The Worst Amiga 500. Can it be saved?

[@doctorsocrates4413]

Nice to see another mighty A500 saved....i got 3 of these 80s beasts myself and love them....thank you.

[@techdept]

No worries. I’ve now got three myself plus an A1200 in need of restoration and an A600 coming soon. Love the Amiga.

[@doctorsocrates4413]

@@techdept wow a collector....if i were a wealthy person i would have hundreds of them lol...good luck with the A1200 restoration hope it goes ok.

You can transfer the 4 RAM chips from the damaged mainboard to the working one along with the matching caps. And using JP2 and JP7A you can configure it with either extra 512K Slow RAM (recommended, because most A500 games want this configuration) or a total of 1M Chip RAM. ;)

[@stephengodfrey2150]

same thing happened to me... button battery leaked got to clean it before further damage other than a keyboard letters QAZ and 1 ! didn't work still able to use the 1 on numkey pad. Gotta still love the Amiga. I now use the WinUAE...on PC.

[@techdept]

Yeah, it’s so sad when these old machine fail due to the batteries, but winUAE does keep the Amiga alive. I love using it when I fancy a quick game of lemmings at home. :)

[@DukeDark]

Ok krasse Sache und mal den A320 auf dem amiga wieder zu sehen ;) nice und gute arbeit

[@techdept]

Danke. Ich habe eine Vorliebe für den A320 und konnte die Amiga-Version nie fliegen. Deshalb freue ich mich darauf, den Bau fertigzustellen und zu fliegen, als wäre es 1991!

[@MyManicmonday]

i stumpled upon this channel and i like it. give it sub! Always nice to see amiga repair videos!

[@martingarciacarmueja2340]

Thank you for the recapping bit! :)

[@techdept]

Sorry it wasn’t longer. I’ll have a nice therapeutic recap soon. I promise. :)

[@herdarkshadow834]

Reminds me of when I opened my A500+ after 15 years storage in the garage. So much… green. Still, looks like you got yours running in a fraction of the 14 months it took me to sort out my board. 🙂

[@techdept]

Yeah, I’m very happy to have it working again. The old board hasn’t been scrapped. I may periodically work on cleaning it up as a side project. :)

[@geofftottenperthcoys9944]

My first Amiga was a 600, 40meg HDD, extra ram. Played so much Dune 2 on it, got VERY slow on the final level with the Emperor's troops as well till you thinned the enemy out.

[@techdept]

I loved my A500+ but pushing through Wing commander was an effort. My best friend had an A600 for a while before he swapped it for the A1200!

[@MoreFunMakingIt]

Lovely video Jess! There are some things that are too far gone to fix and that battery damaged board is one of them. Better spending your time on more fun things!

[@techdept]

Thanks. Yeah it’s pretty ruined. But I may use it for practice. :)

[@techdept]

Oh and it was nice to see Donald again, even if it was for repair. :)

[@Mind-your-own-beeswax]

OCS Amigas rarely need a recap tbh. One of mine was a lot worse than yours and I mean a lot. After bathing it in white vinegar and generally cleaning the board afterwords with IPA. It still works just fine.

[@techdept]

I still have the board and I’m probably going to revisit it in the summer armed with vinegar and a Dremel

[@Starchface]

That board is beyond any practical repair. I am certain that many of the PCB traces in some areas are not just damaged, but gone entirely. They will need to be entirely reconstructed. Luckily you had everything needed to make a working machine.

[@techdept]

Oh yeah, it’s toast. I wasn’t expecting it to be in good shape, but wow. As you say, I was lucky to have everything else work. Now I’ve just got to clean that keyboard!

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

Great repair Jess nice to see it spring back to life

[@techdept]

Thanks Dave. Loved the G4 power book vid. That's an interesting machine! ;)

[@nysaea]

Goodness gracious the state of those traces... that's eons of surgery... oh dear Also, great video! Love the educational commentary, the sense of humor, subscribed!

[@techdept]

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah that board is toast, but I may swing back to it and some point to see how bad it is.

[@julianbarron5293]

Cant wait to see it retro brightened !

[@techdept]

Me either. Unfortunately the Viennese weather has let me down and it’s set to rain for the next week. Soon though!

[@CRG]

That was one of the worst boards I've ever seen. Normally the 500 get a little corrosion from the expansion but that one was terrible. Maybe you'll get the chance to try and repair it one day. The PCB explorer is a fantastic tool to help identify damage traces. It looks bad but I'm sure it can be saved. For now though you did the right thing by swapping out the board. Looking forward to see what you do with it next, lots of upgrade options.

[@techdept]

Cheers Glen. I appreciate that. I seem to remember you yourself tackling a nasty looking Amiga PCB and doing fairly well. I will keep the board and once I have microscope I may have a go at seeing how badly damaged the machine was. For context here in Austria a work A500 will sell for €150 to €250 depending on what’s with it. This was €50! So I knew the moment I saw it, it had been battery bombed. Just had no idea how badly!

[@CRG]

@@techdept Yes I did an A500+, fixed it then stripped it for the 2000 😂.

[@RMCRetro]

Move over Frontier Elite, A320 Simulator is the what the cool kids use to test Amigas! Nice to see a working machine in the end you can't save them all and that's some real bad luck with the RAM expansion causing so much damage, I'd expect it on a 500+ but you usually get away with it on a normal 500 :(

[@techdept]

Yeah it’s pretty bad, and I’ll be honest, the moment I paid for the machine I knew it was probably the worst one available. However, pottering around with the old board this afternoon shows a lot of non broken traces that should be dead. Maybe…….

[@andygozzo72]

i have an amiga 500 plus with quite severe nicad rot ,, i've started sorting it but abandoned it for the mo ..dunno whether to continue or sell off as is for spares/repair , thing is it USED to be and work ok in the early 2000s when i got it but was put into storage and when recently examined...😢

[@andygozzo72]

and i once came across an amiga 1200 looking nice on the outside, but inside full of ....DRIED MUD..😲 yes really, luckily nothing rotted, just minor rusting, and the floppy drive cleaned out and was ok after relubing , after quick testing i sold it off, in 'as is' working but no warranty may need recapping at some point as it uses ones notorious for issues.....!

[@techdept]

My original A500+ was just great. I had the cartoon classics pack. But moving the clock battery to the mainboard is just asking for battery bombness.

[@andygozzo72]

@@techdept i know, its also a big issue for PC motherboards, i have several damaged ones 😢 my a500+also has a ram expansion board with clock n battery! double disaster!

[@KeritechElectronics]

Bloody friggin' hell, it's a baaaaaad state of discombobulation! Better have a crowbar handy in case a headcrab jumps out of it... I could try fixing the board with some litz wire and kapton tape, but it's gonna be time consuming and nerve wrecking. Looks like I'll be sticking around. Girls like us having tech fun :)

[@techdept]

Oh yeah. It’s screwed. And Welcome!

[@Weird.Dreams]

*Guys

[@lilmisssandi]

i thought mine was bad it was more brown it looked like c64 ,i painted it in the end xx

[@techdept]

Yeah, it’s taking a while to retrobright that’s for sure.

[@larsenmats]

This would be perfect for a transplant over to A500 ++ replica board and using diet Agnus adapter to convert Agnus 8375 to 8372A.

[@techdept]

I’ll be honest, I was tempted, but the cost of a replacement fat Agnus put me off. I hadn’t heard of the diet agnus board, so maybe I’ll checkt out and put the project back on. My original Amiga was a 500+ and I loved it. So pissed I gave it away.

[@المبرمج-د3ر]

i love amiga like you

[@CoindoorDave]

Awesome machine recovery...seeing that motherboard, I think I'd have chucked the whole thing out. Good job! (You need to sell a shirt with "Battery Bombed-ness" on it 🙂 )

[@techdept]

Thanks! I’m really happy to have it running. I like the shirt idea! Hmmmm :)

[@andygozzo72]

i have an a500+ in far worse state 😢

[@steve_ancell]

That is rotten! Good video BTW, you have a new subscriber.

[@techdept]

Oh it’s had it’s chips. And thanks for the feedback. Still learning but having a lot of fun as I go. :)

[@Vlamat67]

Tu sai che puoi emulare il Mac SE 68K su Amiga?

[@techdept]

Assolutamente! Si dice che il miglior Mac 68k sia un Amiga. Dato che il mio Amiga funziona meglio del mio Mac Classic, deve essere vero! :)

[@3vi1J]

Oh my.... I've never seen an Amiga in such a state. I hope whoever owned that is in jail. :) Totally agree that if there was ever a board replacement candidate, this is it. Good job.

[@techdept]

Thanks, the case and keys are currently being retrobrighted. The case came up fairly well after cleaning considering how bad the keys were!