There’s a number of retro computing projects that I am running – mostly with little progress, because everyday life is in the way. But I draw great joy from tinkering with the systems and software, when I get to it. Mostly I am focusing on Commodore Amiga hardware and software, and there’s some collection that I own now – all of them in different stages of health, working order and physical shape.
Mainly there’s a number of Commodore Amiga machines that I own now, that I want to do things with – enhance them, configure them, repair them and when they run nicely, try a few things software-wise with them, like connecting them to a network, explore graphics and music software, and in general, productivity.
What follows, is a list of machines that currently sit in my retro corner, with an explanation of the state of the machine as well as what my plan is. The idea of this post is twofold: (1) describing what I have in mind, so someone may or may not become inspired for trying their own things and (2) my *now* plan with these machines, so I can come back in 6 months, 12 months, 60 months and see how far I’ve progressed.
Amiga 500:
This is the furthest progressed machine in terms of building out the end state. I’ve added a Terrible Fire 536 (50MHz, 64MByte RAM) and attached an IDE CF card reader, so I can add a 32GByte CF card as a hard disk. It runs Workbench 3.2 and Kickstart 3.2 and I’ve configured it such that it runs WHDLoad nicely. The intention of this machine is that I can play comfortably and try out games, without the “hassle” of worrying about changing floppies, or worry about performance too much. This machine would also run the bulk of the demos that I’ll want to try. The case of the Amiga is still in a very yellowed color state, so one mid-term goal is to retro-bright case and keycaps, to give it a fresher look. Other than that, this machine is nice the way it is.
Amiga 2000 #1
I got this machine in a good working state, battery removed and recapped, and it has the RGB2HDMI (Pi-based) modification installed. I’ve since added a GottaGo FastRAM + 68kIDE card, preserving the original 68000 CPU. That gives me 8 Mbytes of RAM, plus IDE for a IDE-based CF card reader that, again, hosts a 32 Gbyte CF card as a hard disk. This system is based on Workbench 3.1 and Kickstart 3.1, and the idea is that this system stays a workstation like one could have built out by 1987-1991. I don’t want to necessarily build the system the way it would have been built back then, bu with reasonable (affordable, available, technically sound) means. I’m hoping to be able to connect this Amiga to my home network either via WiFi through a Wodem, or via an ethernet card, like the X-Surf-100. The latter has proven to be a challenge, in combination with the GottaGo. So TODOs here are clearly networking, and once that’s done, explore productivity software and play with SMB/file share access.
Since the A2000 was the first Amiga machine that I owned as a kid, I want to keep this machine in a state where it’s not over the top equipped with modern “high-performance” stuff. It’ll be the machine I’ll use if I want to explore and experience games on floppies once again, in an as-close-as-possible nostalgia way.
Amiga 2000 #2
This is an Amiga that suffered a battery leakage, albeit fairly small. It worked for a while, then said goodbye with a loud bang and a little black smoke. The PSU died. Since, I am trying to repair it. I have replaced the PSU with a ATX one and changed the jumper J300 to receive the TICK signal not from the PSU, but from VSYNC (Amiga 2000 – Board Rev and Jumper Settings | AmiBay). It doesn’t boot very far, the screen remains black. The DiagRom boots. Memory tests seem to come out okay, it errors out on CIA tests, though, although I believe that’s a red herring. Replacing the CPU and a few other components don’t change the behavior.
The main goal for this Amiga is that I figure out what’s wrong and repair it. There’s no plan beyond that at this point, I may very likely sell the Amiga 2000 once it works again, with new PSU and replacement parts and all. This is my tinker project and I have no current use for another Amiga 2000.
Amiga 3000
This Amiga doesn’t exist yet. I bought the ReAmiga 3000 board and all of the parts that make up an Amiga 3000. The plan is to build out that Amiga all by myself, while getting better at soldering and learning about the different circuits and components. This is a long-term project that I’ll need to complete little by little. All I have is the board and the components, but clearly it’ll need a case and other peripherals later on.
My plan is to build out that Amiga 3000, but keep it fairly close to the original state. I may want to add an HDD, so I can run productivity software.
Amiga 4000
This Amiga came fairly vanilla to me. It has a 030 CPU with 16MByte of RAM. It used to have expansion cards but they were removed before I got it. It does have a CD-ROM drive, but it’s not operational, as the SCSI card it was hooked up to got removed. It does have an IDE-based harddisk of 90 Mbytes that still works. I’ll want to add a new SCSI card to get the CD-ROM drive working again. After, I want to see if I can get a graphics, sound and network card added, possible one-in-all such as the zz9000. I want to make this a then-modern workstation-type machine with network and internet access. Eventually, I’ll need a bigger CPU and some more RAM, so likely a CPU/RAM extension are in order in the long term. On this machine, I want to push productivity and networking use cases, including some light internet use cases such as email, browsing, forums. Maybe I can afford a PPC card some time in the future.
Minimig:
I have one of the Intel NE-10 FPGA boards that can be turned into a Minimig – a Mini Amiga. It runs and is set up to boot into Workbench 3.2 and there are a few games and applications on it. It’s not set up yet to support high screen resolutions and networking is also not yet set up. The idea of the Minimig is to test-drive applications and configurations for networking, before I’ll go to real hardware. Mid-to-long term, I would hope I could turn this into a mobile computer, almost like an Amiga laptop, with a battery, a laptop-like case, and re-create a laptop feeling with but an Amiga. This will require some expansions, as well as 3D-printing a case, and fitting all required components – battery, keyboard, trackpad, display, etc.
FRICKELSOFT 