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Here is part of what I hate social media. Arguing with Cliff Claven types who think they know something but social media puts their opinion on equal ground with actual experts on the subject - and the only way to establish this is to crush them and come off as an arrogant asshole. Members of the Participation Trophy generation REALLY get their hackles up when their FEELINGS and opinions are met with someone else's HARD FACTS:
Floppy-less A500 hard drive options?
So, my thought on the subject is that mass storage really benefits most from an accelerated CPU. Why not just go with a Classic 520 accelerator, which will add a CF-to-IDE and removable SD mass storage option, along with a hefty RAM upgrade and a 68ec020 that won't stutter on all of those upgrades?
For around 200 euro - it is a great all-in-one plug and play solution that will get you up and running with WHDload titles on any later revision 1MB chip-ram A500.
https://amigastore.eu/722-classic-520-amiga-500-accelerator.html
Yes and no. Pretty much every old 2d platformer/shooter/puzzler and so on, doesn’t benefit from any cpu acceleration. And Whdload runs with a stock 7Mhz Amiga and some fast RAM, giving you incredible comfort playing those old games. Also, the fast ram gives you in some situations quite some acceleration. On the other hand, polygonal 3D games, wing commander and some games like those from Sierra and Lucasfilm benefit to varying degrees from acceleration. Also if you want to do some “work” on your Amiga, then I’d say you need to accelerate.
So, I disagree. I want to start off by saying that in addition to the genuine Amiga systems I also own a MiST, a couple MiSTers, and a Vampire V4 Stand Alone - and I'm an IT professional who has worked for companies like EMC and Intel as a Systems engineer/Admin in their datacenters. My first Amiga purchase was an Amiga 2000 in March of 1987. Not to brag - but just to establish - I'm not just talking about things I've read on the forums, here.
TL:DR - HD and memory upgrades are bottlenecked on a stock 7mhz 68k without a better CPU - and if you're going to do both of those, you might as well go all-in and add at least a 68ec020 CPU accelerator.
Long Version:
There is a notable improvement in response and feel with the genuine Amiga 500 with a Classic 520 or ACA 500 with ACA 1220LC, even on some 2d platformers like Great Giana Sisters - over a stock Amiga 500. You'll notice it at the opening rainbow scroll on the Time Warp Productions splash screen. Everything feels a little quicker, a little crisper, on any sort of accelerated Amiga compared to a stock 7mhz one. It isn't the day and night difference of playing a modern intense 3D game on stock Intel HD graphics vs. a Nvidia RTX GPU - but there is a *difference*.
But speeding up platformers isn't what we are talking about... and besides, too much speed actually will make a platformer *impossible*, which is part of why a V4 has a default "turtle mode" that slows down WHDLoad titles by default. Many games would play impossibly fast at the speed increases that a Vampire brings to the table for classic Amiga titles. Anyone who has tried to play an original DOS or early Windows platformer on a modern machine, if they got it to run at all, has experienced this. Donkey Kong designed for a 486DX66 is going to be unplayable on a modern i7 unless you slow that i7 *way* down.
But beyond the user experience with programs - an IDE drive makes i/o demands on your computer that SCSI offloads to the controller - which is part of why back in the day, Amiga hard drive systems were originally SCSI (and part of why SCSI remains far more expensive than drive subsystems like IDE, ATA, and SATA that came after it). This is generally why SCSI remained the favorite enterprise data-center platform long after SCSI was replaced as a home computing interface - despite its extra expense. (Enterprise SATA is a different story, though).
When using non-SCSI drives with a traditional 68000 7mhz Amiga - acceleration isn't really about how fast the *games* will play it is about the overall performance of the system and its discreet I/O subsystems. Any Amiga you intend on using IDE, including a CF-to-IDE adaptor, should benefit greatly from at least a 68ec020 accelerator.
It isn't necessarily going to speed up your experience in Lemmings - but once you add booting from the HD, loading MORE things because of having more system memory and more storage to load more things (like the WHDLoad framework, maybe MagicWB, TinyLauncher or other front-end, and other system utilities that run in the background,) and then start launching the games from the HD from WHDLoad... the *reasons* you want to load and launch from a HD system - acceleration will make the whole experience faster, quicker... which again, is part of the reason you would consider a HD system on a classic Amiga.
It is kind of like tuning your car without actually putting on a high performance exhaust. with an IDE CF hard drive system, the 7mhz 68k CPU becomes a bottleneck that is holding back a lot of the performance you've already paid for with *other* upgrades.
If you're going to do a RAM upgrade and add IDE to a classic Pre-68030 Amiga, you might as well go with an accelerator that includes it all. Otherwise, if you just want to play games, you generally only need 1 or maybe 2mb of RAM, and a Gotek on any OCS/ECS system where you primarily intend to play games.
But the acceleration does make a big difference on a lot of entertainment titles too. Bards Tale 1 is a painfully slow experience on a 68000 - it is a game that was pushing the limits of the 68k even when it was new. Play it on a 68ec020 CPU, and it is a far more enjoyable experience. Stunt Car Racer and other polygon games (which is what the Amiga was ABOUT, right?) are frequently far more playable.
The value proposition of an all-in-one A500 sidecar accelerator that includes IDE, 8mb of memory or more, and a 68ec020 accelerator is better, overall, than doing a HD and memory upgrade independently of a processor upgrade.
But honestly, at 180 euro - you're about another 180 euro away from just getting a MiSTer FPGA - which will give you an even more powerful Amiga experience that is just as authentic - and you'll get lots of OTHER authentic retro cores in the bargain for that price. If you are cash strapped - sell the real Amiga to a collector and put that money toward a MiSTer - you'll have more fun and get the MOST value from your money that way.
Firepower is an additional title that is, by appearances - just a simple "capture the flag" overhead tank shooter game.
It lags and stutters and stalls out, has audio artifacts, on a stock 7mhz 68k machine. It was pushing the limits of the original Amiga it was designed for. It plays like a whole different game on an accelerated Amiga. There are lots of benefits to pumping up that stock 7mhz Moto CPU to at least a 68ec020 - especially if you are already contemplating a RAM and HD upgrade.
Ran across this when rummaging thru some boxes.
Classic late 80s embedded device. Made a lot of them for the plant i worked at. Came up with a rudimentary programming language for them. ( based on forth ). Mostly used for monitoring, a few did active controlling too.
8031, 32k ram 32k rom. I piggybacked the 2 memory chips to save myself PCB traces. ( this one was an early prototype, and missing the serial comm driver )
Amazing how far we have come in such a short period. Now an ESP32 does all this, at 32 bit, with wireless communications, tons more storage .. tons faster and fits within the space of the mCU alone. ( for perhaps 5 bucks.. )
