New Zealand Vintage Computer Forums

just picked up the box of Amiga gear ( http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =423177871 ) I won on Trademe for a pricely sum of $2.50
They are faulty, but just checked them to see how the react to power, both power pack seem to be working fine, on one both lights show up when power is on and the drive starts up if you put a disk in it,so it might be worth getting a monitor and checking it out futher to see if I can get it working, the other only one light comes on and the drive light is off floppy or no floppy in the drive.
Need to check out the 2 joysticks and the 2 mice. Joysticks I can test with the A8 and the mice will have to wait till I get one of the Amigas going properly.
now to find the schematics for the Amiga and if possible a service manual for them

OK, now first thing's first - these are both 500+'s right? That means Kickstart 2.0... not the best for a 500, but so be it. What you should hear even with a 500+ though, is the power light will come on, slightly dimmed, then come on full brightness and the drive will cycle, then start clicking until a disk is inserted.

For the one that doesn't try run the drive whatsoever, I nearly put money on it, it'll have blown CIAs. The other, not so sure... but on the upshot, the 500s DO have a monochrome output, so you can at least get enough picture to see what they're doing. 500+ should come up with a pur... wait, monochrome... grey screen with a big Amiga ticksign on the left, an animation of a floppy being inserted into a drive on the right, and text below the tick reading '2.0 Roms' with some other various version and copyright details. If this is happening, the machine has started up correctly. Between the two, you may be able to build one - the one that's cycling the drive quickly might have a simply drive fault, but you may also be able to swap its CIAs into the one with the blown CIAs and make one working 500+!

first I need a monitor I have an Old green screen comp one some where will try that, I take it I have to have some sort of DOS disk is this kickstart as there are a few disks marked Kickstar in the floppy box Very few gen Amiga disk though. but as some life appear to be in both I think there is a chance of getting one possibly 2 working How well who knows Seening as I have never owned a 500plus before and the only other Amigas I had I never even tried to fire up and have still to find them, beginning to wonder If my son may have sold them some years ago.

across the back we have from left to right
2 joystick ports
R & L audio
disk drivew
serial port
parrallel port
power in
RGB video
mono
checked out the following web site
http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/
they seem to have some info but no where as good as the C64 info

The mono jack outputs monochrome video - you should be able to plug this straight into any TV with normal old composite RCA inputs. Sure it'll be in black and white, but it'll tell you enough of a story to know what's going on. If you need spares, I've got a few 500s... pretty sure between the two of us there's enough spares to get at least one of your 500+'s working!

For the uninitiated, the upgrades between 500 and 500+ are:
- The chipset, original 500 is OCS and the 500+ is ECS, like the A600 that followed
- The RAM, original 500 has 512K standard, 500+ is 1MB standard
- RTC. Original 500 has RTC via the A501 RAM expansion, 500+ it's integrated
- Kickstart is 1.2 or 1.3 in older 500s, 2.0 in 500+

So first thing's first, open them up and check them for any visible damage, especially considering the 500+ has the integrated real time clock... there'll be a battery in there, and knowing how chronic the later Amigas were for battery failures, this is something you definitely want to check. Then once you establish which are doing what, it could be as easy as swapping the CIA chips to make one of the two operate correctly... on A500 Rev6 boards at least, the CIAs are marked clearly as 'ODD CIA' and 'EVEN CIA', pretty sure the A500+ Rev8A boards should be just as easy to spot em.

If you want to chat about your 500+s as you work on em, hit me up on MSN - carcenomy@hotmail.com