Vintage Amiga 500 - brand new case from A1200.net!
Ғылым және технология
My 35-year-old Amiga 500 got a new case!
I re-cased (is that a word?) my Amiga 500 with the brand new, very slick, blacker-than-black case from A1200.net. It was pretty easy, and this is an overview of how I installed it, and what I think of it. It's an easy recommendation from me if you need a new case for your old Amiga 500.
This video was not sponsored - I bought this at full price with my own money. If you want to help me do more videos like this one, please help support the channel!
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Chapters and whatnot:
0:00 The internet likes retro stuff
0:33 I say "greetings" and talk about my Amiga 500
4:04 Unboxing the A1200.net case
6:35 Let's transfer the Amiga!
7:56 Putting it back together in the A1200.net case
11:28 Amiga floppy standoff trouble
13:23 What do I think, and what's next?
#retrocomputing #amiga #amiga500
Пікірлер: 221
The memories of moving from New Zealand to Australia and leaving my Amiga 1200 With mum only to find she threw it away cause she thought it was an 'old computer' I didn't need anymore... I think I am still crying 24 years later.
@f15sim
Жыл бұрын
I'd make her replace it.
@pawelrsw2625
Жыл бұрын
I had the same story with my A500...
@costascostas1760
Жыл бұрын
Hope you still have your mum, go give her a hug
@kavmanatplay3265
Жыл бұрын
@@costascostas1760 I do... so good call on perspective ❤
@kencur9690
Жыл бұрын
I know people. Ruthless people. Geeks who are vets at this sort of thing. Who have seen it all. Who have pirated disks despite the anti-copy warning. Who are part of a global geek club. Who have skills, special skills. Just saying. If you need to sort out your mother, I can get you in touch.
Love your videos, having a woman talking about Linux and vintage computers is really inspiring
I'm looking forward to the continuation of your Amiga story. Thanks.
As an old and current Amiga user, this video is ASMR on the first day of 2024 to me. Thank you for such great content.
I am SO Looking forward to more Amiga content in the future, my mom learned a lot about computers from the Amiga and it was the first computer i had the fortune to use! You;re right, that black case looks beautiful! Thank YOU for being so awesome!
That's quite a strange feeling to watch someone on YT having the same enthusiasm I had when I unboxed my first Amiga 500 when I was a teenager 35 years ago.
We had brought our Amiga 500 to the childrens ward in the hospital for my brother when he had to lay in there for several weeks with a broken leg. A lot of good memories for a lot of kids on that ward. When did we forget to expect easy access, local multiplayer games on every computer?
Hi Veronica - Im Andy, an ami/linux geek from New Zealand - Just wanted to let you know that if your floppy drive fails - you cannot replace it with a standard PC floppy. The circuit boards need a soldered jumper changed from df1 to df0 (which is what the A500 expects) and a wire from an IC to pin 33 on the floppy connector. There are plenty of tutorials on the net, but the mod required is generally different based on floppy manufacturer. But its fun to do it and replacement Amiga drives can be expensive. I just saw this video is a year old. But I love your vid's, educational and entertaining. I hope you are enjoying the break from work and cobol.
I recently got into vintage computing and now this is 95% of the videos I watch on youtube. Thank you.
What a beautiful machine 🥲 I think the black case looks SUPER good.
@VeronicaExplains
Жыл бұрын
I really like it. It's different in a good way!
@clark-r
Жыл бұрын
@@netnavigator149 Both styles look great. \_o< quackers. I'm indeed not an Amiga enthusiast either.
@clark-r
Жыл бұрын
@@netnavigator149 Maybe, but I feel like a lighter brown may fit better.
You really brought back some beautiful memories with my favourite computer of all times. The dark case looks really awesome and cool 😍 Thank you for the wonderful video, Veronica ❤
Nice! I remember having the A500 and badly wanting an A3000UX. The closest I got was to write a terminal emulator for the A500 and connect a serial cable to a FreeBSD machine I had around :) No X window though, just text. Good times!!! Thank you for the trip down memory lane. Love your content.
"I eventually decided to ditch the RF shielding. " Agrrrr ! Having worked as a fabrication tech for project engineers in Aerospace, I can tell you that you may be running up against the law of unintended consequences. The components of the motherboard act like a tuned circuit for RF energy, hence the shield.
@f15sim
Жыл бұрын
The RF shield was required by FCC regs to prevent home computers from interfering with television sets and (mostly) AM radio receivers. Is it a good idea to keep it? Probably. Is it going to matter if it gets tossed? Probably not. ;)
@JohnDoe-pq5fu
Жыл бұрын
Could just line the inside of the case with copper tape maybe? I don't know anything about Amigas, but that's how you minimize 60 cycle hum with single coil guitar pickups.
@f15sim
Жыл бұрын
@@JohnDoe-pq5fu There's no point - unless there's an old TV set or AM radio nearby, it's not going to be an issue.
Wow! I had this computer in the 90's and it always seemed huge to me. Although I never learned to use it as it would have deserved. I look forward to the chapters you will show using such equipment and to learn from your "discoveries". Greetings and congratulations for the excellent quality of your videos.
Have fun with your Amiga! Nice to see another Amiga KZreadr! :)
I love this as I basically want a modernized backlit programmable amiga-esque keyboard thing
Love the wind noises from ~8:59 . Immediately brought the Final Fantasy 3 (6) opening to mind.
oh baby, thumbs up for making a workbench disk from a linux box, wowowowow!
Amazing computer project of the Amiga 500
I love the new case. Makes me lust after an Amiga even more. Can't wait to see the video about writing disks with Linux, too. Great video Veronica, thank you very much!
@VeronicaExplains
Жыл бұрын
Thank YOU so much! I appreciate your support! :)
Amiga Rules! Still! 🙂
I like the fact that your videos are focused on quantity, but quality. Great example for content creators.
Sweet! Nice work. Looks great
collapsing a bit under pressure. yes, very relatable. I am SO here for future Amiga / Commodore content!
I find it really amazing that in 2022 people still deal with the AMIGA. - Mine, along with the games and accessories, has been in the basement for many years. And if I get nostalgic, I just start my AMIGA emulator. - But that's it!
@JyrkiKoivisto
4 ай бұрын
whaaat?!?
Holy Toledo Bat Man! That was awesome. You make me want to take my Apple IIe down from the attic and see what can be done with it. NICE!
Awesome as usual Veronica! Amiga's are so cool.
Nice review/walk through of the dis/assembly. About to get one for my A1200 from back in the day :)
What a beautiful case! 🤩👍🏻
Love these videos, Veronica! Hoping to get an Amiga to work on sometime in the future!
Finished product is Beautiful 😊
Dear Veronica, as a techie with an 80's/90's childhood, I have grown to appreciate your channel. Thank you for doing what you do, this is so much fun to watch and really educational. Some day, I want to pick up my own Amiga 500 and do what you do, for old times sake. The 500 was such an amazing machine for its day, and, in retrospect, I am so sad my 14 year old self traded my own for a 385 PC back in the day. Are you going to show more of the machine off in another video?
Thanks for another great video Veronica. Yeah, this happens often when buying Amiga. My A1200 also has been "dremel'ed" for GoTek but also for slim CD rom on the back. But it was poor job, whoever did this, couldn't cut a strait line. So I went for a black case too for A1200. It looks awesome. And yes, now I am thinking...hmm, the keyboard...should be different maybe... It's never ending thing...
That is froogin' nuts!
So lovely! 💗
Boy would I have loved something like the gotek drive back in the day.
Now in my life, I can finally see the "Amiga" ... ;-))
luv your retro stuff commodore amiga is what brought me here please keep em all coming love every sec
Some quality of life Gotek improvements: When you want to mount the Gotek internally, you can save yourself some money and 3D print some brackets. I've used the ones that move the drive so the USB port is more central in the floppy hole. There's also a nice display mod that replaces the segmented display with an OLED and moves the display to the top of the case, so you don't have to crane your neck around to the side to see what drive image you've selected.
The case is really brilliant!!!
Nice case ! 😍
oh neat! I was wondering about the floppy mounting! 10mil standoffs and washers. brilliant!
Ooooh. I want to know more about writing disks from Linux.
Thanks for the amusing video, I just love hearing you talk 🥰 .. my first personal computer was a Commodore Vic-20 purchased on early 1982, I replaced it with a classic C-64 (not the slim one) on 1987. When the Amiga 500 arrived to my country, it was too expensive and so I went with a Mac 512ke instead ... but I always dreamed about having an amiga 500 someday. Well, about 15 years ago I purchased a 2nd hand Amiga 500 with original power supply, no cables, no mouse and a Commodore RGB Monitor, all for about US$ 80. Couldn't get the cables nor mouse, and thus I shelved this project for a while .. it is still on my attic, but thanks to your video I intend to give a try to get the parts from ebay and see if it still works ... looking forward to your video on making diskettes for it on my PC 😎 .. love your channel and have a nice Xmas.
Well, I read Commodore so I got a stop by. Then I see an Amiga, so I hit subscribe and put a like!
Well darn!!!!!! Wish I would have know about this! Just bought a used replacement off ebay. Anyway for those interested this is about $192 shipped to the US for the case and kit.
That got me by surprise, the other day i bumped over a synergy video but never imagined now to be seeing a video about Amiga
@VeronicaExplains
9 ай бұрын
My channel has a few zig zags in it.
@vertigoz
9 ай бұрын
@@VeronicaExplains I don't know why but you gives me some Jeri Ellsworth's vibes! :)
@VeronicaExplains
9 ай бұрын
Thanks! She's pretty great! I'll take the compliment!
I support this! more vintage stuff please!
Great vid!
I just found your channel. You are so cool and smart. Both in equal portions.
Back in Black :) Beautiful. I have one A500 that is very yellow that could need one ;)
❤❤❤❤nice lovely video😊
i love the amigas so i used to play games on them when i was a toddler haha
Hot damn! Great quality on that case, I absolutely love it. To think that even these pesky little standoff buggers could be so hard to get... They're very common on our side of the pond.
@VeronicaExplains
Жыл бұрын
I think it's because it's metric? I could find plenty of standoffs and so forth, but nothing cleanly threaded inside the floppy. Nothing that wasn't just PC motherboard style (which didn't fit either, at least not the ones I had lying around).
I'm Antonio from Italy, i have one Amiga 500 classic and 350 floppy disk with many games. The color black is smart because year after year the color remain black. The case classic white after 30 years (1988-2022) is yellow-brown...
fantastic!
That black case does look pretty good with the stock keyboard.
Thank you.
I have one of these cases (1200, though) and it is absolutely amazing. Of course I immediately lost the VGA back plate when I set it aside pending the arrival of my indevision mkIII... so there's that. :) The brass inserts are so much better than the old stock wood screws into plastic.
they should allow a double thumbs up for the excellent use of the winter blast sound from Final Fantasy VI.
This is super cool! But i have so much trauma from floppies going bad in school. That dreaded "This disk is not formatted" message haunts me in my nightmares.
A500+ mounted a NiCd battery that... well... you know. Love your voice, it's pleasant to watch your videos. I honestly don't like it black, but an Amiga looks good whatever you dress her. Cheers from Italy!
The new keycaps are here.... 😋
i bought the LE Scourge of the Underkind gray case bundle a few weeks back. I wanted to get new key caps but they didn't have any US keys available. I got really lucky today and won a set on eBay. I did end up doing a mod to use an old 4/3 flat panel with mine A500. I have an Amiga monitor but going to use it with my Amiga 2000 with Video Toaster once I get it all finished.
Legendary content...
great content
Hello, I recommend getting an ACA500Plus from Individual Computers. It will do everything you could want without any hardware hacks (i.e rom switching, PAL/NTSC switching, 68000 acceleration, more ram, 1 mb chip ram, df0: select, and WHDLoad ability). With df0 select, you can get a Gotek as an external drive and boot from it. That way you can keep your original floppy disk drive.
@samp3413
6 ай бұрын
Another vote for the ACA500+. Jens makes really good products. I also have the ACE2b 2mb chip upgrade in my Rev 5 board which works great with the ACA500+
Really interesting.
Yeah, that case is lovely! Oh, and nice Final Fantasy VI wind noise at 8:58 :p
Really nice case they got at a1200 dot net! I have the transparent one for my A1200. Amiga board and Floppy didn't fit 100%, I had to file a littlbe bit at the PCMCIA- and Floppy-slot of the case to make it work. You were lucky that you got the right floppy model for the eject button. I (and Jan Beta in his video) have a drive from Teac, with a completly different designed button!
Ha, I think the Venn diagram circle of retro computing is pretty much inside the Linux computing circle. XD
im not from the 90s but gawd do i luv me sum amiga, i had three of them now sold 1, but now i wanna get 3 more to fill out the collection
Love these vids 😍 Will you ever do a video covering Track Ball Mice ?
@VeronicaExplains
Жыл бұрын
Thank you! I have a short video planned about refurbing an Amiga trackball I got at Free Geek. Was hoping to go into how they work- I think it's pretty neat!
I still have my original 1200 Amiga (first computer I ever owned) in a tower and not in it's original keyboard case. It has loads of upgrades in and has set under my computer desk next to every computer I have ever owned. It will probably be buried alive with me when I die lol.
I am waiting for the green case, and new keycaps.
Speaking of Linux. I have used it to mount an FFS formatted Amiga harddisk in read/write mode and used MC to transfer files.
Grande veronica top e sopratutto bellissima ciao
the TF536 is a nice Accelerator card. though, just remember that if you use the relocator adapter you will need aware of the rotation of the 2.5" IDE connector. at standard using those 2.5" IDE to CF adapters that 99% uses the drive would point upwards. however that would mostly end in that the card interfere with stuff on the main board/keyboard so you would need to use the relocator board. in combination with the relocater-board the TF536 is turned 90* with the IDE then pointing towards the right side of the case. for some that is great as they can then cut a hole and have easy acces to the CF card... but for us that say bought the Crystal Edition Case or in general don't like to do "plastic surgery" going ham on it with a dremel is not an option so we have to ether get a ribbon cable and an CF adapter with male IDE connector or one of those "flipped" adapters.
You are right, Linux sysadmin and user for the past 20 years. Guess which computer I used until it died in mid 90's? Amiga.
The original Amiga 500 had an A520 modulator to plug into a tv set. Bear that in mind.
I waiting 4 years for the black A500 case and the black Tankshell. Have it now 3 weeks and like it alot with my mint extern black CDTV diskdrive on it. Now i waiting for the black keycaps that makes my black A500 complete. Have also a rare Glow in the Dark GHOST A1200 case fron A1200NET and a Translucent A1200 case. Have a Rev6A motherboard in it with a ACE2 for 2MB CHIP RAM and a Indivision ECS V2 for VGA. Also have connect a ACA50Plus with a fast ACA1233n-55 turbo cart. Do only Demos and 64k Intros on it. Runs WB 3.1 with BetterWB 4.3 on a 4GB CF card.
Thumbs up for dopamine 😂
On an A500, a *much* better way of doing the gotek thing is to put it in an external drive enclosure and then plug a Drive 0/1 switcher board into the PIA socket. You can get these boards for around £10 in the UK, so probably about $15 in the US. Means you can get the full A500 experience while still having access to disk images on USB sticks and means you don't have to butcher the case. Not quite as easy with later amigas of course.
cool vid :)
You 3d printed those wow, I recently installed a emulator for the 500. I owned a Atari ST FM around about that time Amiga had the 500. But I wanted to know more about the Amiga.
Beautiful machine😍 What about putting the Gotek into an external case, configuring it as "DF1:". So you could have the convenience of a modern USB drive without touching your nice new black case. Greetings from Germany😊
@VeronicaExplains
Жыл бұрын
That's what I'm imagining! I'd like to try my hand at printing an external enclosure for it, that way I can also use it with my Amiga 1200. And thanks for watching! :)
I used to have an Amiga 600. I must have spent hundreds of hours playing games on that thing.
I do miss my Amiga 500 from high school. I didn't have enough money to get those fancy hard drives, but could justify an 8MB Supra 500RX expansion, 2 additional floppy drives, Fat Agnus upgrade, and a ROM switcher. RAMdisk the boot drive and you are off to the races! That black case does look pretty snazzy. Can't wait to see it in action! Do they have a mod for a matching 1084S?
@VeronicaExplains
Жыл бұрын
I don't see one for monitors, but that would be fancy! I tend to use an LCD with my RetroTink for Amiga fun, but I've got my eye out for a Trinitron that could be useful across devices.
Nice I love the Amiga , Did you see Chris Edwards - PiMiga3 Linux based Amiga emulation ?
This would be a bit of work, but I wonder if it's possible to make a mould of the drive portion of the new case, then align that to the old case and fill it out with some colour matching material. Perhaps the shapes are not quite identical and you'd get bleed. Making moulds requires a lot of care and equipment too. Instead, I've repaired some cases (just small cracks/chips) with Tamiya's Epoxy Putty which comes in tan colours. It's like the Games Workshop greenstuff/kneadatite. Useful for securing, repairing, spacing, sculpting all sorts of things.
Thanks for your video! At 9 minutes is that sound from chrono trigger?!
@VeronicaExplains
5 ай бұрын
Thanks! Not Chrono Trigger, but Final Fantasy VI- the opening wind sound.
FYI, you can dye keycaps using the same dye you use for clothing, but then you're modifying vintage hardware... But it's an option, since it's not in the original case, anyhow.
Amiga (and Amiga OS) has been a major source of inspiration for operating system gurus all around. Linux and Amiga is just a part of it.. BTW: As an art educator I need to point out: Is BLACK (OR WHITE) really a color? ;)
In the mid-90s I told my coworker I used OS/2 to keep feeling like an Amiga user. Now I use Linux for a similar reason. So sue me. It's a harmless perversion! Little did I know, OS/2 had built its multitasking system on CPU timing code they bought from Amiga. Amiga had gotten it from VM. Circle of life.
loved your video, it brought me back to younger years! I love the fact that you can get new parts for the Amiga, it was a lot harder 10 years ago :( I guess it's time for me to dust off my A500+ It's been a while since I played around with it ;) Also, why ruin an Amiga by replacing the floppy with a gotek?! The sound of the floppy is like music to my ears!! I would rather use the gotek as an external drive :)
There seems to be an obsession in the amiga/atari st/CBM community of fitting goteks, accelerators and various "things" but in my experience they just end up playing Populous or GODS. I get it, I do but it's like a boys club who modify their cars just to go around a parking lot. I use a pcmia hard disk but the amiga loads off FDD fairly smooth. I dunno I just think stuff is neat how it is. This video was funsies.
Thats good. You have a black hair and your case is black. A patern emerged.
Try to avoid polyester clothing when working with ICs; also an ESD mat with a proper ground wristwrap connected to ground is your best bet.
I’ve no idea what to do with an a500. But i was born in 81, and my parents didn’t believe in home computers at all. All my schoolmates had something technology wise at home to type away on. I had encyclopedia brittanicas. They were terrible. The data was badly organized, and excessively/ needlessly long winded. (Think Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess Of Mars levels of long winded) So yeah i got a c64 maxi after discovering and getting the mini on a whim at a local gamestop and have had a blast with both. Looking forward to getting an a500 mini and throwing workbench at it (same as retrorecepies did) and discovering what it was that i missed.
Another great video! If I may ask, what do you use to edit these? Kdenlive, Olive, DaVinci Resolve, ...? Your title cards and transitions are really professional and consistent, and I wonder what your workflow is for accomplishing that. I'd love to see a video on how you make videos! P.S. I'm from the Twin Cities and smiled at the Menards reference. That, and Ax-Man, are the stores I miss the most since moving to Tampa Bay last year. I don't miss the lousy Smarch weather though!
@VeronicaExplains
Жыл бұрын
No joke- I pulled an Ax-Man joke from that talking head because I was worried nobody would get it (and I even checked Ax-Man for the standoffs): "Ax-Man: your artistic grandpa's favorite store for over 40 years!" As for the editor, I'm using Kdenlive and I generally like it. I'm planning a "how I edit my videos" video, but I'm debating how I should do it (live stream vs something pre-recorded vs lots of little tip videos). It takes a bunch of work to edit the videos but I think it's going pretty well. Thanks for watching them! :)