Great Video that I had already watched long ago. Today it came back to my mind when I wanted to flash Kick 3.2.1 to my ACA500+ and I succesfully did without any issues even though I did it a slightly different way. I transfered the Rom via the Xsurf 500 with Amiftp from my PC to the RAM of my OS3.1 installation and flashed it from there. Anyway your video especially the flashrom command was the crucial support that I needed. Thanks for that and all your other contribution.
Fantastic review. The ACA 500 + is an excellent product. I’ve had one for years and I agree with all your comments. Very thorough, it’s a very malleable product. Great job!
I can’t believe that I didn’t comment when I watched this video first time. Sorry Doug. Anyway as you know this is the video that got me to purchase the ACA500+ myself. It’s my favourite of all my Amiga things. It’s so versatile that I can’t recommend it enough. Today I final added the x-surf500 and the Indivision ocs/ecs mk2. Definitely a worthy upgrade. I’m hoping for an 030 accelerator by Individual computers for Christmas. Anyhow thank you again for this video.
Glad to hear it! I just killed my ACA500+ the other day - testing it in my Checkmate 1500+, I put in in the wrong way and blew a resistor. Bummer... I talked to Jens and he explained it is an easy fix, so I should be up and running with it soon!
10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast : oh no.. really sorry to hear. I was worried that I’d broken mine but thankfully it turned out to be not connected perfectly, when pushed right into the Amiga it must make a dodgy connection and the board malfunctions on startup. Thankfully just pulling it back out a faction fixes the issue. I do hope that it comes back to life. If not then I’ll have to put my Christmas present on hold to get you a replacement.
2 Megs of CHIP RAM in A500? That's a crazy comfort! :D Congratulations. :) And the ACA? Supercool! Congrats on the new purchase. New here, came here from Jan Beta's channel. Subscribed. Amiga Rulez!
I really like Jan Beta's videos - thanks for coming by! The MegAChip is awesome - just a few simple modifications and it gives 2 MB of lovely CHIP memory!
Been digging your videos lately since I've had some time to get back into my A500, thanks. :) I love my aca500plus! Got it last year as soon as the new batch shipped and wow it's incredible. Such a nicely put together piece of kit. Can't even imagine how much I would have freaked out to have one on my A500 back in the early 90s. Super rad. That was interesting with the Blizzard card. I don't have one to try it but yeah, nice. I think my head started sparking when you showed the Aquaman video. Whoa...
Just found your chanel and I'm loving it! Can you make a tutorial video showing how to install WHDLoad on the ACA500+? It would be great. A question as to your monitor... how is it connected to your Amiga 500? Cheers from Portugal!
I really should make a tutorial for WHDLOAD! But for now, look up Calkster on RUclips - he has some good tutorials. Sometimes I use a GBS 8220 interface to connect my Amiga 500, bit as of late I have used an RGB to SCART cable from Amigastore.EU connected to a SCART to HDMI interface from Amazon (total cost about $50) - it works nice and is easy to capture from, and pretty much eliminates interlace flickering
Hi Doug, intuition.library can be updatet (video 20:20). Copy LoadModule into C, add "C:LoadModule ROMUPDATE" to your Startup-Sequence after the Soft-Kick. I testesd it with a Blizzard 1230 Mk IV and a ACA1233n. I've installed intuition.library V45.13, the windows can be moved out of the screen. I woud have a suggestion for a video: Install OS3.9 with the 3.1.4 (and 3.1.4.1) updates.
I do have the Intuition library working perfect on my A4000, A1200 and A2000. It is only my A500 with the ACA500+ that gurus every time it is loaded. Must be a compatibility issue. I believe I did do a video on loading 3.1.4 over 3.9 to get the best of both worlds. That is how I run my A4000 and it works great using the script from Aminet.
@@10MARC Thanks. Later I found info it is not possible to save to hdd/cf I have two phisicall AR3s and they are ultimate game cheat devices. Which comes handy in these years way over 40, when there is not so much time to play. 😉
Eccellente video,l'AMIGA A500 con la ACA500 PLUS ha grandi prestazioni e un'ottima configurazione,con la BLIZZARD 040 l'A500 e' incredibile.hai fatto molto bene a montare 2 MB di ram chip,la ram non è mai troppa.hai un A500 stupendo,bravissimo
Awesome video! As an Amiga user since the early nineties (first A500, then and now A1200) I am incredibly impressed by the ham6 video - where did you get it? I would like to try it on my A1200/060. Thanks!
I create the videos myself. There are instructions and several videos on my www.10marc.com website, including links to all the tools. It is not simple, as most of it is command line instructions in Windows, but once you get the hang of it it is not too bad. I can link up some others, too. Check out the "Chocolate Lagoon" video from Bad Lip Reading that I converted to HAM6 - it is in my video list.
Hello Doug, Love your Retrocast and have just received the ACA500PLUS. I didn’t have CF cards on hand, but I ordered some SanDisks from Amazon. Not sure if I should order the 1223 or 1221 accelerator to go with it. If I really just want to use it as a hard disk to run games on WHD load, would having another accelerator enhance my experience at all?
I can run a good 95% of the games I tried with just my ACA500+ at 21 Mhz. The extra memory goes a long way to making it work, and Jens built in hardware functions so that the keys to exit out of WHDLOAD work with the 68000. That being said, more power never hurts!
Does the "Main menu" always shows up at boot? Or is there an auto skip menu option to boot straight into Workbench when powering up the Amiga, so that no keypress is needed?
Great video. That is an impressive bit of kit. Love the fact that it’s so configurable. Shame it doesn’t come with a case that can house both it and an A1200 card. Earlier this year I installed a CF card on my Viper 520CD accelerator but don’t think I thought to check the drive speed.
Great summary. For me the kickstart roms were not on the A500 Modules disk (I think they wouldn't fit with all the other stuff anyway), but directly in the roms/ folder from the zip you download from Hyperion.
Awesome Video!! When you did the OS Install why didnt you just use the F7 feature? Also how are you getting the Amiga video to the monitor are you using SCART? Thanks for helping to keep the Amiga alive!! I got my first one in the 80's and have loved them ever since!
I did not use F7 because I installed Amiga OS 3.1.4 - so it had to be from floppies. I do have a CF card with just 3.1 on it, too. At that time I was using a GBS8220 to go from Amiga RGB to 31.5 Khz
From time to time I wish for an internal solution like the Terrible Fire for my A500 instead of the somewhat ugly ACA500+ but then I see again the many great advantages like the fast installation of Workbench 3.1 and the external CF card drive. The data exchange with the PC is so comfortable. I would recommend it to every Amiga beginner.
I really like the Terrible Fire, but the limited RAM makes it a deal breaker for me. WIth the software I run I need every Megabyte I can use. I find that 64MB is Plenty for me on my A1200 - I almost never run short.
When I have time I will try these informative instructions. I grabbed my aca500 plus last year and have not done much too it as if yet. I will add a version 6.0 pal board with this card into Stephens A1500 case that I purchased via Kickstarter...it should arrive soon.
Very cool video! About to get an A500 to replace the one my mother sold when I moved out about 20 years ago... Do you think MP3's could play with the ACA500+ ? Just a random question... your video sold me on the accelerator card regardless! :)
I think I had an issue launching my MP3 software (songplayer) on a 68000 based machine. It might need a 68020, but I will try it out today. I have really only been happy with MP3 play back on a 68040 Amiga.
Hi again, Doug. On an earlier comment, I mentioned I had a new ACA500PLUS, but was waiting on some CF cards. After receiving the CF cards, I was able to unpack the 3.1 ROM on to the boot card and I attempted to update to 3.1.4 using directions from your video. Unfortunately, the set of disks I received from another vendor didn't have the Modules A600 disk. I'm not sure how to complete my installation without it. I'll probably just contact AOTL and see if they can send me a disk. Do you have any advice? I purchased Amiga Forever, new 3.1.4 ROM chips and AmigaOS on a 6 disk set. I'm thinking there should be a way to do this without having the Modules disk.
If you bought the ROMS, then you can register on the Hyperion website and download all the disks including the modules disk. It is then super easy to copy the ROM to your AUX CF card and flash it to the ACA500+ - just grab your serial number for the software from the sticker on the ROM and head over to the Hyperion website.
Hi Doug I'm Edmondo from Italy. I have an important question for you. I have a stock Amiga with a stock chip Agnus (not ECS) and so I have 512k of chip ram and 512k of slow ram in the trapdoor. In your opinion: could WHDload and other softwares run flawlessly only with 512k of chipmem? Did I have to buy an ECS Agnus and swap it to make everything working? Thanks in advance.
WHDLOAD will always run best with 1 MB of CHIP RAM and a reasonable amount of extra FAST RAM. There are also limitations with running it on a vanilla 68000. WHDLOAD also needs some kind of mass storage solution to function. If your a500 is just bare bones, you would be better off running ADF files from a GoTek drive (floppy replacement). On the other hand, fitting your A500 with a Terrible fire accelerator would add a 68030, 64 MB of RAM, a hard drive interface and more for about $150. Totally worth it and would make your system a WHDLOAD beast.
I just bought the romulator you did a video on. it arrived so can't wait until I get time to install it etc. I have the old supra turbo 28 from way back and converted my supra 500xp with a scsi to sd card adaptor. I will have to go check my speed etc now hahaha Take Care
The DKB MegaChip card. It lets you install the 2 MB Agnus. I have one in my A500 (now with a Vampire card) and one in my Amiga 2000. There are now at least two modern alternatives available. You just have to source the right Agnus chip.
@@10MARC I thought you have to desolder Agnus socket from the board. I will have to check it. One of my Rev 6a has 1mb chip which is maximum with original agnus
Very good review of the ACA. Unfortunately, as you said, the limitation of the A500 is the bottleneck, the system will introduce wait states to access the custom chips hence why it is showing as slower than a stock 4000, but the ACA500 and A1200 expansion will be full 32bit, so CF to ram transfers will be full speed (to the limits of the CF controller). Does it only run PIO and not DMA ? Perhaps would have taken too long to introduce Multi-Word DMA. The custom cases for the ACA is the best bet, because they also have the room to house the A1200 trapdoor expansion. Jens made it compatible for the 1233, hence why the ACA's bios only shows 1233n for 'CPU Switch', but it shows that it CAN run other expansions, just that Jens cannot support cards other than his 1233n. This would be an ideal candidate for my A1200 DKB Cobra since I do not have the SCSI addon for it (which is rarer than a 4 leaf clover).
When you boot to a bare 3.1 boot disk it shows as only having 5.5mb of fast ram. Is that because of the option to copy the option rom in the advanced settings? Otherwise I would probably find leaving that option off would not hurt any performance and give the extra bit of ram.
The ACA500+ only has 7 MB of RAM, but it keeps the Kickstart ROM in a different area. I use Amiga OS 3.1.3 and usually have around 6 MB of FAST RAM free. Keeping the ROM in Flash Memory actually increases speed quite a lot - more so than having an extra 512KB of RAM even if it did use it.
@@10MARC Ok. That was the part where i was wondering why it would have used so much. My son just pointed out that you mentioned you had increased buffers setup on your drives. That may have been it, as when you boot 3.1.4 later in the video, it is using a bit more ram which seemed in line with the difference I see between 3.1 and 3.14 without rom copied to fast ram. lol it just seemed weird that 3.1 would use more than about 200k.
@@wishusknight3009 you are probably right. I may have used a larger block size, and then did what I used to do, which is to use 150 - 300 buffers, which just eats away at that fast RAM!
Hey Doug - I love this review... and your other reviews. I've just bought myself an Amiga 500+ again after an absence of 30 years. There are accelerator and expansion offerings now that just didn't exist before. I like the idea of the ACA500 but I just have a problem with sticking something out the side of the machine. My main new grievance with the Amiga 500+ compared to say the Amiga 600 and 1200 is a lack of hard drive, and a lack of memory to run games and apps from the hard drive. In addition to side-slot mounted expansions, I'm now aware of the Witcher, the Vampire, the HC533. For my money maybe the HC533 might be a clean option to get the 500+ to have a decent size hard-drive. Could you do a story that focused on what is still out there on offer - that would provide a hard drive capability and preferably is a not destructive exercise... and ideally is internal to the Amiga?
That is an excellent idea. I have been researching the options already as I was thinking of using a different accelerator on my second A500. Maybe late November I can do a show on all the options
@@10MARC Thanks so much Doug for considering. I really would love to see something that wraps up a bit of info covering the available expansion boards in the at-this-time. Maybe a comparison matrix would work. For me I don't even care if you have the physical cards, or even if you install one in your video (kudos if you do)... I would just like to hears someone I trust to talk about the pros and cons of each (including features, availability, execution stability, cost, support for WHDLoad, ease of physical install, configure, and dynamic use etc). There seem to be some older videos on youtube about various A500 accelerators (1-2 years etc), but these boards may well have been updated since then, and there is nothing really definitive. I also forgot to mention the Terrible Fire card... (but I'm still not sure if it just an accelerator or can also support a hard drive). Another aspect that I have thought about is whether the expansion has a real-time clock, whether it support any other existing RAM expansion OK... and something else that I have been thinking about is why do they most often use Compact Flash? What does CF provide over SD. Then there is also the question of whether I need to buy a new Kickstart ROM to get access to all of an expansion card's features. I current have KS 2.1 ROM installed, and a 6a revision board. Are there options to use SD & Micro SD, and if not are there any Compact Flash to SD card adapters, that will work OK with the Compact Flash IDE, or will only a genuine CF card work? Too many questions to little time, and too little cash to experiment myself unfortunately? I guess that is always the thing... once someone has decided on a suitable expansion board ... what else needs to be purchased? Probably a CF card, but if I already have a swag of micro SD cards... could I just buy a CF 2 SD adapter, and would that reliably work. The base requirements I guess stay the same.. what can I buy (bang-for-bucks) that provides a hard-drive capacity and some expanded RAM for the A500?
Doug.. great stuff.. Where do I buy it and what else will I need? First I need to get my Amiga out of storage and make sure it boots up okay. Do you have a recommendation on a monitor that would work well? Thanks again...
Individual Computers at www.icomp.de has the ACA500, and I think they are in stock. The website is in German, but there is an English button. Don't worry about ordering overseas, it actually ships quick. If you don't have a traditional Amiga monitor anymore, take a look at my video "The 15 Khz Conundrum and my review of the GBS 8220 interface for some ideas.
@@somewhere-in-time does that one support forcing a 4:3 aspect ratio? The Acer I have does not, so all my Amiga screens are forced to 16:9 which looks a bit odd. I am still quite happy with it, though.
@@10MARC I think the monitor itself is 5:4 so its atleast closer to regular ! I think the native PC resolution is 1280x1024 - I do struggle with black borders here and there though .. but it seems I get that anywhere if not on native Amiga monitors. :-/
Really neat experiment with the Blizzard connected via ACA! 👍. Will I dare experiment with my Blizzard 1260+128MB. I would say NO! I don’t have the ACA card, I am sure I would have been tempted. Nice video!
Watching this again as I am ordered one and wanted to know if you every talked more about the vampire? you said you would get back to it. i thikn it has the AGA chip somehow or somehting - i think i would like AGA in my A500. Also the 2 megs for the agnus, i need a 10 min video on the agnus. If she fat, fatter or the fattest? I think I got a 1 megs upgrade in my a500 but what would a 2 megs give me? maybe a combo video about the vraois chipsets and the agnus upgrades! Thanks for all the great videos!!
Some time I will get a Vampire - probably will order it later this year. The 2 MB Agnus and the 2 MB of CHIP RAM are very important to me as I do a lot of graphics work on my Amiga. For games it does not help much. You will love your ACA500+
The Vampire can allow you to play some AGA games, and provides Retargetable Graphics for the A500 so you can use it with more colors. It is at least similar to adding AGA to your Amiga, but not exactly the same
This now becomes a tutorial for me, as my A500 rev 5 now has an ACA500+. Although, I did install the physical 3.1.4 ROM onto the board. So I suppose I could just create a profile that's set to use the mainboard ROM and install the OS from the GoTek.
Your Amiga needs the program ImageMount or GoADF to be able to mount ADF files as virtual disks. Even then they will only be useable in Workbench. If you want to boot an ADF - like if it is a game - you need to use a GoTek virtual floppy drive for that. You can use GoADF to create real floppy disks from ADF files, though.
I have a MegaChip from DKB. It let you use the "Fatter Agnus" 2 MB chip on any A500 or A2000. They are wonderful! Jens from Individual Computers occasionally makes something similar
@@pauldeane8369 I have had pretty good luck with the 16 Gig SanDisk compact flash cards. I get them on Amazon usually. I make a 4 gig workbench partition and a 12 gig Work: partition. To be honest, I have had pretty good luck with a new fast file system in the new OS. I have nothing against PFS, but the new FFS is not too bad. It comes with no flash cards at all. I have a really tiny one that I use for data transfer, but I will be ordering a 5 gig one for that purpose, because it is only used to transfer data and update firmware
@@pauldeane8369 I installed mine right on the A500. Which card did you end up getting? And which OS are you installing? All of those are factors. If it is 3.1, you have to keep your partitions below 4 GB or it won't work right. 3.1.4 does not have that problem, but you have to make sure the ROM is loaded and you are booting to that ROM. Idiot is easier, hit me up on Facebook Messenger and we can talk about it.
Great video. Got also a ACA500Plus/ACE2 on my old Rev 5 AMIGA 500 but with a 4GB CF WB 3.1. Thuis week i get AmigaOS 3.1.4 and a 16GB CF and later on a ACA1221EC. Got also a Rev8A with a Wicher500i. Rev2a with 25MHz and 8MB FAST RAM. Waiting for the Vampire 500 V4,, A590 2MB FAST RAM SCSI2SD v5.0a 2GB microSD WB 1.3 and the HC533.
No, my a500 Rev 5 has a 1.3 Kickstart, but I can soft kick any version of Kickstart that I own. It's fairly easy to flash a new Kickstart ROM to the card, and it can hold several different ones.
The German company plexilaser dot de has a nice case for that, the Web page is in German, but you can write them also in English, you need to state your ACA500+ version V1 or the new V2 and you can get an additional kit if you want to install the X-Surf 500.
FYI you don't have to use the aux CF card to put the 3.1.4 ROM file on in order to flash it to the ACA500+... I put the ROM on an ADF floppy image and stuck it on my Gotek, and did the same procedure from there.
i have the old version of aca500plus (small display) which won't boot if i select cpu speed 28 or 42 mhz. so my aca500plus only works with 21mhz max. and i want to test ham videos like the ones you showed end of episode. where can i download some? i assume the program to play them is this: aminet.net/package/gfx/show/hamview
That is a bummer that yours won't work at faster speeds. I wonder if some of it relates to your version of the A500 motherboard. Mine is rock solid at 42 MHz and I am using a Rev 6 motherboard. I have some videos up on my www.10marc.com website, but I have not updated it in a while. I do have an idea in my head for writing a script to make creating your own videos fairly automatic.
@@10MARC thx! unfortunately, i don't have any "real" ocs based amiga 500, mine is an ecs based amiga 500 plus, rev 8, 1mb chip ram on board + 1mb chip ram in expansion slot (2mb chip in total). so i can't even test, if my aca500plus would run 28/42mhz on an ocs base amiga 500. as a workaround for this issue i plugged an aca1221 onto it, which can do 28mhz, adding 62mb of fast ram. and on this configuration (a500+ and aca500+ with aca1221) your videos work pretty decent, i already tested skyrim.h6v! i didn't download aga version, since amiga 500 plus doesn't provide aga, i'll have to test this using winuae sometime. :D btw. i encountered a funny fact regarding drive speeds: system partition (cf0:) on boot cf card is slower (4.499.017 bytes/sec) than work partition (cf1:) on same cf card in boot slot (6.553.600 bytes/sec)! and cf card in aux slot (cfaux:) is as fast as work partition (6.553.600 bytes/sec). all values refer to aca1221 plugged onto aca500plus.
@@honx4amiga hmmmm... That rev of board should work great at 28 or 42 MHz. Let me ask you - can you actually select the higher speeds and then it just crashes, or does it not allow you to even choose them? My h6v videos should work ok even if you turn your ACA500+ down to 7 or 14 MHz. Faster is always better, though. I will create some new ones in the next few weeks and post them.
@@10MARC i can select and set 28 and 42 mhz. so far so good. but as i try to boot, the amiga freezes. i have to turn off an on the machine and occasionally after turning on my amiga, monitor stays black an aca500plus displays "FF", so i have to reboot again (ctrl+amiga+amiga) in order to see aca menu system again...
The thing that stopped me from buying was finding out that it is an asynchronous CPU u/g, with the clock speed based on PAL speeds. So, it will match up perfectly with the Amiga system bus for DMA as long as it is in PAL mode. However, it doesn't in NTSC mode. Hopefully the ACA1000 will be finished and released and will be synchronous. I believe that the majority of A1000's are NTSC. Certainly a higher proportion are then A500's.
That makes sense. The ACA500+ is good, but not my favorite accelerator. It is very, very sensitive to damage as is just about everything Jens makes. Glance at it wrong and it shorts out!
Amiga has changed a lot since i used them. Still have a working A1000 and broken A1200. Sold my A3000 long ago :(. Where could i get my A1200 fixed in canada or usa?
Thanks Doug for this comprehensive review and demo, it was very useful to me when I was bringing my childhood A500 back to life! I ended up using the ACA500plus and made a couple of videos on the project. I gave a link to your video in the description of my part 2 video in case you're curious: ruclips.net/video/xRTThZvt95I/видео.html Thanks again!
Have since yesterday the new ACA500Plus V2 from 2018. My old ACA500Plus V1 from 2016 is dead and can’t repair. Have connect the ACA1233n-55 RTC and it’s bloody fast. Is the fastest 68030 card ever build and have 7MB/s on the CF 32GB card with WB 3.1.4.1 - BestWB 1.3. Have also the Indivision ECS V2 to replace the old Indivision ECS V1 for the BenQ BL702A VGA monitor. And it’s razor sharp and WHDLoad Games ans Demos plays much better than the old ECS V1 card.
I have an A4000 as my main machine , but also an A500+ lying about doing nothing , now ....... i'm very tempted to buy the ACA ....... (this retro computing thing is getting way outta hand here ! ;-) ) Nice video as always !
My A500 sat around for about 25 years doing nothing. I would turn it on every 5 or 6 years to make sure it still worked, then pack it away and go back to my A1200 and A4000. When I started 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast, I dug it out and found out the Keyboard had failed - and then I started spending more money on it... The rest is history.
10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast Jens offered to repair for around $70 which was more than fair, but he couldn’t know what the governmental or regulatory fees would be to finish transaction. At that point, it really wasn’t worth it to me. Life’s lessons are always hard.
For over half an hour you demonstrate an accelerator and don't even bust out a game that could benefit from it, like maybe Frontier? LAME. Instead, you play a video. Big deal. A stock 7MHz Amiga could do that with enough hard disk speed. I've been watching your videos for a while but I'm not sure why. You're long-winded and kinda creepy, and spend too much time on the minutae and too little time doing anything exciting. 10 minute? More like 30 minute snooze fest. Sometimes I literally go to sleep by this.
Wow... Sounds like you need to find a channel who specializes in video games! Pew! Pew! Thanks for the commentary on me being Long Winded and Kinda Creepy. That was great! I am glad I can help cure your insomnia, though. That's a perk. I will be sure to put that in my channel description, right next to the part where I explain that I don't concentrate on the gaming aspects of the Amiga, but the hardware , productivity and creative aspects.
Great Video that I had already watched long ago. Today it came back to my mind when I wanted to flash Kick 3.2.1 to my ACA500+ and I succesfully did without any issues even though I did it a slightly different way. I transfered the Rom via the Xsurf 500 with Amiftp from my PC to the RAM of my OS3.1 installation and flashed it from there. Anyway your video especially the flashrom command was the crucial support that I needed. Thanks for that and all your other contribution.
Yes, I actually go back to my own video sometimes to remind myself how to flash a new Kickstart to my card! ;)
Fantastic review. The ACA 500 + is an excellent product. I’ve had one for years and I agree with all your comments. Very thorough, it’s a very malleable product. Great job!
Thanks. I do need to do an updated version of it one of these days
Wow, this peripheral looks amazing. Individual Computers makes some tremendous stuff!
It is a fantastic device for the Amiga 500. Really very versatile.
@@10MARC Your video convinced me to order one. I think I've become an Individual Computers fan boy!
I can’t believe that I didn’t comment when I watched this video first time. Sorry Doug.
Anyway as you know this is the video that got me to purchase the ACA500+ myself. It’s my favourite of all my Amiga things. It’s so versatile that I can’t recommend it enough.
Today I final added the x-surf500 and the Indivision ocs/ecs mk2. Definitely a worthy upgrade. I’m hoping for an 030 accelerator by Individual computers for Christmas.
Anyhow thank you again for this video.
Glad to hear it! I just killed my ACA500+ the other day - testing it in my Checkmate 1500+, I put in in the wrong way and blew a resistor. Bummer... I talked to Jens and he explained it is an easy fix, so I should be up and running with it soon!
10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast : oh no.. really sorry to hear. I was worried that I’d broken mine but thankfully it turned out to be not connected perfectly, when pushed right into the Amiga it must make a dodgy connection and the board malfunctions on startup. Thankfully just pulling it back out a faction fixes the issue.
I do hope that it comes back to life. If not then I’ll have to put my Christmas present on hold to get you a replacement.
2 Megs of CHIP RAM in A500? That's a crazy comfort! :D Congratulations. :) And the ACA? Supercool! Congrats on the new purchase. New here, came here from Jan Beta's channel. Subscribed. Amiga Rulez!
I really like Jan Beta's videos - thanks for coming by! The MegAChip is awesome - just a few simple modifications and it gives 2 MB of lovely CHIP memory!
Doug, thanks for the review and demo. I _really_ like that this card leaves the original hardware unmodified! Awesome :)
It really is a nice bit of hardware. I ended up damaging my original, but I bought a second one!
Been digging your videos lately since I've had some time to get back into my A500, thanks. :) I love my aca500plus! Got it last year as soon as the new batch shipped and wow it's incredible. Such a nicely put together piece of kit. Can't even imagine how much I would have freaked out to have one on my A500 back in the early 90s. Super rad. That was interesting with the Blizzard card. I don't have one to try it but yeah, nice. I think my head started sparking when you showed the Aquaman video. Whoa...
The ACA500+ is very wonderful. I love mine. Thanks for the nice words!
Your videos are always very informative and well done..
I appreciate that! Those are very kind words
Just found your chanel and I'm loving it!
Can you make a tutorial video showing how to install WHDLoad on the ACA500+? It would be great.
A question as to your monitor... how is it connected to your Amiga 500?
Cheers from Portugal!
I really should make a tutorial for WHDLOAD! But for now, look up Calkster on RUclips - he has some good tutorials. Sometimes I use a GBS 8220 interface to connect my Amiga 500, bit as of late I have used an RGB to SCART cable from Amigastore.EU connected to a SCART to HDMI interface from Amazon (total cost about $50) - it works nice and is easy to capture from, and pretty much eliminates interlace flickering
Awesome, i'll watch this again the moment my ACA500plus arrives!
You will love the ACA500+. It is really a very nice product and works as advertised.
@@10MARC Great! Especially since my floppy drive decided to die just now.
Hi Doug, intuition.library can be updatet (video 20:20). Copy LoadModule into C, add "C:LoadModule ROMUPDATE" to your Startup-Sequence after the Soft-Kick. I testesd it with a Blizzard 1230 Mk IV and a ACA1233n. I've installed intuition.library V45.13, the windows can be moved out of the screen. I woud have a suggestion for a video: Install OS3.9 with the 3.1.4 (and 3.1.4.1) updates.
I do have the Intuition library working perfect on my A4000, A1200 and A2000. It is only my A500 with the ACA500+ that gurus every time it is loaded. Must be a compatibility issue. I believe I did do a video on loading 3.1.4 over 3.9 to get the best of both worlds. That is how I run my A4000 and it works great using the script from Aminet.
Doug, did you try to use AR3 to save states of whdload games?
Also, does AR3 implementation allow to save state on HDD, or floppy only?
Never tried it, honestly.
@@10MARC Thanks. Later I found info it is not possible to save to hdd/cf
I have two phisicall AR3s and they are ultimate game cheat devices. Which comes handy in these years way over 40, when there is not so much time to play. 😉
Eccellente video,l'AMIGA A500 con la ACA500 PLUS ha grandi prestazioni e un'ottima configurazione,con la BLIZZARD 040 l'A500 e' incredibile.hai fatto molto bene a montare 2 MB di ram chip,la ram non è mai troppa.hai un A500 stupendo,bravissimo
Awesome video! As an Amiga user since the early nineties (first A500, then and now A1200) I am incredibly impressed by the ham6 video - where did you get it? I would like to try it on my A1200/060. Thanks!
I create the videos myself. There are instructions and several videos on my www.10marc.com website, including links to all the tools. It is not simple, as most of it is command line instructions in Windows, but once you get the hang of it it is not too bad. I can link up some others, too. Check out the "Chocolate Lagoon" video from Bad Lip Reading that I converted to HAM6 - it is in my video list.
Hello Doug,
Love your Retrocast and have just received the ACA500PLUS.
I didn’t have CF cards on hand, but I ordered some SanDisks from Amazon. Not sure if I should order the 1223 or 1221 accelerator to go with it. If I really just want to use it as a hard disk to run games on WHD load, would having another accelerator enhance my experience at all?
I can run a good 95% of the games I tried with just my ACA500+ at 21 Mhz. The extra memory goes a long way to making it work, and Jens built in hardware functions so that the keys to exit out of WHDLOAD work with the 68000. That being said, more power never hurts!
Does the "Main menu" always shows up at boot? Or is there an auto skip menu option to boot straight into Workbench when powering up the Amiga, so that no keypress is needed?
28:58 yes standard, without any acceleration cards
Great video. That is an impressive bit of kit. Love the fact that it’s so configurable. Shame it doesn’t come with a case that can house both it and an A1200 card. Earlier this year I installed a CF card on my Viper 520CD accelerator but don’t think I thought to check the drive speed.
I have seen a few cases online for it, but I have not decided which one to go with yet
Great summary. For me the kickstart roms were not on the A500 Modules disk (I think they wouldn't fit with all the other stuff anyway), but directly in the roms/ folder from the zip you download from Hyperion.
Yep - They are a download from Hyperion. You are correct.
Awesome Video!! When you did the OS Install why didnt you just use the F7 feature? Also how are you getting the Amiga video to the monitor are you using SCART?
Thanks for helping to keep the Amiga alive!! I got my first one in the 80's and have loved them ever since!
I did not use F7 because I installed Amiga OS 3.1.4 - so it had to be from floppies. I do have a CF card with just 3.1 on it, too. At that time I was using a GBS8220 to go from Amiga RGB to 31.5 Khz
drive speed is Mega Bytes per second.
That comes from years of talking to customers about internet speeds instead of hard drive speeds! Thanks for the correction!
From time to time I wish for an internal solution like the Terrible Fire for my A500 instead of the somewhat ugly ACA500+ but then I see again the many great advantages like the fast installation of Workbench 3.1 and the external CF card drive. The data exchange with the PC is so comfortable. I would recommend it to every Amiga beginner.
I really like the Terrible Fire, but the limited RAM makes it a deal breaker for me. WIth the software I run I need every Megabyte I can use. I find that 64MB is Plenty for me on my A1200 - I almost never run short.
Thanks, very pleasant demo
Glad you enjoyed it!
When I have time I will try these informative instructions. I grabbed my aca500 plus last year and have not done much too it as if yet. I will add a version 6.0 pal board with this card into Stephens A1500 case that I purchased via Kickstarter...it should arrive soon.
You will love it! Some people are having issues with the ACA500+ in the Checkmate case, but hopefully it will be resolved soon
Very cool video! About to get an A500 to replace the one my mother sold when I moved out about 20 years ago... Do you think MP3's could play with the ACA500+ ? Just a random question... your video sold me on the accelerator card regardless! :)
I think I had an issue launching my MP3 software (songplayer) on a 68000 based machine. It might need a 68020, but I will try it out today. I have really only been happy with MP3 play back on a 68040 Amiga.
Hi again, Doug. On an earlier comment, I mentioned I had a new ACA500PLUS, but was waiting on some CF cards. After receiving the CF cards, I was able to unpack the 3.1 ROM on to the boot card and I attempted to update to 3.1.4 using directions from your video. Unfortunately, the set of disks I received from another vendor didn't have the Modules A600 disk. I'm not sure how to complete my installation without it. I'll probably just contact AOTL and see if they can send me a disk. Do you have any advice? I purchased Amiga Forever, new 3.1.4 ROM chips and AmigaOS on a 6 disk set. I'm thinking there should be a way to do this without having the Modules disk.
If you bought the ROMS, then you can register on the Hyperion website and download all the disks including the modules disk. It is then super easy to copy the ROM to your AUX CF card and flash it to the ACA500+ - just grab your serial number for the software from the sticker on the ROM and head over to the Hyperion website.
10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast
Thanks for the reply! I should’ve snapped a photo of the ROM chip before closing it up!
Hi Doug I'm Edmondo from Italy. I have an important question for you. I have a stock Amiga with a stock chip Agnus (not ECS) and so I have 512k of chip ram and 512k of slow ram in the trapdoor. In your opinion: could WHDload and other softwares run flawlessly only with 512k of chipmem? Did I have to buy an ECS Agnus and swap it to make everything working? Thanks in advance.
WHDLOAD will always run best with 1 MB of CHIP RAM and a reasonable amount of extra FAST RAM. There are also limitations with running it on a vanilla 68000. WHDLOAD also needs some kind of mass storage solution to function.
If your a500 is just bare bones, you would be better off running ADF files from a GoTek drive (floppy replacement).
On the other hand, fitting your A500 with a Terrible fire accelerator would add a 68030, 64 MB of RAM, a hard drive interface and more for about $150. Totally worth it and would make your system a WHDLOAD beast.
@@10MARC ah, Sorry, I intended if I buy an ACA500+ but I don't change the Agnus, could the whdload work?
I just bought the romulator you did a video on. it arrived so can't wait until I get time to install it etc. I have the old supra turbo 28 from way back and converted my supra 500xp with a scsi to sd card adaptor. I will have to go check my speed etc now hahaha Take Care
You should have a good time with it. Let me know how it works with your Supra
How did you add 2 mb chip?
The DKB MegaChip card. It lets you install the 2 MB Agnus. I have one in my A500 (now with a Vampire card) and one in my Amiga 2000.
There are now at least two modern alternatives available. You just have to source the right Agnus chip.
@@10MARC I thought you have to desolder Agnus socket from the board. I will have to check it. One of my Rev 6a has 1mb chip which is maximum with original agnus
just found these videos in that last 1/4 of 2018, excellent
just one request can you put a link to the products.
I often do - maybe I missed it this time. Thanks for the reminder!
Very good review of the ACA.
Unfortunately, as you said, the limitation of the A500 is the bottleneck, the system will introduce wait states to access the custom chips hence why it is showing as slower than a stock 4000, but the ACA500 and A1200 expansion will be full 32bit, so CF to ram transfers will be full speed (to the limits of the CF controller). Does it only run PIO and not DMA ? Perhaps would have taken too long to introduce Multi-Word DMA.
The custom cases for the ACA is the best bet, because they also have the room to house the A1200 trapdoor expansion. Jens made it compatible for the 1233, hence why the ACA's bios only shows 1233n for 'CPU Switch', but it shows that it CAN run other expansions, just that Jens cannot support cards other than his 1233n.
This would be an ideal candidate for my A1200 DKB Cobra since I do not have the SCSI addon for it (which is rarer than a 4 leaf clover).
Yes these are PIO only. But they are still some of the fastest hard drive speeds on the Amiga. Only my Vampire is faster, really.
When you boot to a bare 3.1 boot disk it shows as only having 5.5mb of fast ram. Is that because of the option to copy the option rom in the advanced settings? Otherwise I would probably find leaving that option off would not hurt any performance and give the extra bit of ram.
The ACA500+ only has 7 MB of RAM, but it keeps the Kickstart ROM in a different area. I use Amiga OS 3.1.3 and usually have around 6 MB of FAST RAM free.
Keeping the ROM in Flash Memory actually increases speed quite a lot - more so than having an extra 512KB of RAM even if it did use it.
@@10MARC That makes sense. which workbench were you using when you did the flash update? I thought that was the old plain 3.1?
@@wishusknight3009 I may have been experimenting with AmigaOS 3.1 on that video. I usually use Amiga OS 3.1.4, though
@@10MARC Ok. That was the part where i was wondering why it would have used so much. My son just pointed out that you mentioned you had increased buffers setup on your drives. That may have been it, as when you boot 3.1.4 later in the video, it is using a bit more ram which seemed in line with the difference I see between 3.1 and 3.14 without rom copied to fast ram.
lol it just seemed weird that 3.1 would use more than about 200k.
@@wishusknight3009 you are probably right. I may have used a larger block size, and then did what I used to do, which is to use 150 - 300 buffers, which just eats away at that fast RAM!
Hey Doug - I love this review... and your other reviews. I've just bought myself an Amiga 500+ again after an absence of 30 years. There are accelerator and expansion offerings now that just didn't exist before. I like the idea of the ACA500 but I just have a problem with sticking something out the side of the machine. My main new grievance with the Amiga 500+ compared to say the Amiga 600 and 1200 is a lack of hard drive, and a lack of memory to run games and apps from the hard drive. In addition to side-slot mounted expansions, I'm now aware of the Witcher, the Vampire, the HC533. For my money maybe the HC533 might be a clean option to get the 500+ to have a decent size hard-drive. Could you do a story that focused on what is still out there on offer - that would provide a hard drive capability and preferably is a not destructive exercise... and ideally is internal to the Amiga?
That is an excellent idea. I have been researching the options already as I was thinking of using a different accelerator on my second A500. Maybe late November I can do a show on all the options
@@10MARC Thanks so much Doug for considering. I really would love to see something that wraps up a bit of info covering the available expansion boards in the at-this-time. Maybe a comparison matrix would work. For me I don't even care if you have the physical cards, or even if you install one in your video (kudos if you do)... I would just like to hears someone I trust to talk about the pros and cons of each (including features, availability, execution stability, cost, support for WHDLoad, ease of physical install, configure, and dynamic use etc). There seem to be some older videos on youtube about various A500 accelerators (1-2 years etc), but these boards may well have been updated since then, and there is nothing really definitive.
I also forgot to mention the Terrible Fire card... (but I'm still not sure if it just an accelerator or can also support a hard drive). Another aspect that I have thought about is whether the expansion has a real-time clock, whether it support any other existing RAM expansion OK... and something else that I have been thinking about is why do they most often use Compact Flash? What does CF provide over SD. Then there is also the question of whether I need to buy a new Kickstart ROM to get access to all of an expansion card's features. I current have KS 2.1 ROM installed, and a 6a revision board. Are there options to use SD & Micro SD, and if not are there any Compact Flash to SD card adapters, that will work OK with the Compact Flash IDE, or will only a genuine CF card work? Too many questions to little time, and too little cash to experiment myself unfortunately? I guess that is always the thing... once someone has decided on a suitable expansion board ... what else needs to be purchased? Probably a CF card, but if I already have a swag of micro SD cards... could I just buy a CF 2 SD adapter, and would that reliably work. The base requirements I guess stay the same.. what can I buy (bang-for-bucks) that provides a hard-drive capacity and some expanded RAM for the A500?
Doug.. great stuff.. Where do I buy it and what else will I need? First I need to get my Amiga out of storage and make sure it boots up okay. Do you have a recommendation on a monitor that would work well? Thanks again...
Individual Computers at www.icomp.de has the ACA500, and I think they are in stock. The website is in German, but there is an English button. Don't worry about ordering overseas, it actually ships quick. If you don't have a traditional Amiga monitor anymore, take a look at my video "The 15 Khz Conundrum and my review of the GBS 8220 interface for some ideas.
BenQ BL912 is ok for VGA LCD
@@somewhere-in-time does that one support forcing a 4:3 aspect ratio? The Acer I have does not, so all my Amiga screens are forced to 16:9 which looks a bit odd. I am still quite happy with it, though.
@@10MARC I think the monitor itself is 5:4 so its atleast closer to regular ! I think the native PC resolution is 1280x1024 - I do struggle with black borders here and there though .. but it seems I get that anywhere if not on native Amiga monitors. :-/
Really neat experiment with the Blizzard connected via ACA! 👍. Will I dare experiment with my Blizzard 1260+128MB. I would say NO! I don’t have the ACA card, I am sure I would have been tempted. Nice video!
It needed some tweaking to work 100%, but it really worked! Thanks for the kind words
Watching this again as I am ordered one and wanted to know if you every talked more about the vampire? you said you would get back to it. i thikn it has the AGA chip somehow or somehting - i think i would like AGA in my A500.
Also the 2 megs for the agnus, i need a 10 min video on the agnus. If she fat, fatter or the fattest? I think I got a 1 megs upgrade in my a500 but what would a 2 megs give me? maybe a combo video about the vraois chipsets and the agnus upgrades!
Thanks for all the great videos!!
Some time I will get a Vampire - probably will order it later this year. The 2 MB Agnus and the 2 MB of CHIP RAM are very important to me as I do a lot of graphics work on my Amiga. For games it does not help much. You will love your ACA500+
The Vampire can allow you to play some AGA games, and provides Retargetable Graphics for the A500 so you can use it with more colors. It is at least similar to adding AGA to your Amiga, but not exactly the same
whats the diference between the F9 and F10 options?
This now becomes a tutorial for me, as my A500 rev 5 now has an ACA500+. Although, I did install the physical 3.1.4 ROM onto the board. So I suppose I could just create a profile that's set to use the mainboard ROM and install the OS from the GoTek.
Oh sounds like a very nice system. I would tend to go with the ROM installed on the ACA500+, as it is a lot faster to access the ROMS that way.
When i download ADF files and on my CF card my amiga 500 does not reconized that file as a program file. What doe i have to do?
Your Amiga needs the program ImageMount or GoADF to be able to mount ADF files as virtual disks. Even then they will only be useable in Workbench. If you want to boot an ADF - like if it is a game - you need to use a GoTek virtual floppy drive for that.
You can use GoADF to create real floppy disks from ADF files, though.
How do you get 2MB graphics mem? i only get less than 1MB on my A500 with aca500 and a1232.
I have a MegaChip from DKB. It let you use the "Fatter Agnus" 2 MB chip on any A500 or A2000. They are wonderful!
Jens from Individual Computers occasionally makes something similar
Does ACA 1220, 1232, etc accelerators for Amiga1200 have this amazing boot menu? Cheers
No. This is fairly unique to the ACA500+ - now you can hook up one of those accelerators to an ACA500+ on an A500 and get the screen!
So want one of these. Need to expand my paper route! :)
They are worth every penny - and you never worry about compatibility, because you can disable it so easily
@@10MARC What to you recommend for Compact Flash? Size, Speed, brand? What file system should it be formatted in? Does it come with both flash cards?
@@pauldeane8369 I have had pretty good luck with the 16 Gig SanDisk compact flash cards. I get them on Amazon usually. I make a 4 gig workbench partition and a 12 gig Work: partition. To be honest, I have had pretty good luck with a new fast file system in the new OS. I have nothing against PFS, but the new FFS is not too bad. It comes with no flash cards at all. I have a really tiny one that I use for data transfer, but I will be ordering a 5 gig one for that purpose, because it is only used to transfer data and update firmware
@@10MARC Are you preparing the CF card on the ACA500+ or via WinUAE? Having all sorts of issues via WinUAE
@@pauldeane8369 I installed mine right on the A500. Which card did you end up getting? And which OS are you installing? All of those are factors. If it is 3.1, you have to keep your partitions below 4 GB or it won't work right. 3.1.4 does not have that problem, but you have to make sure the ROM is loaded and you are booting to that ROM. Idiot is easier, hit me up on Facebook Messenger and we can talk about it.
Great video.
Got also a ACA500Plus/ACE2 on my old Rev 5 AMIGA 500 but with a 4GB CF WB 3.1. Thuis week i get AmigaOS 3.1.4 and a 16GB CF and later on a ACA1221EC. Got also a Rev8A with a Wicher500i. Rev2a with 25MHz and 8MB FAST RAM. Waiting for the Vampire 500 V4,, A590 2MB FAST RAM SCSI2SD v5.0a 2GB microSD WB 1.3 and the HC533.
Those are some seriously awesome Amiga's there! Zoom!
Fomo got me just ordered!!! So let me get this straight. i won't need to upgrade my chip to 3.1. Im on a a500 ntsc rev6?
No, my a500 Rev 5 has a 1.3 Kickstart, but I can soft kick any version of Kickstart that I own. It's fairly easy to flash a new Kickstart ROM to the card, and it can hold several different ones.
The German company plexilaser dot de has a nice case for that, the Web page is in German, but you can write them also in English, you need to state your ACA500+ version V1 or the new V2 and you can get an additional kit if you want to install the X-Surf 500.
Excellent options! Thanks for sharing about the cook case options
hey amigo , u can help i have aca 500plus i need install amigaos3.2 , i cant do it ! ..
What problems are you having?
FYI you don't have to use the aux CF card to put the 3.1.4 ROM file on in order to flash it to the ACA500+... I put the ROM on an ADF floppy image and stuck it on my Gotek, and did the same procedure from there.
That seems like a great way to do it! I am sure I could have used the image on floppy, too.
Can you have 3.1 and 3.1.4 partitions on the same boot CF or we need different CF cards to do it?
Not really. You can create two bootable partitions and hold the left and right buttons at boot time to choose which partition to boot from.
@@10MARC Great information thank you!
Where is the best place to buy the A500 3.1.4 flash rom + WB 3.1.4 floppy disks in Europe?
Really nice review, thank you for that👍🏻😁
Wow. A year later and I find I missed some comments! Thanks for you input as always my friend!
Fantastic video, very useful indeed :)
Glad you enjoyed it. Sorry - I just realized there are a ton of comments on this specific video I never saw!
i have the old version of aca500plus (small display) which won't boot if i select cpu speed 28 or 42 mhz. so my aca500plus only works with 21mhz max.
and i want to test ham videos like the ones you showed end of episode. where can i download some? i assume the program to play them is this: aminet.net/package/gfx/show/hamview
That is a bummer that yours won't work at faster speeds. I wonder if some of it relates to your version of the A500 motherboard. Mine is rock solid at 42 MHz and I am using a Rev 6 motherboard.
I have some videos up on my www.10marc.com website, but I have not updated it in a while. I do have an idea in my head for writing a script to make creating your own videos fairly automatic.
@@10MARC thx! unfortunately, i don't have any "real" ocs based amiga 500, mine is an ecs based amiga 500 plus, rev 8, 1mb chip ram on board + 1mb chip ram in expansion slot (2mb chip in total). so i can't even test, if my aca500plus would run 28/42mhz on an ocs base amiga 500. as a workaround for this issue i plugged an aca1221 onto it, which can do 28mhz, adding 62mb of fast ram. and on this configuration (a500+ and aca500+ with aca1221) your videos work pretty decent, i already tested skyrim.h6v! i didn't download aga version, since amiga 500 plus doesn't provide aga, i'll have to test this using winuae sometime. :D
btw. i encountered a funny fact regarding drive speeds: system partition (cf0:) on boot cf card is slower (4.499.017 bytes/sec) than work partition (cf1:) on same cf card in boot slot (6.553.600 bytes/sec)! and cf card in aux slot (cfaux:) is as fast as work partition (6.553.600 bytes/sec). all values refer to aca1221 plugged onto aca500plus.
@@honx4amiga hmmmm... That rev of board should work great at 28 or 42 MHz. Let me ask you - can you actually select the higher speeds and then it just crashes, or does it not allow you to even choose them?
My h6v videos should work ok even if you turn your ACA500+ down to 7 or 14 MHz. Faster is always better, though. I will create some new ones in the next few weeks and post them.
@@10MARC i can select and set 28 and 42 mhz. so far so good. but as i try to boot, the amiga freezes. i have to turn off an on the machine and occasionally after turning on my amiga, monitor stays black an aca500plus displays "FF", so i have to reboot again (ctrl+amiga+amiga) in order to see aca menu system again...
The thing that stopped me from buying was finding out that it is an asynchronous CPU u/g, with the clock speed based on PAL speeds. So, it will match up perfectly with the Amiga system bus for DMA as long as it is in PAL mode. However, it doesn't in NTSC mode. Hopefully the ACA1000 will be finished and released and will be synchronous. I believe that the majority of A1000's are NTSC. Certainly a higher proportion are then A500's.
That makes sense. The ACA500+ is good, but not my favorite accelerator. It is very, very sensitive to damage as is just about everything Jens makes. Glance at it wrong and it shorts out!
@@10MARC Oh, I didn't know that about his products! I've never bought any myself.
Amiga has changed a lot since i used them. Still have a working A1000 and broken A1200. Sold my A3000 long ago :(.
Where could i get my A1200 fixed in canada or usa?
My friend Paul Rezendez repairs Amiga's in the USA. I would be happy to get you in touch with him.
Great. How do we do this
@@aguiristante feel free to email me Douglas at dctechaz.com and I will get you two in touch
I received an AC 500+ yesterday, but it can't pass 14 MHz. I am very saddened
Erm, isn't it KS1.3, 2.0 and 3.1 built in?
Thanks Doug for this comprehensive review and demo, it was very useful to me when I was bringing my childhood A500 back to life! I ended up using the ACA500plus and made a couple of videos on the project. I gave a link to your video in the description of my part 2 video in case you're curious: ruclips.net/video/xRTThZvt95I/видео.html
Thanks again!
Awesome! Looking forward to checking out your video, Jeremy
It seems all A500 amiga accelerator cards are very rare these days and if you can get one the price is ridiculous
Not at all! There are at least 5 or 6 A500 accelerator cards available brand new from about $135 - $300. That's is a fantastic deal!
Have since yesterday the new ACA500Plus V2 from 2018. My old ACA500Plus V1 from 2016 is dead and can’t repair. Have connect the ACA1233n-55 RTC and it’s bloody fast. Is the fastest 68030 card ever build and have 7MB/s on the CF 32GB card with WB 3.1.4.1 - BestWB 1.3. Have also the Indivision ECS V2 to replace the old Indivision ECS V1 for the BenQ BL702A VGA monitor. And it’s razor sharp and WHDLoad Games ans Demos plays much better than the old ECS V1 card.
That makes for a very wonderful system! Wow! Blazing fast.
The performance of the CF card makes quite a difference on these machines for sure.
I have an A4000 as my main machine , but also an A500+ lying about doing nothing , now ....... i'm very tempted to buy the ACA ....... (this retro computing thing is getting way outta hand here ! ;-) ) Nice video as always !
My A500 sat around for about 25 years doing nothing. I would turn it on every 5 or 6 years to make sure it still worked, then pack it away and go back to my A1200 and A4000. When I started 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast, I dug it out and found out the Keyboard had failed - and then I started spending more money on it... The rest is history.
Get a Vampire instead! ;)
That is what what second A500 is for - I just have not ordered it quite yet...
Nice board, too bad I fried mine putting it in the wrong way in my A1000. Hasty makes wasty.
Oh my goodness! That is a sad story! 😮😮😮 Maybe Jens can fix it cheaper than buying a new board?
10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast Jens offered to repair for around $70 which was more than fair, but he couldn’t know what the governmental or regulatory fees would be to finish transaction. At that point, it really wasn’t worth it to me. Life’s lessons are always hard.
Wow!! Imressive!
It is really a nice add on for an Amiga 500.
For over half an hour you demonstrate an accelerator and don't even bust out a game that could benefit from it, like maybe Frontier? LAME. Instead, you play a video. Big deal. A stock 7MHz Amiga could do that with enough hard disk speed. I've been watching your videos for a while but I'm not sure why. You're long-winded and kinda creepy, and spend too much time on the minutae and too little time doing anything exciting. 10 minute? More like 30 minute snooze fest. Sometimes I literally go to sleep by this.
Wow... Sounds like you need to find a channel who specializes in video games! Pew! Pew! Thanks for the commentary on me being Long Winded and Kinda Creepy. That was great! I am glad I can help cure your insomnia, though. That's a perk. I will be sure to put that in my channel description, right next to the part where I explain that I don't concentrate on the gaming aspects of the Amiga, but the hardware , productivity and creative aspects.
this guy is not very good with numbers, all are incorrect :(
Me? What numbers are incorrect? Do tell! I am usually good with math 70% of the time and bad at it the other 40%. 😂😂