Amiga 1000 Adventures - The Apollo Vampire 500 V2 in an Amiga 1000

This week on 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast, I am having more fun with my Amiga 1000 by installing an Apollo Vampire 500 V2 inside! The Vampire 500 V2 will work in any Amiga with a standard 68000 Chip, but the A1000 needs a special adapter from our friend Edu Arnana to fit it in. So how does it perform with the Vampire? Well, watch it and find out!
Want to get on the Vampire waiting list?
www.apollo-accelerators.com/
How about the CPU relocator for the Amiga 1000?
www.arananet.net/pedidos/prod...
Check out all of Aarons Sketchy Tech here:
www.everythingamiga.com
Interested in the RNOXfer program? Check it out here!
jpv.wmhost.com/jpv_software/
Check out the cool new video series about the Amiga from Anthony Jarvis
• The Amiga Show Episode...
/ theamigashow
/ theamigashow
Take a look at my websites:
www.10marc.com
www.amigaartwork.com
www.10marc.com
/ 10marc1

[@jjock3239]

I know this video is 2 years old, but I just found it. I owned my Amiga 1000 since 1985, and recently gave it to my son, who is in the process of adding a rejuvenator board to it. I thoroughly enjoyed your video and demos on the 1000. Don't worry, I still have a bunch of 2000s, 3000s and 4000s, in various configurations, and have continued to use an A3000/40 using Maxiplan as my business computer. Long live the Amiga.

[@10MARC]

So glad people are still watching the older videos! I love my A1000 and she still has the Vampire in it

[@theamigashow9506]

Great video as ever Doug, very ingenious! Thanks for the plug too :O) !

[@10MARC]

Oh you bet! Now just churn one of those videos out every week like I try to! 🤣🤣 I know how hard that would be doing it on real hardware!

[@theamigashow9506]

@@10MARC Well I'm sure it's possible, but I would not survive the process!

[@seank8489]

Hi Doug. I would have to say this one of the most sensible, fair and balanced reviews of the Vampire I have ever seen. I love your videos and I love your passion and I can relate to it. Seeing one of your old videos playing made me realize how much I missed your old intro music. For some reason it gave me the warm and fuzzies, probably because of it's nostalgic sounds. Keep up the good work bro.

[@10MARC]

Thanks so much! Yes I did like the old intro music too. Nothing really stopping me from using it again.

[@AmigaCammy]

Unreal! Every time I see a video about the Vampire I wonder why the hell I haven't got one yet... I must use Workbench and Amiga applications more than just about anyone, so I'd really love to see how they run in RTG with all that 080 power behind them.

[@10MARC]

You really need one, Cammy. They are truly wonderful and so darn fast! Compatibility is so much better than with my '060, too. Just about everything, including games, runs on them.

[@MrThairacer]

Hi Cammy, like you I love my CD32 but since the stop process of the TF360 card with the crazy price of the 68060 cpu ! I think about the vampire V1200, ok it's a price but it's worth the deal cause it open so much horizons like Mac emulation at his best (darkforce, warcraft, alone in the dark series, A10 tank killer, price of Persia 2 etc.....;) and some compatibility with 3.1 or Coffin system OS. and my TF330 is nice but limited for the strategics games.....

[@christopherbaar4498]

This is great! The first computer my family owned was an Amiga 1000 that my parents bought in 1985 when they came out. I still have it and it works perfectly.

[@10MARC]

They really are such well built machines. Take care of them and they just keep running and running!

[@bennykanz1a466]

Dough you make me and my Amiga smile, every time i look your video. And you know, a happy "girlfriend" ist the best. 👍

[@10MARC]

Well that makes me feel good! I do like to have a bit of fun in my videos.

[@EduArana]

Great video Doug, thanks for the mention buddy!

[@10MARC]

You bet! The CPU relocator worked just great!

[@JS-wl3gi]

Vampire code will lead to a 68k monster cpu coming with in this decade. With AMMX will give rich game, audio, and game play. Apollo team is a piece of the puzzle that grows the community in the form of processor code, OS, and more.

[@10MARC]

That would certainly be pretty clever. I hope it works out!

[@azurabayta133]

Seeing an Amiga 1000 fly like that is unreal, it still amazes me how far the Vampire can push even the most modestly specced Amigas. I put in for a 1200 V2 about a month ago, and the wait is killing me!

[@10MARC]

You are going to love it! That will make just about a perfect machine!

[@AmigosRetroGaming]

Great stuff Doug! Really enjoyed it!

[@10MARC]

I had to get Aaron's "Sketchy Tech" reference in there. Cracks me up every time he talks about it!

[@carlobiondini4906]

If only I could find one of those now super rare 256kb front cartridges... anyway, thanks for your brilliant, fun and informative show.

[@10MARC]

I suppose most A1000's already have them installed, so I suppose they are less common by themselves. I will ask around and see if anybody my friends have extras.

[@mrkitty777]

Jay Miner should have seen this.

[@10MARC]

He would have been quite impressed with the Vampire, I suspect.

[@mrkitty777]

I think people are placing ads in your comment section 🤔

[@sacredbanana]

Awesome video Ian Coggins!

[@10MARC]

🤣🤣🤣

[@SteveGuidi]

Doug -- thanks for clarifying a bunch of questions I had about what the Vampire board does. I understand why some purists might frown upon the Vampire, but given that it fixes a bunch of hardware issues and variations that were present in the Motorola chips, that alone should be reason to promote it! Maybe the next generation of modern retro-hardware replacements should contain jumpers to disable all the acceleration and memory management features modern hardware gives us for free :)

[@10MARC]

Glad you enjoyed it and was helpful. There really is a lot of people who misunderstand what a Vampire is. Spread the word!

[@manueljesus3147]

Thank you for telling the TRUTH about Vampire and dispelling the fake news about incompatibility.

[@10MARC]

Ha! Fake news... That's funny. People just need to understand what it is all about, that's for sure!

[@Outlaw17666]

This Amiga 1000 just need now the AGA system and it will be the best Amiga in 2020!! :D

[@10MARC]

Yep. No AGA for me. I just don't want to lose all my other A1000 features like the floppy drive, so I won't be updating the core.

[@Outlaw17666]

​@@10MARC Normaly, AGA has been abandoned on vampire V500. Just the V1200 will have the AGA in the future.

[@MrThairacer]

And Great tee shirt !! I will keep mine for my next next video for present my Vampire, hoping not in galaxy far Far Away ;)

[@10MARC]

Sounds great!

[@PintzAmigaGameNight]

Perfect vid doug 👍

[@10MARC]

Thank you my friend!

[@nikospagonis9448]

Another great review Doug!! Agree with you on the fact that the Vampire being the future of Amiga!! If they fix the waiting time issue which has grown to be gigantic (Been waiting for my V1200 for 10 months now and still havent got it)!!! then that is the way to go for all of us who want to bring our Amiga in 2020 and do some serious stuff with it!!

[@10MARC]

I suspect the only way to speed things up with be a giant influx of cash for them to make Apollo an actual small manufacturer. Right now it is already across a few countries and fine from peoples homes.

[@mickedr572]

there must be problem, maybe you get mail in junkmail, try to talk with Igor and team 10 months is to much.

[@a500]

Oh it’s so great to see a vampire working so well in a 1000. I wanted to troll and say how terrible it was to let a vampire suck the life out of the Amiga, that that would just be me failing to be funny. You know how mulch I love the vampire. Fantastic video as ever Doug. That’s 5 out of 5 from me.

[@10MARC]

Thanks Richard! I appreciate the kind words. I figure that any way we can keep Amiga Alive is a good thing. I am thinking of making a pi Amiga with that new wedge, and it will be a real Amiga, too!

[@a500]

@@10MARC yes indeed. And i have thought exactly the same thing as the wedge aspect of the pi is so reminiscent of the Amiga (among others naturally). It would make the perfect amiga emulator in my eyes.

[@tanithis]

I would love to have one for my 500

[@10MARC]

They do add so many features to our lovely Amiga's! Luckily when you preorder one you don't have to prepay, so if you change your mind at the last minute they are ok - your board just goes to the next person in line

[@jarkkolavinen4088]

Hi Doug. In the video you made your own 44-pin f-m cable by attaching pin headers to a female connector. This swaps the two rows with respect to the pin order in the motherboard male connector. There are 44-way Male to Female IDE cables (at least Amigakit has them) but even then I would check the pin 1 has not been swapped.

[@10MARC]

Yep. I screwed that one up!

[@sircathal7505]

Cool Video, I am thinking about a Vampire for my A1000 for a while :-) i hope I can get one next Year.

[@10MARC]

It is very much worth it! Just make sure you get all the right parts in advance, like the 68000 sockets I'd you need to elevate yours.

[@sircathal7505]

@@10MARC I have those parts already, because I have a 42Mhz 68020 + 9.5 MB Ram + IDE and Kick 3.1 inside my pal A1000 (That has only one Motherboard without the piggyback) So I just had to exchange the 020 Card with the Vampire. The Thing why I still hesitate is the Vampire V4. I have the V4 Standalone Version and Its so cool. I really hope they will make a 68K socket Version because 12MB Chipram, 500MB Fastram, AGA and a 080 thats faster than the one on the V2 would make the good old A1000 to the fastest Amiga ever :-)

[@10MARC]

@@sircathal7505 I do wonder if they will upgrade the socketed versions to version 4, and if so, will they take over the entire machine like Core 3 does? Good questions, really.

[@MixelsLab]

Stupid bats. I love these upgrades. I do wonder about one day getting my A1200 vampired to get emulator-like performance from my Amiga and productivity/painting apps but I .. can't really justify it when I can get emulator-like performance - from an emulator. XD But it'd be so damn cool! Photogenics would maybe run better with tablet pressure with a vampire than in UAE - I think, it's slightly more sluggish than I'd expect it to be in WinUAE! I mean it's faster than it is on my 030 but not blisteringly fast, and I dont know where the bottleneck is.. I have UAE running at supposedly with JIT 060+ speeds but it's still a bit clunky. I'll continue to experiment :D Huge respect to the Vampire team, and obviously Doug for keep doing these videos. :)

[@10MARC]

There is just something about using the real hardware that makes me happy. Even though I have a really fast WinUAE emulation, I never use it for anything except occasional testing and some data transfer. I love to get my hands on the real thing.

[@MixelsLab]

@@10MARC Oh I absolutely agree. :D It's only these pesky 2000s era Amiga apps that have me wanting to supercharge my A1200 though, and at the end of the day I'd probably revert to using PPaint/Dpaint and low resolutions anyway so it'd be a biiiitt of a waste of money for me, haha. Would love an affordable way to get RTG on the A1200 though.

[@robertomeloni3095]

Hi Doug, another great video, I’m officially addicted to your channel ;-) A question about the relocator board: you said you added two 68000 sockets below to raise the board in order not to interfere with the floppy connector on the motherboard. Inspecting my A1000 I think I could have an issue, as there is very little space (around 1mm) between the 68000 and the floppy drive connector above (floppy side of the cable). Removing the 68000, adding 2 sockets + the relocator board I’m afraid it wouldn’t fit, as total height would probably exceed the height of the 68000. Maybe you have a shorter disk drive, so the floppy connector is not above the 68000 chip? It seems so, as in the video I see that your drive is totally hidden by the metal bracket, while mine exceeds it by 1 cm. Could you please be kind enough to see which disk drive model you have? Mine is a Mitsumi M57BCL-2. Thank you very much in advance!

[@10MARC]

It will be hard to go over all that in the KZbin chat. Email me douglas (at) dctechaz.com and I will send you pictures and details.

[@SuperVstech]

Heh... 22:00 interesting how well the little mini video still playing on your screen hand gestures sync up with your current conversation. Looks like a little angel devil or a sign language cameo in the video... Cool.

[@10MARC]

Oh that is too funny! I need to check that out! Little Mini Doug is copying me!

[@stephenbruce8320]

Same here I put in my request for a Vampire 500 v2 back in Sept of last year and just got it in not to long ago. I have not yet installed it because I need to finish building my A500++ Board and once that's running the Vampire will go in that and both will live in a Checkmate Case. I have absolutely no problem with an FPGA Solution and I don't care what people say I have all the Classic Amiga models accept the towers, CD32 and CDTV and each has some sort of accelerator to give them a speed boost. For me its about the Amiga Experience and yes I even do emulation. For me the Vampire is a winner hands down and I highly recommend them to those willing to wait which can be frustrating but once you get one running its really an amazing bit of kit for the Amiga. I have one monitor actually a TV that I use with all my Amigas through a couple of switches that will switch modes for me so its not a big deal but I do have a 1084 but I have that setup to be used with the A1000 and 128D and a few other things controlled with switches to share it be if Component or RBG.

[@10MARC]

Very nice! That A500++ board is really awesome. I may so one someday to replace my ailing rev5 A500, but I cannot do the soldering myself. I have to hire someone to build it for sure!

[@OscarCastillo1]

I recall there were modified, rounded PC floppy cables for the Amiga that would be a lot easier to work with in tight spots like you have here.

[@10MARC]

That would be quite helpful, really. I think I even have a few of those! Good idea.

[@woodsmal]

Very nice and informative video - thanks. I still have my A1000 though I have a Phoenix motherboard in the case. I can't remember what I did with the Kickstart ROM so it doesn't boot but that's a work in progress.

[@10MARC]

Oh my goodness... That Phoenix board is like solid gold! They are incredibly rare! I would love to see some photos, and see it in action

[@woodsmal]

photos.app.goo.gl/RpbstNQytwedcJwe9

[@woodsmal]

Did that work ? As I commented I need to find a Kickstart ROM for it before I can get it going and even then it's been many, many years since it was switched on.

[@10MARC]

Nice! Happy to help any way I can. I have some 1.2 and 1.3 ROMS that should work I could probably send to you.

[@woodsmal]

@@10MARC It supports 4 ROM banks of a variety of types with a switch available to switch between any two. #1 and #2 are standard. If you sent me a ROM that worked I'd pay for it.

[@stefanobriccolani3407]

Great new video Doug! There's no way to add some chip ram to A1000?

[@mrkitty777]

If you replace the Agnus?

[@10MARC]

No easy and available solution. The rejuventator board for the NTSC Amigas replaced both Agnus and Denise with the newer version, but they are as rare as Hens Teeth. AmigaLive (Intriq8) is involved in a project to recreate them, and then I could have 2 MB of CHIP!

[@10MARC]

Agnus is the wrong size - it is a rectangular one, and only has address lines for the 512KB CHIP

[@phantominterrogative]

If you can find a Pheonix board... rarer than the Rejuvenator.

[@10MARC]

@@phantominterrogative ah yes, I think there were a few dozen of those made at best. Good luck finding one of those!

[@MallaganVloggs]

The vampire is the future of the Amiga! if anyone from the Apollo team is reading this... hi guys! :D

[@10MARC]

I hope the Vampire team checks it out!

[@FernandoelChachi]

Great video. In fact I've got a Vampire in the box that I haven't connected. I'm expecting to have an A1200 soon, but the thing is that I don't know anything about the drivers to install for the Vampire to have RTG for example. I don't have an idea about how easy is it to add it to a working Classic WB for example. It would be nice to have a step by step guide.

[@10MARC]

My A500 Vampire video from a few months back should help - I have a lot of step be step info there

[@a4000t]

Doug,have you ever had a look at Envoy for amiga?

[@10MARC]

Not really, but I have heard of it. Maybe I should check it out?

[@brostenen]

Hehe.... I know these old grumpy dudes. I have no issue with any upgrade as well as you. However, I have no real use for anything else than a500+512k. On the other hand, a Vampire seems like a nice thing to have. I would be using it for Mac emulation and Amiga writing tools. For gaming, the old a500+512k is enough for me. And when my disks die, I will be using Gotek.

[@10MARC]

If all a person does is play games that setup is fine - my Amigas really are used for games maybe 10% of the time at most. Everything else is playing with productivity type software

[@brostenen]

@@10MARC Exactly. No need for more if only gaming. 👍

[@danielson9579]

Hi Dug 🙂👍

[@10MARC]

Is this who I think it is?

[@vcv6560]

"....and we liked it that way, we loved it.....errrrrh" BTW I'm waiting for one of those V2 myself..

[@10MARC]

Loved the grumpy old man!

[@one_b]

Your videos have really come along since way back at ep. 7! I don't really buy the hardware purity argument for what is and isn't an Amiga. IMHO the Amiga is the sum of its parts AND the philosophy that inspired it. I think the Vampire/080/SAGA work flows from those principles and people like Mr. Haynie seem to agree. Networking is one of the best features of the Vampire... along with everything else it is. My PlipBox was "good enough" but the Vampire is better in everyway. I occasionally use FTP for moving files to another computer as SAMBA can be a pain and may or may not work depending on the weather it seems. I've been thinking about making a stripped down harddrive file for UAE with just the bare OS and the NetFS package installed and see how that works for file sharing.

[@10MARC]

I agree about the networking for sure. I played with Samba a bit, but really I just need to do file transfers, so Amiga Explorer or FTP works just fine so far. Thanks for the kind words!

[@one_b]

@@10MARCBefore I got rid of my A4000 I was let down by the poor durability of early 1GB+ Seagate drives and my floppy backups were not reliable either so I lost most of what I ever created. (And somebody in the house recorded shows over the Video Backup System VHS tapes my Dad and I had been making... still have that hardware here in the original box.) I am a bit paranoid about multiple redundant backups now and a network share that was able to be mounted as a normal drive is kinda my holy grail of data safety and convenience.

[@10MARC]

I try to keep copies of my real Amiga installs backed up as WinUAE sessions - if something does, I can just grab another copy from WinUAE

[@elmariachi5133]

"because a lot of people like to play some games on their Amigas!'. This sounds as if you wheren't from Europe, because here this sounds as if you where saying "Yeah, some people like to play games on their Playstation!" xD

[@10MARC]

You are correct! I was being a bit silly with the comment to, as we all know Amiga does a great job with games. Here in the United States the market was very different. We all liked our games, but many of us used our Amiga's for creativity and business use.

[@RetroGameCoders]

Only a lot jealous 🤣

[@10MARC]

It is a sweet setup for sure! Really not a bad price considering what you get. Imagine buying an 060 card, a Networking card, a fast IDE card and an RTG card for a big box Amiga! That makes the Vampire sound downright cheap!

[@MrThairacer]

Hi Mates, nice video, you have one more jealous little guy lol ! but I will get a Vampire Soon and the World Would Never Been The Same Again (CD32) .#Meetoo i have ordered in Europe cause i french frog 🐸, thanks for the advice.

[@10MARC]

Nice! You will love your Vampire for sure!

[@santiagotelemach8236]

Thanks Ian for this in deep review of the V550 on the Amiga 1000! I've been thinking for a long time on how to uggrade this awesome Amiga without ruining it's aesthetics...Not an easy issue for sure. After all Vampire seems also to me the best overall option anyway. One question How do you output HDMI cable? even if they ara flat they still are quite thick... I'm considering using one of these to replace the backplate and not having to drill the original one : www.thingiverse.com/thing:4120445

[@10MARC]

Yes, it is quite thick and there is a small hump in the back where it comes out. I am so hesitant to drill a hole in the back of the case, but I may have no choice. I will take a look at that link for sure.

[@cullmaster7361]

Nice vid as always Doug. Watch this and Chris Edwards Channel religiously. Big shout out to the KZbin Channel “SHG Retro”! Check out Stu’s channel as he is looking to make and sell DF0 and DF1 switcher kits for the A1200 and A600 systems. Which in my opinion is about time! 👍🏻 might be worth contacting him Doug to see if he can send one your way to try out? 😉 link to his channel: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqSUc4OqrrCYeJI.

[@robertomeloni3095]

Hi Doug, if you’re looking for an effective solution to take the ports to the back of the A1000 without cutting the original back panel, have a look at this: www.amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?t=1544 There are modular 3D printed back panels that can accomodate any kind of ports.

[@10MARC]

And the info is on my favorite website, too! Thanks!

[@jeffreyplum5259]

Your PC could also provide the time for your Amigas, I believe. May systems even a Raspberry Pi can run the time server software. is better to have battery backed up clock, if possible. Even my pfSense router could be my time keeper, if setup right. FTP will even run on old DOS machines. I am just suggesting things because us Retro Computing folks may have many sorts of real and emulated machines up. Both Time and FTP are old standard protocols, so they can run on virtually anything. FTP lacks modern security features. Please be careful using it on the Internet. I am using some Amiga hardware solutions on my older IDE systems. One old laptop uses 16 bit PCMCIA cards, like Amigas. I want to replace IDE Hard Drives with CF or CF/ SD card solutions. The A1 or A2 rated SD cards are made more for OS usage than earlier types. I hope my ideas help someone in the Retro community. I am glad to see the mix of old and new tech keeping these machines going and thriving. Good luck and God bless you.

[@10MARC]

Thanks for your input! There are at least a dozen ways to get CF and SD cards uses a s hard drives in out Amiga's. What a great time to be into retro!

[@JellyPowered]

RNOXfer (the FTP program used in the video) also supports FTPS protocol, which adds security layer over the old protocol making it more safe when used in the public internet. But in LAN it's fine to use unencrypted FTP, because it's faster...

[@JellyPowered]

And if you want to sync the clock with the time protocol from other computer in your LAN, most Amiga TCP/IP stacks (like Genesis) can sync the clock themselves when going online, So, in that case you don't need any external script/program for that. But of course syncing from an NTP server works too with 3rd party software (the shown script, Facts, or similar programs).

[@larsenmats]

omg, he is upgrading his Amigas with modern hardware and making them unoriginal. Just kidding, that is a very nice and fast A1000 ;) Also, with regards to AGA. Specifically AGA games I have to say that in my experience the games that comes in both AGA and ECS/OCS versions has very little difference. And there are just very few exclusive AGA titles that are actually any good. All in all there are not that many AGA titles in total. And very few of them are really good. So with regards to gaming I would say that for me, AGA is really not a must. Most classic games was made before AGA was a thing. So in my opinion, AGA is overhyped with regards to games. And again, this is strictly talking about games and my personal experience/opinion :)

[@10MARC]

Mostly because coders had not taken true advantage of AGA yet, because the market was not big enough. More could have been done for sure. Look at the Modern Reshoot-R for AGA. It is so far beyond the games we got in the nineties!

[@larsenmats]

@@10MARC yeah. it is what it is. Maybe we will get more nice AGA games with time.. Hopefully

[@tiannaumann]

There's no denying the 68080 AMMX core is a remarkable achievement. But the 6-12 month wait time to get a Vampire card is laughably bad and will be its eventual downfall.

[@10MARC]

I get what you are saying, but one of the reasons for the long wait time (besides COVID) is the fact that so many people want them and are waiting for them!

[@tiannaumann]

@@10MARC I own a V2-500+, and use it as my main Amiga daily driver for my A500. I'm worried in the sense where I don't want the platform to die. (Sorry, I realized the tone of that comment was a little strong)

[@32mlucas]

Amiga 1000 ruined!

[@10MARC]

Ruined? How so? Because I use it more now? It is literally one card in the machine, and runs OCS software just fine. If I could have added a hard drive, RAM, accelerator and networking on my Amiga 500 30 years ago I would have done it in a second.

[@32mlucas]

@@10MARC Its so far removed from the original experience its no longer an Amiga 1000. My Amiga 1000 has a hard drive, extra ram, a boosted CPU. but non of it feels out of place, it runs and feels pretty much like my Amiga 500 did in about 1989 and I don’t get any strange compatibility issues.

[@10MARC]

@@32mlucas I would guarantee if you sat down with this for 10 minutes you would fall in love with it. The only visual difference is now I can have my Workbench, AdPro, ImageFX, etc in 24 bit color instead of slow 4 or 16 colors. Any game or non-RTG friendly program displays great out of the RGB port in the original OCS glory. I can browse the web, FTP and access telnet BBS's in the blink of an eye on my A1000 now.