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Pimped Amiga 500

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Re: Pimped Amiga 500

#21

Post by amiga386 »

boredhedgehog wrote: post #17
amiga386 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Get a copy of the Amiga 3.1 Kickstart ROM (v40) and Workbench disks (for example by legally buying Amiga Forever ... or other ways). If you do buy Amiga Forever, they've put together an Amiga emulation environment for you with lots of software pre-installed. 2. Consider buying AmiKit or using its free version: https://www.amikit.amiga.sk/ -- it needs the aforementioned Kickstart ROM and Workbench Disks, but again…

If the aim is to emulate games, Kickstart 3.1 or even 2.04 shouldn't be the first choice. Backwards compatibility must have been really poor back then; at least I've run into lots of software that will only run on 1.3.

One does not typically run games directly. That's fraught with the compatibility concerns you raise, and also the slowness of loading them from their disks, even when using an emulator, and needing a cumbersome UI to swap disks as needed.

Instead you run them with WHDLoad, originally designed to install all games onto the hard drives of real Amigas.

A lovely group of programmers have made WHDLoad installers for every game you know of, that patch the game in just the right places so it runs correctly, regardless of Amiga model or OS version.

WHDLoad also lets you press a "QuitKey" that returns you back to Workbench. And if you have an emulated Amiga with lots of RAM, you get to preload all the disks into RAM so there's basically zero loading time.

People have made large collections of "preinstalled" WHDLoad installers, bundling games in a ready-to-run way for any Amiga.

Re: Pimped Amiga 500

#23

Post by xyzal »

After many years I turned on the A500 in my attic and got immediate motion sickness from the 50Hz monitor flicker. I guess this is the reason I have to wear glasses now.

Re: Pimped Amiga 500

#24

Post by radicalbyte »

erwincoumans wrote: post #15
radicalbyte wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy a MiSTer FPGA and run Amiga Vision on it. You can plug in a proper keyboard and joystick and you can map jump to a button instead of up as it traditionally is on Amiga. I have to admit that it's better than using my A500/A1200s.

Thanks, your comment made me buy the icode prebuilt preloaded MiSTer FPGA, 128mb ram, hope that is sufficient for Amiga Vision. I used to own an Amiga 500 with internal HDD, long ago. Guru meditations still exist? https://www.icode.com/product/mister-fpga-kit-terasic-de10-n...

Nice, congrats!

Even the most basic models (the $99 + shipping + tax from China) can handle the Amiga. You get more bells whistles plus a better package with a MiSTer stack but I would recommend most people to either grab the Multisystem II or the Mister Pi (Turbo Pack) from RetroRemake. If you want to run Saturn fighters then getting a second stick of RAM is a must as it allows everything to run at full speed.

I have the Ultimate Mister kit with USB + AV boards but only a single stick of RAM (also 128MB) and a Honeywell PSU and it's awesome especially for the Amiga and C64 :)

Re: Pimped Amiga 500

#26

Post by bartread »

It's funny. I objectively know that 9MB of RAM is tiny by modern standards and, indeed, has been tiny for decades now. My friend's dad got a PC with 32MB of RAM in 1996, or maybe early 1997, to put it into perspective.

But I can still look at a screenshot of Workbench 1.3 running on an Amiga 500 displaying "8831544 free memory" and it feels like an absolute ocean of RAM for that machine and that time and, most importantly, for the software that was available in that era.

Back in the early 90s I used to, with 1MB of RAM, code, play games, make music, do word processing, create graphics with both DPaint III (or was it IV?), and create vector drawings with a CAD package, create spreadsheets, create fractal landscapes with Vista, not to mention a ton of other stuff as well.

It is crazy to think of how much you could do with so little back in the day. But even this was a massive step change compared to the 8-bit machines I'd been using up to that point. These I'd mostly used for programming and games (although I did do a bit of word processing on BBC machines, and a teeny tiny amount of spreadsheet stuff). I did have a light gun for my ZX Spectrum but, boy, was it tedious graphics with (although I did do it), as compared to DPaint.

Re: Pimped Amiga 500

#27

Post by radicalbyte »

abrugsch wrote: post #16
radicalbyte wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy a MiSTer FPGA and run Amiga Vision on it. You can plug in a proper keyboard and joystick and you can map jump to a button instead of up as it traditionally is on Amiga. I have to admit that it's better than using my A500/A1200s.

getting the hardware is only half the battle. Hard agree with going for a MiSTer setup however it's quite an expense for someone dipping a toe in. ultimately it's hard to prescribe the "definitive" amiga experience in 2025 to a total newbie. At a surface level, for many people, amiga ownership was simply a console like experience -> Buy an amiga 500, and shovel game disks into it, play game, turn it off. Replicating…

I spent less on getting my MiSTer up and running than I did getting my A500+ and a lot less than getting my A1200 setup running. And I have the original Ultimate MiSTer setup.

With the RetroRemake and QMTech setup you're up and running for the 8/16-bits for under $200 all-in which for most people in tech in the US isn't a big ask. The experience is also much better than emulation IMHO.

Re: Pimped Amiga 500

#28

Post by radicalbyte »

lysace wrote: post #13
radicalbyte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MiSTer, especially the new cheaper builds (MisterPi) are by far the best way to play the old consoles if you want to play on a TV and well worth the $200.

Yeah. (Sorry, somehow didn't read your comment about the same AmigaVision before commenting.) I find myself wishing for something like AmigaVision for e.g. the IBM PC. The launcher should be in either classic text mode or VGA 640x480x16 colors with custom palettes like those cool disk mags. And of course tracker background music. There is some similar effort called 0MHz based on the eXoDOS project, but I'm not sure I…

Totally agree with you, I'd like to see it for the C64, Spectrum, Atari ST, Amstrad etc too. It makes the system into something which is really close to "plug in and play".

I'm also hoping that we start seeing USB external Amiga / C64 keyboards for the real enthusiasts. That might be a little too niche though.

Re: Pimped Amiga 500

#29

Post by 1313ed01 »

abrugsch wrote: post #16
radicalbyte wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy a MiSTer FPGA and run Amiga Vision on it. You can plug in a proper keyboard and joystick and you can map jump to a button instead of up as it traditionally is on Amiga. I have to admit that it's better than using my A500/A1200s.

getting the hardware is only half the battle. Hard agree with going for a MiSTer setup however it's quite an expense for someone dipping a toe in. ultimately it's hard to prescribe the "definitive" amiga experience in 2025 to a total newbie. At a surface level, for many people, amiga ownership was simply a console like experience -> Buy an amiga 500, and shovel game disks into it, play game, turn it off. Replicating…

> "The A500" mini console which comes with pre-packaged games (but also lets you run your own once you've got to the end of enjoying the 30 or so pack-ins).

https://retrogames.biz/games/thea500-mini/

I count to 26, plus one free download they provide for testing out the USB feature.

Amiga Forever in Windows (or in WINE) is about as easy to run, plus it comes with nice pre-configured system images to boot into Workbench. Not having much real Amiga experience I struggle a bit with making use of those. I tried to install some freeware Amiga applications (trackers and such) but not much success.

Re: Pimped Amiga 500

#30

Post by kwanbix »

bartread wrote: post #26

It's funny. I objectively know that 9MB of RAM is tiny by modern standards and, indeed, has been tiny for decades now. My friend's dad got a PC with 32MB of RAM in 1996, or maybe early 1997, to put it into perspective. But I can still look at a screenshot of Workbench 1.3 running on an Amiga 500 displaying "8831544 free memory" and it feels like an absolute ocean of RAM for that machine and that time and, most import…

My first PC was an original IBM PC XT, with 640kb of RAM.

A friend taught me how to use a device driver (ramdisk.sys I think it was) to split that into two, and use 320kb of RAM as a "fast" hard drive.

I will install games there, and play with only 320kb or RAM (actually less because DOS used some RAM).

I had a 20MB Seagate HDD. 20 Megabytes.

Nice times.

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