My Commodore A500+ restore project

vanpeebles · 10 Jul 2018 at 07:55

That is glowing! Now what games are you going to play?

wigster · 10 Jul 2018 at 08:03

Back in the day i had a sinclair ZX spectrum then the commodore 64.

SupraWez · 10 Jul 2018 at 10:07

Does look like new, nice work

Hades · 10 Jul 2018 at 14:38

Nice. Is the GVP the accelerator too? I had the accelerator and (I think) HDD with it.

Duke · 10 Jul 2018 at 16:32

vanpeebles said:
That is glowing! Now what games are you going to play?

I'm limited to the ones I've borrowed at the moment but going back the my favourites that would be Pinball Dreams/Fantasies, Zool, Project X, X-Out, Lemmings, Turrican, Lotus, Superfrog, Cannon Fodder, Alien Breed '92... thats just a quick list off the top of my head

Hades said:
Nice. Is the GVP the accelerator too? I had the accelerator and (I think) HDD with it.

No, just HDD and Fast Memory (which I don't think counts?). I'm not sure which game use the fast mem, I got it just as a way of having a HDD connection to later put in a CF card instead

Just need to get the FDD working and not smoking

Armageus · 10 Jul 2018 at 16:42

Duke said:
Just need to get the FDD working and not smoking

Potentially daft one, but the FDD cable is the right way up?
(I seem to remember that although the connector is "keyed", a lot of Floppy drives tended to have keyways that allowed it to be inserted either way up anyway)

Duke · 11 Jul 2018 at 14:02

Armageus said:
Potentially daft one, but the FDD cable is the right way up?
(I seem to remember that although the connector is "keyed", a lot of Floppy drives tended to have keyways that allowed it to be inserted either way up anyway)

I doubled checked for my sanity and they are the correct way - both power and data are keyed. I think I will open up the FDD out of curiosity and see if anything obvious has gone inside and connect up the spare PSU instead and stand back...

Duke · 12 Jul 2018 at 16:35

Today I took apart the two duff FDDs. The first is the one in my Amiga, which didn't audible go pop, but just smelt bad after being powered on for a minute. The second is my friends one which is a different make and design drive.

On the back of the PCB you can see its burnt out.

And didn't take long to see this was the chip responsible.

This is as close as I can get in focus with my phone but shows the top has popped. I looked up the number on the top but nothing came up. Although I wouldn't have the skills to resolder something that small anyway.

And this is my friends one where I couldn't see anything blacked out but the surround of a capacitor dropped off when I took the PCB apart, exposing the inside. I'm guessing that is the problem and might be able to replace that.

I think for now I will get the HD working and get some games going whilst deciding how to proceed in fixing / replacing the FDD.

Ian_Eb · 12 Jul 2018 at 16:47

I may have a pile of 3.5" drives lying around if you need one.

Duke · 12 Jul 2018 at 16:53

Hey, that would be great. I found a site with compatible ones so if you have moment to list the make and model of them that'll be cool.

vanpeebles · 13 Jul 2018 at 07:55

Second one looks more than fixable, leaky cap to replace. Might be worth keeping the first one in case you get one with a good board but faulty drive part.

I got my A500 now too! I'll put some pics up tonight if you don't mind. I need a new membrane though, and one key plunger is cracked and sticks. Works very well using one of those rgb sart to HDMI boxes, I mentioned

Ian_Eb · 13 Jul 2018 at 09:51

Will have a look and dig some out.

Duke · 13 Jul 2018 at 19:05

vanpeebles said:
I got my A500 now too! I'll put some pics up tonight if you don't mind. I need a new membrane though, and one key plunger is cracked and sticks. Works very well using one of those rgb sart to HDMI boxes, I mentioned

Nice, go for it

vanpeebles · 13 Jul 2018 at 19:48

I splashed out and got a HC508 add on too!

SupraWez · 13 Jul 2018 at 22:01

Very nice, can play games off CF card?

vanpeebles · 13 Jul 2018 at 22:03

Yeah! it came with wb installed etc etc. It just acts like a normal hard drive, it also has an ide port if needed. I'm still finding my feet with it, total amiga noob!

CaptainRAVE · 13 Jul 2018 at 22:07

Stunt car! Amazing game. I was rubbish.

vanpeebles · 13 Jul 2018 at 22:10

I'm struggling with it loads, I was a master at it on the speccy, but all the speeds seem different. I knew all the speeds for all the jumps on the speccy one

SupraWez · 13 Jul 2018 at 22:12

vanpeebles said:
Yeah! it came with wb installed etc etc. It just acts like a normal hard drive, it also has an ide port if needed. I'm still finding my feet with it, total amiga noob!

Very nice.

Duke · 13 Jul 2018 at 22:22

I’ve got a CF card and IDE adapter coming tomorrow. There are two common WB type setups to try and you connect the CF card to your PC first and format/partition it in WinUAE and can then attach it to the Amiga. This is easy with an A600 or A1200 as they came with an IDE header inside but as I have the HD addon, I can do it on the A500+. You can buy cards all done for you but it was £45 odd which seemed a lot, so trying it myself first for ~£15.

edit: gg Royal Mail, looks like it'll be Monday now