Amiga 500 plus 2mb and the differences between it and a regular 500

[@simonaread]

Here in the UK I had an A500+ in 1991 and my friends had A500's with KS1.3, I had issues running some games because of the newer KS2.0 in the 500+ but it was a great machine, I literally gave it away some years later as I went over to PC, wish I had kept it. But I have since acquired two A1200's one with a TF1260 and the other just fitted with a PiStorm32Lite+Pi4 (following your tutorials) so it all turned out well in the end, just took about 32 years. Always glad to see your video's Chris, always interesting and I almost always learn something.

[@MarJay1980]

I had that exact box for Christmas 1991. The 500+ in the UK had 1mb, and the standard unexpanded A500 had 512k.

[@keyboard_g]

That new Batman demo that runs on the OCS Amigas is mind blowing.

[@Tech-geeky]

I bought an Amiga 500+ back in 1994 from K-mart (Layby section). It took a while to pay off as i was still in school, but it has 1MB in the trapdoor, and 1.3 KS, not or 2.04. Many commodore 500+ at the time, was just rebranded and i guess keeping the older 1.3, probably due to compatibility reasons, while at the same time having the best of what in the plus.

[@Redfoxxx34]

You are a great guy Chris! Thank you for all your videos and pimiga!!!

[@josephphillips9243]

Opening an Amiga 500 + Chris Edwards = A surgeon operating on a Victoria's Secret model

[@johnnydreamwarior]

Bravo again Chris !!!!! You are really Amiga's doctor. !!!! 🎉

[@stevesimpson6558]

This was my Amiga, I loved it.

[@ryanmacewen511]

Thanks for the breakdown on the A500 Plus. I always thought it was just a game bundle with typical A500. I had the A500/501, and I remember getting the board upgraded by the dealer. I can't recall if it was to a 1 MB Agnus, or the 2 MB Agnus. I eventually got the A590, and later an A3000T. Great video!

[@fmlazar]

The 500 plus which was only sold in Europe was the shortest lived variant of the A500. It gave way to the A600 and A600HD configurations

[@alexanderwingeskog758]

I got the Amiga 500+! My friend (two years older then me got the Amiga 500 (1.3 Kick))... I loved the 2.04 WB... ECS sure it had some stuff I liked... But the OS was just awesome!

[@rtid7538]

My first Amiga. I had an A570, too.

[@fredblogs5262]

Just Got my first Amiga 500 today opened it up blow the dust off made sure there is no battery inside and sore the rom chip has a commodore label on it that's is about as much as I can do till I get a mouse and joystick and sort out how to get software on and off had a commodore 64 in my teens loved the thing as it was the only games machine I could relax playing so i am looking forward to your videos for inspiration

[@keithruhl3545]

I noticed on my Chicken lips 500 that the rev. 3 motherboard inside is void of any names. I often wondered why?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

no silkscreens on r3 above the ram, they also had Metal RCA for audio and video... very simple layout

[@ourclarioncall]

I just want to play pga golf I played as a kid on my Amiga 500+ I looked at emulators and the Amiga mini , but it all looks to complicated and destined to not work for me lol, so looking at the easiest way of just buying a used Amiga 500+ and a copy of pga off eBay BUT just wondering if I could buy a 600 or 1200….. if there is any extra benefits ? I know nothing about them really . Would the copy of pga golf that works on 500+ work on the 600 or 1200 ?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Amiga 500 came with no storage. The 600 was ecs and had limited hd support. The 1200 is a aga amiga. Has storage and upgradability They all do now w pistorm s and other updates

[@ourclarioncall]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration thanks mate

[@HoldandModify]

Great. Now I want an A500 Plus. Just for State of the Art. :)

[@cullmaster7361]

You can run most of the demos using Whdload versions “Q” 👍🏻

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Plus. You dont have one

[@jhfgjtjutyiuod]

Is that the A500+ from the latest donation video on RMC The cave? The box and the battery damage look identical.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

No its mine

[@liamodell7191]

I'm only going off memory here (and maybe I'm confusing it with the A600), but wasn't there some software incompatibilities between the A500 and A500 Plus? I keep thinking there were some games that worked on my A500 but didn't work on my friend's A500 Plus... Or maybe I was just drinking too much drano in the 90's. Might explain why my brain is constantly getting guru errors these days.

[@metamon2704]

I think it all comes down to older games not working if you have more than 512kb memory.

[@liamodell7191]

@Duncan Woodward Thanks for the reply. That helped me understand allot. I started with the Amiga 500 back in 1990 or 1991 but never had the chance to own other Amiga systems. I had some friends that were lucky enough. One had an A1200 and A600 at some point. One only had an A500 Plus but most in my group only had the original A500. When I discovered UAE emulation decades ago, certain configurations confused me. I had no clue what Fast RAM was, tried to research it and still was unclear but your reply just helped it make more sense to me. I figured Kickstart versions had some conflict as well. On a side note, I am hoping to save up some money and maybe (hopefully) find a good A1200 build kit sometime this winter. I finished my C64 build last year and it makes me more confident doing mods. I'm a bit of a purist and don't like risking original hardware unless it's something simple like replacing old caps, so I'm just going to build my own A1200. I'll have my hands full.

[@JeremyLevi]

@Duncan Woodward This exactly. Not having 1.x ROMs was the biggest compatibility problem. You could also get a ROM switcher to physically put both ROMs in there. Some few very old games don't like having more than 512KB RAM, period (the reason a lot of 3rd party trapdoor RAM cards came with a disable switch) and also some very, very rare few A500-era games that require 1MB of RAM expected 512KB of slow RAM at $00C00000 (expanded CHIP RAM goes in a completely different part of the address space) and didn't work properly with models that didn't have any (including the A500+ and later revision A500s that had been expanded to 1MB of CHIP RAM via the trapdoor*). *technically FastRAM can be remapped to $00C00000 to bypass that rare incompatibility but only modern-ish expansions really support doing so

[@eightbit1975]

A500...PLUS battery acid! But seriously, 2MB of chip allows you the ability of playing all OCS/ECS games via WHDLoad. But, if you are using the Amiga 500 "old school" you will be fine with 1MB.

[@larsenmats]

All OCS/ECS whdload games are now updated to work with 1MB chip + fast ram. 2MB chip is no longer required for an OCS/ECS whdload setup. There used to be a few OCS/ECS whdload games that required 2MB chip. Like SWOS, Cannon Fodder, Dungeon Master 2 and maybe a couple of more. After I downloaded the latest whdload library I found that all these would run with 1MB chip. + fast RAM of course. AGA games is a different matter of course. But AGA machines have 2MB chip anyway.

[@marioserrano5087]

Awesome video. I have some Amigas that need help. How can I send them to you. To repair them, thank you 🙏

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

email me, im backed up till feb 2024 though at the moment.

[@ShadowTD]

Non Amiga question - what's the pixel display you've got on the wall? Looks awesome!

[@simonaread]

It looks like a Divoom Pixoo64 - I too admire it.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Divoom Pixoo max, from divoom dot com or ebay

[@10MARC]

ECS is useless? You never used the 31.5 kHz VGA compatible modes, did you? They were incredibly useful for Workbench and productivity software. After a few years of flickery Interlace using ProWrite, suddenly having a rock solid 640x480 screen was fantastic.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

On a 500. No it just played games and dialed bbs’

[@10MARC]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration just imagine that BBS in glorious 640 x 480 non interlaced! Lovely!

[@tokul76]

A500+ got floppy power cable which makes amiga kit jealous.

[@cyrus3055]

I got an amiga 500 from when I was a teenager. It says 500 + on the board but it only have 512kb on board. The board also have room for a battery but it was never installed. The final thing is that it is an 8a1 revision. Got any idea what the f... is going on?

[@JeremyLevi]

This is just a later revision A500. They started using the same board as the A500+ sometime after it came out as a cost reduction measure. (Why make two different boards when they can use the same for both?) They just come populated with only 512KB onboard, come with a 1MB Agnus and OCS Denise fitted, and don't have the clock chip or battery. Also some solder jumpers are set differently to make the trapdoor add slow RAM instead of additional CHIP RAM.

[@CrashUK28]

where you get the mini led tv

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

divoom dot com

[@curiousottman]

Two things I learned from this video: 1. The a500+ can have up to 2MB of chip ram 2. Jesus lives in America. I especially liked the side by side of the a500 original and the a500+

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

i love your youtube handle!

[@curiousottman]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration : Thanks! Only old guys like us understand the reference.

[@pepitaux13]

My configuration! Except that mine has 1Mb by default + 1Mb extension (european specificity?)

[@SuperMoleRetro]

What is that little speaker / visual doodad you use for audio? I need me one of those.

[@poshpaul55]

i got mine from Ebay it's called "Divoom Tivoo Classic Retro Bluetooth Speaker"

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

divoom tivoo, the big one on my wall is a tivoo max 32, divoom dot com

[@GadgetUK164]

Great video!!! The 500+ has 1MB onboard btw! The VBB stuff is interesting that you mentioned (after my video I just put out yesterday for Patrons) - does that VBB alter its pinout, because I thought the 8372AB had the "old" pinout that doesnt match the 8375 at all? So confused by that VBB thing - it doesnt help there are 8375 that are 1MB and have the old pinout too lol

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

the 8375 2mb VBB IS, as i have it in my 3000 Tower replacement board. check it out. and it is compatible w the 8372B in the 3000/3000T when you add a 0.1 ceramic cap across the pal or ntsc jumper. - see this section of this article "++ 318069-18 (PAL) or 318069-19 (NTSC). Likewise, Vbb replacement to the 8372B. 2 MB support, obviously pin compatible to the 8372B model. Typically found on very late Amiga 3000 systems. Possible Vbb “fix” needed when replacing an 8372B with its 8375 counterpart." from theamigamuseum.com/the-hardware/the-ocs-chipset/agnus/ called the VBB fix, a 0.1uf capacitor across the jumpers, as schematic and documented here: www.amigawiki.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=de:parts:agnus_reworks.pdf

[@GadgetUK164]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration Very interesting!

[@IntenseGrid]

But Chris, what about the newer resolutions? Is serial any faster than on a 500? Got a link to that demo that throttles the floppy drive? I've got to do some maintenance on mine, and I would like a good test after I am done.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

demozoo.org/productions/2/ no serial isnt an faster on any amiga.

[@AllensTrains]

If you have an original A500, I think it is better to keep it as 512chip/512 fast rather than make the mod to 1mb chip. I have found more things work as original, and the machine seems faster! Thanks for uploading.

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

A500 has no fast, only slow...but it is the way to go with "dirty" programed games/demos.

[@AllensTrains]

@Mr Guru I have got an A600 and an A1200 as well. I like to keep my A500 as original, since if it works on that, then I know it's a compatibility issue!

[@robsonrobbi1763]

@Mr Guru some years back i bought an amiga 500 of ebay it had some strange accelerator card with 8 megs of ram

[@danyoutube7491]

@@robsonrobbi1763 Cool, was that in the trapdoor or in a 'sidecar' attached to the left hand expansion port? There was a famous one from GVP for the A500, an '030 that sat in a sidecar casing, often paired with a SCSI hard disk in the same case. However, there were rarer upgrades such as one that I think was termed the A5000 and B5000 for 68020 and 68030 variants respectively (I came across them in old magazines online and also in the Big Book of Amiga Hardware, also online), and these plugged into the socket for the 68000 (you remove the original 68000, plug the card into its socket, and then insert the 68000 into a socket provided on the accelerator board. It must have been damned cramped inside the case!). With 8 megs it certainly could be a fully fledged accelerator or a RAM board (for some reason these big RAM expansions always seemed to be in sidecars, I don't know if there is some electrical reason that they couldn't be put in the trapdoor like the 512k or 1mb expansion cards or perhaps there were just too many memory chips that would make the trapdoor board too big). 8 megs on an A500 is substantial and would have been expensive, I expect that someone bought the A500 for fairly routine home use then decided they wanted to do something more taxing and so needed much more memory and a faster CPU.

[@JaceFuse]

It's so odd that you have issues running SOTA on other Amigas. I have an A1200 with an 030/42mhz, an A4000 with a 040/25mhz, and an Amiga 2000 with a 28mhz 68000. All three are NTSC and SOTA runs flawlessly on all of them. The only thing I have to do is set them to PAL before I boot the demo.

[@o_guguito]

Always been like so with me as well.

[@fmlazar]

Isn't the 500 plus a stock one megabyte on the motherboard?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

It is i am a moron

[@TeamPandory]

Yep. I was wondering if he had an early or Frankenstein version or something... I had 1mb stock plus 1mb in the bottom for 100% sound and music in the settlers... Worth it 😊

[@Yupster2501]

I know it is, my first computer I brought in 1992 was a 500+, I brought a 1 meg expansion and a copy of Turrican II and speedball II :)

[@TeamPandory]

@@Yupster2501 sir, you have taste.

[@danyoutube7491]

I would usually never doubt my knowledge of how much RAM was fitted in each stock Amiga, but I made a comment on a video a few months back about an A600 that the uploader insisted came with just 512k of Chip RAM; in reply to my comment he reiterated that it was only half a meg, so either he was mistaken or it must be a bizarre rarity.

[@pkf4124]

Is it wrong that most of my Amigas have the US key layout but were all bought new in the UK. That said the same is true of my Apple computers. Kinda prefer the US layout when using Amigas.

[@poshpaul55]

Sorry Chris im from the uk Your language and lettering all comes from Great Britain LOL you lot over the Pond have screw up the English language LOL Still love watching your channel i really don't who was responsible for changing the lettering around on the keyboards

[@tokyogentleman]

the keyboard layout was determined to make sure that the speed typist wouldn't jam up the mechanical typewriter gearing inside

[@thewookiee9511]

How did you get the flat panel monitor working on your Amiga?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Dell u2410-f is a 15 khz amiga compatible monitor

[@-H3li03-]

The 500 Plus, the best miggy :)

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

3000t for me

[@-H3li03-]

@@ChrisEdwardsRestoration I agree too, but I still choose the 500+ cause was my first original amiga back then!

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

@Mr Guru im at 37 or 38 now, i forget.

[@blackterminal]

Would like a video of your robot.

[@RetroHobbyMag]

You guys invented the typewriter, so yes, anything other than a US layout is ... well ... wrong.

[@ms-ex8em]

u know on donkey king on the dragon 32 any1 got a really high score on it lately?? i got 1,999,998 score on donkey king on the dragon 32 !! can any1 get higher than this? thanks............

[@ameriscm7351]

" from shift & f2 FTW

[@bretttesdall2155]

Was the Amiga 500+ released in the USA, or was it released everywhere but the USA?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

It was sold everywhere. Mainly wedge town in the uk lol

[@myfaveyoutube]

Chip is slower, the other type is called Fast RAM

[@vertigoz]

The money they wasted on A600...

[@retrogenius8397]

SNES programmers had to make do with 128k of RAM, anybody who says you need 2mb of 'chip RAM' on a 32 colour screened computer has no idea about technology, another 'bullshit' update as Shadow of the Beast and Sword of Sodan proved in 1988.

[@danyoutube7491]

That's a rather venomous, needlessly insulting assessment, and completely wrong as well, presumably due to ignorance. What an ironic name, "retrogenius". Anybody who doesn't understand the reason for cartridge consoles needing far less RAM than a computer 'has no idea about technology'. Amigas, being computers, ran software from floppy disks (and hard disks if they had them). The software is loaded from the disk into the RAM installed on the computer so that it can be run (i.e. played, if it is a game). There is no way around that, it has to be loaded into memory first. Technically speaking the consoles were no different; a cartridge was a plastic casing containing a PCB upon which was a ROM (Read Only Memory) containing the game - it has skipped the step of the consumer having to load their game into memory because the game is already installed in the memory that you are inserting into the console, which is why you don't have to wait for games to 'load' before playing on a cartridge console. Some more advanced games required extra technology that the original console didn't possess, and in those cases your game would cost a bit more, because it included not only the game on the cartridge but extra chips that provided the new features needed to run the game. So it was not a case of people outside of Nintendo or Sega being totally clueless about how to use memory efficiently.

[@retrogenius8397]

@@danyoutube7491I know more than you loser lol fuck off

[@danyoutube7491]

@@retrogenius8397 Of course you do, "genius" :)

[@svenhamag5266]

hello, the Agnus from the A500+/A600 IS NOT THE SAME!!! or COMPATIBLE again in the A3000. The Agnus for the A3000 is a completely separate chip that has the same pinout as the pinout of the A500/A2000. They are both called 8375 but the part number and pinout are not the same, there are even 8375 with only 1MB support that have been installed in the A2000 in recent years. Please correct that people scrap their devices or ICs. Aso..., The A500Pus has 1MB onboard in contrast to the normal A500 without Plus. Your RAM extension for the trapdoor therefore has 1MB. So let's summarize difference to the A500 without Plus: Realtime clock 1MB chipram, ECS Denise, other Agnus.

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

The vbb actually is, and i specified the VBB 2mb variant. I did not say all i said the vbb. the 8375 VBB IS, as i have it in my 3000 Tower replacement board. check it out. and it is compatible w the 8372B in the 3000/3000T when you add a 0.1 ceramic cap across the pal or ntsc jumper. - see this section of this article "++ 318069-18 (PAL) or 318069-19 (NTSC). Likewise, Vbb replacement to the 8372B. 2 MB support, obviously pin compatible to the 8372B model. Typically found on very late Amiga 3000 systems. Possible Vbb “fix” needed when replacing an 8372B with its 8375 counterpart." from theamigamuseum.com/the-hardware/the-ocs-chipset/agnus/ called the VBB fix, a 0.1uf capacitor across the jumpers, as schematic and documented here: www.amigawiki.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=de:parts:agnus_reworks.pdf

[@svenhamag5266]

Sorry, VBB doesn't say anything about it being C= A3000 compatible. How it is with replacement boards depends on the board whether it uses the pinout from the original A3000 or A500plus/6000, the fact is that the Agnus from the A500+/600 is not pin-compatible with the A3000/2000/ or 500

[@jediknight2350]

can we see some pistorming on it ?

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

Not these they stay normal

[@fmlazar]

I have a 500 plus myself I'll be doing a video where I add both RGB2HDMI and a PIStorm on it in addition to the GoTek that came with it.. just waiting on the last of the parts to arrive in mail

[@TeamPandory]

​@@fmlazarrgb2hdmi is well worth it. Pistorm and caffeineos ftw!