I've never seen Hard Drivin' look so smooth! It's becoming a really interesting time for retro computing and gaming devices. I love to see people keeping these things alive and showing that they're still useful in modern times. I think the hardware back then is more interesting, as at the time, a single computer that could do everything very well didn't really exist, and it's easy to see in the hardware that different machines had different things that they were good at (like the ST for audio production). I think that's part of why a lot of these machines are viewed as more desirable... I know I want to add an ST to my audio setup, if only for the sweet synth editors available (I have used Stella in the past to emulate an ST in order to program my Roland D-20, but it would be nice to have an actual machine to do that). I'm super excited that people are out there who still love and support these machines, and are developing new enhancements for them. I can only imagine how far things will go.
Poland loves video games. Amazing stuff for the Amiga, GOG.com, The Witcher... maybe I really should have tried learning Polish when I was younger (right now, I am busy learning Norwegian and I cannot learn more than one language at once. I tried it with French and English, and failed miserably with French).
My Amiga 1200 is my baby.. fitted with a Blizzard 1230 mk IV with 32mb ram, SCSI CD rom and a 40gb HDD running Classic Workbench and WHDLoad... I love it...
ts only a pocket calculator.so why acceleration ????? that it can do 0.12 mhz more ??????? hahahahaahhaaaa FAAAAAST CALCULATING THEN......................................
The SupraTurbo28 was actually 36MHz during development-- we had them in engineering at up to 40MHz, but as you observed over 36MHz was pretty sketchy. We had a couple beta testers have issues at 36MHz (it also had to behave in a 2000), so it was dialed back to 28MHz to be safe. We used 68HC000FN-16's with the numbers sanded off with an electric eraser. (I don't think -20's were around then, or they were more expensive or something.) ;-)
I still have an A500+ with a Supra Turbo28 and AlfaData IDE controller, given to me in the early 2000s. Definitely fun running WB 3.1! Never realised the SupraTurbo was so rare!
I overclocked my ST28 and found 40mHz to be it's fastest stable speed, just got lucky by the looks of it. Wish I still had it, but was gifted it for free and passed it onto someone else for the same price. Biggest regret is selling my Phoenix A1000 though, I knew I was doing the wrong thing at the time but still went ahead with it.
The chip didn't get to hot . The chip could use a tad bit more voltage . Hell it wouldn't hurt to put an active sink on it but not sure it would do anything . I guess it would be a thing to test .
I think with so many retro computing and gaming channels gaining popularity on youtube, its bringing the old Atari and Amiga computers to light and getting people interested in retro gaming beyond old consoles and MS-DOS. The Amiga computers seems like someone I would have loved to played around with if I grew up with them in the 80's and 90's (but my first computers where Win95 and Win98 generation computers having been born in 1992)
Thank you for this video! I had been looking for a game since I was a child and could never find it and you showed it. The game Hard Drivin' was something that I played at a local pizza place as a child and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Rad!
Excellent video! Hard Drivin actually looks playable! I agree with your thoughts on internal vs external acceleration. Much rather it be inside the machine rather than hanging off the side.
Todd's Nerd Cave Yeah, especially if you had a sidecar HD hooked up. I had a Supra Turbo 28-it had a pass-through-and an ICD Trifecta 500LX. If your table or desk was too wiggly things could shift and the system would crash. Not too good for your system. This was one reason I loved moving up to an A2000 and later an A4000/040.
Exactly what I thought. It's way faster than the original Amiga (and probably even the arcade) version. 3D games like Stunt Car Racer, Falcon, Black Crypt, F1 or Warhead would be interesting to check on these cards too.
I miss my Amigas. I had a Amiga 500 which I pimped with 1.5 Mb extra memory. And the second mod was a kickstart switch so i could switch between 1.3 and 2.04. My other Amigas included 2x Amiga 2000, Amiga 3000 and Amiga 4000.
I remember that my old Supra Turbo 28 had a 68010 processor. It stands out since you really didn't see 010's in Amiga accelerators much, if at all elsewhere. It would also convert for use in an A2000 when you removed the case and set a jumper on the board--which was what I did when I got my A2000 and moved the accelerator, DKB Mini Mega Chip with 2MB Agnes, Super Denise and my 3.1 ROM from the A500. You could also convert it back by removing the jumper and putting the board back into the case.
I've had less than 3 hours sleep, but this woke me right up! Some serious Polski power in a beautiful package. Sterling work on the video MVG. +100 internet points for featuring Thrust's - Ottifanten demo! 😉
Put a small heatsink on the Xylinx, and add an adjustable voltage regulator with fine tuning pot to power the card instead of the mainboard power. This will probably solve any stability issues.
Forwarded this video to my brother. He also loves his retro hardware and would get a kick out of someone making accelerator cards for vintage hardware. He's purchased a couple modern accelerators for his Apple II, and a recreation that someone reverse engineered of a very rare audio/video card for his Apple 2GS. Very neat video.
There is no "c" in the name of this card. "C" is silent when "h" is after in polish. Always. So, name of this card is Wi(c)her - strong wind in polish. I think "gale" would be a proper english translation. Anyway. Cool video. As always. 🙂👌
vee-her. the pronunciation of the W is also wrong in the video :) its like a V in video. but thats just nitpicking.. thank you for your videos! and greetings from Wrocław!
At firat i thought the name is witcher and i was thinking what about the copyrights to that name. But it is vee her with audible h in polish meaning fast and furious wind. So quite proper name for such card. Anyway- good video as always. Greetings from Warsaw!
I don't think it's THAT surprising the A500 is starting to get some serious love. Take a look on ebay how much a semi-tidy A500 is vs a similar quality A600. One is £40 - £50 the other £100+ with some cheeky chancers wanting £200+ for an A1200. Having said that I'm sure the A500 will go up in price sooner or later as more people hoover them up and slap "retro vintage" in their listings rather than "found in the attic".
Its amazing to see how they keep these 20+ year old computer going, There are 6000+ games, 1000 of programs for the Amiga. Great way to learn about computing extra.
Looks like a great solution and I agree it is great to see this stuff popping up for the Amiga 500 nowadays. For me personally though after having a Vampire I have reverted my personal Amiga 500 back to stock. The nostalgia I have in regard to the machine does not include making it super fast or using WHDLoad. For me the true Amiga 500 experience is the stock experience. I have done some things to "modernize" it such as a DFO: switcher to allow the external port to be used with a HxC floppy emulator mounted in an external floppy case and a USB keyboard solution (internal piggybacking the CIA) to allow a wireless keyboard to be used in conjunction with the real keyboard. I am able to button it up RF shield and all and play games in a modern way but still keep it just like how it was when I purchased it new.
It really warms my heart seeing all this new hardware and software coming out, not just for the Amiga, but for all kinds of retro computers. Even the Vic-20 is getting some love. I wonder where we'd be if Motorola had continued with the 680x0 line beyond the '060...
Yeah, Motorola was doing really well against the 286/386/486 Intel line until clock speeds progressed beyond about 66mhz (Thanks largely to DEC's breakthrough with the Alpha AXP line and its very high - for the time - clock speeds). I seem to remember that when DEC was broken apart, the technology was purchased by Intel and HP.
Great to see this review :)...Now I'm proud that I introduce you Wicher turbo card :) You should reach 50MHz without problem with 8MB simm EDO 50ns even with stock cpu. My Wicher runs rock solid in 50MHz with 8MB simm 50ns edo. You can add little heatsink on Xilinx chip and/or CPU to improve stability. Of course I will send you info when new projects for Amiga will be available :) Pozdrowienia od Polskich fanów Amigi z PPA :) (Cheers from Polish Amiga Fans on PPA.PL)
You can use any of 50ns EDO simm 72pin. Wicher installer have option BigRAm. It helps to recognize 8MB in 16 or 32 oe 64MB simm module. I have two 8MB Simms Edo 50ns and theyre from different companies. I found them in allegro.
Thanks for the info. I would love to use >8MB but would be sad if the BigRam option doesn't work. If anybody knows of a 8MB EDO 50NS SIMM available please let me know. (and every1 else I guess :D)
This option is working but not with every simm module So the best option is looking for 8MB module.
7 ปีที่แล้ว +5
I have the card too (500i version, without the battery slot). It's everything I need to play games via WHDLoad, watch demos, etc. I have 4 kickstarts and a switch for turning the card (mostly) off. This way I still have compatibility with disk demos, old games etc.
Got now a Wicher500i Rev 2a on my A500 Revision 5 with the kickstart 3.1. Have the CPU Motorola MC68HC000FN20 20Mhz and a 8MB EDO 60ns 72pin SIMM on it and a 8GB CF with WB 3.1 and WHDLoad games. I liked it more than my ACA500Plus and yes i still waiting for the Vampire 500 V4. Nice video and the Wicher500i is a great turbo card for WHDLoad games.
So, what would be the easiest way to get a complete (or as near to complete as possible) library of games working on WHDLoad? Get an Amiga 500 with Kickstart 3.1, this accelerator card, a MC68HC000, 8 Megs of FastRAM and a compactflash drive? I literally don't know anything about soldering or futzing around with the insides of an Amiga and I'd only want to use it for games. Used to have one in the 90s and looking for stuff now can get somewhat overwhelming with no knowledge of how to set one up correctly.
You should show before and after footage with and without the accelerator card for those of us who are interested in retro Computing but don't happen to own one of these beauties.
8:00 Get a heat sensing camera, or laser led thermometer, and install a passive heat sink on the card CPU and other chips that get hotter than 60C or 140F. You'll still be well below the 92C/200F max temps the chip supports.
Sweeeeeeeeet!!! The Amiga is getting so much love recently =D Might just have to get one of those for my 500 or 500+ EDIT: Although it's nice, the TF530 has more power due to the 030. This is still a lovely option though depending on price. Amazing just how many options we are getting lol
Great video as always. It will be worth checking out different memory modules and configurations in order to see what's the best RAM to hit that sweet 50mhz ceiling. Loving these Amiga videos mate!
I have been looking at this for my amiga 500. I was wondering if it will work well with a sd to ide board? My setup now is a 500 with the supra500xp with a scsi to sd and the supraturbo 28 with the kipper2k 68000 with the 8 mb ram but like you said the side is used and is not a nice clean package
I'm looking at ordering a Wicher 508i for my A500 Rev 5, just wondering... Do I also need to have a 512k memory expansion card to the trapdoor slot? asking because my 512k expansion board corroded so I would need to buy a new one of those.
7 ปีที่แล้ว +1
Have you tested the HC508 card, which was released last year?
I'm apparently one of the lucky souls that can run 42mhz without ill effect on the ACA500+ I've begrudgingly accepted that the ACA500+ is going to be on the left side of my machine, so I ordered a manufactured case that also facilitates an ACA 1233n with risers and sealed shut. All in all, I'm happy, but the Wicher is definitely making me green with envy. ;) . I would have opted for this back in November.
I had a Supra Turbo28. I thought it had a 68010 in there. I couldn't afford a beefier accelerator at the time. But the nice thing was that when I shifted over to my A2000, I was able to remove the Supra Turbo 28 board from the case, set a jumper and plug it into the A2000's processor slot. It worked well enough but there was no room for onboard Fast RAM and I had to use a Zorro II RAM board.
So, after doing extra research, I ended up ordering the ACA500 Plus. It is cheaper overall than the wicher right from the start and comes with 8 mb of fast ram, legal copies of workbench 3.1 in rom that automatically installs onto CF cards and 2 compact flash ports. The Wicher still requires the ram module(that I think I have kicking around somewhere), the extra purchase of 3.1 roms, connecting jumpers and an IDE to Compact Flash adapter needs to be purchased as well. Once, you kick in the extras and shipping, it ends up being literally double of the ACA 500 Plus. The benefit, as you mentioned, is having it all internal...I would have loved to have this internal on the A1000 making it my first choice; however, after witnessing many attempts on the web, the wicher is not stable in an A1000...sigh. Perhaps, at a later time, I'll order a Wicher for one of my many A500, especially after the new A500 cases arrive that have been ordered through Indiegogo. Nevertheless, I am pumped seeing accelerators for such Vintage hardware...I hope to see similar improvements available for may many Atari St's as well. So, when this arrives from Europe, I'll have to see if I will purchase an external case for it or make one...cheers!
Wish there was a simple accelerator with a 14Mhz 68020 CPU, 68881/68882 FPU, 8MB RAM, and CF/SD card slot for under a hundred quid. Would be a great little internal upgrade!!
I recently watched your video on how to get the Amiga running on a modern monitor and I'm excited for the parts to come in. The Amiga 500 was my dads first computer and the first computer I ever played with. He bought it the year I was born, 1987. I've decide to dust it off and give it a new life after many years of enjoyment but I cannot find this card anywhere. Do you or anyone out there, know where I can purchase one of these? I would love to have Workbench 3.1 and WHD Loader running.
Thanks for the well-made video review! Kudos! Guess I will pick up an Amiga 500 rather sooner than later after beeing without "my girlfriend" for about 20 years. The card looks really nice, too. Awesome deep-blue PCB, for the look alone it should be worth it. ;-) Seeing F18 perform as well as in the video is really an eye-opener.
11:55 Holy sh*t, that's an Ottifant on the screen in the background! It was created by the German comedian Otto Waalkes, and my mind is just blown to see one in an Amiga demo.
@@ulliulli Das die aus Deutschland kommen war mir schon fast klar. Ändert nix daran, dass mein Geist weggepustet wurde, als ich den Ottifanten gesehen habe. ;)
Cheers mate! Great insight. Might get one for my A500 ;-) . I've been too many years of focusing on my A1200 (which I often leave in it's flight case) so it'd be great to have a second box that can also boot to CF and but running faster 68k.
Hey there is a spot in that board where it says "Caution Hot!" Can you re-run the tests at 42 and 50MHZ if you can somehow add a heatsink to that chip or a fan?
I don't think that would make a lot of difference. I can't quite make out the part number but the chip looks like an XC95-series CPLD. They can run ridiculously fast and will get pretty hot at 5 volts, but they're designed to cope with it. To get a really serious overclock you would need to start with the 20MHz rated CPU, the fastest RAM you can get your hands on, and try your luck from there!
IIRC the Vampire replaces so much they might as well put it in a new case and allow a USB keyboard+mouse. Why put that in the A500? It's not using much of the original hardware.
Wish they make an amiga 4 tablet with both touchscreen and pen and full modern amiga functionality and backwards compatibility with all previous software, and usb support for adding common items such as drives and mouse and keyboard items to it. It would be a great tablet to have as alterantive to the usual android tablets and ipads.
Hi mate, lovely job that pimping Amiga, can you tell me name of that demo on Amiga with funny-pink-elephant-like creature on your lower left screen staring about 11:54 please :)
I still have a 'hopefully' working Amiga in a store room at home (with a Hard Drive!) and a big old box of games/disks/utilities (Xcopy, White Lighting etc etc). This video has inspired me to (at some point) boot it up and see if it still lives! ..as I haven't booted it since I was around 20 (I'm 45 now!). I even had a PC emulator on it (so I could do my homework from school - Turbo Pascal programming and some horrid Cobol too). It would be interesting to see what's on the hard drive too. :)
I guess you either forgot or it failed to hit 50Mhz? I really would have liked to have seen you try to use it with your 1.3 Kickstart with SCSI patch.... The perfect solution would be a dual Kickstart then with 1.3 and 3.1 both with SCSI support...
alex76gr wanting that SCSI support too! I’ve got an old SCSI flatbed scanner, etc to use from my A2000. It would be great to play a SCSI CD player & old 1 Gig-HD.
Hi. Great Vid. So out of all the accelerator cards you mentioned, which one would you suggest as the easiest to get up and running on an original unmodified 500. Main use is a mix of general software and gaming and I don't want anything outside the case with the least amount of modification as possible. Cheers.
Hi Guys, I've got a question. I want to start my amiga 500. I need to set up a display. (tv or monitors). My monitors don't support 15hz so simple vga cable will not do. I was thinking about getting a scart cable and then buy scart to hdmi adapter. Will that work on modern displays? Thx,
Did you try to enable additional RAM with the BIGMEM option (wype wicher BIGMEM from the command line and reboot the machine)? It may not work (check it with any memory checking soft), but maybe you have more luck then I have (I also use a 64MB module, which is seen as 4MB, but it is stable @50MHz). By the way - memory module is essential for stable performance @50MHz. Use a 50ns SIMM module for stable work.
BIGMEM did not work. i ordered a 8 Meg 50ns SIMM and will try with that configuration. congrats on a stable 50mhz! Artur also informed me to set timing to 0 to help with stable clock. thank you for watching
Hi. I see you did not have a heat shield . Or heat sink tabs on the chips. Does this matter as my heat sink won't fit after installing the terrible fire card.
Have you or can you do a rundown of LCD monitors that work on the Amigas? I've just got an NEC AccuSync, but they are hard to get hold of. It looks like you have a Dell in the background. Sorry if this has already been covered - I'm just getting my Amiga back on the rad, as it has been in storage for 20 years! I have an early A500 (with the Cherry Mechanical Keys) and an A1200. This Wicher board looks like something I'd want!
Dan here from LemonAmiga. Amazing video! Im truly happy they are making these cards, and I can imagine there will be a long waiting list. I might order one myself! I much prefer this idea to the vampire solution. But will this run Cannonball Outrun :)
So how is it that flash and other things can be addressed, as well as the replacement CPU, by plugging them all into where the CPU alone would normally go?
Question? what are the best upgrades for an Amiga 3000, like an accelerator card, sound card, video card, sd reader, cd-rom, internet connection all internal no outside stuff.
Cool stuff. I have an A500 and this looks like something I'd use. I do have 1 question though: if I connected a cf card adaptor to it could the cf card be treated like a hard disk? or is it just for floppy images?
Fifty Mega Hurts!
Nice! Thank you for the review. Have you tested those CPU's from ebay? How far is it possible to overclock stable?
Hertz so good.
Fifty Mega Hearts
so fast that hurts
What a boss
Amazing that it's 2018 and there are new hardware products on the market. Crazy. :)
I've never seen Hard Drivin' look so smooth!
It's becoming a really interesting time for retro computing and gaming devices. I love to see people keeping these things alive and showing that they're still useful in modern times. I think the hardware back then is more interesting, as at the time, a single computer that could do everything very well didn't really exist, and it's easy to see in the hardware that different machines had different things that they were good at (like the ST for audio production). I think that's part of why a lot of these machines are viewed as more desirable... I know I want to add an ST to my audio setup, if only for the sweet synth editors available (I have used Stella in the past to emulate an ST in order to program my Roland D-20, but it would be nice to have an actual machine to do that).
I'm super excited that people are out there who still love and support these machines, and are developing new enhancements for them. I can only imagine how far things will go.
Poland love Amiga/Amiga love Poland.
Mój pierwszy komputer:) dobre czasy/ My first computer, good times:)
1987 called....
Polanball can into Boing.
Poland loves video games. Amazing stuff for the Amiga, GOG.com, The Witcher... maybe I really should have tried learning Polish when I was younger (right now, I am busy learning Norwegian and I cannot learn more than one language at once. I tried it with French and English, and failed miserably with French).
My Amiga 1200 is my baby.. fitted with a Blizzard 1230 mk IV with 32mb ram, SCSI CD rom and a 40gb HDD running Classic Workbench and WHDLoad... I love it...
ts only a pocket calculator.so why acceleration ????? that it can do 0.12 mhz more ??????? hahahahaahhaaaa FAAAAAST CALCULATING THEN......................................
So out of date a £30 emulator board will outrun it.
Can I come over and play speedball 2, Ill grab my mk1 zipstick
I never had a Amiga but I LOVE how the community won't let this great machine die.
The SupraTurbo28 was actually 36MHz during development-- we had them in engineering at up to 40MHz, but as you observed over 36MHz was pretty sketchy. We had a couple beta testers have issues at 36MHz (it also had to behave in a 2000), so it was dialed back to 28MHz to be safe. We used 68HC000FN-16's with the numbers sanded off with an electric eraser. (I don't think -20's were around then, or they were more expensive or something.) ;-)
I still have an A500+ with a Supra Turbo28 and AlfaData IDE controller, given to me in the early 2000s. Definitely fun running WB 3.1! Never realised the SupraTurbo was so rare!
I overclocked my ST28 and found 40mHz to be it's fastest stable speed, just got lucky by the looks of it. Wish I still had it, but was gifted it for free and passed it onto someone else for the same price. Biggest regret is selling my Phoenix A1000 though, I knew I was doing the wrong thing at the time but still went ahead with it.
Man you voided the warranty!!!
Edit: Ha ha should of read the comments before posting. Im glad we all think alike!
Man that F-18 was smooth. And naturally, followed by a chaser. Great mod!
Skychase is beautiful too.
I wonder if a a heat sink might help with reaching 50MHz, both on the CPU and possibly on the FPGA as well.
The chip didn't get to hot . The chip could use a tad bit more voltage . Hell it wouldn't hurt to put an active sink on it but not sure it would do anything . I guess it would be a thing to test .
I think with so many retro computing and gaming channels gaining popularity on youtube, its bringing the old Atari and Amiga computers to light and getting people interested in retro gaming beyond old consoles and MS-DOS.
The Amiga computers seems like someone I would have loved to played around with if I grew up with them in the 80's and 90's (but my first computers where Win95 and Win98 generation computers having been born in 1992)
Wicher (not witcher) means gale - strong wind in polish.
Dokładnie :)
@@TheDrunkenPL But The Witcher is great!
and it's pronounced with H like in "here", not like in "cheer"
Bo wicher zamiecie wszystko.
Yup
Thank you for this video! I had been looking for a game since I was a child and could never find it and you showed it. The game Hard Drivin' was something that I played at a local pizza place as a child and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Rad!
Excellent video! Hard Drivin actually looks playable! I agree with your thoughts on internal vs external acceleration. Much rather it be inside the machine rather than hanging off the side.
Todd's Nerd Cave Yeah, especially if you had a sidecar HD hooked up. I had a Supra Turbo 28-it had a pass-through-and an ICD Trifecta 500LX. If your table or desk was too wiggly things could shift and the system would crash. Not too good for your system.
This was one reason I loved moving up to an A2000 and later an A4000/040.
The A1200 with some 030 cards wasn't much better!
Exactly what I thought. It's way faster than the original Amiga (and probably even the arcade) version.
3D games like Stunt Car Racer, Falcon, Black Crypt, F1 or Warhead would be interesting to check on these cards too.
I played Hard Drivin in the arcade, it was awful. This looks like the hardware it needed all along.
Seeing the A500 again gives me goosebump memories...I hope fat agnus doesn't mind new arrivals.
I miss my Amigas.
I had a Amiga 500 which I pimped with 1.5 Mb extra memory. And the second mod was a kickstart switch so i could switch between 1.3 and 2.04.
My other Amigas included 2x Amiga 2000, Amiga 3000 and Amiga 4000.
I remember that my old Supra Turbo 28 had a 68010 processor. It stands out since you really didn't see 010's in Amiga accelerators much, if at all elsewhere.
It would also convert for use in an A2000 when you removed the case and set a jumper on the board--which was what I did when I got my A2000 and moved the accelerator, DKB Mini Mega Chip with 2MB Agnes, Super Denise and my 3.1 ROM from the A500.
You could also convert it back by removing the jumper and putting the board back into the case.
I've had less than 3 hours sleep, but this woke me right up! Some serious Polski power in a beautiful package. Sterling work on the video MVG. +100 internet points for featuring Thrust's - Ottifanten demo! 😉
Ottifant - been looking for that :-D
@@marcschlegel4944 Glad to help you relive some demo memories. 𝑨𝑴𝑰𝑮𝑨 forever!
Put a small heatsink on the Xylinx, and add an adjustable voltage regulator with fine tuning pot to power the card instead of the mainboard power. This will probably solve any stability issues.
You and Anthony should be Must-See TV for ALL computer history fans. Great video, Bill! So good.
Another amazing video. Please keep these coming, so awesome dude.
That thing so old it's making my screen refresh like crazy
Forwarded this video to my brother. He also loves his retro hardware and would get a kick out of someone making accelerator cards for vintage hardware. He's purchased a couple modern accelerators for his Apple II, and a recreation that someone reverse engineered of a very rare audio/video card for his Apple 2GS. Very neat video.
Wow.. cant believe people are making upgrades for my 1st computer... Rock on peeps
There is no "c" in the name of this card. "C" is silent when "h" is after in polish. Always. So, name of this card is Wi(c)her - strong wind in polish. I think "gale" would be a proper english translation.
Anyway. Cool video. As always. 🙂👌
Good info thank you for the explanation!
vee-her. the pronunciation of the W is also wrong in the video :) its like a V in video. but thats just nitpicking.. thank you for your videos! and greetings from Wrocław!
At firat i thought the name is witcher and i was thinking what about the copyrights to that name. But it is vee her with audible h in polish meaning fast and furious wind. So quite proper name for such card. Anyway- good video as always. Greetings from Warsaw!
Yeah. I forgot about that W. 😅 W=V. There is no V in polish alphabet. And still it has 32 letters 😁
At first I thought it is called "Witcher"!
Greetings from Jelcz (Poland)
I don't think it's THAT surprising the A500 is starting to get some serious love. Take a look on ebay how much a semi-tidy A500 is vs a similar quality A600. One is £40 - £50 the other £100+ with some cheeky chancers wanting £200+ for an A1200. Having said that I'm sure the A500 will go up in price sooner or later as more people hoover them up and slap "retro vintage" in their listings rather than "found in the attic".
Its amazing to see how they keep these 20+ year old computer going, There are 6000+ games, 1000 of programs for the Amiga. Great way to learn about computing extra.
A machine of such beauty, I am in awe!
Looks like a great solution and I agree it is great to see this stuff popping up for the Amiga 500 nowadays. For me personally though after having a Vampire I have reverted my personal Amiga 500 back to stock. The nostalgia I have in regard to the machine does not include making it super fast or using WHDLoad. For me the true Amiga 500 experience is the stock experience. I have done some things to "modernize" it such as a DFO: switcher to allow the external port to be used with a HxC floppy emulator mounted in an external floppy case and a USB keyboard solution (internal piggybacking the CIA) to allow a wireless keyboard to be used in conjunction with the real keyboard. I am able to button it up RF shield and all and play games in a modern way but still keep it just like how it was when I purchased it new.
It really warms my heart seeing all this new hardware and software coming out, not just for the Amiga, but for all kinds of retro computers. Even the Vic-20 is getting some love.
I wonder where we'd be if Motorola had continued with the 680x0 line beyond the '060...
Beyond 68060, Motorola branched in to the PPC, and RISC (88000) and on to pave the way for ARM based SOC's.
Yeah, Motorola was doing really well against the 286/386/486 Intel line until clock speeds progressed beyond about 66mhz (Thanks largely to DEC's breakthrough with the Alpha AXP line and its very high - for the time - clock speeds). I seem to remember that when DEC was broken apart, the technology was purchased by Intel and HP.
Great to see this review :)...Now I'm proud that I introduce you Wicher turbo card :)
You should reach 50MHz without problem with 8MB simm EDO 50ns even with stock cpu. My Wicher runs rock solid in 50MHz with 8MB simm 50ns edo.
You can add little heatsink on Xilinx chip and/or CPU to improve stability.
Of course I will send you info when new projects for Amiga will be available :)
Pozdrowienia od Polskich fanów Amigi z PPA :)
(Cheers from Polish Amiga Fans on PPA.PL)
And you should pronounce "vi-her" use connection of two words "Wii" or "Vi" and "her",,,,And yes Wicher means "Strong Wind" It's not Witcher :)
I can't find any 8MB 50ns simms anywhere. What is the part # on your simm? Thanks alot!
You can use any of 50ns EDO simm 72pin. Wicher installer have option BigRAm. It helps to recognize 8MB in 16 or 32 oe 64MB simm module. I have two 8MB Simms Edo 50ns and theyre from different companies. I found them in allegro.
Thanks for the info. I would love to use >8MB but would be sad if the BigRam option doesn't work. If anybody knows of a 8MB EDO 50NS SIMM available please let me know. (and every1 else I guess :D)
This option is working but not with every simm module So the best option is looking for 8MB module.
I have the card too (500i version, without the battery slot). It's everything I need to play games via WHDLoad, watch demos, etc.
I have 4 kickstarts and a switch for turning the card (mostly) off. This way I still have compatibility with disk demos, old games etc.
Got now a Wicher500i Rev 2a on my A500 Revision 5 with the kickstart 3.1. Have the CPU Motorola MC68HC000FN20 20Mhz and a 8MB EDO 60ns 72pin SIMM on it and a 8GB CF with WB 3.1 and WHDLoad games. I liked it more than my ACA500Plus and yes i still waiting for the Vampire 500 V4. Nice video and the Wicher500i is a great turbo card for WHDLoad games.
So, what would be the easiest way to get a complete (or as near to complete as possible) library of games working on WHDLoad? Get an Amiga 500 with Kickstart 3.1, this accelerator card, a MC68HC000, 8 Megs of FastRAM and a compactflash drive? I literally don't know anything about soldering or futzing around with the insides of an Amiga and I'd only want to use it for games. Used to have one in the 90s and looking for stuff now can get somewhat overwhelming with no knowledge of how to set one up correctly.
Really interesting video, the F-18 footage blew me away!
Hard drivin' and f18!! Ahh the good ol days. I'd like to try D-paint & digi-view with that!
You should show before and after footage with and without the accelerator card for those of us who are interested in retro Computing but don't happen to own one of these beauties.
THIS IS POSSIBLE BY USING THE PAUSE FUNCTION... :D
Thank you for opening a new world of ideas for me!
8:00
Get a heat sensing camera, or laser led thermometer, and install a passive heat sink on the card CPU and other chips that get hotter than 60C or 140F. You'll still be well below the 92C/200F max temps the chip supports.
I'm a simple man, I hear Alien Breed soundtrack I subscribe.
Sweeeeeeeeet!!! The Amiga is getting so much love recently =D Might just have to get one of those for my 500 or 500+
EDIT: Although it's nice, the TF530 has more power due to the 030. This is still a lovely option though depending on price. Amazing just how many options we are getting lol
yep - choice is always welcome ! im waiting for a TF530 with more RAM, 2 Meg just isnt enough
+Modern Vintage Gamer Yeah, 8MB would be a good minimum I think. The board supports 4MB I think? The CD32 model he produced has 8 I think.
+K's Retro Computers ah, yes - so in theory you could add another RAM upgrade? Does it work with the kipper2k ram board yet?
ahhhhhhhhhh..memories....! Brilliant video!
Discovered you through The Retro Hour podcast and so glad I did!
Dude! This mod will void your Commodore warranty!
I just checked my A1200 box and found I had filled out the warranty but hadn't sent it, in do you think they would still cover it?
@@daishi5571 Of course ! :)
@@daishi5571 Obviously, duh!! ;-)
Hey MVG, met you at CRX 2017. Glad I found your channel! Love all your videos. Keep it up!!!
Thank you man, exciting times for Amiga, I love your channel.
Great video as always. It will be worth checking out different memory modules and configurations in order to see what's the best RAM to hit that sweet 50mhz ceiling. Loving these Amiga videos mate!
thanks - yes i agree!
I have been looking at this for my amiga 500. I was wondering if it will work well with a sd to ide board? My setup now is a 500 with the supra500xp with a scsi to sd and the supraturbo 28 with the kipper2k 68000 with the 8 mb ram but like you said the side is used and is not a nice clean package
This is superb. Thanks for the video. I think I'll have to get this screened at tomorrow's South West Amiga Group (SWAG) meeting.
I'm looking at ordering a Wicher 508i for my A500 Rev 5, just wondering... Do I also need to have a 512k memory expansion card to the trapdoor slot? asking because my 512k expansion board corroded so I would need to buy a new one of those.
Have you tested the HC508 card, which was released last year?
I'm apparently one of the lucky souls that can run 42mhz without ill effect on the ACA500+
I've begrudgingly accepted that the ACA500+ is going to be on the left side of my machine, so I ordered a manufactured case that also facilitates an ACA 1233n with risers and sealed shut.
All in all, I'm happy, but the Wicher is definitely making me green with envy. ;) . I would have opted for this back in November.
I had a Supra Turbo28. I thought it had a 68010 in there. I couldn't afford a beefier accelerator at the time. But the nice thing was that when I shifted over to my A2000, I was able to remove the Supra Turbo 28 board from the case, set a jumper and plug it into the A2000's processor slot. It worked well enough but there was no room for onboard Fast RAM and I had to use a Zorro II RAM board.
Man those frame rates are gorgeous, well done.
So, after doing extra research, I ended up ordering the ACA500 Plus. It is cheaper overall than the wicher right from the start and comes with 8 mb of fast ram, legal copies of workbench 3.1 in rom that automatically installs onto CF cards and 2 compact flash ports. The Wicher still requires the ram module(that I think I have kicking around somewhere), the extra purchase of 3.1 roms, connecting jumpers and an IDE to Compact Flash adapter needs to be purchased as well. Once, you kick in the extras and shipping, it ends up being literally double of the ACA 500 Plus. The benefit, as you mentioned, is having it all internal...I would have loved to have this internal on the A1000 making it my first choice; however, after witnessing many attempts on the web, the wicher is not stable in an A1000...sigh. Perhaps, at a later time, I'll order a Wicher for one of my many A500, especially after the new A500 cases arrive that have been ordered through Indiegogo. Nevertheless, I am pumped seeing accelerators for such Vintage hardware...I hope to see similar improvements available for may many Atari St's as well. So, when this arrives from Europe, I'll have to see if I will purchase an external case for it or make one...cheers!
Mr. SEA good luck ... keep me posted on your results?
Wish there was a simple accelerator with a 14Mhz 68020 CPU, 68881/68882 FPU, 8MB RAM, and CF/SD card slot for under a hundred quid. Would be a great little internal upgrade!!
I recently watched your video on how to get the Amiga running on a modern monitor and I'm excited for the parts to come in. The Amiga 500 was my dads first computer and the first computer I ever played with. He bought it the year I was born, 1987. I've decide to dust it off and give it a new life after many years of enjoyment but I cannot find this card anywhere. Do you or anyone out there, know where I can purchase one of these? I would love to have Workbench 3.1 and WHD Loader running.
Thanks for the well-made video review! Kudos! Guess I will pick up an Amiga 500 rather sooner than later after beeing without "my girlfriend" for about 20 years. The card looks really nice, too. Awesome deep-blue PCB, for the look alone it should be worth it. ;-) Seeing F18 perform as well as in the video is really an eye-opener.
Wow!! This was supremely impressive! Thankyou!
In the configuration menu where it says 1-16 or 16-128 you need to select 16-128 because your SIMM size is 64MB that why you can only see 4MB
I have my old Amiga sitting right next to me in a box, hasn't been out in 20 years...should i pimp her up?
Remove the battery
@@mrkitty777 Battery?
If it has a battery it will leak and cause destruction
@@mrkitty777 ahhh i never thought of that thank you.
11:55 Holy sh*t, that's an Ottifant on the screen in the background! It was created by the German comedian Otto Waalkes, and my mind is just blown to see one in an Amiga demo.
Haste den Lauftext nicht gelesen? 12:08 Da steht groß 8510 Fuerth West-Germany. Außerdem, Thrust war eigentlich ne Release-/Crack Group
@@ulliulli Das die aus Deutschland kommen war mir schon fast klar. Ändert nix daran, dass mein Geist weggepustet wurde, als ich den Ottifanten gesehen habe. ;)
The memories. Grew up on the Amiga 2000.
Cheers mate! Great insight. Might get one for my A500 ;-) . I've been too many years of focusing on my A1200 (which I often leave in it's flight case) so it'd be great to have a second box that can also boot to CF and but running faster 68k.
cTrix ! thank you so much! its great to see you here.
Hey there is a spot in that board where it says "Caution Hot!" Can you re-run the tests at 42 and 50MHZ if you can somehow add a heatsink to that chip or a fan?
I don't think that would make a lot of difference. I can't quite make out the part number but the chip looks like an XC95-series CPLD. They can run ridiculously fast and will get pretty hot at 5 volts, but they're designed to cope with it. To get a really serious overclock you would need to start with the 20MHz rated CPU, the fastest RAM you can get your hands on, and try your luck from there!
Very nice! More love to the Amiga 500. :)
But what about a Vampire 500 V2? Those Vampire cards are amazing if you can get one.
IIRC the Vampire replaces so much they might as well put it in a new case and allow a USB keyboard+mouse. Why put that in the A500? It's not using much of the original hardware.
Wish they make an amiga 4 tablet with both touchscreen and pen and full modern amiga functionality and backwards compatibility with all previous software, and usb support for adding common items such as drives and mouse and keyboard items to it. It would be a great tablet to have as alterantive to the usual android tablets and ipads.
Had an eargasm when you displayed the card.
I had the Supraturbo - it was SUPER compatible and comparatively cheap.
Frontier ran faster than on A1200.
That monitor stack you have in the background is crazy lol - I like it =D
What a time to be looking at getting my first Amiga
How are you using the right mouse button to bring up tiny launcher, is that a startup-sequence trick or something else?
I want WHDload games too.
I just found an Amiga 500 in my wife's closet and TH-cam algorithm is strong. Probably going to the bin though unless I can find a home for it.
Awesome video as always
Hi mate, lovely job that pimping Amiga, can you tell me name of that demo on Amiga with funny-pink-elephant-like creature on your lower left screen staring about 11:54 please :)
I still have a 'hopefully' working Amiga in a store room at home (with a Hard Drive!) and a big old box of games/disks/utilities (Xcopy, White Lighting etc etc). This video has inspired me to (at some point) boot it up and see if it still lives! ..as I haven't booted it since I was around 20 (I'm 45 now!). I even had a PC emulator on it (so I could do my homework from school - Turbo Pascal programming and some horrid Cobol too). It would be interesting to see what's on the hard drive too. :)
Moodymongul go pull the battery out before the board is ruined...
Is there a mini amiga 500 that is supped up for 2018?
has the amiga community addressed the year 2016 problem on the amiga? Will this problem affect the use of these battery units?
Don't recognise the app you're selecting on the workbench under TRIAL. Sierra game? As a Sierra fan I'm intrigued.
I'm pretty jealous of that case. No yellowing whatsoever.
Excellent review.
Will you make a supplementary video when you have the 20MHz 68000 cpu?
if i can hit 50mhz...then yes :)
I guess you either forgot or it failed to hit 50Mhz? I really would have liked to have seen you try to use it with your 1.3 Kickstart with SCSI patch.... The perfect solution would be a dual Kickstart then with 1.3 and 3.1 both with SCSI support...
alex76gr wanting that SCSI support too! I’ve got an old SCSI flatbed scanner, etc to use from my A2000. It would be great to play a SCSI CD player & old 1 Gig-HD.
Hi. Great Vid. So out of all the accelerator cards you mentioned, which one would you suggest as the easiest to get up and running on an original unmodified 500. Main use is a mix of general software and gaming and I don't want anything outside the case with the least amount of modification as possible. Cheers.
I did some extra research after your video with those who have attempted to make the Wicher work in an A1000...it's a no go.
very intriguing for sure... a win for us all...
Totally forgot the water cooling in this video. Still 5 stars. Keep up the good work.
hard driving working but frankly it was an Atari ST port, it didn't use the feature that allowed the amiga to fill in polygons
Did you try fitting the cpu and the xilinx-chip with a flat passive heatsink? maybe it's only a temperature-issue with your chip?
Hi Guys, I've got a question. I want to start my amiga 500. I need to set up a display. (tv or monitors). My monitors don't support 15hz so simple vga cable will not do.
I was thinking about getting a scart cable and then buy scart to hdmi adapter. Will that work on modern displays?
Thx,
Piękne! Szacuneczek :) Amiga rólz :)
Did you try to enable additional RAM with the BIGMEM option (wype wicher BIGMEM from the command line and reboot the machine)? It may not work (check it with any memory checking soft), but maybe you have more luck then I have (I also use a 64MB module, which is seen as 4MB, but it is stable @50MHz). By the way - memory module is essential for stable performance @50MHz. Use a 50ns SIMM module for stable work.
BIGMEM did not work. i ordered a 8 Meg 50ns SIMM and will try with that configuration. congrats on a stable 50mhz! Artur also informed me to set timing to 0 to help with stable clock. thank you for watching
Hi. I see you did not have a heat shield . Or heat sink tabs on the chips. Does this matter as my heat sink won't fit after installing the terrible fire card.
What monitor do you use? Are you converting the signal to use the LCD?
Have you or can you do a rundown of LCD monitors that work on the Amigas?
I've just got an NEC AccuSync, but they are hard to get hold of. It looks like you have a Dell in the background.
Sorry if this has already been covered - I'm just getting my Amiga back on the rad, as it has been in storage for 20 years!
I have an early A500 (with the Cherry Mechanical Keys) and an A1200. This Wicher board looks like something I'd want!
RavJ Dell 2410f
Dan here from LemonAmiga. Amazing video! Im truly happy they are making these cards, and I can imagine there will be a long waiting list. I might order one myself! I much prefer this idea to the vampire solution. But will this run Cannonball Outrun :)
Why is this solution preferred over the Vampire solution?
So how is it that flash and other things can be addressed, as well as the replacement CPU, by plugging them all into where the CPU alone would normally go?
Question?
what are the best upgrades for an Amiga 3000, like an accelerator card, sound card, video card, sd reader, cd-rom, internet connection all internal no outside stuff.
I have an Amiga 1200, is there anything new for it?
Cool stuff. I have an A500 and this looks like something I'd use. I do have 1 question though: if I connected a cf card adaptor to it could the cf card be treated like a hard disk? or is it just for floppy images?
What is the spec for your monitor you are using with your amiga? Thanks, cool video!