We Must Save These Amiga 500 Hard Disks | Part 2 | Trash to Treasure

[@andy6576]

Thanks for including the interview with Mike Thomas, his memories are fun and interesting and he seems like a really nice guy. 🙂

[@NigelDraycott]

Yes some great stories from Mike

[@discocrisco]

A warp nacelle on each side would complete the look.

[@danyoutube7491]

It's always great to hear from industry folk from those days.

[@Flibster]

Quick recommendation for the skylight windows. Probably a nightmare to get to and fit, but you can get museum glass film that blocks 99+% of UV. We've got an armoured version on our windows, just adds a little more security and UV protection. Place we used was Active Window Films, found their ebay store a little cheaper than their actual web shop, just not as easy to find things.

[@davidbanner9001]

Retro stories are just, if not more important than the hardware/software. Of course it all feeds into each other, but I love the stories of developers etc.

[@danielsmullen3223]

Next time you want to spraypaint your 3d print, wet sanding is a great idea (as you said), but it's often better to put a bit of epoxy putty or even wood filler to smooth the layer lines over. There are plenty of commercial products for this as well. It really makes a huge difference and it makes the end product look a lot more like an injection moulded part. Only trouble is that it roughly quadruples the amount of time to make. I think that the 3d printed plastic with the right color matching looks better, though. If the fit and finish bugs you and you have a bit of spare cash, some of the online 3d printing services can PolyJet the part for you and it'd turn out most ideally.

[@Justfixitmate]

I've had my best results with a few coats of automotive filler primer. Minimal sanding prep required, just some light wet sanding between coats. Fills in the imperfections resulting in a very clean smooth finish you will have trouble identifying as a 3d print.

[@_-martin-_]

Man, this takes me back. I remember being a kid and buying my Amiga 500 using money that I had saved up and some given by my parents and grandparents. I bought the Amiga 500 Batman Pack which included Batman, New Zealand Story, and F/A-18 Interceptor. What great games! In the store, I remember seeing the Amiga 500 demonstrated with a 20 MB external HDD and it was running Maniac Mansion without using any floppy disks. It was beautiful and I was drooling but of course I couldn't afford it :(

[@TerryRed]

Yes, I spent a good $750 Canadian for my A500 20 MB hard drive with 3 MB ram back in those days. A far cry from my A1200 (with a 68030 / FPU / 10 MB ram) and 80 MB IDE internal hard drive in the early 90s. That was a high-end home PC back then, and that was before I went to college. I loved my Amigas and still have a working Amiga CDTV with keyboard / trackball / remote and external floppy drive kicking around. Good old Fresh Fish collections. :) Love the channel!

[@marcin.ronndahl]

Thank you, Neil, for real-world proofing that my old 3D model actually fits on a real A590 chassis. Truth be told, I never tried to print this. It was just a nice CAD design challenge for myself. I'll add a link to this video in the GrabCAD library. Solid work on your behalf. Keep the good stuff coming.

[@timatkins4754]

Very enjoyable video. The orange lid looked really good on the A590; would have loved to have had that back in the day and even today! Sometimes feel that when something is in bad nick (or missing entirely) sometimes it’s better to make a virtue of it being different than trying to match the original version. Each to their own and their use case however. There’s enough space in our hobby for all.

[@Retromicky82]

Came out great . I actually like the yellow one I'd call it the cheese drive 😆

[@smiler289]

Wow the amiga in action was brillaint! Loved it! A perfect machine for the generation it served. Long live the Amiga 👊

[@killjoyy27]

I have been using the Jesse beige filament for a while for retro projects its great, my multisystem case is also made with the beige , great job restoring those hard drives

[@RMCRetro]

Here are some useful links from the episode today, if you enjoy what I do here on the channel and would like to support it then check out patreon.com/rmcretro Links: ZULU SCSI - zuluscsi.com/ Vapourbriting setup at Mr Lurch's Things: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gGTde3mfgMiEoZI A590 print: grabcad.com/library/a590-top-casing-1 3D Printer Filament: printedsolid.com Delusional's Arcade: kzbin.info Neil

[@JekyllJones]

I've mentioned in a comment below about using acetone to smooth out 3d prints. This timestamped link shows you how, but you may have a very glossy finish that you may be able to wet sand to get a matt finish. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hpivgIhvd9eIm5Y

[@Caddy666]

tried a RaSCSI with these, Neil?

[@UpLateGeek]

Don't forget, pinned comments are unpinned if they're edited, so you'll need to re-pin this comment (assuming it was meant to be pinned).

[@charlesjmouse]

Very good! Odd though it may sound I've found 'wood' filament, specifically bamboo, works very nicely for replacing old computer parts. For me the colour isn't too far off and it seems to hide the layer artefacts a little better than most. Also adding a little 'fuzz' to the slicer settings helps a lot to replicate texture. Of course there's no substitute for sanding, filling, sanding, priming, sanding, priming, sanding, painting, sanding... etc, etc.

[@UK_Cobra]

When 20 megs of HDD was considered a humungous drive to fill, ahh, I miss those times :)

[@LP6_yt]

I still have my A500+ with GVP hard drive including 286 PC emulator with DOS installed for running DBaseIII and DBaseIV. Lovely programming environment. Worked extremely well.

[@fattomandeibu]

I had the Amiga version of DBase(not sure which version) and it come with one of them horrid copy protection dongles that had to be in the joystick port for it to run. You can imagine the headaches since I was a teenager switching it between gaming and serious use. Had to tear my bedroom apart to find the dumb thing multiple times.

[@LP6_yt]

@@drphilxr Yahtzee was my game of choice for the 286. Would run on a potato :-)

[@MarkyShaw]

Here in the states is a show called "Extreme Cheapskates". I saw one person would shower and do dishes in the same tub to save a few dollars. You might be on to something when it comes to bathing with your retro components.

[@jameslewis2635]

Those fillaments are excellent. It would be great if someone could start importing them for the UK market. The whole thing seems like a no-brainer as it is something that would sell well in places like retro hardware shops. With the 'join' on the A590 casing it might be worth editing the basic design to include some clips to keep the two pieces together. Otherwise you might want to consider using something like some lollypop sticks to glue the two existing pieces together in order to make the seam dissapear. It is ironic that the GVP designs matches the casing on the A500 so much better than the Commodore A590 does.

[@GeorgesChannel]

Great episode Neil. Maybe wiith white/grey filament and more layers of primer and color you get better results. Painting is an artform for itself :)

[@StayCoolKeto]

*Could you have not sprayed it with filler primer first and sanded it down after layers to get a better finsih? That's what I did with different things back in the day. And more Amiga stuff!! I well miss the Amiga times! lol* 💪👍

[@Laserdreamz]

Haddaway has feelings too!

[@MQsto]

So this is Jeopardy and the correct question is: "What is love?"

[@stweedy]

I had an A590 on my A500, we ran Pagestream desktop publishing software… the drive was so loud to sit next to all day, we built a cover to go over it with foam on the inside to muffle the sound. Thinking about it now, surprised it didn’t overheat! 😂

[@mooseteets]

You can get rattlecans made up colour matched, would have to take the casing to be scanned though. Lots of places make up tins for cars and it only costs around £20 a tin.

[@c7261]

Yes to more content with Neil bathing! Purely for the interests of power efficiency you understand. Will happily pay on OF if YT will not allow. Nice job with those hard drives btw 👍

[@kiwizate]

One key factor in getting a good colour match when painting is the colour of the filament used for the print, a white or light grey filament would reduce the yellow cast through the primer that you can see with the orange print.

[@ItsJustElenore]

Maybe try a couple coats of filler primer and then some sanding when painting 3D prints. Filler primer is supposed to fill in minor imperfections. Or even automotive body filler for some of those _deeper_ imperfections or to hide the seam between two glued together 3D printed parts.

[@queenofdiamonds3002]

A little late to the party but PLA plastic drinks up paint, so I wouldn't be surprised if the yellow color was translucency with the original orange. That's why I start with a neutral filament for anything I want to paint

[@paulrickett7564]

I had a SupraDrive 500XP (52MB) back in my A500 days, loved the sound of the hard disk access noise.

[@fattomandeibu]

I owned a hard drive on my Amiga, but err... it was actually just me extending the life of my A1200(I could in no way afford an IBM compatible) with a 1gb IDE drive in, I think '94 or '95, which was late middle school and early high school. Had to go door to door offering to mow folks' lawns for a tenner a time to get it. Seeing Exile also brought a smile to my face. It, along with P.P. Hammer, was what my granda used to always play on his C64. It's just such a ridiculous but great thing to think of. A wee 80 year old Scottish fella sat, Zipstik on the table, Woodbine in his gob and a steaming cuppa at his side in a computer chair enjoying a good ol' gaming session.

[@JamesPotts]

For paint, the best thing you can do is use a high-build primer. A light sanding between coats will give an excellent smooth surface for a glossier paint.

[@JamesPotts]

For fun, a few years back, I took some body shop courses at my local vocational school. Well worth the time and effort. Great skills to have for our hobby, plus you can speak the language should you need to have work done on your car.

[@TechIOwn]

Wow that Philips monitor brings back memories, think we had the exact same model paired up with our A500. Echo everyone else who wishes they had a hard disk at the time, remember saving up pocket money for the 512k RAM expansion.

[@thedevilinthecircuit1414]

I've got an Amiga 500 with the monitor and some peripherals in a box. Bought new in the mid-80s. I could never find it in my heart to toss it out.

[@CmdrX3]

I drooled over the GVP hard drive knowing I could never afford one.

[@fredsmith1970]

filler primer spray is good for filling in the print lines on the sides, though that would mean a few more steps... sanding and spray painting. But you would be able to hide most of the print lines. (I've done this when printing larger models to paint)

[@imnickleonard]

I enjoyed this one. Thanks Neil. It also reminded me, do you hear Puggs In Space when the Daisy Daisy Daisy perfume advert is on TV?

[@Lucretia9000]

I've seen some people using a solvent on 3d prints to remove the lines, I think it's nail varnish remover / acetone.

[@mattb154]

It's probably not the intended effect of the video, but it's made me appreciate the A600 all the more for having a built-in IDE interface.

[@RMCRetro]

Oh yeah that’s such a useful feature

[@TheRealBobHickman]

I good tool to have in your arsenal is a 3D Printing Pen. You could use it with the same filament to fill the gaps between the two pieces and make them a single case.

[@kevincozens6837]

I wonder if the print bed is large enough to have the front and back of the HD cover done in one piece if it was printed on a diagonal. At 9:06 you can see a gap between the front and back half of the cover. I would suggest adding a lip to the front edge of the back cover that would fit just inside the front half. It would help align the two parts and also help to hide the join. You could even use it as a way to glue the front and back halves together.

[@Jimbaloidatron]

I used money from my university summer job to buy a GVP HD8+ and I couldn't believe how fast it was - with the hard disk I had I got about 1 MB/s. When most software fits in to less than 1MB and your total RAM is 8MB, everything seemed very rapid. Arguably my modern PC with SSD isn't so much faster; seek times aside, it would take longer to load all the RAM, even if the transfer rate is 500x greater in real terms. Everything is relative! :-)

[@DevilbyMoonlight]

I ran Ami-Express for quite a few years on a multinode BBS through 2.x, 3.x and 4.x - great times... had the HD8+ for the a500 and the hardcard version for the 2000 and they were quick for the time.. .. i remember one issue with the HD8+ that was the power brick, if you had the wrong one it would fail after a period of time.

[@xargon1234]

get a enclosure and print abs sands very smooth, and will be basically the same as the original. as for paint you might be able to get some color matched if you take a case to a paint place

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

I remember going over all the SCSI controllers available for the A500 back in the day. Eventually deciding on the GVP controller. It was a question of price, performance and not least of all availability. And the GVP aced all of these. At the time it had the best performance, was one of the cheapest alternatives and was easy to get hold of. And then I found the IVS Trumpcard 500 which actually was cheaper and even faster. So that was what I ended up going with. Once I had the controller I had to get a SCSI drive to use it with. And that was a bit of a problem as hard disk drives were pretty F-ing expensive. But then there was an add about cheap Micropolis drives, or at least I think that was what they were. It's been a few years after all. But the price was right at about a third of normal. So I jumped on it and got a 20 or 40 MB drive. Now this was a full size 5-1/4 inch drive. If you think a 3½" drive is large then you've seen nothing. So now I had a naked HDD that was way to big to fit in the housing for the IVS controller. Well I was working as a IT tech so I saw a lot of hardware being replaced and scrapped so I snatched a external drive chassis from the dumpster and made a long flat ribbon SCSI cable to connect the drive to the controller and now I had a standalone drive chassis on the floor and it actually worked. Unfortunately the original BIOS in the A500 did not support booting from SCSI so you had to use a boot diskette. I think there was a bios upgrade that would make that unnecessary but I never got around to install that. All in all I was pretty satisfied with the controller and drive. I'm just not looking forward to trying to get it up and running again. And years later I got to hear the story about those cheap HDD's from a guy who had worked at the company that dumped them on the market. It started when they did an inventory and found a few pallets of drives that hadn't moved a single unit in three months or so since they bought them. That was dead inventory worth a lot of money and it was depreciating in value month by month as HDD's only got cheaper. So they were ordered to sell them ASAP, as in yesterday. The guy I bought my drive from had seen them dumped on the market and bought all the drives he could scrounge up the money for only to turn them around as quickly as possible by taking out an add and selling them very cheap. He made money and people got cheap drives. And then the company he had bought them from called and wanted to buy them back! Turns out these drives were intended for a project but the guy responsible was on vacation when they were sold off. So he comes back to work and is setting things in motion when there's suddenly a thousand drives or so missing from inventory. Well they called all buyers and bought back every drive they could get. And they payed well above what they sold them for so the guy I bought from made a tidy profit, certainly making more from selling them back than what he made from the drives he sold to people like me.

[@Brewskii2117]

I remember adding an 80 meg hard drive to my Bodega Bay equipped A500 and my friend and I saying I'd never have to worry about running out of space! ;)

[@ABrit-bt6ce]

Holy s* he wrote my rule book back then. Groovy.

[@randywatson8347]

Luv the guy's stories. I create cases using 3mm mdf woodsheets. Invested in a small tablesaw.

[@ArcadeAzrall]

Awesome video! I really love how the 3d printed cases came out and the hard drives are a thing of beauty and look right at home next to the Amiga! The Mister in beige though 🤤🤤

[@p_mouse8676]

As an engineer myself, I find it a little hard to believe that "just" forgetting a (EP)ROM was the only reason to get someone fired to be perfectly honest, even back in the day. Finding the right new engineer with the right knowledge and experience as well as being able to pickup a project in an instance, is far more expensive and time consuming. These issues weren't extraordinary back in the day, and yeah a little whoopsies also happened. Obviously a lot more costly compare to today, be we all have been there (multiple times). Nice little peek in history though! 👍

[@PG-gs5vb]

Perhaps the missing EPROM was just the last drop. :)

[@p_mouse8676]

@@PG-gs5vb That sounds more like it ;)

[@megaimg]

For SpayPaint I use the Krylon 2437 Fusion Almond Satin

[@jamescameron1861]

Always wanted a GVP HDD in my A500 days *sigh*

[@mattsword41]

those GVPs look so much better than the commodore designed ones too :)

[@jasongooden917]

I saw a video where a guy smoothed his 3D prints in an airtight container with a glass of paper towel soaked in Acetone and a computer fan circulating the fumes inside.

[@stuartrodgers6299]

That doesn't work for PLA, but there is a product called XTC-3D from smooth-on which can be brushed onto 3d prints to help smooth them out - it's basically adding a thin resin over the top to fill in the imperfections.

[@jasongooden917]

@@stuartrodgers6299 here's another one kzbin.info/www/bejne/iajboWmCe9WDnsk

[@frankowalker4662]

The shape of the Hard Drive Plus A590 reminds me of a shuttle from Star Trek. LOL.

[@lasskinn474]

you could just sand it when it's out of the printer, before primer. abs you can smooth over with acetone, but printing something big out of it gets tricky.

[@brianm6337]

My inner modelmaker wants to make that HDD case you 3D printed look *good*. Keep in mind, this is my inner model maker (who may also be 12). Look up the VW color Pearl White or even Tamiya Racing White.

[@iinnrr]

You could’ve probably printed that case upside down. This way you don’t need any support and as a bonus, the top gets a nice finish from the textured sheet.

[@HebaruSan]

Doing some DIY made me realize that carpentry is the original 3d printing, making all sorts of shapes from standardized raw materials.

[@moonchild666]

The HD8+ looks mint now. Great job. 👌

[@hrorm]

That prestine floppy with x-copy on it !! omg want !!

[@mooseblaster]

Are you still thinking of doing a benchmark of the drive electronics themselves using the Zulu SCSI in each?

[@bent540]

when i was a kid i used to have an external floppy drive for my amiga from GVP it had a trackdisplay. cool AF

[@KayoMichiels]

You could have used the variable layer height in prusaslicer to get more details on the lettering.

[@weepingscorpion8739]

Great video as always. Now I should be focusing on the videos themselves but I keep seeing things in the background. Last time it was the Commodore 900 which is still there. The thing I noticed now is right next to it. That looks like one of those VIC-20s that The 8-Bit Guy drove to Oklahoma City to pick up. There were about 20 of those. So, is that one of those, or is this one from another company which used VIC-20s in this way?

[@mrb5217]

Mike Thomas from GVP sounds so much like Wayne Knight.

[@iantheinventor8151]

Just found a GVP hard disc for the Amiga 500 that I’d forgot I had🤔

[@dwegmull]

After converting the units to get their power from the Amiga, it might be a good idea to block the external power socket to prevent future fireworks.

[@RMCRetro]

Yes good thinking David

[@EasyMac308]

King of Prussia used to have the best computer shows back in the day.

[@johnknight9150]

Heck, even if you're not interested in Amiga hard drives (which is probably fair enough), this episode's worth it if only just for that 3D printer filament. They should produce that on a mass scale.

[@akkudakkupl]

Add a dovetail or other type of connection between those housing halves, so one slides into the other, you wont have any gap then. Also your 3D printer needs some tuning ;-)

[@michaelnuk]

Good video! Would have been interested to see the HDD setup using the Zulu SCSI

[@andrewdunbar828]

Why not get your colour matched at a paintshop? They used to all be able to do it years ago. The had the sample books with the formulas, you matched up your sample with the colour chips in their sample book and they mixed it up according to the formula.

[@TotoGuy-Original]

have you thought about printing the hard drive case diagonally on the build plate? might be enough to print it whole. but i guess you might have tried this in the slicer

[@chriscrossan8034]

New channel idea: Bathing With Beige

[@MrAlan1828]

I still have a A500 HD8+ with Zulu Scsi 8Gb and 8mb ram upgraded, I bridged the power on the HD8+ so it can take power directly from my A500 + Pistorm using a 200 watt external PSU. But this 3D printing case is just another Level, if only I can print a Checker A1500 or even A500 case

[@n13ldo]

Would be amazing if they started shipping to the UK as I've some Amiga 3000 parts needing printed.

[@plast3r]

Im sure ive seen something in the past about using acetone on 3d prints to get a more uniform look as it will make the layers blend into eachother. now ive never done any 3d printing or anything like this but im sure ive seen someone do it

[@JekyllJones]

Yes a favourite channel of mine called Rescue and Restore uses this method on 3d printed chess pieces. Here's a timestamped link kzbin.info/www/bejne/hpivgIhvd9eIm5Y

[@LeftoverBeefcake]

You can use acetone to smooth prints made from ABS filament, however for PLA which is the most common filament out there, you can use nail polish remover (ethyl acetate), careful application of a heat gun, or a modified PLA filament that can react to alcohol vapors.

[@nickstubbings]

that 3d print is a bit ropey, the rest is cool though, especially the vapour brite

[@AdyHewitt]

It’s a shame that the filament isn’t available to be shipped to the UK.

[@devMashcom]

That interview with Mike Thomas is gold. I was just asking about GVP doing full frame streaming from the HD over on Retro-Computer Stack Exchange (RCSE). I saw this done in 1990 at World of Commodore in Toronto and it was (for the time) amazing. I would have SWORN that what I saw was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but maybe I actually saw the Dragons Lair video and just misremembered. Either way, at least now I know that I *really* did see this happening (because I never saw it again, anywhere). I would love to ask Mike more details, like if they ever used any other videos for that streaming demo, how many minutes of video they could store, what resolution was used, how many bitplanes, etc. - Ironically I grew up near King of Prussia, and ran an AmiExpress BBS too. crazy. - God those were fun times!

[@nemike42]

It's been so long since those video demos, but I know I did more than just Dragon's Lair, I also did Roger Rabbit and maybe I did Snow White, don't remember for sure either way. Can't remember any of the technical details sorry.

[@ScottDuensing]

I *STILL* desire to own these! 😀

[@keithw6379]

I always thought GVP stood for Great Value Products. Never looked close enough to see it was valley products :)

[@Liaantjuh]

eSun Bone White PLA+ you can get here in the UK, and it's a fairly close match to the colour of the Amiga 500

[@TheFifthUK]

I’d second this. I used it to print a cartridge case for use with my C64C. It’s almost a perfect match (although I don’t know how yellowed my C64C is!).

[@Mueller3D]

Don't forget to check if the GVP drives will frighten your granny!

[@johndododoe1411]

I guess you could use a lot less filler in the lids by printing them upside down.

[@TheVintageApplianceEmporium]

Where do people tend to get their liquid peroxide from in the UK? I've found the creme on eBay but never the liquid 🤔

[@neilo3476]

I may have missed it, but what did you use to clean the metal shielding parts?

[@RMCRetro]

Silvo polish

[@bufordmaddogtannen]

You should try to smooth the prints with acetone vapours. Same process as the vapo bright. Although, as someone else already pointed out, your 3D print settings need some refinement, as the quality can be much better.

[@Liaantjuh]

Not with PLA prints, you need ABS for that and that is much harder to print (needs higher temperatures, stable environmental temperatures, and gives off fumes that need to be dealt with). For a print this large it's really not recommended.

[@bufordmaddogtannen]

@@Liaantjuh right, I completely forgot. 🤣

[@PaulReed]

I've not seen fans that dirty since I last opened my PC case. For the glued in fans could you not have used IPA solvent or would that damage the casing more? Asking for future reference as I need to get my Atari STFM and STe open to remove their rapidly aging batteries if it isn't already too late.

[@stuartrodgers6299]

I'd certainly be interested in UK stock of that A500 colour matched PLA, very interesting!

[@UpLateGeek]

I am curious if the UV light helps with vapourbrighting. After seeing Mr Lurch's setup, I'm dreaming of a way to vapourbright the case of my Mac SE/30!

[@david-spliso1928]

So why were hard disks so bally expensive back then? Can we account for all the expense, does any include profiteering on low volume sales.

[@HappyHands.]

Nooo we must make spaceships out of them! :D

[@coffeecuparcade]

Awesome video Neil. I enjoy these so much. Looks like the 3D print was fantastic! I would like to know which 3D printers you use? We are thinking about getting one and need some advice. You have some great experience with them by now so I value your opinion. I love that new way of retrobrighting on the standoffs? I need to look into that method more. Thanks mate, keep em coming.

[@RMCRetro]

Hey thank you, we use the Prusa i3 MK3S+

[@greggv8]

Are you going to max out the RAM in those?

[@RetroJay1974]

I have an original Checkmate A1500. Somebody went OTT to build an ultimate A500. They had gutted an A590 and fitted the drive and controller board inside it. I want to upgrade the machine using one of those scsi to sd boards so the A590 will end up caseless. Do you offer a print service? no worries if you do not. Excellent video btw :)

[@IntenseGrid]

What about performance comparisons?

[@mryon314159]

I love these filaments but I had a dreadful time trying to print them in my otherwise perfectly working Prusa i3. It would jam almost every time. Curiously, it printed just fine in my crappy wanhao printer.

[@hjalfi]

Has anyone tried doing vapourbriting but with a electrical ozone generator instead of liquid hydrogen peroxide solution?

[@alexbiketester]

is it weird that I like "Amiga hard drive montages".... I had a Supra Drive with a 105mb disk and 2mb or ram, back in the day.

[@cardigansrule]

I had the earlier version of the GVP model, sort of square-rounded case, not nearly as sexy as the one shown here. I remember putting 2MB of ram chips in, about 20 of them ... I believe I paid about $250... for 2 MEGabytes... ouch. It even had a custom boot loader to boot from the HD, which wasn't even supported by the OS at the time (Kickstart 1.2). Think the HDD was 30MB or so, which was YUGE. I remember installing games like IT CAME FROM THE DESERT and other CinemaWare games that were 4-5 floppies and took forever to load from the A500's GRONKKYDISK