Amiga 500/500Plus - What's in your Amiga?
Its always useful to be able to identify the model
of an Amiga. If its a Plus it says it on the label.
The trap door on the base is your first port of call
for hidden treasures.
You always kinda hoped there would be a memory card in
there with 512K to expand your A500 to 1MB
Always worth checking that the serial tag says the same
thing as the main badge. I've had machines with an
upper case of a Plus with the inside of an A500.
The dilemma of a warranty sticker. If still sealed
on an A500 is a rarity and so do you break it.
And if on an A500 Plus probably means the battery
has leaked all over the motherboard destroying it.
Only a minor point but do use the correct screwdriver.
Last thing you want is a screw with a damaged head.
I'm not going to discuss the keyboard, shielding
or the floppy drive. They are pretty obvious.
However if you find an accelerator inside you
really have hit the jackpot.
Even better an accelerator with a RAM card.
This is a Viper CD with a hard drive.
This is a Mega Midget. Just so rare.
The AT-Once is a PC emulator card.
And this is a PowerPC emulator card.
OK on a more pedestrian level inside the
trapdoor you may find a RAM card. Note the switch.
The RAM card could be quite small and the switch
simply switches it on and off.
Bigger boards for the Plus.
And some home brew modifications.
The legendary A501 by Commodore which normally
sits in a silver steel casing and had the dreaded
battery. It is the A501 that was incorporated
onto the A500 Plus motherboard so giving the
machine a battery backed up clock and a ticking
time bomb in the form of a battery that has
destroyed so many A500 Plus machines.
Some cards had SIM memory modules.
And many had the dreaded battery.
A battery for a clock.
Always worth checking which ROM is fitted.
The A500 Plus always has the battery.
Hopefully this has been removed. It really serves
no purpose other than providing a clock.
Next up we have a ROM Switcher.
The ROM switcher gives you two ROMs on the same
machine and is either changed by use of a switch
or a keypress.
Neat that you can have a 1.3 and 2.04 ROM.
This A500 has a ROM Switcher and a MegaCHIP
which upgrades the AGNUS to handle more CHIP RAM.
Watch out for those wires they could be linked
to an internal chip adapter on say the GARY chip.
They also could be connected to an external on/off switch.
Its interesting finding out just what the wires do.
Often the ROM Switchers are activated externally.
The case is modified to incorporate the switch.
This simple RAM on/off switch is in the trapdoor bay.
Be wary assuming wires have no purpose cus this
little spiders web ensures the machine works.
One machine I have is covered in hot glue.
This GARY modification allows the memory
in the trap door bay to be used as CHIP RAM.
More hot glue and modifications to the AGNUS to
give 2MB CHIP RAM
And even more hot glue holding down extra RAM.
The case base may be different to the upper case.
It was common to acquire an A500 Plus base and stick
an A500 top case, keyboard onto it. Note the subtle
shade difference in the plastic.
These types of plastic riser were used to gain
more space under the shielding.
Watch out for staining in the base of an Amiga.
suggests its been stored in the wet or had fluids
topped over the keyboard.
Dreaded battery damage.
Battery damage is a killer.
Just some of the motherboards that didn't make it.
Corrosion to the GARY socket.
Corrosion to the AGNUS and ROM socket. All from
a leaking battery.
Thankfully I have a lot of Amiga 500 machines.
Simply an amazing collection of A500 computers.
All a product of those early auction days when I
went hunting for those inner hidden treasures.
