A Commodore A590 with swappable harddisks? Refurb, mod, Jazdrive?!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- In this video I will try to get an A590 to boot ... at all cost! ... and there might be an IOMega Jazdrive involved! I will show you a cheap and great alternative to rising prices for dying SCSI harddisks.
Visit my store for cool merchandise like T-Shirts, Cups etc.: retro-is-the-n...
RETRO is the new black is a retro channel for retro enthusiasts. The channel features retro computers, game consoles and gadgets from the 1970, 1980 and 1990s as well as new tech for old machines. The videos range from simple unboxing to repairs and sometimes even the creation of new things.
I try to upload two videos a week (one smaller QUICK SHOT video and one longer main Video).
Some machines featured in my (upcoming) videos are: Commodore PET, Commodore C64, Commodore VIC 20 (VC20), Atari 800XL, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad (Schneider) CPC, IBM PCs, Apple IIe, Apple Macintosh, Amiga 3000, Amiga 2000 and many more.
Please like, subscribe and hit the bell icon so you will be notified with each new video.
If you have any questions or want to contact me, please refer to my website at: wolfgang@wolfgangkierdorf.de.
This channel is hosted by Wolfgang Kierdorf. I am a retro enthusiast from Cologne in Germany. My retro videos are in english. If you are from a different county or need a different language, please check if subtitles are available.
Thanks for watching!
I'm so happy you saved this!!! Finding one in well in the usa is a holy grail affair!!
Theres something I find theraputic about watching your videos, Wolfgang :) Very well done as always.
Hehe! Thanks!
That’s honestly really cool. I’m gonna buy myself an ACA500+ from individual computer and use different boot ups on it via CF media or SD cards myself
the size restriction is due to the ROMs on the A590. Version 6 ROMs allow hard drives up to 512MB in capacity. Version 6.6 and 7.0 ROMs work with drive sizes up to 9GB but you will need at least Amiga OS 3.1. 4 to use drives over 4GB. Remove that old clunker internal drive and see if you can get a scsi to SD card adapter card to work on the A590, a much tidier "internal hard disk" in the A590 solution
Thanks! I got an 3.1.4 in the machine. I just wanted to see if I can get it to work with 1.3 and what I had at hand ;-) ... kind of ...
Thanks for the video. Was very surprised by the end result. Cool stuff
Thanks! I was also surprised that this worked!
Good Idea ! Glad it worked, even at 20 Meg a Disc.
I got a dead GVP and ordered a Iomega Zip 250 (and a BlueSCSI) ---
Unfortunately it does not work --- I think the drive is dead --- it does not Spin up, Flash or Eject.
I am now looking for a cheap SCSI CD drive to experiment with.
Damn Wolfgang, that brought back some memories! The A590/A500 interface was notorious for being finicky. I remember typing too hard and unseating it! You had to get it just right. In the end I stuck a couple of business cards under it, in just the right place so that it'd maintain a good connection. Was much more reliable, but I'd still occasionally get the "Error -1 on write!" error. It was so sickening because it corrupted the drive a couple of times. 😱
Btw, I remember it being much faster! I remember booting off it for the first time and being blown away by how fast it was! So funny to see you use it now, and just how slow it actually is. (Mind you, I remember being able to optimise it … can't remember how, though.) Wonderful stuff, thank you! Fantastic video. 👍
I never had a A590 back in the days, but I feel your pain! That must have really sucked!!
Very nice a A590 back in working order. I use a ACA 500+.
Thanks! I wanted to try that with a stock A500 and a "stock" A590.
I have one of those rochard drives that are IDE, but refuse to work with drives larger than 256 megabyte. But I modded it to use internal power instead.
Super Video! Ich baue meine A590 auch mal wieder auseinander. Die 20MB Platte hat den Geist aufegegeben. Vielleicht finde ich auch noch irgendwo ein günstiges Jaz Drive. Sehr interessant! Hast du den restlichen Speicher noch nutzen können, oder ist es bei den 19MB geblieben?
Um mehr als 20MB zu nutzen müsste ich wohl die ROMS im A590 updaten. Habe jetzt ein BlueScsi eingebaut und das zum laufen bekommen. Habe nichts im Netz dazu gefunden, dass das schon mal jemand gemacht hat. Hat mich Stunden gekostet bis es lief. Preis ca. 35€ plus STM32 und SerialAdapter (ca. 10€).
That's a cool setup. Strange that you had to rename the drive to DH0. LOL.
I've seen someone install a CF Card adapter in the A590. I can't remember who, though.
Happy New Year.
Easy to do, Just need a SCSI2CF, or SCSI2SD
@@ChannelReuploads9451 I like the Jaz. Always have. Don't know why. Never used one. LOL
Another great video!!
hey, erstmal alles gute im neuen jahr und danke für deinen kanal und die infos!...PS: eine frage zu alte amigafestplatten...wie könnte ich die 1:1 clonen auf eine CF karte?..ich hab schon vieles versucht u.a. mit winuae,teskdesk usw...ich hab ein ide/scsi to usb modul...aber ich schaffe es nicht die platte irgentwie auf ne cf zu bekommen...hast du evtl. nen tipp für Dummies, wie mich? lg und weiterso....
Danke! Ebenfalls frohes Neues! Meine erste Idee wäre jetzt auch WinUAE gewesen. Ggf. eine neue HDF-Datei erstellen, die bootfähig machen und dann den ganzen Kram rüberkopieren?!
@@RetroWK hallo, danke für die antwort..ich hab das alles versucht, funzt einfach nicht...wäre schön, wenn es ne software gäbe die das einfach könnte...lg dir und schöne zeit!..
too bad yoy didn't have a psu where there was 4 kabels, the last pin on the a590 is a sense pin that the amiga sends 5v on when turned on so with a relay you could have the amiga turning on the psu for the a590
How about a SCSI2SD card for the a590
Be careful if you try ZIP disks/drives rather than JAZ disks/drives. I don't know how reliable JAZ is, but ZIP were susceptible to the 'Click of Death' (See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death). I lost a lot of data due to this design flaw in the ZIP system.
I used zips back in the day with a parallel zip drive. Never happened to me … but good to know. I assume they don‘t get better with age ;-)
@@RetroWK Never seen Zip drives that failed. But I have never seen that many at all. Around 4 drives in total. I saw one Jazz drive, internal one, and that died. I guess it all comes down to when drives were produced. Also, something tell me that I might have read something about iomega fixing specific issues in specific lines of drives. But it is a vague memmory.
Nice information
upgrade the roms in the a590 and you can use bigger disk size ;-)
Roms in the A500 as well.
The SCSI ROMS in the 590 PRE-V7.0 had a limit of 1GB Drive size. You need a Version 7.0 ROM in the 590, Not to mention the Filesystem limitations and limitations on the HDToolbox software.
Thanks!
Statt in eine scsi Festplatte würde ich für das A590 lieber in einen scsi2sd Kartenadapter investieren, so brauchst du keinen ohrenbetäubend lauten Lüfter mehr und eswird auchdeutlich weniger Strom vom Netzteil gezogen. För meinen A2000 habe ich einen externen scsi tower gekauft, wo nebenscsi platte auchein cd rom und ein jazdrive eingebaut war.Funktioniert an meinem Golem Controller, aber ist extrem laaaangsam...
Yep. Habe dann ein BlueSCSI eingebaut. Hat mich ein paar Nerven gekostet das Ding ans laufen zu bekommen (offiziell geht das nicht) ... aber als es dann lief war es Pfeilschnell, leise und lief ohne externe Stromversorgung.
Great find, too bad other models did not have same, SCSI external drive
My rochard have a SCSI port.
@@brostenen What is Rochard? SCSI was Mac, big box Atari, big box Amiga thing at those days
@@RasVoja I know SCSI was used in those computers, but not exclusively to those platforms. It came before IDE, and was used in some x86 DOS based systems and were the choice of storage for servers as well.
As for Rochard, then it is a brand of Amiga harddrives. Mine is a Rochard RH800C, made by the Roctech company. It is both IDE and SCSI. It has two IDE headers and one SCSI header. Sadly mine is with rev 1,5 roms and are missing the SCSI upgrade. That is one Rom chip and the SCSI chip it self. But everything else, SCSI related, are in the drive from factory.
@@brostenen There are ISA and PCI cards but mostly used in servers. I am saying serial inbuilt, where IBM clones (cannot call it PC sorry) are out of pic. It was expensive but faster and more expandable. Yes its older then IDE, faster but expensive so IDE won like VHS did. Even SCSI offloads CPU, IDE brought horrid to windows swapping since stalls CPU. And to A1200 too
@@RasVoja Back in late 1987 or early 1988 (I can not fully remember exactly), my parents bought a Unisys PW/2 Series 300 workstation. It was a 286 with 20 megabyte MFM harddrive, EGA gfx and 640k of memmory. It was the lowest spec from the Unisys PW/2 line of machines. The highest specced machine had SCSI harddrive. IBM also offered options with SCSI at that point. And so did a lot of other brands. Even the Unisys 486 machine from 1994, offered SCSI out of the box. I know, because I bought a dead one, and build an Amiga500 motherboard into the case.
SCSI were used in all high end computers and computers that were priced high. No matter what platform we are talking about. The Amiga1200 had these issues, only because the interface was PIO-0 and not PIO-2 or higher. All my friends ran SCSI in their 386 and 486 machines, and yes it offloaded a lot from the CPU, but for some reason they all had issues with learning how SCSI-ID worked and what ID was the bootable one. But after a while they figured that out.
At my fathers workplace, gymnasium, were he worked as the geography and history teacher. They had an 386 IBM with external SCSI CD drive. It was an early type with caddy. I used that to read an encyclopedia at that time. It must have been around some 1990/91 or something.
Also. Unix workstations allways used SCSI. You know. SUN, DEC and so on. SCSI were used in so many systems. Even samplers in sound studios. Roland and Korg stuff.
very nice
Thanks!
There are SCSI to SD adapters out there at reasonable prices
Thanks! I know. But where is the fun in that?!
@@RetroWK loud unreliable HDDs are no that fun. Don't ask how I know.
Some people love real hdds/ssds super froggy!
@@srfrg9707 Depends, I dislike small cards even they do work. SSDs can be answer, exist in SCSI converters and PATA
@@RasVoja SD cards are fine to make old computers run again from time to time without issues for a budget. Not everyone has spare time and money in huge amounts. Also I have no nostalgia for the sound of vintage HDDs. Same for interlaced CRTs. I rather use a modern monitor or at least a multisync CRT in progressive mode. Nostalgia is not the same as masochism.
I love the authentic 90s stickers.
I put scsi to sd in my A590. I threw away the fan
A590's are tedious wastes of time as you found, in terms of trying to restore what is there. Instead the zuluSCSI has revitalized mine- and there's also a lot to be said for 3d printing a new case- they exist on thingverse (i think that's where i found the model), and the new white 590 looks far better than retrobrite (not for purists of course)
Why don't you get an SD-to-IDE adapter, plug 16GB SD, and be done? Nothing rotating, lower power consumption, and no seek time.
Doesn't work. This is a SCSI interface!
@@RetroWK I am not talking about the external bus. Internally, it supported both SCSI and IDE, didn't it?
@@youmasajp It's XT-IDE which only works with specific hard drives (that end on an X). What we use now is PATA or AT-IDE. So it will not work in there.
As others have said. Upgrade to v7 roms. I have 2 x A590's both with ZuluSCSI cards replacing the old SCSI/XT drives. That along with OS 3.1.4 or above means I can have 6 VHDs of sizes over 9GB, more than enough space. Only down side is that each virtual HD takes up some memory, so make sure you have a good amount of memory available.
Thanks! Good point(s)!