjTgc7

A very fine specimen, re-capped and equipped for many more years of fun and operation 😎

Amiga 500 cap-kits

Got a hold on some spare capacitor-kits for my Amiga 500 Rev 6a, so I should be safe for a couple of more years at least 👌💀

I just love it that in 2020, I can still get replacement supplies for an over 30+ year-old multimedia computer.

Dedicated fans who love the system so much, that they spend their own time gathering together supply-kits to offer back to the community.

The community around Commodore-stuff, is just wonderful 😊 reminds me quite a lot of the Linux community. If you have a need, and there are no available solutions, you MAKE them.

Replacement component kits, replacement chassies, new-old microchip stocks, modification-kits, accelerator boards, "trapdoor" memory-boards and whatever else you could desire.

#BetterSafeThanSorry #CommodoreAmiga

Amiga A500 + 1084S

Finally got my A500 setup complete, like I used to have 😄

Amigan Joy

Streaming- / recording-setup
Flylink HD > HDMI splitter > USB 3.0 HDMI capture-dongle. Allowing for FHD (1080p/60Hz) streaming / recording. Hidden on the lower shelf of the top bench with the joyboards and dustcover.

Arcade Evolution Amiga joy-boards
DB9-connected arcade-sticks for the Amiga computers.

Commodore Amiga 500 Rev 6a
Upgraded from OCS to ECS (relative to 500+ specs, HiRes Denise + Fatter Agnus), 1MB chipram and a FlashFloppy USB floppy-emulator board (replacing the 3.5" floppy-drive).

ACA500plus accelerator side-cart
With dual CF-card reader and 7MB fastram allowing the use of Workbench v1.3, v2.1 and v3.1 (/v3.1.4 by Hyperion) and GUI-launching of HDD-installed games with WHDLoad.

JoySticks no more...

Competition Pro + ZipStik Joysticks for the Amiga computers.

30 year-old controllers have limited usability, I am fully aware of this... but I didn't think newly re-fitted joysticks would give up after only 2-3 months of use.

They did...

Then again, I am not a little kid anymore. These were built for kids, and surely not anticipated to last for 30+ years.

Guess I'll have to order some arcade-quality joystick-boards. Boards because I really like these kinds of controllers to have a solid base, keeping it from jiggling around in-use. And arcade-quality to ensure they outlast my Amiga-computer for sure.

I already decided on the maker and type.

Arcade Evolution Amiga Joystick

https://amigakit.amiga.store/product_info.php?products_id=1172

Ctrl+A+A

https://www.ctrlaa.com/

~--// AMiGA 500 \\--~

I am finally an Amigan again! Not that emulation hasn't worked the last 10-11 years 😛  almost native speed these days (with input-lag of course).

I have to admit though, having the original hardware cannot be beat.

Original Amiga 500 - Norwegian keyboard version.

512 KB memory-expansion PCB.

RGB>SCART converter cable with L/R RCA sound-plugs.

Getting an Amiga to display (correctly) on a big screen LCD TV (40-60" with decent built-in scaler), requires an RGB + RCA (stereo sound) > SCART adapter-cable, as shown in the picture above. The scaler in the TV also has to support sub-480p resolutions, as the Amiga outputs from 320×256 (mainly used for games) to 640×512 for PAL (704×576 with over-scan).

The video below shows the picture-output in 16:9-format, which is incorrect.

Video of the game "Jumping Jack 'Son", loading a "cracktro"

The video above (excuse the quality, I used my Google Pixel XL to record it 😛 I don't own any fancy capture-equipment / -cards) depicts what was (at the time) a very normal sight.

Back in the day (late 80s / early 90s) cracking crews left a "business card" on their cracked software distributions (3.5" diskettes).

Diskettes loading what is now called a "cracktro" (or "crack intro").

"A small introduction sequence added to cracked software. It aims to inform the user which "cracking crew" or individual cracker removed the software's copy protection and distributed the crack. Such intros grew very complex, sometimes exceeding the size and complexity of the software itself." (ref. wikipedia).

"Crack intros only became more sophisticated on more advanced systems such as the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, and some IBM PC clone systems with sound cards. These intros feature big, colorful effects, music, and scrollers."

Kickstart v1.3 ROM installed.

Thank the powers that be for aspect-ratio control 😊 running the Amiga 500 at 16:9 did NOT look good (just look at the cracktro-video above for an example), 4:3 please! Thank you Sony!

"Cable-management"

ZipStick®

1987 ZipStick® joystick. This yellow buttoned joystick uses micro-switches and has a triple fire action, and is THE best joystick I have ever used / abused. It can withstand practically ANYTHING!

Got hold of a near-mint copy (a few scratches on the housing and dirt beneath the screws), which tested OK and working on an Amiga A600 + Amiga A1200. SCORE!

Amiga-gaming will be a pleasure with this accessory! ;) :D

AMiGA fanboy; guilty.

I just got an awaited shipment from the UK:

Amiga "Rainbow Double-Check"-logo T-shirt

Workbench | 'Insert diskette' screen T-shirt

Representin' ;D

After re-playing a heap of my all-time favorite Amiga-games on my RetroPie (RPi3), I thought I'd do a little post honoring the 80s/90s gaming-computer. Mainly, the Amiga 500.

No other computer-system has ever had this big an impact on my life, my preferences and my esthetic sense.

To give a little intro about the Amiga 500: it was launched as a compact, home game-computer in the mid-1980s. The Amiga 500 had everything from motherboard/CPU to add-on-chips and keyboard integrated into one plastic casing.

People mostly hooked it up to their TV with an extra peripheral called the RF-modulator, but was also sold with an Commodore-branded CRT-monitor (see picture below), that even sported integrated stereo speakers(!).

Commodore Amiga 500 - 'System 1'

At the time (late 80s) Amiga was unmatched in animation and sound, mostly due to their use of specialty chain-chips (separate chips co-working in a process-chain), but also thanks to a massive (for the time) homebrew-scene (the demo-scene).

The Amiga 500 demonstrated graphics-powers unmatched by similar 8-/16-bit systems at the time. As the Amiga 500 had over 300.000 units sold by 1990, it had established itself as a massively popular home-computer across Europe. But due to scepticism and poor advertising, not so good in the US.

Amiga set itself apart from other computer systems, just like Apple. For example, the PC-dominating three-finger salute, is performed differently on Amiga-systems: Ctrl + Left Amiga + Right Amiga.

It also sported co-processors (additional processors other than the CPU) for various tasks that made this computer way ahead of its time. Today's computers--for example--almost always include co-processors (like GPUs), much like the Amiga series did back in the 80s and 90s. Only difference being that the co-processors in the Amigas were DIP-chips soldered directly to the actual motherboard, whereas modern GPUs are individually contained system-cards, sporting their own FPU-chips+G-RAM that just slot into modern motherboard PCI-express slots and uses the motherboard north/south bridge-connections to communicate with the CPU(s) / RAM.

The 90s brought the demo-scene community that grew out of the 80s, eagerly showcasing the Amiga as a competitive computer-system by making byte-sized (68000 assembly-coded), elaborate animated/scored demonstration-applications, coined "demos", thus; the demo-scene.

---

One of my most memorable demos was this "cracktro" by Unit A:

Another more recent (2010) demo by Razor1911:

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The Amiga was also one of the last, true ROM-based computers (the operating system was located on a ROM-chip on-board, much like our Android/iOS-smartphones today, and other micro-computers of the late 80s (Apple), hard-drives cost an arm and a leg in those days, very expensive) that sported accompanying diskette(s) containing the Workbench graphical desktop environment by itself. Original, to say the least.

The Amiga Workbench was a multi-tasking desktop environment. Shown running a background-application (Boing) behind the Workbench-UI.

Commodore Amiga Workbench 1.3 (w/"Boing" running in back)

It also loaded and ran games straight from 3½ inch floppy disks (usually 880 KB format). The game-data was loaded from the floppy into Amiga-memory and consequently executed.

The picture below shows the Amiga-screen that shows if you didn't load Workbench from floppy, indicating you had to load a floppy for something to happen.

Commodore Amiga 'Insert diskette' load-screen

Commodore Amiga Boing Ball, animated gif representation
--------
It was a major feat when made in the 80s. One animation done in bit-plane, one sound-sample run at varying speeds and sample-rates. All-together it made an animated scene with a bouncing ball in a pseudo-3d grid-room.

Commodore Amiga Guru Meditation
The Amiga equivalent of a BSOD on Windows and kernel panic on Linux

The only real caveats in these series of computers were the diskette-drive(s) and the power supply unit (PSU).

Commodore Amiga external Power Supply Unit

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As a curiosity, here is a rather rare picture from wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Unix):

Amiga Unix - System V Release 4 Amiga Version 2.0
Boot / Root installation-diskettes & tape

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As a treat, here is the best Amiga-videos I've found on YouTube:

• Firstly: my all-time favorite game
• Second: the Amiga Story told by The Nostalgia Nerd:

Turrican II: The Final Fight

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Amiga Story | Part 1 + Part 2

Lastly, a couple of Amiga-resources online:

• http://www.amiga.org/
• http://www.amigaworld.net/
• http://www.aminet.net/
• http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/