Pimpin' the Amiga 500 in 2017. 68030, Compact Flash, Kickstart 1.3

I've always wanted an expanded Amiga 500 that ran Kickstart 1.3, an internal accelerator, and the ability to boot from a hard disk. Finally I've been able to do it. Check out this video!
Links!
TerribleFire on KZbin - / channel
TerribleFire's Github - github.com/terriblefire/tf530
The Obsolete Geeks Video - • Pimpin' The Amiga 500 ...
GQ-4x4 Eeprom Burner - www.ebay.com/itm/261510505362
AMD 27C400-120ns eeproms - www.ebay.com/itm/5Pcs-AMD-27C4...
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[@bamdadkhan]

you are always the definition of professionalism and quality in the retro scene. *and* without the bullshit.. so what did i think? i think you have done a great job, and terriblefire is too under-appreciated. cheers. : )

[@ModernVintageGamer]

thank you for the kind words! and yes he absolutely is. he's making an amazing product for everyone to use and enjoy :)

[@ryanyoder7573]

I agree. Very high quality. Well researched. Congrats. Another great video.

[@RMCRetro]

That was some top pimping and is now a sweet A500.

[@alex76gr]

Excellent video. The information you provide here is literally gold for every Amiga fan out there.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

thank you Alex!

[@benh.635]

Awesome video! I love seeing modern support for older computers. :)

[@joshharding6925]

Sensational. Love what you have done with the magnificent A500. Keep up the great work

[@mark12358]

I say Hurrah for Stephen Leary and a big thanks for his researching and designing a so very nice accelerator card. Great video, as usual, for you 😀 !!

[@nochan99]

Loved the boss music when you started the patching wire work.

[@MorgonautHackintosh]

Amazing. I'm glad thera are still some people that loves old things we all loved in our childhood.

[@dash8brj]

Glad someone (terriblefire) has produced these accelerators - everything else is so over the top in the price. Great video mate - excellent presentation and plenty of tips for n00bs when it comes to burning eeproms. Subbed :)

[@Archimedes75009]

Stephen is a genius. Great video. Thanks for the upload.

[@10MARC]

Great and informative video as always! Keep up the good work!

[@MichaelOglesby]

Another great Amiga video MVG! That's a lot of expense and work to 'pimp' an Amiga 500, especially if you want all the component inside the case! I'm glad I have an Amiga 600!

[@ModernVintageGamer]

thanks Michael !

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

Michael Oglesby I'd probably go with an A1200 insteadl.

[@LambdaCalculus379]

Those expansions you got are drool-worthy! :)

[@mikeb1384]

Jak zawsze świetny film, pełny profesjonalizm. Pozdrawiam 🕹

[@CasualCommodore]

Personally, I will always leave my A500 stock. But, man.. It's amazing with all this new Amiga hardware. Very nice video, and all so well explained!!

[@davidewhite69]

mine became non stock whilst still in warranty! it was when super fat angus and the 1meg chip ram mod was shown in the amiga format magazine, worst part was waiting three weeks for the chip to come from the UK, it only took 15 minutes to cut the track and solder jump the other jumpers and bam 1meg chip ram!

[@shutitfukface]

Why would you even ever own one of these ugly pos.... What a worthless pile of junk.

[@zagaberoo]

Hoo boy, great musical selections throughout.

[@TheOtherSteel]

Regrettably, I never knew much about the Amiga. Also, you're electronics skills are above mine. However this video was absolutely amazing and also intimidating. It's serious how much work has to be done to attach that enhancement.

[@AlexandreLollini]

Millenium 2.2 ; Deuteros ; Shadow of the Beast ; Elite ; Alien Breed ; LightWave = tons of fun and memories.

[@Akabackalooka]

Soooo awesome! I still have my old Amiga "Somewhere" in my garage.

[@Dudiello71]

I am just 5 years late. Kickstart 1.3 already allowed to boot off SCSI (e.g. my Supra 43Mb was working great). What is missing from 1.3 is the capability to boot off IDE drivers. Cheers and congrats, great channel!

[@nathanav1634]

Amiga enthusiast with a megadrive on his desk.... That's a sub right there! Good vid

[@livelongandprosper70]

twat

[@ChristopherGaul]

Great video. I've been working on the TF boards myself and they're a great design for the price. People should keep in mind that TerribleFire has a whole series of accelerator boards either complete or in progress so be sure to follow him. One thing that's cool is that you can upgrade that TF530 rev 2 board down the road and migrate to a 40-50 MHz 030 and add a 68882 FPU as well. The next revision will have 4MB of RAM and SATA instead of PATA IDE. Given how cheaply you can get pulled M.SATA boards and M.SATA to SATA carrier boards, this could make for a pretty awesome Amiga setup. In the pipeline is an 040 board and ultimately TerribleFire plans to do an 060 board as well. Something you forgot to mention was the relocator board that's necessary to mount the TF530 inside the A500 and still be able to install the keyboard and close the case. You used one in the video, where did you get it?

[@scorpi_gan]

Flashback 😀 Love that people are still using these machines. I was the kid with the bad ass gaming computer growing up 😀

[@gd515051]

Back around ‘93 I found a 68040 33 accelerator for my Amiga 500. After it was added I had over 7mb memory and crazy fast card. Used to use it for Vista Pro to render scenery. It was a beast. Wish I still had it.

[@davidewhite69]

In 1991 I had a rev 6 A500 with a GVP SCSI harddisk sidecar, it booted from 1.3 as did my mate's rev 6 with his Commodore a590, both were SCSI. no motherboard jumpers or rom changes were required

[@thestarshavefallen]

Man that 8bit tune is a banger bro!

[@kevg3563]

Excellent video!

[@K1NGARTH3R]

Fantastic, I've always used my A600 over my A500 due to the upgrade options (Those two were the ones I used to own so no chance of using an A1200 or anything else). But now thanks to this, the A500 might take over the desk space.

[@lactobacillusprime]

Wow this is an awesome expansion for the A500. Thanks for sharing this, it seems feasible to do - also for me. :)

[@PlumbDrumb]

A decked out Amiga 500. I dreamed of having one of these as a kid. It's still a nice looking, compact machine.

[@fbonacic]

Great video! Great music! Very professional and informative! Even for non-Amiga fans :) Thumbs up!

[@pewdiepiesvrsuit3110]

Excellent video

[@brostenen]

My Amiga500 TF-530 machine is finished as well. 2mb Chip, 2mb Fast, Scandoubler, kickstart switcher and boot selector. 🤘

[@error4159]

1:08 - Damn, $1575 for a 030 accelerator card. That's crazy.

[@Star2Fox]

awesome work. Thank you for sharing.

[@asphixmx]

Great video and tips. Thanks!

[@austinangle6130]

Absolute class with this one.

[@speedysandisk78]

Awesome hacking and pimping, you got yourself a hot little 500 there! As much as I love the 500 I prefer the 1200 though, with its AGA chipset. Running a 50mhz Blizzard 1230 with 64mb and a 16gb CF in mine, with ClassicWB 3.9... it's an absolute joy to use.

[@SteveStoltz]

Great Video! Ive got my fingers crossed for some A1000 firmware.

[@Kylefassbinderful]

Beside Anders Enger Jensen, you have the best B-roll and channel music. I sometimes rewind back to hear it again just cause it's very nice to hear.

[@ohayes86]

Great to see you making Amiga videos again, they are my favourites. Any chance for an update on Vampire?

[@psyolent.]

good video. also note for the TF530 when installed in an a500 - you need to connect the INT2 header and OVR ot the motherboard. thats the blue and white cable that goes to the expansion header. these also work in the CPU slot of an a2000 on an adapter board.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

yep thats correct - i was going to discuss the wire but i ran out of time.

[@MrThairacer]

simply great ! very well explained , love it ! i will check more of yours vidéos, yes, me to i think steve Leary is a Hero !

[@xof64]

Wauw, like you video. I have serveral commodore models (collected over the years) But never had the time for doing it.(Maybe when I’m retired) ;) Thank you for sharing the information.

[@ChanceDiego]

Great video

[@mrtiff99]

Great video. Thanks

[@rossdag4232]

hi i think your a trully good bloke you always tell the facts and no bullshit thats why i follow you keep up the good work mate

[@JohnnyReb1976]

10:50 - I knew it would boot 'cause you put happy music on.

[@deanripley2875]

Now that’s pimping done right. Awesome job.

[@miked421]

Great Video! Thx.

[@JohnDoe-tc8mk]

A500 forever! ;-) I simply love it.

[@konsolendoc]

Cool Video .

[@RobertAmine]

great work... thanks

[@ToddsNerdCave]

Wow, great looking machine. Totally digging they TF 030 accelerator. I didn't see it mentioned in the video, but what kind of disk speed are you getting from the Compact flash card on the IDE bus?

[@EXITMUSIC2011]

Great video :)

[@Uncle_Spooky]

Siiick. Looking to do similar with my A1000 and a Wicher. I want to keep 1.3 with option to run 3.1.4. Yes i have a rom switcher

[@MechaFenris]

Awesome! Thanks for the vid! Amiga forever.... :)

[@VK2FVAX]

Is nice video. There's Flash version of chips work well with kickstart roms and easy to erase with willem or better. Good!

[@spudhead169]

I wouldn't have done that soldering to the main board like that. You could have just used a bit of strip board, some header pins and a chip socket to make an adapter.

[@brostenen]

Heh... Then he would not have had space for the kickrom. The relocator covers 1/2 of a square millimeter over the top left corner of the kickrom chip. And if you have somethong that raises the chip, then it will be just slightly too high, and the relocator will not fitt. Only way to get around this, is to make an kickrom relocator, using a ribbon cable to socket solution. Or use one single chip like in this video. Or just go and upgrade the kickrom to 2.x with IDE support. The one with the revision 37.350 is a good one. Then get a 1.3 kickrom downgrade floppy. Here I am thinking about the relokock 1.3

[@brostenen]

I think the did not want the scandoubler as well, because the cpu relocator will go and obstruct the space from the scandoubler or something.

[@robertdaone]

Was able to do this easily on the Amiga 2000 like the one I had since they offered a few accelerator cards for it. That was the main reason I got rid of the Amiga 500 and upgraded to the Amiga 2000 for expandability. Loved the Amiga line of computers. I thought it was funny back in the days when Pixar was getting mad at Amiga for being able to duplicate there animations on a computer that was just a fraction of the cost of their computers. The Amiga 2000 and 3000 were powerful graphics workstations when equipped with the Video Toaster graphics add on hardware.

[@tetsujin_144]

I wanted an A500 so bad as a kid... And in retrospect I really wish I'd made it happen somehow. I think it would have been far more fun and interesting than the C-128 I was running in those days.

[@amigairelandpodcast9426]

This is beyond my skillset but well done on an excellent project and presentation of it. Stehen Leary has given us a huge gift by open sourcing his designs. PS: Can you do a video on how to have a desk as tidy as yours? :D I seem to have way more cables than you and they drive me crazy.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

its the magic of the camera sometimes lol but i do like to keep things tidy

[@SaccoBelmonte]

you should of showed how fast was the machine while loading stuff after the mod. Great video :)

[@obsidian9998]

These 80's computers should have been part of Mr. Robot of the fathers origin story during the eighties. Like the Cold War situation when Reagan was in office. Love the music and this tutorial is awesome.

[@TheGuruMeditation]

Soooooooo this means your ACA 500+ is for sale??? ;-) If so, I will buy that baby! They have been out of stock for a while. Top notch video as always MVG. Man, there is so much great info in it, I don't know where to start. This is a properly PIMPed A500! You put a lot of effort into it and it shows. And you gave so much great info along the way. I learned so much. Thank you! One question, you say the A500 can't boot to a HD with Kickstart 1.3. I had an A590 external HD that plugged into the expansion port and I booted to Workbench 1.3 with Kickstart 1.3 all day every day. Was this some crazy voo-doo magic? I never had to mod my Kickstart ROM or anything of that sort. Also kudos to TerribleFire. That guy is a legend with all he is doing for Amiga!

[@ModernVintageGamer]

Thanks Bill ! yeah ive dreamed about having a KS1.3 setup like this for years haha. I love WHDLoad but this is where its at for me as for the A590 - it has its own ROM which handles the booting of the device on KS 1.3. im not sure of the tech ins-and-outs though. I'll definetly keep you in mind if i ditch the ACA500+ but for now im gonna hold onto it a little longer, it still has some really cool features (creating fast CF Images, Action Replay freezer etc) thanks for watching and supporting as always !

[@mark12358]

A590 can be used for boot using the standard scsi.device that came along the original Kickstart1.3 It was the Kickstart1.2 that wasn’t supporting autoboot. Yup! Cheers, M

[@bradleymathie1167]

+Mr. C correct. 1.2 only booted from floppy. I have two A500s with A590s attached, one running 1.3 and the other running 2.04. if you are using the system for games, I recommend 1.3 for compatibility as so many games where based around it.

[@bradleymathie1167]

+Mr. C correct. 1.2 only booted from floppy. I have two A500s with A590s attached, one running 1.3 and the other running 2.04. if you are using the system for games, I recommend 1.3 for compatibility as so many games where based around it.

[@bradleymathie1167]

+Mr. C I could be mistaken but cf cards on 1.3 was more an issue of partition sizes or something? Mmmm now I'm trying to remember why this mod exists again for technically.. damn brain

[@Energyone]

Wow. I haven't looked at an Amiga 500 in decades. I know it was hot in EU but I was an American with one back in the day.

[@MallaganVloggs]

I've probably watched this video 3 times ^^

[@emukidid]

Hehe you've opened the A500 so many times you forgot to mention the RF shield ;)

[@ModernVintageGamer]

true, most of my old systems are without RF shields ;)

[@GaryKildall]

It interferes without shield mostly at AM radio, you can try it by putting a transistor AM radio next to an Amiga without shield.

[@davidewhite69]

some older tvs were effected by not fitting the shield, not all, just some. they would get a vertical rolling wavey line going up and down the screen. I used to do it to piss off my mates in the barracks

[@codysimon1724]

Absolutely love this guy and his videos especially the piracy videos buuuut, what's even better is this, I want more of him tinkering with old retro computers, why I don't know but it love it

[@johneygd]

Nice moddification.

[@beingatliberty]

just totted up the costs - The TF board is great value, - pimping the rom was expensive for a one off ;)

[@RetroGadgetMan]

Very interesting.

[@shutitfukface]

Sure, if you like ugly crap that is worthless.

[@benh.635]

Wow, got here 30 seconds after posting. :D

[@totoonthemoon3593]

Great work guy! Finally a board that should fit into a CDTV?

[@lifeschool]

And excellent video, although I often get worried seeing these How To guides that people without too much technical knowledge will not know enough and may ruin their machine. I would not at all be comfortable flashing the rom chips, and back in the day I just bought a ROM switcher, 1.3 for disk based games, and 2.04 for HDD stuff. I think a real ROM is safer than flashing the roms, and cheaper, and as a bonus you get KS 2.04. There are purists out there who would argue that hacking the motherboard and changing the rom means you no longer have a stock A500. Back in the day I used a big box A500 side-port expansion (called Bodega Bay) which auto-booted IDE drives but I had SCSI, so I had to boot with the IDE and then use that to boot the SCSI. I also bought a Derringer 030 for £250 which is pretty similar to the new device in the video, and by swapping the clock crystal to a 50mhz one, the board ran at 50mhz without issues for 5 years. I eventually sold all my A500 kit and just bought an A1200.

[@kyle8952]

Your spare laptop is exactly one generation newer than my best computer. Latitude E4300 here

[@TNX255]

It would've been nice to be able to see and hear much more of what that machine can now do, other than just a couple of short clips from games and benchmark software with no commentary. =( Oh, and what about the A2000? Would this fit onto it's CPU socket, or is there perhaps a CPU slot version?

[@morphshag]

Where did you find someone to put the board together for you? Also, your Amiga info is always so damn good.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

check the Facebook Amiga group or the EAB (English amiga board) forum

[@DFX4509B]

Just a quick suggestion, adding a 68882 FPU to the board would've increased performance a bit adding a hardware FPU. That theoretically would've put your A500 on par with an A3000.

[@MP--li3el]

Best ever ever computer 500 ;)).... that amiga in video looks bran new..no yellowing with looks

[@Wygko]

I liked it👍👍

[@cocco-lp8jw]

Is my imagination or it is the eye of judgment soundtrack near the beginning?

[@judgewest2000]

Beauty

[@tarstarkusz]

This turned into a rather expensive project. I bought an A1200 with a 50mhz 030, IDE and external SCSI with an MMU and a math co-pro for about the same price as this card and the EPROM burner. I bought this many yeaars ago, so maybe it's gone up in price, but still, that's a lot of money for an A500. Then there is the new FPGA based card which gives 060 level performance. I think it's called the Viper or something and it also has modern video abilities so you can use a modern monitor with 16 or 32 bit color.

[@dnantis]

Great video , thanks !! How is it you are using an LCD with an Amiga system ??? Can you tell me

[@tekk9995]

still waiting for that Warp560 vid :)

[@IljaSara]

The problem with the EPROM programmer not working on other PC **might** be a power delivery issue. If plugged in "quick charge" USB port the issue might vanish.

[@craigdonnelly]

I noticed your Amiga is running on a LCD screen? Is there a video of how this is achieved and/or the cabling to do the same? and great video by the way............and obviously a great card addon as well............Cheers

[@konsolendoc]

This Card is my Next project

[@Jerome-C]

same yamaha Hp monitor, Same Roland MK2, same Agmiga 500... Even same Mixer table... dude don't tell me you use Soundtracker (8track version) ?? I forgot the Sampler extension plugged on my A500 :) sweet toy !!!! all that in my bedroom when i was 18 :) Man, you make me feel terribly old tonight !

[@GadgetUK164]

Fantastic!!! Out of interest, what adapter board did you use with the GQ-4X there? I have other ways to program the 27C400 but really want an adapter for that programmer too.

[@GadgetUK164]

Never mind - I see on the eBay add they mention the ADP-054 adapter.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

yep thats the one - incidentally , you mentioned "other ways". how do you program 27C400's ?

[@GadgetUK164]

@@ModernVintageGamer I have a few different programmers and adapters. I typically use the Willem programmer for 27C400s with an adapter. Sorrry for slow reply - only just noticed I hadn't replied to this.

[@8bitboomer]

Nice video, curious were the blue CPU relocator board is from?

[@ferna2294]

Now, that Amiga is ready to run Crysis.

[@capNsgt]

Did you consider the Apollo Vampire 500 V2+ before making this selection? If so, why did you choose this accelerator?

[@arongooch]

I always preferred 1.3 myself, mainly for nostalgia reasons but just a shame more software isn't available for 1.3 like it is for 2.0 or above. I definitely understand why this is but still. It looks like you have Lemmings installed on the harddrive there, is that using JST by any chance? Liking your video's too, they are awesome!

[@kennethhicks2113]

The pioneering years : ) I remember trading my A500 for an A2000 which I still have with a 28mhz accelerator in it. And probably 1200 floppies...of...umm...copied software... I wonder if they're worth anything?

[@robertdaone]

I did the same upgrade back in the day. Loved the Amiga line of computers. I thought it was funny back in the days when Pixar was getting mad at Amiga for being able to duplicate there animations on a computer that was just a fraction of the cost of their computers. The Amiga 2000 and 3000 were powerful graphics workstations when equipped with the Video Toaster graphics add on hardware.

[@livelongandprosper70]

the problem with using a screwdriver to remove chips is not so much bending legs, its potentially destroying traces or any components that my be under the chip... i have seen this done quite a few times.

[@BarfusWOW]

This is old so i'm sure someone mentioned it, but you can boot just fine off KS 1.3, it's 1.2 that doesn't support HD's there's PLENTY Of Amiga's out there that booted up every day off KS 1.3

[@JeremyLevi]

Its not correct to say that hard drives can't autoboot on Kickstart 1.3. Autobooting is supported from 1.2 and up so long as your SCSI or IDE controller has a compatible boot ROM. It just doesn't work with the built in IDE controller on the 600 and 1200, which is what the TF530 emulates, for that you need at least 2.05, or a modified Kickstart like you show in the video.

[@BronsonTheCat]

Jeremy Levi You couldn’t auto-boot a hard drive under 1.2 due to an error with auto-config support which was rectified with Kickstart 1.3 . It’s the reason you needed a boot floppy for an A590 if you had an Amiga 500 with 1.2 rom.

[@JeremyLevi]

QRHuggies Interesting. Do you know if that was specifically a problem with autoconfig on the 500? I was pretty sure autobooting worked fine on 1.2 on A1000s and A2000s.

[@daishi5571]

There was a bug that prevented Kickstart 1.2 to boot from a hard disk (a routine in the boot code uses A6 loaded with an incorrect library base, thus ending up being a NOOP and skipping AutoConfig'ed DOSNode's)

[@mark12358]

Indeed, kickstart 1.2 do not support auto booting. Back in the time you had to boot from a floppy and then you would’ve seen your hard drive.

[@JeremyLevi]

daishi5571 Neat! Learn something new every day.

[@b4ux1t3-tech]

Stupid question: what lamp is that on the desk when he's flashing the eeprom?