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Oh, I also got a real Amiga 500 recently. Paid $329 for it, which is way too
much, but the guy swore it worked, he was in Irving, and I was driving to
L.A. that weekend to go to Mumford and Sons with my wife (this is a compromise
that means I never have to go to Dave Matthews, which seems like a fair trade,
to me...) Anyhow. So, I go down, drive the 45 minutes down to Irving, meet
the guy and do the trade, he says, "My brother is the computer guy and he
is deployed right now, so if there is any problem, let me know and I'll make
it right." Get it home, plug it in, floppy reads me 30 year old copy of the
iconic Juggler demo... but the keyboard won't work. Only the top row of keys
respond. I bought an Amiga 500 because they didn't have real time clocks,
so they don't have VARTA batteries, which are infamous for leaking and eating
motherboards. When the keyboard didn't work, I turned it open
and opened the trapdoor expansion, and there was a RTC memory card with a
leaking VARTA battery that had vented up onto the connector for the keyboard
membrane.
I bought a new keyboard membrane from the UK for $35... got the guy to refund me so my out of pocket cost was $179. Removed the leaky battery and washed everything down with vinegar, distilled water, and IPA. Assembled it all, and got it working. Then I bought a thing called a Gotek which is a floppy disk emulator. Allows you to hook up a thumb drive with up to 999 floppy disk images on it. Got myself a switch that allows you to chang the drive assignments of the external and internal floppy, because the floppy images want to be the first, internal drive (df0: in Amiga) not the external (df1:). Got an RF modulator and hooked it up by component in to an LCD TV. All told, about $330 into it... and here I am, on Uncensored, in the MiSTer FPGA Minimig Amiga core, while the real Amiga sits out on the other room looking really cool. If you want to relive your old classic retro machines - I can't recommend MiST, MiSTer and other FPGA platforms enough as the saner alternative to trying to keep 34+ year old machines alive and running.
I bought a new keyboard membrane from the UK for $35... got the guy to refund me so my out of pocket cost was $179. Removed the leaky battery and washed everything down with vinegar, distilled water, and IPA. Assembled it all, and got it working. Then I bought a thing called a Gotek which is a floppy disk emulator. Allows you to hook up a thumb drive with up to 999 floppy disk images on it. Got myself a switch that allows you to chang the drive assignments of the external and internal floppy, because the floppy images want to be the first, internal drive (df0: in Amiga) not the external (df1:). Got an RF modulator and hooked it up by component in to an LCD TV. All told, about $330 into it... and here I am, on Uncensored, in the MiSTer FPGA Minimig Amiga core, while the real Amiga sits out on the other room looking really cool. If you want to relive your old classic retro machines - I can't recommend MiST, MiSTer and other FPGA platforms enough as the saner alternative to trying to keep 34+ year old machines alive and running.
The floppy disk emulator sounds like a really cool idea, because my actual
floppies demagnetized long ago hahaha
Google Gotek. It works on multiple different retro platforms - you just have
to flash it for the appropriate system. They mostly get used for Amiga and
Atari ST platforms - but they're intended for Roland synthesizers, I believe.
The ones I've seen emulate a floppy drive using an SD Card, and have buttons
to activate any of hundreds of floppy images stored on the card as the disk
actually inserted in the drive. Then you can put the SD Card into a modern
computer to load software onto it.
I don't think it emulates a full USB stack.
I don't think it emulates a full USB stack.
Mon Sep 16 2019 10:01:16 EDT from IGnatius T FoobarThe ones I've seen emulate a floppy drive using an SD Card, and have buttons to activate any of hundreds of floppy images stored on the card as the disk actually inserted in the drive. Then you can put the SD Card into a modern computer to load software onto it.
I don't think it emulates a full USB stack.
Actually, a USB thumb drive. I've got one in my Amiga 500, and otherwise, it works exactly as Ig describes. Pop the thumb drive into my PC, download disk image files (amiga .adf files) then pop the thumb drive into the Amiga, enter the setup software, put the .adf images into "slots", then I can scroll through the .adf files in their slots and they mount on the Amiga and are seen as floppy disks in a floppy drive.
What's probably really cool is that the parts and tooling required to interface
with old computers are dirt cheap now.
Yeah. There has been a recent jump in interest in retro platforms across the board - and lots of "makers" are putting out really cool devices that connect new stuff with the old stuff.
Tue Sep 29 2020 09:21:30 EDT from IGnatius T FoobarWhat's probably really cool is that the parts and tooling required to interface with old computers are dirt cheap now.
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